Ravenna, A Study | Page 7

people were present; for he was afraid lest, if he gave it up
without the utmost publicity, the consuls would suppress it. A sort of
debate followed the reading of the letter, but when Scipio, Pompey's
mouthpiece, spoke and declared, among other things, that Pompey was
resolved to take up the cause of the senate now or never, and that he
would drop it if a decision were delayed, the majority, overawed,
decreed that Caesar should "at a definite and not distant day give up
Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul
to Marcus Servilius Nonianus and should dismiss his army, failing
which he should be esteemed a traitor. When the tribunes, of Caesar's
party, made use of their right of veto against this resolution not only
were they, as they at least asserted, threatened in the senate house itself
by the swords of Pompeian soldiers and forced, in order to save their
lives, to flee in slaves' clothing from the capital, but the senate, now

sufficiently overawed, treated their interference as an attempt at
revolution, declared the country in danger, and in the usual form called
the burgesses to take up arms, and all the magistrates faithful to the
constitution to place themselves at the head of the armed."
That was on January 7th. Five days later Caesar was on his way at the
head of his troops to invade Italy and, without knowing it, to found the
empire, that universal government out of which we are come.
It was with one legion[1] that Caesar undertook his great adventure.
That legion, the Thirteenth, had been stationed near Tergeste (Trieste),
but at Caesar's orders it had marched into Ravenna in the first days of
January. Upon the fateful twelfth, with some secrecy, while Caesar
himself attended a public spectacle, examined the model of a fencing
school, which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat down to table
with a numerous party of friends,[2] the first companies of this legion
left Ravenna by the Rimini gate, to be followed after sunset by its great
commander; still with all possible secrecy it seems, for mules were put
to his carriage, a hired one, at a mill outside Ravenna and he went
almost alone.
[Footnote 1: Plutarch says "Caesar had not then with him more than
300 horse and 5000 foot. The rest of his forces were left on the other
side of the Alps."]
[Footnote 2: So Suetonius; but Plutarch says "As for himself, he spent
the day at a public show of gladiators, and a little before evening
bathed, and then went into the apartment, where he entertained
company. When it was growing dark, he left the company, having
desired them to make merry till his return, which they would not have
long to wait for."]
The road he travelled was not the great way to Rimini, but a by-way
across the marshes, and it would seem to have been in a wretched state.
At any rate Caesar lost his way, the lights of his little company were
extinguished, his carriage had to be abandoned, and it was only after
wandering about for a long time that, with the help of a peasant whom
he found towards daybreak, he was able to get on, afoot now, and at
last to reach the great highway. That night must have tried even the iron
nerves and dauntless courage of the greatest soldier of all time.
Caesar came up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, the sacred
boundary of Italy and Cisalpine Gaul in the narrow pass between the

mountains and the sea. "There," says Suetonius, whose account I have
followed, "he halted for a while revolving in his mind the importance
of the step he was about to take. At last turning to those about him, he
said: 'We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge nothing is left
us but to fight it out in arms.'"
Now while he was thus hesitating, staggered, even he, by the greatness
of what he would attempt, doubtless resolving in silence arguments for
and against it, and, if we may believe Plutarch, "many times changing
his opinion," the following strange incident is said to have happened.
A person, remarkable, says Suetonius, for his noble aspect and graceful
mien, appeared close at hand sitting by the wayside playing upon a pipe.
When not only the shepherds herding their flocks thereabout, but a
number of the legionaries also gathered round to hear this fellow play,
and there happened to be among them some trumpeters, the piper
suddenly snatched a trumpet from one of these, ran to the river, and,
sounding the advance with a piercing blast, crossed to the other side.
Upon which Caesar on a sudden impulse exclaimed: "Let us