Chapter 21

How Ulamhala's Words Came True

I

The sentries were going their rounds; the camp-fires were burning low. Over on the western hills bounding the Thessalian plain-land lingered the last bars of light. It was oppressively warm, and man and beast were utterly fatigued. Quintus Drusus stripped off his armour, and flung himself on the turf inside his tattered leather tent. Vast had been the changes eighteen months of campaigning had made in him. He had fought in Italy, in Spain, in the long blockade of the Pompeians at Dyrrachium. He had learned the art of war in no gentle school. He had ceased even so much as to grumble inwardly at the hardships endured by the hard-pressed Caesarian army. The campaign was not going well. Pompeius had broken through the blockade; and now the two armies had been executing tedious manoeuvres, fencing for a vantage-ground before joining pitched battle.

Drusus was exceedingly weary. The events of the past two years,--loves, hates, pleasures, perils, battles,--all coursed through his mind; the fairest and most hideous of things were blended into buzzing confusion; and out of that confusion came a dull consciousness that he, Quintus Drusus, was thoroughly weary of everything and anything--was heavy of heart, was consumed with hatred, was chafing against a hundred barriers of time, space, and circumstance, and was utterly impotent to contend against them.

The Imperator--how he loved and adored him! Through all the campaigning nothing could seem to break the strength of that nervous, agile, finely strung physique. Sleeping in carriages or litters; ever moving; dictating continually books and letters to a secretary if for an hour there was a halt; dictating even while on horseback, in fact, and composing two letters at the same time; riding the most ungovernable horses fearlessly and without a fall; galloping at full speed with his hands clasped behind his back,--these were the mere external traits that made him wonderful among men. Worthy of all praise was the discipline by which the Imperator had held his troops to him by bonds firmer than iron; neither noticing all petty transgressions, nor punishing according to a rigid rule; swift and sure to apprehend mutineers and deserters; certain to relax the tight bands of discipline after a hard-fought battle with the genial remark that "his soldiers fought none the worse for being well oiled "; ever treating the troops as comrades, and addressing them as "fellow-soldiers," as if they were but sharers with him in the honour of struggling for a single great end. Drusus had known him to ride one hundred miles a day in a light chariot without baggage, march continually at the head of his legions on foot, sharing their fatigues in the most malignant weather, swim a swollen river on a float of inflated skins, always travelling faster than the news of his coming might fly before him. Tireless, unsleeping, all providing, all accomplishing, omniscient,--this was what made Drusus look upon his general as a being raised up by the Fates, to go up and down the world, destroying here and building there. The immediate future might be sombre enough, with all the military advantages falling, one after another, into Pompeius's lap; but doubt the ultimate triumph of Caesar? The young Livian would have as readily questioned his own existence.

Some one thrust back the flaps of the tent, and called inside into the darkness:--

"Are you here, Drusus?"

"I am," was the wearied answer. "Is that Antonius?"

"Yes. Come out. We may as well dispose of our cold _puls_ before the moon rises, and while we can imagine it peacocks, Lucrine oysters, or what not."

"If sight were the only sense!" grumbled Drusus, as he pulled himself together by a considerable effort, and staggered to his feet.

Outside the tent Antonius was waiting with a helmet half full of the delectable viand, which the two friends proceeded to share together as equally as they might in the increasing darkness.

"You are over sober to-night," said Antonius, when this scarcely elaborate meal was nearly finished.

"_Perpol!_" replied Drusus, "have I been as a rule drunken of late? My throat hardly knows the feeling of good Falernian, it is so long since I have tasted any."

"I doubt if there is so much as a draught of _posca_[176] in the army," said Antonius, yawning. "I imagine that among our friends, the Pompeians, there is plenty, and more to spare. _Mehercle_, I feel that we must storm their camp just to get something worth drinking. But I would stake my best villa that you have not been so gloomy for mere lack of victuals, unless you have just joined the Pythagoreans, and have taken a vow not to eat fish or beans."

[176] A drink of vinegar and water very common among the soldiers.

"I do not know that I am especially gloomy to-night," replied Drusus, a bit testily. "I know little whereon to make merry."

