he fought a battle. But Caesar, observing that the
enemy's left wing was strengthened by so large a body of cavalry, and
fearing their brilliant equipment, summoned six cohorts from the
reserve, and placed them in the rear of the tenth legion, with orders
to keep quiet and not let the enemy see them; but as soon as the
cavalry advanced, they had orders to run forwards through the first
ranks, and not to throw their javelins, as the bravest soldiers are
used to do in their eagerness to get to fighting with the sword, but
to push upwards and to wound the eyes and faces of the enemy, for
those handsome, blooming pyrrichists would not keep their ground for
fear of their beauty being spoiled, nor would they venture to look at
the iron that was pushed right into their faces. Now Caesar was thus
employed. But Pompeius, who was examining the order of battle from his
horse, observing that the enemy were quietly awaiting in their ranks
the moment of attack, and the greater part of his own army was not
still, but was in wavelike motion through want of experience and in
confusion, was alarmed lest his troops should be completely separated
at the beginning of the battle, and he commanded the front ranks to
stand with their spears presented, and keeping their ground in compact
order to receive the enemy's attack. But Caesar finds fault[372] with
this generalship of Pompeius; for he says that he thus weakened the
force of the blows which a rapid assault produces; and the rush to
meet the advancing ranks, which more than anything else fills the mass
of the soldiers with enthusiasm and impetuosity in closing with the
enemy, and combined with the shouts and running increases the
courage--Pompeius, by depriving his men of this, fixed them to the
ground and damped them. On Caesar's side the numbers were twenty-two
thousand; on the side of Pompeius the numbers[373] were somewhat more
than double.

LXX.[374] And now, when the signal was given on both sides, and the
trumpet was beginning to urge them on to the conflict, every man of
this great mass was busy in looking after himself; but a few of the
Romans, the best, and some Greeks who were present, and not engaged in
the battle, as the conflict drew near, began to reflect to what a
condition ambition and rivalry had brought the Roman State. For
kindred arms and brotherly battalions and common standards,[375] and
the manhood and the might of a single state in such numbers, were
closing in b