The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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Field of Caesar's Power
Upper Italy
While Caesar thus had the one thing which was needful--
unlimited political and military authority and a trustworthy army
ready for the fight--his power extended, comparatively speaking,
over only a very limited space. It was based essentially
on the province of Upper Italy. This region was not merely
the most populous of all the districts of Italy, but also devoted
to the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling
which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits
from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long
after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded
on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves
to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering,
and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death
with their own hands during the following night. It is easy to conceive
what might be expected of such a population. As they had already
granted to Caesar the means of more than doubling his original army,
so after the outbreak of the civil war recruits presented themselves
in great numbers for the ample levies that were immediately instituted.
Italy
In Italy proper, on the other hand, the influence of Caesar was not
even remotely to be compared to that of his opponents. Although
he had the skill by dexterous manoeuvres to put the Catonian party
in the wrong, and had sufficiently commended the rectitude
of his cause to all who wished for a pretext with a good conscience
either to remain neutral, like the majority of the senate,
or to embrace his side, like his soldiers and the Transpadanes,
the mass of the burgesses naturally did not allow themselves to be misled
by these things and, when the commandant of Gaul put his legions
in motion against Rome, they beheld--despite all formal explanations
as to law--in Cato and Pompeius the defenders of the legitimate republic,
in Caesar the democratic usurper. People in general moreover
expected from the nephew of Marius, the son-in-law of Cinna,
the ally of Catilina, a repetition of the Marian and Cinnan horrors,
a realization of the saturnalia of anarchy projected by Catilina;
and though Caesar certainly gained allies through this expectation--
so that the political refugees immediately put themselves in a body
at his disposal, the ruined men saw in him their deliverer,
and the lowest ranks of the rabble in the capital and country towns
were thrown into a ferment on the news of his advance,--these belonged
to the class of friends who are more dangerous than foes.
Provinces
In the provinces and the dependent states Caesar had
even less influence than in Italy. Transalpine Gaul indeed as far as
the Rhine and the Channel obeyed him, and the colonists of Narbo
as well as the Roman burgesses elsewhere settled in Gaul
were devoted to him; but in the Narbonese province itself
the constitutional party had numerous adherents, and now even
the newly-conquered regions were far more a burden than a benefit
to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons
he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war,
and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces
and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states
Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself support,
had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings
to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need
financial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course,
not much had been gained by this means, and the relations
with the German and Celtic princes in the regions of the Rhine
and the Danube,--particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio,
so important for the recruiting of cavalry,--were probably
the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him.
The Coalition
While Caesar thus entered the struggle only as commandant of Gaul,
without other essential resources than efficient adjutants,
a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it
as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full
possession of all the resources that stood at the disposal
of the legitimate government of the great Roman empire. But while
his position was in a political and military point of view
far more considerable, it was also on the other hand far less definite
and firm. The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself
and by necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent
with the nature of a coalition; and although Pompeius, too much
of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable,
attempted to force it on the coalition and got himself nominated
by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea,
yet the senate itself could not be set aside nor hindered
from a preponderating influence on the political, and an occasional
and therefore doubly injurious interference with the military,
superintendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war
waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius
and the constitutional party; the feeling which vividly prevailed
on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed,
that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be
a rupture between the victors; the contempt which they entertained
for each other and with only too good grounds in either case;
the inconvenient number of respectable and influential men in the ranks
of the aristocracy and the intellectual and moral inferiority
of almost all who took part in the matter--altogether produced
among the opponents of Caesar a reluctant and refractory co-operation,
which formed the saddest contrast to the harmonious and compact action
on the other side.
Field of Power of the Coalition
Juba of Numidia
While all the disadvantages incident to the coalition of powers
naturally hostile were thus felt in an unusual measure by Caesar's
antagonists, this coalition was certainly still a very considerable power.
It had exclusive command of the sea; all ports, all ships of war,
all the materials for equipping a fleet were at its disposal.
