Chapter X

Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus

The Resources on Either Side

Arms were thus to decide which of the two men who had hitherto

jointly ruled Rome was now to be its first sole ruler. Let us see

what were the comparative resources at the disposal of Caesar

and Pompeius for the waging of the impending war.

Caesar's Absolute Power within His Party

Caesar's power rested primarily on the wholly unlimited authority

which he enjoyed within his party. If the ideas of democracy

and of monarchy met together in it, this was not the result

of a coalition which had been accidentally entered into and might be

accidentally dissolved; on the contrary it was involved

in the very essence of a democracy without a representative constitution,

that democracy and monarchy should find in Caesar at once their highest

and ultimate expression. In political as in military matters

throughout the first and the final decision lay with Caesar.

However high the honour in which he held any serviceable instrument,

it remained an instrument still; Caesar stood, in his own party

without confederates, surrounded only by military-political

adjutants, who as a rule had risen from the army and as soldiers

were trained never to ask the reason and purpose of any thing,

but unconditionally to obey. On this account especially,

at the decisive moment when the civil war began, of all the officers

and soldiers of Caesar one alone refused him obedience;

and the circumstance that that one was precisely the foremost

of them all, serves simply to confirm this view of the relation

of Caesar to his adherents.

Labienus

Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all the troubles of the dark times

of Catilina(1) as well as all the lustre of the Gallic career of victory,

had regularly held independent command, and frequently led half the army;

as he was the oldest, ablest, and most faithful of Caesar's adjutants,

he was beyond question also highest in position and highest in honour.

As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command

in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post

into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass

for the consulship. But from this very position Labienus entered

into communication with the opposite party, resorted at the beginning

of hostilities in 705 to the headquarters of Pompeius instead of those

of Caesar, and fought through the whole civil strife with unparalleled

bitterness against his old friend and master in war. We are not

sufficiently informed either as to the character of Labienus

or as to the special circumstances of his changing sides;

but in the main his case certainly presents nothing but a further proof

of the fact, that a military chief can reckon far more surely

on his captains than on his marshals. To all appearance Labienus

was one of those persons who combine with military efficiency

utter incapacity as statesmen, and who in consequence, if they

unhappily choose or are compelled to take part in politics, are exposed

to those strange paroxysms of giddiness, of which the history

of Napoleon's marshals supplies so many tragi-comic examples.

He may probably have held himself entitled to rank alongside of Caesar

as the second chief of the democracy; and the rejection of this claim

of his may have sent him over to the camp of his opponents.

His case rendered for the first time apparent the whole gravity

of the evil, that Caesar's treatment of his officers as adjutants

without independence admitted of the rise of no men fitted to undertake

a separate command in his camp, while at the same time he stood

urgently in need of such men amidst the diffusion--which might easily

be foreseen--of the impending struggle through all the provinces

of the wide empire. But this disadvantage was far outweighed

by that unity in the supreme leadership, which was the primary condition

of all success, and a condition only to be preserved at such a cost.

Caesar's Army

This unity of leadership acquired its full power through the efficiency

of its instruments. Here the army comes, first of all, into view.

It still numbered nine legions of infantry or at the most

50,000 men, all of whom however had faced the enemy and two-thirds

had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry

consisted of German and Noric mercenaries, whose usefulness

and trustworthiness had been proved in the war against Vercingetorix.

The eight years' warfare, full of varied vicissitudes,

against the Celtic nation--which was brave, although in a military

point of view decidedly inferior to the Italian--had given Caesar

the opportunity of organizing his army as he alone knew

how to organize it. The whole efficiency of the soldier

presupposes physical vigour; in Caesar's levies more regard was had

to the strength and activity of the recruits than to their means

or their morals. But the serviceableness of an army, like that

of any other machine, depends above all on the ease and quickness

of its movements; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection

rarely reached and probably never surpassed in their readiness

for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity

of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything;

Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating

martial emulation and the esprit de corps, so that the pre-eminence

accorded to particular soldiers and divisions appeared even to those

who were postponed as the necessary hierarchy of valour.

