Battle of Zela

The Battle of Zela (47 BC) ended Caesar's brief war against Pharnaces II of Pontus, the son of Mithridates the Great. While Rome tore itself apart in the civil war, Pharnaces had seized Colchis and parts of Asia Minor, defeated Roman client rulers, and overrun the province of Bithynia and Pontus — capitalising on the murder of Caesar's lieutenant Domitius Calvinus after an earlier failed engagement. Caesar, passing through Asia Minor on his way back from Egypt, marched inland with a small force and met the Pontic army near Zela, on the same plain where his rival Pompey had won against Mithridates decades earlier. Pharnaces occupied a hilltop with scythed chariots and massed infantry; Caesar drew him down with a feinted withdrawal, then broke the Pontic charge uphill in a single action, and the army disintegrated within hours. Pharnaces fled to the Bosporan Kingdom and was killed soon after by a rival. Caesar reported the whole campaign to Rome in three words — Veni, vidi, vici, 'I came, I saw, I conquered' — a message whose brevity became more famous than the battle itself. The victory secured Asia Minor, freed Caesar to crush the remaining Optimate forces in Africa and Spain, and stands as the classic example of his habit of turning even a sideshow into a demonstration of Roman power.