No More Learning

We are not suffi ciently informed either as to the character of Labienus or as to the special circumstances of his changing sides ; but in the main his case certainly presents nothing but a further proof of the fact, that a military chief can reckon far more surely on his captains than on his marshals. To all appearance Labienus was one of those persons who combine with military efficiency utter in
capacity as statesmen, and who in consequence, if they unhappily choose or are compelled to take part in politics, are exposed to those strange paroxysms of giddiness, of which the history of Napoleon's marshals supplies so many tragi-comic examples. He may probably have held himself entitled to rank alongside of Caesar as the second chief of the democracy ; and the rejection of this claim of his may have sent him over to the camp of his opponents. His case rendered for the first time apparent
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
195
the whole gravity of the evil, that Caesar's treatment of his officers as adjutants without independence admitted of the rise of no men fitted to undertake a separate com mand in his camp, while at the same time he stood urgently in need of such men amidst the diffusion — which might easily be foreseen —of the impending struggle through all the provinces of the wide empire. But this disadvantage was far outweighed by that unity in the supreme leadership, which was the primary condition of all success, and a condition only to be preserved at such a cost
This unity of leadership acquired its full power through Caesar'i the efficiency of its instruments. Here the army comes, army' first of all, into view. It still numbered nine legions of infantry or at the most 50,000 men, all of whom however
had faced the enemy and two-thirds had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry consisted of German and Noric mercenaries, whose usefulness and trust worthiness had been proved in the war against Vercingetorix.
The eight years' warfare, full of varied vicissitudes, against
the Celtic nation — which was brave, although in a military
point of view decidedly inferior to the Italian—had given
Caesar the opportunity of organizing his army as he alone
knew how to organize it The whole efficiency of the
soldier presupposes physical vigour ; in Caesar's levies more
regard was had to the strength and activity of the recruits
than to their means or their morals. But the serviceable-
ness of an army, like that of any other machine, depends
above all on the ease and quickness of its movements ; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection rarely reached an* probably never surpassed in their readiness for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything; Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating
martial emulation and the esprit de corps, so that the pre-
196
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
eminence accorded to particular soldiers and divisions appeared even to those who were postponed as the necessary hierarchy of valour. He weaned his men from fear by not unfrequently —where it could be done without serious danger—keeping his soldiers in ignorance of an approaching conflict, and allowing them to encounter the enemy unex pectedly. But obedience was on a parity with valour. The soldier was required to do what he was bidden, without
asking the reason or the object; many an aimless fatigue was imposed on him solely as a training in the difficult art of blind obedience. The discipline was strict but not harassing; it was exercised with unrelenting vigour when the soldier was in presence of the enemy ; at other times, especially after victory, the reins were relaxed, and if an otherwise efficient soldier was then pleased to indulge in perfumery or to deck himself with elegant arms and the like, or even if he allowed himself to be guilty of outrages
or irregularities of a very questionable kind, provided only his military duties were not immediately affected, the foolery and the crime were allowed to pass, and the general lent a deaf ear to the complaints of the provincials on such points. Mutiny on the other hand was never pardoned, either in the instigators, or even in the guilty corps itself.
But the true soldier ought to be not merely capable, brave, and obedient, he ought to be all this willingly and spontaneously; and it is the privilege of gifted natures alone to induce the animated machine which they govern to a joyful service by means of example and of hope, and especially by the consciousness of being turned to befitting use. As the officer, who would demand valour from his troops, must himself have looked danger in the face with them, Caesar had even when general found opportunity of drawing his sword and had then used it like the best ; in activity, moreover, and fatigue he was constantly far more exacting from himself than from his soldiers. Caesar took
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
197
care that victory, which primarily no doubt brings gain to the general, should be associated also with personal hopes in the minds of the soldiers. We have already mentioned that he knew how to render his soldiers enthusiastic for the cause of the democracy, so far as the times which had become prosaic still admitted of enthusiasm, and that the political equalization of the Transpadane country —the native land of most of his soldiers — with Italy proper was set forth as one of the objects of the struggle (iv. 457). Of course material recompenses were at the same time not wanting — as well special rewards for distinguished feats of arms as general rewards for every efficient soldier; the officers had their portions, the soldiers received presents, and the most lavish gifts were placed in prospect for the
triumph.
Above all things Caesar as a true commander under
stood how to awaken in every single component element, large or small, of the mighty machine the consciousness of its befitting application. The ordinary man is destined for service, and he has no objection to be an instrument, if he feels that a master guides him. Everywhere and at all times the eagle eye of the general rested on the whole army, rewarding and punishing with impartial justice, and directing the action of each towards the course con ducive to the good of all : so that there was no experi menting or trifling with the sweat and blood of the humblest, but for that very reason, where it was necessary, unconditional devotion even to death was required. With out allowing each individual to see into the whole springs
of action, Caesar yet allowed each to catch such glimpses of the political and military connection of things as to secure that he should be recognized — and it may be idealized —by the soldiers as a statesman and a general. He treated his soldiers throughout, not as his equals, but as men who are entitled to demand and were able to
198
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
endure the truth, and who had to put faith in the promises and the assurances of their general, without thinking of deception or listening to rumours ; as comrades through long years in warfare and victory, among whom there was hardly any one that was not known to him by name and that in the course of so many campaigns had not formed more or less of a personal relation to the general ; as good companions, with whom he talked and dealt confidentially and with the cheerful elasticity peculiar to him ; as clients, to requite whose services, and to avenge whose wrongs and death, constituted in his view a sacred duty. Perhaps there never was an army which was so perfectly what an army ought to be—a machine able for its ends and willing for its ends, in the hand of a master, who transfers to it his own elasticity. Caesar's soldiers were, and felt them selves, a match for a tenfold superior force ; in connection with which it should not be overlooked, that under the Roman tactics — calculated altogether for hand-to-hand conflict and especially for combat with the sword — the practised Roman soldier was superior to the novice in a far higher degree than is now the case under the circum stances of modern times. 1 But still more than by the superiority of valour the adversaries of Caesar felt them selves humbled by the unchangeable and touching fidelity with which his soldiers clung to their general. It is perhaps without a parallel in history, that when the general summoned his soldiers to follow him into the civil war,
1 A centurion of Caesar's tenth legion, taken prisoner, declared to the commander-in-chief of the enemy that he was ready with ten of his men to make head against the best cohort of the enemy (500 men ; Bell. Afric. 45). " In the ancient mode of fighting," to quote the opinion of Napoleon I. , "a battle consisted simply of duels ; what was only correct in the mouth ot that centurion, would be mere boasting in the mouth of the modern soldier. " Vivid proofs of the soldierly spirit that pervaded Caesar's army are furnished by the Reports —appended to his Memoirs — respecting the African and the second Spanish wars, of which the former appears to have had as its author an officer of the second rank, while the latter is in every respect a subaltern camp-journal.
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
199
with the single exception already mentioned of Labienus, no Roman officer and no Roman soldier deserted him. The hopes of his opponents as to an extensive desertion were thwarted as ignominiously as the former attempts to break up his army like that of Lucullus (p. 181). Labienus himself appeared in the camp of Pompeius with a band doubtless of Celtic and German horsemen but without a single legionary. Indeed the soldiers, as if they would show that the war was quite as much their matter as that of their general, settled among themselves that they would give credit for the pay, which Caesar had promised to double for them at the outbreak of the civil war, to their commander up to its termination, and would meanwhile support their poorer comrades from the general means ; besides, every subaltern officer equipped and paid a trooper out of his own purse.
While Caesar thus had the one thing which was need- Field of ful—unlimited political and military authority and a trust- 9awtr- worthy army ready for the fight — his power extended, comparatively speaking, over only a very limited space.
It was based essentially on the province of Upper Italy.
This region was not merely the most populous of all the Uppa
'.
districts of Italy, but also devoted to the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering, and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death with their own hands during the following night. It is easy to conceive what might be expected of such a population. As they had already granted to Caesar the means of more than doubling his original army, so after
-
Italy.
300 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK T
the outbreak of the civil war recruits presented themselves in great numbers for the ample levies that were immediately instituted.
