Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Pompey decided to settle more permanently on the Genusus River at Asparagium, secure in the fact that he was still north of Caesar's main camp and that Dyrrachium was safe. Whereupon, shades of the Apsus River, Caesar appeared on the south bank of the Genusus and paraded every day for battle. Most embarrassing for Pompey, who was aware that Caesar had halved his cavalry and split off at least three legions to forage in Greece; he didn't know that Calvinus was heading to Thessalia to intercept Metellus Scipio, though he had heard in letters that Calvinus was now openly for Caesar. "I can't fight!" he was reported to Caesar as saying. "It's too wet, sleety, cold and miserable to expect a good performance from my troops. I'll fight when Scipio joins me." "Then," said Caesar to Antony, "let's make him warm his troops up a little." He broke camp with his usual startling rapidity and disappeared. At first Pompey thought he had retreated south due to lack of food; then his scouts informed him that Caesar had crossed the Genusus a few miles inland and headed up a mountain pass toward Dyrrachium. Horrified, Pompey realized that he was about to be cut off from his base and huge accumulation of supplies. Still, he was marching the Via Egnatia, while Caesar was stuck getting his army over what the scouts described as a track. Yes, he'd beat Caesar easily! Caesar was in the lead along that track, surrounded by the hoary young veterans of the Tenth. "Oh, this is more like it, Caesar!" said one of these hoary young veterans as the Tenth struggled around boulders and over rocks. "A decent march for once!" "Thirty-five miles of it, lad, so I've been told," Caesar said, grinning broadly, "and it's got to be done by sunset. When Pompeius strolls up the Via Egnatia, I want the bastard to be pointing his snub nose at our arses. He thinks he's got some Roman soldiers. I know he hasn't. The real Roman soldiers belong to me." "That's because," said Cassius Scaeva, one of the Tenth's centurions, "real Roman soldiers belong to real Roman generals, and there's no Roman general realer than Caesar." "That remains to be seen, Scaeva, but thanks for the kind words. From now on, boys, save your breath. You're going to need it before sunset." By the end of the day Caesar's army occupied some heights about two miles from Dyrrachium just east of the Via Egnatia; orders were to dig in for the duration, which meant a big camp bristling with fortifications. "Why not the higher heights over there, the ones the locals call Petra?" asked Antony, pointing south. "Oh, I think we'll leave that for Pompeius to occupy." "But it's better ground, surely!" "Too close to the sea, Antonius. We'd spend most of our time fending off Pompeius's fleets. No, he's welcome to Petra." Coming up the Via Egnatia the next morning to find Caesar between himself and Dyrrachium, Pompey seized the heights of Petra and established himself there impregnably. "Caesar would have done better to keep me out of here," said Pompey to Labienus. "It's far better ground, and I'm not cut off from Dyrrachium because I'm on the sea." He turned to one of his more satisfactory legates, his son-in-law, Faustus Sulla. "Faustus, get messages to my fleet commanders that all my supplies are to be landed here in future. And have them start ferrying what's in Dyrrachium." He lifted his lip. "We can't have Lentulus Crus complaining that there's no quail or garum sauce for his chefs to conjure their marvels." "It's an impasse," said Labienus, scowling. "All Caesar is intent on doing is demonstrating that he can run rings around us." A curiously prophetic statement. Within the next days the Pompeian high command in Petra noticed that Caesar was fortifying a line of hills about a mile and a half inland from the Via Egnatia, starting at his own camp's walls and moving inexorably south. Then entrenchments and earthworks were flung up between the forts, linking them together. Labienus spat in disgust. "The cunnus! He's going to circumvallate. He's going to wall us in against the sea and make it impossible for us to get enough grazing for our mules and horses."

