In Italy he had, it is true, cavalry superior to that of the Romans. But the Romans had a much superior infantry. Had conditions been reversed, he would have changed his methods. The instruments of battle are valuable only if one knows how to use them, and Pompey, we shall see, was beaten at Pharsalus precisely because he had a cavalry superior to that of Caesar. If Hannibal was vanquished at Zuma, it was because genius cannot accomplish the impossible. Zuma proved again the perfect knowledge of men that Hannibal possessed and his influence over the troops. His third line, the only one where he really had reliable soldiers, was the only one that fought. Beset on all sides, it slew two thousand Romans before it was conquered. We shall see later what a high state of morale, what desperate fighting, this meant. CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS, AND SOME CHARACTERISTIC EXAMPLES Here is Caesar's account of the battle of Pharsalus. "As Caesar approached Pompey's camp, he noted that Pompey's army was placed in the following order: "On the left wing were the 2nd and 3rd Legions which Caesar had sent to Pompey at the commencement of the operation, pursuant to a decree of the Senate, and which Pompey had kept. Scipio occupied the center with the legions from Syria. The legion from Cilicia was placed on the right wing together with the Spanish cohorts of Afranius. Pompey regarded the troops already mentioned as the most reliable of his army. Between them, that is, between the center and the wings, he had distributed the remainder, consisting of one hundred and ten complete cohorts in line. These were made up of forty-five thousand men, two thousand of whom were veterans, previously rewarded for their services, who had come to join him. He had scattered them throughout the whole line of battle. Seven cohorts had been left to guard his camp and the neighboring forts. His right wing rested on a stream with inaccessible banks; and, for that reason, he had placed all his seven thousand cavalry, [14] his archers and his slingers (forty-two hundred men) on the left wing.