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by Strauss, Barry

  Besides being a brilliant general, Caesar was a gifted demagogue and a shrewd politician. He planned to leverage his success in Gaul into further power and honor in Rome and then another great command, this time against the Parthians (an Iranian empire). But the many political enemies whom he had made in his meteoric rise had no intention of letting that happen. As he piled success upon success in Gaul, as he acquired gigantic wealth, power, and military force, a rising political chorus in Rome called for his head.

  Caesar ran the greatest risks of all by not going to war. If he had kept the peace, he would have had to give up his office as governor of Gaul, the province that he had conquered for Rome. He would have had to return to Italy as a private citizen, where prominent senators said they would immediately prosecute him for various illegalities in his prior career. Caesar could expect that, as in a recent trial at Rome, his political enemy Pompey would have the courthouse surrounded by soldiers, in order to “persuade” the jurors how to vote. The result would almost certainly be condemnation, with exile or execution to follow. It would be the end of Caesar’s public career and possibly his life. By going to war, Caesar had a better chance of achieving his long-term ambition of supreme power.

  Caesar’s rise took place against the background of the crisis of the Roman republic. The great city that had conquered an empire was in poor shape. By the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Rome had witnessed ninety years of intermittent turmoil on the home front, including riots and assassinations (133–121 B.C.), an allied revolt (90–88 B.C.), a slave war (73–71 B.C.), and a debtors’ rebellion (63 B.C.). Worst of all was a civil war (86–82 B.C.) that made it clear that a determined general with a veteran army could trample on the political power of the Roman senate. A longtime rivalry between the Roman generals Marius and Sulla ended with Sulla conquering his own country, massacring his enemies, and becoming dictator for life. His early death (79 B.C.) allowed the Senate to reestablish its authority. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Rome had been a republic again for thirty years, but generals like Pompey and Caesar cast a shadow on its freedom.

  Like Caesar, Pompey too insisted on being the first man in Rome. Born in 106 B.C., he made his name as a general while still in his twenties by fighting for Sulla in the civil war. Sulla called him Pompeius Magnus, “Pompey the Great.” Another, less flattering nickname also dated to this era: “the teenage butcher,” probably referring to his slaughter of captured opponents.

  The rest of Pompey’s military career played out over a vast canvas for nearly fifteen years between 76 and 63 B.C. First he ground down the Roman rebel Sertorius during a five-year-long struggle in Spain. Then Pompey took credit for beating the rebel gladiator Spartacus in Italy (another general, Marcus Licinius Crassus, did most of the work). Finally there came a series of spectacular victories in the eastern Mediterranean: over the pirates, whom he put out of business; over the rebel Mithradates, whom he drove to suicide; and over a swath of territory extending from the Black Sea to the Jordan River, all of which he put under Rome’s control.

  Pompey spent the years between 63 and 49 B.C. back in Rome. He was more than happy to run roughshod over the Senate’s powers during that period and to dominate politics through a series of backroom deals with Caesar and Crassus. But Crassus fell in battle (53 B.C.) and Caesar won immortality in Gaul.

  Pompey could not bear the thought of Caesar coming back from Gaul and dominating Roman politics, so he discovered the virtues of Rome’s good old republican system of government. He decided to ride to the Senate’s rescue and take up arms on its behalf. The senators did not trust him but they needed his military skill.

  “The Republic is not the question at issue,” as Cicero would soon write. “The struggle is over who is to be king.” In 49 B.C., Pompey and the Senate made uneasy allies. A ruthless enemy like Caesar could exploit their mutual suspicion.

  Unlike Alexander or Hannibal, Caesar did not fight the war he wanted; he would have preferred to lead an army against Parthia rather than against fellow Romans. But he didn’t shrink from civil war when it became necessary.

  Caesar’s domestic enemies treated him unfairly, but by crossing the Rubicon, Caesar did worse: he engaged in treason. He was a rebel general attacking the legitimate government of his country. A more modest man would have spared his country.

