ABSTRACT
Caesar was on the island of Rhodes when he learned that Pompey had reached Cyprus. He assumed that he would head for Alexandria and therefore embarked the remnants of two of his legions and 800 cavalry and, guarded by ten fully manned and armed Rhodian warships, set sail for Egypt in October 48. Caesar reached the Pharos lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria about three days later, where he was met by an Egyptian ship carrying Ptolemy’s tutor Theodotus, who presented Caesar with Pompey’s head. Caesar refused to look and ‘turned away with loathing, as from an assassin’ (Plutarch, Pompey 80), merely taking Pompey’s signet ring and shedding some tears; they had once been close and Caesar must have hoped to have the opportunity to pardon him. Ever since Gabinius had restored the despised Auletes to the throne in
55, the Romans had been very unpopular in Egypt. If the Egyptians harboured any hopes that Caesar would be deterred by Pompey’s assassination and leave immediately, they were to be disappointed, and Caesar landed at the royal dock. He was accompanied by the twelve lictors normally assigned to a Roman consul, and the jeering Egyptian crowd took offence at this appearance of power and attacked some of his legionnaries. Caesar now found himself drawn into Egypt’s own civil war between Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra and, although he claimed in his Civil War (3.88) that unfavourable winds gave him no option but to stay, it is more likely he was assessing a level of involvement which would bring him financial advantage. Caesar took up residence in a royal palace and placed his troops in buildings in the grounds. He faced a hostile population and a potential military threat from the Egyptian forces commanded by Achillas and sent a fast ship to his general Domitius Calvinus in Asia with orders to join him as quickly as possible with two legions. As Auletes had never paid the agreed fee for his restoration, Caesar
informed the Egyptian official Pothinus that he intended to collect 40 million sesterces. The eunuch was not prepared to co-operate and Caesar’s
soldiers were offered ‘the oldest and worst grain’ (Plutarch, Caesar 48), to indicate that Egypt could not even afford to support them. It was at this point that Cleopatra, now twenty-one, made her appearance. Little is known about her early life, and even her legendary beauty is impossible to corroborate from the images that exist, but it is known she was well educated and extremely intelligent, and Dio wrote that she was very beautiful (42.34). Cleopatra was an articulate and shrewd political operator; if she was also attractive that was another weapon in her considerable arsenal of talents, and she now took a great gamble. Under cover of darkness she was smuggled into the harbour of Alexandria and, concealed either in a roll of bedding, a laundry bag or carpet, was unrolled at the feet of Caesar in ‘a pity-inducing guise’, according to Dio (42.34), or because she was ‘a bold coquette’ (Plutarch, Caesar 49). This colourful episode is absent from Caesar’s own account of the Alexandrine War. He mentions Cleopatra’s name only twice and then merely as Ptolemy’s sister, but their affair, which appears to have started immediately, may have determined his decision to remain in Egypt and to fight. Their relationship was conducted in Greek, a language in which both she and Caesar were fluent, as she did not speak Latin. When Caesar next met Ptolemy XIII and his advisers it was with Cleopatra at his side. The king was infuriated by their new relationship, as was the crowd outside, and Roman troops had to be used to calm them; Cleopatra was clearly as unpopular as her Roman lover. Nevertheless agreement was reached that Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra should rule jointly as their father had wished while his other two children, Princess Arsinoe and Ptolemy XIV, now about eleven years old, were to rule Cyprus as a separate kingdom which would be returned to Egypt. Pothinus and Ptolemy XIII had no intention of abiding by the terms
agreed, and ordered the Egyptian commander Achillas to bring their army of 20,000 to Alexandria immediately to deal with this upstart Roman. The war which ensued took five months to conclude and pinned Caesar down in Egypt. Achillas needed first to march south and then north to Alexandria, as the Nile delta was impassible, which gave Caesar time to take the initiative, imprison the three royal siblings and execute the duplicitous Pothinus. His 4,000 Roman forces captured the Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and gained control of the entrance to the Great Harbour of Alexandria, which facilitated the arrival of the reinforcements summoned from Asia, Rhodes and Cilicia. Although Caesar’s own account ends at this point, the events were well documented by his aide, Hirtius, in his Bellum Alexandrinum. From Hirtius we learn that the fighting reached a stalemate. Princess
