The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Epochs, where once again I shall be continuing my narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.

00:00:06.560 Now, if you remember last time we left off where Caesar had lost a fairly big battle at Dyrrhachium against Pompey.

00:00:13.560 The civil war is now in full swing.

00:00:15.700 And so the next big battle is Pharsalus, which is really the big battle between Pompey and Caesar.

00:00:22.640 So let's jump straight in and let the main sources, Appian and Plutarch, tell us about how it all went down.

00:00:31.100 OK, so carrying straight on from that victory at Dyrrhachium, which Pompey, if you remember, really should have won if he'd followed up.

00:00:40.180 He could well have defeated Caesar entirely.

00:00:43.360 If you remember, Caesar had said, today my enemies would have finished the war if they had a commander who knew how to win a victory.

00:00:49.760 Ooh, cutting, cutting there, Caesar against Pompey.

00:00:54.100 Yeah, some people said Pompey was, he was always, I mean, sluggish is a bit unfair, but he was never particularly decisive.

00:01:02.280 You know, we've said many, many times, Caesar's thing is to be fast and quick and turn up where people wouldn't expect.

00:01:10.660 Pompey was never, that was never Pompey's bag.

00:01:14.280 But as he's got older now, he has begun to become sluggish.

00:01:18.260 So on top of never being particularly decisive, they throw on top of that a little bit of caution and you're left with a type of commander who might not follow up a victory.

00:01:29.680 OK, so now Appian tells us then, quote,

00:01:31.980 Pompey wrote to the kings and to all the cities, largely of the east, that is, exaggerating the extent of his victory and believed that Caesar's army would immediately desert to him because it was suffering from famine and demoralized by defeat.

00:01:46.580 And particularly so its officers, because they feared retribution for their own mistakes, but they were divinely inspired to repent and feel ashamed for their failure.

00:01:57.960 And when Caesar was lenient in his criticisms and offered to pardon them, they became still more angry with themselves.

00:02:04.880 And in a paradoxical reversal of attitude, told him to make them draw lots according to the ancestral custom and put a tenth of them to death.

00:02:15.260 They're asking to be decimated out of shame.

00:02:18.320 They agreed that they had done him wrong and without good reason, because remember, they basically fled to the field at Dyrrachia.

00:02:25.680 They couldn't be rallied, which is, you know, quite shameful.

00:02:29.160 And clamored, they had done him wrong without good reason and clamored for the standard bearers to be put to death, blaming the standard bearers,

00:02:36.060 alleging that they themselves would never have fled if the standards had not already been thrown away.

00:02:42.340 But when Caesar would not consent even to this, he refuses to decimate them, and reluctantly punished a few men,

00:02:49.520 such a wave of enthusiasm swept over them there and then in response to his self-restraint that they asked him to lead them immediately against the enemy.

00:02:58.200 They pressed him with intense eagerness, pleading with him and promising to redeem their failure by winning a splendid victory.

00:03:05.840 They turned to each other unprompted and swore an oath by individual companies in front of Caesar himself that they would not return from battle unless they were victorious.

00:03:15.740 So many of Caesar's men, particularly the men responsible for breaking and running away at Dyrrachium,

00:03:22.180 are mortified with themselves, absolutely mortified with themselves, and sort of pleading with Caesar to punish them, to give them another chance.

00:03:30.760 You know, just give me another chance, coach. I can make it good.

00:03:34.240 And Caesar, I mean, most people say that Caesar didn't really have much choice.

00:03:38.900 He might have pretended that he might have decimated them, but he wasn't in a position to, he hasn't got enough men as it is.

00:03:46.000 So there was probably no way he was going to do that.

00:03:48.440 He was like, OK, I'll let you fight for me again, OK.

00:03:52.740 But he actually needed every man jack of them, you would have thought. 0.97

00:03:56.980 He was always outnumbered.

00:03:58.880 And then to have lost Dyrrachium to Pompey is even more outnumbered.

00:04:03.400 So he's going to need every man in the field he could possibly get.

00:04:07.540 Appian goes on.

00:04:08.240 His companions accordingly encouraged him to put such a change of heart and such eagerness on the part of the army to good use.

00:04:16.640 However, to the rank and file, he said that he would lead them against the enemy where more propitious, i.e. the reality is, I can't really attack Pompey anymore.

00:04:26.880 I want a big engagement, but I kind of need him to attack us.

00:04:31.200 It's not going to be good, tactically speaking, if we just go and attack him immediately now.

