XIII
“I am not willing to be grateful to the tyrant Caesar for his criminal acts,” said Cato. “And he most certainly is a criminal who, like a master, grants mercy to those who are not slaves, but free men.”
—PLUTARCH
When Caesar finally left Alexandria in early June of 47 B.C., he began to receive detailed reports of just how badly things had been going elsewhere in the Mediterranean during his months in Egypt. In Africa, Cato, Scipio, Labienus, and many others had joined forces with Caesar’s old enemy King Juba of Numidia to form a huge army just across the straits from Sicily. Led by Scipio and inspired by Cato, they controlled fourteen legions, thousands of Numidian cavalry, and several dozen war elephants. They were threatening to invade Italy and had already launched raids on both Sicily and Sardinia.
In Spain, Caesar squandered whatever popularity he had gained after his recent victory by choosing Quintus Cassius Longinus as governor in the further province. A land that had once been sympathetic to Caesar revolted against his appointee, who surpassed even the most rapacious optimates in his greed and abuse of the natives. After Longinus was driven out, Caesar’s enemies found a warm welcome among the Spaniards.
But one of the worst blows to Caesar came from Pharnaces, a son of Mithridates the Great, who sailed from his kingdom in the Crimea to reclaim his father’s empire in Asia Minor. Caesar’s lieutenant Domitius Calvinus met Pharnaces with the help of Galatian troops led by King Deiotarus. Domitius was anxious to reach Caesar in Egypt as soon as possible and so engaged the enemy in haste. Most of his army was thereby lost, though he managed to flee to safety in the Roman province of Asia. Pharnaces enthusiastically seized his father’s old domain of Pontus on the north coast and promptly castrated all the Roman citizens he could find.
Even in Rome, chaos was threatening to destroy Caesar’s vision for a new world order. He had been woefully out of touch with events in the capital—Cicero says that no one in Rome had received a message from Caesar in over six months. In his absence Caesar had again been elected dictator, but Mark Antony served as his surrogate while he was in the East. Left to his own devices, Antony ruled Rome with casual brutality and unrestrained violence. Among a multitude of problems, murderous riots soon broke out anew between advocates of debtors and creditors. Instead of bringing order to Rome, Antony abandoned the city to quell the beginnings of rebellion among troops quartered near Naples. Rome soon degenerated into a madhouse of gang warfare and street battles. When Antony returned from Campania, the terrified Senate issued its ultimate decree authorizing him to bring peace to the capital by any means necessary. To Antony’s mind, this meant sending troops into the city and killing hundreds of Roman citizens, throwing the worst offenders from the Tarpeian Rock on the Capitoline Hill. But even before the blood was dry, factional fighting was again sweeping Rome, leaving the citizens to wonder if the violence would ever end.
Caesar was deeply troubled by the news from Rome, but he believed it was vital to secure the eastern provinces before he headed west. Affairs in Egypt had been settled, yet internal dissention and external incursions still threatened Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. The success of Pharnaces demonstrated all too clearly that instability in Roman and allied territories was an invitation to foreign intervention, especially from the aggressive Parthian Empire. Caesar therefore decided to take the long way to Rome along the Mediterranean coast, rewarding those who had served him well, settling long-standing disputes, and strengthening the provinces and kingdoms of the east against Rome’s enemies.
In Palestine, Caesar showed his gratitude to Hyrcanus for his help in Egypt by confirming him as king and high priest, as well as allowing the Jews to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Antipater was given Roman citizenship, a benefit he passed on to his son Herod. Caesar must have met this young man who would one day rebuild the great temple in Jerusalem and, according to the New Testament, kill all the young children around Bethlehem in an attempt to murder the infant Jesus.
Caesar’s journey was also a major fund-raising expedition. He continued north into Lebanon, stopping at the city of Tyre to empty the temple of Hercules of its treasure. All along the coast he demanded for himself any money the provincials had earlier promised to Pompey, plus a little extra. He also encouraged the Oriental custom of granting golden crowns to traveling conquerors. Caesar did all this, the Roman biographer Dio Cassius records, not out of base greed but simply because his expenses were so vast. Machiavelli himself would have approved of Caesar’s straightforward explanation of his actions:
There are two things that create, protect, and increase a sovereign’s rule—soldiers and money—both being dependent on each other. Armies need money and money is acquired by the strength of arms. If you lose one, you lose the other.
