Caesar's Spies- The Complete Campaigns

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘We are talking of the plain below the hill-town of Philippi,’ said Felix, as he pointed to the parchment map of the area he had pinned to the wall of Saxa’s briefing room. ‘Much of the plain is more than ten military miles in width, but its eastern end, closest to Philippi, is narrower. This narrower section is bound on the north by steep, forested slopes leading up to Philippi on one eminence, the Acropolis of Dionysus on the next and various other, lower ones the further west and north you move. To the south there are also steep, wooded hills standing in a wall between the plain and the coast. There is a gap in the southern hills through which the Via Egnatia ruins down to Neapolis on the coast. But trapped immediately to the north of this mountain wall there is a large area of marshland into which several streams and one sizeable river – the Gangites – drain, forming at least two lakes. Because of the effect of the northern slopes and the southern marsh, the plain of Philippi is little more than five miles wide at this point. Furthermore, this narrow section is at the crest of a long incline that slopes away to the west. The river Gangites runs roughly north/south, surprisingly high on this slope.’

  ‘Very good, Centurion,’ said Antony, nodding grimly. ‘I can see the battleground quite clearly in my mind and I look forward to your description of the so-called Libertores’ defences. But not as much as I’m looking forward to seeing them for myself in a day or two’s time. And covering the battleground in front of them with their corpses – and those of their legions!’

  XII - The Two Camps

  i

  ‘So,’ said Antony. He looked up the parched grass of the slope at the wall erected by Brutus’ and Cassius’ legions which crested it. ‘That was a pretty accurate briefing, Centurion Felix; I think you got it right in every detail.’

  Seated on either side of the general were Saxa and Norbanus, whose legions had joined Antony’s army leaving only one – commanded by young Legate Pinarius - in Amphipolis thirty miles and two days’ march behind. Brother Lucius, Asinius, Ventidius Bassus and the rest of Antony’s most trusted leaders all sat beside them, as did Felix, Artemidorus and the crypteia - except for Voadicia who still could not sit a horse and was coming like Caesar in a covered wagon alongside the Seventh with Hecate to keep her company. The men gazed up the slope towards the Libertores’ massive defensive works. And it had to be admitted that they were impressive. It looked, thought Artemidorus, as though the men who caused them to be erected were trying to hide behind them.

  Antony’s command unit were seated astride their restless horses in the middle of the Via, as close as they dared go to what they were looking at. The afternoon sun threw an added brightness onto what they were observing, making every detail preternaturally clear. The upper, narrower, section of the plain below Philippi was walled from side to side by an earth bank topped with a wooden palisade which had watch-towers every five hundred paces. The bank stood the better part of eight feet high. The palisade of wooden stakes above, extended its height by a further fifteen feet. The watch towers rose a good ten feet further still, commanding a spectacular view of all the western approaches to the Libertores’ position.

  In front of the bank was a ditch – from which the earth that created the fortification had been dug - though their position gave them no real indication of how deep that ditch might be. In front of the ditch, almost like a moat, ran the river Gangites. The ditch and the wall, like the river, started away on their left, up in the slopes of the forested inland hillsides and it ran down to the distant swamp, interrupted only by three massively fortified gates. There was one in the centre through which the Via ran, having stepped over the river on the back of a wide bridge. And there were two others perhaps a mile either side of it, up nearer the hills and down near that massive stand of reeds into which the Gangites also vanished as the coastal mountains stopped it reaching the sea.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ asked Antony, ‘It must be five miles end to end?’

  ‘At least,’ said Artemidorus. ‘With that great fortified gate in the middle closing off the Via.’

  ‘No chance of an assault straight along the roadway, then,’ mused Antony. ‘Not like the battle of Mutina which we fought along the Via Aemilia.’ No-one pointed out that the Via Aemilia was also the route he retreated along after his near-fatal defeat at Mutina.

  Abruptly, the main gate opened. A unit of cavalry came streaming out, galloping over the river-bridge and along the Via towards them. ‘Gaulish by the look of them,’ said Antony, unperturbed. ‘I hear both Brutus and Cassius have Gaulish units – as do I. You think they’re coming to capture us or kill us?’

