The Commentaries of Cæsar

by Anthony Trollope

Cæsar, on his way to Spain, goes to Marseilles, which, under the name of Massilia, was at this time, as it is now, the most thriving mercantile port on the Mediterranean. It belonged to the province of Further Gaul, but it was in fact a colony of Greek traders. Its possession was now necessary to Cæsar. The magistrates of the town, when called upon for their adhesion, gave a most sensible answer. They protest that they are very fond of Cæsar, and very fond of Pompey. They don’t understand all these affairs of Rome, and regret that two such excellent men should quarrel. In the mean time they prefer to hold their own town. Cæsar speaks of this decision as an injury to himself, and is instigated by such wrongs against him to besiege the city, which he does both by land and sea, leaving officers there for the purpose, and going on himself to Spain.

At this time all Spain was held by three officers, devoted to the cause of Pompey, though, from what has gone before, it is clear that Cæsar fears nothing from the south. Afranius commanded in the north and east, holding the southern spurs of the Pyrenees. Petreius, who was stationed in Lusitania, in the south-west, according to agreement, hurries up to the assistance of Afranius as soon as Cæsar approaches. The Pompeian and Cæsarian armies are brought into close quarters in the neighbourhood of Ilerda (Lerida), on the little river Sicoris, or Segre, which runs into the Ebro. They are near the mountains here, and the nature of the fighting is controlled by the rapidity and size of the rivers, and the inequality of the ground. Cæsar describes the campaign with great minuteness, imparting to it a wonderful interest by the clearness of his narrative. Afranius and Petreius hold the town of Ilerda, which is full of provisions. Cæsar is very much pressed by want, as the corn and grass have not yet grown, and the country supplies of the former year are almost exhausted. So great are his difficulties, that tidings reach Rome that Afranius has conquered him. Hearing this, many who were still clinging to the city, doubtful as to the side they would take, go away to Pompey. But Cæsar at last manages to make Ilerda too hot for the Pompeian generals. He takes his army over one river in coracles, such as he had seen in Britain; he turns the course of another; fords a third, breaking the course of the stream by the bulk of his horses; and bridges a fourth. Afranius and Petreius find that they must leave Ilerda, and escape over the Ebro among the half-barbarous tribe further south, and make their way, if possible, among the Celtibri,—getting out of Aragon into Castile, as the division was made in after-ages. Cæsar gives us as one reason for this intended march on the part of his enemies, that Pompey was well known by those tribes, but that the name of Cæsar was a name as yet obscure to the barbarians. It was not, however, easy for Afranius to pass over the Ebro without Cæsar’s leave, and Cæsar will by no means give him leave. He intercepts the Pompeians, and now turns upon them that terrible engine of want from which he had suffered so much. He continues so to drive them about, still north of the Ebro, that they can get at no water; and at last they are compelled to surrender.

During the latter days of this contest the Afranians, as they are called—Roman legionaries, as are the soldiers of Cæsar—fraternise with their brethren in Cæsar’s camp, and there is something of free intercourse between the two Roman armies. The upshot is that the soldiers of Afranius resolve to give themselves up to Cæsar, bargaining, however, that their own generals shall be secure. Afranius is willing enough; but his brother-general, Petreius, with more of the Roman at heart, will not hear of it. We shall hear hereafter the strange fate of this Petreius. He stops the conspiracy with energy, and forces from his own men, and even from Afranius, an oath against surrender. He orders that all Cæsar’s soldiers found in their camp shall be killed, and, as Cæsar tells us, brings back the affair to the old form of war. But it is all of no avail. The Afranians are so driven by the want of water, that the two generals are at last compelled to capitulate and lay down their arms.

Five words which are used by Cæsar in the description of this affair give us a strong instance of his conciseness in the use of words, and of the capability for conciseness which the Latin language affords. “Premebantur Afraniani pabulatione, aquabantur ægre.” “The soldiers of Afranius were much distressed in the matter of forage, and could obtain water only with great difficulty.” These twenty words translate those five which Cæsar uses, perhaps with fair accuracy; but many more than twenty would probably have been used by any English historian in dealing with the same facts.