Caesar spent extra time in Syria settling disputes among local officials. This province was the front line of defense against the Parthians and had to be absolutely secure before he returned to Rome. When he had finished, he moved on to the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, calling together local officials and repentant Pompeians. Among the latter was Gaius Cassius, a noted military commander under Crassus and former admiral for Pompey who was destined to play a central role in Caesar’s assassination. Caesar was most gracious and forgiving in his reception, especially as Cassius was warmly recommended by his brother-in-law Brutus. Cicero, however, claims that even at this point Cassius was planning to murder Caesar.
Traveling north through the center of Asia Minor, Caesar next came to the borders of Galatia and there met Deiotarus. The Galatian leader appeared before Caesar without his royal insignia, dressed as a humble suppliant to beg forgiveness for his earlier support of Pompey. Deiotarus explained that he had been forced to support Caesar’s foe under threat of arms. In any case, he had felt it was no business of his to judge the internal disputes of the Roman people. He was merely a loyal ally of Rome doing his best in a dangerous corner of the world.
Caesar was not impressed by the arguments of this slippery old monarch. He reminded Deiotarus that as consul twelve years earlier he had personally confirmed his rule over Galatia before the Senate. If gratitude for that action wasn’t enough to win his loyalty, then the fact that he was the lawfully elected consul of Rome when Deiotarus took up arms against him nullified any excuses the king might offer. However, since the king had long-standing ties to Rome, he was willing to tolerate him for the moment—but he reserved the right to judge him at a later date and demanded the use of his army in the upcoming battle he was planning.
Pharnaces was just settling in as the new king of Pontus, in northeastern Asia Minor, when Caesar arrived at the border with his army at the beginning of August in 47 B.C. The son of Mithridates could not believe how swiftly Caesar had crossed the mountains of Galatia to suddenly appear near the town of Zela in the hills of western Pontus, near the Black Sea. Pharnaces had sent embassies to Caesar bearing golden crowns as gifts and explaining he did not want a conflict with Rome, merely sovereignty over his ancestral lands. He was, so he claimed, more worthy of Caesar’s friendship than Deiotarus as he himself had never provided any aid to Pompey. Caesar responded kindly enough at first so that he could gain time to move deep into Pontus, but he sent back the final messengers declaring there could be no peace with a man who mutilated Roman citizens.
Pharnaces occupied the hilltop fortress at Zela while Caesar made camp five miles away. But in the middle of the night, Caesar ordered his troops to build to a new camp only a mile away from Pharnaces on the opposite side of the precipitous valley. At dawn the legions were still digging trenches when they saw Pharnaces move his army into attack position outside his fortress. Caesar assumed this was just posturing and laughed when the Pontic forces began running down their hill toward the Roman camp. He knew that no general in his right mind would send troops down into a valley, then up a steep slope to attack an enemy. But whether very foolish or very brave, Pharnaces and his army kept coming.
Caesar shouted to his soldiers to throw down their shovels and grab their weapons just as the first war chariots burst into the Roman camp. Caesar was caught totally off guard by this unexpected attack, and the legionaries panicked at the sight of enemy chariots with scythed wheels tearing toward them. But the Romans quickly pulled themselves together and turned to face the enemy charging their unfinished walls. It was bitter hand-to-hand fighting at first, but soon the Romans began to push the Pontic forces back down the hill. The enemy began to fall on top of their comrades as they fled while the Roman troops mercilessly cut them down.
Caesar was so pleased with the speedy and successful outcome of the war that he allowed his men to plunder the royal fortress and keep all the booty for themselves. He then summed up the campaign for his friends in Rome with words of immortal brevity:
Veni. Vidi. Vici.
(I came. I saw. I conquered.)
From Pontus, Caesar traveled west to the coast of Asia Minor collecting money and rendering judgments along the way. To Mithridates of Pergamum, who had provided crucial assistance to him in Egypt, he granted portions of Pontus and Galatia as a reward. Deiotarus lost part of his kingdom and paid a hefty fine, but Brutus, because of previous financial connections to the king, persuaded Caesar to spare the ruler any further punishment for his previous alliance with Pompey.
From the coast of Roman Asia, Caesar sailed for Italy as quickly as possible. Waiting for him in Brundisium was a very nervous Cicero, who, though he was terrified of Caesar’s reaction to his support for Pompey, nevertheless felt it was best to face the dictator as soon as possible. When Caesar saw Cicero on the road he jumped down from his horse, rushed up to the orator, and embraced him with genuine affection. The two continued down the Appian Way in conversation for several miles, walking side by side as the rest of Caesar’s party followed behind.
