gave out, that he had promised to each of them the privilege (23) of
wearing the gold ring, and an estate of four hundred thousand sesterces.
[60]

XXXIV. Of his subsequent proceedings I shall give a cursory detail, in
the order in which they occurred [61]. He took possession of Picenum,
Umbria, and Etruria; and having obliged Lucius Domitius, who had been
tumultuously nominated his successor, and held Corsinium with a garrison,
to surrender, and dismissed him, he marched along the coast of the Upper
Sea, to Brundusium, to which place the consuls and Pompey were fled with
the intention of crossing the sea as soon as possible. After vain
attempts, by all the obstacles he could oppose, to prevent their leaving
the harbour, he turned his steps towards Rome, where he appealed to the
senate on the present state of public affairs; and then set out for
Spain, in which province Pompey had a numerous army, under the command of
three lieutenants, Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro;
declaring amongst his friends, before he set forward, "That he was going
against an army without a general, and should return thence against a
general without an army." Though his progress was retarded both by the
siege of Marseilles, which shut her gates against him, and a very great
scarcity of corn, yet in a short time he bore down all before him.

XXXV. Thence he returned to Rome, and crossing the sea to Macedonia,
blocked up Pompey during almost four months, within a line of ramparts of
prodigious extent; and at last defeated him in the battle of Pharsalia.
Pursuing him in his flight to Alexandria, where he was informed of his
murder, he presently found himself also engaged, under all the
disadvantages of time and place, in a very dangerous war, with king
Ptolemy, who, he saw, had treacherous designs upon his life. It was
winter, and he, within the walls of a well-provided and subtle enemy, was