affair, because Cæsar had to provide against attacks both from the
beleaguered army and from the Gauls, who were hastening to aid their
natural champion. The lines of contravallation were sixteen kilometers
long, those of circumvallation twenty; the space between the Roman army
and the town was filled with artificial obstacles, meant to prevent
the successful use of infantry. The force under Cæsar numbered about
70,000 men and included eleven legions. Cæsar reports that there were
80,000 men imprisoned in Alesia, while to the Gallic relief army is
assigned 250,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry. Probably there were not
more than 20,000 men altogether in Alesia, for provisions were scarce.
This is the number that Napoleon I would give to the inclosed army,
and he further remarks that the relief army in its manœuvering and in
its camping operations behaved as if it were equal, not superior in
strength, to its adversaries.
Cæsar had five or six weeks of leisure before the relieving army
appeared. The first part of the decisive engagement was marked by a
cavalry battle, in which Cæsar’s German horse proved superior to the
Gauls. Then a night attack on the inclosing lines was tried and failed.
A daylight struggle afterwards took place along the weakest part of
the Roman fortifications, Vercingetorix and the relief force making
coincident attacks. The Gauls from the outside were driven off by a
skilfully delivered movement on their flank, executed by Labienus,
which forced them to withdraw, and at the same time Vercingetorix
moved back into the city, and soon recognizing his hopeless position,
surrendered. The fall of Alesia marks the completion of the Gallic
wars. The spirit of the Gauls was broken; there were afterwards various
punitive expeditions, but with the collapse of the great rebellion the
country became pacified and accepted its position as a Roman dependency.
IV THE BREAK WITH POMPEIUS AND THE SENATE
Cæsar’s government of Gaul was now drawing to its close. He had added
to the Roman dominions a territory larger than the two original
provinces assigned to him. The question now was, what next? The
precedents on this point were clear enough; they were written large
in the lives of other recent conquerors, Marius and Sulla. But the
senatorial party had no intention of allowing Cæsar to return to Rome
with a free hand; it was to be a struggle between the self-interests
of a narrow oligarchy and a clear-headed effort to attain personal
control of the machinery of the government. On neither side was regard
for legality given much weight. Both Cæsar and the senatorial party
used without scruple illegal means; both at the same time claimed
hypocritically to represent the side of law and order.
As a matter of fact, the old governmental methods of the Republic were
adapted only to the conditions of a city community with a homogeneous
population. There had been a breakdown years before Cæsar’s time, and
the question now was who should benefit from this chaotic situation.
The senators meant to get Cæsar out of Gaul, reduce him to the ranks
of a private individual, and then ruin him by some legal prosecution
in connection with his eight years of provincial rule. The chief
asset of the Senate was Pompeius’ jealousy of Cæsar as a rival of his
military glory; he was soured because he could not get the position
and the influence for which his early record had marked him out.
Pompeius was proconsul of Spain, according to the arrangement made at
the last meeting of the triumvirs. It was only carried out nominally;
he had no intention of losing his control of Rome, a control which
depended on his presence at the center of affairs. Contrary to all
precedent, he governed his province by means of deputies. He was also
in special charge of the corn supply, a position valuable as a means
of propitiating the people with votes. He arranged to have a five-year
extension of his proconsular power in Spain, and his influence on the
Senate is shown by their willingness to allot him 100 talents a year
for the maintenance of his troops. He used his patronage exclusively
to advance his own personal interests, oblivious of the compact with
Cæsar, showing altogether that, while he meant to stand outside the
law, the chicanery of legislation could well be used to block the path
of his rival.
Cæsar, who had not forgotten to retain the favor of the Roman populace
by entertainments and benefactions, and who had all the skill of a
party boss in retaining the allegiance of friends and followers, had
three very strong allies back of him, leaving aside his natural
superiority in capacity and in shrewdness to Pompeius. His conquest of
Gaul, followed as it was by a very judicious treatment of the conquered
tribes, gave him the support of a warlike population ready to act on
his behalf. Moreover, the reduction of the country had unlocked a
store of wealth, which was naturally in his hands; the slaves alone,
collected from the captives, represented as capital a very large sum of
money. Then there were the seasoned legions on whose loyalty he could
depend.
