XI

POMPEY

If fortune doesn’t go your way, sometimes you have to bend it to your will.

—CAESAR

While Caesar spent all of 49 B.C. fighting in Italy, Gaul, and Spain, Pompey had used the time to gather an enormous international force in Greece. Such an assembly of soldiers from the nations of the Mediterranean and beyond had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great.

Pompey dominated the sea with a fleet of 600 ships drawn from Asia Minor, the Greek isles, Syria, and Africa, including 70 Egyptian cruisers sent by Cleopatra. All these were placed under the command of Caesar’s longtime nemesis and former consular colleague, Bibulus. Pompey’s army on land was composed of five full legions of Roman citizens from Italy, three from Asia Minor, and a single legion of battle-hardened veterans from Crete and Macedonia. In addition to these regular troops, he had thousands of auxiliary infantry from Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Africa. Allied kings brought Celtic soldiers of Galatia and troops from Armenia beyond the Euphrates. There were Jews, Arabs, Gauls, Germans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians in Pompey’s ranks, along with several thousand archers and slingers from Crete. Pompey’s cavalry numbered an incredible 7,000 strong. Finally, Quintus Metellus Scipio was leading two additional legions overland from Syria to join Pompey in Greece. A meticulous organizer, Pompey had gathered plentiful supplies and money from the whole eastern Mediterranean for his troops. His plan was to place his army in winter quarters on the Adriatic coast at Dyrrachium opposite Italy and launch his invasion as soon as the calm seas of spring made sailing possible.

Caesar, on the other hand, commanded a formidable but considerably smaller army with perhaps a thousand cavalry as he again arrived at the port of Brundisium. His men were exhausted from endless marching and numerous battles over the last few months. Their supplies were almost gone and their pay was, at best, sporadic. To make matters worse, the dismal winter weather of Italy’s heel soon had the whole army in various states of illness. Caesar was also bitterly disappointed to discover that his quartermasters had not been able to gather enough ships to transport his entire army to Greece. His only hope for victory in the war had been to move all his troops to Greece and strike Pompey early that spring before the enemy forces could cross to Italy. He was now faced with waiting out the winter months at Brundisium with his weary, sick, and hungry army. Across the Adriatic, Pompey’s men sat by their fires warm and well fed as their commander and his optimate supporters looked forward to the spring, when they could sail to Italy and destroy Caesar.

Faced with this dire situation, Caesar followed his usual form and did something totally unexpected. No one sailed the wild Mediterranean waters in winter, especially with an army, but he decided to load as many men as possible on the ships at hand and cross to Greece immediately. Bibulus and his navy would never expect Caesar to risk transporting his troops in the dead of winter, especially as they knew he lacked enough ships to bring across all his legions at once. Caesar quickly assembled his men and told them his plan. He called on them to leave everything behind that was not absolutely necessary, including slaves and baggage. His faithful troops shouted their approval and urged their general to follow Pompey. Thus on January 4 of 48 B.C.—slightly less than a year after crossing the Rubicon—Caesar crammed seven legions onto his ships and set out into the Adriatic Sea.

By some miracle of fate or fortune, Caesar and all his men landed safely on an isolated stretch of the Greek coast the next day unhindered by storms and unobserved by the enemy fleet. Pompey was still on the march toward Dyrrachium with his main force, so Caesar used the opportunity to seize a number of smaller settlements to the south of the town. Dyrrachium itself lay at the western end of the Via Egnatia, the main Roman road across the Balkans to the Aegean. When Pompey heard that Caesar had actually landed in Greece and was on the march to the strategic port, he rushed toward Dyrrachium with his own troops. In spite of Caesar’s legendary speed, Pompey again beat his rival to their goal. Caesar reports, somewhat dubiously, that many of Pompey’s officers and troops were in a panic over facing his legions just arrived from Italy, but his former ally Labienus rallied the men and swore allegiance to Pompey no matter what fate might bring.

