The army departed at dawn the next morning, leaving a burning camp behind to let Scipio know we were on the move. Unlike other occasions when we would try to steal a march, this time Caesar wanted Scipio to know that we were leaving, taking no measures to hide where we were headed. Thapsus was the one city that steadfastly refused to join with Caesar, and it was the main supply point and naval base of the Pompeians. More importantly, it was the last strongpoint freely allied with Scipio and the Pompeians, so the fall of the city to Caesar would spell the deathblow to the hopes of the Pompeian forces. We arrived at the end of the day, making camp before starting on a contravallation of the city the next morning. Thapsus is on the coast, on a promontory of land with a huge expanse of marshy ground a few miles south. Because of the marsh and the contour of the coast on either side of the city, there are only two overland approaches, one from the west that squeezes between the coastline and the northern edge of the marsh, and from the south, also between the sea and marsh. The area of the city and open land hemmed in by coast and marsh formed a triangle, with the city at the apex of the triangle where the coast made almost a ninety degree bend from north to west. Caesar situated our camp equidistant between the bend of the coast so that our contravallation would extend from sea to sea while our camp would be roughly in the middle. The weakness of our position was that by blocking the two approaches, we would also be hemmed in and unable to forage, so it came down to a race to see what would happen first, whether we would take Thapsus or Scipio would starve us out. In order to keep Thapsus from being reinforced, a small, fortified camp was built astride the road leading to the city from the south, manned by two Cohorts. Scipio and Juba came following behind a day later, moving cautiously, rightly fearing an ambush, but Caesar could not spare the men from our work of entrenching, though of course, the enemy did not know that. Thwarted by the small fort blocking the road, Scipio first made camp to the south, while Juba made camp next to him. Then, with Juba staying in his camp and leaving a portion of his forces with Afranius in the other, Scipio marched through that same night to the west, swinging wide around the marsh to take up a blocking position to the north. Giving his men a rest of just a full watch after they arrived in position shortly after daybreak, Scipio then had his men start on a fortified camp and series of entrenchments, putting the entire army to work. Although Scipio had effectively blocked us in, by placing his troops in a small area that had such impassable barriers on either flank so that his greater numbers were meaningless, he had also outsmarted himself, as Caesar was about to demonstrate.
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The bucina sounded the recall, stopping the men from working on our own contravallation, summoning us back to camp. As soon as we returned, there was another call of the horns for the senior Centurions to meet at the praetorium immediately, so I hurried over with the rest of the Pili Priores of the 10th.
As soon as everyone had arrived, Caesar wasted no time. “We're going to take advantage of Scipio’s error and attack immediately.”
This caused some comment, but we quickly quieted down as Caesar gave us our dispositions. We would be on the right with the 9th, while the 13th and 14th would be on the left, with the new Legions in the middle. The 5th was not assigned a spot, since they would line up wherever the elephants were, and we were sent to hurry our men to make them ready for battle. We had done this many times before, usually ending up standing in place for thirds of a watch, while our cavalry saw most of the action, so it was hard to get the men moving with any urgency, but judicious use of the vitus got them going. We were ready in less than a third of a watch, marching out of the camp, then forming up in acies triplex, on the right wing, the rest of the army taking its place. The cornu sounded the advance, and we stepped off, the Centurions calling out the count while the Optios at the rear of their respective Centuries kept the men in line. The army closed the distance fairly quickly, so we caught the Pompeians still working on their camp. Their bucina sounded the alarm as their men went scrambling for their weapons, followed by what appeared to be mass confusion as they went running about looking for their standard bearers. Our front line moved into position approximately 300 paces away from where the Pompeian line formed in front of their camp, where we caught the first sight of the elephants lumbering into the spot designated by Scipio.
“I thought there were only 30 of them,” Glaxus said, the worry clear in his voice. I had been thinking the same thing, but I did not want to sound bothered. As we watched more than 60 of the beasts move into position, I saw that Scipio was splitting the force into two, placing them on each wing.
“There are thirty.” I tried to make it sound lighthearted, though it was hard. “On this side, anyway.”
In fact, there were 32 of them on each wing of the Pompeian line. As soon as their disposition was seen and understood, Caesar ordered five Cohorts of the 5th to our side, where they formed up to our right, while the other half did the same on the opposite wing. The 5th got into position quickly, then the men were ready to go, as it finally became apparent that today would be different, that Scipio was done running and we were going to fight. Caesar was on Toes, riding across our front as he had done so often before, spending most of his time with the youngsters in the center, exhorting them to emulate the veterans and follow our example. The men of the 10th were ready to go, but the ground on the left wing was sufficiently broken so that it made it more difficult for the men of the 13th and 14th to get into position, so we were told to wait, which did not sit well with the men. As the moments dragged by, Caesar kept talking to the youngsters, while the men on the right, including my men, began talking more and more animatedly.