Naturally, our commanders tried to interrupt these works, and there were many skirmishes – sometimes four or five in a day. But the labour went on more or less continuously for several months until Caesar had completed a fifteen-mile fortified line that ran all the way round our position in a great loop, from the beaches to the north of our camp to the cliffs to the south. Within this loop we built our own system of trenches facing theirs, with perhaps fifty or a hundred paces of no man’s land between the two sides. Siege engines were brought up and the artillerymen would lob rocks and flaming missiles at one another. Raiding parties would creep across the lines at night and slit the throats of the men in the opposing trench. When the wind dropped, we could hear them talking. Often they shouted insults at us; our men yelled back. I remember a constant atmosphere of tension. It began to prey on one’s nerves.
Cicero fell ill with dysentery and spent most of his time reading and writing letters in his tent. ‘Tent’ was something of a misnomer. He and the leading senators seemed to vie with one another to see who could make their accommodation the most luxurious. There were carpets, couches, tables, statues and silverware shipped over from Italy on the inside, and walls of turf and leafy bowers outside. They dined with one another and bathed together as if they were still on the Palatine. Cicero became particularly close to Cato’s nephew Brutus, who had the tent next door, and who was seldom seen without a book of philosophy in his hand. They would spend hours sitting up talking late into the night. Cicero liked him for his noble nature and his learning but worried that his head was actually crammed too full of philosophy for him to make practical use of it: ‘I sometimes fear he may have been educated out of his wits.’
One of the peculiarities of this style of trench warfare was that one could also have quite friendly contact with the enemy. The ordinary soldiers would periodically meet in the unoccupied middle ground to talk or gamble, although our officers inflicted severe penalties for fraternisation. Letters were lobbed over from one side to the other. Cicero received several messages by sea from Rufus, who was in Rome, and even one from Dolabella, who was with Caesar less than five miles away, and who sent a courier under a flag of truce:
If you are well I am glad. I myself am well and so is our Tullia. Terentia has been rather out of sorts, but I know for certain that she has now recovered. Otherwise all your domestic affairs are in excellent shape.
You see Pompey’s situation. Driven out of Italy, Spain lost, he is now, to crown it all, blockaded in his camp – a humiliation which I fancy has never previously befallen a Roman general. One thing I do beg of you: if he does manage to escape from his present dangerous position and takes refuge with his fleet, consult your own best interests and at long last be your own friend rather than anybody else’s.
My most delightful Cicero, if it turns out that Pompey is driven from this area too and forced to seek yet other regions of the earth, I hope you will retire to Athens or to any peaceful community you please. Any concessions that you need from the commander-in-chief to safeguard your dignity you will obtain with the greatest ease from so kindly a man as Caesar. I trust to your honour and kindness to see that the courier I am sending you is able to return to me and brings a letter from you.
Cicero’s breast could barely contain all the conflicting emotions aroused by reading this extraordinary missive – delight that Tullia was well, outrage at his son-in-law’s impudence, guilty relief that Caesar’s policy of clemency still extended to him, fear that the letter could fall into the hands of a fanatic like Ahenobarbus who might use it to bring a charge of treason against him …
He scribbled a cautious line to say that he was well and would continue to support the Senate’s cause, and then he had the courier escorted back across our lines.
As the weather began to turn hotter, life became more unpleasant. Caesar had a genius for damming springs and diverting water – it was how he had often won sieges in France and Spain, and now he used the same tactic against us. He controlled the rivers and streams coming down from the mountains and his engineers cut them off. The grass turned brown. Water had to be brought in by sea in thousands of amphorae and was rationed. The senators’ daily baths were forbidden on Pompey’s orders. More importantly, the horses began to fall sick from dehydration and lack of forage. We knew that Caesar’s men were in an even worse state – unlike us, they could not be resupplied with food by sea, and both Greece and Macedonia were closed to them. They were reduced to making their daily bread out of roots they grubbed up. But Caesar’s battle-hardened veterans were tougher than our men; they showed no sign of weakening.
