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This webpage reproduces an article in the American Journal of Philology Vol. 6, No. 2 (1885), pp170‑189. The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p170  Pharsalia, Pharsalus, Palaepharsalus

The site of the battle-field where Caesar finally defeated Pompey, on the ninth of August, 48 B.C., was held by Leake, Northern Greece, IV, p476 ff., to be between Pharsalus (modern Fersala) and the river Enipeus. This river he identified with the modern Tzzzanarli, although he gives it the modern name Fersalitis. He located the camp of Pompey on the heights east of Fersala, that of Caesar at the foot of the rocky height which advances into the plain three miles westward of Fersala. His locations and general plan of the battle were followed by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, III, p530 ff., and by Merivale, Hist. of the Romans, II, p227 ff. Merivale pointed out some difficulties in the way of Leake's views, which were commented on by the latter in a paper cited and summarized by the writer of the article "Pharsalus" in Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography. The essay itself I have been unable to consult. Leake's views, however, remained unchanged.

An entirely different location of the battle-field was made by Göler, Caesars Gallischer Krieg und Theile seines Bürgerkriegs,2 II, p150 ff., namely, on the further side from Pharsalus of the river called Enipeus by Leake. This river Göler calls Apidanus, and a very small tributary stream between Pharsalus and his Apidanus, entirely east of the road leading north from Pharsalus to Larissa, he calls Enipeus. A similar tributary appears without name on Leake's map, but it is made to rise a little to the west of Pharsalus, and to lie entirely west of the road to Larissa. Göler's plan of the battle-field is based on an Austrian military map, which is inaccessible to me, but must vary materially from the later maps of Kiepert. These are certainly more trustworthy. Caesar's camp is placed by Göler on the right bank of the Apidanus, just where the road from Larissa crosses the river; Pompey's camp is placed directly across the river valley, on the heights called Cynoscephalae. The main features of Göler's plan, but not his nomenclature, nor his minor departures from standard cartography, are adopted and ably defended by Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, V, p213 ff.

 p171  Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, Am. ed.,⁠1 IV, p495 ff., follows Göler so far as to locate the camp of Pompey on the further side from parish of the Enipeus. This river Pompey's whole army crosses to give battle to Caesar. In all else Mommsen follows Leake. This combination is so peculiar that I quote in full all those parts of Mommsen's description of the battle which involve it, or which are referred to in the following arguments. In the text we read: "Caesar lay to the south of Larissa in the plain — which extends between the hill-country of Cynoscephalae and the chain of Othrys and is intersected by a tributary of the Peneius, the Enipeus — on the left bank of the latter stream near the town of Pharsalus; Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae." "When Pompeius hesitated as to his crossing of the rivulet which separated the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation." "Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who, under the impression that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected a mode of turning the enemy's army, and for that purpose was on the point of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle, when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank." "Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain, covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops." Pompey's cavalry, attacked by Caesar's quarta acies, "galloped at full speed from the field of battle." "When Pompeius, who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar. His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss." When Pompey "saw the legions retire over the stream he. . . rode off by the nearest route to the sea." In a footnote to the first sentence quoted from the main text Mommsen says: "The exact determination of the field of battle is difficult. Appian (II.75) expressly places it between (New) Pharsalus (now Fersala) and the Enipeus. Of the two  p172 streams, which alone are of any importance in the question, and are undoubtedly the Apidanus and Enipeus of the ancients — the Sofadhitiko and the Fersaliti — the former has its sources in the mountains of Thaumaci (Dhomoko) and the Dolopian heights, the latter in Mount Othrys, and the Fersaliti alone flows past Pharsalus; now as the Enipeus, according to Strabo (IX, p432), springs from Mount Othrys and flows past Pharsalus, the Fersaliti has been most justly pronounced by Lake (Northern Greece, IV.320) to be the Enipeus, and the hypothesis followed by Göler that the Fersaliti is the Apidanus is untenable. With this all the other statements of the ancients as to the two rivers agree. Only we must doubtless assume with Leake, that the river Vlokho, formed by the upon of the Fersaliti and the Sofadhitiko and going to the Peneius, was called by the ancients Apidanus as well as the Sofadhitiko; which, however, is the more natural, as while the Sofadhitiko probably has, the Fersaliti has not, constantly water (Leake, IV.321). Old Pharsalus, from which the battle takes its name, must therefore have been situated between Fersala and the Fersaliti. Accordingly the battle was fought on the left bank of the Fersaliti, and in such a way that the Pompeians, standing with their faces towards Pharsalus, leaned their right wing on the river (Caesar, B. C. III.83; Frontinus, Strat. II.3.22). The camp of the Pompeians, however, cannot have stood here, but only on the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae, on the right bank of the Enipeus, partly because they barred the route of Caesar to Scotussa, partly because their line of retreat evidently went over the mountains above the camp towards Larissa; if they had, according to Leake's hypothesis (IV.482), encamped to the east of Pharsalus on the left bank of the Enipeus, they could never have got to the northward through this stream, which at this very point has a deeply cut bed (Leake, IV.469), and Pompeius must have fled to Lamia instead of Larissa. Probably, therefore, the Pompeians pitched their camp on the right bank of the Fersaliti, and passed the river both in order to fight and in order, after the battle, to regain their camp, whence they then moved up the slopes of Crannon and Scotussa, which culminate above the latter place in the heights of Cynoscephalae. This was not impossible. The Enipeus is a small slow-flowing rivulet, which Leake found two feet deep in November, and which in the hot season often lies quite dry (Leake, I.448, and IV.472; cf. Luc. VI.373), and the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further, the armies before the battle lay three miles and a half  p173 from each other (Appian, B. C. II.65), so that the Pompeians could make all preparations and also properly secure the communication with their camp by bridges. had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians, which was the most remote from the base of retreat, felt this; but the retreat at least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in such hasten as to be impracticable under the given conditions. Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river, because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness for battle of the Pompeians, apparent otherwise from the whole narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of retreat favorable for these."