00:04:36.060 That's not going to work for me.

00:04:38.580 Call your jets a little bit.

00:04:40.240 Let's not get carried away now.

00:04:42.000 We're in a tight spot.

00:04:43.380 We've got to do everything properly.

00:04:44.580 And told them not to forget their eagerness.

00:04:47.400 And to his companions, he made the point that he must first eradicate the fear of defeat that was widespread among the troops and destroy the surging confidence of the enemy.

00:04:58.760 He further admitted that he had changed his mind about camping near Dyrrachium, where all Pompey's suppliers were, when the right course was to lure them elsewhere to suffer the same difficulties as themselves.

00:05:10.720 With these words, he immediately set out for Apollonia, and from there retreated to Thessaly, slipping away under cover of night.

00:05:18.800 Gomphie, a small town, shut him out, and in anger he took it and handed it over to his soldiers to sack. 0.77

00:05:26.020 As one would expect of men who had been starving, they stuffed themselves endlessly with everything and became disgracefully drunk, particularly the Germans, who were quite ridiculous when they were under the influence. 1.00

00:05:38.360 One could only guess what Appian really meant by that.

00:05:40.720 I think that an attack by Pompey then would have achieved a notable result, if out of contempt for Caesar, he had not completely neglected to follow him until he encamped near Pharsalus after seven days' rapid marching.

00:05:53.620 It is said that at Gomphie, among notable tragedies, there were to be seen in a doctor's surgery the corpses of the distinguished elders of the town, with drinking cups laying beside their unhurt bodies.

00:06:06.180 Twenty of them lay on the ground as if they had succumbed to drunkenness, and one who had surely been giving them the poison was sitting beside them on a chair like a doctor.

00:06:17.160 So the leading people of this small town poisoned themselves, rather than be subject to a sacking.

00:06:24.100 Probably can't blame them.

00:06:25.800 Appian continues,

00:06:26.480 Meanwhile, Pompey himself should rapidly lead the land forces to Italy, which was sympathetic to him and clear of enemy, and after making himself master of it, and Gaul and Spain, launch another attack on Caesar.

00:06:56.480 Caesar from a base in his own native land, the country which was the mistress of the world.

00:07:02.200 But Pompey disregarded this advice, which would have been the best, says Appian, and listened to those who said that hunger would soon make Caesar's army desert to him, or that what remained to be done after the victory at Dyrrachium would give them little trouble.

00:07:16.120 So there's disagreement in Pompey's camp over the strategy.

00:07:20.820 How exactly to finish Caesar off?

00:07:22.980 I mean, there's three main options, aren't there, really? 0.96

00:07:25.540 Let's attack him as soon as possible. 0.97

00:07:27.360 There's try and starve him out. 0.94

00:07:29.400 And then there's sort of the super long-term view of going, you know, leaving Greece entirely, securing Italy and even Gaul and Spain.

00:07:39.700 Because remember, last time Caesar had sort of flipped Spain.

00:07:42.720 So, you know, go and flip that back.

00:07:45.500 But, you know, who knows what Caesar might have done in that time?

00:07:47.780 That would have taken months and months, or a year or so, or more, maybe.

00:07:50.700 Who knows?

00:07:51.300 Caesar's weak position after Dyrrachium could well have been completely reversed if Pompey did that.

00:07:57.280 Who knows?

00:07:57.960 Who knows?

00:07:58.320 But at this stage, Pompey decides that sort of, you know, the starving out option is best.

00:08:05.780 Most people, most historians and scholars and even, you know, sort of real military people that look back on this and comment on all this sort of thing, most people say that's probably the right decision.

00:08:16.220 Attacking Caesar, letting Caesar meet you in open battle, that's almost certainly not a good idea, despite what just happened at Dyrrachium.

00:08:23.300 That's probably not going to be a good idea.

00:08:25.700 And then this much, much long-term view, that may or may not work, that might blow up in your face, ultimately.

00:08:31.900 So the safest thing to do, and probably tactically, the best thing to do would be to sort of starve him out or, you know, make them extremely thirsty.

00:08:41.680 And they'll just desert, they'll just give, the men will just give in.

00:08:44.840 That was very common.

00:08:46.720 So Pompey's probably, almost certainly, made the right decision there.

00:08:51.020 You know, we'll talk about how Pompey might be getting on a bit, becoming a bit sluggish and things, but he's no fool.

00:08:57.940 He never was a fool.

