After hearing that cruel prophecy of battle-rout which the evil, aged, hellish Erictho spoke, not happily nor pleasantly was that night before the battle spent in the camps of the men of the world. All the cave-doors of hell that existed in the land of Thessaly were opened on that night. Their secret screens and their magical concealments were on that same night taken from all the demonic places of the land. The wolves and flying things, and wild, watchful beasts, and the demonic rabble of the whole country came that night into the deserts of Thessaly and awaited the great battle on the morrow.
The shields and spears of the whole globe fell from their racks on the same night. Multitudinous thunderbolts and fireballs were seen falling from the walls of the heavenly firmament, so that they were encompassing the earth all round the two great camps. On that night the three tidal outbursts of the world poured throughout the globe, to wit, the Caspian Sea, and the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea, till their billows struck all that was nearest of the rocky seashores and the peaks of the cliffs and of the lofty mountains of the earth, so that throughout the neighbouring districts was heard the roar of the great sea and the storm of the ocean, and the rough clamour of the monsters and the porpoises and the seals and the rinnaig, tollchinn, coirrchinn, the whales and the leviathans, and the many other unknown beasts of the ocean.
On the same night the four chief winds of the world howled throughout the globe, to wit, Zephyrus from the west, Boreas from the north, Eurus from the east and Auster from the south, so that smiting and beating came from them on the midst of the land of Thessaly, and thence grew fireflaughts and thunder and an exceeding great tempest in the air, so that trembling and earthquake increased in the sods and bedrocks of the earth, and the whole demonic assembly that dwelt in Thessaly moved out of the caverns of the earth, out of the deserts of its forests, out of the clefts of its rocks, out of the forks of its hills, out of the sloping valleys of its heights, out of the passes of its mountains, so that they cried together at the same time round the two great camps of those two high-kings, Pompey and Caesar, and to hear them was enough of horror and loathing and heartbreak.
At the croakings and cluckings of the frogs and the toads; at the howls and barking of the wolves, and the hounds and the packs and the ‘sons of earth’; at the groaning and
Now when the swift, chilly winds and the grey, restless, hovering clouds of the morning arose, the spectres ceased from their destructions, they abated their storm and checked their clamour, through fear and dread of being overtaken by the morning-light. Then at that great silence the armies slept, and his drowsiness of sleep fell on the generalissimo, on Pompey.
In that sleep a vision and a wonder and a dream appeared to him, namely, it seemed to him that he himself, with the nobles of Rome around him, was on his throne in the assembly of the triumphs in the midst of Rome. The host of the land of all the land of Latium and all the folk of Rome, both young and old, were in that assembly around him. With great clamorous shouts and with crying, and with vast tumult, all were celebrating his triumph, and exalting his fame and his renown above the royal lords of the earth and above the distinguished nobles of the world, just like the most jubilant of those that were about him in the great assembly made for him in the days of his triumph in Rome after he had vanquished the pirates and the Mithridatics of the king of Pontus and the people of triangular Spain in the west.
Certainly there was then a troubled anxious spirit in the high-king from searching for the blessings he found at another time and from Fortune displaying Rome to him in a vision: for the Fates never allowed him to see it otherwise. Or it is in prophesying great, adverse Cries of the great battle on the morrow that those happy, prosperous cries were shown to Pompey in his sleep. For often it is usual for sorrow to be foretold by the joy of the dream and the nocturnal vision. The early clouds of the morning came thereunder, and daylight began to overcome the pale light of the stars and the nocturnal constellations. If the men of the world had known, to see the morning of that day would have been cause of gloom and of great grief, for since the Flood, never did one day prepare for the human race the like of what that day prepared for them, to wit, their destruction and their ruin in the joining of the great battle between Pompey and Caesar for the space of that day only.
However, it is ‘going beyond nature’, and it is ‘effort above strength’, and ‘diving the ocean’, and ‘seeking knowledge in depth’, and ‘seeing a view in streaked (?) darkness’, and ‘resisting a full sea in flood’, and ‘attempting to force a high-king’, and ‘entering battle without grasping a weapon’, and ‘sailing against the wind’, and ‘asking a cure against death’, and ‘reckoning an infinite number’, for one person in the world to attempt to relate or declare that day's fighting. For this is more frequent, to give an extravagant description of the deeds of other battles in relating them. Certain it is that in the world is not found a single tongue of a single human being capable of recording or describing all the great deeds that were done therein. There was neither excess nor superfluity of historians of every nation in the globe to shape and arrange the account of the deeds of the one battle wherein were the
With that, then, the full light of the morning came to them, and yet for some time the sun did not appear to them, since on that morning, to shine up over the colure of rising, the sun rose above the waves of the ocean more sluggishly and slowly and inactively than on any previous morning; for it was on that day the sun shone without vehemence against the earth. It seemed to everyone that avoidance of light and eclipse of sun was desired there, for on that morning the sun sucked and dragged to him all the heavy, close, darkling clouds of black mists of the end of the night, and the weak, scattered tumultuous shower-clouds of the whole firmament; and yet it was not to help or to nourish his flames or his fieriness or his fervour, as the physicians say, but that they might be as blue gray-rough board-pillars and as black, indissoluble banners between him and the land of Thessaly. For the sun liked not his ever-pure, radiant beams to shine upon that land, because of the enormity of the evil that was destined to be done therein, namely, the destruction and ruin of the human race between Pompey and Caesar.
However, though that rising was sluggish, inactive, slow, at last the sun arose as an apple-ball of blood and as a round, fiery tent over the face of the earth, so that its radiance overcame the pale light of the constellations and the stars, and filled the glens and hills and woods and heights of the earth. When the companies of Pompey's great camp perceived that separation of the day and the night they arose lightly, as one man, at the early twilight of the dawn. Thereat in the camps
The hosts advanced till they were in their troops and their bands complaining and wailing throughout the green and the porches and outer doors around the generalissimo's tents. This was the one voice and utterance of them all, to hasten and speed the great battle without delaying and putting (it) off for ever beyond that day. They were blaming and greatly reproaching the high-king Pompey for his delay of the battle. They declared to him that he was slothful and cowardly and timorous, and that he was much contemned by his father-in-law Caesar, and that he was delaying the battle for fear of the army parting, like you, from him, and that then he himself would be separated from the royal lordship of Rome. Verily, sad then was the behaviour of the host of the camp, those whose life was to last only till the time of giving battle to be longing and importuning for it to be delivered. As to the fortunate royal lords and the people of the east, their complaints were not less than those of every other multitude, as to speeding and hastening the battle, because of the long time they were away from the ease of their country and their own fatherland.
When the viceroys and nobles, the lords and esquires, the consuls and counsellors of the Roman senate heard the kings and great men of the camp lamenting about the delay of the great battle, they formed this design, to enter Pompey's pavilion to entreat him to prevent the complaint of the generals, and to deliver battle on that very day.
Good until that day was the assemblage that entered that pavilion, to wit, the royal lords of the Romans. Here are the names of the high lords and nobles who entered it, to wit, great Cato Uticensis, and Brutus the first consul, and
When the generalissimo Pompey beheld them in the pavilion, he said this to them: ‘What has moved these gentlemen at this early hour of the day from their tents and their beds and their couches?’
Although in the pavilion there was many a man preparing word and eloquence to him, yet they unanimously chose and ordained one man to answer him and to converse with him and to persuade him to battle, and to prepare word and eloquence on behalf of them all, namely, the learned sage and the noble, ordained master, and the torch of assembly, and the abyss of knowledge, and the knower of scholarship, and the anvil of history, and the foundation of judgments, and the ceiling of every art, and the key for opening every science, the chief rhetorician, namely, Tullius Cicero, the one tongue whose sound and suasion and speech and eloquence were the
This, then, he said: ‘O noble and O ordained and O unique king’, saith he, ‘if thou knewest, not trifling is the cause that has moved these nobles at this hour towards thee; and with thy permission, I declare to thee the wish concerning which they have come.’
‘Speak out for a little, so that we may hear’, says Pompey.
‘Thou thyself knowest, O generalissimo, that far and long are these nobles in this warfare along with thee, apart from their family and their lands, their cities and their citadels, enduring hardship and fatigue by sea and by land, from
‘Yon is the cry of us all’, says great Cato Uticensis.
‘It is the one voice of the multitude’, says Brutus and the other nobles.
That made the generalissimo very silent and sorrowful, and it annoyed him much, for he did not wish to deliver battle; but it was not easy to resist the chief orator and his speech and his persuasion, together with the union of all the nobles with him. And thence he perceived that the Fates and Fortune and luck had turned against him; so at last he spoke thus: ‘However it may be’, quoth he, ‘if that be what everyone desires; if most of them do not need me to prepare a plan before them. However it may be, why should I be alone in delaying the Fates? Let the troops go out for a little that they may know their fortune of battle on this very day. I testify, however, that that will be the famous day whereon the life of a multitude
‘Therefore I should deem it pleasant, and (it were my) strong desire and kindly choice, that the first spear hurled in this conflict should chance to pass through my head, provided always that my people after me were left free and undestroyed.’
That then is what Pompey spoke, and when he had finished his speech, he permitted all to grasp their arms and to go to the battle. Just as is the steersman of a great capacious vessel on which a mighty adverse wind shall fall, and he is long struggling and enduring against the wind, until at last the strength of the strong wind prevails and persuades him to let the ship go straight with the force of the blast the way it takes after destroying his force and his valour.