He weaned his men from fear by not unfrequently--where it could be done

without serious danger--keeping his soldiers in ignorance

of an approaching conflict, and allowing them to encounter

the enemy unexpectedly. But obedience was on a parity with valour.

The soldier was required to do what he was bidden, without asking

the reason or the object; many an aimless fatigue was imposed on him

solely as a training in the difficult art of blind obedience.

The discipline was strict but not harassing; it was exercised

with unrelenting vigour when the soldier was in presence of the enemy;

at other times, especially after victory, the reins were relaxed,

and if an otherwise efficient soldier was then pleased to indulge

in perfumery or to deck himself with elegant arms and the like,

or even if he allowed himself to be guilty of outrages

or irregularities of a very questionable kind, provided only

his military duties were not immediately affected, the foolery

and the crime were allowed to pass, and the general lent a deaf ear

to the complaints of the provincials on such points. Mutiny

on the other hand was never pardoned, either in the instigators,

or even in the guilty corps itself.

But the true soldier ought to be not merely capable, brave,

and obedient, he ought to be all this willingly and spontaneously;

and it is the privilege of gifted natures alone to induce the animated

machine which they govern to a joyful service by means of example

and of hope, and especially by the consciousness of being turned

to befitting use. As the officer, who would demand valour

from his troops, must himself have looked danger in the face with them,

Caesar had even when general found opportunity of drawing his sword

and had then used it like the best; in activity, moreover,

and fatigue he was constantly far more exacting from himself

than from his soldiers. Caesar took care that victory, which primarily

no doubt brings gain to the general, should be associated also

with personal hopes in the minds of the soldiers. We have already

mentioned that he knew how to render his soldiers enthusiastic

for the cause of the democracy, so far as the times which had become

prosaic still admitted of enthusiasm, and that the political equalization

of the Transpadane country--the native land of most of his soldiers--

with Italy proper was set forth as one of the objects of the struggle.(2)

Of course material recompenses were at the same time not wanting--

as well special rewards for distinguished feats of arms as general

rewards for every efficient soldier; the officers had their portions,

the soldiers received presents, and the most lavish gifts were placed

in prospect for the triumph.

Above all things Caesar as a true commander understood

how to awaken in every single component element, large or small,

of the mighty machine the consciousness of its befitting application.

The ordinary man is destined for service, and he has no objection

to be an instrument, if he feels that a master guides him. Everywhere

and at all times the eagle eye of the general rested on the whole army,

rewarding and punishing with impartial justice, and directing

the action of each towards the course conducive to the good of all:

so that there was no experimenting or trifling with the sweat and blood

of the humblest, but for that very reason, where it was necessary,

unconditional devotion even to death was required. Without allowing

each individual to see into the whole springs of action,

Caesar yet allowed each to catch such glimpses of the political

and military connection of things as to secure that he should

be recognized--and it may be idealized--by the soldiers

as a statesman and a general. He treated his soldiers throughout,

not as his equals, but as men who are entitled to demand and were able

to endure the truth, and who had to put faith in the promises

and the assurances of their general, without thinking of deception

or listening to rumours; as comrades through long years in warfare

and victory, among whom there was hardly any one that was not known

to him by name and that in the course of so many campaigns

had not formed more or less of a personal relation to the general;

as good companions, with whom he talked and dealt confidentially

and with the cheerful elasticity peculiar to him; as clients,

to requite whose services, and to avenge whose wrongs and death,

constituted in his view a sacred duty. Perhaps there never was an army

which was so perfectly what an army ought to be--a machine able

for its ends and willing for its ends, in the hand of a master,

who transfers to it his own elasticity. Caesar's soldiers were,

and felt themselves, a match for a tenfold superior force;

