Caesar (84 page)

“Do we hold?” asked Antony.“ Oh, no. Dyrrachium has outworn its usefulness. We strike camp and steal away in the night.”

Pompey's blindness was complete. Returning jubilant to Petra, he failed to see from his superior height that Caesar was readying his army to march. In the morning the silent line of fortifications and the lack of smoke from Caesar's camp told the tale: Caesar was gone. Pompey bestirred himself sufficiently to order some cavalry south to the Genusus to prevent Caesar's crossing, but they failed to reach the river first. Overconfident at yesterday's success, they forded it only to run into an arm of Caesar's forces no one had really encountered before—his German horse troopers. Who, assisted by a few cohorts of infantry, drove the Pompeian cavalry off with heavy losses. Not far up the Via Egnatia they met up with Pompey, who had decided to follow. That night the two armies camped on opposite banks of the Genusus. At noon the next day Caesar moved out southward. Pompey did not. Oblivious to the urgency of Pompey's need to keep up with Caesar, some of Pompey's soldiers had defied orders and returned to Petra to collect various items out of their gear. Always anxious to have the numbers, Pompey elected to wait for them. He never did catch up. Like a wraith from the Underworld, Caesar simply disappeared off the face of the earth, somewhere to the south of Apollonia. By the twenty-second day of Quinctilis, Pompey and his army had returned to Petra, there to celebrate a great victory, send the news of it hurrying across the Adriatic to Italia and Rome. No more Caesar! A beaten man, Caesar was in headlong retreat. And if anyone wondered whether a Caesar in headlong retreat with all save a thousand of his men intact was truly a beaten man, he kept his wondering to himself. The troops celebrated too, but no one had a happier day than Titus Labienus, who paraded the several hundred members of the Ninth captured during the battle. In front of Pompey, Cato, Cicero, the Lentuli Spinther and Crus, Faustus Sulla, Marcus Favonius and many others, Labienus demonstrated the absoluteness of his ferocity. The men of the Ninth were first derided, insulted, slapped about; after which Labienus settled down to business with the red-hot irons, the tiny knives, the pincers, the barbed lash. Only after every man was blinded, deprived of his tongue and genitals and flogged to jelly did Labienus finally behead them. Pompey watched helplessly, so appalled and sickened that he seemed not to comprehend that it was within his power to order Labienus to desist. He did nothing, he said nothing, neither then nor afterward as he wandered about Petra in a daze.“ That man,” said Cato, hunting him down, “is a monster! Why did you let him do such things, Pompeius? What's the matter with you? Here we've just defeated Caesar, yet you stand there demonstrating the fact that you can't control your own legates!”

“Aaargh!” cried Pompey, eyes full of tears. “What do you want of me, Cato? What do you expect of me, Cato? I'm not a genuine commander-in-chief, I'm a puppet everyone thinks himself entitled to jerk this way and that! Control Labienus? I didn't see you stepping forward to try! How do you control an earthquake, Cato? How do you control a volcano, Cato? How do you control a man who terrified the life out of Germans?”

“I cannot continue,” said Cato, sticking to his principles, “to support the efforts of an army commanded by the likes of Titus Labienus! If you won't banish him from our ranks, Pompeius, then I refuse to serve with you!”

“Good! That's one fewer nuisance I'll have to suffer! Go away!” He thought of something, yelled after Cato's retreating back: “You cretin, Cato! Don't you understand? None of you can fight! None of you can general troops! But Labienus can!”

He returned to his house to find Lentulus Crus waiting for him. Oh, abominable man!"

What a shambles,“ said Lentulus Crus, sniffing disdainfully. ”My dear Pompeius, must you keep animals like Labienus around? Can you do nothing right? What are you doing, claiming a great victory over Caesar when you've done nothing to eliminate the man? He has escaped! Why are you still here?"

