When the camps of the (two) generals came near and close to each other, each of them cast an eye over his army, and reviews were held of troops and horses and weapons. His soldiers urged Caesar to march on to wreck Greece and take its ramparts and citadels and cities, and said that if Pompey should come to contend with them they would attack him without neglect. That, however, seemed naught to Caesar, and he put every thing aside save reaching Pompey; for he knew that if he defeated Pompey he would possess Greece and the whole world. He rejected every counsel that was offered to him except to seek the great evil, and to get to the gambling of the Fates and Fortune and the one common danger of all the world, to wit, the site of the great battle.
Then for three successive days he brought his ordered battalions under their battle-arms, and planted their standards on the height above Pompey's camp in a tryst of war to Pompey and his army. Pompey declared that though Caesar desired it, he would not come the more quickly to the battle until he was ready for fighting as if he had (superior) force. Caesar, however, when he received out of Pompey's camp no reply as to battle, turned with his troops to wreck the land of Greece and to shake and raid its fortresses and cities and citadels.
At first then he turned to the fortress of Dyrrachium, the city in which Pyrrhus son of Achilles dwelt, on the shore of the Ionian Sea, in the border of Greece. It is one of all the world's chief fortresses. A stony, craggy island, with the Ionian Sea on every point around it, save only a single rocky footridge therein. Neither hands of wrights nor human labour had strengthened that fortress, but blue, perilous rock-cliffs, and basic crags everlasting ever-high from the beginning of the world and from the time of the Flood on every side around it, so that its destruction would be hard, even though there were no valiant host a-guarding it.
Caesar directed his soldiers through the rough, difficult, thorny fields of Greece towards this steading. When Pompey heard that, he marched with his troops, beside the sea on the levels of the shore, and arrayed his troops and his camps at the fortress of Dyrrachium before Caesar came at all near him. When Caesar saw that the place had been seized by Pompey, he was pondering in his mind what plan he should form. He began to reconnoitre and survey the land on every side.
This is the design that he made, to build a strong wall of stone over all the land from one sea to another (and thus)
Never in the world had there been built ramparts like that wall. Never was there any desire (?) to equal with it the walls of Troy or of Babylon. Yet let no one wonder that that great work was achieved by Caesar in so short a time; for though great was the labour many were the workers. Such were the multitude of Caesar's troops and the spirit of his soldiers, that if he had imposed it as labour, they would have made traversable land of the surface of the Tyrrhene sea, from the isle of Sestos in the territory of Europe to the isle of Abydos in a port of Africa. Or they would have brought the main-sea in its burst of flood-tide and severed the shore of Epirus from the lands of Greece. Or they would have moved any spot
Caesar established a position and a camp very near that fortification. Videttes and spies on Pompey's army were stationed at every point of the wall. Pompey, however, knew not that this work was being done by Caesar until its strengthening was sufficiently complete. Now when Pompey perceived that the fragment of land which he occupied was beleaguered and enclosed, he brought his multitudinous army out of the security of the fortress of Dyrrhachium, and posted orderly bands and arrayed battalions against the wall, in order that Caesar's force might be scattered and thinned by manning the wall against them. And the extent of the ground which Pompey's battalions occupied after they were arrayed, elbow to elbow, beside the wall, was the extent of the land between the bounds of Rome and the city of Aricia in Italy, or the extent of the ground which the river Tiber traverses from the ramparts of Rome to the Tyrrhene sea, provided it take (its course) direct, without winding or straying therein.
This is that whole common measure, namely, twenty-two miles of a thousand paces, or nine leagues according to the French measure.
So then Caesar's people and Pompey's people were thus, face to face, for a long time, without any battling or contending between them. This is the cause: a great pestilential disease and an unendurable plague entered Pompey's camp, to wit, a sudden illness, which first attacked the horses so that some of them died with their bits of grass in their mouths, and others in the midst of their course, and so that it was hard for their riders to preserve themselves by leaping from them at the time of the pestilence. The entrails of the horses putrefied, and filled the air of the land with stench and evil smell.