In Italy proper, on the other hand, the influence of Caesar was not even remotely to be compared to that of his opponents. Although he had the skill by dexterous manoeuvres to put the Catonian party in the wrong, and had sufficiently commended the rectitude of his cause to all who wished for a pretext with a good conscience either to remain neutral, like the majority of the senate, or to
embrace his side, like his soldiers and the Transpadanes, the mass of the burgesses naturally did not allow themselves to be misled by these things and, when the commandant of Gaul put his legions in motion against Rome, they beheld — despite all formal explanations as to law — in Cato and Pompeius the defenders of the legitimate republic, in Caesar the democratic usurper. People in general moreover expected from the nephew of Marius, the son-in- law of Cinna, the ally of Catilina, a repetition of the Marian and Cinnan horrors, a realization of the saturnalia of anarchy projected by Catilina; and though Caesar certainly gained allies through this expectation —so that the political refugees immediately put themselves in a body at his disposal, the ruined men saw in him their deliverer, and the lowest ranks of the rabble in the capital and country towns were thrown into a ferment on the news of his advance, — these belonged to the class of friends who are more dangerous than foes.
In the provinces and the dependent states Caesar had even less influence than in Italy. Transalpine Gaul indeed as far as the Rhine and the Channel obeyed him, and the colonists of Narbo as well as the Roman burgesses else where settled in Gaul were devoted to him; but in the Narbonese province itself the constitutional party had numerous adherents, and now even the newly-conquered
Prerinces.
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS sol
regions were far more a burden than a benefit to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war, and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself sup port, had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need f. nancial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course, not much had been gained by this means, and the relations with the German and Celtic princes in *he regions of the Rhine and the Danube, —particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio, so important for the recruiting of cavalry,— were probably the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him.
While Caesar thut entered the struggle only as com- The mandant of Gaul, without other essential resources than c °* efficient adjutants, a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full possession of all the resources
that stood at the disposal of the legitimate government of
the great Roman empire. But while his position was in a
political and military point of view far more considerable,
it was also on the other hand far less definite and firm.
The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself and by
necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent
with the nature of a coalition ; and although Pompeius,
too much of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable, attempted to force it on the coalition and
got himself nominated by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea, yet the senate itself could
not be set aside nor hindered from a preponderating
influence on the political, and an occasional and therefore
doubly injurious interference with the military, superin-
202 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
tendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius and the constitutional party ; the feeling which vividly prevailed on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed, that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be a rupture between the victors ; the contempt which they entertained for each
other and with only too good grounds in either case ; the inconvenient number of respectable and influential men in the ranks of the aristocracy and the intellectual and moral inferiority of almost all who took part in the matter —altogether produced among the opponents of Caesar a reluctant and refractory co-operation, which formed the saddest contrast to the harmonious and compact action on the other side.
While all the disadvantages incident to the coalition of P? *TM powers naturally hostile were thus felt in an unusual coalition, measure by Caesar's antagonists, this coalition was certainly
still a very considerable power. It had exclusive command of the sea ; all ports, all ships of war, all the materials for equipping a fleet were at its disposal. The two Spains— as it were the home of the power of Pompeius just as the two Gauls were the home of that of Caesar—were faithful adherents to their master and in the hands of able and trustworthy administrators. In the other provinces also, of course with the exception of the two Gauls, the posts of the governors and commanders had during recent years been filled up with safe men under the influence of Pompeius and the minority of the senate. The client- states throughout and with great decision took part against Caesar and in favour of Pompeius. The most important princes and cities had been brought into the closest personal relations with Pompeius in virtue of the different sections of his manifold activity. In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been the companion in arms
Field of
chap, Z PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
203
of the Icings of Numidia and Mauretania and had re established the kingdom of the former (iv. 94) ; in the Mithradatic war, in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia, and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia (iv. 431, 437); it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken, and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids had been confirmed afresh (iv. 451). Even the city of Massilia in Caesar's own province, while indebted to the latter doubtless for various favours, was indebted to Pompeius at the time of the Sertorian war for a very con siderable extension of territory (p. 8); and, besides, the ruling oligarchy there stood in natural alliance —strengthened by various mutual relations — with the oligarchy in Rome. But these personal and relative considerations as well as
the glory of the victor in three continents, which in these more remote parts of the empire far outshone that of the conqueror of Gaul, did perhaps less harm to Caesar in those quarters than the views and designs—which had not remained there unknown —of the heir of Gaius Gracchus as to the necessity of uniting the dependent states and the usefulness of provincial colonizations. No one of the dependent dynasts found himself more
threatened by this peril than Juba king of Numidia. Not Juba of
umid*1
only had he years before, in the lifetime of his father Hiempsal, fallen into a vehement personal quarrel with Caesar, but recently the same Curio, who now occupied almost the first place among Caesar's adjutants, had pro posed to the Roman burgesses the annexation of the Numidian kingdom. Lastly, if matters should go so far as to lead the independent neighbouring states to interfere hi the Roman civil war, the only state
really powerful, that of the Parthians, was practically already allied with the aristocratic party by the connection entered into
imminently
204
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA,
between Pacorus and Bibulus (p. 164), while Caesar was far too much a Roman to league himself for party-interests with the conquerors of his friend Crassus.
Italy As to Italy the great majority of the burgesses were, as
against Caesar.
has been already mentioned, averse to Caesar — more especially, of course, the whole aristocracy with their very considerable following, but also in a not much less degree the great capitalists, who could not hope in the event of a thorough reform of the commonwealth to preserve their partisan jury-courts and their monopoly of extortion. Of equally anti-democratic sentiments were the small capitalists, the landholders and generally all classes that had anything to lose; but in these ranks of life the cares of the next rent-term and of sowing and reaping outweighed, as a rule, every other consideration.
The army at the disposal of Pompeius consisted chiefly of the Spanish troops, seven legions inured to war and in every respect trustworthy ; to which fell to be added the divisions of troops—weak indeed, and very much scattered —which were to be found in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In Italy there were under arms at the outset only the two legions recently given off by Caesar, whose effective strength did not amount to more than 7000 men, and whose trustworthiness was more than doubtful, because —levied in Cisalpine Gaul and old comrades in arms of Caesar—they were in a high degree displeased at the unbecoming intrigue by which they had been made to change camps (p. 182), and recalled with longing their general who had magnanimously paid to them beforehand at their departure the presents which were promised to every soldier for the tritmph. But, apart from the circumstance that the Spanish troops might arrive in Italy with the spring either by the land route through Gaul or by sea, the men of the three legions still remaining from
The Pompeian army.
IS. the levies of 699 131), as well as the Italian levy sworn
(p.
chap, x
PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
205
to allegiance in 702 147), could be recalled from their 61 furlough. Including these, the number of troops standing
at the disposal of Pompeius on the whole, without reckon
ing the seven legions Spain and those scattered in other provinces, amounted in Italy alone to ten legions or about 60,000 men, so that was no exaggeration at all, when Pompeius asserted that he had only to stamp with his foot
to cover the ground with armed men. true that required some interval—though but short—to render these soldiers available but the arrangements for this purpose as well as for the carrying out of the new levies ordered
the senate consequence of the outbreak of the civil war were already everywhere in progress. Immediately
after the decisive decree of the senate Jan. 705), the it. very depth of winter the most eminent men of the aristo cracy set out to the different districts, to hasten the calling
up of recruits and the preparation of arms. The want of cavalry was much felt, as for this arm they had been ac customed to rely wholly on the provinces and especially on
the Celtic contingents to make at least beginning, three hundred gladiators belonging to Caesar were taken from the fencing-schools of Capua and mounted — step which however met with so general disapproval, that Pompeius again broke up this troop and levied room of horsemen from the mounted slave-herdmen of Apulia.
The state -treasury was at low ebb as usual
busied themselves in supplementing the inadequate amourt of cash out of the local treasuries and even from the temple- treasures of the municipia.
Under these circumstances the war opened at the begin-
ning of January 705. Of troops capable of marching J^a Caesar had not more than legion — 5000 infantry and offensive.
This number was specified by Pompeius himself (Caesar, B. C. 6), and agrees with the statement that he lost in Italy about 60 cohort on 30,000 men, and took 25,000 over to Greece (Caesar, B. C. iii. 10).
