was allowed to come within the gates. At last an
exciting debate was broken up in the Senate by one of the consuls rising
to depart, saying that he would hear the subject discussed no longer.
The time had arrived for action, and he should send a commander, with an
armed force, to defend the country from Caesar's threatened invasion.
Caesar's leading friends, two tribunes of the people, disguised
themselves as slaves, and fled to the north to join their master. The
country was filled with commotion and panic. The Commonwealth had
obviously more fear of Caesar than confidence in Pompey. The country
was full of rumors in respect to Caesar's power, and the threatening
attitude which he was assuming, while they who had insisted on
resistance seemed, after all, to have provided very inadequate means
with which to resist. A thousand plans were formed, and clamorously
insisted upon by their respective advocates, for averting the danger.
This only added to the confusion, and the city became at length pervaded
with a universal terror.

[Sidenote: Caesar at Ravenna.]

While this was the state of things at Rome, Caesar was quietly
established at Ravenna; thirty or forty miles from the frontier. He was
erecting a building for a fencing school there and his mind seemed to be
occupied very busily with the plans and models of the edifice which the
architects had formed. Of course, in his intended march to Rome, his
reliance was not to be so much on the force which he should take with
him, as on the co-operation and support which he expected to find there.
It was his policy, therefore, to move as quietly and privately as
possible, and with as little display of violence, and to avoid every
thing which might indicate his intended march to any spies which might
be around him, or to any other person! who might be disposed to report
what they observed at Rome. Accordingly, on the very eve of his
departure, he busied himself with his fencing school, and assumed with
his officers and soldiers a careless and unconcerned air, which
prevented any one from suspecting his design.

[Sidenote: Caesar's midnight march.]
[Sidenote: He loses his way.]

In the course of the day he privately sent forward some cohorts to the
southward, with orders for them to encamp on the banks of the Rubicon.
When night came he sat down to supper as usual, and conversed with his
friends in his ordinary manner, and went with them afterward to a public
entertainment.