To this apparent combination of the views of Leake and Göler by Mommsen, Göler objected, on the ground principally that the same reasons which forbade locating Pompey's camp on the left bank of the Apidanus (Enipeus) forbade also making Pompey's army cross the river to give battle, and recross it in flight.

In all these authorities the names of the modern rivers corresponding to those anciently called Apidanus and Enipeus differ from those of the newest maps of Thessaly, and any one who compares the successive editions of Kiepert's classical maps of Greece, large and small, will find surprising vacillation in the nexus and nomenclature of all the streams draining the great watershed of Thessaliotis. But since the cession of Thessaly to the kingdom of Greece in 1881 made scientific surveys necessary, and rendered travel and investigation in this district safe and inviting, many topographical questions hitherto doubtful have been finally settled, and much light has been shed on the conflicting statements of ancient writers regarding the main geographical features of Thessaly. It seems worth while, therefore, to review the question of the river system of the Pharsalian plains, the site of Caesar's greatest battle with Pompey, in the light of the latest maps.⁠2 Such a review seems called for also from such facts as these, that Bädeker's most welcome handbook for travellers in Greece presents routes in Thessaly on the basis of Kiepert's latest map, but, apropos of Fersala, quotes Mommsen's account of the  p174 battle of Pharsalus; and that the last editor of Appian refers to this as the standard account. This account, however, was written before the geography of the Pharsalian plain had become definitely fixed, and would doubtless be materially changed should the eminent historian revise again the volume in which it is contained. It will not therefore be thought presumptuous in me to present some criticisms of this account.⁠3 The "historical artisan" may sometimes properly criticize details in the work of the "historical artist."

Of the five main rivers of Thessaly mentioned in Hdt. VII.129, four, the Pamisus, the Onochonus, the Apidanus, and the Enipeus, are now described by Kiepert as flowing into the fifth, the Peneius, from the south, and as draining Thessaliotis in the order mentioned from west to east. Of these, two, the Apidanus and Enipeus, passed through the Pharsalian plains, but just how has been until recently quite uncertain, and very differently represented on different maps. In VII.196, Herodotus says that the Onochonus was the only river of Thessaly which could not supply the army of Xerxes with water, as if this were the smallest of the tributaries of the Peneius.⁠4 But he adds that of the rivers of Achaia, even the largest, the Apidanus, fared almost as badly as the Onochonus. The Apidanus therefore, according to Herodotus, was a large river in both Thessaly (Thessaliotis) and Achaia (Phthiotis). No river corresponds to this description except that called the Enipeus by Kiepert, rising in the Othrys range of Achaia, taking a north-easterly and northerly course through Achaia, then a north-westerly along the north-east side of Thessaliotis. Without attempting to notice the explanations of this las statement of Herodotus which have been made, it is enough for my present purpose to say that it is now clear that he confounded the Apidanus with the Enipeus.

With regard to these two rivers Thukydides, IV.78, is perfectly accurate. When Brasidas, after the battle of Delium, attempted  p175 to conduct an armed force through Thessaly into Macedonia, the popular sentiment of Thessaly was against him, and an opposing force stopped him at the Enipeus, in Achaia (Phthiotis), just above Melitia. At this point, therefore, the crossing of the Enipeus was strategically important. Having so far satisfied his opponents of his intentions that they dispersed, Brasidas, following the advice of his oligarchical friends and guides, stole his way through the country by forced marches into Perrhaebia, avoiding, of course, the large cities, and the main route by way of Larissa. even on the day of the parley jjj. This river then, as Classen's note ad loc. correctly states, flowed at some distance to the north of Pharsalus, and the inference is a very probable one that it had not lain in the path of Brasidas since his crossing of the Enipeus in Achaia (Phthiotis).⁠5 The great river of Achaia Phthiotis as well as of Thessaliotis was therefore the Enipeus, and the Apidanus must have risen in the extreme southern slopes bounding the Pharsalian plain, near Pharsalus itself. So Kiepert now represents it. The Apidanus and Enipeus did not join, therefore, east or south-east of Pharsalus, as has been represented even by Kiepert in his earlier maps. But though the Enipeus was by far the longer of the two rivers, tis course before entering the great valley of Thessaliotis was through a mountainous country, and the Apidanus may well have been of equal or even greater volume at times, being fed by copious springs at the head of the valley about Pharsalus, and flowing through an almost marshy plain. After the junction of the two rivers, well towards the northern part of Thessaliotis and the Peneius (cf. Apoll. Rh. I.37 ff.) the united streams may have been variously called Apidanus or Enipeus, and the first name even erroneously extended to the Enipeus above the junction. It is otherwise hard to account for the confounding of the rivers in Herodotus, and for Strabo's statement, IX, p432, that the Enipeus flows from Othrys past Pharsalus, empties into the Apidanus, and this into the Peneius (jjj). But a gloss (so Meineke) at Strabo VIII, p356, speaks of the Thessalian Enipeus as flowing from Othrys  p176 and receiving the Apidanus after it has come down from Pharsalus (jjj). Whether this description is Strabo's or not, it is certainly good evidence that the two streams at their junction were so nearly of a size as to make it doubtful which name the united streams should bear.⁠6 And however Strabo estimated the relative size of the rivers, he speaks of the Enipeus (VIII, p432) as near Melitaea, just as Thukydides does, and must therefore regard it as the longer of the two.