I am not sure how much longer this could have gone on. But about four months after our arrival in Dyrrachium, there was a breakthrough. Cicero was summoned to one of Pompey’s irregular war councils in his vast tent in the centre of the camp, and returned a few hours later looking almost cheerful for once. He told us that two Gallic auxiliaries serving in Caesar’s army had been caught stealing from their legionary comrades and sentenced to be flogged to death. Somehow they had managed to escape and come over to our side. They offered information in return for their lives. There was, they said, a weakness in Caesar’s fortifications some two hundred paces wide, close to the sea: the outer perimeter appeared sound but there was no secondary line behind it. Pompey warned them they would die the most horrible death if what they had said proved to be false. They swore it was true, but begged him to hurry before the hole was plugged. He saw no reason to disbelieve them, and an attack was fixed for dawn the following day.
All that night our troops moved stealthily into position. Young Marcus, now a cavalry officer, was among them. Cicero fretted sleeplessly about his safety, and at first light he and I, accompanied by his lictors and Quintus, went over to watch the battle. Pompey had brought up a huge force. We could not get close enough to see what was happening. Cicero dismounted and we walked along the beach, the waves lapping at our ankles. Our ships were anchored in a line about a quarter of a mile offshore. Up ahead we could hear the noise of fighting mingling with the roar of the sea. The air was dark with clouds of arrows, occasionally lit up by flaming missiles. There must have been five thousand men on the beach. We were asked by one of the military tribunes not to proceed any further because of the danger, so we sat down under a myrtle tree and had something to eat.
Around midday the legion moved off and we followed it cautiously. The wooden fort Caesar’s men had built in the dunes was in our hands, and in the flat lands beyond it thousands of men were deploying. It was very hot. Bodies lay everywhere, pierced by arrows and javelins or with horrible gaping wounds. To our right we saw several squadrons of cavalry galloping towards the fighting. Cicero was sure he spotted Marcus among them and we all cheered them loudly, but then Quintus recognised their colours and announced that they were Caesar’s. At that point Cicero’s lictors hustled him away from the battlefield and we returned to camp.
The battle of Dyrrachium, as it became known, was a great victory. Caesar’s line was irretrievably broken and his entire position thrown into danger. Indeed he would have been utterly defeated that very day had it not been for the network of trenches that slowed up our advance and meant we had to dig in for the night. Pompey was hailed as imperator by his men on the field, and when he got back to the camp in his war chariot, attended by his bodyguards, he raced around inside the perimeter and up and down the torchlit tented streets, cheered by his legionaries.
The next day, towards the end of the morning, far in the distance in the direction of Caesar’s camp, columns of smoke began to rise over the plain. At the same time reports started coming in from all around our front lines that the trenches opposite were empty. Our men ventured out cautiously at first but were soon wandering over the enemy’s fortifications, astonished that so many months of labour could be so readily abandoned. But there was no doubt about it: Caesar’s legionaries were marching off to the east along the Via Egnatia. We could see the dust. Whatever equipment they could no
t take was burning behind them. The siege was over.
Pompey summoned a meeting of the Senate-in-exile late in the afternoon to decide what should be done next. Cicero asked me to accompany him and Quintus so that he could have a record of what was decided. The sentries guarding Pompey’s tent nodded me through without question and I took up a discreet position, standing at the side, along with the other secretaries and aides-de-camp. There must have been almost a hundred senators present, seated on benches. Pompey, who had been out all day inspecting Caesar’s positions, arrived after everyone else, and was given a standing ovation, which he acknowledged with a touch of his marshal’s baton to the side of his famous quiff.
He reported on the situation of the two armies after the battle. The enemy had lost about a thousand men killed and three hundred taken prisoner. Immediately Labienus proposed that the prisoners should all be executed. ‘I worry they will infect our own men who guard them with their treasonous thoughts. Besides, they have forfeited the right to life.’
Cicero, with a look of distaste, rose to object. ‘We have achieved a mighty victory. The end of the war is in sight. Isn’t now the time to be magnanimous?’