The two Spains--as it were the home of the power of Pompeius
just as the two Gauls were the home of that of Caesar--
were faithful adherents to their master and in the hands of able
and trustworthy administrators. In the other provinces also,
of course with the exception of the two Gauls, the posts
of the governors and commanders had during recent years been filled up
with safe men under the influence of Pompeius and the minority
of the senate. The client-states throughout and with great decision
took part against Caesar and in favour of Pompeius. The most important
princes and cities had been brought into the closest personal relations
with Pompeius in virtue of the different sections of his manifold
activity. In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been
the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania and had
reestablished the kingdom of the former;(5) in the Mithradatic war,
in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual
and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia,
and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia;(6)
it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken,
and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids
had been confirmed afresh.(7) Even the city of Massilia
in Caesar's own province, while indebted to the latter
doubtless for various favours, was indebted to Pompeius
at the time of the Sertorian war for a very considerable extension
of territory;(8) and, besides, the ruling oligarchy there stood
in natural alliance--strengthened by various mutual relations--
with the oligarchy in Rome. But these personal and relative
considerations as well as the glory of the victor in three continents,
which in these more remote parts of the empire far outshone
that of the conqueror of Gaul, did perhaps less harm to Caesar
in those quarters than the views and designs--which had not remained
there unknown--of the heir of Gaius Gracchus as to the necessity
of uniting the dependent states and the usefulness of provincial
colonizations. No one of the dependent dynasts found himself
more imminently threatened by this peril than Juba king
of Numidia. Not only had he years before, in the lifetime
of his father Hiempsal, fallen into a vehement personal quarrel
with Caesar, but recently the same Curio, who now occupied almost
the first place among Caesar's adjutants, had proposed to the Roman
burgesses the annexation of the Numidian kingdom. Lastly, if matters
should go so far as to lead the independent neighbouring states
to interfere in the Roman civil war, the only state really powerful,
that of the Parthians, was practically already allied
with the aristocratic party by the connection entered into
between Pacorus and Bibulus,(9) while Caesar was far too much a Roman
to league himself for party-interests with the conquerors
of his friend Crassus.
Italy against Caesar
As to Italy the great majority of the burgesses were, as has been
already mentioned, averse to Caesar--more especially, of course,
the whole aristocracy with their very considerable following,
but also in a not much less degree the great capitalists,
who could not hope in the event of a thorough reform of the commonwealth
to preserve their partisan jury-courts and their monopoly of extortion.
Of equally anti-democratic sentiments were the small capitalists,
the landholders and generally all classes that had anything to lose;
but in these ranks of life the cares of the next rent-term and of sowing
and reaping outweighed, as a rule, every other consideration.
The Pompeian Army
The army at the disposal of Pompeius consisted chiefly
of the Spanish troops, seven legions inured to war and in every respect
trustworthy; to which fell to be added the divisions of troops--
weak indeed, and very much scattered--which were to be found
in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In Italy
there were under arms at the outset only the two legions
recently given off by Caesar, whose effective strength did not amount
to more than 7000 men, and whose trustworthiness was more than doubtful,
because--levied in Cisalpine Gaul and old comrades in arms
of Caesar--they were in a high degree displeased at the unbecoming
intrigue by which they had been made to change camps,(10)
and recalled with longing their general who had magnanimously
paid to them beforehand at their departure the presents
which were promised to every soldier for the triumph.
But, apart from the circumstance that the Spanish troops might arrive
in Italy with the spring either by the land route through Gaul
or by sea, the men of the three legions still remaining
from the levies of 699,(11) as well as the Italian levy sworn
to allegiance in 702,(12) could be recalled from their furlough.
Including these, the number of troops standing at the disposal
of Pompeius on the whole, without reckoning the seven legions in Spain
and those scattered in other provinces, amounted in Italy alone
to ten legions(13) or about 60,000 men, so that it was no exaggeration
at all, when Pompeius asserted that he had only to stamp
with his foot to cover the ground with armed men. It is true
that it required some interval--though but short--to render
these soldiers available; but the arrangements for this purpose
as well as for the carrying out of the new levies ordered by the senate
in consequence of the outbreak of the civil war were already
everywhere in progress. Immediately after the decisive decree
of the senate (7 Jan. 705), in the very depth of winter
the most eminent men of the aristocracy set out to the different
districts, to hasten the calling up of recruits and the preparation
of arms. The want of cavalry was much felt, as for this arm
they had been accustomed to rely wholly on the provinces and especially
on the Celtic contingents; to make at least a beginning,
three hundred gladiators belonging to Caesar were taken
from the fencing-schools of Capua and mounted--a step which however
met with so general disapproval, that Pompeius again broke up
this troop and levied in room of it 300 horsemen from the mounted
slave-herdmen of Apulia.