"The arrows of Amor," hinted Antonius, "sink deep in the soul, and the god is unfair; he shoots venomed darts; the poison ever makes the pain greater."

"I would you could endure your own troubles," retorted the other, "and let me care for mine!"

"_Perpol,_ friend," replied Antonius, "don't be vexed! I see it is a case of your wanting little said on a sore point. Well, keep silent, I won't tease you. Doesn't Theognis declare:--

"'Caress me not with words, while far away Thy heart is absent and thy feelings stray'?[177]

[177] Elton, translator.

And doubtless you would reverse the saying and put 'my heart' for 'thy heart.' Forgive me."

But Drusus, now that the ice was broken, was glad to talk.

"Now, amice, I won't harbour any ill feeling. I know that you don't look at women the way I do. If you had ever fallen in love with one like Cornelia, it would have been different. As it is, you can only stare at me, and say to yourself, 'How strange a sensible fellow like Drusus should care for a girl from whom he has been parted for nearly two years!' That's why I doubt if your sympathy can be of any great solace to me."

"Well," said Antonius, washing down his _puls_ with a draught of water from a second helmet at hand, "I can't say that I would be full of grief two years from the day my beloved Fulvia was taken from me. But there are women of many a sort. Some are vipers to sting your breast, some are playthings, some are--what shall I call them--goddesses? no, one may not kiss Juno; flowers? they fade too early; silver and gold? that is rubbish. I have no name for them. But believe me, Quintus, I have met this Cornelia of yours once or twice, and I believe that she is one of those women for whom my words grow weak."

"Then you can sympathize, can feel, for me," said Drusus, as he lay back with his head on the dark green sward.

"Yes, as a poor man who has always possessed nothing can feel for a rich merchant whose whole fortune is about to founder at sea. Do not spurn my feeble sort of pity. But do you know nothing of her, not a word, a sign? Is she alive or dead? Much less, does she still care for you?"

"Nothing!" answered Drusus, and the sense of vexation and helplessness choked his utterance. "She vanished out of sight at Baiae, as a flash of lightning passes away in the sky. I cannot imagine the cause of her disappearance. The pirates, indeed, might have wished to take her for ransom; but no, they bore her off with never a demand for money from any friend or relative. I have tried to trace them--the Pompeian ships on every sea make it impossible. I have questioned many prisoners and spies; she is not at the Pompeian camp with her uncle. Neither can I discover that her kinsmen among the enemy themselves know where she is. And to this is added that other mystery: whither has my Aunt Fabia vanished? How much of the account of those who followed her to the river dock is to be believed--that pirates saved her from Gabinius, and then abducted her? Upon all, my clever freedman Agias is gone--gone without ever a word, though I counted him faithful as my own soul!"

"And what then do you expect?" asked Antonius, not without friendly interest.

"What can a man, who dares to look the situation in the face, expect, except something too horrible to utter?" and Drusus groaned in his agony.

"You mean--" began his friend.

"That the pirates have kept Cornelia and perhaps Fabia in their vile clutches until this hour; unless, indeed, the Fates have been merciful and they are dead! Do you wonder at my pain?"

"_Phui!_ we will not imagine any such disagreeable thing!" said Antonius, in a sickly effort to make banter at the other's fears.

"Don't speak again unless you want me your enemy," threatened Drusus, springing up in fury. Antonius knew his own interests enough to keep quiet; besides, his friend's pain cut him to the heart, and he knew himself that Drusus's dread was justified under the circumstances.

"Do you think there will be a battle to-morrow?" demanded Drusus, after some interval of gloomy silence.

"I would to the gods it might be so," was his answer; "are you thirsting for blood?"

Drusus half drew his short sword, which even in camp never left the side of officer or private during that campaign.

"Thirst for blood?" he growled. "Yes, for the lives of Lucius Lentulus, and Domitius and his accursed younger son. I am hot as an old gladiator for a chance to spill their blood! If Cornelia suffers woe unutterable, it will be they--they who brought the evil upon her! It may not be a philosophic mood, but all the animal has risen within me, and rises more and more the longer I think upon them and on _her_."