The first thing Caesar did when he reached Rome was to punish Mark Antony for his profligate living and gross misuse of power. Caesar could forgive Antony a great deal because of his loyalty, but his infamous drunkenness, greed, robbery, violence, and shameful neglect of the city’s affairs had put Caesar in an untenable situation with the Roman public. Cicero later accused Antony, among other scandals, of making every dining room in his house a tavern and every bedroom a brothel. Accordingly, he was removed from office and languished in political limbo for the next two years. Caesar did not want to permanently alienate Antony as he might prove useful in the future, but his headstrong assistant needed the firmest of reproaches for the sake of Caesar’s image.
The advocates of loan forgiveness hoped Caesar would at last issue a general cancellation of debts, especially as he owed more money to creditors than any man in Rome. Instead, Caesar again sided with Rome’s powerful financial community and demanded full repayment. He appeared to be the model of justice, claiming that it would be unfair to issue a decree that would benefit himself more than any other. But in fact he forced everyone else to repay their loans while he neglected to settle his own debts. To curry the favor of the lower classes, however, he greatly reduced rents for a full year and increased free food distribution.
During his short stay in Rome, Caesar also raised money for his African campaign by auctioning the property of his deceased enemies to the highest bidders. Mark Antony hoped that his old commander might let him pick up Pompey’s estate as a bargain, but Caesar demanded full price. Only Caesar’s former mistress Servilia was allowed to buy choice properties at a below-market rate. Some claimed that this was because she was now prostituting her own daughter, Tertia, to Caesar. Cicero wittily remarked that Servilia’s purchases were discounted by a third (Latin tertia).
Finally, Caesar reorganized the government to function more smoothly during his upcoming absence. As his dictatorship was coming to an end, he had himself selected as consul for the next year with his trustworthy but undistinguished follower Marcus Lepidus as co-consul. He also increased the number of praetors and priests to reward those who had supported him at Rome or on the battlefield. Most shockingly to the conservative nobility, he appointed lowly centurions and other loyal soldiers from his army to fill many of the empty seats in the Senate.
Caesar’s plans for a speedy departure for Africa were put on hold when he received alarming news that his legions in southern Italy were on the march toward Rome. Trouble had been brewing in the legionary camps for months. Many of Caesar’s men had been serving him for years without their promised discharge, bonuses, or gift of land. Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Asia—the wars seemed to stretch on with no end in sight. The men loved Caesar and had served him faithfully, but they were tired. Many who had joined the legions as teenagers were now nearing thirty and ready to settle down. All they wanted was a nice bit of farmland, a pretty girl to marry, and a bagful of silver coins to spend at the local tavern. They had waited patiently, but enough was enough. A few days later when the troops arrived in Rome, they camped outside the walls north of the city and refused to move until they received their due.
Although his friends could not believe it, Caesar rode out to the riotous legionary camp alone. Before anyone knew how he had gotten there, Caesar suddenly appeared on a platform at the center of the camp. When all the troops had gathered around him, Caesar calmly asked what they wanted. The soldiers were so stunned by the presence of their commander that they couldn’t bring themselves to mention money or land, but only asked that they be discharged as he had promised long ago. Like children expecting a scolding, they waited for Caesar to yell at them, berate them as cowards, and scorn them as unworthy to wear the uniforms of Roman soldiers, but instead he looked down at them with profound disappointment and said—“I discharge you.”
The soldiers who had fought side by side with him against the ferocious Germans and Gauls, sailed with him across the unknown sea to Britain, and stood by him against enemies from the shores of the Atlantic to the streets of Alexandria were speechless. In the silence that followed, Caesar curtly told them that they would receive everything he had promised them when he returned in triumph from Africa with other soldiers marching behind him. But the greatest blow came when he concluded his address by calling them “citizens” rather than “my fellow soldiers” as he had done for so many years.
At these words they all collapsed into tears and begged Caesar to disregard their foolish request. They would gladly follow him to Africa or anywhere he might lead for as long as he wished. They could not bear the shame of waiting in Italy while he defeated the last of his enemies with fresh recruits. But Caesar sadly turned away from them and walked off the platform. The troops called on him to stop, to please reconsider. The tenth legion, long Caesar’s favorite, begged him to execute soldiers chosen from among them by lot as punishment for their betrayal of his trust. He paused at the edge of the stairs and seemed to hesitate, then returned to the stage. He reluctantly forgave the troops, then vowed that on their return from Africa they would obtain everything they had been waiting for all these years. Every soldier would receive his discharge, money, and a donation of land from the public domain or his own estates if necessary. The troops shouted themselves hoarse with thanks and praise, reveling in the fact that they were once again in the good graces of their commander.