00:08:59.560 You don't get to Pompey's position. 0.94

00:09:02.100 You don't get to have had a 30 years long career or more without ever losing a battle if you don't understand war properly.

00:09:10.540 So, okay, let's continue on here.

00:09:12.680 Appian says, quote,

00:09:13.360 Also, the opposite course was highly disgraceful, i.e. to leave Caesar to run away and for the winner to run away, just like the losers.

00:09:22.480 Pompey sided with the second view out of respect, particularly for the eastern peoples who had supported him.

00:09:28.500 Because all those men he's raised from kings and magnates in the east, they're not just going to stay with him indefinitely.

00:09:34.660 Right.

00:09:35.860 And from a wish not to risk any disaster from Lucius Scipio, who was still in Macedonia.

00:09:42.160 Intending to exploit his army's keenness for battle, he came close up with Caesar and took up a position opposite him near Pharsalus, with nearly four miles between the camps.

00:09:52.900 Pompey had suppliers coming from every direction.

00:09:55.180 The roads and harbours and strong points had been so organised beforehand that he had a continuous supply by land, and by sea every wind brought him something.

00:10:05.840 Caesar, on the other hand, was suffering and had only what he could with difficulty find and seize.

00:10:11.960 Even under these circumstances, no one deserted him, and his men longed with supernatural enthusiasm to come to grips with the enemy.

00:10:20.960 I mean, that speaks volumes, doesn't it?

00:10:22.400 The degree to which Caesar's men are loyal to him is famous, isn't it?

00:10:28.020 Appian continues.

00:10:28.720 They considered that their ten years' practice made them a great deal better at fighting than men who were still raw recruits.

00:10:36.340 But that advancing age meant that they had less endurance for exhausting tasks of entrenchment or circumnavigation or foraging.

00:10:44.320 They were tired, and on the whole, it seemed preferable to them to do something rather than perish by inaction and famine.

00:10:53.320 That's a classic thing.

00:10:54.340 Whenever you're in a tight spot, do something, right?

00:10:57.320 Being petrified is almost never the right thing to do.

00:11:02.140 You've got to keep making decisions.

00:11:03.940 You've got to keep doing things.

00:11:05.260 You've got to keep moving forward.

00:11:06.860 Otherwise, you know, you're just a deer in the headlights, which is no good to anybody.

00:11:10.000 Pompey realised this and thought it risky to stake everything on a single engagement against men who were well-trained and desperate, and against Caesar's famous good luck.

00:11:20.380 It would be more effective and less dangerous to wear them down through lack of suppliers, as they were neither in control of productive territory, nor did they have the use of the sea, nor did they possess ships to make a speedy escape.

00:11:33.860 Pompey has sort of cornered them.

00:11:35.220 On the basis of this excellent analysis, he decided to conduct a war of attrition and reduce his enemies from victims of hunger to victims of disease.

00:11:45.100 Again, it's not a bad idea.

00:11:47.620 It probably was the correct call. 0.88

00:11:49.800 But he had around him a great number of senators of equal status to himself.

00:11:54.060 Well, not quite equal, but still of the senatorial order.

00:11:57.360 Some of them lacked experience, some were unreasonably elated by the success at Dyrrachium, some also by their superiority in numbers, and some were thoroughly tired of the war and keen to put an unduly rapid end to it.

00:12:17.440 They all urged Pompey to fight, constantly drawing his attention to Caesar, who kept on forming up his army and offering battle.

00:12:25.420 But from that very fact, he drew the lesson for them that Caesar was forced to do this because of his shortage of suppliers, and precisely for this reason, it was the right moment for them to do nothing, because Caesar was driven to act by necessity.

00:12:39.500 All the troops protested against this decision, because they were over-elated by the events at Dyrrachium, and so did the men of rank, who mocked him for his love of office, and said that he was deliberately delaying so that he could give orders to so many men of equal status to himself.

00:12:56.500 They also called him king of kings and Agamemnon, because Agamemnon too had kings under his command in war.

00:13:03.200 Pompey therefore abandoned his own analysis, and gave in to them, a victim of divine malice, both on this occasion and on the others throughout the war.

00:13:13.440 Indeed, he was unnaturally slow and sluggish about everything, and prepared unwillingly for battle, to his own detriment, and that of those who were misleading him.

00:13:22.820 So this is a key, key thing. Perhaps the most key thing. Perhaps the seed, well, it is really sort of the seed of Pompey's ultimate defeat, is that Caesar needed a battle.

