Finally, Pompey emerged with a plan, painful and shocking though it was to the ears of the senators. To defend the republic, he said, it was necessary to abandon Rome, to evacuate their legions and set sail for the east, where he could rely on his allies in Greece to complete the levy of an army. Only with the support of the friends of the Roman people would he relish the prospect of facing Caesar, not before. Anyone who stayed behind, Pompey added, would be considered a traitor and a partisan of Caesar.56
The strategy sank the senators deeper into despair. Although Pompey was proposing a tactical retreat, they could not escape the feeling that they were taking flight before a tyrant. Caesar had forced this miserable plan upon them. Adding to their humiliation and disillusionment, they knew that they would have to abandon every physical manifestation of their cherished republic – their beloved temples, the homes of the city’s gods, and, above all their ancestral property. What was the republic if not the city of Rome itself, they protested to Pompey. Cato went about as if in mourning, lamenting and bewailing the senators’ losses and the fate of Rome. Cicero, yet to decide whether to stay or go, complained of the indignity of having to walk around ‘like a beggar’. Any peace terms would have been better than abandoning the mother city to Caesar and his ‘underworld’ of disgraced and bankrupt outcasts, he wrote.57 Nonetheless, they all realized that, with their backs against the wall, they had no choice but to leave.
So, after a night of hurriedly packing up their trunks and bags, laying their hands on whatever property they could ‘as if they were robbing their neighbours’, and barricading their houses, the majority of the senators, their slaves, friends and dependants kissed the ground, invoked the gods and fled from Rome. There was not even time for the consuls to make the usual sacrifices. The city’s poor were left behind, many in tears, morose and resigned to being taken captive.58 It left the impression that perhaps Caesar was indeed right: the rich did not care for the Roman people, but just for themselves.
But few took any notice of the reproaches of the people. For the Pompeians now formed a massive column of evacuees, making their way along the straight roads that cut through the Italian countryside. Their destination was Brundisium (modern-day Brindisi); their goal, to seize the Roman fleet based there and get to safety as quickly as possible. The port of Brundisium was situated on the heel of Italy, at the point where the crossing to Greece was at its shortest. It became the target of Caesar too. When he received news of Pompey’s strategy, he knew that all he had to do was cut his enemy off at the port to bring about an early, bloodless end to the war. The race was on.
By the time Caesar arrived at Brundisium in the company of six legions, Pompey had successfully requisitioned ships and evacuated half his army. The other half now remained with their general. The challenge they faced was daunting: to defend themselves against Caesar’s legions until the ships returned from ferrying the first dispatch of soldiers. Caesar made the first move. With typical ambition and clarity of purpose, he immediately blockaded the harbour of Brundisium across the narrowest part of its mouth by building a causeway made of rafts. On top of these his army piled earthworks. Pompey immediately countered by commandeering whatever ships he could and building on to their decks three-storey-high siege towers. From this great height his harassing legionaries attacked and bombarded the barricade with arrows, firebrands and ballistic missiles.59
While the battle for the port raged, Caesar pressed home a slender advantage and sent in one of his officers, Caninius Rebilus, to negotiate for peace. But if Caesar expected Pompey to roll over, he was to be quickly disappointed. The retired general, who was seeing action for the first time in over ten years, chose to gamble. Believing that he could pull off an extraordinary evacuation, Pompey fobbed Rebilus off. He gave the reply that without the consuls present, he could never reach a settlement with his enemy. Caesar saw through this pathetic excuse. His verdict on it was unsentimentaclass="underline" ‘Caesar finally determined to abandon these repeated vain efforts at peace and to wage war in earnest.’60
To Pompey’s delight, the ships returning from Greece were now spotted on the horizon. Before long they had smashed their way back into the harbour. While Caesar organized his legionaries for a frontal assault on the city, Pompey made every preparation to restrain such an attack and protect the evacuation. The gates of the town were barricaded, trenches embedded with vicious spikes were dug in the roads, and the walls of the town were lined with slingers and archers. Under cover of darkness, Pompey’s soldiers boarded their ships and looked set to escape. The people of Brundisium, angry at their harsh treatment by Pompey, had other plans. They signalled to Caesar’s men from their rooftops that Pompey was preparing to cast off. Then, helping them up the scaling ladders and over the defences, the townspeople told them where the traps were laid and pointed out the detour to the harbour. Charging headlong through the town, Caesar’s legionaries finally managed to reach some skiffs and small vessels just in time to scupper two of Pompey’s ships snagged on Caesar’s causeway. However, as daylight returned, the rest were nowhere to be seen.61
As the bows of his ships beat out spuming foam from the blue of the Adriatic Sea, Pompey knew he had snatched an extraordinary escape from the jaws of disaster. He was now safely on his way to visit friends and allies, the many wealthy kings, dynasts and potentates of Greece and Asia, who would provide him with further levies of soldiers with which to fight Caesar. It now perhaps came as a gentle surprise to Pompey that the plan to abandon Rome was actually working. But Caesar too could reflect on his own success to date. After all, within sixty days and without shedding any blood, he had become master of all Italy. And were it not for his lack of ships, he would without hesitation chase after and attack Pompey and his men before they had time to strengthen their forces abroad. But, on further reflection, he realized that now was not the time to go pursuing Pompey. This would only leave both Gaul and Italy exposed to Pompey’s four legions still in Spain.62 Indeed, Caesar stood to lose everything he had won for his Roman republic unless he dealt with this threat immediately. Before he collected all his legions together, however, and marched north to defeat the Pompeian army in Spain, he had a little stop to make en route.
When Caesar rode into Rome at the end of March 49 BC, he was greeted not by cheering, jubilant crowds celebrating their hero’s return, but the sullen faces of a Roman people struck dumb by terror. In this civil war, they wondered, would Caesar regard Rome as just another foreign city to be captured wholesale, its riches plundered and its gods thoughtlessly desecrated?63 Over the next ten days, despite the absence of the consuls and praetors, and the emptiness of the chairs of office, Caesar did everything to maintain a semblance of legitimate government. He called a meeting of the Senate in a temple, and a handful of disgruntled senators showed up. But when he asked them to join him in taking over the government they hesitated, still unable to commit to one side. After three days of discussion and excuses, Caesar, despising the weakness of these little men, gave up his patient show of legality and acted according to his own dignity.64
To fight the war against the armies of Pompey and Cato, Caesar told the Senate, he needed money from the state treasury. A tribune of the people called Metellus vetoed the request, protesting that it was against the law. Caesar snapped, stormed out of the meeting and declared that in the war against the enemies of the republic he was going to take the money anyway. When the keys to the doors of the Temple of Saturn could not be found, the general ordered his soldiers to take a battering ram to it. The tribune Metellus, however, again tried to stop Caesar by standing in their way. The people’s politician, the man whose whole career had depended on his alliance with the tribunes of the people and the defence of their sanctified rights, now forced Metellus aside with the words, ‘It’s easier for me to kill you than argue with you’.65 The gold reserves of the republic were Caesar’s. But before he left the city, there was time for one last act of illegality. As if a king, he appointed a praetor to take care of affairs in Rome on his behalf. With that, Caesar and his army headed west.