No More Learning

472 ; comp. Lucan, vi. 373), and the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further the armies before the battle lay three miles and a half from each other (Appian, II. C. ii. 65), so that the Pompeians could make all preparations and also properly secure the communication with their camp by bridges. Had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians which was the most remote from the base of retreat felt this ; but the
retreat at least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions. Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river, because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of retreat favoui abi" for these.
26o
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK v
detached to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently not nearly the half of their normal amount. The victorious army of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had provisions in abundance,
while the troops of Caesar had difficulty in keeping them selves alive and only hoped for better supplies from the corn-harvest not far distant. The Pompeian soldiers, who had learned in the last campaign to know war and trust their leader, were in the best of humour. All military reasons on the side of Pompeius favoured the view, that the decisive battle should not be long delayed, seeing that they now confronted Caesar in Thessaly ; and the emigrant impatience of the many genteel officers and others accompanying the army doubtless had more weight than even such reasons in the council of war. Since the events of Dyrrhachium these lords regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact ; already there was eager strife as to the filling up of Caesar's supreme pontificate, and instructions were sent to Rome to hire houses at the Forum for the next elections. When Pompeius hesitated on his part to cross the rivule* which separated the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation ; Pompeius, it was alleged, only delayed the battle in order to rule somewhat longer over so many consulars and praetorians and to perpetuate his part of Agamemnon. Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who under the impression that matters would not come to a battle, had
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 261
just projected a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle, when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank.
Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on the 9th August 706, almost on the same field where a hundred and fifty years before the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the east 433). Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus Caesar opposite to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain, covered each case by the cavalry and the light troops. The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive, but with bis cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, and the
there came to stand. Labienus likewise dispersed the enemy's cavalry after brave but short resist ance, and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry, had stationed behind on the threatened flank of his right wing some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen, driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line, they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion the unexpected and unusual infantry attack,1 they galloped at full speed from
With this connected the well-known direction of Caesar to his sol diers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen. The infantry —which here in an altogether irregular way acted on the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with the sabres —were not to throw their pila, but to use them as hand-spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp.
The battle. 48.
engagement
1
Is
by
it
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a
;
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In Uiue.
the field of battle. The victorious legionaries cut to pieces the enemy's archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it At the same time Caesar's third division hitherto re served advanced along the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents, broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius, who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar. His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss.
The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat of Dyrrhachium. But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny had learned that fortune
loves to withdraw herself at certain moments even from her favourites in order to be once more won back through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her when she withdrew from him ; and, while in Caesar's grander
nature despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss of despondency. As once in the war with Sertorius he had been on the point of abandoning the office
69, 71 ; Caa. 45 ; Appian, ii. 76, 78 ; Flor. 12 Oros. vi. 15 erron eously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that they actually galloped off " hold ing their hands before their eyes " (Plutarch), collapses of itself for has point only on the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of the young nobility of Rome, the " graceful dancers" and this was not the case (p. 224). At the most may be, that the wit of the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very irrational but certainly comic turn.
362
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, BOOK v
it
ii. ;
; ;
;
it
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
263
entrusted to him in presence of his superior opponent and of departing (iv. 298), so now, when he saw the legions retire over the stream, he threw from him the fatal general's scarf, and rode off by the nearest route to the sea, to find means of embarking there. His army discouraged and leaderless —for Scipio, although recognized by Pompeius as colleague in supreme command, was yet general-in-chief only in name
—hoped
Flight of omPeluv
to find protection behind the camp-walls ; but Caesar allowed it no rest ; the obstinate resistance of the Roman and Thracian guard of the camp was speedily over come, and the mass was compelled to withdraw in disorder to the heights of Crannon and Scotussa, at the foot of which the camp was pitched. It attempted by moving forward along these hills to regain Larisa ; but the troops of Caesar, heeding neither booty nor fatigue and advancing by better paths in the plain, intercepted the route of the fugitives ; in fact, when late in the evening the Pompeians suspended their march, their pursuers were able even to draw an entrenched line which precluded the fugitives from access to the only rivulet to be found in the neighbourhood.
So ended the day of Pharsalus. The enemy's army was not only defeated, but annihilated; 15,000 of the enemy lay dead or wounded on the field of battle, while the Caesarians missed only 200 men ; the body which remained together, amounting still to nearly 20,000 men, laid down their arms on the morning after the battle ; only isolated troops, including, it is true, the officers of most note, sought a refuge in the mountains ; of the eleven eagles of the enemy nine were handed over to Caesar. Caesar, who on the very day of the battle had reminded the soldiers that they should not forget the fellow-citizen in the foe, did not treat the captives as did Bibulus and Labienus ; neverthe less he too found it necessary now to exercise some severity. The common soldiers were incorporated in the army, fines or confiscations of property were inflicted on the men of
48.
The political effects of the battle of Phar-
The east submits.
better rank ; the senators and equites of note who were taken, with few exceptions, suffered death. The time for clemency was past; the longer the civil war lasted, the more remorseless and implacable it became.
Some time elapsed, before the consequences of the 9th of August 706 could be fully discerned. What admitted of least doubt, was the passing over to the side of Caesar of all those who had attached themselves to the party vanquished at Pharsalus merely as to the more powerful ; the defeat was so thoroughly decisive, that the victor was joined by all who were not willing or were not obliged to fight for a lost cause. All the kings, peoples, and cities, which had hitherto been the clients of Pompeius, now recalled their naval and military contingents and declined to receive the refugees of the beaten party ; such as Egypt, Cyrene, the communities of Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia and Asia Minor, Rhodes, Athens, and generally the whole east In fact Pharnaces king of the Bosporus pushed his officious- ness so far, that on the news of the Pharsalian battle he took possession not only of the town of Phanagoria which several years before had been declared free by Pompeius, and of the dominions of the Colchian princes confirmed by him, but even of the kingdom of Little Armenia which
had conferred on king Deiotarus. Almost the sole exceptions to this general submission were the little town of Megara which allowed itself to be besieged and stormed by the Caesarians, and Juba king of Numidia, who had for long expected, and after the victory over Curio expected only with all the greater certainty, that his kingdom would be annexed by Caesar, and was thus obliged for better or for worse to abide by the defeated party.
In the same way as the client communities submitted to the victor of Pharsalus, the tail of the constitutional party —all who had joined it with half a heart or had even, like
The aristocracy after the battle of Pharsalus.
a64
BRUNDISWM, ILERDA, BOOK V
Pompeius
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
s6$
Marcus Cicero and his congeners, merely danced around the aristocracy like the witches around the Brocken— approached to make their peace with the new monarch, a peace accordingly which his contemptuous indulgence readily and courteously granted to the petitioners. But the flower of the defeated party made no compromise. All was over with the aristocracy ; but the aristocrats could never become converted to monarchy. The highest revelations of humanity are perishable; the religion once true may become a lie,1 the polity once fraught with blessing may become a curse ; but even the gospel that is past still finds confessors, and if such a faith cannot remove mountains like faith in the living truth, it yet remains true to itself down to its very end, and does not depart from the realm of the living till it has dragged its last priests and its last partisans along with and new generation, freed from those shadows of the past and the perishing, rules over world that has renewed its youth. So was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic rule had now sunk, had once been great political system the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal had been vanquished, continued to glow—
somewhat dimmed and dull — in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed, and rendered cordial understanding between the men of the old rigime and the new monarch impossible. large portion of the constitutional party submitted at least outwardly, and recognized the monarchy so far as to accept pardon from Caesar and to retire as much as possible into private life which, however, ordinarily was not done without the
may here state once for all that in this and other passages, where Dr. Mommsen appears incidentally to express views of religion or philosophy with which can scarcely be supposed to agree, have not thought right — as is, believe, sometimes done similar cases — to omit or modify any portion of what he has written. The reader must judge for himself as to this truth or value of such assertions as those given in the text — Tr. ]
although
it
II
in
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; ;aa
it
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366 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
mental reservation of thereby preserving themselves for a future change of things. This course was chiefly followed by the partisans of lesser note ; but the able Marcus Marcellus, the same who had brought about the rupture with Caesar 174), was to be found among these judicious persons and voluntarily banished himself to Lesbos. In the majority, however, of the genuine aristocracy passion was more powerful than cool reflection along with which, no doubt, self-deceptions as to success being still possible and apprehensions of the inevitable vengeance of the victor variously co-operated.
