Cæsar; a history of the art of war among the Romans down to the end of the Roman Empire ...

Front matter

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I

©rcat Captain?!

Preface

The present volume has been delayed nearly a year to enable the author to visit the theatre of Caesar’s campaigns and his many battlefields. To do this is almost a prerequi¬ site to writing intelligently on the subject. Familiarity with the topography gives a quite different understanding of the narrative of the ancient historians. Though Caesar’s Com¬ mentaries are among the most exact and picturesque of his¬ torical writings, it is by patient study alone that they can be understood otherwise than superficially; without suitable maps they cannot be understood at all. From the days of ingenious but far-fetched Guischard and Turpin de Crisse, topographical descriptions and charts have habitually been copied by one author from another, to the lot of neither of whom it has fallen to personally inspect the terrain; and many errors have been thus propagated. The author hopes that this volume is reasonably free from such.

We owe a great debt to Napoleon III. for patronizing and defraying the expense of the systematic excavations and to¬ pographical and military studies which have culminated in his own and Colonel S toff el’s works on Caesar. To Colonel Stoffel we are peculiarly indebted for one of the most splen¬ did military histories which exists. The present author has made free use of both these works; and though he has per¬ sonally passed over all the ground covered by Caesar’s cam¬ paigns, it would savor of impertinence to seek to better the

Vlll

PREFACE.

results of Colonel Stoffel’s long and accurate research or of the archaeological work of Napoleon. In all cases, however, the author has not been able to agree with these distinguished men; nor is the plan of this volume the one on which the other histories are based. The charts, while lacking the ex¬ treme accuracy of detail of the plates of Napoleon and Stoffel, will be found to answer every requirement, at a mere frac¬ tion of the cost of those works; and their insertion in the text will aid the average reader as large maps in a separate volume will not.

This history of Caesar follows the narrative of the Com¬ mentaries, and whenever practicable quotes from them, so as . to retain the quaintness of their flavor, as far as is consist¬ ent with the space allowed. Quotations not ascribed to other sources are uniformly from the Commentaries. As classical names must at times be used, the author has not clung exclusively to the modern equivalents, but has inter¬ changeably used both.

This volume pretends to be only a military history of Cassar. For clear and brilliant disquisitions on his state¬ craft or his personal career, or for the history of his era, the reader must go to other sources. But some of the best of the histories of Home are full of military errors. Even the great Mommsen is by no means free from them. In all the histories which pretend to cover the complicated political and absorbing social conditions of that century, the descrip¬ tion of military events is short and superficial. The author seeks to fill the gap.

Many pages will be found too technical to interest the general reader; but they are essential to the tracing out of the history of the art of war. The legend at the head of each chapter will tell the reader what to skip.

The very great array of facts which we possess with re-

PREFACE .

IX garcl to the military career of Caesar makes it hard to com¬ press all that should be said within the limits of even a large volume. But it is believed that no noteworthy fact has been omitted. The history of the art of war during the Empire has been cut down to very meagre limits; but though there were abundant wars, there was much lack of method in war during this period; and it may be said that to omit bodily the fourteen centuries from Caesar to the invention of gun¬ powder would not materially alter the general scope proposed for these biographies of the great captains.

Some of the comment indulged in may seem to savor of ’ hypercriticism. But though the author may not meet the views of all in what he says, the reader will at least give him credit for qualifying himself as well as may be by careful study of all the ancient authorities, of the best recognized modern critics, and by personal inspection of the ground. With the sole exception of Colonel S toff el, the author be¬ lieves that he is the only writer on this subject who has followed Caesar entirely around the Mediterranean basin.

The principal sources of our knowledge of Caesar as a cap¬ tain are the Commentaries, Cicero’s speeches and other writ¬ ings, Dion Cassius, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Velleius Pater¬ culus; the best commentators are Guischard, Turpin de Crisse, Napoleon I., Lossau, Goler, Rustow, Napoleon III., and above all Colonel Stoffel, of whose lifework one cannot

_ say too much.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Marius and the Army Changes. 110-86 b. c. . 1

II. Sulla, Pompey. 90-60 b. c.21

I

MARIUS AND THE ARMY CHANGES. 110-86 B. C.

