Very soon he experienced remarkable treatment in this respect

at the hands of the senate. Caesar had begun the struggle

to liberate the overawed senate from its oppressors. 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 transmitting 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 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 it. 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 a legal way and with the help

of the supreme authority; but, since this help was refused,

he could dispense with it.

Provisional Arrangement of the Affairs of the Capital

The Provinces

Without further concerning himself about the senate and the formalities

of state law, he handed over the temporary administration

of the capital to the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as city-prefect,

and made the requisite arrangements for the administration

of the provinces 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, it still made

a deep impression on the multitude of the capital, when they saw

in their free Rome the monarch for the first time wielding

a monarch's power and breaking 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.

Pompeians in Spain

Caesar hastened to resume the war. He owed his successes

hitherto to the offensive, and he intended still 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 it,

and several years of conflicts in the Lusitanian mountains

had hardened soldiers and officers. Among its captains Marcus Varro

indeed was simply a celebrated scholar and a 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,(18) the more important province

of the Ebrowas attached by all the ties of veneration and gratitude

to the celebrated general, who twenty years before had held the command

in it during the Sertorian war, and after the termination of that war

had organized it 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 Apuli

so long that he was compelled to choose the nearer Brundisium

as his place of embarkation instead of the 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.

Massilia against Caesar

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 Pompeius'

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.

Caesar Occupies the Pyrenees

Position at Ilerda

Meanwhile Caesar himself arrived in Gaul and, as the commencement

of the siege of Massilia still detained him in person,

he immediately despatched the greater part of his troops assembled

on the Rhone--six legions and the cavalry--along the great road

leading by way of Narbo (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 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).

Under 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 themselves between the Pompeian camp

and the town and thereby to possess themselves of the stone bridge--

and they consequently remained dependent for their communication

with Gaul solely on two bridges which they had hastily constructed

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.

Caesar Cut Off

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 circumstance

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-

(1 pound 16 shillings)--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 mountains,

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 circulate 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 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,

Caesar Re-establishes the Communications

Thereupon Caesar formed his plan. He ordered portable boats

of a light wooden frame and osier work lined with leather,

after the model of those used in the Channel 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.

Retreat of the Pompeians from Ilerda

The supplies of the Pompeians were now rendered scarce

through the foraging parties of Caesar and the defection

of the neighbouring communities; they resolved at length to retire

behind the line of the Ebro, and set themselves in all 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

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.

Caesar Follows

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 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 immoveable, occupied only

in reconnoitering the country.

The Route to the Ebro Closed

Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry set out,

that by a movement through the pathless mountains alongside of the road

they might turn the position of the 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 it,

they sacrificed camp and baggage and advanced by a forced march

along the highway, to gain the crest of the ridge before the Caesarians.

But it 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 a 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 it,

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,

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 unharmed, and persevered in seeking

a peaceful solution. Ilerda, where the Pompeians had still

a garrison and considerable 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 rearguard; 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. It attempted to cross the river, but Caesar's

German horsemen and light infantry anticipated it in the occupation

of the opposite bank.

Capitulation of the Pompeians

No bravery and no fidelity could longer avert the inevitable

capitulation (2 Aug. 705). Caesar granted to officers and soldiers

their life and liberty, and the possession 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 compulsorily 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 a third of the army, were disbanded

at once, while the Italian soldiers were discharged on the borders

of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul.

Further Spain Submits

Hither Spain on the breaking up of this army fell of itself

into the power of the victor. In Further Spain, where 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 considerable 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.

Siege of Massilia

About the same time Massilia also submitted. With 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,(19) managed rapidly to equip a 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 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 Tauroeis (La Ciotat to the east of Marseilles)

might probably 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

accumulated 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 himself, and entreated

the Roman commander to suspend the siege operations till

Caesar's arrival. Trebonius had express 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.

Massilia Capitulates

When Caesar on his return from the conquest of Spain arrived

before their city, he found it reduced to extremities

partly by the enemy's attacks, partly by famine and pestilence,

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 implacable 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 plunder.

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 destruction 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 privileges; 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.

Expeditions of Caesar to the Corn-Provinces

While thus in the western provinces the war after various critical

vicissitudes was thoroughly decided at length in favour of Caesar,

Spain and Massilia were 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 Italy to assume the offensive

Sardinia Occupied

Sicily Occupied

We have already mentioned that the Pompeians intended

to reduce Italy to starvation. They had the means of doing so

in their hands. They had thorough command of the sea and laboured

with great zeal everywhere--in Gades, Utica, Messana, above all

in the east--to increase their fleet. They held moreover

all the provinces, from which the capital drew its means of subsistence:

Sardinia and Corsica through Marcus Cotta, Sicily through 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.

Landing of Curio in Africa

Curio left behind half of his troops to protect this island

so 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 far from Utica, just where

a century and a half before the elder Scipio had taken up

his first winter-camp in Africa.(20) 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.

Curio Conquers at Utica

When Varus, presuming that the troops of Curio wanted opportunity

to pass over to his side, resolved to give battle 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 reinforcements

should arrive from Sicily. Soon afterwards 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 communication with the garrison of Utica.

Curio Defeated by Juba on the Bagradas

Death of Curio

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

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 in cutting

their way through; Curio too might have 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; inasmuch 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. If, as his general says of him,

youthful 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.

Pompeius' Plan of 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 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 circulating

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(21) 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 southeastern 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, 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.

Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed

But the expected attack was long in coming. It was not

till the height of summer that the conflict began in Illyria.

There Caesar's lieutenant Gaius Antonius with 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,(22)

the important insular town of Issa (Lissa), and other townships,

embraced 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.

Result of the Campaign as a Whole

The success achieved in Illyricum by the Pompeian fleet,

although 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 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 antagonists 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

may 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 perversity

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 case 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. Notwithstanding 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.