It was so with Pompey, steadily holding, so long as he could, the helm of the dominion and the Roman state against the restless, unstable, tumultuous nature of his people; and when he was unable to restrain them, he permitted them to take their weapons, as a horseman leaves his bridle to his furious (?) horse.
Howbeit that command was then answered without question by the champions of the world. They were dispersed at once and with one motion to their booths and huts and tents.
Rude was the trembling and the shaking that was then in the camp. They began to smite their breasts and their bosoms. The natures and characters of a great many of them turned. Their faces and countenances grew white. Their lips became dark-blue at the smiting and breast-beating and the great uproar and vast shouting which the host of the camp made in seizing their horses, in donning their arms, in blowing their trumpets, calling their warcries, smooth-polishing their shields, grinding their swords, smoothing their battle-maces, filing (?) their axes, grinding the edges of their javelins, resetting their spears and their lances, dragging and straining their ropes, bending their bows,
Then the kings and princes and nobles of the camp began to don their arms. Not small was that clamour, to wit, the sound of the linen, well-fitting corslets touching the body-skins of the heroes, and the harsh rustling of their bottom-fringes rubbing against the iron greaves, and the clashing of the broad-grooved, sword-straight glaives on the heroes' sides: the [gap: meaning unclear] of the kings' diadems being bound on the adorned helmets, the rattling (?) of the corslets and the shields and the shieldstraps at being set on the necks and throats of the soldiers and on the forearms of the haughty kings, the trembling and shaking and brandishing of the broad-flatted spears and the broad blue lances, and the thick-shafted, wide-socketed javelins held against the bright shoulders of the valiant youths in the tryst of the Great Battle.
Then the generalissimo himself and the chosen lord, to wit, Pompey the Great, donned his battle-armour and his fighting garb, that is, he took two speckled embossed leggings of chain-thread, light, greenish, round his two calves, which wrapped from the ends of his feet to the thick of his thighs. He took two equally long hosen of speckled smooth-bright satin over them out from outside. He took two fair purple hosen of lions' skins, fully
He took about his head, his round, crested helmet, adorned with red enamel, over the hooked, netted hood of his hauberk; with its two thick, strong iron bars, with variegation
He took the insignia of his empery, that is, his royal diadem, above all that around his head. That was a diadem of yellow gold, and borders of red gold to it, with a row of crystal and fair gems of carbuncle all around it. A general engraving of forms of birds and winged things and of strange unknown animals upon it thenceforward, with two flower-knotted conical caps of choice stones of the land of eastern India above it, with the form of an African apple, and its strain of music therein at the end of each of the conical caps, so that melodious as the strings of a lyre was the chiming of those apple-strains moving at every stride which the generalissimo himself stepped and at the high motion of his steed.
In front of the face of that badge of honour was a single, beautiful, radiant jewel, which surpassed the jewel-ornaments of the world, so that wherever it was uplifted day and night were equally radiant.
Then were brought to him his two beautiful, fitted, gold-socketed spears, and in them their two slender shafts equally long, equally straight, of undecaying cedar, with their silvern thongs (amenta), beneath them, with their rivets of bronze through their necks. Two royal soldiers were entrusted to carry those spears beside the generalissimo by whatever path he should fare in the battle. In front of him was brought his doorleaf of battle, to wit, his shield blood-red, limed, gold-bossed. In the hedge of battle it was protected by twice five soldiers. A variegated speckling of bulging rivets of white bronze between
Then was brought to him a steed strong, bold and valiant, high-spirited, powerful, swift, active, bounding, long-haired, stout, stiff, long-sided, thunder-feated, high-headed, famous, leaping into the air, broad-breasted, thin-mouthed, thick-legged, bag-nosed, broad-hoofed, bulge-eyed, with his four iron shoes under him, with his silver bridle-bit, with his golden saddle-cloth on his back. Before his pavilion Pompey mounted that steed to order his hosts and to array his battalions.
It was a huge effort for one man in the world to prepare to contest the globe at that hour, because of his own royalty and kingliness, and the loftiness of his nature, and the goodness of his gifts, and the vastness of his wealth, and the abundance and multitude of his armies and his gathering. For at that hour, along with him, on one field, were all the many nations of the earth, from the Alps in the west as far as the eastern India, save only the Parthians, and the many nations of Africa, from Rome southward to the borders of the torrid zone. Whoever would see them there would not think that any portion of the human race was lacking in that great army along with Pompey. He would deem it more likely that there should not be a single man in the army along with Caesar than that it should be capable of awaiting that great assembly with Pompey.
Now when Pompey sat on his steed, he looked and pondered and gazed at the host of the camp collecting their
His pathleaders and his road-guides came to him and said: ‘O high-lord and only king!’ they say, ‘the roads are foul, difficult, hard to be traversed, and the paths are narrow between thee and the level (?), to wit, the hill-passes of Mount Ossa and the sloping jungles (?) of Glen Bebius. 'Tis enough for thee, thou noble king, to combine and array thy battalions after reaching the level fields of the great plain of Thessaly, besides going round the valley.’ Saith Pompey: ‘Thus let guidance of the road be made firmly before us.’
Thereat they marched forward over one side of Mount Ossa and out over the midst of the valley of Bebius straight towards the plain of Thessaly. Great misadventures and terrible, awful signs befel them as they set their faces to Thessaly. Great, heavy showers of fire and thunder were brought against them, so that the fiery bolts hovered over their heads in shapes of great pillars and clods and vast beams, and prevented them from opening their eyes, so that they knew not the path on which they were going. The lightnings were casting the crests from off the heroes' helmets, the bosses from their bucklers, the hilts from their swords and the blades from their spears. They were seeing the shapes of beasts and poisonous snakes hovering over their heads. They were seeing the swarms of bees and wasps hovering round their standards over them, and hardly were
Then Pompey proceeded to sacrifice to the gods, and a bull heavy (?), thick-shouldered, smooth-sided, was brought to him; but when he desired to smite it, it rushed madly through the plains of Thessaly, and came not back again, so that no offering to the gods was found by him afterwards.
However, it was not so with Caesar, but prosperity attended every sacrifice to which he put (his) hand. On the same day many phantasms were brought to them. To one set Mount Pindus and Mount Olympus seemed to rush to each other so that they met in one place. To another set Mount Haemus seemed to be swallowed up in the earth, so that it was on a level with the valleys around it. To another set, again, rivers of gore and blood seemed to be pouring over the midst of the Bebius valley. In the same valley great darknesses fell upon them, so that none of them knew the face of another. The shades and phantoms of their dead friends appeared to them in those glooms.
They exulted in those signs, for they supposed that the portents foretold that soon they would be slaughtering the living friends who were along with Caesar. Little wonder was it that multitudes, to wit, those whose life was to last only till they approached Caesar's camp, should suffer trouble of senses. It was natural for the soldiers of that battle to recognise its portents, for every airt in the world wherein there was a Roman,
He began to survey the air above him (as to) what the lightning, or the course of the stars, or the colour of the sun would reveal to him. But this he said: ‘God help it! what is this?’ quoth he. ‘Never before have we met the like of this day. Some awful deed is being done. There is nothing comparable to it unless, in this same hour, the troops of Pompey and Caesar are contending.’
Howbeit, it is quite certain that Nature never shaped a single day on which were the portents of this one. This was reasonable, for, after the Deluge, never came a single day that equalled this in the destruction and the ruin, the killing and the defeating of the human race. And if there had been augurs and true veritable sages at every outer point throughout the world, there would have no point or place from which on that day the terrible and awful portents in the air above Thessaly would not have been manifest.
God help it! those men were distinguished, and their strength and discipline, their headship and power were exceeding great. Mighty, long, extensive and broad were their dominion and their chiefship, their strength and their right and their kingship, when the globe of the earth under them, and the sea around them, and the sky and the air above them were filled with signs and sure portents of their battle and their slaughter, their misfortunes and their tragic death, and when it is an exhilaration of spirit and delight of nature to all the men of the world in general at being told, from then till today, the tales and the slaughters and the tragic deaths of those people. And it is likely that this delight and exhilaration
Thereat the armies marched out over the Bebius valley, and in the foul-entried passes and narrow crossways of the valley they began, scatteringly, to extend at once on the mounds and hills and heights of the earth, and on the smooth clear headlands, and on the lofty mountain ridges of the level of the great plain of Thessaly.
The solar radiance of the sun shone against them in a flood of splendour and radiance, so that it was a hurt to their eyesight and their vision. Then Pompey put heralds and criers and chief-stewards and officers and summoners at the beginnings of the roads to stop and to delay the hosts in order to review their force and array their battalions and number their troops and order their march. They then delayed greatly, counting their soldiers and their standards, and displaying their tribes and their gatherings, and in settling their plans as to arranging their battalions.
The generalissimo Pompey himself, went with a crowd of nobles to order his hosts and to arrange the battalions. A good number of the officers who were there along with Pompey were in favour of giving battle to the other general.
This, then, is the disposition they made: in the first place, their own army, and the assembly of the Roman senate, and Pompey's household with his nobles; and with it were arranged four battalions and four score battalions of the pick of the soldiers and serried champions fully armed, and forty thousand footsoldiers, staying the fight and in the midst of the conflict and in the [gap: meaning unclear] of the battle.
