XLIII. Cæsar, calling his soldiers together and telling them that Corfinius[538] was close at hand with two legions, and that other cohorts to the number of fifteen under Calenus were encamped near Megara and Athens, asked if they would wait for them or hazard a battle by themselves. The soldiers cried out aloud that they did not wish him to wait, but rather to contrive and so manage his operations that they might soonest come to a battle with their enemies. While he was performing a lustration of the army, as soon as he had sacrificed the first victim, the soothsayer said that within three days there would be a decisive battle with the enemy. Upon Cæsar asking him, if he saw any favourable sign in the victims as to the result of the battle also, he replied, "You can answer this better for yourself: the gods indicate a great change and revolution of the actual state of things to a contrary state, so that if you think yourself prosperous in your present condition, expect the worst fortune; but if you do not, expect the better." As Cæsar was taking his round to inspect the watches the night before the battle about midnight, there was seen in the heavens a fiery torch, which seemed to pass over Cæsar's camp and assuming a bright and flame-like appearance to fall down upon the camp of Pompeius. In the morning watch they perceived that there was also a panic confusion among the enemy. However, as Cæsar did not expect that the enemy would fight on that day, he began to break up his camp with the intention of marching to Scotussa.
XLIV. The tents were already taken down when the scouts rode up to him with intelligence that the enemy were coming down to battle, whereupon Cæsar was overjoyed, and after praying to the gods he arranged his battle in three divisions. He placed Domitius Calvinus in command of the centre, Antonius had the left wing, and he commanded the right, intending to fight in the tenth legion. Observing that the cavalry of the enemy were posting themselves opposite to this wing and fearing their splendid appearance and their numbers, he ordered six cohorts to come round to him from the last line without being observed and he placed them in the rear of the right wing with orders what to do when the enemy's cavalry made their attack. Pompeius commanded his own right, and Domitius the left, and the centre was under Scipio, his father-in-law. But all the cavalry crowded to the left, intending to surround the right wing of the enemy and to make a complete rout of the men who were stationed about the general; for they believed that no legionary phalanx, however deep, could resist, but that their opponents would be completely crushed and broken to pieces by an attack of so many cavalry at once. When the signal for attack was going to be given on both sides, Pompeius ordered the legionary soldiers to stand with their spears presented and in close order to wait the attack of the enemy till they were within a spear's throw. But Cæsar says that here also Pompeius made a mistake, not knowing that the first onset, accompanied with running and impetuosity, gives force to the blows, and at the same time fires the courage, which is thus fanned in every way. As Cæsar was about to move his phalanx and was going into action, the first centurion that he spied was a man who was faithful to him and experienced in war, and was encouraging those under his command and urging them to vigorous exertion. Cæsar addressing him by name said, "What hopes have we Caius Crassinius,[539] and how are our men as to courage?" Crassinius stretching out his right hand and calling out aloud, said, "We shall have a splendid victory, Cæsar; and you shall praise me whether I survive the day or die." Saying this, he was the first to fall on the enemy at his full speed and carrying with him the hundred and twenty soldiers who were under his command. Having cut through the first rank, he was advancing with great slaughter of the enemy and was driving them from their ground, when he was stopped by a blow from a sword through the mouth, and the point came out at the back of his neck.
XLV. The infantry having thus rushed together in the centre and being engaged in the struggle, the cavalry of Pompeius proudly advanced from the wing, extending their companies to enclose Cæsar's right; but before they fell upon the enemy, the cohorts sprang forward from among Cæsar's troops, not, according to the usual fashion of war, throwing their spears nor yet holding them in their hands and aiming at the thighs and legs of the enemy, but pushing them against their eyes and wounding them in the face; and they had been instructed to do this by Cæsar, who was confident that men who had no great familiarity with battles or wounds, and were young and very proud of their beauty and youth, would dread such wounds and would not keep their ground both through fear of the present danger and the future disfigurement. And it turned out so; for they could not stand the spears being pushed up at them nor did they venture to look at the iron that was presented against their eyes, but they turned away and covered their faces to save them; and at last, having thus thrown themselves into confusion, they turned to flight most disgracefully and ruined the whole cause. For those who had defeated the cavalry, immediately surrounded the infantry and falling on them in the rear began to cut them down. But when Pompeius saw from the other wing the cavalry dispersed in flight, he was no longer the same, nor did he recollect that he was Pompeius Magnus, but more like a man who was deprived of his understanding by the god than anything else,[540] he retired without speaking a word to his tent, and sitting down awaited the result, until the rout becoming general the enemy were assailing the ramparts, and fighting with those who defended them. Then, as if he had recovered his senses and uttering only these words, as it is reported, "What even to the ramparts!" he put off his military and general's dress, and taking one suited for a fugitive, stole away. But what fortunes he afterwards had, and how he gave himself up to the Egyptians and was murdered, I shall tell in the Life of Pompeius.
