by R. W. Peake
Our supply situation was a never-ending concern, but word reached us of a large supply of grain in a village a few miles distant, stored in subterranean caves. Sending out a force of cavalry along with two of the Legions, they carried back all that they could hold, but left a goodly amount behind. Labienus learned of this expedition and that there was still a significant amount of grain left behind, so he apparently decided that he would set a trap for us when we returned. His plans were thwarted when some deserters informed us of his intentions, telling Caesar exactly where and how Labienus was setting the trap. Instead of confronting the enemy immediately, Caesar chose instead to wait several days. As is natural and to be expected in these circumstances, the men who were to spring the trap grew bored, and bored men get careless. After perhaps a week, the 10th, 9th, and 13th were ordered out to march to the ambush site, led by close to a thousand cavalry, each of the horsemen accompanied by an auxiliary pressed into service from the local populace in the manner of the Numidians. As Caesar had predicted, the ambushing enemy force was out of position and completely unprepared, so our cavalry fell upon them, immediately routing them while inflicting a few hundred casualties. The battle was over before we ever got there, whereupon we turned about to march to the village without even drawing our swords. We heard later that Juba crucified the men who survived our attack by fleeing. Retrieving the remaining grain, which yielded only enough for about three more days for the army, we returned to camp.
~ ~ ~ ~
The siege of Uzita was not yielding results, so after six weeks, we were told at one morning briefing that we would be moving operations, this time to a spot about 20 miles away near Aggar where there was supposed to be more food available. In the fourth watch the next night, we set fire to all the towers and other structures in both camps, then in a parallel column, with the baggage train on the far side of the columns, we marched away. We covered the 20 miles fairly quickly since the terrain in that part of the world is generally flat, interrupted by low hills spaced in such a way that they can be easily avoided. At the camp at Aggar, we were joined by the last two Spanish Legions, the 7th and 8th finally arriving after being chased about by the Pompeian fleet for a few days. It did not take long for Scipio and Juba to follow us, where they pitched their own camps about six miles away to the northwest, once again setting up in three camps. Our own camp was about two miles northwest of the town of Aggar. It was definitely a better location from a foraging aspect, the land lush and fertile. However, this camp was not in the best position for defense, so we were marched to a spot about two miles to the southwest, slightly closer to Aggar and on a low hill, providing a stronger position than the original. About two days after Scipio arrived, we were informed by deserters, who were coming to us in droves at this point, that Scipio was marching to a town called Zeta, some nine miles farther northwest of their camps, where there were supposed to be abundant amounts of wheat. Although the area around Aggar had offered up an ample supply of olive oil, figs, barley, and an amount of wheat, we were still lacking in the latter. Accordingly, Caesar decided that it would be a good opportunity not only to augment our supply, but to inflict some damage on Scipio at the same time. Zeta was about 14 miles distance from our new campsite, but Caesar deemed it worth the risk of a flank march past the enemy camps. Leaving a few Cohorts behind to guard our camp, we marched out at fourth watch. Moving quickly, we came upon Zeta to find that Scipio’s men were further afield searching the farms surrounding the town, which at least allowed us to take the town without incident.
Before we could go hunt down the Pompeians out in the fields, our scouts came to report that we had in fact not slipped by undetected and the enemy was coming in force from their three camps to meet us. I think that our experience at Ruspina was still fresh in Caesar’s mind, as it was in ours, and not wanting a repeat performance, Caesar ordered us to break off contact. Leaving a garrison of auxiliaries and one Cohort under the command of one of the Tribunes, Oppius I believe, we turned about and began marching back to camp, with 22 of Juba’s camels in tow that the enemy foraging party had brought to carry their booty home. The men were not happy about being marched for half a day, only to be forced to turn around again. Still, nobody wanted a repeat of the ordeal at Ruspina, so they needed no urging to match the pace that Caesar set. At first, we had no opposition, until we were pulling even with the Pompeian camps, when the cursed Numidian cavalry led by Labienus and Petreius came boiling out from behind a low hill where they were waiting for us to begin harassing our rearguard, thankfully not us this time. Our own cavalry galloped to the rear, but closing with the Numidians as always proved to be as easy as grabbing and holding a wisp of smoke, even the men on foot who accompanied the cavalry proving too swift. The Legionaries in the rearguard had no better luck, dashing after the Numidians who were as nimble as ever, leaving panting, frustrated, and angry men to do little better than shake their fists. Naturally, our progress was now slowed as it was at Ruspina while the Pompeian cavalry began to flow around our marching formation like water, darting in just long enough to fling a javelin at us, which of course forced the men to remain constantly on their guard. The enemy auxiliaries were focusing their attention not on our men but the mounts of the cavalry, their missiles striking several of the horses, putting their riders afoot, most of them scampering to the safety of the formation. Very quickly, even our slow progress stopped as the shower of missiles continued unabated up and down the formation from all sides. It had turned into a hot day, and the men had not gotten the opportunity to refill their canteens, so soon what water they carried was consumed as the sun beat down.
