THIRD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR.--CÆSAR FOLLOWS POMPEY INTO
ILLYRIA.--THE LINES OF PETRA AND THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.--B.C. 48.
Cæsar begins the last book of his last Commentary by telling us that
this was the year in which he, Cæsar, was by the law permitted to name a
consul. He names Publius Servilius to act in conjunction with himself.
The meaning of this is, that, as Cæsar had been created Dictator, Pompey
having taken with him into Illyria the consuls of the previous year,
Cæsar was now the only magistrate under whose authority a consul could
be elected. No doubt he did choose the man, but the election was
supposed to have been made in accordance with the forms of the Republic.
He remained at Rome as Dictator for eleven days, during which he made
various laws, of which the chief object was to lessen the insecurity
caused by the disruption of the ordinary course of things; and then he
went down to Brindisi on the track of Pompey. He had twelve legions with
him, but was but badly off for ships in which to transport them; and he
owns that the health of the men is bad, an autumn in the south of Italy
having been very severe on men accustomed to the healthy climate of
Gaul and the north of Spain. Pompey, he tells us, had had a whole year
to prepare his army,--a whole year, without warfare, and had collected
men and ships and money, and all that support which assent gives, from
Asia and the Cyclades, from Corcyra, Athens, Bithynia, Cilicia,
Phœnicia, Egypt, and the free states of Achaia. He had with him nine
Roman legions, and is expecting two more with his father-in-law Scipio
out of Syria. He has three thousand archers from Crete, from Sparta, and
from Pontus; he has twelve hundred slingers, and he has seven thousand
cavalry from Galatia, Cappadocia, and Thrace. A valorous prince from
Macedonia had brought him two hundred men, all mounted. Five hundred of
Galatian and German cavalry, who had been left to overawe Ptolemy in
Egypt, are brought to Pompey by the filial care of young Cnæus. He too
had armed eight hundred of their own family retainers, and had brought
them armed. Antiochus of Commagena sends him two hundred mounted
archers,--mercenaries, however, not sent without promise of high
payment. Dardani,--men from the land of old Troy, Bessi, from the banks
of the Hebrus, Thessalians and Macedonians, have all been crowded
together under Pompey’s standard. We feel that Cæsar’s mouth waters as
he recounts them. But we feel also that he is preparing for the
triumphant record in which he is about to tell us that all these swarms
did he scatter to the winds of heaven with the handful of Roman
legionaries which he at last succeeded in landing on the shores of
Illyria.
Pompey has also collected from all parts “frumenti vim maximam”--“a
great power of corn indeed,” as an Irishman would say, translating the
words literally. And he has covered the seas with his ships, so as to
hinder Cæsar from coming out of Italy. He has eight vice-admirals to
command his various fleets,--all of whom Cæsar names; and over them all,
as admiral-in-chief, is Bibulus, who was joint-consul with Cæsar before
Cæsar went to Gaul, and who was so harassed during his consulship by the
Cæsareans that he shut himself up in his house, and allowed Cæsar to
rule as sole consul. Now he is about to take his revenge; but the
vengeance of such a one as Bibulus cannot reach Cæsar.
Cæsar having led his legions to Brindisi, makes them a speech which
almost beats in impudence anything that he ever said or did. He tells
them that as they have now nearly finished all his work for him;--they
have only got to lay low the Republic with Pompey the Great, and all the
forces of the Republic--to which, however, have to be added King Ptolemy
in Egypt, King Pharnaces in Asia, and King Juba in Numidia;--they had
better leave behind them at Brindisi all their little property, the
spoils of former wars, so that they may pack the tighter in the boats in
which he means to send them across to Illyria,--if only they can escape
the mercies of ex-Consul Admiral Bibulus. There is no suggestion that at
any future time they will recover their property. For their future hopes
they are to trust entirely to Cæsar’s generosity. With one shout they
declare their readiness to obey him. He takes over seven legions,
escaping the dangers of those “rocks of evil fame,” the Acroceraunia of
which Horace tells us,--and escaping Bibulus also, who seems to have
shut himself up in his ship as he did before in his house during the
consulship. Cæsar seems to have made the passage with the conviction
that had he fallen into the hands of Bibulus everything would have been
lost. And with ordinary precaution and diligence on the part of Bibulus
such would have been the result. Yet he makes the attempt,--trusting to
the Fortune of Cæsar,--and he succeeds. He lands at a place which he
calls Palæste on the coast of Epirus, considerably to the south of
Dyrrachium, in Illyria. At Dyrrachium Pompey had landed the year before,
and there is now stored that wealth of provision of which Cæsar has
spoken. But Bibulus at last determines to be active, and he does manage
to fall upon the empty vessels which Cæsar sends back to fetch the
remainder of his army. “Having come upon thirty of them, he falls upon
them with all the wrath occasioned by his own want of circumspection and
grief, and burns them. And in the same fire he kills the sailors and the
masters of the vessels,--hoping to deter others,” Cæsar tells us, “by
the severity of the punishment.” After that we are not sorry to hear
that he potters about on the seas very busy, but still incapable, and
that he dies, as it seems, of a broken heart. He does indeed catch one
ship afterwards,--not laden with soldiers, but coming on a private
venture, with children, servants, and suchlike, dependants and followers
of Cæsar’s camp. All these, including the children, Bibulus slaughters,
down to the smallest child. We have, however, to remember that the
story is told by Cæsar, and that Cæsar did not love Bibulus.