Both armies camped on opposite sides of the river south of Dyrrachium and waited for the other to move first. Pompey was forever cautious and resisted any urging by the optimates to attack Caesar at once, preferring instead to wear down his smaller foe. Caesar, on the other hand, knew that even boldness would fail to win the day if he attacked Pompey with the troops he had at hand. He therefore sent the ships back to Brundisium to bring over the rest of his legions before committing himself to battle—but this was just what Bibulus expected. Caesar’s old enemy was furious with himself and his fleet for letting Caesar slip through to Greece and was determined not to let it happen again. He blockaded the coast for miles in either direction and kept a careful watch on the western horizon. When Caesar’s legate in Brundisium attempted to send the rest of the troops across, he was forced to turn back to Italy to escape destruction. One unfortunate ship that attempted to make for the Greek coast was captured by Bibulus, who burned it and slaughtered all aboard, even the young boys, as a warning to any who might follow. Bibulus, in fact, worked with such intensity to deny his nemesis any relief that he soon succumbed to exhaustion and died on the coast of Greece. In spite of taxing his every step for decades, Caesar granted him due praise for his faithful service to Pompey and the optimate cause.

With no hope of military victory until he could reunite his whole army, Caesar decided to try diplomacy once again. Pompey’s chief military engineer, Lucius Vibullius Rufus, had been captured and released at Corfinium many months before only to be taken a second time by Caesar in Spain. Instead of executing him, Caesar decided Rufus would be a useful envoy to Pompey. He therefore sent Rufus to the enemy camp with a message for Pompey. It is high time, Caesar wrote, that we both put aside our anger and lay down our weapons of war. You have lost Italy and Spain while I have suffered defeat in Africa and Illyricum. Let us spare the Republic any further suffering and allow the Senate and people of Rome to decide the matter, not our armies on the battlefield.

It was a calculated offer on Caesar’s part as he had everything to gain and nothing to lose if Pompey accepted. The Roman people wanted nothing more than for both sides to stop fighting. Since Caesar controlled Rome and the magistracies, he could take advantage of this desire for peace and push through his agenda. Without an army behind him, Cato and his allies would be forced to concede and yield the victory to Caesar. When Rufus finally reached Pompey’s headquarters and began to present Caesar’s offer, Pompey immediately cut him off and declared:

What is the point of my life or citizenship if I hold them by the grace of Caesar?

Pompey had seen the trap for what it was, as Caesar had undoubtedly expected. Still, the very fact that he could publicize that he had again offered Pompey the hand of peace could only help him in the court of public opinion.

Since he had failed in his peace efforts with Pompey, Caesar decided to take the matter directly to the opposing army. The two camps were near enough so that men on both sides conversed amicably across the river, much as Caesar’s troops had mingled with the enemy in Spain a few months before. Caesar sent his longtime supporter Publius Vatinius to the river bank to address Pompey’s troops and urge them to consider peace even if their leaders would not. Vatinius was a well-known figure who had served Caesar as a tribune and praetor before joining him in Gaul. He was a good-natured fellow who laughed along with the men at his own physical disabilities, but he was a powerful and persuasive speaker. A shout came back from Pompey’s side that they would send an envoy the next day to begin talks. The next morning a huge crowd of troops gathered on both banks of the river in hope of successful negotiations. Caesar’s spokesmen made their plea for peace, but an angry Labienus soon arrived and began to berate Vatinius. Suddenly, a volley of spears from Pompey’s lines rained down on Caesar’s men, wounding a number of officers, centurions, and soldiers. The conference fell apart as Labienus shouted at his enemies: “Don’t bring us any more of your proposals—there can be no peace until you bring us Caesar’s head!”

Caesar was fast running out of options as his negotiations had failed and he lacked the legions necessary to launch an attack on Pompey. In his darker moments he began to wonder if his supporters back in Italy, who had not sent word for weeks, were deliberately dragging their feet and holding back the rest of his army in Brundisium. There was also news of dissension and outright revolt among his magistrates in Rome.

Finally, he could wait no longer and rose from dinner one evening telling his friends he was going to bed early that night. Instead, he made his way down to the river mouth dressed like a slave, determined to slip across to Italy and bring the troops over himself. Thus disguised, he found the captain of a small boat and told him he bore a message from Caesar himself that must reach Brundisium immediately. The captain, perhaps a smuggler, was amiable but declared that the sea was thick with Pompey’s ships. In any case a fierce winter wind was blowing that would make any crossing a nightmare. But Caesar was persuasive and soon the sailors were bearing him down the river and into the sea.

