Road to Pharsalus
By 61 BC Julius Caesar, born into a patrician family, lacked the other two qualities necessary for power and prestige in Rome: money and military glory. He was viewed as an outsider and radical by the core of power in Rome; a group of patricians whose recent ancestors had held the highest offices in Rome and been celebrated in triumphs as conquering generals.
In 60 BC Caesar solved this problem and joined Pompey, a military hero, and Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, in a political alliance; the First Triumvirate.
By joining together they rivaled the senate in power but by 50 BC Crassus was dead and Pompey had joined Caesar’s enemies while he was away conquering Gaul (modern day France). Refusing to be indicted; Caesar marched on Rome and chased Pompey to Greece, where he fled with Caesar’s enemies to conscript an army.
The Battle of Pharsalus
After a 9 month long chess match that spanned the whole of Greece, the armies of Julius Caesar and Pompey met for a final decisive battle.
Outnumbered 2 to 1 Caesar was anxious for battle. The driving factor for Caesar’s anxiousness to engage was a lack of resources. Greece was supplying Pompey with grain while Caesar had been cut off from his supplies in Italy for nearly a year by Pompey’s naval forces. His soldiers were hungry and he had to defeat Pompey as soon as possible.
Seeking battle under such circumstances seems like the action of a deranged man. Caesar was not crazy though. The core of his legions were battle hardened from his conquests in Gaul, while most of Pompey’s were foreign recruits and auxiliaries never having experienced battle. Caesar believed that the discipline and experience of his veterans would be enough for victory if he could just coax Pompey into a straight-up fight. When Pompey led his army onto the field on that summer morning and offered battle, Caesar was happy to accept.
Caesar had made the right decision. His hardened troops held the center line, while Pompey’s inexperienced cavalry panicked when Caesar’s skirmishers and infantry reserves did not break at their charge. Pompey’s cavalry fled, completely exposing his left flank. The battle was over by noon. Julius Caesar was now master of Rome and the world. The Roman Republic was dead.
The Aftermath.
Both Caesar’s glory and Pompey’s despair would be short lived. Pompey chose not to fall upon his sword. Instead he fled to Egypt where he was murdered before even stepping on dry land. Caesar would be dead in 4 years, assassinated on the Ides of March 44 BC. Ironically the plot to kill Caesar was carried out in a theatre named in honor of Pompey and his body fell under a statue of the general.
The Roman Republic did not return with Caesar’s death as his conspirators had hoped. He was instead replaced by his adopted son, Octavian. The Roman Empire would stand for further 459 years but it would be 1,836 years before another democratic republic would be established. On December 7, 1787 Delaware was the first American state to ratify the US Constitution, a document largely influenced and shaped by the Republic of Rome.
 |
 |
