"Fellow-soldiers - you are joined with me in the greatest of undertakings - neither the winter weather, nor the delay of our comrades, nor the want of suitable preparations shall check my onset. I consider rapidity of movement the best substitute for all these things...Let us oppose our good fortune to the winter weather, our courage to the smallness of our numbers, and to our want of supplies the abundance of the enemy, which will be ours to take as soon as we touch the land... It is needless to tell you that the most potent thing in war is the unexpected...For my part I would rather be sailing than talking, so that I may come to Pompey's sight while he thinks me engaged in my official duties in Rome." Caesar's speech to his soldiers in Brundisium after Pompey's forces had escaped.

In December, 49, while Pompey and the senatorial forces were in the east raising additional legions to destroy him, Caesar fretted in Brundisium where he had ordered twelve legions and his cavalry to assemble. He had tried and failed to stop Pompey's troops from sailing for Greece. It was the winter solstice and no one expected that he would attempt to cross the Ionian Gulf in heavy winter seas. Caesar only had transports enough to embark seven under-strength legions totaling 15,000 soldiers and 500 cavalry. Pompey's large fleets, under the relentless command of Caesar's old enemy, Bibulus, controlled the seas.

Caesar, being Caesar, weighed the advantages of speed and surprise against prudence and, on January 4, 48 BC, when the wind changed, his small fleet weighed anchor and sailed east, catching Bibulus off guard and landing safely the next day at a quiet harbor called Palaeste (Palissa) on the Greek coast. With the balance of Caesar's legions, Antony waited anxiously back at Brundisium until the wind (and returning transports) made it possible for him to join his chief. Caesar did not wait; he moved straight north from Epirus to Pompey's vital depot and arsenal at Dyrrhachium (now Durres, Albania).

Pompey was soon aware of Caesar's movements. Even before Antony had joined his forces, Caesar - ever aware of the political benefits of seeming to be the peacemaker in a civil war - had sent Vibellius Rufus, one of Pompey's captured engineers, to Pompey with a suggestion that peace terms could yet be agreed upon. It was an act of breathtaking audacity, if not arrogance: Caesar was stranded in Greece with a small force, half his army back in Brundisium, and Pompey's fleet in between. While Caesar moved fast towards Apollonia (accepting the surrender of towns on the way), Vibullius raced to intercept Pompey's forces on the Egnatian Way where he was making a leisurely move towards winter quarters near Dyrrachium. Pompey was thus able to block Caesar's northward race towards his supply depot.

The two armies maneuvered into position, Pompey north of the Apsus River, Caesar's armies facing him on its south where they would await Antony's arrival. Whatever political capital Caesar's peace offer gained by forewarning Pompey of his arrival, he had lost his chance for the supplies of Dyrrhachium. Feeding and supplying his army would become a critical problems in the months ahead, as long as Pompeian fleets patrolled the coast.

A peculiar stalemate developed on the Apsus. Pompey made no move to attack Caesar's forces, although they were vulnerable. Caesar sent word to Antony to beware Bibulus' fleet and did what he could to hinder the fleet's resupply by picketing the shoreline. The two armies were so close that fraternization developed. Caesar was making inroads in persuading Pompey's forces to join him when his old second-in-command from Gaul, Titus Labienus, who defected to Pompey, put a stop to it by shouting that the war would only end when he was brought Caesar's head.

Northern Greece and Dyrrhachium

Caesar's fabled luck held. Pompey did not attack and, the winter almost over, Antony was finally able to embark his army (three veteran legions, one legion of recruits and 800 cavalry) and sailed for Apollonia. In what Caesar himself calls "an incredible piece of luck," the southerly winds blew Antony north of his goal but permitted him to land safely near Lissus while the same winds drove sixteen of Pompey's galleys onto the rocks with the loss of both ships and crew. Caesar sweetly sent the survivors back home. Only one of Antony' transports, with 220 troops, was caught and forced to surrender on the promise that their lives would be spared. The Pompeian forces killed them all.

The news that Antony was in Greece reached Pompey first and moved to intercept him at Lissus. Remarkably, Pompey with a vastly larger army abandoned the chase as soon as he realized that Antony was in front of him and Caesar following hard behind. The good news was that the two Caesarian armies thus linked up without hindrance and Caesar, strongly reinforced, detached Domitius Calvinus with the 11th and 12th legion and some cavalry. Pompey's general, Scipio, was moving to reinforce him from Syria; Calvinus was to block Scipio's joining him. The bad news was that, after Caesar detached troops from Oricum, where his galleys were under guard, Pompey's elder son Gnaeus, commanding part of the fleet, destroyed Caesar's transports at Oricum and Antony's vessels in Lissus. Caesar had lost every ship he had; he could not even send a message to Italy.

By this time, Caesar had decided to try again for Dyrrhachium and managed to outwit Pompey, who didn't realize his intentions. Again the two armies raced towards the depot; Caesar beat Pompey's advance guard by no more than an hour. The two armies pitched camp, Caesar to the northern side if a waterway called the Shimmihl Torrent, Pompey on its south.

CAESAR'S BLOCKADE

Caesar realized quickly that supply would be his greatest problem. The countryside had been cleaned out and its foodstuffs and supplies sent to Dyrrhachium under the protection of the fleet. There was little forage for his cavalry in winter. Although he could not prevent Pompey's resupply by sea, he could restrict his freedom of movement by blockading his army. This would weaken Pompey's larger cavalry by denying forage to its horses as well as make Pompey look impotent to those eastern monarchs who believed his was the winning side. Caesar began a giant contravallation which would eventually enclose the entirety of Pompey's forces. As soon as Pompey realized what Caesar intended, he began counterworks that eventually reached 15 miles in length. Caesar's were larger. Pompey was pinned with his back to the sea, but he had enclosed enough area - just - to survive.

