The sum total of his movements after that is, in their order, as follows: He overran Umbria, Picenum, and Etruria, took prisoner Lucius Domitius, who had been irregularlynamed his successor, and was holding Corfinium with a garrison, let him go free, and then proceeded along the Adriatic to Brundisium, where Pompey and the consuls had taken refuge, intending to cross the sea as soon as might be.1
Ordo et summa rerum, quas deinceps gessit, sic se habent. Picenum Umbriam Etruriam occupavit et Lucio Domitio, qui per tumultum successor ei nominatus Corfinium praesidio tenebat, in dicionem redacto atque dimisso secundum Superum mare Brundisium tetendit, quo consules Pompeiusque confugerant quam primum transfretaturi.
1Per tumultum is a strong expression for contra legem or extra ordinem, since the Lex Sempronia provided that the consuls be appointed to their provinces before election; cf. xix. 2.
After vainly trying by every kind of hindrance to prevent their sailing, he marched off to Rome, and after calling the senate together to discuss public business, went to attack Pompey’s strongest forces, which were in Spain under command of three of his lieutenants-Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro-saying to his friends before he left: I go to meet an army without a leader, and I shall return to meet a leader without an army. And in fact, though his advance was delayed by the siege of Massilia, which had shut its gates against him, and by extreme scarcity of supplies, he nevertheless quickly gained a complete victory.
Hos frustra per omnis moras exitu prohibere conatus Romam iter convertit appellatisque de re publica patribus validissimas Pompei copias, quae sub tribus legatis M. Petreio et L. Afranio et M. Varrone in Hispania erant, invasit, professus ante inter suos, ire se ad exercitum sine duce et inde reversurum ad ducem sine exercitu. Et quanquam obsidione Massiliae, quae sibi in itinere portas clauserat, summaque frumentariae rei penuria retardante brevi tamen omnia subegit.