Hello and welcome to Epox, where once again I shall be continuing my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.

Now, if you remember last time, we left off where Caesar had lost a fairly big battle at Daracchium against Pompey.

The civil war is now in full swing.

And so the next big battle is Farsalus, which is really the big battle between Pompey and Caesar.

So let's jump straight in and let the main sources Appian and Plutarch tell us about how

it all went down.

Okay, so carrying straight on from that victory at Diracium, which Pompey, if you remember, really should have won if he'd

followed up. He could well have defeated Caesar entirely. If you remember, Caesar had said,

today my enemies would have finished the war if they had a commander who knew how to win a victory.

Ooh, cutting. Cut him. Cutting there. Caesar against Pompey. Yeah, some people said Pompey was, he was always, I mean, sluggish is a bit unfair, but he was, he was never particularly decisive. You know, where we've said many, many times, Caesar's thing is to be fast and quick and turn up where people wouldn't expect. Pompy was never, that was never

Pompey's bag. But as he's got older now, he has begun to become sluggish. So on top of

never being particularly decisive, they throw on top of that a little bit of caution and you're

left with a type of commander who might not follow up a victory.

Okay, so now Appian tells us then, quote, Pompey wrote to the kings and to all the cities,

largely of the east, that is, exaggerating the extent of his victory and believed that

Caesar's army would immediately desert to him because it was suffering from famine and

demoralised by defeat, and particularly so its officers, because they feared retribution for their

own mistakes.

But they were divinely inspired to repent and feel ashamed for their failure, and when Caesar

was lenient in his criticisms and offered to pardon them,

they became still more angry with themselves and in a paradoxical reversal of attitude,

told him to make them draw lots according to the ancestral custom and put a tenth of them to death.

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