Organizations in Macedonia

The Emigrants

If, however, nothing material was done from the east to obstruct Caesar

in the subjugation of the west, efforts at least were made towards

securing political and military consolidation there during the respite

so ignominiously obtained. The great rendezvous of the opponents

of Caesar was Macedonia. Thither Pompeius himself and the mass

of the emigrants from Brundisium resorted; thither came

the other refugees from the west: Marcus Cato from Sicily,

Lucius Domitius from Massilia but more especially a number

of the best officers and soldiers of the broken-up army of Spain,

with its generals Afranius and Varro at their head. In Italy

emigration gradually became among the aristocrats a question

not of honour merely but almost of fashion, and it obtained

a fresh impulse through the unfavourable accounts which arrived

regarding Caesar's position before Ilerda; not a few of the more

lukewarm partisans and the political trimmers went over by degrees,

and even Marcus Cicero at last persuaded himself that he did not

adequately discharge his duty as a citizen by writing a dissertatio

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

a pitiful spectacle in the high pretensions and paltry performances

of the genteel world of Rome, their 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";(23)

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.

The Lukewarm

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 characteristic 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 and small,

and in unnerving and discouraging the multitude by their own

sluggishness and hopelessness.

The Ultras

While these displayed the utter prostration of weakness, the ultras

on the other hand exhibited in full display its exaggerated action.

With them there was no attempt to conceal that the preliminary

to any negotiation for peace was the bringing over of Caesar's head;

every one of the attempts towards peace, which Caesar repeatedly made

even now, was tossed aside without being examined, or employed

only to cover insidious attempts on the lives of the commissioners

of their opponent. That the declared partisans of Caesar

had jointly and severally forfeited life and property, was a matter

of course; but it fared little better with those more or less neutral.

Lucius Domitius, the hero of Corfinium, gravely proposed

in the council of war that those senators who had fought in the army

of Pompeius should come to a vote on all who had either remained neutral

or had emigrated but not entered the army, and should according

to their own pleasure individually acquit them or punish them

by fine or even by the forfeiture of life and property.

Another of these ultras formally lodged with Pompeius a charge

of corruption and treason against Lucius Afranius for his defective

defence of Spain. Among these deep-dyed republicans their

political theory assumed almost the character of a confession

of religious faith; they accordingly hated their own more lukewarm

partisans and Pompeius with his personal adherents, if possible,

still more than their open opponents, and that with all the dull

obstinacy of hatred which is wont to characterize orthodox theologians;

and they were mainly to blame for the numberless and bitter

separate quarrels which distracted the emigrant army and emigrant senate.

But they did not confine themselves to words. Marcus Bibulus,

Titus Labienus, and others of this coterie carried out their theory

in practice, and caused such officers or soldiers of Caesar's army

as fell into their hands to be executed en masse; which,

as may well be conceived, did not tend to make Caesar's troops

fight with less energy. If the counterrevolution in favour

of the friends of the constitution, for which all the elements

were in existence,(24) did not break out in Italy during

Caesar's absence, the reason, according to the assurance

of discerning opponents of Caesar, lay chiefly in the general dread

of the unbridled fury of the republican ultras after the restoration

should have taken place. The better men in the Pompeian camp

were in despair over this frantic behaviour. Pompeius, himself

a brave soldier, spared the prisoners as far as he might and could;

but he was too pusillanimous and in too awkward a position to prevent

or even to punish all atrocities of this sort, as it became him

as commander-in-chief to do. Marcus Cato, the only man who at least

carried moral consistency into the struggle, attempted with more energy

to check such proceedings; he induced the emigrant senate

to prohibit by a special decree the pillage of subject towns

and the putting to death of a burgess otherwise than in battle.

The able Marcus Marcellus had similar views. No one, indeed,

knew better than Cato and Marcellus that the extreme party

would carry out their saving deeds, if necessary, in defiance

of all decrees of the senate. But if even now, when they had still

to regard considerations of prudence, the rage of the ultras

could not be tamed, people might prepare themselves after the victory

for a reign of terror from which Marius and Sulla themselves

would have turned away with horror; and we can understand why Cato,

according to his own confession, was more afraid of the victory

than of the defeat of his own party.

The Preparations for War

The management of the military preparations in the Macedonian camp

was in the hands of Pompeius the commander-in-chief. His position,

always troublesome and galling, had become still worse through

the unfortunate events of 705. In the eyes of his partisans he was

mainly to blame for this result. This judgment was in various respects

not just. A considerable part of the misfortunes endured

was to be laid to the account of the perversity and insubordination

of the lieutenant-generals, especially of the consul Lentulus

and Lucius Domitius; from the moment when Pompeius took the head

of the army, he had led it with skill and courage, and had saved

at least very considerable forces from the shipwreck; that he was

not a match for Caesar's altogether superior genius, which was now

recognized by all, could not be fairly made matter of reproach to him.

But the result alone decided men's judgment. Trusting to the general

Pompeius, the constitutional party had broken with Caesar; the pernicious

consequences of this breach recoiled upon the general Pompeius;

and, though owing to the notorious military incapacity

of all the other chiefs no attempt was made to change the supreme

command yet confidence at any rate in the commander-in-chief

was paralyzed. To these painful consequences of the defeats endured

were added the injurious influences of the emigration.

