Caesar

Then he came to his senses, as it were, and with this one ejaculation, as they say, What, even to my quarters? took off his fighting and general’s dress, put on one suitable for a fugitive, and stole away. What his subsequent fortunes were, and how he delivered himself into the hands of the Egyptians and was murdered, I shall tell in his Life.[*](Chapters lxxvii.-lxxx.)

But Caesar, when he reached Pompey’s ramparts and saw those of the enemy who were already lying dead there and those who were still falling, said with a groan: They would have it so; they brought me to such a pass that if I, Caius Caesar, after waging successfully the greatest wars, had dismissed my forces, I should have been condemned in their courts.[*](Hoc voluerunt; tantis rebus gestis Gaius Caesar condemnatus essem, nisi ab exercitu auxilium petissem (Suetonius, Div. Jul. 30).)

Asinius Pollio says that these words, which Caesar afterwards wrote down in Greek, were uttered by him in Latin at the time; he also says that most of the slain were servants who were killed at the taking of the camp, and that not more than six thousand soldiers fell. Most of those who were taken alive Caesar incorporated in his legions, and to many men of prominence he granted immunity. One of these was Brutus, who afterwards slew him. Caesar was distressed, we are told, when Brutus was not to be found, but when he was brought into his presence safe and sound, was pleased beyond measure.

There were many portents of the victory, but the most remarkable one on record is that which was seen at Tralles. In that city’s temple of Victory there stood a statue of Caesar, and the ground around it was itself naturally firm, and was paved with hard stone; yet from this it is said that a palm-tree shot up at the base of the statue.[*](Cf. Caesar B. C. iii. 105 ad fin.) Moreover, at Patavium, Caius Cornelius, a man in repute as a seer, a fellow citizen and acquaintance of Livy the historian, chanced that day to be sitting in the place of augury.

And to begin with, according to Livy, he discerned the time of the battle, and said to those present that even then the event was in progress and the men were going into action. And when he looked again and observed the signs, he sprang up in a rapture crying: Thou art victorious, O Caesar! The bystanders being amazed, he took the chaplet from his head and declared with an oath that he would not put it on again until the event had borne witness to his art. At any rate, Livy insists that this was so.[*](In Book cxi, which is lost.)