Capitolo 93
of water and some abandonment or equal shortage of leads of water
immediately to the most terrible consequences. The troops of Pompey dug
sources, but they only got very insufficient provisionings. You number Gran
of dead burden animals and their bodies that decay so contaminated the air
as to produce epidemic illnesses that destroyed a lot of the troops and
depressed and it discouraged those that they didn't destroy.
[Sidenote: Nature of the dispute between Caesar and Pompey.]
[Sidenote: Both they hesitate.]
During all these operations there was no general and decisive battle. Each
one of the great competitors knew well a lot that his/her defeat in the one general
battle would be its absolute and irrecoverable downfall. In a war among two
independent nations, an only victory they complete however, rarely
it finishes the struggle, for the defeated party it has the resources of a
whole kingdom to fall again on, what they are provoked with sometimes
renewed vigor after having experimented such reverses; and then it defeats in this way
cases, even if it is final, you don't necessarily behave the downfall of the
commander without success. He can negotiate a honorable peace and return
to his/her his/her own earth in safety; and, if its adversities are considered from his
farmers as not owing to some abandonment from his/her duty as a soldier,
but to the influence of adverse circumstances that any human ability or
decision could have checked, he can spend the rest of its days
in prosperity and honor. However, the dispute between Caesar and Pompey
it was not of this character. One or the other of their was a traitor and a
usurper--an enemy to his/her country. The result of a battle would decide
which of the two was to be standing in this attitude. Victory would legitimate
and it confirms the authority of one, and it does him/it supreme on the whole one
civilized world. Defeat was to annihilate the power of the other, and
manufacture him a fugitive and a vagabond, without friends, without house,
without country. It was a desperate pole; and it is not at all