No one probably formed judgment as to the situation of affairs with so painful clearness, and so free from fear or hope on his own account, as Marcus Cato. Completely convinced that after the days of Ilerda nd Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable, and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth and to act in accordance with he hesitated for moment whether the constitu
tional party ought at all to continue war, which would necessarily require sacrifices for lost cause on the part of many who did not know why they offered them. And when he resolved to fight against the monarchy not for victory, but for speedier and more honourable fall, he yet sought as far as possible to draw no one into this war, who chose to survive the fall of the republic and to be reconciled to monarchy. He conceived that, so long as the republic had been merely threatened, was right and duty to compel the lukewarm and bad citfeen to take part in the struggle but that now was senseless and cruel to compel the individual to share the ruin of the lost republic. Not only did he himself discharge every one who desired to return to Italy but when the wildest of the wild partisans, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger, insisted on the execution of these people and of Cicero in particular,
was Cato alone who his moral authority prevented
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;
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a
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it
it a
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a
a
;
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chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
267
Pompeius also had no desire for peace. Had he been Pompehu. a man who deserved to hold the position which he occupied, we might suppose him to have perceived that
he who aspires to a crown cannot return to the beaten
track of ordinary existence, and that there is accordingly no place left on earth for one who has failed. But Pompeius was hardly too noble-minded to ask a favour, which the victor would have been perhaps magnanimous enough not to refuse to him; on the contrary, he was probably too mean to do so. Whether it was that he could not make up his mind to trust himself to Caesar, or that in his usual vague and undecided way, after the first immediate impression of the disaster of Pharsalus had vanished, be began again to cherish hope, Pompeius was resolved to continue the struggle against Caesar and to seek for himself yet another battle-field after that of Pharsalus.
Thus, however much Caesar had striven by prudence Military and moderation to appease the fury of his opponents and Jj^batSL,
to lessen their number, the struggle nevertheless went on
without alteration. But the leading men had almost all The taken part in the fight at Pharsalus ; and, although they all ^2*4 escaped with the exception of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus,
who was killed in the flight, they were yet scattered in all directions, so that they were unable to concert a common
plan for the continuance of the campaign. Most of them
found their way, partly through the desolate mountains of Macedonia and Illyria, partly by the aid of the fleet, to
Corcyra, where Marcus Cato commanded the reserve left
behind. Here a sort of council of war took place under
the presidency of Cato, at which Metellus Scipio, Titus Labienus, Lucius Afranius, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger and others were present; but the absence of the commander- in-chief and the painful uncertainty as to his fate, as well as the internal dissensions of the party, prevented the
Macedonia cTeece.
Italy.
368 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
adoption of any common resolution, and ultimately each took the course which seemed to him the most suitable for himself or for the common cause. It was in fact in a high degree difficult to say among the many straws to which they might possibly cling which was the one that would keep longest above water.
Macedonia and Greece were lost by the battle of Pharsalus. It is true that Cato, who had immediately on the news of the defeat evacuated Dyrrhachium, still held Corcyra, and Rutilius Lupus the Peloponnesus, during a time for the constitutional party. For a moment it seemed also as if the Pompeians would make a stand at Patrae in the Peloponnesus ; but the accounts of the advance of Calenus sufficed to frighten them from that quarter. As little was there any attempt to maintain Corcyra. On the Italian and Sicilian coasts the Pompeian squadrons despatched thither after the victories of Dyrrha chium (p. 258) had achieved not unimportant successes against the ports of Brundisium, Messana and Vibo, and at Messana especially had burnt the whole fleet in course of being fitted out for Caesar ; but the ships that were thus active, mostly from Asia Minor and Syria, were recalled by their communities in consequence of the
Pharsalian battle, so that the expedition came to an end of itself. In Asia Minor and Syria there were at the moment no troops of either party, with the exception of the Bosporan army of Pharnaces which had taken posses sion, ostensibly on Caesar's account, of different regions belonging to his opponents. In Egypt there was still indeed a considerable Roman army, formed of the troops left behind there by Gabinius (iv. 452) and thereafter recruited from Italian vagrants and Syrian or Cilician banditti ; but it was self-evident and was soon officially confirmed by the recall of the Egyptian vessels, that the court of Alexandria by no means had the intention of
The east,
E8yPL
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
369
holding firmly by the defeated party or of even placing
its force of troops at their disposal. Somewhat more favourable prospects presented themselves to the van quished in the west In Spain Pompeian sympathies Spain, were so strong among the population, that the Caesarians
had or. that account to give up the attack which they con templated from this quarter against Africa, and an insurrec
tion seemed inevitable, so soon as a leader of note should appear in the peninsula. In Africa moreover the coalition, Africa, or rather Juba king of Numidia, who was the true regent
there, had been arming unmolested since the autumn of
While the whole east was consequently lost to the 49. coalition by the battle of Pharsalus, it might on the other hand continue the war after an honourable manner probably
in Spain, and certainly in Africa ; for to claim the aid of the king of Numidia, who had for a long time been subject
to the Roman community, against revolutionary fellow- burgesses was for Romans a painful humiliation doubtless, but by no means an act of treason. Those again who
in this conflict of despair had no further regard for right
or honour, might declare themselves beyond the pale of the law, and commence hostilities as robbers ; or might enter into alliance with independent neighbouring states, and introduce the public foe into the intestine strife ; or, lastly, might profess monarchy with the lips and prosecute the restoration of the legitimate republic with the dagger of the assassin.
That the vanquished should withdraw and renounce the Hostility new monarchy, was at least the natural and so far the truest ^J0 expression of their desperate position. The mountains and pirate*, above all the sea had been in those times ever since the
memory of man the asylum not only of all crime, but also of intolerable misery and of oppressed right ; it was natural for Pompeians and republicans to wage a defiant war against the monarchy of Caesar, which had ejected them,
705.
Paithian alliance.
ajo BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
in the mountains and on the seas, and especially natural for them to take up piracy on a greater scale, with more compact organization, and with more definite aims. Even after the recall of the squadrons that had come from the east they still possessed a very considerable fleet of their own, while Caesar was as yet virtually without vessels of
war ; and their connection with the Dalmatae who had risen in their own interest against Caesar 235), and their control over the most important seas and seaports, pre sented the most advantageous prospects for naval war, especially on small scale. As formerly Sulla's hunting out of the democrats had ended in the Sertorian insurrec tion, which was conflict first waged by pirates and then by robbers and ultimately became very serious war, so possibly, there was in the Catonian aristocracy or among the adherents of Pompeius as much spirit and fire as in the Marian democracy, and there was found among them true sea-king, commonwealth independent of the monarchy of Caesar and perhaps match for
arise on the still unconquered sea.
Far more serious disapproval in every respect due to
the idea of dragging an independent neighbouring state into the Roman civil war and of bringing about by its means counter-revolution law and conscience condemn the
deserter more severely than the robber, and victorious band of robbers finds its way back to free and well- ordered commonwealth more easily than the emigrants who are conducted back by the public foe. Besides was scarcely probable that the beaten party would be able to effect restoration in this way. The only state, from which they could attempt to seek support, was that of the Parthians; and as to this was at least doubtful whether would make their cause its own, and very improbable that would fight out that cause against
Caesar.
might
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if
a
it
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;
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it
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chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
^^l
The time for republican conspiracies had not yet come.