The rival claims of the two leaders reached an acute stage when
Pompeius, now Consul, passed legislation by which an interval of five
years was required between service as a provincial governor and as a
magistrate in Rome. Cæsar’s term of office expired in B.C. 49; he had
received leave to stand for the consulship and had requested to be left
in possession of his provinces till the end of 49. Now in Pompeius’
legislation there was required, unless special permission were given,
personal candidature, and also the Senate was given authority to
relieve provincial governors at any time during the last year of their
service. Cæsar might find himself relieved of his proconsulship before
he had been elected Consul. It would be a dangerous position for him to
confront a rival armed with extraordinary powers, while he was only an
individual citizen. There were further grounds of irritation because
the senatorial party refused to recognize certain administrative acts
of Cæsar, by which he had extended the franchise to various provincial
towns. In arranging the question of provincial succession there was
much delay. Pompeius hesitated to accept the Senate’s drastic measure,
by which Cæsar would be relieved long before he could be elected
Consul. He made a show of conciliation by shortening the interval and
also by promising to resign his own command before the expiration of
his term if the Senate so desired. Cæsar’s agent in Rome, the Tribune
Curio, displayed much ingenuity in obstructing all measures aimed at
his chief, and it was plain from the way the political game was being
played that Cæsar’s minimum, service as Proconsul till the end of
49, and entrance into the consulship on January 1, 48, would be the
watchword of his partisans. In all other respects he showed himself
ready for conciliation and compromise. When two legions were asked for
the Parthian war, they were promptly sent, and no protest was made at
their being kept at Capua, when they were no longer wanted in the East.
Curio, too, was ordered to cease blocking the vote of money to pay
Pompeius’ troops.
But the senatorial party were not ready to make terms; it seemed to
them that with the co-operation of Pompeius they could place Cæsar
in an _impasse_. They miscalculated his personal popularity and his
military strength, and now were all the more confident, because they
were successfully intriguing with Labienus to detach him from his chief.
The weakness of the senatorial clique was its obvious insincerity in
claiming to be the representative of the party of law and order. It was
absurd to object to Cæsar stepping directly from the proconsulship to
the consulship as an irregularity, when Pompeius had held both offices
together; indeed he had been twice Consul within four years, entirely
in contravention of the required legal interval of ten years between
the holding by one individual of the highest magistracy.
Marcellus, one of the Consuls in B.C. 51, a determined opponent of
Cæsar, brought matters to a climax by denouncing Cæsar in the Senate
as a brigand and asking that he should be called a public enemy unless
he gave up his province by a fixed date. These motions were made as a
result of the debate whether a successor to Cæsar should be appointed;
they were carried by an imposing majority. An equal majority rejected
the motion that Pompeius should be required to resign.
Curio, who had as Tribune interposed his veto on the first motion, then
offered a resolution by which both commanders should be required to
resign. This was carried by 322 to 320, but no effect was given to it;
probably it was vetoed by a Pompeian Tribune. Through private channels,
efforts were being made to prevent a break between the two rivals; on
account of Pompeius’ well-known indecision of temper, the senatorial
clique resolved by a bold stroke to prevent further negotiations.
Marcellus, on the 9th of December, using as a pretext the rumor that
Cæsar was on his way to Rome with his army, tried in vain to get the
Senate to declare Cæsar a public enemy and to authorize Pompeius to
take command of the troops in Italy and protect the state. Indignant
at the timidity of the senators, he took matters in his own hands,
virtually declaring war on his own responsibility, for he handed over
the two Italian legions to Pompeius, with the command to march against
Cæsar. Pompeius, though this action of the Consul was unconstitutional,
accepted the commission; at the end of the month he was still confident
that Cæsar would drop his claim to the consulship and that so peace
would be restored.