Among the refugees who arrived there were certainly a number

of efficient soldiers and capable officers, especially those

belonging to the former Spanish army; but the number of those

who came to serve and fight was just as small as that of the generals

of quality who called themselves proconsuls and imperators

with as good title as Pompeius, and of the genteel lords

who took part in active military service more or less reluctantly,

was alarmingly great. Through these the mode of life in the capital

was introduced into the camp, not at all to the advantage of the army;

the tents of such grandees were graceful bowers, the ground

elegantly covered with fresh turf, the walls clothed with ivy;

silver plate stood on the table, and the wine-cup often circulated

there even in broad daylight. Those fashionable warriors formed

a singular contrast with Caesar's daredevils, who ate coarse bread

from which the former recoiled, and who, when that failed, devoured

even roots and swore that they would rather chew the bark of trees

than desist from the enemy. While, moreover, the action

of Pompeius was hampered by the necessity of having regard

to the authority of a collegiate board personally disinclined to him,

this embarrassment was singularly increased when the senate of emigrants

took up its abode almost in his very headquarters and all the venom

of the emigrants now found vent in these senatorial sittings.

Lastly there was nowhere any man of mark, who could have thrown

his own weight into the scale against all these preposterous doings.

Pompeius himself was intellectually far too secondary for that purpose,

and far too hesitating, awkward, and reserved. Marcus Cato

would have had at least the requisite moral authority, and would not

have lacked the good will to support Pompeius with it; but Pompeius,

instead of calling him to his assistance, out of distrustful

jealousy kept him in the background, and preferred for instance

to commit the highly important chief command of the fleet

to the in every respect incapable Marcus Bibulus rather than to Cato.

The Legions of Pompeius

While Pompeius thus treated the political aspect of his position

with his characteristic perversity, and did his best to make

what was already bad in itself still worse, he devoted himself

on the other hand with commendable zeal to his duty of giving military

organization to the considerable but scattered forces of his party.

The flower of his force was composed of the troops brought with him

from Italy, out of which with the supplementary aid of the Illyrian

prisoners of war and the Romans domiciled in Greece five legions

in all were formed. Three others came from the east--the two Syrian

legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus, and one made up

out of the two weak legions hitherto stationed in Cilicia.

Nothing stood in the way of the withdrawal of these corps of occupation:

because on the one hand the Pompeians had an understanding

with the Parthians, and might even have had an alliance with them

if Pompeius had not indignantly refused to pay them the price

which they demanded for it--the cession of the Syrian province

added by himself to the empire; and on the other hand

Caesar's plan of despatching two legions to Syria, and inducing

the Jews once more to take up arms by means of the prince Aristobulus

kept a prisoner in Rome, was frustrated partly by other causes,

partly by the death of Aristobulus. New legions were moreover raised--

one from the veteran soldiers settled in Crete and Macedonia,

two from the Romans of Asia Minor. To all these fell to be added

2000 volunteers, who were derived from the remains of the Spanish

select corps and other similar sources; and, lastly, the contingents

of the subjects. Pompeius like Caesar had disdained to make

requisitions of infantry from them; only the Epirot, Aetolian,

and Thracian militia were called out to guard the coast, and moreover

3000 archers from Greece and Asia Minor and 1200 slingers

were taken up as light troops.

His Cavalry

The cavalry on the other hand--with the exception of a noble guard,

more respectable than militarily important, formed from the young

aristocracy of Rome, and of the Apulian slave-herdsmen whom Pompeius

had mounted (25)--consisted exclusively of the contingents

of the subjects and clients of Rome. The flower of it consisted

of the Celts, partly from the garrison of Alexandria,(26)

partly the contingents of king Deiotarus who in spite of his great age

had appeared in person at the head of his troops, and of the other

Galatian dynasts. With them were associated the excellent Thracian

horsemen, who were partly brought up by their princes Sadala

and Rhascuporis, partly enlisted by Pompeius in the Macedonian province;

the Cappadocian cavalry; the mounted archers sent by Antiochus

king of Commagene; the contingents of the Armenians from the west side

of the Euphrates under Taxiles, and from the other side under Megabates,

and the Numidian bands sent by king Juba--the whole body amounted

to 7000 horsemen.

Fleet

Lastly the fleet of Pompeius was very considerable. It was formed

partly of the Roman transports brought from Brundisium

or subsequently built, partly of the war vessels of the king of Egypt,

of the Colchian princes, of the Cilician dynast Tarcondimotus,

of the cities of Tyre, Rhodes, Athens, Corcyra, and generally

of all the Asiatic and Greek maritime states; and it numbered nearly

500 sail, of which the Roman vessels formed a fifth. Immense magazines

of corn and military stores were accumulated in Dyrrhachium.

The war-chest was well filled, for the Pompeians found themselves

in possession of the principal sources of the public revenue

and turned to their own account the moneyed resources of the client-

princes, of the senators of distinction, of the farmers of the taxes,

and generally of the whole Roman and non-Roman population

within their reach. Every appliance that the reputation

of the legitimate government and the much-renowned protectorship

of Pompeius over kings and peoples could move in Africa, Egypt,

Macedonia, Greece, Western Asia and Syria, had been put in motion

for the protection of the Roman republic; the report which circulated

in Italy that Pompeius was arming the Getae, Colchians,

and Armenians against Rome, and the designation of "king of kings"

given to Pompeius in the camp, could hardly be called exaggerations.

On the whole he had command over an army of 7000 cavalry

and eleven legions, of which it is true, but five at the most

could be described as accustomed to war, and over a fleet of 500 sail.

The temper of the soldiers, for whose provisioning and pay Pompeius

manifested adequate care, and to whom in the event of victory the most

abundant rewards were promised, was throughout good, in several--

and these precisely the most efficient--divisions even excellent

but a great part of the army consisted of newly-raised troops,

the formation and training of which, however zealously it was prosecuted,

necessarily required time. The force altogether was imposing,

but at the same time of a somewhat motley character.

Junction of the Pompeians on the Coast of Epirus

According to the design of the commander-in-chief the army and fleet

were to be in substance completely united by the winter of 705-706

along the coast and in the waters of Epirus. The admiral Bibulus

had already arrived with no ships at his new headquarters, Corcyra.