“I wish I could escape,” said Pompey through his teeth. “Unless you have something constructive to offer, Crus, I suggest you go back to your hypocaust-heated house and pack up all your gold plate and ruby quizzing glasses! We're marching.” And on the twenty-fourth day of Quinctilis, Pompey did just that. In Dyrrachium he left behind fifteen cohorts of wounded men under the command of Cato.“ If you don't mind, Magnus, I'll stay here too,” said Cicero apprehensively. “I'm afraid I'm not much use in a war, but I can perhaps be of some use in Dyrrachium. Oh, I do wish my brother Quintus would join you! He's a handy man in a war.”

“Yes, stay,” said Pompey tiredly. “You won't be in any danger, Cicero. Caesar is going to Greece.”

“How do you know that? What if he settles at Oricum and elects to prevent your returning to Italia?”

“Not he! He's a leech, Cicero. A burr.”

“Afranius is very keen for you to abandon this eastern campaign, steal a march on Caesar and return to Italia now.”

“I know, I know! And then hasten west to recover the Spains. A lovely dream, Cicero, nothing more. It's suicide for our cause to leave Caesar unopposed in Greece or Macedonia. I'd lose all my eastern levies and all my support from the client kings.” Pompey patted Cicero on the shoulder. “Don't worry about me, please. I know what to do. Prudence dictates that I keep on waging Fabian war against Caesar, never engage him, but the others won't have it. I see that now very clearly. Even marching at the pace he does, Caesar has a long way to go. He'll be days behind me. I'll have the time I need to replace my horses and mules—I've bought them from the Dacians and Dardani; they'll be waiting in Heracleia. Not up to much, I imagine, but better than none.” Pompey smiled. “Scipio ought to be in Larissa with the Syrian legions by now.” Cicero did not make any comment. He had had a letter from Dolabella urging him to return to Italia, and most of him wanted desperately to go. At least by remaining in Dyrrachium he was no more than the width of the Adriatic from his beloved homeland.“ I envy you, Cicero” was Pompey's parting shot. “The sun might come out here occasionally from now on, and the air's soft. All you'll have to suffer is Cato. Who informs me that he's going to send Favonius with me to keep me 'pure.' His word, not mine. That leaves me with curs like Labienus, voluptuaries like Lentulus Crus, critics like Lentulus Spinther, and a wife and son to worry about. With just a morsel of Caesar's luck, I might survive.” Cicero stopped, looked back. “A wife and son?”

“Yes. Cornelia Metella has decided that Rome is too far away from tata and me. With Sextus egging her on. He's mad keen to be my contubernalis. They're joining me in Thessalonica.”

“Thessalonica? Do you plan to go that far?”

“No. I've already sent word there and told her to take Sextus to Mitylene. They'll be safe enough on Lesbos.” Pompey's hands went out, a curiously pathetic gesture. “Do try to understand, Cicero! I can't go west! If I do, I abandon my own father-in-law and two good legions to Caesar's famous clemency. He will control the East and my wife and son will pass into his custody. The outcome must take place somewhere in Thessaly.” Thus it was Cicero who stood watching as Pompey turned to walk away. A mist descended in front of Cicero's eyes, he winked away tears. Poor Magnus! How old he suddenly seemed.

