Isn't that Cicero himself? If we look at who would benefit from a war - although I'm not sure that destroying Caesar was not the primary goal, and they just realized it would take a war to do it -

Hmmm. Certainly, Pompey would be for it - you can just imagine his jealousy of Caesar's post-Gaul reputation (and the fact that he himself had made it possible must have really made him wince). Anyone in the Senate with contracts or contacts making them ready to supply war materiel - well, they might be for it. But I always feel that the Senate from about 52-49 was rather like the American Senate in, say, 1855 - just unable somehow to see the big picture of what a war could do because they were emotionally too involved in state's rights and abolitionism to step back and SEE what their actions were doing to their country. In this case, Caesar was so loathed by so many at the very top of the Senate that they would have done ANYTHING to destroy him, I think. Reason wasn't much involved.

I also get the feeling that Pompey was the most ambiguous of those standing against Caesar. He'd finally gotten what he had always longed for - he was accepted by the "in" crowd (although they only tolerated him as a tool against Caesar) and, as part of being accepted, he had to turn against Caesar. But I always got the feeling that Pompey had doubts about what he was doing - maybe because of their long association. There's one thing I recall, where Cicero went to see Pompey soon after the Rubicon, and found Pompey absolutely fixed and determined to 'get' Caesar. But his later actions seem somehow rather unfocused, tentative. Either his conscience was bothering him (presuming he had one), or he was simply too old and past it.

I was thinking, again, of how the Senate and Pompey scrambled out of Rome, just leaving it to Caesar in early spring, 49. AND forgetting to take the demmed treasury funds with them when they fled! You can argue all you like about long-range strategy, fighting in the East (Pompey's place of strength), whatever, but to abandon Rome at Caesar's coming just HAD to be one of the stupider decisions Pompey could have made. It would be like running away from Richmond in 1861 - not an action to build trust. And - much more importantly - it not only gave Caesar the whole treasury but gave him the illusion of becoming the legal government in Italia!