Marc Antony has been left at Brindisi in command of the legions which
Cæsar could not bring across at his first trip for want of sufficient
ship-room, and is pressed very much by Cæsar to make the passage. There
are attempts at treaties made, but as we read the account we feel that
Cæsar is only obtaining the delay which is necessary to him till he
shall have been joined by Antony. We are told how by this time the camps
of Cæsar and Pompey have been brought so near together that they are
separated only by the river Apsus,--for Cæsar had moved northwards
towards Pompey’s stronghold. And the soldiers talked together across the
stream; “nor, the while, was any weapon thrown,--by compact between
those who talked.” Then Cæsar sends Vatinius, as his ambassador, down to
the river to talk of peace; and Vatinius demands with a loud voice
“whether it should not be allowed to citizens to send legates to
citizens, to treat of peace;--a thing that has been allowed even to
deserters from the wilds of the Pyrenees and to robbers,--especially
with so excellent an object as that of hindering citizens from fighting
with citizens.” This seems so reasonable, that a day is named, and
Labienus,--who has deserted from Cæsar and become Pompeian,--comes to
treat on one side of the river, and Vatinius on the other. But,--so
Cæsar tells the story himself,--the Cæsarean soldiers throw their
weapons at their old general. They probably cannot endure the voice or
sight of one whom they regard as a renegade. Labienus escapes under the
protection of those who are with him,--but he is full of wrath against
Cæsar. “After this,” says he, “let us cease to speak of treaties, for
there can be no peace for us till Cæsar’s head has been brought to us.”
But the colloquies over the little stream no doubt answered Cæsar’s
purpose.
Cæsar is very anxious to get his legions over from Italy, and even
scolds Antony for not bringing them. There is a story,--which he does
not tell himself,--that he put himself into a small boat, intending to
cross over to Brindisi in a storm, to hurry matters, and that he
encouraged the awe-struck master of the boat by reminding him that he
would carry “Cæsar and his fortunes.” The story goes on to say that the
sailors attempted the trip, but were driven back by the tempest.
At last there springs up a south-west wind, and Antony ventures with his
flotilla,--although the war-ships of Pompey still hold the sea, and
guard the Illyrian coast. But Cæsar’s general is successful, and the
second half of the Cæsarean army is carried northward by favouring
breezes towards the shore in the very sight of Pompey and his soldiers
at Dyrrachium. Two ships, however, lag behind and fall into the hands of
one Otacilius, an officer belonging to Pompey. The two ships, one full
of recruits and the other of veterans, agree to surrender, Otacilius
having sworn that he will not hurt the men. “Here you may see,” says
Cæsar, “how much safety to men there is in presence of mind.” The
recruits do as they have undertaken, and give themselves up;--whereupon
Otacilius, altogether disregarding his oath, like a true Roman, kills
every man of them. But the veterans, disregarding their word also, and
knowing no doubt to a fraction the worth of the word of Otacilius, run
their ship ashore in the night, and, with much fighting, get safe to
Antony. Cæsar implies that the recruits even would have known better had
they not been sea-sick; but that even bilge-water and bad weather
combined had failed to touch the ancient courage of the veteran
legionaries. They were still good men--“item conflictati et tempestatis
et sentinæ vitiis.”
We are then told how Metellus Scipio, coming out of Syria with his
legions into Macedonia, almost succeeds in robbing the temple of Diana
of Ephesus on his way. He gets together a body of senators, who are to
give evidence that he counts the money fairly as he takes it out of the
temple. But letters come from Pompey just as he is in the act, and he
does not dare to delay his journey even to complete so pleasant a
transaction. He comes to meet Pompey and to share his command at the
great battle that must soon be fought. We hear, too, how Cæsar sends his
lieutenants into Thessaly and Ætolia and Macedonia, to try what friends
he has there, to take cities, and to get food. He is now in a land which
has seemed specially to belong to Pompey; but even here they have heard
of Cæsar, and the Greeks are simply anxious to be friends with the
strongest Roman of the day. They have to judge which will win, and to
adhere to him. For the poor Greeks there is much difficulty in forming a
judgment. Presently we shall see the way in which Cæsar gives a lesson
on that subject to the citizens of Gomphi. In the mean time he joins his
own forces to those lately brought by Antony out of Italy, and resolves
that he will force Pompey to a fight.