300
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206 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
300 cavalry — at Ravenna, which was by the highway some 240 miles distant from Rome ; Pompeius had two weak legions — 7000 infantry and a small squadron of cavalry —
under the orders of Appius Claudius at Luceria, from which, likewise by the highway, the distance was just about as great to the capital. The other troops of Caesar, leaving out of account the raw divisions of recruits still in course of formation, were stationed, one half on the Saone and Loire, the other half in Belgica, while Pompeius* Italian reserves were already arriving from all sides at their rendezvous ; long before even the first of the Transalpine divisions of Caesar could arrive in Italy, a far superior army could not but be ready to receive it there. It seemed folly, with a band of the strength of that of Catilina and for the moment without any effective reserve, to assume the aggressive against a superior and hourly- increasing army under an able general ; but it was a folly in the spirit of Hannibal. If the beginning of the struggle were postponed rill spring, the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul, and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him in experience, was
a formidable antagonist in such a campaign running its regular course. Now perhaps, accustomed as he was to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack ; and that which could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign in the land of the Bellovaci (p. 93),— the suddenness of the war and the toil of a winter cam paign — could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits, and still only in the course of formation.
Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy. 1 Two highways 1 The decree of the senate was passed on the 7th January ; on the 18th
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
WJ
led at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome, and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia. On the former Marcus Antonius advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself pushed forward. Resistance was nowhere encountered ; the recruiting officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious not to be involved in a siege. When Curio with 1500 men approached Iguvium, where a
couple of thousand Umbrian recruits had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus, general and soldiers took to night at the bare tidings of his approach; and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued.
Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome Rome, from which his cavalry at Arretium were already only evacua,ci about 1 30 miles distant, or against the legions encamped at
Luceria. He chose the latter plan. The consternation of
the opposite party was boundless. Pompeius received the
news of Caesar's advance at Rome ; he seemed at first dis
posed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings arrived
of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory and of his
first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that
Caesar's cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over
the world of quality. The senators, who had been informed
that every one who should remain behind in the capital
would be treated as an accomplice of the rebel Caesar,
it had been already for several days known in Rome that Caesar had crossed the boundary (Cic. ad Alt vii. 10 ; ix. 10, 4) ; the messenger needed at the very least three days from Rome to Ravenna. According to this the setting out of Caesar falls about the lath January, which according to the current reduction corresponds to the Julian 94 Nov. 704.
50.
2oS BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
flocked in crowds out at the gates. The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they did not even secure the treasure ; when Pompeius called upon them to fetch
for which there was sufficient time, they returned the reply that they would deem safer, he should first occupy Picenum. All was perplexity consequently great council of war was held Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan. ), at which Pompeius, Labienus, and both consuls were present. First of all proposals of accommodation from Caesar were again submitted even now he declared himself ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces to the successors nominated, and to become candidate in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed. The answer was, that Caesar would immediately return to his province, they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy and the departure of Pompeius by decree of the senate to be passed in due form in the capital perhaps this reply was intended not as bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance of the proposal of compromise; was, however, in reality the opposite. The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not by the semblance of new coalition with Caesar provoke still more the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Con cerning the management of the war was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria, on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended that he should ad vance with these into his own and Labienus' native country, Picenum that he should personally call the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five years ago (iv. 78), and should attempt at the head of the faithful Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar to set limit to the advance of the enemy.
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Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold Conflicts fa
"ceoua*'
out until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road by way of Ancona. Here too the prepara tions were in full course ; in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict —the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum, and Publius Lentulus Spinther with Asculum. The men, thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier ; but the district itself was already lost, when the officer sent Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence, Lucius Vibullius Rums — no genteel senator, but a soldier
5000
by
experienced in war—arrived there ; he had to content him self with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them for the time to the nearest rendezvous.
.
This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies Corfinium
in the Albensian, Marsian and Paelignian territories ; the body of recruits here assembled, of nearly 1 5,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army in course of formation for the constitutional party. When Vibullius arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind ; there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia. But the commandant in Corfinium
was the designated successor to Caesar in the governorship
leB
VOL. V
147
109
110 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, bookv
of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius, one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy ; and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius, but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men from Picenum for Apulia. So firmly was he persuaded that Pompeius only delayed from obstinacy and must necessarily come up to his relief, that he scarcely made any serious preparations for a siege and did not even gather into Corfinium the bands of recruits placed in the surrounding towns. Pompeius however did not appear, and for good reasons ; for, while he might perhaps apply his two untrust worthy legions as a reserved support for the Picenian general levy, he could not with them alone offer battle to Caesar. Instead of him after a few days Caesar came
(14 Feb. ). His troops had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and
before Corfinium by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these, three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily, partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere ; so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service. So long as Domitius hoped for the arrival of Pompeius, he caused the town to be defended ; when the letters of Pompeius had at length undeceived him, he resolved, not forsooth to persevere at the forlorn post—by which he would have rendered the greatest service to his party — nor even to capitulate, but, while the common soldiers were informed that relief was close at hand, to make his own escape along with his officers of quality during the next night Yet he had not the judgment to carry into effect even this pretty scheme.
The confusion of his behaviour betrayed him. A part of the men began to mutiny ; the Marsian recruits, who held such an infamy on the part of their general to be impossible, wished to fight against the mutineers; but they too were
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 2n
obliged reluctantly to believe the truth of the accusation, whereupon the whole garrison arrested their staff and handed themselves, and the town over to Caesar (20 Feb. ). The corps in Alba, 3000 strong, and 1500 recruits assembled in Tarracina thereupon laid down their arms, as soon as Caesar's patrols of horsemen appeared; third division Sulmo of 3500 men had been previously compelled to surrender.
Pompeius had given up Italy as lost, so soon as Caesar had occupied Picenum; only he wished to delay his embarkation as long as possible, with the view of saving so much of his force as could still be saved. Accordingly he had slowly put himself motion for the nearest seaport Brundisium. Thither came the two legions of Luceria and such recruits as Pompeius had been able hastily to collect in the deserted Apulia, as well as the troops raised by the consuls and other commissioners in Campania and con ducted in all haste to Brundisium thither too resorted number of political fugitives, including the most respected of the senators accompanied by their families. The embarkation began but the vessels at hand did not suffice to transport all at once the whole multitude, which still amounted to 25,000 persons. No course remained but to divide the army. The larger half went first March); with the smaller division of some 10,000 men Pompeius awaited at Brundisium the return of the fleet for, however desirable the possession of Brundisium might be for an eventual attempt to reoccupy Italy, they did not presume
"to hold the place permanently against Caesar. Meanwhile Caesar arrived before Brundisium; the siege began. Caesar attempted first of all to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and floating bridges, with view to exclude the returning fleet; but Pompeius caused the trading vessels lying in the harbour to be armed, and managed to prevent the complete closing of the harbour
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in
in
it,
a
Military and financial results of the seizure
212 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK V
until the fleet appeared and the troops—whom Pompeius with great dexterity, in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers and the hostile feeling of the inhabitants, with drew from the town to the last man unharmed —were carried off beyond Caesar's reach to Greece (17 March). The further pursuit, like the siege itself, failed for want of
a fleet
In a campaign of two months, without a single serious
engagement, Caesar had so broken up an army of ten legions, that less than the half of it had with great difficulty escaped in a confused flight across the sea, and the whole Italian peninsula, including the capital with the state-chest and all the stores accumulated there, had fallen into the power of the victor. Not without reason did the beaten party bewail the terrible rapidity, sagacity, and energy of the "monster. "
But it may be questioned whether Caesar gained or lost more by the conquest of Italy. In a military respect, no doubt, very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn from his opponents, but rendered available for
of Italy. a. himself; even in the spring of 705 his army embraced, in consequence of the levies en masse instituted everywhere, a considerable number of legions of recruits in addition to the nine old ones. But on the other hand it now became necessary not merely to leave behind a considerable garrison in Italy, but also to take measures against the closing of the transmarine traffic contemplated by his opponents who commanded the sea, and against the famine with which the capital was consequently threatened ; whereby Caesar's already sufficiently complicated military task was complicated further stilL Financially it was
certainly of importance, that Caesar had the good fortune to obtain possession of the stock of money in the capital ; but the principal sources of income and particularly the revenues from the east were withal in the hands of the
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
213
enemy, and, in consequence of the greatly increased demands for the army and the new obligation to provide for the starving population of the capital, the considerable sums which were found quickly melted away. Caesar soon found himself compelled to appeal to private credit, and, as it seemed that he could not possibly gain any long respite by this means, extensive confiscations were generally anticipated as the only remaining expedient.
