The crucial feature of the whole battle was Cæsar’s skilful disposition of the 3000 men, placed, as some authorities describe it, in a kind of ambuscade. It was this that upset the whole plan of Pompeius’ massive cavalry charge. The intelligent manœuvering of the Gallic and German horse, first giving way, then returning to charge superior numbers, is an illuminating illustration of the discipline prevailing in all arms of Cæsar’s force. The close of the battle was followed by the occupation of the Pompeian camp. The commander himself fled in deep dejection from Greece, and met his death by an assassin’s hands, when landing from a boat on the coast of Egypt. As a military leader he had proved himself in this war unimaginative and sluggish. He was a master of the technique of warfare, but failed to make use of his opportunities; he seemed to have worked out his own campaign in advance, and to have followed the scheme with deliberation, but in other respects he was resourceless, both when the advantage was his own and when the enemy made mistakes. With two very much reduced legions and a few horse, Cæsar pursued his rival to Egypt, where he was too late to take him alive. But the factional contests in Egypt as to the royal succession and perhaps, too, the desire to get his hands on the Egyptian treasury, induced the conqueror to use this opportunity of asserting Roman sovereignty over the dependent kingdom. It proved to be a rash step, for the Egyptians were fanatically attached to their autonomous position, and Cæsar’s small force was in great danger, not only from the Egyptian army, but also from the turbulent Alexandrian populace, who tried and almost succeeded in shutting him up in part of the city, and in preventing supplies and reinforcements coming to him by sea. At times the Romans were in great danger; there were furious combats in the city and in the harbor, and it was not till many months had passed that Cæsar was master of the situation. It took all the resources of his versatile genius to hold out until large enough reinforcements came from the East to bring the Alexandrians into subjection. The whole winter after the battle of Pharsalus was spent in this way, and when the war was over in March, there was three months more delay in Alexandria, owing, it was said, to the fascination exerted over the conqueror by the famous Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. During the summer preparations were made for an extensive expedition throughout the Farther East with a small body of men, the design being to pacify the Oriental provinces. This proved not very difficult; most of the problems were solved by diplomacy and only one battle was fought, that of Zela, in Pontus, with Pharnaces, king of Pontus, who had taken advantage of the civil war to try to set up an independent rule over a large part of Asia Minor.