Context
After the death of Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) in September 48 BC, forces loyal to his cause (the ‘Pompeians’) rallied in north Africa (modern-day Tunisia). They were given support by King Juba of Numidia.
Caesar, arriving back in Rome from the East (whose pacification, starting in Egypt, moving through Syria and into Turkey, are described in The Alexandrine War), quelled a mutiny in Campania. He took steps to relieve debtors. Loyal followers were given rewards i.e. governorships and priesthoods. Some were enrolled in the senate to fill gaps. Repentant Pompeians were forgiven i.e. there was no bloodbath as under the dictators earlier in the century, Sulla or Marius.
At the very end of 47 BC Caesar was elected consul and sailed to Africa to defeat this last holdout of Pompeians. The Pompeian forces were led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, along with Titus Labienus, Publius Attius Varus, Lucius Afranius, Marcus Petreius and the brothers Sextus and Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey’s sons). They key port of Utica was held by Caesar’s old foe, Cato the Younger and the Pompeians had a key ally in King Juba I of Numidia.
The African War consists of 98 ‘chapters’ taking up 48 pages of a Penguin paperback.
The African War
Map of the Roman province of Africa showing the towns and cities mentioned in the text
1 to 6: Arrival
Caesar assembles an army from different contingents at Lilybaeum, a port on Sicily. Leaving a Caesarian governor in place, he embarks and sails for Africa. The crossing takes three days and his ships are scattered by winds.
3 to 6: Arrival at Hadrumetum, an important port 50 miles down the Tunisian coast from the ruins of Carthage. Its commandant Caius Considius Longus refuses to negotiate. Caesar sends a prisoner with a message. When Considius asks who it’s from, the messenger replies ‘From the commander-in‑chief, Caesar.’ Then Considius retorted: ‘There is but one commander-in‑chief of the Roman people at the moment, namely Scipio’ and has the messenger executed in front of him.
Caesar rides round the walls and lands his 3,000 or so infantry but rather than lay a siege, knowing other Pompeian forces (Gnaius Piso with 3,000 Moorish troops) are approaching, Caesar makes a fighting withdrawal to Ruspina. Meaning that he had barely left his makeshift camp before Numidian cavalry mount a surprise attack and threaten to overwhelm his rearguard until he sends in Gaulish cavalry, who rout him. But for the entire march his rearguard is subject to lightning attacks.
7 to 19: Operations near Ruspina
Caesar advances to Leptis which he secures but doesn’t let his cavalry ashore. He sends back to Sicily for reinforcements, sends a contingent to find the transport ships which have gone astray, and another detachment of ships to the island of Cercina, which he hears has a large supply of corn.
Next day he returns to Ruspina. He is waiting for the arrival his missing transports. The enemy, led by Meanwhile the enemy, led by Labienus and the two Pacidei, arrive and line up for battle. Caesar deploys his men in a single line with archers in front and cavalry on the wings. Quite quickly Caesar’s force is surrounded and forms into a circle. Labienus rides up and down his front line mocking the Caesarians until one veteran centurion of the Tenth Legion confronts him and throws a spear which transfixes his horse. Caesar turns his legions round and tries to make for the camp but fresh enemy reinforcements arrive. He orders his men to make one last attack and throws his last cohorts into the field, driving the enemy back off the plain, then withdrawing in good order to his own fort
The Penguin edition notes that the historians Dio Cassius and Appian both say this battle was a big defeat, with the Caesarians taking heavy losses and being forced onto a hilltop where they would have been cut to pieces had both Marcus Petreius and Labienus not both been injured.
The account gives Labienus’s reasons for feeling confident, including the rumour that three legions had mutinied back in Rome, listing the mixed forces at his command, then recapping the facts about this battle, namely it was fought on 6 January 46, on the sixth day after Caesar disembarked, on a wide flat plain, from 11 in the morning till sunset.
19 to 36: Waiting at Ruspina
Caesar hears that Scipio is approaching with the main forces (8 legions and 3,000 cavalry (and so builds up the defences at Ruspina, bringing more men from the ships (Gallic and Rhodian rowers and marines, archers of all nations). He sets up smithies to manufacture arrows, javelins and sling shot.
Corn is an issue. The enemy have gathered all there is to collect into strongholds and then laid waste and ravaged the land around.
There’s a kind of interlude or digression in which we are shown Cato (who, it will be remembered, had always been against Caesar and bore some of the responsibility for the civil war by constantly blocking Caesar’s conciliatory offers). Anyway Cato is now in charge of the city of Utica and the text gives us a lengthy speech in which he reminds Pompey’s son, Gnaeus, of his father’s immense military achievements, and encourages him to emulate them. Thus inspired Gnaeus sets off from Utica with 30 ships and a force of 2,000 slaves and freemen to invade the kingdom of Mauretania (to the west of Africa i.e. the coast of modern day Algeria. He is approaching the town of Ascurum when the inhabitants sally forth in force and crush his forces, causing them to flee in panic to their ships, and once embarked they sail all the way to the Balearic Islands.
Meanwhile Scipio leaves Utica and marches via Hadrumetum to join Labienus. The text dwells on Caesar’s shortage of corn and fodder for the horses. Seasoned veterans take to feeding the horses seaweed cleaned in fresh water.
Meanwhile King Juba decides to join the Pompeians and gathers infantry and cavalry to march east and join Scipio. But this leaves his own kingdom undefended, and Bochus, king of West Mauretania, joins with the Roman bankrupt and mercenary Publius Sittius, to attack Juba’s kingdom in the west. They attack Cirta, the richest town in the kingdom. When it refuses to yield, they take it by storm and slaughter the entire population and set about ravaging the land. When Juba hears this he understandably decides he has to defend his own country, and so withdraws his forces from Scipio’s army and returns west, though he leaves 30 elephants.
Some nobles (does this mean Romans of the equites class) come to Caesar, telling him Scipio’s forces are devastating the land and begging him to save them.
Farms were being burned to the ground, fields stripped, herds plundered or butchered, towns and strongholds destroyed and abandoned, and the principal citizens either murdered or held in chains, and their children haled off to slavery on the pretext of being hostages.
Caesar had been planning to winter his troops (it is January) but decides to commence his campaign and sends for reinforcements from Sicily. While Caesar continues fortifying his camp and building causeways to the sea to allow safe disembarkation, a passage is devoted to Scipio’s attempts to train his elephants, difficult beasts.