More serious difficulties still were created by the
placed on the conquest of Italy. The apprehension of an Fear of
Its political political relations amidst which Caesar found himself ns
anarchical revolution was universal among the propertied classes. Friends and foes saw in Caesar a second Catilina ; Pompeius believed or affected to believe that Caesar had been driven to civil war merely by the impossibility of paying his debts. This was certainly absurd ; but in fact Caesar's antecedents were anything but reassuring, and still less reassuring was the aspect of the retinue that now surrounded him. Individuals of the most broken reputa tion, notorious personages like Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Curio, Marcus Antonius, —the latter the stepson of the Catilinarian Lentulus who was executed by the orders of Cicero —were the most prominent actors in it ; the highest posts of trust were bestowed on men who had long ceased even to reckon up their debts ; people saw men who held office under Caesar not merely keeping dancing-girls— which was done by others also — but appearing publicly in company with them. Was there any wonder, that even grave and politically impartial men expected amnesty for all exiled criminals, cancelling of creditors' claims, compre hensive mandates of confiscation, proscription, and murder, nay, even a plundering of Rome by the Gallic soldiery ?
*y
But in this respect the " monster " deceived the expecta- dispelled tions of his foes as well as of his friends. As soon even as ^ c"e,"B, Caesar occupied the first Italian town, Ariminum, he
ThieMi
prohibited all common soldiers from appearing armed within the walls ; the country towns were protected from all injury throughout and without distinction, whether they had given him a friendly or hostile reception. When the mutinous garrison surrendered Corfinium late in the evening, he in the face of every military consideration postponed the occupation of the town till the following morning, solely that he might not abandon the burgesses to the nocturnal invasion of his exasperated soldiers. Of the prisoners the common soldiers, as presumably indifferent to politics, were incorporated with his own army, while the officers were not merely spared, but also freely released without distinction of person and without the exaction of any promises whatever ; and all which they claimed as private property was frankly given up to them, without even investigating with any strictness the warrant for their claims. Lucius Domitius himself was thus treated, and even Labienus had the money and baggage which he had left behind sent after him to the enemy's camp. In the most painful financial embarrassment the immense estates of his opponents whether present or absent were not assailed ; indeed Caesar preferred to borrow from friends, rather than that he should stir up the possessors of property against him even by exacting the formally admissible, but practically antiquated, land tax (iv. 156). The victor regarded only the half, and that not the more difficult half, of his task as solved with the victory ; he saw the security for its duration, according to his own expression, only in the unconditional pardon of the vanquished, and had accordingly during the whole march from Ravenna to Brundisium incessantly renewed his efforts to bring about a personal conference with Pompeius and a tolerable accommodation.
But, if the aristocracy had previously refused to listen to any reconciliation, the unexpected emigration of a kind
«4
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
S15
so disgraceful had raised their wrath to madness, and the
wild vengeance breathed by the beaten contrasted strangely
with the placability of the victor. The communications
regularly coming from the camp of the emigrants to their
friends left behind in Italy were full of projects for confiscations and proscriptions, of plans for purifying the
senate and the state, compared with which the restoration
of Sulla was child's play, and which even the moderate
men of their own party heard with horror. The frantic The mast passion of impotence, the wise moderation of power, TMp/e produced their effect. The whole mass, in whose eyes gained fcr material interests were superior to political, threw itself
into the arms of Caesar. The country towns idolized " the uprightness, the moderation, the prudence " of the victor ; and even opponents conceded that these demonstrations of respect were meant in earnest. The great capitalists, farmers of the taxes, and jurymen, showed no special desire, after the severe shipwreck which had befallen the constitutional party in Italy, to entrust themselves farther to the same pilots ; capital came once more to the light, and "the rich lords resorted again to their daily task of writing their rent-rolls. " Even the great majority of the senate, at least numerically speaking—for certainly but few of the nobler and more influential members of the senate were included in it — had notwithstanding the orders of Pompeius and of the consuls remained behind in Italy, and a portion of them even in the capital itself; and they acqui esced in Caesar's rule. The moderation of Caesar, well calculated even in its very semblance of excess, attained its object : the trembling anxiety of the propertied classes as to the impending anarchy was in some measure allayed.
This was doubtless an incalculable gain for the future ; the prevention of anarchy, and of the scarcely less dangerous alarm of anarchy, was the indispensable preliminary con dition to the future reorganization of the commonwealth.
316 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK V
But at the moment this moderation was more dangerous for Caesar than the renewal of the Cinnan and Catilinarian
Indigna
tion of the
anarchist
party fury would have been ; it did not convert enemies into against
Caesar.
friends, and it converted friends into enemies. Caesar's Catilinarian adherents were indignant that murder and
remained in abeyance; these audacious and
desperate personages, some of whom were men of talent,
The might be expected to prove cross and untractable. The
pillage
republican
party in
Italy. converted nor propitiated by the leniency of the conqueror.
republicans of all shades, on the other hand, were neither
According to the creed of the Catonian party, duty towards what they called their fatherland absolved them from every other consideration ; even one who owed freedom and life to Caesar remained entitled and in duty bound to take up arms or at least to engage in plots against him. The less decided sections of the constitutional party were no doubt found willing to accept peace and protection from the new monarch; nevertheless they ceased not to curse the monarchy and the monarch at heart The more clearly the change of the constitution became manifest, the more distinctly the great majority of the burgesses — both in the capital with its keener susceptibility of political excitement, and among the more energetic population of the country and country towns — awoke to a consciousness of their republican sentiments ; so far the friends of the constitution in Rome reported with truth to their brethren of kindred views in exile, that at home all classes and all persons were friendly to Pompeius. The discontented temper of all these circles was further increased by the moral pressure, which the more decided and more notable men who shared such views exercised from their very position as emigrants over the multitude of the humbler and more lukewarm. The conscience of the honourable man smote him in regard to his remaining in Italy ; the half-aristocrat fancied that he was ranked among the plebeians, if he
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 217
did not go into exile with the Domitii and the Metelli, and even if he took his seat in the Caesarian senate of nobodies. The victor's special clemency gave to this silent opposition increased political importance ; seeing that Caesar abstained from terrorism, it seemed as if his secret opponents could display their disinclination to his rule without much danger.
Very soon he experienced remarkable treatment in this PauWe respect at the hands of the senate. Caesar had begun ^^ the struggle to liberate the overawed senate from its senate to
This was done; consequently he wished to obtain from the senate approval of what had been done, and full powers for the continuance of the war. For this purpose, when Caesar appeared before the capital (end of March) the tribunes of the people belonging to his party convoked for him the senate (1 April). The meeting was tolerably numerous, but the more notable of the very senators that remained in Italy were absent, including even the former leader of the servile majority Marcus Cicero and Caesar's own father-in-law Lucius Piso; and, what was worse, those who did appear were not inclined to enter into Caesar's proposals. When Caesar spoke of full power to continue the war, one of the only two consulars present, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a very timid man who desired nothing but a quiet death in his bed, was of opinion that Caesar would deserve well of his
country if he should abandon the thought of carrying the war to Greece and Spain. When Caesar thereupon requested the senate at least to be the medium of trans mitting his peace proposals to Pompeius, they were not indeed opposed to that course in itself, but the threats of the emigrants against the neutrals had so terrified the latter, that no one was found to undertake the message of peace. Through the disinclination of the aristocracy to help the erection of the monarch's throne, and through
oppressors.
