by R. W. Peake
Marching with Caesar-Civil War
Also by R.W Peake
Marching with Caesar-Conquest of Gaul
Critically Acclaimed
"Peake, a retired infantry Marine, brings to the familiar story of Caesar’s conquest of Gaul the gritty, boots-on-the-ground realism of personal experience, and the results are amazingly compelling...Fans of Roman historical fiction—or military fiction just in general—shouldn’t miss what looks to be one heck of a series."~The Historical Novel Society
“The hinge of history pivoted on the career of Julius Caesar, as Rome’s Republic became an Empire, but the muscle to swing that gateway came from soldiers like Titus Pullus. What an amazing story from a student now become the master of historical fiction at its best.” ~Professor Frank Holt, University of Houston
Marching With Caesar
Civil War
R.W. Peake
Marching with Caesar -Civil War by R.W. Peake
Copyright © 2012 by R.W. Peake
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2012
For Luke
Ever Faithful
Marching with Caesar-Civil War
Chapter 1 - Campaign against Afranius and Petreius
Chapter 2 - Greece
Chapter 3 - Dyrrhachium
Chapter 4 - Pharsalus
Chapter 5 - Alexandria
Chapter 6 - Veni Vidi Vici
Chapter 7 - Thapsus
Chapter 8 - Triumph
Chapter 9 - Munda
Chapter 10- Fall of a Titan
Foreword
It's hard to describe the feeling that comes from seeing the results of what was four years of your life so well received as the first book of this series, Marching With Caesar-Conquest of Gaul has been, and to say that it's humbling is an understatement. So before going any farther, I want to thank all of the readers who responded so enthusiastically to this tale of a common Gregarius in the Legions of Rome who, through a combination of luck and skill, managed to survive forty-two years Marching With Caesar.
Because of a choice I made early on in the telling of Titus' story, I hope that there will be a continuity in the pacing and style of all of the books. Very early on, when I recognized that this was going to be more than one book, I was at a point where I could have stopped to get the first book out, then picked the story back up. However, for a number of reasons, none of them adding up to more than a gut feeling, I made the decision to finish Titus' complete story arc first before releasing the first book. What this means in a tangible sense is that the amount and depth of research I did, which has been one of the aspects that has seen the most favorable comments from the readers, is exactly the same. I hope that this holds true for this second installment that covers the Caesarian Civil War.
I want to thank what has turned out to be a great team for helping me turn out a book that is hopefully the best that it can be. Beth Lynne, of BZHercules, has proven to be not only a first-rate editor but a sympathetic ear as I am learning to negotiate what it means to have some success at this, taking the bad with the good as it comes. This cover, like the cover for MWC-CoG, will hopefully turn out to be another great weapon, this time not-so-secret, and Marina Shipova's work will get the kind of notice and acclaim that it deserves. She has made Titus come alive, and as one can see, age and take on the trappings that come with advancement through the ranks in the form of a family. If I have anything to do with it, Marina will be the cover artist for every book of the series, and any other books that I do! Finally, the unending support and love of my family has continued to be the one constant in what has been a rollercoaster ride. Granted, there have mostly been up's, but there have certainly been some dips on this ride that were unforeseen. Knowing that ultimately my success or failure doesn't change the fact that my daughter still views her father as a Grade A knucklehead provides not only a level of comfort, but ensures that I keep my feet solidly on the ground.
So I hope you enjoy this second installment of Titus' story, and that you still feel as if you are Marching With Caesar, along with Titus, Vibius and their friends and comrades.
Semper Fidelis,
R.W. Peake
November, 2012
Chapter 1- Campaign against Afranius and Petreius
These are the words of Titus Pullus, formerly Legionary, Optio, Pilus Prior and Primus Pilus of Caesar's 10th Legion Equestris, now known as 10th Gemina, Primus Pilus of the 6th Ferrata, and Camp Prefect, as dictated to his faithful former slave, scribe, and friend, Diocles.