The order to march would come, but we would only move a few paces before we had to halt again as the Numidian horse would swarm about us. Their volleys of javelins came so fast and furious that the men could either march or defend themselves but could not do both. More than a full watch passed in this manner and at the end of that time, we had not moved more than a hundred yards. Our cavalry was both exhausted and depleted as more and more men came running back to the rest of us without their horse. The enemy aim soon became apparent. They had no intention of closing with us, but instead would let the hot sun and elements do their work for them, pinning us without water for a sufficient amount of time to weaken the men to the point where the inferior quality of the enemy infantry was not a factor. Scipio's Legions had been shaken out into a triple line outside their camps, yet they made no move to intercept us, preferring to let the Numidians do the work of whittling us down. Finally, Caesar sent the order to withdraw the cavalry from the rearguard, putting the exhausted troopers in the middle of our formation, relying on the Legions to provide security. We resumed the march, except this time we did not stop despite the harassment, marching with our shields on our arms instead of strapped to our backs in the normal manner, as the enemy continued to pepper us with javelins. Unlike Ruspina, however, this time the men were more prepared and knew what to expect, so the panic that infected the army the last time was absent. The sun was setting, as once more darkness would aid in our escape, the Numidians able to harass us but no longer able to stop us now that Caesar had decided to move no matter what. We arrived back at our camp about a watch after sunset, and while the men were tired they were not nearly as discouraged as they had been at Ruspina, namely due to the fact that we suffered no deaths and only about a dozen wounded, none of them from the 10th. It was something of an act of the gods that kept our casualties so low, and there were a number of offerings made to Mars, Bellona, and Fortuna in thanks when we got back. But Caesar had seen enough, and as usual, he had plans of his own on the best way to combat the tactics used by the Pompeians.
~ ~ ~ ~
“There are elephants in the camp!”
I jumped to my feet, as anxious to see what was happening as any ranker. It was two days after our foray to Zeta, and Caesar had been hard at work with the army, embarking on a training regimen quite unlike anything we had ever endured before. Nobody was exempt,
the most veteran Legions, like the 10th, training alongside the boys of the 29th and 5th. Caesar had grown as tired as we were of dealing with these Numidian troops, particularly our cavalry who were in danger of running out of horses at the rate they were losing them. To that end, we trained more like gladiators than soldiers, as Caesar instructed small groups of men in exactly what needed to be done to defend ourselves successfully against the Numidians. When was the right time to give chase to the enemy skirmishers and how far we should chase, when was the right moment to use our own javelins with a better chance of hitting someone than we had been doing previously. The elephants were part of this training, though it was obvious that Caesar had sent for the beasts some time before, since these were from Rome, or at least the peninsula. There were five of them, and they had been trained to perform in the shows put on for festivals and such, so they were used to humans, shuffling docilely enough through the gates, their great long trunks waving about as they sniffed the air, taking in their new surroundings. Men lined the Via Praetoria, their voices excited, acting more like children than hardened soldiers. I pretended to be indifferent, but even having seen an elephant before, they are still awe-inspiring creatures, and I wondered exactly what Caesar had in mind when it came to training. Thankfully, the boys of the 5th would be the ones doing the work with the animals, for which I at least was grateful. Very quickly Caesar began working with the 5th, getting them familiar with the elephants, making each man come right up to the animal to touch it, that event being the cause of much amusement with the part of the army that saw it as they conducted their own training. Many men had to be shoved by their officers to get within touching distance, while a few had to be threatened with flogging before they would reach out a trembling hand to touch the side of their particular beast. For their part, the elephants endured this patiently, obviously used to being the center of attention wherever they went, standing there with their tails switching back and forth, eating the fodder spread out for them to eat. It was a good thing that our supply situation had eased, since one elephant eats more than five horses, but they had to earn their feed just like the rest of us. For the next several days, the normal sounds of camp life were augmented by the trumpeting of the elephants as their handlers made them act as if they were going into battle. The men of the 5th threw their javelins, tipped with cork of course, at the animals, though I can’t imagine that it was pleasant for the elephants even if the points were blunted. The cavalry horses were brought into the training as well, as they were even more skittish around the huge beasts than we were, so that it was not long before they became accustomed to the smell and sight of them.
We continued our own training, and the men, unaccustomed to the amount of running that we were doing as they dashed back and forth, would reach the end of the day exhausted, spending just long enough around the fire to have a quick chat with their friends before retiring. I attended the daily briefings, so I was present when envoys from a nearby village called Vaga came to ask for Caesar’s aid, claiming that the Pompeians, Juba’s men in particular, had been ravaging the town and its inhabitants. Caesar sent a squadron of cavalry along with a Cohort of the 7th to the town, but when they arrived, it was too late. Juba had slaughtered every man, woman and child in Vaga, leaving their bodies for the carrion birds to pick their bones. While the most extreme example, this was the normal manner in which the native populace was treated by the Pompeians. This should explain why we were constantly being approached by delegations from the surrounding cities, towns, and villages, offering Caesar aid in exchange for protection.