Arsinoe escaped from the palace and, with the support of her adviser Ganymedes the eunuch, was proclaimed Queen. She joined up with the army but quickly fell out with Achillas, had him murdered and replaced with Ganymedes. The Egyptians now prepared siege towers, ten storeys
high, from which their artillery pounded Caesar’s troops in the palace compound; they also blocked the channels that carried fresh water into the palace. Caesar’s situation was deteriorating when news came that one legion had arrived with plentiful supplies of artillery and grain and an additional twenty-five warships, but they were becalmed eight miles from harbour. Caesar set off to tow them in. Ganymedes seized the initiative and set sail in pursuit with a dozen warships but, in the ensuing battle, several Egyptian ships were captured and ‘if nightfall had not put an end to the battle, Caesar would have captured the whole enemy fleet’ (Civil War 11.3-6). Despite this setback, the Egyptians rebuilt, and in early January 47 Caesar prepared his thirty-four vessels for battle. Again the Roman ships prevailed but, during a fierce engagement on Pharos Island, the Roman legionnaries lost their discipline and fled. Caesar had to ditch his own boat and swim for safety with a packet of papers in his teeth. The Egyptians salvaged his cloak from the water and put it on display as a trophy of battle (Plutarch, Caesar 49). The costly engagement resulted in Roman losses of 400 infantry and as many sailors. The Alexandrine War was taking much longer than Caesar had antici-
pated, and in February he released Ptolemy. He had urged him to end the war as quickly as possible, but the young king joined forces with his sister Arsinoe against Caesar. Many of Caesar’s men felt that his ‘excessive kindness had been made absurd by the deceit of a boy’ (b. Alex. 24), but it would seem unlikely Caesar had allowed himself to be deceived. He had just received the news that an army was approaching overland from Syria, led by Mithridates of Pergamum, adopted son of Mithridates the Great, and including 3,000 Jews from Judaea led by Antipater, father of Herod the Great. The Egyptians decided to divide their army to meet this challenge and moved the majority of their forces Eastwards. Caesar left a garrison in Alexandria but despatched most of his men by sea to rendezvous with the new army. In the ensuing battle the Egyptian forces were routed, Ptolemy XIII drowned attempting to escape by river and Arsinoe was captured. The Alexandrine War had certainly not been Caesar’s finest hour. Jime-
nez writes ‘Caesar himself had reason to be relieved after six months on the wrong end of a siege, dodging and defensive the whole time, calling for help for the first time in his life, and finally being rescued by a foreign army’ (2000: 184). In March 47, Cleopatra was restored to the throne with another brother, Ptolemy XIV, and Arsinoe was sent to Rome as a prisoner. Cyprus was returned to Egypt, either to supply the money Caesar sought from the Egyptians or possibly as an insult to Cato, who had settled it as a province. Hirtius suggests that Caesar now returned to his war against the Pompeians, but that is not the case: he spent two months cruising the Nile with Cleopatra. Appian (2.90) wrote that they were accompanied by 400 vessels and most of the army, which would suggest it resembled a royal
progress to demonstrate the realities of the new regime. Suetonius viewed the episode more romantically: ‘he would have gone through Egypt with her in her state-barge almost to Ethiopia, had not his soldiers refused to follow him’ (52). When Caesar left Cleopatra in June 47 she was six months pregnant with their son Caesarion. Three legions remained in Egypt under the command of Rufio, the son of one of Caesar’s freedmen. He was possibly chosen as an acceptable compromise, as Egypt was not a province; Rufio was not given the status of a legate and he bore no resemblance to a governor. The reality was that Caesar had spent seven months in Egypt, fighting a difficult war unrelated to his campaign against the Pompeians and then taking an extended holiday. It was time to deal with the consequences.