"Come," said Antonius, lifting his friend by the arm, "and let us lie down in the tent. There will be toil enough to-morrow; and we must take what rest we may."

II

On that same night, in a very sumptuous tent, fresh from an ample dinner and a season over choice wines, the high and the mighty of Caesar's enemies were taking counsel together. No longer were they despairing, panic-stricken fugitives, driven from their native land which they had abandoned a prey to the invader. The strength of the East had gathered about them. Jews, Armenians, and Arabians were among their auxiliary forces; Asia Minor, Greece, the Archipelago, had poured out for them levies and subsidies. In the encampment were the vassal kings, Deiotarus of Galatia and Ariarathes of Cappadocia, allies who would share the triumph of the victorious Pompeius.

For none could doubt that the Magnus had proved his right to be called the favoured child of Fortune. Had not Caesar been utterly defeated at Dyrrachium? Was he not now almost a fugitive in the interior of Greece,--liable at any moment to have his forces cut to pieces, and he himself to be slain, in battle like a second Catilina, or to die by the executioner's axe like another Carbo? Had not several delighted Pompeians just hastened away to Lesbos, to convey to Cornelia, the wife of the Magnus, the joyful tidings that Caesar's power was broken and the war was over?

Throughout the Pompeian camps there was feasting and revelry, soldiers trolled low songs deriding their opponents, and drank themselves stupid, celebrating in advance the return of the victorious army to Italy. Their officers were looking forward even more eagerly to their reinstatement in their old haunts and pleasures at Rome. Lucius Ahenobarbus, who was outside the tent of the Magnus, while his father was taking part in the conference, was busy recounting to a crony the arrangements he was making.

"I have sent a freedman back to Rome to see that my rooms are furnished and put in order. But I have told him that I need a suite near the Forum, if possible, so as to be convenient for the canvass when I sue for quaestor at the next election, for it is time I began on my 'round of offices.'" (A "round of offices" being, according to this worthy young gentleman, an inalienable right to every male scion of his family.)

Within the debate was waxing hot. Not that any one had the least doubts that the Caesarians were at their last gasp; rather it was so extremely difficult to decide how the spoils of victory were to be equitably shared, and what was almost equally important, how the hostile and the neutral were to be punished. The noble lords were busy settling amongst themselves who should be consuls for several years to come, and how the confiscated villas of the proscribed Caesarians should be divided. As to the military situation, they were all complaisance.

"There is no need for a real battle," Pompeius was saying. "Our superior cavalry will rout their whole army before the infantry join the attack."

And Labienus, the only officer who had deserted Caesar, protested that the opposing legions had long since been thinned of their Gallic veterans, that only raw recruits composed them now.

Loudly the councillors wrangled over the successor to Caesar's pontificate; Scipio, Domitius, and another great noble, Lentulus Spinther, all had their claims. Domitius was clamouring against delay in disposing of Caesar, and in returning to Italy, to begin a general distribution of spoils, and sanguinary requital of enemies and neutrals. The contest over the pontificate grew more and more acrimonious each minute.

"Gentlemen," broke in Pompeius, "I would that you could agree amongst yourselves. It is a grievous thing that we must thus quarrel with bitterness, when victory is within our grasp."

But the war of words went on hotter and hotter. Lentulus Crus noticed that Pompeius looked pale and worried.

"You look careworn, Magnus," he whispered; "it will be a relief for the burdens of war to be off your shoulders!"

"I know not how this all will come out," said the general. "All the chances are in our favour. We have numbers, the best position, cavalry, the prestige of victory. Labienus cannot be mistaken in his estimate of Caesar's men; yet I am afraid, I am almost timorous."

"It is but the natural fear lest some slight event dim your excellency's great glory. Our position is too secure for reverse," remarked Lentulus, soothingly.

"Great glory--" repeated Pompeius, "yes, that makes me afraid. Remember Ulamhala's words,--they haunt me:--

"'He that is highest shall rise yet higher, He that is second shall utterly fall.'

