[38] At Corfinium Cæsar came up with and besieged Lucius Domitius, who had been sent to be his successor in the command of Gaul but who did not have all of his 4000 men with him. The inhabitants of Corfinium captured him at the gates, as he was trying to escape, and brought him to Cæsar.1 The latter received the soldiers of Domitius, who offered themselves to him, with kindness, in order to encourage others to join him, and he allowed Domitius to go unharmed wherever he liked, and to take his money with him.2 He hoped perhaps that Domitius would stay with him on account of this beneficence, but he did not prevent him from joining Pompey. While these transactions were taking place so swiftly, Pompey hastened from Capua to Luceria and thence to Brundusium in order to cross the Adriatic to Epirus and complete his preparations for war there. He wrote letters to all the provinces and the commanders thereof, to princes, kings, and cities to send aid for carrying on the war with the greatest possible speed, and this they did zealously. Pompey's own army was in Spain ready to move wherever it might be needed. Pompey gave some of the legions he already had in Italy to the consuls to be moved from Brundusium to Epirus.
1 "If we may believe Lucan," says Combes-Dounous, "the soldiers of Domitius themselves delivered him to Cæsar:" “Ecce nefas belli, reseratis agmina portis Captivum traxere ducem.” （Pharsalia, ii. 506.) There is better authority for this statement than Lucan. Cæsar affirms it in his detailed account of the military operations around Corfinium. (Civil War, i. 23.)
2 Cæsar says that he allowed Domitius to take this money although he knew that it had been given to him by Pompey for the pay of his troops. (Ibid.）
The Civil Wars. Appian. Horace White. London. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. 1899.
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