In a letter to Atticus in June 47 (11.17a) Cicero complained that no one had heard from Caesar for six months. This was uncharacteristic, as he normally maintained close contact and, although an enemy blockade at the beginning of the Alexandrine War had made communications difficult, the silence continued even after Caesar had reopened the harbour. His continued absence from Rome was already causing problems and lack of information increased uncertainty. Debt was the most pressing social and economic problem, and the policies Caesar had introduced in 49 were not proving effective. There was urgent need for measures to alleviate the severe hardship of many in the city, and others were stepping in to take political advantage, as it was still not certain that Caesar would return in victory. Caelius, Cicero’s correspondent, who was praetor in 48, announced that he would cancel all debts and instigated riots in Rome against Caesar’s measures, but the Senate passed the SCU against him, and both Caelius and Milo, who had come out of exile to lend him support, were killed. While Caesar was fighting in Egypt the civil war had continued in
other theatres. Quintus Cornificius, Caesar’s commander in Illyricum, had moved south immediately after Pharsalus to take over Dyrrachium and the Macedonian coastline and, with the assistance of Vatinius, cleared the Adriatic of enemy warships and secured control for Caesar. The news was not so positive elsewhere, as the Pompeians had regrouped in Caesar’s absence. Metellus Scipio and Labienus had fled to King Juba of Numidia and established a new base at Utica. Cato had abandoned Dyrrachium and joined them there. Pharnaces II, a son of Mithridates, had also taken advantage of Caesar’s absence. He had been given the Cimmerian Bosphorus, the Crimea, as his own kingdom after his father’s death, and was now attempting to regain all his father’s lands. He had invaded Lesser Armenia and Cappadocia and had moved towards Bithynia-Pontus. Caesar’s commander in the region, Calvinus, had sent two of his three legions to Caesar in Egypt and hastily raised four more legions in Pontus
and Cilicia. When he attacked Pharnaces, near Nicopolis in Eastern Turkey, Calvinus was heavily defeated and forced to flee. Pharnaces entered Bithynia-Pontus unchallenged, committing atrocities, including the castration of all captured Romans, as he reclaimed his father’s territories. In October 48, after the battle of Pharsalus, Caesar was made dictator for
a year, and Mark Antony, Caesar’s Master of the Horse, who had brought the victorious army back to Italy, returned to Rome to take control on Caesar’s behalf. Plutarch (Antony 9) alleges that he resumed his dissolute lifestyle and seized property for himself and his drinking companions, and reports Cicero’s opinion that Antony’s behaviour made him generally detested. In 47 Publius Dolabella, who had followed Clodius’ example of plebeian adoption, became tribune and introduced a Bill to reduce rents and abolish debts. He had served with Caesar at Pharsalus and was Cicero’s son-in-law, but when he attempted to use armed men to force the measure through, the Senate passed the SCU and appealed to Mark Antony to enforce it. Unfortunately unrest had spread to Caesar’s legions in Campania, and Antony had to restore order there first before attending to the situation in Rome, and the violence in Rome escalated during his absence. Antony brought a legion into the city and fought a pitched battle in the Forum, killing hundreds of Dolabella’s men and hurling some of the ringleaders from the Tarpeian Rock. Antony’s injudicious response caused great anger in the city and Caesar must have regretted his hasty decision to put him in charge; his own presence was urgently needed. Caesar received news of these events in Rome when he arrived at
Antioch but, as Pharnaces was his priority, he sailed on to Tarsus, and in both cities pardoned any Pompeians who approached him, including Quintus Cicero and Cassius Longinus. In August 47 Caesar’s army encountered the army of Pharnaces outside Zela, a walled town in north central Turkey. While his men were still preparing camp on a hill about a mile from the town, the enemy advanced towards them. The Romans hastily abandoned their spades and entrenching tools to grab their weapons, but did not have time to get into battle order before the king’s chariots, armed with scythes, came charging towards them. Caesar’s forces were heavily outnumbered, but their opponents were fighting uphill and, although surprise had gained them the initial advantage, Caesar’s men were able to push them back down the slope, and many retreating soldiers fell on top of those who had already fled or been killed. Caesar now pressed home the advantage and seized the enemy camp and treasure and, although Pharnaces escaped the battlefield, he was later killed by rebels. It was a great victory; Caesar would later adapt the words of Terence, the comic dramatist, and boast ‘Veni, vidi, vici’, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. Rome now awaited Caesar’s urgent attention. Settling matters in Asia on
the way, he set off for Italy and arrived at Tarentum on 24 September. Cicero was impatiently awaiting Caesar. He had been in Brundisium since
October 48, when he had abandoned the Pompeians, much to the fury of his brother Quintus, and Antony had ordered him to remain there until Caesar’s return so that he could personally ask for a pardon. Cicero rushed to meet Caesar and was greeted with friendship and forgiveness, and ‘after this he continued to show him honour and kindness’ (Plutarch, Cicero 39). When Caesar re-entered Rome at the end of September he still retained
