She is
brought to bed of a son. He cannot, however, wait to see how the son
thrives. From the midst of enemies, and with spies around him, he
starts. There is one last letter written to his wife and daughter from
on board the ship at Caieta, sending them many loves and many careful
messages, and then he is off.

It was now the 11th of June, the third day before the ides, B.C. 49, and
we hear nothing special of the events of his journey. When he reached
the camp, which he did in safety, he was not well received there. He had
given his all to place himself along with Pompey in the republican
quarters, and when there the republicans were unwilling to welcome him.
Pompey would have preferred that he should have remained away, so as to
be able to say hereafter that he had not come.

Of what occurred to Cicero during the great battle which led to the
solution of the Roman question we know little or nothing. We hear that
Cicero was absent, sick at Dyrrachium, but there are none of those
tirades of abuse with which such an absence might have been greeted. We
hear, indeed, from other sources, very full accounts of the
fighting--how Caesar was nearly conquered, how Pompey might have
prevailed had he had the sense to take the good which came in his way,
how he failed to take it, how he was beaten, and how, in the very
presence of his wife, he was murdered at last at the mouth of the Nile
by the combined energies of a Roman and a Greek.

We can imagine how the fate of the world was decided on the Pharsalus
where the two armies met, and the victory remained with Caesar. Then
there were weepings and gnashings of teeth, and there were the
congratulations and self-applause of the victors. In all Cicero's
letters there is not a word of it. There was terrible suffering before
it began, and there is the sense of injured innocence on his return, but
nowhere do we find any record of what took place. There is no mourning
for Pompey, no turning to Caesar as the conqueror. Petra has been lost,
and Pharsalia has been won, but there is no sign.

[Sidenote: B.C. 48, aetat. 59.]

Cicero, we know, spent the time at Dyrrachium close to which the battle
of Petra was fought, and went from thence to Corcyra. There invitation
was made to him, as the senior consular officer present, to take the
command of the beaten army, but that he declined. We are informed that
he was nearly killed in the scuffle which took place. We can imagine
that it was so-