Chapter 39

Caesar kept encouraging the troops as they worked, quite unmoved by his opponents’ forces. When he perceived that no more than a mile and a half now separated the enemy ranks from his own fortifications, and realised that the enemy were approaching closer for the purpose of obstructing his troops and forcing them to abandon their task, and as he considered that he must now perforce withdraw his legions from their work of building fortifications, he ordered a squadron of Spaniards to launch a speedy attack upon the adjacent hill, dislodge its enemy defenders, and capture the position and he also instructed a small detachment of light-armed troops to follow them in support to the same objective. Thus despatched they speedily attacked the Numidians, capturing some of them alive and seriously wounding others of their troopers as they sought to escape, and so won the position. As soon as Labienus observed this, he detached practically the entire right wing of the line of cavalry he had deployed, so as the more speedily to render them assistance: and with this force he made haste to proceed to the relief of his retreating troops. But when Caesar saw that Labienus had now withdrawn some distance from his forces, he launched the left wing of his own cavalry, so as to cut the enemy off.