On the other hand the land-army, the headquarters of which had been

during the summer at Berrhoea on the Haliacmon, had not yet come up;

the mass of it was moving slowly along the great highway

from Thessalonica towards the west coast to the future headquarters

Dyrrhachium; the two legions, which Metellus Scipio was bringing up

from Syria, remained at Pergamus in Asia for winter quarters

and were expected in Europe only towards spring. They were taking time

in fact for their movements. For the moment the ports of Epirus

were guarded, over and above the fleet, merely by their own

civic defences and the levies of the adjoining districts.

Caesar against Pompeius

It thus remained possible for Caesar, notwithstanding the intervention

of the Spanish war, to assume the offensive also in Macedonia;

and he at least was not slow to act. He had long ago ordered

the collection of vessels of war and transports in Brundisium,

and after the capitulation of the Spanish army and the fall

of Massilia had directed the greater portion of the select troops

employed there to proceed to that destination. The unparalleled

exertions no doubt, which were thus required by Caesar

from his soldiers, thinned the ranks more than their conflicts had done

and the mutiny of one of the four oldest legions, the ninth

on its march through Placentia was a dangerous indication

of the temper prevailing in the army; but Caesar's presence of mind

and personal authority gained the mastery, and from this quarter

nothing impeded the embarkation. But the want of ships, through which

the pursuit of Pompeius had failed in March 705, threatened also

to frustrate this expedition. The war-vessels, which Caesar

had given orders to build in the Gallic, Sicilian, and Italian ports,

were not yet ready or at any rate not on the spot; his squadron

in the Adriatic had been in the previous year destroyed at Curicta;(27)

he found at Brundisium not more than twelve ships of war

and scarcely transports enough to convey over at once the third part

of his army--of twelve legions and 10,000 cavalry--destined for Greece.

The considerable fleet of the enemy exclusively commanded

the Adriatic and especially all the harbours of the mainland

and islands on its eastern coast. Under such circumstances

the question presents itself, why Caesar did not instead

of the maritime route choose the land route through Illyria,

which relieved him from all the perils threatened by the fleet

and besides was shorter for his troops, who mostly came from Gaul,

than the route by Brundisium. It is true that the regions

of Illyria were rugged and poor beyond description; but they

were traversed by other armies not long afterwards, and this obstacle

can hardly have appeared insurmountable to the conqueror of Gaul.

Perhaps he apprehended that during the troublesome march

through Illyria Pompeius might convey his whole force over the Adriatic,

whereby their parts might come at once to be changed--with Caesar

in Macedonia, and Pompeius in Italy; although such a rapid change

was scarcely to be expected from his slow-moving antagonist.

Perhaps Caesar had decided for the maritime route on the supposition

that his fleet would meanwhile be brought into a condition

to command respect, and, when after his return from Spain

he became aware of the true state of things in the Adriatic,

it might be too late to change the plan of campaign. Perhaps--

and, in accordance with Caesar's quick temperament always urging him

to decision, we may even say in all probability--he found himself

irresistibly tempted by the circumstance that the Epirot coast

was still at the moment unoccupied but would certainly be covered

in a few days by the enemy, to thwart once more by a bold stroke

the whole plan of his antagonist.

Caesar Lands in Epirus

First Successes

However this may be, on the 4th Jan. 706(28) Caesar set sail

with six legions greatly thinned by toil and sickness and 600 horsemen

from Brundisium for the coast of Epirus. It was a counterpart

to the foolhardy Britannic expedition; but at least the first throw

was fortunate. The coast was reached in the middle of the Acroceraunian

(Chimara) cliffs, at the little-frequented roadstead of Paleassa

(Paljassa). The transports were seen both from the harbour of Oricum

(creek of Avlona) where a Pompeian squadron of eighteen sail was lying,

and from the headquarters of the hostile fleet at Corcyra;

but in the one quarter they deemed themselves too weak,

in the other they were not ready to sail, so that the first freight

was landed without hindrance. While the vessels at once returned

to bring over the second, Caesar on that same evening scaled

the Acroceraunian mountains. His first successes were as great

as the surprise of his enemies. The Epirot militia nowhere

offered resistance; the important seaport towns of Oricum

and Apollonia along with a number of smaller townships were taken,

and Dyrrhachium, selected by the Pompeians as their chief arsenal

and filled with stores of all sorts, but only feebly garrisoned,

was in the utmost danger.

Caesar Cut Off from Italy

But the further course of the campaign did not correspond

to this brilliant beginning. Bibulus subsequently made up in some measure

for the negligence, of which he had allowed himself to be guilty,

by redoubling his exertions. He not only captured nearly thirty

of the transports returning home, and caused them with every living

thing on board to be burnt, but he also established along

the whole district of coast occupied by Caesar, from the island Sason

(Saseno) as far as the ports of Corcyra, a most careful watch,

however troublesome it was rendered by the inclement season

of the year and the necessity of bringing everything necessary

for the guard-ships, even wood and water, from Corcyra; in fact

his successor Libo--for he himself soon succumbed to the unwonted

fatigues--even blockaded for a time the port of Brundisium,

till the want of water again dislodged him from the little island

in front of it on which he had established himself. It was

not possible for Caesar's officers to convey the second portion

of the army over to their general. As little did he himself

succeed in the capture of Dyrrhachium. Pompeius learned through

one of Caesar's peace envoys as to his preparations for the voyage

to the Epirot coast, and, thereupon accelerating his march,

threw himself just at the right time into that important arsenal.

