The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen (autobiographies to read txt) 📕

of Pharsalus; Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae.(30) The entire army of Pompeius was assembled; Caesar on the other hand still expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently not nearly the half of their normal amount. The victorious army of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had provisions in abundance, while the troops of Caesar had difficulty in keeping themselves alive and only hoped for better supplies from the corn-harvest not far distant. The Pompeian soldiers, who had learned in the last campaign to know war and trust their leader, were in the best of humour. All military reasons on the side of Pompeius favoured the view, that the decisive battle should not be long delayed, seeing that they now confronted Caesar in Thessaly; and the emigrant impatience of the many genteel officers and others accompanying the army doubtless had more weight than even such reasons in the council of war. Since the events of Dyrrhachium these lords regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact; already there was eager strife as to the filling up of Caesar's supreme pontificate, and instructions were sent to Rome to hire houses at the Forum for the next elections. When Pompeius hesitated on his part to cross the rivulet which separated the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation; Pompeius, it was alleged, only delayed the battle in order to rule somewhat longer over so many consulars and praetorians and to perpetuate his part of Agamemnon. Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who under the impression that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle, when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank.

The Battle

Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on the 9th August 706, almost on the same field where a hundred and fifty years before the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the east.(31) Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain, covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops. The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive, but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance, and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry, had stationed behind it on the threatened flank of his right wing some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen, driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line, they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion by the unexpected and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed from the field of battle. The victorious legionaries cut to pieces the enemy's archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it. At the same time Caesar's third division hitherto reserved advanced along the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents, broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius, who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar. His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss.

Its Issue
Flight of Pompeius

The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat of Dyrrhachium. But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny had learned that fortune loves to withdraw herself at certain moments even from her favourites in order to be once more won back through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her when she withdrew from him; and, while in Caesar's grander nature despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss of despondency. As once in the war with Sertorius he had been on the point of abandoning the office entrusted to him in presence of his superior opponent and of departing,(33) so now, when he saw the legions retire over the stream, he threw from him the fatal general's scarf, and rode off by the nearest route to the sea, to find means of embarking there. His army discouraged and leaderless— for Scipio, although recognized by Pompeius as colleague in supreme command, was yet general-in-chief only in name—hoped to find protection behind the camp-walls; but Caesar allowed it no rest; the obstinate resistance of the Roman and Thracian guard of the camp was speedily overcome, and the mass was compelled to withdraw in disorder to the heights of Crannon and Scotussa, at the foot of which the camp was pitched. It attempted by moving forward along these hills to regain Larisa; but the troops of Caesar, heeding neither booty nor fatigue and advancing by better paths in the plain, intercepted the route of the fugitives; in fact, when late in the evening the Pompeians suspended their march, their pursuers were able even to draw an entrenched line which precluded the fugitives from access to the only rivulet to be found in the neighbourhood. So ended the day of Pharsalus. The enemy's army was not only defeated, but annihilated; 15,000 of the enemy lay dead or wounded on the field of battle, while the Caesarians missed only 200 men; the body which remained together, amounting still to nearly 20,000 men, laid down their arms on the morning after the battle only isolated troops, including, it is true, the officers of most note, sought a refuge in the mountains; of the eleven eagles of the enemy nine were handed over to Caesar. Caesar, who on the very day of the battle had reminded the soldiers that they should not forget the fellow-citizen in the foe, did not treat the captives as did Bibulus and Labienus; nevertheless he too found it necessary now to exercise some severity. The common soldiers were incorporated in the army, fines or confiscations of property were inflicted on the men of better rank; the senators and equites of note who were taken, with few exceptions, suffered death. The time for clemency was past; the longer the civil war lasted, the more remorseless and implacable it became.

The Political Effects of the Battle of Pharsalus
The East Submits

Some time elapsed, before the consequences of the 9th of August 706 could be fully discerned. What admitted of least doubt, was the passing over to the side of Caesar of all those who had attached themselves to the party vanquished at Pharsalus merely as to the more powerful; the defeat was so thoroughly decisive, that the victor was joined by all who were not willing or were not obliged to fight for a lost cause. All the kings, peoples, and cities, which had hitherto been the clients of Pompeius, now recalled their naval and military contingents and declined to receive the refugees of the beaten party; such as Egypt, Cyrene, the communities of Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia and Asia Minor, Rhodes, Athens, and generally the whole east. In fact Pharnaces king of the Bosporus pushed his officiousness so far, that on the news of the Pharsalian battle he took possession not only of the town of Phanagoria which several years before had been declared free by Pompeius, and of the dominions of the Colchian princes confirmed by him, but even of the kingdom of Little Armenia which Pompeius had conferred on king Deiotarus. Almost the sole exceptions to this general submission were the little town of Megara which allowed itself to be besieged and stormed by the Caesarians, and Juba king of Numidia, who had for long expected, and after the victory over Curio expected only with all the greater certainty, that his kingdom would be annexed by Caesar, and was thus obliged for better or for worse to abide by the defeated party.

The Aristocracy after the Battle of Pharsalus

In the same way as the client communities submitted to the victor of Pharsalus, the tail of the constitutional party—all who had joined it with half a heart or had even, like Marcus Cicero and his congeners, merely danced around the aristocracy like the witches around the Brocken—approached to make their peace with the new monarch, a peace accordingly which his contemptuous indulgence readily and courteously granted to the petitioners. But the flower of the defeated party made no compromise. All was over with the aristocracy; but the aristocrats could never become converted to monarchy. The highest revelations of humanity are perishable; the religion once true may become a lie,(34) the polity once fraught with blessing may become a curse; but even the gospel that is past still finds confessors, and if such a faith cannot remove mountains like faith in the living truth, it yet remains true to itself down to its very end, and does not depart from the realm of the living till it has dragged its last priests and its last partisans along with it, and a new generation, freed from those shadows of the past and the perishing, rules over a world that has renewed its youth. So it was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic rule had now sunk, it had once been a great political system; the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal had been vanquished, continued to glow—although somewhat dimmed and dull—in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed, and rendered a cordial understanding between the men of the old regime and the new monarch impossible. A large portion of the constitutional party submitted at least outwardly, and recognized the monarchy so far as to accept pardon from Caesar and to retire as much as possible into private life; which, however, ordinarily was not done without the mental reservation of thereby preserving themselves for a future change of things. This course was chiefly followed by the partisans of lesser note; but the able Marcus Marcellus, the same who had brought about the rupture with Caesar,(35) was to be found among these judicious persons and voluntarily banished himself to Lesbos. In the majority, however, of the genuine aristocracy passion was more powerful than cool reflection; along with which, no doubt, self-deceptions as to success being still possible and apprehensions of the inevitable vengeance of the victor variously co-operated.

Cato

No one probably formed a judgment as to the situation of affairs with so painful a clearness, and so free from fear or hope on his own account, as Marcus Cato. Completely convinced that after the days of Ilerda and Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable, and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth and to act in accordance with it, he hesitated for a moment whether the constitutional party ought at all to continue a war, which would necessarily require sacrifices for a lost cause on the part of many who did not know why they offered them. And when he resolved to fight against the monarchy not for victory, but for a speedier and more honourable fall, he yet sought as far as possible to draw no one into this war,