We may divide the remainder of this last book of the second Commentary
into two episodes,--the first being the story of what occurred within
the lines at Petra, and the second the account of the crowning battle of
Pharsalia. In the first Pompey was the victor,--but the victory, great
as it was, has won from the world very little notice. In the second, as
all the world knows, Cæsar was triumphant and henceforward dominant. And
yet the affair at Petra should have made a Pharsalia unnecessary, and
indeed impossible. Two reasons have conspired to make Pompey’s complete
success at Petra unimportant in the world’s esteem. This Commentary was
written not by Pompey but by Cæsar; and then, unfortunately for Pompey,
Pharsalia was allowed to follow Petra.
It is not very easy to unravel Cæsar’s story of the doings of the two
armies at Petra. Nor, were this ever so easy, would our limits or the
purport of this little volume allow us to attempt to give that narrative
in full to our readers. Cæsar had managed to join the legions which he
had himself brought from Italy with those which had crossed afterwards
with Antony, and was now anxious for a battle. His men, though fewer in
number than they who followed Pompey, were fit for fighting, and knew
all the work of soldiering. Pompey’s men were for the most part
beginners;--but they were learning, and every week added to their
experience was a week in Pompey’s favour. With hope of forcing a battle,
Cæsar managed to get his army between Dyrrachium, in which were kept all
Pompey’s stores and wealth of war, and the army of his opponent, so that
Pompey, as regarded any approach by land, was shut off from Dyrrachium.
But the sea was open to him. His fleet was everywhere on the coast,
while Cæsar had not a ship that could dare to show its bow upon the
waters.
There was a steep rocky promontory some few miles north of Dyrrachium,
from whence there was easy access to the sea, called Petra, or the rock.
At this point Pompey could touch the sea, but between Petra and
Dyrrachium Cæsar held the country. Here, on this rock, taking in for the
use of his army a certain somewhat wide amount of pasturage at the foot
of the rock, Pompey placed his army, and made intrenchments all round
from sea to sea, fortifying himself, as all Roman generals knew how to
do, with a bank and ditch and twenty-four turrets and earthworks that
would make the place absolutely impregnable. The length of his lines was
fifteen Roman miles,--more than thirteen English miles,--so that within
his works he might have as much space as possible to give him grass for
his horses. So placed, he had all the world at his back to feed him. Not
only could he get at that wealth of stores which he had amassed at
Dyrrachium, and which were safe from Cæsar, but the coasts of Greece,
and Asia, and Egypt were open to his ships. Two things only were wanting
to him,--sufficient grass for his horses, and water. But all things
were wanting to Cæsar,--except grass and water. The Illyrian country at
his back was one so unproductive, being rough and mountainous, that the
inhabitants themselves were in ordinary times fed upon imported corn.
And Pompey, foreseeing something of what might happen, had taken care to
empty the storehouses and to leave the towns behind him destitute and
impoverished.
Nevertheless Cæsar, having got the body of his enemy, as it were,
imprisoned at Petra, was determined to keep his prisoner fast. So round
and in front of Pompey’s lines he also made other lines, from sea to
sea. He began by erecting turrets and placing small detachments on the
little hills outside Pompey’s lines, so as to prevent his enemy from
getting the grass. Then he joined these towers by lines, and in this way
surrounded the other lines,--thinking that so Pompey would not be able
to send out his horsemen for forage; and again, that the horses inside
at Petra might gradually be starved; and again “that the
reputation,”--“auctoritatem,”--“which in the estimation of foreign
nations belonged chiefly to Pompey in this war, would be lessened when
the story should have been told over the world that Pompey had been
besieged by Cæsar, and did not dare to fight.”
We are, perhaps, too much disposed to think,--reading our history
somewhat cursorily,--that Cæsar at this time was everybody, and that
Pompey was hardly worthy to be his foe. Such passages in the Commentary
as that above translated,--they are not many, but a few suffice,--show
that this idea is erroneous. Up to this period in their joint courses
Pompey had been the greater man; Cæsar had done very much, but Pompey
had done more--and now he had on his side almost all that was wealthy
and respectable in Rome. He led the Conservative party, and was still
confident that he had only to bide his time, and that Cæsar must fall
before him. Cæsar and the Cæsareans were to him as the spirits of the
Revolution were in France to Louis XVI., to Charles X., and to
Louis-Philippe, before they had made their powers credible and
formidable; as the Reform Bill and Catholic Emancipation were to such
men as George IV. and Lord Eldon, while yet they could be opposed and
postponed. It was impossible to Pompey that the sweepings of Rome, even
with Cæsar and Cæsar’s army to help them, should at last prevail over
himself and over the Roman Senate. “He was said at that time,” we are
again translating Cæsar’s words, “to have declared with boasts among his
own people, that he would not himself deny that as a general he should
be considered to be worthless if Cæsar’s legions should now extricate
themselves from the position in which they had rashly entangled
themselves without very great loss”--“maximo detrimento”--loss that
should amount wellnigh to destruction. And he was all but right in what
he said.
