ns, as the natives in our Eastern
army, with a small proportion of British to steady them, they often
behaved well, and especially because they seldom acted against an enemy
that was not as raw as themselves. But now, in civil service against
their own legions, it was found that the mere novice was worth nothing
at all; a fact which had not been fully brought out in the strife of
Marius and Sylla, where Pompey had himself played a conspicuous and
cruel part, from the tumultuary nature of the contest; besides which the
old legions were then by accident as much concentrated on Italian ground
as now they were dispersed in transmarine provinces. Of the present
Roman army, ten legions at least were scattered over Macedonia, Achaia,
Cilicia, and Syria; five were in Spain; and six were with Caesar, or
coming up from the rear. To say nothing of the forces locked up in
Sicily, Africa, Numidia, etc. It was held quite unadvisable by Pompey's
party to strip the distant provinces of their troops, or the great
provincial cities of their garrisons. All these were accounted as so
many reversionary chances against Caesar. But certainly a bolder game was
likely to have prospered better; had large drafts from all these distant
armies been ordered home, even Caesar's talents might have been
perplexed, and his immediate policy must have been so far baffled as to
force him back upon Transalpine Gaul. Yet if such a plan were eligible,
it does not appear that Cicero had ever thought of it; and certainly it
was not Pompey, amongst so many senatorial heads, who could be blamed
for neglecting it. Neglect he did; but Pompey had the powers of a
commander-in-chief for the immediate arrangements; but in the general
scheme of the war he, whose game was to call himself the servant of the
Senate, counted but for one amongst many concurrent authorities.
Combining therefore his limited authority with his defective materials,
we cannot go along with Cicero in the whole bitterness of his censure.
The fact is, no cautious scheme whatever, no practicable scheme could
have kept pace with Cicero's burning hatred to Caesar. 'Forward, forward!
crush the monster; stone him, stab him, hurl him into the sea!' This was
the war-song of Cicero for ever; and men like Domitius, who shared in
his hatreds, as well as in his unseasonable temerity, by precipitating
upon Caesar troops that were unqualified for the contest, lost the very
_elite_ of the Italian army at Corfinium;