Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome (30 page)

He then called out two tribunes and three centurions of the 10th Legion by name. Looking puzzled and not a little worried, the five nominated officers stepped forward and lined up in front of the tribunal. As they did, they probably noticed the centurions of the guard cohorts on duty taking up positions close by with hands on sword hilts.

“Gaius Avienus,” Caesar now began, glaring down at the spoiled, rich young colonel, “whereas you did in Italy incite the troops of the Roman people to action against the state and did plunder various municipalities, and whereas you have been of no service to either myself or the state, but have, instead of troops, embarked your own slaves and livestock, and have thereby caused the state to be short of troops at a time of crisis—for these reasons, I discharge you with dishonor from my army and order you to remove yourself immediately from Africa.”

Avienus had probably blanched white, while, beside him, the other officers were sweating profusely.

Caesar turned his attention to the second colonel, another wealthy young man in his twenties. “Aulus Fonteius, whereas you have, as a tribune, incited my soldiers to mutiny, and as a citizen, have been disloyal, I dismiss you from my army.”

Now it was the turn of the trio of centurions. All three would have been promoted by General Fabius on the retirement of Centurion Crastinus and other senior centurions of the 10th back in early 49 b.c., but as far as Caesar was concerned not one of them had deserved their promo-

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tions. From what he’d come to hear, they’d blatantly curried favor with Fabius to get where they were. “Titus Salienus, Marcus Tiro, Gaius Clusinas, whereas you have obtained your ranks in my army by favor, and not through merit, have shown yourselves neither brave in combat nor loyal in peace, and have directed yourselves to inciting the men to mutiny against their commander rather than to respectful and obedient conduct, I judge you unfit to hold rank in my army. I dismiss you from my service and order you to leave Africa immediately.”

Caesar turned to the centurions of the guard and instructed them to escort these men to a ship. The discharged officers were each permitted to take one personal slave with them but nothing else. And they were to leave the province’s shores that same day.

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Caesar was feeling more confident now. He had two of his four best legions with him, plus another seven legions. And the young Spanish recruits of the 5th Legion had sent their tribunes to him to say they wanted the honor of taking on Scipio’s elephants when battle was finally joined. Caesar didn’t hesitate to accept their offer, which made the men of the other units feel a whole lot better about what lay ahead.

In stages of a few miles each day Caesar now advanced down the coast toward Thapsus, a port town that sat on a cape overlooking the sea, about five miles from present-day Teboulba in Tunisia. After each move, he would have his men build a new fortified camp. The troops’ amenities were basic. The latest convoy had replenished their food supplies, but Caesar had made his soldiers come across from Sicily with only basic gear so he could cram as many men as possible on his few ships. Most didn’t even have tents to sleep under, and rigged up flimsy shelters using clothing and pieces of wood.

By the beginning of March, King Juba had returned to Tunisia, bringing three of his four legions back with him to bolster Scipio’s force. Now, outside the village of Uzitta, the opposing armies drew up in lines facing each other, with about 450 yards separating them, in battle order and ready for a full-scale fight. Caesar would have learned from prisoners after the Battle of Pharsalus that Pompey and General Labienus had expected him to place the 10th Legion on the right wing on that occasion and made their dispositions accordingly, so now, as Caesar formed his battle line, he allotted the 10th to the left wing, with the 9th on its immediate right, just to keep Scipio on his toes.

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For hour after hour, 130,000 men stood glaring at each other under the North African sun, with neither commander, not Caesar, not the bearded, severe Scipio, wanting to be the one to make the first move.

They stood there from morning until late afternoon until finally Caesar began to withdraw his troops to his camp, unit by unit, in formation.

Suddenly General Labienus led the entire Pompeian cavalry force in the direction of Caesar’s camp, as if to cut off his line of retreat. Before Caesar could order any counteraction, some of his cavalry and auxiliary light infantry launched an attack from his left wing of their own accord.

