and the men, pleased with the sight, were sitting on the ground and the boys holding their horses, the enemy suddenly coming round and falling upon them killed some, and entered the camp together with the rest, who fled in disorderly haste.  And if Caesar himself and Asinius Pollio had not come out of the camp to help the men, and checked the pursuit, the war would have been at an end.  In another battle, also, the enemy had the advantage in the encounter, on which occasion it is said that Caesar, seizing by the neck the man who bore the eagle and was running away, turned him round, and said, “There is the enemy!”

LIII.  However Scipio[564] was encouraged by these advantages to hazard a decisive battle; and leaving Afranius and Juba[565] encamped each separately at a short distance, he commenced making a fortified camp above a lake near the city Thapsus, intending it as a place for the whole army to sally forth from to battle and a place of refuge also.  While he was thus employed, Caesar with incredible speed making his way through woody grounds which contained certain approaches that had not been observed, surrounded part of the enemy and attacked others in front.  Having put these to flight he availed himself of the critical moment and the career of fortune, by means of which he captured the camp of Afranius on the first assault, and at the first assault also he broke into the camp of the Numidians from which Juba fled; and in a small part of a single day he made himself master of three camps and destroyed fifty thousand of the enemy without losing as many as fifty of his own men.  This is the account that some writers give of that battle; but others say that Caesar was not in the action himself, but that as he was marshalling and arranging his forces, he was attacked by his usual complaint, and that perceiving it as soon as it came on, and before his senses were completely confounded and overpowered by the malady, just as he was beginning to be convulsed, he was carried to one of the neighbouring towers and stayed there quietly.  Of the men of consular and praetorian rank who escaped from the battle, some killed themselves when they were being taken, and Caesar put many to death who were captured.

LIV.  Being ambitious to take Cato[566] alive, Caesar hastened to Utica, for Cato was guarding that city and was not in the battle.  Hearing that Cato had put an end to himself, Caesar was evidently annoyed, but for what reason is uncertain.  However, he said, “Cato, I grudge you your death, for you also have grudged me the preservation of your life.”  But the work which be wrote against Cato after his death cannot be considered an indication that he was mercifully disposed towards him or in a mood to be easily reconciled.  For how can we suppose that he would have spared Cato living, when he poured out against him after he was dead so much indignation?  However, some persons infer from his mild treatment of Cicero and Brutus and ten thousand