J.F.C. Fuller notes that it is inexplicable that Pompey didn't move his cavalry outside of the blockade to prevent Caesar's men from foraging. Instead, he was stuck with feeding them himself. Caesar's troops, meanwhile, were in good spirits in spite of shortages. They quickly ran out of bread and began making a kind of cake from a root called kelkass. Blocks of this tasteless substance were brought by spies to Pompey, who wondered "What kind of wild beasts are we fighting with?" (Appian, II, 61). Caesar had also identified Pompey's vulnerable spot; he could be deprived of water. This Caesar cheerfully set out to do, diverting and damming streams flowing down from the mountains. Although Pompey's army dug their own wells, they dried up in the heat. Lack of sufficient fodder and water became so critical that Pompey evacuated his cavalry by sea to Dyrrhachium but did little with it to hinder Caesar's progress.

An act of treachery enlivened the siege. Both Appian and Cassius Dio imply that Caesar was contacted by a man in Dyrrhachium who offered to betray the town to him. Caesar went, late at night with only a small guard, to the gates of the Temple of Artemis to meet with the man when he was suddenly attacked by large forces which had been secretly conveyed along the shore in boats and waited to kill him at the rendezvous, attacking both his front and rear. Caesar barely escaped and lost many men; not surprisingly, he makes no reference to the plot. Simultaneously, Pompey, who must have been behind the bogus offer, attacked Caesar's contravallation in three waves, hoping to break through in his absence. The attacks were repulsed, but Caesar and his men had fought six battles in one day; three in Dyrrhachium, three at the works. Caesar's luck was definitely in. It is hard to imagine Caesar thus trying to rid himself of Pompey.

Pompey next had an extraordinary stroke of his own luck. Two Allobrogians named Raucilus and Egus, who had served with Caesar in Gaul, were caught embezzling legionary pay and escaped to Pompey. They were able to pinpoint for him the weakest spot in Caesar's contravallation. At the southern end of Caesar's lines, just south of the Lesnikia River, there was a gap where double barriers were not yet connected by a cross-stockade to bar entry. Pompey planned to send 60 cohorts to attack the interior wall while a force of soldiers and archers would, coming by sea, attack both the front line of Caesar's defenses and insert themselves in the gap between the two sets of fortifications, outflanking its defenders. In early July (May by the calendar), Pompey struck. Hit in front, rear, and on the flank, Caesar's smaller forces broke and were in rout when Caesar sent Antony and twelve cohorts to reinforce them. However, the damage was done; Pompey had breached the circumvallation and built a fortified camp just south of Caesar's works, which effectually broke the blockade.

Caesar counterattacked. He drove the Pompeians back to within a mile of the coast, regaining part of his works, and secured the gap with two cohorts. He then took 33 cohorts and attacked Pompey's new camp to the south. Pompey sent five legions and his cavalry in defense. Fighting within the camp, Caesar's right column, threatened in the rear, panicked and tried to escape, infecting the second column which had pushed Pompey's men almost to the western gate. Although Caesar in person grabbed the standards of the fleeing troops and tried to rally them, but was unable to stem the retreat. When the retreat finally halted, Caesar had lost 32 tribunes and centurions, 960 soldiers, and 32 army standards. Apparently many of the dead were trampled to death by their fellow-soldiers fleeing from Pompey's troops.

The blockade was breached and Caesar's soldiers were hungry, demoralized, and in disarray. Amazingly, Pompey did not pursue them. He was hailed Imperator by his own men and Labienus killed all captured prisoners to a man. The Pompeians, as Caesar himself noted, were celebrating their victory without a thought to the small number of enemy troops involved, or that their victory was not due to valor or brilliance as much as to luck. Pompey immediately sent out messengers throughout the East celebrating his absolute victory and betting men immediately began switching their allegiance to him, not Caesar. He should have pursued Caesar.

Dyrrhachium was one of the rare defeats in Caesar's career, which he readily admitted: "Today my enemies would have finished the war if they had a commander who knew how to win a victory." (Appian, II, 62). But as Caesar was consistent, so also was Pompey. At the critical moment, he hesitated and lost his chance of delivering the decisive blow. When Caesar rallied his soldiers and moved southeast, hoping to lure Pompey away from his all-important supply lines, Pompey initially pursued him but then gave it up after a few days, holding war councils instead about what to do next. He apparently viewed what was to come largely as a mopping-up operation. He finally set off after Caesar only to meet him at Pharsalus.

Cicero had early noted the similarities in aims between Pompey and Caesar as the Civil War began. He had reluctantly joined Pompey's side but was miserable at the rending of his beloved Republic. He wrote to Atticus in 49, "Do you think that there is no understanding between them, that no agreement has ever been possible? Today there is a possibility. But neither of them has our happiness as their aim. They both want to be kings."

SOURCES: Caesar's speech to his soldiers from Appian's "Civil War," II, 53. The tale of the would-be assassination - in which only partial accounts exist - can be found in Appian, II, 60, and Dio, XLI, 50. Bust of Caesar from Egyptian stone, 1st century BC, Staatliche Museum, Berlin. Maps of northern Greece and the siege itself from J.F.C. Fuller's "Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier and Tyrant." Marines embarking onto ships from Trajan's Column. Cicero's letter to Atticus (February 27, 49), quoted in Saaben-Clare's "Caesar and Roman Politics," p. 190-191.