After working ten days in this manner he sent a column of troops by night suddenly, who occupied all the strong positions within his lines and built several redoubts at the same time. Cassius was amazed at the ingenuity as well as the secrecy of this work, and he formed the counter design of cutting Antony off from his redoubts. He carried a transverse wall across the whole marsh from his camp to the sea, cutting and bridging in the same manner as Antony had done, and setting up the palisade on the top of his mounds, thus intercepting the passage made by Antony, so that those inside could not escape to him, nor he render assistance to them.When Antony saw this about noon, instantly, with rage and fury,
he turned his own army, which was facing in another direction, and led it against the cross-fortification of Cassius between his camp and the marsh. He carried tools and ladders intending to take it by storm and force his way into Cassius' camp. While he was making this audacious charge, obliquely and up hill, across the space that separated the two armies, the soldiers of Brutus were provoked at the insolence of the enemy in dashing boldly athwart their front while they stood there armed. So they charged on their own account, without any order from their officers, and killed with much slaughter (as natural in a flank attack) all they came up with. The battle once begun they charged upon the army of Octavian,
also, which was drawn up opposite, put it to flight, pursued it to the camp which Antony and Octavian had in common, and captured it. Octavian himself was not there, having been warned in a dream to beware of that day, as he has himself written in his Memoirs.When Antony saw that battle was joined he was delighted because he had forced it, for he had been in trouble about his supplies he judged it inadvisable to turn again toward the plain, lest in making the evolution his ranks should be thrown into disorder. So he continued his charge, as he had begun it, on the run, and advanced under a shower of missiles, and forced his way till he struck the troop of Cassius which had not moved from its assigned position.