The situation of Caesar was critical. Although he extended his range

in Epirus as far as with his slight strength was at all possible,

the subsistence of his army remained difficult and precarious,

while the enemy, in possession of the magazines of Dyrrhachium

and masters of the sea, had abundance of everything. With his army

presumably little above 20,000 strong he could not offer battle

to that of Pompeius at least twice as numerous, but had to deem himself

fortunate that Pompeius went methodically to work and, instead

of immediately forcing a battle, took up his winter quarters

between Dyrrhachium and Apollonia on the right bank of the Apsus,

facing Caesar on the left, in order that after the arrival

of the legions from Pergamus in the spring he might annihilate

the enemy with an irresistibly superior force. Thus months passed.

If the arrival of the better season, which brought to the enemy

a strong additional force and the free use of his fleet, found Caesar

still in the same position, he was to all appearance lost,

with his weak band wedged in among the rocks of Epirus between

the immense fleet and the three times superior land army of the enemy;

and already the winter was drawing to a close. His sole hope

still depended on the transport fleet; that it should steal

or fight its way through the blockade was hardly to be hoped for;

but after the first voluntary foolhardiness this second venture

was enjoined by necessity. How desperate his situation appeared

to Caesar himself, is shown by his resolution--when the fleet

still came not--to sail alone in a fisherman's boat across the Adriatic

to Brundisium in order to fetch it; which, in reality, was only abandoned

because no mariner was found to undertake the daring voyage.

Antonius Proceed to Epirus

But his appearance in person was not needed to induce

the faithful officer who commanded in Italy, Marcus Antonius,

to make this last effort for the saving of his master. Once more

the transport fleet, with four legions and 800 horsemen on board

sailed from the harbour of Brundisium, and fortunately a strong

south wind carried it past Libo's galleys. But the same wind,

which thus saved the fleet, rendered it impossible for it to land

as it was directed on the coast of Apollonia, and compelled it

to sail past the camps of Caesar and Pompeius and to steer

to the north of Dyrrhachium towards Lissus, which town

fortunately still adhered to Caesar.(29) When it sailed

past the harbour of Dyrrhachium, the Rhodian galleys started

in pursuit, and hardly had the ships of Antonius entered

the port of Lissus when the enemy's squadron appeared before it.

But just at this moment the wind suddenly veered, and drove

the pursuing galleys back into the open sea and partly

on the rocky coast. Through the most marvellous good fortune

the landing of the second freight had also been successful.

Junction of Caesar's Army

Antonius and Caesar were no doubt still some four days' march

from each other, separated by Dyrrhachium and the whole army

of the enemy; but Antonius happily effected the perilous march

round about Dyrrhachium through the passes of the Graba Balkan,

and was received by Caesar, who had gone to meet him, on the right bank

of the Apsus. Pompeius, after having vainly attempted to prevent

the junction of the two armies of the enemy and to force the corps

of Antonius to fight by itself, took up a new position at Asparagium

on the river Genusus (Skumbi), which flows parallel to the Apsus

between the latter and the town of Dyrrhachium, and here remained

once more immoveable. Caesar felt himself now strong enough

to give battle; but Pompeius declined it. On the other hand Caesar

succeeded in deceiving his adversary and throwing himself unawares

with his better marching troops, just as at Ilerda, between

the enemy's camp and the fortress of Dyrrhachium on which it rested

as a basis. The chain of the Graba Balkan, which stretching

in a direction from east to west ends on the Adriatic

in the narrow tongue of land at Dyrrhachium, sends off--fourteen miles

to the east of Dyrrhachium--in a south-westerly direction a lateral

branch which likewise turns in the form of a crescent towards the sea,

and the main chain and lateral branch of the mountains enclose

between themselves a small plain extending round a cliff on the seashore.

Pompeius now took up his camp, and, although Caesar's army kept

the land route to Dyrrhachium closed against him, he yet with the aid

of his fleet remained constantly in communication with the town

and was amply and easily provided from it with everything needful;

while among the Caesarians, notwithstanding strong detachments

to the country lying behind, and notwithstanding all the exertions

of the general to bring about an organized system of conveyance

and thereby a regular supply, there was more than scarcity, and flesh,

barley, nay even roots had very frequently to take the place

of the wheat to which they were accustomed.

Caesar Invests the Camp of Pompeius

As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar

undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain

on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least

to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy

and to operate with more freedom against Dyrrhachium, and if possible

to compel his opponent either to battle or to embarkation. Nearly

the half of Caesar's troops was detached to the interior;

it seemed almost Quixotic to propose with the rest virtually

to besiege an army perhaps twice as strong, concentrated in position,

and resting on the sea and the fleet. Yet Caesar's veterans by infinite

exertions invested the Pompeian camp with a chain of posts

sixteen miles long, and afterwards added, just as before Alesia,

to this inner line a second outer one, to protect themselves

against attacks from Dyrrhachium and against attempts to turn

their position which could so easily be executed with the aid

of the fleet. Pompeius attacked more than once portions

of these entrenchments with a view to break if possible the enemy's line,

but he did not attempt to prevent the investment by a battle;

he preferred to construct in his turn a number of entrenchments

around his camp, and to connect them with one another by lines.

Both sides exerted themselves to push forward their trenches

as far as possible, and the earthworks advanced but slowly amidst

constant conflicts. At the same time skirmishing went on

on the opposite side of Caesar's camp with the garrison of Dyrrhachium;

Caesar hoped to get the fortress into his power by means

of an understanding with some of its inmates, but was prevented

by the enemy's fleet. There was incessant fighting at very different

points--on one of the hottest days at six places simultaneously--

and, as a rule, the tried valour of the Caesarians had the advantage

in these skirmishes; once, for instance, a single cohort

maintained itself in its entrenchments against four legions

for several hours, till support came up. No prominent success

was attained on either side; yet the effects of the investment came

by degrees to be oppressively felt by the Pompeians. The stopping

of the rivulets flowing from the heights into the plain compelled them

to be content with scanty and bad well-water. Still more severely felt

was the want of fodder for the beasts of burden and the horses,

which the fleet was unable adequately to remedy; numbers of them died,

and it was of but little avail that the horses were conveyed by the fleet

to Dyrrhachium, because there also they did not find sufficient fodder.

