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He had indeed met many men since the battle of the Pharsalus, but to none of whom we are conversant had he expressed his thoughts regarding that great campaign. Here we part from Pompey, who ran from the fighting-ground of Macedonia to meet his doom in the roads of Alexandria. Never had man risen so high in his youth to be extinguished so ingloriously in his age.
But the leading men had almost all taken part in the fight at Pharsalus; and, although they all escaped with the exception of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was killed in the flight, they were yet scattered in all directions, so that they were unable to concert a common plan for the continuance of the campaign.
King Juba was not disinclined still to maintain the position which he had held in Africa up to the battle of Pharsalus; indeed he bore himself no longer as a client of the Romans but as an equal ally or even as a protector, and took it upon him, for example, to coin Roman silver money with his name and device; nay, he even raised a claim to be the sole wearer of purple in the camp, and suggested to the Roman commanders that they should lay aside their purple mantle of office.
"Strike them in the face!" cried Caesar at Pharsalus, when the young patricians made their charge; and the young patricians, who cared more for their looks than they did for victory, turned and fled. It was to the Field of Mars that Agrippa came, to whom Rome owed the Pantheon and the demand for a law which should inhibit the private ownership of a masterpiece.
The analysis of Cannae is ended. Before passing to the recital of Pharsalus, we cannot resist the temptation, though the matter be a little foreign to the subject, to say a few words about the battles of Hannibal. These battles have a particular character of stubbornness explained by the necessity for overcoming the Roman tenacity. It may be said that to Hannibal victory was not sufficient.
Away with this fear, based on mere rumour! After Dyrrachium Caesar's cause was deemed lost, and how soon Pharsalus made him master of the world! Is it worthy of a sensible person to suffer courage to be depressed by a sailor's gossip? And yet yet! It began while I was ill. And then the swallows on the Antonias, the admiral's ship. We have already spoken of it.
What admitted of least doubt, was the passing over to the side of Caesar of all those who had attached themselves to the party vanquished at Pharsalus merely as to the more powerful; the defeat was so thoroughly decisive, that the victor was joined by all who were not willing or were not obliged to fight for a lost cause.
PHARSALUS: THAPSUS: MUNDA. Caesar gained the advantage of securing the state treasure which Pompeius had unaccountably left behind him, and was able to establish his power in Italy. Pompeius sailed for Egypt; but, just as he was landing, he was treacherously assassinated. His head was sent to Caesar, who wept at the spectacle, and punished the murderers.
The whole period of the Roman Empire, Western and Eastern, is from the forties B.C. to the Fourteen-fifties A.D., fifteen centuries. The first phase of the Chinese Empire, from Ts'in Shi Hwangti to the fall of Han, lasted about 460 years; the Western Roman Empire, from Pharsalus to the death of Honorius, lasted about as long.
XLII. When the two armies had entered the plain of Pharsalus and pitched their camps, Pompeius again fell back into his former opinion, and there were also unlucky appearances and a vision in his sleep. He dreamed that he saw himself in the theatre, applauded by the Romans.
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