A digression for the sad story of the Titius brothers who are aboard one of the many troop and transport ships which get scattered en route to Africa, are captured by Pompeian forces, taken before Scipio who has them executed. Why is this tragic little story included?
Cavalry squadrons from both sides skirmish and sometimes talk. Labienus tries to take the town of Leptis which is held by a Caesarian commander. At one point his horse is hit by a javelin from a scorpion and they retreat.
Scipio brings his forces out to face Caesar’s camp every day, with no response, each day becoming more mocking and scornful, till one day he deploys his entire force. Detailed description of how Caesar orders the foragers back inside the camp and deploys a minimum of cavalry but doesn’t offer battle. There’s a page describing Caesar’s motivations and the reason for his confidence which includes the solidity of the camp’s defences and the power of his own reputation. What’s striking about it, though, is its weakness. These are not very effective reasons, and neither is the claim that he didn’t want to win victory over a mere ‘remnants of his enemies’.
This passage lacks the vigour and unstoppable logic of the same kind of thing found in the Gallic Wars i.e. it doesn’t feel at all by Caesar, but very much like an apologist cooking up reasons to defend his actions.
Anyway, Scipio hangs round then withdraws his army into his camp and gives a pep talk. Meanwhile, allegedly, Caesar’s numbers are augmented by a steady stream of Gaelutian deserters. The text claims this is because many of them were done kindness by Marius, to whom they have heard Caesar is kin.
[Caesar’s aunt, Julia, was married to Marius. The editor of the Penguin edition, Jane F. Gardner, speculates that these Gaelutians, or this forebears, had served Marius in the war against Jugurtha, and so had entered into a patron-client relationship with him, which they thought still bound them to his kin, Caesar.]
When they’re Africans, he gives them letters to their kin and sends them back to their territories to recruit.
A little fuss about Acylla. A deputation come from the town and offer Caesar their allegiance and their store of corn so Caesar gratefully sends Gaius Messius to take it, and he arrives just before Considius Longus the Pompeian commander of Hadrumetum.
So this long sequence amounts to Caesar establishing his beachhead and resisting the temptation to battle till he is ready. He sends Gaius Sallustius Crispus to the island of Cercina which he takes without a fight and loads its store of corn aboard ship to be sent to Caesar. And the proconsul Alienus embarks two legions, 800 Gallic cavalry and 1,000 archers and slingers from Sicily and they arrive soon after with Caesar. Two reasons to be cheerful.
Puzzled why Caesar isn’t giving battle or moving about the country, Scipio sends two Gaetulians to pretend to be deserters, find out Caesar’s intentions and report back. In fact once in the presence of Caesar they confess their mission and say they and their countrymen want to desert, and also remember the kindness done them by Caesar’s kinsman Marius. Caesar welcomes them and they are joined by a steady trickle of deserters from Scipio’s legions.
Slow developments: Cato is recruiting more and more forces in Utica; a deputation arrives from Thysdra saying ships with a huge amount of wheat have arrived from Italy; in the west Publius Sittius invades King Juba’s territory and takes a town.
37 to 48: Operations near Uzitta
Instructing the ships to return to Sicily to collect the rest of his army, in the middle of the night of 25 January Caesar strikes camp and moves his army quietly along the coast to an area where a large plain is bounded by a semi-circular ridge.
[I tell you what would be fabulously use in this, the Civil War and the Gallic War – photographs. If the editor/translator had been paid to go out to the locations of these towns or battles and taken photos of the sites. The cumulative effect of all these descriptions is to make you realise how very poor words are at conveying landscape.]
Caesar advances along the ridge taking abandoned forts. The last one is held by Numidians. There is a fight between the cavalry forces. Caesar sent cavalry down into the plain where they massacred some more cavalry, putting Scipio’s forces to flight. A passage reflecting on the bodies of the Gaulish and German dead cavalry and why they had followed Labienus from Gaul.
[One of the subsidiary dramas of the civil war is the way that Labienus went from being Caesar’s right-hand man and most dependable lieutenant in Gaul, to defecting to Pompey at the outbreak of war, and now, commanding the forces directly opposing Caesar in Africa. What were the thoughts of both men about this turn of events?]
Next day Caesar advances his complete army down the ridge, into the foothills and slowly out onto the plain. Scipio advances his army but uses the town of Uzitta as a bulwark for his centre and stops in that position. Caesar realises he can’t fight both an army and storm a town at the same time. After facing each other all day in the African heat, the armies both withdraw and Caesar orders his men to extend their fortifications. Much time spent building camps and fortifications.
The narrative has a habit of cutting away to other developments going on at the same time, and as a result the author deploys the word interim a lot, which Gardner translates as ‘meanwhile’. So:
Meanwhile the Pompeian Considius is still besieging the town of Acylla, held by Gaius Messius. When he hears of Scipio’s cavalry’s defeat (the dead Germans and Gauls) he abandons the siege, burned his corn, spoiled his oil, marched through Juba’s territory to give Scipio some of his forces, then retreated with the rest to hold Hadrumetum.
Caesar is still suffering the problem that troop ships are being blown off course. Several are captured by Pompeian ships. Once contained veteran troops who are brought before Scipio. He very decently offers to spare their lives if they will join him. A centurion of the 14th Legion refuses, says he’s loyal to Caesar, tells Scipio to lay down his arms, and offers to take on Scipio’s strongest cohort with just ten colleagues.
Infuriated, Scipio has the centurion executed on the spot and all the other veterans taken outside the town walls and there tortured to death. Caesar is upset and angry because he had posted lookouts along the coast to spot his ships and they had failed. He has them all dismissed.
Unseasonal weather: rainstorms which flood Caesar’s camp, the men already hard pressed for provisions.
Meanwhile King Juba received a request from Scipio to join him and, leaving a force under Saburra to combat Sittius, marched to join Scipio with 3 legions, 800 cavalry, Numidian riders without bridles, light infantry and 30 elephants. Now there had been much rumour, paranoia and fear among the soldiers about the threat of Juba’s vast forces, but when they lined up with Scipio’s the next morning, the Caesareans were not impressed, all their fears dispelled, and morale restored.
49 to 66: Caesar takes the offensive
Now Scipio has the maximum force available to him battle can’t be far off. Caesar pushes to secure all the forts lining the ridge surrounding the plain, but Labienus beats him to the last in the series. It is reached by going down into a rocky ravine and up the other side and Labienus set an ambush with cavalry hiding behind the heights. But some of Labienus’s men bolted, giving away the plan, so the entire force ends up turning tail and Caesar’s force kills them and occupies the last fort.
