Civil Wars

Caesar, although he was not as yet at open enmity with him, determined neither to aid him by his influence nor openly oppose him on this occasion. But the consuls Lentulus and Marcellus, who had previously been on unfriendly terms with Caesar, resolved to use all means in their power to prevent him from gaining his object. Marcellus in particular did not hesitate to offer Caesar other insults. Caesar had lately planned the colony of Novumcomum in Gaul: Marcellus, not content with taking from it the right of citizenship, ordered the principal man of the colony to be arrested and scourged at Rome, and sent him to make his complaints to Caesar: an insult of this description had never before been offered to a Roman citizen.

While these things were going forward in Spain, Caius Trebonius, Caesar's lieutenant, who had been left to conduct the assault of Massilia, began to raise a mound, vineae, and turrets against the town, on two sides; one of which was next the harbor and docks, the other on that part where there is a passage from Gaul and Spain to that sea which forces itself up the mouth of the Rhone. For Massilia is washed almost on three sides by the sea, the remaining fourth part is the only side which has access by land.

Julius Caesar, holding the election as dictator, was himself appointed consul with Publius Servilius; for this was the year in which it was permitted by the laws that he should be chosen consul. This business being ended, as credit was beginning to fail in Italy, and the debts could not be paid, he determined that arbitrators should be appointed: and that they should make an estimate of the possessions and properties of the debtors, how much they were worth before the war, and that they should be handed over in payment to the creditors. This he thought the most likely method to remove and abate the apprehension of an abolition of debt, the usual consequence of civil wars and dissensions, and to support the credit of the debtors.