Cæsar acted cautiously; he sent for additional troops from Gaul and
also despatched a message to the Senate offering to resign all his
provinces and his army, provided Pompeius would do the same. In case of
refusal, he said he would be compelled to take measures for asserting
his own rights and the freedom of the Roman people. Curio was sent with
this ultimatum to Rome; it was only with difficulty that the letter was
read. A motion was passed that at a fixed date Cæsar should give up his
army and that his non-compliance would be treated as an act of war.
There was, of course, the usual obstruction from Marcus Antonius, a
Cæsarian Tribune; the final decree by which martial law was introduced
and the magistrates called upon to see “that the commonwealth took no
harm,” was not passed till the seventh of January. (49 B.C.) Lentulus,
the Consul, in the meantime had advised the obstructing tribunes to
leave the city if they valued their personal safety. It was this verbal
threat which put in Cæsar’s hands the very useful plea that he was
acting as the defender of the freedom of the Roman people.
The military strength of the two parties was, from the senatorial
point of view, altogether on their side; they had, they reasoned, the
whole empire to draw upon for recruits, while Cæsar had only his own
province. The difficulty of the senatorial position was, that their
forces were not together when the war broke out. Of Cæsar’s original
thirteen legions, two were now under Pompeius’ command; besides this,
the latter had in Spain seven legions of well-seasoned troops; in Italy
he had the two legions already mentioned, which originally belonged to
the army of Gaul; and another in a state of creation.
Cæsar’s chance lay in prompt action, in administering a decisive
defeat before Pompeius could get his scattered men together. While
the negotiations were in progress, he had only one legion in northern
Italy; but two had been sent for, and when they were at hand Cæsar
had, with his allies, about 20,000 men, a force considerably superior
to that of Pompeius, who was especially careful not to lead Cæsar’s
old legions against their former commander. With one legion of newly
recruited men he could do nothing; the consequence was that in Italy
there was practically no resistance to Cæsar’s advance. When some of
the newly created cohorts joined him, the senators with their commander
fled to Greece.
The moral effect of the abandonment of Italy and the capital was a
great asset for the Cæsarian party. The critics have condemned Pompeius
because he failed to relieve the senatorial troops inclosed by Cæsar in
the town of Corfinium in the Abruzzi. It was a discouraging blow at the
very commencement of the struggle for the senatorial party to see their
soldiers and one of their chief partisans, Domitius Ahenobarbus, left
to their fate. But Pompeius was in no position to give help; if he had
attempted to give aid, he would have been defeated and captured.
Instead of pursuing Pompeius across the Adriatic to Greece, Cæsar
turned away to the conquest of Spain. Even if transports were lacking,
he might have doubled round the Adriatic coast through Illyria, his
own province. He might soon have got the control of the entire East
before a sufficient force was collected to oppose him. But if he had
done so, in the meantime Italy would have been exposed to an invasion
from Pompeius’ Spanish veterans, for the senatorial commander would
undoubtedly have betaken himself there and acted on the offensive.
By the time Cæsar could reach Antioch, in Syria, Pompeius could have
occupied Rome. Cæsar therefore consistently followed the principle of
striking at the enemy’s force where it was concentrated and prepared
for effective work.
Several of the legions newly formed from Italian recruits were sent to
Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa as crucial points, from which a descent
might be made on Italy; others were left in Italy itself. Of the
veteran legions from Gaul, three were despatched to Marseilles, which
had taken the senatorial side, and six were taken to Spain. There
were seven Pompeian legions in the peninsula under three different
commanders, Afranius and Petreius in the north, Varro in the south.
Varro, the celebrated antiquarian and scholar, was not an enthusiastic
partisan of Pompeius; there seems to be no reason, except his desire
to be neutral, why he should have weakened the Pompeian forces in
the north by keeping his legions in the south. In any case, the five
legions near the Pyrenees, as if conscious of their weakness, remained
on the defensive, although for a time they were opposed only by two
legions of Cæsar’s.
