Though war seemed inevitable, Caesar still showed himself willing to enter into negotiations with the aristocracy, and accordingly sent Curio with a letter addressed to the Senate, in which he expressed his readiness to resign his command if Pompey would do the same. Curio arrived at Rome on the 1st of January, B.C. 49, the day on which the new Consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus, entered upon their office. It was with great difficulty that the Tribunes, M. Antonius, afterward the well-known Triumvir, and Q. Cassius Longinus, forced the Senate to allow the letter to be read. After a violent debate, the motion of Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, was carried, "that Caesar should disband his army by a certain day, and that if he did not do so he should be regarded as an enemy of the state." On the 6th of January the Senate passed the decree investing the Consuls with dictatorial power. Antonius and Cassius, considering their lives no longer safe, fled from the city in disguise to Caesar's army, and called upon him to protect the inviolable persons of the Tribunes. This was the crisis. The Senate intrusted the management of the war to Pompey, determined that fresh levies of troops should be held, and voted a sum of money from the public treasury to Pompey. Pompey all along had no apprehensions as to the war; he thought it impossible that Caesar should ever march against him; he was convinced that his great fame would cause a multitude of troops to flock around him whenever he wished. In addition to this, he had been deceived as to the disposition of Caesar's troops: he had been led to believe that they were ready to desert their general at the first opportunity. Consequently, when the war broke out, Pompey had scarcely any troops except the two legions which he had obtained from Caesar, and on the fidelity of which he could by no means rely. [Footnote 67: Cicero sent to Milo at Massilia the oration which he meant to have delivered, the one which we still have. Milo, after reading it, remarked, "I am glad it was not delivered, for I should then have been acquitted, and never have known the delicate flavor of these Massilian mullets."] [Footnote 68: Caesar's government would expire at the end of B.C. 49, and he had therefore determined to obtain the Consulship for B.C. 48, since otherwise he would become a private person.] [Illustration: Marcus Brutus.] CHAPTER XXXV. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND CIVIL WAR TO CAESAR'S DEATH. B.C. 49-44.