Continued war with Sextus Pompeius, B.C. 37-36.
Cæsar’s plan of campaign for B.C. 37 was that on the 1st of July a combined attack should be made on Sicily, from three points—from Africa by Lepidus, from Tarentum by Statilius Taurus, and from Puteoli by himself. Another violent storm baffled this plan; Cæsar had to take refuge at Elea; Taurus had to put back to Tarentum; while, though he reached Sicily, Lepidus returned without effecting anything of importance. Another winter and spring had to be spent on preparations, and it was not till the autumn of B.C. 36 that the final engagements took place. At that time Pompeius’s fleet was stationed along the Sicilian coast from Messana to Tyndaris, with headquarters at Mylæ. After reconnoitring the position from the Æolian islands, Cæsar left the main attack to Agrippa, while he himself joined Taurus at Leucopetra. Agrippa repulsed the enemy’s ships, but not decisively enough to enable him to pursue them to their moorings. It was sufficient, however, to enable Cæsar to cross to Tauromenium, leaving his main body of men on the Italian shore under the command of Valerius Messalla. Here he soon found himself in the greatest danger. Pompeius’s fleet was not held up by Agrippa, as Cæsar thought, but appeared off Tauromenium in force. Messalla was unable to cross to his relief, and a body of Pompeian cavalry attacked him while his men were making their camp. Cæsar himself managed to get back to Italy, but he left three legions, 500 cavalry, and 2,000 veterans, under Cornificius, encamped near Tauromenium, surrounded by enemies, and without means of supply. He himself landed in a forlorn condition, with only one attendant, and with great difficulty found his way to the camp of Messalla. Thence he sent urgent orders to Agrippa to despatch a force to the relief of Cornificius; commanded Messalla to send for reinforcements from Puteoli; while Mæcenas was sent to Rome with full powers to suppress the disorders likely to occur when the ill-success against Pompeius was known.
The force despatched by Agrippa found Cornificius and his men in a state of desperate suffering in the difficult district of Mount Ætna, and conveyed them to the fleet off Mylæ. So far, though Pompeius had maintained his reputation at sea, he had not shown himself able to follow up a success on land. And now the tide turned against him. Agrippa seized Tyndaris, in which Pompeius had large stores, and Cæsar landed twenty-one legions there, with 2,000 cavalry and 5,000 light-armed troops. His plan was to assault Messana while Agrippa engaged the fleet. There was a good road from Tyndaris to Messana (via Valeria), but Pompeius still held Mylæ and other places along the coast with the defiles leading to them. He was misled, however, by a report of an immediate attack by Agrippa, and, withdrawing his men from these defiles and strong posts, allowed Cæsar to occupy them. Finding the report to be false, he again attempted to intercept Cæsar as he was marching with some difficulty over the district of Mount Myconium. But his general (Tisienus) failed to take advantage of Cæsar’s unfavourable position, who, having meanwhile been joined by Lepidus, encamped under the walls of Messana. He was now strong enough on land to send detachments to occupy the various towns from which Pompeius drew supplies; and therefore it was necessary for the latter to abandon Sicily, or to scatter the fleet of Agrippa and so open the sea to his transports. In a second battle off Mylæ, however, the fleet of Pompeius was nearly annihilated, and though he escaped himself into Messana, his land forces under Tisienus surrendered to Cæsar. When he discovered this Pompeius, without waiting for the eight legions which he still had at Lilybæum, collected seventeen ships which had survived the battle and fled to Asia, hoping that Antony in gratitude for former services would save and possibly employ him.
Deposition of Lepidus.
The danger which for so many years had hung like a cloud about the shores of Italy was thus at an end. But there was one more danger still to be surmounted before Cæsar’s authority was fully established in Sicily. The eight Pompeian legions from Lilybæum under Plennius presently arrived at Messana. Finding Pompeius fled, as Cæsar happened to be absent, Plennius handed them over to Lepidus, who was on the spot. Lepidus added them to his own forces, and being thus strengthened, conceived the idea of adding Sicily to his province of Africa. It had not been definitely included in any of the triumviral agreements; he had been the first to land there, and had in the course of his march forced or persuaded many cities to submit,—why should he have less authority to deal with it than Cæsar, whose office was the same as his own? He had originally bargained for Narbonensis and Spain: he had been shifted to Africa without being consulted, and his provinces had been taken over by Cæsar. He was now at the head of twenty-two legions, and would no longer be treated as a subordinate. His arguments were sound; but they needed to be backed by a determination as fixed as that of his rival, and, above all, by the loyalty of his army. Neither of these advantages were his. In a stormy interview with Cæsar he shewed that he could scold as loudly as another. But when they had parted, he failed from indolence or blindness to detect that Cæsar’s agents were undermining the fidelity of his men, especially in the Pompeian legions, by informing them that without Cæsar’s assent the promises made them by Lepidus would not be held valid. On his next visit to the camp of Lepidus with a small bodyguard, Cæsar was mobbed by the soldiers, and even had some of his guard killed, but when in revenge for this he invested Lepidus with his main army, the forces of the latter began quickly to melt away, and before many days he was compelled to throw himself at Cæsar’s feet. He was forced to abdicate the triumvirate, and sent to reside in Italy, where he remained till his death (B.C. 13), in a private capacity and subject to constant mortifications. He retained indeed the office of Pontifex Maximus, because of certain religious difficulties as to its abdication, but he was never allowed to exercise any but the most formal functions. This treatment of a colleague was not generous; but the whole career of Lepidus since the beginning of the civil war had been weak and shifty. He was “the greatest weathercock in the world” (ventosissimus),[190] as Decimus Brutus told Cicero, and he certainly presents the most pitiful figure of all the leading men of the day.
The fate of Sextus Pompeius, B.C. 35.
The old policy of Philippi and Perusia was followed as regards the forces of Pompeius. Senators and equites were, it is to be feared, in many cases put to the sword; while the rank and file were admitted into Cæsar’s army, and an amnesty was granted to those Sicilian towns which had submitted either to Pompeius or Lepidus. Africa and Sicily Cæsar took over as his part of the Empire and appointed proprætors to each. He did not attempt to pursue Sextus Pompeius; he preferred that Antony should have the responsibility and perhaps the odium of dealing with him. In fact, he did some years afterwards make his execution a ground of complaint against Antony. Yet Antony seems to have had little choice in the matter. For Pompeius acted in Asia much as he had acted in Sicily and Italy, capturing towns and plundering ships, while sending peaceful embassies to Antony, offering to serve him against Cæsar. Being at last compelled to surrender to Amyntas (made king of Pisidia by Antony), and being by him delivered to Antony’s legate Titius, he was taken to Miletus and there put to death. But it was, and still remains, uncertain whether this was done by Antony’s order.
He was just forty, and had led a strange life since he witnessed his father’s death from the ship off the coast of Egypt. He seems to have had some generous qualities which attached men to him. But the times were out of joint, and he was compelled to live the life of a pirate and freebooter, having a grievance against every successive party that gained power at Rome, trusting none, and feeling no obligation to treat them as fellow citizens or even as noble enemies. He seems to have missed more than one chance of crushing Cæsar; but his troops, though numerous, were fitted neither by spirit nor by discipline to encounter regularly trained legions in open fight. We cannot withhold a certain admiration for the courage and energy which maintained him as virtual ruler of no inconsiderable portion of the Roman Empire for nearly twelve years.
Augustus addressing Troops.