I am dictating this in my 61st year, three years after my retirement as Camp Prefect, in the tenth year of the reign of Augustus, and 489 years after the founding of the Roman Republic. I have more than 40 military decorations, including three gold torqs, three set of phalarae, two coronae civica, three coronae murales, and a corona vallaris. I have more than 20 battle scars on my body, all of them in the front, and my back is clean, never having been flogged in my 42 years in the Legions, nor have I turned my back to the enemy. Although my record is not as great as the revered Dentatus, I am well known in the Legions, and I have given the bulk of my life and blood to Rome.
My goal is straightforward; with these words, I plan to record all of the momentous events in which I participated as a member of Rome’s Legions, during a period that changed the very foundations of Rome itself.
Now that I have recovered and refreshed myself, I pick up my tale where I left off. The conquest of Gaul is over, Caesar and his armies triumphing in the greatest campaign in Roman, or I suspect, world history. However, his success has roused great jealousy by those men, small in every measurable way, who call themselves the boni. Using Pompeius Magnus as their stooge, they are doing everything they can to destroy our general, ignoring his popularity with the people of my class. Caesar, given no choice by the boni, has crossed the Rubicon with just the 13th Legion. However, the rest of his army, including my own 10th Legion, is preparing to march. Matters between my childhood friend and long-time comrade, Vibius Domitius, are growing increasingly strained because of the situation with Caesar, since Vibius is a strict Catonian in sentiment. Making matters more difficult for me personally, I am forced to leave behind my wife and newborn child, Vibius' namesake, whom we call Vibi. I have been the Secundus Pilus Prior for some time now, but I still have to worry about my nemesis, Secundus Pilus Posterior Celer, who constantly seeks to undermine me. Although none of us are looking forward to facing fellow Romans, we are all prepared to do our duty, even Vibius, if for no other reason than for the men standing next to him in the ranks, if not for Caesar and his dignitas.
Caesar’s army was a mixed lot of veteran and new Legions; there was us, the 7th, 9th, and 14th from the Gallic Army, and also two new Legions that Caesar had raised in Italy, the 21st and 30th, full of raw tirones. This army marched west to confront the Pompeian forces, heading through the Pyrenees and sweeping aside the Cohort-sized Pompeian units that guarded the passes through the mountains, suffering few losses. Once across the mountains, we moved towards the spot where our scouts had located Pompey’s Legions, in the northeast around the town of Ilerda, on the other side of the Sicoris River. Gathered there to face us was the most veteran of Pompey’s army, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Legions, veterans all, and from whose ranks our cadre like Crastinus and Calienus had originally come. They were led by two stalwart Pompeians, Afranius and Petreius, one of whom we would have cause to hate with an abiding passion, but that was in
the future. However, the Pompeian Legions’ veteran status also meant that their discharges were due, just as they had been for Crastinus, meaning there was some question about how steadfast they actually were in their devotion to Pompey and his cause. At least, that was what the Legates and the good young men tried to tell us. Nevertheless, they were Spanish Legions like us and we held little illusion that they would not fight when the time came, a fact that bothered us a great deal, because there were friends and kinsmen across that river that we might have to kill. Little else was discussed around the fires at night, none of us liking the prospect a bit, but also knowing that when the time came, we would do what needed to be done, no matter how distasteful it might be. I could not help wondering if they felt the same way, staring across at us from the other side of the river.
During the period in which we were waiting for Caesar, Fabius put us to work constructing two bridges, about four miles apart. One was on the upstream side of the river from the town, and the other was on the downstream side. The construction of these bridges was contested hotly by the Pompeians, with fierce fighting around the bridge sites, but we managed to get them built despite the resistance. With the bridges built, we waited for Caesar to arrive. He was supposedly coming with about 900 cavalry he had gathered to replace the ones who defected with Labienus. Also, Fabius sent messengers laden with gold across the river and behind the Pompeian positions, bribing the surrounding towns to close their gates and to refuse any aid to Afranius and his troops, instead giving what food they could spare to us. In order to get to what food these towns had to offer, we were forced to send foraging parties out in force across the bridges to get to them.