As darkness deepened, the wind howled from the west and threatened to overturn the tiny craft. The captain was no coward, but he knew they were risking their lives in the storm and ordered his crew to reverse course. Caesar then stood up and threw off his cloak revealing his true identity. The captain was now terrified of his passenger as well as the waves, but Caesar took him by the hand and urged him to abandon all hesitation: “Come now, my friend, be brave and fear nothing, for you carry Caesar and Caesar’s good luck in your boat.”

The captain and his crew, to their credit, turned the boat back toward Italy and rowed with all their might. But soon water was pouring over the sides and even Caesar realized they would never make it across the Adriatic. He reluctantly gave the captain leave to return to shore. When Caesar reached his camp, his friends and soldiers were outraged that he had risked his own life on such a dangerous mission. The troops proudly declared that they could beat Pompey on their own without any help from Caesar’s legions in Italy.

Caesar’s army had struggled and starved for three winter months on the bleak coast of Greece when, one day in April, they saw sails on the western horizon. After his failed attempt to reach Brundisium by boat, Caesar had managed to get a message through to Mark Antony ordering him to bring the rest of his legions across the Adriatic as soon as possible, even if the weather was poor. The long-awaited transports had now arrived, much to Caesar’s joy, but the wind was blowing fiercely from the south. The ships were driven north past Dyrrachium and landed at last almost forty miles beyond the town. One tardy transport with over 200 fresh recruits aboard was overtaken by storm and darkness before it could reach safe harbor. The terrified men surrendered to one of Pompey’s officers, who swore they would suffer no harm, but once on shore they were all massacred. At the same time, sixteen of Pompey’s ships from the island of Rhodes that had pursued Antony up the coast were shattered on the rocks. Many of the enemy sailors were drowned, but Caesar rounded up all the survivors and sent them safely home.

Once Mark Antony’s legions had joined his own, Caesar struck at Pompey by getting between the enemy and the town of Dyrrachium. This unexpected move cut off Pompey from supplies by land but still allowed him unfettered access to the sea. Pompey made his headquarters on a coastal citadel and waited for Caesar’s army to starve to death in the surrounding hills. Caesar surveyed the grim situation from his own camp just a mile to the north. Pompey’s superior forces were encamped on a well-protected hill near the beach surrounded by steep hills that ringed the well-watered plain. The nearby fields lacked enough fodder to sustain thousands of horses for weeks, but Pompey could send his horsemen into the hills whenever he wanted.

An audacious idea struck Caesar as he stood looking south—why not build a wall around Pompey? The notion seemed absurd at first since the enemy was more numerous, but the surrounding hills could be linked by ramparts if Caesar moved fast enough. A continuous wall would also give Caesar control of Pompey’s water supply since he could cut off streams flowing to the sea. The same basic idea had worked at Alesia against Vercingetorix, but Caesar’s wall would have to be even longer and built to hold in crack Roman troops instead of Gauls. The military value of the wall would be enormous, though it would be horrendous to defend, but the psychological benefit would be even greater. If Pompey, the great conqueror of the East, allowed himself to be hemmed in by an inferior army of rebels, his supporters in the camp and abroad would surely begin to question his leadership.

Caesar’s wall soon stretched sixteen miles across the hills above Pompey’s camp. Instead of attempting to break out of the trap, Pompey countered with a wall of his own facing Caesar’s defenses. Between the two walls was a no-man’s-land that, today, would resemble nothing more than a battlefield of World War I. As Caesar says, no one in the ancient world had ever seen such a conflict: “It was a totally new type of warfare with each side inventing new methods of fighting as they went along.” One side would creep up on the other at night and fire a volley of arrows into the enemy’s trenches, then pull back to safety. Others would light fires to draw their opponents into a trap, then attack with swords and spears. Week after week, from April until early July, men from both sides lived and died in mud and misery as they held the lines.

Caesar’s men suffered most since they had a longer position to defend and could never gather enough food. Soon they were eating anything they could find. Some enterprising soldiers from Caesar’s camp discovered a local root called chara and turned it into a kind of bread. A few of Caesar’s men ran up to Pompey’s wall and tossed over samples shouting that as long as they could dig roots out of the earth they would keep up the fight. When Pompey’s officers showed some of the bread to their general, he exclaimed that if Caesar’s army could eat such food they must be beasts, not men.