Caesar decides to build ‘two containing walls’ across the plain from his main camp to the town of Uzitta. The aim was to protect his flanks as he advanced towards the town and make it easier for the enemy to defect and desert. As usual I found it difficult to envision the position of these walls, and impossible to understand their purpose, and difficult to understand how long walls can be constructed while part of his force stood in front of them skirmishing with barbarian cavalry and light infantry.
That evening, as Caesar is withdrawing his forces to the main camp, the massed forces of Juba, Scipio and Labienus attack and drive Caesar’s cavalry back, but Caesar quickly reverses the direction of march, turns his legions around and they stop and then rout the Pompeians, fighting them back to their camp with much loss of life. Only nightfall prevented Scipio and Labienus falling into his hands, and in the aftermath lots of Pompeian troops defect to Caesar.
Ships carrying the Tenth and Eighth legions arrive. Recalling the disorder and mutiny of some legions in Campania and Sicily, Caesar now assembles the entire army and makes a page-long speech singling out some five officers who have incited mutiny or, in the case of Gaius Avienus, brought over a ship filled entirely with household slaves rather than soldiers – dishonourably discharges them from the army and sends them back to Italy accompanied by just one slave.
Meanwhile the messages Caesar had sent via friendly Gaetulians have borne fruit and the entire people rises up against Juba, who is obliged to withdraw some of his forces from Scipio in order to put down the rebellion.
Caesar’s ‘lines of fortification’ are now complete and he brings up troops and siege engines to attack the defenders of Uzitta. More Gaetulians, specifically about 1,000 cavalry, defect to him.
A digression on Juba’s arrogant behaviour in ordering a Roman officer not to fraternise but worse, ordering Scipio not to wear a red cloak like himself. To think of freeborn Romans taking orders from a barbarian!
Next day Scipio comes out with all his forces yet again. Caesar lines his men up in front of his fortifications and they stand staring at each other. The town is incorporated into Scipio’s line so Caesar is reluctant to attack because, once he’s passed the town, he knows the legions inside it will come out and attack his rear. Impasse.
The text gives a detailed breakdown of the deployment of both forces but, as there is no battle, who really cares. Instead, as Caesar is packing up and withdrawing his army, some of Scipio’s Numidian cavalry attack. Caesar’s Gaetulians respond, counter attack but go too far, across some marshy ground on the battlefield and are quickly surrounded. His cavalry are mauled before making it back to camp as night falls.
Next day dawns and both generals have their soldiers continuing to develop their fortifications.
Caesarian ships arrive and anchor off Leptis. Pompeian Varus attacks them, setting fire to the transports and capturing dome five-bank warships. As soon as he heard this Caesar rode the 6 miles to the harbour, ordering all his ships to meet him there. Alarmed, Varus turned his fleet back towards Hadrumetum; Caesar pursued and captured a quinquereme and trireme. Varus’s fleet makes it into the harbour at Hadrumetum and Caesar can’t follow because of an adverse wind but sets fire to all the transports anchored outside.
In the captured ship are some Roman nobles. Caesar executes on man he had pardoned in Spain, only to have him go join Pompey in Pharsalus, and then come here to serve Varus. Another noble he spared because he honestly claimed to have been taken prisoner and had no time to escape.
Caesar discovered secret underground stores of corn and sent men to fetch them. Learning of this Labienus set an ambush for next time they did it, deploying cavalry and light infantry. Learning of this Caesar lulled him into a false sense of security, then deployed three legions and all his cavalry behind the foraging party. When Labienus attacked the latter, the Caesarian cavalry attacked, when the main body of Labienus’s cavalry came to their help Caesar revealed his three legions and Labienus withdrew.
Next day King Juba had all the Numidians who had fled their posts during the failed ambush crucified.
67 to 78: The Pompeians lose the initiative
Lack of corn prompts Caesar to abandon his camp, burning it, assigning garrisons to the three friendly towns of Leptis, Ruspina and Acylla, setting his ships to blockage Hadrumetum and Thapsus. He marches with the remainder to Aggar, where he establishes a new camp, and goes successfully foraging for food. By ‘foraging’ I take it the text means stealing food from all the inhabitants of the region.
Scipio follows. Caesar captures Zeta, leaves a garrison and is minded to attack Scipio’s forces which are themselves foraging when more legions appear. As he marches back towards Aggar past Scipio’s camp, the latter attacks. Fierce fighting, the Numidian cavalry attacking if he retreats but pulling back if he stands. It takes all night to slowly retreat back to his camp while fighting off the skirmishing Numidians.
The Africans’ tactics of constant skirmishing but retreat as soon as the infantry offer engagement, requires a completely new set of tactics, and so Caesar personally sets about retraining his troops.
How many feet they were to retreat from the enemy; the manner in which they must wheel round upon their adversary; the restricted space in which they must offer him resistance — now doubling forward, now retiring and making feint attacks; and almost the spot from which, and the manner in which they must discharge their missiles — these were the lessons he taught them.
Caesar imports elephants from Italy for his troops and horses to get used to, for the troops to learn the weak spots of and practice throwing untipped javelins at. And has to accustom the legions to this new, sneaky, guileful, tricky opponent.
A deputation from the town of Vaga arrives to ask for Caesar’s protection. Soon after which a refugee arrives to declare that Juba had hastened to the town to stop it being occupied, stormed it, slaughtered the entire population, and abandoned it for his troops to plunder.
On 21 March Caesar holds the traditional purification ceremony of the army. Apparently, this had something to do with marking the start of the campaigning season although, as we’ve seen, Caesar campaigned throughout the winter. Next day he marches to Scipio’s camp and presents his army in battle array, but Scipio doesn’t rise to the bait.
Next day he marches to Sarsura. Labienus attacks the rearguard, capturing many camp followers then attacking the troops themselves, but Caesar had anticipated this and stationed men without baggage in the rear who promptly turned, raised standards, and scared Labienus off.
At Sursura Caesar slaughtered the entire Pompeian garrison. Caesar distributed corn to the army then marched on to Thysdra but finds no water and so retires to Aggar.
The town of Thabena revolts against Juban rule, massacres its garrison and asks for Caesar’s protection, so he sends a detachment to take it. At the same time more troop transports arrive from Italy, some 4,000 infantry, 1,000 slingers, 400 cavalry, so Caesar assembles his force and marches to a plain two miles from Scipio’s camp.
