While Caesar was deciding those matters in Rome, Pompey's armies and warlike multitudes were mustered and gathered unto him from every country and city and province in the world which had come under his law and discipline and his orders and his royal rule. A multitude, then, came in that gathering to the high-king, even Pompey.
The nations of Greece, which was near him, came at once.
Came there the inhabitants of Phocis and Amphissa.
Came there the inhabitants of Cirrha and Nysa, two cities of Mount Parnassus.
Came there the kindreds of the land of Boeotia.
Came there the dwellers by the river Cephisus and the river Dirce.
Came there the inhabitants of the isle of Pisae.
Came there the kindreds that dwell about the river Alpheus.
Came there the nations of the Arcadians and the Trachynians.
Came there the nations of the Thesproti and the Dryopes.
Came there the inhabitants of the town of Sellae.
Came there the choice soldiers of Athens.
Came there crews of ships from the city of Salamis in the district of Egypt.
Came there the hundredfold kindreds of the isle of Crete.
Came there the inhabitants of the island Gortyna.
There came the inhabitants of the city Oricon.
There came the kindreds of the Athamanes and the Enchelians.
There came the kindreds of the island of Colchis.
There came the inhabitants of the river Absyrtis and the river Peneus.
There came the Thessalians and the Haemonians.
There came the kindreds of Pholoe and Cone.
There came the inhabitants of the river Strymon and the river Peuce.
There came the kindreds of Idalia and Arisbe.
There came the kindreds of Mount Pitane and the river Marsyas.
There came the kindreds of the river Pactolus and the river Hermus, and all golden is the sand that is got in that river.
There came the nations of Phrygia and of the land of Troy.
There came the nations of Syria and the river Orontes.
There came the inhabitants of the city of Ninus (Niniveh) and of the city Damascus.
There came the inhabitants of the island of Gaza and the island of Edom.
There came the Tyrians and the inhabitants of the city of Sidon.
There came the inhabitants of Phoenicia; 'tis by them that letters were first invented.
There came the inhabitants of the city of Tarsus and the mountain-range of Taurus.
There came the kindreds of Antioch and of the city of Aegae.
There came the Sicilians.
There came the eastern nations of the whole world.
There came the inhabitants of India and the river Ganges.
There came the peoples of the Brahmans. 'Tis they that go voluntarily into the fires, to be burnt alive when old age comes to them.
There came the inhabitants of Cappadocia and Armenia.
There came the sylvan races of the Coatrae.
There came the peoples of the land of Arabia. They marvel much that the shadows of the trees fall northward from the sun, since with them it casts (the shadows) southward.
There came the Oretae and the Caramanians. So far are they to the south that they never see more than a small part of the Great Bear.
There came the Ethiopians, and the inhabitants of the land out of which from one spring flow the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
The Parthians came not to that gathering, for they deigned not to help the Romans, since they had killed one of the three best captains in Rome, namely, Marcus Crassus.
There came the peoples of Scythia and the Lacedaemonians.
There came the nations of the Hyrcanians and the Heniochi and the Sarmatians.
There came the inhabitants of the Rhipaean mountain-range, and the inhabitants of the river Tanais on the boundary of Europe and Asia.
There came the inhabitants of the island of Colchis and the inhabitants of the river Halys.
There came the nations who dwell at the Maeotic marshes.
There came the nations who dwell near the pillars of Alexander the Great on the eastern edge of the world.
There came the nations of the Arii and the Massagetae.
There came the nations of the Geloni from the northern frigid zone.
There came all the nations of the Africans, from the peoples of the Moors in the west to the borders of Egypt in the east.
Howbeit, though many hosts were gathered by Cyrus son of Darius, the king of the Persians, to conquer the world, or by Xerxes the king of the Assyrians, or by Agamemnon the Great, son of Atreus, the king of the Greeks, when he went to sack Troy, or by any other king by whom a mighty host was gathered, never had there been collected that number of the nations of the world by any other king. And never was there found with an old man or an historian, or on a column of clay, or in a book of annals, that number of nations and kings controlled by one king awaiting one battle.
And never in one camp had there been the medley of distinctions that was in that camp of Pompey, with difference of speech and voice and deed, difference of usages and customs and languages, difference of knowledge and nature and intellect, difference of form and gait and battle-cry, difference of arms and dress and habit, difference of fatherland and country and race.
Great was the fortune of Pompey in getting that innumerable host to go with him to battle. And not less was
So far the mustering of Pompey's army.