The consul Lentulus together with four complete legions of choice full-hardy warriors was placed at the left extremity of the army. Domitius, the chief of the city Corfinium in Italy, with the same complement around him at the right extremity of
Pompey himself, however, with his senators and his consuls, his centurions, his chieftains, and his tribunes, and with his high nobles of the senate besides along with him in the great crowd of cavalry, slow, steady on the rear of that main body.
The kings and leaders, lords and chiefs, champions and heroes of the world who were along with Pompey, their armies could not be reckoned or numbered because of their abundance and their multitude. It was impossible to make battalions of them; but every troop was round its lord, every host round its hero, every tribe round its chieftain, every band round its knight, and every army round its own king, separately, as they occupied the plain. But they were under one order from Pompey, namely, that they should not precede the great battalion which was appointed to meet the impact of the main body (of the enemy).
Then came vast throngs of them, with the host of Cappadocia, and with the cavalry of the isle of Pontus, to one side of the Romans, between them and the watery roads of the land and the lake-streams of Enipeus.
To the other side, on the levels of the great plain, came all the kings and chiefs who marched with their great armies to succour Pompey, to wit; the people of all the Orient, from India in the east, and the youth of Asia, and the host of Africa, and the men of the isles of the Mediterranean sea.
Then they advanced in that wise, firmly stepping, and in their steady, slow course, straight towards the camp of Caesar. That step was no refusal of combat. Woe to the general and the army that voluntarily attacked that ‘griffin's nest’, and the ‘blaze of fire’, and the ‘poison of snakes’, and the ‘den of lions’, and the ‘swallowing whirlpool’, and the ‘plague of vengeance’, and the ‘matter of fear’, and the ‘ready battle’, which was there attacked, to wit, the camp of Caesar and the champions of Europe and the west of the world along with him therein.
This, then, is what happened to Caesar on that day, that by chance and by windfalls of luck a great assembly was held by him, together with the chiefs of his following, on the level green in the midst of the camp. For this was always the usual practice of the Romans in pitching a camp, to dig a rampart round about it, and in the midst of the camp (to leave) a vacant green for an assembly. On that day, then, there was an assembly in the midst of Caesar's camp, for he wished to send strong parties of his people to reap corn throughout the green cornfields of the country, for at that time the men of his camp were not rich in food.
Their steeds and their horses were ready to start on their way, and their standards were raised opposite the road and the way towards the green cornfields of the country. While they were there watching and contemplating the lengthy level slopes of the great plain in front of them, they saw the long, spacious plain crowded with troops marching slowly straight towards them.
When they were there beholding the same plain they saw the fearful, terrible birdflocks over the hosts, and the branchy, bloodred, wide-opened ensigns, and the swift, speckled, winged,
When they were there beholding the same plain, they saw the dense, copious, rud-red oakwoods, with their blaze of fire over their heads, coming straight to them, to wit, the strong, white-long, straight-ordered shafts of the riveted, keen-pure-bladed spears, and of the battle-flags of heroes, and of the broad-blue lances, and the thick-shafted wide-socketed javelins, hardily uplifted against the white shoulders of the champions, with their shining, lightninglike points upon them, with a splendid blaze of fire above those points.
When they were beholding the same plain, they saw the awful, icy (?) shield-shelters of every hue, and the warlike death-folds in one sure circuit passing to them slowly over the plain, to wit, groups tied together, and hardy battle-couples of beautiful, bright shields, and of sounding (?), greenish shields, and of black-dark, spiky shields, and of fair-rimmed, speckled, varicoloured shields, and of crooked, dun, terrible shields, and of yellow-speckled, horny shields, and of purple, wooden shields, and of variegated shields of every other colour in the world.
When they were there beholding the same plain, they saw the swift, heavy showers, and the swift, speedy hailstorms, and the close, oppressive showers driving against the hosts like little snowy drops, or like feathers of quilts against the wind, that is, the breath-quick, hovering foam and froth pouring without stay, without stint out of the mouths and muzzles of the foreign, high-coursing steeds and of the round-eyed, wide-nosed, panting colts, and of the great-maned, vigorous, proud stallions (?),
While they were there beholding the same plain they saw as much of the great plain as their eyesight and vision reached, fulfilled with hosts and crowds and legions, of bands, of troops, of multitudes, of soldiers of battalions, of throngs, of hundreds, to wit, the hosts of the islands and of Africa and of Asia and of the Orient, as in their separate peoples and their scattered [gap: meaning unclear] nations. Each king with his army, each hero with his band, and each chieftain with his own tribe about him, countless, numberless, immeasurable, but as if the whole plain was crammed with them.
When they were beholding the same plain, they saw coming to them the lengthy, full-great, broad-long band of warriors in their armour, with their breasts all set towards the expanse of the field, and their density of wood, and their greatness of city or castle, to wit, the royal Roman senate, ordered and arrayed, that is, the eight battalions and the four score battalions of serried heroes, and the forty thousand footsoldiers in their three bands, back to back, so that each band was bearing against another in their warlike enclosure and their fold of battle and in their arrangement, with their covering of the wattle-woods of battle and of virulent forests, and of long-shafted, trimmed, bright-bladed spears above them, with their hardy, firm, strong citadel of bowed, quadrangular bucklers, and of great, speckled, wide-above board-shields around them, so that at one time it was joy enough to see them, from the abundance of various colours of their weapons and their arrays, and their garbs, at the fiery sheen and the bright radiance of the sun driving straight against them, at the beauty of the banners and the brilliant royal diadems and the helmets adorned with
With that, then, the attention of Caesar's army fell upon them, and they begin to gaze upon them watchfully, attentively, greedily and naturally. Then Caesar himself perceived that, and he turned his face to the plain and saw that great army of Pompey's, and took heed that the gods had given him what he had long been seeking, namely, to get his fill of battle and conflict. And when he beheld the prospect (?) of getting it, though it was necessary to stay for counsel and great consideration as to the windfall that happened there, yet he began to cease troubling about it, and to treat it as a small matter and of no importance.
Nevertheless, when he perceived in his mind the exceeding great danger approaching him, namely, his own or Pompey's, destruction quickly and certainly on that day, and he knew not for certain to which of them good or evil was nearest, a great silence fell upon him, and he was almost ashamed of all his boldness of talk and boasting of speech arising from his luck
However, when he took heed of his own good fortune and his success in battle neither sorrow nor dread was left upon him. Not long was Caesar in that condition (?), when his boldness and his fortitude alighted upon him and quenched and quelled the fear and doubt that were in his mind. He rose up in the midst of the assembly; and he waved his hand over the hosts to (enjoin) silence and listening to him; and this is what he said to them:
‘My noble followers’, he says, ‘'tis you that, under me have subdued the world. 'Tis you that are my fortune and my success and my adored gods. 'Tis to you I render thanks for every good thing that I have attained. Now has come to you what ye have hitherto been seeking and choosing long and often, to wit, the Great Battle. 'Tis not this that ye need to seek henceforward, but success from the struggle, by dint of your hands and your weapons, for on this day of the Great Battle it is in the strength of your fore-arms and in the hardihood of your hearts, and in the bases of your shoulders that my fortune or my misfortune exists, and my greatening or my lessening for ever.’
‘This is the day that ye promised to me at the waves of the river Rubicon, when I cast back their peace on the Roman senate and on Pompey. This, too, is the same day in expectation of which we seized our arms and mutually started our warfare and our quarrel from the beginning. This, too, is the same day as to which we have prayed for the bestowal of the triumphs and the glories which Pompey and the senate were unable to procure
‘If for me, then, you formerly attacked Rome with weapons and with fires, and if ye have wrought for me every good thing throughout the world, fight for me today stoutly and earnestly, and clear yourselves and myself from the blame and illfame of which the senate was accusing us, to wit, that it was we that were guilty till now. Moreover, though ye should not fight valiantly for my sake, fight for your own, so that you may have your own freedom and power and sway over everyone. And though ye make of me a hired soldier, or an inferior officer, or a petty, paltry, feeble citizen, or any other separate thing in the world, by my word, in presence of my weapons, I refuse it not, provided only ye obtain a happy life.’
‘There is also another matter: let not the vast multitude and the innumerable army that ye see moving towards to you baulk or overwhelm you, for but few of them are men of valour or prowess; they are mostly Greek schoolboys and bookish
‘Not thus should ye come after defeating the Gauls and the people of Germany and the island of Britain!’
‘Do ye yourselves suppose that the people of the east of Asia who stand there concern themselves greatly as to which of us will have the headship of Rome or the sovereignty of the world? And not much, indeed, is that, for, by my word, full little of his blood is an Armenian warrior willing to shed in striving to gain the realm of Italy for Pompey rather than me. For all of us Romans are almost equally hated by them.’
‘Moreover it is a common custom throughout the world that the peoples hate the rulers with whom they are acquainted more than the other rulers. Wherefore I think that Pompey is not dearer to them than I myself.’
‘As to me, my fortune has brought me my chance this kind of day, among the faithful arms of my own fervid, zealous followers. Everyone of us well-recognises the other; and I know their valiant spear-casting in the bloody battles they fought along with me when conquering Gaul and the west of the world.’