Lentulus, I _know_ Caesar is greater than I!"

Before he could continue, Labienus had risen to his feet in the council.

"An oath! an oath, gentlemen!" cried the renegade legate. "Swear all after me! 'By Jupiter Capitolinus, Optimus, Maximus, I swear not to return from the battle until victorious over Caesar!'"

All the council rose.

"We swear!" cried a score of tongues, as though their oath was the lightest thing imaginable.

"Bravely done!" shouted Labienus, while the two Lentuli and Domitius and Scipio and many another scion of the great noble houses joined in the oath. "_Hem!_ Most excellent Magnus, you do not have confidence enough in your own cause to join us. Do you doubt our loyalty or soldierly qualities!"

"_Perpol!_" replied Pompeius, with a rather ill-concealed effort to speak gayly, "do you think, good Labienus, that I am as distrustful of you as Caesar ought to be of his men?"

And the Magnus also took the oath.

Outside the tent the sentries were exchanging their challenges. It was the end of the second watch of the night.[178]

[178] Midnight.

"It is late, gentlemen," said Pompeius. "I believe that I have given my orders. Remember our watch word for to-morrow."

"Hercules Invictus!" shouted one and all.

"Unconquerable' we shall be, I trust," continued the commander-in-chief. "Good-night, gentlemen; we meet to-morrow."

The council broke up, and filed out of the tent. Lentulus Spinther paused to cast a look of savage anger at Scipio, who lingered behind. The contest over the pontificate still rankled in his breast. That four and twenty hours hence both of these aristocratic gentlemen might have more pressing things to think of seemingly entered the head of neither. Lentulus Crus, Domitius, and Scipio waited after the others were gone.

"I have been wondering all day," said the genial Domitius, when the tent had emptied, "how Caesar will comport himself if he is taken prisoner and not slain in battle. I give him credit for not being likely to flee away."

"I trust he will die a soldier's death," replied Pompeius, gloomily. "It would be a grievous thing to have him fall into my hands. He has been my friend, my father-in-law. I could not treat him harshly."

"Doubtless," said the ever suave Lentulus Crus, "it would be most disagreeable for you, Magnus, to have to reward such an enemy of the Republic as he deserves. But your excellency will, of course, bow to the decrees of the Senate, and--I fear it will be very hard to persuade the conscript fathers that Caesar has earned any mercy."

"_Vah!_ gentlemen," retorted Pompeius, pressing his hands together, and walking up and down: "I have been your tool a long while! I never at heart desired this war! A hundred times I would draw back, but you in some way prevented. I have been made to say things that I would fain have left unsaid. I am perhaps less educated and more superstitious than you. I believe that there are gods, and they punish the shedders of innocent blood. And much good Roman blood has been shed since you had your way, and drove Caesar into open enmity!"

"Of course," interposed Domitius, his face a little flushed with suppressed anger, "it is a painful thing to take the lives of fellow-countrymen; but consider the price that patriots must pay for liberty."

"Price paid for liberty," snorted Pompeius, in rising disgust, "_phui!_ Let us at least be honest, gentlemen! It is very easy to cry out on tyrants when our ambition has been disappointed. But I am wasting words. Only this let me say. When, to-morrow, we have slain or captured our enemy, it will be _I_ that determine the future policy of the state, and not _you_! I will prove myself indeed the Magnus! I will be a tool no longer."

The three consulars stared at each other, at loss for words.

"Time wastes, gentlemen," said Pompeius. "To your several commands! You have your orders."

The Magnus spoke in a tone that admonished the three oligarchs to bow in silence and go out without a word.

"His excellency is a bit tempted to play the high tragedian to-night," sneered Domitius, recovering from his first consternation. "He will think differently to-morrow. But of all things, my good Lentulus (if it comes your way), see that Caesar is quietly killed--no matter what fashion; it will save us endless trouble."

"_Mehercle!_" quoth the other, "do I need that advice? And again remind me to-morrow of this. We must arrange the dividing of the estate of that young reprobate, Quintus Drusus, who gave us some anxiety two years ago. But I imagine that must be deferred until after the battle."

