of January. Upon the fateful twelfth, with some secrecy,
while Caesar himself attended a public spectacle, examined the model
of a fencing school, which he proposed to build, and, as usual, sat
down to table with a numerous party of friends,[2] the first companies
of this legion left Ravenna by the Rimini gate, to be followed after
sunset by its great commander; still with all possible secrecy it
seems, for mules were put to his carriage, a hired one, at a mill
outside Ravenna and he went almost alone.

[Footnote 1: Plutarch says "Caesar had not then with him more than 300
horse and 5000 foot. The rest of his forces were left on the other
side of the Alps."]

[Footnote 2: So Suetonius; but Plutarch says "As for himself, he spent
the day at a public show of gladiators, and a little before evening
bathed, and then went into the apartment, where he entertained
company. When it was growing dark, he left the company, having desired
them to make merry till his return, which they would not have long to
wait for."]

The road he travelled was not the great way to Rimini, but a by-way
across the marshes, and it would seem to have been in a wretched
state. At any rate Caesar lost his way, the lights of his little
company were extinguished, his carriage had to be abandoned, and it
was only after wandering about for a long time that, with the help of
a peasant whom he found towards daybreak, he was able to get on, afoot
now, and at last to reach the great highway. That night must have
tried even the iron nerves and dauntless courage of the greatest
soldier of all time.

Caesar came up with his troops on the banks of the Rubicon, the sacred
boundary of Italy and Cisalpine Gaul in the narrow pass between the
mountains and the sea. "There," says Suetonius, whose account I have
followed, "he halted for a while revolving in his mind the importance
of the step he was about to take. At last turning to those about him,
he said: 'We may still retreat; but if we pass this little bridge
nothing is left us but to fight it out in arms.'"

Now while he was thus hesitating, staggered, even he, by the greatness
of what he would attempt, doubtless resolving in silence arguments for
and against it, and, if we may believe Plutarch, "many times changing
his opinion," the following strange incident is said to have happened.

A person, remarkable, says Suetonius, for his noble aspect and
graceful mien, appeared close at hand sitting by the waysid