It’s near a town named Tegea. Scipio brings his men out of his camp, deploying them. Time passes. Eventually a cavalry skirmish develops in which both sides send in reinforcements, but Caesar has the best of it, his cavalry pursuing the enemy three miles up into the hills and killing many before returning.
But Caesar can’t get the enemy to fight. He realises two things: that they lack confidence in their own abilities and so are relying on Caesar’s shortage of water to wear him down. And so on 4 April, by night, he left the camp by Aggar and marched 16 miles to Thapsus, which Vergilius was holding with a large garrison.
Scipio follows him and now, according to the narrative, is forced to give battle. Why? ‘To avoid the utter humiliation of losing Vergilius and those most staunch supporters of his cause — the men of Thapsus’.
79 to 86: The battle of Thapsus
Caesar advances to Thapsus and begins to invest the town. Scipio follows and finally encamps 8 miles south. Thapsus is on a promontory with a big salt lake to its south, creating a narrow land corridor. Because Caesar had blocked this Scipio went up and round the western side of the lake.
Map of the battle of Thapsus, 6 April 46 BC
Scipio’s men give signs of agitation behind their fortifications and this incites Caesar’s forces. It’s an oddity of this battle that Caesar does everything in his power and even gets his centurions to try and restrain the men, but then a bugler gives the signal to advance and the cohorts run forward charging, and Caesar gives in to fortune and destiny.
Sling shots terrify the elephants. The Moorish cavalry panics and flees. (Digression to describe the action of one brave legionary who attacks a furious elephant to stop it trampling to death a camp follower.) The garrison of Thapsus emerge from their fortifications and wade through the water to join their comrades but are beaten back by slings and arrows.
The retreating Pompeians arrive at Scipio’s base camp but discover there is no one there to rally them. They run to Juba’s camp to discover it is in enemy hands. The Scipionians drop their arms and beg for mercy but Caesar’s men’s blood is up and they massacre them to a man, despite Caesar’s orders to stop, and even wound eminent nobles and knights on Caesar’s own side.
In the way of these kinds of texts, the casualties are given and seem a) suspiciously round figures and b) ludicrously one sided. Thus, 5,000 of the enemy are killed to Caesar’s 50 dead and a few wounded. He captures 64 elephants. What I want to know is what happened to Scipio, Labienus and Juba who all disappear from the narrative.
(Plutarch, in his life of Caesar, 53, says: ‘Thus in a brief portion of one day he made himself master of three camps [Scipio’s, Juba’s and Afranius’s) and slew fifty thousand of the enemy, without losing as many as fifty of his own men’.)
Next day Caesar lines his whole army up in front of Thapsus and calls on Vergilius to surrender but there is no reply. Next day he gives rewards and praise to the bravest fighters, then leaves a commander to besiege Thapsus and one to besiege Thysdra, while he proceeds to Utica.
87 to 98: Final stages of the campaign
Scipio’s retreating forces arrive at the town of Parada. The people have heard of Caesar’s victory and so refuse the Pompeians entry but the Pompeians storm it, pile up logs in the forum, burn the town’s precious belongings, then tie up townspeople and throw them into the flames.
Cato the Younger was governor of Utica. He didn’t trust either the senate of 300 or so eminent Romans or the townspeople. The latter he forced into a trench in front of the town, the latter he kept under guard. When Scipio’s cavalry arrived they attacked the townspeople in the trench but were beaten off. So instead the cavalry break into the town and plunder and loot it. Cato could only stop them by promising 100 sesterces each, joined by a Roman noble Faustus Sulla, who gave them money, then they rode off west to join King Juba.
Cato assembles the Three Hundred (presumably meaning the town’s senate or leading figures) and persuades them to free their slaves in order to join the defence of the town. Only some comply. Many want to flee, so Cato sets about carefully and methodically putting ships at the disposal of the fleeers. He assigns his children to the care of his questor, then withdraws to his bedroom, where he runs himself through with a sword. When his slaves and friends run in and try to patch him up, Cato pulls at the wound and his guts with his own hands, killing himself. Yuk.
These last acts of his management of the town and suicide are described in detail in Plutarch’s life of Cato. The townspeople opposed him but came to respect his rectitude.
His deputy, Lucius Caesar, opens the town gates and welcomes Caesar’s forces. Caesar marches through the territory picking off towns which now throw themselves open to him, including Usseta and Hadrumetum, finally arriving at Utica as it got dark. Along the way he met and pardoned a suite of Roman nobles who had been holding the town against him.
Next morning Caesar assembled the 300 and upbraided them for opposing him. They were trembling all expecting to die but Caesar forgives them, albeit on the harsh condition that all shall love all their properties, confiscated by the state. If any buy them back, they shall hold their property secure and the fee amount to their fine. He imposed a group fine on the 300 of 200 million sesterces.
King Juba flies west, hiding in farmhouses during the day, till he arrives at the town of Zama. Now he had built a huge pyre here and threatened the people with burning them on it with the result that, no surprisingly, they refuse to let him in. Neither will they hand over his treasure or wife and children so Juba ends up taking refuge with Marcus Petreius in a country villa.
The people of Zama send an envoy to Caesar begging his protection so he sets off. Some of the king’s cavalry officers approach him asking for forgiveness and he forgives them all. This is excellent policy because, as word spreads of his clemency, more and more towns surrender to him and senior officers come over.
Considius, who had been holding Thysdra for the Pompeians, hearing of their defeat at Thapsus, takes treasure and slips out of the town with a small entourage of barbarians. But somewhere along the trail the Gauls cut him down, stole the gold and absconded.
At which point, realising it is all over, Vergilius asks safe conduct for him and his family, then surrenders Thapsus.
King Juba, with no army to command and abandoned by his people, resolves on suicide. There are a number of versions: some say he and Petreius agreed to duel, he easily killed Petreius then stabbed himself; or Petreius killed him then stabbed himself; or they killed each other at the same time; or they both committed suicide.
Meanwhile, in the west, Sittius routed the army of Juba’s general, Saburra, killing the general. Then he heard of the 1,000 cavalry under Faustus Sulla and Afranius, fresh from sacking Utica and being paid off and planning to take ship to Spain, last holdout of the Pompeians. Sittius ambushes them, killing a great number but taking alive Faustus and Afranius. A few days later, in some obscure affray, they were killed. Caesar pardoned their children and let them keep their property.
Scipio, Damasippus, Torquatus and Plaetorius Rustianus were making for Spain aboard warships. After a stormy passage they were carried towards Royal Hippo, where Sittius had his fleet at that time. Outnumbered as they were by the latter, Scipio’s vessels were surrounded and sunk and Scipio and the others all perished. [Other accounts say that, after losing the naval engagement Scipio also committed suicide by stabbing himself with his sword.]
