Pharsalus 48 BC

[Andreas Johansson]

We did discuss in the other thread - http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1729.0 - that the stabbing-in-the-faces anecdote might imply that some of the cavalry were Roman aristocrats. It doesn't give us any idea of numbers, but they might make up some of  the shortfall.

Tangentially, the weird thing about said anecdote is the implicit assumption that people who aren't vain young aristocrats wouldn't flinch from a stab to the face. Presumably it must've originated as some sort of macabre joke.

[Jim Webster]

We did discuss in the other thread - http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1729.0 - that the stabbing-in-the-faces anecdote might imply that some of the cavalry were Roman aristocrats. It doesn't give us any idea of numbers, but they might make up some of  the shortfall.

Tangentially, the weird thing about said anecdote is the implicit assumption that people who aren't vain young aristocrats wouldn't flinch from a stab to the face. Presumably it must've originated as some sort of macabre joke.

perhaps with a suggestion that they were a lot of 'pretty boys'?

[Patrick Waterson]

What I meant about Caesar not mentioning Legionary cavalry is that if they were normal, why didn't he mention the fact that he didn't have any?
Even if only on the lines of, 'In my army well born young men are happy to fight in the ranks with the rest of the Romans, rather than pratting about on horses so they can run away more easily with the orientals'

Well ... would it be worth his drawing people's attention to the following:

1) Embarrassingly few equites-rank citizens showed up on my side so I would have been stuffed trying to make units out of the few I had (my being the main man of the Populares tends to put off men of social rank more akin to the Optimates).

2) In Gaul I concluded that Roman cavalry is not worth its weight in horsemeat and I actually much prefer Gauls and Germans.

3) I also concluded that the time-honoured system of having 200-300 cavalry assigned to each legion is grossly inefficient and prefer to keep my cavalry as a C-in-C's plaything, although when sending out legions on detachment I give them the requisite cavalry allowance because they do need some (as I learned in Britain in 55 BC).

Granted that "Look at me, I won even without legionary cavalry!" would be another point of self-glorification, but having already stated that he had a mere 1,000 cavalry to face Pompey's 7,000 he probably felt he did not need to spell things out further.  That at least would be my interpretation of his handling of this particular point.

We did discuss in the other thread - http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1729.0 - that the stabbing-in-the-faces anecdote might imply that some of the cavalry were Roman aristocrats. It doesn't give us any idea of numbers, but they might make up some of  the shortfall.

Tangentially, the weird thing about said anecdote is the implicit assumption that people who aren't vain young aristocrats wouldn't flinch from a stab to the face. Presumably it must've originated as some sort of macabre joke.

It probably originated in Caesar's reading of Alexander's battles and campaigns, because Alex encouraged his Companions to aim for the face.  My thinking is that Caesar saw the value of this approach as a means of taking the opponent's attention off what he was doing, but also probably knew from experience that veterans in Roman helmets do not necessarily duck or dodge a blow to the face - by way of illustration, his favourite centurion Crastinus took a sword-stroke through the mouth, one which proved fatal.  He may also have known from experience (remembering his bisexual reputation) that good-looking young men of high birth were quite vain about their looks and, if inexperienced in war, would also tend to focus on what the foe could do unto them rather than what they could do to the foe.

So as a battlefield technique used against young aristocratic opponents, stabbing at the face would be quite effective at putting the foe off his stroke and making him wish to be elsewhere.  Tough-as-old-boots legionaries would be less impressed and probably quite prepared to accept a whack on the cheek-piece and another facial scar as the price of killing an opponent.

[Duncan Head]

Source 3
Frontinus, Stratagems II.3.22

In the battle against Caesar at Old Pharsalus, Gnaeus Pompey drew up three lines of battle, each one ten men deep, stationing on the wings and in the centre the legions upon whose prowess he could most safely rely, and filling the spaces between these with raw recruits. On the right flank he placed six hundred horsemen, along the Enipeus River, which with its channel and deposits had made the locality impassable; the rest of the cavalry he stationed on the left, together with the auxiliary troops, that from this quarter he might envelop the troops of Caesar.

Against these dispositions, Gaius Caesar also drew up a triple line, placing his legions in front and resting his left flank on marshes in order to avoid envelopment. On the right he placed his cavalry, among whom he distributed the fleetest of his foot-soldiers, men trained in cavalry fighting. Then he held in reserve six cohorts for emergencies, placing them obliquely on the right, from which quarter he was expecting an attack of the enemy's cavalry. No circumstance contributed more than this to Caesar's victory on that day; for as soon as Pompey's cavalry poured forth, these cohorts routed it by an unexpected onset, and delivered it up to the rest of the troops for slaughter.

