The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch / Being Parts of the "Lives" of Plutarch, Edited for Boys and Girls

by Plutarch

After this last engagement, Caesar was in such want of provisions, that he was forced to decamp, and he took his way through Athamania into Thessaly. This added so much to the high opinion Pompey's soldiers had of themselves, that it was impossible to keep them within bounds. They cried out with one voice, "Caesar is fled." Some called upon the general to pursue; some to pass over into Italy. Others sent their friends and servants to Rome, to engage homes near the forum, for the convenience of soliciting the great offices of state. And not a few went of their own accord to Cornelia, who had been privately lodged in Lesbos, to congratulate her upon the conclusion of the war.

While he thus softly followed the enemy's steps, a complaint was raised against him, and urged with much clamor, that he was not exercising his generalship upon Caesar, but upon the Senate and the whole commonwealth, in order that he might forever keep the command in his hands, and have those for his guards and servants who had a right to govern the world. Domitius Aenobarbus, to increase the odium, always called him Agamemnon, or king of kings. Favonius piqued him no less with a jest, than others by their unseasonable severity; he went about crying, "My friends, we shall eat no figs in Tusculum this year."

These and many other like sallies of ridicule had such an effect upon Pompey, who was ambitious of being spoken well of by the world, and had too much deference for the opinions of his friends, that he gave up his own better judgment, to follow them in the career of their false hopes and prospects. A thing which would have been unpardonable in the pilot or master of a ship, much more in the commander-in-chief of so many nations and such numerous armies. He had often commended the physician who gives no indulgence to the whimsical longings of his patients, and yet he humored the sickly cravings of his army, and was afraid to give them pain, though necessary for the preservation of their life and being. For who can say that army was in a sound and healthy state, when some of the officers went about the camp canvassing for the offices of consul and praetor; and others, namely, Spinther, Domitius, and Scipio, were engaged in quarrels and cabals about Caesar's high-priesthood, as if their adversary had been only a Tigranes, a king of Armenia, or a prince of the Nabathaeans; and not that Caesar and that army who had stormed one thousand cities, subdued above three hundred nations, gained numberless battles of the Germans and Gauls, taken one million prisoners, and killed as many fairly in the field. Notwithstanding all this, they continued loud and tumultuous in their demands of a battle; and when they came to the plains of Pharsalia, forced Pompey to call a council of war. Lebienus, who had the command of the cavalry, rose up first, and took an oath, that he would not return from the battle, till he had put the enemy to flight. All the other officers swore the same.

The night following, Pompey had this dream. He thought he entered his own theatre, and was received with loud plaudits; after which, he adorned the temple of Venus the Victorious with many spoils. This vision, on one side, encouraged him, and on the other alarmed him. He was afraid that Caesar, who was a descendant of Venus, would be aggrandized at his expense. Besides, a panic (A Panic was so called, from the terror which the god Pan is said to have struck the enemies of Greece with, at the battle of Marathon.) fear ran through the camp, the noise of which awakened him. And about the morning watch, over Caesar's camp, where everything was perfectly quiet, there suddenly appeared a great light, from which a stream of fire issued in the form of a torch, and fell upon that of Pompey. Caesar himself says he saw it as he was going his rounds.

Caesar was preparing, at break of day, to march to Scotusa; his soldiers were striking their tents, and the servants and beasts of burden were already in motion, when his scouts brought intelligence that they had seen arms handed about in the enemy's camp, and perceived a noise and bustle, which indicated an approaching battle. After these, others came and assured him that the first ranks were drawn up.

Upon this Caesar said: "The long-wished day is come, on which we shall fight with men, and not with want and famine." Then he immediately ordered the red mantle to be put up before his pavilion, which, among the Romans, is the signal of a battle. The soldiers no sooner beheld it, than they left their tents as they were, and ran to arms with loud shouts, and every expression of joy. And when the officers began to put them in order of battle, each man fell into his proper rank as quietly, and with as much skill and ease, as a chorus in a tragedy.