The poison of that polluted air fell also on the waters and the rivers of the country, and a violent pestilence attacked the humans of the camp through drinking those waters and sucking in the smell of the air. Such was the violence of the pestilence that friends would not perform the burial of the corrupted corpses, so that they were mingled with the living in the huts of the camp. Wherefore there was still an increase of that pestilence. At last such was the soreness of the pestilence that it was a great honour for friends only to throw the corpses out over the camp.
But the vicinity of the sea helped them greatly. For the rough winds of the green sea swept away from them the pestiferousness and the stench of the air. The havens too, were filled with merchant-vessels laden with much wine and abundance of all other supplies from the provinces of Asia and the whole Orient: so that they had no scarcity of food or of (other) good things.
To Caesar's army, however, though it did not suffer from pestilence, there came a plague that was less easily endured, namely, famine after their provisions were exhausted. Moreover, the corncrops of the country did not come to them in their proper ripeness. The Caesarians were therefore unable to make far-off raids or destructions. All they could do was to guard the fortress and to beleaguer Pompey's troops. So great was the famine that they were devouring the grass and leaves along with their own horses, and were consuming strange herbs which had never before reached human tables. For all that, they did not quit their camps or their posts of beleaguerment, although it (the famine) was unendurable.
Pompey, however, when activity and strength came to his troops after the pestilence had left them, made this plan: to
However, he was choosing the place in the wall that for him was most practicable. On this he settled, to attack it at the castles of Minucius. So he directed manifestly towards that part of the wall his innumerable force in their serried, firm, arrayed, battalions. Their trumpets were sounded, and their noisy bugles, and their warning horns, and their battle-pipes, at one time and in one movement. A ‘chilly wakening of foes’ was brought by them on the guards of that place, who went forthwith on their turrets of fighting and towers of contention.
They began to survey the plain, and saw coming towards them the beautiful winged standards, and the open banners, and the shapes of eagles, and the satin flags over the spears, and the fields full of the bosses of shields, and of the woods of spears, and of armed men. From this they turned and retreated.
Startling of death and dread of destruction filled them, so that it was needless for their foes to ply their weapons upon them. Pompey's troops drew near the wall, and torches and piny lights red-flaming were put under the supports of the turrets and the towers of contention, so that they were trembling and unsteady, falling to the ground; and there was no cessation of casting and battering upon them.
The Pompeians then came on the top of the wall, and they saw as much as the eye could reach of the great country on every side. But there is something still, the place that the
Scaeva was the name of that warrior: a choice soldier of the Romans was that man; and a deedful champion. He was, like any (other) soldier along with Caesar in the army until one time Caesar came to conquer the dwellers by the river Rhone in the districts of Gaul. In conquering those nations Scaeva displayed great valour, and excelled all the soldiers along with him until the nations submitted to Caesar. He was then made a centurion by Caesar, and thenceforward he remained in Caesar's favour, without severing from him, until this day. A good warrior to his own lord was that man. A man devoted to do everything evil and everything good that his lord enjoined upon him. He knew not that anything he would do would be the worse for him, provided his lord entrusted it to him.
When that man saw his people preparing to flee before Pompey's troops, he began to blame them and spur them on greatly: ‘Whither, O youths, is fear driving you?’ says he. ‘Till today the way ye proceed, namely flight, is unknown to Caesarians. O base slaves and O servile cattle’, quoth he, ‘it is hateful of you to flee without yet having shed your blood. Are ye not ashamed that your bodies will not be counted among the bodies of your comrades and fellow-soldiers when Caesar will be paying us the honour of burial? Even though ye do no good for love of your lord or your honour, at least
‘By my word, this day shall not pass without plenteous shedding of his people's blood in requital of this (insult). I should welcome death were Caesar in presence of my deeds. It is not my luck for him to be before me. Pompey, however, will see what good I shall do, and will praise my deeds when I shall fall. Set your breasts against your enemies' weapons, and act boldly, for help will come to you readily, because Caesar will see the dust of the horse-hosts and will hear the shouts of the battle. Then the man will come to avenge us, while we ourselves are gaining a glorious death after showing valour in the battle.’