in connection with which it should not be overlooked, that under

the Roman tactics--calculated altogether for hand-to-hand conflict

and especially for combat with the sword--the practised Roman soldier

was superior to the novice in a far higher degree than is now the case

under the circumstances of modern times.(3) But still more

than by the superiority of valour the adversaries of Caesar

felt themselves humbled by the unchangeable and touching fidelity

with which his soldiers clung to their general. It is perhaps

without a parallel in history, that when the general summoned

his soldiers to follow him into the civil war, with the single exception

already mentioned of Labienus, no Roman officer and no Roman soldier

deserted him. The hopes of his opponents as to an extensive

desertion were thwarted as ignominiously as the former attempts

to break up his army like that of Lucullus.(4) Labienus himself

appeared in the camp of Pompeius with a band doubtless of Celtic

and German horsemen but without a single legionary. Indeed

the soldiers, as if they would show that the war was quite as much

their matter as that of their general, settled among themselves

that they would give credit for the pay, which Caesar had promised

to double for them at the outbreak of the civil war, to their commander

up to its termination, and would meanwhile support their poorer comrades

from the general means; besides, every subaltern officer

equipped and paid a trooper out of his own purse.

Field of Caesar's Power

Upper Italy

While Caesar thus had the one thing which was needful--

unlimited political and military authority and a trustworthy army

ready for the fight--his power extended, comparatively speaking,

over only a very limited space. It was based essentially

on the province of Upper Italy. This region was not merely

the most populous of all the districts of Italy, but also devoted

to the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling

which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits

from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long

after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded

on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves

to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering,

and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death

with their own hands during the following night. It is easy to conceive

what might be expected of such a population. As they had already

granted to Caesar the means of more than doubling his original army,

so after the outbreak of the civil war recruits presented themselves

in great numbers for the ample levies that were immediately instituted.

Italy

In Italy proper, on the other hand, the influence of Caesar was not

even remotely to be compared to that of his opponents. Although

he had the skill by dexterous manoeuvres to put the Catonian party

in the wrong, and had sufficiently commended the rectitude

of his cause to all who wished for a pretext with a good conscience

either to remain neutral, like the majority of the senate,

or to embrace his side, like his soldiers and the Transpadanes,

the mass of the burgesses naturally did not allow themselves to be misled

by these things and, when the commandant of Gaul put his legions

in motion against Rome, they beheld--despite all formal explanations

as to law--in Cato and Pompeius the defenders of the legitimate republic,

in Caesar the democratic usurper. People in general moreover

expected from the nephew of Marius, the son-in-law of Cinna,

the ally of Catilina, a repetition of the Marian and Cinnan horrors,

a realization of the saturnalia of anarchy projected by Catilina;

and though Caesar certainly gained allies through this expectation--

so that the political refugees immediately put themselves in a body

at his disposal, the ruined men saw in him their deliverer,

and the lowest ranks of the rabble in the capital and country towns

were thrown into a ferment on the news of his advance,--these belonged

to the class of friends who are more dangerous than foes.

Provinces

In the provinces and the dependent states Caesar had

even less influence than in Italy. Transalpine Gaul indeed as far as

the Rhine and the Channel obeyed him, and the colonists of Narbo

as well as the Roman burgesses elsewhere settled in Gaul

were devoted to him; but in the Narbonese province itself

the constitutional party had numerous adherents, and now even

the newly-conquered regions were far more a burden than a benefit

to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons

he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war,

and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces

and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states

Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself support,

had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings

to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need

financial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course,

not much had been gained by this means, and the relations

with the German and Celtic princes in the regions of the Rhine

and the Danube,--particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio,

so important for the recruiting of cavalry,--were probably

the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him.

The Coalition

While Caesar thus entered the struggle only as commandant of Gaul,

without other essential resources than efficient adjutants,

a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it

as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full

possession of all the resources that stood at the disposal

of the legitimate government of the great Roman empire. But while

his position was in a political and military point of view

far more considerable, it was also on the other hand far less definite

and firm. The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself

and by necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent

with the nature of a coalition; and although Pompeius, too much

of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable,

attempted to force it on the coalition and got himself nominated

by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea,

yet the senate itself could not be set aside nor hindered

from a preponderating influence on the political, and an occasional

and therefore doubly injurious interference with the military,

superintendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war

waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius

and the constitutional party; the feeling which vividly prevailed

on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed,

that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be

a rupture between the victors; the contempt which they entertained

for each other and with only too good grounds in either case;

the inconvenient number of respectable and influential men in the ranks

of the aristocracy and the intellectual and moral inferiority

of almost all who took part in the matter--altogether produced

among the opponents of Caesar a reluctant and refractory co-operation,

which formed the saddest contrast to the harmonious and compact action

on the other side.