Pompey’s troops began to look on Caesar’s army as adversaries who could endure any hardship. Morale behind Pompey’s line weakened every day as they launched petty raids and suffered attacks but did nothing to drive Caesar’s men from the hills. There was enough food for Pompey’s army as they had access to the sea, but the horses suffered greatly from lack of fodder and the men were forced to dig wells for a new water supply. Soldiers and civilians alike in Pompey’s camp began to wonder if they had backed the wrong man. Caesar played on these feelings at every opportunity, once sending a letter to Cicero (who was with Pompey at the time) urging him to abandon a lost cause and accept instead a position of honor in Caesar’s new government.

But there were also those, including Caesar, who never doubted Pompey’s military instincts. The older general’s plan of patiently biding his time until he found a weakness finally paid off that summer. Two brothers of the Gaulish nobility named Raucillus and Egus serving with Caesar had recently begun skimming the pay due their countrymen and pocketing the cash themselves. Caesar knew of their malfeasance, but felt an open confrontation would be unwise at the time. Instead, he took the brothers aside and scolded them privately, promising to forget the whole matter if they behaved themselves. The brothers, however, decided to take their ill-gotten gains and flee across the wall to Pompey’s camp. There, in exchange for sanctuary, they gave the enemy valuable inside knowledge of Caesar’s defenses, including weak spots in his lines.

In early July, Pompey used this information to attack Caesar in several places at once. These assaults failed due to the tenacity of Caesar’s troops, including a contingent of fearless Germans, but many of his men were killed or badly wounded. The defenders at one spot on the wall counted thirty thousand arrows that had landed near them. One centurion named Scaeva came before Caesar with a shield pierced in over a hundred places.

About a week later, Pompey struck again. This time he concentrated his assault on the poorly defended southern end of the wall. At midnight, thousands of Pompey’s soldiers poured across the lines and drove Caesar’s men into a panicked flight. Caesar rushed to the battle and tried to rally his men as they streamed past him. He grabbed one towering soldier and ordered him to turn around, but the angry man raised his sword to slay Caesar rather than face Pompey’s men. A bodyguard cut him down just in time, but Caesar could not stem the tide. Over a thousand of his best troops were slain that night and many more captured. Labienus took the prisoners, mocked them as old comrades who turned and ran, then killed them all.

Caesar withdrew to his camp and prepared for the worst. He spent the night in his tent berating himself for his poor judgment and failed leadership. He knew that Pompey could annihilate his dispirited army that very night and end the war in one blow. But amazingly, Pompey did nothing. As dawn rose the next day, Pompey’s army returned to camp. Caesar knew he had escaped only by the grace of Pompey’s excessive caution:

Today the enemy would have won the war if only they had a commander who knew how to conquer.

There was now no hope that Caesar could achieve victory by remaining on the coast, his defenses shattered and his army in disarray. The triumph that had seemed so close only days before had been snatched away by fortune. As Pompey’s army celebrated and word of his defeat began to spread across the Roman world, Caesar gathered his army, spoke a few words of encouragement to his exhausted men, then marched them sadly away.

After Caesar’s retreat from the coast, Pompey could have easily crossed to Italy and reclaimed Rome. Nevertheless, he had known from the beginning that the goal of the war was not to hold Rome but to defeat Caesar himself. So hearing that his enemy had moved east to the plains of Thessaly, he gathered his army and followed him. Pompey knew that Caesar would have little support among the communities of Greece after his defeat. All he had to do was catch up with Caesar and harass him at every opportunity until his army fell apart.

It was a good plan, though Pompey once again underestimated both Caesar and his soldiers. They were beaten, hungry, sick, weary, and outnumbered, but they had been through worse in Gaul and still won the final victory. The men grumbled and swore, but their loyalty to Caesar was firm.

