Chapter 48

Now during the period when Caesar was besieging Pompeius at Dyrrachium, and achieving success at Old Pharsalus, and was engaged at Alexandria in operations which involved great risk, though rumour made it out to be still greater, Q. Cassius Longinus had been left behind in Spain as propraetor to govern the further province. Whether it was due to his own natural disposition, or because he had formed a hatred for that province from having as quaestor been treacherously wounded there, he had greatly added to his unpopularity; which fact he was in a position to observe equally from his own intuition—believing as he did that the province reciprocated his own sentiments—and from the manifold signs and indications afforded by those who found difficulty in concealing their feelings of hate and now he was anxious to offset the dislike felt by the province with the affection of his army. Consequently, as soon as he had mustered the army all together, he promised the soldiers one hundred sesterces apiece and not long afterwards in Lusitania, after successfully storming the town of Medobrega and then Mount Herminius, on which the townsfolk had taken refuge, and being hailed there as Imperator, he presented the soldiers each with 100 sesterces. In addition he granted many large rewards to individuals; and though these gifts inspired in the army a semblance of affection for the moment, yet they gradually and insidiously undermined strict military discipline.