Provisional
memof'the affairs of
2l8 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book V
the same inertness of the dignified corporation, by means of which Caesar had shortly before frustrated the legal nomination of Pompeius as generalissimo in the civil war, he too was now thwarted when making a like request Other impediments, moreover, occurred. Caesar desired, with the view of regulating in some sort of way his position, to be named as dictator; but his wish was not complied with, because such a magistrate could only be constitutionally appointed by one of the consuls, and the attempt of Caesar to buy the consul Lentulus—of which owing to the disordered condition of his finances there was a good prospect—nevertheless proved a failure. The tribune of the people Lucius Metellus, moreover, lodged a protest against all the steps of the proconsul, and made signs as though he would protect with his person the public chest, when Caesar's men came to empty Caesar could not avoid in this case ordering that the inviolable person should be pushed aside as gently as possible otherwise, he kept by his purpose of abstaining from all
violent steps. He declared to the senate, just as the constitutional party had done shortly before, that he had certainly desired to regulate things in legal way and with the help of the supreme authority; but, since this help was refused, he could dispense with
Without further concerning himself about the senate an<* tne formalities of state law, he handed over the
administration of the capital to the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as city - prefect, and made the requisite arrangements for the administration of the provmces that obeyed him and the continuance of the war. Even amidst the din of the gigantic struggle, and with all the alluring sound of Caesar's lavish promises, still made deep impression on the multitude of the capital, when they saw in their free Rome the monarch for the first time wielding monarch's power and break
temporary ecaP"
The provinces.
a
a
1
ir
git ;
it a
it,
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
219
open the doors of the treasury by his soldiers. But the times had gone by, when the impressions and feelings of the multitude determined the course of events; it was with the legions that the decision lay, and a few painful feelings more or less were of no farther moment
Caesar hastened to resume the war. He owed his The successes hitherto to the offensive, and he intended still ^sp^^* to maintain it The position of his antagonist was singular.
After the original plan of carrying on the campaign simultaneously in the two Gauls by offensive operations
from the bases of Italy and Spain had been frustrated by
Caesar's aggressive, Pompeius had intended to go to
Spain. There he had a very strong position. The army amounted to seven legions ; a large number of Pompeius'
veterans served in and several years of conflicts in the Lusitanian mountains had hardened soldiers and officers.
Among its captains Marcus Varro indeed was simply
celebrated scholar and faithful partisan; but Lucius
Afranius had fought with distinction in the east and in
the Alps, and Marcus Petreius, the conqueror of Catilina,
was an officer as dauntless as he was able. While in the
Further province Caesar had still various adherents from
the time of his governorship there 6), the more
important province of the Ebro was attached all the
ties of veneration and gratitude to the celebrated general,
who twenty years before had held the command in
during the Sertorian war, and after the termination of
that war had organized anew. Pompeius could evidently
after the Italian disaster do nothing better than proceed
to Spain with the saved remnant of his army, and then at
the head of his whole force advance to meet Caesar. But unfortunately he had, in the hope of being able still to
save the troops that were in Corfinium, tarried in Apulia
so long that be was compelled to choose the nearer Brundisium as his place of embarkation instead of the
it
it, a
(p.
by
it a
Massilia
q^£
320 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
Campanian ports. Why, master as he was of the sea and Sicily, he did not subsequently revert to his original plan, cannot be determined ; whether it was that perhaps the aristocracy after their short - sighted and distrustful fashion showed no desire to entrust themselves to the Spanish troops and the Spanish population, it is enough to say that Pompeius remained in the east, and Caesar had the option of directing his first attack either against the army which was being organized in Greece under Pompeius' own command, or against that which was ready for battle under his lieutenants in Spain. He had decided in favour of the latter course, and, as soon as the Italian campaign ended, had taken measures to collect on the lower Rhone nine of his best legions, as also 6000 cavalry — partly men individually picked out by Caesar in the Celtic cantons, partly German mercenaries—and a number of Iberian and Ligurian archers.
But at this point his opponents also had been active. Lucius Domitius, who was nominated by the senate in Caesar's stead as governor of Transalpine Gaul, had proceeded from Corfinium — as soon as Caesar had released him — along with his attendants and with Pom peius' confidant Lucius Vibullius Rufus to Massilia, and actually induced that city to declare for Pompeius and even to refuse a passage to Caesar's troops. Of the Spanish troops the two least trustworthy legions were left behind under the command of Varro in the Further province; while the five best, reinforced by 40,000 Spanish infantry — partly Celtiberian infantry of the line, partly Lusitanian and other light troops—and by 5000 Spanish cavalry, under Afranius and Petreius, had, in accordance with the orders of Pompeius transmitted by Vibullius, set out to close the Pyrenees against the enemy.
Meanwhile Caesar himself arrived in Gaul and, as the commencement of the siege of Massilia still detained hint
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 82t
in person, he immediately despatched the greater part of Caesar his troops assembled on the Rhone — six legions and the ^" cavalry — along the great road leading by way of Narbo Pyrenees (Narbonne) to Rhode (Rosas) with the view of anticipating
the enemy at the Pyrenees. The movement was successful ;
when Afranius and Petreius arrived at the passes, they
found them already occupied by the Caesarians and the
line of the Pyrenees lost They then took up a position at Position at
CT
Ilerda (Lerida) between the Pyrenees and the Ebro. This town lies twenty miles to the north of the Ebro on the right bank of one of its tributaries, the Sicoris (Segre), which was crossed by only a single solid bridge immediately at Ilerda. To the south of Ilerda the mountains which adjoin the left bank of the Ebro approach pretty close to the town ; to the northward there stretches on both sides of the Sicoris a level country which is commanded by the hill on which the town is built For an army, which had to submit to a siege, it was an excellent position ; but the defence of Spain, after the occupation of the line of the Pyrenees had been neglected, could only be undertaken in earnest behind the Ebro, and, as no secure communication was established between Ilerda and the Ebro, and no bridge existed over the latter stream, the retreat from the temporary to the true defensive position was not sufficiently secured. The Caesarians established themselves above Ilerda, in the delta which the river Sicoris forms with the Cinga (Cinca), which unites with it below Ilerda ; but the attack only began in earnest after Caesar had arrived in the camp (23 June). Ui-der the walls of the town the struggle was maintained with equal exasperation and equal valour on both sides, and with frequent alternations of success ; but the Caesarians did not attain their object —which was, to establish them selves between the Pompeian camp and the town and there by to possess themselves of the stone bridge — and they consequently remained dependent for their communication
Caesar
222 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
with Gaul solely on two bridges which they had hastily ronstructed over the Sicoris, and that indeed, as the river at Ilerda itself was too considerable to be bridged over, about eighteen or twenty miles farther up.
When the floods came on with the melting of the snow, these temporary bridges were swept away ; and, as they had no vessels for the passage of the highly swollen rivers and under such circumstances the restoration of the bridges could not for the present be thought of, the Caesarian army was confined to the narrow space between the Cinca and the Sicoris, while the left bank of the Sicoris and with it the road, by which the army communicated with Gaul and Italy, were exposed almost undefended to the Pompeians,
who passed the river partly by the town-bridge, partly by swimming after the Lusitanian fashion on skins. It was the season shortly before harvest ; the old produce was almost used up, the new was not yet gathered, and the narrow stripe of land between the two streams was soon exhausted. In the camp actual famine prevailed—the modius of wheat cost 50 denarii (;£i : 16s. ) —and dangerous diseases broke out; whereas on the left bank there were accumulated provisions and varied supplies, as well as troops of all sorts —reinforcements from Gaul of cavalry and archers, officers and soldiers from furlough, foraging parties returning—in all a mass of 6000 men, whom the Pompeians attacked with superior force and drove with great loss to the moun tains, while the Caesarians on the right bank were obliged to remain passive spectators of the unequal conflict. The communications of the army were in the hands of the Pompeians ; in Italy the accounts from Spain suddenly ceased, and the suspicious rumours, which began to circu late there, were not so very remote from the truth. Had the Pompeians followed up their advantage with some energy, they could not have failed either to reduce under their power or at least to drive back towards Gaul the mass
CHAF. x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
223
scarcely capable of resistance which was crowded together on the left bank of the Sicoris, and to occupy this bank so completely that not a man could cross the river without their knowledge. But both points were neglected; those bands were doubtless pushed aside with loss but neither destroyed nor completely beaten back, and the prevention of the crossing of the river was left substantially to the river itself.
among the Britons and subsequently by the Saxons, to be prepared in the camp and transported in waggons to the point where the bridges had stood. On these frail barks the other bank was reached and, as it was found unoccupied, the bridge was re-established without much difficulty ; the road in connection with it was thereupon quickly cleared, and the eagerly -expected supplies were conveyed to the camp. Caesar's happy idea thus rescued the army from the immense peril in which it was placed. Then the cavalry of Caesar which in efficiency far surpassed that of the enemy began at once to scour the country on the left bank of the Sicoris ; the most considerable Spanish communities between the Pyrenees and the Ebro — Osca, Tarraco, Dertosa, and others—nay, even several to the south of the Ebro, passed over to Caesar's side.