Field of Power of the Coalition

Juba of Numidia

While all the disadvantages incident to the coalition of powers

naturally hostile were thus felt in an unusual measure by Caesar's

antagonists, this coalition was certainly still a very considerable power.

It had exclusive command of the sea; all ports, all ships of war,

all the materials for equipping a fleet were at its disposal.

The two Spains--as it were the home of the power of Pompeius

just as the two Gauls were the home of that of Caesar--

were faithful adherents to their master and in the hands of able

and trustworthy administrators. In the other provinces also,

of course with the exception of the two Gauls, the posts

of the governors and commanders had during recent years been filled up

with safe men under the influence of Pompeius and the minority

of the senate. The client-states throughout and with great decision

took part against Caesar and in favour of Pompeius. The most important

princes and cities had been brought into the closest personal relations

with Pompeius in virtue of the different sections of his manifold

activity. In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been

the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania and had

reestablished the kingdom of the former;(5) in the Mithradatic war,

in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual

and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia,

and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia;(6)

it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken,

and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids

had been confirmed afresh.(7) Even the city of Massilia

in Caesar's own province, while indebted to the latter

doubtless for various favours, was indebted to Pompeius

at the time of the Sertorian war for a very considerable extension

of territory;(8) and, besides, the ruling oligarchy there stood

in natural alliance--strengthened by various mutual relations--

with the oligarchy in Rome. But these personal and relative

considerations as well as the glory of the victor in three continents,

which in these more remote parts of the empire far outshone

that of the conqueror of Gaul, did perhaps less harm to Caesar

in those quarters than the views and designs--which had not remained

there unknown--of the heir of Gaius Gracchus as to the necessity

of uniting the dependent states and the usefulness of provincial

colonizations. No one of the dependent dynasts found himself

more imminently threatened by this peril than Juba king

of Numidia. Not only had he years before, in the lifetime

of his father Hiempsal, fallen into a vehement personal quarrel

with Caesar, but recently the same Curio, who now occupied almost

the first place among Caesar's adjutants, had proposed to the Roman

burgesses the annexation of the Numidian kingdom. Lastly, if matters

should go so far as to lead the independent neighbouring states

to interfere in the Roman civil war, the only state really powerful,

that of the Parthians, was practically already allied

with the aristocratic party by the connection entered into

between Pacorus and Bibulus,(9) while Caesar was far too much a Roman

to league himself for party-interests with the conquerors

of his friend Crassus.

Italy against Caesar

As to Italy the great majority of the burgesses were, as has been

already mentioned, averse to Caesar--more especially, of course,

the whole aristocracy with their very considerable following,

but also in a not much less degree the great capitalists,

who could not hope in the event of a thorough reform of the commonwealth

to preserve their partisan jury-courts and their monopoly of extortion.

Of equally anti-democratic sentiments were the small capitalists,

the landholders and generally all classes that had anything to lose;

but in these ranks of life the cares of the next rent-term and of sowing

and reaping outweighed, as a rule, every other consideration.

The Pompeian Army

The army at the disposal of Pompeius consisted chiefly

of the Spanish troops, seven legions inured to war and in every respect

trustworthy; to which fell to be added the divisions of troops--

weak indeed, and very much scattered--which were to be found

in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In Italy

there were under arms at the outset only the two legions

recently given off by Caesar, whose effective strength did not amount

to more than 7000 men, and whose trustworthiness was more than doubtful,

because--levied in Cisalpine Gaul and old comrades in arms

of Caesar--they were in a high degree displeased at the unbecoming

intrigue by which they had been made to change camps,(10)

and recalled with longing their general who had magnanimously

paid to them beforehand at their departure the presents

which were promised to every soldier for the triumph.

But, apart from the circumstance that the Spanish troops might arrive

in Italy with the spring either by the land route through Gaul

or by sea, the men of the three legions still remaining

from the levies of 699,(11) as well as the Italian levy sworn

to allegiance in 702,(12) could be recalled from their furlough.