Then Scaeva arose manfully on the top of the turret and began to show great bravery. From the tops of the turrets and the towers of conflict he was hurling on the heads of his enemies both beams and stones and the bodies of slain warriors. He was taking great leaps (?) aloft, and often threatened his foes that he would fling himself with his weapons against them. Some of his foes he repels with the poles and sharp-pointed stakes of the block-houses, and others with bars and palings and long thick bolts, with their spikes of iron round their tops.
Thereafter great bodies of the Pompeians began to scale the upper parts of the turrets. Scaeva saw them and bared his hard-sharp, broad-grooved sword out of its warlike sheath, and began to cut off their hands and their arms, so that they fell in their lopped masses on the heads of his fellow-soldiers, and in falling crushed their heads and their bodies and their shields. Moreover, the spears were through them athwart.
Alike then were their hands cut off by the sword, and their heads and bones crushed by stones and front-attacking rocks, and their hair and their beards and whiskers and cheeks were burnt by flaming lights and firebrands of pine and half-burnt lance-points.
When the corpses and entrails of the slain men rose so that they were in heaps and vast mounds beside the wall, and Scaeva could not attain to strike at his foes past them or over them, he made a hero's leap from the place on which he was, and nimbly sprang with the vehemence of the African lion springing over the serried hunting-spears, so that he lighted standing-up in the centre of a battalion of his enemies. Then from the midst he began making play upon them, and he was striking them, forward and backward, with his right hand and with his left. He sought every path where he saw resistance. Every path on which he looked used to break before him.
Then his sword was gapped and blunted on the bones of heroes and the teeth of men and the necks of soldiers and the bosses of shields and the chains of hauberks and the crest-borders of helmets, so that he had no sword-play; and it was neither cutting nor cleaving nor mangling that he was doing, but pounding and crushing and breaking and killing.
When his foes saw him at that feat, destroying their troops, they formed a death-fold around him on every side. They strengthened and packed themselves, and they brought the cruel, combative battalion at once upon him. A novel, unusual battle was fought there, namely, the many thousands battling against one man. They all simultaneously cast their spears upon him. None of the spears went astray, but all remained, like equally tall bristles, in the hero's skin and in the loops of his hauberk. Thereafter he was not allowed to
It were great folly thenceforward to cast spears or darts upon him, for they did not remain in him, but went running through him on the tracks of the other spears and darts. But it would be equal strength and it would be meet for them (to bring) towards him, to overturn him, a battering-ram or an engine for loosening ramparts, because he was a strong impregnable wall, stopping Pompey on Caesar's behalf.
Then Scaeva flung his shield from him and began to join in the fray on his right and his left, with his palisade of edged javelins through him athwart, so that he had not a human form, but was as if he were one of the monsters of the sea. Very sorrowfully, and very wearily was he putting some of his weapons away and choosing which of his foes he should attack, so that he and they might fall together to death. Nothing was then like him, save what the African elephant is said to be when in battle he is struck by many missiles, and he shakes off those missiles without any bloodshedding after them because of the bony nature in the elephant's body as regards the shedding of blood. Thus then was it with Scaeva, for though the missiles pierced his body and his flesh from the outside, yet his strength or his spirit or his internal forces neither ebbed nor abated; and though many were the spears and darts through him, they all had not yet caused his death.
'Tis then that a Cretan warrior launched an arrow at him. The arrow took a terrible course and sped to him straight and purposely; and no one expected it to be placed as it happened: for it fell on the top of Scaeva's left eye and pierced his brain in the middle of his head. Scaeva at once plucked the arrow out of his head, and brought the eyeball, after breaking its roots, forth on the barbs of the arrow. He dashes them down on the ground, and tramples them with his heel against them, so that he hid them altogether under the earth.
Nought was there like him there save what is told of the ferocious bear when hurt: it grinds its teeth against the spear by which it is wounded, and casts it away in broken fragments. The blood and the brain then began to drop together over Scaeva's face. A mighty shout of triumph was then given by Pompey's army, for at that time to have wounded Caesar himself in their presence would not have caused them greater pleasure.
