Spain. Thinking him not hard to vanquish, he at first despatched his
fleet from Sardinia against him, but later sent on also the army that
was available by list, evidently intending to conduct the entire war
through his representatives. But when be ascertained that Pompey was
progressing mightily and that those sent were not sufficient to fight
against him, he finally himself went out to join the expedition,
entrusting the city to Lepidus and certain aediles,--eight as some think,
or six as is more commonly believed.
[-29-] The legions in Spain had rebelled during the period of command of
Longinus and Marcellus and some of the cities had revolted; upon the
removal of Longinus (Trebonius becoming his successor) they kept quiet
for a few days: after that through fear of vengeance from Caesar they
secretly sent ambassadors to Scipio expressing a wish to transfer their
allegiance. He despatched to them among others Gnaeus Pompey. The latter
being close to the Gymnasian[95] islands took possession of them without
a battle, save Ebusus: this one he brought over with difficulty, and
then falling sick delayed there together with his soldiers. As he was
late in returning, the soldiers in Spain, who had learned that Scipio
was dead and Didius had set sail against them, in their fear of being
annihilated before Pompey came failed to wait for him; but putting at
their head Titus Quintius Scapula and Quintus Aponius, Roman knights,
they drove out Trebonius and led the whole Baetic nation to revolt at the
same time. They had gone [-30-] thus far when Pompey, recovering from
his illness, arrived by sea at the mainland opposite. He immediately won
over several cities without resistance, for they were vexed at the
commands of their rulers and besides had no little hope in him because
of the memory of his father: Carthage,[96] which was unwilling to come
to terms, he besieged. The followers of Scapula on hearing this went
there and chose him general with full powers, after which they adhered
most closely to him and showed the most violent zeal, regarding his
successes as the successes of each individual and his disasters as their
own. Consequently they were strong for both reasons, striving to obtain
the successes and to avoid the disasters.
For Pompey, too, did what all are accustomed to do in the midst of such
tumults and revolutions and especially after some of the Allobroges had
deserted, whom Juba had taken alive in a war against Curio and had given
him, there was nothing that he did not grant the rest both by word and
deed.
They accordingly became more zealous in his behalf, and a number of the
opposing side, particularly all who had served under Afranius, came over
to him. Then there were those who came to him from Africa, among others
his brother Sextus, and Varus, and Labienus with his fleet. Therefore,
elated by the multitude of his army and their zeal he proceeded
fearlessly through the country, gaining some cities of their own accord,
some against their will, and seemed to surpass even his father in power.
[-31-] For though Caesar had generals in Spain,--Quintus Fabius Maximus
and Quintus Pedius, they did not think themselves a match for him, but
remained quiet themselves, while they sent in haste for their chief.
For a time matters went on so: but when a few of the men sent in advance
from Rome had reached there, and Caesar's arrival was looked for, Pompey
became frightened; and thinking that he was not strong enough to gain
the mastery of all Spain, he did not wait for a reverse before changing
his mind, but immediately, before testing the temper of his adversaries,
retired into Baetica. The sea, moreover, straightway became hostile to
him, and Varus was beaten in a naval battle near Carteia by Didius:
indeed, had he not escaped to the land and sunk anchors side by side at
the mouth of the harbor, upon which the foremost pursuers struck as on a
reef, the whole fleet would have perished. All the country at that point
except the city Ulia was an ally of Pompey's: this town, which had
refused to submit to him, he proceeded to besiege.
[-32-] Meanwhile Caesar, too, with a few men suddenly came up
unexpectedly not only to Pompey's followers, but even to his own
soldiers. He had employed such speed in the passage that he was seen
both by his adherents and by his opponents before news was brought that
he was actually in Spain. Now Caesar hoped from this very fact and his
mere presence to alarm Pompey in general, and to draw him from the
siege; that was why most of the army had been left behind on the road.
But Pompey, thinking that one man was not much superior to another and
quite confident in his own strength, was not seriously startled at the
other's arrival, but continued to besiege the city and kept making
assaults just as before. Hence Caesar stationed there a few soldiers from
among the first-comers and himself started for Corduba, partly because
he hoped to take it by treachery, but chiefly because he expected to
attract Pompey through fear for it away from Ulia. And so it turned out.
