Neither sound of paean nor groan was to be heard from any one of them:  both sides limited their shouts to “Strike!  Kill!”, while their acts easily outran their speech.  Caesar and Pompey, who saw this from horseback on certain elevated positions, felt little inclination to either hope or despair, but torn with doubts were equally distressed by confidence and fear.  The battle was so nearly balanced that they suffered tortures at the sight, straining to spy out some advantage, and quivering lest they descry some setback.  Their souls were filled with prayers for success and against misfortune, and with alternating strength and fear.  In fact, not being able to endure it long, they leaped from their horses and joined the combat.  Apparently they preferred a participation involving personal exertion and danger rather than tension of spirit, and each hoped by associating in the fight to turn the scale somehow in favor of his own soldiers.  Or, if they failed of that, they were content to meet death, side by side with them.

[-38-] The generals, then, took part in the battle themselves.  This movement, however, resulted in no advantage to either army.  On the contrary,—­when the men saw their chiefs sharing their danger, a far greater disregard for their own death and eagerness for the destruction of their opponents seized both alike.  Accordingly neither side for the moment turned to flight:  matched in determination, they found their persons matched in power.  All would have perished, or else at nightfall they would have parted with honors even, had not Bogud, who was somewhere outside the press, made an advance upon Pompey’s camp, whereupon Labienus, seeing it, left his station to proceed against him.  Pompey’s men, interpreting this as flight, lost heart.  Later they doubtless learned the truth but could no longer retrieve their position.  Some escaped to the city, some to the fortification.  The latter body vigorously fought off attacks and fell only when surrounded, while the former for a long time kept the wall safe, so that it was not captured till all of them had perished in sallies.  So great was the total loss of Romans on both sides that the victors, at a loss how to wall in the city to prevent any running away in the night, actually heaped up the bodies of the dead around it.

[-39-] Caesar, having thus conquered, took Corduba at once.  Sextus had retired from his path, and the natives, although their slaves, who had purposely been made free, offered resistance, came over to his side.  He slew those under arms and obtained money by the sale of the rest.  The same course he adopted with those that held Hispalis, who at first, pretending to be willing, had accepted a garrison from him, but later massacred the soldiers that had come there, and entered upon a course of warfare.  In his expedition against them his rather careless conduct of the siege caused them some hope of being able to escape.  So then he allowed them to come outside