  In his Civil War, Caesar offered two justifications for his action. He told his soldiers, in a public meeting, that he was fighting to defend the power of Rome’s tribunes—the representatives of the people. Caesar also emphasized the matter of rank (dignitas in Latin). The issue, Caesar told his soldiers in a public meeting, was the “reputation and rank” of their commander. To Pompey, Caesar wrote that he had always considered “the rank of the republic” more important than life, and the rank in question was “a benefit granted to me [Caesar] by the Roman people”—that is, his command in Gaul. Men noticed what Caesar was saying. As Cicero wrote to a confidant, “He [Caesar] says he is doing everything for the sake of rank.” To the Romans, rank was a core value, the way freedom or security or community is a core value to modern electorates. By defending himself, Caesar claimed to be defending the Roman way of life.

  Or so he said. It is hard not to think that “the liberty of the people,” “the sacrosanct status of the tribunes,” “the rank of the nobles,” to him were all spelled “Caesar.”

  MILITARY STRATEGIES

  So much for the reasons why Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar each went to war. How did they plan to win? This is no small question because there were excellent reasons why each of them should have lost.

  They shared a similarly bleak strategic situation at the outset. Each man was about to invade a country whose military force outnumbered him in manpower and money. Each man faced an enemy who had command of the sea. Hannibal and Caesar both lacked navies; Alexander’s navy could not compete with his enemy’s.

  Yet each man expected victory. Each one’s story was a classic case of something that has happened again and again in history. A ruthless general with a hardened, elite, and small army tries to knock out a flabby giant. Sometimes it works: Hernando Cortés, for instance, began with only six hundred men when he marched on the Aztecs in 1519; by 1521 he had conquered Mexico. Sometimes it fails, as when Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania in 1863 and lost at Gettysburg or when Hitler invaded Russia in 1941 and later lost at Stalingrad.

  Our three commanders shared certain advantages. In spite of relative deficiencies in money or manpower, they had a distinct advantage in infrastructure. They all led experienced armies with a record of dominance in pitched battle—that is, a formal engagement planned beforehand and fought on chosen ground. Each was a constant campaigner, a master of mobility who pushed his army forward. All were great leaders, gifted with the ability to inspire the troops and shrewd enough to keep a steady stream of material rewards flowing to them. They had outstanding moral and physical qualities, such as courage, patience, vigor, and stamina, but their intellectual qualities were even more important. Each man combined a superior intellect with a decisive and resolute will. They lacked nothing in audacity. All were bold; none was risk-averse. Foresight, aptitude, and sheer brainpower are essential to a great commander; good judgment, especially in a crisis, is the most important quality of all. Each had a passionate conviction of his destiny and ability, not to say his divinity.

  Each of the three commanders had a rare combination of instinct and arrogance. Each had the good judgment to size up his enemy correctly. Great men think they know their enemy and they have contempt for him. And one of the things that makes them great is that they are usually right. Alexander, for example, knew the Persians could not resist battle, just as Hannibal knew that neither could the Romans. Caesar knew that Pompey could not seize the day.

  All three men were gifted with strategic vision. Each had a plan for victory: a blueprint for translating battlefield success into reality. Yet each man was an improviser and an opportunist, quick to take advantage of any
possibility that happened to open.

  For Hannibal, the argument boiled down, we might suspect, to science; to Caesar, character; and to Alexander, culture. Alexander had learned from his tutor, the philosopher Aristotle, that Persians were barbarians, without a Greek’s love of freedom or the willingness to stand steadfastly and die for it. “The enemy would have won that day, if they had a general,” is Caesar’s blistering appraisal of Pompey’s leadership on a day of hard fighting in 48 B.C. Hannibal knew that, with his ability to combine infantry and cavalry, to maneuver, and to employ deceit, he was the master of military science—he was an artist of the battlefield; by comparison, the Romans were mere hammer drivers.

  Alexander: Looking for a Fight

  Alexander led one of history’s most victorious armies and one of its most versatile. He had inherited it from his father, Philip, king of Macedon and founder of its military greatness. Philip was brilliant. By applying the latest advances in Greek military technology to Macedon’s backward army, he forged a disciplined, professional, year-round force.

