Meanwhile out in Asculum, where this had all started, the proconsul Sextus Caesar maneuvered his way toward the city. His principal legate was a rising novus homo who was attached to the command because his family estates were principally held in the region: Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. Rendered in English as Pompey Strabo, he was the father and precursor of Pompey the Great, though at the moment his son was just a teenager preparing for his first campaign. Eventually the legions began a siege of Asculum, but over the winter Sextus Caesar himself succumbed to a camp illness and died. His legate
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