Julius Caesar, Civil War

ToposText · Julius Caesar · 112 sections

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§ 3.101 About the same time G. Cassius came to Sicily with the Syrian, Phoenician, and Cilician fleets, and as Caesar's fleet was divided into two parts, the praetor P. Sulpicius at Vibo being in command of one half, and M. Pomponius at Messana of the other, Cassius hurried with his ships to Messana before Pomponius could learn of his approach, and finding him in a state of disorganization, with no surveillance and no fixed order of battle, with the aid of a strong and favourable wind he sent against the fleet of Pomponius some merchant-ships loaded with pine, pitch, tow, and other combustibles and burnt all thirty-five ships, of which twenty were decked. Such terror was caused by this action that, though there was a legion on guard at Messana, the town was scarcely defended, and had not some news of Caesar's victory been brought, just at that time, by relays of horsemen, many were of opinion that it would have been lost. But news having most opportunely arrived, the town was defended. Cassius departed thence to Vibo to the Sulpician fleet, and our ships having been moored to the shore in the same way as before, Cassius, with the advantage of a favourable wind, sent down some merchant-vessels prepared for burning, and the fleet having caught fire on each wing, five ships were consumed. And when the fire, through the greatness of the wind, spread more widely, some soldiers on the sick list, who had been left from the veteran legions to guard the ships, could not brook the ignominy, but of their own accord boarded the ships and let loose from the land; and making an attack on the Cassian fleet, they captured two quinqueremes, in one of which was Cassius himself, but he was taken off by a boat and escaped; besides this two triremes were sunk. And not long after news arrived of the battle fought in Thessaly, the result being that the Pompeians themselves believed it, for up to that time they thought it was an invention of Caesar's envoys and friends. So these events having become known, Cassius departed with his fleet from this district.
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§ 3.102 Caesar thought it right to put aside everything else and follow Pompeius, into whatever parts he should have betaken himself in his flight, that he might not be able again to collect other forces and to renew the war: he advanced every day as great a distance as he could cover with his cavalry, and ordered one legion to follow by shorter marches. An edict had been issued at Amphipolis in the name of Pompeius that all the youths of that province, whether Greeks or Roman citizens, should assemble to take the oath. But no opinion could be formed whether Pompeius had proposed this to avert suspicion, in order that he might keep his purpose of a distant flight concealed as long as possible, or that with the new levies he might attempt to hold Macedonia, if no one checked him. He himself stopped there one night at anchor, and after inviting his friends at Amphipolis to a conference and collecting money for necessary expenses, on receiving news of Caesar's approach he quitted that place and in a few days arrived at Mytilene. Detained there for two days by rough weather, after adding to his fleet other small craft he came to Cilicia and thence to Cyprus. There he learns that, by the consent of all the people of Antioch and of the Roman citizens engaged in business there, arms had been taken up for the purpose of excluding him, and that messages had been sent to those who were said to have betaken themselves in flight to the neighbouring townships bidding them not to go to Antioch. If they did so, they were told, it would be at great peril of their lives. The same thing had happened at Rhodes to L. Lentulus, who had been consul the previous year, to P. Lentulus, an ex-consul, and to some others, who, when they were following Pompeius in flight and had come to the island, had not been allowed admittance in the town and the harbour, and on messages being sent to them to quit these parts, had weighed anchor contrary to their intention. And already a report of Caesar's approach was being conveyed to the communities.
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§ 3.103 Ascertaining these facts, Pompeius gave up his idea of visiting Syria, took the funds belonging to the association of tax-farmers, borrowed money from certain private persons, and deposited on shipboard a great weight of bronze coinage for the use of the soldiers; and having armed two thousand men, partly those whom he had selected from the households of the tax-farmers, partly those whom he had requisitioned from the merchants and those of their own men whom each owner judged to be fit for the purpose, arrived at Pelusium. There by chance was King Ptolomaeus, a boy in years, waging war with large forces against his sister Cleopatra, whom a few months before he had expelled from the throne by the help of his relations and friends. The camp of Cleopatra was not far distant from his camp. To him Pompeius sent begging to be received in Alexandria and supported in his calamity by the king's resources, in remembrance of the hospitality and friendship that he had shown his father. But his messengers, having fulfilled the duty of their embassy, began to converse more freely with the king's soldiers and to exhort them to show their dutiful loyalty to Pompeius, and not to despise his fortunes. In the number of these men were very many soldiers of Pompeius, whom Gabinius had taken over from his army in Syria and had transported to Alexandria, and on the conclusion of the war had left them with Ptolomaeus, the youth's father.