Cesar’s legion was more like the Greek phalanx than like the legion of the Second Punic War. The latter had intervals between maniples equal to maniple front, and the maniples stood checkerwise. Each man occupied a space five feet square. The material of the legion was of the highest order — the burgess-soldier of the simple republic. But gradually the professional soldier came into vogue ; the citizens avoided military duty; and a less reliable material filled the ranks. Marius first enlisted men solely for their physical qualifica¬ tions ; and foreign mercenaries were added to the army. The general, not the republic, claimed the soldier’s fealty. Arms and equipment remained the same, but the trustworthiness of the soldier decreased, and the intervals in the line of battle were lessened. The cohort was no longer a body of citizens marshaled on a basis of property-standing, but a body of from three hundred to six hundred of any kind of men, and the legion was marshaled in two or three lines of cohorts. The army ceased to be a national militia, but was composed of regulars and auxiliaries. Ballistics and fortification were improved. Sieges grew to be more expertly managed. The fleets gained in importance. Marius’ great work was the change he wrought in the army ; but he was also the means of rescuing Rome from the invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri, the former of whom he defeated at Aquae Sextiae in Southern Gaul, and the latter at Vercellae in Northern Italy. Both victories redound much to his credit.

The legion with which the Romans vanquished the Gre¬ cian phalanx, and which gallantly took the fearful punish¬ ment inflicted on it by Hannibal, again and again facing destruction with unflinching courage, until the Carthaginians, exhausted by attrition, were forced to abandon Italy, was a very different body of men from the enthusiastic legion

CAESAR'S LEGION.

which Csesar led victorious to the four quarters of the then known world. Curiously enough, the formation of Caesar’s legion more nearly approached that of the “simple phalanx’ of the Greeks than that of the splendid body of burgesssoldiers, whose stanch front to disaster makes the Second Punic War so memorable a page in the annals of Roman courage and intelligence. Caesar’s array in line of battle did not differ as greatly from Hannibal’s phalanx in the later battles of this war, as it did from the legion of Marcellus or Nero. At Asculum, Herdonia and Zama, Hannibal’s army was set up in two or three lines of legionary phalanxes, so to speak. Adopting the quincunx or checkerwise forma¬ tion by maniples as the typical idea of the legion of the Second Punic War, Caesar’s army, during all his campaigns, was set up more like Hannibal’s phalanx, and at times very nearly approached it.

Let us see how the change came about.

The legion of the Second Punic War was a body composed of citizens rendering service according to the classes of Servius Tullius. This service was as much a privilege as a duty, and was jealously guarded. Only burgesses with a given amount of property were allowed to serve. Those who had less than twelve thousand five hundred asses were excluded from the right. They were proletarii , having some slight means, and capite censi , having nothing and reckoned merely as so many head of men.

The material of which the legion was made was thus of the very highest order; and originally the armament and place in the legion were determined by the class-rating. But later these were made to depend on length of service, so that the youngest soldiers, from seventeen to twenty-five years of age, were velites or light troops; those from twenty-five to thirty, liastati or heavy troops of the first line; those from thirty to

EARLY LEGION.

forty, principes or heavy troops of the second line; those from forty to forty-five, triarii or reserves of the third line.

The light troops acted as skirmishers. The legionary soldier occupied a space about five feet square. The lines of hastati and of principes stood in maniples of one hundred and twenty men each, twelve front by ten deep, and between mmmmmmmmnqni f HASTATI cn m m m m m m m m ml*

$ PRINCIPES

' TRIARII i* VEUTCS

Legion of tlie Second Punic War.

each two maniples was an interval equal to maniple front. The lines were some two hundred and fifty feet apart, and the maniples of the principes stood behind the intervals of the hastati. The triarii maniples had but sixty men, and stood behind the hastati intervals.

*

There were ten maniples in each of the three lines, so that there were of line troops twelve hundred hastati, twelve hun¬ dred principes and six hundred triarii. To these must be added twelve hundred (or more) velites, making forty-two hundred footmen in the legion, of whom, three thousand were heavy.