Caesar and his army moved over the mountains from the Adriatic coast, plundering farms as they went. The first settlement they came to was the town of Gomphi on the western edge of the great plain of Thessaly. The town had previously declared for Caesar and offered him their undying loyalty, but now they shut their gates to his army. They picked a bad day to defy Caesar. His soldiers were starving and he badly needed a victory, however small, to renew the spirits of his men. Caesar quickly ordered scaling ladders constructed and engines of war brought up to the walls. His men needed little encouragement to attack Gomphi, especially as Caesar had given them permission to sack the town. Caesar rarely allowed such license to his men as it was bad for discipline and contrary to his stated goal of mercy for all, but he knew in this case that the destruction of Gomphi would make a vivid impression on any other Greek towns that might resist him in the future. So in a very deliberate act of terror, the army of Caesar descended on the small settlement and utterly destroyed it. By sunset, the men had been killed, the women violated, and the houses and shops ransacked. The town elders were found dead in the local apothecary shop having poisoned themselves rather than face Caesar’s wrath. The army ate every scrap of food they could find and drank sweet Greek wine until they lay unconscious in the streets. The next day Caesar’s army continued their march with aching heads and packs bulging with loot. No Greek town now dared turn Caesar away.

A few days later Caesar and his army arrived at the small town of Pharsalus on the banks of the Epineus River. War had bypassed this quiet corner of Thessaly for centuries, though just over the mountains at Thermopylae the Spartans had famously fought to the death against the invading Persians four centuries earlier. Now Caesar gazed at the horizon and saw the entire army of Pompey—over 50,000 men—drawn up just south of the river. Caesar was outnumbered by more than two to one as he made camp west of the town and waited to see what Pompey would do.

In his tent nearby, Pompey was already fighting his own battle with the optimates. How could he hesitate to attack Caesar at once, they demanded, when his own forces were so much larger? Was he afraid of Caesar? Was he trying to delay conflict long enough to take over the state for himself? Domitius Ahenobarbus openly mocked him, comparing him to Agamemnon wavering before the walls of Troy. One of the senators asked if they would have to wait yet another year to eat figs from Tuscany. At last Pompey yielded to the overwhelming pressure from the optimates and agreed to meet Caesar on the battlefield even though it was against his better judgment. Pompey was a gifted general, but as Plutarch says, his leadership suffered from a fatal flaw: “He was a man who craved glory and hated to disappoint his friends.”

The optimates were now so confident of victory they began squabbling over the spoils of war. Several powerful senators contended for Caesar’s position as pontifex maximus, others doled out consulships for years to come. The avaricious divided the property of Caesar and his followers, the malicious planned proscriptions and executions:

They fought over honors or rewards or money or how to avenge themselves on their enemies, thinking only of what they could gain from victory and never how to win the battle at hand.

For several days, however, Pompey continued to avoid an open fight. Each morning he would send his soldiers out to form a line just in front of his camp, while Caesar would bring his troops opposite Pompey’s men a few hundred yards across the plain. But before any battle could begin, Pompey would always withdraw his troops back behind his walls. A few cavalry skirmishes took place between the lines during these days, but the infantry never came close enough to see the faces of their opponents.

Along with the optimates, Caesar was growing increasingly frustrated at this lack of action. On the morning of August 9, he decided to move his camp to a new site with better access to food for his men and grass for the horses. Suddenly, just before he ordered his troops to return to camp and pack, he saw Pompey’s lines move away from their walls toward his army. His opponents halted on the plains south of the river and formed a deep line almost a mile in length. Pompey had at last decided to fight—and Caesar could not have been happier. Pompey might have twice as many men, but Caesar knew his own troops were more experienced, better disciplined, and spoiling for a fight.

On the northern part of Pompey’s line were legions mostly from Asia Minor commanded by Afranius, who had surrendered to Caesar in Spain months before. In the middle were the soldiers newly arrived from Syria under Scipio, while Caesar’s implacable adversary Ahenobarbus commanded the southernmost infantry. Pompey placed his entire cavalry at the bottom of the line under the control of Labienus. Pompey directed the operation from the rear.

Caesar took one glance at Pompey’s enormous array and realized immediately what his opponent planned to do. Pompey knew his infantry was less experienced than Caesar’s, so he had given orders for the foot soldiers to hold back Caesar’s men like a human wall, not to rush forward and attack the enemy lines as was standard in ancient battles. He would then send his superior cavalry sweeping around the southern end of Caesar’s lines to come up behind the enemy and force them to fight on two sides. The infantry would then cut them down in front while the horsemen crushed them from the rear.

