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On the Italian and Sicilian coasts the Pompeian squadrons despatched thither after the victories of Dyrrhachium had achieved not unimportant successes against the ports of Brundisium, Messana and Vibo, and at Messana especially had burnt the whole fleet in course of being fitted out for Caesar; but the ships that were thus active, mostly from Asia Minor and Syria, were recalled by their communities in consequence of the Pharsalian battle, so that the expedition came to an end of itself.
In Illyria also, while Caesar was in Egypt, incidents of a very grave nature had occurred. The Dalmatian coast had been for centuries a sore blemish on the Roman rule, and its inhabitants had been at open feud with Caesar since the conflicts around Dyrrhachium; while the interior also since the time of the Thessalian war, swarmed with dispersed Pompeians.
In spite of the aid of the rich Latins, who had just been gratified by the remission of the vectigal, the senators were beaten and the bill passed. Albinus, Opimius, and Caius Cato, the grandson of Cato the censor. Opimius died at Dyrrhachium, a poor man; and probably no harder punishment could have befallen him.
The Domitian highway after long preparations furnished a secure land-route from Italy to Spain, and was closely connected with the founding of Aquae Sextiae and Narbo; the Gabinian and the Egnatian led from the principal places on the east coast of the Adriatic sea the former from Salona, the latter from Apollonia and Dyrrhachium into the interior; the network of roads laid out by Manius Aquillius immediately after the erection of the Asiatic province in 625 led from the capital Ephesus in different directions towards the frontier.
The chain of the Graba Balkan, which stretching in a direction from east to west ends on the Adriatic in the narrow tongue of land at Dyrrhachium, sends off fourteen miles to the east of Dyrrhachium in a south-westerly direction a lateral branch which likewise turns in the form of a crescent towards the sea, and the main chain and lateral branch of the mountains enclose between themselves a small plain extending round a cliff on the seashore.
When it sailed past the harbour of Dyrrhachium, the Rhodian galleys started in pursuit, and hardly had the ships of Antonius entered the port of Lissus when the enemy's squadron appeared before it. But just at this moment the wind suddenly veered, and drove the pursuing galleys back into the open sea and partly on the rocky coast.
For though he trusted him much, yet he was afraid of him too, knowing full well, that if he had bad success, Cato would be the last to forsake him, but if he conquered, would never let him use his victory at his pleasure. There were, likewise, many persons of high rank that stayed with Cato at Dyrrhachium.
It is true that Cato, who had immediately on the news of the defeat evacuated Dyrrhachium, still held Corcyra, and Rutilius Lupus the Peloponnesus, during a time for the constitutional party. For a moment it seemed also as if the Pompeians would make a stand at Patrae in the Peloponnesus; but the accounts of the advance of Calenus sufficed to frighten them from that quarter.
Yet Caesar's veterans by infinite exertions invested the Pompeian camp with a chain of posts sixteen miles long, and afterwards added, just as before Alesia, to this inner line a second outer one, to protect themselves against attacks from Dyrrhachium and against attempts to turn their position which could so easily be executed with the aid of the fleet.
His army was crowded together within a space of six square miles; though the fleet conveyed corn, the want of forage was as much felt by Caesar's cavalry as by those of Pompeius before Dyrrhachium.
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