the power of dictator which had been granted to him for a year. Rival gangs roamed the streets and Caesar’s first task was to restore order; he introduced punishments for rioting and also distributed food throughout the city. Caesar refused to cancel debts, although he did cancel all interest payments incurred since the beginning of the war and removed the first 2,000 sesterces owed by tenants in the city and the first 500 sesterces owed by tenants in the countryside, which took the edge off the misery of the most desperate. Caesar’s dictatorship was coming to an end, and he appointed consuls, Calenus and Vatinius, to rule for the last months of 47, and increased the number of praetors from eight to ten, filling the magisterial offices with his supporters and packing the Senate with equites who favoured his cause. Caesar stood for the consulship of 46 with Marcus Lepidus; there were no other candidates. Lepidus, unlike Antony, could be relied upon to represent Caesar in his absence with diligence and loyalty. Caesar sidelined Antony for the next two years because of his extreme behaviour but he pardoned Dolabella, much to Antony’s disgust. Caesar had confiscated Pompey’s property, which was now put up for auction. Men such as Antony and Dolabella paid, and were seen to pay, a fair price, and there was no repetition of the abuses of the Sullan auctions. When he had dealt with the most pressing problems and bolstered up
the political system with his supporters, Caesar prepared to leave for Africa. He had started to raise an army but had encountered resistance from his own legions, who had returned to Italy after Pharsalus but had still not received the land they had been promised. They had become mutinous, refused to go to Sicily as ordered, and marched on Rome to take up the matter with Caesar personally. After a night of violence, Caesar confronted them in the Campus Martius, where they demanded release from service, hoping this would encourage him to hand over their bonuses. Caesar, insultingly, addressed them as civilians, not soldiers, and agreed to their demands, but said they would be paid only after he had been victorious in Africa and only after the Triumph of the new army he was recruiting. The message was clear: he did not need them. The veterans had expected him to appeal to them for loyalty, now they pleaded to serve him again; he had engineered an impressive turnaround and had the army he needed. Caesar left Italy for Africa in November with six legions and 2,000
cavalry. Details of the campaign are contained in Bellum Africum, written by an unknown author, possibly one of Caesar’s junior officers; the language is not elegant enough to have been Caesar’s own. He crossed to the African
coast and, after bad weather scattered his fleet, finally regrouped in early January at Lepcis Magna. Caesar focused his energies on securing supplies and more troops, and the arrival of four more legions increased his fighting force to 30,000 men. While he was out on a foraging expedition, Caesar was unexpectedly attacked by the cavalry of Labienus, the officer who had left his side before he crossed the Rubicon. Petreius brought infantry to assist Labienus and Caesar’s position was perilous, but he managed to repel the attack and retreat to his base. Caesar built a fortified camp on the coast, awaiting further reinforce-
ments. The Pompeian forces of eight legions and 3,000 cavalry, led by the arrogant Scipio, had joined up with Juba’s army of fourteen legions, 18,000 cavalry and 120 war elephants; together they were formidable. The Pompeians also had thirty-two untrained elephants, a gift from King Juba. Elephants usually carried three or four men and were used like tanks in battle, particularly to terrify the cavalry. Caesar appreciated their potential and, during January, he requisitioned elephants from various Roman entertainments which he used to train his men. By April 46, actually midwinter by the solar calendar, more legions had arrived and Caesar had 35,000 men, 4,000 cavalry and 2,000 archers and slingers. He was ready to end the Civil War. By night, Caesar headed for the supply port of Thapsus, held by the Pompeians, forcing Scipio to follow. The dramatic battle that followed ended in a rout of the Pompeian forces which was hastened by the untrained elephants, which panicked and stampeded through their own lines during the battle. Although Caesar had ordered his men to take prisoner all who surrendered, his troops had very different ideas. They were war-weary and massacred 10,000 Pompeians as they pursued them after the battle; they also murdered some of Caesar’s officers who attempted to restrain them. Scipio fled but later committed suicide, as did Juba, who fought Petreius to the death in a suicide pact. Labienus fled to Gnaeus, Pompey’s son, who was gathering forces in Spain and, at the urging of his troops, Caesar executed Sulla’s son Faustus and Afranius. The war in Africa was over. Juba’s kingdom of Numidia (modern Algeria) became a new province, Africa Nova, and Caesar appointed Sallust as its first governor. Cato had remained at Utica during the battle and the townspeople, who
had no wish to fight on, now prepared to welcome Caesar. Cato was not prepared to accept Caesar’s clementia, which he knew would be offered. He argued that Caesar did not have the right to make the choice between life and death because ‘he is acting illegally in saving, as if he were lord and master, those whom he has no right to lord it over’ (Plutarch, Cato 66). Dio (43.10) wrote ‘he [Cato] regarded Caesar’s pity as more hateful than death’. Cato retired to his room after dinner and, after reading an account of the death of Socrates (Dio 43.11 says it was Phaedo, Plato’s book on the soul), stabbed himself. Unfortunately the wound he inflicted was not mortal and
his son summoned a doctor to treat it. Cato ripped open the stitches and pulled out his own entrails. He was forty-eight years old. Cicero admired Cato’s integrity but thought he lacked tact and judge-
ment, and had despaired of his obduracy, which had done so much damage to Rome. His tunnel vision had forced Pompey to take refuge with Caesar and Crassus in the Triumvirate, and then had driven Caesar to war. The manner of his death made him a martyr to the cause of freedom and the Republic, but his inability to compromise must place him among those responsible for its fall. When Caesar entered Utica he ‘declared he was angry because Cato had begrudged him the opportunity of sparing such a man’ (Dio. 43.12); nothing would have pleased Cato more.