00:13:35.060 It was the only way out for Caesar, really, was for Pompey to accept battle, and then, hopefully, fingers crossed, to win that battle against the odds, against the numbers.

00:13:46.640 But that was Caesar's only way out. If Pompey had just sort of blockaded him, mirrored him, and blockaded him, and starved him out, and as Appian says, turned hunger into disease,

00:13:57.100 then there wouldn't have been a great deal Caesar could have done about it, and it was just a matter of time.

00:14:02.440 But the key, key thing is that everyone, if you believe the account, nearly everyone around Pompey doesn't want to do that.

00:14:10.440 They find that disgraceful on some level. It's like, wrap this thing up. You've already broken Caesar's back at Dyrrachian.

00:14:17.460 You've already shown that you can beat him. He's just there to be wiped out. He's there to be mopped up and finished off.

00:14:24.400 Do it. Why aren't you doing it? You know, what are you, a coward? What are we, men or mice? Come on, get this thing over and done with.

00:14:30.900 The quicker this civil war is over and done with, the better. The quicker any war is over and done with, the better.

00:14:36.040 So why are you drawing this out? And they even accuse him of just, you know, wanting to be in command over them,

00:14:43.380 wanting to draw that out for its own sake. That seems like nonsense to me.

00:14:47.660 I mean, who knows what was actually in Pompey's mind, what his actual motivations were.

00:14:52.680 But I, personally, just personal opinion alert, I doubt that was a big factor in his mind.

00:14:57.760 He's already the most eminent man in Rome. Why would he particularly care about this one command,

00:15:05.900 drawing it out for a few extra weeks or months for its own sake? That doesn't really ring true to me.

00:15:11.360 But anyway, who knows? Appian says that's what they accused him of, trying to be an Agamemnon,

00:15:16.340 trying to draw that out for as long as possible. But so, Pompey gives in to them.

00:15:20.820 If he was a really strong leader, a strong, strong leader, you know, like an Alexander or a Napoleon type person,

00:15:28.320 he would have swept that aside. You know, he would have said to them, look, who's in command here?

00:15:33.480 You or me? It's me. Thank you very much. So we're going to do it my way.

00:15:36.600 The Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, would sometimes pull that card on senior officers under him

00:15:42.340 who tried to do the tiniest thing for themselves, who showed the tiniest amount of initiative.

00:15:47.580 You know, who's in control of the army? You or me? Right. I issue all the orders and that's the end

00:15:53.460 of the story. That's it. So don't tell me about tactics or strategy. That's not for you to worry

00:15:58.160 about. Don't worry your pretty little heads about all that sort of thing. I am in complete 100%

00:16:04.680 command of the strategy. So thanks for your input. Now go away and let me do my job. But he didn't do

00:16:11.780 that. But, you know, people have always asked the question, was he capable of doing that? Was he

00:16:17.980 that type of leader? You know, why did he succumb to this pressure? He was doing the right thing.

00:16:25.500 Well, you know, it's easy to say in hindsight, isn't it? It's always very easy with 2020 hindsight,

00:16:31.080 say, ah, there, put your finger on it there. That was the problem. That was the mistake. But,

00:16:36.120 you know, we never know at the time what will or won't prove to be a mistake. If he had just won

00:16:41.680 the Battle of Pharsalus, it would have, you know, everyone would be saying, you know, Pompey was

00:16:46.920 better than Caesar. Caesar would be more of the footnote from history. And Pompey would have gone

00:16:53.180 down as one of the greatest military commanders of all time. But, you know, that's not how it went.

00:16:59.900 But yeah, any Pompey fans out there always disappointed by the fact that he sort of gave in to that

00:17:05.360 pressure. When if he just kept on doing what he was doing, he would have won. He almost certainly

00:17:10.780 would have won, it seems, to my mind. Most people agree. People like Mopson, scholars and historians

00:17:16.680 who've looked at this over the centuries, all agree that Caesar had no real way out. You can only

00:17:22.060 imagine when Caesar realised that Pompey was going to meet him in battle. He must have thought, thank God.

00:17:28.420 Thank God. Now we've actually got to win this thing against the odds. But thank God, that was the

00:17:32.520 lifeline I needed. Otherwise, we were just going to get starved out here. Okay, I'll let Appian continue.

