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Updated: June 13, 2025
Caesar took into his army Domitius's soldiers, as he did all those whom he found in any town enlisted for Pompey's service. Being now strong and formidable enough, he advanced against Pompey himself, who did not stay to receive him, but fled to Brundisium, having sent the consuls before with a body of troops to Dyrrhachium.
With his army presumably little above 20,000 strong he could not offer battle to that of Pompeius at least twice as numerous, but had to deem himself fortunate that Pompeius went methodically to work and, instead of immediately forcing a battle, took up his winter quarters between Dyrrhachium and Apollonia on the right bank of the Apsus, facing Caesar on the left, in order that after the arrival of the legions from Pergamus in the spring he might annihilate the enemy with an irresistibly superior force.
His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss. Its Issue Flight of Pompeius The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat of Dyrrhachium.
Caesar Invests the Camp of Pompeius As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy and to operate with more freedom against Dyrrhachium, and if possible to compel his opponent either to battle or to embarkation.
The Epirot militia nowhere offered resistance; the important seaport towns of Oricum and Apollonia along with a number of smaller townships were taken, and Dyrrhachium, selected by the Pompeians as their chief arsenal and filled with stores of all sorts, but only feebly garrisoned, was in the utmost danger. Caesar Cut Off from Italy
On the whole, as Carthage coined only to a very limited extent, there existed not a single important mint in addition to that of Rome in the region of the western Mediterranean, with the exception of that of Massilia and perhaps also those of the Illyrian Greeks in Apollonia and Dyrrhachium.
When he was in possession of the city, he behaved with great moderation in many respects, and composed in a good measure the minds of its remaining inhabitants. Pompey, who was the master of Brundusium, and had a sufficient number of transports, desired the consuls to embark without loss of time, and sent them before him with thirty cohorts to Dyrrhachium.
Immense magazines of corn and military stores were accumulated in Dyrrhachium.
Although he extended his range in Epirus as far as with his slight strength was at all possible, the subsistence of his army remained difficult and precarious, while the enemy, in possession of the magazines of Dyrrhachium and masters of the sea, had abundance of everything.
On what had hitherto been the theatre of war he found himself in presence of an impregnable defensive position, and unable to strike a serious blow either against Dyrrhachium or against the hostile army; on the other hand it depended now solely on Pompeius whether he should proceed to attack under the most favourable circumstances an antagonist already in grave danger as to his means of subsistence.
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