Caesar: Life of a Colossus

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  It must have taken hours for the two armies to move into their positions, their front lines probably less than a mile apart. Battles have always been confusing, those in a civil war doubly so, and to reduce the chance of mistaking friend for enemy and vice versa, each side issued a password. Caesar took the name of his divine ancestor in the form that associated her with military success -'Venus, the Bringer of Victory' - while the Pompeians used `Hercules the Unconquered' as their sign. Some of the later sources spoke of a time of hesitation, when the two sides balked at the prospect of slaughtering fellow citizens, but this is most likely mere romantic invention. Both armies seem to have been confident. Caesar was encouraged by the spirit of his men as he rode along the lines, talking to them and checking that the units were in their appointed place. He does claim to have recounted to them once again the wrongs done to him and all the efforts he had made to arrange a peaceful settlement. He had gone all along the line and was with the Tenth when he gave the signal for the advance. As the trumpets blared out, close to him was Crastinus, a retired Primus pilus of the legion, who called out,

  `Follow me, my old comrades, and give your general true service. Only this battle remains; when it's over he will regain his dignity and we our freedom.' At the same moment he turned to Caesar and said, `Today, general, I shall earn your gratitude whether I live or die.' After saying this he charged forward from the right wing, and about 120 handpicked soldiers from the same century - all serving as volunteers - followed him.26

  Caesar's infantry advanced in good order, keeping to a steady pace to preserve their formation. When they came closer to the enemy, the front line of cohorts charged forward ready to throw their pila when they came within effective range of about 15 yards. The normal tactic was to keep silent, save for the orders and encouragement of the centurions and other officers, and only to raise a cheer when they flung their heavy javelins and ran forward to close with the enemy. This time the Pompeians stayed rooted to the spot, not advancing to meet them. The centurions had judged the moment to order the charge on the assumption that the enemy would also come forward. Now they realised at the last minute that this was not going to happen, and that there was the danger they would launch their volley of pila too soon and have lost formation by the time they reached the enemy. In a frightening display of their discipline, Caesar's veterans halted, calmly redressed their ranks and then came on again in good order. At the right moment they then accelerated for a second time, hurled their pila, raised a shout and charged sword in hand at the Pompeian line. Caesar felt that Pompey's order for his troops to remain stationary was a mistake, since it denied them the enthusiasm of the charge. However, helped no doubt by their numbers and deep formation, the enemy legionaries for a while managed to resist the charge and heavy fighting developed all along the line.

  Pompey did not need his legionaries to beat the enemy, merely to keep them occupied and allow the cavalry attack time to succeed. As the battle began Labienus led his men forward against the massively outnumbered Caesarean horse. The latter gave ground, perhaps deliberately retiring to draw the enemy onwards. Over 6,000 cavalry were concentrated in a small area. They were a mixed bag of many different races, inexperienced and led mainly by enthusiastic but equally raw, young aristocrats. Pompey's cavalry had had few opportunities to operate en masse in the campaign so far. Their horses can only have been in a poor state after the hardships endured at Dyrrachium, which may well have meant that the charge occurred at no faster rate than a trot. In the beginning such a large body of cavalrymen should have been divided into several lines and care taken to make sure that reserves were kept back to exploit any success or give support as required. However, as the cavalry advanced and drove back Caesar's horsemen this good order seems to have vanished, as the riders and mounts both became carried away by the exhilarating sense of power derived from the close presence of so many others. Labienus and his officers lost control, and instead of an ordered body the force seems to have degenerated into a great disordered mass. At this point Caesar gave the order for the six cohorts in his fourth line to attack. The legionaries came forward, infantry attacking horsemen in a way that has been rare throughout history. They kept their pila in their hands and used them as thrusting spears. Labienus' men had lost order and momentum. It may well he that they had halted, perhaps because he was trying to regain control before moving against the flank of Caesar's infantry. Whatever the cause, the result was a rout in which the entire mob of cavalry stampeded to the rear and played no further part in the battle. Their supporting light infantrymen fled or were cut down.