And so they separated, and the two armies--scarce five miles apart--slept; and the stars watched over them.

III

The sun was climbing out of the dark bank of clouds that pressed down upon the eastern horizon. The green plain of Pharsalus lay spread out far and wide under the strengthening light; the distant hills were peering dimly out from the mist; the acropolis of Pharsalus itself,--perhaps the Homeric Phthia, dwelling of Achilles,--with its two peaked crags, five hundred feet in height, frowned down upon the Caesarian camp. The Enipeus and one or two minor streams were threading their way in silver ribbons down toward the distant Peneus. The fertile plain was green and verdant with the bursting summer. The scent of clover hung in the air, and with it the fragrance of thyme. Wild flowers were scattered under the feet. The early honeybee was hovering over the dew-laden petals. Wakeful thrushes were carolling out of the thickets. A thin grey fog was drifting off of the valley, soon to vanish in the blue of a perfect day. Clear and sweet the notes of the trumpets called the soldiers from their camp. The weary men shook the sleep from their eyes. There was a hurried pounding of grain in the stone mortars, breakfasts even more hurried. Then again the trumpets called out their signal. Busy hands tore up the tent pegs, other hands were folding the coverings, gathering up the poles and impedimenta, and loading them on the baggage animals.

The soldiers were grumbling as soldiers will. Drusus, who emerged from his own tent just as it was about to be pulled down about his ears, heard one private growl to another: "Look at the sun rising! What a hot day we shall have! _AEdepol!_ will there never be an end to this marching and countermarching, skirmishing and intrenching,--water to drink, _puls_ to eat,--I didn't take the oath[179] for that. No plunder here, and the sack of Gomphi, the last town stormed, amounted to nothing."

[179] The military oath of obedience.

Drusus would have rebuked the man for breeding discontent in the army, but at that moment he and every other around him for once relaxed that stringent discipline that held them in bands of iron. A third trumpet call cut the air, quick, shrill, penetrating.

"To arms!" Every centurion was shouting it to his men. The baggage animals were left unladen. A cohort that was about to leave the camp in marching order halted, and began to throw away its impedimenta, when Caesar himself rode up to them.

"Fellow-soldiers," said the Imperator, smiling as though he had to reveal a great piece of good fortune, "we can postpone the march. Let us put our hearts into the battle for which we have longed, and meet the foe with resolute souls, for now or never is our opportunity!"

"_Io! Io!_" cried a thousand hoarse throats.

Out of confusion came the most perfect order. Drusus ran to the horse that he had yielded for a pack animal on the march, saddled, mounted, flew away to Caesar's side, his heart pounding in his breast.

"Pompeius is leading out his men!" soldier was shouting to soldier. Legion after legion filed forth from the camp. Caesar, sitting with easy grace on his own favourite charger which he himself had bred, gave in calm, deliberate voice the last orders to his legates. Drusus drew rein at the general's side, ready to go anywhere or do anything that was needed, his position being one of general aide-de-camp.

Caesar was facing east; Pompeius, west. Five miles of mainly level country had extended between the camps, but Pompeius had pitched on a hill site, with a river and hills to flank him. There he might safely have defied attack. But he had come down from the eminence. He had led his army out into the plain, and the camp was a full mile behind. The long ranks of the Pompeians were splendid with all the bravery of war. On the right wing by the river lay his Cilician and Spanish cohorts, led by Lentulus Crus,--the flower of the Pompeian infantry. Scipio held the centre with two Syrian legions. On the left, Domitius was in command and Pompeius accompanied him. Seven cohorts were behind in the fortified camp. A great mass of auxiliaries and volunteers, as well as two thousand reenlisted veterans, gave strength to the lines of fully recruited cohorts. Out on the left wing, reaching up on to the foothills, lay the pride of the oligarchs, seven thousand splendid cavalry, the pick and flower of the exiled youth and nobility of Rome, reenforced by the best squadrons of the East. Here Labienus led. The Pompeian ranks were in three lines, drawn up ten deep. Forty-five thousand heavy infantry were they; and the horse and light troops were half as many--Spaniards, Africans, Italian exiles, Greeks, Asiatics--the glory of every warlike, classic race.

