Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

Caesar had not gone the long way across the range of sere mountains which spined Greece and Macedonia on the west. Below Apollonia lay the river Aous, one of the major streams which came down from the backbone itself. A very poor road followed it into the Tymphe Mountains, traversed a pass and descended to Thessaly at the headwaters of the river Peneus. Rather than march an extra one hundred and fifty miles, Caesar and his army turned off the better roads of Epirus and proceeded at their usual thirty to thirty-five miles a day along a road which meant they needed to build only a rudimentary camp each night; they saw no one save shepherds and sheep, emerged into Thessaly well to the north of Gomphi at the town of Aeginium. Thessaly had declared for Pompey. Like the other regions of Greece, it was organized into a league of towns, which had a council called the Thessalian League. On hearing of Pompey's great victory at Dyrrachium, the leader of the League, Androsthenes of Gomphi, sent out word to every town to support Pompey. Dazed at the speed with which a fit and businesslike army proceeded to reduce it, Aeginium sent frantic messages to all the other towns of the Thessalian League that a far-from-defeated-looking Caesar was in the neighborhood. Tricca was the next place to fall; Caesar moved on to Gomphi, from which city Androsthenes sent an urgent message to Pompey that Caesar had arrived long before he was expected. Gomphi fell. Though the month was early Sextilis, the season was still spring; there were no ripe crops anywhere and the rains had been poor east of the ranges. A minor famine threatened. For this reason Caesar ensured the submission of western Thessaly; it gave him a source of supplies. He was also waiting for the rest of his legions to join him. Word had gone out recalling the Seventh, Fourteenth, Eleventh and Twelfth. With Lucius Cassius, Sabinus, Calenus and Domitius Calvinus back in the fold, Caesar advanced due east en route to the better roads which led to the city of Larissa and the pass into Macedonia at Tempe. The best way was along the river Enipeus to Scotussa, where Caesar planned to turn north toward Larissa. Less than ten miles short of Scotussa, Caesar dug himself a stout camp north of the Enipeus outside the village of Pharsalus; he had heard that Pompey was coming, and the lay of the land at Pharsalus was battleworthy. Typical of Caesar, he didn't choose the best ground for himself. It always paid to seem at a bit of a disadvantage; routine generals and he classified Pompey as a routine general tended to go by what the manuals said, accept them as doctrine. Pompey would like Pharsalus. A line of hills to the north sloping to a little plain about two miles wide, then the swampy course of the Enipeus River. Yes, Pharsalus would do.

Pompey received the message from Androsthenes in Gomphi as he skirted his old training camp at Beroea. He turned immediately and headed for the pass into Thessaly at Tempe. There was no other easy way to go; the massif of Mount Olympus and its sprawling, rugged foothills prevented a straighter march. Outside the city of Larissa he was finally reunited with Metellus Scipio, and breathed a sigh of relief for many reasons, not the least important of which was those two extra and veteran legions. Relations within the tents of the high command had deteriorated even further since leaving Heracleia. Everyone had decided it was time to put Pompey in his place, and in Larissa the long-simmering resentments and grudges all surfaced together. It started when one of Pompey's senior military tribunes, an Acutius Rufus, chose to summon the high command to a hearing in a military court he had taken it upon himself to convene. And there in front of Pompey and his legates he formally charged Lucius Afranius with treason for deserting his troops after Illerda; the chief prosecutor was Marcus Favonius, adhering religiously to Cato's instructions to keep Pompey "pure." Pompey's temper snapped. "Acutius, dismiss this illegal court!" he roared, fists clenched, face mottling. "Go on, get out before I arraign you on treason charges! As for you, Favonius, I would have thought that your experience in public life would have taught you to avoid unconstitutional prosecutions! Get out! Get out! Get out!" The court dissolved, but Favonius wasn't done. He began to lie in wait for Pompey, to hector him at every opportunity with Afranius's falseness, and Afranius, almost deprived of breath at the impudence of it, hammered away in Pompey's other ear with demands that he dismiss Favonius from his service. Petreius sided with Afranius, naturally, and hammered away too. Active command of the army had devolved upon Labienus, whose lightest punishment for the most minor infringement was a flogging; the troops muttered and shivered, looked sideways with darkling glances, plotted how to expose Labienus to the spears during the battle everyone knew was coming. Over dinner, Ahenobarbus struck. "And how's our dear Agamemnon, King of Kings?" he enquired as he strolled in on Favonius's arm. Jaw dropped, Pompey stared. "What did you call me?" "Agamemnon, King of Kings," said