The supplies of the Pompeians were now rendered scarce Retreat through the foraging parties of Caesar and the defection of °f tho . the neighbouring communities ; they resolved at length to from retire behind the line of the Ebro, and set themselves in all Ilerda- haste to form a bridge of boats over the Ebro below the
mouth of the Sicoris. Caesar sought to cut off the retreat
of his opponents over the Ebro and to detain them in
Ilerda ; but so long as the enemy remained in possession
of the bridge at Ilerda and he had control of neither ford
Thereupon Caesar formed his plaa He ordered port-
able boats of a light wooden frame and osier work lined «tablishes
°
Wlth leather, after the model of those used in the Channel munica-
Caesai re-
the com- tions-
Caesar follows.
nor bridge there, he could not distribute his army over both banks of the river and could not invest Ilerda. His soldiers therefore worked day and night to lower the depth of the river by means of canals drawing off the water, so that the infantry could wade through it. But the preparations of the Pompeians to pass the Ebro were sooner finished than the arrangements of the Caesarians for investing Ilerda; when the former after finishing the bridge of boats began their march towards the Ebro along the left bank of the Sicoris, the canals of the Caesarians seemed to the general not yet far enough advanced to make the ford available for the infantry ; he ordered only his cavalry to pass the stream and, by clinging to the rear of the enemy, at least to detain
and harass them.
But when Caesar's legions saw in the gray morning the
enemy's columns which had been retiring since midnight, they discerned with the sure instinct of experienced veterans the strategic importance of this retreat, which would compel them to follow their antagonists into distant and impracticable regions filled by hostile troops ; at their own request the general ventured to lead the infantry also into the river, and although the water reached up to the shoulders of the men, it was crossed without accident. It was high time. If the narrow plain, which separated the town of Ilerda from the mountains enclosing the Ebro were once traversed and the army of the Pompeians entered the mountains, their retreat to the Ebro could no longer be prevented. Already they had, notwithstanding the constant attacks of the enemy's cavalry which greatly delayed their march, approached within five miles of the mountains, when they, having been on the march since midnight and unspeakably exhausted, abandoned their original plan of traversing the whole plain on the same day, and pitched their camp. Here the infantry of Caesar
overtook them and encamped opposite to them in the
224
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
225
evening and during the night, as the nocturnal march which the Pompeians had at first contemplated was abandoned from fear of the night-attacks of the cavalry. On the following day also both armies remained immove able, occupied only in reconnoitring the country.
Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry The route set out, that by a movement through the pathless mountains %£? alongside of the road they might turn the position of the closed, enemy and bar their route to the Ebro. The object of the
strange march, which seemed at first to turn back towards
the camp before Ilerda, was not at once perceived by the Pompeian officers. When they discerned they sacrificed
camp and baggage and advanced forced march along
the highway, to gain the crest of the ridge before the Caesarians. But was already too late when they came
up, the compact masses of the enemy were already posted
on the highway itself. A desperate attempt of the Pompeians to discover other routes to the Ebro over the
steep mountains was frustrated by Caesar's cavalry, which surrounded and cut to pieces the Lusitanian troops sent
forth for that purpose. Had battle taken place between
the Pompeian army—which had the enemy's cavalry in its
rear and their infantry in front, and was utterly demoralized
—and the Caesarians, the issue was scarcely doubtful, and
the opportunity for fighting several times presented itself;
but Caesar made no use of and, not without difficulty, restrained the impatient eagerness for the combat in his
soldiers sure of victory. The Pompeian army was at any
rate strategically lost Caesar avoided weakening his army
and still further envenoming the bitter feud by useless bloodshed. On the very day after he had succeeded in
cutting off the Pompeians from the Ebro, the soldiers of
the two armies had begun to fraternize and to negotiate respecting surrender; indeed the terms asked by the Pompeians, especially as to the sparing of their officers,
TOUT
I48
;
it, a
it
;
it,
by a
Capitula-
226 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
had been already conceded by Caesar, when Petreius with his escort consisting of slaves and Spaniards came upon the negotiators and caused the Caesarians, on whom he could lay hands, to be put to death. Caesar nevertheless sent the Pompeians who had come to his camp back un harmed, and persevered in seeking a peaceful solution. Ilerda, where the Pompeians had still a garrison and con siderable magazines, became now the point which they sought to reach ; but with the hostile army in front and the Sicoris between them and the fortress, they marched without coming nearer to their object. Their cavalry became gradually so afraid that the infantry had to take them into the centre and legions had to be set as the rear guard; the procuring of water and forage became more and more difficult ; they had already to kill the beasts of burden, because they could no longer feed them. At length the wandering army found itself formally inclosed, with the Sicoris in its rear and the enemy's force in front, which drew rampart and trench around It attempted to cross the river, but Caesar's German horsemen and light infantry anticipated in the occupation of the opposite bank.
No bravery and no fidelity could longer avert the in-
Pom- [49. evitable capitulation Aug. 705). Caesar granted to
peian*.
officers and soldiers their life and liberty, and the posses sion of the property which they still retained as well as the restoration of what had been already taken from them, the full value of which he undertook personally to make good to his soldiers and not only so, but while he had compul- sorily enrolled in his army the recruits captured in Italy, he honoured these old legionaries of Pompeius by the promise that no one should be compelled against his will to enter Caesar's army. He required only that each should give up his arms and repair to his home. Accordingly the soldiers who were natives of Spain, about third of the
a
it.
;
(2
it
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 8tf
army, were disbanded at once, while the Italian soldiers were discharged on the borders of Transalpine and Cis alpine Gaul.
Hither Spain on the breaking up of this army fell of Furthw itself into the power of the victor. In Further Spain, where ^Jiti. Marcus Varro held the chief command for Pompeius, it
seemed to him, when he learned the disaster of Ilerda,
most advisable that he should throw himself into the insular
town of Gades and should carry thither for safety the con siderable sums which he had collected by confiscating the treasures of the temples and the property of prominent Caesarians, the not inconsiderable fleet which he had
raised, and the two legions entrusted to him. But on the
mere rumour of Caesar's arrival the most notable towns of
the province which had been for long attached to Caesar declared for the latter and drove away the Pompeian garrisons or induced them to a similar revolt; such was
the case with Corduba, Carmo, and Gades itself. One of
the legions also set out of its own accord for Hispalis, and
passed over along with this town to Caesar's side. When
at length even Italica closed its gates against Varro, the
latter resolved to capitulate.
About the same time Massilia also submitted. With Siege of rare energy the Massiliots had not merely sustained a siege,
but had also kept the sea against Caesar; it was their
native element, and they might hope to obtain vigorous
support on it from Pompeius, who in fact had the exclusive command of it But Caesar's lieutenant, the able Decimus Brutus, the same who had achieved the first naval victory in the Atlantic over the Veneti /), managed rapidly to equip fleet and in spite of the brave resistance of the enemy's crews —consisting partly of Albioecian mercenaries of the Massiliots, partly of slave-herdsmen of Domitius — he vanquished by means of his brave marines selected from the legions the stronger Massiliot fleet, and sank or captured
a ;
(p.
5 5
228 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
the greater part of their ships. When therefore a small Pompeian squadron under Lucius Nasidius arrived from the east by way of Sicily and Sardinia in the port of Massilia, the Massiliots once more renewed their naval armament and sailed forth along with the ships of Nasidius against Brutus. The engagement which took place off Taurocis (La Ciotat to the east of Marseilles) might prob ably have had a different result, if the vessels of Nasidius had fought with the same desperate courage which the Massiliots displayed on that day; but the flight of the Nasidians decided the victory in favour of Brutus, and the remains of the Pompeian fleet fled to Spain. The besieged were completely driven from the sea. On the landward side, where Gaius Trebonius conducted the siege, the most resolute resistance was still continued ; but in spite of the frequent sallies of the Albioecian mercenaries and the skilful expenditure of the immense stores of projectiles accumu
lated in the city, the works of the besiegers were at length advanced up to the walls and one of the towers felL The Massiliots declared that they would give up the defence, but desired to conclude the capitulation with Caesar him self, and entreated the Roman commander to suspend the siege operations till Caesar's arrival. Trebonius had ex press orders from Caesar to spare the town as far as possible ; he granted the armistice desired. But when the Massiliots made use of it for an artful sally, in which they completely burnt the one-half of the almost unguarded Roman works, the struggle of the siege began anew and with increased exasperation. The vigorous commander of the Romans repaired with surprising rapidity the destroyed towers and the mound; soon the Massiliots were once more completely invested.
