22 Frederick Warren San ford 



should prove successful, it would be easy enough to turn his 

 legions back. 



Schmidt holds that the conferment of command on Pompeius 

 prior to December 7 would have made impossible the negotiations 

 arranged for that day between Balbus, acting as Caesar's repre- 

 sentative, and Scipio, who, as Pompeius's father-in-law, was cer- 

 tainly acting with Pompeius's sanction.^^ But we are not justified 

 in assuming that Pompeius, on the one hand, would have been 

 aware of inconsistency in his action or would have felt embar- 

 rassment in such a situation. He doubtless regarded himself as 

 the defender of the state in a time of urgent need. Caesar was 

 the one who, as it must have seemed to Pompeius, through the 

 obstructive actions of his agent Curio, was responsible for the 

 threatened civil war.®'^ So far as Balbus was concerned, he was 

 in all probability acting without immediate and specific instruc- 

 tions from Caesar, for it is not at all likely that there had been 

 time for communication with Caesar since the commissioning of 

 Pompeius. The peculiar relation sustained by Balbus to Caesar 

 and Pompeius, as well as his character in general, made him emi- 

 nently fit to act as a mediator on his own motion, whatever the 

 circumstances.^'' To Hirtius the situation may have seemed more 

 serious, in consequence of which he did not wait to learn the out- 

 come of the conference between Balbus and Scipio.^^ 



If for the moment December 2 be taken as the date of Pom- 

 peius's commission from Marcellus, and if Hirtius be understood 

 to mean that Caesar received news of this immediately upon enter- 

 ing Italy, it is not probable that he arrived earlier than December 



"^ Brief w., p. 96; Att. VII, 4, 2. 



'* See Fam. VIII, 8, 9 (Oct., 51) : Cum (Pompeius) interrogaretur, si qui 

 turn intercederent, dixit hoc nihil interesse, utrum C. Caesar senatui dicto 

 audiens futurus nan esset an pararet, qui senatum decernere non pateretur. 



""Drumann, Gesch., II, p. 597 ff. 



°^ C. Bardt {Hermes, XLV, p. 340) thinks that Hirtius came to Rome 

 by appointment and was to have participated in the conference with Scipio. 

 This seems to me more than can be rightly inferred from Att. VII, 4, 2. 

 What Pompeius complains of, is, simply, that Hirtius had not only not 

 called on him but had not even awaited the result of Balbus's intended con- 

 ference with Scipio. 