Having entered Juba’s royal town of Zama, Caesar holds an auction of King Juba’s belongings and gives the citizens of Zama rewards for resisting their king. He declared the kingdom a Roman province, appointing Gaius Sallustius proconsul, awarding western Numidia to King Bochus. Sittius founds a colony there. (This Sallustius is the same man who in the late 40s retired from public life and wrote monographs in the Jugurthan War and the Cataline Conspiracy.)
At Utica Caesar sold the property of commanders under Juba and Petreius, imposed fines on the towns which held out against them but took steps to make sure they weren’t plundered. On Leptis he imposes a fine of 3 million pounds of oil a year.
On 13 June Caesar set sail from Utica, arriving at Caralis on Sardinia. Here he punishes the people of Sulci for rebelling against him, then set sail along the coast of Italy and arrived safely back in Rome.
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Books & Boots 
The Civil War by Julius Caesar – 1
Fortune, which has great influence in affairs generally and especially in war, produces by a slight disturbance of balance important changes in human affairs.
(The Civil War Book 3 chapter 68)
I picked up this 1967 Penguin paperback of Julius Caesar’s Civil Wars, translated by Jane Gardner, in the sensible A format size (18 cm by 11 cm) with reassuringly browned paper, in a second hand bookshop for just £2. Though nearly 60 years old it has fewer scuff marks and scratches than a book I recently bought ‘new’ from Amazon, ‘destroyer of books’, whose cover was smeared, scuffed and scratched.
This Penguin volume actually contains four ‘books’:
Only the first of these is nowadays thought to have been written by Caesar. The second is generally attributed to one of Caesar’s lieutenants, Aulus Hirtius, who had written the eighth and final book in The Gallic Wars, the final two by someone who was an eye witness but of lower military rank and a lot lower literary ability than Caesar.
However, the four texts are always included together because, whatever their shortcomings, they are clearly conceived as a set, taking the reader through the entire civil war, from Caesar’s crossing the river Rubicon a little south of Ravenna in January 49 BC, through to the final mopping up of Pompeian forces in 45.
Having read numerous accounts of the civil war, I think the single most important fact (which often doesn’t come over) is that within a few weeks of Caesar entering Italy with his army of Gaul, his opponent, Gnaeus Pompeius, fled Rome and fled Italy. We know from Cicero’s letters on the subject that even at the time, his allies and supporters thought this was a mistake and so it proved to be, handing mainland Italy and the capital over to Caesar almost without a fight (this narrative describes a handful of sieges and confrontations before almost all the towns and cities and army units in Italy simply went over to Caesar’s side).
Pompey’s flight a) handed Rome and Italy over to Caesar and b) meant that the civil war would be fought on foreign soil, eventually in all the provinces Rome ruled, meaning (from west to east) Spain, north Africa, the Province (the south of France featuring the major port of Marseilles), Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor.
Despite Caesar defeating Pompey’s main army at the battle of Pharsalus in central Greece in August 48 and Pompey’s flight to Egypt where he was murdered a month later, in September 48 – nonetheless, forces loyal to Pompey and led by his sons fought on in Spain, Africa and Asia. This explains why the civil war(s) continued for another 3 years and why the main text, The Civil War, which ends with the death of Pompey, needed to be continued with the three subsequent shorter texts, and why each of them focuses on a particular arena of the later stages of the war.
Gardner’s introduction
Jane Gardner gets straight to the point with a solid factual introduction to the fraught background to the outbreak of civil war between Caesar and Pompey in 49 BC. I was struck by the way she goes back 80 years to start her historical background with two key events:
1. The killing of Gracchus was the first time the forces competing in the Roman state spilled over into political violence.
2. Marius’s career showed that the system of annually changing magistrates and proconsuls was becoming too limited for Rome’s farflung military needs. (Julius Caesar’s aunt married Marius. His father and brother supported Marius. He grew up in the shadow of Marius’s populares party and narrowly avoided execution when the dictator Sulla, representing the optimates, took power in 82.)
Gardner gives a good brief overview of the events which led to the formation of the Triumvirate which Caesar set up between himself, Pompey and Crassus (60 BC); how he used this to secure his posting as proconsul to Cisalpine Gaul (swiftly expanded to include Transalpine Gaul); how friction in the triumvirate led to its renewal at a big conference at Luca in 56; and how it was undone by two hammerblows:
In Gardner’s hands, the centre of the story is Pompey’s inability to make his mind up. The same self-knowledge teetering on reticence which led him to peacefully disband his army on returning from the East in 62 plays out less positively in his inability to really make his mind up how to behave in the growing political crisis of the late 50s.
In Gardner’s account it is Pompey’s lack of decisiveness which creates the crisis of uncertainty and vacillation which Caesar eventually cuts through by crossing the Rubicon and creating a state of civil war. If Pompey had grasped the nettle and agreed with Caesar’s suggestion that they both lay down their commands at the same time and meet to discuss their issues, peace could have been preserved. But Pompey left it to others – senators such as Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Lentulus – to make proposals and counter-proposals which Caesar found unacceptable, until it was too late.
Eventually Caesar felt his position was so threatened that he decided to make a lightning strike from Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy), where he legitimately held command, into Italy proper, where he very much didn’t. The river Rubicon separated these two territories. So crossing the Rubicon with one of his legions was illegal and universally interpreted as an attack on the government and constitution of Rome.
How it was written
During the eight years of his command in Gaul Caesar had got into the habit of writing commentarii or reports on each campaigning season, summarising his military campaigns, in brisk no-nonsense factual accounts. He had these sent to Rome to, in effect, justify his (often dubious) actions. These were probably dictated to secretaries while he was on the move, amid the numerous other correspondence and paperwork he dealt with. There are eight of them, one for each year of his command, and taken together they make up the document known as The Gallic Wars.
Having established the habit and method for doing this, it seems likely Caesar simply continued it to document the new conflict, which continued more or less without a break from his Gallic campaigns.
The Civil War
Caesar’s paranoia: ‘What is the aim of all these preparations but my destruction?’
At the start of his narrative Caesar deals briefly with the politics, with his offers and attempts at negotiations with the Senate, but it quickly falls into another litany of towns besieged and Pompeian forces which come over to his side, very similar in feel to the Gallic Wars.