A swift fight ensued, before the Pompeians sent Caesar’s men into retreat, killing twenty-eight and wounding a number of the others. Nightfall saved Caesar from any further embarrassment. Scipio let him withdraw into his camp. The stalemate continued.

In mid-March Caesar welcomed the men of the 7th and 8th Legions as they arrived in the next convoy from Sicily. Now he had all four of his fractious veteran Spanish legions back with him. Knowing how inexperienced the men of his newer legions were and after the reverse he’d suffered at the Battle of the Ruspina Plain back in January, he personally led the newer units in a new training regime.

Described in
The African War
as acting like the trainer of new gladiators, Caesar showed the young legionaries exactly how many feet to retire before they suddenly wheeled around as a group and counterattacked, how to advance and retire alternately, how to make feint attacks, and how to defend themselves in close-quarters combat. When drilling them on throwing their javelins, he would mark a spot on the ground as their target. To help the men of the 5th Legion accustom themselves to anti-elephant tactics, he shipped four or five elephants over from Italy, animals originally taken to Rome by Pompey some years before. While the youngsters of the 5th trained with the beasts at every opportunity, Caesar had no intention of employing his own pachyderms in battle—he is said to have considered the lumbering, tusked bull elephants a menace to both sides.

On March 21 Caesar led his army in the Lustration Exercise, the religious ceremony performed by the Roman military in March of each year during which the standards of the legions were purified, dressed in garlands, and sprinkled with perfumed oil. Traditionally this ceremony marked the beginning of the annual campaigning season, and the men of the legions considered it bad luck if the Lustration wasn’t performed prior to launching the latest campaign. Now Caesar began his offensive in earnest. Taking the village of Sarsusa, he slaughtered its small Pompeian garrison. The next day, shadowed by Scipio, he marched on the town of c15.qxd 12/5/01 5:29 PM Page 159

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Thysdra, but it was well defended, and without a water supply in the vicinity he decided against a siege and withdrew to Aggar.

Despite the risk of being intercepted by patrolling enemy warships, Caesar’s troopships continued to maintain a shuttle service from Sicily, and another convoy now arrived, bringing four thousand men from all his legions who’d previously been on the sick list or on leave, plus four hundred cavalry and a thousand archers and slingers. Adding these reinforcements to his task force, Caesar formed up his army two miles from Scipio’s camp, near the town of Tegea. Again Scipio brought his army out in battle order, but following a stuttering cavalry action with first one side retreating, then the other, Caesar withdrew his main force to camp at about 4:00 p.m. after seeing no advantage.

On April 4, in the small hours of the morning, in one of his typical night marches Caesar hiked his legions sixteen miles down the coast from Aggar, making camp within sight of Thapsus as dawn broke. He then began digging trench lines with the intention of cutting off the town’s Pompeian garrison from Scipio and the rest of his army.

To relieve the town, Scipio marched his forces up from the south to within eight miles of Thapsus and established two large camps covering a corridor between an extensive salt lake, the Marsh of Moknine, and the coast—one camp for his army, the other for King Juba’s Numidian troops.

The next day, leaving some troops with General Afranius at his camp, Scipio moved most of his forces closer to Thapsus. After swinging west around the lake in the night, his men were seen to be busy setting up a new camp as the sun came up, about a mile and a half from Caesar’s fortifications. Tactically this was a clever move—Scipio could now trap Caesar on the peninsula, between the camps of Juba and Afranius at the southern end and his new position, which covered access from the west.

Caesar being Caesar, he was quick to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Seeing the construction work under way at Scipio’s camp, Caesar decided to attack immediately, before the Pompeians could finish their defenses. He quickly formed three battle lines outside Thapsus. This time he returned the 10th Legion to its customary right-wing position, placing the 7th beside it. (Not the 2nd, as
The African War
records at one point.

