to that of Pompey, who was stationed near Dyrrachium; and yet he advanced against him, and ventured to hem him in by throwing up lines and bastions round Dyrrachium. This was an undertaking which Pompey could very easily let him go on with; for he got his supplies by sea, while Cæsar had no other provisions but those which he could collect by forays into the neighbouring country. Here Cæsar tried to finish the war; but he was unsuccessful, being repulsed with considerable loss in a coup de main against Dyrrachium: Pompey showed determination, and made himself master of part of the lines, so that the blockade had to be given up. The soldiers were so disheartened that day, that Cæsar despaired of the issue: they were certainly in a wretched plight, as they had to feed on grass and roots. Grass means here as much as salad: the poor in the south very often eat such herbs with vinegar and oil, which indeed the soldiers had to do without. Cæsar afterwards said, that he would have been routed on that day; and that Pompey would have conquered, if he had known how to make use of his victory. But Pompey had grown sluggish, and he had lost the faculty of doing anything to justify the pretensions which he put forth. After this rebuff, Cæsar was unable to go on with the war there any more; and so he ventured upon an expedition which, had it failed, would quite as much have been classed among fool-hardy freaks as the march of Charles XII. to Pultawa. Leaving Pompey in his rear, he betook himself to a country where he had nothing to rely upon, but every inch of ground to conquer: he broke up from Dyrrachium. No doubt Pompey expected that he would now turn towards Illyricum, and there unite himself with the troops of his party: but far from doing this, he went to the high mountain ranges between Epirus and Thessaly, and without stopping, to Gomphi, near the pass from Janina to Thessaly, and took it by storm. By this means, he restored the confidence of his soldiers, as they refreshed themselves with the booty. The panic caused by the destruction of this town, opened to him the whole of Thessaly. Pompey, who had such a superior force of soldiers, ought now to have gone to Italy; and the more so, as those legions of Cæsar’s which had been formed of the troops which had gone over to him in Spain, had partly become mutinous again, while Cæsar, with the fleet which he had, could never have reached Italy. But those who were about Pompey, were now so full of joy at Cæsar’s having got into a trap by going into countries from which he had no way out, that they went after him. Terror, however, paved the way for Cæsar: he was quite comfortably off in luxurious Thessaly, and having everything in plenty, he was enabled to recover himself. He took up his position near the rich town of Pharsalus, where for some days the two armies were facing each other, and manœuvring: he again got into a very bad plight, as he was in want