While the remnant of the defeated party thus allowed Caesar themselves to be helplessly driven about by fate, and even p^jjjjjlu, those who had determined to continue the struggle knew to Egypt, not how or where to do so, Caesar, quickly as ever resolving and quickly acting, laid everything aside to
pursue Pompeius —the only one of his opponents whom
he respected as an officer, and the one whose personal
capture would have probably paralyzed a half, and that
perhaps the more dangerous half, of his opponents. With
a few men he crossed the Hellespont — his single bark encountered in it a fleet of the enemy destined for the
Black Sea, and took the whole crews, struck as with stupefaction by the news of the battle of Pharsalus,
prisoners — and as soon as the most necessary prepara
tions were made, hastened in pursuit of Pompeius to the
east. The latter had gone from the Pharsalian battle
field to Lesbos, whence he brought away his wife and
his second son Sextus, and had sailed onward round
Asia Minor to Cilicia and thence to Cyprus. He might
have joined his partisans at Corcyra or Africa ; but repugnance toward his aristocratic allies and the thought
of the reception which awaited him there after the day
of Pharsalus and above all after his disgraceful flight,
appear to have induced him to take his own course and
rather to resort to the protection of the Parthian king
than to that of Cato. While he was employed in collecting money and slaves from the Roman revenue-
farmers and merchants in Cyprus, and in arming a band
of 2000 slaves, he received news that Antioch had
declared for Caesar and that the route to the Parthians
was no longer open. So he altered his plan and sailed
to Egypt, where a number of his old soldiers served in
the army and the situation and rich resources of the
Death of omperas.
the sister from the kingdom and compelled her to seek a refuge in Syria, whence she made preparations to get back to her paternal kingdom. Ptolemaeus and Pothinus lay with the whole Egyptian army at Pelusium for the sake of protecting the eastern frontier against her, just when Pompeius cast anchor at the Casian promontory and sent a request to the king to allow him to land. The Egyptian court, long informed of the disaster at Pharsalus, was on the point of refusing to receive Pompeius ; but the king's tutor Theodotus pointed out that in that case Pompeius would probably employ his connections in the Egyptian army to instigate rebellion ; and that it would be safer, and also preferable with regard to Caesar, if they embraced the opportunity of making away with Pompeius. Political reasonings of this sort did not readily fail of their effect among the statesmen of the Hellenic world.
Achillas the general of the royal troops and some of the former soldiers of Pompeius went off in a boat to his vessel; and invited him to come to the king and, as the water was shallow, to enter their barge. As he was stepping ashore, the military tribune Lucius Septimius stabbed him from behind, under the eyes of his wife and son, who were compelled to be spectators of the murder from the deck of their vessel, without being able to rescue or revenge
a7a
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book V
country allowed him time and opportunity to reorganize the war.
In Egypt, after the death of Ptolemaeus Auletes (May •1. 703) his children, Cleopatra about sixteen years of age and Ptolemaeus Dionysus about ten, had ascended the throne according to their father's will jointly, and as consorts ; but soon the brother or rather his guardian Pothinus had driven
48. (28 Sept 706). On the same day, on which thirteen years before he had entered the capital in triumph over Mithradates (iv. 444), the man, who for a generation had been called the Great and for years had ruled Rome,
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
*J3
died on the desert sands of the inhospitable Casian shore by the hand of one of his old soldiers. A good officer, but otherwise of mediocre gifts of intellect and of heart, fate had with superhuman constancy for thirty years allowed him to solve all brilliant and toilless tasks ; had
him to pluck all laurels planted and fostered by others ; had brought him face to face with all the conditions requisite for obtaining the supreme power—
in order to exhibit in his person an example of spurious greatness, to which history knows no parallel. Of all pitiful parts there is none more pitiful than that of passing for more than one really is ; and it is the fate of monarchy that this misfortune inevitably clings to
for barely once thousand years does there arise among the people man who king not merely in name, but in reality. If this disproportion between semblance and reality has never perhaps been so abruptly marked as Pompeius, the fact may well excite grave reflection that was precisely he who in certain sense opened the series of Roman monarchs.
When Caesar following the track of Pompeius arrived Arrival of in the roadstead of Alexandria, all was already over. With Caesar- deep agitation he turned away when the murderer brought
to his ship the head of the man, who had been his son-in-
law and for long years his colleague in rule, and to get
whom alive into his power he had come to Egypt. The
dagger of the rash assassin precluded an answer to the question, how Caesar would have dealt with the captive Pompeius; but, while the humane sympathy, which still
found place in the great soul of Caesar side by side
with ambition, enjoined that he should spare his former
friend, his interest also required that he should annihilate Pompeius otherwise than by the executioner. Pompeius
had been for twenty years the acknowledged ruler of
Rome dominion so deeply rooted does not perish
permitted
only
TOL.
ISI
; ▼a
a
in it
a
a
in a
is a
it,
274
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
with the ruler's death. The death of Pompeius did not break up the Pompeians, but gave to them instead of an aged, incapable, and worn-out chief in his sons Gnaeus and Sextus two leaders, both of whom were young and active and the second was a man of decided capacity. To the newly - founded hereditary monarchy hereditary pretendership attached itself at once like a parasite, and it was very doubtful whether by this change of persons Caesar did not lose more than he gained.
Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to
Caesar
S. " do, and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he
would immediately set sail and apply himself to the sub jugation of Africa, and to the huge task of organization which awaited him after the victory. But Caesar faithful
to his custom — wherever he found himself in the wide empire — of finally regulating matters at once and in
person, and firmly convinced that no resistance was to be expected either from the Roman garrison or from the court, being, moreover, in urgent pecuniary embarrassment, landed in Alexandria with the two amalgamated legions
him to the number of 3200 men and 800 Celtic and German cavalry, took up his quarters in the
royal palace, and proceeded to collect the necessary sums of money and to regulate the Egyptian succession, without allowing himself to be disturbed by the saucy remark of Pothinus that Caesar should not for such petty matters neglect his own so important affairs. In his dealing with the Egyptians he was just and even indulgent. Although the aid which they had given to Pompeius justified the
accompanying
of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared from this; and, while the arrears of the sum (9. stipulated for in 695 (iv. 451) and since then only about
half paid were remitted, there was required merely a final payment of 10,000,000 denarii (,£400,000). The belli gerent brother and sister were enjoined immediately to
imposing
CHAP, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
875
suspend hostilities, and were invited to have their dispute investigated and decided before the arbiter. They sub mitted ; the royal boy was already in the palace and Cleopatra also presented herself there. Caesar adjudged the kingdom of Egypt, agreeably to the testament of Auletes, to the intermarried brother and sister Cleopatra and Ptolemaeus Dionysus, and further gave unasked the kingdom of Cyprus —cancelling the earlier act of annexa tion (iv. 450) — as the appanage of the second-born of Egypt to the younger children of Auletes, Arsinoe and Ptolemaeus the younger.
But a storm was secretly preparing. Alexandria was Insurrec-
a cosmopolitan city as well as Rome, hardly inferior to Alexandria, the Italian capital in the number of its inhabitants, far
superior to it in stirring commercial spirit, in skill of handicraft, in taste for science and art : in the citizens
there was a lively sense of their own national importance,
and, if there was no political sentiment, there was at any
rate a turbulent spirit, which induced them to indulge in
their street riots as regularly and as heartily as the Parisians
of the present day : one may conceive their feelings, when
they saw the Roman general ruling in the palace of the
Lagids and their kings accepting the award of his tribunal.
Pothinus and the boy-king, both as may be conceived very dissatisfied at once with the peremptory requisition of old
debts and with the intervention in the throne-dispute which
could only issue, as it did, in favour of Cleopatra, sent —in order to pacify the Roman demands — the treasures of the temples and the gold plate of the king with intentional ostentation to be melted at the mint; with increasing indignation the Egyptians —who were pious even to superstition, and who rejoiced in the world - renowned magnificence of their court as if it were a possession of their own — beheld the bare walls of their temples and the wooden cups on the table of their king. The Roman
Caesar in Alexandria.
of her charms in general and least of all towards her judge, Caesar also appeared among all his victories to value most those won over beautiful women. It was a merry prelude to graver scenes. Under the leadership of Achillas and, as was afterwards proved, by the secret orders of the king and his guardian, the Roman army of occupation stationed in Egypt appeared unexpectedly in Alexandria; and as soon as the citizens saw that it had come to attack Caesar, they made common cause with the soldiers.