Pompey placed himself in his right wing over against Antony, and his father-in-law, Scipio, in the centre, opposite Domitius Calvinus. His left wing was commanded by Lucius Domitius, and supported by the cavalry; for they were almost all ranged on that side, in order to break in upon Caesar, and cut off the tenth legion, which was accounted the bravest in his army, and in which he used to fight in person. Caesar, seeing the enemy's left wing so well guarded with horse, and fearing the excellence of their armor, sent for a detachment of six cohorts from the body of the reserve, and placed them behind the tenth legion, with orders not to stir before the attack, lest they should be discovered by the enemy; but when the enemy's cavalry had charged, to make up through the foremost ranks, and then not to discharge their javelins at a distance, as brave men generally do in their eagerness to come to sword in hand, but to reserve them till they came to close fighting, and to push them forward into the eyes and faces of the enemy. "For those fair young dancers," said he, "will never stand the steel aimed at their eyes, but will fly to save their handsome faces."

While Caesar was thus employed, Pompey took a view on horseback of the order of both armies; and finding that they enemy kept their ranks with the utmost exactness, and quietly waited for the signal of battle, while his own men, for want of experience, were fluctuating and unsteady, he was afraid they would be broken up on the first onset. He therefore commanded the vanguard to stand firm in their ranks, and in that close order to receive the enemy's charge. Caesar condemned this measure, as not only tending to lessen the vigor of the blows, which is always greatest in the assailants, but also to damp the fire and spirit of the men; whereas those who advance with impetuosity, and animate each other with shouts, are filled with an enthusiastic valor and superior ardor.

Caesar's army consisted of twenty-two thousand men, and Pompey's was something more than twice that number. When the signal was given on both sides, and the trumpets sounded a charge, each common man attended only to his own concern. But some of the principal Romans and Greeks, who only stood and looked on, when the dreadful moment of action approached, could not help considering to what the avarice and ambition of two men had brought the Roman Empire. The same arms on both sides, the troops marshalled in the same manner, the same standards; in short, the strength and flower of one and the same city turned upon itself! What could be a stronger proof of the blindness and infatuation of human nature, when carried away by its passions? Had they been willing to enjoy the fruits of their labors in peace and tranquillity, the greatest and best part of the world was their own. Or, if they must have indulged their thirst of victories and triumphs, the Parthians and Germans were yet to be subdued. Scythia and India yet remained; together with a very plausible color for their lust of new acquisitions, the pretence of civilizing barbarians. And what Scythian horse, what Parthian arrows, what Indian treasures, could have resisted seventy thousand Romans, led on by Pompey and Caesar, with whose names those nations had long been acquainted! Into such a variety of wild and savage countries had these two generals carried their victorious arms! Whereas now they stood threatening each other with destruction; not sparing even their own glory, though to it they sacrificed their country, but prepared, one of them, to lose the reputation of being invincible, which hitherto they had both maintained. So that the alliance which they had contracted by Pompey's marriage to Julia, was from the first only an artful expedient; and her charms were to form a self-interested compact, instead of being the pledge of a sincere friendship.

The plain of Pharsalia was now covered with men, and horses and arms; and the signal of battle being given on both sides, the first on Caesar's side who advanced to the charge was Caius Crastinus, who commanded a corps of one hundred and twenty men, and was determined to make good his promise to his general. He was the first man Caesar saw when he went out of the trenches in the morning; and upon Caesar's asking him what he thought of the battle, he stretched out his hand, and answered in a cheerful tone, "You will gain a glorious victory, and I shall have your praise this day, either alive or dead." In pursuance of this promise, he advanced the foremost, and many following to support him, he charged into the midst of the enemy. They soon took to their swords, and numbers were slain; but as Crastinus was making his way forward, and cutting down all before him, one of Pompey's men stood to receive him, and pushed his sword in at his mouth with such force, that it went through the nape of his neck. Crastinus thus killed, the fight was maintained with equal advantage on both sides.