For at first Pompey left a portion of his army in position, went to
Corduba and strengthened it, and as Caesar did not withstand his troops,
put his brother Sextus in charge of it. However, he failed to accomplish
anything at Ulia: on the contrary, when a certain tower had fallen, and
that not shaken down by his own men but broken down by the crowd that
was making a defence from it, some few who rushed in did not come off
well; and Caesar approaching lent assistance secretly by night to the
citizens, and himself again made an expedition against Corduba, putting
it under siege in turn: then at last did Pompey withdraw entirely from
Ulia and hastened to the other town with his entire army,--a movement
not destitute of results. For Caesar, learning of this in advance, had
retired, as he happened to be sick. Afterward when he had recovered and
had taken charge of the additional troops who accompanied him he was
compelled to carry on warfare even in the winter. [-33-] Housed in
miserable little tents they were suffering distress and running short of
food. Caesar was at that time serving as dictator, and some time late,
near the close of the war, he was appointed consul, when Lepidus, who
was master of the horse, convoked the people for this purpose. He,
Lepidus, had become master of the horse at that time, having given
himself, while still in the consulship, that additional title contrary
to ancestral traditions.
Caesar, accordingly, compelled as I have said to carry on warfare even in
winter did not try to attack Corduba--it was strongly guarded--but
turned his attention to Ategua, a city in which he had learned that
there was an abundance of grain. Although it was strong, he hoped by the
size of his army and the sudden terror of his appearance to alarm the
inhabitants and capture it. In a short time he had palisaded it off and
dug a ditch round about. Pompey, encouraged by the nature of the country
and thinking that Caesar because of the winter would not besiege the
place to any great extent, paid no heed and did not try at first to
repel the assailants, since he was unwilling to injure his own soldiers
in the cold. Later on, when the town had been walled off and Caesar was
in position before it, he grew afraid and came with assistance. He fell
in with the pickets suddenly one misty night and killed a number of
them. The ungeneraled condition of the inhabitants he ameliorated by
sending to them Munatius Flaccus. The latter [-34-] had contrived the
following scheme to get inside. He went alone by night to some of the
guards as if appointed by Caesar to visit the sentries, asked and learned
the pass-word:--he was not known, of course, and would never have been
suspected by the separate contingents of being anything but a friend
when he acted in this manner:--then he left these men and went around to
the other side of the circumvallation where he met some other guards and
gave them the pass-word: after that he pretended that his mission was to
betray the city, and so went inside through the midst of the soldiers
with their consent and actually under their escort. He could not,
however, save the place. In addition to other setbacks there was one
occasion when the citizens hurled fire upon the engines and palisades of
the Romans, yet did no damage to them worth mentioning; but they
themselves by reason of a violent wind which just then began to blow
toward them from the opposite side fared ill: for their buildings were
set afire and many persons perished from the stones and missiles, not
being able to see any distance ahead of them for the smoke. After this
disaster, as their land was continually ravaged, and every now and then
a portion of their wall would fall, undermined, they began to riot.
Flaccus first conferred with Caesar by herald on the basis of pardon for
himself and followers: later he failed of this owing to his resolution
not to surrender his arms, but the rest of the natives subsequently sent
ambassadors and submitted to the terms imposed upon each.
[-35-] The capture of that city did not fail of its influence upon the
other peoples, but many themselves after sending envoys espoused Caesar's
cause, and many received him on his approach or his lieutenants. Pompey,
in consequence, at a loss which way to turn, at first made frequent
changes of base, wandering about now in one and now in another part of
the country: later on he became afraid that as a result of this very
behavior the rest of his adherents would also leave him in the lurch,
and chose to hazard all, although Heaven beforehand indicated his
defeat very clearly. To be sure, the drops of sweat that fell from
sacred statues and the confused noises of the legions, and the many
animals born which proved to be perversions of the proper type, and
the torches darting from sunrise to the sunset region--(all these signs
then met together in Spain at one time)--gave no clear manifestation
to which of the two combatants they were revealing the future. But the
eagles of his legions shook their wings and cast forth the golden
thunderbolts which some of them held in their talons: thus they would
hurl disaster directly at Pompey before flying off to Caesar.... For
a different force ... Heaven, and he held it in slight esteem, and so
into war ... settled down to battle.[97]
[-36-] Both had in addition to their citizen and mercenary troops many
of the natives and many Moors. For Bocchus[98] had sent his sons to
Pompey and Bogud in person accompanied Caesar's force. Still, the contest
turned out to be like a struggle of the Romans themselves, not of any
other nations. Caesar's soldiers derived courage from their numbers and
experience and above all from their leader's presence and so were
anxious to be done with the war and its attendant miseries. Pompey's men
were inferior in these respects, but, strong through their despair of
safety, should they fail to conquer, continued zealous.[99] Inasmuch as
the majority of them had been captured with Afranius and Varro, had been
spared, and delivered afterward to Longinus, from whom they had
revolted, they had no hope of safety if they were beaten, and as a
result of this were drawn toward desperation, feeling that they needed
to be of good cheer at that particular time or else perish utterly. So
the armies came together and began the battle. They had no longer any
dread of each other, since they had been so many times opposed in arms,
and for that reason required no urging. [-37-] In the course of the
engagement the allied forces on both sides quickly were routed and fled;
but the main bodies struggled in close combat to the utmost in their
resistance of each other. Not a man of them would yield. They remained
in position, wreaking slaughter and being slain, as if each separate man
was to be responsible to all the rest as well for the outcome of victory
or defeat. Consequently they were not concerned to see how their allies
were battling but set to work as if they alone were engaged. Neither
sound of paean nor groan was to be heard from any one of them: both
sides limited their shouts to "Strike! Kill!", while their acts easily
outran their speech. Caesar and Pompey, who saw this from horseback on
certain elevated positions, felt little inclination to either hope or
despair, but torn with doubts were equally distressed by confidence and
fear. The battle was so nearly balanced that they suffered tortures at
the sight, straining to spy out some advantage, and quivering lest they
descry some setback. Their souls were filled with prayers for success
and against misfortune, and with alternating strength and fear. In fact,
not being able to endure it long, they leaped from their horses and
joined the combat. Apparently they preferred a participation involving
personal exertion and danger rather than tension of spirit, and each
hoped by associating in the fight to turn the scale somehow in favor of
his own soldiers. Or, if they failed of that, they were content to meet
death, side by side with them.