Admittedly there isn’t the total destruction, massacres, selling into slavery and hostage-giving which characterised the Gallic Wars. But it is a general’s view of things i.e. a long list of territories and cities and towns which need to be taken and then secured by posting loyal officers in them.
A note on the army
A cohort contained 480 men. A legion contained ten cohorts. When you add in officers, engineers and cavalry (120 men plus horses) a legion numbered about 5,000 men.
The text of The Civil War is divided into three ‘books’, volumes or parts, each of which is further sub-divided into short numbered sections, conventionally referred to as ‘chapters’.
Part 1: The struggle begins (87 chapters)
(N.B. These dramatic titles don’t exist in the original text. They are inventions of the editor of the Penguin edition.)
1 to 6: Intransigence at Rome
Haste and confusion characterised every transaction. (5)
Quick summary of the hasty and confused debates in the Senate at the end of 50 BC, with the anti-Caesar faction calling for JC to be sent an ultimatum to lay down his command before negotiations could begin about his future. Caesar wanted to be allowed to stand for the consulship in his physical absence. He wanted to be elected consul because it would give him immunity from all prosecution for a year. Most of the Senate refused this idea because it was unprecedented and unconstitutional. Caesar read this refusal as a deliberate ploy so that when he laid down his command in Gaul and returned to Rome as a private citizen, he would be vulnerable to prosecution by his many enemies for his many dubious actions in Gaul. Senators like Cato had made it crystal clear he would launch a legal action against Caesar the second he set foot in Italy. Hence Caesar’s demand that he be given a consulship / legal immunity. But the legitimists, traditionalists and his actual enemies all rejected this. Impasse.
Caesar also learned that the end of 50 and start of 49 was seeing widespread conscription of soldiers across Italy. Pompey’s mouthpiece in the Senate, Scipio, tells them Pompey is ready to defend the state. When the Senate meets outside the city (because Pompey as a proconsul [of Spain] is not allowed within the city limits) Pompey tells them he has command of 10 legions and is ready to defend the state. The Penguin notes tell us this presumably means the 2 legions he had withdrawn from Caesar ostensibly to be sent to the East but which hadn’t left Italy yet; seven legions loyal to Pompey in Spain; and one under Domitius. (The fact that so many of Pompey’s legions were in Spain explains why Spain would turn out to be a main crucible of the war).
Caesar goes to some lengths to single out the treatment of the tribunes of the plebs, Mark Antony and Gaius Scribonius Curio. When they continued to lobby the Senate in Caesar’s favour, the most vehement senators threatened them with violence, and they were roughly manhandled out of the building, convincing both to disguise themselves and flee north to join Caesar. In constitutional terms they had been deprived of their right of veto and Caesar tries to give his agenda a gloss of respectability by saying one of his war aims is the restoration of the tribunes’ rights.
Caesar describes his demands as moderate and just, and implies that all his enemies had vested interests of one kind or another, not least securing positions of power from which they could extract bribes. He says all the year’s appointments to governorships, proconsulships and so on were hurried and unconstitutional.
7 to 15: Caesar reacts
Caesar assembles his men and pleads his cause. The Senate has:
So the troops all clamour to right these wrongs and protect his reputation. Caesar moves his legions south to Ariminum just within his province (of Cisalpine Gaul). Here he receives envoys from Pompey who remind him they have been friends and tell him to put his own grievances aside for the good of the state. Caesar adds to his list of grievances:
(9) Caesar makes counter-proposals:
When these demands are presented to Pompey and the consuls at Capua, Pompey replies that Caesar must return to Gaul, disband his army and only then will Pompey go to Spain. But until he does so, the Senate will continue with a general levy of troops throughout Italy (10).
Caesar rejects these demands as unfair, not least because no date would be set for Pompey’s departure, so he would be left in Italy with his two legions indefinitely. And Pompey’s refusal to meet and talk indicates lack of goodwill. So Caesar places cohorts in the towns surrounding Arretium and the narrative becomes a description of towns seized for his side (Pisarum, Faunum, Ancona).
Iguvium comes over to him. He sets off to take Auximum which is held by Attius Varus and the narrative settles down into a long list of small Italian towns and little known Roman officers who hold them. Caesar is at pains to emphasise that when he took towns he thanked the populations and, more often than not, let the officers who’d opposed him go free, as in the case of Lucius Pupius.
(14) The ease with which towns go over to Caesar causes panic at Rome where the two consuls raid the treasury then travel south to join Pompey at Capua, where he is stationed with his two legions. Arguably, the authorities’ abandonment of Rome meant the war was lost from the start.
Caesar continues marching south towards Asculum which was being held by Lentulus Spinther who, hearing of his approach, flees; Lucilius Hirrus similarly abandons Camerinum. But Lentulus rallies the remaining forces of both and takes them to Corfinium, which was being held by Domitius Ahenobarbus.
16 to 23: The siege of Corfinium
Caesar moves with characteristic speed and comes across Domitius’s forces dismantling a bridge over the river before they’ve finished the job, fights them off, and forces them into the town. Domitius is an effective opponent. He reinforces the town defences, sends a message to Pompey telling him to bring legions to surround Caesar, and addresses his men.
Sulmo, a town 7 miles away, is being held by the senator Quintus Lucretius and Attius but Caesar sends Mark Antony there and the townsfolk gladly open their gates and the troops go over to Caesar, who incorporates them into his own forces and lets Attius go free.
Caesar spends days building siege works. Domitius receives a reply from Pompey who refuses to come to his help, saying it would jeopardise his cause and no-one asked him to go to Corfinium. So Domitius deceitfully tells his troops Pompey is on his way, while making a plan with his closest advisors to secretly flee the town.
Word leaks out and the soldiers decide to abandon such a two-faced leader, arrest Domitius and send messages to Caesar saying they’re prepared to surrender. Caesar is wary of sending his troops into the town that night lest they loot it, so he sends the envoys back and maintains the siege. At dawn Lentulus asks for a private interview, is let out of the town and taken to Caesar who takes the opportunity (in the narrative) to reiterate his demands. He:
Are these the demands of ‘a revolutionary proconsul who placed his own dignitas above his country’? Discuss.
In the morning Caesar orders all the senators and magistrates hiding in Corfinium to be brought to him. He protects them from the jeers and insults of the soldiers, berates them for giving no thanks for the benefits he’s brought them and then, quite simply, lets them go. He has all the soldiers in the town swear allegiance to him. The magistrates of the town bring him 6 million sesterces but Caesar simply gives it back to Domitius to prove he is not interested in financial gain.