‘There is none of you soldiers whom my ear does not recognise by the blow of his sword or the rushing noise of his javelin when hurling it, even though my eye does not attain to see him.’
‘I espy upon you the signs and tokens that never have deceived me; and to me it is manifest and certain, by the tokens see upon you, that ye will vanquish your foes, namely, I see grimness in your countenances, and vigour in your faces, and great threatening in your eyes.’
‘I myself see now in my mind the streams of gore and blood pouring in my presence, and the bare red necks of the nobles being trampled on, and the chiefs of the senate at their last gasp and swimming in their own gore and in their blood.’
‘Alas, I am now quite ruining somewhat including myself, namely, you madly seeking to be let go to the battle, and me hindering it. Howbeit, pardon and forgive me that delay: for not because of hatred for you do I stop you, but because of my great mental delight in addressing you at the excellence of the hope which I have.’
‘Do ye not see me all trembling and quivering at the greatness of my glorious hope? For never before have the gods given bounty like this anear to us, since between us and every good thing that we ourselves desire to obtain is nought save only this little field of battle.’
‘Full shortly now I myself shall be scattering and lavishing on you all the wealth in the camps of the kings and the chiefs and the foreign tribes that are yonder.’
‘It is decided, then, to get today (either) the reward of this great warfare or its penalty. If it be the penalty that is ready, bear ye in mind what we should endure of bonds, of fetters, of crosses, of sufferings.’
‘Behold how my limbs will be broken up and my head will be placed on the rostra of the Forum in Rome. Let not that seem strange to you, for Pompey is a pupil of Sulla who never spared anyone, and no more would Pompey spare.’
‘Hence it is care for you that I feel, for, by my word, in presence of the battalions in conflict, this hand shall inflict death upon myself unless I win this battle. And O adored gods, may he conquer there whose profit to everyone is greatest, and who will not, after conquering, punish his fellow-citizens for having formerly chanced to fight against him!’
‘Not thus did Pompey to you when the blockade of Epirus befel you; but he carefully destroyed such of your people as he found there.’
‘As to me, my blessing on you, O warriors: let none of you ply his hands on those that will flee before you, but let a fugitive there be taken as a fellow-citizen of yours.’
‘Do not spare father or brother or friend or blood-relation so long as their faces are towards you; but trouble them and slash the swords over their faces: treat whomever resists you as a red enemy; and though he be a true friend, let the sword be planted in his chest as if it were a terrible, unknown foe that was meeting you.’
‘Arise now’, says Caesar, ‘and take your weapons. Arm yourselves quickly and go to your places of battle and combat, for I need not array you. Your places in battle are not better
So far Caesar's speeches; and hardly had his peroration ended when the whole army went up like one man at the same time to their huts and their sheds and their tents to don their hauberks, to grasp their armour, to take their weapons, and to consume their daily meal before going to the great deeds and travail of the mutual smiting and fighting of the Great Battle.
Pleased they were with the omen that then came to them, namely, their weapons and their food happening readily to go to them.
Then the hosts began to consume their daily meal simply, hoveringly, unsedately: some of them sitting, others bending unsteadily, over their tables, and the greater part of them long-standing at the doors of their tents and at the openings of their huts.
Caesar himself, however, moved not from the place in which he stood; but a moderate meal was fetched to him, and in a very short time he consumed it, namely, his three hero-morsels of peacock's flesh, together with three draughts of Falernian wine.
His attendants then brought Caesar his panoply of battle, and he armed himself on the hill in the midst of the great camp. Then round his shanks he took two bright iron greaves. Cleansed, luminous, glassy, were they, and brightened, unrusty, with their own soles under them, well-stitched, of back-leather with their twist hard and tortuous, equally rigid, hiden, holding their uppers, and twisting the ties of their circular openings round the very middle of the generalissimo's thighs. Brought round him was his skin-protection and his body-safeguard in battle, to wit, his battle-hauberk of steel, compact, hooked, plaited, well-woven, distinguished.
It was a cover of forearm, a defence of head, a protection of body, a guarding of soul, for neither point nor edge could pierce or sever it. This was natural, for he had it prepared learnedly, scientifically, and at one time dipped with cunning care in juicy, oily, fatty liquids, to soften and to toughen, to quicken (?) and to supple its material. At another time, however, it was dipped, to harden and stiffen its hooks, in bright baths of clear water and in pure cold stream-pools and in beautiful, green-banked rivers of the very north of Lochlann on the barren, unfruitful borders of the cold, icy, frigid zone in the north. So that it was Caesar's desire that in Pompey's great army there should not be a single battle-weapon that could sever one of its hooks.
His warbelt of battle and conflict was then put round Caesar. That was a board-baldric hiden, glued [...] leathern, of back-leather of three oxhides of year-old bulls, joined and firmly closed by glue and pitch and bitumen. A shapely flat plate (?)
Then Caesar put from him his gold-hilted sword fit for an assembly; and his hard battle-sword was girt on his left, close to his skin, to wit, a hard sword, proper, severe, broad-grooved, bladed, straight-bladed, with its strong, resisting cross-hilts of frozen, tough, seven-times-smelted iron upon it, having four measured, mighty soldier's feet from its haft to its point, (and) three hero's palms in its breadth. Of the choice and chosen and veritable acmes of the full-sharp, hard, tough, severe Scandinavian blades was that sword, whereinto was taken neither iron, nor any of the steels of the globe, nor any of the metals of the earth, nor tree, nor bone, nor rock, nor any of the strong things of the whole world.
In time of pleasure, Caesar used to bow-bend that sword so that its point touched the hilt. In the twinkling of an eye, or with the swiftness of man's thought, the sword would spring and leap again into its blade-straightness. Howbeit it was after a long while that, in returning to its own straightness, it rested from shaking and trembling. Its brightness and display while it was quivering resembled the radiance of the sun on water.
That sword still remains as an heirloom from fathers and grandsires, as the treasure of son, and grandson and great-grandson, with the race of Julius Caesar in the treasury of Rome. No conflict of battle to which it is taken is maintained against it.
Round his head then, over the hood of his hauberk outside, was a peaked helmet, crested, coloured with red enamel, strong, sharpnosed, capacious, of iron resmelted and adorned with gold, with its broad iron nose-plate and a covering of bronze upon it, out over the generalissimo's face, so that it protected his nostrils and his lips, and reached up as high as his chin.
Four thick, iron coils (?) out of it backwards on the outside, with four round apple-balls of hard iron at their ends, so those spiky coils (?) extended from the edge of the helmet to the border of the belt around him, to protect and to guard his neck and shoulders from the blows of the swords and the battle-clubs in the mutual smiting and fighting of the Great Battle.
Two hard, four-ridged peaks (?) of resmelted iron, with their thin immoveable anvil-feet under them, cleaving to the hauberk on each of the two shoulders, with separate, disparted ends upon them, were at the edge-fringes of the helmet, so that its weight should not oppress the generalissimo's head, and that it might protect his neck from the swordblows on every side. Thin, skin-piercing sickles of steel, and chainlets stately, slender, bonestiff, (were) joining and fastening that helmet into the hooks of the hauberk on every side, so that there was no power to part them until they were separated according to his nature and desire.
His symbol of empire was taken round the upper part of his head, to wit, his royal diadem. A diadem of bright silver was it, with delicate inlay of red gold upon it. Small, just, equally high line-rows all around it, of pearl and crystal and carbuncle, and choice stones of the eastern land of India carried in the claws of birds and winged things over the fiery mountain out of Adam's Paradise to the land of India, with their settings of bronze beneath, with thread-ornament of gleaming gold a-staying them. Four bright caps of white gold above them. Back-ridges of the Corinthian metal between them,— that was a mixed
Then two blue-headed, broad-headed, thick-socketed lances were fetched to Caesar, with eight slender, smooth-tough grooves (?) of poisonous spell-edges, thrust in the sides of their blades, with a polished, steadily-fair, levin-flashing lustre upon them, with a glittering, bright, pure, icy sheen in them, with sharp points of brooches on their tops, with keenness of razors on their elbows, with their two strong shafts therein, equally long, smooth, strong and thick, with their two strong, iron thongs beneath them.
Quite full was Caesar's white hand where it grasped the shaft of each of these lances. Seven rivet-nails of steel with the thickness of a soldier's middle-finger, in every rivet, thrust straightly, equally high through the socket-fitting of each of these lances.
His shoulder-burden of battle was then brought to Caesar, to wit, a crooked shield variegated, resounding, pieced together (?), sewn, greenish, hard-edged, eight-bossed, with its shieldstraps fitting, plated, ample, of lions' hides moulded to it, with its strong iron rim surrounding it, with its broad and thin-ended tail of steel beneath it, with its seven small bosses hollowed, round-cusped, round-headed, as a circle of bosses equally high and adorned around the stable, great, central boss, like small houses round a palace, or like low hills about a high mountain.
Borders of rods equally thick, rigid and straight, of bronze, with foreign uptakes in them, left full-trustily against the slopes
Shapes of toads and lions and dragons and taloned griffins and venomous snakes and hurtful animals (were) carved horribly in the interstices of the girdle's crossings that were over it.
Spell-writings that win battles (were) written (and) painted upon it by hands of wizards and idolaters and spectres and witches and unbelievers, so that foemen had horror enough in looking at it on a field of battle or conflict.
