The Horse Changer

by Craig Smith

  We arrived on the broad plain below the fortress in the early afternoon of the Ides of March and proceeded to build eight interconnected legionary camps. These Caesar fortified with a staked ditch and high palisade. I was not privy to Caesar’s battle plan; I only knew that Dolabella’s cavalry was supposed to wait in reserve with our forces spread out evenly before the ditch. When called forward, we might come in smaller units and be expected to support a folding line. If the battle was going well we might arrive in force, hoping to break through the enemy line at its weakest point. At the start, however, our only job was to wait. This allowed me the chance to watch Caesar’s army take the field.

  Caesar anchored his line with Legio X at the far right wing, where he would fight as well. This legion Caesar trusted beyond all others, and they loved Caesar as men love their fathers. Why not? He had turned them all into heroes with his book, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul. What man, once named and lauded for his courage in a famous book, can ever back down from a fight? No, he will die before he will run. The same as Caesar would do. Leaving aside Dolabella’s reserve cavalry, Caesar amassed five thousand horsemen evenly at either end of the line. When the army had settled into formation, each legion was clearly marked out on the field. Eight legions, each with its own reserve cohorts behind it.

  After his army had formed for battle Caesar rode across the frontline. We could see Caesar’s scarlet cloak even from our camp. Caesar’s inspection was a leisurely one. He called out to men in every legion, officers and infantry alike. As I learned later, he made light of the high ground Pompey commanded. He said when a man has filled his army with slaves and untried boys they’ve only enough courage to run downhill. He also made the point that their great numbers meant Pompey had plenty of gold in his camp to pay them. ‘That’s our gold, friends!’

  When he had finished his survey, Caesar took his position with the cavalry on the right flank, just behind Legio X. An hour passed, and Pompey still remained in his camps. After that Legio X started with the catcalls. Soon enough some of the more animated fellows began running out before their frontline. Turning their backs to the rebel camp, they lifted their tunics to expose their arses.

  When it was clear that Pompey’s son had no intention of coming out that day, Caesar ordered the flagmen to signal the legions to return to camp. They formed their lines again, grew quiet, and left the field with the good cheer of men who haven’t played the cowards. As for the talk that evening, it was uniformly in praise of Gnaeus Pompey. The lad had finally looked at Caesar’s legions and resisted the impulse to run away.

  Next morning, Caesar’s army spilled out across the plain again exactly as before. As on the previous morning, Gnaeus Pompey remained behind his palisade while we formed for battle. I thought he might refuse to fight again, but once Caesar’s army was in place, Pompey ordered his army to the field.

  With thirteen legions, Pompey’s fighting men numbered well over sixty thousand infantry. In addition to these men, he enjoyed another six thousand cavalrymen. This against Caesar’s thirty-five thousand infantry and eight thousand horse. Using his numbers to advantage, Pompey’s legions spread across the plain with reserve lines twice as deep as those of Caesar’s legions.

  The open ground between the two armies offered a slight incline for us most of the way. Only at the end did we face a steep climb. Caesar therefore made no order to advance. He wanted Pompey to leave his plateau and come across the plain before he answered. Pompey of course understood his advantage and refused. He had waited all winter. If Caesar would not attempt an uphill charge Pompey would wait another day. He would wait all spring and summer if he had to.

  Once it was clear Pompey did not intend to move, Caesar sent a courier to one of his cavalry prefects. The prefect sent three hundred light cavalry between the two armies. These men were armed with two javelins each and carried a shield sufficient for stopping darts and small stones. They drifted quite close to Pompey’s line as they crossed the field because Caesar hoped to lure the enemy cavalry forward. From there the fight might spread and leave Pompey no choice but to come off his high ground. Pompey refused to take the bait. Instead, he answered with two cohorts of archers. They came before their line in a cluster and began raining arrows down on our horsemen.

  Caesar’s cavalry turned toward them at once, forming a slender column. When the first men were in range, they threw one of their javelins, then turned away at a ninety degree angle. The rapid breaking away from the column after a cavalryman threw his spear allowed the next man in line to throw his javelin, decimating the archers with a continuous barrage.

  A second cohort of heavy cavalry left Caesar’s line in anticipation of Pompey sending horsemen forward to save his archers, but Pompey refused to engage. He let his archers run back to cover without assistance. With Pompey’s line standing at attention and offering nothing by way of a fight, our lancers came forward and chased them down with impunity, then retreated to the open plain, where both of Caesar’s cavalry units proceeded to gather the wounded and those men who had lost their horses. From there they returned to Caesar’s line.

  Having no choice if he wanted a fight, Caesar sent his army forward in a cadenced march. In the old days, Roman armies came with rhythmic shouts as they beat their shields. This was to excite fear in the enemy. No longer. Caesar’s men came silently, thirty-five thousand strong with only the centurions calling out orders. Every centurion’s optio watched the flags in case the orders were suddenly changed, but the centurion watched the men in his century. On command, they could stop midstride or advance at a run. This is how they drilled: every man ready to obey his centurion.

