ET TU Part Four Gemma Nili

 

I tell you the Roman historian Plutarch always told a good story. His tale of the death of Pompey the Great is a perfect example. According to Plutarch, after losing at Pharsalus, Pompey sought refuge in Egypt, seeking out the son of an old debtor of his,  fourteen year old Theos Philopator, Pharaoh of Egypt, also known as Ptolemy 13. Interesting number, don't you think? 

You see, Ptolemy 13 was in Pelusium (above), the silt plagued port and fortress at the eastern edge of the Nile delta, because he was avoiding his two sisters, both of whom were trying to kill him. It was a great confused mess, and a very bad time to arrive in Egypt seeking help. But then Pompey's timing had never been very good.

Pompey's arrival on 29 September, 48 B.C.E., had presented Ptolemy 13's advisors with a bit of a conundrum. If they helped Pompey they would anger Julius Caesar, who had just defeated Pompey's army at Pharsalus. It they sent Pompey packing and he later won his civil war with Caesar, Pompey would make sure bad things happened to Ptolemy 13 and his advisers. There was a simple solution to this problem, and I am surprised it never occurred to Pompey. It did occur to Ptolemy 13's (above) advisers.

They sent a boat out to Pompey's ships, which were anchored just outside the harbor of Pelesium.

A Roman centurion named Septimius, who had been sent to Egypt by Pompey to reinstate Ptolemy 12, Ptolemy 13's father. Septimus stood up in the boat and assured his old commander that it was safe to come ashore. Then one of Ptolemy's generals, Achillas  called out that the Pharaoh was very busy but could give Pompey a few minutes of his time, right now, if he would just accompany them ashore at once. 

It smelled fishy, but Pompey really had very little choice. Pompey could see Ptolemy 13 waiting on his litter on the beach. Pompey needed water, and food, and somebody who knew the coastline down to Tunisia, where he had more legions and allies...So the old fool got in the boat.

He never made it to shore alive. According to Plutarch, as the boat passed the breakwater, Pompey was rehearsing his Greek greetings for the Ptolemy 13, when Septimius stabbed him in the back.

They dragged the boat ashore and then dragged Pompey up on the sand and chopped off his head  It was a cold and heartless thing to do, particularly since Pompey's wife was watching from the galley off shore. But it wasn't anything Pompey hadn't done to countless others. 

And that was the death of Pompey the Great, one of the most overrated generals in history, a man whose greatest sin was in believing his own press releases, which he had written.

That was one problem solved, leaving Ptolemy 13's advisers with the original problem, his elder sister and her hired army. She was hovering out in the Sinai desert.  It  looked as if she was about to be easily be crushed by Ptolemy 13's army when, just two days later- 1 October, 48 B.C. - yet another Roman annoyance arrived off shore. 

This time it was Julius Caesar (above), with a single Roman legion. Dutifully, the advisers of Ptolemy 13 sent a boat out to Caesar, carrying the head of Pompey.  But if Ptolemy 13's advisers expected Caesar to thank them for eliminating his enemy and sail off back to Rome, leaving them free to finish off their business without further distraction, they were sadly mistaken. Oh, Caesar did sail off from Pelusium. He just didn't didn't sail for Rome.

A few days later Caesar landed in Alexandria and took over the royal palace.

I honestly don't know if Caesar really cried when he saw Pompey's head. He said he did. But Caesar must have known the instant he looked into those foggy dead eyes that he had won his civil war. There was more fighting to be done, of course. He would have to move on to Tunisia, to finish off Pompey's troops there. But there was no longer any need to rush. 

With Pompey dead the Senate aristocrats had lost their champion and rallying point. Caesar could allow their army in Tunisia to wither on the vine a little, while he took advantage of an opportunity right here in Egypt. Ptolemy's army at Pelusium might be blocking his sister's army from entering Egypt, but Caesar's 5,500 man force in Alexandria was sitting on the Egyptian treasury, the gold used to pay Ptolemy 13's army. 

To paraphrase an American Vietnam War era general, grab them by their ingots and their hearts and minds will follow. Caesar now summed both Ptolemy 13 and both his sisters to Alexandria to settle their civil war. And to be honest with you, I don't think Caesar particularly cared if any of them showed up.