  *

  Even as he spoke, the first unit of his army, which now consisted of thirteen legions, the better part of seventy thousand men, appeared over the crest of the last hill between here and Amphipolis. As they began to quick-march down onto the plain, Antony’s own Gaulish cavalry came thundering closer on either side of them. At the sight of the massive force, the Libertores’ cavalry turned and began to gallop back towards the great gate.

  ‘They saw too little,’ mused Artemidorus. ‘And reacted too late. That will have damaged their morale. A bad start for them. A good start for us.’

  ‘I agree!’ said Antony. ‘Even at that distance the arrival of our legions seems to have unsettled them. Just think what drawing our lines here will do to them! This is obviously the best place for us to make camp.’

  ‘This close?’ said Norbanus, clearly surprised by the borderline foolhardiness of the decision. ‘It’s hardly eight stades - less than a military mile!’

  ‘They appear to be almost fearful behind all their defences in spite of the fact that they outnumber us,’ Antony said. ‘Our best defence right from the start is to attack. Failing that, we must appear confident. Challenge them at every opportunity, so that each time they pull back or do nothing, their legions will get more restless, impatient and hard to handle. As we’ve already discussed, command and control must be quite a challenge for them.’

  The rest of the afternoon passed in an ever-increasing bustle of activity as legion after legion arrived, each erecting its own castrum, along the line that Antony dictated, each linking with the next, parallel to the Libertores’ wall and a mere eight stades, away from it. Each legion worked swiftly and efficiently, with practised ease. On the march – especially through enemy territory – they did this at the end of every day. Then they settled to their evening meal. They had brought supplies with them, augmented as necessary in Amphipolis. When the Seventh arrived, Hecate and Voadicia found Artemidorus and the others still with Antony’s staff, so that the crypteia was complete by late afternoon.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ decided Antony as he briefed them all in the atrium of his large command tent, ‘we’ll copy the enemy and centralise our defences. One large castrum spanning the Via here and using it as our via decumana main street with the rest of the camp laid out accordingly Then lines of defence stretching north and south up towards the hills and down towards the marsh. Something young Caesar and his troops can fit into easily when they and the Martia arrive. That’ll be another six legions, nearly thirty thousand men in all. We’ll detail scavengers to look for food and supplies; we’ll get the engineers to dig wells and latrines when they’ve finished erecting the main defensive wall – and the gate across the Via of course. I don’t want their gate to be bigger than my gate; my gate has to be a far larger erection than theirs! And we’ll send out units from the Gaulish cavalry and Legio X Equestris as skirmishers to keep their marauders occupied and guard our men as they work. But in the mean-time, Septem, I want you and your crypteia to grab an early supper and go scouting. See what you can discover when you get really close to their wall.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re going to attack tonight, before we get settled and fully manned?’ asked Lucius.

  ‘No, brother.’ Antony shook his head. ‘I really don’t think they’d dare try a night attack and anyway, they can see that we’re ready for them if they were to try it. I ag
ree with Felix and Septem – they’re more likely to wait us out and hope we starve or freeze than come out here and put us to the sword.’

  ‘They’re too comfortable where they are,’ growled Norbanus disapprovingly. But, thought Artemidorus, he and Saxa would be quick to see weakness and error in their enemies, having been outmanoeuvred by them not once but twice; not to mention being forced by them to hide in Amphipolis.

  ‘The strength of their position is in many ways a weakness,’ agreed Saxa.

  ‘So Septem, Felix, concluded Antony. ‘Off you and your crypteia go and see what other weaknesses you can find.’ He looked around the other men there, noting their nods of approval. ‘Report to me at first light.’

  ‘If you make it back,’ added Saxa grimly.

  ii

  Antony’s cooks, bakers and vintners supplied the crypteia with a light meal served by his legionary slaves on tables outside the command tent. As the crypteia ate and drank, they planned. ‘Five miles of wall,’ said Quintus. ‘We’ll never scout that in one night.’ The others all nodded.

