Chapter 30

After this most notable success Caesar forthwith pushed forward triumphantly to the king’s camp, holding the view that his sudden approach would strike great terror into the hearts of the Alexandrians. But when he observed that this camp was strongly entrenched as well as protected by its natural position, and saw the serried mass of armed men posted at the rampart, he was unwilling to let his soldiers, weary as they were with marching and fighting, advance to attack the camp. Accordingly he pitched camp at no great distance from the enemy. In a nearby hamlet, not far distant from the king’s camp, there was a fort which the king had built and linked with bastions to the main defences of his camp so as to hold the hamlet. This fort Caesar attacked and took by storm on the following day with all his forces; not that he thought it would be difficult to gain that objective by using a smaller number of soldiers, but in order that, with the Alexandrians thoroughly unnerved as a result, he might go straight on from that victory to attack the king’s camp. And so, having chased the retreating Alexandrians from the fort into their camp, our troops carried on their charge right up to the fortifications, where they proceeded to fight at long range very briskly. On two sides our men were afforded an opening for assault: the first was the one which, as I have explained, allowed unimpeded approach; the second comprised the moderate-sized space between the camp and the river Nile. The largest and most carefully picked contingent of the Alexandrians was defending that side which afforded the easiest approach; but the defenders in the area of the river Nile were the most successful in repelling and wounding our men: for the latter were being hit by missiles coming from opposite directions—from the rampart of the camp ahead of them, and from the river behind them, where many ships manned with slingers and archers were engaging our men.