Caesar
addressing him by name said, "What hopes have we Caius
Crassinius,[539] and how are our men as to courage?" Crassinius
stretching out his right hand and calling out aloud, said, "We shall
have a splendid victory, Caesar; and you shall praise me whether I
survive the day or die." Saying this, he was the first to fall on the
enemy at his full speed and carrying with him the hundred and twenty
soldiers who were under his command. Having cut through the first
rank, he was advancing with great slaughter of the enemy and was
driving them from their ground, when he was stopped by a blow from a
sword through the mouth, and the point came out at the back of his
neck.
XLV. The infantry having thus rushed together in the centre and being
engaged in the struggle, the cavalry of Pompeius proudly advanced from
the wing, extending their companies to enclose Caesar's right; but
before they fell upon the enemy, the cohorts sprang forward from
among Caesar's troops, not, according to the usual fashion of war,
throwing their spears nor yet holding them in their hands and aiming
at the thighs and legs of the enemy, but pushing them against their
eyes and wounding them in the face; and they had been instructed to do
this by Caesar, who was confident that men who had no great familiarity
with battles or wounds, and were young and very proud of their beauty
and youth, would dread such wounds and would not keep their ground
both through fear of the present danger and the future disfigurement.
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