There was a long and terrible struggle, but the forces of Pompey began finally to give way.

Notwithstanding the precautions which Pompey had taken to guard and protect the wing of his army which was extended toward the land, Caesar succeeded in turning his flank upon that side by driving off the cavalry and destroying the archers and slingers, and he was thus enabled to throw a strong force upon Pompey's rear.

The flight then soon became general, and a scene of dreadful confusion and slaughter ensued.

The soldiers of Caesar's army, maddened with the insane rage which the progress of a battle never fails to awaken, and now excited to phrensy by the exultation of success, pressed on after the affrighted fugitives, who trampled one upon another, or fell pierced with the weapons of their assailants, filling the air with their cries of agony and their shrieks of terror.

The horrors of the scene, far from allaying, only excited still more the ferocity of their bloodthirsty foes, and they pressed steadily and fiercely on, hour after hour, in their dreadful work of destruction.