Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/201

 ANTONY. 193 exact discipline it observed, rank after rank passing on at equal distances in perfect oi'der and silence, their pikes all ready in their hands. But when the signal was given, and the horse turned short upon the Parthians, and with loud cries charged them, they bravely received them, though they were at once too near for bowshot ; but the legions, coming up with loud shouts and rattling of their arms, so frightened their horses and indeed the men themselves, that they kept their ground no longer. An- tony pressed them hard, in great hopes that this victory should put an end to the war ; the foot had them in pur- suit for fifty furlongs, and the horse for thrice that dis- tance, and yet, the advantage summed up, they had but thirty prisoners, and there were but fourscore slain. So that they were all filled with dejection and discourage- ment, to consider, that when they were victorious, their advantage was so small, and that when they were beaten, they lost so great a number of men as they had done when the carriages were taken. The next day, having put the baggage in order, they marched back to the camp before Phraata, in the way meeting with some scattering troops of the enemy, and, as they marched further, with greater parties, at length with the body of the enemy's army, fresh and in good order, who defied them to battle, and charged them on every side, and it was not without great difficulty that they reached the camp. There Antony, finding that his men had in a panic deserted the defence of the mound, upon a sally of the Medes, resolved to proceed against them by decimation, as it is called, which is done by di- viding the soldiers into tens, and, out of eveiy ten, putting one to death, as it happens by lot. The rest he gave orders should have, instead of wheat, their rations of corn in barley. The war was now become grievous to both parties, and VOL. V. 13