There were three hundred cavalry in each legion, whose place was on the flanks. The velites often occupied the intervals of the triarii. The details of the formation are fully given in the volume on Hannibal.

This body proved to have extraordinary mobility and capacity to meet unusual conditions, and with the discipline i

CAIUS MARIUS.

and esprit de corps natural to the perfect material of which it was composed made an unequaled body of troops. The wars of the third century b. c. fully proved the qualities of the legion so organized. It was at its very best.

The legion of Caesar’s era was quite a different body. Changes had grown up in the state and army which affected the matter of service and thus the legion; and a number of marked alterations were brought about during the times of the civil wars. The legion descended to Caesar in a new shape, one that Marcellus and Nero and Scipio would not have recognized.

Caius Marius is a more noteworthy figure in history from his rugged, uncouth personality and his startling political success and failure than from his merit as a captain. Though unquestionably able as a leader, though Rome owed to him the victory at Aquse Sextiae, which delivered her from the Cimbri and Teutones, his position in military annals was more distinguished by the new organization of the Roman army than by any other contribution to the art of war.

When internal disquiet began to monopolize the thought and action of the citizens of the Roman republic, the army was not long in feeling its influence for the worse. The civil wars sadly marred the soldierly sentiments of the Romans, but it was Caius Marius who first gave a serious downward impetus to the character of the army. Long before his time many of the old Servian methods had got changed or dis¬ tinctly modified. The minimum property which entitled a citizen to the privilege of serving had been reduced to four thousand asses. The armament of the legionary had ceased to be determined by census-rating; it had, as above stated, grown to be fixed by length of service. Wealth and luxury had supplanted the ancient habits of simplicity. The bur¬ gesses gradually sought to avoid service; the proletariats

POOR MATERIAL IN LEGION.

found in it a means of improving their condition. A certain number of campaigns were no longer essential to secure political preferment. The burgess-cavalry had given up serving in the field, and become a sort of guard of honor. The avoidance of military duty by the rich made it impossi¬ ble to raise large forces with rapidity by the simple means of calling out the classes; and yet, as after the battle of Arausio, contingencies occurred when large levies must be instantly made. The new barbarian territories of Rome had begun to furnish cavalry, such as the heavy horse of Thrace and the light irregulars from Numidia, as well as light infantry, such as the Ligurians and the Balearic slingers; but the heavy foot had remained Italian.

It was Marius who first gave every free-born citizen, how¬ ever poor, an equal right to serve. The heavy infantry, hastati, principes, triarii, were all reduced to a level, and it was the officers who decided, from the qualifications of the man, where and with what arms each soldier should be allowed to serve. The armament of all the heavy foot was made the same, and gladiators were employed as masters of arms to teach the recruits the use of their weapons; while Publius Rutilius, Marius’s favorite comrade and fellow legate in the African war, compiled a system of tactics for the new legion.

A son of the people, when in 107 B. C. Marius had attained consular rank, he found his advantage in raising his army, not from the self-respecting classes, but from men he could so handle as to subserve his purpose of gaining the supreme control. Later leaders, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, followed in the steps of Marius. Lender such leadership the army soon became another body, no longer representative of Roman courage, honesty and patriotism.

The right to serve in the army ceased to be a privilege, — the sole road to civic honors. The wealthy citizen would no

SOLDIER'S OATH.

longer consent to serve. Bodily exercises were neglected. The ranks were filled, not by representatives of every class, rich and poor, but by the proletarii; and it was not long be¬ fore there crept into the ranks numbers of men from peoples tributary to Rome, freedmen, strangers and slaves. Even the criminal classes were greedily recruited, and Marius once made a body-guard of slaves. Some veterans did service in exchange for grants of land, and answered the call for duty as evocati , having special privileges.

