Dio's Rome, Volume 2: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English FormCassius Dio Cocceianus
History
Dio's Rome, Volume 2: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form
Cassius Dio Cocceianus
Rome -- History
sound of paean nor groan was to be heard from any one of them: both
sides limited their shouts to "Strike! Kill!", while their acts easily
outran their speech. Caesar and Pompey, who saw this from horseback on
certain elevated positions, felt little inclination to either hope or
despair, but torn with doubts were equally distressed by confidence and
fear. The battle was so nearly balanced that they suffered tortures at
the sight, straining to spy out some advantage, and quivering lest they
descry some setback. Their souls were filled with prayers for success
and against misfortune, and with alternating strength and fear. In fact,
not being able to endure it long, they leaped from their horses and
joined the combat. Apparently they preferred a participation involving
personal exertion and danger rather than tension of spirit, and each
hoped by associating in the fight to turn the scale somehow in favor of
his own soldiers. Or, if they failed of that, they were content to meet
death, side by side with them.
[-38-] The generals, then, took part in the battle themselves. This
movement, however, resulted in no advantage to either army. On the
contrary,--when the men saw their chiefs sharing their danger, a far
greater disregard for their own death and eagerness for the destruction
of their opponents seized both alike. Accordingly neither side for the
moment turned to flight: matched in determination, they found their
persons matched in power. All would have perished, or else at nightfall
they would have parted with honors even, had not Bogud, who was
somewhere outside the press, made an advance upon Pompey's camp,
whereupon Labienus, seeing it, left his station to proceed against him.
Pompey's men, interpreting this as flight, lost heart. Later they
doubtless learned the truth but could no longer retrieve their position.
Some escaped to the city, some to the fortification. The latter body
vigorously fought off attacks and fell only when surrounded, while the
former for a long time kept the wall safe, so that it was not captured
till all of them had perished in sallies. So great was the total loss of
Romans on both sides that the victors, at a loss how to wall in the city
to prevent any running away in the night, actually heaped up the bodies
of the dead around it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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