Pompey’s plan was brilliant, innovative, and sure to succeed, but Caesar saw a weakness. Everything in Pompey’s plan depended on Labienus and his cavalry breaking through Caesar’s southern lines. If somehow Caesar could hold back the horsemen, his infantry might have a chance against Pompey’s legions. To counter Labienus, Caesar moved his best legion, the tenth, south to face Labienus. He also sent extra men from the other legions behind the tenth to a supporting position where they could not be seen by the enemy. In front of these he placed his own small force of cavalry. Publius Sulla, a young relative of the former dictator, led the southernmost legions. The former consul Domitius Calvinus held the center, while Mark Antony commanded Caesar’s troops nearest the river. Caesar himself ranged over the whole battlefield, giving final directions to his officers and encouraging his men.

Caesar at last gave the order and his infantry began to run toward Pompey’s lines with their spears at the ready. Twenty thousand weary veterans of Gaul swept across the plain of Pharsalus coming ever closer to almost fifty thousand troops gathered from the far corners of the Mediterranean. But when Caesar saw that Pompey’s line refused to move against his men, he ordered the infantry to halt. Such was the discipline of Caesar’s army that all his soldiers stopped just beyond spear range of Pompey’s astonished army. The centurions told the men to take a break and catch their breath for a moment before continuing the advance. Then, when Caesar’s men were rested, they gave a mighty shout and rushed against Pompey’s lines, first throwing their spears, then drawing swords to fight at close quarters.

A hard-fought battle between the infantry on both sides raged as Labienus ordered his cavalry at the southern end of the plain to charge. Pompey’s horsemen quickly overwhelmed Caesar’s cavalry, but suddenly they came up against the tenth legion. Caesar had given his favorite soldiers very specific orders about what to do next. Normally they would have launched their spears against the cavalry from a distance, then used their swords to try and cut at the legs of the men and horses. But Caesar had the novel idea of brandishing spears like bayonets to slash repeatedly at the heads and eyes of the horsemen, knowing that they would instinctively pull up short to protect their faces. Just as he had hoped, Pompey’s cavalry panicked at this new form of fighting and soon retreated in mass confusion.

When Pompey’s infantry saw that their cavalry had collapsed, they began to lose heart and finally fell back with Caesar’s men in pursuit. A certain victory by Pompey’s forces turned into a rout with Caesar’s legions winning the day at a loss of only two hundred men. Over twenty thousand of Pompey’s soldiers were reportedly captured with another 15,000 slain. Domitius Ahenobarbus tried to rally his men but died with them on the southern line. Most of the other optimates turned and ran as fast as they could back to camp. Pompey himself was among the first to leave when he realized the battle had turned against him. He retreated to his tent to gather his belongings only to have an aide rush in and declare that Caesar’s men were almost on top of them. Pompey quickly shed his general’s cloak and put on civilian clothes before fleeing to safety.

When Caesar arrived at Pompey’s tent he saw luxury beyond compare—gourmet food, myrtle boughs, and couches strewn with flowers, so that the scene looked more like a festival than an army camp. Then while his men ate a well-earned meal and settled in for the night, Caesar walked among the corpses on the battlefield and shook his head at the pointless slaughter:

This was their doing, not mine. They would have destroyed me, even after all my great deeds, unless I had turned to my army for help.

One consolation for Caesar was the number of senators on Pompey’s side who had survived the battle at Pharsalus. Cicero, Cato, and others had either remained behind at Dyrrachium or fled east with Pompey, but many now willingly joined Caesar. The conquering general extended his clemency to his former enemies and burned the captured letters of Pompey lest they be used as evidence against anyone in the future. There would be no vengeance. Caesar was particularly glad to welcome into his circle Cato’s nephew Marcus Brutus, the son of his lover Servilia. The affection Caesar had for Brutus was warm and genuine—he would trust the younger man wholeheartedly for the rest of his life.

Caesar had won the battle, but the war was far from over. Pompey was still at large and threatened to raise new armies at any moment. Cato, Scipio, and Labienus were preparing to cross the sea to rally Pompey’s forces in Africa with the help of King Juba. And Spain, which had been stripped from Pompey just months before, was now in open rebellion due to the outrageous abuses of Caesar’s appointed governor.

