Such, we are assured, was the speech of Cornelia; and Pompey answered:
"Till this moment, Cornelia, you have experienced nothing but the smiles
of fortune; and it was she who deceived you, because she stayed with me
longer than she commonly does with her favorites. But, fated as we are,
we must bear this reverse, and make another trial of her. For it is no
more improbable that we may emerge from this poor condition and rise to
great things again, than it was that we should fall from great things
into this poor condition."
Cornelia then sent to the city for her most valuable movables and her
servants.
As soon as his wife and his friends were embarked, he set sail, and
continued his course without touching at any port, except for water and
provisions, till he came to Attalia, a city of Pamphylia. There he
was joined by some Cilician galleys; and beside picking up a number of
soldiers, he found in a little time sixty senators about him. When he
was informed that his fleet was still entire, and that Cato was gone
to Africa with a considerable body of men which he had collected after
their flight, he lamented to his friends his great error, in suffering
himself to be forced into an engagement on land, and making no use of
those forces, in which he was confessedly stronger; nor even taking care
to fight near his fleet, that, in case of his meeting with a check
on land, he might have been supplied from the sea with another army,
capable of making head against the enemy. Indeed, we find no greater
mistake in Pompey's whole conduct, nor a more remarkable instance of
Caesar's generalship, than in removing the scene of action to such a
distance from the naval force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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