Then said Scaeva to them: ‘O dear citizens, spare me henceforward: for enough is what ye have done to me. Ye need not add to my wounds, but ye need only draw out the spears that are supporting me. Carry out a kindly counsel: come to me and carry me alive into Pompey's camp that everyone may deem my desertion a desertion from Caesar and a submission to Pompey before death.’
A good warrior, named Aulus, one of Pompey's special followers, who was in front of Scaeva in the battle, believed that (falsehood), and came to him to carry him with his weapons. But Scaeva gave him a blow with his sword, down to the base of his tongue, and took his back-sinews (?) through it. At this Scaeva's spirit arose and he said: ‘Let everyone who thinks that I have deserted my lord come hither that I may treat him
Thereat the Pompeians saw coming towards them the heavy clouds and the dust of great mists over the heads of troops above the plain. It seemed to them that it was Caesar with his cohorts who came there. So they were driven from the place of conflict, and they left the site of the battle to Scaeva. Then Scaeva fell, since his wrath abated when his foes withdrew from him, and his soul parted from his body. That was no death from cowardice: it would be a death from deeds of valour and heroism, had it been from enemies at first that he gained a victory, and had he not died in waging a conflict of the Civil War. His body was then carried away by his people; they took his foemen's weapons out of his sides, and dedicated his own weapons to Mars, the god of battle.
Now although on that side Pompey's army was repulsed, not the more did it rest from the fighting, even as the great sea is not wearied, though some of its waves are driven back from the top of a rock, or the side of a cliff or a high mountain. For the sea rests not from continually beating with its billows, though it be far thereto. Thus then was it with Pompey in destroying that wall, for he came on towards the fortress at the end of the wall near the sea, (which was held) by the Caesarians.
He ordered a mighty host in ships (to be) destroying it, while his footsoldiers and cavalry were (attacking it) on land; and he never ceased till he had made great, ruinous battle-breaches therein, and brought his troops over them into the great plain. Immoderately were those troops scattered throughout the plain, after they had gone out over the wall: as swiftly and immoderately as the flood of the river Padus scatters over its shores and spreads over the neighbouring districts.
Caesar, however, knew nothing of that combat being fought until it had ended, and he recognised the signal-fire which was kindled by the lookout-men after Pompey with his troops had passed out over the wall. He came at once to the place where the fire was kindled, and saw the great battle-breaches open, and the track of the hosts, and the ramparts rased. And then he saw Pompey's camps joyously, peacefully posted on the levels of the plain before him.
That Pompey should have rest was to Caesar a great breaking of spirit and nature. His wrath allowed him not to await his troops without attacking Pompey's camp; for he even wished a slaughter to be inflicted on his men provided he disturbed the great rejoicings that were in the camps. So with the few troops that stayed along with him he rushed at once on the top of the neighbouring camp of Torquatus, a good leader of the Pompeians. Torquatus, perceiving Caesar coming to him, forthwith collected his people as speedily and nimbly as sailors would take in the sails of their ships on perceiving sea-danger near them, or at the wind turning upon them.
Caesar had just crossed the ramparts of Torquatus' camp when the men in Pompey's great leaguer perceived him.
This then is the counsel they took, not to attack the superior force. But they came in their course and in their proper valorous fashion to the battalions outside. And they were full-thankful to reach, with their souls in their bodies, those of them that were not destroyed. Good reason they had, for if Pompey had allowed his soldiers to ply upon them ‘the protection of their swords’, the Civil War, and all the evils that grew from it in Rome, would, from that day forth, have ceased for ever. Alas, not insignificant was the loss of the Caesarians, although they were spared, for 4050 warriors fell and 22 centurions in that onslaught, from beginning to end.
This is what induced Pompey to spare them: he deemed it a disgrace for the neighbouring nations to see him killing Romans in their presence, and also he was unwilling to launch his battalions on that small force, since he did not think that Caesar was among them, and he was sure that Caesar would never come to attack him with but few soldiers. So Pompey came on to his camp, gladly and in high spirits at having won that victory over Caesar.
So far one of the foretales of the Great Battle of Thessaly. The Conflict in Epirus and the Tragic Death of Scaeva is the name of that story.