Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
capricious appetites of their patients, yet himself could not
but yield to the malady and disease of his companions and
advisers in the war, rather than use some severity in their
cure. Truly who could have said that health was not disordered
and a cure not required in the case of men who went up and down
the camp, suing already for the consulship and office of
praetor, while Spinther, Domitius, and Scipio made friends,
raised factions, and quarrelled among themselves, who should
succeed Caesar in the dignity of his high-priesthood, esteeming
all as lightly, as if they were to engage only with Tigranes,
king of Armenia, or some petty Nabathaean king, not with that
Caesar and his army that had stormed a thousand towns, and
subdued more than three hundred several nations; that had
fought innumerable battles with the Germans and Gauls, and
always carried the victory; that had taken a million of men
prisoners, and slain as many upon the spot in pitched battles?
But they went on soliciting and clamoring, and on reaching the
plain of Pharsalia, they forced Pompey by their pressure and
importunities to call a council of war, where Labienus, general
of the horse, stood up first and swore that he would not return
out of the battle if he did not rout the enemies; and a]l the
rest took the same oath. That night Pompey dreamed that as he
went into the theater, the people received him with great
applause, and that he himself adorned the temple of Venus the
Victorious, with many spoils. This vision partly encouraged,
but partly also disheartened him, fearing lest that splendor
and ornament to Venus should be made with spoils furnished by
himself to Caesar, who derived his family from that goddess.
Besides there were some panic fears and alarms that ran through
the camp, with such a noise that it awaked him out of his
sleep. And about the time of renewing the watch towards
morning, there appeared a great light over Caesar's camp,
whilst they were all at rest, and from thence a ball of flaming
fire was carried into Pompey's camp, which Caesar himself says
he saw, as he was walking his rounds.
Now Caesar having designed to raise his camp with the morning
and move to Scotussa, whilst the soldiers were busy in pulling
down their tents, and sending on their cattle and servants
before them with their baggage, there came in scouts who
brought word that they saw arms carried to and fro in the
enemy's camp, and heard a noise and running up and down, as of
men preparing for battle; not long after there came in other
scouts with further intelligence, that the first ranks were
already set in battle array. Thereupon Caesar, when he had
told them that the wished for day was come at last, when they
should fight with men, not with hunger and famine, instantly
gave orders for the red colors to be set up before his tent,
that being the ordinary signal of battle among the Romans. As
soon as the soldiers saw that, they left their tents, and with
great shouts of joy ran to their arms; the officers, likewise,
on their parts drawing up their companies in order of battle,
every man fell into his proper rank without any trouble or
noise, as quietly and orderly as if they had been in a dance.
Pompey himself led the right wing of his army against Antony,
and placed his father-in-law Scipio in the middle against
Lucius Calvinus. The left wing was commanded by Lucius
Domitius; and supported by the great mass of the horse. For
almost the whole cavalry was posted there, in the hope of
crushing Caesar, and cutting off the tenth legion, which was
spoken of as the stoutest in all the army, and in which Caesar
himself usually fought in person. Caesar observing the left
wing of the enemy to be lined and fortified with such a mighty
guard of horse, and alarmed at the gallantry of their
appearance, sent for a detachment of six cohorts out of the
reserves, and placed them in the rear of the tenth legion,
commanding them not to stir, lest they should be discovered by
the enemy; but when the enemy's horse should begin to charge,
and press upon them, that they should make up with all speed to
the front through the foremost ranks, and not throw their
javelins at a distance, as is usual with brave soldiers, that
they may come to a close fight with their swords the sooner,
but that they should strike them upwards into the eyes and
faces of the enemy; telling them that those fine young dancers
would never endure the steel shining in their eyes, but would
fly to save their handsome faces. This was Caesar's employment
at that time. But while he was thus instructing his soldiers,
Pompey on horseback was viewing the order of both armies, and
when he saw how well the enemy kept their ranks, expecting
quietly the signal of battle; and, on the contrary, how
impatient and unsteady his own men were, waving up and down in
disorder for want of experience, he was very much afraid that
their ranks would be broken upon the first onset; and therefore
he gave out orders that the van should make a stand, and
keeping close in their ranks, should receive the enemy's
charge. Caesar much condemns this command; which he says not
only took off from the strength of the blows, which would
otherwise have been made with a spring; but also lost the men
the impetus, which, more than anything, in the moment of their
coming upon the enemy, fills soldiers with impulse and
inspiration, the very shouts and rapid pace adding to their
fury; of which Pompey deprived his men, arresting them in their
course and cooling down their heat.
