[Illustration: Death of Pompey]



CHAPTER IX.

CAESAR IN EGYPT.

[Sidenote: Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia.]

Caesar surveyed the field of battle after the victory of Pharsalia, not
with the feelings of exultation which might have been expected in a
victorious general, but with compassion and sorrow for the fallen
soldiers whose dead bodies covered the ground. After gazing upon the
scene sadly and in silence for a time, he said, "They would have it so,"
and thus dismissed from his mind all sense of his own responsibility for
the consequences which had ensued.

[Sidenote: His clemency.]
[Sidenote: Caesar pursues Pompey.]

He treated the immense body of prisoners which had fallen into his hands
with great clemency, partly from the natural impulses of his
disposition, which were always generous and noble, and partly from
policy, that he might conciliate them all, officers and soldiers, to
acquiescence in his future rule. He then sent back a large portion of
his force to Italy, and, taking a body of cavalry from the rest, in
order that he might advance with the utmost possible rapidity, he set
off through Thessaly and Macedon in pursuit of his fugitive foe.