ll military reasons on the side
of Pompeius favoured the view, that the decisive battle should not be
long delayed, seeing that they now confronted Caesar in Thessaly;
and the emigrant impatience of the many genteel officers and others
accompanying the army doubtless had more weight than even such reasons
in the council of war. Since the events of Dyrrhachium
these lords regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact;
already there was eager strife as to the filling up of Caesar's
supreme pontificate, and instructions were sent to Rome
to hire houses at the Forum for the next elections. When Pompeius
hesitated on his part to cross the rivulet which separated
the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army
did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation; Pompeius,
it was alleged, only delayed the battle in order to rule somewhat longer
over so many consulars and praetorians and to perpetuate his part
of Agamemnon. Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who under the impression
that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected
a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point
of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle,
when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank.

The Battle

Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on the 9th August 706,
almost on the same field where a hundred and fifty years before
the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the east.(31)
Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite
to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front
of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain,
covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops.
The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive,
but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which,
mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him,
and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry
courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy,
and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed
the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance,
and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning
the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry,
had stationed behind it on the threatened flank of his right wing
some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen,
d