Pharsalus 48 BC: Caesar and Pompey - Clash of the Titans

100 Pages·2006·19.64 MB·English

by  Si Sheppard

OSPREY
Campaign
Pharsalus 48 BC
so
SI SHEPPARD is a former
journalist currently enrolled
as a Ph.D. student in
International Relations at
Johns Hopkins University.
He graduated with an MA
with Distinction from Victoria
University and was winner
of the Sir Desmond Todd
Award for best thesis in a
political subject. Si Sheppard
has published a number of
books and has contributed
numerous articles on political
and historical topics to
leading journals, magazines
and newspapers. This is his
first title for Osprey. He lives
in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
ADAM HOOK studied graphic
design, and began his work
as an illustrator in 1983.
He specializes in detailed
historical reconstructions,
and has illustrated Osprey
titles on the Aztecs, the
Greeks, the American Civil
War and the American
Revolution. His work features
in exhibitions and publications
throughout the world.
He lives in East Sussex, UK.
Pharsalus 48 BC
Caesar and Pompey - Clash of the Titans

Campaign • 174
Pharsalus 48 BC
Caesar and Pompey - Clash of the Titans
Si Sheppard • Illustrated by Adam Hook
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Dedicated to Stephen Levine: mentor, colleague and friend.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 7
CHRONOLOGY 17
OPPOSING COMMANDERS 21
The Caesareans • The Republicans
THE LEGIONS OF THE LATE REPUBLIC 29
THE CAMPAIGN 33
The Rubicon to Brundisium • Brundisium to Dyrrachium •
Dyrrachium to Pharsalus
THE BATTLE 54
Opposing plans • Opposing armies • The clash of arms
AFTERMATH 83
THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY 92
BIBLIOGRAPHY 93
INDEX 95

INTRODUCTION:
TO THE RUBICON
he legend SPQR - Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and
People of Rome - emblazoned on the standards of the city's all-
conquering legions in the last few centuries before Christ was both
a potent symbol of the source of the republic's power and a reflection of
the smouldering tension inherent in its system of government.
This partnership between the haves and have-nots of the republic
enabled it to survive defeats that would have fatally crippled more
hierarchical states and to ultimately emerge as master of the
Mediterranean world. But its very success proved the undoing of this
system. Exploitation of the opportunities made available from conquest
drove a wedge between the partners, one that widened until the conflict-
resolution mechanisms of the political process broke down completely
and force became the sole means of securing and retaining power.
It was for this reason that on the morning of the ninth day of the
month Sextilis in the year 706 ab urbe condita, since the founding of the
city of Rome, two armies, both Roman, faced off against each other on
the narrow plain north of the River Enipeus in Thessaly, Greece. The
battle fought that day - more properly named Palaepharsalus, after the
ancient city in the foothills on the northern edge of the plain, rather
than Pharsalus (modern Farsala) south of the river-was the culmination
of a process of social disintegration that had been unfolding for nigh on
100 years. The two protagonists involved, Julius Caesar and Gnaeus
Pompey, the greatest warlords the city of Rome had ever produced, were
bringing to a climax a social struggle that had been playing out for
generations, and doing so on an unprecedented scale, pitting more of
their fellow citizens against each other on a single field than had ever
been witnessed before. The significance of this battle may be appreciated
from the fact that to this day the date we assign to it - 9 August, 48 BC -
is based upon a calendar drawn up by the victor.
Rome's constitution, the basis for the legal and political structure that
emerged after the expulsion of the city's last king in 509 BC, represented
a series of compromises between the patricians, who aspired to centralize
power within their own oligarchic elite, and the plebeians, who
demanded popular representation in government. What emerged was a
model of divided government. The plebeians conceded elite guidance of
state policy, both in the collegial atmosphere of the senate and through
the informal monopolization of the offices of the republic by the
established families, in return for the enfranchisement of the tribal
assemblies and the veto power of the tribunes.
This system of checks and balances did succeed in keeping a lid on
the smouldering antagonism between the two halves of the political
equation. These internal divisions were further sublimated during
Rome's succession of life-or-death struggles with an ever widening circle
FAR LEFT The coins of Rome,
issued by private mints, were
vital in conveying propaganda
throughout a largely illiterate
republic. Here Sulla is depicted
as imperator returning in triumph
after his victory over Mithridates.
(© Andreas Pangerl,
www.romancoins.info)
LEFT Sulla was the first
of Rome's warlords to march on
the city itself. Though far from
unprovoked - his command
having been revoked by Marius
on dubious grounds - his action
of neighbours, first to survive as an independent state and then, as
had a corrosive effect on the
success bred success, to impose the Pax Romana over the known world.
integrity of the republic. The
By 146 the republic had triumphed over all her foes: she had repelled phrase 'Sulla did it - why can't
the barbarian Celts; subdued her Italian kin, the Etruscans and I?' became proverbial among the
Samnites; seen off the interloper Pyrrhus of Epirus; triumphed over ambitious. (© Andreas Pangerl,
www.romancoins.info)
Carthage in two epic wars; and humbled the heirs of Alexander in
Macedon and Seleucia. In that year two watershed events - the final
annihilation of Carthage and the subordination of Greece - symbolized
the climax of this phase of expansion. In the brief pause that ensued
while assimilating these fresh triumphs and before seeking new worlds
to conquer Rome could at last draw breath and reflect on what this tran
sition from city state to multinational empire meant for the social fabric
of the republic.
There was one man perceptive enough to appreciate that, beneath
its glittering facade, the foundations of the republic were under
mounting stress. The backbone of the Roman military machine were the
yeoman peasantry, the self-sufficient farmers who traditionally had been
conscripted for the campaign season then released to work their family
plots. But as the campaigns stretched out ever longer, both in terms of
duration and distance from Italy, many of them were spending years
away from their families, returning as heroes only to find their farms
had fallen into debt or disrepair and had been incorporated into the
great estates, or latifundia, of the aristocracy. In order to make the land
economically viable the new owners had a ready source of manpower
available; the very slaves the armies of Rome were sending home by the
thousand from each successful campaign. Victims of their own success,
homeless legionaries and their families were becoming an increasingly
common sight on the streets of Rome.
Tiberius Gracchus understood the root cause of this distress and,
upon being elected tribune of the people for 133, resolved to do
something about it. He was successful in pushing through land-reform
legislation but his innovations inflamed the jealousy and suspicion of
the aristocracy whose collective interests found political expression in
the senate. Tiberius was murdered in a partisan brawl and his supporters
purged. It was an ominous precedent, for the person of the tribune was
supposed to be inviolate. Now that an issue had been resolved through
violence, the psychological barriers against resorting to its use would be
correspondingly lower next time. This was the beginning of the
downward spiral for the rule of law in Rome. The next stage in the cycle