For none could doubt that the Magnus had proved his right to be called the favoured child of Fortune.  Had not Caesar been utterly defeated at Dyrrachium?  Was he not now almost a fugitive in the interior of Greece,—­liable at any moment to have his forces cut to pieces, and he himself to be slain, in battle like a second Catilina, or to die by the executioner’s axe like another Carbo?  Had not several delighted Pompeians just hastened away to Lesbos, to convey to Cornelia, the wife of the Magnus, the joyful tidings that Caesar’s power was broken and the war was over?

Throughout the Pompeian camps there was feasting and revelry, soldiers trolled low songs deriding their opponents, and drank themselves stupid, celebrating in advance the return of the victorious army to Italy.  Their officers were looking forward even more eagerly to their reinstatement in their old haunts and pleasures at Rome.  Lucius Ahenobarbus, who was outside the tent of the Magnus, while his father was taking part in the conference, was busy recounting to a crony the arrangements he was making.

“I have sent a freedman back to Rome to see that my rooms are furnished and put in order.  But I have told him that I need a suite near the Forum, if possible, so as to be convenient for the canvass when I sue for quaestor at the next election, for it is time I began on my ‘round of offices.’” (A “round of offices” being, according to this worthy young gentleman, an inalienable right to every male scion of his family.)

Within the debate was waxing hot.  Not that any one had the least doubts that the Caesarians were at their last gasp; rather it was so extremely difficult to decide how the spoils of victory were to be equitably shared, and what was almost equally important, how the hostile and the neutral were to be punished.  The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Caesarians should be divided.  As to the military situation, they were all complaisance.

“There is no need for a real battle,” Pompeius was saying.  “Our superior cavalry will rout their whole army before the infantry join the attack.”

And Labienus, the only officer who had deserted Caesar, protested that the opposing legions had long since been thinned of their Gallic veterans, that only raw recruits composed them now.

Loudly the councillors wrangled over the successor to Caesar’s pontificate; Scipio, Domitius, and another great noble, Lentulus Spinther, all had their claims.  Domitius was clamouring against delay in disposing of Caesar, and in returning to Italy, to begin a general distribution of spoils, and sanguinary requital of enemies and neutrals.  The contest over the pontificate grew more and more acrimonious each minute.

“Gentlemen,” broke in Pompeius, “I would that you could agree amongst yourselves.  It is a grievous thing that we must thus quarrel with bitterness, when victory is within our grasp.”