CASUALTY RECORD // -47 BCE
Battle of Pharsalus
Estimated casualties — killed, wounded, captured, and missing — by side, with confidence labels per surviving record.
Casualties by side
2 sides catalogued · combined 31,200–40,200 estimated
Caesarians
1,200
Medium-confidence figure
Pompeians
30,000–39,000
Medium-confidence figure
Battle context
The Battle of Pharsalus was the decisive engagement of Caesar's Civil War, fought on 9 August 48 BC near Pharsalus in Central Greece. Caesar's forces, though significantly outnumbered — facing a Pompeian army of between 41,000 and 54,000 with only 23,000 men — inflicted casualties estimated between 30,000 and 39,000 on the Pompeian side while suffering only around 1,200 of their own. Pompey commanded not only the larger force but the backing of a majority of the Roman Senate, giving the Pompeian cause both military weight and institutional legitimacy. The scale of the disparity in casualties points to a collapse of Pompeian resistance rather than a close-run contest, and the battle effectively broke the organized Senatorial opposition to Caesar. With Pompey's army destroyed at Pharsalus, the political coalition that had mustered behind the Republican cause lost its principal military instrument, shifting the trajectory of the civil war decisively toward Caesar.
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