CHAPTER X.
CAESAR IMPERATOR.
[Sidenote: Caesar again at Rome.] [Sidenote: Combinations against him.] [Sidenote: Veni, vidi, vici.] Although Pompey himself had been killed, and the army under his immediate command entirely annihilated, Caesar did not find that the empire was yet completely submissive to his sway.

As the tidings of his conquests spread over the vast and distant regions which were under the Roman rule--although the story itself of his exploits might have been exaggerated--the impression produced by his power lost something of its strength, as men generally have little dread of remote danger.

While he was in Egypt, there were three great concentrations of power formed against him in other quarters of the globe: in Asia Minor, in Africa, and in Spain.

In putting down these three great and formidable arrays of opposition, Caesar made an exhibition to the world of that astonishing promptness and celerity of military action on which his fame as a general so much depends.

He went first to Asia Minor, and fought a great and decisive battle there, in a manner so sudden and unexpected to the forces that opposed him that they found themselves defeated almost before they suspected that their enemy was near.