They
taunted him with cowardice. They insisted that he should set his foot on
this insignificant adversary promptly and at once; and Pompey, gathering
courage from their confidence, and trusting to his splendid cavalry,
agreed at last to use the first occasion that presented itself.
One morning, on the Enipeus, near Larissa, the 9th of August, old style,
or toward the end of May by real time, Caesar had broken up his camp and
was preparing for his usual leisurely march, when he perceived a movement
in Pompey's lines which told him that the moment which he had so long
expected was come. Labienus, the evil genius of the Senate, who had
tempted them into the war by telling them that his comrades were as
disaffected as himself, and had fired Caesar's soldiers into intensified
fierceness by his barbarities at Durazzo, had spoken the deciding word:
"Believe not," Labienus had said, "that this is the army which defeated
the Gauls and the Germans. I was in those battles, and what I say I know.
That army has disappeared. Part fell in action; part perished of fever in
the autumn in Italy. Many went home. Many were left behind unable to move.
The men you see before you are levies newly drawn from the colonies beyond
the Po. Of the veterans that were left, the best were killed at Durazzo."
A council of war had been held at dawn.
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