presumed
that the Spanish army was meant to remain on the defensive
at the Pyrenees till the Macedonian army in the course of organization
was likewise ready to march; whereupon both would then have started
simultaneously and effected a junction according to circumstances
either on the Rhone or on the Po, while the fleet, it may be conjectured,
would have attempted at the same time to reconquer Italy proper.
On this supposition apparently Caesar had first prepared himself
to meet an attack on Italy. One of the ablest of his officers,
the tribune of the people Marcus Antonius, commanded there
with propraetorian powers. The southeastern ports--Sipus,
Brundisium, Tarentum--where an attempt at landing was first
to be expected, had received a garrison of three legions. Besides
this Quintus Hortensius, the degenerate son of the well-known orator,
collected a fleet in the Tyrrhene Sea, and Publius Dolabella
a second fleet in the Adriatic, which were to be employed
partly to support the defence, partly to transport the intended
expedition to Greece. In the event of Pompeius attempting
to penetrate by land into Italy, Marcus Licinius Crassus,
the eldest son of the old colleague of Caesar, was to conduct
the defence of Cisalpine Gaul, Gaius the younger brother
of Marcus Antonius that of Illyricum.

Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed

But the expected attack was long in coming. It was not
till the height of summer that the conflict began in Illyria.
There Caesar's lieutenant Gaius Antonius with his two legions
lay in the island of Curicta (Veglia in the gulf of Quarnero),
and Caesar's admiral Publius Dolabella with forty ships
lay in the narrow arm of the sea between this island and the mainland.
The admirals of Pompeius in the Adriatic, Marcus Octavius with the Greek,
Lucius Scribonius Libo with the Illyrian division of the fleet,
attacked the squadron of Dolabella, destroyed all his ships,
and cut off Antonius on his island. To rescue him, a corps under Basilus
and Sallustius came from Italy and the squadron of Hortensius
from the Tyrrhene Sea; but neither the former nor the latter were able
to effect anything in presence of the far superior fleet of the enemy.
The legions of Antonius had to be abandoned to their fate.
Provisions came to an end, the troops became troublesome and mutinous;
with the exception of a few divisions, which succeeded in reaching
the mainland on rafts, the corps, still fifteen cohort