At the request of the Alexandrians he gave them back their king, warning him to strive to make trial of Roman friendship rather than Roman arms; yet as soon as he was free he made war, but straightway he himself was destroyed together with his whole army. For twenty thousand men are reported to have been slain in that war and twelve thousand surrendered with seventy warships; five hundred of the victors are said to have fallen.
1 Alexandrinis petentibus regem reddidit monitum, ut magis amicitiam Romanam quam arma experiri studeret; qui tamen ilico ut liber fuit bellum intulit, sed continuo cum toto exercitu suo et ipse deletus est. nam uiginti milia hominum in eo bello caesa referuntur, duodecim milia cum septuaginta longis nauibus dedita, quingenti ex uictoribus cecidisse dicuntur.
The young king himself, taken into a skiff to flee, was sunk and drowned when many leapt in after him; his body, washed up on the shore, was recognised by the evidence of his golden breastplate. Caesar sent this ahead to Alexandria and so compelled all the Alexandrians, in despair, to surrender; and he gave the kingdom of Egypt to Cleopatra.
2 rex ipse adulescens scapha exceptus ut fugeret, multis insilientibus mersus necatusque est; corpus eius ad litus deuolutum indicio loricae aureae cognitum fuit: qua Caesar Alexandriam praemissa Alexandrinos omnes ad deditionem desperatione conpulit regnumque Aegypti Cleopatrae dedit.
From there he travelled through Syria and defeated Pharnaces in Pontus. Afterwards, when he came to Rome, he was made dictator and consul, crossed into Africa, and fought with Juba and Scipio at Thapsus, and there killed a very great multitude of men. The camps of both were plundered and sixty elephants captured.
3 inde Syriam peruagatus Pharnacem in Ponto uicit. postea uero quam Romam uenit, dictator et consul creatus in Africam transiit et apud Thapsum cum Iuba et Scipione pugnauit maximamque ibi hominum multitudinem interfecit. castra utriusque direpta sunt, sexaginta elephanti capti.
Cato killed himself at Utica; Juba paid an assassin and offered him his throat; Petreius ran himself through with the same sword; Scipio, on the ship in which, while trying to flee to Spain, he had been forced back to Africa by the wind, cut his own throat.
4 Cato sese apud Vticam occidit; Iuba percussori iugulum pretio dato praebuit, Petreius eodem se gladio perfodit; Scipio in naui, qua ad Hispaniam fugere contendens uento coactus in Africam redierat, semet ipse iugulauit.
On the same ship Titus Torquatus too was killed. Caesar ordered the grandsons of Pompey the Great and his daughter Pompeia to be killed, and together with them Faustus Sulla, Afranius, and the son of Petreius.1
5 in eadem naui etiam T. Torquatus occisus est. Caesar Pompei Magni nepotes filiamque Pompeiam simulque cum his Faustum Syllam et Afranium et Petreium filium iussit occidi.
1According to the Bellum Africum, Caesar spared Pompeia and her children by Faustus Sulla; Faustus and Afranius were killed in a soldiers’ riot.
Then, having entered the City with four triumphs and set in order the condition of the recovered commonwealth, he at once set out for the Spanish provinces against the Pompeys, the sons of Pompey; he reached Saguntum on the seventeenth day after leaving the City, and immediately waged many wars, with varying fortune, against the two Pompeys, Labienus and Attius Varus.
6 inde quattuor triumphis urbem ingressus, disposito recuperatae reipublicae statu continuo in Hispanias contra Pompeios Pompei filios profectus, septimo decimo quam egressus ab urbe fuerat die Saguntum peruenit statimque aduersus Pompeios duos et Labienum atque Attium Varum multa bella et uaria sorte gessit.
The last battle was fought at the river Munda, where the struggle was waged with such strength and so great a slaughter was done that Caesar too — since even his veterans were not ashamed to give ground — when he saw his line being cut down and forced back, thought of forestalling by death the disgrace of defeat to come, when suddenly the army of the Pompeys turned to flight and gave way.2
7 ultimum bellum apud Mundam flumen gestum est, ubi tantis uiribus dimicatum tantaque caedes acta, ut Caesar quoque, ueteranis etiam suis cedere non erubescentibus, cum caedi cogique aciem suam cerneret, praeuenire morte futurum uicti dedecus cogitarit, cum subito uersus in fugam Pompeiorum cessit exercitus.
2Munda was a town in Further Spain, as Orosius himself says at 6.16.9; there was no river of that name.
Indeed this battle was fought on the same day on which Pompey the father had fled from the City to wage war; and for four years this civil war thundered unceasingly throughout the whole world. Titus Labienus and Attius Varus were slain in the battle line; Gnaeus Pompey fled with a hundred horsemen.
8 equidem eo die hoc bellum actum est, quo Pompeius pater ab urbe bellum gesturus aufugerat, quattuorque annis hoc bellum ciuile indesinenter toto orbe tonuit. T. Labienus et Attius Varus in acie caesi sunt, Gnaeus Pompeius cum centesimo equite aufugit.
His brother Sextus Pompey, having quickly gathered no small band of Lusitanians, engaged Caesonius, was defeated, and was killed in flight. The city of Munda was taken by Caesar’s assault with difficulty and with an immense slaughter of men.3
9 frater eius Sextus Pompeius, contracta celeriter non parua Lusitanorum manu, cum Caesonio congressus et uictus fugiensque interfectus est. Munda ciuitas cum immensa hominum caede Caesare oppugnante uix capta est.
3It was Gnaeus Pompey who was caught and killed in flight after Munda, by Caesennius Lento; Sextus survived to fight Octavian (6.18–19).