Caesar's army consisted of twenty-two thousand, and Pompey's of
somewhat above twice as many. When the signal of battle was
given on both sides, and the trumpets began to sound a charge,
most men of course were fully occupied with their own matters;
only some few of the noblest Romans, together with certain
Greeks there present, standing as spectators without the
battle, seeing the armies now ready to join, could not but
consider in themselves to what a pass private ambition and
emulation had brought the empire. Common arms, and kindred
ranks drawn up under the self-same standards, the whole flower
and strength of the same single city here meeting in collision
with itself, offered plain proof how blind and how mad a thing
human nature is, when once possessed with any passion; for if
they had been desirous only to rule, and enjoy in peace what
they had conquered in war, the greatest and best part of the
world was subject to them both by sea and land. But if there
was yet a thirst in their ambition, that must still be fed with
new trophies and triumphs, the Parthian and German wars would
yield matter enough to satisfy the most covetous of honor.
Scythia, moreover, was yet unconquered, and the Indians too,
where their ambition might be colored over with the specious
pretext of civilizing barbarous nations. And what Scythian
horse, Parthian arrows, or Indian riches, could be able to
resist seventy thousand Roman soldiers, well appointed in arms,
under the command of two such generals as Pompey and Caesar,
whose names they had heard of before that of the Romans, and
whose prowess, by their conquests of such wild, remote, savage,
and brutish nations, was spread further than the fame of the
Romans themselves? Today they met in conflict, and could no
longer be induced to spare their country, even out of regard
for their own glory or the fear of losing the name which till
this day both had held, of having never yet been defeated. As
for their former private ties, and the charms of Julia, and the
marriage that had made them near connections, these could now
only be looked upon as tricks of state, the mere securities of
a treaty made to serve the needs of an occasion, not the
pledges of any real friendship.
Now, therefore, as soon as the plains of Pharsalia were covered
with men, horse, and armor, and that the signal of battle was
raised on either side, Caius Crassianus, a centurion, who
commanded a company of one hundred and twenty men, was the
first that advanced out of Caesar's army, to give the charge,
and acquit himself of a solemn engagement that he had made to
Caesar. He had been the first man that Caesar had seen going
out of the camp in the morning, and Caesar, after saluting him,
had asked him what he thought of the coming battle. To which
he, stretching out his right hand, replied aloud, "Thine is the
victory, O Caesar, thou shalt conquer gloriously, and I myself
this day will be the subject of thy praise either alive or
dead." In pursuance of this promise he hastened forward, and
being followed by many more, charged into the midst of the
enemy. There they came at once to a close fight with their
swords, and made a great slaughter; but as he was still
pressing forward, and breaking the ranks of the vanguard, one
of Pompey's soldiers ran him in at the mouth, so that the point
of the sword came out behind at his neck; and Crassianus being
thus slain, the fight became doubtful, and continued equal on
that part of the battle.
Pompey had not yet brought on the right wing, but stayed and
looked about, waiting to see what execution his cavalry would
do on the left. They had already drawn out their squadrons in
form, designing to turn Caesar's flank, and force those few
horse, which he had placed in the front, to give back upon the
battalion of foot. But Caesar, on the other side, having given
the signal, his horse retreated back a little, and gave way to
those six subsidiary cohorts, which had been posted in the
rear, as a reserve to cover the flank; and which now came out,
three thousand men in number, and met the enemy; and when they
came up, standing by the horses, struck their javelins upwards,
according to their instructions, and hit the horsemen full in
their faces. They, unskillful in any manner of fight, and
least of all expecting or understanding such a kind as this,
had not courage enough to endure the blows upon their faces,
but turning their backs, and covering their eyes with their
hands, shamefully took to flight. Caesar's men, however, did
not follow them, but marched upon the foot, and attacked the
wing, which the flight of the cavalry had left unprotected, and
liable to be turned and taken in the rear, so that this wing
now being attacked in the flank by these, and charged in the
front by the tenth legion, was not able to abide the charge, or
make any longer resistance, especially when they saw themselves
surrounded and circumvented in the very way in which they had
designed to invest the enemy. Thus these being likewise routed
and put to flight, when Pompey, by the dust flying in the air,
conjectured the fate of his horse, it were very hard to say
what his thoughts or intentions were, but looking like one
distracted and beside himself, and without any recollection or
reflection that he was Pompey the Great, he retired slowly
towards his camp, without speaking a word to any man, exactly
according to the description in the verses,
But Jove from heaven struck Ajax with a fear;
Ajax the bold then stood astonished there,
Flung o'er his back the mighty sevenfold shield,
And trembling gazed and spied about the field.
In this state and condition he went into his own tent, and sat
down, speechless still, until some of the enemy fell in
together with his men that were flying into the camp, and then
he let fall only this one word, "What? into the very camp?"
and said no more; but rose up, and putting on a dress suitable
to his present fortune, made his way secretly out.
By this time the rest of the army was put to flight, and there
was a great slaughter in the camp among the servants and those
that guarded the tents, but of the soldiers themselves there