Appian, a Greek from Alexandria, wrote The Civil Wars in the second century AD. This is Book 2. Book 1 ran from the Gracchi land bills through Sulla’s march on Rome.

Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus make a private government of three that still runs the city. Gaul — France, Belgium, and neighbors — supplies the army; the east supplies the fame. Crassus dies in Parthia reaching for gold. The remaining two cannot share Rome. The Rubicon is a stream a governor may not cross with troops; Caesar crosses it with a legion, a Roman army unit, and a joke about dice. Pharsalus breaks Pompey; Egypt pays with a severed head. Africa and Spain finish those who refuse a pardon. Cato opens his own belly at Utica rather than live in Caesar’s gift. Then the Ides: Brutus and Cassius, a statue of Pompey, a dictator who had dismissed his guard. Two men could not share a city, and the murder solves nothing.