During one of these forays, a potentially disastrous event struck the 14th and 30th Legions, the former being the reconstituted 14th full of green troops, and the latter being one of the new Legions Caesar had commissioned after crossing the Rubicon. Once they were on the other side of the river, a storm in the mountains higher upriver hit, creating a flash flood downriver. The flood sent a wall of water, accompanied by a maelstrom of wind. It then hit the bridge that the Legions had marched across, sweeping it away and sending the debris downstream. The presence of that debris alerted Afranius that something was afoot, whereupon he sent scouts out who reported to him that there was a part of our force upstream stranded on the Pompeian side of the river. Afranius immediately sent a force out to trap our men on the wrong side, prompting a sharp fight where the Legate in charge of our foraging party, Plancus as I recall, shook his men out into an orbis on a small hill, forcing Afranius to reconsider any headlong charge. While Afranius was deploying his men into a standard assault formation, our commander Fabius sent a relief force consisting of the remainder of our cavalry, along with the 9th, across on the remaining intact bridge to come to Plancus’ aid. Seeing the standards, Afranius called off his attack after a brief skirmish that claimed few casualties on either side, and once relieved by our force, Plancus marched back across the remaining bridge. It was a close call, and easily could have been a disaster if Afranius was a bolder commander like Caesar and had risked an all-out attack on green troops, but as usual, even by proxy, Caesar’s luck held.
A couple of days later, Caesar arrived with his 900 German cavalrymen, and the tempo of our operations immediately picked up. The day after he arrived, he left some Cohorts behind to guard the original camp, marching the rest of us across the nearer bridge to shake us out in a triplex acies facing the Afranius camp. This camp had been thrown up a few hundred yards from the walls of the town. Afranius linked the two together by a ditch where supplies could be carried from the town to allow men to move back and forth. Consistent with Roman practice, the camp of Afranius took advantage of high ground and Afranius sent his own forces out to face ours on the slopes of this hill. That was as far as it got, however; he seemed content to let his men stand out in the hot sun, meaning that we had to do the same. The sun moved slowly through the sky, and only through the discipline and experience of countless other days spent in identical circumstances was this day bearable.
There we stood, veterans on both sides, staring across the plain, our men looking up the hill, theirs looking down onto the valley floor, each of us occupied with our own thoughts. It was not lost on any of us that there were men we knew, and indeed may have been related to by blood, standing across from us, waiting for the order to move forward and kill each other. Honestly, despite the boredom, none of us felt particularly eager to head up that hill to start killing men we knew, if not intimately at least by virtue of our common heritage and place of birth. We were all men of Hispania, and professionals and veterans that we may have been, we had no real desire to slaughter or to be slaughtered by such men as these. Consequently, there was little grumbling at the waiting and finally, when the sun had passed over the midday point, it became clear that Afranius was not going to move, whereupon Caesar commanded the back line of the formation to fall out to begin the construction of a camp. Since we marched out in battle order, we did not have the stakes for the palisade, so the men were put to work digging the ditch first. Because our first two lines remained in formation, the work was obscured, meaning that when the order was given to withdraw, we caught Afranius by surprise when, instead of retreating across the bridge to our original camp, we pulled back across the ditch and the earthworks to settle down for the night.