The legions were not now divided into simple Roman and allied. In the Social War, Roman citizenship was granted broadcast to the Italians, and the legions were composed of Romans, auxiliaries, provincial troops and mercenaries. The test of Marius was simply personal size and strength. Char¬ acter went for nothing. Cavalry was raised in a manner similar to the infantry, and mostly from foreign elements. If the knights still consented to serve, it was only in posts of peculiar honor. The ancient rules for raising men were utterly disregarded. Any one ready to pay could secure freedom from service; any one physically qualified could bear arms.

The oath of the soldier was no longer an oath to serve the republic; he swore personal fealty to the general. The grow¬ ing necessity for keeping troops long under arms, which fol¬ lowed the extended conquests of Rome, made generals resort to every means to prevent their forces from disbanding. Gradually the honorable service of the Roman citizen to the fatherland got prostituted to the low grade of soldier of fortune. Mercenaries and standing armies took the place of voluntary service and of armies called out from necessity alone. The conquered provinces were placed under procon¬ suls, each with a standing army and unlimited power, and were farmed out for revenue with the inevitable result. Rome was following in the footsteps of Greece.

INTERVALS.

This change from the old method of classified personal service rendered essential corresponding changes in the mar¬ shaling of the legion. The ancient distinction of principes, hastati and triarii disappeared, and all troops were either heavy or light. The inherited arms and equipment were not materially altered. The old numerical force of the legion, say four thousand to six thousand heavy infantry and three hundred heavy cavalry as the normal strength, was retained; but the light troops, now all raised from the conquered prov¬ inces, were largely increased, both foot and horse, and were no longer an integral part of the legion. The horse grew in importance and effectiveness, for the Roman horseman had imitated the better models of light cavalry which his many wars in every land, from Iberia to the distant Orient, had afforded him. This improvement was traceable in the heavy cavalry in a lesser degree. From about one tenth of the numerical force of the foot, the horse grew to the proportion of one seventh or at times more.

The number of legions in a consular army was no longer four, but ran up to any given number, even to ten, not count¬ ing the auxiliaries, horse or foot. Elephants and ballistic machines came into common use. A legion in the field had thirty small catapults and ballistas, each served by ten men. Still, as with Alexander, these machines were not employed in battle, but in the attack and defense of defiles, in cross¬ ing rivers, and in the attack and defense of camps and other works.

Up to the time of Marius, the quincuncial form of the legion was retained, and the intervals still remained equal to the maniple front. But when the legions grew to be com¬ posed of inexpert recruits, not as in the early days of men trained to war from their youth, the individuality of the legionary could no longer be relied upon. Moreover, the

MARIUS’ LEGION.

Romans in their wars with Germanic barbarians and Orien-

•

tal masses had found that the always present danger of the enemy forcing his way into the intervals grew more serious as the troops deteriorated in quality. This difficulty had for¬ merly been obviated by moving the principes up into or close behind the intervals of the hastati. But Marius introduced another organization, the setting up of the legion in three lines of cohorts. The thirty legionary maniples, each of two centuries, were given up. The word cohort remained, but the body consisted no longer of a maniple each of hastati, prin¬ cipes and triarii, with velites and a turma of horse; it was a body of from four to six maniples of four, five or six hun¬ dred legionary soldiers. At first the intervals remained; the five feet space of each soldier, the ten deep file and the dis¬ tance between lines were not altered; the cohorts had forty,

•

Marius’ Legion.

fifty or sixty files. Shortly the intervals between cohorts began to diminish with the individual trustworthiness of the legionary, and the distances beween lines were increased to three hundred feet. These lines were now known as first, second and third; and the first had four, the second and third each three cohorts. The three cohorts in second line stood opposite the diminished intervals of the first, the third line cohorts at the flanks and opposite the centre. The legionary eagle was still carried by the primipilus of the first cohort of the third line, and each cohort had its own special ensign ( signum ). The legionaries of first and second lines, it is thought by some, were the soldiers who were called antesig-

MARIUS' MARCHES.

nani; in the third line cohorts were the bravest and strongest soldiers; but they were no longer the triarii.