It turned out they all did - Ptolemy 13 and his two sisters, Asinoe 4, and Cleopatra 7. Ptolemy 13 had the easier time getting to the Alexandria, but even Cleo made it, even though she had to first slip around her brother's army and be smuggled into the palace in a rolled up carpet - if you believe Plutarch. But once she was there, Caesar was required to protect her since he had summoned her. And as Caesar was a heterosexual (mostly), he quickly fell under the spell of this extraordinary young woman.

She was 21, and he was 52. He came from a world where women were not allowed to compete with men. The only thing that had kept her head on her shoulders to this point was her brains. A modern Egyptologist described the lady this way, “Cleopatra was a mistress of disguise and costume. She could reinvent herself to suit the occasion, and I think that's a mark of the consummate politician.” 

Was she a great beauty? Plutarch, who was born a half-century after she died, wrote that she was not. But he also consulted every word written about her by people who had known her, and the consensus was that “her presence...was irresistible.... (Her) character...was something bewitching.” Wrote another Roman historian, she was “...brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate every one, even a love-sated man already past his prime.” By all indications, the love-sated old man succumbed the very first night.

The advisers of Ptolemy 13 saw which way the perfumed wind was blowing, and they did not like it.

They formed a secret alliance with Cleopatra's younger sister, Asinoe 4. She slipped out of Alexandria and hurried to join Ptolemy 13's army at Pelusium. 

But, once there she started calling herself Pharaoh, and when the commander of the Army, General Achillas, the man who had helped trick Pompey to his death, protested her use of the title, she had him killed. Well, turn about is fair play, isn't it? The army did not approve of the lady's ego trip, and offered her in trade for Ptolemy 13. For some reason Caesar accepted the deal, probably because Ptolemy 13 swore he would surrender his army to Caesar. But once back with his army, Ptolemy 13 and his advisers chose to lay siege to Caesar in Alexandria in December of 48 B.C.

Caesar was trapped in the city, with just one legion, and that was not enough. But he had already called for reinforcements, and when they arrived in early January of 47 B.C. they smashed Ptolemy 13's army. 

On January 13, the fifteen year old Ptolemy 13 was drowned in the Nile, maybe by accident and maybe by a bribed Egyptian. But however the boy died, Cleopatra 7 was now the Pharaoh in Egypt. Caesar had Asinoe 4 placed under arrest, probably to protect her from Cleopatra – the lady had an understandably heightened sense of self preservation.

Just 8 months after Cleopatra 7 first rolled out of a carpet at the feet of Julius Caesar, on 23 June, 47 BC, she gave birth to a son. It was observed that as the boy, who Cleo 7 named Caesarian, grew, he greatly resembled Caesar. He was one of two males who may have been Caesar's sons. The other was the child of Caesar's widowed girlfriend, Servilla. That boy, whom Caesar never officially adopted, was Marcus Junius Brutus.  Yea. Him too.

- 30 -

ET TU Part Three Cruentum terebro

 

I know little about the soldier Crastinus, except that he died on 7 June, 48 B.C.E. of a sword wound to the mouth. I know that on that day, as he was about to face the 45,000 of his fellow Romans who were serving in Pompey's army,  Crastinus swore an oath to his own general. “General, I will act in such a manner today that you will feel grateful to me, living or dead.”  

This is not to say that Crastinus was happy to be on the plain that day, just north of the central Greek town of Pharsalus (modern Farsala). But we can be certain he had already proven his bravery and his ability to inspire men, else he would not have achieved the rank of Centurion, entrusted this day with directing 80 of the men in a 22,000 man army. The men in his Century or company, depended upon Crastinus. He was the second most important man in their lives, after Julius Caesar.

Caesar had crossed the Rubicon on 11 January,  49 B.C. with just 5,000 men. His primary opponent, Pompey the Great, had more than twice that many men defending the walls of Rome. But less than a week later, without even offering battle, Pompey, most of his army and most of the Senate aristocrats fled Italy, sailing for Epirus, in north western Greece. That left the Roman stage to Caesar. First he got his hands on the treasury. Then, what remained of the obedient Senate voted him dictator for a year.  Caesar ordered all government posts abandoned by the aristocrats to be filled with his allies. That gave him political control of Rome. Still, he was caught between Pompey's Spanish legions and Pompey himself, gathering new legions and allies in Greece.

