Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome (32 page)

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30th Legions and local cavalry. As the Pompeian forces fought a series of delaying actions, gradually withdrawing ahead of Caesar’s legions, he drove relentlessly toward Córdoba, his provincial capital sixteen years earlier, scene of his first command, and the place where he’d raised the 10th Legion.

Southeast of Córdoba, in the Salsum River valley, Gnaeus Pompey and General Labienus, the irrepressible cavalry commander from the campaigns in Albania, Greece, and North Africa, tried to hold Caesar back by camping between the hill towns of Ategua and Ucubi and building fortifications across the river. As Caesar surrounded Ategua and began to lay siege to the town, there was a series of engagements along the valley floor.

After one such encounter, the people of Ategua slit the throats of Caesarian POWs and threw their bodies from the town wall. The war was becoming dirtier by the day. But Caesar’s pressure told, and on February 19 the town surrendered.

Pompey and Labienus moved their camp closer to Ucubi, and Caesar followed. Men were by now deserting from both sides daily, although the tide was increasingly in Caesar’s favor. A few men from the recalcitrant 8th Legion actually deserted back to Caesar at this point. A battle now took place for a hill in the valley, five miles from Ucubi. It had no name that anyone recorded. It was like a hill in the Korean or Vietnam Wars of the twentieth century—it had no real strategic value, but it was there, and both sides decided they wanted it. On March 5 a desperate battle was fought on the slopes of the anonymous hill in southwestern Spain. Young Gnaeus Pompey’s forces took the hill, and held it against all Caesar’s counterattacks. Both sides suffered more than five hundred casualties. The Pompeians’ success was to give them the courage for what followed.

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From his right wing, Caesar took a long, thoughtful look from the back of his horse out over the helmeted heads of the men of the 10th Legion in front of him as March 17 dawned still and warm. Satisfying himself that the Pompeian units across the valley had settled into their final positions, he turned to his cavalry commander, General Asprenas, who had by this time arrived from Italy with the German, Gallic, and Spanish cavalry and now commanded eight thousand riders, the largest mounted force Caesar ever put into the field. Caesar would have told him that he intended trying to turn the enemy’s left wing, using the 10th Legion, and instructed Asprenas to be ready to go in with his cavalry and capitalize on the gains c16.qxd 12/5/01 5:32 PM Page 168

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made by the 10th when the time came. Asprenas acknowledged his instructions and then rode to his position on the wing.

For two weeks Gnaeus Pompey had given ground, burning several towns as he retreated. The previous day, he’d set up camp on the plain not far from the hill town of Munda. Caesar had arrived with his legions after nightfall and set up his own camp, five miles away. Then in the early hours of the morning, Caesar was awakened with the news that young Pompey was forming up his troops in battle order. As Caesar rose he would have noted that young Pompey had chosen the festival day of the god Liber, the Liberalis, for his great battle. This was the day that young Romans who had come of age traditionally donned the
toga virilis,
the symbol of manhood, for the first time. Perhaps Gnaeus had hopes of coming of age as a general on this day. Not if Caesar could help it.

Certainly, Pompey was not shy about pitting himself against the mighty Caesar. Pompey would have been conscious of the fact that his father had made his name at his age. Son of a general and grandson of a general, young Gnaeus had already shown he had military skill and daring—a few years back, he’d been the one who’d commanded the fleet that had devastated Caesar’s shipping at its Adriatic anchorages, cutting off Caesar in Greece.

Gnaeus had proven to be a young man with an old head on his shoulders.

And it seems he’d had enough of these backpedaling skirmishes that only sapped the enthusiasm of his troops and strained the loyalty of the locals.

Thirty years later, the Roman poet Horace was to write, “Seize today, and put as little trust as you can in tomorrow.” On the retreat, and with more and more Spanish towns expressing doubts about the Pompey boys’ ability to beat Caesar, Gnaeus Pompey had decided to seize the day and settle the matter with a full-scale battle, before he lost his grassroots support.