Caesar was finally ready to sail for Africa to face the remaining optimates. He left Rome even before his troops were ready and arrived at Lilybaeum (modern Marsala), in westernmost Sicily by the middle of December. The only soldiers he had at first were one small legion of fresh recruits and a few hundred cavalry, but he was impatient to begin the war. The troops were terrified that Caesar was planning to take them across the stormy Mediterranean in midwinter. To calm the nervous legionaries, he planned a public sacrifice to the gods to ensure a safe voyage, but the intended animal bolted and ran away from the altar as soon as he raised the knife—a horrible omen. Still, Caesar pitched his tent on the beach facing Africa as a sign he was eager to leave as soon as the weather allowed. He ordered his army to be ready to depart at a moment’s notice.
Some of the troops had whispered that the expedition was doomed to failure unless they were accompanied by a member of the famous Scipio family, an heir to the great Scipio Africanus, who had defeated Hannibal on his native soil two centuries earlier. The optimates were led on the battlefield by their own Scipio, a proven general of the same lineage, who had commanded the center legions for Pompey at Pharsalus. To counter these fears Caesar brought along a ridiculous character named Scipio Salvito, a distant relative of the illustrious family. Although he was nothing more than a professional mime by trade, Caesar planned to put the poor man on the front lines to inspire the troops.
For a week Caesar sat on the beach and watched the storms rage. More legions arrived from Italy, but his forces were still greatly outnumbered by the immense army across the sea. At last Caesar could wait no longer and ordered his troops to board the ships. The captains asked which harbor they should steer for, but Caesar knew there was no safe landing site in Africa. He therefore trusted to fortune that they would find a secure port once they arrived.
The expedition was plagued with disasters from the start. The ships were scattered by storms as they crossed to Africa, leaving Caesar only one legion and a few dozen cavalry when he finally arrived near the coastal settlement of Hadrumetum, in modern Tunisia. Caesar landed near the town and jumped out of his ship, but in his haste he stumbled and fell on his face. The sight of their commander crashing to the ground with his first step on enemy soil sent a gasp through the superstitious troops. But Caesar was nothing if not quick-witted. He quickly grabbed a handful of sand and turned the omen to his favor shouting—“I hold you now, Africa!”
Caesar made camp in front of Hadrumetum and rode around the town looking for weaknesses. Unfortunately for him, the walls were strongly defended by an optimate garrison led by Gaius Considius. Caesar realized he couldn’t take the well-fortified town with his small army, so he turned to diplomacy in hopes that he could persuade Considius to surrender. He sent a prisoner into the town bearing a message for the commander, but when the man arrived Considius first asked him who wrote the letter. “Caesar,” the prisoner responded, “the commander-in-chief.” Considius sneered at the man and declared, “There is presently only one commander of the Roman people—our leader Scipio.” He then had the messenger executed.
Since there was no point in remaining at Hadrumetum, Caesar struck camp and headed southwest toward the city of Leptis Magna to await the ships bearing the rest of his army. This retreat was an ignominious beginning to the war, especially as Caesar’s troops were harried, as they withdrew, by emboldened townsfolk from Hadrumetum and some Numidian horsemen, who happened to be passing through the area. Caesar’s Gallic cavalry and veterans held back the Africans as the rest of the troops moved out, but it was a slow and discouraging march south along the coast.
Caesar’s men had never faced an enemy like the Numidian cavalry of King Juba. The Africans had no trouble finding forage in the desert, while the Romans were reduced to feeding their horses seaweed. The Numidians would appear like ghosts out of the hills and strike when least expected, then disappear. It didn’t help that Caesar’s Gaulish cavalry were easily distracted. One night when some of his horsemen were off duty they were enchanted by an African musician who could dance and play the flute at the same time. They were sitting around a fire applauding the performer when a band of Numidians suddenly appeared from the shadows and began to cut them down. Only Caesar’s chance arrival saved them all from slaughter.
