Caesar

For there was neither sufficient food for his men nor fodder for his beasts of burden, nay, they were forced to feed their horses on sea-weed, which they washed free of its salt and mixed with a little grass to sweeten it. For the Numidians showed themselves everywhere in great numbers and speedy, and controlled the country. Indeed, while Caesar’s horsemen were once off duty

(a Libyan was showing them how he could dance and play the flute at the same time in an astonishing manner, and they had committed their horses to the slaves and were sitting delighted on the ground), the enemy suddenly surrounded and attacked them, killed some of them, and followed hard upon the heels of the rest as they were driven headlong into camp.

And if Caesar himself and with him Asinius Pollio, had not come from the ramparts to their aid and checked their flight, the war would have been at an end. On one occasion, too, in another battle, the enemy got the advantage in the encounter, and here it is said that Caesar seized by the neck the fugitive standard-bearer, faced him about, and said: Yonder is the enemy.