With a presence of mind, which in some measure justifies his earlier foolhardiness, Caesar hastily collected
276
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
army of occupation also, which had been essentially denationalized by its long abode in Egypt and the many intermarriages between the soldiers and Egyptian women, and which moreover numbered a multitude of the old soldiers of Pompeius and runaway Italian criminals and slaves in its ranks, was indignant at Caesar, by whose orders it had been obliged to suspend its action on the Syrian frontier, and at his handful of haughty legionaries. The tumult even at the landing, when the multitude saw the Roman axes carried into the old palace, and the numerous cases in which his soldiers were assassinated in the city, had taught Caesar the immense danger in which he was placed with his small force in presence of that exasperated multitude. But it was difficult to return on account of the north-west winds prevailing at this season of the year, and the attempt at embarkation
might easily become a signal for the outbreak of the insurrection; besides, it was not the nature of Caesar to take his
departure without having accomplished his work. He accordingly ordered up at once reinforcements from Asia, and meanwhile, till these arrived, made a show of the utmost self-possession. Never was there greater
gaiety in his camp than during this rest at Alexandria ; and while the beautiful and clever Cleopatra was not sparing
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
277
his scattered men ; seized the persons of the king and his ministers ; entrenched himself in the royal residence and the adjoining theatre ; and gave orders, as there was no time to place in safety the war - fleet stationed in the principal harbour immediately in front of the theatre, that it should be set on fire and that Pharos, the island with the light-tower commanding the harbour, should be oc cupied by means of boats. Thus at least a restricted position for defence was secured, and the way was kept open to procure supplies and reinforcements. At the same time orders were issued to the commandant of Asia Minor as well as to the nearest subject countries, the Syrians and Nabataeans, the Cretans and the Rhodians, to send troops and ships in all haste to Egypt. The insurrection at the head of which the princess Arsinoe and her confidant the eunuch Ganymedes had placed themselves, meanwhile had free course in all Egypt and in the greater part of the capital. In the streets of the latter there was daily fighting, but without success either on the part of Caesar in gaining freer scope and breaking through to the fresh water lake of Marea which lay behind the town, where he could have provided himself with water and forage, or on the part of the Alexandrians in acquiring superiority over the besieged and depriving them of all drinking water ; for, when the Nile canals in Caesar's part of the town had been spoiled by the introduction of salt water, drinkable water was unexpectedly found in wells dug on the beach.
As Caesar was not to be overcome from the landward side, the exertions of the besiegers were directed to destroy his fleet and cut him off from the sea by which supplies reached him. The island with the lighthouse and the mole by which this was connected with the mainland divided the harbour into a western and an eastern half, which
1rere in communication with each other through two arched openings in the mole. Caesar commanded the island and
aj$ BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book t
the east harbour, while the mole and the west harbour were in possession of the citizens ; and, as the Alexandrian fleet was burnt, his vessels sailed in and out without hindrance. The Alexandrians, after having vainly at tempted to introduce fire-ships from the western into the eastern harbour, equipped with the remnant of their arsenal
a small squadron and with this blocked up the way of Caesar's vessels, when these were towing in a fleet of transports with a legion that had arrived from Asia Minor ; but the excellent Rhodian mariners of Caesar mastered the enemy. Not long afterwards, however, the citizens captured the lighthouse-island,1 and from that point totally closed the narrow and rocky mouth of the east harbour for larger ships; so that Caesar's fleet was compelled to take its station in the open roads before the east harbour, and his communication with the sea hung only on a weak thread. Caesar's fleet, attacked in that roadstead repeatedly by the superior naval force of the enemy, could neither shun the unequal strife, since the loss of the lighthouse- island closed the inner harbour against nor yet withdraw, for the loss of the roadstead would have debarred Caesar
from the sea. Though the brave legionaries, supported by the dexterity of the Rhodian sailors, had always hitherto decided these conflicts in favour of the Romans, the Alexandrians renewed and augmented their naval armaments with unwearied perseverance the besieged had to fight as often as pleased the besiegers, and the former should be on single occasion vanquished, Caesar would be totally hemmed in and probably lost.
It was absolutely necessary to make an attempt to recover the lighthouse-island. The double attack, which
The loss of the lighthouse-island must have fallen out, where there now chasm (B. A. 12), for the island was in fact at first in Caesar's power (B. C. iii. 12 B. A. 8). The mole must have been constantly in the power of the enemy, for Caesar held intercourse with the island only by ships.
wholly
;
1 a
is
a
it
if
;
it,
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
379
was made by boats from the side of the harbour and by the war-vessels from the seaboard, in reality brought not only the island but also the lower part of the mole into Caesar's power ; it was only at the second arch-opening of the mole that Caesar ordered the attack to be stopped, and the mole to be there closed towards the city by a transverse wall. But while a violent conflict arose here around the entrenchers, the Roman troops left the lower part of the mole adjoining the island bare of defenders ; a division of Egyptians landed there unexpectedly, attacked in the rear the Roman soldiers and sailors crowded together on the mole at the transverse wall, and drove the whole mass in wild confusion into the sea. A part were taken on board by the Roman ships ; the most were drowned. Some 400 soldiers and a still greater number of men belonging to the fleet were sacrificed on this day ; the general himself, who had shared the fate of his men, had been obliged to seek refuge in his ship, and when this sank from having been overloaded with men, he had to save himself by swimming to another. But, severe as was the loss suffered, it was amply compensated by the recovery of the lighthouse-island, which along with the mole as far as the first arch-opening remained in the hands of Caesar.
At length the longed-for relief arrived. Mithradates of Relieving Pergamus, an able warrior of the school of Mithradates ^^bom Eupator, whose natural son he claimed to be, brought up Minor, by land from Syria a motley army — the Ityraeans of the
prince of the Libanus (iv. 423), the Bedouins of Jamblichus, son of Sampsiceramus (iv. 423), the Jews under the minister Antipater, and the contingents generally of the petty chiefs and communities of Cilicia and Syria. From Felusium, which Mithradates had the fortune to occupy on the day
of his arrival, he took the great road towards Memphis with the view of avoiding the intersected ground of the
Delta and crossing the Nile before its division;
during
Battle at the N1le.
2&> BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book *
which movement his troops received manifold support from the Jewish peasants who were settled in peculiar numbers in this part of Egypt. The Egyptians, with the yoing king Ptolemaeus now at their head, whom Caesar had released to his people in the vain hope of allaying the insurrection by his means, despatched an army to the Nile, to detain Mithradates on its farther bank. This army fell in with the enemy even beyond Memphis at the so-called Jews'-camp, between Onion and Heliopolis; nevertheless Mithradates, trained in the Roman fashion of manoeuvring and en camping, amidst successful conflicts gained the opposite bank at Memphis. Caesar, on the other hand, as soon as he obtained news of the arrival of the relieving army, conveyed a part of his troops in ships to the end of the lake of Marea to the west of Alexandria, and marched round this lake and down the Nile to meet Mithradates advancing up the river.
The junction took place without the enemy attempting t0 hincjer Caesar then marched into the Delta, whither the king had retreated, overthrew, notwithstanding the deeply cut canal in their front, the Egyptian vanguard at the first onset, and immediately stormed the Egyptian camp itself. lay at the foot of rising ground between the Nile — from which only narrow path separated — and marshes difficult of access. Caesar caused the camp to be assailed simultaneously from the front and from the flank on the path along the Nile and during this assault ordered third detachment to ascend unseen the heights behind the camp. The victory was complete; the camp was taken, and those of the Egyptians who did not fall beneath the sword of the enemy were drowned in the attempt to escape to the fleet on the Nile. With one of the boats, which sank overladen with men, the young king also disappeared in the waters of his native stream.