‘No,’ replied Labienus. ‘An example must be made.’
‘An example that can only cause Caesar’s men to fight with even more determination once they learn the fate that awaits them if they surrender.’
‘So be it. This tactic of Caesar’s of offering clemency is a danger to our fighting spirit.’ He glanced pointedly at Afranius, who lowered his head. ‘If we take no prisoners, Caesar will be forced do the same.’
Pompey spoke with a firmness that was designed to settle the matter. ‘I agree with Labienus. Besides, Caesar’s soldiers are traitors who have taken up arms illegally against their own countrymen. That puts them in a different category to our troops. Let’s move on.’
But Cicero wouldn’t let the matter drop. ‘Wait a moment. Are we fighting for civilised values or are we wild beasts? These men are Romans just like us. I would like it to be recorded that in my view this is a mistake.’
‘And I would like it to be recorded,’ said Ahenobarbus, ‘that it isn’t only those who have fought openly on Caesar’s side who should be treated as traitors, but all those who have tried to be neutral, or have argued for peace, or had contact with the enemy.’
Ahenobarbus was warmly applauded. Cicero’s face flushed and he fell silent.
Pompey said, ‘Well then, that’s settled. Now it is my proposal that the entire army, bar let’s say fifteen cohorts which I’ll leave behind to defend Dyrrachium, should set off in pursuit of Caesar with a view to offering him battle at the first opportunity.’
This fateful pronouncement met with loud grunts of approval.
Cicero hesitated, glanced around and then stood up again. ‘I seem to find myself playing the role of perennial contrarian. Forgive me – but is there not a case for seizing this opportunity and instead of chasing Caesar eastwards, sailing west instead to Italy and regaining control of Rome? That is after all supposed to be the point of this war.’
Pompey shook his head. ‘No, that would be a strategic error. If we return to Italy, there will be nothing to stop Caesar conquering Macedonia and Greece.’
‘Let him – I’d trade Macedonia and Greece for Italy and Rome any day. Besides, we have an army there under Scipio.’
‘Scipio can’t beat Caesar,’ retorted Pompey. ‘Only I can beat Caesar. And this war won’t end merely because we’re back in Rome. This war will end only when Caesar is dead.’
At the end of the conference, Cicero approached Pompey and asked for permission to remain behind in Dyrrachium rather than join the army on the campaign. Pompey, plainly irritated by his criticism, looked him up and down with something like contempt, then nodded. ‘I think that’s a good idea.’ He turned from Cicero as if dismissing him, and began discussing with one of his officers the order in which the legions should depart the next day. Cicero waited for their conversation to end, presumably intending to wish Pompey good fortune. But Pompey was too engrossed in the logistics of the march, or at any rate he pretended to be, and eventually Cicero gave up and left the tent.
As we walked away, Quintus asked him why he didn’t want to go with the army.
Cicero said, ‘This global strategy of Pompey’s means we could be stuck out here for years. I can’t support it any longer. Nor to be frank can I face another journey through those damned mountains.’
‘People will say it’s because you’re afraid.’
‘Brother, I am afraid. So should you be. If we win, there’ll be a massacre of good Roman blood – you heard Labienus. And if we lose …’ He left it at that.
When we got back to his tent, he made a half-hearted attempt to persuade his son not to go either, even though he knew it was hopeless: Marcus had shown much bravery at Dyrrachium and despite his youth had been rewarded with the command of his own cavalry squadron. He was eager for battle. Quintus’s son was also determined to fight.
Cicero said, ‘Well then, go if you must. I admire your spirit. However, I shall stay here.’
‘But Father,’ protested Marcus, ‘men will speak of this great clash of arms for a thousand years.’
‘I’m too old to fight and too squeamish to watch others doing it. You three are the soldiers in the family.’ He stroked Marcus’s hair and pinched his cheek. ‘Bring me back Caesar’s head on a stick, won’t you, my darling boy?’ And then he announced that he needed to rest and turned away so that no one could see that he was crying.