[-38-] The generals, then, took part in the battle themselves. This
movement, however, resulted in no advantage to either army. On the
contrary,--when the men saw their chiefs sharing their danger, a far
greater disregard for their own death and eagerness for the destruction
of their opponents seized both alike. Accordingly neither side for the
moment turned to flight: matched in determination, they found their
persons matched in power. All would have perished, or else at nightfall
they would have parted with honors even, had not Bogud, who was
somewhere outside the press, made an advance upon Pompey's camp,
whereupon Labienus, seeing it, left his station to proceed against him.
Pompey's men, interpreting this as flight, lost heart. Later they
doubtless learned the truth but could no longer retrieve their position.
Some escaped to the city, some to the fortification. The latter body
vigorously fought off attacks and fell only when surrounded, while the
former for a long time kept the wall safe, so that it was not captured
till all of them had perished in sallies. So great was the total loss of
Romans on both sides that the victors, at a loss how to wall in the city
to prevent any running away in the night, actually heaped up the bodies
of the dead around it.
[-39-] Caesar, having thus conquered, took Corduba at once. Sextus had
retired from his path, and the natives, although their slaves, who had
purposely been made free, offered resistance, came over to his side. He
slew those under arms and obtained money by the sale of the rest. The
same course he adopted with those that held Hispalis, who at first,
pretending to be willing, had accepted a garrison from him, but later
massacred the soldiers that had come there, and entered upon a course of
warfare. In his expedition against them his rather careless conduct of
the siege caused them some hope of being able to escape. So then he
allowed them to come outside the wall, where he ambushed and destroyed
them, and in this way captured the town, which was soon destitute of
male defenders. Next he acquired and levied money upon Munda and the
other places, some that were unwilling with great slaughter and others
of their own accord. He did not even spare the offerings to Hercules,
consecrated in Gades, and he detached special precincts from some towns
and laid an added tribute upon others. This was his course toward those
who had opposed him; but to those who displayed any good-will toward him
he granted lands and freedom from taxation, to some, moreover,
citizenship, and to others the right to be considered Roman colonies; he
did not, however, grant these favors for nothing.
[-40-] While Caesar was thus occupied, Pompey, who had escaped in the
rout, reached the sea, intending to use the fleet that lay at anchor in
Carteia, but found that it had espoused the victor's cause. He
endeavored to embark in a boat, expecting to obtain safety thereby. In
the course of the attempt, however, he was roughly handled and in
dejection came to land again, where, taking some men that had assembled,
he set out for the interior. Pompey himself met defeat at the hands, of
Caesennius[100] Lento, with whom he fell in: he took refuge in a wood,
and was there killed. Didius, ignorant of the event, while wandering
about to join him met some other enemies and perished.
[-41-] Caesar, too, would doubtless have chosen to fall there, at the
hands of those who were still resisting and in the glory of war, in
preference to the fate he met not long after, to be cut down in his own
land and in the senate, at the hands of his best friends. For this was
the last war he carried through successfully, and this the last victory
that he won in spite of the fact that there was no project so great that
he did not hope to accomplish it. In this belief he was strengthened not
only by other reasons but most of all because from a palm that stood on
the site of the battle a shoot grew out immediately after the victory.