Caesar had been glad to oblige, and ordered his flag to be hung out, the symbol for battle. As the trumpets sounded “To Arms” throughout Caesar’s camp, he’d issued a new watchword for the day: “Venus.” His watchword on the day of his victory over Pompey Sr. at Pharsalus had been “Venus, Bringer of Victory,” so he was sticking with a good thing and hoping that Venus would bring him his famous luck yet again. For his part, young Pompey had issued the watchword “Piety.”

The men of the 10th Legion stood in their now customary position on Caesar’s right wing. Unlike the 8th and 9th and like the 7th, they’d remained loyal to Caesar; they hadn’t deserted. To them, demanding what was due to them was one thing, but deserting to the enemy was out of the question. Their numbers were well down according to the author of
The
Spanish War,
a work likely to have been written by a junior officer in Cae-

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sar’s army—a veteran centurion, it’s been suggested, a distinct possibility judging from the language and tenor—before being edited by Hirtius and Balbus. Typically, Hirtius edited out the circumstances of the defection of the 8th, 9th, and 13th Legions. In
The Spanish War
they suddenly materialize on the other side in Spain, fighting against Caesar.

The 10th Legion, which was due for discharge this very month, was probably at considerably less than half strength after the toll taken on it by the Gallic campaign and the civil war. Its surviving battle-hardened veterans, perhaps two thousand of them now, were aged between thirty-three and thirty-six, and they would have been hoping that this would be their last campaign, that unlike their former comrades of the 8th and the 9th they would be allowed to take their discharge now that it was due.

Just one last battle, they would have told themselves, echoing the words of Chief Centurion Crastinus three long years before.

The 5th Legion had been positioned on Caesar’s left. It was the “famous 5th” now, after its daring deeds against Scipio’s elephants at Thapsus. Following the battle, Caesar had granted the 5th the right to bear the elephant symbol on its shields and standards, and according to Appian two hundred years later the 5th Legion would still be famous for Thapsus, would still bear elephants on its standards. Beside the 5th stood the new recruits of the 3rd Legion from Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar’s remaining four legions filled the line between the 3rd and the 10th. On his flanks he’d positioned the cavalry and several thousand auxiliaries. All told, he fielded eighty cohorts of legionaries and auxiliaries, although many of the legionary cohorts were, like those of the 10th, well understrength. There were literally only hundreds of 6th Legion men here, last survivors of the legionaries who had signed up with Caesar after Pharsalus and gone on to cover themselves in glory at Alexandria, the Nile Delta, and Zela. The total number of Caesar’s infantry was no more than thirty thousand men.

All around them were rolling hills, but here on the valley floor the terrain was flat, good for both infantry and cavalry maneuvers. But first Caesar’s men had a long hike to reach the enemy. In their path lay a shallow stream that dissected the plain. Well away to the right, the stream drained into a boggy marsh. The author of
The Spanish War,
an eyewitness on the day, indicates he and his fellow Caesarians felt sure the Pompeians would come down off the hill and meet them in the middle of the plain.

If not, Caesar’s troops would have to cross the stream, then traverse another stretch of flat, dry turf to reach the hill where the other side waited.

Because he’d chosen the battlefield, young Pompey had taken the high ground. For added support, the town of Munda was on the hill behind him, c16.qxd 12/5/01 5:32 PM Page 170

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surrounded by high walls dotted with defensive towers manned by locals.

Gnaeus Pompey had lined up his men on the slope below Munda. Estimates of his total troop numbers vary between fifty thousand and eighty thousand. His most experienced legions were the 1st and the 8th, and they probably took each wing, supported by the 2nd and the Indigena.

His center was occupied by nine legions of raw recruits drawn from throughout western Spain and Portugal, mere teenagers with no experience and little training. Pompey’s wings were covered by cavalry supported by six thousand light infantry and the same number of auxiliaries. Pompey himself commanded, with General Labienus as his chief deputy. General Varus, who’d escaped from North Africa with Labienus, commanded one of the divisions, probably the Pompeian left, opposite the 10th.

The author of
The Spanish War
says that Caesar’s men were both delighted that the longed-for opportunity for a decisive battle was being given to them and apprehensive about how Fate would treat them over the next hour or so.