In Heracleia, on the Via Egnatia as it began to come down to the gentler lands around Alexander the Great's home of Pella, those who had been absent on other duties joined Pompey's army again: men like Brutus, who had tried to be useful by trotting off obediently to places as far afield as Thessalonica; and Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who left his fleet and hastened to catch up. In Heracleia, Pompey took delivery of several thousand good horses and mules, sufficient to replace those he had lost. Their Dacian herdsmen had brought along none other than the King of Dacia, Burebistas, who had heard of the defeat of Gaius Caesar at Dyrrachium. Nothing would do than that King Burebistas should come himself to make a treaty of accord with this mammoth force in world events, the conqueror of the mighty Gaius Caesar, the kings Mithridates and Tigranes, and some quaint relic out of the far West named Quintus Sertorius. King Burebistas also wanted to boast to his subjects back home that he had shared a cup of wine with the fabled Pompey the Great. Who was truly Great. Events like the arrival of King Burebistas tended to cheer Pompey up; so too did the news that the elusive Metellus Scipio and his Syrian legions were encamped at Beroea and ready to march south to Larissa the moment Pompey gave the word. What Pompey didn't know was that Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, leading Caesar's Eleventh and Twelfth Legions, was approaching Heracleia in quest of Caesar. He had encountered Metellus Scipio and the Syrian legions on the Haliacmon River and done everything in his power to tempt Scipio into battle. When Scipio and the countryside proved uncooperative, Calvinus decided to head for the Via Egnatia, sure that Caesar would come that way, and that he would be ahead of Pompey. News of Pompey's great victory at Dyrrachium had flown all over Greece and Macedonia, so Calvinus presumed that Caesar would be retreating before the wrathful and triumphant victor. Bitterly disappointing news, but not news capable of persuading Calvinus to change sides, even if his legions had let him. They refused to believe it, and clamored to join Caesar as soon as possible. All Caesar needed, they said, was the full complement of his Gallic veterans. Once he had that, he'd wallop Pompey and the entire world. With Calvinus was Caesar's other squadron of Aeduan cavalry, sixty men on horseback; Calvinus used them as scouts. Riding in the lead with two of the Aeduans for company and aware that Heracleia was no more than four hours away, Calvinus kept looking for signs of Caesar's imminence. Confirmed, he thought, when he saw two Aeduan cavalrymen canter over a hill in his path. His two Aeduan companions whooped at sight of the red-and-blue-striped shawls, kicked their horses in the ribs and galloped to meet the newcomers. An ecstatic reunion took place while Calvinus let his horse's head drop to graze the springtime greening. Quick chat went back and forth in Aeduan, continued for some moments. Then his own two Aeduans returned as the other two trotted off in the direction of Heracleia.“ How far to Caesar?” he asked Caragdus, who spoke Latin.“ Caesar's not anywhere in Macedonia,” said Caragdus, scowling. “Can you imagine it, General? Those two bastards skipped off to Pompey with their squadron's money! Thought it such a great joke that they couldn't wait to tell us. Veredorix and I decided to keep our mouths shut and find out what we could. Just as well.”

“The Gods are passing strange,” said Calvinus slowly. “What did they know?”

“There was a battle in Dyrrachium, and Pompeius did win it—but it wasn't a great victory, General. The idiots let Caesar get away with his army intact. Well, he lost about a thousand men—those captured alive were tortured and executed by Labienus.” The Aeduan shivered. “Caesar went south. Those two think he's on the way to Gomphi, wherever that might be.”

“Southern Thessaly,” said Calvinus automatically.“ Oh. Anyway, the army in Heracleia belongs to Pompeius. He's meeting with King Burebistas of the Dacians. But we'd better scuttle off in a hurry, General. Those two bastards betrayed all Caesar's dispositions to the enemy. Veredorix and I thought of killing them, but then we decided to leave well enough alone.”

“What did you tell them about our presence here?”

“That we were scouting ahead of a foraging party. Just a couple of cohorts strong,” said Caragdus.“ Good man!” Calvinus jerked his horse's head up. “Come on, boys, we're going to scuttle off south in search of Caesar.”

