the Parthian
war, had been given by the consul C. Marcellus to Pompeius, and were
kept in Italy.

In nine years Caesar completed the subjugation of all that part of Gaul
which is bounded by the Saltus Pyrenaeus, the Alps and the Cevennes,
the Rhine and the Rhone; and it was reduced to the form of a province.
(Suetonius, _Caesar_, c. 25.) With the capture of Alesia the Seventh
book of the Gallic War ends. The Eighth book is not by Caesar.]

[Footnote 509: As to the disturbances at Rome mentioned in this
chapter, see the Life of Pompeius, c. 54, &c., notes.]

[Footnote 510: Life of Pompeius, c. 52.]

[Footnote 511: M. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 51, with S.
Sulpicius Rufus.]

[Footnote 512: Novum Comum or Novocomum; north of the Padus, had been
settled as a Colonia Latina by Caesar. (Appianus, _Civil Wars_, ii.
26.)

The government of the colonia was formed on a Roman model: there was a
body of Decuriones or Senators.]

[Footnote 513: See the Life of Pompeius, c. 58; Appianus, _Civil
Wars_, ii, 26; Dion Cassius, 40. c. 59.]

[Footnote 514: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, whom Caesar took in Corfinium,
c. 34.]

[Footnote 515: See the Life of Pompeius, c. 52.]

[Footnote 516: Caesar (_Civil War_, i. 1) mentions this letter; but it
was read in the Senate after great opposition. The consuls of the year
B.C. 49 were L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus.

Caesar, in the first few chapters of the Civil War, has clearly stated
all the matters that are referred to in c. 30 and 31. The "letters"
mentioned in c. 31 as coming before Curio and Antonius left Rome, are
not mentioned by Caesar. Plutarch might have confounded this with
another matter. (_Civil War_, i. 3.)]

[Footnote 517: Caesar was at Ravenna when the tribunes fled from Rome,
and he first saw them at Ariminum, Rimini, which was not within the
limits of Caesar's province. (_Civil War_, i. 6; Dion Cassius, 41. c.
3.)]

[Footnote 518: Q. Hortensius Hortalus, a son of the orator Hortensius.
He was an unprincipled fellow.]

[Footnote 519: Caesar says nothing of the passage of the Rubico, but
his silence does not disprove the truth of the story as told by
Plutarch. The passage of the Rubico was a common topic (locus
communis) for rhetoricians. Lucanus (_Pharsalia,_ i. 213) has
embellished it:--

"Fonte cadit modico parvisque impellitur undis
Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit aestas--
Tunc vires praebebat hiems."

This small strea