There was a great deal of fighting for the plots of grass and different
bits of vantage-ground,--fighting which must have taken place almost
entirely between the two lines. But Cæsar suffered under this
disadvantage, that his works, being much the longest, required the
greatest number of men to erect them and prolong them and keep them in
order; whereas Pompey, who in this respect had the least to do, having
the inner line, was provided with much the greater number of men to do
it. Cæsar’s men, being veterans, had always the advantage in the actual
fighting; but in the mean time Pompey’s untried soldiers were obtaining
that experience which was so much needed by them. Nevertheless Pompey
suffered very much. They could not get water on the rock, and when he
attempted to sink wells, Cæsar so perverted the water-courses that the
wells gave no water. Cæsar tells us that he even dammed up the streams,
making little lakes to hold it, so that it should not trickle down in
its underground courses to the comfort of his enemies; but we should
have thought that any reservoirs so made must soon have overflown
themselves, and have been useless for the intended purpose. In the mean
time Cæsar’s men had no bread but what was made of a certain wild
cabbage,--“chara,”--which grew there, which they kneaded up with milk,
and lived upon it cheerfully, though it was not very palatable. To show
the Pompeians the sort of fare with which real veterans could be content
to break their fasts, they threw loaves of this composition across the
lines; for they were close together, and could talk to each other, and
the Pompeians did not hesitate to twit their enemies with their want of
provisions. But the Cæsareans had plenty of water,--and plenty of meat;
and they assure Cæsar that they would rather eat the bark off the trees
than allow the Pompeians to escape them.
But there was always this for Cæsar to fear,--that Pompey should land a
detachment behind his lines and attack him at the back. To hinder this
Cæsar made another intrenchment, with ditch and bank, running at right
angles from the shore, and was intending to join this to his main work
by a transverse line of fortifications running along that short portion
of the coast which lay between his first lines and the second, when
there came upon him the disaster which nearly destroyed him. While he
was digging his trenches and building his turrets the fighting was so
frequent that, as Cæsar tells us, on one day there were six battles.
Pompey lost two thousand legionaries, while Cæsar lost no more than
twenty; but every Cæsarean engaged in a certain turret was wounded, and
four officers lost their eyes. Cæsar estimates that thirty thousand
arrows were thrown upon the men defending this tower, and tells us of
one Scæva, an officer, who had two hundred and thirty holes made by
these arrows in his own shield.[12] We can only surmise that it must
have been a very big shield, and that there must have been much trouble
in counting the holes. Cæsar, however, was so much pleased that he gave
Scæva a large sum of money,--something over £500, and, allowing him to
skip over six intermediate ranks, made him at once first centurion--or
Primipilus of the legion. We remember no other record of such quick
promotion--in prose. There is, indeed, the well-known case of a common
sailor who did a gallant action and was made first-lieutenant on the
spot; but that is told in verse, and the common sailor was a lady.
Two perfidious Gauls to whom Cæsar had been very kind, but whom he had
been obliged to check on account of certain gross peculations of which
they had been guilty, though, as he tells us, he had not time to punish
them, went over to Pompey, and told Pompey all the secrets of Cæsar’s
ditches, and forts, and mounds,--finished and unfinished. Before that,
Cæsar assures us, not a single man of his had gone over to the enemy,
though many of the enemy had come to him. But those perfidious Gauls did
a world of mischief. Pompey, hearing how far Cæsar was from having his
works along the sea-shore finished, got together a huge fleet of boats,
and succeeded at night in throwing a large body of his men ashore
between Cæsar’s two lines, thus dividing Cæsar’s forces, and coming upon
them in their weakest point. Cæsar admits that there was a panic in his
lines, and that the slaughter of his men was very great. It seems that
the very size of his own works produced the ruin which befel them, for
the different parts of them were divided one from another, so that the
men in one position could not succour those in another. The affair ended
in the total rout of the Cæsarean army. Cæsar actually fled, and had
Pompey followed him we must suppose that then there would have been an
end of Cæsar. He acknowledges that in the two battles fought on that day
he lost 960 legionaries, 32 officers, and 32 standards.