Slowly, slowly, the Caesarian legionaries advanced over the plain. Drusus knew that one of the most crucial hours of his life was before him, yet he was very calm. He saw some wild roses growing on a bush by the way, and thought how pretty they would look in a wreath on Cornelia's hair. He exchanged jokes with his fellow-officers; scolded a soldier who had come away without his sword in his sheath; asked Antonius, when he came across him, if he did not envy Achilles for his country-seat. It was as if he were going on the same tedious march of days and days gone by. Yet, with it all he felt himself far more intensely excited than ever before. He knew that his calm was so unnatural that he wished to cry aloud, to run, weep, to do anything to break it. This was to be the end of the great drama that had begun the day Lentulus and Marcellus first sat down as consuls!

Slowly, slowly, that long snake, the marching army, dragged out of the camp. The sun was high in the sky; the last cloud had vanished; the blue above was as clear and translucent as it is conceivable anything may be and yet retain its colour--not become clear light. The head of the column was six hundred paces from the silent Pompeian lines which awaited them. Then cohort after cohort filed off to the right and left, and the line of battle was ready. On the right was the tenth legion, on the left the weak ninth, reenforced by the eighth. There were eighty cohorts in all, to oppose one hundred and ten. But the ranks of Caesar's cohorts were thin. The numbers were scarce half as many as in those of the foe. And to confront Labienus and his cavalry Caesar had but one thousand horse. His army stood in three lines, facing the enemy's infantry; but, though it weakened his own legions dangerously, there was but one thing to do, unless Labienus was to force around the flank, and sweep all before him. Six cohorts Caesar stationed at the rear of his right wing, a defence against the hostile cavalry. The third line of the legions the Imperator commanded to hold back until he ordered them otherwise, for on them lay the turning of the battle.

Antonius commanded the left, Publius Sulla the right, Calvinus the centre. Caesar himself took post on his own right wing opposite Pompeius. Then, when the lines were formed, he rode down before his men, and addressed them; not in gaudy eloquence, as if to stir a flagging courage, but a manly request that they quit themselves as became his soldiers. Ever had he sought reconciliation, he said, ever peace; unwillingly had he exposed his own soldiers, and unwillingly attacked his enemies. And to the six chosen cohorts in the fourth line he gave a special word, for he bade them remember that doubtless on their firmness would depend the fate of the battle.

"Yes," he said in closing, while every scarred and tattered veteran laughed at the jest, "only thrust your pila in the faces of those brave cavaliers. They will turn and flee if their handsome faces are likely to be bruised." And a grim chuckle went down the line, relieving the tension that was making the oldest warriors nervous.

Caesar galloped back to his position on his own right wing. The legions were growing restive, and there was no longer cause for delay. The officers were shouting the battle-cry down the lines. The Imperator nodded to his trumpeter, and a single sharp, long peal cut the air. The note was drowned in the rush of twenty thousand feet, the howl of myriads of voices.

"_Venus victrix!_" The battle-cry was tossed from mouth to mouth, louder and louder, as the mighty mass of men in iron swept on.

"Venus victrix!" And the shout itself was dimmed in the crash of mortal battle, when the foremost Caesarians sent their pila dashing in upon the enemy, and closed with the short sword, while their comrades piled in upon them. Crash after crash, as cohort struck cohort; and so the battle joined.