Upon this formation were grafted, at times not easily deter¬ mined, yet other changes. The ten cohorts stood in two lines, five in each; or instead of ten there were fifteen cohorts, each of two maniples, and five of these were in each line. The files were now and then split and doubled, making a five deep cohort of double length of front, which in line would close up a full interval. Finally, by a process of steadily decreasing intervals, the cohorts came to all but join each other, and the legion had again become a phalanx. This formation without intervals was not invariable. Caesar generally set up his cohorts with intervals more or less wide. But a leg-ion whose first line was nearly a solid body was not uncommon. The ancient quincunx had disappeared. This was the inevitable result of the loss of the old Roman patriotism, discipline and stanchness in the legionary soldier, and of his being replaced by a far inferior man who needed to be held well in hand to force him to his work. Finally, the eagle found its way into the front line, but the word antesignani remained, applied to a special body, of which more will be told anon.

The use of the testudo-formation grew into a huge rectan¬ gle, much like the modern square against cavalry, for which, indeed, in the Romans’ Oriental wars it was frequently used. On open ground, marches were sometimes made in squares, like that of the phalanx of Brasidas — agmen quadratum. Marius especially excelled in his dispositions for the march. In the war against Jugurtha, he is said to have moved in a column by legions. Sulla with the cavalry and Manlius with the slingers, bowmen and Ligurians covered the column on right and left. In the van and rear, under command of mili¬ tary tribunes, were some cohorts in light marching order, and scouts in quantities were on the flanks.

DISCIPLINE.

In battle order, the Roman legions stood in the centre, the auxiliaries on the flanks, the velites in the spaces between bodies, on the flanks, or in front and rear as needed. Cavalry began to be more of an arm, and was hurled in masses on the enemy or employed to protect the foot. It no longer kept its old stand on both flanks. The method of fighting was not much altered, but grand tactics grew apace, until they reached their highest Roman development under Caesar.

Other changes of even more importance were made in this period. The office of dictator, that is, the supreme control, was the aim of the ambitious; it was their means of gaining possession of the state. The legates grew to greater impor¬ tance and acquired more and more the command of legions and armies. They were the general officers. The military tribunes became cohort-commanders, and the centuries were commanded by centurions. The troops were still drilled and exercised in gymnastics, but not so the citizens. Soldiers, to keep them from idleness and turbulence, were put upon the public works, especially the great military roads.

The soldier’s pay was doubled by Caesar at the opening of the Civil War. The footmen received ten asses a day; cen¬ turions twenty, cavalrymen thirty, subject to certain deduc¬ tions, as of old, for rations, arms, equipments and horses.

In this era, discipline and esprit de corps were in a transi¬ tion state from the perfect basis of the Second Punic War to the utter worthlessness of later days. Courage and good behavior were still present, but these were maintained by the severity of the laws. Punishments were cruelly unjust at times, foolishly inadequate at others. They were inflicted no longer in accordance with the code, but to suit the moods or character of the general. The splendid victories of the Romans prove abundantly that much of the old spirit was still there. But it proceeded from a different motive. The

SOLDIERS NOT CITIZENS .

ancient love of honor and country had disappeared, and in its place stood an avaricious grasping for booty and a greed of bloodshed and conquest. These men were no longer Roman soldiers. They belonged to the chief who led them, and he used every motive which is peculiarly suited to a low class of military recruits to bind them to his cause and use them for his own purposes. Ubi bene ibi patria was the accepted rule; and each general easily persuaded his troops that he represented the chief good. The civil uprisings in Rome had demonstrated how little the Roman soldier of the first century b. c. was like the Roman soldier of the war against Hannibal.

When Caesar’s legions mutinied and demanded their dis¬ charge, he addressed them as quirites , a title which every Roman soldier in the early days viewed with pride. Just because he was a citizen, he was a soldier. But Caesar’s legionaries were only soldiers. They were not citizens, nor did they care to be. The one word quirites shamed or fright¬ ened them into obedience.

As punishments in the army were no longer made accord¬ ing to rule, so were unearned rewards distributed. Favorit¬ ism grew apace. The simple crown of leaves or grasses gave place to expensive ornaments. The officers, and later the soldiers, were freed from the duty of nightly fortification and other fatigue work. The greater triumph went to the unworthy. Luxury and pomp stepped into the place of sim¬ plicity, not only with wealthy citizens, but in the camp.

