legal equality with his rival. For the rest he knew that he was as
superior to Pompey as a statesman as he was as a soldier, and he did
not apparently anticipate any difficulty in out-manoeuvring him in the
senate and in the forum. Caesar, then, claimed no more than an
equality with Pompey and the fulfilment of his promise; but these he
determined to have. All through the winter of 52-51 B.C. he was
arming. Well served by his friends, among whom were Mark Antony and
Curio the tribunes, in 50 B.C., "having gone the circuit for the
administration of justice," as Suetonius tells us, "he made a halt at
Ravenna resolved to have recourse to arms if the senate should proceed
to extremity against the tribunes of the people, who had espoused his
cause." But first he determined for many reasons to send ambassadors
to Rome, to request the fulfilment of the promise made to him at Luca.
Pompey, who was not yet at open enmity with him, determined, although
he had made the promise, neither to aid him by his influence nor
openly to oppose him on this occasion. But the consuls Lentulus and
Marcellus, who had always been his enemies, resolved to use all means
in their power to prevent him gaining his object.

At this juncture Caius Curio, tribune of the people, came to Caesar in
Ravenna. Curio had made many energetic struggles in behalf of the
republic and Caesar's cause; but at last, when he perceived that all
his efforts were in vain, he fled through fear of his enemies and
Caesar's to Ravenna and told Caesar all that had taken place; and,
seeing that war was openly being prepared against Caesar, advised him
to bring up his army and to rescue the republic.

Now Caesar was not ignorant of the real state of affairs, but he was
perhaps not yet ready to act, or he hoped in fact to save the ancient
state; at any rate, he gave it as his opinion that particular regard
should be had to the tranquillity of the republic, lest any one should
assert that he was the originator of civil war. Therefore he sent
again to his friends, making through them this very moderate request,
that two legions and the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum
should be left him. No one could openly quarrel with such a reasonable
demand and the patience with which it was more than once put forward;
for when Caesar could not obtain a favourable answer from the consuls,
he wrote a letter to the senate in which he briefly recounted his
exploits and public services, a