Including these, the number of troops standing at the disposal

of Pompeius on the whole, without reckoning the seven legions in Spain

and those scattered in other provinces, amounted in Italy alone

to ten legions(13) or about 60,000 men, so that it was no exaggeration

at all, when Pompeius asserted that he had only to stamp

with his foot to cover the ground with armed men. It is true

that it required some interval--though but short--to render

these soldiers available; but the arrangements for this purpose

as well as for the carrying out of the new levies ordered by the senate

in consequence of the outbreak of the civil war were already

everywhere in progress. Immediately after the decisive decree

of the senate (7 Jan. 705), in the very depth of winter

the most eminent men of the aristocracy set out to the different

districts, to hasten the calling up of recruits and the preparation

of arms. The want of cavalry was much felt, as for this arm

they had been accustomed to rely wholly on the provinces and especially

on the Celtic contingents; to make at least a beginning,

three hundred gladiators belonging to Caesar were taken

from the fencing-schools of Capua and mounted--a step which however

met with so general disapproval, that Pompeius again broke up

this troop and levied in room of it 300 horsemen from the mounted

slave-herdmen of Apulia.

The state-treasury was at a low ebb as usual; they busied themselves

in supplementing the inadequate amount of cash out of the local

treasuries and even from the temple-treasures of the -municipia-.

Caesar Takes the Offensive

Under these circumstances the war opened at the beginning

of January 705. Of troops capable of marching Caesar had not

more than a legion--5000 infantry and 300 cavalry--at Ravenna,

which was by the highway some 240 miles distant from Rome; Pompeius

had two weak legions--7000 infantry and a small squadron of cavalry--

under the orders of Appius Claudius at Luceria, from which,

likewise by the highway, the distance was just about as great

to the capital. The other troops of Caesar, leaving out of account

the raw divisions of recruits still in course of formation,

were stationed, one half on the Saone and Loire, the other half

in Belgica, while Pompeius' Italian reserves were already arriving

from all sides at their rendezvous; long before even the first

of the Transalpine divisions of Caesar could arrive in Italy,

a far superior army could not but be ready to receive it there.

It seemed folly, with a band of the strength of that of Catilina

and for the moment without any effective reserve, to assume

the aggressive against a superior and hourly-increasing army

under an able general; but it was a folly in the spirit of Hannibal.

If the beginning of the struggle were postponed till spring,

the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive

in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul,

and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him

in experience, was a formidable antagonist in such a campaign

running its regular course. Now perhaps, accustomed as he was

to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might

be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack; and that which

could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion

after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign

in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)--the suddenness of the war and the toil

of a winter campaign--could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps

consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits,

and still only in the course of formation.

Caesar's Advance

Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy.(15) Two highways led

at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian

which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome,

and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast

of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running

westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward

to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia. On the former Marcus Antonius

advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself

pushed forward. Resistance was nowhere encountered; the recruiting

officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits

were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious

not to be involved in a siege. When Curio with 1500 men

approached Iguvium, where a couple of thousand Umbrian recruits

had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus,

general and soldiers took to flight at the bare tidings of his approach;

and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued.

Rome Evacuated

Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome, from which

his cavalry at Arretium were already only about 130 miles distant,

or against the legions encamped at Luceria. He chose the latter plan.

The consternation of the opposite party was boundless.

Pompeius received the news of Caesar's advance at Rome; he seemed

at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings

arrived of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory

and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered

its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar's

cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality.

The senators, who had been informed that every one who should

remain behind in the capital would be treated as an accomplice

of the rebel Caesar, flocked in crowds out at the gates.

The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they

did not even secure the treasure; when Pompeius called upon them

to fetch it, for which there was sufficient time, they returned

the reply that they would deem it safer, if he should first

occupy Picenum. All was perplexity; consequently a great council of war

was held in Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan.), at which Pompeius, Labienus,

and both consuls were present. First of all proposals of accommodation

from Caesar were again submitted; even now he declared himself

ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces

to the successors nominated, and to become a candidate

in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius

were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed.