In jjj 239 the Enipeus is called the most beautiful river in the world. It certainly was the most prominent tributary of the Peneius so far as length of course is considered, if, as the best line of evidence in ancient writers shows, and as Kiepert now decides, it was the eastern stream of Thessaliotis and Pharsalia, with the Apidanus next west. Moreover, at a point in Pharsalia between Pharsalus and Larissa, the Enipeus must have been the larger stream, while the Apidanus must have just begun its course, increasing so as to be of equal or even greater size where the two united. In any of the current locations of the battle-field, therefore, the Enipeus will be the main river of the scene, whatever its special strategical importance may have been. So Lucan thinks of it when he prophesies (Phars. VII.116): Sanguine Romano quam turbidus ibit Enipeus, and, possibly with no more definite geographical purpose (v. 224), At iuxta fluvios, et stagna undantis Enipei, | Cappadocum montana cohors, etc. The modern stream corresponding to the ancient Enipeus is now seen to be not the Fersalitis, but the Tzzzanarli. The modern Fersalitis is the ancient Apidanus. In all discussions of the site of the great battle between Caesar and Pompey the writer's standpoint regarding these streams of Pharsalia must first be made definite and clear. How perplexing the confusion of the two rivers is may be seen from reading the chapter on the battle-field in Long or Willmann (Adnotationes quaedam ad C. Julii Caesaris relationem pugnae Pharsalicae. Halberstadii, 1875).

 p177  Pharsalus, the city which dominated the fertile territory so amply watered by these rivers, appears in Greek history under this name as early as 454 B.C. (Thuc. I.111). It is even then a strong citadel and a representative Thessalian city, badly governed by a large landed class whose fighting force was cavalry. It continued such down to the time when Thessaly came under Roman control in 196 B.C. (Polyb. XVII.46 ff.). Of Leake's view that it was the Phthia of Peleus and Achilles, the capital city of Phthiotis in the Homeric age, there is no need to speak here, except as it emphasizes the importance of the place. That the city itself laid claim at least to Homeric antiquity may be reasonably inferred from the fact that it erected statues of Achilles and Patroclus at Delphi (Paus. X.13.5). It is often mentioned by Thukydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus, Livy, and Plutarch. It was the only city of Thessaly which the Romans allowed to retain its freedom (Mommsen, Röm. Gesch. V, p273).

But neither of this famous city nor of the famous river which flowed through its territory does Caesar make any mention whatever in his account of the battle. This is certainly remarkable if the battle was fought on a bank of the river or near the city. Their names could not be more significantly ignored if the struggle occurred miles away from them. Moreover, in speaking of the battle afterwards he gives it no specific name. Twice he calls it proelium in Thessalia factum (B. C. III.101.5; 111.3), the most indefinite expression possible for him to use. Cicero uses the same expression for the locality of the battle thrice (Phil. II.59; 75; de Divin. II.114). Thessalia may possibly denote here the district Thessaliotis, and so be somewhat narrowed down in content, but this is not Caesar's customary use of the word. The scene of battle is, however, very much narrowed down by the use of the adjective Pharsalian. Cicero speaks twice of the pugna Pharsalia, twice of the fuga Pharsalia, twice of the proelium Pharsalicum, twice of the acies Pharsalica. This last expression he uses in Caesar's presence (pro Ligario zzz), and in addressing Antonius (Phil. II.71), who commanded the left wing for Caesar in the battle. Designations of the battle which consign it to the region about Pharsalus occur also in the historians so commonly as not to need citing.

But a still more precise designation of the battle is found in Bell. Alex. 48.1 (probably by Aulus Hirtius, the friend and officer of Caesar, though not himself present at the battle): Iis autem  p178 temporibus, quibus Caesar ad Dyrrhachium Pompeium obsidebat et Palaepharsali rem feliciter gerebat Alexandriaeque cum periculo magno, tum etiam maiore periculi fama dimicabat, etc. Here are chosen and exact expressions of locality, "near Dyrrhachium, at Palaepharsalus, at Alexandria." This narrower designation of the site of the battle is found also in Strabo (XVII, p796: jjj), Frontinus (Strateg. II.3.22: Cn. Pompeius adversus C. Caesarem, Palaepharsali triplicem instruxit aciem), and Orosius (VI.15: Hic exitus pugnae ad Palaeopharsalum fuit), the last two ultimately, if not directly, dependent on Livy. The origination and late survival of this exact designation among the far more numerous and easy general designations, tend to establish its correctness. If, then, the site of Palaepharsalus can be satisfactorily fixed, the site of the battle-field follows; and if the site of the battle-field can be fixed, the site of Palaepharsalus follows. Neither can be done with absolute certainty; but evidence in both lines of enquiry points with strong probability to the same general locality.