The Latin word for a Roman soldier, “legionnaire”, meant a military conscript, who was drafted under the Republic to serve for 6 years. The professionals, who were beginning to dominate the Roman Army, signed 25 year contracts. For non-Romans, such as the Gauls in Caesar's army, an honorable discharge meant Roman citizenship and a plot of farmland upon which they could retire. And most who signed up, made it to retirement - for every hour a legionary spent on a battlefield like Pharsalus he spent years drilling. It was said of Caesar (but could have been said of any good general) that his drills were bloodless battles and that his battles were bloody drills.

In late March of 49 B.C. Caesar left Rome and crossed the Alps. In Gaul he met up with three of his own legions.  Without pausing, he now forced the passes through the Pyrenees mountains, and outside of the Spanish village of Illerda confronted the Spanish legions loyal to Pompey.  Caesar had covered the 800 miles so quickly – just 27 days – that the troops loyal to Pompey were caught unprepared and were defeated.  On 2 August all five of Pompey's Spanish legions surrendered, and rather than being disbanded were integrated into Caesar's forces.

The core formation of the Roman Army was always the squad of 8 men, called a contubernium, who shared a barracks room or a tent, and a mule to carry their supplies. Ten such groups, or 80 men, formed a century (a company) , six centuries formed a cohort (a battalion), and a legion (a division) was made up of 10 cohorts. Everything they did was a standardized drill. They even ended each day's march by building a standardized camp. A legionary could walk into any camp from Judea, to Britain, to Africa, and walk directly to the armory, the barracks, or the stables. The basic plan for European and American cities grew out of the standardized design of Roman Army camps.

By early 48 B.C. Caesar had gathered three legions in Brundisium, at the heel on the Italian boot. He still lacked enough ships to carry all his men across the Adriatic to Greece, but so eager was he to come to grips with Pompey, that Caesar sailed with just half his force. For once, Pompey moved quickly. His ships cut Caesar off from reinforcement, and his larger army forced Caesar’s men into battle at Dyrrhachium, in what is today Albania. Caesar lost 1,000 men and would have been destroyed, had Pompey not suddenly become cautious. While he paused, Mark Anthony slipped the rest of Caesar’s legions through Pompey's blockade. The two opposing armies now began a dance, southwestward, down the Greek peninsula, until, by late May they had reached the plain of Pharsalus, where Caesar’s men grew so hungry, they would march no further.

At Pharsalus Caesar’s legionaries were facing fellow legionaries and neither side had a technological advantage. Pompey's larger army held the high ground, which meant Caesar’s hungry men would have to attack uphill.  Pompey formed each of his legions as usual, three ranks deep, with three feet between each man. But Caesar thinned out his men to add a fourth line. It was a minor alteration.

After throwing their spears, each Century battered into the enemy with their shields, strapped to their left forearm. The overlapping shield walls pushed and shoved the enemy, the enemy pushing and shoving back. A Roman battle was mostly a brutal shoving match, both sides looking for an opening to thrust in their 2 foot long gladius (sword) with their right arms. Every 90 seconds the Centurion would blow his whistle. The front rank would sidestep right and backward. The fresh second rank would surge forward, pushing and shoving. The exhausted rank would then fall back to the third line, to rest. As long as both armored sides maintained their discipline, the causalities in ancient battles were few. But the instant either side broke formation, showing their backs, the slaughter would begin

On Caesar’s right, Pompey's cavalry scattered their weaker opponents. But this uncovered Caesar’s fourth line of legionaries. Caesar's incessant drilling allowed his men to smoothly swing to their right, and thrust at the enemy cavalry.  And here Caesar displayed a new tactic, developed to deal with the Gaelic cavalry. Instead of throwing their spears, Caesar’s legionaries used them as five foot long spikes. The enemy's horses would not hold formation against the advancing spikes, and were scattered and driven off the field.  Caesar’s fourth line swung to their right, outflanking Pompey's troops. Now the fourth line threw their spears and pulled their gladius. Now the slaughter began.

