The Historians' History of the World 05

“After the defeat, Pompeius’ men flying into Corduba, Cæsar, to prevent their escape thither, lest they should rally and renew the fight, caused the place to be invested by the army, where the soldiers being so tired that they could not work in the circumvallation, heaped up together the bodies and armour of the slain, which they kept piled up with their javelins stuck into the ground, and lay all night under that kind of rampire. Next morning the city was taken. Of Pompeius’ captains, Scapula setting up on a pile of wood burned himself; the heads of Varus, Labienus, and other persons of quality were brought to Cæsar. As for Pompeius, he fled from the battle with a hundred and fifty horse, bending his course towards Carteia where his fleet lay; he entered the port in a litter, and in the habit of a private man. But seeing the seamen had likewise lost all hopes, he threw himself in a little boat, in which as he was going out to sea, his foot tangling in the cordage, one of his people going to cut the rope, by mischance cut his heel, so that to cure his wound he was forced to go ashore at a small village, where hearing that Cæsar’s horsemen were coming, he took his flight through a country covered with thorns and briers, which added to his wound, so that being tired and sitting down at last under a tree, he was found by those who gave him chase, and slain, generously defending himself; his head was carried to Cæsar, who caused it to be buried. Thus [says Appian] was this war ended by one only fight and contrary to the opinion of all the world.”g

Of all the leaders of the senatorial party, Sextus Pompeius was now the only survivor. He had made his escape from the field of Munda, and had an asylum in the wildest districts of the Hither Province. He had nothing to hope from the clemency of the conqueror, who had shown unusual bitterness against his family by the confiscation of their patrimonial estates, and was now preparing to celebrate his triumph over them as foreigners and enemies of the state. Thus driven to despair, he infused new spirit into the predatory habits among the tribes among whom he had taken refuge, and continued to defy the power of the provincial authorities. Cæsar occupied himself for some months in reconstituting the government of Spain, taking precautions for the entire subjugation of the party which had shown such vitality in that quarter. The battle of Munda was fought on the seventeenth of March, but the dictator was not at liberty to return to Italy till September, after an absence of ten months.

The hostile attitude of the last of the Pompeians in Spain was not the only exception to the tranquillity which prevailed generally throughout the empire. In Gaul the Bellovaci had risen in arms; but this movement was expeditiously repressed by Decimus Brutus, the proconsul of the newly conquered province. In the extreme East, however, the republican party still continued to make head, under the leadership of Cæcilius Bassus. Their champion was an obscure knight, and their forces were insignificant, consisting principally of two legions which Bassus had seduced from their allegiance to Sextus Cæsar, the commander to whose care Syria had been entrusted by his kinsman. But the proximity of the Parthians, ever on the watch for an opportunity to wound the sides of their great rivals, rendered any movement in this quarter formidable. Sextus Cæsar was murdered by his soldiers, and Bassus took possession of the city of Apamea, which, with the assistance of the national enemies, he continued to keep against the petty attempts which were made to dislodge him. The dictator kept his eye upon him, and already meditated his destruction; but for the present he was content to leave his temerity unpunished, while he applied himself to the consolidation of his power by bold and comprehensive legislation at home.b

THE LAST TRIUMPH

[45 B.C.]