to Caesar, being sent
by their state as auxiliaries), and, when they saw our camp filled
with a large number of the enemy, the legions hard prest and almost
held surrounded, the camp-retainers, horsemen, slingers, and Numidians
fleeing on all sides divided and scattered, they, despairing of our
affairs, hastened home, and related to their state that the Romans
were routed and conquered, [and] that the enemy were in possession of
their camp and baggage-train.

Caesar proceeded, after encouraging the tenth legion, to the right
wing, where he perceived that his men were hard prest, and that in
consequence of the standards of the twelfth legion being collected
together in one place, the crowded soldiers were a hindrance to
themselves in the fight; that all the centurions of the fourth cohort
were slain, and the standard-bearer killed, the standard itself lost,
almost all the centurions of the other cohorts either wounded or
slain, and among them the chief centurion of the legion, P. Sextius
Baculus, a very valiant man, who was so exhausted by many and severe
wounds that he was already unable to support himself; he likewise
perceived that the rest were slackening their efforts, and that some,
deserted by those in the rear, were retiring from the battle and
avoiding the weapons; that the enemy [on the other hand], tho
advancing from the lower ground, were not relaxing in front, and were
[at the same time] pressing hard on both flanks; he perceived also
that the affair was at a crisis; and that there was not any reserve
which could be brought up; having therefore snatched a shield from one
of the soldiers in the rear (for he himself had come without a
shield), he advanced to the front of the line, and addressing the
centurions by name, and encouraging the rest of the soldiers, he
ordered them to carry forward the standards, and extend the companies,
that they might the more easily use their swords. On his arrival, as
hope was brought to the soldiers and their courage restored, while
every one for his own part, in the sight of his general, desired to
exert his utmost energy, the impetuosity of the enemy was a little
checked.

Caesar, when he perceived that the seventh legion, which stood close by
him, was also hard prest by the enemy, directed the tribunes of the
soldiers to effect a junction of the legions gradually, and make their
charge upon the enemy with a double front, which having been done
since they brought assistan