United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Cæsar after hearing of the defeat of Domitius Calvinus, his legatus, by Pharnakos, advanced against him and routed his army. Zela is eight hours south of Amasia, the birthplace of Strabo, and about 40° 15' N. lat. Pharnakes was afterwards murdered by Asander, one of his generals. The modern town of Zilleh, which contains 2000 houses, stands on the site of Zela.
Pompey himself led the right wing of his army against Antony, and placed his father-in-law Scipio in the middle against Lucius Calvinus. The left wing was commanded by Lucius Domitius; and supported by the great mass of the horse.
There are various records in antient writers of enormous bones being found. I am not sure that I have given the right meaning of this passage. If the word "dæmon" is here translated "fortune," it may mislead. But it should be Calvinus: Calvinus was a cognomen of the Domitii. He fell in this battle on the Guadiana, where he was defeated by Hirtuleius.
Two men of prætorian rank were on the panel Domitius Calvinus, who voted for acquittal so openly that everybody could see; and Cato, who, as soon as the voting tablets had been counted, withdrew from the ring of people, and was the first to tell Pompey the news. Some people for instance, Sallust say that I ought to have been the prosecuting counsel.
LXIX. Pompeius commanded the right wing, intending to oppose Antonius; in the centre he placed his father-in-law Scipio against Calvinus Lucius; and the left was commanded by Lucius Domitius, and strengthened with the main body of the cavalry.
He had now reached Macedonia, and Domitius Calvinus had been sent with a separate command to watch him. Caesar's own force, already too small for the business on hand, was thus further reduced, and at this moment there fell out one of those accidents which overtake at times the ablest commanders, and gave occasion for Caesar's observation, that Pompey knew not how to conquer.
Labienus, the ablest of them, had but to desert Caesar, to commit blunder upon blunder, and to ruin the cause to which he attached himself. Antony, Lepidus, Trebonius, Calvinus, Cassius Longinus, Quintus Cicero, Sabinus, Decimus Brutus, Vatinius, were trusted with independent authority, only to show themselves unfit to use it.
The object of Domitius Calvinus and Memmius in making the compact was to secure their own election, which the existing consuls had many means of assisting, but it is not clear what Memmius's object in disclosing it was. Perhaps anger on finding his hopes gone, and an idea that anything that humiliated Ahenobarbus would be pleasing to Cæsar. He also seems to have quarrelled with Calvinus.
Already the elections for 698 had gone but partially according to the minds of the dynasts; Caesar's candidates for the praetorship, Publius Vatinius and Gaius Alfius, had failed, while two decided adherents of the fallen government, Gnaeus Lentulus Marcellinus and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, had been elected, the former as consul, the latter as praetor.
It was not till the enemy's main force had approached within a few hours of him that Calvinus learned from the accounts of the enemy's advanced posts themselves the state of things. A quick departure in a southerly direction towards Thessaly withdrew him at the last moment from imminent destruction; Pompeius had to content himself with having liberated Scipio from his position of peril.
Word Of The Day