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§ 3.104 Then, on learning of these proceedings, the king's friends, who, on account of his youth, were in charge of the kingdom, whether moved by fear, as they afterwards gave out, lest Pompeius should seize on Alexandria and Egypt after tampering with the royal army, or because they despised his fortunes, according to the common rule that in misfortune friends become enemies, gave in public a generous reply to his messengers and bade him visit the king, but themselves formed a secret plot, and sent Achillas, the king's prefect, a man of singular audacity, and L. Septimius, a military tribune, to assassinate Pompeius. And he, being courteously addressed by them and being lured forth by some previous knowledge of Septimius, because he had been a centurion under him in the pirate war, embarked in a little boat with a few of his friends, and is thereupon assassinated by Achillas and Septimius. L. Lentulus is also arrested by the king and slain in prison.
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§ 3.105 On Caesar's arrival in Asia he found that T. Ampius had attempted to remove sums of money from Ephesus from the temple of Diana, and that with this object he had summoned all the senators from the province, that he might employ them as witnesses in reference to the amount of the sum, but that he had fled when interrupted by Caesar's arrival. So on two occasions Caesar saved the Ephesian funds. Also it was established, by going back and calculating the dates, that at Elis in the temple of Minerva, on the very day on which Caesar had fought his successful battle, the image of Victory, which had been placed in front of Minerva herself and had previously looked towards the image of Minerva, had turned itself towards the folding-doors and threshold of the temple. And on the same day at Antioch in Syria so great a clamour of a host and a noise of trumpetings had twice been heard that the body of citizens rushed about in arms on the walls. The same thing happened at Ptolomais. At Pergamum in the secret and concealed parts of the temple, whither no one but the priests is allowed to approach, which the Greeks call ἄδυτα, there was a sound of drums. Also at Tralles in the temple of Victory, where they had dedicated a statue of Caesar, a palm was pointed out as having grown up during those days from the pavement between the joints of the stones.
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§ 3.106 When Caesar, after lingering a few days in Asia, had heard that Pompeius had been seen in Cyprus, conjecturing that he was on his way to Egypt because of his ties with the kingdom and the further advantages of the place, he went to Alexandria with one legion which he had ordered to follow him from Thessaly and another which he had summoned out of Achaea from his legate Q. Fufius, and also with eight hundred horse and with ten warships from Rhodes and a few from Asia. In these legions there were about three thousand two hundred men; the rest, worn out by wounds received in battle and by their toil and the severity of their march, had been quite unable to follow. But Caesar, trusting in the report of his exploits, had not hesitated to advance with weak supports, thinking that every place would be equally safe for him. At Alexandria he learns of the death of Pompeius, and there immediately on landing he hears the shouting of the soldiers whom the king had left in the town on garrison duty and sees them hurrying to meet him, because the fasces were being carried in front of him. Hereby the whole multitude asserted that the royal authority was being infringed. When this tumult was appeased frequent disturbances took place on successive days from the gathering of the multitude, and many soldiers were killed in all parts of this town.
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§ 3.107 Observing these events, he ordered other legions which he had made up out of the Pompeian troops to be brought him from Asia. For he was himself compulsorily detained by the etesian winds, which blow directly counter to those sailing from Alexandria. Meanwhile, thinking that the controversies of the princes affected the Roman people and himself as consul, and concerned his functions all the more because in his previous consulship an alliance had been formed with the elder Ptolomaeus both by legislative enactment and by decree of the senate, he declares that it is his pleasure that King Ptolomaeus and his sister Cleopatra should disband the armies that they controlled, and should settle their disputes by process of law before himself rather than by armed force between themselves.
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§ 3.108 On account of the king's youth his tutor, a eunuch named Pothinus, was in charge of the kingdom. He at first began to complain among his friends and express his indignation that the king should be summoned to plead his cause; then, finding certain persons among the king's friends to abet his plot, he secretly summoned the army from Pelusium to Alexandria and put the same Achillas, whom we have mentioned above, in command of all the forces. This man, puffed up as he was by his own and the king's promises, he urged to action, and informed him by letter and messenger what he wished to be done. In the will of their father Ptolomaeus the elder of the two sons and the elder of the two daughters were inscribed as heirs. In the same will Ptolomaeus adjured the Roman people in the name of all the gods and of the treaties which he had made at Rome to carry out these provisions. One copy of the will had been taken to Rome by his envoys to be placed in the treasury, but had been deposited with Pompeius because it had not been possible to place it there owing to the embarrassments of the state; a second duplicate copy was left sealed for production at Alexandria.
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§ 3.109 When these matters were being dealt with by Caesar, and he was particularly desirous of settling the disputes of the princes as a common friend and arbitrator, word is suddenly brought that the royal army and all the cavalry are on their way to Alexandria. Caesar's forces were by no means so large that he could trust them if he had to fight outside the town. It remained that he should keep in his own position in the town and learn the intentions of Achillas. But he ordered all his men to stand by their arms, and exhorted the king to send to Achillas those of his friends whom he judged to be of chief authority and to explain what his intentions were. Accordingly Dioscorides and Serapion, who had both been envoys at Rome and had possessed great influence with his father Ptolomaeus, were commissioned by the king and came to Achillas. And when they had come into his presence, before hearing them or learning for what reason they had been sent he ordered them to be arrested and killed. And one of them, having received a wound, was promptly snatched away by his friends and carried off for dead; the other was slain. After this deed Caesar manages to bring the king under his own control, because he thinks that the king's title had great weight with his subjects, and in order to make it apparent that the war had been undertaken on the private initiative of a small clique and a set of brigands rather than on that of the king.