And then Cæsar tells us a story of Labienus, who had been his most
trusted lieutenant in the Gallic wars, but who had now gone over to
Pompey, not choosing to fight against the Republic. Labienus demanded of
Pompey the Cæsarean captives, and caused them all to be slaughtered,
asking them with scorn whether veterans such as they were accustomed to
run away. Cæsar is very angry with Labienus; but Labienus might have
defended himself by saying that the slaughter of prisoners of war was a
custom he had learned in Gaul. As for those words of scorn, Cæsar could
hardly have heard them with his own ears, and we can understand that he
should take delight in saying a hard thing of Labienus.
Pompey was at once proclaimed Imperator. And Pompey used the name,
though the victory had, alas! been gained over his fellow-countrymen.
“So great was the effect of all this on the spirits and confidence of
the Pompeians, that they thought no more of the carrying on of the war,
but only of the victory they had gained.” And then Cæsar throws scorn
upon the Pompeians, making his own apology in the same words. “They did
not care to remember that the small number of our soldiers was the cause
of their triumph, or that the unevenness of the ground and narrowness of
the defiles had aught to do with it; or the occupation of our lines, and
the panic of our men between their double fortifications; or our army
cut into two parts, so that one part could not help the other. Nor did
they add to this the fact that our men, pressed as they were, could not
engage themselves in a fair conflict, and that they indeed suffered more
from their own numbers, and from the narrowness of the ravines, than
from the enemy. Nor were the ordinary chances of war brought to
mind,--how small matters, such as some unfounded suspicion, a sudden
panic, a remembered superstition, may create great misfortune; nor how
often the fault of a general, or the mistake of an officer, may bring
injury upon an army. But they spread abroad the report of the victory of
that day throughout all the world, sending forth letters and tales as
though they had conquered solely by their own valour, nor was it
possible that there should after this be a reverse of their
circumstances.” Such was the affair of Petra, by which the relative
position in the world-history of Cæsar and Pompey was very nearly made
the reverse of what it is.
Cæsar now acknowledges that he is driven to change the whole plan of his
campaign. He addresses a speech to his men, and explains to them that
this defeat, like that at Gergovia, may lead to their future success.
The victory at Alesia had sprung from the defeat of Gergovia, because
the Gauls had been induced to fight; and from the reverses endured
within the lines of Petra might come the same fortune;--for surely now
the army of Pompey would not fear a battle. Some few officers he
punishes and degrades. His own words respecting his army after their
defeat are very touching. “So great a grief had come from this disaster
upon the whole army, and so strong a desire of repairing its disgrace,
that no one now desired the place of tribune or centurion in his legion;
and all, by way of self-imposed punishment, subjected themselves to
increased toil; and every man burned with a desire to fight. Some from
the higher ranks were so stirred by Cæsar’s speech, that they thought
that they should stand their ground where they were, and fight where
they stood.” But Cæsar was too good a general for that. He moves on
towards the south-east, and in retreating gets the better of Pompey, who
follows him with only half a heart. After a short while Pompey gives up
the pursuit. His father-in-law, Scipio, has brought a great army from
the east, and is in Thessaly. As we read this we cannot fail to remember
how short a time since it was that Cæsar himself was Pompey’s
father-in-law, and that Pompey was Cæsar’s friend because, with too
uxorious a love, he clung to Julia, his young wife. Pompey now goes
eastward to unite his army to that of Scipio; and Cæsar, making his way
also into Thessaly by a more southern route, joins certain forces under
his lieutenant Calvinus, who had been watching Scipio, and who barely
escaped falling into Pompey’s hands before he could reach Cæsar. But
wherever Fortune or Chance could interfere, the Gods were always kind to
Cæsar.
Then Cæsar tells us of his treatment of two towns in Thessaly, Gomphi
and Metropolis. Unluckily for the poor Gomphians, Cæsar reaches Gomphi
first. Now the fame of Pompey’s victory at Petra had been spread abroad;
and the Gomphians, who,--to give them their due,--would have been just
as willing to favour Cæsar as Pompey, and who only wanted to be on the
winning side that they might hold their little own in safety, believed
that things were going badly with Cæsar. They therefore shut their gates
against Cæsar, and sent off messengers to Pompey. They can hold their
town against Cæsar for a little while, but Pompey must come quickly to
their aid. Pompey comes by no means quick enough, and the Gomphians’
capacity to hold their own is very short-lived. At about three o’clock
in the afternoon Cæsar begins to besiege the town, and before sunset he
has taken it, and given it to be sacked by his soldiers. The men of
Metropolis were also going to shut their gates, but luckily they hear
just in time what had happened at Gomphi,--and open them instead.
Whereupon Cæsar showers protection upon Metropolis; and all the other
towns of Thessaly, hearing what had been done, learn what Cæsar’s favour
means.