  Caesar kept his fourth line under tight control. Rather than pursuing too far, they swung round to strike the left flank of the Pompeian infantry. All along the rest of the front, the cohorts of Caesar's first and second line were already heavily engaged - these two lines usually worked closely together. They had made some headway and more progress was made as the enemy line was turned. Now Caesar gave the order for his final reserves, the fresh cohorts of the third line, to advance into the fighting line. The Pompeians gave more ground, and then their line collapsed and degenerated into flight. Caesar kept some troops in hand and led them on to storm the enemy camp. He and his officers exhorted the men to spare fellow citizens whenever possible, but it is claimed that they also told them to massacre the enemy auxiliaries to make it clear that their mercy was a special favour. Caesar claims that 15,000 enemy were killed and 24,000 captured along with the eagles of nine legions and 180 other standards. Asinius Pollio gave the lower figure of 6,000 for the Pompeian dead, which may well be more accurate. Domitius Ahenobarbus was killed in the fighting, but most of the other leading Pompeians escaped. Servilia's son Brutus soon joined the prisoners, and Caesar is alleged to have sent men out looking for him and been delighted when he was found to be still alive. His own losses had been comparatively small considering the scale of his victory, amounting to 200 men and 30 centurions - the latter tended to suffer disproportionately high casualties because of the aggressive leadership expected of them. Crastinus was amongst the dead, killed by a sword thrust that went through his mouth and came out of the back of his neck. This was only after he had performed great heroics. Appian tells us that Caesar gave him an honoured burial and even decorated him, which was unusual since the Romans did not normally give posthumous decorations. Caesar himself tells us that he and his men were disgusted by the lavishness of the enemy camp and the arrogance shown by the tents and shelters already decorated with symbols of victory. Asinius Pollio recorded the more revealing comment made as Caesar looked across the field strewn with enemy dead. `They wanted it; even after all my great deeds I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned, if I had not sought support from my army.''-

  Even allowing for hostile sources, Pompey had not done well at Pharsalus and had little impact on the course of the battle after it had begun. Soon after the cavalry attack failed, he returned to camp. A little later, as he saw the signs of collapse, he took off his general's insignia and fled. It might not have made any difference if he had remained with his soldiers, but it was very poor behaviour for a Roman commander, who was never supposed to admit defeat and, even if things went badly, should try to get as much of his army away in as good order as possible. A battle might be lost, but the general's task was to make sure that the war would eventually be won. At Pharsalus Pompey despaired, perhaps because for most of the campaign he had wished to avoid fighting such a pitched battle at all. He made no real effort to re-form an army in Greece, but with his advisors soon thought of fleeing overseas. There were rumours that he even considered seeking refuge and aid from the Parthians, but in the end Pompey chose to go to Egypt, where the throne was being fought over by the children of King Ptolemy. Egypt had supplied him with military aid in the recent campaign and was wealthy, so may well have seemed a likely base for rebuilding his fortune. Along with his wife Cornelia, some officers and attendants, Pompey sailed into Alexandria. Openly, the young king - or rather his adviso
rs since the boy was only in his early teens - sent messages of welcome. Pompey got into a boat sent out from the shore. On board were several Egyptians, but also two Roman officers who had served with him years before, and then subsequently been part of Gabinius' army, remaining in Egypt after the restoration of Ptolemy. As his wife and friends watched from the deck of the ship, these officers stabbed Pompey to death. Thus ended Pompey the Great, a man who had celebrated three triumphs and been consul three times. He was just one day short of his fifty-ninth birthday His head was cut off and kept to present to Caesar in the hope of gaining the goodwill of the victor, but the rest of the body was left on the beach until one of his own freedmen came and buried it.28

  CLEOPATRA, EGYPT

  AND THE EAST,

  AUTUMN 48-SUMMER 47 BC

  `Caesar also had affairs with queens ... most of all with Cleopatra, with whom he often feasted until first light, and he would have sailed through Egypt on her royal barge almost to Aethiopia, if his army had not refused to follow him.' - Suetonius, late first/early second ceutuly AD.'