Ahenobarbus, sneering. "Meaning?" asked Pompey dangerously. "Why, that you're in the same position as Agamemnon, King of Kings. Titular head of the army of a thousand ships, titular head of a group of kings, any one of whom has as much right to call himself King of Kings as you do. But it's over a millennium since the Greeks invaded Priam's homeland. You'd think something would have changed, wouldn't you? But it hasn't. In modern Rome we still suffer Agamemnon, King of Kings." "Cast yourself in the role of Achilles, have you, Ahenobarbus? Going to sulk beside your ships while the world goes to pieces and the best men die?" asked Pompey, lips white. "Well, I'm not sure," said Ahenobarbus, comfortably disposed on his couch between Favonius and Lentulus Spinther. He selected a hothouse grape from bunches ferried across from Chalcidean Pallene, where this profitable little industry had grown up inside linen-draped frames. "Actually," he went on, spitting out seeds and reaching for the whole bunch, "I was thinking more of the role of Agamemnon, King of Kings." "Hear, hear," barked Favonius, searching in vain for some simpler fare and profoundly glad that Cato wasn't present to see how Pompey's high command were living in this Romanized land of luxurious plenty. Hothouse grapes! Chian wine twenty years in the amphora! Sea urchins galloped from Rhizus and sauced with an exotic version of garum! Baby quail filched from new mothers to slide down the gullet of Lentulus Crus! "Want the command tent, do you, Ahenobarbus?" "I'm not sure I'd say no." "Why," asked Pompey, tearing savagely at some cheesed bread, "would you want the aggravation?" "The aggravation," said Ahenobarbus, bald pate sporting a pretty wreath of spring flowers, "lies in the fact that Agamemnon, King of Kings, never wants to give battle." "A wise course, said Pompey, hanging onto his temper grimly. "My strategy is to wear Caesar down by Fabian means. Engaging the man is an unnecessary risk. We lie between him and good supply lines. Greece is in drought. As summer comes in, he'll be hungry. By autumn he will have looted Greece of everything edible. And in winter he'll capitulate. My son Gnaeus is so snugly based in Corcyra that he'll get nothing across the Adriatic, Gaius Cassius has won a big victory against Pomponius off Messana " "I heard," Lentulus Spinther interrupted, "that after this much-lauded victory, Gaius Cassius went on to do battle with Caesar's old legate Sulpicius. And that a legion of Caesar's watching from the shore became so fed up with the way Sulpicius was handling the battle that they rowed out, boarded Cassius's ships, and trounced him. He had to slip over the side of his flagship to get away." "Well, yes, that is true," Pompey admitted. "Fabian means," said Lentulus Crus between mouthfuls of succulent squid sauced with their own sepia ink, "are ridiculous, Pompeius. Caesar can't win; we all know that. You're always griping about our lack of money, so why are you so determined on these Fabian tactics?" "Strategy, not tactics," said Pompey. "Whatever who cares?" asked Lentulus Crus loftily. "I say that the moment we find Caesar, we give battle. Get it over and done with. Then head home for Italia and a few proscriptions." Brutus lay listening to all this in growing horror. His own participation in the siege of Dyrrachium had been minuscule; at any chance he volunteered to ride for Thessalonica or Athens or anywhere far from that frenzied, revolting cesspool. Only at Heracleia had he realized what kind of dissension was going on between Pompey and his legates. At Heracleia he heard of the doings of Labienus. At Heracleia he began to realize that Pompey's own legates would end in ruining him. Oh, why had he ever left Tarsus, Publius Sestius and that careful state of neutrality? How could he collect the interest on debts from people like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes while they were funding Pompey's war? How would he manage if these intransigent boars did manage to thrust Pompey into the battle he so clearly didn't want? He was right, he was right! Fabian tactics strategy would win in the end. And wasn't it worth it, to spare Roman lives, ensure a minimum of bloodshed? What would he do if someone thrust a sword into his hand and told him to fight? "Caesar's done for," said Metellus Scipio, who didn't agree with his son-in-law in this matter. He sighed happily, smiled. "I will be the Pontifex Maximus at last." Ahenobarbus sat bolt upright. "You'll what?" "Be the Pontifex Maximus at last." "Over my dead body!" yelled Ahenobarbus. "That's one public honor belongs to me and my family!" "Gerrae!" said Lentulus Spinther, grinning. "You can't even get yourself elected a priest, Ahenobarbus, let alone get yourself elected Pontifex Maximus. You're a born loser." "I will do what my grandfather did, Spinther! I'll be voted in as pontifex and Pontifex Maximus at the same election!" "No! It's going to be a race between me and Scipio." "Neither of you stands a chance!" gasped Metellus Scipio, outraged. "I'm the next Pontifex Maximus!" The clang of a knife thrown against precious gold plate set everyone jumping; Pompey slid off his couch and walked from the room without looking back.