If, however, a battle-bulwark were to be maintained against it, there was, in its time, no one who could endure it.
So far Caesar's arming for battle.
Now as to Caesar's army, their behaviour at that season was no error, for, while he himself was receiving his weapons, the whole host armed themselves at that time, namely, greaves stitched, close, made of iron were taken round the heroes' thighs; and tight, hooked, well-woven corslets of steel about breasts; and pointed helmets, fair, adorned with red enamel, round heads; and round sides, battle-belts plated, skinny, speckle-painted, swollen, strong, stout, steady.
Keen razorlike swordblades in choice scabbards were bound on their left.
Copious, rud-red forests of polished, smooth-hard javelins, and of broadheaded spears, and of straight, ridged pikes were uplifted at the heroes' bright shoulders above their heads.
Close, firm, impregnable decks of beautiful purple-red shields were arranged round every section of their host.
In that guise and fashion they came to Caesar where he was on the spacious green amid the great encampment. Every tribe and every gathering and every muster of them
Great was the reason Caesar's spirit should swell (with pride) to see the champions of Europe in that wise coming from every point to his camp; for numerous and warlike were the noble hosts that came there, to wit, The kingly assembly of Germany, from oversea, heroic, high-spirited, renowned, aggressive: The warrior-bands of France, manly, sanguinary, wrathful, steady, destructive, truly-difficult, heroic: The soldiers of Mauretania (?), furious, cheerful, madly-bold, high-spirited: The host of the Saxons, strong, powerful, merry, wealthy, wellborn, noble: The troops of Britons, stark, lively, brisk, mighty, primary, warlike, angry: The champions of Spain, young, vigilant, roving, rough, terrible: The foreign soldiers of Gaul, fierce, wounding, valourous, hairy-bearded: The long-maned heroes of Scandinavia, impetuous, madly-vigorous, importunate, furious: The beautiful, graceful, active, light, quick, high-deeded warriors of the isles and the coast of the western ocean and the north-western part of the earth.
Besides, too, the immoveable rock, and the lofty mountain's breasthill, and the green sea's perilous cliff, and the mighty storm's sea-wave, and the din of Doom, and the rushing of flood, and the flood a-deluging, and the lake-pool a-filling, and the floodtide's billow a-racing; that fold of battle, the host-armed brake, the herd of stags frenzied, infuriated, hard and harsh, to wit, the strong, steady, disciplined champions of the earth, and the hardy soldiers that searched the globe along with Caesar, those warriors unfriendly, ungentle, calamitous (?) of Italy, and the royal, furious, mighty soldiers of the Romans themselves, who were at that time on the exact side against
Caesar, with a large crowd of his nobles around him, rose up to order those hosts, and to number them, and to arrange their battalions. Nowise great was the multitude of his host as against the innumerable army that Pompey had to attack him, since the whole of Caesar's army was not equal in number to the Romans along with Pompey. For this was the number of Caesar's host and the sum total of his army on that day, namely, four score cohorts of serried heroes and of soldiers learning feats of arms, and nearly thirty thousand infantry, with ten hundred in each thousand, and one thousand horsemen.
Of them all Caesar formed proper order of battle in three divisions, back to back, close, firm, indissoluble. He arranged their wings of battle about them, namely, five hundred horsemen at one of the two ends and the same number at the other end. He himself came with the body of champions that had stayed with him when arranging the troops, and he took his place of battle and conflict among the chosen men of his royal soldiers in the forefront of the centre of that great battle. For though they all were the body of one battle, nevertheless every king, and every great person, and every choice chieftain, and every chosen lord (stood) with the nobles of his soldiers and of his own good following and of his faithful champions in their fence around himself, to protect him from his enemies, and to ward off on his behalf, against his foes, in the conflict of the Great Battle.
Thereafter, then, Caesar himself, with a great voice, ordered them to move in that wise against their foes out over the edge of the camp. Indefatigably that order was then responded to by the champions of Europe. Mad, vehement, fierce, furious, frenzied, senseless, hasty: mighty, strong, sudden-foolish, hurried
Though everyone of them were Caesar, or though every man of them were seeking for himself the high headship of Rome or the empire of the world, not more greedily or fervently or earnestly would they go towards it than they went there, so that they brought with them, with their knees forward (?), all they had of houses and tents and wide-wombed, mouth-opened booths between them and the side of the camp; and they built under their feet a bridge of hurdles of the hedges of the camp and of the ramparts of its dykes, and they went in one single body of battle, without severance, or confusion upon them, till they marched out over the camp across the flat plain of Thessaly, so that they all went straight, suddenly and in one movement against Pompey and his army.
Pompey, however, when he reached a place whence he could look on Caesar's camp, never turned his face and never lowered his royal eye, but was contemplating and gazing at the camp.
Not long was he looking when he beheld the streaming-down of a mighty host out over the edge of the camp to attack him, namely, the folk of the west and the warriors of Europe; and above them the many-speckled, swift flocks of birds, that is, the back-trailing, tailed, winged banners, and the slender-bodied, red-mawed ensigns, and the broad, long, unfolded flags, swarming and turning awry and fluttering with the aerial breezes and the breathing and whistling of the weak wind that came to them.
Then he beheld the dense, copious, rud-red forests of long, edged spears above their heads, and at the butts of those spears their woofs of battle and their weft of bane, and their deadly growth (?) of thin, choice axes, and of broad, one-edged
Then he beheld the sheen and glitter and brightness of the crested, adorned helmets, and of the brilliant, royal diadems, and of the green, bright-coloured corslets, and of the tunics fringed with gold, and the lustre of the great, broad shields carried on the elbows of the champions, and on the fore-arms of the kingly soldiers, and on the shoulders of the gallant warriors, and on the left sides of the stalwart heroes.
Then he beheld the bright radiance of the steadily-fair (?) quivers set on the sides of the nobles, with their tabular bases beneath them, with their lids of white silver upon them, with their mouth-borders of bronze against them, with their round, woven fringes of many kinds of every scarlet-red leather in the world adorned carefully, cunningly, sharply in the edge-ridges of their seams on every side, with their proper measures of the choice of excellent arrows arranged therein; while those of them for which there was no room in the quivers were tied in a bundle on the battle-belts of the heroes, with their sickle-shaped, hard-pointed heads on those arrows, dipped in the bloods of dragons and lions and in the poisons of snakes, bathed in the melted fluids of smelted gold, with their even, trimmed, smoothened, shafts in them, with their speckle-pointed barbs (?) upon them, having slender-tough, silken, thread-bindings, so that the air would blaze when they were discharged.
This at first was Pompey's opinion when he saw them making that advance, that they were going to reap the unripe cornfields of Thessaly, as had been their custom every day before. But when he beheld the heroic, hostile troops, and the crowds of battle, and the armed youths, and the battle-hurdles, serried, arrayed, marching straight against him, without delay or waiting, silence and natural fear and disturbance of mind came upon him, and that
However, he did not allow that consternation to be visible upon him, but he concealed and disguised it as much as he could. Then he came on the charger, tall, beautiful, famous, high-coursing, which he rode round his troops and his followers, and began to address them, and to enjoin them to show a noble nature and to do valiantly. So he said to them:
‘My noble followers’, said he, ‘this is the day which ye have long been demanding. This is the end of the Civil War which ye have sought. Henceforward have no neglect, for there is nothing else to be done but to confide in weapons and iron. Whichever of you asks to reach his wealth and his family, let him seek it now by dint of wielding his sword; and do you consider (?) that all your good things are at this very instant between you and your enemies amid this plain of Thessaly, and that those of us who struggle most strongly for them by dint of weapons will take them now out of this plain.’
‘It is the meeter for us to struggle strongly, for we are for Truth, and us the adored gods will help. For if they were desirous to take my lordship from me and to give Caesar the kingly sway of the world, they would have inflicted death upon me, for I am the elder; and there is no (such) divine anger against Rome and the peoples of the world that they would preserve me for them if I were defeated.’
‘Meseems, then, that today I have brought with me to this plain the goodly instrument of a fight. I have brought all the nobles of the Roman senate who are still alive, and those that have died, if they remained today, would help me, for I am for Truth. I have brought also the innumerable nations of the east of the world and the folk of their cities and
‘We shall have a large body with no other function in the fight save only to utter their battle-cries like everyone.’
‘There is another thing for which it is proper for you to do bravely, namely, take heed and believe firmly, that the whole Roman assembly, both wife and husband, and young and aged, is now strengthening you and entreating you to do bravely, to protect their freedom and to intervene between them and Caesar's power.’
‘And if after those I have means (?) of entreating you, it would not be too much or excessive for myself and my children and my consort to lie supine beneath your feet to hearten you to do (bravely) in the direction of good.’
‘There is also another thing, then, for which ye should do bravely; for unless ye win today in this quarrel, I shall be henceforward a pilgrim and an exile. Caesar will deem that a sportful boon, but to you it will be an exceeding great shame. The other thing that is probable is that I would rather have death in my lips today than to be as an old man learning to serve another, I, till today, in the overlordship of the world!’
Those harangues of Pompey's raised the spirits of the soldiers and the natures of the warriors who heard them; and, listening to them, the strength and indignation of the royal Roman lords arose, so that all were filled with greed of fighting and lust of wielding weapons; and they preferred to meet death in their lips at once than ever to receive what would cause fear or dread to their generalissimo.
