00:00:00.080Hello and welcome back to this episode of Epochs, where once again I shall be continuing my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.
00:00:07.400Now, last time, if you remember, we're getting to the most juicy bit, the start of the actual Civil War itself.
00:00:13.100In fact, it has basically kicked off at the end of last episode when I talked about Caesar crossing the Rubicon.
00:00:18.640So, let's continue straight from there.
00:00:21.440In Plutarch's life of Pompey, he says this,
00:00:23.680A few days later, Caesar entered and occupied Rome. He did what he could to calm people's fears and behaved with great moderation to everyone, except in the case of Metellus, one of the tribunes, who tried to prevent him taking money out of the public treasury.
00:00:39.800Caesar badly needed money at this point.
00:00:41.980Caesar threatened to have Metellus put to death and followed up with the threat with language of even greater truculence.
00:00:48.500It was much easier for him, he said, to do this than to say it, i.e. I could order you killed quicker than it takes to actually kill you.
00:00:57.340So, with Metellus overruled in this way, Caesar took what he wanted from the treasury and then set out in pursuit of Pompey, since he wanted to drive him out of Italy before his forces in Spain could come to join him.
00:01:08.680Meanwhile, Pompey had occupied Brundisium.
00:01:11.160He found plenty of transports there and immediately put the consoles and 30 cohorts of soldiers on board the ships and sent them across before him to Dyrrhachium.
00:01:20.560He sent his father-in-law Scipio and his son Gnaeus to Syria to raise a fleet.
00:01:25.300He himself barricaded the gates and stationed the most likely armed soldiers on the walls.
00:01:30.220He told the citizens of Brundisium to stay quiet in their houses and then dig up all the ground inside the city, cutting trenches across the streets and filling them with stakes sunk in the earth, all except for two streets, by which in the end he made his way down to the sea.
00:01:46.680He spent two days in embarking the main body of his troops in a quiet and orderly manner and on the third day suddenly gave the signal to men who were guarding the walls.
00:01:56.100They hurried down quickly, were taken aboard and brought across to Dyrrhachium.
00:02:01.580Caesar, seeing the walls unguarded, realised that Pompey was making his escape and in following closely after him, he nearly got his own troops entangled in the ditches and stakes.
00:02:10.540The people of Brundisium, however, warned him about them and so he kept clear of the city and wheeled around it to the harbour, where he found that all the transports had put to sea, except two which had only a few soldiers on board.
00:02:23.560End quote. So Pompey gets away there by the skin of his teeth, was very nearly caught at Brundisium before jumping across the Adriatic, but he did escape and he has got the word out to everyone in the east and west that it's on now, that he is at war with Caesar.
00:02:39.740So, you know, he gets messages to his legions stationed in Spain and if you remember last time he'd sent word out to everyone in the east, all his clients and client kingdoms in the east, to start raising and mustering men on his behalf.
00:02:54.840Plutarch goes on saying, quote, most people hold the view that this withdrawal of Pompey can be considered among his most remarkable military achievements.
00:03:04.180Caesar himself, however, was astonished that he abandoned and surrendered Italy when he was based on a strong city, was expecting his forces from Spain and had complete control of the seas.
00:03:15.360Cicero also finds fault with him, Pompey that is, for following the strategy of Themistocles rather than that of Pericles, when the position in which he found himself was like that of Pericles and not like that of Themistocles.
00:03:29.560And Caesar certainly showed by his actions that he very much feared the idea of a long war.
00:03:35.600For after he had captured Numerius, a friend of Pompey, he sent him to Brundisium with an offer of peace and reconciliation on fair and equal terms.
00:03:46.040Numerius, however, sailed away with Pompey.
00:03:49.240Caesar, who without bloodshed had in 60 days become the master of the whole of Italy, would have liked to have followed after Pompey at once.
00:03:56.780But there were no transports available.
00:03:59.220And so he turned back and marched into Spain, wishing to bring over to himself the soldiers of Pompey who were stationed there.
00:04:06.540So that's actually quite a big, important strategic decision Caesar makes there.
00:04:11.780He sees that Pompey, the senior Pompey, because Pompey's sons become important later, but the main Pompey, the Pompey Magnus, just escapes from him at Brundisium.
00:04:23.760He escapes across to what would be Epirus or modern day Albania, Greece.
00:04:29.460Instead of attempting to follow him as quickly as he possibly can, he makes the, as I say, strategic decision to actually abandon that chase and go west into Spain and take out Pompey's armies there.
00:04:44.380You know, because fighting on two fronts is always a nightmare.
00:04:48.160It's always the last thing you want is to be in a pincer, is to be being attacked from two sides at once.
00:04:54.660So Caesar made the calculation, and you can only say correctly, that he needed to do away with the Spanish armies first and foremost.
00:05:01.780And then he can turn his full attention back to Pompey Magnus without fear that he might have to turn around at one point.