  As the distance between the armies closed, Caesar sent his archers forward, a cohort at either end of the line with cavalry standing by to defend them. Pompey’s archers answered, this time with cavalry in support. For the moment neither side wasted ammunition. Caesar called a halt when the two armies were a furlong apart, roughly an eighth of a mile. When Pompey still did not move, Caesar cut behind his legions and rode as far as the centre of his line. There, passing off his cavalry shield to one of his staff, he took up a legionary’s long shield and walked briskly through the files of his men. Passing his frontline, Caesar kept walking.

  Thirty steps before the line he finally came to a halt and drew his sword. Holding it high, he shouted across the field: ‘If you’re looking for Caesar, children, HERE I AM!’

  Not a sound came from either army, but Pompey’s archers before the lines let loose. The arrows came from both flanks. They climbed like hundreds of migratory birds, closing together as they soared. They were black specks against a blue sky, moving as if directed by a singular intelligence, rising, cresting and then curving down en masse toward a single point.

  They snapped into Caesar’s shield with such force those closest to Caesar later said it sounded like hail cracking against tin. Caesar’s shield stopped nearly a hundred darts. At Caesar’s feet were more than a thousand arrows. In the next instant, without any order given, Pompey’s line broke and ran at us.

  Our legions stepped forward, not yet running, but eager to cover Caesar. Once his army had overtaken him, Caesar called out to his men as they marched by. He showed them his ruined shield, if only to give them courage. As for his person he had received not so much as a scratch.

  Much as he might have wanted, Pompey could not call his men back. They ran downhill in a ragged, insane charge; they roared as if every man expected a chance at Caesar himself. Caesar’s line stayed in better form. At twenty paces, both frontlines let fly their spears. These hit with a hollow thump of steel against wood, an odd cacophony that served as preamble to the thunderous crash of two lines colliding.

  There was no subtlety here, nothing of our general’s genius at play, only a mile-long line with thousands of mortal duels transpiring at once. If one man proved stronger he would slip his gladius beneath the other’s guard or maybe over the top. A quick wound to the belly or the eyes, a twist of the point as
the blade exited: that was all that was needed to take a man down. The next enemy came for more of the same, shields cracking again, blades slithering forward. If that failed to bring blood, both men pulled back. Then a second collision, one man suddenly taking ground, the other giving it away grudgingly, playing out their duels in tight confines, backs always to their own men. The blades slipping high or low or around the side of the shields, like serpents lunging.

  Two or three duels saw a legionary finally brought down with a wound or too tired to fight another. Back he went along the files to the congratulatory shouts of his mates. The next man stepped up, happy for the chance to spill blood. Taking a charge, falling back, then pushing forward, the shield, swinging like a scythe, as much a weapon as the gladius. Up and down the line it went like this, anonymous men fighting in dust so thick they could hardly breathe. Young men eager for glory. Old fighters taking the measure of their foes before getting too serious.

  For the first quarter of an hour I could see both armies; after that, the dust covered all but the back ranks of our legions. I could only listen to the fighting, the song of steel, the screams of the wounded.

  Sometime during the third hour of the battle Dolabella began riding along our line of reserve cavalry. He called to his prefects as he went. I looked at the battlefield, but I could not see that anything had changed. On the right, Legio X had edged forward slightly, but this seemed to me only another of the permutations of the battle line.

  In fact Caesar had suddenly pushed his men to take ground, and that is what prompted Dolabella to act. To my surprise our attack turned toward the army’s left flank, opposite Caesar’s position.

  The enemy commander on our left, Titus Labienus, had served as Caesar’s second-in-command in Gaul for many years. He must always have resented Caesar, for when the time came to pick a side, Labienus had joined Pompey Magnus. And now, having no choice but to live with a very bad decision, he rode with Pompey’s son.

  He saw us coming at the start of our attack and being hated by Caesar imagined we came for him. That was the point of Dolabella’s charge, but as we closed behind our left wing a few hundred of our number hit Labienus’s cavalry. As for the rest of us, we turned toward Caesar. Now completely screened from the enemy’s view by the dust in the field we rode at a controlled canter. I was coughing and blinded, like every man and horse out there.

  Circling behind Legio X, I could see the fight being pressed with terrifying fury. Caesar’s cavalry had come against the infantry’s flank. Pompey’s cavalry answered with every man available. I heard horses and men screaming; I saw hundreds of combatants from both sides down with wounds or already dead.

  At the centre of it the two cavalry forces had mixed completely together. A man could be fighting one enemy even as another closed on him from behind. The heavy lances were gone; this was sword against shield, and sometimes only the naked blades.

  And all so that we might pass by like a stream of ghosts through clouds of dust.

  We took arrows and stones from squads of archers and slingers at the rear. A few hundred reserve horsemen started to intercept us. Realizing our number exceeded three thousand, they turned back at once and retreated.

  We met three cohorts of men on horseback close to the camp palisade. We hit them with our lances lowered and broke through without any trouble. I brought down one rider in this charge; those behind him had already turned back toward the open gates of their camp. I stabbed another’s back as he rode away. I was ready to chase down a third victim when one of my decurions shouted something.