Then the battalions on each side began to attack the others with equal fervor and earnestness: for anger and fear of severing from their prosperity were urging Pompey's people to battle, while the expectation of rule, and the strong desire of gaining wealth, were urging Caesar's followers to meet them. Wherefore neither army showed neglect or negligence in attacking the other, and they stopped not from that rapid advance which they made till they drew nigh on a piece of land, so that there was only the space fit for a javelin-cast between them.
So then, when the host on each side drew near, and there was only a short space between them for mutual casting, their hands responded to their white-golden quivers. They fitted their trimmed, sharp-pointed arrows on the waxed, hard-tough, threaden strings of their bows. They adjusted their sword-straight forefingers in the thongs of their front-attacking slings and in the silken well-casting strings of their keen, pure-edged javelins, and of their deadly darts and their trimmed, sharp, blue-bladed spears. They pressed their feet against the clods of the earth. They brandished above their shoulders their implements of casting. They directed the sights of their bright-pointed eyes before their volleys to attack their enemies.
They recognised the faces of (their) acquaintances over-against them in the battle. They knew their fathers and their grandsires, their brothers, their sons, their sons-in-law, their companions in front of them there. But when they recognised
Then they withheld their hands outstretched for casting. They stirred not, save as the sudden starting seized them, for shame forbade them to turn from their places in battle, and love allowed them not to contend against those they knew.
For a long time they continued gazing on the place of battle, and none cast at another; but their javelins (were) delayed (and) ready on their fingers, and their arms stretched out, awaiting the mutual wounding, for none of them could hurl his weapon against another.
Long to stay and delay those arms were right, and not to let them loose for the deeds that were done by them after some time. For soon after those arms put to death such a number as the human race could never again attain, even though they were thenceforward at peace, without battle, or warfare or man-slaying among them. For the Roman authors themselves declare that prosperity had been, and that after that battle the account of the previous lordship of the Romans was a shameful tale; for down to that day there was neither fortress nor town nor hamlet in Italy that was not full of the Roman youth. But thenceforward most of them were waste, and they have never been filled.
Every battle and warfare and slaughter and wounding and loss that had taken place in the world was compared with that day's battle. To it was likened every evil, and it was never likened to another evil. No wonder then that the movement of everyone's hands to that battle was inactive. Howbeit, one was found to move his hands against everyone.
'Tis then that Crastinus directed his bright finger of valour into the string of the lacerating half-spear that lay in his hand, and lifted it up as high as his ear, and moved and brandished it, waved and shook it, twisted and aimed it, and made a mighty cast thereof as it uttered its deadly whistling and its cry of battle; so that it came in its virulent course and its carriage of bale past the rim of the shield, over the bosom of the corslet, into the top of the breast of the man in front of him in the other battalion, so that its hard, four-ridged shaft went a hand's length, in the wake of its blue iron, out through his back, piercing his heart in its very centre.
What he strongly proffered left without life: That cast which Crastinus made was not a ‘father without children’, or a ‘chief without an army’, or a ‘leader without his band’, or an ‘announcement of plundering to a weakling’. For there was not a single man of Pompey's army or Caesar's, on the point of casting, that did not imitate that cast.
So then their instruments of battle were sounded by them, and their horns of conflict, and their battle-cries, namely, their trumpets and their clarions, and their summoning cornets, and their pipes of battle, so that the air was disturbed by them with the blare of the curve-sided, smooth-bright trumpets, with the blast and clangour of the cornets, with the din and outcry of the horns and the pipers.
So the natures of the heroes and the spirits of the mighty host arose, and on high they uplifted great shouts.
Their crash and their noises and their answering challenges reached the very summit of Mount Olympus, by a way to which neither winds nor thunders, nor light, hovering cloud of the turbulent air ever came, Those shouts and the same outcries were answered in the glens of Mount Haemus, and in the darksome caverns of Mount Pelion, and in the rough-headed crags of Mount Pangaeum, and in the broad-faced cliff-hills of Mount Oeta, and in all the secret places and wildernesses of the rest of Thessaly.
And it was a cause of fear to the hosts that those cries themselves roused all the studs and droves of horses and cattle, and the sownders of boars and swine, and the herds of deer and savage wild beasts, and senseless furious stags in all the thickets of Thessaly, to listen to the echoed answers out of those places.
At those shouts they came at once in gloom and in fury around the battalions in the midst of the plain, so that a ‘trembling sod’ was made of the plain under the feet of both humans and herds and cattle; and nothing was like it unless an earthquake should come there, and raths and towns and hamlets and temples of the gods, and graveyards of idolaters, and the buildings of stones and boards of the country were overturned by that great thunder-trembling, so that it was the more intolerable to hear also the noise of the plain. There was nothing comparable to it unless the ban of Doom were delivered at that hour.
With that the armies resorted to their missiles, and began to hurl them from each of the two sides. They were too numerous to estimate. Hurled between them were many edged javelins and deadly, pointed darts, and stakes with their ends burnt, and arrows dipped and gilded, and conical hand-stones, and flagstones for flinging, and apple-lumps of iron, and plug-lumps of lead, and round sling-stones.
Such was the activity and exceeding swiftness of their mutual casting that they had no rest from their throws, nor any deficiency; but so long as the hosts were discharging their missiles, there was a dense, black cloud in the air above them, impenetrable, unrarified, so that they hid the light of day, while those vast darknesses were over the battalions and over the fields of the whole of Thessaly beneath them, like moist clouds, or like the gloom of a black mist, or like dark woods in autumn. So then the missiles used to fall in virulent showers and in heavy-pouring floods on the boxes of the shields, and on the fronts of the targes and their bosses, and on the hooks of the corslets, and the pommels of the saddles, on the heads and the bodies of the men and the horses, so that there were many bleedings upon them, and gashes and wounds and incurable manglings.
All those who were casting had not the same desire; for some of them were unwilling to make a random cast in the battle, without wounding a friend or an enemy thereby. Others desired to wound their enemies only. Others preferred that their weapons should fall idly into the earth, without having wounded friend or foe.
That, however, was not in their power, for no particular man used to hit anyone there, but their missiles were hurled into the air above the battalions, so that they fell on the hosts as Fortune or the cast ordained. However, Pompey's army was hurt thereby more than Caesar's, for Pompey's troops were more crowded, and less among them did the missiles reach the ground.
The deadly troop which Pompey commanded, with the nobles of the senate, in the junction of the mutual smiting and on the position of the great battle, remained where they stood in the midst of the fight. They were strongly and densely arranged. They made of themselves an indissoluble testudo and a shieldburgh of bucklers around and above them, so that the rim of one shield touched another. You would think that they were in no danger, except from their own weapons wounding them, from the great closeness in which they arranged themselves; and they were hardly able to move their hands or to wield their weapons against their foes in the density in which they stood, so that four-wheeled chariots would run over them.
Now the great armies of the world came to help Pompey, namely, the nations of Asia and Africa and the folk of the islands of the Mediterranean sea. They did not close up to the army of the Roman senate, but halted, in loose array, scattered, apart from them. For some time, however, they did not attack as yet, for Pompey had directed them not to precede the great division in which were the Romans waiting for the advance.
Then the wings of Caesar's battle, and his cavalry and his standards and the van of his army eagerly attacked the position in the centre of Pompey's force. But Pompey's cavalry was launched against them to terrify them, and they maintained a combative attack upon them.
When Pompey's army saw that, they could not be restrained; but an outburst of their archers and their light young warriors and their youths and their raw recruits broke forth, foot on foot, against the cavalry, so that they seized from them their place of conflict, man for man, in the presence of the battle.
So then the battle was fought manfully, and multitudes fell there in a very short space of time. Thereafter Caesar perceived
This then he did: he suddenly arranged his battalion of footsoldiers as a warlike arch round his cavalry and his standards and the vanguard, so that they might not be turned out of their positions.
Thus then he maintained the combat in its place, and Caesar detached a trifling part of a great army, and put them in haste around the battle, so that by their flank movement they came to Pompey's army by a way that they did not at all expect them to come, while the (main) conflict was still held in its own place.
They moved strongly to them and charged boldly upon them, so that, when Caesar's troops planted their thick-shafted spears in the chests and breasts and groins of their horses, Pompey's cavalry could not turn to await them, for the horses reared up high, and the riders fell supine under them and their hoofs. They were not allowed to rise again; for Caesar's followers beheaded them with their swords.
No valour (?) was gotten from Pompey's followers, that is, from the footsoldiers who were among them; but all of them were crushed; for on the side on which they were attacked they were not allowed to arrange or order themselves. Such was the vehemence and the activity with which they were struck that, when one of them was trying to turn his face on his foe to fight him, he had not half-turned it when one of Caesar's following would thrust his spear into his body, or give a rending blow with the sword over his neck, so that he severed his head from the back of his trunk.
Not long was the battle then without inclining to one of the two sides, for Pompey's army could do nothing but suffer
The barbarian nations and the army lost all shame and took no heed, and remembered not to keep their places in battle; but their cavalry wheeled against their footsoldiers, and then all, both footsoldiers and horsemen, set their faces on one side, and the backs gave equal rights to Caesar's force.