The answer was, that if Caesar would immediately return to his province,

they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy

and the departure of Pompeius by a decree of the senate

to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply

was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance

of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite.

The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius

the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not

by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more

the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Concerning

the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius

should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria,

on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended;

that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus'

native country, Picenum; that he should personally call

the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five

years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful

Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar

to set a limit to the advance of the enemy.

Conflicts in Picenum

Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out

until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar

with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road

by way of Ancona. Here too the preparations were in full course;

in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band

of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty

of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar

appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop

not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict--

the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards

Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum,

and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum. The men,

thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned

their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier;

but the district itself was already lost, when the officer

sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence,

Lucius Vibullius Rufus--no genteel senator, but a soldier

experienced in war--arrived there; he had to content himself

with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved

away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them

for the time to the nearest rendezvous.

Corfinium Besieged

And Captured

This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian,

Marsian and Paelignian territories; the body of recruits here assembled,

of nearly 15,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike

and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army

in course of formation for the constitutional party. When Vibullius

arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind;

there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably

to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits

along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia.

But the commandant in Corfinium was the designated successor to Caesar

in the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius,

one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy;

and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius,

but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men

from Picenum for Apulia. So firmly was he persuaded that Pompeius

only delayed from obstinacy and must necessarily come up to his relief,

that he scarcely made any serious preparations for a siege

and did not even gather into Corfinium the bands of recruits

placed in the surrounding towns. Pompeius however did not appear,

and for good reasons; for, while he might perhaps apply

his two untrustworthy legions as a reserved support for the Picenian

general levy, he could not with them alone offer battle to Caesar.

Instead of him after a few days Caesar came (14 Feb.). His troops

had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and before Corfinium

by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these,

three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men

that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily,

partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere;

so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head

of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service. So long as

Domitius hoped for the arrival of Pompeius, he caused the town

to be defended; when the letters of Pompeius had at length undeceived him,

he resolved, not forsooth to persevere at the forlorn post--

by which he would have rendered the greatest service to his party--

nor even to capitulate, but, while the common soldiers

were informed that relief was close at hand, to make his own escape

along with his officers of quality during the next night.

Yet he had not the judgment to carry into effect even this pretty scheme.

The confusion of his behaviour betrayed him. A part of the men

began to mutiny; the Marsian recruits, who held such an infamy

on the part of their general to be impossible, wished to fight

against the mutineers; but they too were obliged reluctantly

to believe the truth of the accusation, whereupon the whole garrison

arrested their staff and handed it, themselves, and the town

over to Caesar (20 Feb.). The corps in Alba, 3000 strong,

and 1500 recruits assembled in Tarracina thereupon laid down

their arms, as soon as Caesar's patrols of horsemen appeared;

a third division in Sulmo of 3500 men had been previously

compelled to surrender.

Pompeius Goes to Brundisium

Embarkation for Greece

Pompeius had given up Italy as lost, so soon as Caesar

had occupied Picenum; only he wished to delay his embarkation

as long as possible, with the view of saving so much of his force

as could still be saved. Accordingly he had slowly put himself

in motion for the nearest seaport Brundisium. Thither came

the two legions of Luceria and such recruits as Pompeius

had been able hastily to collect in the deserted Apulia,

as well as the troops raised by the consuls and other commissioners

in Campania and conducted in all haste to Brundisium;

thither too resorted a number of political fugitives,

including the most respected of the senators accompanied

by their families. The embarkation began; but the vessels at hand

did not suffice to transport all at once the whole multitude,

which still amounted to 25,000 persons. No course remained

but to divide the army. The larger half went first (4 March);

with the smaller division of some 10,000 men Pompeius

awaited at Brundisium the return of the fleet; for, however desirable

the possession of Brundisium might be for an eventual attempt

to reoccupy Italy, they did not presume to hold the place

permanently against Caesar. Meanwhile Caesar arrived

before Brundisium; the siege began. Caesar attempted first of all

to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and floating bridges,

with a view to exclude the returning fleet; but Pompeius

caused the trading vessels lying in the harbour to be armed,

and managed to prevent the complete closing of the harbour

until the fleet appeared and the troops--whom Pompeius

with great dexterity, in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers

and the hostile feeling of the inhabitants, withdrew from the town

to the last man unharmed--were carried off beyond Caesar's reach

to Greece (17 March). The further pursuit, like the siege itself,

failed for want of a fleet.