* * * * *

Why was the battle of Pharsalus more to the world than fifty other stricken fields where armies of strength equal to those engaged there joined in conflict? Why can these other battles be passed over as dates and names to the historian, while he assigns to this a position beside Marathon and Arbela and Tours and the Defeat of the Armada and Waterloo and Gettysburg? What was at stake--that Caesar or Pompeius and his satellites should rule the world? Infinitely more--the struggle was for the very existence of civilization, to determine whether or not the fabric of ordered society was to be flung back into chaos. The Roman Republic had conquered the civilized world; it had thrown down kings; it had destroyed the political existence of nations. What but feebleness, corruption, decay, anarchy, disintegration, disruption, recurring barbarism, had the oligarchs, for whom Pompeius was fighting his battle, to put in the place of what the Republic had destroyed? Could a Senate where almost every man had his price, where almost every member looked on the provinces as a mere feeding ground for personal enrichment--could such a body govern the world? Were not German and Gaul ready to pluck this unsound organism called the Republic limb from limb, and where was the reviving, regenerating force that was to hold them back with an iron hand until a force greater than that of the sword was ready to carry its evangel unto all nations, Jew, Greek, Roman, barbarian,--bond and free? These were the questions asked and answered on that ninth day of August, forty-nine years, before the birth of a mightier than Pompeius Magnus or Julius Caesar. And because men fought and agonized and died on those plains by Pharsalus, the edict could go from Rome that all the world should be taxed, and a naturalized Roman citizen could scorn the howls of the provincial mobs, could mock at Sanhedrins seeking his blood, and cry: _"Civis Romanus sum. Caesarem appello!"_

How long did the battle last? Drusus did not know. No one knew. He flew at the heels of his general's charger, for where Caesar went there the fight was thickest. He saw the Pompeian heavy infantry standing stolidly in their ranks to receive the charge--a fatal blunder, that lost them all the enthusiasm aggression engenders. The Caesarian veterans would halt before closing in battle, draw breath, and dash over the remaining interval with redoubled vigour. The Pompeians received them manfully, sending back javelin for javelin; then the short swords flashed from their scabbards, and man pressed against man--staring into one another's face--seeking one another's blood; striking, striking with one thought, hope, instinct--to stride across his enemy's dead body.

The Pompeian reserves ran up to aid their comrades in the line. The odds against the Caesarian cohorts were tremendous. The pressure of shield against shield never abated. Woe to the man who lost footing and fell; his life was trampled out in a twinkling! The battle-cries grew fewer and fewer; shouting requires breath; breath, energy; and every scruple of energy was needed in pushing on those shields. There were few pila left now. The short swords dashed upon the armour, but in the press even to swing a blade was difficult. More and more intense grew the strain; Caesarians gave ground here and then regained it. Pompeians did the like yonder. The long reach of the line swayed to and fro, rippling like a dark ribbon in the wind. Now and then a combatant would receive a mortal wound, and go down out of sight in the throng, which closed over him almost ere he could utter one sharp cry.

Caesar was everywhere. His voice rang like a clarion down the lines; he knew, as it were, each soldier by name--and when a stout blow was to be struck, or a stand was needed to bear up against the weight of hostile numbers, Caesar's praise or admonition to stand firm was as a fresh cohort flung into the scale. Drusus rode with him, both mounted, hence unable to mingle in the press, but exposed to the showers of arrows and sling-stones which the Pompeian auxiliaries rained upon them. Caesar's red paludamentum marked him out a conspicuous figure for the aim of the missiles, but he bore a charmed life.

Drusus himself did what he could to steady the men. The contest in the line of battle could not continue long, flesh and blood might not endure the strain.

"Imperator," cried Drusus, riding up to his chief, "you see that this can last no longer. Our men are overmatched. Shall I order up the third line? The centurion Crastinus, who swore that he would win your gratitude living or dead, is slain after performing deeds worthy of his boast. Many others have gone down. What shall I do?"

Caesar drew rein, and cast his eyes down the swaying lines.

"I dare not order up the third line so early," he began; then, with a glance to the extreme right, "Ah, _Mehercle!_ we are at the crisis now! Our cavalry have given way before the enemy's horse. They are outflanking us!"

"The six cohorts!" cried Drusus.

"The six cohorts--ride! Make them stop those horse, or all is lost! On your life, go!"

