Chapter 19

After granting his soldiers leave to plunder, Caesar ordered the buildings to be demolished. Near the bridge—the one closer to Pharos—he fortified a redoubt, and posted a garrison there. This bridge the inhabitants of Pharos had abandoned in their flight; while the other one, which was narrower and closer to the town, was guarded by the Alexandrians. However, on the next day he attacked it from a similar motive, because the possession of these two bridges seemed likely to do away with all the sallies and sudden forays of the enemies’ ships. And by now he had dislodged the members of its garrison with artillery and arrows shot from his ships, had driven them back into the town, and put ashore approximately three cohorts—the confined space would not afford a footing for more—while the rest of his forces remained at their posts aboard the ships. At this stage he ordered the bridge to be screened by a rampart on the side facing the enemy, and the opening for the passage of ships—formed by an arch which supported the bridge—to be filled up and blocked with stones. The latter task being completed, so that not a single pinnace could come out, and the former one being under way, all the Alexandrians’ forces burst out of the town and took post in a fairly open position over against our fortifications of the bridge; while at the same time they drew up near the mole the vessels which they had been in the habit of sending out under the bridges to set fire to our transports. And so the battle proceeded, with us fighting from the bridge and the mole, and with them from the area facing the bridge and from their ships opposite the mole.