The 2nd Legion was in western Spain throughout this period. A copyist at some stage erroneously wrote II instead of VII when identifying the legion beside the 10th.) The 8th and 9th Legions went on his left wing. It was a given that the less experienced legions would take the center as always, but now that he had the luxury of deploying eleven legions, Caesar strengthened his center with the veteran 13th and 14th. If he maintained c15.qxd 12/5/01 5:29 PM Page 160

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the lineup he’d used several weeks before, Caesar placed the 25th and the 29th to the left of these two legions and the 28th and the 26th on the other side, next to the 7th. As he had planned for some time, the 5th Legion was split in two—half its cohorts went on each extreme wing, along with cavalry and slingers, ready to take on King Juba’s sixty elephants.

(The
African War
says Caesar left two entire legions guarding his camp, but this is probably propaganda. Auxiliaries would have guarded the camp.) Caught still building his latest camp, Scipio had little choice but to send his army into the field or risk his incomplete fortifications being stormed. Scipio’s exact deployment is unknown. He placed his ten legions and King Juba’s three legions in the center of his line, distributing his cavalry and light infantry on the wings along with his war elephants—thirty of which were placed on each side. These beasts were complete with armored howdahs on their backs, or “castles” as the Romans called them, each containing two to three javelin throwers. A Numidian mahout, or driver, sat, sidesaddle, at each elephant’s neck, driving his charge with a long crook that looked like a modern-day hockey stick.

Among Scipio’s legions were the 1st, which had escaped almost intact from Greece, and the three cohorts of the 4th and two of the 6th that had escaped with it. Scipio, and Cato the Younger, who had taken command at the provincial capital, Utica, modern Utique, along the coast, had recruited twelve thousand locals into their existing legions, some of them former slaves, and this insulted the proud Spaniards of the 4th and the 6th to the extent that some of them had defected to Caesar over the past few weeks in disgust.

Scipio also had the two locally raised legions of General Publius Attius Varus that had participated in the brief campaign that had wiped out Caesar’s two legions under the overconfident Gaius Curio two years before.

Scipio’s remaining five legions were also made up of locally recruited men, many of them slaves, who had no combat experience whatsoever. The men of King Juba’s three legions were highly experienced and supremely confident. Principally responsible for Curio’s defeat, the Numidian legionaries boasted haughtily to the men of the 1st, 4th, and 6th that they had fought forty-two battles over the years without suffering a single defeat.

In addition to his sixty elephants, Scipio also had tens of thousands of lightly armed Numidian auxiliaries and upward of ten thousand cavalry.

Some fifteen hundred of these cavalrymen were General Labienus’s tough German and Gallic troopers who’d served with him for years and come through the campaign in Gaul and the Battles of Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus with him. Another fifteen hundred were Numidians trained and led c15.qxd 12/5/01 5:29 PM Page 161

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by General Petreius using Roman-style equipment and tactics, while the rest, seven thousand of them, were wild Numidians riding without either saddles or bridles, which made them of questionable value in a battle against Roman heavy infantry. Pitted against them, Caesar had at least three thousand cavalry of quality, his Germans, Gauls, and now, too, Spaniards.

From subsequent events it is likely that the 1st Legion took Scipio’s right wing, not facing Caesar’s 10th as it had at Farsala. The inexperienced legions and Juba’s troops would have held the center. The 4th and the 6th Legions probably took the left of the line. In part compensation for desertions from the 4th and 6th, Scipio had taken several hundred men of the 5th and the 14th Legions prisoner after their troopships had been captured, and they now stood in his front line. But how well they would fight, looking across the void separating them from their friends and relatives in their own legions as they did now, would have been anyone’s guess. Like most Roman legionaries on the battlefield that day they would have silently said the legionary’s prayer, then gritted their teeth and waited for “Charge” to be sounded.

Even though Scipio had thirteen legions at his disposal and his total force numbered in the region of eighty thousand men, only the four thousand or so legionaries of the 1st, 4th, and 6th Legions had the sort of experience that Caesar’s best troops possessed. Only troops of one of Caesar’s legions, the new recruits of the 5th, had never seen action, while the men of the 10th and their fellow Spanish legionaries had achieved legendary status in Roman military circles.