Civil Wars

They could endure it no longer, but cried out that they repented of what they had done, and besought him to keep them in his service. But Cæsar turned away and was leaving the platform when they shouted with greater eagerness and urged him to stay and punish them for their misdeeds. He delayed a while longer, not going away and not turning back, but pretending to be undecided. At length he came back and said that he would not punish any of them, but that he was grieved that even the tenth legion, to which he had always given the first place of honor, should join in such a riot. "And this legion alone," he continued, "I will discharge from the service. Nevertheless, when I return from Africa I will give them all that I have promised. And when the wars are ended I will give lands to all, not as Sulla did by taking it from the present holders and colonizing the takers among the losers, and making them everlasting enemies to each other, but I will give the public land, and my own, and will purchase what may be needful." There was clapping of hands and joyful acclaim on all sides, but the tenth legion was plunged in grief because to them alone Cæsar appeared inexorable. They begged him to choose a portion of their number by lot and put them to death. But Cæsar, seeing that there was no need of stimulating them any further when they had repented so bitterly, became reconciled to all, and departed straightway for the war in Africa.

He crossed from Rhegium to Messana and went to Lilybæum.[*](The modern Marsala, at the western extremity of Sicily. It was the port nearest the African coast. Hirtius says that Cæsar arrived there on the 14th day before the Calends of January and sailed eight days later.) Here, learning that Cato was guarding the enemy's magazines with a fleet and a part of the land forces at Utica, and that he had with him 300 men who had for a long time constituted their council of war and were called the Senate, and that the commander, L. Scipio, and the flower of the army were at Adrumetum, he sailed against [*](Y.R. 708) the latter. He arrived at a time when Scipio had gone [*](B.C. 46) away to meet Juba, and he drew up his forces for battle near Scipio's very camp in order to come to an engagement with the enemy at a time when their commander was absent. Labienus and Petreius, Scipio's lieutenants, attacked him, defeated him badly, and pursued him in a haughty and disdainful manner until Labienus' horse was wounded in the belly and threw him, and his attendants carried him off. Petreius, thinking that he had made a thorough test of the army and that he could conquer whenever he liked, drew off his forces, saying to those around him, "Let us not deprive our general, Scipio, of the victory." In one part of the day's work did Cæsar's luck show itself, in that the victorious enemy seems to have abandoned the field at the very moment of success. It is said that in the flight Cæsar dashed up to his whole line[*](e)gxri/mptwn a(/pasin. How could he dash up to all of them at once? Mendelssohn suggests a)podra=sin, i.e. he dashed up to the runaways.) and turned it around and seizing one of those who carried the principal standards (the eagles) dragged him to the front. Finally, Petreius retired and Cæsar was glad to do the same. Such was the result of Cæsar's first battle in Africa.

Not long afterward it was reported that Scipio himself was advancing with eight legions of foot, 20,000 horse (of which most were Africans), and a large number of light-armed troops, and thirty elephants; together with King Juba, who had some 30,000 foot-soldiers in addition, raised for this war, and 20,000 Numidian cavalry, besides a large number of spearmen and sixty elephants. Cæsar's army began to be alarmed and a tumult broke out among them on account of the disaster they had already experienced and of the reputation of the forces advancing against them, and especially of the numbers and bravery of the Numidian cavalry. War with elephants, to which they were unaccustomed, also frightened them.[*]("Whenever," says Suetonius, " his (Cæsar's) troops were dispirited by reports of the great force of the enemy, he rallied their courage not by denying the truth of what was said or minimizing the facts but on the contrary by exaggerating every particular. Accordingly, when his troops were in great alarm at the expected arrival of King Juba, he called them together and said, 'I have to inform you that in a very few days the king will be here with ten legions, 30,000 horse, 100,000 light-armed foot, and 300 elephants. Let none of you therefore presume to make any further inquiry or indulge in conjectures, but take my word for what I tell you, which I have from undoubted intelligence; otherwise I shall put them aboard an old crazy vessel and leave them exposed to the mercy of the winds to be transported to some other country.' " (Jul. 66.)) But Bocchus, another Mauritanian prince, seized Cirta, which was the capital of Juba's kingdom. When this news reached Juba he started for home at once with his army, leaving thirty of his elephants only with Scipio. Thereupon Cæsar's men plucked up courage to such a degree that the fifth legion begged to be pitted against the elephants, and it overcame them valiantly. From that day to the present this legion has borne the figure of an elephant on its standards.

