Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome (19 page)

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the operation because of bad weather, so deteriorating weather conditions would force the Allied commanders to postpone their landing from June 5

to June 6.

As his convoy approached the Albanian coast in the late-night darkness, Caesar’s plans had to be altered yet again. The wind changed, swinging around to blast down from the north, driving the invasion fleet farther south than Caesar had intended—right past a Pompeian squadron of eighteen cruisers riding at anchor at Oricum, toward the island of Corfu, and Pompey’s main battle fleet based there. Yet Caesar’s luck held, and the convoy slipped through Pompey’s naval blockade in the inky dark.

In the last, nerve-racking hour of the run, the wild, mountainous coast of the Epirus region of Greece, just to the north of Corfu, loomed out of the night away to the left. The location wasn’t ideal. There were no harbors here; in fact, this area was infamous as a graveyard of ships swept by gales onto its rocky shore and wrecked. And Caesar would have farther to march once on shore than he’d originally intended, and over rough country, too. But Caesar gave the order for the landing to go ahead. A signal lantern was quickly run up on his flagship.

The steersmen of the leading ships now shoved their twin tillers hard over, and turned their craft toward the shore. Sailors prepared to take in sail. The legionaries of the landing force tensed for the crunch of
terra
firma
under the keels of their transports and listened for the order from their centurions to go over the sides.

It was near Palaeste on the Epirus coast that Caesar ran his ships up onto the rocky shore like latter-day landing barges, enabling the troops to rapidly disembark. It is likely that the men of the 10th were the first to hit the deserted, stony beach. Unexpected and unopposed, the night landing went off without a hitch and without a casualty.

Caesar refloated the ships on the tide, and, with the wind changing to a southeasterly, as it always did during the early morning in these climes at this time of year, he sent them back to Brindisi with General Quintus Fufius Calenus to pick up the legions and cavalry of the second wave waiting anxiously with Mark Antony.

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We can imagine the scene as, on Corfu, a servant of Admiral Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus tentatively shook his master’s shoulder. The admiral, in his bed, opened his eyes to the news, no doubt told in a hushed voice and in the light of a flickering oil lamp that a picket ship had reported sight-

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ing enemy ships off the coast. The picket vessel’s captain felt sure a landing was taking place.

Bibulus would have sat up abruptly. Pompey had appointed him admiral in chief of all five of his fleets stationed along the coasts of Greece, Albania, and Croatia and given him the task of intercepting any Caesarian invasion force. Bibulus was a good choice for the job. Caesar’s fellow consul in 59 b.c., foul-tempered but determined and capable, he’d had several political confrontations with Caesar in the past, coming off the worse each time. As a result, he hated Caesar with a passion. Rising now he would have taken up his scarlet cloak from the back of the chair where he’d thrown it as he went fully dressed to his bed, as was the Roman habit. Quickly draping the military cloak around his shoulders, he would have stormed from his sleeping chamber, issuing a stream of instructions to bleary-eyed staff officers as his armor-bearers flocked around him with his personal arms and equipment.

Furious that his captains had failed to intercept the invasion fleet, Admiral Bibulus ordered the 110 battleships, cruisers, and frigates based at Corfu to immediately put to sea. As junior officers scurried around the onshore billets rousing the crews of the fleet, the admiral hurried to the dockside to board his flagship.

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The landing of the troops of the first wave had taken longer than it should have. The last squadron of Caesar’s invasion fleet to depart Epirus for the return run to Italy had hardly put out to sea when the first rays of daylight began to peek over the top of the Ceraunian Mountains behind them. Before long, the strong breeze that traditionally blew from the south on January nights dropped away. Soon the empty transports were drifting helplessly, within sight of the coast.

The first to go into action because they had fewer crewmen to round up, Admiral Bibulus’s fast frigates came sliding out of Corfu Harbor with their timekeepers rapidly pounding the beat for their skilled oarsmen and with the eyes of their lookouts peeled. Soon spotting the wallowing transports, the frigates rapidly overtook the stranded craft. Thirty of Caesar’s troopships were captured.

