Chapter 31

Now Caesar saw that, while it was impossible for his soldiers to fight with any greater gallantry, yet little headway was being made on account of the difficulty of the ground; he also noted that the highest sector of their camp had been abandoned by the Alexandrians, not only because of its natural strength, but also because, in their eagerness in some cases to fight, in others to look on, its defenders had rushed down to the sector where the fighting was going on consequently he ordered some cohorts to proceed thither, skirting the camp, and storm the height, putting in command of them Carfulenus, a man of exceptional personality and experience in the field. When they arrived there our men fought with the greatest gallantry against those few of the enemy who were defending the entrenchment; whereupon the Alexandrians, panic-stricken by the shouting and fighting on both sides of them, began to rush about in confusion hither and thither throughout the camp. This utter bewilderment of theirs fired the spirits of our troops to such a pitch that they captured the camp almost simultaneously in all sectors, though its highest point was the first to capitulate and from that point our men rushed down and killed a vast multitude of the enemy in the camp. In their efforts to escape this danger most of the Alexandrians hurled themselves en masse from the rampart into the area adjoining the river; the first of these were crushed by their heavy fall in the actual trench of the fortification, but the rest found it easier to escape. It is established that the king himself fled from the camp and then, after being taken aboard a ship along with a large number of his men who were swimming to the nearest ships, perished when as a result of the numbers the vessel capsized.