The battle was long, severe, and doubtful in all parts of the field until toward evening, when victory declared itself on the side of Cæsar, who went straight on and captured Scipio's camp and did not desist, even in the night, from reaping the fruits of his victory until he had made a clean sweep.[*](This was the battle of Thapsus. According to Hirtius Cæsar's soldiers broke away from their officers and began the battle without. orders. (Bell. Afr. 82.)) The enemy scattered in small bodies wherever they could. Scipio himself with Afranius, abandoning everything, fled by sea with twelve open ships. And thus was this army also, composed of nearly 80,000 men who had been under long training and were inspired with hope and courage by the previous battle, in the second engagement, completely annihilated. And now Cæsar's fame began to be celebrated as of a man of invincible fortune, and those who were vanquished by him attributed nothing to his merit, but ascribed everything, including their own blunders, to Cæsar's luck. And it seems that the result of this war also was due to the bad generalship of the commanders who, as in Thessaly, neglected their opportunity to wear out Cæsar by delay until his supplies were exhausted, in this foreign land, and in like manner failed to reap the fruits of their first victory by pushing it sharply to the end.[*](suntrifqei\s ou(/tws o)ce/ws dialuqh=nai. No commentator has been able to explain satisfactorily the first of these four words. Schweighäuser says that po/lemos must be understood, but he adds that a "crushed war" would be a wonderful thing. It may mean that the war, " crushed out in this way, quickly came to an end.")

As these facts became known at Utica some three days later, and as Cæsar was marching right against that place, a general flight began. Cato did not detain anybody. He gave ships to all the nobility who asked for them, but himself adhered firmly to his post. When the inhabitants of Utica promised to intercede for him before doing so for themselves, he answered with a smile that he did not need any intercessors with Cæsar, and that Cæsar knew it very well. Then he placed his seal on all the public property and gave the accounts of each kind to the magistrates of Utica. Toward evening he bathed and dined. He ate in a sitting posture, as had been his custom since Pompey's death.[*](That is, instead of reclining, as was the fashion of the Romans at dinner. Combes-Dounous seems not to have been aware of this custom. He says that " the makers of the Latin version seem not to have known the meaning of the verb e)geu/eto. They have made Appian say that Cato sat down to take his repast, as he had been accustomed to do since Pompey's death. Do they mean to say that before Pompey's death Cato took his meals standing? " He thinks that Cato suspected his cook. He feared poison. The passage, he thinks should be translated: " Being seated he caused the food to be tasted according to the custom he had adopted since the death of Pompey.") He changed his habits in no respect. He partook of the dinner, neither more nor less than usual. He conversed with the others present concerning those who had sailed away and inquired whether the wind was favorable and whether they would make sufficient distance before Cæsar should arrive the next morning. Nor did he change any of his habits when he retired to rest, except that he embraced his son rather more affectionately than usual. As he did not find his sword in its accustomed place by his couch, he exclaimed that he had been betrayed by his servants to the enemy. "What weapon shall I use if I am attacked in the night ?" he said.[*](The text is dubious here.) When they besought him to do no violence to himself but to go to sleep without his sword, he replied still more plausibly, "Could I not strangle myself with my clothing if I wished to, or knock my brains out against the wall, or throw myself headlong to the ground, or destroy myself by holding my breath?" Much more he said to the same purport until he persuaded them to bring back his sword. When it had been put in its place he called for Plato's treatise on the soul and began to read.

When he had read the book through and when he thought that those who were stationed at the doors were asleep, he stabbed himself under the breast. His intestines protruded and the attendants heard a groan and rushed in. Physicians replaced his bowels, which were still uninjured, in his body, and after sewing up the wound put a bandage around it. When Cato came to himself he dissembled again. Although he blamed himself for the insufficiency of the wound, he expressed thanks to those who had saved him and said that he only needed sleep. The attendants then retired, taking the sword with them, and closed the door, thinking that he had become quiet. When Cato thought that they were asleep, he tore off the bandage with his hands without making any noise, opened the suture of the wound, enlarged it with his nails like a wild beast, plunged his fingers into his stomach, and tore out his entrails until he died, being then about fifty years of age. He was considered the most steadfast of all men in upholding any opinion that he had once espoused and in adhering to justice, rectitude, and morality, not as a matter of custom merely, but rather from high-souled considerations. He had married Marcia, the daughter of Philippus, when she was a virgin. He was extremely fond of her and had had children by her. Nevertheless, he gave her to Hortensius, one of his friends, -- who desired to have children but was married to a barren wife, -- until she bore a child to him also, when Cato took her back to his own house as though he had merely loaned her.[*](Plutarch gives a longer account of this affair, showing that it was attended by formalities in accord with Roman law. Marcia's father was consulted, but her own consent seems not to have been needed. The criticism made upon it by Cæsar in his Anti-Cato was not based upon moral considerations. He pointed to the fact that Hortensius, who was very wealthy, left his estate to Marcia in his will, and that Cato took her back as a rich widow, implying that it was a money--making transaction on his part.) Such a man was Cato. The Uticans gave him a magnificent funeral. Cæsar said [*](B.C. 47) that Cato had envied him the opportunity for a deed of honor,[*](That is, an opportunity to pardon him. According to Plutarch Cæsar said: " O Cato, I envy thee thy death because thou did'st envy me my safety.") but when Cicero pronounced an encomium on him which he styled the Cato, Cæsar wrote an answer to it which he called the Anti-Cato.