Cæsar’s force was undoubtedly numerically superior, for there was a
considerable contingent of allies, German and Gallic, both horse and
foot. The plan of strategy adopted by the Pompeians was to keep Cæsar
in check until Pompeius’ preparations in the East were completed, that
is, to wait until he could come to Spain to direct the operations there
in person, or could make a diversion by attacking Italy with the troops
raised in the East. No attempt was made by Pompeius’ lieutenants to
stop Cæsar’s passage through the mountain passes of the Pyrenees. This,
in any case, would have been a questionable operation and apt to cause
a division of strength in the opposing army.
The first point of conflict between the two armies was at Ilerda, 150
kilometers south of the Pyrenees and about forty north of the Ebro.
There was a stream in front of the town, crossed by a stone bridge,
and near this stream, on a height south of the town, the Pompeians
placed their camp. They were well supplied with provisions; and they
commanded the access to the bridge. As the stream had a strong current
and was liable to the sudden changes of a mountain torrent it would
be unsafe for Cæsar to make a temporary bridge to keep in contact
two separated portions of an enveloping army. Cæsar could not afford
to leave this strongly encamped force in his rear, for the way would
be open to them to invade both Gaul and Italy. In case of defeat the
Pompeians might make a further stand, with an advantageous position on
the banks of the Ebro.
For some time the Cæsarian army under Fabius remained inactive before
Ilerda. Two bridges had been built across the stream, but one of these
the current had carried away, and at one time two of the legions
were in considerable danger while they were foraging on the southern
bank. When Cæsar took over the command both bridges had gone, and the
Pompeians, by using the stone bridge, could prevent any further bridge
building. Food supplies from the north were cut off, and the Cæsarians
were hard-pressed for provisions, having exhausted all the food in
the neighborhood of their camp. Cæsar managed finally to relieve
this trying situation by building a bridge outside the range of the
operations of the Pompeians, who never dared to get too far away from
their camp. His next move was to try to cut them off from the city,
their base of supplies, but this failed. They were secure where they
were, but they grew alarmed when some of the native population joined
Cæsar’s forces; there was also a prospect of a period of low water in
the river, when Cæsar could use a ford and so completely envelop them.
Under such conditions they resolved to abandon their camp and retire
to the Ebro to make there another stand. The retreat was accomplished
without much difficulty, except from cavalry attacks, which delayed
their progress toward the river, which they would have reached five
miles south of Ilerda. They had covered most of this distance when
Cæsar’s legions suddenly appeared ready for attack. In spite of the
difficulty of crossing the stream at Ilerda, Cæsar’s men with great
valor had braved the dangers of the swift current and had marched
with such rapidity that they caught up with the Pompeians before
sunset. Afranius and Petreius soon found themselves outmanœuvered by
their opponents, the way to the river being closed to them. The only
alternative now was to fight or surrender. After some hesitation,
perhaps due to divided counsels in their own camp, they abandoned the
attempt to reach the Ebro and returned to their original camping ground
at Ilerda. (August, 44 B.C.)
Cæsar, in the meantime, held his hand, though his soldiers earnestly
wished for a pitched battle under such favorable circumstances. It was
a civil war, and Cæsar had no taste for the kind of butchery practised
on the barbarians in Gaul on so many occasions. The Pompeian commanders
soon capitulated; the best force of his opponents had now by Cæsar’s
superior strategy been put out of action, as effectively as if it
had been beaten on the battlefield. Such a victory is practically
unique in military annals. The Roman army at Trasimene and at Cannæ,
the Prussians at Jena, and the French in 1870-71 were annihilated as
military units, but only after hard-fought battles.
Cæsar in this brilliant campaign of forty days deprived his antagonists
of an entire and efficient army without striking a blow. He was all the
time ready to fight, and the absence of a battle was due to the fact
that the commanders on the other side were completely out-generaled.
The operations followed one another with the system of moves on a chess
board. The losing party saw the uselessness of a fight and the victor
had no desire to shed blood needlessly.
Easy terms were imposed upon the vanquished; the only conditions
made being that Afranius and Petreius should dismiss their troops on
the way back to Italy. Varro, in southern Spain, who had none of the
temperament for command, and who was waiting to see which was the
winning side, soon found himself deserted by the provincials; even
Gades, where he had contemplated making a resolute stand, declared for
Cæsar. The most serious feature of the campaign in the West was due to
the obstinate resistance of the people of Marseilles; they held out
for several months and surrendered only when they were exhausted by
pestilence and famine. With this siege ended, Cæsar was free to return
to Italy.