Col. Leake's opinion that Palaepharsalus was the ancient citadel just back of the modern Fersala, or that it was within very short distance of Pharsalus towards the Enipeus, must fall before the precision with which Strabo distinguishes the two places and uses each as limit of measure. Indeed, that the city and citadel of Pharsalus were distinct in ancient times as well as modern, as was the case elsewhere, may fairly be inferred from Xen. Hell. VI.1.2.18, where the acropolis is said to have been reserved by Polydamas, but the city joins Jason of Pherae. In discussing the question whether the Homeric Hellas and Phthia were one (IX, p431), Strabo mentions as one opinion current that Hellas was not a city but a district, extending jjj, jjj. The phrase jjj. . . jjj has no particular force, and can with difficulty be accounted for if the two Pharsali were close to each other, or if either was very much nearer than the other to the Thetidium, or on the same line with it as the other. It is most naturally accounted for if Palaepharsalus and Pharsalus were approximately equidistant from the Thetidium. In that case, as Pharsalus lay at the extreme southern edge of the Pharsalian plains, Palaepharsalus would naturally be looked  p179 toward the north or north-east. Strabo's language favors rather than forbids pla­cing Palaepharsalus on the right of the Enipeus, inasmuch as the river valley would be a more natural boundary than a city within it. No indication is here given of the site of the Thetidium, further than that it was in the region between Palaepharsalus and Phthiotic Thebes.

The approximate site of the Thetidium, however, we get from Polybius, XVII.20 (cf. Eurip. Androm. 16 ff.). From the vicinity of Pherae Philip and Flamininus march by circuitous north and south routes to the westward, each trying to reach Scotussa first. Titus encamped the first night at Eretria in Phthia, Philip at the Onchestus. On the second night Philip encamped jjj, and Titus jjj. The Thetidium was therefore in the territory of Pharsalia, which could not have extended far beyond the valley of the Enipeus, on the right of the Enipeus, on a line running south of Scotussa from Pherae westward, and on a military route between Eretria and Scotussa. These details enable us to locate it NE of Pharsalus, nearly if not exactly where Col. Leake identified it with ruins then visible, and probably a little east of where Kiepert now locates Palaepharsalus. This latter, to accord best with our inference from Strabo that it was practically equidistant with Pharsalus from the Thetidium, and was held by some to be the western limit of Hellene, we must locate further to the NW, and even across the main route between Larissa and Pharsalus.

To the same location we are led by general military considerations based upon the previous progress of the campaign between Caesar and Pompey, and by a proper interpretation of the language of Caesar. This ground has been thoroughly worked by Göler and Long. I can add but little to their arguments. After Caesar's great defeat at Dyrrhachium he retired into Thessaly, for the purpose of restoring the confidence of his men and securing ample supplies (B. C. III.74.3). On the way he made a lucky junction with his officer, Domitius Calvinus, near Aeginium, the last town of Epirus in the upper valley of the Peneius (c. 79). He had previously (c. 34) sent fifteen cohorts and over two hundred cavalry into Thessaly and Aetolia, and subsequently ordered them further south into Achaia. They had been kept back, however, by an officer of Pompey at the Isthmus of Corinth, and were now engaged in winning Boeotia over the Caesar (c. 55). Pompey was known to be on his way through Macedonia to join Scipio at  p180 Larissa in Thessaly (cc. 79, 80, 82). Accordingly, in view of the great numerical inferiority of Caesar's forces, the first requirement of good general­ship on his part would be to take up such a position in Thessaly, south of Larissa, as would put him in communication with his forces in Boeotia (cf. Plut. Caes. 43), prevent Pompey from reaching and crushing them, and at the same time command a large and fertile share of the Thessalian plains. Just such a place would be the road from Larissa to Pharsalus, where it leaves the low range of hills dividing Pelasgiotis from Thessaliotis, and enters the plain of the Enipeus and the territory of Pharsalus.

What indications Caesar gives of his route through Thessaly point to this locality. He sacks Gomphi for closing its gates upon him, and spares Metropolis because it receives him. Thereupon, nulla Thessaliae fuit civitas praeter Larisaeos, qui magnis exercitibus Scipionis tenebantur, quin Caesari parerent atque imperata facerent (c. 81). this certainly includes Pharsalus, and made it unnecessary for Caesar to visit it, as well as quite improbable that the battle should subsequently be fought under its walls without any notice being taken by Caesar of the city and its attitude. Caesar's description of his course after leaving Metropolis is vague, mostly because it took him to no city, and to no place easily designated by its special nearness to any city. Ille⁠7 idoneum locum in agris nactus . . . ibi adventum exspectare Pompei eoque omnem belli rationem conferre constituit (c. 81.3). This place must have been "suitable" not only for controlling a large area of the ripening harvest, but also for awaiting Pompey's advance southwards. It could not therefore, as all military critics say at once, have been at a point which would have left the great road south from Pharsalus open to Pompey, and Caesar had time to make deliberate choice. It was not near enough to either the Enipeus or Pharsalus to bring them into special mention.