Immediately after the battle Caesar advanced at the
a
a ;
a
it
it. It
? hap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS 181
head of his cavalry from the land- side straight into the Pacific*, portion of the capital occupied by the Egyptians. In Alexandria, mourning attire, with the images of their gods in their
hands, the enemy received him and sued for peace ; and
his troops, when they saw him return as victor from the side opposite to that by which he had set forth, welcomed him with boundless joy. The fate of the town, which had ventured to thwart the plans of the master of the world and had brought him within a hair's-breadth of destruction, lay in Caesar's hands ; but he was too much of a ruler to be sensitive, and dealt with the Alexandrians as with the Massiliots. Caesar — pointing to their city severely devastated and deprived of its granaries, of its world- renowned library, and of other important public buildings on occasion of the burning of the fleet — exhorted the inhabitants in future earnestly to cultivate the arts of peace alone, and to heal the wounds which they had inflicted on themselves ; for the rest, he contented himself with granting to the Jews settled in Alexandria the same rights which the Greek population of the city enjoyed, and with placing in Alexandria, instead of the previous Roman army of occupa tion which nominally at least obeyed the kings of Egypt, a formal Roman garrison —two of the legions besieged there, and a third which afterwards arrived from Syria — under a commander nominated by himself. For this position of trust a man was purposely selected, whose birth made it impossible for him to abuse it — Rufio, an able soldier, but the son of a freedman. Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemaeus obtained the sovereignty of Egypt under the supremacy of Rome ; the princess Arsinoe was carried off to Italy, that she might not serve once more as a pretext for insurrections to the Egyptians, who were after the Oriental fashion quite as much devoted to their dynasty as they were indifferent towards the individual dynasts ; Cyprus became again a part of the Roman province of Cilicia.
Course of
durioe Caesar's
Alexandria.
This Alexandrian insurrection, insignificant as it was in itself and slight as was its intrinsic connection with the events of importance in the world's history which took place at the same time in the Roman state, had neverthe less so far a momentous influence on them that it compelled the man, who was all in all and without whom nothing could be despatched and nothing could be solved, to leav: his proper tasks in abeyance from October 706 up to
882
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
48.
47. March 707 in order to fight along with Jews and Bedouins
insubor- Pharnaces.
against a city rabble. The consequences of personal rule began to make themselves felt They had the monarchy ; but the wildest confusion prevailed everywhere, and the monarch was absent The Caesarians were for the moment, just like the Pompeians, without superintendence; the ability of the individual officers and, above all, accident decided matters everywhere,
in Asia Minor there was, at the time of Caesar's de- parture for Egypt, no enemy. But Caesar's lieutenant there, the able Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, had received
orders to take away again from king Pharnaces what he had without instructions wrested from the allies of Pompeius; and, as Pharnaces, an obstinate and arrogant despot like his father, perseveringly refused to evacuate Lesser Armenia, no course remained but to march against him. Calvinus had been obliged to despatch to Egypt two out of the three legions left behind with him and formed out of the Pharsalian prisoners of war; he filled up the gap by one legion hastily gathered from the Romans domiciled in Pontus and two legions of Deiotarus exercised after the Roman manner, and advanced into Lesser Armenia. But the Bosporan army, tried in numerous conflicts with the dwellers on the Black Sea, showed itself more efficient than his own.
In an engagement at Nicopolis the Pontic levy of Cal-
Calvinus
NicopoUfc1 v'nus was cut t0 pieces and the Galatian legions ran off; only
CHAP, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
483
the one old legion of the Romans fought its way through with moderate loss. Instead of conquering Lesser Armenia, Calvinus could not even prevent Pharnaces from repossess ing himself of his Pontic " hereditary states," and pouring forth the whole vials of his horrible sultanic caprices on their inhabitants, especially the unhappy Amisenes (winter of 706-707). When Caesar in person arrived in Asia Minor and intimated to him that the service which Pharnaces had rendered to him personally by having granted no help to Pompeius could not be taken into account against the injury inflicted on the empire, and that before any negotiation he must evacuate the province of Pontus and send back the property which he had pillaged, he declared himself doubtless ready to submit ; nevertheless, well knowing how good reason Caesar had for hastening to the west, he made no serious preparations for the evacuation. He did not know that Caesar finished whatever he took in hand. Without negotiating further, Caesar took with him the one legion which he brought from Alexandria and the troops of Calvinus and Deiotarus, and advanced against the camp of Pharnaces at Ziela. When the Bosporans saw him approach, they boldly crossed the deep mountain -ravine which covered their front, and charged the Romans up the hill. Caesar's soldiers were still occupied in pitching their camp, and the ranks wavered for a moment ; but the veterans accustomed to war rapidly rallied and set the example for a general attack and for a complete victory (2 Aug. 707) In five days the campaign was ended — an invaluable piece of good fortune at this time, when every hour was precious.
48-47.
Caesar entrusted the pursuit of the king, who had gone Regulation home by way of Sinope, to Pharnaces' illegitimate brother, £jinor
the brave Mithradates of Pergamus, who as a reward for the
services rendered by him in Egypt received the crown of
the Bosporan kingdom in room of Pharnaces. In other
victory of
J8? 5" *1 Ziela.
47.
War by
was in
a very grave nature had occurred. The Dalmatian coast
had been for centuries a sore blemish on the Roman rule, and its inhabitants had been at open feud with Caesar since the conflicts around Dyrrhachium ; while the interior also since the time of the Thessalian war, swarmed with dispersed Pompeians. Quintus Cornificius had however, with the legions that followed him from Italy, kept both the natives and the refugees in check and had at the same time sufficiently met the difficult task of provisioning the troops in these rugged districts. Even when the able Marcus Octavius, the victor of Curicta (p. 235), appeared with a part of the Pompeian fleet in these waters to wage war there against Caesar by sea and land, Cornificius not only knew how to maintain himself, resting for support on
the ships and the harbour of the Iadestini (Zara), but in his turn also sustained several successful engagements at sea with the fleet of his antagonist. But when the new governor of Illyria, the Aulus Gabinius recalled by Caesar from exile 139), arrived by the landward route in Illyria
joi i
2S4
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
respects the affairs of Syria and Asia Minor were peacefully settled ; Caesar's own allies were richly rewarded, those of Pompeius were in general dismissed with fines or repri mands. Deiotarus alone, the most powerful of the clients of Pompeius, was again confined to his narrow hereditary domain, the canton of the Tolistobogii. In his stead Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia was invested with Lesser Armenia, and the tetrarchy of the Trocmi usurped by Deiotarus was conferred on the new king of the Bosporus, who was descended by the maternal side from one of the Galatian princely houses as by the paternal from that of Pontus.
" Illyria.
In Illyria
Egypt, incidents of
also, while
Caesar
48-47. in the winter of 706-707 with fifteen cohorts and 3000 horse, the system of warfare changed. Instead of confining himself like his predecessor to war on small scale, the
a
(p.
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
285
bold active man undertook at once, in spite of the in
clement season, an expedition with his whole force to the mountains. But the unfavourable weather, the difficulty
of providing supplies, and the brave resistance of the Defeat of
m IU'
Dalmatians, swept away the army ; Gabinius had to commence his retreat, was attacked in the course of it and disgracefully defeated by the Dalmatians, and with the
feeble remains of his fine army had difficulty in reaching
Salonae, where he soon afterwards died. Most of the
Illyrian coast towns thereupon surrendered to the fleet of Octavius; those that adhered to Caesar, such as Salonae
and Epidaurus (Ragusa vecchia), were so hard pressed by
the fleet at sea and by the barbarians on land, that the surrender and capitulation of the remains of the army enclosed in Salonae seemed not far distant Then the commandant - of the dep6t at Brundisium, the energetic
Publius Vatinius, in the absence of ships of war caused common boats to be provided with beaks and manned with
the soldiers dismissed from the hospitals, and with this ex temporized war-fleet gave battle to the far superior fleet of Octavius at the island of Tauris (Torcola between Lesina Naval and Curzola) —a battle in which, as in so many cases, the "aS" bravery of the leader and of the marines compensated for
the deficiencies of the vessels, and the Caesarians achieved
a brilliant victory. Marcus Octavius left these waters and proceeded to Africa (spring of 707); the Dalmatians no 47. doubt continued their resistance for years with great obstinacy, but it was nothing beyond a local mountain-war
fare. When Caesar returned from Egypt, his resolute adjutant had already got rid of the danger that was imminent in Illyria.
