Free Cleopatra and Antony by Diana Preston Page B

only sixty-five days after Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, Pompey and his troops left Italy for Greece. Pompey was convinced that his best chance of success lay in exploiting the riches and resources of the East, where he had enjoyed so many triumphs and had so many supporters, including, he believed, the Ptolemies. Caesar, who pursued Pom-pey pell-mell to his departure port of Brundisium and nearly succeeded in blocking the embarkation of the republicans, decided against immediate pursuit since his was the inferior navy. Instead, he determined to cross to Spain to defeat Pompey’s supporters in the provinces, where Pompey had so long been absentee governor. Before departing he appointed Antony as his governor in Italy. That he did so demonstrated trust not only in Antony’s political and military judgment but also in his loyalty—a trust that was not misplaced.
    Caesar soon defeated Pompey’s followers and, satisfied that he need no longer fear attack from the rear, returned to Italy. Here too the situation had remained sufficiently calm under Antony’s rule for Caesar to feel confident in 48 to cross the Adriatic and face Pompey himself.
    This time Caesar entrusted Antony with a military role—to bring five legions of reinforcements across the Adriatic to back up his initial landings. It took Antony three months to get the troops across, because of storms and the activities of the powerful republican navy under Caesar’s old foe Bibulus. Caesar’s forces were in a perilous situation until Antony and his troops arrived, but once they did, the combined force began to advance. Nevertheless, their first attempt to surround and destroy Pompey’s troops, at their main base at Dyrrhachium on what is now the Albanian coast, ended in a serious setback. Caesar himself admitted that Pompey should have won “total victory if only he knew how to be a winner.” Undaunted, a few weeks later, in the hot, high summer of 48, Caesar offered battle to Pompey and the squabbling forces of the republic further inland on the plains of Thessaly at Pharsalus.
    The republicans had never quite trusted their general, complaining that Pompey still had his own agenda to secure absolute power, was addicted to command and disrespectfully enjoyed treating former consuls and praetors like slaves. Pompey himself did not wish to risk all in a major battle, realizing correctly that he had the resources, including twice as many troops, to withstand a long campaign of attrition better than his opponents. But since, as in Plutarch’s words, “he was the kind of man who was swayed by what people thought of him and was ashamed to lose face before his friends, he was forced to change his mind.” Pompey gave the order to prepare for battle the next day, August 9, 48. It would be the largest battle ever fought between Romans.
    When Caesar saw Pompey’s troops begin to deploy he made his own arrangements with his customary speed, decision and tactical awareness. He placed Antony in command on the left. Antony had so distinguished himself previously in the campaign that, according to Plutarch, his reputation “next to Caesar’s was the greatest in the army,” and Caesar himself thought him his most capable officer. He himself took not the center but the right, with his favored Tenth Legion, opposite where he thought Pompey would be. He realized that he was deficient in cavalry and took what measures he could to counteract this. Knowing that most of Pompey’s cavalry were young sprigs of nobility, “young dandies,” in his own words, “unused to battles and wounds, bedecked with flowers and long hair” and anxious to protect their handsome faces, not liking “the glint of steel shining in their eyes,” he urged his men to thrust not at the cavalrymen’s bodies but directly into their faces.
    Pompey’s inexperienced young cavalry were indeed intimidated by the fierce upward thrust of Caesar’s infantry’s spears, “turning their heads and