Caesar's Lines Broken

Caesar Once More Defeated

Pompeius could not much longer delay to free himself

from his disagreeable position by a blow struck against the enemy.

He was informed by Celtic deserters that the enemy had neglected

to secure the beach between his two chains of entrenchments

600 feet distant from each other by a cross-wall, and on this

he formed his plan. While he caused the inner line of Caesar's

entrenchments to be attacked by the legions from the camp,

and the outer line by the light troops placed in vessels

and landed beyond the enemy's entrenchments, a third division

landed in the space left between the two lines and attacked

in the rear their already sufficiently occupied defenders.

The entrenchment next to the sea was taken, and the garrison fled

in wild confusion; with difficulty the commander of the next trench

Marcus Antonius succeeded in maintaining it and in setting

a limit for the moment to the advance of the Pompeians; but;

apart from the considerable loss, the outermost entrenchment

along the sea remained in the hands of the Pompeians and the lin

was broken through. Caesar the more eagerly seized the opportunity,

which soon after presented itself, of attacking a Pompeian legion,

which had incautiously become isolated, with the bulk

of his infantry. But the attacked offered valiant resistance,

and, as the ground on which the fight took place had been several times

employed for the encampment of larger and lesser divisions

and was intersected in various directions by mounds and ditches,

Caesar's right wing along with the cavalry entirely missed its way;

instead of supporting the left in attacking the Pompeian legion,

it got into a narrow trench that led from one of the old camps

towards the river. So Pompeius, who came up in all haste

with five legions to the aid of his troops, found the two wings

of the enemy separated from each other, and one of them

in an utterly forlorn position. When the Caesarians saw him advance,

a panic seized them; the whole plunged into disorderly flight;

and, if the matter ended with the loss of 1000 of the best soldiers

and Caesar's army did not sustain a complete defeat, this was due

simply to the circumstance that Pompeius also could not freely

develop his force on the broken ground, and to the further fact that,

fearing a stratagem, he at first held back his troops.

Consequences of Caesar's Defeats

But, even as it was, these days were fraught with mischief.

Not only had Caesar endured the most serious losses and forfeited

at a blow his entrenchments, the result of four months of gigantic

labour; he was by the recent engagements thrown back again exactly

to the point from which he had set out. From the sea he was

more completely driven than ever, since Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus

had by a bold attack partly burnt, partly carried off, Caesar's

few ships of war lying in the port of Oricum, and had soon afterwards

also set fire to the transport fleet that was left behind in Lissus;

all possibility of bringing up fresh reinforcements to Caesar

by sea from Brundisium was thus lost. The numerous Pompeian cavalry,

now released from their confinement, poured themselves over

the adjacent country and threatened to render the provisioning

of Caesar's army, which had always been difficult, utterly impossible.

Caesar's daring enterprise of carrying on offensive operations

without ships against an enemy in command of the sea and resting

on his fleet had totally failed. On what had hitherto been

the theatre of war he found himself in presence of an impregnable

defensive position, and unable to strike a serious blow either

against Dyrrhachium or against the hostile army; on the other hand

it depended now solely on Pompeius whether he should proceed

to attack under the most favourable circumstances an antagonist

already in grave danger as to his means of subsistence. The war

had arrived at a crisis. Hitherto Pompeius had, to all appearance,

played the game of war without special plan, and only adjusted

his defence according to the exigencies of each attack; and this was

not to be censured, for the protraction of the war gave him opportunity

of making his recruits capable of fighting, of bringing up his reserves,

and of bringing more fully into play the superiority of his fleet

in the Adriatic. Caesar was beaten not merely in tactics

but also in strategy. This defeat had not, it is true,

that effect which Pompeius not without reason expected; the eminent

soldierly energy of Caesar's veterans did not allow matters

to come to an immediate and total breaking up of the army

by hunger and mutiny. But yet it seemed as if it depended solely

on his opponent by judiciously following up his victory

to reap its full fruits.

War Prospects of Pompeius

Scipio and Calvinus

It was for Pompeius to assume the aggressive; and he was resolved

to do so. Three different ways of rendering his victory fruitful

presented themselves to him. The first and simplest was not to desist

from assailing the vanquished army, and, if it departed,

to pursue it. Secondly, Pompeius might leave Caesar himself

and his best troops in Greece, and might cross in person, as he had

long been making preparations for doing, with the main army to Italy,

where the feeling was decidedly antimonarchical and the forces

of Caesar, after the despatch of the best troops and their brave

and trustworthy commandant to the Greek army, would not be

of very much moment. Lastly, the victor might turn inland,

effect a junction with the legions of Metellus Scipio, and attempt

to capture the troops of Caesar stationed in the interior.

The latter forsooth had, immediately after the arrival of the second

freight from Italy, on the one hand despatched strong detachments

to Aetolia and Thessaly to procure means of subsistence for his army,

and on the other had ordered a corps of two legions under Gnaeus

Domitius Calvinus to advance on the Egnatian highway towards Macedonia,

with the view of intercepting and if possible defeating in detail

the corps of Scipio advancing on the same road from Thessalonica.

Calvinus and Scipio had already approached within a few miles

of each other, when Scipio suddenly turned southward and, rapidly

crossing the Haliacmon (Inje Karasu) and leaving his baggage there

under Marcus Favonius, penetrated into Thessaly, in order to attack

with superior force Caesar's legion of recruits employed

in the reduction of the country under Lucius Cassius Longinus.

