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Updated: June 11, 2025
But unfortunately he had, in the hope of being able still to save the troops that were in Corfinium, tarried in Apuli so long that he was compelled to choose the nearer Brundisium as his place of embarkation instead of the Campanian ports.
XXVIII. In Varus's army there was one Sextus Quintilius Varus who, as we have mentioned before, was at Corfinium. When Caesar gave him his liberty, he went over to Africa; now, Curio had transported to Africa those legions which Caesar had received under his command a short time before at Corfinium: so that the officers and companies were still the same, excepting the change of a few centurions.
His troops had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and before Corfinium by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these, three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily, partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere; so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service.
Corfinium Besieged And Captured This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian, Marsian and Paelignian territories; the body of recruits here assembled, of nearly 15,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army in course of formation for the constitutional party.
Lucius Domitius, who was nominated by the senate in Caesar's stead as governor of Transalpine Gaul, had proceeded from Corfinium as soon as Caesar had released him along with his attendants and with Pompeius' confidant Lucius Vibullius Rufus to Massilia, and actually induced that city to declare for Pompeius and even to refuse a passage to Caesar's troops.
When Vibullius arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind; there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia.
But the commandant in Corfinium was the designated successor to Caesar in the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius, one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy; and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius, but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men from Picenum for Apulia.
He had taken part in a desperate struggle around Corfinium, where his general had cut off and captured the army with which Domitius had aimed to check his advance. Drusus had been severely wounded, and had not recovered in time to participate in the futile siege of Brundusium, when Cæsar vainly strove to prevent Pompeius's flight across the sea to Greece.
XVIII. In the meantime, word was brought to Caesar that the people of Sulmo, a town about seven miles distant from Corfinium, were ready to obey his orders, but were prevented by Quintus Lucretius, a senator, and Attius, a Pelignian, who were in possession of the town with a garrison of seven cohorts. He sent Marcus Antonius thither, with five cohorts of the eighth legion.
The broken bridges were repaired. The communications of the Pompeians were threatened in turn, and they tried to fall back over the Ebro; but they left their position only to be intercepted, and after a few feeble struggles laid down their arms. Among the prisoners were found several of the young nobles who had been released at Corfinium.
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