newly-conquered regions were far more a burden than a benefit
to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons
he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war,
and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces
and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states
Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself support,
had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings
to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need
financial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course,
not much had been gained by this means, and the relations
with the German and Celtic princes in the regions of the Rhine
and the Danube,--particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio,
so important for the recruiting of cavalry,--were probably
the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him.

The Coalition

While Caesar thus entered the struggle only as commandant of Gaul,
without other essential resources than efficient adjutants,
a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it
as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full
possession of all the resources that stood at the disposal
of the legitimate government of the great Roman empire. But while
his position was in a political and military point of view
far more considerable, it was also on the other hand far less definite
and firm. The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself
and by necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent
with the nature of a coalition; and although Pompeius, too much
of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable,
attempted to force it on the coalition and got himself nominated
by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea,
yet the senate itself could not be set aside nor hindered
from a preponderating influence on the political, and an occasional
and therefore doubly injurious interference with the military,
superintendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war
waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius
and the constitutional party; the feeling which vividly prevailed
on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed,
that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be
a rupture between the victors; the contempt which they entertained
for each other and with only too good grounds in either case;
the inconvenient number of respectable and influenti