In general, the first stage of the war was in favor of the Cæsarians;
Sicily had been abandoned by Cato, and the only dark spot on the record
was the decisive defeat in Africa of Curio, who had unwisely attacked
the Pompeians near Utica while they were being aided by a Numidian
king. On the way to Rome Cæsar had to handle a case of mutiny in one
of the legions, the ninth. The soldiers complained of the strict
discipline under which they were kept, as no plundering was allowed.
A signal example was made of them, for the whole legion was disbanded
and the men only taken back on condition that they gave up their
ringleaders. Of these one in ten were taken by lot and executed.
During his residence in Rome, in the interval between the first and
second stages of the war, Cæsar was returned as Consul for the coming
year (48), after serving a few days in the extraordinary capacity of
Dictator. Some new legislation was passed, extending the franchise to
provincial populations, and an effort was made to relieve the financial
situation produced by the civil war. Money was scarce, interest was
high, there being, owing to the general uncertainty, a good deal of
hoarding of specie; but nothing was done to encourage the wild rumors
of a revolution after the Catiline model, under which there would be
a general cancellation of debts. Practically the whole administration
of civil affairs was in the conqueror’s hands. Only a few senators
were left, most of them having fled to Pompeius’ camp in Greece, where
their presence was a considerable annoyance to their leader, who found
in them inveterate critics and grumblers, anxious to give advice on
military matters of which they were supremely ignorant.
Cæsar’s undivided authority was useful to him; before he left Italy he
had his consular powers enlarged and the city could be left without
fear, as his own partisans were in control. Cæsar’s Spanish victory
had given him, on land, decided superiority over his opponents. He had
now, in addition to the eleven old legions, seventeen new ones, mostly
composed of Pompeian troops, who had transferred their allegiance as
the fortune of war had changed. Two had been lost in the disaster in
Africa under Curio. About half of his whole strength, twelve legions
and 1000 horse, he collected together at Brundisium, intending to sail
from that port and meet Pompeius’ army in Epirus. The rest of his
forces were scattered about in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain.
To oppose to the Cæsarian main army, the senatorial party had only
eleven legions; two of them had originally served under Cæsar, the
rest were recruited in the East or were old units filled out by fresh
additional soldiers. Pompeius’ chief hope, after the defeat of his
army in Spain, lay in the possession of a superior sea power. In this
respect he had decidedly the advantage, for besides the Roman fleet
there were the ships of the dependent Eastern states, while Cæsar’s
ships in the Adriatic had been either captured or destroyed. Cæsar had,
it is true, ordered new ones, but he had no seagoing population to draw
from, to secure sailors. Marseilles, it will be remembered, had taken
sides with Pompeius and had only been captured with difficulty.
When Cæsar reached Brundisium, he found there were not enough ships
there to transport his army to the Greek coast. He adopted, however,
the bold plan of using what transports there were, and so, taking
advantage of a favorable wind, carried half his available force, seven
legions and a corps of cavalry, to the other side. The whole operation
took only from twelve to fifteen hours. Pompeius had not brought
his land force to the coast of Epirus, and his fleet, as it was the
winter season, had not counted on Cæsar’s making the passage at that
time. Yet when Cæsar landed, the situation was anything but favorable
for him; Pompeius’ army had reached the principal harbor of Epirus,
Dyrrhachium, and his fleet had destroyed part of the transports and
was keeping vigilant watch to intercept the rest, if they attempted to
leave Brundisium with the legions which remained there. Cæsar was cut
off from his base, but Pompeius dared not attack him, though his army
was numerically superior. The two armies faced one another in inaction,
Pompeius waiting for reinforcements, and Cæsar hoping that there would
be a chance for the rest of his army to join him, although the way
through Illyria was impracticable, the country being mountainous and
the population of uncertain loyalty.