Pompey, having joined his army to that of Scipio, shares all his honours
with his father-in-law. When we hear this we know that Pompey’s position
was not comfortable, and that he was under constraint. He was a man who
would share his honour with no one unless driven to do so. And indeed
his command at present was not a pleasant one. It was much for a Roman
commander to have with him the Roman Senate,--but the senators so placed
would be apt to be less obedient than trained soldiers. They even accuse
him of keeping them in Thessaly because he likes to lord it over such
followers. But they were, nevertheless, all certain that Cæsar was about
to be destroyed; and, even in Pompey’s camp, they quarrel over the
rewards of victory which they think that they will enjoy at Rome when
their oligarchy shall have been re-established by Pompey’s arms.
Before the great day arrives Labienus again appears on the scene; and
Cæsar puts into his mouth a speech which he of course intends us to
compare with the result of the coming battle. “Do not think, O Pompey,
that this is the army which conquered Gaul and Germany,”--where Labienus
himself was second in command under Cæsar. “I was present at all those
battles, and speak of a thing which I know. A very small part of that
army remains. Many have perished,--as a matter of course in so many
battles. The autumn pestilence killed many in Italy. Many have gone
home. Many have been left on the other shore. Have you not heard from
our own friends who remained behind sick, that these cohorts of Cæsar’s
were made up at Brindisi?”--made up but the other day, Labienus implies.
“This army, indeed, has been renewed from levies in the two Gauls; but
all that it had of strength perished in those two battles at
Dyrrachium;”--in the contests, that is, within the lines of Petra. Upon
this Labienus swears that he will not sleep under canvas again until he
sleeps as victor over Cæsar; and Pompey swears the same, and everybody
swears. Then they all go away full of the coming victory. We daresay
there was a great deal of false confidence; but as for the words which
Cæsar puts into the mouth of Labienus, we know well how much cause Cæsar
had to dislike Labienus, and we doubt whether they were ever spoken.
At length the battle-field is chosen,--near the town of Pharsalus, on
the banks of the river Enipeus in Thessaly. The battle has acquired
world-wide fame as that of Pharsalia, which we have been taught to
regard as the name of the plain on which it was fought. Neither of these
names occur in the Commentary, nor does that of the river; and the
actual spot on which the great contest took place seems to be a matter
of doubt even now. The ground is Turkish soil,--near to the mountains
which separate modern Greece from Turkey, and is not well adapted for
the researches of historical travellers. Cæsar had been keeping his men
on the march close to Pompey, till Pompey found that he could no longer
abstain from fighting. Then came Labienus with his vaunts, and his
oath,--and at length the day and the field were chosen. Cæsar at any
rate was ready. At this time Cæsar was fifty-two years old, and Pompey
was five years his elder.
Cæsar tells us that Pompey had 110 cohorts, or eleven legions. Had the
legions been full, Pompey’s army would have contained 66,000
legionaries; but Cæsar states their number at 45,000, or something over
two-thirds of the full number. He does not forget to tell us once again
that among these eleven were the two legions which he had given up in
obedience to the demand of the Senate. Pompey himself, with these two
very legions, placed himself on the left away from the river; and
there also were all his auxiliaries,--not counted with the
legionaries,--slingers, archers, and cavalry. Scipio commanded in the
centre with the legions he had brought out of Syria. So Cæsar tells us.
“We learn from other sources that Lentulus commanded Pompey’s right
wing, lying on the river--and Domitius, whom we remember as trying to
hold Marseilles against young Brutus and Trebonius, the left. Cæsar had
80 cohorts, or eight legions, which should have numbered 48,000 men had
his legions been full;--but, as he tells us, he led but 22,000
legionaries, so that his ranks were deficient by more than a half. As
was his custom, he had his tenth legion to the right, away from the
river. The ninth, terribly thinned by what had befallen it within the
lines at Petra, joined to the eleventh, lay next the river, forming part
of Cæsar’s left wing. Antony commanded the left wing, Domitius Calvinus,
whom Cæsar sometimes calls by one name and sometimes by the other, the
centre,--and Sulla the right. Cæsar placed himself to the right, with
his tenth legion, opposite to Pompey. As far as we can learn, there was
but little in the nature of the ground to aid either of them;--and so
the fight began.
