and pacified
peoples and kings. Aside from Pharnaces and Orodes,--the latter, indeed,
although an enemy because of his having killed the Crassi, he tried to
win over,--all the rest who had ever had even the smallest dealings with
Pompey gave him money and either sent or led auxiliaries. The Parthian
king promised to be his ally if he should take Syria: but as he did not
get it, the prince did not help him. While Pompey decidedly excelled in
numbers, Caesar's followers were equal to them in strength, and so, the
advantage being even, they just balanced each other and were equally
prepared for danger.

[-56-] In these circumstances and by the very cause and purpose of the
war a most notable struggle took place. The city of Rome and the entire
dominion over it, even then great and mighty, lay before them as a
prize: it was clear to all that it would become the slave of him who
conquered. When they reflected on this fact and furthermore recalled
their former deeds,--Pompey, Africa and Sertorius and Mithridates and
Tigranes and the sea: Caesar, Gaul and Spain and the Rhine and
Britain,--they were excited to frenzy, thinking that they were facing
danger for those conquests too, and each was eager to acquire the
other's glory. For the renown of the vanquished no less than his other
possessions becomes the property of the victors. The greater and more
powerful the antagonist that a man overthrows, to the greater heights is
he raised. [-57-] Therefore they delivered to the soldiers also many
exhortations, but very much alike on both sides, saying all that is
fitting to be mentioned on such occasions with reference both to the
immediate nature of the danger and to its future results. As they both
came from the same state and were talking to the same subjects and
calling each other tyrants and themselves liberators from tyranny, they
had nothing of different kinds to say, but stated that it would be the
lot of the one party to die, of the other to be preserved, of the one
party to be captives, of the other to enjoy the master's lot, to possess
everything or to be deprived of everything, to suffer or to inflict a
most terrible fate. After giving some such exhortations to the citizens
and furthermore leading the subject and allied contingents into hopes
for the better and fears for the worse, they hurled at each other
kinsmen, sharers of the same tent, those who had eaten together, those
who had drunk together. Why should any one t