Before long, Admiral Bibulus’s own daunting battleship came surging onto the scene—probably a vessel of the
deceres
class, 145 feet from end to end, with a beam of 28 feet, equipped with three banks of oars up to 40

feet long and a crew of 800 oarsmen, sailors, and marines.

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From the deck of his flagship, Bibulus would have surveyed the cargo vessels rolling with their sails struck and their crews looking up at him plaintively, his expression as cold as the morning air. According to Caesar, angry that he hadn’t been able to stop the invasion, and knowing that Caesar would attempt to reinforce his landed troops with further legions from Italy, Bibulus decided to make an example of the captured vessels.

“Burn them,” he ordered.

“And their captains and crews, Admiral?” a subordinate would have asked.

“Leave them where they are.”

The battleship’s artillery pieces, trained on the captured vessels, would have been loaded with bolts dipped in tar. The tar was set alight. The burning bolts were fired at the cargo vessels. Soon all thirty were burning fiercely as the crews of the warships all around them watched the specta-cle in engrossed, ghoulish silence. Those crewmen on the thirty doomed transports who didn’t burn to death were drowned when they jumped into the cold, dark waters to escape the flames. Any who tried to swim to the Pompeian warships were fended off, and they, too, were eventually claimed by the waves.

Back at Brindisi, as the hours passed and the ships of the last squadron failed to arrive, the realization hit Mark Antony and General Fufius that the missing transports had been intercepted. The crews of their remaining ships began to talk fearfully about the risks entailed in making a second crossing now that Pompey’s navy had obviously been alerted to the operation.

As the weather deteriorated during the rest of the day, Bibulus cast his warships along the west coast of Greece and Albania like a net, ordering them to anchor in every safe harbor and potential landing place. That night he stayed at sea, beginning the habit of sleeping on board his flagship so he could react more quickly to sightings of enemy ships in the future.

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The same day that he landed in Epirus, Caesar began advancing north toward Durrës with the men of the 10th and his six other legions of the first wave. He would have had intelligence that Pompey was keeping large amounts of stores at Durrës for the winter, enough to last him well into the spring, but as the main Roman port on the Adriatic coast and starting point of the Egnatian Way, the Roman military highway to Thessalonika c09.qxd 12/5/01 5:19 PM Page 97

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and the East, it always would have been an objective anyway. Once he had taken that, Caesar could ship reinforcements and supplies straight across from Brindisi with some security.

Almost as soon as he landed, Caesar set free a prisoner he’d brought over from Italy with him, to perform a task he probably planned well in advance. Lucius Vibullius Rufus, one of Pompey’s officers, had been made a prisoner twice by Caesar; once at Corfinium in February during Caesar’s advance into Italy, a second time after he’d fled to Pompey’s legions in Spain, only to be caught up in their surrender. Caesar now gave Vibullius Rufus a horse and told him to find Pompey and put a peace proposal to him. The deal was that both leaders were to dismiss their armies within three days and then allow the Senate at Rome to decide a final settlement to their differences. Only an idiot would agree to terms like these—over the past nine months Caesar had filled the Senate with his supporters, and any decision they made would naturally favor Caesar. But he wanted to be seen as the honorable man in this conflict, the man whose hand was continually forced by the forces pitted against him.

As Vibullius Rufus galloped off to fulfill his mission, Caesar advanced up the west coast without meeting any resistance. Town after town threw out its Pompeian commander and small garrison and then opened its gates to the Dictator.

Meanwhile, as Caesar’s landing was taking place in the west, Pompey, in northeastern Macedonia, was breaking camp and marching his bolstered army of upward of forty thousand men out of his base at Veroia, heading west to spend the winter on the west coast at Durrës, his main supply base, and as yet totally ignorant of the invasion.

Vibullius Rufus headed north until he reached the Egnatian Way, then turned east and rode as fast as he could, changing horses at every town until he met Pompey on the march on the highway. Breathlessly he gave Pompey the news of the invasion, news that sent ripples of panic through the non-Roman contingents of the army, the troops furnished by eastern allies, and passed on the peace offer, which Pompey promptly and not surprisingly dismissed out of hand. No doubt cursing Caesar for surprising him twice within twelve months—first by crossing the Rubicon with just one legion, now by invading Greece on the eve of winter—Pompey ordered his army to march for Durrës at the double, day and night. If Caesar reached the port first and seized his stores, Pompey would be in deep trouble.

