sent in their weapons through the gates of Marseilles, heaped over with flowers and boughs, and a party of Ligurians presented themselves unarmed, as flocking in to witness the festival. But other Ligurian girls beside Gyptis had fallen in love with and had contracted marriages with the Greeks, and one of these betrayed the plot. Accordingly the Phocœans closed their gates, and drawing the weapons from under the wreaths of flowers, slaughtered the Ligurians with their own arms.
From Marseilles the Greeks spread along the coast and founded numerous other towns, and, penetrating inland, made of Aries a Greek city.
In the civil war that broke out between Cæsar and Pompey, Marseilles, unhappily for her, threw in her lot with the latter. Cæsar, at the head of his legions, appeared before the gates, and found them closed against him. It was essential for Caesar to obtain possession of the town and port, and he invested it. Beyond the walls was a sacred wood in which mysterious rites were performed, and which was held in the highest veneration by the Massiliots. Cæsar ordered that it should be hewn down; but his soldiers shrank from profaning it. Then snatching up an axe, he exclaimed, "Fear not, I take the crime upon myself!" and smote at an oak. Emboldened by his words and action, the soldiers now felled the trees, and out of them Cæsar fashioned twelve galleys and various machines for the siege.
Obliged to hurry into Spain, he left some of his best troops under his lieutenants C. Trebonius and D. Brutus to continue operations against Marseilles; the former was in command of the land forces, and Brutus was admiral of the improvised fleet. The people of Marseilles were now reinforced by Domitius, one of
