Caesar's command in Gaul was to expire in 49 B.C. The senatorial party desired that he should return to Rome without an army. His opponents intended to prosecute him when he became a private citizen. Caesar had no inclination to trust himself to their tender mercies and refused to disband his legions unless his rival did the same. Finally the Senate, conscious of Pompey's support, ordered him to lay down his arms on pain of outlawry. Caesar replied to this challenge of the Senate by leading his troops across the Rubicon, the little stream that separated Cisalpine Gaul from Italy. As he plunged into the river, he exclaimed, "The die is cast." [24] He had now declared war on the republic. CAESAR MASTER OF THE WEST Caesar's bold movement caught the senatorial party unawares. Pompey could not gather his legions before his audacious foe reached Rome. Finding it impossible to make a stand in Italy, Pompey, with the consuls and many senators, withdrew to Greece. Caesar did not follow him at once. He hurried to Spain and, after a brilliant campaign only six weeks in length, broke down the republican resistance in that peninsula. Having now secured Italy and Spain, Caesar was free to turn his forces against Pompey in the East. [Illustration: Map, THE EXPANSION OF ROMAN DOMINIONS 133-31 B.C.] BATTLE OF PHARSALUS, 48 B.C. The final battle took place on the plain of Pharsalus in Thessaly. Pompey's troops, though nearly twice as numerous as Caesar's, were defeated after a severe struggle. Their great leader then fled to Egypt, only to be foully murdered. Pompey's head was sent to Caesar, but he turned from it with horror. Such was the end of an able general and an honest man, one who should have lived two hundred years earlier, when Rome was still a free state. CAESAR IN EGYPT, ASIA MINOR, AND AFRICA, 48-46 B.C. After Pharsalus there still remained several years of fighting before Caesar's victory was complete. He made Cleopatra, the beautiful queen of Egypt, secure in the possession of the throne and brought that country into dependence on Rome. He passed through Asia Minor and in one swift campaign crushed a revolt headed by the son of Mithridates. The conqueror sent tidings of his victory in a laconic dispatch: "I came, I saw, I conquered." [25] After subduing the remnants of the senatorial party in Africa, Caesar returned home to crown his exploits by a series of splendid triumphs and to enjoy less than two years of untrammeled power. 63. THE WORK OF CAESAR AUTHORITY AND POSITION OF CAESAR