The final battle took place on the plain of Pharsalus in
Thessaly. Pompey's troops, though nearly twice as numerous as Caesar's, were
defeated after a severe struggle. Their great leader then fled to Egypt, only
to be foully murdered. Pompey's head was sent to Caesar, but he turned from it
with horror. Such was the end of an able general and an honest man, one who
should have lived two hundred years earlier, when Rome was still a free state.
CAESAR IN EGYPT, ASIA MINOR, AND AFRICA, 48-46 B.C.
After Pharsalus there still remained several years of
fighting before Caesar's victory was complete. He made Cleopatra, the beautiful
queen of Egypt, secure in the possession of the throne and brought that country
into dependence on Rome. He passed through Asia Minor and in one swift campaign
crushed a revolt headed by the son of Mithridates. The conqueror sent tidings
of his victory in a laconic dispatch: "I came, I saw, I conquered."
[25] After subduing the remnants of the senatorial party in Africa, Caesar
returned home to crown his exploits by a series of splendid triumphs and to
enjoy less than two years of untrammeled power.
[25] Veni, vidi, vici (Suetonius, Julius Caesar,
37).
