From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (23 page)

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon (p. 104) the scales must have seemed heavily weighted against him. He had with him only one legion, control of the Po valley and of Gaul, and some political support in Rome, whereas Pompey, backed by the Senate, had all the rest of Italy, Spain, all the eastern provinces, and control of the sea and the corn-supply. But he had only two legions in Italy, and since these were the two that he had taken from Caesar (p. 103) he dared not risk an attack until he had raised more troops. Caesar struck first, with his usual speed: though it was winter, he pressed down the east coast, seized the passes to Etruria, and overran Picenum. Thus menaced, the consuls and Senate left Rome for Capua, and Pompey aimed at building up his forces in Apulia. His scheme was wrecked by the obstinate folly of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had been appointed governor of Transalpine Gaul in succession to Caesar and was thus not subordinate to Pompey. Domitius, despite Pompey’s advice and pleas,
⁹
insisted on trying to hold out against Caesar at Corfinium, where after a short blockade he was forced to capitulate. The addition of Domitius’ men to Caesar’s forces tilted the balance of legions against Pompey, who was thus compelled to withdraw to Brundisium, where he very skilfully embarked his men in face of Caesar’s hasty attempt to thwart him; he then sailed across to Greece, leaving Caesar master of Italy after some two months’ campaigning.

During these months at least three attempts at conciliation had been made. When Caesar was still at Ariminum he received an official communication from the Senate and a private message from Pompey. Caesar’s reply envisaged roughly a renewal of their alliance, in which of course he would inevitably predominate. Though Pompey accepted most of Caesar’s suggestions, negotiations broke down when Pompey insisted that he should continue to levy troops for the present. After the fall of Corfinium Caesar made another attempt, but the terms of Pompey’s reply are not known; and again at Brundisium Pompey refused to meet him.
¹⁰
From Brundisium Caesar
returned to Rome after taking steps to secure Sicily and Sardinia. Already he had got a praetor, L. Roscius, to carry a bill to grant full franchise to the Transpadanes.
¹¹
When he reached Rome, no proscriptions followed on the pattern of Marius and Sulla: he merely collected what senators he could and tried to persuade them to renew peace negotiations with Pompey, but nothing came of it. Since he needed money, he disregarded tribunician obstruction, broke into the Aerarium and helped himself. Then leaving Aemilius Lepidus in charge of Rome as
praefectus urbi
, an office that had lapsed since the time of the Kings, and M. Antony in charge of Italy, after a fortnight in the capital Caesar went off to face the Pompeians in Spain: he had not got a fleet, so Pompey himself must wait.

Soon after this Pompey was joined by Cicero, who had spent some anxious months, first exerting himself for peace, and then trying to make up his mind whether to remain neutral or join Pompey. He owed this freedom of choice to the generosity of Caesar who had a frank discussion with him at Formiae when on his way to Rome; having failed to persuade Cicero to attend the Senate-meeting, Caesar left him unharmed. Finally, although his letters reflect no high opinion of Pompey’s conduct or aims, Cicero decided that past loyalties demanded that he went to him. Pompey also received another unenthusiastic supporter when Cato joined him. At the approach of Caesar’s legates Cato, who was organizing the defence of Sicily, had left the island in order to avoid needless bloodshed: if Caesar is to be trusted, Cato publicly blamed Pompey for having let him down by rushing into a ‘non necessarium bellum’.

Sicily was thus occupied by Curio, to whom Caesar had entrusted the task of seizing Africa from its Pompeian governor, P. Attius Varus and his three legions. The political skill that Curio had hitherto exercised in Caesar’s interests was not matched in the military field, where he lacked experience. After crossing to Africa he gained some initial successes around Utica, for which his legions optimistically hailed him as
imperator
, but then he had to face the forces of the Numidian king, Juba I, who had come to support the Pompeian cause: Juba was a personal enemy of Caesar, who many years before in Rome had pulled the king’s beard in the heat of a quarrel. Lured into a trap in the Bagradas valley, Curio was killed and his army was annihilated. Africa, and its corn, remained in Pompeian hands for the next two and a half years.