No debts were denied by Caesar's force, for they began eagerly, vehemently, fervently, closely, impatiently to strike after the Pompeians, planting their lances in their bodies, thrusting their spears into their flanks and their kidneys and the empty parts of their sides, cutting off their feet and their chines, their trunks and their necks with their axes and swords, crushing their shoulders and their skulls with their heroes' halberts and battle-clubs.
Immeasurable was the slaughter inflicted therein. What was killed there was neither moderate nor measured. And that was no wonder, for though the slayers behind them were numerous, active, nimble, well-casting, of the host that fled from them they could not slay any who might have been killed, because of its multitude and its density, and the levelness of the plain. Howbeit the Pompeians (made) no petition and got no grant of quarter; and no mercy was shown to them; but it sufficed their nature and spirit to fall by the host that pursued them.
Thus then was Pompey's army hunted from the field.
Thereafter they came to the central bands and to the strength and loyalty and reserve (?) which Pompey had, to
Eight battalions and four score battalions of armed soldiers, and forty thousand foot, with ten hundred in every thousand, arranged in one battalion, and the consul Lentulus with four complete legions along with him (were) in the left wing of the battle, and Domitius, the chief of the town of Corfinium, with the same number in the other wing, and Scipio, son of Scipio Africanus, with the great gathering of the Sicilians, in the forefront of the centre of the same battle.
When Caesar's people reached that virulent battle-wall they ranged themselves, closely and firmly, around their lord, in one body of one battalion. Everyone took his fighting-place as they had been arranged and ordered from the beginning, and they set all their faces at once on that great battalion of Pompey's force.
Rougher than wind, swifter than a blast of fire, heavier than a flood, stronger than a strong outburst of floodtide, more madly fierce than a wave of the billows of the ocean against the breast of a cliff or a high mountain, was the breach and the bursting and the furious, mighty, savage, haughty onslaught which they made on that battle-ambush of Pompey's force.
For them that was not ‘vigour at
[...]
’ (?), and it was not ‘dashing without resistance’, and it was not a ‘course without opposition’, for harder than rock, firmer than oak, steadier than a hill, and stabler than a mountain was the basing and the supporting, and the staying and the stopping which Pompey's force performed against them.
Caesar's good fortune in war was then delayed, and the battle paused there. The fight and the fray were stayed. The war was kept in its place. All the troops who were mightily (?), solitarily, dispersedly, scattered and spread throughout the plains of Thessaly gathered from every point around them, and rested under their protection; for it was not an army of foreigners, or neighbouring nations, or barbaric bands that waged war there, but the true loyal followers and the veteran officers of Pompey and Caesar, to wit, the bold, furious, high-spirited soldiers, and the valiant company of the Roman senate hence and thence, the fathers and the sons, the brothers and the sons-in-law, the friends and the comrades, breast to breast and against the other.
The battalions came there head against head, so that between them was neither interval of casting or space for missile. So when they met the champions stooped, and the battalions on each side crouched, beating their bucklers and sheltered by their targes and their bosses. And they then went to the hilts of their broad-grooved, sword-straight glaives, and the strong bulges of their trimmed javelins, and the trust of their spears and their broad-headed lances, and their wide-hooped, thick-shafted pikes. They set equally high their deadly, sharpened points towards others, so that the equally high, close, smooth, straight, wooden bridge that they made of the strong shafts of the blue-edged javelins between the two dense well-arrayed shieldburghs of great, speckled bucklers on either side, hence and thence, was likened to a street of equally high wooden structure between two long lines of smooth-sided houses and close booths of boards in one of the great royal towns.
So that gravid queens, or bands of a mighty host, or asses under their burdens, would go from one end to the other of
Of the borders of the battle on each side were then made serried edges in the likeness of a hacked tree; for wherever were the stubborn braves and the high-spirited soldiers and the champions of battle and the valorous heroes in the forefronts of the battalions, great breaches were broken and huge gaps were brought in the battalion in front of them, so that the forefronts of the battalions made for the hands of the other, as sea-promontories on the land or lands on sea.
The braves then grew wearied of making those gaps at once in the breasts of the foreign battalions, so that the bulwark of shields was closed after them, that the line of the shield-backs might come again in the same order on the forefronts of the battalions.
Thenceforward everyone was equally fervent in joint effort in the battle, for all the front ranks of the combat, and the warriors of the mutual smiting, went to ply their swords and their lances and their champions' halberts and their battleclubs therein.
The heroes that were next them relied on their charmed spears, and on their red, thick, huge lances, and on their long, edged pikes; and those that could not come to close quarters and the mutual smiting began to strike their foes with their missiles over the heads of their friends and fellow-soldiers, so that like unto the pelting (?) of a hailshower on buildings of stone or boards was the striking of the hand-flags, and the
Likened to the pounding sledge-hammers on an anvil were the activity and the force, the strength and the vigour of the blows of the broad-grooved swords, and the mauling of the strong two-edged axes, and the heavy, rending blow of the battle-clubs over the rims of the shields, over the shoulders of the men, over the cheeks of the heroes, over the fringes of the iron greaves, in every corner and every recess of the battle.
Likened to bellows a-blowing was the panting and puffing and gasping (?) of the champions upheaving their breath and letting it out again, at the frequency of the blows and the closeness of the smiting and the hugeness of the exertions which they endured at every point of the battle.
Likened to the bright clouds of mist lifting on high at the heat of the sun in the beginning of a radiant summer-day was the cloak of bright clouds which arose above them from the chalk of the cloven shields torn by the edges of the axes, and the swords whistling (?) aloft, with the panting and blowing of the warriors and the mighty men enduring the onslaughts, and performing their deeds of valour in the battle.
Likened to fiery lightnings through weightless clouds of air were the blasts of the luminous arrows, the glowing brightness and sheen of the axes and the swords and the keen, naked weapons moving and interchanging over the heads of the heroes from the forearms of the royal soldiers and the hands of the warriors, at the swiftness of the blows, and the force of the smiting, and the closeness of the liftings and the lowerings.
Likened to the mutual visiting and the movement of the swarms of bees over their hives on a beautiful day was the close, near, mutual visiting in turns above and from above over their heads, namely, the bosses of the shields, and the crests of the helmets, and the blades of the spears, and the heads of the
Likened to snow-flakes a-dropping, or to the thatch of a great royal burgh swept in separate masses by a mighty wind, was the way the manes and hair and beards and tresses of the strong men dropped from the beaks of the axes, and the points of the swords, and the heads of the pikes, and the keen, sharp-edged blades of the polished spears, and the tops of the red lances.
Likened to the stream-pools of a river-yielding mountain dripping through a weir of stones were the streams and rills of the crimson blood flowing through the links of the hauberks out of the bodyskins of the champions in the battle.
Fervently and recklessly was the battle fought afterwards. Virulent was the meeting, and hard was the joint smiting and wounding and seizing which the champions of either army performed in taking their battle-efforts upon them.
Thenceforward they had no shouts of battle.
Neither trumpets nor clarions nor battle-horns, nor bugles of outcry, nor pipes of war were sounded by them when their battle-duties devolved on the heroes, for their work and their duty were supporting them.
Then were heard many other fearful things and awful.
Then indeed were heard the clashing of the shields, and the whirring blows of the swords, and the whistling of the edged javelins, and the cry of the polished spears, and the whiz of the arrows.
Then were heard the crash and shatterings of the terrible naked weapons at being broken up and torn to bits in the hands of the warriors.
Then were heard the whistling of the piercing javelins, and the flesh-blows of the falling axes, and the flailing and beating of the wielded battle-clubs.
Then was heard the concert of the broad-grooved sword-straight glaives against the bosses and rims of the bucklers fit for shieldburghs, against the hooks and folds and chains of the hauberks, against the plates and fringes of the helmets, against teeth of men, and bones of heroes, and headless trunks of soldiers.
Then was heard the foaming and bubbling of the crimson blood at the dropping in its flowings and at the pouring in its streamlets out of the wounds and hurts of the heroes in the wakes of the weapons.
There was heard then the rattling (?) of the corslets a-breaking and a-smashing, and the sally of the champions rushing on, the clashing and falling of the strong men overthrown, and the bending down (?) of the warriors inflicting the blows, and the groans of the men enduring them.
There was heard the skull-breaking (?) of the heads when sworded, and the cries of the necks and trunks after the heads, and the empty starting of the breasts and bellies after the bowels and entrails, and the hoarse cries of the heroes who were separating from their souls and tasting death.
There was heard the confused sounds of the breasts of the chiefs and the champions falling into the hollows of their shields, and the roaring of the shields a-splitting under them.
Then was heard the groaning and wailing of the youths, and the panting of the seniors, and the grief of the champions, and the complaint of the heroes, and the clamour of the soldiers, and the laments of the mighty men at the destruction of their forces, and the subjugation of their deeds of valour, and the destructive overwhelming which they suffered, and the great violence which they endured.
Then were heard the great, high, outlandish voices of the nobles and the generalissimos and the officers frightening their foes and egging on their followers to do bravely.