  ‘Agreed,’ nodded Artemidorus. ‘So we have to choose a section.’

  ‘Start at the middle?’ wondered Felix, ‘then decide whether we go north or south? At least if we go straight along the Via it’s less than a mile before we reach their main gate and can start assessing their defences close-to.’

  ‘Surely, the effectiveness of that approach depends on two things,’ said Voadicia. ‘Whether we can manage to get close without being spotted: I mean, it’s so obvious an approach route. And secondly what we’re actually looking for.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Artemidorus.

  ‘The General wasn’t specific,’ she continued. ‘But I’d wager the first thing he’ll want to know is whether there are weaknesses and where they are. Surely that’s obvious too. If they don’t want to attack, he has to find some way to make them do so. Or, of course, a way to attack them without seeing his army slaughtered at that wall. Either one will do, I’d have thought.’

  ‘I agree with that,’ said Felix as Quintus and the others nodded. ‘So starting at the gate will probably be a waste of time – it’s obviously built like a gate in the Servian Wall.’

  ‘But,’ added Hecate, ‘we also need to get some sort of idea of the internal layout of whatever lies behind the wall itself. Look.’ She gestured with a piece of bread as though it was some kind of pointer. The others looked where she indicated and nodded their agreement. The lowering sun was casting the early evening light upon countless grey columns of smoke rising through the tranquil evening air, no doubt directly above the cooking fires lit by Brutus’ and Cassius’ legions. But whereas the smoke from Antony’s legions was rising pretty evenly along the line he had dictated, those of their enemies were concentrated. One set was close to the hill-slopes near Philippi and the other was close to the swamp.

  ‘So,’ said Artemidorus. ‘We don’t start in the middle. We start at the end.’

  ‘But which end?’ wondered Hercules.

  ‘The swamp,’ answered Artemidorus unhesitatingly. ‘I can claim at least some knowledge of the swamp, as can Felix…’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Felix. ‘The cover’s excellent. The Gods alone know what you could hide in there. But if we take care, we should be able to get really close to the wall unobserved. Perhaps even round the end of it if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Besides,’ concluded Artemidorus, ‘the hills at the other end are steep, even more dangerous, and the woods there offer little in the way of cover and a great deal in the way of things that will give us away and get us caught. That would be a job for a pair of us – four at the most.’

  ‘They’ll offer a good view down into the camp if we can get high enough, though,’ said Quintus pensively.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Artemidorus. ‘But that’s a mission for another day.’

  The triarius nodded, shrugged, turned to his preparations.

  They all armed themselves to an extent that impressed even the bloodthirsty Voadicia, though she was disappointed when Artemidorus told them all to remove their armour. Their red tunics were unlikely to give them away as easily as things that creaked, clashed, clattered, glittered or gleamed. Then all except Hecate rubbed black ash over their faces, arms and legs. Hecate and Voadicia took the dark lanterns, flint and steel. Neither of them had as yet been fully trained with the weapons they carried, so it seemed sensible to give them this responsibility and hope they didn’t get involved in any killing. As darkness settled, they moved off, loping away from the camp and into the shadows like a pack of hunting wolves.

  *

  The gathering darkness made Artemidorus pay particular attention to senses other than sight. So it was that he became aware of a strange feeling. He knew he should be running uphill towards the Libertores’ camp but as he was heading for the swamp there was a decided downhill bias on his right as well. It was something he stored away in his head in case it might become useful sometime in the future: attacking straight ahead was a tiring uphill run. Attacking to the right, heading for the swamp was easier – almost downhill. But no: it certainly was downhill, for the Gangites flowed easily downslope before it spread out and vanished away into the reeds and rushes, heading for the larger of the lakes at the heart of the quicksand mire. The secret agent expected the river to present a considerable barrier – as had Cassius’ engineers, evidently. The crypteia paused, looking down the rushy slope that led to the whispering, gurgle of the river spread to its widest at the very edge of the swamp. ‘We have to cross it if we’re going to get any closer to the camp,’ whispered Artemidorus, and the others grunted their agreement.