But because the soldier had degenerated, it does not follow that the ability of the leaders had gone. Rather because of the degeneracy of the rank and file, ability in the captain was enabled to push its way to the front.

The period of the Civil War shows great advance in forti¬ fication and ballistics. The form of the camp remained the

SIEGES.

same, but the walls and defenses were made much more intri¬ cate. The wall was higher and thicker; the ditch was wider and usually wet; towers were more numerous and bigger, and covered ways connected them; entanglements in front of the defenses were more common; the camp, especially castra stativa , became a fortress.

Even battlefields were fortified. Sulla erected palisades between his lines with ditches on the flanks, against the enemy’s chariots at Clneronaea. Marius intrenched himself against the Teutones at the mouth of the Isere. The Romans kept to their own method, but exceeded the Greeks in cleverness at this sort of temporary fortification.

Sieges likewise gained in skillful management. In assaults the telenon of the Greeks was used to swing men up on the enemy’s wall. The corona consisted in surrounding a town with two lines of foot and one of horse and gradually decreas¬ ing the circumference of the lines until the walls could be reached under cover of penthouses and tortoises. The mov¬ able testudo of shields was commonly employed and with good results.

Lines of contra- and circumvallation were made more expertly than of yore. Mounds were used as formerly in Greece, but grew to enormous proportions. Sulla’s at Massada was two hundred and eighty-six feet high, and upon these were other constructions and towers of one hundred and fifty-five feet, making four hundred and forty-one feet above the level.

Mines were dexterously used. Sulla’s at Athens showed especial ability. Sheds, tortoises, movable towers, rains, all came into play. Catapults and ballistas were in constant use. The big catapult projected beams a horizontal distance of four hundred to eight hundred paces. The small catapult ( scorpio ) shot heavy lances three hundred to five hundfed

FLEETS .

paces. The former was used in sieges, the latter in the field. A burning missile ( falerica ) was also hurled. The big ballista threw stones four hundred to six hundred paces on a curved path like that of a mortar, and was used in sieges. The small one (onager) was used in the field. The smallest onager and scorpio could be worked by one man.

In general, the sieges of this day were much like those of the Greeks. They had gained distinctly in skill since the days of Hannibal, but few besiegers reached the clever devices of Alexander; none approached his gallant assaults.

Foreign conquest obliged the Romans to increase the power and effectiveness of their fleet. This was done with their usual push and good sense.

The government owned public forests which were devoted to ship-building, and were well managed. War vessels con¬ sisted of biremes, triremes, quinquiremes and up to octoremes; the triremes and quinquiremes were the ones mostly in commission. There were cruisers for light coast duty and spying out the enemy (naves speculatorice); a smaller class like gunboats; transports and flat bottoms (pontones) for river duty. The war vessels mostly had iron rams (rostra ferramenta ), and their sides were protected by beams and shields of various kinds to save them from the blows of the enemy’s. The larger, often the smaller, vessels had decks, and missile-throwers and towers stood upon them. Each vessel was provided with grappling-irons, boarding-bridges, siege implements and machines for casting fire-pots. The use of fireships was well understood.

The fleets were manned by rowers or sailors, and by sol¬ diers or marines. The rowers and sailors were slaves or came from the lower classes; the marines were raised like legion¬ aries. Their oath of fealty was equally to the admiral and not to the state. A quinquireme had four hundred rowers,

HARBORS.

the others a corresponding number. The marines were armed like the legionaries, but had scythed lances, battleaxes and boarding-swords. The rowers were also armed.

Section of Short Quinquireme.

Each vessel had a chief of rowers who gave the time of the stroke by a hammer-blow on a gong; a sort of boatswain in charge of the sails, anchors, etc.; a steersman ( cjubernator ), who was also pilot; a captain (navarchus ); and a comman¬ dant of marines (prcpfectus navis). A consul or praetor might be in command of the fleet, or a special officer ( dux propfcctusque classis) might lead it.