All the more serious was the position of things in Reorgan- Africa, where the constitutional party had from the i*fu°n outset of the civil war ruled absolutely and had continually coalition la augmented their power. Down to the battle of Pharsalus ASAc*
286 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book V
king Juba had, properly speaking, borne rule there; he had vanquished Curio, and his flying horsemen and his numberless archers were the main strength of the army ; the Pompeian governor Varus played by his side so sub ordinate a part that he even had to deliver those soldiers
of Curio, who had surrendered to him, over to the king, and had to look on while they were executed or carried away into the interior of Numidia. After the battle of Pharsalus a change took place. With the exception of
Pompeius himself, no man of note among the defeated party thought of flight to the Parthians. As little did they attempt to hold the sea with their united resources ; the warfare waged by Marcus Octavius in the Illyrian waters was isolated, and was without permanent success. The great majority of the republicans as of the Pompeians betook themselves to Africa, where alone an honourable and constitutional warfare might still be waged against the usurper. There the fragments of the army scattered at Pharsalus, the troops that had garrisoned Dyrrhachium, Corcyra, and the Peloponnesus, the remains of the Illyrian fleet, gradually congregated ; there the second commander- in-chief Metellus Scipio, the two sons of Pompeius, Gnaeus and Sextus, the political leader of the republicans Marcus Cato, the able officers Labienus, Afranius, Petreius, Octavius and others met If the resources of the emigrants had diminished, their fanaticism had, if possible, even increased. Not only did they continue to murder their prisoners and even the officers of Caesar under flag of truce, but king Juba, in whom the exasperation of the partisan mingled with the fury of the half-barbarous African, laid down the maxim that in every community suspected of sympathizing with the enemy the burgesses ought to be extirpated and the town burnt down, and even practically carried out this theory against some townships, such as the unfortunate Vaga near Hadrumetum. In fact
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAI SUS
887
it was solely owing to the energetic intervention of Cato that the capital of the province itself, the flourishing Utica —which, just like Carthage formerly, had been long regarded with a jealous eye by the Numidian kings — did not experience the same treatment from Juba, and that measures of precaution merely were taken against its citizens, who certainly were not unjustly accused of leaning towards Caesar.
As neither Caesar himself nor any of his lieutenants undertook the smallest movement against Africa, the coalition had full time to acquire political and military reorganization there. First of all, it was necessary to fill up anew the place of commander-in-chief vacant by the death of Pompeius. King Juba was not disinclined still to maintain the position which he had held in Africa up to the battle of Pharsalus ; indeed he bore himself no longer as a client of the Romans but as an equal ally or even as a protector, and took it upon him, for example, to coin Roman silver money with his name and device ; nay, he even raised a claim to be the sole wearer of purple in the camp, and suggested to the Roman commanders that they should lay aside their purple mantle of office. Further, Metellus Scipio demanded the supreme command for himself, because Pompeius had recognized him in the Thessalian campaign as on a footing of equality, more from the consideration that he was his son-in-law than on military grounds. The like demand was raised by Varus as the governor — self-nominated, it is true — of Africa, seeing that the war was to be waged in bis province. Lastly the army desired for its leader the propraetor Marcus Cato. Obviously it was right. Cato was the only man who possessed the requisite devotedness, energy, and
authority for the difficult office; if he was no military man, it was infinitely better to appoint as commander-in- chief a non-military man who understood how to listen to
OS BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
reason and make his subordinates act, than an officer of untried capacity like Varus, or even one of tried incapa city like Metellus Scipio. But the decision fell at length on this same Scipio, and it was Cato himself who mainly determined that decision. He did so, not because he felt himself unequal to such a task, or because his vanity found its account rather in declining than in accepting ; still less because he loved or respected Scipio, with whom he on the contrary was personally at variance, and who with his notorious inefficiency had attained a certain importance merely in virtue of his position as father-in-law to Pompeius; but simply and solely because his obstinate legal formalism chose rather to let the republic go to ruin in due course of law than to save it in an irregular way. When after the battle of Pharsalus he met with Marcus Cicero at Corcyra, he had offered to hand over the com mand in Corcyra to the latter — who was still from the time of his Cilician administration invested with the rank of general—as the officer of higher standing according to the letter of the law, and by this readiness had driven the unfortunate advocate, who now cursed a thousand times his laurels from the Amanus, almost to despair ; but he had at the same time astonished all men of any tolerable discernment. The same principles were applied now, when something more was at stake ; Cato weighed the question to whom the place of commander-in-chief belonged, as if the matter had reference to a field at Tusculum, and adjudged it to Scipio. By this sentenc es own candidature and that of Varus were set aside. But he it was also, and he alone, who confronted with energy the claims of king Juba, and made him feel that the Roman nobility came to him not suppliant, as to the great-prince of the Parthians, with a view to ask aid at the hands of a protector, but as entitled to command and require aid from a subject. In the present state of the
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
289
Roman forces in Africa, Juba could not avoid lowering his claims to some extent; although he still carried the point with the weak Scipio, that the pay of his troops should be charged on the Roman treasury and the cession of the province of Africa should be assured to him in the event of victory.
By the side of the new general-in -chief the senate of the "three hundred" again emerged. It established its seat in Utica, and replenished its thinned ranks by the admission of the most esteemed and the wealthiest men of the equestrian order.
The warlike preparations were pushed forward, chiefly through the zeal of Cato, with the greatest energy, and every man capable of arms, even the freedman and Libyan, was enrolled in the legions ; by which course so many hands were withdrawn from agriculture that a great part of the fields remained uncultivated, but an imposing result was certainly attained. The heavy infantry numbered fourteen legions, of which two were already raised by Varus, eight others were formed partly from the refugees, partly from the conscripts in the province, and four were legions of king Juba armed in the Roman manner. The heavy cavalry, consisting of the Celts and Germans who arrived with Labienus and sundry others incorporated in their ranks, was, apart from Juba's squadron of cavalry equipped in the Roman style, 1600 strong. The light troops consisted of innumerable masses of Numidians riding without bridle or rein and armed merely with javelins, of a number of mounted bowmen, and a large host of archers on foot To these fell to be added Juba's 120 elephants, and the fleet of 55 sail commanded by Publius Varus and Marcus Octavius. The urgent want of money was in some measure remedied by a self-taxation on the part of the senate, which was the more productive
as the richest African capitalists had been induced to enter
VOL. V
158
Move- Spain! .
it Corn and other supplies were accumulated in immense quantities in the fortresses capable of defence; at the same time the stores were as far as possible removed from the open townships. The absence of Caesar, the trouble some temper of his legions, the ferment in Spain and Italy gradually raised men's spirits, and the recollection of the Pharsalian defeat began to give way to fresh hopes of victory.
The time lost by Caesar in Egypt nowhere revenged itself more severely than here. Had he proceeded to Africa immediately after the death of Pompeius, he would have found there a weak, disorganized, and frightened army and utter anarchy among the leaders ; whereas there was now in Africa, owing more especially to Cato's energy, an army equal in number to that defeated at Pharsalus, under
leaders of note, and under a regulated superintendence.
A peculiar evil star seemed altogether to preside over tn's African expedition of Caesar. He had, even before his embarkation for Egypt, arranged in Spain and Italy various measures preliminary and preparatory to the African war ; but out of all there had sprung nothing but mischief. From Spain, according to Caesar's arrangement, the governor of the southern province Quintus Cassius
Longinus was to cross with four legions to Africa, to be joined there by Bogud king of West Mauretania,1 and to
1 Much obscurity rests on the shape assumed by the states in north western Africa during this period. After the Jugurthine war Bocchus king of Mauretania ruled probably from the western sea to the port of Saldae, in what is now Morocco and Algiers (iii. 410) ; the princes of Tingis (Tangiers) —probably from the outset different from the Maure- tanian sovereigns—who occur even earlier (Plut Serf. 9), and to whom it may be conjectured that Sallust's Leptasta (Hist 31 Kritx) and Cicero's Mastanesosus (In Vat 12) belong, may have been independent within certain limits or may have held from him as feudatories just as Syphax already ruled over many chieftains of tribes (Appian, Pun. 10), and about this time in the neighbouring Numidia Cirta was possessed, probably however under Juba's supremacy, by the prince Massinissa
W. (Appian, B. C. iv. 54). About 672 we find in Bocchus' stead a king called Bocut or Bogud (iv. 9a Orosius, v. a1, 14), the son of Bocchus.
