een retiring since midnight, they discerned
with the sure instinct of experienced veterans the strategic importance
of this retreat, which would compel them to follow their antagonists
into distant and impracticable regions filled by hostile troops;
at their own request the general ventured to lead the infantry
also into the river, and although the water reached up
to the shoulders of the men, it was crossed without accident.
It was high time. If the narrow plain, which separated the town
of Ilerda from the mountains enclosing the Ebro were once traversed
and the army of the Pompeians entered the mountains, their retreat
to the Ebro could no longer be prevented. Already they had,
notwithstanding the constant attacks of the enemy's cavalry
which greatly delayed their march, approached within five miles
of the mountains, when they, having been on the march since midnight
and unspeakably exhausted, abandoned their original plan of traversing
the whole plain on the same day, and pitched their camp.
Here the infantry of Caesar overtook them and encamped opposite to them
in the evening and during the night, as the nocturnal march
which the Pompeians had at first contemplated was abandoned from fear
of the night-attacks of the cavalry. On the following day also
both armies remained immoveable, occupied only
in reconnoitering the country.

The Route to the Ebro Closed

Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry set out,
that by a movement through the pathless mountains alongside of the road
they might turn the position of the enemy and bar their route
to the Ebro. The object of the strange march, which seemed at first
to turn back towards the camp before Ilerda, was not at once
perceived by the Pompeian officers. When they discerned it,
they sacrificed camp and baggage and advanced by a forced march
along the highway, to gain the crest of the ridge before the Caesarians.
But it was already too late; when they came up, the compact masses
of the enemy were already posted on the highway itself.
a desperate attempt of the Pompeians to discover other routes
to the Ebro over the steep mountains was frustrated by Caesar's cavalry,
which surrounded and cut to pieces the Lusitanian troops sent forth
for that purpose. Had a battle taken place between the Pompeian army--
which had the enemy's cavalry in its rear and their infantry in front,
and was utterly demoralized--and the Caesarians, the issue
was scarcely do