In the camp of the coalition the contest with Caesar was looked on as so completely decided by the battles of Dyrrhachium that it only remained to reap the fruits of victory, in other words, to seek out and capture the defeated army.
Their former over-cautious reserve was succeeded by an arrogance still less justified by the circumstances; they gave no heed to the facts, that they had, strictly speaking, failed in the pursuit, that they had to hold themselves in readiness to encounter a completely refreshed and reorganized army in Thessaly, and that there was no small risk in moving away from the sea, renouncing the support of the fleet, and following their antagonist to the battlefield chosen by himself.

They were simply resolved at any price to fight with Caesar, and therefore to get at him as soon as possible and by the most convenient way.

Cato took up the command in Dyrrhachium, where a garrison was left behind of eighteen cohorts, and in Corcyra, where 300 ships of war were left; Pompeius and Scipio proceeded--the former, apparently, following the Egnatian way as far as Pella and then striking into the great road to the south, the latter from the Haliacmon through the passes of Olympus--to the lower Peneius and met at Larisa.
The Armies at Pharsalus Caesar lay to the south of Larisa in the plain--which extends between the hill-country of Cynoscephalae and the chain of Othrys and is intersected by a tributary of the Peneius, the Enipeus-- on the left bank of the latter stream near the town of Pharsalus; Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae.( 30) The entire army of Pompeius was assembled; Caesar on the other hand still expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived in Illyria.

The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently not nearly the half of their normal amount.

The victorious army of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had provisions in abundance, while the troops of Caesar had difficulty in keeping themselves alive and only hoped for better supplies from the corn-harvest not far distant.