  `Cleopatra ... was a woman of surpassing beauty, and at that time, when she was in the prime of her youth, she was most striking; she also possessed a most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime, she thought that it would he in keeping with her role to meet Caesar, and she reposed in her beauty all her claims to the throne.' - Dio, early third century AD.2

  Caesar followed up his success at Pharsalus with his usual vigorous pursuit and arrived in Alexandria just three days after Pompey's murder. It was important to complete the victory by preventing the enemy from regrouping. Pompey's skill, reputation and huge array of clients made him still the most dangerous opponent even after his defeat, and Caesar had focused his main attention on hunting down his former father-in-law. He travelled quickly, taking with him only a small force. At one point he came across a far larger squadron of enemy warships, but such was his confidence that he simply demanded - and promptly received - their surrender. Caesar paused for a few days on the coast of Asia, settling the province and arranging for the communities, especially those that had strongly supported the Pompeians, to supply him with the money and food he needed to support his ever-growing armies. At this point news arrived that Pompey was on his way to Egypt and Caesar immediately resumed the hunt, taking with him some 4,000 troops and reaching Alexandria at the beginning of October. Almost immediately he learned of Pompey's death, and soon afterwards the latter's signet ring and head were presented to him by envoys of the young king. Caesar wept when he saw the first and would not look at the second. His disgust and sorrow may well have been genuine, for from the beginning he had taken great pride in his clemency and willingness to pardon his enemies. Whether Pompey would have accepted this is another matter, having earlier in the year declared that he had no intention of living on indebted to `Caesar's generosity'. A cynical observer might say that it was very convenient for Caesar to be able to transfer to foreign assassins the guilt for killing one of the greatest heroes in the history of the Republic. Yet in the past there does seem to have been some genuine affection between the two men as well as political association. Even when they came to see each other as rivals, it is extremely unlikely that Caesar ever wanted to kill Pompey. His aim was to be acknowledged by everyone, including Pompey himself, as Pompey's equal - and perhaps in time as his superior. A dead Pompey was far less satisfying.'

  Nevertheless, the murder made it clear that the local authorities were keen to please the newcomers, and Caesar decided to land with his troops. With him were the Sixth Legion, reduced by constant campaigning to under 1,000 men, and one of Pompey's old formations that had now been renumbered the Twenty-Seventh and mustered some 2,200 legionaries. Supporting these were some 800 auxiliary cavalry, at least some of whom were Gauls and others Germans. It is possible that this was the bodyguard unit that had accompanied Caesar in the recent campaigns. It was not an especially strong force, but Caesar did not expect to face serious opposition. He disembarked and marched to take up residence in one of the palaces in the royal quarter of the city. As consul, he was preceded by twelve lictors carrying the fasces which symbolised his imperium as a Roman magistrate. The sight provoked a hostile reaction from the royal troops in the city and from many of the Alexandrians. The Romans were jeered and over the next few days a number of legionaries caught alone in the streets were attacked and killed by mobs. Caesar had stumbled into the middle of Egypt's own civil war and would soon be besieged and fighting for his life, completely out of touch with events in the rest of the Mediterranean. Before describing what became known as the Alexandrian War, it is worth pausing to consider Egypt in the fading years of the Ptolemaic dynasty'