A few more of the scattered ships caught up with Caesar at Leptis Magna, but he was still woefully short of men and supplies. Numidian cavalry repeatedly attacked any foraging parties venturing into the nearby hills, prompting Caesar to dispatch messengers back across the sea to order more men and all the food the ships could carry. In the meantime, the army was becoming ever more worried. What was their commander planning to do next? How could he feed them? How could they fight such a treacherous enemy? It was only Caesar’s inexhaustible energy and good cheer that kept the men going during those first dark days of the campaign.
They would soon need every bit of courage they could muster. Caesar decided the only way he could feed his army was to lead a major raiding expedition into the surrounding countryside. He set off with his men at a fast march into the interior and had proceeded a few miles when he saw a dust cloud approaching. Caesar knew these were thousands of Numidian cavalry who would overtake his foot soldiers if he tried to flee, so he told his men to put on their armor and prepare for the fight of their lives.
The cavalry was led by none other than Labienus, the most talented of Caesar’s enemies in the art of war. Labienus had served as Caesar’s loyal lieutenant in Gaul, but by the time his commander had crossed the Rubicon, Labienus had become his bitter enemy. Pompey fought to preserve his honor, Cato to save his beloved Republic, but Labienus fought out of a burning hatred for Caesar. In any other period of Roman history, Labienus would have been the greatest general of his age, but he had the misfortune of living under the shadow of Caesar. Doomed for so many years to second-rank status, Labienus yearned for nothing more than to grind Caesar into the dust. Now at last, it seemed his chance had come.
Labienus ordered his Numidian horsemen into a tightly packed line that some of the Romans mistook at first for infantry. But as they approached, the men realized what Caesar had known from the start—they were facing an enormous force of cavalry that would very likely cut them to pieces. In response, Caesar drew up his men in a single line to face the enemy. Positioning his soldiers with no reserves behind them was unusual but necessary since his numbers were so small, though it left Caesar’s legions particularly vulnerable to being flanked by Labienus’s cavalry. The Romans were so terrified that one standard-bearer bolted and tried to run back to camp, only to have Caesar grab him by the neck and shout, “The enemy is that way!”
Labienus ordered his cavalry to strike at the two ends of Caesar’s forces. Just as the Romans had feared, the Numidians poured around their line and encircled them. Caesar was now in the worst situation any general could imagine—completely surrounded by a superior enemy. He ordered his men to quickly reform in two lines back-to-back facing outward against the enemy, but even the bravest legionaries knew they stood little chance of surviving.
Labienus knew it too. He rode up and down the lines taunting his former comrades:
How’s it going, recruit?
My, you look ferocious.
Looks like Caesar’s led you all astray.
You’re up to your necks in it now, boys.
Sure wish I could help.
One of Caesar’s veterans tore off his helmet so Labienus could recognize him and shouted back that he was no raw recruit, but a veteran of the famous Tenth legion. The soldier then threw his javelin at Labienus with all his might, missing the general, but skewering his horse and sending Labienus tumbling into the dust.
Caesar had no time to savor the moment as the Numidians dragged Labienus off the field. He knew their only hope was to reach a nearby hill, so he ordered his men to begin a slow retreat while they maintained their double-sided formation. It was slow and awkward with many men falling to enemy spears and arrows as they inched along, but somehow in the hours before dusk Caesar and his troops reached the high ground. Here where infantry had the advantage over cavalry, the legionaries were finally able to hold their own and drive back Labienus’s men. The enemy at last withdrew and the Roman survivors made their way back to camp, but Caesar knew it was only by the grace of the gods that his army had escaped destruction that day.
In spite of the fact that he had lost the battle, Labienus was greatly encouraged. He had bloodied Caesar and shown his men that the legendary Roman leader was vulnerable. Caesar and his troops were ill prepared to fight in the desert, said Labienus, especially against thousands of Numidian cavalry so skilled on horseback that they rode without bridles. In addition, the optimates had thousands of Roman soldiers battle-hardened by life in Africa, along with countless archers, slingers, Gallic and German mercenaries, and more than a hundred elephants. Labienus assured his men they had nothing to fear from Caesar, who could barely escape alive from a little foray into the countryside.
News of Caesar’s troubles spread quickly throughout the Mediterranean, encouraging his enemies. In Syria, a former Pompeian named Caecilius Bassus killed Caesar’s kinsman Sextus Caesar and seized the province. In Rome, Cicero gleefully shared the latest rumors of Caesar’s demise. But the reports of doom and gloom did not reflect reality. Caesar’s men were tired and hungry, but they never lost faith in their commander, even when an unnaturally ferocious thunderstorm charged the air with such electricity that the spear points of the fifth legion danced with St. Elmo’s fire.
