V. In the midst of the general confusion, many citizens turned their eyes towards Cæsar. Appius Claudius had already paid him a visit.[633] Crassus left Rome suddenly to join him at Ravenna, at the beginning of the spring of 698, before the campaign against the Veneti, and explain to him the state of affairs, for, as Cicero says in a letter of a subsequent date, there was no occurrence so small in Rome that Cæsar was not informed of it.[634] Some time afterwards, Pompey, who was to embark at Pisa, to proceed to Sardinia, in order to hasten the supply of wheat, arrived at Lucca, where he had an interview with Cæsar and Crassus. A crowd of people assembled similarly in that town; some were drawn thither by the prestige of Cæsar’s glory, others by his well-known generosity, all by the vague instinct which, in moments of crisis, points to the place where strength exists, and gives a presentiment of the side from which safety is to come. The Roman people sent him a deputation of senators.[635] All the most illustrious and powerful personages in Rome, such as Pompey, Crassus, Appius, governor of Sardinia, Nepos, proconsul of Spain,[636] came to show their warm admiration for him and invoke his support;[637] even women repaired to Lucca, and the concourse was so great that as many as 200 senators were seen there at a time; 120 lictors, the obligatory escort of the first magistrates,[638] besieged the door of the proconsul. “Already,” Appius writes, “he disposed of everything by his ascendance, by his riches, and by the affectionate eagerness with which he conferred obligations upon everybody.”[639]