At Rome, however, a crisis was imminent. The ties between Caesar and Pompey were being rapidly dissolved. The death, in 54, of Julia, Pompey's wife and Caesar's daughter, was fol lowed in 53 by the defeat and death of Cassius in the Parthian War. Pompey became more and more jealous of his rival's military glory, and the Senate, resolved to crush Caesar at any cost, and itself unable even to keep order in the streets of Rome, made friendly overtures to Pompey, and in 52 made him sole consul, with practically the powers of a dictator. Caesar's term of office would expire on 1 March 49. It was essential to his safety that he should retain his provinces and his army until after he should be elected consul for 48. But the aristocracy was plainly determined that there should be an interval during which he would be a mere pri vate citizen, defenseless against the attacks of his enemies. It is certain that Caesar acted with great moderation, even sending to Italy two of his legions which the Senate declared were needed for the war in the East, but which, as he had foreseen, were instead placed in camp at Capua. At length, in January 49, the de cisive step was taken. The Senate ordered Caesar to lay down his command on pain of being proclaimed a public enemy. The tribunes of the people, Antony and Quintus Cassius, who had in vain interposed their veto, fled to him for protection in their inviolable office; Caesar with a single legion crossed the Rubicon, the frontier stream of Italy, and war was begun.
In the ensuing five years, all that remained for him of life, the amazing energy and re sourcefulness of this extraordinary man are most impressively displayed. In three months, without striking a blow, he was master of Italy, and Pompey, with a small force, barely escaped from Brundisium across the Adriatic. Caesar had no ships on which to follow him, and be sides, the veteran Pompeian forces in Spain must be crushed before they could join their commander. Accordingly after first securing Sicily and Sardinia, through his lieutenants, he crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, and, in a brief campaign of 40 days, perhaps the most brilliant in all his career, extricated himself from ap parently certain destruction, and forced the sur render of the entire opposing army. All Spain now declared for him. On his way back he received the submission of Massilia (Mar seilles), which had been besieged by Decimus Brutus and Trebonius. Eleven days were spent in Rome in administrative work, and early in January 48 he crossed the Adriatic and pro ceeded to surround Pompey, near Dyrrachium, now Durazzo. But his force was quite in sufficient, and, to deprive his foe of the ad vantage of the sea, he retreated into Thessaly, whither Pompey followed him, and the decisive battle was fought on the plain of Pharsalus, 9 Aug. 48. Pompey had 47,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry; Caesar only 22,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. But the latter's army was com
posed of veterans, and numbers did not avail. Pompey fled to Egypt where he was brutally murdered. Caesar, who had followed him with all speed, was nearly trapped in Alexandria by the forces of the young King Ptolemy, but ultimately, upon the arrival of reinforcements, defeated them, and set Cleopatra upon the throne. He then passed through Syria and Asia Minor, putting affairs on a permanent basis, and incidentally defeating Pharnaces, a son of the great Mithridates. The victory was announced in the famous despatch, vidi, vice's (al came, I saw, I conquered"). Upon his return he announced his intention of pardoning all who had fought against him. In December he left Rome for Africa, where the campaign against the Pompeians, commanded by Scipio and Cato, ended in a sweeping victory at Thapsus, 6 April 46. Cato, unable to defend Utica, committed suicide. Caesar returned to Rome in June, and, after celebrating his vic tories over the Gauls, Egyptians, Pharnaces and Juba, King of Numidia, who had fought against him at Thapsus, by four magnificent triumphs, flung himself into the work of legis lation. Among his reforms was the placing of the calendar, for the first time, upon a scientific basis. But these labors were interrupted by a dangerous revolt in Spain, headed by Pompey's sons, and the campaign against them, ending in the hard-fought battle of Munda, 17 March, and the final settlement of affairs in Spain, necessitated his absence from Rome from the end of 46 to September 45. The Senate wel comed him upon his return with the most servile flattery. He was already tribune for life; he was now made, for life, dictator and pratectus morum, a new term for the censor ship; his head was stamped on the coinage, the month of Quintilis was renamed Julius and he was given divine honors. With absolute power thus lodged in his hands, he set about the per manent reconstruction of the government and the social fabric. He made the Senate a much larger and more representative body, increased the number of magistrates, reduced by one-half the recipients of the donation of grain, passed several laws in the interest of the debtor class and of Italian agriculture, prohibited farming by slave labor exclusively, inaugurated a far reaching plan to colonize in the provinces the unemployed population of Rome and Italy, and laid a legal foundation for the principle of lim ited local self-government of all Roman com munities, wherever they might be. He had in mind, but did not live to carry out, the codifica tion of the laws, the building of public libraries, the draining of the Pontine marshes, the mak ing of a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth, and the taking of a general census which should form a just basis for the imposition of taxes throughout the empire.