XLVI. When Cæsar entered the camp of Pompeius and saw the bodies of those who were already killed, and the slaughter still going on among the living, he said with a groan: They would have it so; they brought me into such a critical position that I, Caius Cæsar, who have been successful in the greatest wars, should have been condemned, if I had disbanded my troops. Asinius Pollio[541] says that Cæsar uttered these words on that occasion in Latin, and that he wrote them down in Greek. He also says that the chief part of those who were killed were slaves, and they were killed when the camp was taken; and that not more than six thousand soldiers fell. Of those who were taken prisoners, Cæsar drafted most into his legions; and he pardoned many men of distinction, among whom was Brutus, who afterwards murdered him. Cæsar is said to have been very much troubled at his not being found, but when Brutus, who had escaped unhurt, presented himself to Cæsar, he was greatly pleased.
XLVII. There were many prognostics of the victory, but the most remarkable is that which is reported as having appeared at Tralles.[542] In the temple of Victory there stood a statue of Cæsar, and the ground about it was naturally firm and the surface was also paved with hard stone; from this, they say, there sprung up a palm-tree by the pedestal of the statue. In Patavium, Caius Cornelius, a man who had reputation for his skill in divination, a fellow-citizen and acquaintance of Livius the historian, happened to be sitting that day to watch the birds. And first of all, as Livius says, he discovered the time of the battle, and he said to those who were present that the affair was now deciding and the men were going into action. Looking again and observing the signs, he sprang up with enthusiasm and called out, "You conquer, Cæsar." The bystanders being surprised, he took the chaplet from his head and said with an oath, that he would not put it on again till facts had confirmed his art. Livius affirms that these things were so.
XLVIII. Cæsar after giving the Thessalians their liberty[543] in consideration of his victory, pursued Pompeius. On reaching Asia[544] he made the Cnidians free to please Theopompus,[545] the collector of mythi, and he remitted to all the inhabitants of Asia the third of their taxes. Arriving at Alexandria[546] after the death of Pompeius, he turned away from Theodotus who brought him the head of Pompeius, but he received his seal ring[547] and shed tears over it. All the companions and intimate friends of Pompeius who were rambling about the country and had been taken by the King, he treated well and gained over to himself. He wrote to his friends in Rome, that the chief and the sweetest pleasure that he derived from his victory, was to be able to pardon any of those citizens who had fought against him. As to the war[548] there, some say that it might have been avoided and that it broke out in consequence of his passion for Kleopatra and was discreditable to him and hazardous; but others blame the King's party and chiefly the eunuch Potheinus,who possessed the chief power, and having lately cut off Pompeius and driven out Kleopatra, was now secretly plotting against Cæsar; and on this account they say that Cæsar from that time passed the nights in drinking in order to protect himself. But in his public conduct Pothinus was unbearable, for he both said and did many things to bring odium on Cæsar and to insult him. While measuring out to the soldiers the worst and oldest corn he told them they must be satisfied with it and be thankful, as they were eating what belonged to others; and at the meals he used only wooden and earthen vessels, alleging that Cæsar had got all the gold and silver vessels in payment for a debt.[549] For the father of the then King owed Cæsar one thousand seven hundred and fifty times ten thousand, of which Cæsar had remitted the seven hundred and fifty to the King's sons before, but he now claimed the one thousand to maintain his army with. Upon Pothinus now bidding him take his departure and attend to his important affairs and that he should afterwards receive his money back with thanks, Cæsar said, that least of all people did he want the Egyptians as advisers, and he secretly sent for Kleopatra from the country.