Pompey did not effect a junction with Scipio until some days after Caesar had established himself in this position (c. 82.1). Caesar says nothing of the advance of these united forces from Larissa, nor does he locate clearly the camp they occupied just before the battle. he gives, however, some significant hints in his brief description of the battle, all of which point to the southern slope of the range of hills dividing Pelasgiotis and Thessaliotis,  p181 near the great north and south route running from Larissa to Pharsalus. The camp of Pompey must have been determined by that of Caesar, and over against it, since Caesar was now on the defensive, and Pompey at last on the aggressive, driven on by the impatience of the senatorial party and their over­estimate of the victory at Dyrrhachium. But, after encamping over against Caesar, Pompey's old caution returned, and he kept deferring his attack until Caesar determined even to challenge him (c. 84.1). Itaque ex castris exercitum eduxit aciemque instruxit, primo suis locis pauloque a castris suis collibusque Pompeianis aciem subiceret (c. 84.2). From this it may be inferred that considerable distance intervened between the camps, and that Caesar's was on low ground compared with Pompey's especially as Caesar so particularizes this contrast by speaking of his own as in agris (c. 81.3), and by saying (c. 85.1): Pompeius, qui castra in colle habebat, as though this was an advantage on Pompey's side. At last, just as Caesar is about to break camp and enter on a flying campaign, in despair of bringing matters to a crisis, Pompey's forces come so far out into the plain from their high camp that a battle can be fought non iniquo loco (c. 85.3). Caesar still advances further to the attack (c. 88.1), and Pompey's line await his charge (c. 92.2).

When Pompey's great body of cavalry had been routed by Caesar's famous quarta acies, they all turned, and not only abandoned the field, but without stopping, fled at the top of their speed to the highest hills (omnesque conversi non solum loco excederent, sed protinus incitati fuga montes altissimos peterent; c. 93.6). There were, then, in the rear of Pompey's left wing high hills. that these were not at right angles to his line of battle is clear from the fact that the same charge which routed his cavalry brought Caesar's quarta acies upon the left of his infantry line (eodem impetu cohortes sinistrum cornu pugnantibus etiam tum ac resistentibus in acie Pompeianis circumierunt eosque a tergo sunt adorti; c. 93.8). Moreover, that these hills were part of the range toward the base of which Pompey's camp was pitched, is probable from Caesar's down of his storming the camp (c. 95). After a feeble resistance the garrison withdrew from the defences, protinusque omnes ducibus usi centurionibus tribunisque militum in altissimos montes, qui ad castra pertinebant, confugerunt. Pompey's force was so large that either wing of the battle line  p182 would project beyond the camp, and the horsemen, on the left wing, took the bee-line of panic-flight past even the camp.

Pompey, finding the enemy in his camp, rode out of the decuman gate, and without stopping made at full speed for Larissa (decumana porta se ex castris eiecit protinusque equo citato Larisam contendit; c. 96.3). The most natural inference from this passage is certainly that the decuman or rear gate looked toward Larissa. With Caesar's cavalry scouring the country Pompey could not take a roundabout course. Pompey had advanced southward from Larissa until he confronted Caesar, and had then entrenched himself on the hills sloping down into the Pharsalian plains. Nothing but the most forced explanation can make the passage consist with Leake's position for Pompey's camp and line of battle, fa­cing north on the plain just east of Pharsalus. This difficulty Merivale and Mommsen recognize fully.

The difficulty is duplicated by Caesar's statement that Pompey's soldiers, after fleeing to a position in the hills back of the camp, abandoned it on seeing Caesar preparing to blockade it, since it had no water, and started along the mountain ridges toward Larissa (relicto monte universi iugis eius Larisam versus se recipere coeperunt; c. 97.2). It would have been a hopeless undertaking to reach Larissa from Leake's position for Pompey's camp, while Caesar held the main road. As it was, Caesar took a better (probably the main road between Pharsalus and Larissa), and headed off the retreating crowd after a march of six miles (commodioreque itinere Pompeianis occurrere coepit, et progressus milia passuum sex aciem instruxit; c. 97.3). This was at a hill whose base was washed by a certain river (Hunc montem flumen subluebat; c. 97.4). The only hill which Leake could find answering to this description was near Scotussa, and washed by the Onochonus (now called the Onchestus). But Leake admits frankly that it was more than six miles from the banks of the Enipeus. "If we suppose Caesar to have computed his distance of six miles from the banks of the Enipeus north-eastward of Fersala, and to have encamped at some little distance short of the Onochonus, the march would not have been much greater than six miles, though it seems rather than underrated at this distance." Adopting, then, Leake's identification of this hill (and nothing seems improbable in it), and Caesar's march of six miles was reckoned rather from the northern edge of the brad valley of the Enipeus, where our enquiry thus far tends to place the camp of Pompey, than from  p183 the river itself, to say nothing of the southern side of the valley where Leake and those who follow him locate the battle-field. As Pompey's camp, or rather an eminence in the rear of it, was the starting point of the march, there is no good reason for including the plain between this and the Enipeus in Caesar's estimate of the length of the march. The new maps show no mountain nearer the valley of the Enipeus than the one which Leake fixes upon, though they suggest the identification of some one of the hills more in the direction of Larissa, washed by tributaries of the upper Onchestus, with the hill so vaguely described by Caesar. From this hill, on the following day, after receiving the surrender of the beleaguered enemy, and after bringing up relief legions from his old camp, Caesar proceeds to Larissa (c. 98.3). This implies the very close proximity of this city to the scene of the surrender.