Juba and Petreius, in view of the circumstances, perceiving no chance of flight or safety, slew each other with swords at a banquet. Cæsar made Juba's kingdom tributary to the Romans and appointed Sallustius Crispus its governor. He pardoned the Uticans and the son of Cato. He captured the daughter of Pompey together with her two children in Utica and sent them safe to young Pompey. Of the 300 he put to death all that he found.[*](The 300 are those mentioned in Sec. 95 who were called the Senate. Suetonius (Jul. 75) says that only three of Cæsar's enemies lost their lives, except in battle, viz.: Afranius, Faustus Sylla, and young Lucius Cæsar, and that it was thought that even these were put to death without Cæsar's consent.) Lucius Scipio, the general-in-chief, was overtaken by a storm, and met a hostile fleet and bore himself bravely until he was overpowered, when he stabbed himself and leaped into the sea. This was the end of Cæsar's war in Africa.

When Cæsar returned to Rome he had four triumphs together: one for his Gallic wars, in which he had added many great nations to the Roman sway and subdued others that had revolted; one for the Pontic war against Pharnaces; one for the war in Africa against the African allies of L. Scipio, in which the historian Juba (the son of King Juba), then an infant, was led a captive. Between the Gallic and the Pontic triumphs he introduced a kind of [*](B.C. 46) Egyptian triumph, in which he led some captives taken in the naval engagement on the Nile.[*](Plutarch says that Cæsar enjoyed three triumphs at this time: " the Egyptian, the Pontic, and the African, not over Scipio but probably over King Juba, whose son, still a boy, was led in the triumph, being most fortunate in his captivity since he was thus changed from a barbarous Numidian to one of the most learned of Greek writers.") Although he took care not to inscribe any Roman names in his triumph (as it would have been unseemly in his eyes and base and inauspicious in those of the Roman people to triumph over fellow-citizens), yet all these misfortunes were represented in the processions and the men also by various images and pictures, all except Pompey, the only one whom he did not venture to exhibit, since the latter was still greatly regretted by all. The people, although restrained by fear, groaned over their domestic ills, especially when they saw the picture of Lucius Scipio, the general-in-chief, wounded in the breast by his own hand, casting himself into the sea, and Petreius committing self-destruction at the banquet, and Cato torn open by himself like a wild beast. They applauded the death of Achillas and Pothinus, and laughed at the flight of Pharnaces.

It is said that money to the amount of 60,500 talents [of silver] was borne in the procession and 2822 crowns of gold weighing 20,414 pounds, from which wealth Cæsar made apportionments immediately after the triumph, paying the army all that he had promised and more. Each soldier received 5000 Attic drachmas, each centurion double, and each tribune of infantry and præfect of cavalry fourfold that sum. To each plebeian citizen also was given an Attic mina. He gave also various spectacles with horses and music, a combat of foot-soldiers, 1000 on each side, and a cavalry fight of 200 on each side. There was also another combat of horse and foot together. There was a combat of elephants, twenty against twenty, and a naval engagement of 4000 oarsmen, where 1000 fighting men contended on each side. He erected a temple to Venus, his ancestress, as he had vowed to do when he was about to begin the battle of Pharsalus, and he laid out ground around the temple which he intended to be a forum for the Roman people, not for buying and selling, but a meeting-place for the transaction of public business, like the public squares of the Persians, where the people assemble to seek justice or to learn the laws. He placed a beautiful image of Cleopatra by the side of the goddess, which stands there to this day. He caused an enumeration of the people to be made, and it is said that it was found to be only one-half of the number existing before this war.[*](The corresponding passage in Plutarch (Life of Cœsar, 55) says: "After the games the census was taken and instead of the former 320,000 inhabitants the whole number amounted to 150,000." This seems incredible. A note on this passage in Langhorne's Plutarch says that Rualdus has not only proved by other testimony that this is erroneous but has shown how the error came to be made. He says that Plutarch, for want of a thorough knowledge of Latin, was misled by a passage in Suetonius which says that Cæsar "made a new census (recensum) not in the usual manner or place (in the Campus Martius), but street by street, by means of the chief men of the tenement-house districts (insularum), and reduced the number of those receiving corn from the public stores from 320,000 to 150,000." The recensus was taken for the purpose of determining the number of persons entitled to receive public corn. The Epitome of Livy (CXV.) says: " he took a new census (recensum) by which it was ascertained that the number of citizens (civium capita) was 150,000," meaning probably the number entitled to receive corn.) To such a degree had the rivalry of these two men reduced the city. [*](Y.R. 709)