  Macedon, with its plains and horses, was cavalry country, and Philip raised cavalry to new importance. The Macedonian heavy cavalry, now known as the Companion Cavalry, benefited from new recruitment and training, new weapons, new tactics, and new doctrine. The sons of the aristocracy went to court as teenagers and were trained as cavalrymen. They were outfitted with extra-long lances that gave them added reach compared with their enemies. They learned to fight in a wedge-shaped formation that was both more maneuverable than an in-line formation and more effective at penetrating the enemy line. Their doctrine was cunning aggression: they scanned the enemy line for a gap and then shot through it with murderous intensity. In short, the new Macedonian cavalry excelled at shock attack.

  Alexander invaded Persian territory with eighteen hundred Companion Cavalry. They were organized in eight squadrons of which the Royal Squadron was the most elite; Alexander himself rode in the Royal Squadron’s lead. Although small in number, the Companion Cavalry was one of the most effective units of horsemen in military history.

  The cavalry spearheaded Macedonian victories but it couldn’t have done so without the help of the other units in the Macedonian army, which Philip also revolutionized. Macedonian heavy infantrymen fought in a closely packed unit, the phalanx, like earlier Greek infantrymen. But they carried extra-long pikes to keep the enemy at a distance and they trained year-round. An elite infantry corps, known as the hypaspists, linked up the cavalry and infantry. Their job was to minimize the gap that inevitably opened when the cavalry sped ahead of the slower-marching infantry. Specialized units of slingers, archers, and javelin men raised the army’s ability to meet all challenges. So did Philip’s mastery of the technology of siegecraft, which he brought to a level of efficiency unseen since centuries before in the Near East.

  A Macedonian battle represented an orchestrated balance of cavalry and infantry, with specialized units also playing a part. The standard tactic was to place the infantry in the center of the line and the cavalry on the flanks, with the best cavalry on the right wing. Typically, the Macedonian heavy infantrymen would first hold the enemy and try to create a weak spot in its line. The cavalry would then spring into action and rip open the enemy formation. Light-armed infantry, specially trained to dart among horses, helped the cavalry along. Then the heavy infantry would follow and finish the job.

  Although the core of his army was Macedonian, Alexander’s soldiers also included a number of reliable allies. Cavalry from Thessaly (in central Greece), Agrianian javelin-men from the mountains of what is today southern Serbia, and Cretan slingers and archers stood out. So did the mercenaries, who were employed in large numbers.

  Alexander had a superb group of general officers to rely on, led by Philip’s marshals. Although the young king surely itched to replace them with his own men, he was too shrewd to do so. He knew that Philip’s men represented Macedon’s proud and close-knit nobility. They had the troops’ support and besides, he had no one to match their skill or experience. Alexander had a fingertip feel for political as well as military reality. So he kept Philip’s generals. Meanwhile, Alexander bonded with his soldiers by displaying strategic insight, courage in battle, and limitless self-confidence.

  Between the leaders and the men they led, Alexander’s was one of history’s greatest armies. If the Persians decided to fight conventional battles, then the Macedonians had a real chance of winning, despite massive inferiority in money and manpower. But if the Persians chose a different strategy, one based on a combination of unconventional warfare on land and a naval offensive at sea, then they might have rendered Alexander’s army a splendid but irrelevant machine. Even great armies can lose wars if the enemy is cunning, determined, and resourceful.

  The Persians ruled the largest empire in history to that date, stretching from Central Asia to Egypt, and including perhaps one-fifth of the world’s population. With their huge sources of military manpower, the Persians substantially outnumbered the Macedonians. Great horsemen, the Persians had excellent cavalry and they made up for their weakness in infantry by hiring first-class Greek mercenary infantrymen. But their inexperience, lack of trusted generals, and—in the case of the cavalry—inferior equipment put the Persians at a great disadvantage against the Macedonians in battle.