The argument from Caesar's Commentaries, drawn from incidental and indirect allusions to the geography of the field of battle, is cumulative in establishing the probability that the camps both of Pompey and Caesar were on the side of the Enipeus toward Larissa, and that the camp of Pompey was on the southern slope of the hills bounding the northern edge of the Pharsalian plain. Such positions are also demanded by the most general military considerations. In this neighbourhood, too, Palaepharsalus, the stricter designation of the locality of the battle first found in Aulus Hirtius and surviving even to Orosius, is best located.

This name occurs in Strabo, as we have seen, without designating the site of the battle between Caesar and Pompey. Livy also uses it in careful distinction from Pharsalus. During the desultory third Macedonian war the Roman consul for a long time held a position in Thessaly from which he hoped to advance against Perseus, strongly entrenched on the confines of Macedonia. He was of course also liable to attack from Perseus. The same general military considerations as in the case of Caesar's campaign in Thessaly would lead him to occupy such a position as would command the fertile Pharsalian plains, and control the great north and south route through Thessaly. Livy says (44.1): castra eo tempore A. Hostilius in Thessalia circa Palaepharsalum habebat.

Long gives (l.c. p220) from private correspondence General Sir Wm. Napier's objections to the site of the battle as designated by Leake. "It seems impossible that a great general like Caesar should allow Pompeius to pass the Enipeus before him and cut  p184 him off from Pharsalus and Scotussa, and also from one of the roads the Thermopylae, which endangered Caesar's troops in Greece. It is also impossible that so great a general as Pompeius would pass the Enipeus in the face of Caesar's army, leaving his own place of arms, Larissa, open to his enemy; moreover, Caesar does not mention Pompey's passage of the river. He does not indeed mention his own, but there was no need of that; it was part of his march when no enemy was near him." These objections are sustained by the whole course of our enquiry thus far.

Against Mommsen's peculiar modification of Leake's view, that Pompey's camp was on the north side of the Enipeus, but that he crossed the Enipeus to attack Caesar, that his cavalry recrossed it in their fatal flight to the hills, and that his whole army recrossed it to regain their camp after their defeat, I note the following additional points which have not been already brought out explicitly in the course of the enquiry. First, no mention of such crossing and recrossing is even implied in any ancient authority for the battle, although it must have formed a very important feature of the struggle. Second, the assumption that the battle did not terminate in a complete rout is also contrary to all evidence we have, and if this be distrusted as too partisan, to the undisputed and indisputable fact that Pompey's camp was taken by storm. Caesar says of the troops which formed Pompey's main line of battle, after the attack of the tertia acies, universi terga verterunt (c. 94.2), initium fugae factum (c. 94.4), Pompeianis ex fuga intra vallum compulsis . . . perterritis (c. 95.1), qui ex acie refugerant milites (c. 95.4). Third, the motive assigned for the silence of "Caesar and his copyists" about Pompey's thus crossing the river, that it would place in too clear a light his eagerness for battle, is not only insufficient if it could be shown to exist, but is absolutely precluded. Caesar dwells upon the eagerness of the Pompeians to fight him (cc. 82, 83, 86, 87) in consequence of his defeat at Dyrrhachium. He makes the military caution of Pompey himself the only restraining element. It was this which led Pompey to await attack from Caesar, instead of advancing to give it (cf. c. 85; 88.1.). Moreover, there were some in the senatorial party who dreaded the battle and feared the result, so that Pompey must have had some support in his cautious procedure, if reliance can be placed on the testimony of the vacillating Cicero (de Divin. II.114): Ille [remex] vero et ea quidem [praedixit] quae omnes eo tempore ne acciderent timebamus  p185 . . . Videbaturque nobis exercitus Caesaris et audaciae plus habere, quippe qui patriae bellum intulisset, et roboris propter vetustatem. casum autem proelii nemo nostrum erat quin timeret.

No historian now holds Arnold of Rugby's contempt for Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War as an authority, least of all Mommsen. Even granting that Caesar colors his accounts of political measures in his own favor, his descriptions of purely military operations will stand every test of historical fidelity. No writer has described the defeat at Dyrrhachium in darker colors than he. No one certainly was better able to describe the battle of Palaepharsalus. What unintentional indications of the site of the battle we get from his brief description of the purely military features of the struggle are of the highest value. They all bear, I venture to think, against the views of Mommsen.