Reveille was scheduled for an hour before dawn. Plagued by insomnia it seemed to me that I had barely fallen asleep when the infernal caterwauling of the war horns started. The legion’s slaves came in and began dismantling the tent around me. Everything was timed exactly. Outside the sun had yet to show over the ridge. The mountains were still in shadow. But above them loomed a cloudless blood-red sky.
The scouts moved off at dawn, followed half an hour later by a detachment of Bythinian cavalry, and then, a further half-hour after that, Pompey, yawning loudly, surrounded by his staff officers and bodyguards. Our legion had been chosen for the honour of serving as the vanguard on the march and therefore was the next to leave. Cicero stood by the gate, and as his brother and son and nephew passed, he raised his hand and called farewell to each in turn. This time he did not try to conceal his tears. Two hours later, all the tents were down, the refuse fires were burning and the last of the baggage mules was swaying out of the deserted camp.
With the army gone, we set off to ride the thirty miles to Dyrrachium escorted by Cicero’s lictors. Our road took us past Caesar’s old defensive line, and soon we came upon the spot where Labienus had massacred the prisoners. Their throats had been cut and a gang of slaves was burying the corpses in one of the old defensive ditches. The stench of ripening flesh in the summer heat and the sight of the vultures circling overhead are among the many memories of that campaign I would prefer to forget. We spurred our horses and pressed on to Dyrrachium, reaching it before dusk.
We were billeted away from the cliffs this time for safety, in a house within the walls of the city. Command of the garrison should, in principle, have been awarded to Cicero, who was the senior ex-consul and who still possessed imperium as governor of Cilicia. But it was a sign of the mistrust in which he had come to be held that Pompey gave the position instead to Cato, who had never risen higher than praetor. Cicero was not offended. On the contrary, he was glad to escape the responsibility: the troops Pompey had left behind were his least reliable, and Cicero had serious doubts about their loyalty if it came to fighting.
The days dragged by very slowly. Those senators who, like Cicero, had not gone with the army acted as if the war was already won. For example they drew up lists of those who had stayed behind in Rome, and who would be killed on our return, and whose property would be seized to pay for the war; one of the wealthy men they proscribed was Atticus. Then they squabbled over who would get whic
h house. Other senators fought shamelessly over the jobs and titles that would fall vacant with the demise of Caesar and his lieutenants – Spinther I remember was adamant that he should be pontifex maximus. Cicero observed to me, ‘The one outcome worse than losing this war will be winning it.’
As for him, his mind was full of cares and anxieties. Tullia continued to be short of money and the second instalment of her dowry remained unpaid, despite Cicero’s instructions to Terentia to sell some of his property. All his old worries about her relationship with Philotimus and their fondness for questionable money-making schemes came crowding back into his mind. He chose to convey his anger and suspicion by writing her infrequent, short and chilly letters in which he did not even address her by name.
But his greatest fears were for Marcus and Quintus, still on the march somewhere with Pompey. Two months had passed since their departure. The Senate’s army had pursued Caesar across the mountains to the plain of Thessalonica and had then struck south: that much was known. But where exactly they were now, no one knew, and the further Caesar drew them away from Dyrrachium and the longer the silence went on, the more uneasy the atmosphere in the garrison became.
The commander of the fleet, Caius Coponius, was a clever but highly strung senator who had a strong belief in signs and omens, especially portentous dreams, which he encouraged his men to share with their officers. One day, when there was still no news from Pompey, he came to dine with Cicero. Also at the table were Cato and M. Terentius Varro, the great scholar and poet, who had commanded a legion in Spain and who, like Afranius, had been pardoned by Caesar.
Coponius said, ‘I had an unsettling encounter just before I set off to come here. You know that immense Rhodian quinquereme, the Europa, anchored offshore down there? One of the oarsmen was brought to see me to recount his dream. He claims to have had a vision of a terrible battle on some high Grecian plain, with the blood soaking into the dust and men limbless and groaning, and then this city besieged with all of us fleeing to the ships and looking back and seeing the place in flames.’