XLIX. Kleopatra,[550] taking Apollodorus the Sicilian alone of all her friends with her, and getting into a small boat, approached the palace as it was growing dark; and as it was impossible for her to escape notice in any other way, she got into a bed sack and laid herself out at full length, and Apollodorus, tying the sack together with a cord, carried her through the doors to Cæsar. Cæsar is said to have been first captivated by this device of Kleopatra, which showed a daring temper, and being completely enslaved by his intercourse with her and her attractions, he brought about an accommodation between Kleopatra and her brother on the terms of her being associated with him in the kingdom. A feast was held to celebrate the reconciliation, during which a slave of Cæsar, his barber, owing to his timidity in which he had no equal, leaving nothing unscrutinized, and listening and making himself very busy, found out that a plot against Cæsar was forming by Achillas the general and Potheinus the eunuch. Cæsar being made acquainted with their design, placed a guard around the apartment, and put Potheinus to death. Achillas escaped to the camp, and raised about Cæsar a dangerous and difficult war for one who with so few troops had to resist so large a city and force. In this contest the first danger that he had to encounter was being excluded from water, for the canals[551] were dammed up by the enemy; and, in the second place, an attempt being made to cut off his fleet, he was compelled to repel the danger with fire, which spreading from the arsenals to the large library[552] destroyed it; and, in the third place, in the battle near the Pharos[553] he leaped down from the mound into a small boat and went to aid the combatants; but as the Egyptians were coming against him from all quarters, he threw himself into the sea and swam away with great difficulty. On this occasion it is said that he had many papers in his hands, and that he did not let them go, though the enemy were throwing missiles at him and he had to dive under the water, but holding the papers above the water with one hand, he swam with the other; but the boat was sunk immediately. At last, when the King had gone over to the enemy, Cæsar attacked and defeated them in a battle in which many fell and the King[554] himself disappeared. Leaving Kleopatra[555] Queen of Egypt, who shortly after gave birth to a child that she had by Cæsar, which the Alexandrines named Cæsarion, he marched to Syria.
L. From Syria continuing his march through Asia he heard that Domitius had been defeated by Pharnakes[556] son of Mithridates, and had fled from Pontus with a few men; and that Pharnakes, who used his victory without any moderation, and was in possession of Bithynia and Cappadocia, also coveted Armenia, called the Little, and was stirring up all the kings and tetrarchs in this part. Accordingly Cæsar forthwith advanced against the man with three legions and fighting a great battle near Zela drove Pharnakes in flight from Pontus, and completely destroyed his army. In reporting to one of his friends at Rome, Amantius,[557] the celerity and rapidity of this battle, he wrote only three words: "I came, I saw, I conquered." In the Roman language the three words ending in the like form of verb, have a brevity which is not without its effect.
LI. After this, passing over to Italy he went up to Rome at the close of the year for which he had been chosen Dictator[558] the second time, though that office had never before been for a whole year; and he was elected consul for the following year. He was much blamed about a mutiny[559] that broke out among the soldiers in which they killed two men of prætorian rank, Cosconius and Galba, because he reproved his men no further than by calling them citizens instead of soldiers, and he gave to each of them a thousand drachmæ, and allotted to them much land in Italy. He also bore the blame of the madness of Dolabella,[560] the covetousness of Amantius, and the drunkenness of Antonius, and the greedy tricks of Corfinius in getting the house of Pompeius, and his building it over again as if it were not fit for him; for the Romans were annoyed at these things. But Cæsar, in the present state of affairs, though he was not ignorant of these things, and did not approve of them, was compelled to employ such men in his service.
LII. As Cato[561] and Scipio, after the battle near Pharsalus, had fled to Libya, and there, with the assistance of King Juba, got together a considerable force, Cæsar determined to go against them; and about the winter solstice passing over to Sicily and wishing to cut off from the officers about him all hopes of delay and tarrying there, he placed his own tent on the margin of the waves,[562] and as soon as there was a wind he went on board and set sail with three thousand foot-soldiers and a few horsemen. Having landed them unobserved he embarked again, for he was under some apprehension about the larger part of his force; and having fallen in with it on the sea, he conducted all to the camp. Now there was with him in the army a man in other respects contemptible enough and of no note, but of the family of the Africani, and his name was Scipio Sallutio;[563] and as Cæsar heard that the enemy relied on a certain old oracular answer, that it was always the privilege of the family of the Scipios to conquer in Libya, either to show his contempt of Scipio as a general by a kind of joke, or because he really wished to have the benefit of the omen himself (it is difficult to say which), he used to place this Sallutio in the front of the battles as if he were the leader of the army; for Cæsar was often compelled to engage with the enemy and to seek a battle, there being neither sufficient supply of corn for the men nor fodder for the animals, but they were compelled to take the sea-weed after washing off the salt and mixing a little grass with it by way of sweetening it, and so to feed their horses. For the Numidians, by continually showing themselves in great numbers and suddenly appearing, kept possession of the country; and on one occasion while the horsemen of Cæsar were amusing themselves with a Libyan, who was exhibiting to them his skill in dancing and playing on a flute at the same time in a surprising manner, and the men, pleased with the sight, were sitting on the ground and the boys holding their horses, the enemy suddenly coming round and falling upon them killed some, and entered the camp together with the rest, who fled in disorderly haste. And if Cæsar himself and Asinius Pollio had not come out of the camp to help the men, and checked the pursuit, the war would have been at an end. In another battle, also, the enemy had the advantage in the encounter, on which occasion it is said that Cæsar, seizing by the neck the man who bore the eagle and was running away, turned him round, and said, "There is the enemy!"