place in
the heights of Cynoscephalae. This was not impossible.
the Enipeus is a narrow slow-flowing rivulet, which Leake found two
feet deep in November, and which in the hot season often lies quite
dry (Leake, i. 448, and iv. 472; comp. Lucan, vi. 373), and
the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further the armies
before the battle lay three miles and a half from each other
(Appian, B. C. ii. 65), so that the Pompeians could make all
preparations and also properly secure the communication with their
camp by bridges. Had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no
doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been
executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly
agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians which was
the most remote from the base of retreat felt this; but the retreat at
least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in
such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions.
Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river,
because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness
for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole
narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of
retreat favourable for these.

31. III. VIII. Battle of Cynoscephalae

32. With this is connected the well-known direction of Caesar to
his soldiers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen.
the infantry--which here in an altogether irregular way acted on
the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with
the sabres--were not to throw their -pila-, but to use them as hand-
spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves
better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp. 69,
71; Caes. 45; Appian, ii. 76, 78; Flor. ii. 12; Oros. vi. 15;
erroneously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to
this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to
run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that
they actually galloped off "holding their hands before their eyes"
(Plutarch), collapses of itself; for it has point only on
the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of
the young nobility of Rome, the "graceful dancers"; and this was
not the case (p. 224). At the most it may be, that the wit of
the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very
irrational but certainly comic turn.

33. V. I. Indefi