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, Cæsar in each book completed the narrative 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 narrated in the second;—the taking of Marseilles, the subjugation of the southern province of Spain,—if that can be said to be subjugated which gave itself up very readily,—and the destruction of a Roman army in Africa under the hands of a barbarian king. But of all Cæsar's writings it is perhaps the least interesting, as it tells us but little of what Cæsar did himself,—and in fact contains chiefly Cæsar's records of the doings of his lieutenants by sea and land.
He begins by telling us of the enormous exertions made both by the besiegers and by the besieged 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
