Pompey's soldiers, at one time, coming near to the walls of a town which they occupied, taunted and jeered them on account of their wretched destitution of food.

Caesar's soldiers threw loaves of this bread at them in return, by way of symbol that they were abundantly supplied.
[Sidenote: Caesar hems Pompey in.] [Sidenote: Anxiety of the rivals.] After some time the tide of fortune turned Caesar contrived, by a succession of adroit maneuvers and movements, to escape from his toils, and to circumvent and surround Pompey's forces so as soon to make them suffer destitution and distress in their turn.

He cut off all communication between them and the country at large, and turned away the brooks and streams from flowing through the ground they occupied.

An army of forty or fifty thousand men, with the immense number of horses and beasts of burden which accompany them, require very large supplies of water, and any destitution or even scarcity of water leads immediately to the most dreadful consequences.

Pompey's troops dug wells, but they obtained only very insufficient supplies.