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Why was the battle of Pharsalus more to the world than fifty other stricken fields where armies of strength equal to those engaged there joined in conflict?  Why can these other battles be passed over as dates and names to the historian, while he assigns to this a position beside Marathon and Arbela and Tours and the Defeat of the Armada and Waterloo and Gettysburg?  What was at stake—­that Caesar or Pompeius and his satellites should rule the world?  Infinitely more—­the struggle was for the very existence of civilization, to determine whether or not the fabric of ordered society was to be flung back into chaos.  The Roman Republic had conquered the civilized world; it had thrown down kings; it had destroyed the political existence of nations.  What but feebleness, corruption, decay, anarchy, disintegration, disruption, recurring barbarism, had the oligarchs, for whom Pompeius was fighting his battle, to put in the place of what the Republic had destroyed?  Could a Senate where almost every man had his price, where almost every member looked on the provinces as a mere feeding ground for personal enrichment—­could such a body govern the world?  Were not German and Gaul ready to pluck this unsound organism called the Republic limb from limb, and where was the reviving, regenerating force that was to hold them back with an iron hand until a force greater than that of the sword was ready to carry its evangel unto all nations, Jew, Greek, Roman, barbarian,—­bond and free?  These were the questions asked and answered on that ninth day of August, forty-nine years, before the birth of a mightier than Pompeius Magnus or Julius Caesar.  And because men fought and agonized and died on those plains by Pharsalus, the edict could go from Rome that all the world should be taxed, and a naturalized Roman citizen could scorn the howls of the provincial mobs, could mock at Sanhedrins seeking his blood, and cry:  "Civis Romanus sum.  Caesarem appello!"

How long did the battle last?  Drusus did not know.  No one knew.  He flew at the heels of his general’s charger, for where Caesar went there the fight was thickest.  He saw the Pompeian heavy infantry standing stolidly in their ranks to receive the charge—­a fatal blunder, that lost them all the enthusiasm aggression engenders.  The Caesarian veterans would halt before closing in battle, draw breath, and dash over the remaining interval with redoubled vigour.  The Pompeians received them manfully, sending back javelin for javelin; then the short swords flashed from their scabbards, and man pressed against man—­staring into one another’s face—­seeking one another’s blood; striking, striking with one thought, hope, instinct—­to stride across his enemy’s dead body.