Cæsar, now in his fourth consulship, marched against young Pompeius in Spain. This was all that was left of the civil war, but it was not to be despised, for such of the nobility as had escaped from Africa had assembled here. The army was composed of soldiers from Pharsalus and Africa itself, who had come hither with their leaders, and of Spaniards and Celtiberians, a strong and warlike race. There was a great number of emancipated slaves also in Pompeius' camp. All had been under discipline four years and were ready to fight with desperation. Pompeius was misled by this fact and did not postpone the battle, but engaged Cæsar straightway on his arrival, although the older ones, who had learned by experience at Pharsalus and Africa, advised him to wear Cæsar out by delay and reduce him to want, as he was in a hostile country. Cæsar made the journey from Rome in twenty-seven days, coming with a heavily-laden army by a very long [*](B.C. 45) route. Fear fell upon his soldiers as never before, in consequence of the reports received of the numbers, the discipline, and the desperate valor of the enemy.

For this reason Cæsar himself also was ready to move slowly until Pompeius approached him at a certain place where he was reconnoitering and accused him of cowardice. Cæsar could not endure this reproach. He drew up his forces for battle near Corduba[*](The modern Cordova. The unknown author of the Commentaries on Cæsar's war in Spain places this engagement on the plain of Munda, (in campum Mundensem). Plutarch, Florus, Lucan, and the Epitome of Livy say Munda. It is doubtful, however, whether this was the Munda shown on the maps as the site of the modern Monda. The text of the Commentaries, describing the operations following the battle, implies that it was much nearer to Corduba than the present Monda is to Cordova.) and then, too, gave Venus for his watchword. Pompeius, on the other hand, gave Piety for his. When battle was joined fear seized upon Cæsar's army and hesitation was joined to fear. Cæsar, lifting his hands toward heaven, implored all the gods that his many glorious deeds be not stained by this single disaster. He ran up and encourged his soldiers. He took his helmet off his head and shamed them to their faces and exhorted them. As they abated nothing of their fear he seized a shield from a soldier and said to the officers around him, "This shall be the end of my life and of your military service." Then he sprang forward in advance of his line of battle toward the enemy so far that he was only ten feet distant from them. Some 200 missiles were aimed at him, some of which he dodged while others were caught on his shield. Then each of the tribunes ran toward him and took position by his side, and the whole army rushed forward and fought the entire day, advancing and retreating by turns until, toward evening, Cæsar with difficulty won the victory. It was reported that he said that he had often fought for victory, but that this time he had fought even for existence.[*](Here we find one of those parallel passages in Plutarch -- parallel in language as well as in idea -- which suggest that both Plutarch and Appian drew from a common Greek, not Latin, source. Plutarch quotes the saying of Cæsar: polla/kis me\n a)gwni/saito peri\ ni/khs nu=n de\ prw=ton peri\ yuxh=s (Life of Cæsar, 56), which is the same as the text of Appian, except that the latter has kai\ in place of prw=ton.)

After a great slaughter the Pompeians fled to Corduba, and Cæsar, in order to prevent the fugitives from preparing for another battle, ordered a siege of that place. The soldiers, wearied with toil, piled the bodies and arms of the slain together, fastened them to the earth with spears, and encamped behind this kind of a wall. On the following day the city was taken. Scapula, one of the Pompeian leaders, erected a funeral pile on which he consumed himself. The heads of Varus, Labienus, and other distinguished men were brought to Cæsar.[*](The writer of the Commentaries says that Labienus and Varus were killed in the battle of Munda, and that their funeral obsequies were performed where they fell.) Pompeius himself fled from the scene of his defeat with 150 horsemen toward Carteia, where he had a fleet, and entered the dockyard secretly as a private individual borne in a litter. When he saw that the men here despaired of their safety he feared lest he should be delivered up, and took to flight again. While going on board a small boat his foot was caught by a rope, and a man who attempted to cut the rope with his sword cut the sole of his foot instead. So he sailed to a certain place for medical treatment. Being pursued thither he fled by a rough and thorny road that aggravated his wound, until fagged out he took a seat under a tree. Here his pursuers came upon him and he was cut down while defending himself bravely. His head was brought to Cæsar who gave orders for its burial. Thus this war also, contrary to expectation, was brought to an end in one battle. A younger brother of this Pompeius, also named Pompeius but called by his first name, Sextus, collected those who escaped from this fight; but as yet he kept moving about in concealment and lived by robbery.