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Pompey still did not move, Caesar cut behind his legions and rode as far as the centre of his line. There, passing off his cavalry shield to one of his staff, he took up a legionary’s long shield and walked briskly through the files of his men. Passing his frontline, Caesar kept walking.
    Thirty steps before the line he finally came to a halt and drew his sword. Holding it high, he shouted across the field: ‘If you’re looking for Caesar, children, HERE I AM!’
    Not a sound came from either army, but Pompey’s archers before the lines let loose. The arrows came from both flanks. They climbed like hundreds of migratory birds, closing together as they soared. They were black specks against a blue sky, moving as if directed by a singular intelligence, rising, cresting and then curving down en masse toward a single point.
    They snapped into Caesar’s shield with such force those closest to Caesar later said it sounded like hail cracking against tin. Caesar’s shield stopped nearly a hundred darts. At Caesar’s feet were more than a thousand arrows. In the next instant, without any order given, Pompey’s line broke and ran at us.

    Our legions stepped forward, not yet running, but eager to cover Caesar. Once his army had overtaken him, Caesar called out to his men as they marched by. He showed them his ruined shield, if only to give them courage. As for his person he had received not so much as a scratch.
    Much as he might have wanted, Pompey could not call his men back. They ran downhill in a ragged, insane charge; they roared as if every man expected a chance at Caesar himself. Caesar’s line stayed in better form. At twenty paces, both frontlines let fly their spears. These hit with a hollow thump of steel against wood, an odd cacophony that served as preamble to the thunderous crash of two lines colliding.
    There was no subtlety here, nothing of our general’s genius at play, only a mile-long line with thousands of mortal duels transpiring at once. If one man proved stronger he would slip his gladius beneath the other’s guard or maybe over the top. A quick wound to the belly or the eyes, a twist of the point as the blade exited: that was all that was needed to take a man down. The next enemy came for more of the same, shields cracking again, blades slithering forward. If that failed to bring blood, both men pulled back. Then a second collision, one man suddenly taking ground, the other giving it away grudgingly, playing out their duels in tight confines, backs always to their own men. The blades slipping high or low or around the side of the shields, like serpents lunging.
    Two or three duels saw a legionary finally brought down with a wound or too tired to fight another. Back he went along the files to the congratulatory shouts of his mates. The next man stepped up, happy for the chance to spill blood. Taking a charge, falling back, then pushing forward, the shield, swinging like a scythe, as much a weapon as the gladius. Up and down the line it went like this, anonymous men fighting in dust so thick they could hardly breathe. Young men eager for glory. Old fighters taking the measure of their foes before getting too serious.
    For the first quarter of an hour I could see both armies; after that, the dust covered all but the back ranks of our legions. I could only listen to the fighting, the song of steel, the screams of the wounded.

    Sometime during the third hour of the battle Dolabella began riding along our line of reserve cavalry. He called to his prefects as he went. I looked at the battlefield, but I could not see that anything had changed. On the right, Legio X had edged forward slightly, but this seemed to me only another of the permutations of the battle line.
    In fact Caesar had suddenly pushed his men to take ground, and that is what prompted Dolabella to act. To my surprise our attack turned toward the army’s left flank, opposite Caesar’s position.
    The enemy commander on our left, Titus