Pompey

But Pompey, who was surveying on horseback the battle array, when he saw that his antagonists were standing quietly in their ranks and awaiting the moment of attack, while the greater part of his own army was not at rest, but tossing about in waves of tumult, owing to its inexperience, was afraid that his array would be completely broken up at the beginning of the battle, and therefore ordered his front ranks to stand with their spears advanced, to remain fixed in their places, and so to receive the enemy’s onset.

Now, Caesar finds fault with these tactics[*](Bell. Civ. iii. 92. Appian (Bell. Civ. ii. 79) says Caesar does this in his letters.); he says that Pompey thereby robbed the blows of his weapons of that impetus which a rapid charge would have given them; and as for that rushing counter-charge, which more than any thing else fills most soldiers with impetuous enthusiasm as they close with their enemies, and combines with their shouts and running to increase their courage Pompey deprived his men of this, and so rooted them to the spot where they stood, and chilled their spirits. And yet Caesar’s forces numbered twenty-two thousand, while those of Pompey were a little more than twice as many.

And now at last the signal was given on both sides and the trumpet began to call to the conflict, and of that great host every man sought to do his part; but a few Romans, the noblest, and some Greeks, men who were present without taking part in the battle, now that the dreadful crisis was near, began to reflect upon the pass to which contentiousness and greed had brought the sovereign Roman state.

For with kindred arms, fraternal ranks, and common standards, the strong manhood and might of a single city in such numbers was turning its own hand against itself, showing how blind and frenzied a thing human nature is when passion reigns. For had they now been willing quietly to govern and enjoy what they had conquered, the greatest and best part of earth and sea was subject to them, and if they still desired to gratify their thirst for trophies and triumphs, they might have had their fill of wars with Parthians or Germans.

Besides, a great task still remained in the subjugation of Scythia and India, and here their greed would have had no inglorious excuse in the civilization of barbarous peoples. And what Scythian horse or Parthian archery or Indian wealth could have checked seventy thousand Romans coming up in arms under the leadership of Pompey and Caesar, whose names those nations had heard of long before that of Rome, so remote and various and savage were the peoples which they had attacked and conquered.

But now they were about to join battle with one another, nor were they moved even by a compassion for their own glory to spare their country, men who up to that day had been called invincible! For the family alliance which had been made between them, and the charms of Julia, and her marriage, were now seen to have been from the first suspicious and deceptive pledges of a partnership based on self-interest; there was no real friendship in it.