Then Caesar, when he saw everyone performing his battle-duties, began to display his royal deeds in the battle. Heat and burning and madness and fury and frenzy of mind and nature filled him when he beheld the battle maintained against him; so that there was nothing like him save the war-goddess who is said to be with her bloody scourges in her hand around the battles, inciting the hosts to combat. Even so was Caesar through his followers and around them, for no one found him absent in the van or the rear, on the flank or in the middle, in a nook or a corner, in a point or an end or a forefront of the battle. But it seemed to those men in every place that he was among them alone, and he without stop or stay, from the van to the rear of the battle, closing up and pushing and joining together the troops in the fight, heartening the heroes, exhorting the warriors, urging the champions, egging on the soldiers, inciting the bands, commanding the halting, pressing on the standing still, persuading the attack. So that by means of that instigation and incitement be was putting an increase of might and valour into the spirits of his soldiers and into the natures of his warriors, although they had been previously eagerly, earnestly slaying their enemies and slaughtering their foes.
Then he ceased not praising their combating, and adjudgiug their deeds of valour, and measuring their strokes and their blows, and examining their swords to see which of them had his blade all over crimson with blood, or only red on point or edge, or which of them was slack in his battle-work, or which was straining from fear of him or his requisition; or whose sword was inflicting a wound, or who was dealing a blow with setting, or who was setting the blow when his forearms were shaking and trembling from the hilt of the sword to his shoulder.
To those, then, whose swords were blunted or whose weapons were broken, Caesar at once used to supply a sufficiency of weapons without stint. To the wounded men who were (still) fighting, with their streams of gore and their outpours of blood flowing over their wounds, Caesar used to come, and push his hands against the lips of their gashes, until they had therein from him enough of wisps and of tents (made) from their garments.
As for those, then, who were quite killed, he used to urge the raw soldiers into their places, and those who did not immediately respond to his voice or his orders he used to beat them on or drive them with the shafts of their spears till they took their posts in the combat.
He used to recognise well and point out to them the nobles and the pick of the Romans. He forbade them to kill the rabble and the feeble, wretched people. But he incited and enjoined them to kill the folk of dignity and honorable ranks, and the royal race, and the great men of the senate, for through their destruction he looked to gain kingship and dominion for himself and his followers.
He was tendering great thanks and giving high commendation to those that, after recognising their friends and beheading them as if they were foes, were bravely throwing their heads afar. For many of them knew not against whom they were fighting, since the shields and the hauberks and the helmets were covering them, so that (only) after killing and despoiling them could they recognise the heads of their friends and their naked bodies before them.
Bitter, rough, vindictive (?), unfriendly was that battle fought by Pompey's army and Caesar's. Keen was the mutual slaughter: frequent the smiting: swift the guarding: rude the valour. It was mad and senseless. Destructive was the common
Many noble, wellborn bodies did the broad-grooved swords of heroes destroy between them. Many active, eager warriors were mangled by broad blue lances between them. Many skins of heroes were cut by trimmed arrows sped from longbows. Many sides of champions were pierced by polished, broad-bladed lances. Many crowns of valiant warriors were strongly struck by the hand-stones and battle-clubs. Many furious, bold, high-spirited soldiers were overthrown by the clamorous (?) pikes. Many men truly-desirous, heroic, were destroyed violently by the overwhelming of the unequal fight. Many vigorous, proud bands were stopped in byres of death and in threshing-floors of dissolution. Many noble, ordained overkings (there were) on whom misfortune was inflicted. Many nobles, generous, sedate, cheery, went to hideous, premature deaths. Many beautiful, fair-faced youths, and many eager, sharpnosed (?) veterans fell in sickbeds of death. Many cruel, haughty kings (there were), and many leaders firm, strong, steady, whose sons and grandsons, friends and kinsmen were quelled along with themselves.
Then the corpses and heads and bodies of the wellborn Romans grew and increased amid the battle-field, so that they were as heaps and equal hills, and as ridges and vast mounds, without any admixture of the lowborn or rabble or wretched people, but only the true, proper roots of the Romans themselves, the kingliest, freest and noblest that had come from them, including the race of Remus and Romulus, and Junius, Vulteius and Marius and Marcus and Metellus and Sylla and Scipio and Cato and Curio and Camillus and Quadratus (?) and Corvinus: including the race of Fabius and Varus and Antonius and Lucius and Lucilius and Torquatus the Proud; and including the race of the other Roman royal lords and the
Howbeit, though many were the bodies of valiant soldiers and the corpses of nobles then lying supine on the plain of Thessaly, still the body of one warrior dying among them was noticeable and pleasant. Gloriously and spiritedly he went unto death. It was Domitius, the chief of the town Corfinium in Italy. A thorough friend and champion of counsel to the generalissimo Pompey was he when Caesar, at the beginning of his hosting, entered Italy. That man undertook to hold his citadel against Caesar, and refused to submit to him and to do his will, whereupon Caesar overcame the citadel, and its garrison and Domitius were in his power. Then Caesar gave him his freedom and allowed him to go unhurt to his own master.
So Caesar came to him while Domitius was at his last gasp, lying down on the battle-field, with great, long, mangled, wounds athwart him, and deep, intolerable gashes, and incurable scars (?), and he himself wallowing and bathing in the pools of dark blood and in the rivers of gore that were under the feet of the heroes in the battle. Caesar looked at him, and remained above his head in the battle, and said to him: ‘Well done for thee to be thus, O Domitius! We are glad that thou art severed from the company and the counsel of Pompey, and that henceforward the warfare will be waged without thee.’
‘I too am glad’, says Domitius, ‘to go free to death as I am going, with Pompey as my lord, and to leave thee behind me without as yet routing my friends in battle.’
Hardly had he moved his lips for that little utterance, when the darknesses of death filled his eyes, and the everlasting sleep and the dark, iron slumber of destruction came
Sad indeed it was in the battle afterwards.
Abundant was the sound of an arrow against the trunk of nobles, and the sound of a sword piercing a body, and the sound of a spear penetrating a flank, and the sound of an axe hewing a champion, the sound of a hatchet crushing a foe, the sound of a club against a corslet, the sound of a stone against a helmet, and a ball over a soldier's temporal artery.
Many, then, were shields split, and targes cut, and strong corslets loosened, and iron greaves severed, and helmets crushed, and battle-belts mangled, and heroes' skulls cleft with swords.
Many, too, were red, headless trunks, and raw, freshly-cut carcases, and open, gaping wounds, and fresh, unmeasured lacerations, and deep, incurable gashes, and long, crooked manglings, and rough, dangerous blows, and felling strokes, and deadly knocks, and hurts of death.
Many, too, were bodies torn, and skins slashed, and flanks pierced, and fierce warriors mangled, and hands injured, and heads broken, and youths severely wounded, and soldiers killed, and braves gored, and champions slaughtered, and heroes' bodies in a bed of blood.
Many, too, were men lying on their backs, and faces distorted pale, spectral, and heroes' countenances growing green, and deadened limbs starting, and eyes rolling wildly, and white lips tasting (death), and necks of nobles dripping (blood) and cloven lungs oozing out, and gathered heads running together, and rent trunks groaning, and pure breasts heaving, and perforated hearts pouring, and mangled hands twitching, and barbaric white soles spurning.
Many too, were the good warriors going to untimely death, and evil fortune befalling a noble, and a slaughter of foes on bodies of kings.
Many, then, were the violent, strange, tragic deaths, and many unbearable kinds being inflicted on champions.
Many were the paths of destruction, and various the roads of death, which were with the heroes of the battle and the youths of the conflict; for thus was a crowd of them: fighting with spears and swords athwart through their bodies.
Another great crowd there, and thus they were fighting: sitting down, with their legs lopped beneath them as high as the fringes of their hauberks.
Another great crowd there, and thus they were: standing up with their entrails streaming (?) against their feet, and they (the feet) crushing and trampling upon them.
Another great crowd there, and thus they were: standing up after their hands and their limbs were cut off to the ground, and they jostling (?) their foes with their shoulders and their feet, for they had no power of wounding or striking others.
Another great crowd etc., with the swords of their foemen thrust into their gullets, and they at the same time gnashing the swords and sending forth their souls over their lips.
Another great crowd etc., and they dealing the blow and themselves falling down with it to the plain.
Another great crowd etc., and they bursting (?) under the vestment of their bellies, and the weapons of their foes at the same time out over their breasts.
Another great crowd, etc., and their spurts of blood and streams of gore pouring out of their bodies; and yet not the sooner did they cease fighting until their blood and their strength and their soul at the same time were leaving them.
Another great crowd etc., and they lying down close to the ground, and the weapons of their foes, and their spears, driven through their bodies, so that through these they were taking hold of the site of the earth.
Another great crowd etc., with their right hands at the smiting, and their left hands holding in their bowels and their entrails.
Another great crowd etc., and they themselves going to death, while they knew that their post of battle was being maintained by their sons and their brothers after them.
Another great crowd, and thus they were when their friends and their kinsmen happened to be opposite them: when they came to slaughtering and spoiling them, they used to cast their friends' heads far away from them, so that by not recognising the heads they might have the less shame or disgrace in spoiling the corpses.
Another great crowd there also: 'tis this that the unlucky chance gave them, that they were slaughtering and spoiling the bodies of their own fathers; and when they did not try to hide their fathers' heads they would give the persons present the testimony of the earth that it was not at all the bodies of relatives that they were spoiling. For in this Great Battle of the plain of Thessaly there was many a man whose father or son or brother or son-in-law or fellow-citizen chanced to be opposite to him.
So therefore the Roman authors and the framers of this story left the combats of the battle without relating and recounting