More legions and supplies trickled in as the weeks passed, not to mention a number of deserters from the optimate army who were growing increasingly disgruntled about fighting against their fellow Romans. Caesar skillfully played on this discontent with a propaganda campaign aimed at national pride. He portrayed Scipio and the optimates as cowardly servants of the barbarian king Juba and promised any man who would come over to his side an equal share of the spoils with his own troops. Scipio circulated his own pamphlets in response but promised no rewards, only tepid exhortations to save the Roman state. Caesar even managed to win over the crucial backing of the Gaetulian natives in the interior since he was the nephew of Gaius Marius, a man still revered by many Africans for his patronage sixty years earlier. The Mauritanians also joined Caesar’s war effort with coordinated attacks on Numidia’s western border that drew Juba and his army away from the Romans, at least temporarily.
The African war dragged on through the first months of 46 B.C. with neither side able to gain a clear advantage. Scipio and Labienus struck repeatedly at Caesar’s smaller force, but resisted the temptation to face him in a major battle. They knew if they could deny Caesar any clear victory in Africa, his men would grow weary of the fight while his political support throughout the empire would begin to waver. Caesar himself knew that he could not win the respect of the Roman world with an endless war of attrition or even a victory that cost the lives of countless soldiers. He needed a stunning triumph over the optimates in Africa to silence his critics once and for all. Though he hated delay, he knew he had to await more reinforcements to strike decisively at the optimates.
The ships did come, but slowly and not always without incident. One warship from Sicily carrying a squadron of veterans became separated from the rest of its fleet and was captured by Scipio’s men. The legionaries on board were imprisoned, but treated well by the optimates. They were brought before Scipio, who decided to win them over to his cause through mercy. He commended their bravery in service to Caesar and assured them that he held no grudge against them for fighting against their fellow Romans. They were but pawns in a political game beyond their control. If they would join his army and become true patriots, he would grant them their lives and richly reward them.
Scipio was certain the prisoners would jump at the chance to save their own lives, but a centurion of the Fourteenth legion arose and spoke for them all:
We thank you for your benevolence, Scipio—please forgive me for not addressing you as commander in chief. We are most grateful that you promise us our lives as is due lawful prisoners of war. We would choose life, but the conditions you attach to your offer are unacceptable. We will never fight against Caesar.
The centurion suggested instead that Scipio choose a few thousand of his best men to fight against ten of them that they might demonstrate the true worth of Caesar’s men. Scipio was livid at the insolence of these veterans and ordered them to be tortured to death outside the walls of the camp.
By the beginning of April, Caesar was at last ready to risk a great battle. More legions had arrived from Italy, but he was still outnumbered by Scipio’s forces and those of King Juba, who had returned from the western marches of his kingdom. Caesar needed to force Scipio into a fight on a battlefield that would limit the advantage of his numbers. So on April 4, Caesar and his legions arrived before the coastal town of Thapsus and began to lay siege.
Thapsus was held by an optimate garrison that immediately sent to Scipio for help. He might have ignored the request and left the soldiers to hold out as best they could, but Scipio realized that this was his golden opportunity. Like Alexandria, Thapsus lay on a narrow isthmus with the sea on one side and a wide salt marsh on the other. If the optimates could block both ends, Caesar would have no means of escape. They could then squeeze him in a vise and overwhelm his army. He ordered Juba and Afranius to bar the southern escape route while he took his legions, cavalry, and elephants in from the west.
Caesar was now trapped—but it was exactly what he had intended. By luring Scipio into open battle Caesar was taking a terrible risk, but he was gambling that he could win. The neck of land across which Scipio would have to approach was narrow, reducing the number of men he could place on his front lines. It was a classic maneuver that had been used by the Spartans at Thermopylae and the Athenians at Salamis, but could easily turn into a massacre if the enemy broke through.
On the morning of April 6, Caesar and Scipio faced one another at last. Caesar saw that his adversary had deployed his elephants on his right and left wings to break through his lines. Elephants were terrifying in battle, but they were almost impossible to control and were vulnerable to a steady rain of spears and arrows. Caesar therefore placed his most experienced veterans on each of his own wings to face the beasts.
