Plutarch, Pompey
Bernadotte Perrin, Ed.

66. At this success the followers of Pompey were so elated that they were eager to have the issue decided by a battle. Pompey, however, although he wrote to distant kings and generals and cities in the tone of a victor, feared the risk of such a battle, thinking that by imposing delays and distresses upon them he would finally subdue men who were invincible in arms and had been accustomed to conquer together now for a long time, [2] but who for the other duties of a campaign, such as long marches, changes of position, the digging of trenches, and the building of walls, were incapacitated by old age, and therefore eager to come to close quarters and fight hand to hand without delay. Notwithstanding their over-confidence, Pompey had hitherto somehow or other succeeded in inducing his followers to keep quiet; but when after the battle Caesar was compelled by his lack of supplies to break camp and march through Athamania into Thessaly, their spirits could no longer be restrained, [3] but, crying out that Caesar was in flight, some of them were for following in pursuit of him, others for crossing over into Italy, and others were sending their attendants and friends to Rome in order to preoccupy houses near the forum, purposing at once to become candidates for office. Many, too, of their own accord sailed to Cornelia in Lesbos with the glad tidings that the war was at an end; for Pompey had sent her there for safety.

[4] A senate having been assembled, Afranius gave it as his opinion that they should make sure of Italy, for Italy was the greatest prize of the war, and would at once put also into the hands of her masters Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and all Gaul; and since his native land, which was of the greatest concern to Pompey, stretched out suppliant hands to him close by, it was not right to allow her to be enslaved and insulted by servants and flatterers of tyrants. [5] Pompey himself, however, thought it neither well for his own reputation to run away a second time from Caesar and to be pursued by him, when fortune made him the pursuer, nor right before Heaven to abandon Scipio and the men of consular rank in Thessaly and Hellas, who would at once come into the power of Caesar together with their moneys and large forces; but that he cared most for Rome who fought for her at the farthest remove, in order that she might neither suffer nor hear about any evil, but quietly await her master.