The next day saw a repeat of the same as the day before, except that Caesar kept a part of the army behind in the camp to finish the job of fortifying it. For once, we regretted not drawing the short straw to be left behind in camp, because as monotonous and tiring as fortifying the camp may have been, it was still better than standing motionless in the hot sun. However, this time was a little different, since Caesar allowed us to relax, having taken the measure of Afranius and being certain that he would not take action. At least, it appeared that way on the surface, when he gave the order that either we could sit down or mingle within our immediate area, as long as we were within a few paces of our grounded gear. I believe that he was doing his best to goad Afranius into action by having us appear lax and as if we were ripe for attack, so perhaps Afranius was not as foolish as we thought. It was in this manner that the second day passed uneventfully, and we plodded back into the almost completed camp at least as tired as our comrades working on it. On the third day, Caesar ordered the extra stakes that were gathered brought over from the original camp, along with the baggage, brought under the guard of the Cohorts left behind. This was done, with the three Legions who had worked on the camp the day before now taking their turn out on the plain, while we finished what remained to be done in the second camp. In the same manner as the first two days, this one passed uneventfully as well, with both sides staring at each other, waiting for the other to make their move.
On the fourth day, Caesar grew tired of waiting and decided to act. Taking the 9th, the 14th, and the 21st, he made a move to secure a small mound roughly halfway between our camp and the slopes of the hill that Afranius’ camp was occupying. The position of this small hill was such that it would allow us to interpose ourselves between Afranius’ camp and the town, thereby cutting them off from resupply. The distance from our camp to the mound was about halfway between the two camps, in the middle of a plain about 300 paces wide. As usual, Caesar was counting on his speed of action and I believe he was emboldened by the seeming hesitance that Afranius had shown over the course of the previous three days. This allowed us to build and fortify a camp on his side of the river, almost literally under his very nose. However, this time Caesar was the one to be caught out because Afranius almost immediately determined what he was up to, and rushed several Cohorts out the gates of his own camp, reaching the mound before Caesar could. There was a brief battle for the mound, and during this skirmish, for the first time, we witnessed the peculiar style of fighting practiced by Pompey’s Legions. Cheering at the sight of our men seemingly sweeping the Pompeians off the mound with almost contemptuous ease, we would soon le
arn that this was nothing more than a ruse. When our men charged to the top of the mound, they were suddenly beset on three sides by the original guard Cohorts, along with some of the other Cohorts that Afranius had sent out. The Pompeians came at our men with a rush, but the moment our men engaged, they broke off and retreated down the hill.
“What in the name of Pluto’s thorny cock are they doing?” demanded Priscus with some indignation. “That’s not how Romans fight.”
“I know,” I agreed, with not a little trepidation.
We were watching from the ramparts and, despite being safe, all of us felt as involved as if we were standing in the line on the hill. Before our eyes, the Pompeians darted back and forth at our lines, until finally the Primus Pilus of the 14th, the first Legion to the mound, gave the order to rush after the Pompeians the next time they fell back, exactly what the Pompeians wanted. The instant the 14th charged, they were surrounded, now by at least two Legion’s worth of Afranius’ troops. In the space of a few heartbeats, the scene was completely obscured by the dust of thousands of feet, a bad sign on its own. Our anxiety increased as we tried to determine what was happening by the sounds, our experienced ears telling us that it was not going well.
The 14th was deployed on the left, with the other two Legions arrayed so they were closer to the Afranius camp, with the 9th on the right and the 21st in the middle, the traditional spot for green Legions. This time it did not work out the way Caesar had hoped, because the men of the 21st started showing signs of panic as the fighting that started with the 14th spread to envelop them. Afranius fed more men into the battle, sensing that he had achieved the rarest of feats: catching Caesar off balance. Even as we watched helplessly, the unease of the 21st turned to panic, the rear ranks beginning to turn for the safety of our camp. At first, their Optios were able to beat them back into the line, then something happened, although I do not know what, but whatever it was triggered a panic. Now the men in the rear were braving the swats of their Optios to push past them, oblivious to anything but the thought of getting back to the safety of the camp. Not all of the men of the 21st panicked, but enough did to cause the center of Caesar’s line to start to collapse, and only the sheer bulk of the 21st kept the 14th from being completely surrounded. Now that was about to change, as more men of the 21st began to slip past their Optios to head back towards us in the camp. Caesar then called on the 9th to come to the rescue, which they did, but not before getting into trouble themselves.