And I will not assert that this had no bearing in some direction; it
was, however, no longer for him, but for his sister's grandson,
Octavius: the latter made the expedition with him, and was destined to
shine forth brightly from his toils and dangers. As Caesar did not know
this, hoping that many great additional successes would fall to his own
lot he acted in no moderate fashion, but was filled with loftiness as if
immortal. [-42-] Though it was no foreign nation he had conquered, but a
great mass of citizens that he had destroyed, he not only personally
directed the triumph, incidentally regaling the entire populace again,
as if in honor of some common blessing, but also allowed Quintus Fabius
and Quintus Pedius to hold a festival. [101] Yet they had merely been
his lieutenants and had achieved no individual success. Naturally some
laughter was caused by this, as well as by the fact that he used wooden
instead of ivory instruments, and representations of certain actions,
and other such triumphal apparatus. Nevertheless, most brilliant triple
fêtes and triple processions of the Romans were held in connection with
those very things, and furthermore a hallowed period of fifty days was
observed. The Parilia[102] was honored by a perpetual horse-race, yet
not at all because the city had been founded on that day, but because
the news of Caesar's victory had arrived the day before, toward evening.
[-43-] Such was his gift to Rome. For himself he wore the triumphal
garb, by decree, in all assemblages and was adorned with the laurel
crown always and every-where alike. The excuse that he gave for it was
that his forehead was bald; and this had some show of reason from the
very fact that at the time, though well past youth, he still bestowed
attention on his appearance. He showed among all men his pride in rather
foppish clothing, and the footwear which he used later on was sometimes
high and of a reddish color, after the style of the kings who had once
lived in Alba, for he assumed that he was related to them on account of
Iulus. To Venus he was, in general, devoted body and soul and he was
anxious to persuade everybody that he had received from her a kind of
bloom of youth. Accordingly he used also to carry about a carven image
of her in full armor and he made her name his watchword in almost all
the greatest dangers. The looseness of his girdle[103] Sulla had looked
askance at, insomuch that he wished to kill him, and declared to those
who begged him off: "Well, I will grant him to you, but do you be on
your guard, without fail, against this ill-girt fellow." Cicero could
not comprehend it, but even in the moment of defeat said: "I should
never have expected one so ill-girt to conquer Pompey."
[-44-] This I have written by way of digression from story, so that no
one might be ignorant of the stories about Caesar.--In honor of the
victory the senate passed all of those decrees that I have mentioned,
and further called him "liberator", inscribed it in the records, and
publicly voted for a temple of Liberty. To him first and for the first
time, they then, applied, as a term of special significance, the title
"imperator,"--not merely according to ancient custom any longer, as
others besides Caesar had often been saluted as a result of wars, nor
even as those who have received some independent command or other
authority were called, but, in short, it was this title which is now
granted to those who hold successively the supreme power. And so great
an excess of flattery did they employ as even to vote that his children
and grandchildren should be so called, though he had no child and was
already an old man. From him this title has come down to all subsequent
imperatores, as something peculiar to their office, even as in Caesar's
case. The ancient custom has not, however, been thereby overthrown. Each
of the two titles exists. Consequently they are invested with it a
second time, when they gain some such victory as has been mentioned.
Those who are imperatores in the limited sense use the appellation once,
as they do others, and indeed before others: whatever rulers in addition
accomplish in war any deed worthy of it acquire also the name handed
down by ancient custom, so that a man is termed imperator a second and a
third time, and oftener, as frequently as he can bestow it upon himself.
These privileges they granted then to Caesar, as well as a house, so that
he might live in state-property, and a special period of festival
whenever any victory took place and whenever there were sacrifices for
it, even if he had not been with the expedition nor in general had any
hand in the achievement.[104] [-45-] Still, those measures, even if they
seemed to them immoderate and out of the usual order, were not, so far,
undemocratic. But they passed the following decrees besides, by which
they declared him sovereign out and out. They offered him the
magistracies, even those belonging to the people, and elected him consul
for ten years, as they previously had dictator. They ordered that he
alone should have soldiers, and alone administer the public funds, so
that no one else was allowed to employ either of them, save whom he
might permit. And they commanded at that time that an ivory statue of
him, but later that a whole chariot should be escorted at the
horse-races along with the likenesses of the gods. Another image they
set up in the temple of Quirinus with the inscription: "to the
invincible god", and another on the Capitol beside the former kings of
Rome. It occurs to me really to marvel at the coincidence: there were
eight such images--seven to the kings, and an eighth to the Brutus that
overthrew the Tarquins--besides this one, when they set up the statue of
Caesar; and it was from this cause chiefly that Marcus Brutus was stirred
to conspire against him.
[-46-] These were the measures that were ratified because of victory,--I
am not mentioning all, but as many as I have seemed to me notable,--not
on one day, but just as it happened, one at one time, another at
another. Some of them Caesar began to render operative, and of others he
intended to make use in the future, no matter how much he put aside some
of them. Now the office of consul he took up immediately, even before
entering the city, but did not hold it continuously.
[B.C. 45 (_a.u._ 709)]