communication between them and the country at large, and turned away the
brooks and streams from flowing through the ground they occupied. An
army of forty or fifty thousand men, with the immense number of horses
and beasts of burden which accompany them, require very large supplies
of water, and any destitution or even scarcity of water leads
immediately to the most dreadful consequences. Pompey's troops dug
wells, but they obtained only very insufficient supplies. Great numbers
of beasts of burden died, and their decaying bodies so tainted the air
as to produce epidemic diseases, which destroyed many of the troops, and
depressed and disheartened those whom they did not destroy.

[Sidenote: Nature of the contest between Caesar and Pompey.]
[Sidenote: Both hesitate.]

During all these operations there was no decisive general battle. Each
one of the great rivals knew very well that his defeat in one general
battle would be his utter and irretrievable ruin. In a war between two
independent nations, a single victory, however complete, seldom
terminates the struggle, for the defeated party has the resources of a
whole realm to fall back upon, which are sometimes called forth with
renewed vigor after experiencing such reverses; and then defeat in such
cases, even if it be final, does not necessarily involve the ruin of the
unsuccessful commander. He may negotiate an honorable peace, and return
to his own land in safety; and, if his misfortunes are considered by his
countrymen as owing not to any dereliction from his duty as a soldier,
but to the influence of adverse circumstances which no human skill or
resolution could have controlled, he may spend the remainder of his days
in prosperity and honor. The contest, however, between Caesar and Pompey
was not of this character. One or the other of them was a traitor and a
usurper--an enemy to his country. The result of a battle would decide