Regarding it as proven, then, that the battle of Palaepharsalus was fought on the north of the Enipeus where the camps of both armies had been pitched, and that Pompey's camp at least was on the hills sloping toward the river valley, I shall briefly notice another question, the more exact location of Caesar's camp. Göler places it at the crossing of the Enipeus by the road between Pharsalus and Larissa, which it secured, and opposite Palaepharsalus, a league distant upon the hills. He cites as a similar procedure of Caesar's, B. G. II.5. Sir William Napier, quoted by Long (l.c. p221), places Caesar with Scotussa in his rear, and his camp, of course, fa­cing word. He places the camp of Pompey fa­cing the east at the foot of some heights which border the Enipeus. We have seen that Caesar's language implies by way of contrast that his own camp was in the plain, aside from his vague expression "locum in agris." With this restriction, Napier's location can be defended, but no very positive preference of his view or that of Göler can be justified with the evidence now at command.

Speaking of Pompey's line of battle, Caesar says (c. 88.6): Dextrum cornu eius rivus quidam impeditis ripis muniebat. Can this "rivus quidam" be the principal river of Thessaliotis, the divine Enipeus, jjj? Merivale recognizes the difficulty in the way of this identification, and calls such a use of rivus instead of flumen "against Caesar's and all correct usage." I may add that to a stream so insignificant that it has not yet been conclusively identified at all, and can in no case  p186 be one of the main rivers of Thessaly,⁠8 Caesar gives zzzzzzzzz it the name flumen (c. 97.4). It is also dangerous to argue from the insignificant volume of rivers in Greece to‑day, that they were equally insignificant twenty centuries ago. This Leake and those who follow him have done. The rivus quidam must have been, as Göler and Long argue, one of the many mountain streams flowing down from the hills between Pelasgiotis and Thessaliotis into the Enipeus. Two such streams are represented on Kiepert's last maps of ancient and modern Greece (not identically in both), one on each side of the main road from Pharsalus to Larissa.

Against this view are the following ancient authorities, the relative value of whose testimony must now be considered: Frontinus and Orosius, in what they say of the battle (see p178), are generally supposed to have drawn from Livy's lost one hundred and eleventh book.⁠9 As they both locate the battle at Palaepharsalus, it is probable that Livy did so.⁠10 Frontinus, however, has another statement which would make it appear that Livy called the stream which covered Pompey's right, the "rivus quidam impeditis ripis" of Caesar's Commentaries, the Enipeus: dextro latere [conlocavit] sexcentos equites propter flumen Enipea, quiet et alveo suo et alluvie regionem impedierat. Orosius follows this version in so far as he has Pompey station a small body of horsemen on his right (in dextro quingenti). This is in conflict with Caesar (c. 88.6): quam ob causam cunctum equitatum, sagittarios funditoresque omnes sinistro cornu obiecerat. Orosius does not state the reason why Pompey put so few cavalry on his right, and so, of course, does not mention the stream which covered that wing.

In still another point was Livy (as represented by Orosius) at variance with Caesar, viz. in the number of troops engaged on both sides. Pompey's forces Caesar gives (c. 88.5) as one hundred and ten cohorts, or forty-five thousand regular legionary soldiers, besides two thousand evocati. Pompey's cavalry Caesar estimates at seven thousand, against his own one thousand (c. 84.4). But Livy (Orosius) puts Pompey's line of battle at eighty-eight cohorts only, or forty thousand men, and his cavalry, on both  p187 wings together, at only eleven hundred, praeterea reges multi, senatores, equitesque Romani plurimi absque levium armatorum magna copia. Again, Caesar states his own force engaged to have consisted of eighty cohorts, or that-two thousand men (c. 89.2), while Livy (Orosius) runs them up to "non minus quam triginta milia peditum." It is clear then that Livy (Orosius) followed some account of the battle which was more favorable to Pompey and less favorable to Caesar than Caesar himself.11

Plutarch (Pomp. 69, fin., Caes. 42, fin.) and Appian B. C. II.70), who are generally believed to represent, at least ultimately, Asinius Pollio, agree perfectly with Caesar in his estimate of the forces engaged. Appian states that among many conflicting estimates he zzz Roman authorities as the more trustworthy. The Roman authorities upon the battle were Caesar and his friend but faithful critic Pollio, and we have no account of the civil war emanating from the opposite side. A lost cause does not incite so many historians as a winning one. This Arnold of Rugby laments in his History of the Roman Commonwealth (Am. ed. p269), as soon as Caesar's Commentaries on the Civil War become his main authority. "The English reader," he says, "will, perhaps, have a more lively sense of its incompetence, if he considers what sort of a history could be drawn up of the events of more modern wars, if we had no other materials than the gazettes or bulletins of one party only." But some anti-Caesarian account of Pompey's last campaigns must have been accessible to livy, and to this Pompeian version of the battle of Palaepharsalus we may fairly suppose that Livy went for items most favorable to Pompey, in whose south he was such an enthusiast as to win the epithet of Pompeian from Augustus. And it may well have been this or a similar strictly partisan account of the battle, written in Greek and by a Greek,⁠12 with which Appian contrasts his Roman authorities with great parade of critical suspense.