~ ~ ~ ~
Despite how busy we were, the traditional start of the campaign season was just beginning, so on March 21 under the old calendar, we held the lustration ceremony, consecrating our standards while asking the gods’ blessing on our endeavors. It is a ritual of great importance to all of us in the ranks, from the lowest Legionary to the Primus Pilus, which Caesar knew and therefore made sure that the ceremony was carried out flawlessly, that the auspices were good and all sacrifices were performed in the proper manner. Caesar was Pontifex Maximus and had been Flamen Dialis, but I do not believe he was a particularly religious man, he just knew how important it was to others, particularly the lower classes. We Romans set a great deal of store in our religions, and are a superstitious bunch of people, so I believe it was this that made Caesar pay such attention to rituals and ceremonies of religion. One slight setback to Caesar’s plans came with his recognition of something that we in the ranks had predicted, the failure of the locals to serve as auxiliaries supporting the cavalry. To remedy the situation, Caesar called for volunteers from each Legion, 300 from each to march in light order, ready to leap from the ranks to support our cavalry. It was the cavalry, which was severely depleted both in men and horses, that worried Caesar most, a concern that was shared by the rest of the army after seeing the results of every battle we had fought so far. After a few more days of training, I was called to the praetorium, where I was given orders to prepare the men to move. We were going to attempt a similar operation to what we did at Zeta, at the town of Sarsusa, about a day’s march almost directly west of where Scipio had another supply of food. This town was supposedly garrisoned, so we marched out in force, leaving only a few Cohorts behind to guard the camp.
It was not long before Labienus and his cavalry came out of their camp to start their harassment, first falling onto the wagons that were following us, that would carry the grain back to our own camp. Then our newly formed group of men combined with our cavalry to catch the Pompeian cavalry flatfooted, inflicting several casualties before driving them off. We continued on the march, and while Labienus did not attack us again, he followed us like a shadow, keeping to a line of low hills to the right of our march.
We reached Sarsusa, finding it was indeed occupied with Pompeian troops, but the low walls were not sufficiently defended to keep us from taking the town quickly, where we put the entire garrison to the sword in retaliation for the outrages done at Vaga. The next day, we marched south to another enemy-held city, Thisdra, but this was too well defended to take quickly, and because the only available water was inside the walls, we marched back to our camp by Aggar. When we arrived, we found that the last of the reinforcements had arrived, another 400 cavalry, about a thousand archers and slingers, along with the remainder of the Legions, men too sick or injured to make the trip with their Legions when they came over, about 4,000 total, including about 200 men of the 10th who had been left behind. The army was now 35,000 Legionaries strong divided unequally among nine Legions, with about 4,000 cavalry and 2,000 missile troops, these being roughly evenly divided between archers from Crete and slingers from Rhodes and the Balearic islands. We stayed in camp for another few days, each side waiting for the other to make some sort of move. Finally, Scipio came marching out to offer battle again, this time choosing a spot near a town called Tegea that lay between Aggar and the Pompeian camps. The bucina called us out, where we quickly formed up into our own triple line, and we were placed back in our normal spot on the right. As was his habit, Scipio had chosen his ground carefully, on a gentle slope that we would have to climb in order to close with the enemy, which Caesar was not willing to do. Instead, we stood there as we had so many times before, each side waiting for the other to make a move. Scipio had posted cavalry on either wing, except this time he stationed them farther out than was normal. Then, after waiting for the better part of the day, Caesar sent some of our own cavalry charging at the horsemen on the left wing of the Pompeian line. The enemy cavalry commander responded by spreading his men out, with the obvious intention of allowing our force to charge into their midst, then enveloping them and cutting them off. To counter this, Caesar sounded the call for the 300 Legionaries from the 10th to dash out to support our horsemen, with Velinus of the Fifth Cohort in the lead. The sudden appearance of our men on foot, running swiftly with their javelins, which they jabbed up at the unprotected faces of the mounted men or at the bell
y of the horses, threw the enemy cavalry into complete confusion, as animals started rearing and lunging to try to escape the sharp points of our weapons. Our force pushed the Pompeian cavalry back closer and closer to the left wing of Scipio’s infantry, who began shifting nervously about at the sight. Seeing an opportunity, Caesar sent the rest of the cavalry charging into the fray, churning up even more of a cloud of dust, the sounds of the fighting our only guide to what was happening. We could hear cries of alarm and pain as our horsemen, accompanied by our men on foot, pushed into the left side of the enemy formation. While we watched, the Pompeians started giving ground, their cornu sounding the recall. With their left wing fighting back our men, the rest of the Pompeian army marched back up the gentle slope all the way to the walls of the town. Their left wing staged a fighting withdrawal, our men only breaking contact when they got in range of the javelins of the waiting comrades of the left wing at the base of the walls. The men came trotting back to the formation, gasping for breath, but grinning and laughing, happy that the slope was strewn with enemy bodies, both horse and man. We retired at the end of the day, yet despite the limited success, the frustration at every level of the army was high, because it had become clear that we would have to find a way to force Scipio to come to battle. That night at the evening briefing, Caesar announced that we were going to change tactics and would be marching the next day. We would be marching to Thapsus.