decree of the senate
to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply
was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance
of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite.
The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius
the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not
by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more
the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Concerning
the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius
should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria,
on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended;
that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus'
native country, Picenum; that he should personally call
the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five
years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful
Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar
to set a limit to the advance of the enemy.

Conflicts in Picenum

Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out
until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar
with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road
by way of Ancona. Here too the preparations were in full course;
in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band
of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty
of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar
appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop
not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict--
the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards
Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum,
and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum. The men,
thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned
their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier;
but the district itself was already lost, when the officer
sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence,
Lucius Vibullius Rufus--no genteel senator, but a soldier
experienced in war--arrived there; he had to content himself
with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved
away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them
for the time to the nearest rendezvous.

Corfinium Besieged
And Captured

This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian