Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/306

 298 CESAR. give up blockading Pompey. But Pompey took what care he could, that neither the loaves nor the words should reach his men, who were out of heart aiid despond- ent, through terror at the fierceness and hardiness of their enemies, whom they looked upon as a sort of wild beasts. There were continual skirmishes about Pompey's outworks, in all which Caesar had the better, except one, when his men were forced to fly in such a manner that he had like to have lost his camp. For Pompey made such a vigorous sally on them that not a man stood his ground; the trenches were filled with the slaughter, many fell upon their own ramparts and bulwarks, whither they were driven in flight by the enemy. Caesar met them, and would have turned them back, but could not. When he went to lay hold of the ensigns, those who carried them threw them down, so that the enemies took thirty-two of them. He himself narrowly escaped ; for taking hold of one of his soldiers, a big and strong man, that was flying by him, he bade him stand and face about ; but the fellow, full of apprehensions from the danger he was in, laid hold of his sword, as if he would strike Caasar, but Caesar's armor-bearer cut off his arm. Caesar's affairs were so desperate at that time, that when Pompey, either through over-cautiousness, or his ill fortune, did not give the fin- ishing stroke to that great success, but retreated after he had driven the routed enemy within their camp, Caesar, upon seeing his withdrawal, said to his friends, " The vic- tory to-day had been on the enemies' side, if they had had a general who knew how to gain it." When he was retired into his tent, he laid himself down to sleep, but spent that night as miserably as ever he did any, in per- plexity and consideration with himself, coming to the conclusion that he had conducted the war amiss. For when he had a fertile country before him, and all the wealthy cities of Macedonia and Thessaly, he had neg-