There is not much complication, and perhaps no great interest, in the
account of the actual battle as it is given by Cæsar. Cæsar makes a
speech to his army, which was, as we have already learned, and as he
tells us now, the accustomed thing to do. No falser speech was ever made
by man, if he spoke the words which he himself reports. He first of all
reminds them how they themselves are witnesses that he has done his best
to insure peace;--and then he calls to their memory certain mock
treaties as to peace, in which, when seeking delay, he had pretended to
engage himself and his enemy. He had never wasted, he told them, the
blood of his soldiers, nor did he desire to deprive the Republic of
either army--“alterutro exercitu”--of Pompey’s army or of his own. They
were both Roman, and far be it from him to destroy aught belonging to
the Republic. We must acknowledge that Cæsar was always chary of Roman
life and Roman blood. He would spare it when it could be spared; but he
could spill it like water when the spilling of it was necessary to his
end. He was very politic; but as for tenderness,--neither he nor any
Roman knew what it was.
Then there is a story of one Crastinus, who declares that whether dead
or alive he will please Cæsar. He throws the first weapon against the
enemy and does please Cæsar. But he has to please by his death, for he
is killed in his effort.
Pompey orders that his first rank shall not leave its order to advance,
but shall receive the shock of Cæsar’s attack. Cæsar points out to us
that he is wrong in this, because the very excitement of a first attack
gives increased energy and strength to the men. Cæsar’s legionaries are
told to attack, and they rush over the space intervening between the
first ranks to do so. But they are so well trained that they pause and
catch their breath before they throw their weapons. Then they throw
their piles and draw their swords, and the ranks of the two armies are
close pitted against each other.
But Pompey had thought that he could win the battle, almost without
calling on his legionaries for any exertion, by the simple strategic
movement of his numerous cavalry and auxiliaries. He outnumbered Cæsar
altogether, but in these arms he could overwhelm him with a cloud of
horsemen and of archers. But Cæsar also had known of these clouds. He
fought now as always with a triple rank of legionaries,--but behind his
third rank,--or rather somewhat to their right shoulder,--he had drawn
up a choice body of men picked from his third line,--a fourth line as it
were,--whose business it was to stand against Pompey’s clouds when the
attempt should be made by these clouds upon their right flank. Cæsar’s
small body of cavalry did give way before the Pompeian clouds, and the
horsemen and the archers and the slingers swept round upon Cæsar’s
flank. But they swept round upon destruction. Cæsar gave the word to
that fourth line of picked men. “Illi--they,” says Cæsar, “ran forward
with the greatest rapidity, and with their standards in advance attacked
the cavalry of Pompey with such violence that none of them could stand
their ground;--so that all not only were forced from the ground, but
being at once driven in panic, they sought the shelter of the highest
mountains near them. And when they were thus removed, all the archers
and the slingers, desolate and unarmed, without any one to take care of
them, were killed in heaps.” Such is Cæsar’s account of Pompey’s great
attack of cavalry which was to win the battle without giving trouble to
the legions.
Cæsar acknowledges that Pompey’s legionaries drew their swords bravely
and began their share of the fighting well. Then at once he tells us of
the failure on the part of the cavalry and of the slaughter of the poor
auxiliary slingers, and in the very next sentence gives us to understand
that the battle was won. Though Pompey’s legions were so much more
numerous than those of Cæsar, we are told that Cæsar’s third line
attacked the Pompeian legionaries when they were “defessi”--worn out.
The few cohorts of picked men who in such marvellous manner had
dispersed Pompey’s clouds, following on their success, turned the flank
of Pompey’s legions and carried the day. That it was all as Cæsar says
there can be little doubt. That he won the battle there can, we presume,
be no doubt. Pompey at once flew to his camp and endeavoured to defend
it. But such defence was impossible, and Pompey was driven to seek
succour in flight. He found a horse and a few companions, and did not
stop till he was on the sea-shore. Then he got on board a
provision-vessel, and was heard to complain that he had been betrayed by
those very men from whose hands he had expected victory.
We are told with much picturesque effect how Cæsar’s men, hungry,
accustomed to endurance, patient in all their want, found Pompey’s camp
prepared for victory, and decked in luxurious preparation for the
senatorial victors. Couches were strewn, and plate was put out, and
tables prepared, and the tents of these happy ones were adorned with
fresh ivy. The senatorial happy ones have but a bad time of it, either
perishing in their flight, or escaping into the desert solitudes of the
mountains. Cæsar follows up his conquest, and on the day after the
battle compels the great body of the fugitives to surrender at
discretion. He surrounds them on the top of a hill and shuts them out
from water, and they do surrender at discretion. With stretched-out
hands, prone upon the earth, these late conquerors, the cream of the
Roman power, who had so lately sworn to conquer ere they slept, weeping
beg for mercy. Cæsar, having said a few words to them of his clemency,
gave them their lives. He recommends them to the care of his own men,
and desires that they may neither be slaughtered nor robbed.