In a campaign of two months, without a single serious engagement,

Caesar had so broken up an army of ten legions, that less than

the half of it had with great difficulty escaped in a confused flight

across the sea, and the whole Italian peninsula, including the capital

with the state-chest and all the stores accumulated there,

had fallen into the power of the victor. Not without reason

did the beaten party bewail the terrible rapidity, sagacity,

and energy of the "monster."

Military and Financial Results of the Seizure of Italy

But it may be questioned whether Caesar gained or lost more

by the conquest of Italy. In a military respect, no doubt,

very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn

from his opponents, but rendered available for himself;

even in the spring of 705 his army embraced, in consequence

of the levies en masse instituted everywhere, a considerable

number of legions of recruits in addition to the nine old ones

But on the other hand it now became necessary not merely

to leave behind a considerable garrison in Italy, but also

to take measures against the closing of the transmarine traffic

contemplated by his opponents who commanded the sea, and against

the famine with which the capital was consequently threatened;

whereby Caesar's already sufficiently complicated military task

was complicated further still. Financially it was certainly

of importance, that Caesar had the good fortune to obtain

possession of the stock of money in the capital; but the principal

sources of income and particularly the revenues from the east

were withal in the hands of the enemy, and, in consequence

of the greatly increased demands for the army and the new obligation

to provide for the starving population of the capital,

the considerable sums which were found quickly melted away.

Caesar soon found himself compelled to appeal to private credit,

and, as it seemed that he could not possibly gain any long respite

by this means, extensive confiscations were generally anticipated

as the only remaining expedient.

Its Political Results

Fear of Anarchy

More serious difficulties still were created by the political relations

amidst which Caesar found himself placed on the conquest of Italy.

The apprehension of an anarchical revolution was universal

among the propertied classes. Friends and foes saw in Caesar

a second Catilina; Pompeius believed or affected to believe

that Caesar had been driven to civil war merely by the impossibility

of paying his debts. This was certainly absurd; but in fact Caesar's

antecedents were anything but reassuring, and still less reassuring

was the aspect of the retinue that now surrounded him.

Individuals of the most broken reputation, notorious personages

like Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Curio, Marcus Antonius,--

the latter the stepson of the Catilinarian Lentulus who was executed

by the orders of Cicero--were the most prominent actors in it;

the highest posts of trust were bestowed on men who had long ceased

even to reckon up their debts; people saw men who held office

under Caesar not merely keeping dancing-girls--which was done

by others also--but appearing publicly in company with them.

Was there any wonder, that even grave and politically impartial men

expected amnesty for all exiled criminals, cancelling

of creditors' claims, comprehensive mandates of confiscation,

proscription, and murder, nay, even a plundering of Rome

by the Gallic soldiery?

Dispelled by Caesar

But in this respect the "monster" deceived the expectations

of his foes as well as of his friends. As soon even as Caesar occupied

the first Italian town, Ariminum, he prohibited all common soldiers

from appearing armed within the walls; the country towns

were protected from all injury throughout and without distinction,

whether they had given him a friendly or hostile reception.

When the mutinous garrison surrendered Corfinium late in the evening,

he in the face of every military consideration postponed

the occupation of the town till the following morning, solely

that he might not abandon the burgesses to the nocturnal invasion

of his exasperated soldiers. Of the prisoners the common soldiers,

as presumably indifferent to politics, were incorporated

with his own army, while the officers were not merely spared,

but also freely released without distinction of person and without

the exaction of any promises whatever; and all which they claimed

as private property was frankly given up to them, without even

investigating with any strictness the warrant for their claims.

Lucius Domitius himself was thus treated, and even Labienus had the money

and baggage which he had left behind sent after him to the enemy's camp.