The state-treasury was at a low ebb as usual; they busied themselves
in supplementing the inadequate amount of cash out of the local
treasuries and even from the temple-treasures of the -municipia-.
Caesar Takes the Offensive
Under these circumstances the war opened at the beginning
of January 705. Of troops capable of marching Caesar had not
more than a legion--5000 infantry and 300 cavalry--at Ravenna,
which was by the highway some 240 miles distant from Rome; Pompeius
had two weak legions--7000 infantry and a small squadron of cavalry--
under the orders of Appius Claudius at Luceria, from which,
likewise by the highway, the distance was just about as great
to the capital. The other troops of Caesar, leaving out of account
the raw divisions of recruits still in course of formation,
were stationed, one half on the Saone and Loire, the other half
in Belgica, while Pompeius' Italian reserves were already arriving
from all sides at their rendezvous; long before even the first
of the Transalpine divisions of Caesar could arrive in Italy,
a far superior army could not but be ready to receive it there.
It seemed folly, with a band of the strength of that of Catilina
and for the moment without any effective reserve, to assume
the aggressive against a superior and hourly-increasing army
under an able general; but it was a folly in the spirit of Hannibal.
If the beginning of the struggle were postponed till spring,
the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive
in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul,
and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him
in experience, was a formidable antagonist in such a campaign
running its regular course. Now perhaps, accustomed as he was
to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might
be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack; and that which
could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion
after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign
in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)--the suddenness of the war and the toil
of a winter campaign--could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps
consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits,
and still only in the course of formation.
Caesar's Advance
Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy.(15) Two highways led
at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian
which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome,
and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast
of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running
westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward
to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia. On the former Marcus Antonius
advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself
pushed forward. Resistance was nowhere encountered; the recruiting
officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits
were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious
not to be involved in a siege. When Curio with 1500 men
approached Iguvium, where a couple of thousand Umbrian recruits
had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus,
general and soldiers took to flight at the bare tidings of his approach;
and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued.
Rome Evacuated
Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome, from which
his cavalry at Arretium were already only about 130 miles distant,
or against the legions encamped at Luceria. He chose the latter plan.
The consternation of the opposite party was boundless.
Pompeius received the news of Caesar's advance at Rome; he seemed
at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings
arrived of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory
and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered
its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar's
cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality.
The senators, who had been informed that every one who should
remain behind in the capital would be treated as an accomplice
of the rebel Caesar, flocked in crowds out at the gates.
The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they
did not even secure the treasure; when Pompeius called upon them
to fetch it, for which there was sufficient time, they returned
the reply that they would deem it safer, if he should first
occupy Picenum. All was perplexity; consequently a great council of war
was held in Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan.), at which Pompeius, Labienus,
and both consuls were present. First of all proposals of accommodation
from Caesar were again submitted; even now he declared himself
ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces
to the successors nominated, and to become a candidate
in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius
were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed.
The answer was, that if Caesar would immediately return to his province,
they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy
and the departure of Pompeius by a decree of the senate
to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply
was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance
of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite.
The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius
the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not
by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more
the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Concerning
the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius
should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria,
on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended;
that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus'
native country, Picenum; that he should personally call
the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five
years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful
Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar
to set a limit to the advance of the enemy.
Conflicts in Picenum
Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out
until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar
with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road
by way of Ancona. Here too the preparations were in full course;
in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band
of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty
of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar
appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop
not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict--
the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards
Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum,
and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum. The men,
thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned
their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier;
but the district itself was already lost, when the officer
sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence,
Lucius Vibullius Rufus--no genteel senator, but a soldier
experienced in war--arrived there; he had to content himself
with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved
away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them
for the time to the nearest rendezvous.