2go
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
;
;
5,
ii.
chap, x ' PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
291
advance with him towards Numidia and Africa. But that army destined for Africa included in it a number of native
and two whole legions formerly Pompeian ; Pompeian sympathies prevailed in the army as in the province, and the unskilful and tyrannical behaviour of the Caesarian governor was not fitted to allay them A formal revolt took place ; troops and towns took part for or against the governor; already those who had risen against the lieutenant of Caesar were on the point of openly displaying the banner of Pompeius ; already had Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus embarked from Africa for Spain to take advantage
of this favourable turn, when the disavowal of the governor by the most respectable Caesarians themselves and the interference of the commander of the northern province suppressed just in right time the insurrection. Gnaeus
who had lost time on the way with a vain attempt to establish himself in Mauretania, came too late ; Gaius Trebonius, whom Caesar after his return from the east sent to Spain to relieve Cassius (autumn of 707), met 47. everywhere with absolute obedience. But of course amidst these blunders nothing was done from Spain to disturb the organization of the republicans in Africa ; indeed in con sequence of the complications with Longinus, Bogud king
of West Mauretania, who was on Caesar's side and might at least have put some obstacles in the way of king Juba, had been called away with his troops to Spain.
Still more critical were the occurrences among the troops Military whom Caesar had caused to be collected in southern Italy, J^T^j. in order to his embarkation with them for Africa. They
were for the most part the old legions, which had founded
Caesar's throne in Gaul, Spain, and Thessaly. The spirit
From 705 the kingdom appears divided between king Bogud who possesses 49. the western, and king Bocchus who possesses the eastern hair, and to this
the later partition of Mauretania into Bogud's kingdom or the state of Tingis and Bocchus' kingdom or the state of Iol (Caesarea) refers (Pun.
H. N. v. a, 19 ; comp. Bell. Afrit. 23).
Spaniards
Pompeius,
2g2
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book T
of these troops had not been improved by victories, and had been utterly disorganized by long repose in Lower Italy. The almost superhuman demands which the general made on them, and the effects of which were only too clearly apparent in their fearfully thinned ranks, left behind even in these men of iron a leaven of secret rancour which required only time and quiet to set their minds in a ferment The only man who had influence over them, had been absent and almost unheard-of for a year ; while the officers placed over them were far more afraid of the soldiers than the soldiers of them, and overlooked in the conquerors of the world every outrage against those that gave them quarters, and every breach of discipline. When the orders to embark for Sicily arrived, and the soldier was to exchange the luxurious ease of Campania for a third campaign certainly not inferior to those of Spain and Thessaly in point of hardship, the reins, which had been too long relaxed and were too suddenly tightened, snapt asunder. The legions refused to obey till the promised presents were paid to them, scornfully repulsed the officers sent by Caesar, and even threw stones at them. An attempt to extinguish the incipient revolt by increasing the sums promised not only had no success, but the soldiers set out in masses to extort the fulfilment of the promises from the general in the capital. Several officers, who attempted to restrain the mutinous bands on the way, were slain. It was a formidable danger. Caesar ordered the few soldiers who were in the city to occupy the gates, with the view of warding off the justly apprehended pillage at least at the first onset, and suddenly appeared among the furious bands demanding to know what they wanted. They exclaimed : " discharge. " In a moment the request was granted. Respecting the presents, Caesar added, which he had promised to his soldiers at his triumph, as well as respecting the lands which he had not promised
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
393
to them but had destined for them, they might apply to him on the day when he and the other soldiers should triumph ; in the triumph itself they could not of course participate, as having been previously discharged. The masses were not prepared for things taking this turn ; convinced that Caesar could not do without them for the African campaign, they had demanded their discharge only in order that, if it were refused, they might annex their own conditions to their service. Half unsettled in their belief as to their own indispensableness ; too awkward to return to their object, and to bring the negotiation which had missed its course back to the right channel ; ashamed, as men, by the fidelity with which the Imperator kept his word even to soldiers who had forgotten their allegiance, and by his generosity which even now granted far more than he had ever promised ; deeply affected, as soldiers, when the general presented to them the prospect of their being necessarily mere civilian spectators of the triumph of their comrades, and when he called them no longer " comrades " but " burgesses,"—by this very form of address, which from his mouth sounded so strangely, destroying as it were with one blow the whole pride of their past soldierly career; and, besides all this, under the spell of the man whose presence had an irresistible power — the soldiers stood for a while mute and lingering, till from all sides a cry arose that the general would once more receive them into favour and again permit them to be called Caesar's soldiers. Caesar, after having allowed himself to be sufficiently entreated, granted the permission; but the ringleaders in this mutiny had a third cut off from their
triumphal presents. History knows no greater psychological master
piece, and none that was more completely successful.
This mutiny operated injuriously on the African cam- Caesar paign, at least in so far as it considerably delayed the ^^
commencement of it When Caesar arrived at the port
Conflict at Ruspina.
194
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
of Lilybaeum destined for the embarkation, the ten legions intended for Africa were far from being fully assembled there, and it was the experienced troops that were farthest behind. Hardly however had six legions, of which five were newly formed, arrived there and the necessary war-vessels and transports come forward, when Caesar put to sea with
47. them (25 Dec. 707 of the uncorrected, about 8 Oct. of the Julian, calendar). The enemy's fleet, which on account of the prevailing equinoctial gales was drawn up on the beach at the island Aegimurus in front of the bay of Carthage, did not oppose the passage ; but the same storms scattered the fleet of Caesar in all directions, and, when he availed himself of the opportunity of landing not far from Hadrumetum (Susa), he could not disembark more than some 3000 men, mostly recruits, and 150 horsemen. His attempt to capture Hadrumetum strongly occupied by the enemy miscarried ; but Caesar possessed himself of the two seaports not far distant from each other, Ruspina (Monastir near Susa) and Little Leptis. Here he en trenched himself; but his position was so insecure, that he
kept his cavalry in the ships and the ships ready for sea and provided with a supply of water, in order to re-embark at any moment if he should be attacked by a superior force. This however was not necessary, for just at the right time the ships that had been driven out of their course
48. arrived (3 Jan. 708). On the very following day Caesar, whose army in consequence of the arrangements made by the Pompeians suffered from want of corn, undertook with three legions an expedition into the interior of the country, but was attacked on the march not far from Ruspina by the corps which Labienus had brought up to dislodge Caesar from the coast. As Labienus had exclusively cavalry and archers, and Caesar almost nothing but infantry of the line, the legions were quickly surrounded and exposed to the missiles of the enemy, without being able to
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
295
retaliate or to attack with success. No doubt the deploying of the entire line relieved once more the flanks, and spirited charges saved the honour of their arms ; but a retreat was unavoidable, and had Ruspina not been so near, the Moorish javelin would perhaps have accomplished the same result here as the Parthian bow at Carrhae.