Both generals delivered their traditional prebattle addresses, and although we don’t know their exact words, Caesar apparently told his men to stay in tight formation and not under any circumstance charge before he gave the order, a command stimulated by the undisciplined opening to the Battle of Thapsus. Then, at last, he gave the command to advance.

His flag inclined forward, and the trumpets of the legions sounded

“Advance at Marching Pace.”

Caesar’s legions marched in step across the plain as, on the flanks, the cavalry also moved forward, at the walk. Caesar himself and his staff officers rode in the middle of the 10th Legion’s formation. Ahead, Pompey’s troops didn’t budge, didn’t advance to meet them in the normal fashion, a repeat of Pompey Sr.’s tactics at Farsala. Caesar’s men splashed across the stream.

When his front line reached the base of the hill, Caesar unexpectedly called for a halt. The advance froze. As his men then stood, waiting to go forward to the attack, and enemy formations on the hill reshuffled to meet them, Caesar ordered his formations to tighten up, to concentrate his forces and limit the area of operation. The order was relayed and obeyed.

Just as his troops were beginning to grumble impatiently, Caesar gave the order for “Charge” to be sounded. With a deafening battle cry, Caesar’s eighty cohorts charged up the hillside.

With an equally deafening roar, Pompey’s men let fly with their javelins. The volley of missiles, flung from above, scythed through the air and cut swathes through Caesar’s ranks. The charge wavered momentarily, then c16.qxd 12/5/01 5:32 PM Page 171

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regained momentum. Another volley blackened the blue sky. And another, and another. The attackers in Caesar’s front ranks, with their dead comrades lying in heaps around them, out of breath, and still not within striking distance of the enemy, stopped. The following lines of breathless, perspiring men followed suit. The entire attack ground to a halt.

Swiftly dismounting, Caesar grabbed a shield from a startled legionary of the 10th in a rear rank in front of him, then barged through his troops, up the slope, all the way to the front rank, with his staff officers, hearts in mouths, jumping to the ground and hurrying after him. Dragging off his helmet with his right hand and casting it aside so that no one could mistake who he was, he stepped out in advance of the front line.

According to Plutarch, he called to his troops, nodding toward the tens of thousands of raw teenaged recruits on the Pompeian side: “Aren’t you ashamed to let your general be beaten by mere boys?”

Greeted by silence, he went on to cajole his men, to berate them, to encourage them. But none of his panting, sweating, bleeding legionaries took a forward step. Then he turned to the staff officers who’d followed him.

“If we fail here, this will be the end of my life and of your careers,”

Appian says he told them, before he drew his sword and resolutely strode up the slope, proceeding many yards ahead of his troops toward the Pompeian line.

On Pompey’s side, men within range of Caesar loosed off a volley of javelins in his direction—so many that not even the famously lucky Julius Caesar could possibly survive the hail of missiles. His men held their breath.

Caesar dodged some missiles, and took others on his shield. They jutted from the ground all around him and hung limply from his shield—two hundred of them, according to Appian. But, amazingly, Caesar himself remained unscathed. He turned back to his watching troops. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he demanded.

“Come on!” one of Caesar’s staff officers called to his companions—probably Colonel Pollio—and the officers all grabbed shields from 10th Legion men in the ranks or from corpses lying at their feet and ran up to join Caesar, forming a protective wall of shields around him.

This movement forward was a catalyst for the necessary courage and momentum along the whole front line. With a roar, Caesar’s troops charged up the slope once more. Men of the 10th swept past Caesar and his officers, and closed the gap between them and the enemy. With a crash of shields, the opposing lines came together. Pressed forward by those in the c16.qxd 12/5/01 5:32 PM Page 172

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rear ranks pushing up the hill behind them, those in front had no choice but to go forward.

Soon it was a stalemate along the line, with neither side gaining an advantage—except on Caesar’s right wing. Caesar himself was in the thick of it all with the legionaries of the 10th, wielding his sword, urging his men forward. They had a reputation to uphold, and with Caesar there on the spot urging them to superhuman efforts, fighting uphill, toe-to-toe, shield-to-shield, the veterans of the 10th gradually pushed back the Pompeian troops opposite, one bloody step at a time.