24 to 29: Pompey leaves Italy
Pompey had already abandoned Rome. Now he moves quickly to Canusium and then onto Brundisium, then, as now, the port for ships to Greece.
Caesar follows him, picking up Pompeian forces who abandon their leaders on the way. Caesar discovers the two consuls and most of Pompey’s army have taken ship for Dyrrachium, leaving Pompey inside Brundisium with 20 cohorts.
Caesar immediately starts building a great breakwater to block the port, but continues to send envoys to Pompey requesting a face-to-face meeting. Characteristically, Pompey doesn’t grasp the nettle but hides behind the constitutional nicety that, in the absence of the 2 consuls (who have fled) he is not authorised to negotiate.
In Caesar’s version, it is Pompey’s inability to take responsibility and engage in the kind of face-to-face discussions they had during the triumvirate which condemns Rome to civil war.
Caesar’s patience wears out, he realises he’s never going to get a sensible reply, and finally decides to conduct an all-out war (26).
The ships which had ferried Pompey’s first contingent to Greece now return and Pompey makes plans to embark the second and final cohort of troops. He fills the town with booby traps and a light guard on the city walls while the rest of the troops embark. At the last minute the guards are called and run down to the port, as the ships are setting off. Caesar’s men scale the walls, are helped by the townspeople to evade the traps, and some make it onto the water and capture two of Pompey’s ships which had gone aground on a breakwater.
Strategically, the best thing for Caesar would have been to pursue Pompey as quickly as possible but for the simple fact that Pompey had commandeered all the ships and waiting for new ones to be sent from Sicily or Gaul would lose the advantage. Meanwhile, most of Pompey’s legions were in Spain where a lot of the country’s nobles owed Pompey big debts of gratitude (for making them Roman citizens).
30 to 33: Caesar’s Senate
Accordingly Caesar sends lieutenants to Sardinia and Sicily which the Pompeian governors promptly flee.
Caesar’s noted enemy, Cato the Younger, governor of Sicily, makes a public speech about how Pompey had deceived him and the Senate into believing they were ready for war when they weren’t at all, and then flees to Africa, where the Pompeian Attius Varrus has taken control.
Having made his deployments Caesar goes to Rome and makes a long repetition of his complains directly to the remaining senators (32). He asks them to join him in governing Rome, otherwise he’ll do it by himself. But no-one volunteers to go as emissary to Pompey as they are afraid, and one of the tribunes has been suborned to filibuster events as long as possible, and so Caesar gives it up as a bad job and heads off for Gaul.
34 to 36: Resistance at Massilia
In the Province Caesar learns that Domitius has seized Massilia. Caesar makes a speech to the elders of Massilia who promise neutrality but meanwhile Domitius takes control, requisitioning ships from neighbouring ports. Caesar orders ships to be built in nearby ports then leaves Gaius Trebonius in charge of the siege of Massilia and marches on towards Spain.
37 to 55: The first Spanish campaign – Ilerda
The complex deployment and redeployment of Pompey’s lieutenants to the different provinces of Spain, which leads up to the siege of Ilerda, held by the Pompeian Lucius Afranius.
This is the first full-blown military encounter of the war and is described in Caesar’s usual technical detail, with siegeworks, attack and counter-attack. The river running past the town, the Sicoris, plays a key role, especially when there’s heavy rainfall and it and another river flood and wash away the bridges, leaving the Roman forces trapped between them, cut off from supplies of corn which, in any case, were short at this time of year. When a train of senators, magistrates, cohorts and cavalry arrive to join Caesar, they are prevented by the flooded rivers and attacked by Afranius’s forces.
All this is talked up by Afranius’s supporters and word spreads to Rome that the war is virtually over, which encouraged more to go over to Pompey’s side. But Caesar has boats made in a lightweight style he had seen in Britain, ferries enough of his troops over the flooded river to set up a base and then build a bridge from both sides. His cavalry attack a party out foraging Pompeians then fight off an enemy cavalry attack.
56 to 58: The naval fight at Massilia
The Pompeians under Domitius had built 17 warships while Caesar’s force under Decimus Brutus had hurriedly built far less at an island near Massilia. Domitius attacks. Caesar describes the composition and strengths of the opposing forces. Despite bad odds Caesar’s forces prevail.
59 to 80: Spain – a war of attrition
The situation swiftly changes:
Afranius and his colleague Petreius worry that they’re going to be cut off and so decide to abandon Ilerda and move deeper into Celtiberia, where the reputation of Pompey will guarantee support. They build a bridge across the Ebro 20 miles away just as the river hemming Caesar in becomes fordable. (To be honest, it is pretty difficult making sense of these complicated and often obscure descriptions of flooded rivers, bridges and fords.)
Caesar’s forces protest that they are hanging around while the enemy gets away, so Caesar selects the weakest to stay behind and guard the camp and the strongest to ford the river, which they just about manage to do. He forms them up and they pursue the fleeing Pompeians. They come up to them within a few miles of mountains, where both sides make camp.
Next day Caesar takes his men by a roundabout route to get to the bridge across the Ebro first. Afranius’s forces at first jeer them for fleeing the battlefield until they slowly realise they are going to be cut off. There follows complex manoeuvring to seize the high ground and the first of the mountain passes. Caesar’s forces massacre some of the Pompeian cavalry. Caesar’s men are all for finishing them off but Caesar thinks he can win without bloodshed and gives himself a speech saying he wants to avoid the deaths of citizens if at all possible. His army mutters and disagrees.
Next day some of the Pompeians are harassed when going to fetch water, so the leaders decide to build a protective rampart from their camp down to the water and go to supervise it. In their absence there is a mutiny with soldiers of all ranks, up to and including Afranius’s own son, fraternising with Caesar’s forces, calling out to friends, asking if they will be well treated if they surrender.
When Afranius hears all this he is ready to fall in with the capitulation. Petreius, on the other hand, stays resolute and with a small cavalry bodyguard descends on the fraternising soldiers, killing as many of Caesar’s as he can. He then tours the army, begging them not to abandon Pompey their leader; has the entire army, by centuries, repledge its oath of allegiance to him; and calls for anyone harbouring Caesarian soldiers to hand them over, before having them publicly executed in front of his soldiers. By terrorising his troops, Afranius restores discipline.
In his own camp Caesar shows his famous clemency, ordering soldiers from the opposing camp to be not punished but protected. And many chose to stay on with his side and Caesar was careful to show them honour. The Pompeians are running out of food and finding it hard to access water so they decide to march back to Ilerda. Caesar harasses their rearguard all the way.
