Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus The Resources on Either Side Arms were thus to decide which of the two men who had hitherto jointly ruled Rome was now to be its first sole ruler.

Let us see what were the comparative resources at the disposal of Caesar and Pompeius for the waging of the impending war.
Caesar's Absolute Power within His Party Caesar's power rested primarily on the wholly unlimited authority which he enjoyed within his party.

If the ideas of democracy and of monarchy met together in it, this was not the result of a coalition which had been accidentally entered into and might be accidentally dissolved; on the contrary it was involved in the very essence of a democracy without a representative constitution, that democracy and monarchy should find in Caesar at once their highest and ultimate expression.

In political as in military matters throughout the first and the final decision lay with Caesar.
However high the honour in which he held any serviceable instrument, it remained an instrument still; Caesar stood, in his own party without confederates, surrounded only by military-political adjutants, who as a rule had risen from the army and as soldiers were trained never to ask the reason and purpose of any thing, but unconditionally to obey.

On this account especially, at the decisive moment when the civil war began, of all the officers and soldiers of Caesar one alone refused him obedience; and the circumstance that that one was precisely the foremost of them all, serves simply to confirm this view of the relation of Caesar to his adherents.
Labienus Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all the troubles of the dark times of Catilina( 1) as well as all the lustre of the Gallic career of victory, had regularly held independent command, and frequently led half the army; as he was the oldest, ablest, and most faithful of Caesar's adjutants, he was beyond question also highest in position and highest in honour.
As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass for the consulship.