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, driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line, they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion by the unexpected and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed from the field of battle.  The victorious legionaries cut to pieces the enemy’s archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it.  At the same time Caesar’s third division hitherto reserved advanced along the whole line to the attack.  The unexpected defeat of the best arm of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents, broke that of the army and above all that of the general.  When Pompeius, who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar.  His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss.

Its Issue
Flight of Pompeius

The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat of Dyrrhachium.  But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny had learned that fortune loves to withdraw herself at certain moments even from her favourites in order to be once more won back through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her when she withdrew from him; and, while in Caesar’s grander nature despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss of despondency.