Cicero - Anthony Everitt [126]
This was a well-aimed, and possibly well-informed, intervention. Cicero was not at all happy with his present circumstances. Could Cato have been right, after all? He made little secret of the fact that he now regretted having come to Greece. He could not resist making sarcastic comments and jokes about his colleagues and companions in arms and wandered about the camp looking so glum that he became something of a figure of fun. He criticized Pompey’s plans behind his back and ridiculed the faith he and his supporters placed in prophecies and oracles. Above all, he went on arguing for peace and believed he might have won Pompey over if his confidence had not been boosted by the success at Dyrrachium.
Looking back a couple of years afterwards he summed up his opinions:
I came to regret my action, not so much because of the risk to my personal safety as of the appalling situation which confronted me on arrival. To begin with, our forces were too small and had poor morale. Second, with the exception of the Commander-in-Chief and a handful of others (I am talking about the leading figures), everyone was greedy to profit from the war itself and their conversation was so bloodthirsty that I shuddered at the prospect of victory. What’s more, people of the highest rank were up to their ears in debt. In a word, nothing was right except the cause we were fighting for.
There was talk of a proscription and, shockingly, Atticus had been marked down, perhaps because of his wealth, as a candidate for liquidation.
The climax of the campaign took place on August 9 on a plain near the town of Pharsalus in central Greece. Against his better judgment, although his army was much the larger of the two (perhaps 50,000 strong as compared with Caesar’s force of about 30,000), Pompey at last offered battle. His plan was to outflank and roll up Caesar’s right wing with a strong troop of horses, but Caesar guessed his intentions and placed some cohorts out of sight behind his center. His wing retreated in good order, as it had been instructed to do, and Pompey’s onrushing cavalry was attacked from the side and routed. It was now Caesar’s turn to outflank the enemy center and the rest of the engagement was a massacre. Pompey’s soldiers stood their ground and died patiently, but the non-Roman allies put up no resistance and fled, shouting, “We’ve lost.” Caesar recorded 200 fatalities while some 15,000 of Pompey’s men were killed and 23,000 captured.
When Pompey saw how the battle was going, he withdrew to his camp where he sat speechless and stunned. Nothing in his long, cloudless career had prepared him for such a disaster. He changed out of his uniform and made his escape on horseback. His camp presented a remarkable spectacle. In his history of the war, Caesar described what he found: “[There] could be seen artificial arbors, a great weight of silver plate laid out, tents spread with fresh turf, those of Lucius Lentulus and several others covered with ivy, and many other indications of extravagant indulgence and confidence in victory.” Inspecting the corpses on the battlefield, he remarked bitterly of the optimates: “They insisted on it.”
Cicero was not present at Pharsalus, although it is possible that Quintus was, together with the seventeen-year-old Marcus, who had been given command of a troop of horses in Pompey’s army and was doubtless enjoying the break from his studies in Athens. Being in poor health (whether genuinely or expediently), Cicero stayed behind at Dyrrachium with Cato, who commanded the town’s garrison. Cicero was as annoyingly sarcastic as ever. When someone said optimistically that there was hope yet, for they had seven Eagles left (the legionary standards), he joked bitterly: “Excellent, if we were fighting jackdaws.”
Caesar knew that if the war was to be brought to a rapid conclusion, it was of the utmost importance to capture his defeated rival; so he set off in pursuit of Pompey as he made his way eastwards, destination