CHAPTER VII.
THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.
[Sidenote: The gathering armies.] [Sidenote: Pompey's preparations.] [Sidenote: Caesar at Brundusium.] The gathering of the armies of Caesar and Pompey on the opposite shores of the Adriatic Sea was one of the grandest preparations for conflict that history has recorded, and the whole world gazed upon the spectacle at the time with an intense and eager interest, which was heightened by the awe and terror which the danger inspired.

During the year while Caesar had been completing his work of subduing and arranging all the western part of the empire, Pompey had been gathering from the eastern division every possible contribution to swell the military force under his command, and had been concentrating all these elements of power on the coasts of Macedon and Greece, opposite to Brundusium, where he knew that Caesar would attempt to cross the Adriatic Sea, His camps, his detachments, his troops of archers and slingers, and his squadrons of horse, filled the land, while every port was guarded, and the line of the coast was environed by batteries and castles on the rocks, and fleets of galleys on the water.

Caesar advanced with his immense army to Brundusium, on the opposite shore, in December, so that, in addition to the formidable resistance prepared for him by his enemy on the coast, he had to encounter the wild surges of the Adriatic, rolling perpetually in the dark and gloomy commotion always raised in such wide seas by wintery storms.
[Sidenote: His address to his army.] Caesar had no ships, for Pompey had cleared the seas of every thing which could aid him in his intended passage.

By great efforts, however, he succeeded at length in getting together a sufficient number of galleys to convey over a part of his army, provided he took the men alone, and left all his military stores and baggage behind.

He gathered his army together, therefore, and made them an address, representing that they were now drawing toward the end of all their dangers and toils.