But Longinus retired over the mountains towards Ambracia to join

the detachment under Gnaeus Calvisius Sabinus sent by Caesar

to Aetolia, and Scipio could only cause him to be pursued

by his Thracian cavalry, for Calvinus threatened his reserve

left behind under Favonius on the Haliacmon with the same fate

which he had himself destined for Longinus. So Calvinus and Scipio

met again on the Haliacmon, and encamped there for a considerable time

opposite to each other.

Caesar's Retreat from Dyrrachium to Thessaly

Pompeius might choose among these plans; no choice was left to Caesar.

After that unfortunate engagement he entered on his retreat to Apollonia.

Pompeius followed. The march from Dyrrhachium to Apollonia

along a difficult road crossed by several rivers was no easy task

for a defeated army pursued by the enemy; but the dexterous leadership

of their general and the indestructible marching energy of the soldiers

compelled Pompeius after four days' pursuit to suspend it as useless.

He had now to decide between the Italian expedition and the march

into the interior. However advisable and attractive the former

might seem, and though various voices were raised in its favour,

he preferred not to abandon the corps of Scipio, the more especially

as he hoped by this march to get the corps of Calvinus into his hands.

Calvinus lay at the moment on the Egnatian road at Heraclea Lyncestis,

between Pompeius and Scipio, and, after Caesar had retreated

to Apollonia, farther distant from the latter than from the great army

of Pompeius; without knowledge, moreover, of the events at Dyrrhachium

and of his hazardous position, since after the successes achieved

at Dyrrhachium the whole country inclined to Pompeius and the messengers

of Caesar were everywhere seized. It was not till the enemy's

main force had approached within a few hours of him that Calvinus

learned from the accounts of the enemy's advanced posts themselves

the state of things. A quick departure in a southerly direction

towards Thessaly withdrew him at the last moment from imminent

destruction; Pompeius had to content himself with having

liberated Scipio from his position of peril. Caesar had meanwhile

arrived unmolested at Apollonia. Immediately after the disaster

of Dyrrhachium he had resolved if possible to transfer the struggle

from the coast away into the interior, with the view of getting beyond

the reach of the enemy's fleet--the ultimate cause of the failure

of his previous exertions. The march to Apollonia had only been intended

to place his wounded in safety and to pay his soldiers there,

where his depots were stationed; as soon as this was done,

he set out for Thessaly, leaving behind garrisons in Apollonia,

Oricum, and Lissus. The corps of Calvinus had also put itself

in motion towards Thessaly; and Caesar could effect a junction

with the reinforcements coming up from Italy, this time by the land-route

through Illyria--two legions under Quintus Cornificius--still more easily

in Thessaly than in Epirus. Ascending by difficult paths in the valley

of the Aous and crossing the mountain-chain which separates Epirus

from Thessaly, he arrived at the Peneius; Calvinus was likewise

directed thither, and the junction of the two armies was thus accomplished

by the shortest route and that which was least exposed to the enemy.

It took place at Aeginium not far from the source of the Peneius.

The first Thessalian town before which the now united army appeared,

Gomphi, closed its gates against it; it was quickly stormed and given up

to pillage, and the other towns of Thessaly terrified by this example

submitted, so soon as Caesar's legions merely appeared before the walls.

Amidst these marches and conflicts, and with the help of the supplies--

albeit not too ample--which the region on the Peneius afforded,

the traces and recollections of the calamitous days through which

they had passed gradually vanished.

The victories of Dyrrhachium had thus borne not much immediate fruit

for the victors. Pompeius with his unwieldy army and his numerous

cavalry had not been able to follow his versatile enemy

into the mountains; Caesar like Calvinus had escaped from pursuit,

and the two stood united and in full security in Thessaly.

Perhaps it would have been the best course, if Pompeius had now

without delay embarked with his main force for Italy, where success

was scarcely doubtful. But in the meantime only a division

of the fleet departed for Sicily and Italy. In the camp of the coalition

the contest with Caesar was looked on as so completely decided

by the battles of Dyrrhachium that it only remained to reap the fruits

of victory, in other words, to seek out and capture the defeated army.

Their former over-cautious reserve was succeeded by an arrogance

still less justified by the circumstances; they gave no heed

to the facts, that they had, strictly speaking, failed in the pursuit,

that they had to hold themselves in readiness to encounter

a completely refreshed and reorganized army in Thessaly,

and that there was no small risk in moving away from the sea,

renouncing the support of the fleet, and following their antagonist

to the battlefield chosen by himself. They were simply resolved

at any price to fight with Caesar, and therefore to get at him

as soon as possible and by the most convenient way. Cato took up

the command in Dyrrhachium, where a garrison was left behind

of eighteen cohorts, and in Corcyra, where 300 ships of war were left;

Pompeius and Scipio proceeded--the former, apparently, following

the Egnatian way as far as Pella and then striking into the great road

to the south, the latter from the Haliacmon through the passes

of Olympus--to the lower Peneius and met at Larisa.

The Armies at Pharsalus

Caesar lay to the south of Larisa in the plain--which extends

between the hill-country of Cynoscephalae and the chain of Othrys

and is intersected by a tributary of the Peneius, the Enipeus--

on the left bank of the latter stream near the town of Pharsalus;

Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank

of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae.(30)

The entire army of Pompeius was assembled; Caesar on the other hand

still expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached

to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus

in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent

after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived

in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions

or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar

in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue

and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions

did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently

not nearly the half of their normal amount. The victorious army

of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had

provisions in abundance, while the troops of Caesar had difficulty

in keeping themselves alive and only hoped for better supplies

from the corn-harvest not far distant. 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 rivulet 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 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.

The Battle

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.(31)

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 in each case by the cavalry and the light troops.