Commentary
This brief account is notable for a few points.

First, note the name for the battle: "at Old Pharsalus", Palaepharsali.

Second, while Caesar says that Pompey put all his cavalry on his left, and Appian gives us the literary convention that there were cavalry "on the wings of each division", Frontinus specifies 600 cavalry on Pompey's right, which was covered by the "channel and deposits" of the river Enipeus, and all the rest on the open left. It seems unlikely that these 600 had much to do on that flank. He goes on to mention marshes covering Caesar's left, probably the same as the river's "deposits" mentioned earlier.

Third, Frontinus specifies the depth of Pompey's legionary lines as ten ranks. This appears to be deeper than usual Roman formations, and is no doubt explained by his great numerical advantage in infantry.

[Patrick Waterson]

This allows us a tentative check of Pompey's infantry frontage: 45,000/30 = 1,500 men and hence 1,500 yards.  Each of his eleven legions would cover 1,500/11 = c.136 yards rather than the usual 200.

Caesar would have matched frontages as best he could; given that he had the equivalent of seven understrength legions, each would presumably cover the customary 200 yards for a 1,400-yard frontage, while (my assumption) the double-sized first cohort of the X Legion, about 480-500 men strong including Crastinus and his 120, would cover the remaining 100 yards.  This would tie in with Caesar having six cohorts rather than seven in his surprise anti-cavalry force in the 'fourth line'.

Seven legions averaging c.3,150 men per legion but each deducting a c.500-man double cohort would have a depth of c.2,650/200 or about thirteen men.  This suggests five or six men in each of the first two lines and not very many at all in the third.  Caesar has Pompey's weary infantry fold when Caesar's third line starts to advance, but unless it was directly backed by the Dolopians, Acarnanians, and Ætolians Appian ascribes to Caesar (Civil Wars II.70) it would have been a very insubstantial line indeed.

My best guess is that the first and second lines in Caesar's army would each have been five deep.  This would allow the third line to be three deep, and if there were some Greek allies in unspecified numbers lined up behind them it would have enhanced their appearance or at least apparent depth.  If not, three deep is still just enough for a credible Roman veteran infantry line: Scipio's triarii at Ilipa may have fought at this depth.

[Duncan Head]

Source 4
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan) Bellum Civile or Pharsalia, Book VII, starting line 214. Based on the 1905 Ridley  translation at the Perseus project, with some minor alterations to make the vocabulary closer to the Latin (pilum restored for spear, cohort for company, etc):

Lines 214-232: The Pompeian deployment
Reflected from their arms, th' opposing sun
Filled all the slope with radiance as they marched
In ordered ranks to that ill-fated fight,
And stood arranged for battle. On the left
Thou, Lentulus, hadst charge; two legions there,
The fourth, and bravest of them all, the first:
While on the right, Domitius, ever staunch,
Though fates be adverse, stood: in middle line
The hardy soldiers from Cilician lands,
In Scipio's care; their chief in Libyan days,
To-day their comrade.  By Enipeus' pools
And by the rivulets, the mountain cohort (montana cohors)
Of Cappadocia, and loose of rein
Your cavalry (eques), Pontus: on the firmer ground
Galatia's tetrarchs and the greater kings;
And all the purple-robed, the slaves of Rome.
Numidian hordes were there from Libyan shores,
There Creta's host and Ituraeans found
Full space to wing their arrows; there the tribes
From brave Iberia clashed their shields (cetras), and there
Gaul stood arrayed against her ancient foe.

Commentary
Lucan gives Lentulus legions I and IV on the left of Pompey's line, whereas Caear himself says that the legions on the left were I and III. In addition he puts the legion from Cilicia in the centre, whereas Caesar puts it on the right.

Lucan locates Pontic cavalry and a cohort of Cappadocian infantry by the marshy bank of the Enipeus, on the Pompeian right. As seen above, Frontinus says there were 600 horse on this flank, and this reference could identify those horsemen. Oddly, though, Caesar himself lists Cappadocian cavalry and Pontic infantry (archers) among Pompey's forces, not vice versa as here. The Pharsalia is not a contemporary source, but it's 1st century AD so not all that much later – I don't see any compelling reason to reject Lucan's identifications, though some sort of confusion between the "Greater Cappadocian" kingdom and its neighbour "Pontic Cappadocia" cannot entirely be ruled out.

