SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR.—THE TAKING OF MARSEILLES.—VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN.—THE FATE OF CURIO BEFORE UTICA.—B.C. 49.

In his chronicle of the Gallic war, C?sar in each book completed the narrative¹ of a year’s campaign. In treating of the civil war he devotes the first and second books to the doings of one year. There are three distinct episodes of the year’s campaign narrated² in the second;—the taking of Marseilles, the subjugation³ of the southern province of Spain,—if that can be said to be subjugated⁴ which gave itself up very readily,—and the destruction of a Roman army in Africa under the hands of a barbarian⁵ king. But of all C?sar’s writings it is perhaps the least interesting, as it tells us but little of what C?sar did himself,—and in fact contains chiefly C?sar’s records of the doings of his lieutenants⁶ by sea and land.

He begins by telling us of the enormous exertions⁸ made both by the besiegers and by the besieged¹⁰ at Massilia, which town was now held by Domitius on the part of Pompey,—to supplement whom at sea a certain Nasidius was sent with a large fleet. Young{132} Brutus, as will be remembered, was attacking the harbour on behalf of C?sar, and had already obtained a victory over the Massilians before Nasidius came up; and Trebonius, also on the part of C?sar, was besieging¹¹ the town from the land. This Decimus Brutus was one of those conspirators¹² who afterwards

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