00:05:10.160Appian tells us this at this point, quote,
00:05:13.440Some of Pompey's army had sailed with the consuls to Dyrrhachium, but he assembled the rest at Brundisium to wait for the return of the ships, which had taken the consuls across.
00:05:24.260He beat off Caesar's attacks on the walls and dug trenches in the streets until his fleet came back.
00:05:30.700He then put out to sea in the early evening, leaving his bravest men on the walls, who themselves sailed out with a fair wind when the night fell.
00:05:39.100In this way, Pompey left Italy and crossed to Epirus with his entire army.
00:05:44.440Caesar was baffled as to which way to turn and from what point to start the campaign.
00:05:49.100He saw that support was flowing to Pompey from all quarters.
00:05:52.280Men, materiel, money, Pompey and the Senate's influence and resources were vast, obviously much bigger than Caesar's.
00:05:58.780And he was afraid that Pompey's army in Spain, which was large and well-trained through long service, would attack him from the rear if he pursued Pompey.
00:06:07.540So he decided to march to Spain and destroy it first, but divided his force into five.
00:06:13.840To protect Italy, he left one detachment in Brundisium, one in Hydrantum and one in Tarentum.
00:06:20.300He sent another force under Quintus Valerius to take possession of the grain-producing island of Sardinia and Asinius Polio to Sicily.
00:06:28.960Here Cato was in charge, and when Cato inquired whether it was from the Senate or the people that he had authority to trespass in another man's sphere,
00:06:39.400So Cato ousted from his little bolt hole in Sicily quite easily there.
00:06:58.840He obviously realised Caesar wouldn't just leave him alone, wouldn't allow him just to be governor quietly there for a year or two.
00:07:05.120So he realises he has to fully Cato, this is, he realises he has to sort of fully side with Pompey, completely be in Pompey's military camp, basically.
00:07:16.260There's no, you can run, but you can't hide from Caesar if he decides he's not going to leave you alone.
00:07:21.420Appian continues, Caesar made haste to Rome, where with a variety of hopes and promises he reassured the people who were terrified by the recollection of their sufferings at the hands of Sulla and Marius,
00:07:33.140and signalled his generosity towards his enemies by pointing out that he had captured and dismissed even Lucius Domitius, one of Caesar's worst enemies really.
00:07:43.260He had dismissed Lucius Domitius unharmed and with his money.
00:07:49.160He broke open the locks of the state treasury and when Metellus, one of the tribunes, tried to prevent him, threatened him with death.
00:07:57.420He also removed some of the untouchable money, which is said to have been deposited a long time ago for use against the Gauls,
00:08:04.440with a public curse against its disturbance for any other reason than the outbreak of a Gallic war.
00:08:10.220So a special fund in a temple there, special big cash of money meant for defending themselves in extreme cases against the Gauls.
00:08:21.700But Caesar says, you don't really need that anymore after what I just did to the Gauls.
00:08:26.300Appian continues, Caesar, however, claimed that he had himself neutralised the Gauls and released Rome from the curse.
00:08:33.180Therefore, he could just take that money.
00:08:35.500He put Marcus Emelius in charge of the city and the tribune Marc Antony in charge of Italy and its military forces.
00:08:44.680Overseas, he appointed Curio governor of Sicily in place of Cato.
00:08:48.880Quintus, governor of Sardinia, sent Gaius Antonius to Illyria and entrusted Cisalpine Gaul to Licinius Crassus.
00:08:56.340He also gave orders for two fleets to be built as quickly as possible on the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coasts and appointed as admirals Hortensius and Dolabella while the ships were still under construction.
00:09:09.580So now we enter a period, a fairly brief period, a few months, a year or so, where both sides are sort of getting everything together for a big confrontation.
00:09:19.300Both sides are fairly feverishly working to build up the biggest army they possibly can for what's sure to come.
00:09:27.480After a sudden flood had swept away the bridge, Petrarius's men killed a large number of Caesar's soldiers.
00:09:57.460troops who were cut off on the other side, and Caesar himself, along with the rest of his army, suffered intense hardship from the difficult terrain and hunger and enemy action and the fact it was still winter.
00:10:10.780The operation was indistinguishable from a siege until, with the arrival of summer, Afranius and Petrarius started to march to the interior of Spain to recruit more soldiers.
00:10:22.240Caesar always anticipated them, blocking off the parties with entrenchments, preventing them from going on and actually surrounding a detachment of theirs, which had been sent ahead to occupy a site for a camp.
00:10:34.840These raised their shields above their heads in token of surrender.
00:10:39.020But Caesar neither took them prisoner nor put them to death.
00:10:42.240Instead, he bid for popularity with his enemies everywhere by letting them go back safely to Afranius's army.
00:10:48.940As a result, there was constant fraternization between the camps, and among the rank and file, talk of an understanding.
00:10:56.620So it's important to note there, Caesar constantly playing the propaganda game or the battle for the hearts and minds.