The line was weak, its members strong. They were rural Italians, uncorrupted by city life, hardy, god-fearing peasants and sons of peasants, worthy descendants of the men who died in the legions at Cannae, or triumphed at the Metaurus. Steady as on a review the six cohorts bore down into action. And when they struck the great mass of horsemen they thrust their pila into the riders' eyes and prodded the steeds. The foremost cavalrymen drew rein; the horses reared. The squadrons were colliding and plunging. In an eye's twinkling their momentum had been checked. "Charge! Charge!" Drusus sent the word tossing down along the cohorts, and the legionaries pressed forward. It was done. The whole splendid array of horsemen broke in rout; they went streaming back in disordered squadrons over the plain, each trooper striving to outride his fellow in the flight. Pompeius had launched his most deadly bolt, and it had failed. Now was Drusus's chance. No further order had been given him; to pursue cavalry with infantry were folly; he needed no new commands. The six cohorts followed his lead like machinery. The crash of battle dimmed his voice; the sight of his example led the legionaries on. They fell on the Pompeian archers and slingers and dispersed them like smoke. They wheeled about as on a pivot and struck the enemy's left wing; struck the Pompeian fighting line from the rear, and crushed it betwixt the upper and nether millstone of themselves and the tenth legion. Drusus drove into the very foremost of the fight; it was no longer a press, it was flight, pursuit, slaughter, and he forced his horse over one enemy after another--transformed, transfigured as he was into a demon of destruction, while the delirium of battle gained upon him. Drusus saw the figure of a horseman clothed, like Caesar, in a red general's cloak spurring away to the enemy's camp. He called to his men that Pompeius had taken panic and fled away; that the battle was won. He saw the third line of the Caesarians drive through the Pompeian centre and right as a plough cuts through the sandy field, and then spread terror, panic, rout--the battle became a massacre.