  PTOLEMAIC EGYPT AND ITS QUEEN

  Alexander the Great had taken Egypt from the Persians in 331 BC, founding Alexandria that same year - one of a number of cities bearing his name, although in time it outstripped all the others. When he died his massive empire was torn apart by his generals as they struggled to carve out kingdoms of their own. One of the most successful was Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who became Ptolemy I Soter, or `saviour', and took Alexandria in Egypt as his capital, even managing to divert Alexander's funeral cortege so that the body of the great conqueror was interred in the city. The dynasty Ptolemy founded would rule for almost three centuries, controlling an empire that at times included not just Egypt, but also Cyrenaica, Palestine, Cyprus, and parts of Asia Minor. Its extent varied, outlying territories being lost to rebellion or the renewed vigour of the other great successor kingdoms of Antigonid Macedonia and the Seleucid Empire. The balance of power between the three rivals fluctuated over the years, but by 48 BC both of the others had gone. Macedonia had become a Roman province in 146 BC, while Pompey had deposed the last Seleucid king in 64 Bc and taken Syria under Roman rule. The Macedonians and Seleucids had chosen to fight Rome and had lost. In contrast the Ptolemies formed an alliance with the Roman Republic even before it began to extend its power into the region. The kingdom survived, but it gained few benefits from Roman expansion and during the second century BC this was a contributory factor in its steady decline. As important were the almost unending dynastic struggles within the royal family. Ptolemy II had married his sister, inaugurating a tradition of incestuous marriages - brother to sister, nephew to aunt and uncle to niece - which persisted to the end of the dynasty. Such unions, broken only by occasional marriages to foreign, usually Seleucid princesses, prevented the aristocratic families from gaining claims to the throne. The price was to make the pattern of succession very unclear. Factions grew up surrounding different members of the royal family, all eager to advance them to become king or queen and so gain influence as their advisor. Civil wars were frequent, and over time it became more and more common for Rome to act as arbiter, formal recognition by the Romans helping greatly to legitimise a monarch's rule. The kingdom's independence was gradually eroded.

  Egypt remained very wealthy. In part this was through trade, Alexandria being one of the greatest ports in the ancient world, but more than anything else it rested on agriculture. Every year the Nile flooded - as it still did until the construction of the Aswan dam. When the water receded the farmers were able to sow their seeds in fields rendered very fertile by the moisture. The scale of the annual inundation varied and, as in the Book of Genesis, there could be years of famine as well as years of plenty, but in general the harvest produced a substantial surplus. Many centuries before the unrivalled fertility of the Nile valley had allowed the civilisation of ancient Egypt to flourish and create its awesome monuments. More recently it had made the region an attractive conquest for the Persians and after them the Macedonians. The power of the Ptolemies was always based firmly on Egypt. Through a sophisticated bureaucratic machine, much of it inherited from the earlier periods, they were able to exploit this productivity. An importa
nt component within the system was the temples - many of which preserved the worship and rites of the old Egyptian religion and were little influenced by imported Hellenic ideas. The temples were major landowners, but also centres for industry and craft, and had privileged status, exempting them from most taxation. Roman visitors to Egypt were amazed by the fertility and wealth of the country, as much as they claimed to have been shocked by the intrigue and opulence of the royal court. By the first century BC Egypt seemed to offer the prospect of massive wealth to a number of ambitious Romans.'

  The career of Cleopatra's father illustrates both the instability of Egyptian politics and its ever more blatant dependence on Rome. He was Ptolemy XII, illegitimate son of Ptolemy IX and (most probably) one of his concubines. His father had become king in 116 BC when his mother chose him as joint ruler and husband, but was later rejected in favour of another brother, the massively obese Ptolemy X. He eventually returned to oust them both by force and remained on the throne until his death at the end of 81 BC. Ptolemy IX was succeeded by his nephew Ptolemy XI, who was taken as husband and consort by his stepmother, promptly murdered her and was himself in turn assassinated soon afterwards. Ptolemy XII was then recognised as King of Egypt by Sulla. He styled himself the `New Dionysus' (Neos Dionysus), but was often known less flatteringly as Auletes or the `flute player' - some would argue that oboe player would probably be a better translation, but the other version is more commonly used. In 75 Bc rival claimants to the throne had gone to Rome to lobby the Senate, but eventually left without achieving anything.