In the most painful financial embarrassment the immense estates

of his opponents whether present or absent were not assailed; indeed

Caesar preferred to borrow from friends, rather than that he should

stir up the possessors of property against him even by exacting

the formally admissible, but practically antiquated, land tax.(17)

The victor regarded only the half, and that not the more difficult half,

of his task as solved with the victory; he saw the security

for its duration, according to his own expression, only

in the unconditional pardon of the vanquished, and had accordingly

during the whole march from Ravenna to Brundisium incessantly

renewed his efforts to bring about a personal conference

with Pompeius and a tolerable accommodation.

Threats of the Emigrants

The Mass of Quiet People Gained for Caesar

But, if the aristocracy had previously refused to listen

to any reconciliation, the unexpected emigration of a kind

so disgraceful had raised their wrath to madness, and the wild vengeance

breathed by the beaten contrasted strangely with the placability

of the victor. The communications regularly coming from the camp

of the emigrants to their friends left behind in Italy

were full of projects for confiscations and proscriptions,

of plans for purifying the senate and the state, compared with which

the restoration of Sulla was child's play, and which even

the moderate men of their own party heard with horror.

The frantic passion of impotence, the wise moderation of power,

produced their effect. The whole mass, in whose eyes material interests

were superior to political, threw itself into the arms of Caesar.

The country towns idolized "the uprightness, the moderation,

the prudence" of the victor; and even opponents conceded

that these demonstrations of respect were meant in earnest.

The great capitalists, farmers of the taxes, and jurymen,

showed no special desire, after the severe shipwreck

which had befallen the constitutional party in Italy,

to entrust themselves farther to the same pilots; capital came

once more to the light, and "the rich lords resorted again to their

daily task of writing their rent-rolls." Even the great majority

of the senate, at least numerically speaking--for certainly but few

of the nobler and more influential members of the senate

were included in it--had notwithstanding the orders of Pompeius

and of the consuls remained behind in Italy, and a portion of them

even in the capital itself; and they acquiesced in Caesar's rule.

The moderation of Caesar, well calculated even in its very semblance

of excess, attained its object: the trembling anxiety of the propertied

classes as to the impending anarchy was in some measure allayed.

This was doubtless an incalculable gain for the future;

the prevention of anarchy, and of the scarcely less dangerous alarm

of anarchy, was the indispensable preliminary condition

to the future reorganization of the commonwealth.

Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar

The Republican Party in Italy

But at the moment this moderation was more dangerous for Caesar

than the renewal of the Cinnan and Catilinarian fury would have been;

it did not convert enemies into friends, and it converted

friends into enemies. Caesar's Catilinarian adherents

were indignant that murder and pillage remained in abeyance;

these audacious and desperate personages, some of whom

were men of talent, might be expected to prove cross and untractable.

The republicans of all shades, on the other hand, were neither

converted nor propitiated by the leniency of the conqueror.

According to the creed of the Catonian party, duty towards

what they called their fatherland absolved them from every

other consideration; even one who owed freedom and life to Caesar

remained entitled and in duty bound to take up arms or at least

to engage in plots against him. The less decided sections

of the constitutional party were no doubt found willing to accept peace

and protection from the new monarch; nevertheless they ceased not

to curse the monarchy and the monarch at heart. The more clearly

the change of the constitution became manifest, the more distinctly

the great majority of the burgesses--both in the capital with its

keener susceptibility of political excitement, and among

the more energetic population of the country and country towns--

awoke to a consciousness of their republican sentiments; so far

the friends of the constitution in Rome reported with truth

to their brethren of kindred views in exile, that at home all classes

and all persons were friendly to Pompeius. The discontented temper

of all these circles was further increased by the moral pressure,

which the more decided and more notable men who shared such views

exercised from their very position as emigrants over the multitude

of the humbler and more lukewarm. The conscience of the honourable man

smote him in regard to his remaining in Italy; the half-aristocrat

fancied that he was ranked among the plebeians, if he did not go

into exile with the Domitii and the Metelli, and even if he took his seat

in the Caesarian senate of nobodies. The victor's special clemency

gave to this silent opposition increased political importance;

seeing that Caesar abstained from terrorism, it seemed as if

his secret opponents could display their disinclination

to his rule without much danger.

Passive Resistance of the Senate to Caesar

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