When Caesar on his return from the conquest of Spain partly by the enemy's attacks, partly by famine and pesti
Massilia
capitulate*, arrived before their city, he found it reduced to extremities
CHAr. x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
129
lence, and ready for the second time—on this occasion in right earnest —to surrender on any terms. Domitius alone, remembering the indulgence of the victor which he had shamefully misused, embarked in a boat and stole through the Roman fleet, to seek a third battle-field for his implac able resentment Caesar's soldiers had sworn to put to the sword the whole male population of the perfidious city, and vehemently demanded from the general the signal for
But Caesar, mindful here also of his great task of establishing Helleno-Italic civilization in the west, was not to be coerced into furnishing a sequel to the destruc tion of Corinth. Massilia —the most remote from the mother-country of all those cities, once so numerous, free, and powerful, that belonged to the old Ionic mariner- nation, and almost the last in which the Hellenic seafaring life had preserved itself fresh and pure, as in fact it was the last Greek city that fought at sea — Massilia had to surrender its magazines of arms and naval stores to the victor, and lost a portion of its territory and of its privi leges; but it retained its freedom and its nationality and continued, though with diminished proportions in a material point of view, to be still as before intellectually the centre of Hellenic culture in that distant Celtic country which at this very time was attaining a new historical significance.
While thus in the western provinces the war after Expedi- various critical vicissitudes was thoroughly decided at Caesar to length in favour of Caesar, Spain and Massilia were the corn- subdued, and the chief army of the enemy was captured
to the last man, the decision of arms had also taken place
on the second arena of warfare, on which Caesar had
found it necessary immediately after the conquest of Itaiy
to assume the offensive.
We have already mentioned that the Pompeians intended to reduce Italy to starvation. They had the
plunder.
Sardinia occupied.
Sicily occupied.
Landing of Cuno in
23°
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA,
means of doing so in their hands. They had thorough command of the sea and laboured with great zeal every where — in Gades, Utica, Messana, above all in the east — to increase their fleet. They held moreover all the
from which the capital drew its means of subsistence : Sardinia and Corsica through Marcus Cotta,
provinces,
Marcus Cato, Africa through the self- nominated commander-in-chief Titus Attius Varus and
their ally Juba king of Numidia. It was indispensably needful for Caesar to thwart these plans of the enemy and to wrest from them the corn-provinces. Quintus Valerius was sent with a legion to Sardinia and compelled the Pompeian governor to evacuate the island. The more important enterprise of taking Sicily and Africa from the enemy was entrusted to the young Gaius Curio with the assistance of the able Gaius Caninius Rebilus, who possessed experience in war. Sicily was occupied by him without a blow; Cato, without a proper army and not a man of the sword, evacuated the island, after having in his straightforward manner previously warned the Siceliots not to compromise themselves uselessly by an ineffectual resistance.
Curio left behind half of his troops to protect this island s0 important for the capital, and embarked with the other half—two legions and 500 horsemen —for Africa. Here he might expect to encounter more serious resistance;
besides the considerable and in its own fashion efficient army of Juba, the governor Varus had formed two legions from the Romans settled in Africa and also fitted out a small squadron of ten sail. With the aid of his superior fleet, however, Curio effected without difficulty a landing between Hadrumetum, where the one legion of the enemy lay along with their ships of war, and Utica, in front of which town lay the second legion under Varus himself. Curio turned against the latter, and pitched his camp not
Sicily through
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
331
far from Utica, just where a century and a half before the elder Scipio had taken up his first winter-camp in Africa
Caesar, compelled to keep together his best troops for the Spanish war, had been obliged to make up the Sicilo-African army for the most part out of the legions taken over from the enemy, more especially the war- prisoners of Corfinium ; the officers of the Pompeian army in Africa, some of whom had served in the very legions that were conquered at Corfinium, now left no means untried to bring back their old soldiers who were now fighting against them to their first allegiance. But Caesar had not erred in the choice of his lieutenant Curio knew as well how to direct the movements of the army and of the fleet, as how to acquire personal influence over the soldiers ; the supplies were abundant, the conflicts without exception successful.
When Varus, presuming that the troops of Curio wanted Curio opportunity to pass over to his side, resolved to give battle atlittesL chiefly for the sake of affording them this opportunity, the
result did not justify his expectations. Animated by the
fiery appeal of their youthful leader, the cavalry of Curio put to flight the horsemen of the enemy, and in presence of the two armies cut down also the light infantry which had accompanied the horsemen ; and emboldened by this success and by Curio's personal example, his legions advanced through the difficult ravine separating the two lines to the attack, for which the Pompeians however did not wait, but disgracefully fled back to their camp and evacuated even this in the ensuing night The victory was so complete that Curio at once took steps to besiege Utica. When news arrived, however, that king Juba was advancing with all his forces to its relief, Curio resolved, just as Scipio had done on the arrival of Syphax, to raise the siege and to return to Scipio's former camp till rein forcements should arrive from Sicily. Soon afterwards
(". 3SS)-
Curio defeated
by Juba on the
Bagradas.
came a second report, that king Juba had been induced by the attacks of neighbouring princes to turn back with his main force and was sending to the aid of the besieged merely a moderate corps under Saburra. Curio, who from his lively temperament had only with great reluctance made up his mind to rest, now set out again at once to fight with Saburra before he could enter into communi cation with the garrison of Utica.
His cavalry, which had gone forward in the evening, actually succeeded in surprising the corps of Saburra on the Bagradas during the night and inflicting much damage upon it ; and on the news of this victory Curio hastened the march of the infantry, in order by their means to complete the defeat. Soon they perceived on the last slopes of the heights that sank towards the Bagradas the corps of Saburra, which was skirmishing with the Roman horsemen ; the legions coming up helped to drive it completely down into the plain. But here the combat changed its aspect. Saburra was not, as they supposed, destitute of support ; on the contrary he was not much more than five miles distant from the Numidian main force. Already the flower of the Numidian infantry and
2000 Gallic and Spanish horsemen had arrived on the field of battle to support Saburra, and the king in person with the bulk of the army and sixteen elephants was approaching. After the nocturnal march and the hot conflict there were at the moment not more than 200 of the Roman cavalry together, and these as well as the infantry, extremely exhausted by fatigue and fighting, were all surrounded, in the wide plain into which they had allowed themselves to be allured, by the continually increasing hosts of the enemy. Vainly Curio endeavoured to engage in close combat ; the Libyan horsemen retreated, as they were wont, so soon as a Roman division advanced, only to pursue it when it turned. In vain he attempted
232
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK V
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
233
to regain the heights; they were occupied and foreclosed
by the enemy's horse. All was lost. The infantry was
cut down to the last man. Of the cavalry a few succeeded Death of in cutting their way through ; Curio too might have Cnria probably saved himself, but he could not bear to appear
alone before his master without the army entrusted to him,
and died sword in hand. Even the force which was collected in the camp before Utica, and that which
guarded the fleet — which might so easily have escaped to
Sicily — surrendered under the impression made by the
fearfully rapid catastrophe on the following day to Varus
(Aug. or Sept. 705). «.
So ended the expedition arranged by Caesar to Sicily and Africa. It attained its object so far, since by the occupation of Sicily in connection with that of Sardinia at least the most urgent wants of the capital were relieved ; the miscarriage of the conquest of Africa—from which the victorious party drew no farther substantial gain—and the loss of two untrustworthy legions might be got over. But the early death of Curio was an irreparable loss for Caesar, and indeed for Rome. Not without reason had Caesar entrusted the most important independent command to this young man, although he had no military experience and
was notorious for his dissolute life ; there was a spark of Caesar's own spirit in the fiery youth. He resembled Caesar, inasmuch as he too had drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs ; inasmuch as he did not become a statesman because he was an officer, but on the contrary it was his political action that placed the sword in his hands ; inas much as his eloquence was not that of rounded periods, but the eloquence of deeply-felt thought; inasmuch as his mode of warfare was based on rapid action with slight means ; inasmuch as his character was marked by levity and often by frivolity, by pleasant frankness and thorough life in the moment. as his general says of him, youthful
If,
Pompeius'
'
campaign for 705.