00:17:38.040 He says this, quote, that night, three legions of Caesars were going out to forage. Caesar sent them

00:17:45.100 out to bring in food in the belief that Pompey was correct to hang back and thinking that under no

00:17:51.060 circumstances would the latter change his plan. But when he was informed of the preparations, he was

00:17:57.140 delighted at the pressure which he guessed the army had applied to Pompey and very quickly recalled all

00:18:02.800 his own forces and made counter preparations. So Caesar's like, oh God, that is the moment. Caesar's

00:18:08.220 like, thank God he gave in. All the men around Pompey, I mean, Caesar correctly infers that all the men

00:18:15.180 around Pompey are like, we don't want to stay in Thessaly, in Greece for months on end. We don't want to sit

00:18:22.220 here waiting this out. That's sort of beneath our dignity, if nothing else. He offered sacrifice in

00:18:28.420 the depth of the night, invoking Mars and his own ancestress, Venus. The Julian family is believed to

00:18:35.080 descend with an alteration in the name from Aeneas and vowed, if he was successful, to make a thank

00:18:41.880 offering by building a temple to her in Rome as bringer of victory. When a meteor flashed across from

00:18:47.760 Caesar's camp to Pompey's and was extinguished, Pompey's companions said something brilliant would

00:18:53.360 accrue to them from the enemy, while Caesar said he would descend on and extinguish the Pompeian cause.

00:19:00.160 The same night, some of Pompey's sacrificial animals escaped and were not recaptured, and a swarm of bees,

00:19:06.680 which are a sluggish form of life, settled on the altar. A little before dawn, a panic seized his army,

00:19:12.540 and after going round himself and quieting it, he fell into a deep sleep. When his companions roused

00:19:18.820 him, he kept repeating that he had just dreamed he was dedicating a temple in Rome to Venus, the

00:19:25.420 bringer of victory. Because they were ignorant of Caesar's prayer, Pompey's friends and his whole army

00:19:31.040 received this as welcome news. In other ways too, they went into battle with unreasonable enthusiasm

00:19:37.640 and contempt for the enemy as though victory was already won. Overconfidence, you see, hubris.

00:19:45.140 Again, easy to identify in hindsight. If they'd won, people would say, you know, they were right to be

00:19:51.800 that enthusiastic, or even that enthusiasm helped them to victory. Many of them had already actually

00:19:57.820 adorned their tents with laurel, the symbol of victory, and their slaves were preparing a splendid

00:20:03.920 banquet. These are the rich, the magnates and members of the senatorial order he's talking about

00:20:09.920 here. Some were even quarrelling with each other over Caesar's high priesthood, i.e. who should get

00:20:15.720 Caesar's offices once he's defeated. Pompey, with his experience of war, turned away, and although his

00:20:21.960 feelings of anger were justified, he nevertheless concealed them, and from hesitation and fear held his

00:20:27.940 tongue, like a man no longer giving the orders, but receiving them, and forced to act in every

00:20:33.400 respect against his better judgment. Again, weak, really. That's not what you want in a CO, a

00:20:39.180 commanding officer. The commanding officer must command. You know, it sounds obvious to say that

00:20:44.320 out loud, but he can't allow himself just to be swayed by people below him. Like a director or a

00:20:52.400 novelist, it nearly always has to be one mind, one vision. Doing these things by a committee is almost

00:20:59.980 certainly going to be an inferior way of doing it, if not a really bad way of doing it. Okay, so Pompey

00:21:06.040 acting against his better judgment. Such was the extent of the despondency that overwhelmed this man,

00:21:11.960 whose record was outstanding, and who had enjoyed the best of fortune in every undertaking until that

00:21:18.260 day. Again, Pompey was undefeated. Caesar wasn't undefeated. Caesar had suffered various reverses and

00:21:24.780 defeats over the years. Obviously no critical ones, fatal ones, but still, Pompey's record on paper was

00:21:32.440 better than Caesar's at this point. Remarkable as that is to say. Perhaps it was because he had failed

00:21:38.700 to convince them of his view of what needed to be done, and was gambling with the lives of so many

00:21:44.240 men, and with his own reputation for being hitherto undefeated. Or perhaps some more supernatural

00:21:50.340 foreboding of the imminent disaster troubled him, as he was about to be totally deprived of his great

00:21:56.100 power that day. After simply saying to his friends, whichever Syed wins, today will see the start of

00:22:02.440 terrible and unending troubles for Romans. He drew his forces up for battle. Some people believed that

00:22:08.620 this extremely revealing remark slipped out under the influence of fear, and thought he would not have

00:22:14.040 surrendered his supreme power, even if he had been victorious.

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PREVIEW： Epochs #193 ｜ Pompey & Caesar： Part XVIII

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