The last words of Caesar were drowned out by the roar of the army, and he let us carry on for several moments before he silenced us with another wave.
“Centurions, you will receive your orders by the end of the day. Prepare your men to move out. That is all.”
And with that, he stepped off the rostrum in a flurry of his paludamentum to stride away, followed by his bevy of staff officers, moving in his wake like a gaggle of ducklings following their mama.
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Breaking down the camp began immediately after we came back. The men needed little prodding to move quickly. True to his word, near the end of the day, a courier arrived carrying the orders to the Tribune, who in turn relayed them to Crastinus, who passed them to us. We were ordered to vacate the camp and form up for the march at sunset, the assembly point being the same spot where Caesar had held his formation. Caesar had already ordered the wagons carrying the wounded to head for our destination, Apollonia on the coast. His decision to take the wounded with him was one that the army appreciated, because in circumstances like this it would have not been unheard of for him to leave them behind. However, I suspect that he knew that we needed as much of a morale boost as we could get, and nothing is worse than leaving a helpless comrade behind to the mercy of the enemy. Not only morale was at stake; given the fate of the captured men at the hands of Labienus, we would have been condemning them to death ourselves, for all intents and purposes, and many of these men would recover to fight again. The wagons rumbled off into the dusk while the rest of the army began to form up, which would take about two parts of a watch. My Cohort was assigned to be flank security on the march, prompting us to move out a short distance from the rest of the army, whereupon I set out pickets facing the Pompeian lines to give a warning in the event that Pompey roused himself and tried to prevent our leaving. However, Pompey was content to bask in the glory of his victory, not even sending out his cavalry to harass us, thereby allowing us to slip away unnoticed. Shortly before dawn, our turn came to march, following the rest of the army to Apollonia, where we would regroup and wait for Caesar’s next move.
Chapter 4- Pharsalus
Our withdrawal to Apollonia was not without incident. Despite somehow managing to give Pompey’s scouts the slip during our initial march, it was impossible to hide the fact that a whole army had disappeared. Nevertheless, our absence was not noticed until the 10th, acting as rearguard, had already reached the banks of the Genusis River. The banks of the river ford we were using were very steep, rising more than 30 feet above the riverbed, requiring the men to scramble up the opposite bank, thereby slowing our progress. Naturally, the men coming down the near side practically tumbled down the slope to the river, creating a massive jam while they waited for the men on the far bank to clamber to the top. This was the state we were in when Pompey’s cavalry found us, the cornu immediately sounding the alarm at the sight of enemy horsemen. I had already crossed and was standing on the top of the opposite bank with my Cohort, with the men yelling to their friends down in the riverbed of the approaching danger. Immediately, Caesar sent a squadron of cavalry back and they went pounding down the slope and across the river, scattering the men in their path as they rushed to meet the Pompeians. The Primus Pilus acted as quickly, shaking a Cohort out in skirmish formation, armed with not only their own javelins but extras taken from the other men. This Cohort began showering the Pompeians with the javelins, and we heard the screams of men and horse as the iron heads punched into flesh and bone. For perhaps the hundredth or thousandth time, I reflected on how much I pitied the poor horses more than the men; after all, the men had a choice but the poor beasts did not. We made short work of the Pompeians, forcing them to retire with heavy losses, then finished crossing the river and marched to join the rest of the army, who were already stopped for the day at the site of our old camp near Asparagium.
Because of the circumstances of our last visit, although we burned the gates and towers, we had not filled in the ditches. This made it a matter of short work to throw the stakes back up on top of the wall, and then rebuild the gates and towers before settling in for the night, giving us about a watch for extra rest that we normally spent making camp. As we were settling down, we finally saw the leading elements of Pompey’s army come hurrying after us, their commanders ordering them to hurry ahead of their baggage train in order to catch up with us. Like us, they settled in their own old camp, it being in the same shape as ours, yet unlike us, this proved their undoing. Sitting in their camp without their luxuries, many of the men decided to go back to the baggage train to retrieve their belongings in order to make their stay more comfortable. Since we had crossed over to Greece without any of our baggage, we did not have to worry about such things, and in their laxity, Caesar saw his opportunity to steal a march. With a large part of Pompey’s army out of the camp, the orders were given to us to pull up our stakes, pack what little we had, and get back on the march. Pompey could only watch in frustration as we marched out of camp, being neither desperate nor crazy enough to try to pursue us with only part of his force. He was forced to wait for the rest of his men to return, then wait even longer for them to repack their baggage on the train, and only then did he begin the pursuit. By that time, we had gained more than eight miles on Pompey, an advantage that we would keep for the next four days it took us to reach Apollonia. We maintained it by never fully unloading the baggage train when we made camp, then sent it ahead long before daybreak, giving it a head start. It was in this manner we were able to prevent Pompey from closing the gap. Pompey finally gave up the pursuit and took up position along the Via Egnatia, waiting for us to make our next move.
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Now that we were back on the coast and safe within the fortified walls of Apollonia, it was time for Caesar to ponder his next move. Meanwhile, we spent the time resting and refitting as much as our supply situation allowed, although as usual with Caesar that was precious little time. The most important thing that we did was to deposit our wounded within the walls, of which there were two or three thousand, most of them from all the Spanish Legions, thereby enabling us to move quickly. We were at Apollonia only a couple of days when Crastinus summoned us to his quarters to inform us that we would be moving the next day. Caesar had decided to march to join Calvinus, who had taken the 11th and 12th after they landed with Antonius to forage and put pressure on Scipio, who was commanding an independent Pompeian force of two Legions in Thessalia, getting there by marching overland from Syria. By joining forces with Calvinus, we had a chance to crush Scipio before Pompey could move to his aid. Almost as important, even if Pompey reached Scipio in time, it would draw him farther from his own base of supply, and Caesar was counting on the fact that we had been dealing with deprivation and short rations, whereas it would be new to Pompey’s men, giving the advantage to us. Accordingly, we marched out of Apollonia, leaving behind four Cohorts in the city, along with those already in Oricum, heading east to meet up with Calvinus and his two Legions. Calvinus was waging a campaign of attrition against Scipio, with limited success and in doing so had managed to turn a good number of the natives against Caesar and his cause. The news of Pompey’s victory did not help either, and as we marched through the countryside, we found towns closing their gates to us, not wanting to incite Pompey against them. In fact, Calvinus learned of Pompey’s victory through friends of the two Gallic traitors who were now scouting for Pompey, looking for Scipio but finding Calvinus instead. Calvinus also learned in this way that Caesar was nearby, since the couriers that Caesar sent out were obviously intercepted, and consequently sent out his own scouts looking for us, which is how we linked up. Now it was time to turn on Scipio, although there was also the matter of our supply situation and the issue of these towns that had turned their back on us. One such was the town of Gomphi, and it was to there that we marched, much to their misery and misfortune.