The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive,

but with his 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 engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed

the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance,

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 it 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 by the unexpected

and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed

from 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 reserved 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.

Its Issue

Flight of Pompeius

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 entrusted to him in presence

of his superior opponent and of departing,(33) 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 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

overcome, 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;

nevertheless 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 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.

The Political Effects of the Battle of Pharsalus

The East Submits

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 officiousness 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 Pompeius

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.

The Aristocracy after the Battle of Pharsalus

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 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,(34) 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 it, and a new generation, freed from those shadows of the past

and the perishing, rules over a world that has renewed its youth.

So it was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic

rule had now sunk, it had once been a great political system;

the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal

had been vanquished, continued to glow--although somewhat dimmed

and dull--in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed,

and rendered a cordial understanding between the men of the old regime

and the new monarch impossible. A 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 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,(35)

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.

Cato

No one probably formed a judgment as to the situation of affairs

with so painful a clearness, and so free from fear or hope

on his own account, as Marcus Cato. Completely convinced

that after the days of Ilerda and Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable,

and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth

and to act in accordance with it, he hesitated for a moment whether

the constitutional party ought at all to continue a war, which would

necessarily require sacrifices for a 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 a 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, it was a right and a duty

to compel the lukewarm and bad citizen to take part in the struggle;

but that now it 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:

it was Cato alone who by his moral authority prevented it.

Pompeius

Pompeius also had no desire for peace. Had he been 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.

Military Effects of the Battle

The Leaders Scattered

Thus, however much Caesar had striven by prudence and moderation

to appease the fury of his opponents and to lessen their number,

the struggle nevertheless went on without alteration. But the leading

men had almost all taken part in the fight at Pharsalus;

and, although they all 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 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

Italy

The East

Egypt

Spain

Africa

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 Dyrrhachium(36) 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 possession,

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(37)

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 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 vanquished in the west.

In Spain Pompeian sympathies were so strong among the population,

that the Caesarians had on that account to give up the attack

which they contemplated from this quarter against Africa,

and an insurrection seemed inevitable, so soon as a leader of note

should appear in the peninsula. In Africa moreover the coalition,

or rather Juba king of Numidia, who was the true regent there,

had been arming unmolested since the autumn of 705. While the whole

east was consequently lost to the 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.

Hostilities of Robbers and Pirates

That the vanquished should withdraw and renounce the new monarchy,

was at least the natural and so far the truest expression of their

desperate position. The mountains and 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,

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,(38) and their control

over the most important seas and seaports, presented the most

advantageous prospects for a naval war, especially on a small scale.

As formerly Sulla's hunting out of the democrats had ended

in the Sertorian insurrection, which was a conflict first waged

by pirates and then by robbers and ultimately became a very serious war,

so possibly, if there was in the Catonian aristocracy or among

the adherents of Pompeius as much spirit and fire as in the Marian

democracy, and if there was found among them a true sea-king,

a commonwealth independent of the monarchy of Caesar and perhaps a match

for it might arise on the still unconquered sea.

Parthian Alliance

Far more serious disapproval in every respect is due to the idea

of dragging an independent neighbouring state into the Roman civil war

and of bringing about by its means a counter-revolution;

law and conscience condemn the deserter more severely than the robber,

and a victorious band of robbers finds its way back to a free

and well-ordered commonwealth more easily than the emigrants who are

conducted back by the public foe. Besides it was scarcely probable

that the beaten party would be able to effect a restoration in this way.

The only state, from which they could attempt to seek support,

was that of the Parthians; and as to this it was at least doubtful

whether it would make their cause its own, and very improbable

that it would fight out that cause against Caesar.

The time for republican conspiracies had not yet come.

Caesar Pursues Pompeius to Egypt

While the remnant of the defeated party thus allowed themselves

to be helplessly driven about by fate, and even those

who had determined to continue the struggle knew 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 preparations were made,

hastened in pursuit of Pompeius to the east. The latter had gone

from the Pharsalian battlefield 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 country allowed him time and opportunity

to reorganize the war.

In Egypt, after the death of Ptolemaeus Auletes (May 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 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.

Death of Pompeius

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

(28 Sept. 706). On the same day, on which thirteen years before

he had entered the capital in triumph over Mithradates,(39)

the man, who for a generation had been called the Great and for years

had ruled Rome, 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 permitted 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--only 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 it, for barely once

in a thousand years does there arise among the people a man

who is a king not merely in name, but in reality. If this disproportion

between semblance and reality has never perhaps been so abruptly marked

as in Pompeius, the fact may well excite grave reflection that it was

precisely he who in a certain sense opened the series of Roman monarchs.

Arrival of Caesar

When Caesar following the track of Pompeius arrived in the roadstead

of Alexandria, all was already over. With 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 a 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; a dominion so deeply rooted does not perish

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.

Caesar Regulates Egypt

Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to do,

and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he would

immediately set sail and apply himself to the subjugation 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 accompanying 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 imposing of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared

from this; and, while the arrears of the sum stipulated for in 695(40)

and since then only about half paid were remitted, there was required

merely a final payment of 10,000,000 -denarii- (400,000 pounds).

The belligerent brother and sister were enjoined immediately

to suspend hostilities, and were invited to have their dispute

investigated and decided before the arbiter. They submitted;

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 annexation(41)--

as the appanageof the second-born of Egypt to the younger children

of Auletes, Arsinoe and Ptolemaeus the younger.

Insurrection in Alexandria

But a storm was secretly preparing. Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city

as well as Rome, hardly inferior to 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 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 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.

Caesar in Alexandria

With a presence of mind, which in some measure justifies

his earlier foolhardiness, Caesar hastily collected 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 occupied

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,

meanwhilehad 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.