country from Cesar's threatened invasion. Cesar's leading friends,
two tribunes of the people, disguised themselves as slaves and
fled to the north to join their master. The country was filled with
commotion and panic. The Commonwealth had obviously more fear of
Cesar than confidence in Pompey. The country was full of rumors in
respect to Cesar's power, and the threatening attitude which he was
assuming, while they who had insisted on resistance seemed, after
all, to have provided very inadequate means with which to resist.
A thousand plans were formed, and clamorously insisted upon by
their respective advocates, for averting the danger. This only
added to the confusion, and the city became at length pervaded with
a universal terror.

While this was the state of things at Rome, Cesar was quietly
established at Ravenna, thirty or forty miles from the frontier.
He was erecting a building for a fencing school there, and his mind
seemed to be occupied very busily with the plans and models of the
edifice which the architects had formed. Of course, in his intended
march to Rome, his reliance was not to be so much on the force
which he should take with him, as on the cooperation and support
which he expected to find there. It was his policy, therefore,
to move as quietly and privately as possible, and with as little
display of violence, and to avoid everything which might indicate
his intended march to any spies which might be around him, or to any
other persons who might be disposed to report what they observed,
at Rome. Accordingly, on the very eve of his departure, he busied
himself with his fencing school, and assumed with his officers and
soldiers a careless and unconcerned air, which prevented any one
from suspecting his design.