How far these events of the war in 705 interfered with Pompeius' general plan for the campaign, and particularly what part in that plan was assigned after the loss of Italy to the important military corps in the west, can
234
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
fire and high courage carried him into incautious acts, and if he too proudly accepted death that he might not submit to be pardoned for a pardonable fault, traits of similar imprudence and similar pride are not wanting in Caesar's history also. We may regret that this exuberant nature was not permitted to work off its follies and to preserve itself for the following generation so miserably poor in talents, and so rapidly falling a prey to the dreadful rule of mediocrities.
only be determined by conjecture. That Pompeius had the intention of coming by way of Africa and Mauretania to
the aid of his army fighting in Spain, was simply a romantic, and beyond doubt altogether groundless, rumour circu lating in the camp of Ilerda. It is much more likely that he still kept by his earlier plan of attacking Caesar from both sides in Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul (p. 206) even after the loss of Italy, and meditated a combined attack at once from Spain and Macedonia. It may be presumed that the Spanish army was meant to remain on the defensive at the Pyrenees till the Macedonian army in the course of organization was likewise ready to march ; whereupon both would then have started simultaneously and effected a junction according to circumstances either on the Rhone or on the Po, while the fleet, it may be conjectured, would have attempted at the same time to reconquer Italy proper. On this supposition apparently Caesar had first prepared himself to meet an attack on Italy. One of the ablest of his officers, the tribune of the people Marcus Antonius, commanded there with propraetorian powers. The south eastern ports — Sipus, Brundisium, Tarentum — where an attempt at landing was first to be expected, had received a garrison of three legions. Besides this Quintus Hortensius,
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
135
the degenerate son of the well-known orator, collected a fleet in the Tyrrhene Sea, and Publius Dolabella a second fleet in the Adriatic, which were to be employed partly to support the defence, partly to transport the intended expedition to Greece. In the event of Pompeius attempting to penetrate by land into Italy, Marcus Licinius Crassus, the eldest son of the old colleague of Caesar, was to conduct the defence of Cisalpine Gaul, Gaius the younger brother of Marcus Antonius that of Illyricum.
But the expected attack was long in coming. It was Caesar's not till the height of summer that the conflict began in ^^ Illyria. There Caesar's lieutenant Gaius Antonius with Illyricum
estrojr
his two legions lay in the island of Curicta (Veglia in the gulf of Quarnero), and Caesar's admiral Publius Dolabella with forty ships lay in the narrow arm of the sea between this island and the mainland. The admirals of Pompeius in the Adriatic, Marcus Octavius with the Greek, Lucius
Scribonius Libo with the Illyrian division of the fleet, attacked the squadron of Dolabella, destroyed all his ships, and cut off Antonius on his island. To rescue him, a corps under Basilus and Sallustius came from Italy and the squadron of Hortensius from the Tyrrhene Sea; but neither the former nor the latter were able to effect anything in presence of the far superior fleet of the enemy. The legions of Antonius had to be abandoned to their fate. Provisions came to an end, the troops became troublesome and mutinous ; with the exception of a few divisions, which succeeded in reaching the mainland on rafts, the corps, still fifteen cohorts strong, laid down their arms and were conveyed in the vessels of Libo to Macedonia to be there incorporated with the Pompeian army, while Octavius was left to complete the subjugation of the Illyrian coast now denuded of troops. The Dalmatae, now far the most powerful tribe in these regions (p. 103), the important insular town of Issa (Lissa), and other townships, embraced
Result
the party of Pompeius; but the adherents of Caesar maintained themselves in Salonae (Spalato) and Lissus (Alessio), and in the former town not merely sustained with courage a siege, but when they were reduced to extremities, made a sally with such effect that Octavius raised the siege and sailed off to Dyrrhachium to pass the winter there.
The success achieved in Illyricum by the Pompeian ^eet, alth°ugh of itself not inconsiderable, had yet but little influence on the issue of the campaign as a whole ; and it appears miserably small, when we consider that the performances of the land and naval forces under the supreme command of Pompeius during the whole eventful
campaign as a whole,
*3fi
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
40. year 705 were confined to this single feat of arms, and that from the east, where the general, the senate, the second great army, the principal fleet, the immense military and still more extensive financial resources of the antagon ists of Caesar were united, no intervention at all took place where it was needed in that all-decisive struggle in the west. The scattered condition of the forces in the eastern half of the empire, the method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity of the land-force ; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence the course of affairs — nothing for Spain, next to nothing for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, Africa, or, if not to reoccupy Italy, at least to obstruct its supplies — this makes demands on our ideas of the confusion and per versity prevailing in the Pompeian camp, which we can
only with difficulty meet.
The aggregate result of this campaign was corresponding.
Caesar's double aggressive movement, against Spain and against Sicily and Africa, was successful in the former cue
may
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
sfi
completely, in the latter at least partially ; while Pompeius* plan of starving Italy was thwarted in the main by the taking away of Sicily, and his general plan of campaign was frustrated completely by the destruction of the Spanish army ; and in Italy only a very small portion of Caesar's defensive arrangements had come to be applied. Notwith standing the painfully -felt losses in Africa and Illyria, Caesar came forth from this first year of the war in the most decided and most decisive manner as victor.
however, nothing material was done from the east to obstruct Caesar in the subjugation of the west, efforts at ? ^L! ° least were made towards securing political and military donia. consolidation there during the respite so ignominiously obtained. The great rendezvous of the opponents of Caesar was Macedonia. Thither Pompeius himself and The the mass of the emigrants from Brundisium resorted; emgran thither came the other refugees from the west Marcus
Cato from Sicily, Lucius Domitius from Massilia, but more
especially
In Italy emigration gradually became question not of honour merely but obtained fresh impulse through
Varro at their head.
among the aristocrats
almost of fashion, and
the unfavourable accounts which arrived regarding Caesar's position before Ilerda noC few of the more lukewarm partisans and the political trimmers went over degrees, and even Marcus Cicero at last persuaded himself that he did not adequately discharge his duty as citizen
writing dissertation on concord. The senate of emigrants at
Thessalonica, where the official Rome pitched its interim* abode, numbered nearly 200 members, including many venerable old men and almost all the consulars. But emigrants indeed they were. This Roman Coblentz displayed pitiful spectacle in the high pretensions and paltry performances of the genteel world of Rome, their
Organln-
number of the best officers and soldiers of the broken-up army of Spain, with its generals Afranius and
a
a
a
a
by
by :
;
it a
a
a
If,
The hkewa1m.
unseasonable reminiscences and still more unseasonable recriminations, their political perversities and financial embarrassments. It was a matter of comparatively slight moment that, while the old structure was falling to pieces, they were with the most painstaking gravity watching over every old ornamental scroll and every speck of rust in the constitution ; after all it was simply ridiculous, when the genteel lords had scruples of conscience as to calling their deliberative assembly beyond the sacred soil of the city the senate, and cautiously gave it the title of the "three hundred " ; 1 or when they instituted tedious investigations in state law as to whether and how a curiate law could be legitimately enacted elsewhere than within the ring-wall of
Rome.
Far worse traits were the indifference of the lukewarm
and the narrow-minded stubbornness of the ultras. The former could not be brought to act or even to keep silence. If they were asked to exert themselves in some definite way for the common good, with the inconsistency charac teristic of weak people they regarded any such suggestion as a malicious attempt to compromise them still further, and either did not do what they were ordered at all or did it with half heart. At the same time of course, with their affectation of knowing better when it was too late and their over-wise impracticabilities, they proved a perpetual clog to those who were acting ; their daily work consisted in criticizing, ridiculing, and bemoaning every occurrence great
1 As according to formal law the "legal deliberative assembly " undoubtedly, just like the "legal court," could only take place in the city ' itself or within the precincts, the assembly representing the senate in the African army called itself the "three hundred" (Bell. Afric. 88, 90; Appian, 95), not because consisted of 300 members, but because this was the ancient normal number of senators 98). very likely that
this assembly recruited Its ranks by equitcs of repute but, when Plutarch makes the three hundred to be Italian wholesale dealers (Cato Min.