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§ 3.110 The forces with Achillas were not such as to seem contemptible in respect of number or grade of men or experience in warfare. For he had twenty thousand men under arms. These consisted of soldiers of Gabinius who had habituated themselves to Alexandrian life and licence and had unlearnt the name and discipline of the Roman people and married wives by whom very many of them had children. To them were added men collected from among the freebooters and brigands of Syria and the province of Cilicia and the neighbouring regions; also many condemned criminals and exiles had joined them. All our own fugitive slaves had a sure place of refuge at Alexandria, and assurance of their lives on the condition of giving in their names and being on the army roll; and if any one of them was arrested by his owner he would be rescued by the common consent of the soldiery, who repelled violence done to their comrades as a peril to their own selves, since they were all alike involved in similar guilt. These men had been in the habit of demanding for execution the friends of the princes, of plundering the property of the rich, of besetting the king's palace to secure an increase of pay, of driving one man from the throne and summoning another to fill it, after an ancient custom of the Alexandrian army. There were besides two thousand cavalry. All these had grown old in the numerous wars at Alexandria, had restored the elder Ptolomaeus to the throne, had killed the two sons of Bibulus, had waged war with the Egyptians. Such was their experience in warfare.
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§ 3.111 Achillas, trusting in these forces and despising the small number of Caesar's troops, was trying to occupy Alexandria, except that part of the town which Caesar held with his troops, though at the first assault he had endeavoured to burst into his house; but Caesar, placing cohorts about the streets, held his attack in check. And at the same time a battle was fought at the port, and this affair produced by far the most serious fighting. For at one and the same time a battle was going on with scattered forces in several streets and the enemy were attempting in great numbers to seize the warships, of which fifty had been sent to the support of Pompeius and had returned home after the battle in Thessaly, all of them quadriremes and quinqueremes fitted and equipped with everything necessary for navigation, and, besides these, twenty-two which had usually been on duty at Alexandria, all of them decked. And if they had seized these, by robbing Caesar of his fleet they would have the harbour and the whole seaboard in their control and would shut off Caesar from supplies and reinforcements. Consequently the struggle was fought with the intense eagerness that was bound to occur when the one side saw a speedy victory, the other their own safety, depending on the event. But Caesar gained his purpose. He burnt all those ships and the rest that were in the docks, because he could not protect so wide an extent with his small force, and at once he embarked his men and landed them on Pharos.
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§ 3.112 On the island there is a tower called Pharos, of great height, a work of wonderful construction, which took its name from the island. This island, lying over against Alexandria, makes a harbour, but it is connected with the town by a narrow roadway like a bridge, piers nine hundred feet in length having been thrown out seawards by former kings. On this island there are dwelling-houses of Egyptians and a settlement the size of a town, and any ships that went a little out of their course there through carelessness or rough weather they were in the habit of plundering like pirates. Moreover, on account of the narrowness of the passage there can be no entry for ships into the harbour without the consent of those who are in occupation of Pharos. Caesar, now fearing such difficulty, landed his troops when the enemy was occupied in fighting, and seized Pharos and placed a garrison on it. The result of these measures was that corn and reinforcements could be safely conveyed to him on shipboard. For he sent messengers to all the neighbouring provinces and summoned reinforcements from them. In the remaining parts of the town the result of the fighting was that they separated after an indecisive engagement and neither side was beaten, the reason of this being the narrowness of the space; and a few men having been slain on both sides, Caesar drew a cordon round the most necessary positions and strengthened the defences by night. In this region of the town there was a small part of the palace to which he had been at first conducted for his personal residence, and a theatre was attached to the house which took the place of a citadel, and had approaches to the port and to the other docks. These defences he increased on subsequent days so that they might take the place of a wall as a barrier against the foe, and that he might not be obliged to fight against his will. Meanwhile the younger daughter of King Ptolomaeus, hoping to have the vacated tenure of the throne, removed herself from the palace to join Achillas, and began to conduct the war with him. But there quickly arose a controversy between them about the leadership, an event which increased the bounties to the soldiers, for each strove separately to win their favour by large sacrifices. While this was going on among the enemy, Pothinus, the young king's tutor and controller of the kingdom, in Caesar's part of the town, while sending messengers to Achillas and exhorting him not to slacken in the business nor to fail in spirit, was slain by Caesar, his messengers having been informed against and arrested. This was the beginning of the Alexandrian war.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by A.G. Peskett (1850-1931). Composed ca. 46 BCE. Licence: public domain. Source.