20 Frederick Warren Sanford 



had gone to Apulia to assume command of the two legions, Curio 

 left Rome for Ravenna December 21, to inform Caesar, and ar- 

 rived December 24 or 25 ; from Ravenna Caesar sent marching 

 orders to the eighth and twelfth legions ; the twelfth started for 

 Italy January i. But Pompeius's sojourn in Campania, as Bardt 

 objects,^- belongs to a period considerably earlier than December, 

 when Atticus was on the road to Rome in September. ^^ In sup- 

 port of December 13 as the approximate date of Pompeius's com- 

 mission from Marcellus, Schmidt cites Att. VII, 5, 4 : De re puhlica 

 cotidie magis timeo; non enim hoiii, ut putant, consentiunt. Quos 

 ego equites Romanos, quos senatores vidi, qui acerrime cum cetera, 

 turn hoc iter Pompei vituperarent. Pace opus est: ex victoria 

 cuminidta, turn certe tyrannus exsistet. In cum cetera Schmidt 

 sees a reference to Marcellus's arbitrary assumption of authority, 

 and in hoc iter a reference to the journey which he thinks Pom- 

 peius made from Naples to Luceria in order formally to take over 

 command of the legions. But the passage proves with certainty 

 only that Cicero, since arriving in the region frequented by sena- 

 tors and knights, has had the opportunity to meet many of them 

 and has found them far from united in approval of the step taken 

 by Marcellus and Pompeius. As observed below, hoc iter may 

 just as well refer to Pompeius's journey from Rome to Campania. 

 Again, at his conference with Cicero in Campania December 10 

 {Att. VII, 4, 2), Pompeius remarked that Hirtius, who arrived in 

 Rome the evening of December 6, coming from Caesar, had failed 

 to visit him, and professed to find in this fact proof of Caesar's 

 estrangement. Such an inference on Pompeius's part is almost 

 unthinkable, if at the time of Hirtius's arrival in Rome Pompeius 

 himself had been in Campania; in the latter event Hirtius would 

 have had a six days' journey to make, to and fro, in order to see 

 Pompeius. It is implicit in Pompeius's criticism that Hirtius 

 failed to do something easy and natural to do, from which it is to 

 be inferred that Pompeius was in the neighborhood of Rome De- 

 cember 6. It is therefore almost certain that he was there when 



^^ Hermes, XLV, p. 339. 

 "^Att.Wll, 2, 5. 



312 



