Page:The Commentaries of Caesar.djvu/179

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PHARSALIA.
169

when they were thus removed, all the archers and the slingers, desolate and unarmed, without any one to take care of them, were killed in heaps." Such is Cæsar's account of Pompey's great attack of cavalry which was to win the battle without giving trouble to the legions.

Cæsar acknowledges that Pompey's legionaries drew their swords bravely and began their share of the fighting well. Then at once he tells us of the failure on the part of the cavalry and of the slaughter of the poor auxiliary slingers, and in the very next sentence gives us to understand that the battle was won. Though Pompey's legions were so much more numerous than those of Cæsar, we are told that Cæsar's third line attacked the Pompeian legionaries when they were "defessi"—worn out. The few cohorts of picked men who in such marvellous manner had dispersed Pompey's clouds, following on their success, turned the flank of Pompey's legions and carried the day. That it was all as Cæsar says there can be little doubt. That he won the battle there can, we presume, be no doubt. Pompey at once flew to his camp and endeavoured to defend it. But such defence was impossible, and Pompey was driven to seek succour in flight. He found a horse and a few companions, and did not stop till he was on the sea-shore. Then he got on board a provision-vessel, and was heard to complain that he had been betrayed by those very men from whose hands he had expected victory.

We are told with much picturesque effect how Cæsar's men, hungry, accustomed to endurance, patient in all their want, found Pompey's camp prepared for