Pompey saw what was happening and panicked. He rode back to his camp, gathered up his wife and servants. urged his soldiers there to resist Caesar to the death, and then rode for the coast, some say dressed as a peddler. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Caesar’s 22,000 man army lost just 200 legionnaires killed, and 30 Centurions – including the brave Crastinus. Another 800 legionaries were wounded. But because Pompey's 45,000 man army's formation had broken,  the field was littered with 15,000 of their dead.

Once again, Caesar chose to be magnanimous. He separated Pompey's soldiers from their Centurions. He put his officers in command of Pompey's legions, and he transferred Pompey's officers to positions in his legions, where superior and junior officers could keep watch over them.  Caesar learned that Pompey had sailed for Egypt, intending to quickly move on to his allied forces in Tunisia and what is today Libya. And with each step Caesar took in following Pompey, he took one step closer to his own murder.

                                        - 30 - 

ET TU Part Two alea

 

I have no doubt there were spies in Ravenna on 11 January, 29 BCE. There are always spies in border towns.  And traveling north out of Roman territory, the first town you reached in Cisalpine Gaul was the little fishing village of Ravenna, a quarter way down the western shore of the Italian boot.  Here, a man could be a dictator.  

But just fifteen miles to the south in Ariminum, he could command no soldiers. He would be governed by the politicians 200 miles to the southwest, in the self described center of the civilized world, in Rome.  And the man the spies from Rome were watching this winter day was the governor of both CisAlpine and TransAlpine Gaul - Julius Caesar.

Caesar's stated reason for being in Ravenna was to check up on his investment in a gladiator's school (above).  That was logical - given that the tens of thousands of slaves Caesar had captured in his conquest of TransAlpine Gaul (i.e. France) and during his recent invasion of Britain. Those human beings now had be converted into cash. Laborers and house servants could quickly be sold, but Gladiators always sold at a premium. So, of course, Caesar was here to inspect the construction of his Gladiator School, and to witness a display of his gladiators in training. Then, after a light lunch, Caesar went to the baths -  another public appearance for a Roman politician.

And in the evening he sat down for a banquet, the kind of thing public officials are still expected to do.  And, according to Plutarch,  as the sun set, “...he left the company, having desired them to make merry till his return, which they would not have long to wait for."  The predictability was enough to lull most spies to sleep. But the Romans were about to learn what the Gauls had learned before them - if you want to know what Caesar is about to do, you did not watch Caesar. You watch his troops.

Three years earlier, in December of 53 B.C., a member of the ruling First Triumvirate, the primary ally of Caesar, Crassus (above), a had been killed in Parthia. At about the same time another Caesar supporter, Tribune Publious Clodius Pulcher, had been killed in a staged brawl – something which had become common in the dying Roman Republic. 

The Tribune's angry supporters had built Plucher's funeral pyre in the Senate House, which resulted in the Senate House burning down. The Senate aristocrats used this act of vandalism as justification to elect the second member of the Triumvirate, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (above), as Sole Counsel, with powers to put down what was described as an insurrection. When some nervous Senators hinted that there were few soldiers in Rome to protect them, Pompey reassured the nervous Nellies, by saying, “I have only to stomp my foot to raise an army”  And while he began to arrest Caesar's supporters, on 7 January,  49 B.C.E.,  the Senate voted to order Caesar to disband his own legions and return to Rome for trial. That law was vetoed by the two Tribunes who were were still loyal to Caesar, Mark Antony and Quintus Cassius Longinus. They were promptly driven out of the Rome at sword point.

Caesar (above), was just across the border, in CisAlpine Gaul.  When informed of the Senate's move against him,  he offered a compromise.  He was willing to give up  command of his army and return to Rome, if Pompey gave up his post as Sole Counsel.   Caesar also requested the Senate allow him to stand for re-election as Counsel while he was still in Gaul, with, presumably, Pompey standing for re-election as co-Counsel at the same time.  It seemed a fair compromise. If elected both men would have immunity from prosecution in the courts, and would jointly rule the city of Rome for a year. 

