nprotected, then rushed at the left wing
of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it. At the same time
Caesar's third division hitherto reserved advanced along
the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm
of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents,
broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius,
who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen
gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp,
without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar.
His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook
into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss.

Its Issue
Flight of Pompeius

The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen,
but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation
of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat
of Dyrrhachium. But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny
had learned that fortune loves to withdraw herself at certain moments
even from her favourites in order to be once more won back
through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto
only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her
when she withdrew from him; and, while in Caesar's grander nature
despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul
of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss
of despondency. As once in the war with Sertorius he had been
on the point of abandoning the office entrusted to him in presence
of his superior opponent and of departing,(33) so now, when he saw
the legions retire over the stream, he threw from him the fatal
general's scarf, and rode off by the nearest route to the sea,
to find means of embarking there. His army discouraged and leaderless--
for Scipio, although recognized by Pompeius as colleague in supreme
command, was yet general-in-chief only in name--hoped to find protection
behind the camp-walls; but Caesar allowed it no rest; the obstinate
resistance of the Roman and Thracian guard of the camp was speedily
overcome, and the mass was compelled to withdraw in disorder
to the heights of Crannon and Scotussa, at the foot of which
the camp was pitched. It attempted by moving forward along these hills
to regain Larisa; but the troops of Caesar, heeding neither
booty nor fatigue and advancing by better paths in the plain,
intercepted the