Cæsar treats his compatriots with the utmost generosity. So many conquered Gauls he would have sold as slaves, slaughtering their leaders, or he would have cut off their hands, or have driven them down upon the river and have allowed them to perish in the waters. But his conquered foes are Roman soldiers, and he simply demands that the army of Afranius shall be disbanded, and that the leaders of it shall go,—whither they please. He makes them a speech in which he explains how badly they have treated him. Nevertheless he will hurt no one. He has borne it all, and will bear it, patiently. Let the generals only leave the Province, and let the army which they have led be disbanded. He will not keep a soldier who does not wish to stay with him, and will even pay those whom Afranius has been unable to pay out of his own funds. Those who have houses and land in Spain may remain there. Those who have none he will first feed and afterwards take back, if not to Italy, at any rate to the borders of Italy. The property which his own soldiers have taken from them in the chances of war shall be restored, and he out of his own pocket will compensate his own men. He performs his promise, and takes all those who do not choose to remain, to the banks of the Var, which divides the Province from Italy, and there sets them down, full, no doubt, of gratitude to their conqueror. Never was there such clemency,—or, we may say, better policy! Cæsar’s whole campaign in Spain had occupied him only forty days.

In the mean time Decimus Brutus, to whom we remember that Cæsar had given the command of the ships which he prepared against the Veneti in the west of Gaul, and who was hereafter to be one of those who slew him in the Capitol, obtains a naval victory over the much more numerous fleet of the Massilians. They had prepared seventeen big ships,—“naves longæ” they are called by Cæsar,—and of these Brutus either destroys or takes nine. In his next book Cæsar proceeds to tell us how things went on at Marseilles both by sea and land after this affair.

CHAPTER X.

SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR.—THE TAKING OF MARSEILLES.—VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN.—THE FATE OF CURIO BEFORE UTICA.—B.C. 49.

In his chronicle of the Gallic war, Cæsar in each book completed the narrative of a year’s campaign. In treating of the civil war he devotes the first and second books to the doings of one year. There are three distinct episodes of the year’s campaign narrated in the second;—the taking of Marseilles, the subjugation of the southern province of Spain,—if that can be said to be subjugated which gave itself up very readily,—and the destruction of a Roman army in Africa under the hands of a barbarian king. But of all Cæsar’s writings it is perhaps the least interesting, as it tells us but little of what Cæsar did himself,—and in fact contains chiefly Cæsar’s records of the doings of his lieutenants by sea and land.

He begins by telling us of the enormous exertions made both by the besiegers and by the besieged at Massilia, which town was now held by Domitius on the part of Pompey,—to supplement whom at sea a certain Nasidius was sent with a large fleet. Young Brutus, as will be remembered, was attacking the harbour on behalf of Cæsar, and had already obtained a victory over the Massilians before Nasidius came up; and Trebonius, also on the part of Cæsar, was besieging the town from the land. This Decimus Brutus was one of those conspirators who afterwards conspired against Cæsar and slew him,—and Trebonius was another of the number. The wise Greeks of the city,—more wise than fortunate, however,—had explained to Cæsar when he first expressed his wish to have the town on his side, that really to them there was no difference between Pompey and Cæsar, both of whom they loved with all their hearts,—but they had been compelled to become partisans of Pompey, the Pompeian general Domitius being the first to enter their town; and now they find themselves obliged to fight as Pompeians in defence of their wealth and their homes. Thus driven by necessity, they fight well and do their very best to favour the side which we must henceforward call that of the Republic as against an autocrat;—for, during this siege of Marseilles, Cæsar had been appointed Dictator, and a law to that effect had been passed at Rome, where the passing of such a law was no doubt easy enough in the absence of Pompey, of the consuls, and of all the senators who were Pompey’s friends.