Caesar had not gone the long way across the range of sere mountains which spined Greece and Macedonia on the west. Below Apollonia lay the river Aous, one of the major streams which came down from the backbone itself. A very poor road followed it into the Tymphe Mountains, traversed a pass and descended to Thessaly at the headwaters of the river Peneus. Rather than march an extra one hundred and fifty miles, Caesar and his army turned off the better roads of Epirus and proceeded at their usual thirty to thirty-five miles a day along a road which meant they needed to build only a rudimentary camp each night; they saw no one save shepherds and sheep, emerged into Thessaly well to the north of Gomphi at the town of Aeginium. Thessaly had declared for Pompey. Like the other regions of Greece, it was organized into a league of towns, which had a council called the Thessalian League. On hearing of Pompey's great victory at Dyrrachium, the leader of the League, Androsthenes of Gomphi, sent out word to every town to support Pompey. Dazed at the speed with which a fit and businesslike army proceeded to reduce it, Aeginium sent frantic messages to all the other towns of the Thessalian League that a far-from-defeated-looking Caesar was in the neighborhood. Tricca was the next place to fall; Caesar moved on to Gomphi, from which city Androsthenes sent an urgent message to Pompey that Caesar had arrived long before he was expected. Gomphi fell. Though the month was early Sextilis, the season was still spring; there were no ripe crops anywhere and the rains had been poor east of the ranges. A minor famine threatened. For this reason Caesar ensured the submission of western Thessaly; it gave him a source of supplies. He was also waiting for the rest of his legions to join him. Word had gone out recalling the Seventh, Fourteenth, Eleventh and Twelfth. With Lucius Cassius, Sabinus, Calenus and Domitius Calvinus back in the fold, Caesar advanced due east en route to the better roads which led to the city of Larissa and the pass into Macedonia at Tempe. The best way was along the river Enipeus to Scotussa, where Caesar planned to turn north toward Larissa. Less than ten miles short of Scotussa, Caesar dug himself a stout camp north of the Enipeus outside the village of Pharsalus; he had heard that Pompey was coming, and the lay of the land at Pharsalus was battleworthy. Typical of Caesar, he didn't choose the best ground for himself. It always paid to seem at a bit of a disadvantage; routine generals—and he classified Pompey as a routine general—tended to go by what the manuals said, accept them as doctrine. Pompey would like Pharsalus. A line of hills to the north sloping to a little plain about two miles wide, then the swampy course of the Enipeus River. Yes, Pharsalus would do.

Pompey received the message from Androsthenes in Gomphi as he skirted his old training camp at Beroea. He turned immediately and headed for the pass into Thessaly at Tempe. There was no other easy way to go; the massif of Mount Olympus and its sprawling, rugged foothills prevented a straighter march. Outside the city of Larissa he was finally reunited with Metellus Scipio, and breathed a sigh of relief for many reasons, not the least important of which was those two extra and veteran legions. Relations within the tents of the high command had deteriorated even further since leaving Heracleia. Everyone had decided it was time to put Pompey in his place, and in Larissa the long-simmering resentments and grudges all surfaced together. It started when one of Pompey's senior military tribunes, an Acutius Rufus, chose to summon the high command to a hearing in a military court he had taken it upon himself to convene. And there in front of Pompey and his legates he formally charged Lucius Afranius with treason for deserting his troops after Illerda; the chief prosecutor was Marcus Favonius, adhering religiously to Cato's instructions to keep Pompey “pure.” Pompey's temper snapped. “Acutius, dismiss this illegal court!” he roared, fists clenched, face mottling. “Go on, get out before I arraign you on treason charges! As for you, Favonius, I would have thought that your experience in public life would have taught you to avoid unconstitutional prosecutions! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

The court dissolved, but Favonius wasn't done. He began to lie in wait for Pompey, to hector him at every opportunity with Afranius's falseness, and Afranius, almost deprived of breath at the impudence of it, hammered away in Pompey's other ear with demands that he dismiss Favonius from his service. Petreius sided with Afranius, naturally, and hammered away too. Active command of the army had devolved upon Labienus, whose lightest punishment for the most minor infringement was a flogging; the troops muttered and shivered, looked sideways with darkling glances, plotted how to expose Labienus to the spears during the battle everyone knew was coming. Over dinner, Ahenobarbus struck.“ And how's our dear Agamemnon, King of Kings?” he enquired as he strolled in on Favonius's arm. Jaw dropped, Pompey stared. “What did you call me?”

“Agamemnon, King of Kings,” said Ahenobarbus, sneering.“ Meaning?” asked Pompey dangerously.“ Why, that you're in the same position as Agamemnon, King of Kings. Titular head of the army of a thousand ships, titular head of a group of kings, any one of whom has as much right to call himself King of Kings as you do. But it's over a millennium since the Greeks invaded Priam's homeland. You'd think something would have changed, wouldn't you? But it hasn't. In modern Rome we still suffer Agamemnon, King of Kings.”

“Cast yourself in the role of Achilles, have you, Ahenobarbus? Going to sulk beside your ships while the world goes to pieces and the best men die?” asked Pompey, lips white.“ Well, I'm not sure,” said Ahenobarbus, comfortably disposed on his couch between Favonius and Lentulus Spinther. He selected a hothouse grape from bunches ferried across from Chalcidean Pallene, where this profitable little industry had grown up inside linen-draped frames. “Actually,” he went on, spitting out seeds and reaching for the whole bunch, “I was thinking more of the role of Agamemnon, King of Kings.”

