Farsala

And Antony bravely sort of risked everything to, to get his fleet across and, and bailed Caesar out.

Um, and yeah, so and he was kind of, he was pretty important in, in Pharsalus.

He was, he was a commander of one of the wings.

Um, but so when Pompey was finally defeated, um, after which he was sent back to Italy to, to look after it, um, as I think at that, this point, Caesar would've been dictator and Antony would've been his second in command officially, which is the master of horse.

Caesar came close to defeat in a series of clashes on the west coast, but Pompey let him escape to the central plains.

Caesar told his men, "You've survived because you're fighting a man who doesn't know how to grasp victory." Here, outside the town of Pharsalus, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar had their showdown.

Pompey's forces were arrayed under the hills to the west.

Caesar faced him with his back to Pharsalus.

[soldiers shouting] [weapons clashing] Amid the cornfields of Greece, Roman died at the hand of Roman.

[birds chirping] Pompey was soundly beaten, and fled, leaving 6,000 dead and 24,000 prisoners.

And Roman history from then on is about every time anyone threatens to be a king, you're allowed, exceptionally, to kill him.

[Instrumental music plays] The ringleaders in the assassination plot were two men called Brutus and Cassius.

But this was a rare event.

More often, the three or four leading cities, Larissa, Kranon, Pharsalos, held their immediate neighbors in subjection, and were at more or less open war with each other, their government being either a close oligarchy or a despotism in the hands of a single man.

Toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, about 407, Pherae was added to the list of leading cities by the energy of a man called Lycophron, who made himself tyrant and did his best, though without success, to subject all Thessaly to himself.

Iason, 374 to 370, succeeded where Lycophron failed.

By thickets, groves, and silent coves and meadow grasses, the level stretches to the mountain passes.

And o'er it lies Pharsalus, old and new.

Alas, have done.

Bring not that fell collision of tyrant and of slave before my vision.

Three years of Eastern settlements rotting on the Senate floor.

In this video, we're going to trace the three decisions from Brundisium to Pharsalus to Pelusium that made emperors inevitable.

And if you understand what broke him, you will recognize the same machine now in institutions we still assume are permanent.

[dramatic music] Welcome back to The Roman Pattern.

This is the kill chain, and it's worth laying out plainly.

What broke first was the exception, and what that caused next was personal armies, and the way it spread was that every settlement had to be personal, too, each cause producing its effect until the effects added up to collapse.

They met at Pharsalus on August 9th, 48 BC.

Pompey had the larger army, about forty-five thousand, against Caesar's twenty-two thousand, though those numbers come from Caesar himself, in his own account of the Civil War, and he had every reason to make Pompey's army look bigger and his own look smaller.

We shall have both again." And indeed, they would.

Weeks later, the two armies met again at Pharsalus in the broad plains of Thessaly.

The dawn was red, the air heavy with dust and anticipation.

Pompey's army outnumbered Caesar's nearly two to one.

The Senate fights for privilege.

We fight for Rome." Then the trumpets sounded.

The Battle of Pharsalus was chaos, smoke, screams, the thunder of cavalry.

Caesar's tactics were unorthodox.

39.

However, after the battle at Pharsalus, in which Cicero took no part because of illness, had been fought, and Pompey was in flight, Cato, who had a considerable army and a large fleet at Dyrrachium, asked Cicero to take the command in accordance with custom and because of his superior consular rank.

But Cicero rejected the command, and was altogether averse to sharing in the campaign, whereupon he came near being killed.

For the young Pompey and his friends called him a traitor, and drew their swords upon him.

Now, the discourse of Cicero was entitled Cato, and that of Caesar Anti-Cato.

It is said also that, when Quintus Ligarius was under prosecution because he had been one of the enemies of Caesar, and Cicero was his advocate, Caesar said to his friends, What is to prevent our hearing a speech from Cicero after all this while, since Ligarius has long been adjudged a villain and an enemy? But when Cicero had begun to speak and was moving his hearers beyond measure, and his speech, as it proceeded, showed varying paths and amazing grace, Caesar's face often changed colour, and it was manifest that all the emotions of his soul were stirred.

And at last, when the orator touched upon the struggles at Pharsalus, he was so greatly affected that his body shook, and he dropped from his hand some of his documents.

At any rate, he acquitted Ligarius under compulsion.