Caesar had called his army to an assembly. "Here we are, a thousand and more miles from our old battleground in Gallia Comata, boys!" he shouted, looking cheerful and well, didn't he always? confident. "This last year must have seemed strange to you. More marching than digging! Not too many days going hungry! Not too many nights freezing! A romp in the hay from time to time! Plenty of money going into the legion banks! A nice, brisk sea voyage to clear the nostrils! "Dear, dear," he went on mildly, "you'll be getting soft at this rate! But we can't have that, can we, boys?" "NO!" roared the soldiers, thoroughly enjoying themselves. "That's what I thought. Time, I said to myself, that those cunni in my legions went back to what they do best! What do you do best, boys?" "DIG!" roared the soldiers, beginning to laugh. "Go to the top of Caesar's class! Dig it is! It looks like Pompeius might nerve himself to fight one of these years, and we can't have you going into battle without having first shifted a few million basketloads of earth, can we?" "NO!" roared the soldiers, hysterical with mirth. "That's what I thought too. So we're going to do what we do best, boys! We're going to dig, and dig, and dig! Then we'll dig some more. I've a fancy to make Alesia look like a holiday. I've a fancy to shut Pompeius up against the sea. Are you with me, boys? Will you dig alongside Caesar?" "YES!" they roared, flapping their kerchiefs in the air. "Circumvallation," said Antony thoughtfully afterward. "Antonius! You remembered the word!" "How could anyone forget Alesia? But why, Caesar?" "To make Pompeius respect me a little more," said Caesar, his manner making it impossible to tell whether he was joking. "He's got over seven thousand horses and nine thousand mules to feed. Not terribly difficult around here, where there's winter rain rather than winter snow. The grass doesn't wither, it keeps on growing. Unless, that is, he can't send his animals out to pasture. If I wall him in, he's in trouble. A circumvallation also renders his cavalry ineffectual. No room to maneuver." "You've convinced me." "Oh, but there's more," said Caesar. "I want to humiliate Pompeius in the eyes of his client kings and allies. I want men like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes to chew their nails down wondering and worrying whether Pompeius will ever get up the courage to fight. He's outnumbered me two to one since I landed. Yet he will not fight. If it goes on long enough, Antonius, some of his foreign kings and allies might decide to withdraw their support, bring their levies home. After all, they're paying, and the men who pay are entitled to see results." "I'm convinced, I'm convinced!" cried Antony, palms up in surrender. "It's also necessary to demonstrate to Pompeius what five and a half legions like mine can do," said Caesar as if no one had interrupted. "He's well aware that these are my Gallic veterans, and that they've marched two thousand miles over the course of the last year. Now I'm going to ask them to work their arses off doing however many miles of digging are necessary. Probably, knowing I'm strapped, short of food. Pompeius will have his fleets patrolling endlessly, and I don't see any deterioration in their efficiency since Bibulus died." "Odd, that." "Bibulus never did know when enough was enough, Antonius." Caesar sighed. "Though, candidly, I'll miss him. He's the first of my old enemies to go. The Senate won't be the same." "It'll improve considerably!" "In terms of ease, yes. But not when it comes to the kind of opposition every man should have to contend with. If there's one thing I fear, Antonius, it's that this wretched war will end in my having no opponents left. Which won't be good for me." "Sometimes," said Antony, pursing his lips and touching the tip of his nose with them, "I don't understand you, Caesar. Surely you don't hanker for the kind of anguish Bibulus gave you! These days you can do what has to be done. Your solutions are the right ones. Men like Bibulus and Cato made it impossible for you to improve the way Rome works. You're better off without the sort of opposition that watches the skies rather than governs that has a dual standard one set of rules for their own conduct, a different set for your conduct. Sorry, I think losing Bibulus is almost as good as losing Cato would be. One down, one to go!" "Then you have more faith in my integrity than I do at times. Autocracy is insidious. Perhaps there's no man ever born, even me, with the strength to resist it unless opposed," said Caesar soberly. He shrugged. "Still, none of this will bring Bibulus back." "Pompeius's son might end in being more dangerous with those terrific Egyptian quinqueremes. He's knocked out your naval station at Oricum and burned thirty of my transports in Lissus." "Pah!" said Caesar contemptuously. "They're nothings. When I return my army to Brundisium, Antonius, it will be in Pompeius's transports. And what's Oricum? I'll live without those warships. What Pompeius doesn't yet understand is that he will never be free of me. Wherever he goes, I'll be there to make his life a misery."