Caesar noticed that the enemy lines seemed unusually disorganized. There was always some confusion before a battle, but Scipio’s men were running in all directions in a most undisciplined fashion. Caesar’s officers noticed this as well and urged Caesar to attack at once. Their commander snapped at them that they would move only when he was ready and not a moment before. Suddenly on Caesar’s right wing, a trumpeter sounded the charge. The men began to rush forward even though the centurions tried to force them back, but there was no stopping the eager soldiers. Caesar knew it was too late, so he gave the command to advance and joined in the charge.
Although Caesar’s men began before their commander was ready, they attacked Scipio’s army with tremendous success. The slingers and archers on each wing launched a barrage against the elephants that caused the animals to suddenly turn and run the other way. One wounded elephant was so crazed that it pinned down a camp follower from Caesar’s army who had somehow wandered onto the battlefield and began crushing him. A veteran from the lines rushed up to save the man only to have the elephant grab him with its trunk and lift him into the air. The soldier then hacked at the elephant with all his might until it finally dropped him and ran away.
Scipio’s men collapsed in panic at the ferocity of Caesar’s veterans. After years of fighting, the men who had followed him across the Roman world were determined to end the war once and for all. They killed over ten thousand of Scipio’s troops—Roman and African alike—paying no heed to cries for mercy. The men ignored Caesar’s direct orders to disengage and even cut down some of their own officers who tried to stop the slaughter.
The optimate army was utterly destroyed that day at Thapsus. Scipio fled by sea but drowned on the way to Spain. Other leaders such as Considius perished soon afterward. King Juba was banished by his own people and died in a joint suicide pact with his friend Petreius after a fine dinner and sword fight to the death. Among the few to escape from Africa was Labienus.
Caesar spared the lives of almost everyone who surrendered to him. This included the noted scholar Varro, whom Caesar uncharacteristically forgave even though he had been pardoned once before. Afranius, another general he had faced in Spain, was not so lucky as Caesar had him put to death without trial.
The one man who refused to flee or surrender was Cato. The intractable republican had spent most of the war guarding the town of Utica, just to the north of ancient Carthage. Even though the inhabitants favored Caesar, Cato had treated them fairly and labored diligently to ensure their safety. When word arrived of Caesar’s victory at Thapsus, the townspeople rejoiced—but Cato faced a difficult decision. He was not afraid for his life as he knew Caesar would be only too willing to spare him, but he could not bring himself to abandon his ideal of Rome as a free state. As for clemency, he regarded Caesar’s pity as far more hateful than death.
Cato showed no bitterness against those who wished to surrender to Caesar, even advising his own son to submit. Still as meticulous in his financial dealings as he had been during his service as Rome’s treasury quaestor years before, Cato then presented the citizens of Utica with a careful accounting of civic funds and bade them farewell. His son and friends were suspicious that the feisty leader was suddenly so calm; they suspected that he might be planning suicide—an honorable end for a defeated Roman nobleman. They kept a constant watch on him that night and removed any weapons from his quarters.
After dinner with his companions, Cato retired for the evening with a copy of Plato’s Phaedo as bedtime reading. Apparently his friends missed an obvious clue to his plans. This dialogue features the condemned Socrates discoursing on the nature of the soul just before he drank hemlock. When he had read the book through, Cato set it aside and drew out a knife he had hidden in his robes. He then plunged the blade into his belly and ripped out his bowels. He would not have been discovered until the morning except that he fell off his bed and hit the floor, alerting the guard who stood outside his door. His son and friends rushed in to find him unconscious and bleeding to death. A doctor quickly arrived and placed his intestines back inside his body, then sutured the wound and left him to recover. Cato, however, had no intention of remaining in this world. When he awoke to find he was still alive, he furiously ripped out his stitches and died at last.
Caesar arrived in Utica the next day and heard the news. As he stood by the body of his old enemy, a man he had fought against most of his life but still greatly respected, he mourned for them both: “Cato, I begrudge you your death, just as you begrudged me the chance to pardon you.”
There was little left for Caesar to do in Africa after Cato’s death. He made the rounds to the important cities of the province, rewarding those who had served him well and levying hefty fines on those towns that had sided with the optimates—2 million silver coins from Thapsus, 3 million from Hadrumentum, and 3 million pounds of olive oil annually from Leptis Magna. On June 13, he left Africa to return to Rome via Sardinia—” the only one of his properties he had not yet visited,” Cicero wrote disdainfully to Varro. Battling storms all the way to Italy, Caesar at last returned home in late July, just a few days after his fifty-fourth birthday.