Cæsar says he lost only 200 soldiers in that battle--and among them 30
officers, all brave men. That gallant Crastinus was among the 30. Of
Pompey’s army 15,000 had been killed, and 24,000 had surrendered! 180
standards and 9 eagles were taken and brought to Cæsar. The numbers seem
to us to be almost incredible, whether we look at those given to us in
regard to the conqueror or the conquered. Cæsar’s account, however, of
that day’s work has hitherto been taken as authoritative, and it is too
late now to question it. After this fashion was the battle of Pharsalia
won, and the so-called Roman Republic brought to an end.
But Cæsar by no means thought that his work was done;--nor indeed was
it nearly done. It was now clearly his first duty to pursue
Pompey,--whom, should he escape, the outside provinces and distant
allies of the Republic would soon supply with another army. “Cæsar
thought that Pompey was to be pursued to the neglecting of all other
things.” In the mean time Pompey, who seems to have been panic-struck by
his misfortune, fled with a few friends down the Ægean Sea, picked his
young wife up at an island as he went, and made his way to Egypt. The
story of his murder by those who had the young King of Egypt in their
keeping is well known and need not detain us. Cæsar tells it very
shortly. Pompey sends to young Ptolemy for succour and assistance,
trusting to past friendship between himself and the young king’s father.
Ptolemy is in the hands of eunuchs, adventurers, and cut-throat
soldiers, and has no voice of his own in the matter. But these ruffians
think it well to have Pompey out of the way, and therefore they murder
him. Achillas, a royal satrap, and Septimius, a Roman soldier, go out to
Pompey’s vessel, as messengers from the king, and induce him to come
down into their boat. Then, in the very sight of his wife, he is
slaughtered, and his head is carried away as proof of the deed. Such was
the end of Pompey, for whom no fortune had seemed to be too great, till
Cæsar came upon the scene. We are told by the Roman poet, Lucan, who
took the battle of Pharsalia as his difficult theme, that Cæsar could
bear no superior, and Pompey no equal. The poet probably wished to make
the latter the more magnanimous by the comparison. To us, as we examine
the character of the two generals, Cæsar seems at least as jealous of
power as his son-in-law, and certainly was the more successful of the
two in extruding all others from a share in the power which he coveted.
Pompey in the triumvirate admitted his junior to more, as he must have
felt it, than equal power: Cæsar in the triumvirate simply made a
stepping-stone of the great man who was his elder. Pompey at Thessaly
was forced to divide at least the name of his power with Scipio, his
last father-in-law: but Cæsar never gave a shred of his mantle to be
worn by another soldier.
In speaking, however, of the character of Pompey, and in comparing it
with that of his greater rival, it may probably be said of him that in
all his contests, both military and political, he was governed by a love
of old Rome, and of the Republic as the greatest national institution
which the world had ever known, and by a feeling which we call
patriotism, and of which Cæsar was,--perhaps, we may say, too great to
be capable. Pompey desired to lead, but to lead the beloved Republic.
Cæsar, caring nothing for the things of old, with no reverence for the
past, utterly destitute of that tenderness for our former footsteps
which makes so many of us cling with passionate fondness to convicted
errors, desired to create out of the dust of the Republic,--which fate
and his genius allowed him to recast as he would,--something which
should be better and truer than the Republic.
The last seven chapters of the third book of this Commentary form a
commencement of the record of the Alexandrine war,--which, beyond those
seven chapters, Cæsar himself did not write. That he should have
written any Commentary amidst the necessary toils of war, and the
perhaps more pressing emergencies of his political condition, is one of
the greatest marvels of human power. He tells us now, that having
delayed but a few days in Asia, he followed Pompey first to Cyprus and
then to Egypt, taking with him as his entire army three thousand two
hundred men. “The rest, worn out with wounds, and battles, and toil, and
the greatness of the journey, could not follow him.” But he directed
that legions should be made up for him from the remnants of Pompey’s
broken army, and, with a godlike trust in the obedience of absent
vassals, he went on to Egypt. He tells us that he was kept in Alexandria
by Etesian winds. But we know also that Cleopatra came to him at
Alexandria, requiring his services in her contest for the crown of
Egypt; and knowing at what price she bought them, we doubt the
persistent malignity of the Etesian winds, Had Cleopatra been a swarthy
Nubian, as some have portrayed her, Cæsar, we think, would have left
Alexandria though the Etesian winds had blown in his very teeth. All
winds filled Cæsar’s sails. Cæsar gets possession of Cleopatra’s brother
Ptolemy, who, in accordance with their father’s will, was to have
reigned in conjunction with his sister, and the Alexandrians rise
against him in great force. He slays Photinus, the servant of King
Ptolemy, has his own ambassador slain, and burns the royal fleet of
Egypt,--burning with it, unfortunately, the greater part of the royal
library. “These things were the beginning of the Alexandrine war.” These
are the last words of Cæsar’s last Commentary.