“Hear, hear,” barked Favonius, searching in vain for some simpler fare—and profoundly glad that Cato wasn't present to see how Pompey's high command were living in this Romanized land of luxurious plenty. Hothouse grapes! Chian wine twenty years in the amphora! Sea urchins galloped from Rhizus and sauced with an exotic version of garum! Baby quail filched from new mothers to slide down the gullet of Lentulus Crus!"

Want the command tent, do you, Ahenobarbus?"

“I'm not sure I'd say no.”

“Why,” asked Pompey, tearing savagely at some cheesed bread, “would you want the aggravation?”

“The aggravation,” said Ahenobarbus, bald pate sporting a pretty wreath of spring flowers, “lies in the fact that Agamemnon, King of Kings, never wants to give battle.”

“A wise course,” said Pompey, hanging onto his temper grimly. ”My strategy is to wear Caesar down by Fabian means. Engaging the man is an unnecessary risk. We lie between him and good supply lines. Greece is in drought. As summer comes in, he'll be hungry. By autumn he will have looted Greece of everything edible. And in winter he'll capitulate. My son Gnaeus is so snugly based in Corcyra that he'll get nothing across the Adriatic, Gaius Cassius has won a big victory against Pomponius off Messana—"

“I heard,” Lentulus Spinther interrupted, “that after this much-lauded victory, Gaius Cassius went on to do battle with Caesar's old legate Sulpicius. And that a legion of Caesar's watching from the shore became so fed up with the way Sulpicius was handling the battle that they rowed out, boarded Cassius's ships, and trounced him. He had to slip over the side of his flagship to get away.”

“Well, yes, that is true,” Pompey admitted.“ Fabian means,” said Lentulus Crus between mouthfuls of succulent squid sauced with their own sepia ink, “are ridiculous, Pompeius. Caesar can't win; we all know that. You're always griping about our lack of money, so why are you so determined on these Fabian tactics?”

“Strategy, not tactics,” said Pompey.“ Whatever—who cares?” asked Lentulus Crus loftily. “I say that the moment we find Caesar, we give battle. Get it over and done with. Then head home for Italia and a few proscriptions.” Brutus lay listening to all this in growing horror. His own participation in the siege of Dyrrachium had been minuscule; at any chance he volunteered to ride for Thessalonica or Athens or anywhere far from that frenzied, revolting cesspool. Only at Heracleia had he realized what kind of dissension was going on between Pompey and his legates. At Heracleia he heard of the doings of Labienus. At Heracleia he began to realize that Pompey's own legates would end in ruining him. Oh, why had he ever left Tarsus, Publius Sestius and that careful state of neutrality? How could he collect the interest on debts from people like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes while they were funding Pompey's war? How would he manage if these intransigent boars did manage to thrust Pompey into the battle he so clearly didn't want? He was right, he was right! Fabian tactics—strategy—would win in the end. And wasn't it worth it, to spare Roman lives, ensure a minimum of bloodshed? What would he do if someone thrust a sword into his hand and told him to fight?“ Caesar's done for,” said Metellus Scipio, who didn't agree with his son-in-law in this matter. He sighed happily, smiled. “I will be the Pontifex Maximus at last.” Ahenobarbus sat bolt upright. “You'll what?”

“Be the Pontifex Maximus at last.”

“Over my dead body!” yelled Ahenobarbus. “That's one public honor belongs to me and my family!”

“Gerrae!” said Lentulus Spinther, grinning. “You can't even get yourself elected a priest, Ahenobarbus, let alone get yourself elected Pontifex Maximus. You're a born loser.”

“I will do what my grandfather did, Spinther! I'll be voted in as pontifex and Pontifex Maximus at the same election!”

“No! It's going to be a race between me and Scipio.”

“Neither of you stands a chance!” gasped Metellus Scipio, outraged. “I'm the next Pontifex Maximus!”