Caesar, whom this day had fully convinced of the Caesar's difficulty of the impending war, would not again expose P°sm. on"1 his soldiers untried and discouraged by the new mode of
fighting to any such attack, but awaited the arrival of his
veteran legions. The interval was employed in providing
some sort of compensation against the crushing superiority
of the enemy in the weapons of distant warfare. The incorporation of the suitable men from the fleet as light horsemen or archers in the land -army could not be of
much avail. The diversions which Caesar suggested were somewhat more effectual. He succeeded in bringing into
arms against Juba the Gaetulian pastoral tribes wandering
on the southern slope of the great Atlas towards the
Sahara; for the blows of the Marian and Sullan period
had reached even to them, and their indignation against Pompeius, who had at that time made them subordinate to
the Numidian kings (iv. 94), rendered them from the
outset favourably inclined to the heir of the mighty Marius
of whose Jugurthine campaign they had still a lively recollection. The Mauretanian kings, Bogud in Tingis and
Bocchus in Iol, were Juba's natural rivals and to a certain extent long since in alliance with Caesar. Further, there still roamed in the border-region between the kingdoms of Juba and Bocchus the last of the Catilinarians, that Publius Sittius of Nuceria (iv. 469), who eighteen years before had become converted from a bankrupt Italian merchant into a Mauretanian leader of free bands, and since that time had procured for himself a name and a body of retainers amidst the Libyan quarrels. Socchus and Sittius united
296
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book V
fell on the Numidian land, and occupied the important town of Cirta; and their attack, as well as that of the Gaetulians, compelled king Juba to send a portion of his troops to his southern and western frontiers.
Caesar's situation, however, continued sufficiently un pleasant His army was crowded together within a space of six square miles ; though the fleet conveyed corn, the want of forage was as much felt by Caesar's cavalry as by those of Pompeius before Dyrrhachium. The light troops of the enemy remained notwithstanding all the exertions of Caesar so immeasurably superior to his, that it seemed almost impossible to carry offensive operations into the interior even with veterans. If Scipio retired and aban doned the coast towns, he might perhaps achieve a victory like those which the vizier of Orodes had won over Crassus
and Juba over Curio, and he could at least endlessly protract the war. The simplest consideration suggested this plan of campaign ; even Cato, although far from a strategist, counselled its adoption, and offered at the same time to cross with a corps to Italy and to call the republicans there to arms —which, amidst the utter confusion in that quarter, might very well meet with success. But Cato could only advise, not command ; Scipio the commander- in-chief decided that the war should be carried on in the region of the coast This was a blunder, not merely inasmuch as they thereby dropped a plan of war promising a sure result, but also inasmuch as the region to which they transferred the war was in dangerous agitation, and a good part of the army which they opposed to Caesar was likewise in a troublesome temper. The fearfully strict levy, the carrying off of the supplies, the devastating of the smaller townships, the feeling in general that they were being sacrificed for a cause which from the outset was foreign to them and was already lost, had exasperated the native population against the Roman republicans fighting
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
297
out their last struggle of despair on African soil ; and the terrorist proceedings of the latter against all communities that were but suspected of indifference (p. 286), had raised this exasperation to the most fearful hatred. The African towns declared, wherever they could venture to do so, for Caesar ; among the Gaetulians and the Libyans, who served in numbers among the light troops and even in the legions, desertion was spreading. But Scipio with all the obstinacy characteristic of folly persevered in his plan, marched with all his force from Utica to appear before the towns of Ruspina and Little Leptis occupied by Caesar, furnished Hadrumetum to the north and Thapsus to the south (on the promontory Ras Dimas) with strong garrisons, and in concert with Juba, who likewise appeared before Ruspina with all his troops not required by the defence of the frontier, offered battle repeatedly to the enemy. But Caesar was resolved to wait for his veteran legions. As these one after another arrived and appeared on the scene of strife, Scipio and Juba lost the desire to risk a pitched battle, and Caesar had no means of compelling them to fight owing to their extraordinary superiority in light cavalry. Nearly two months passed away in marches and skirmishes in the neighbourhood of Ruspina and Thapsus,
which chiefly had relation to the finding out of the concealed store-pits (silos) common in the country, and to the exten sion of posts. Caesar, compelled by the enemy's horsemen to keep as much as possible to the heights or even to cover his flanks by entrenched lines, yet accustomed his soldiers gradually during this laborious and apparently endless warfare to the foreign mode of fighting. Friend and foe hardly recognized the rapid general in the cautious master of fence who trained his men carefully and not unfrequently in person ; and they became almost puzzled by the masterly skill which displayed itself as conspicuously in delay as in promptitude of action
Battle at p
398 BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
At last Caesar, after being joined by his last reinforce-
ments, made a lateral movement towards Thapsus.
had, as we have said, strongly garrisoned this town, and thereby committed the blunder of presenting to his opponent an object of attack easy to be seized ; to this first error he soon added the second still less excusable blunder of now for the rescue of Thapsus giving the battle, which Caesar had wished and Scipio had hitherto rightly refused, on ground which placed the decision in the hands of the infantry of the line. Immediately along the shore, opposite to Caesar's camp, the legions of Scipio and
appeared, the fore ranks ready for fighting, the hinder ranks occupied in forming an entrenched camp; at the same time the garrison of Thapsus prepared for a sally. Caesar's camp-guard sufficed to repulse the latter. His legions, accustomed to war, already forming a correct estimate of the enemy from the want of precision in their mode of array and their ill-closed ranks, compelled —while yet the entrenching was going forward on that side, and before even the general gave the signal—a trumpeter to sound for the attack, and advanced along the whole line headed by Caesar himself, who, when he saw his men advance without waiting for his orders, galloped forward to lead them against the enemy. The right wing, in advance of the other divisions, frightened the line of elephants opposed to it—this was the last great battle in which these animals were employed — by throwing bullets and arrows, so that they wheeled round on their own ranks. The covering force was cut down, the left wing of the enemy was broken, and the whole line was overthrown. The defeat was the more destructive, as the new camp of the beaten army was not yet ready, and the old one was at a considerable distance ; both were successively captured
almost without resistance. The mass of the defeated army threw away their arms and sued for quarter; but Caesar's
Juba
Scipio
chap, X PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
299
soldiers were no longer the same who had readily refrained from battle before Ilerda and honourably spared the defenceless at Pharsalus. The habit of civil war and the rancour left behind by the mutiny asserted their power in a terrible manner on the battle-field of Thapsus. If the hydra with which they fought always put forth new energies, if the army was hurried from Italy to Spain, from Spain to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Africa, and if the repose ever more eagerly longed for never came, the soldier sought, and not wholly without cause, the reason of this state of things in the unseasonable clemency of Caesar. He had sworn to retrieve the general's neglect, and remained deaf to the entreaties of his disarmed fellow- citizens as well as to the commands of Caesar and the superior officers. The fifty thousand corpses that covered the battle-field of Thapsus, among whom were several Caesarian officers known as secret opponents of the new monarchy, and therefore cut down on this occasion by their own men, showed how the soldier procures for himself
The victorious army on the other hand numbered no more than fifty dead (6 April 708).
There was as little a continuance of the struggle in Africa after the battle of Thapsus, as there had been a year and a half before in the east after the defeat of Pharsalus. Cato as commandant of Utica convoked the senate, set forth how the means of defence stood, and submitted it to the decision of those assembled whether they would yield or defend themselves to the last man— only adjuring them to resolve and to act not each one for himself, but all in unison. The more courageous view found several supporters ; it was proposed to manumit on
behalf of the state the slaves capable of arms, which however Cato rejected as an illegal encroachment on
repose.
and suggested in its stead a patriotic appeal to the slave-owners. But soon this of resolution
private property,
46.
Catoin t"aL
fit
Hi* death,
in an assembly consisting in great part of African merchants passed off, and they agreed to capitulate. Thereupon when Faustus Sulla, son of the regent, and Lucius Afranius arrived in Utica with a strong division of cavalry from the field of battle, Cato still made an attempt to hold the town through them ; but he indignantly rejected their demand to let them first of all put to death the untrustworthy citizens of Utica en masse, and chose to let the last strong hold of the republicans fall into the hands of the monarch without resistance rather than to profane the last moments of the republic by such a massacre. After he had—partly by his authority, partly by liberal largesses —checked so far as he could the fury of the soldiery against the unfortunate Uticans ; after he had with touching solicitude furnished to those who preferred not to trust themselves to Caesar's mercy the means for flight, and to those who wished to remain the opportunity of capitulating under the most tolerable conditions, so far as his ability reached; and after having thoroughly satisfied himself that he could render to no one any farther aid, he held himself released from his command, retired to his bedchamber, and plunged his sword into his breast
Of the other fugitive leaders only a few escaped.