A little less than two hundred veterans embarked on a boat which they ran aground at night so as not to be taken by superior naval forces. They reached an advantageous position and passed the night. At the break of day, Otacilius dispatched some four hundred horsemen and some infantry from the Alesio garrison against them. They defended themselves bravely; and having killed some, they rejoined Caesar's troops without having lost a single man.
In Macedonia Caesar's rear-guard was caught by Pompey's cavalry at the passage of the Genusus River, the banks of which were quite steep. Caesar opposed Pompey's cavalry five to seven thousand strong, with his cavalry of six hundred to one thousand men, among which he had taken care to intermingle four hundred picked infantrymen. They did their duty so well that, in the combat that followed, they repulsed the enemy, killed many, and fell back upon their own army without the loss of a single man.
In the battle of Thapsus in Africa, against Scipio, Caesar killed ten thousand, lost fifty, and had some wounded.
In the battle under the walls of Munda in Spain, against one of Pompey's sons, Caesar had eighty cohorts and eight thousand horsemen, about forty-eight thousand men. Pompey with thirteen legions had sixty thousand troops of the line, six thousand cavalry, six thousand light infantry, six thousand auxiliaries; in all, about eighty thousand men. The struggle, says the narrator, was valiantly kept up, step by step, sword to sword. [19]
In that battle of exceptional fury, which hung for a long time in the balance, Caesar had one thousand dead, five hundred wounded; Pompey thirty-three thousand dead, and if Munda had not been so near, scarcely two miles away, his losses would have been doubled. The defensive works of Munda were constructed from dead bodies and abandoned arms.
In studying ancient combats, it can be seen that it was almost always an attack from the flank or rear, a surprise action, that won battles, especially against the Romans. It was in this way that their excellent tactics might be confused. Roman tactics were so excellent that a Roman general who was only half as good as his adversary was sure to be victorious. By surprise alone they could be conquered. Note Xanthippe,—Hannibal—the unexpected fighting methods of the Gauls, etc.
Indeed Xenophon says somewhere, "Be it agreeable or terrible, the less anything is foreseen, the more does it cause pleasure or dismay. This is nowhere better illustrated than in war where every surprise strikes terror even to those who are much the stronger."
But very few fighters armed with cuirass and shield were killed in the front lines.
Hannibal in his victories lost almost nobody but Gauls, his cannon-fodder, who fought with poor shields and without armor.