And away went Drusus. The supreme moment of his life had come. The whole act of being, he felt, he knew, had been only that he might live at that instant. What the next hour had in store--life, death--he cared not at all. The Caesarian horse, outnumbered seven to one, had fought valiantly, but been borne back by sheer weight of numbers. With not a man in sight to oppose them, the whole mass of the splendid Pompeian cavalry was sweeping around to crush the unprotected flank of the tenth legion. The sight of the on-rushing squadrons was beyond words magnificent. The tossing mass of their panoplies was a sea of scarlet, purple, brass, and flashing steel; the roar of the hoof-beats of seven thousand blooded coursers swept on like the approaching of the wind leading the clouds in whose breast are thunder and lightning unfettered. Behind them rose the dun vapour of the dust, drifting up toward heaven,--the whirling vortex of the storm. It was indeed the crisis.

The six cohorts were standing, resting on their shields, in the rear of the extreme right flank of the third line. They were in an oblique formation. The most distant cohort extended far back, and far beyond the Caesarian line of battle. The hearts of the soldiers were in the deathly press ahead, but they were veterans; discipline held them quiet, albeit restive in soul.

On swept the roar of the advancing Pompeians. What must be done must be done quickly. Drusus drove the spurs into his horse, and approached the cohorts on a headlong gallop.

"Forward! I will lead you against the enemy!"

No need of second command. The maniples rushed onward as though the men were runners in a race, not soldiers clothed in armour. Drusus flew down the ranks and swung the farthest cohorts into alignment with the others. There was not a moment to lose.

"Now, men, if ye be indeed soldiers of Caesar, at them!"

Drusus was astounded at the resonance of his own voice; a thousand others caught up the shout.

"_Venus victrix!_" And straight into the teeth of the galloping hosts charged the thin line of infantry.

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.

So the Caesarians hunted their foes over the plain to the camp. And, though the sun on high rained down a pitiless heat, none faltered when the Imperator bade them use their favour with Fortune, and lose not a moment in storming the encampment. They assailed the ramparts. The Pompeian reserve cohorts stood against them like men; the Thracian and other auxiliary light troops sent down clouds of missiles--of what avail? There are times when mortal might can pass seas of fire and mountains of steel; and this was one of those moments. The Pompeians were swept from the ramparts by a pitiless shower of javelins. The panic still was upon them; standards of cohorts, eagles of legions, they threw them all away. They fled--fled casting behind shields, helmets, swords, anything that hindered their running. The hills, the mountain tops, were their only safety. Their centurions and tribunes were foremost among the fugitives. And from these mountain crests they were to come down the next morning and surrender themselves prisoners to the conquerors--petitioners for their lives.

Not all were thus fated. For in the flight from the camp Domitius fell down from fatigue, and Marcus Antonius, whose hand knew no weariness, neither his heart remorse or mercy, slew him as a man would slay a snake. And so perished one of the evil spirits that hounded Pompeius to his death, the Roman oligarchy to its downfall.

Drusus sought far and wide for Lentulus and Lucius Ahenobarbus. The consular had fought on the most distant wing, and in the flight he and his mortal enemy did not meet. Neither did Drusus come upon the younger son of the slain Domitius. Fortune kept the two asunder. But slaying enough for one day the young Livian had wrought. He rode with Caesar through the splendid camp just captured. The flowers had been twined over the arbours under which the victory was to be celebrated; the plate was on the tables; choice viands and wines were ready; the floors of the tents were covered with fresh sods; over the pavilion of Lentulus Crus was a great shade of ivy. The victors rode out from the arbours toward the newly taken ramparts. There lay the dead, heaps upon heaps, the patrician dress proclaiming the proud lineage of the fallen; Claudii, Fabii, AEmilii, Furii, Cornelii, Sempronii, and a dozen more great _gentes_ were represented--scions of the most magnificent oligarchy the world has ever seen. And this was their end! Caesar passed his hand over his forehead and pressed his fingers upon his eyes.

"They would have it so," he said, in quiet sadness, to the little knot of officers around him. "After all that I had done for my country, I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned by them like a criminal, if I had not appealed to my army."

And so ended that day and that battle. On the field and in the camp lay dead two hundred Caesarians and fifteen thousand Pompeians. Twenty-four thousand prisoners had been taken, one hundred and eighty standards, nine eagles. As for the Magnus, he had stripped off his general's cloak and was riding with might and main for the seacoast, accompanied by thirty horsemen.