Crastinus
one of Caesar's veterans, who had been the primipilus in the tenth legion in the year before the battle of Pharsalus, and who served as a volunteer in the campaign against Pompey. It was he who commenced the battle of Pharsalus, B. C. 48, saying that, whether he survived or fell, Caesar should be indebted to him: he died fighting bravely in the foremost line. (Caes. Civ. 3.91, 92; Flor. 4.2.46; Lucan, 7.471, &c.; Appian, App. BC 2.82; Plut. Pomp. 71, Caes. 44.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.