flank and comming neer to Pompeys Horsemen,
they threw their Darts (as Casar had appointed
them) full in their faces. The young Gentlemen,
being raw Souldiers, and little expecting such a
manner of fight, had not the hearts to defend
themselves, not could abide to be hurt in their
faces, but turning their heads, and clapping them
hands on their faces, they fled shamfully [sic].
Pharsalus was Pompey’s first defeat on the field of
battle. He was forced to flee with his men and escaped
to Egypt, where he sought the backing of Ptolemy XIII,
the brother of Caesar’s lover Cleopatra. Ptolemy gave
Pompey his word that he would be protected in Egypt,
but instead, when Pompey came ashore, he was killed
by either one of his own soldiers or one of Ptolemy’s
men. According to Plutarch in his Lives of the Noble Gre-
cians and Romaines, Pompey’s aide Philip cared for the
remains of the Roman general after he was butchered:
Philip his infranchised [sic] bondman remained
ever by it, untill such time as the Ægyptians had
seen it their bellies full. Then having washed his
body with salt water, and wrapped it up in an
old shirt of his, because he had no other shirt to
lay it in: he fought upon the sands, and found at
the length a peece of an old... boate, enough to
serve to burne his naked bodie with, but not fully
out. As he was busie gathering the broken peeces
of this boate together, thither came unto him an
old ROMAINE, who in his youth had served
under Pompey, and said unto him: O friend, what
are thou that preparest the funerals of Pompey
the Great? Philip answered, that he was a bond-
man of his infranchised. Well, said he, thou shalt
not have all this honor alone, I pray thee let me
accompany thee in so devout a deed, that I may
not altogether repent me to have dwelt so long in
a strange country.
Plutarch states, “The Romaines seemed to have loved
Pompey from his childhood.” A brilliant commander
who brought much glory to his country, Pompey came to
a tragic end as the result of warfare with another general,
Caesar, who was a strategist as well as a tactitian.
References: Clarke, Samuel, The Life and Death of Pom-
pey the Great: With all his Glorious Victories and Triumphs
... (London: Printed for William Miller, 1665); Lucan,
Lucan’s Pharsalia or the Civill Warres of Rome, betweene
Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. The three first bookes.
(London: J[ohn] N[orton] & A[ugustine] M[athewes],
1626); Broé, Samuel de, The History of the Triumvirates
... , translated by Tho. Ottoway (London: Printed for
Charles Brome, 1686), 458–459; Plutarch, “Life of Pom-
peius,” in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines
... , translated by Sir Thomas North (London: Richard
Field for John Norton, 1603), 632–669.
Pontecorvo, Prince de See bernadotte, Jean-
baPtiste-Jules, Prince de PontecorVo.
pontecoRvo, pRince De