Cicero appealed to Mark Antony to give him formal permission to leave the country and received a cool, brief response, in which he was advised to ask Caesar directly. He wrote to Atticus in May:
Do you think that if Spain is lost, Pompey will drop his weapons? No, his entire plan is Themistoclean [Themistocles was the Athenian statesman who had defeated the invading Persians by abandoning Athens and fighting at sea]. He reckons that whoever holds the sea is sure to be master. For that reason he was never interested in holding the Spanish provinces for their own sake; his main concern was always to outfit a navy. So when the time comes, he will put to sea with huge fleets and land in Italy.
What was somewhat less obvious was the nature of Cicero’s likely contribution to the Republican cause once in Greece. His military advice would not be wanted. All that he could offer would be the publicity of his name. Moderate public opinion, however, would be impressed by his choice of sides.
To discourage speculation about his imminent departure, Cicero decided to spend a few days at his elegant town house in Pompeii. AS soon as he arrived, though, he received an embarrassing surprise. Centurions from the three cohorts stationed there invited him to take charge of the soldiers and occupy the town. What use were three cohorts? he asked himself. Anyway, it could be a trap. Unnerved, he left the town secretly before dawn and returned home.
Quietly, the necessary travel arrangements were made and a reliable ship was found. “I hope my plan won’t involve any risk,” Cicero remarked, as ever nervous of physical danger and travel by sea. Bad weather caused a delay but on June 7 he was on board and writing a farewell letter to Terentia. At long last, he set sail for Greece with Marcus, his dissident nephew and the inevitable lictors. At this point the correspondence with Atticus ends and is not resumed for a year, either because communications were impossible or because it was too risky to write frankly. For a time Cicero recedes into the background—a powerless, disconsolate figure almost lost among tremendous events.
Cicero arrived at Pompey’s camp at the port of Dyrrachium in Greece to find that the Commander-in-Chief had retained all his organizational skills and had spent the interval while Caesar was in Spain gathering his forces. Nine legions were assembled, five of which had been brought across from Italy and the others from various parts of the Empire. (Cicero’s two understrength Cilician legions were among them, now merged into a single unit.) He had also recruited archers and a 7,000-strong force of cavalry. Through his large fleet, he maintained command of the seas, although the lack of senior military talent at his disposal is illustrated by the fact that he appointed Bibulus his admiral.
To his relief, Cicero, who made a large loan to Pompey to boost his war chest, was greeted warmly on his arrival and an effort was made to put him at ease. At the outset, although wracked with worry and in poor health, he was hopeful of the future. He wrote to Atticus: “You ask me about the war news. You will be able to learn it from Isidorus [the letter carrier]. It looks as if what remains won’t be too difficult. Do please see to what you know I have most at heart [Terentia was in financial difficulty], as you say you will do and are doing. I am eaten up with anxiety, which has made me seriously ill. When I am better, I shall join the man in charge who is full of optimism.” However, with typical contrariness, Cato took Cicero aside and said that his coming to Greece was a bad mistake. He would be much more use to his country and his friends if he stayed at home and reacted to events as they occurred. AS he had agonized over his decision, this was the last thing Cicero wanted to hear and he was distinctly put out. He had expected the standard-bearer of constitutionalism to praise him. Not only had Cato not done so, but he gave the impression of having little confidence in Pompey’s prospects.
After being nearly trapped by floods, Caesar brilliantly outmaneuvered his opponents in Spain and in August 49 enforced a surrender without bloodshed in a campaign that lasted only forty days. In his absence he arranged for a Praetor to have him appointed Dictator, which would empower him to hold elections. He hurried back to Italy where he confronted a mutiny among his troops, which he settled with bold inflexibility.
During this second flying visit to Rome he was elected to the second Consulship for which he had spent so many years struggling and intriguing. The onset of civil war had brought financial activity in Italy to an almost complete standstill and a debt crisis was creating serious social unease. Throughout the century revolutionaries such as Catilina had promoted a policy of total cancellation of debts and many expected that this was what Caesar would do. But he was too intelligent and responsible a politician not to realize that this cure would be far worse than the disease. He issued a well-considered decree which obliged creditors to accept land at prewar values as repayment and allowed up to a quarter of the value of a debt to be set off against previous interest payments.
It was on this issue that Caelius surprisingly broke with his new master in the following year. Praetor for 48, he tried to bounce an uncertain and edgy government into more radical measures after Caesar left Rome again for Greece in pursuit of Pompey. In January 48 he was in a cocky frame of mind when he wrote his final surviving letter to Cicero. Critical of Pompey’s strategy of masterly inactivity in Greece, he promised that his own dash and drive would rescue the Republican cause. “I’ll make you win in spite of yourselves. Cato and company will be smiling on me yet. You lot are fast asleep.” However, he was quickly dismissed from office and driven to taking up arms. He called Cicero’s old friend Milo back to Italy because he owned some gladiators he could make use of. Also, unforgivably in Roman eyes, he armed some slaves. But the revolt was easily quashed by Caesar’s troops and both Caelius and Milo were killed.
Brilliant, amusing and attractive, Caelius was disabled by a refusal to take serious things seriously. He threw his life away pointlessly. By opposing Caesar this late in the game, he ignored the advice he had himself given Cicero. “To go against him now in the hour of his victory … is the acme of folly,” he had said. So it was.
Caesar joined his army at Brundisium at the end of the year. He was determined to retain the initiative and had no intention of waiting for Pompey to invade Italy. Despite the fact that it was now winter, when sailing was unsafe, he decided to cross over to Greece as soon as possible, whatever the risk. On January 4, 48, he sailed unobserved to the coast of Epirus with part of his army, evading Bibulus’s naval blockade. However, bad weather and Bibulus’s unwillingness to be caught napping a second time meant that it was not until early April that his remaining troops under Mark Antony were able to join him. For a while Caesar had had too few forces to match Pompey and had been in serious danger, but now he went on the offensive. At the same time, in a continuing effort to retain the moral high ground, he launched another abortive peace initiative, but his opponents, filled with optimism, were having none of it.
Caesar decided to surround Pompey’s camp near Dyrrachium with a fifteen-mile fortified line and besiege him. Pompey responded by building his own fortifications and then launched a major breakout. For a moment Caesar faced total defeat, but the advantage was not followed through. Caesar observed dismissively of his opponent: “He has no idea how to win a war.” Short of supplies, Caesar cut his losses and marched away south to the more fertile region of Thessaly, with the enemy in pursuit.