In spite of competing problems, Caesar knew that his first goal had to be the capture of Pompey himself. As long as the veteran general was free he posed a deadly threat to Caesar’s plans. Caesar chased him up the Via Egnatia to the Greek port of Amphipolis, only to find Pompey had already sailed to the isle of Lesbos with all the gold he could carry. Caesar quickly hurried after him in a small passenger boat only to run into ten of Pompey’s armored warships in the middle of the Hellespont between Greece and Asia. With perfect bravado, Caesar hailed the commander of the fleet and ordered him to surrender at once. The shaken captain—who could have ended the civil war then and there with the stroke of a sword—meekly complied and begged for Caesar’s mercy.

Although he was in a terrible hurry, Caesar took time to visit the ancient city of Troy, the ancestral home of the Julian clan. The visit was much more than a sightseeing tour as Caesar was deliberately imitating a similar visit to the town made by Alexander the Great three centuries earlier. He also wanted to publicize to Greeks and Romans alike his connections to the ancient founders of Rome and through them his mandate to restore the Republic. From Troy he moved quickly south along the Aegean coast. Most uncharacteristically at this point in his Civil War, Caesar notes a number of divine signs that had occurred in the East at the very moment of his triumph at Pharsalus—a statue of the goddess Victory at a temple in Greece had turned on its pedestal to face the door, in Syria a great noise of trumpets and a clashing arms had terrified the citizens of Antioch, and the inner sanctuary of a temple in the Asian city of Pergamum reverberated with the sound of drums. Caesar was normally quite skeptical of signs from the gods, but in this case was willing to acknowledge them when they served his purpose. The Greeks of Asia Minor were certainly impressed by such reports, with the city of Ephesus dedicating an inscription to Caesar that survives to this day:

The cities, people, and tribes of Asia honor Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius, high priest and twice consul of Rome, a descendant of Ares and Aphrodite, a god who has appeared among us for the salvation of all mankind.

Caesar might record the occasional sign from heaven in his narrative, but he never mentions this inscription or similar divine honors. Such declarations of godhood had become common in the east since Alexander, but his Roman audience would recoil at such unseemly praise. Caesar, at least at this point in his career, was careful to present himself to Rome as a humble and very human servant of the Republic.

Caesar continued through the cities of Asia Minor, looking for news of Pompey and granting much-appreciated tax relief along the way. He heard that Pompey had been seen in Cyprus, then had sailed to Egypt along with his wife to seek new supporters. Wasting no time, Caesar set off for Alexandria with only one legion and a few hundred cavalry.

Pompey arrived at the grand city of Alexandria on the Nile delta near the end of September. Egypt in the autumn of 48 B.C. was embroiled in its own civil war between the fourteen-year-old Ptolemy XIII—son of the recently deceased Roman ally Ptolemy XII

Auletes—and his twenty-one-year-old sister, Cleopatra. The young Ptolemy held the advantage at the moment but was ruled over by two conniving courtiers, Pothinus the eunuch and Achillas, commander of the army. Having calculated that Pompey was now on the losing side of Rome’s internal conflict, the king’s two advisors schemed to earn Caesar’s favor by murdering Pompey.

When Pompey’s boat sailed into the harbor only one day after his fifty-ninth birthday, Achillas met him in a fishing boat along with a Roman expatriate named Septimius who had once served as a centurion under Pompey in the pirate wars. Septimius greeted him respectfully in Latin while Achillas welcomed him to Egypt in Greek. They apologized for the modest reception but explained that the fickle currents precluded a suitable warship with honor guard. Once ashore, however, they assured him he would be treated like royalty. Taking only two servants along, Pompey waved aside his suspicious wife and stepped into the transport. Pompey spent the few minutes on the way to the dock reviewing a speech he had written in Greek to greet the young king. At this point, just as Pompey was rising to wave to members of the court waiting for him on shore, Septimius ran him through from behind with his sword. Achillas and the rest then drew their daggers and stabbed Pompey repeatedly as he drew his toga over his face, his wife watching in horror from their ship. With no final words, Pompey the Great—general of Rome, conqueror of the east, and Caesar’s most gifted foe—died in a torrent of blood at the bottom of a small Egyptian boat.