The news came to that very noble lady Claudia, sister-in-law of the consul, just at the moment when she was discussing the latest style of hairdressing with the most excellent Herennia; and the cheeks of those patrician ladies grew pale, and they forgot whether or not it was proper to wear ivory pins or a jewel-set head-band, at the dinner-party of Lucius Piso that evening.

The news came to Lentulus Crus while he was wrangling with Domitius as to who should be Caesar's successor as Pontifex Maximus--and those distinguished statesmen found other things to think of.
The news flew and grew.

The noble senators overheard their slaves whispering,--how it was rumoured on the street or in the Forum that Caesar was in full advance on the city, that his cavalry were close to the gates.

Caesar at the gates! Why had they not remembered how rapidly he could advance?
Why had they trusted the assurance of the traitor Labienus that the legions would desert their Imperator?
Resist?
By what means?
The walls were walls only in name; the city had long outgrown them, spreading through a thousand breaches.

There was not a trained soldier this side of Capua, whither Pompeius had departed only the day before to take command of the Apulian legions.