The Ituraeans may be the "archers from Syria", or some of them, in Caesar's own list of Pompey's auxiliaries. Two years after Pharsalus, Caesar himself was using "sagittariis ... Ityreis, Syris et cuiusque generis" in Africa – quite possibly some of the very same men who had served Pompey.

Note also the mention of Numidians and Iberian Spanish with caetra  bucklers somewhere with Pompey's other auxiliaries: such troops could have arrived with the Roman cohorts that Afranius brought over from Spain. Either nation could have provided cavalry or light infantry.

Lines 460-475: Caesar advances
With swift advance
They seize the space that yet delays the fates
Till short the span dividing. Then they gaze
For one short moment where may fall the pilum,
What hand may deal their death, what monstrous task
Soon shall be theirs; and all in arms they see,
In reach of stroke, their brothers and their sires
With front opposing; yet to yield their ground
It pleased them not. But all the host was dumb
With horror; cold upon each loving heart,
Awe-struck, the life-blood pressed; and all the cohorts held
With arms outstretched their pila for a time,
Poised yet unthrown. Now may th' avenging gods
Allot thee, Crastinus, not such a death
As all men else do suffer! In the tomb
May'st thou have feeling and remembrance still!
For thine the hand that first flung forth the dart,
Which stained with Roman blood Thessalia's earth.
Madman! To speed thy lance when Caesar's self
Still held his hand!

Commentary
Lucan suggests that the Caesarian army advanced, but that the Roman troops were reluctant to spill their fellow-citizens' blood until Crastinus, the centurion whose deeds are mentioned in Caesar's own account, struck the first blow.

Lines 475-505: The infantry lines clash
Then from the clarions broke
The strident summons, and the trumpets blared
Responsive signal.
....
Unnumbered missiles they hurl, with prayers diverse;
Some hope to wound: others, in secret, yearn
For hands still innocent. Chance rules supreme,
And wayward Fortune upon whom she wills
Makes fall the guilt. Yet, for the hatred bred
By civil war suffices spear nor lance,
Urged on their flight afar: the hand must grip
The sword and drive it to the foeman's heart.
But while Pompeius' ranks, shield wedged to shield,
Were ranged in dense array, and scarce had space
To draw the blade, came rushing at the charge
Full on the central column Caesar's host,
Mad for the battle. Man nor arms could stay
The crash of onset, and the furious sword
Clove through the stubborn panoply to the flesh,
There only stayed. One army struck-their foes
Struck not in answer; Magnus' swords were cold,
But Caesar's reeked with slaughter and with guilt.
Nor Fortune lingered, but decreed the doom
Which swept the ruins of a world away.

Commentary
Lucan's implication that the Caesarians struck and their opponents were cut down without replying is hardly plausible, but his sympathies are clear!

Lines 506-520: The Pompeian auxiliaries attack
Soon as withdrawn from all the spacious plain,
Pompeius' horse was ranged upon the flanks;
Passed through the outer maniples, the lighter armed
Of all the nations joined the central strife,
With divers weapons armed, but all for blood
Of Rome athirst: then blazing torches flew,
Arrows and stones, and ponderous sling-bullets
Molten by speed of passage through the air.
There Ituraean archers, Medes and Arabs
Winged forth their shafts unaimed, till all the sky
Grew dark with missiles hurled; and from the night
Brooding above, Death struck his victims down.
Guiltless such blow, while all the crime was heaped
Upon the Roman pilum.

Commentary
Medes and Arabs join the Ituraeans in the list of Pompey's missile-armed auxiliaries but their shooting is depicted as less decisive than the weapons of Roman infantry.

Lines 521-535: Caesar's decisive blow
In line oblique
Behind the standards Caesar in reserve
Had placed some cohorts, in fear
The foremost ranks might waver. These at his word,
No cornu sounding, break upon the ranks
Of Magnus' horsemen where they rode at large
Flanking the battle. They, unshamed of fear
And careless of the fray, when first a steed
Pierced through by iron spurned with sounding hoof
The temples of his rider, turned the rein,
And through their comrades spurring from the field
In panic, proved that not with warring Rome
Barbarians may grapple. Then arose
Immeasurable carnage: here the sword,
There stood the victim, and the victor's arm
Wearied of slaughter.

Commentary
The defeated cavalry are depicted as foreigners, Pompey's Italian herdsmen and any other Roman cavalry being ignored.

Lucan goes on (not quoted here) to mourn the great shedding of Roman blood.