  The Greeks called Persia’s emperor the “Great King.” The adjective “good” probably better fit the current occupant of the throne, Darius III. He was a fine battlefield commander and an excellent military organizer. He was a shrewd political operator and a cunning diplomat. But he lacked experience and legitimacy: like Alexander, he was a new king (his reign began in 336 B.C.), but unlike him, Darius was neither the heir to the throne nor a king’s son. Born Codomanus, he was a fine military man but he did not have his eye on the throne. Darius became king only after the long-reigning Persian monarch Artaxerxes III (r. 358–338) and his son Arses (r. 338–336) had each been murdered by his chief minister. Darius was their distant cousin. Many Persians looked on Darius as a usurper and gave him less than their full support. Alexander had a seasoned corps of generals committed to a common purpose, but Darius suffered from divided and inexperienced advisors.

  When it came to size and resources, the Persian empire experienced a real difference between reality and appearance. Many of the provinces at either end of the empire were barely under Persian control. Egypt, for example, was perpetually in revolt, most recently in the 340s; the satraps (provincial governors) of Anatolia mounted a revolt in the 360s that smoldered until the 340s; the provinces of Central and South Asia were more or less independent.

  Still, in spite of Persia’s disadvantages, a brilliant leader with a sure touch and a dollop of luck could have defeated Alexander. Unfortunately, Darius, although courageous, intelligent, and an excellent organizer, lacked Alexander’s skill and experience as a field commander.

  Still, Darius knew enough to turn to Persia’s tried-and-true policy against Greek invasion: a naval counteroffensive. This strategy had stopped Sparta in 395 B.C. after it invaded Anatolia. It looked promising now in 334, when Macedon’s navy was small and unreliable, consisting almost entirely of Athenian allies, although most Athenians resented Macedonian hegemony. Persia’s navy was big and trustworthy. If it made a serious push across the Aegean Sea, Persia could raise a rebellion in Alexander’s rear, in the Greek city-states. The Persian navy might defeat Alexander while his invasion was just beginning.

  Hannibal: Force and Fraud

  Few generals have ever approached the battlefield as well armed in force and fraud as Hannibal. Few have ever pulled off greater feats of mobility. As with the wigs and disguises that he wore to foil assassins, Hannibal was full of tricks. But he was also a deadly battlefield puncher.

  Hannibal’s army consisted of a varied mix of men and abilities. Indeed, one of his greatest achievements was turning them into a cohesive whole.

  The Roman army in Hannibal’s day consisted of citizen-s
oldiers. Ordinary Roman males, most of them farmers, served their country as soldiers. Fighting beside them were soldiers from allied cities in Italy, most of whom were also citizen-soldiers.

  Carthage’s army was totally different. Only some of the officers were Carthaginian; the troops represented other nationalities. Some were mercenaries but most had been recruited from the various peoples in North Africa and Spain under Carthaginian rule. Some were inexperienced but others had soldiered long enough to be considered professionals. Hannibal’s best troops were North Africans—Libyans and Numidians (today, Algerians). Next came the Spaniards, to whom he soon added northern Italian Celts. As infantrymen, the best of them—the Libyans—rivaled Rome’s famed legionaries, but they could not match their numbers. What gave Hannibal an edge was his horsemen and his ability to maneuver them. He used cavalry more successfully than any general since Alexander, a century earlier.

  Hannibal’s father, Hamilcar Barca, had learned how to win battles from Greek military experts. His method was to hold the enemy in the center while enveloping him on the wings and even the rear. It was not an easy maneuver to carry out but when accomplished it could be devastating. Hannibal, who learned these tactics from his father, carried them out brilliantly. Hannibal commanded both heavy and light cavalry. Together, these infantry could run rings around Roman cavalry. Hannibal’s cavalrymen were trained to fight in tandem with his infantrymen. Combined, they represented a deadly one-two punch. Because they were professionals, Hannibal’s men had the training to carry out maneuvers that Rome’s citizen-soldiers could only dream of. Meanwhile, his elephants would shield Hannibal’s infantry and terrify the enemy. The result would be state-of-the-art military science.