81 to 87: The Pompeians capitulate
Caesar forces the Pompeians to make camp a distance from water, sets up his own camp and starts making siegeworks. On the second day the Pompeians come out to offer battle but a) Caesar doesn’t want unnecessary bloodshed and b) he doesn’t think there’s sufficient space (2 miles) between the camps to enforce a decisive victory. In the event, despite being impressively drawn up, neither side offers battle and at sunset they both withdraw to their camps.
Caesar sends his cavalry ahead to secure the ford over the river Sicoris thus cutting off the Pompeians from their intended route. At which point, starving and thirsty, the Pompeian leaders sue for peace, at a public meeting held in sight of both armies. Caesar makes a long speech in which he recapitulates the wrongs he has endured and the broader historical picture in which he claims that an army has been maintained in Spain (which is at peace and hardly needs it) purely to attack him. He lists other innovations whose sole purpose has been to threaten and attack him at the will of a ‘clique’ in Rome.
In a magnanimous display of clemency Caesar announces his only condition for peace is the disbanding of this Spanish army and everyone can go free. The location of demobilisation is set as the river Var. The Pompeian army cheer, as they had expected punishment of some sort, and clamour to be demobilised sooner rather than later. Caesar promises to supply them corn till they reach the Var and compensate all soldiers for any property lost to his men.
A third of the army was disbanded in the next 2 days, the rest marched under escort to the Var and was disbanded there. Caesar is at pains to convey his consistent humanity and clemency.
Part 2: Securing the West (44 chapters)
1 to 16: The siege of Massilia
Caesar’s lieutenant Gaius Trebonius continues the siege of Massilia. Pompey sends Lucius Nasidius with a fleet of ships to help out. These join forces with Lucius Domitius and Caesar describes a big sea battle which the Caesarean fleet of Decimus Brutus wins.
Caesar gives a very detailed description of the siege works his men build against the wall of Massilia which eventually weaken it. Envoys from the city come out and plead for mercy from Trebonius and beg to wait the return of Caesar. The result is a ceasefire during which both sides slacken off. Until some of the besieged garrison, that is, make a sortie with firebrands and successfully burn down one of the besieging towers. This makes the besiegers return to construction with a vengeance and less inclined to forgiveness.
17 to 21: Spain – surrender of Varro
In Further Spain Pompeian governor Marcus Varro hesitates which side to support until he hears misleading news of Pompeian victories at Ilerda and Massilia, whereupon he comes down fiercely on the Pompeian side, persecuting towns and individuals said to sympathise with Caesar.
Caesar for his part wants to return to Italy but knows he must finish the job in Spain or it will remain a Pompeian stronghold in his rear. In the event the plans of the Pompeian governor Marcus Terentius Varro are overthrown as town after town of Hither Spain declares for Caesar till eventually Varro surrenders to Caesar without a fight all his forces and money.
Caesar holds councils at Corduba and elsewhere, rewarding towns and communities. He puts Quintus Cassius in charge of the province and travels back to Massilia.
22: Massilia capitulates
Two defeats at sea, the undermining of their walls, starvation and an outbreak of pestilence convince the inhabitants of Massilia (called Massiliotes) to surrender. Their governor Lucius Domitius escapes by ship. Caesar accepts Massilia’s submission, leaves two legions to guard it and hastens back to Rome.
23 to 36: Africa – Curio’s campaign
Caesarean Gaius Scribonius Curio’s campaign in Tunisia against the Pompeian Publius Attius Varus. Curio is over-confident of success, only taking 2 of the 4 legions Caesar gave him to Africa. Here he camps opposite Varus’s camp outside Utica and has an initial success when his cavalry routs some of Pompey’s.
Now a lot of Curio’s men came from the Pompeian forces which surrendered at the siege of Corfinium. Varus has one of his men ride up and down opposite Curio’s lines, reminding them of their original oath to Pompey. This gives rise to rumours and dissension within Curio’s army and his advisers are split between forcing an attack on Utica or withdrawing to their original camp, Castra Cornelia, along the coast.
Caesar depicts Curio giving a speech to his advisers saying he’ll take neither course of action, and then addressing his troops at length, saying it was their example of abandoning Pompey which helped turn over Italy to Caesar, how Caesar has won 2 provinces in Spain, plus Massilia, pointing out that they didn’t desert their general Lucius Domitius, it was Lucius Domitius who deserted them. And lastly asking whether he has been a good and fair general to them.
This rouses them so much that on the following day they brave a difficult ravine between the two armies to take Varus’s forces by storm and force him right back, to abandon his camp and take refuge in the town.
37 to 44: Curio’s last stand
Then Curio hears that king Juba of the Numidians is approaching and withdraws his legions from the advanced camp back to Camp Castra, and sends to Sicily for food. The camp would be very well positioned to stand a long siege, but when Curio hears the king himself has been distracted by a tribal war and is only sending his lieutenant, Saburra, with a smaller force he willingly believes it. At nightfall Curio sends all his cavalry to ambush Saburra at the river Bagradas, which they successfully do.
Curio receives the triumphant cavalry back with their prisoners and loot as proof of victory and leads his infantry out in the middle of the night with the plan to force march to attack Saburra while the latter is still in confusion. What he doesn’t know is that King Juba very much is marching his way and that, when he hears of Saburra’s setback, he sends him 2,000 of his best cavalry and continues his infantry march to join him.
With the result that Curio’s force confronts Saburra’s forces in full battle order. Curio is victorious wherever he attacks but a) his on cavalry is slow and tired and b) his men are outnumbered. Reinforcements from the king continually arrive until Curio is surrounded. He sees a nearby hill and orders his men to gather there to make a stand, but enemy cavalry possess it first, at which point Curio’s men give up. His officers encourage him to flee the field but he says he couldn’t face Caesar after losing the army he gave him and so fights on till he’s killed.
Back at Camp Cornelia the rest of Curio’s forces panic and, when the quaestor Marcus Rufus tries to organise an orderly departure by ship, the men panic and swamp the boats, sinking many and discouraging the other ships from coming into harbour. Only a handful of officers and centurions make it aboard and so back to Sicily alive. The rest surrender to Varus.
Next day when King Juba arrives and sees cohorts of survivors in front of Utica he declares them his spoils of war and has them all executed. Varus is too weak and scared to prevent him.
End of Part 2. Part 3 is summarised in the next blog post.
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Posted by Simon on June 10, 2022
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2022/06/10/the-civil-war-julius-caesar-1/