  He was pointing at the battlefield behind us and I pulled up for a better look. Gazing through the dust it was impossible to guess the number, but a mass of enemy cavalry had started across the plain in our direction. As I considered them, I felt my horse’s hindquarters dip; then the animal skittered excitedly.

  It could have been an arrow struck its haunches, or my horse might have stumbled on a corpse, but I knew the truth. I had committed the great error. I had let one of the enemy on the ground leap up behind me. As his grip closed around me, I lifted both arms. I sought to block easy access to my neck. Stopped in one assault, my assailant drove a dagger through my cuirass and into my ribs. The pain of the steel coming into me was like touching fire. Cold, then white hot. Having no chance of resisting the man as long as he hung on my back, I could only think to throw myself to the ground. My assailant came off my horse as well.

  We hit the ground together, his weight leaving me stunned. He rolled away. I blinked and tried in vain to breathe. I watched him pick up a heavy lance and tried to reach for my sword. A sharp pain in my shoulder stopped me; I had broken my collarbone without realising it. I hadn’t even strength enough to grip the weapon.

  I sat up facing him, thinking I might dodge the killing thrust. As for fear, I was strangely without it. Utterly calm, if you can believe it. I hoped to anticipate him, somehow to dodge the blade. This was pure folly, but in my innocence I was not prepared to admit this was my death.

  Dolabella rode over the man at a gallop; I had not even seen him coming. My would-be-killer flew several paces before landing in a heap. Once he hit the ground Dolabella’s Guard finished him, and that was it. Two of Dolabella’s men dismounted and lifted me up and carried me toward the enemy camp, which was already in our possession.

  I saw a slave coming for me with clean rags. I looked down at the dagger in my side and realised, finally, that I was close to death. I felt myself fading. I let my head settle into the dust as the slave bent down to inspect the wound. I heard the clap of horse’s hooves, the shouts of men. Then the dagger came ripping out of my ribs.

  After that, I heard nothing at all.

  The enemy cavalry charge I had observed might have overpowered Dolabella’s force if Pompey’s legions had not panicked at the sight of Labienus’s entire cavalry leaving the battlefield. Who can blame them? They had seen it before. They could only imagine their right wing had collapsed and Labienus was fleeing the field.

  Convinced a rout had started, Pompey’s army turned at once and ran. Those who got away first found their camp gates closed, already occupied by the enemy, but the city was not far away. And so they ran on without a backward glance and made it to safety.

  Those who followed them had mixed success. Some made it; some did not. For the rest it was death. Caesar’s left wing, led by his nephew, Quintus Pedius, began the rout. Once it had started, Caesar’s right wing was able to join them. Closing behind the cavalry were Caesar’s legions, all of them now coming at a run. It was Oculbo all over again, only with greater numbers. We came at the enemy’s back and into its vanguard; we swept up around their flanks. The killing continued all the way to the city walls. Once more, we took no prisoners. When it had finished, thirty thousand enemy lay dead or dying on the field. Of Caesar’s men only a thousand had perished, though a great many of us had been seriously wounded.

  I had lost quite a bit of blood after the surgeon pulled the blade free, and with my collarbone broken as well I was in serious peril. According to my doctor, a Greek slave formerly in Gnaeus Pompey’s army, the collarbone was easily set. As for the wound that had pierced my lungs, I nearly drowned in my own blood. For several days my doctor drained my wound and worried about infection. I hung between life and death, tied to my bed to keep me from moving.

  I ingested a mix of narcotics including opium, but the medicine was hardly sufficient for the job. I was in constant misery. Awakening I tasted a bit of broth, then I would sleep and dream. I asked about the battle at some point but could not follow anything beyond the simple fact that Caesar was victorious. Of course I ought to have concluded that much from the fact that I was still alive. A week afterwards my doctor was more hopeful, but he still worried about infection. For the sake of my broken collarbone and ribs, he kept me in traction several days longer.

  I learned at some point that Gnaeus Pompey had escaped once more. Titus Labienus had not been so lucky. His head presently decorate
d the entrance to Caesar’s command tent. This was presumably so that the two old friends might look one another in the eye.

  I was still bound to my bed when Caesar came to visit his wounded officers. I thought he only meant to see a few of the senior men and then move on. We were in fact a great number, including Dolabella, who had been struck by an arrow during the rout. Caesar had already started a siege against the town of Ronda, and he had sent a force back to reinforce the ongoing siege at Cordoba. So there was much for him to do and some worry still that he might not yet be as victorious as he seemed. Despite everything, Caesar took his time with his officers, ‘friends’ as he called us. Officer, legionary, or ally: his friends needed a personal thank you, and Caesar never failed to give it. When he came to me, his attending slave read from a scroll and whispered my name and rank, but Caesar spoke at once, as if needing no prompt, ‘Quintus Dellius!’

  He covered my hand with his own. I feel it still these fifty years afterwards, the warmth of the man, the charm, the mastery over others he possessed like no other I have ever known. ‘I owe you a debt of gratitude, my friend.’