Chapter 76

Heavy and bitter hand-to-hand fighting took place and it was on the right wing, where the veteran Sixth legion was posted that the first seeds of victory were sown. As the enemy were being thrust back down the slope on this wing, so too on the left wing and in the centre—much more slowly, but thanks nevertheless to the same divine assistance—the entire forces of the king were being crushed. The ease with which they had climbed the uneven ground was now matched by the speed with which, once dislodged from their footing, the unevenness of the ground enabled them to be driven back. Consequently, after sustaining many casualties—some killed, some knocked out by their comrades’ falling on top of them—those whose nimbleness did enable them to escape none the less threw away their arms and so, after crossing the valley, they could not make any effective stand from the higher ground, unarmed as they now were. Our men, on the contrary, elated by their victory, did not hesitate to climb the uneven ground and storm the entrenchments. Moreover, despite the resistance of those enemy cohorts which Pharnaces had left to guard his camp, they promptly won possession of it. With his entire forces either killed or captured Pharnaces took to flight with a few horsemen and had not our storming of his camp afforded him a freer opportunity for flight, he would have been brought alive into Caesar’s hands.