The race for Durrës was on.

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A TASTE OF DEFEAT

lutarch quotes Cato the Younger as saying that when, in his younger days, Pompey had done nothing wisely nor honestly, he
P
had been successful, but now that he was trying to preserve his country and defend her liberty, he was unsuccessful. Certainly, in Italy and Spain things had gone against Pompey, but now in Albania he had his first, if minor success—he won the race with Caesar, reaching Durrës first.

Once his army arrived on the west coast he had his men set to work building a large fortified camp below Durrës, not far from the Apsus River.

Hearing that Caesar was approaching, the knees of many inexperienced soldiers in Pompey’s army began to knock. So, led by Caesar’s former deputy General Labienus, Pompey’s generals now publicly swore an oath that they would not desert their commander, that they would share Pompey’s fate, good or bad. The tribunes and centurions of the legions all followed suit, and the troops then did the same.

Caesar, disappointed, came up and camped his legions on the opposite bank of the Apsus, within sight of Pompey’s position, planning to spend the winter there with the hope of being reinforced by Mark Antony in the meantime.

Sure enough, Antony and General Fufius now made another attempt to bring the second wave across from Italy after the weather improved and a good following wind blew up. With the men of the second wave crowded on board, the convoy, reduced by thirty ships now, set sail and tried to make the crossing from Brindisi, even though it would be in daylight. But the frightened crews quickly turned back when blockading warships were sighted. One of the vessels from the convoy failed to see the recall flag flown by Fufius’s flagship and sailed on, into the path of Admiral Bibulus’s battleship. The troopship was soon captured. Admiral Bibulus executed all on board.

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Returning to Brindisi, Mark Antony decided not to risk another crossing. He kept his troopships in port and his men in camp. With just fifteen thousand troops ashore in Greece, Caesar was on his own.

Out of the blue, Admiral Bibulus now sent Admiral Lucius Libo, commander of the Liburnian Fleet, to meet with Caesar to discuss a possible peace settlement. Caesar received him, but as Pompey’s admiral pushed for a truce, with the promise that in the meantime any proposals Caesar made would be relayed to Pompey for consideration, Caesar realized that Bibulus was only trying to buy time for more troops to reach Pompey from the East, and broke off negotiations.

It soon became apparent why Admiral Bibulus himself hadn’t attended the meeting with Caesar. Never leaving his ship as he plowed through heavy seas and freezing winter rain in his determination to catch Caesar’s troopships, Bibulus had come down with what sounds like a case of pneu-monia. He refused to see a doctor, and before long died at sea. With his death, Pompey lost one of his more brutal but most dedicated senior officers. Command of the fleets now devolved to their individual admirals.

This lack of coordination could only help Caesar. Luck continued to run his way.

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In February, Pompey’s Admiral Libo made a daring dash across the Adriatic to Brindisi, where he landed a commando force of marines from fifty warships. They sank a number of ships and captured several more, initially causing great panic in the Italian city. But the raiders were soon driven off by Mark Antony’s second-wave troops, who were still waiting in the embarkation camp to cross the Adriatic, and withdrew with their limited spoils.

Almost daily, Antony had been receiving dispatches from Caesar in Albania urging him to bring across reinforcements. Caesar later excused Antony by saying that his deputy was reluctant to bring the last troops out of Italy in case Pompey used his ships to cross the Adriatic behind Caesar’s back and invade Italy. But several classical authors tell the story—not told by Caesar himself—that he became so frustrated by Antony’s failure to reinforce him, despite days and weeks of excellent sailing weather through the latter part of January and into February, that he had his servants hire a twelve-oared fishing boat to take him across to Italy so he could personally stir his subordinates into action. He then boarded the craft disguised as a slave. But soon after the boat began the voyage, the c10.qxd 12/5/01 5:21 PM Page 100