“Pompeius is leading out his men!” soldier was shouting to soldier.  Legion after legion filed forth from the camp.  Caesar, sitting with easy grace on his own favourite charger which he himself had bred, gave in calm, deliberate voice the last orders to his legates.  Drusus drew rein at the general’s side, ready to go anywhere or do anything that was needed, his position being one of general aide-de-camp.

Caesar was facing east; Pompeius, west.  Five miles of mainly level country had extended between the camps, but Pompeius had pitched on a hill site, with a river and hills to flank him.  There he might safely have defied attack.  But he had come down from the eminence.  He had led his army out into the plain, and the camp was a full mile behind.  The long ranks of the Pompeians were splendid with all the bravery of war.  On the right wing by the river lay his Cilician and Spanish cohorts, led by Lentulus Crus,—­the flower of the Pompeian infantry.  Scipio held the centre with two Syrian legions.  On the left, Domitius was in command and Pompeius accompanied him.  Seven cohorts were behind in the fortified camp.  A great mass of auxiliaries and volunteers, as well as two thousand reenlisted veterans, gave strength to the lines of fully recruited cohorts.  Out on the left wing, reaching up on to the foothills, lay the pride of the oligarchs, seven thousand splendid cavalry, the pick and flower of the exiled youth and nobility of Rome, reenforced by the best squadrons of the East.  Here Labienus led.  The Pompeian ranks were in three lines, drawn up ten deep.  Forty-five thousand heavy infantry were they; and the horse and light troops were half as many—­Spaniards, Africans, Italian exiles, Greeks, Asiatics—­the glory of every warlike, classic race.

Slowly, slowly, the Caesarian legionaries advanced over the plain.  Drusus knew that one of the most crucial hours of his life was before him, yet he was very calm.  He saw some wild roses growing on a bush by the way, and thought how pretty they would look in a wreath on Cornelia’s hair.  He exchanged jokes with his fellow-officers; scolded a soldier who had come away without his sword in his sheath; asked Antonius, when he came across him, if he did not envy Achilles for his country-seat.  It was as if he were going on the same tedious march of days and days gone by.  Yet, with it all he felt himself far more intensely excited than ever before.  He knew that his calm was so unnatural that he wished to cry aloud, to run, weep, to do anything to break it.  This was to be the end of the great drama that had begun the day Lentulus and Marcellus first sat down as consuls!