Meantime Caesar was fighting for supremacy in Spain. On his way there he encountered the hostility of Massilia, which at first wished to remain neutral, but on the arrival by sea of Domitius, the governor of Transalpine Gaul, the city declared for Pompey. Caesar left Trebonius to conduct the siege with three legions and Decimus Brutus to command the fleet, and pressed on with six legions to Spain. There he faced five legions under two competent commanders, L. Afranius who had fought against Sertorius and in the East, and
M. Petreius, who had defeated Catiline in Etruria; in western Spain there were two more legions under M. Terentius Varro, more noted as a writer than soldier. Caesar found Afranius and Petreius entrenched at Ilerda by the Sicoris, a tributary of the Ebro. In the operations that ensued at one moment he ran short of supplies and was dangerously cut off by the spring rise of the river, but he succeeded in turning the tables and forced his enemies into a position where, cut off from supplies, they were compelled to capitulate. Caesar showed great clemency, pardoning the commanders and disbanding the men. He then marched south, received the submission of Varro at Corduba, and settled the province, granting Roman citizenship to Gades. In less than three months by brilliant generalship he had mastered Spain. Meantime Massilia, hard pressed by the blockade, was ready to surrender to Caesar on his return from Spain. In view of the city’s past history and glories, Caesar allowed it to retain its autonomy, but deprived it of most of its territories: though it remained a centre of Greek culture, it quickly declined.

While on his way home Caesar learnt that four legions, which he had sent on ahead to Placentia, were restless. On his arrival a mere threat to decimate the Ninth and the execution of a dozen ring-leaders sufficed to quell this incipient mutiny. Shortly before this he had heard that Lepidus, as praetor, had failed to get special permission to hold the consular elections for 48, and in default had carried a law appointing Caesar dictator. As Caesar’s main need was to secure the consulship (this being the issue on which his dispute with the Senate had hinged), his dictatorship was perhaps more limited in scope than that of a ‘dictator rei publicae constituendae’ as Sulla, and may only have authorized him to hold the elections (
comitiorum habendorum causa
) and the Latin Festival: in the fourth and third centuries dictators had often been appointed for such special non-military duties. When he reached Rome he held the elections, at which he won his second consulship, celebrated the Festival, and then, relying perhaps on the
imperium maius
inherent in a dictator’s office, he carried some necessary legislation, helping debtors (by methods which involved creditors in an average loss of a quarter of the principal), forbidding hoarding large sums of cash, and recalling exiles.
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Then having held his first dictatorship for eleven days, he abdicated.

Meanwhile Pompey had gone to Thessalonica, and by drawing upon the resources of the eastern provinces and client kings he was able to build up a force of some 36,000 legionaries, together with at least 300 ships which were commanded by Bibulus. He had with him, however, some 200 senators, and although he had been chosen commander-in-chief, he found it difficult to impose unity of purpose on these Roman nobles. To prevent these forces
increasing still further Caesar had to act quickly. He hastened to Brundisium and despite the risk of winter navigation he got seven legions across the Adriatic early in 48, but Bibulus attacked his transports on their return and blockaded Brundisium. Caesar had occupied Apollonia, but he was prevented from winning Dyrrhachium through the sudden appearance of Pompey who had been hastening to the west. He was in fact in a very difficult position, but at last in the early spring M. Antony managed to slip across with four more legions, eluded Pompey and joined forces with Caesar, who then took up a position just south of Dyrrhachium. Pompey, who had avoided a pitched battle, camped a little south of Caesar, and secured himself by establishing fortified lines on a semicircle of hills that ran behind the coast and thus enclosed his whole position. Caesar then built an outer line of fortifications some fifteen miles long; these cut Pompey completely off by land, but not by sea. As the weeks went by, Caesar found his own supplies diminishing, and after he had repulsed at heavy cost a full-scale attack by Pompey on his lines, he was compelled to try to break away. This he managed successfully; he reached Apollonia and then made eastwards for Thessaly and its corn-fields.

Pompey followed and when he camped on higher ground opposite Caesar near Pharsalus
¹³
he outnumbered his opponent very considerably. At first he declined to engage, but then decided to fight on the very day that Caesar determined to move off. He hoped that the superiority of his cavalry would give him the victory, but Caesar thwarted this by posting obliquely behind his own line a reserve of eight cohorts who used their
pila
as stabbing spears. Caesar then threw in his third line with devastating effect. Pompey quickly rode off the field: his losses numbered some 6000 dead and 24,000 captured. As Caesar surveyed the stricken field and the Optimate dead, he cried, ‘They would have it thus’ (
hoc voluerunt
).

