Long marches exhausted the troops.
In bad weather the enemy's fleet preferred the harbors to the open sea;
and perhaps he had a further and special ground of confidence in knowing
that the officer in charge at Corfu was his old acquaintance, Bibulus--
Bibulus, the fool of the aristocracy, the butt of Cicero, who had failed
in everything which he had undertaken, and had been thanked by Cato for
his ill successes. Caesar knew the men with whom he had to deal. He knew
Pompey's incapacity; he knew Bibulus's incapacity. He knew that public
feeling among the people was as much on his side in Greece as in Italy.
Above all, he knew his own troops, and felt that he could rely on them,
however heavy the odds might be. He was resolved to save Italy at all
hazards from becoming the theatre of war, and therefore the best road for
him was that which would lead most swiftly to his end.
On the 4th January, then, by unreformed time, Caesar sailed with 15,000
men and 500 horses from Brindisi. The passage was rough but swift, and he
landed without adventure at Acroceraunia, now Cape Linguetta, on the
eastern shore of the Straits of Otranto. Bibulus saw him pass from the
heights of Corfu, and put to sea, too late to intercept him--in time,
however, unfortunately, to fall in with the returning transports. Caesar
had started them immediately after disembarking, and had they made use of
the darkness they might have gone over unperceived; they lingered and were
overtaken; Bibulus captured thirty of them, and, in rage at his own
blunder, killed every one that he found on board.
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