In Livy, then, who followed an account of the battle which certainly was sanctuary from so competent a witness as Caesar or Pollio, there may have been expressions of local description which led Frontinus to call the stream covering Pompey's right the Enipeus, and to say of Caesar's approach and order of battle, sinistrum  p188 latus, ne circuiri posset, admovit paludibus. This, were there no indications of any kind to the contrary, might be taken as establishing the fact that the Enipeus was the stream which covered Pompey's right, especially as Lucan has (Phars. VII.224 ff.):

Plutarch also (Brut. 4.6) speaks of Pompey's camp on the day before the battle as jjj, and of Brutus escaping from the camp after the battle by a gate leading jjj. But with Caesar's deliberate expression against this identification of the Enipeus, and with the general arguments on military grounds against it, we must either deny the sufficiency of the authority for any contrary view, or must explain these passages otherwise. I should be content to balance the authority of Caesar, supported by the general military arguments, over against the unknown Pompeians source of Livy, supported by rather vague concordances in Plutarch and Lucan, and choose the former. But another explanation of the language of Frontinus is possible. It may not rest on any statements of Livy, but be his own expansion and elucidation of Caesar's "rivus quidam impeditis ripis." As such it would certainly favor the view that the stream was the Enipeus, but, taking into account the fact that almost any name would do as well for the object which Frontinus had in mind, viz. a description of the strategical disposition of the forces on both sides, and the fact that the Enipeus was the main river of the scene, so that it would naturally suggest itself to one indifferent about and ignorant of the exact geographical details, the evidence is not strong enough to prevail against that on the other side.

There remain to be considered only the statements of Appian concerning Pompey (B. C. II. 65, 76): jjj, and jjj. The first statement puts a distance between the two camps which can harmonize with either Göler's or Napier's view of the position of Caesar's camp, owing to the width of even the right half of the valley of the Enipeus. The second statement is the sole ancient authority for locating the battle on the left bank of the Enipeus. It has led to impossible views.  p189 Mommsen assumes that Appian means Neopharsalus in distinction from Palaepharsalus. But in view of the other evidence it is not improbable that Appian purposely used Pharsalus loosely for Palaepharsalus, and it is quite possible that he blundered and failed to distinguish between the two. That this last supposition is not too harsh in the case of Appian can be shown from many worse mistakes. One example I have given in this Journal, Vol. V, p325 ff. As to the minor question whether the stream covering Pompey's right was the Enipeus, Appian's words do not necessarily imply this. They apply equally well to a line of battle parallel to the river.

In conclusion, I consider it certain that both camps were on the right of the Enipeus, somewhere near the main route between Pharsalus and Larissa, and that the battle was fought at the base of the hills on whose slope Pompey's camp was pitched, near Palaepharsalus. I consider it probable that Palaepharsalus was on the hills north of the Enipeus and west of the main road north and south, that Pompey's line of battle extended east and west, parallel with the Enipeus, and covered on the right by a small stream running from the hills into the main river. This also makes Göler's position for Caesar's camp the more probable one. All these probabilities could be tested by explorations and excavations in the territory under consideration, similar to those carried on for Napoleon in France on the presumable sites of Caesar's encampments and engineering works. Such investigations are suggested by Seldner in the paper referred to. Possibly some member of the American School at Athens may yet undertake them.

B. Perrin.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 This translation was compared with the fourth German edition. Citations from the sixth show that the author has made no changes in the portions which come under discussion here.

2 H. Kiepert, Atlas Antiquus, No. 5 and 6, edition of 1882; Karte des Königreichs Hellas, accompanying Bädeker's Griechenland.

3 Most of this paper was already in manuscript when I received Seldner's Schlachtfeld von Pharsalus, a Mannheim school-program of 1882‑3. Many of my objections to Mommsen's account of the battle I find anticipated here, but the program was written before Kiepert's last maps of Thessaly were published, and the method of the enquiry will be seen to be quite different from mine.

4 The schol. on Apoll. Rh. III.1085, in quoting Hdt. VII.129, omits the Onochonus entirely.

5 The route least likely to meet with further opposition would seem to have been through Thessaliotis on the west side of the Enipeus, and perhaps the uncertain Phakion, where Brasidas encamped after leaving the Apidanus, is to be located somewhere on this line, rather than in Pelasgiotis.

6 When Euripides calls the Apidanus a river of Phthia (Hec. 451, Iph. A. 713), we may suppose that he adopts the geography of the heroic age, when Phthia included much if not all of Thessaliotis. Still Euripides gives much the same praise of that Apidanus that Homer does to the Enipeus, and it is quite possible that he interchanged the names, like Herodotus. The nomenclature of Herodotus probably lies at the basis of Apoll. Rh. II.514 f. Different descriptions of these same rivers in Ovid (Met. I.579 f.) and Lucan (Phars. VI.372 f.) are undoubtedly due to an interchange of names.

7 I regard it as now beyond controversy that this pronoun refers to Caesar and not to Scipio. See Willmann, l.c. p3 f.

8 On what evidence Drumann concludes that the stream at the base of the hill on which the remnants of Pompey's army made their final stand was the Enipeus (l.c. p515), I cannot imagine.

9 Bludau, de fontibus Frontini, Diss. Regimont., Brunsbergae, 1883.

10 The Epitome, however, has "apud Pharsaliam."

11 Cf. Hugo Grohs, Der Werth des Geschichtwerkes des Cassius Dio (Berlin, 1884), p69, where other proofs are given that Livy used some Pompeian version of the battle.

12 This was very probably Theophanes Mytilenaeus. Cf. Grohs, l.c. p73.

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