Pompey fled with a few friends to Egypt, but as he stepped ashore he was murdered on Ptolemy’s orders. His death at least smoothed the path of Caesar, who arrived three days later: it is unlikely that he would have felt able to show the same generosity to him as to lesser opponents or that, if he had, Pompey would have chosen to have survived as a living example of his conqueror’s
clementia
. Pompey was widely mourned. Cicero, who had been so drawn to him and yet disappointed in him, wrote: ‘non possum eius casum non dolere: hominem enim integrum et castum et gravem cognovi’. His private life commanded respect in a period of increasing licence, and he won the affection of Julia and Cornelia, whom he had married for political reasons. In political life he had shown lack of understanding and of sureness of touch: the puzzled frown seen on his portraits reflects a frequent hesitation, arising in part from an innate moderation. Ambitious he was, but he sought glory before power: the violence of his earlier days and his great military gifts secured for him immense authority, both official and private. This, at the
moment of inescapable decision, he placed at the service of an unworthy Senate, whose control his own earlier career had done so much to weaken, in an attempt to uphold constitutionalism and his own
dignitas
alike. His gifts as soldier and administrator raised him high above his contemporaries and made him a worthy opponent of Caesar; he lacked only that final spark of genius that set Caesar apart.
¹⁴

The political scene in Egypt was disturbed. Ptolemy Auletes, who had finally been restored to his throne by Gabinius at Pompey’s instigation, had died in 51 and left his kingdom to his son Ptolemy, aged about ten, and his daughter Cleopatra, aged about eighteen, whom he commended to the care of the Roman People. Around the young joint-rulers, who married one another, gathered a motley crowd of advisors and adventurers, including some Roman troops whom Gabinius had left behind. One court faction soon succeeded in driving Cleopatra out of Alexandria, but she had just returned at the head of an army when news came of Pompey’s approach: the young king’s advisors bid for Caesar’s support and treacherously effected Pompey’s murder. Three days later Caesar arrived with a small force of some 4000 men. When he decided to settle Egypt and collect the money which Auletes had promised to pay the triumvirs for his recognition, his autocratic manner soon enabled Ptolemy’s supporters to rouse the royal guard and the Alexandrian mob against him: he was besieged in the palace quarters of the city through the winter (48/7), while he awaited reinforcements from Asia. Meantime Cleopatra, who wanted to put her claims before the would-be Roman arbitrator, had been smuggled by a boatman into the city and palace. She was, like all the Ptolemies, a Macedonian not an Egyptian; of unbounded ambition and energy, she was highly cultured and amusing, charming rather than beautiful. Caesar was captivated, and Cleopatra stayed on in the palace as his mistress.

During the winter one legion reached Caesar, and there was some stiff fighting by sea in and around the harbours: at one moment Caesar had to swim for his life. But in the spring a force, which a certain Mithridates of Pergamum had raised for Caesar in Syria, arrived; Caesar managed to join hands with it and together they defeated the army of young Ptolemy in the Nile Delta. Ptolemy fell in battle, and his crown was transferred to a younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, but Cleopatra remained the effective ruler. Caesar is said to have spent the next two months with her on a tour up the Nile, but he had to hurry off to Asia Minor where Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates and ruler of the Bosporus, had overrun Cappadocia and Armenia Minor, defeated at Nicopolis Cn. Domitius Calvinus whom Caesar had sent against him, and then occupied Pontus.
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Caesar left three legions in Egypt and set off to deal with Pharnaces, whom he defeated in a brilliantly swift campaign of five days at Zela, after the king had rashly launched an attack up-hill; later at his
triumph in Rome Caesar displayed his famous message summing up the campaign: ‘
veni, vidi, vici
’ He rewarded Mithridates of Pergamum by granting him the eastern part of Galatia and the vacant realm of Bosporus, but in trying to occupy the latter Mithridates was killed. Now at last, in the course of the summer (47) Caesar was free to return to Italy.