 | | not handle their attack and little by little retreated; Pompey's cavalry began to bear down all the more threateningly, breaking off into squadrons, surrounding our lines on our vulnerable side.
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| | When I noticed that, I gave the signal to the fourth line, which I had deployed from the number of cohorts [a cohort was a unit of 600 men]. They quickly dashed forward and attacked Pompey's cavalry with such great force that none of the cavalry stood their groundall of them not only ran away, but even started a general rout to the highest part of the mountains.
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| | All their archers and slingers, left defenseless when their cavalry was run off from the battle, were killed. In the same attack, the cohorts surrounded Pompey's left wing, where the Pompeianseven though surroundedhad not given up fighting and resisting, and we attacked them in the rear. At the same time I ordered my third line to attack; it had been inactive and had stayed behind, up to that time.
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| | Fresh, and not wounded, as they were, they came to battle the weary Pompeians, while others attacked them from the rear. The Pompeians could not bear the attack, and all turned their backs and fled. (Caesar,
De bello civili
III.93)
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Pompey fled the battlefield to his camp and sat down, stunned. Soon Caesar's soldiers burst into the camp. "What? Even into our camp?" Pompey said. He took off his general's cloak, found a horse, and fled. While storming Pompey's camp, Caesar's men found the tents wreathed with myrtle, dining couches laid out and covered with flowers, and drinking cups and bowls of wine. The Optimates were ready for the victory celebration, but Caesar and his men enjoyed the feast.
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During the battle itself, Caesar had ordered his soldiers, "Spare your fellow Romans!" After the battle he looked at the six thousand Pompeians killed in the fighting (his own army lost only two hundred) and groaned, saying: "They wanted this [hoc voluerunt]. Despite all that I have accomplished, I, Julius Caesar, would have been condemned, if I had not sought protection from my army" (Suetonius,
Divus Julius
XXX). Then he set off in pursuit of Pompey.
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Pompey sailed to Egypt, where he expected the king, the sixteen-year-old Ptolemy Auletes (the Flute Player), to offer him safety;
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