Corfinium Besieged
And Captured
This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian,
Marsian and Paelignian territories; the body of recruits here assembled,
of nearly 15,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike
and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army
in course of formation for the constitutional party. When Vibullius
arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind;
there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably
to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits
along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia.
But the commandant in Corfinium was the designated successor to Caesar
in the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius,
one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy;
and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius,
but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men
from Picenum for Apulia. So firmly was he persuaded that Pompeius
only delayed from obstinacy and must necessarily come up to his relief,
that he scarcely made any serious preparations for a siege
and did not even gather into Corfinium the bands of recruits
placed in the surrounding towns. Pompeius however did not appear,
and for good reasons; for, while he might perhaps apply
his two untrustworthy legions as a reserved support for the Picenian
general levy, he could not with them alone offer battle to Caesar.
Instead of him after a few days Caesar came (14 Feb.). His troops
had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and before Corfinium
by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these,
three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men
that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily,
partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere;
so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head
of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service. So long as
Domitius hoped for the arrival of Pompeius, he caused the town
to be defended; when the letters of Pompeius had at length undeceived him,
he resolved, not forsooth to persevere at the forlorn post--
by which he would have rendered the greatest service to his party--
nor even to capitulate, but, while the common soldiers
were informed that relief was close at hand, to make his own escape
along with his officers of quality during the next night.
Yet he had not the judgment to carry into effect even this pretty scheme.
The confusion of his behaviour betrayed him. A part of the men
began to mutiny; the Marsian recruits, who held such an infamy
on the part of their general to be impossible, wished to fight
against the mutineers; but they too were obliged reluctantly
to believe the truth of the accusation, whereupon the whole garrison
arrested their staff and handed it, themselves, and the town
over to Caesar (20 Feb.). The corps in Alba, 3000 strong,
and 1500 recruits assembled in Tarracina thereupon laid down
their arms, as soon as Caesar's patrols of horsemen appeared;
a third division in Sulmo of 3500 men had been previously
compelled to surrender.
Pompeius Goes to Brundisium
Embarkation for Greece
Pompeius had given up Italy as lost, so soon as Caesar
had occupied Picenum; only he wished to delay his embarkation
as long as possible, with the view of saving so much of his force
as could still be saved. Accordingly he had slowly put himself
in motion for the nearest seaport Brundisium. Thither came
the two legions of Luceria and such recruits as Pompeius
had been able hastily to collect in the deserted Apulia,
as well as the troops raised by the consuls and other commissioners
in Campania and conducted in all haste to Brundisium;
thither too resorted a number of political fugitives,
including the most respected of the senators accompanied
by their families. The embarkation began; but the vessels at hand
did not suffice to transport all at once the whole multitude,
which still amounted to 25,000 persons. No course remained
but to divide the army. The larger half went first (4 March);
with the smaller division of some 10,000 men Pompeius
awaited at Brundisium the return of the fleet; for, however desirable
the possession of Brundisium might be for an eventual attempt
to reoccupy Italy, they did not presume to hold the place
permanently against Caesar. Meanwhile Caesar arrived
before Brundisium; the siege began. Caesar attempted first of all
to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and floating bridges,
with a view to exclude the returning fleet; but Pompeius
caused the trading vessels lying in the harbour to be armed,
and managed to prevent the complete closing of the harbour
until the fleet appeared and the troops--whom Pompeius
with great dexterity, in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers
and the hostile feeling of the inhabitants, withdrew from the town
to the last man unharmed--were carried off beyond Caesar's reach
to Greece (17 March). The further pursuit, like the siege itself,
failed for want of a fleet.
In a campaign of two months, without a single serious engagement,
Caesar had so broken up an army of ten legions, that less than
the half of it had with great difficulty escaped in a confused flight
across the sea, and the whole Italian peninsula, including the capital
with the state-chest and all the stores accumulated there,
had fallen into the power of the victor. Not without reason
did the beaten party bewail the terrible rapidity, sagacity,
and energy of the "monster."