  ‘I’ll go first with the lamp,’ offered Voadicia, keen to earn her place in the group with actions as well as words.

  ‘No need,’ breathed Hercules. ‘I’ll wade in first as I have the longest legs and the rest of you can see how I go…’

  The tight little group crept down to the water’s edge and hesitated there, straining their eyes as their huge friend pushed the rushes aside and stepped gingerly forward. Moving slowly, in order to keep the noise to a minimum, he began to wade out. Almost immediately, the surface rose past his ankles and up his shins. By the time he was half way across, it was at his knees, piling into ripples upstream and wavelets like a tiny wake downstream, glittering in the starlight. But that was it. At its deepest, it almost reached the hem of his tunic – but was nowhere deeper than that.

  At his gesture from the far bank, the others waded across to join him. The water was icy and the river-bed thick with clinging mud. But, Artemidorus realised with relief that, like the water, the mud was not deep enough to present a danger; or even, in fact, much of a barrier.

  They arrived at the lower end of the Libertores’ wall, where it entered the marsh, surprisingly easily therefore. They stopped there to catch their breath and take their bearings. The ditch yawned on their left, just visible to their night-adjusted eyes in the clear-sky combination of starlight and moonshine. The earthen bank reared above it and the palisade stood above that with a watch-tower squarely on the corner. It was well-manned - which was hardly surprising given the arrival of Antony’s army – but the attention of the guards within it was firmly fixed on the enemy fires less than a mile away rather than at the ground immediately below their station.

  iii

  The first thing Artemidorus noticed was that the ditch stopped here and so did the earth bank. The palisade, however, continued. But instead of reaching further into the swamp it turned through ninety degrees and went back eastward, running parallel to the distant Via and, indeed, to the northern edge of the reed-banks. The engineers who planned this section of the defensive works obviously believed that the soft mud and the quicksand of the swamp were a sufficient deterrence to see off any attack beyond the wall’s end. Either that or they feared that extending their works further into the marshy ground would put themselves and their walls at risk for no appreciable gain. But then, thought Artemidorus, t
he engineers had supposed the river would make a good defence as well. ‘Spread out,’ he ordered in a whisper. ‘We’re on firm ground here – I want to see how far it extends into the swamp before the quicksand starts. We’ll move forward in a line.’

  They formed a line all abreast with Felix closest to the palisade, then Voadicia and Hecate. The others spread out until Artemidorus was last-but-one and Hercules pushed forward through the thickening reeds at the opposite end to Felix. They were at arms’ length apart. At a rough calculation, the breadth of the solid path they were following was about sixty feet – wider than that if Hercules didn’t come across any dangerously soft ground. They worked their way carefully and silently through the darkness, reaching out every five paces to locate their friends on either side. Until Artemidorus, whose attention had been focused on Felix’ shadowy outline against the distant wall as much as it had been on Hercules amongst the reeds, quietly called a halt. Hands closed on each other all along the line and they pulled each other in until they were grouped where Felix had stopped. The wall simply ended there. As far as Artemidorus could see, his friend just had to turn round by ninety degrees and he could lead them as he strolled straight into the rear section of the Libertores’ camp.

  *

  But the moment they peered around the corner they were confronted with several unexpected elements. The first and most important was that there was a proper, fully-walled camp here, behind the main fortification, almost independent of it. This self-contained castrum had been built around two low hills, one much larger than the other, but both with observation posts. Both visible now because of the watch-fires that speckled them like jewels on the backs of toads. Because of the slope on their first viewing of the place with Antony and their closeness to the main wall later, none of this had been discernible until now. Artemidorus thought back to this afternoon and Voadicia’s observation of the campfire smoke. The southernmost concentration must have come from here. Was there another fully walled castrum away to the north between the Via and the hillslopes near Philippi, he wondered. Perhaps he and Quintus should climb as high as they could tomorrow night and see what they could observe, looking down into the encampment from the heights of the Temple of Dionysus; or even, perhaps, from Philippi itself.