Pompey and the aristocrats in the Senate rejected the deal out of hand. Caesar's ten year term as Governor of both Gauls was about to run out, and as soon as he was no longer legally protected by the law and his legions, the Senate could deal with him. So Caesar's enemies in the Senate thought they could afford to wait and watch

Caesar could not, and did not.  His 6,000 veterans of the 12th legion had been in winter barracks near present day port of Trieste, Serbia, at the head of the Adriatic. Early in January, before the Senate had even rejected his compromise, Caesar had ordered these men to sail for Ravenna. The advance elements had arrived at the little fishing village a week later. And on the afternoon of the 11 January,  5,000 infantry and 300 cavalry marched out of the “Rimi” gate, headed south.

After dusk, having slipped out on his dinner party, Caesar made his way on foot to a mill on the outskirts of the Ravinna.  Here his aides had a hired carriages, which were waiting for Caesar.  Pulled by four mules he followed a back road across the surrounding marshes.  In the dark he got lost, and his carriage got stuck in the mud. Dawn found the great Caesar on foot, asking for help from a lowly farmer. By mid morning he had re-joined his men, on the banks of the River Rubicon (or the red river),

the traditional northern border of Rome. 

Beyond, in the village of Rimi, was the end of the 200 year old great “Northern Road”, the Via Flaminia (above), which wound its way across the Apennines, the central mountain spine of Italy, through narrow gouges and bridging rushing torrents, to the Field of Mars, then through the Flaminia gate in the city's walls, right to the base of Capitoline Hill, the central citadel of Rome itself. Crossing this border at the head of an army had been forbidden for a Roman general for two hundred years. Crossing this border would brand Caesar and his soldiers as outlaws, subject to execution by any citizen at any time. So this called for a bit of theatre.

The veterans of the 12^th legion  had followed Caesar from conquest to triumph across Gaul, had even crossed the Rhine and invaded Germania. But this was something different, this was an assault on the Senatus, Populusque, Romanus - the Senate and the People of Rome, symbolized by the S-P-Q-R atop every banner the soldiers followed, on the very coins they were paid with. Nervously the legionaries awaited the stirring speech they expected Caesar to give before asking them to commit an act of treason.

Instead, a common soldier suddenly grabbed a trumpet from one of the musicians, raced across the shallow stream blowing “the advance”.  Caesar turned to his officers, and said, “We can still retreat. But once we pass this little bridge, there is nothing left but to fight..”  Then he turned toward the bridge, and called out, “Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the crimes of our enemies summon us”   As he crossed the stream  himself, he is supposed to have said, almost to himself, "Alea iacta est”, the Latin phrase usually translated as “The die is now cast!”

He did not look over his shoulder. He knew his men were following him.

On the southern shore waited Mark Anthony and Cassius Longinus, physical evidence of the arrogance of the Senate.  Here Caesar drew the troops into a square, tore his robes in a show of humility, and led the soldiers in a personal pledge of fidelity to himself, to Caesar.  The Roman Republic was now dead. The only thing required was to bury it. According to Suetonius, his legion now “marched so fast the rest of the way that he reached Ariminum before morning and took it.”

Rome was electrified by the news.  And it quickly became clear that the Senate's arrogance had turned Caesar's march down the Via Flaminia into a triumphal parade. So great was the frustration with the Senate that city after city threw their gates open to Caesar. Forces sent to stop him, went over to his side.

Senator Favonius suggested it was high time that Pompey (above) stomped his foot. But Pompey's own legions were in Spain. The city had raised two legions and was assembling a third, but they were new recruits, and Pompey was not interested in matching them against Caesar's veterans from Gaul. Pompey did not increase his popularity when he informed the aristocratic members of the Senate that they should get out of town. Many denounced Pompey as a coward. But they still followed Pompey and their fellow aristocrats when they grabbed their wealth, and ran for Brundisium, the traditional exit port at the heel of the Italian boot. In their haste they left behind the treasury of Rome, the horde of gold and silver looted from Carthage, stolen from Egypt, taxed from Spain and Macedonia. It was the first place Caesar went, when he got to town.

They couldn't find the keys to the vaults. Caesar sent for locksmiths. A Tribune reminded Caesar he was violating the law. Caesar suggested, “If what I do displeases you, leave.” The doors were forced open, and Caesar had enough money to pay his soldiers.  But his own murder stepped through that door, right next to him.

- 30 -