Caesar's Civil War had begun.
Caesar had marched on Rome, and Pompey and many Senators fled to Greece.
Some day I'll spend an entire video deconstructing the words "Caesar marched on Rome," but for
today I'll skip right over that part.
Caesar's old pal Bibulus had been given command of the Adriatic Fleet, and had been ordered
to prevent Caesar from crossing into Greece.
Sidenote: Romans don't really respect naval warfare.
Admirals were seen as less than Generals, and Roman navies tended to fall under the
command of an ex-Praetors, or sometimes old ex-Consuls as a way to like...put them out
to pasture.
Bibulus was an ex-Consul, and had been the governor of Syria, which on paper should landed
him at the head of an army, or at least as one of Pompey's advisors.
But as we know, Bibulus's term as Consul was extremely embarassing, as was his term as
governor for totally different reasons.
The fact that Pompey had stuck him in left field commanding the Adriatic Fleet was, honestly,
a slap in the face.
But this was Bibulus's moment.
He was now responsible for keeping Caesar in Italy.
Time dragged on, and winter set in.
During the winter everything kinda shut down, armies didn't march and ships didn't sail,
so Bibulus did the normal thing and brought his navy into port.
Caesar launched an unexpected and daring crossing of the Adriatic.
This was extremely dangerous, but not totally unprecidented - he had done the same thing
when he crossed the Rubicon last year.
In the end, Caesar and his army were in Greece before anybody even noticed anything.
When Bibulus started to get reports that Caesar was no longer in Italy, he immediately knew
what had happened, and mobilized the fleet.
He caught Caesar's empty ships on their return trip, but it didn't do him much good.
Bibulus would maintain his naval blockade for the rest of the winter, but at some point
he got sick, and he died at sea.
He died as he lived: disappointingly.
In Greece, Caesar had a fairly bad initial clash with Pompey's army, and he was forced
to withdraw.
His army was now cut off and under-supplied, thanks to Bibulus.
According to Caesar, Pompey had 45,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, while Caesar had 22,000
infantry and 1,000 cavalry.
Now, these numbers come directly from Caesar, so let's not take them too seriously, but
everybody agrees that Caesar was significantly outnumbered.
The prelude to ancient battles tended to have this rhythem to them where the two armies
would basically dance back and forth with each other for sometimes weeks at a time.
Each army would deploy every day, stare at each other, and then retire at night having
done nothing.
Maybe the scouts would get into a bit of a tussle, but that would be it.
Each army would be seeking the slightest advantage, and every day the deployment would be slightly
different.
When one side believed that they had the edge, they would try to force the battle to begin.
This little dance was an underrated part of the job but Caesar was eerily good at it.
He could go back and forth for a solid month with seemingly infinite patience.
So, when Pompey and Caesar entered visual range of each other, they began their dance.
Pompey's opening move was to deploy up on the top of a hill, which put him at an undeniable
advantage.
He was in friendly territory, he had a larger army, he was well supplied.
He could afford to take his time, and force Caesar into a bad position.
A few days passed and it started to become clear to Caesar that Pompey wasn't coming
down off the hill.
He ordered his men to start breaking camp.
Maybe if he withdrew, Pompey would give chase and Caesar could find a better place to fight.
Then, just as Caesar was getting ready to leave, Pompey deployed down off the hill,
with a river on his right flank.
Apparently there was some infighting among Pompey's advisors.
They had already beaten Caesar in a non-decisive battle, and everybody was telling Pompey to
quit playing with Caesar, and just get it over with.
Even though they were deploying on neutral ground, Pompey still believed that he had
the advantage.
Caesar took the bait.
He ordered his men to stop packing up, and start getting ready for battle.
Pompey had a significant numerical advantage, and when you're in that position you can either
go wide or you can go deep.
He went deep.
This made it pretty much impossible for the enemy infantry to break through his line.
His plan was to let Caesar come to him, get bogged down fighting his infantry, and then
send his superior cavalry around the side to attack Caesar's flank.
Pompey was using the river on his right to his advantage.
With the river serving as a shield, he could neglect his right flank and pour all of his
energy into one overwhelming push on the left.
It's a good plan, and if I were smart enough to think of it it's what I would have done.
Pompey had the larger army and had occupied the battlefield first, so Caesar didn't have
a lot of options.
He deployed his infantry in the standard 3 lines of attack, with all of his cavalry on
his right.
Caesar ordered his first two lines forward.
When they got in range, they charged, but Pompey's men didn't move.
This was unususual.
When Caesar's men noticed this they abruptly pulled back to regroup.
This was an incredible show of discipline, and most armies could nothave pulled this
off.
See when Roman infantry charged, they would usually break formation when they slammed
into the enemy, and if they had done so here it would have been like hitting a brick wall.
So, instead of charging, Caesar's units formed up again, took their time throwing their javelins,
got into a tight formation, and advanced slowly into Pompey's line.
It's a testiment to Caesar's highly experienced centurions that they were able to see what
Pompey's men were doing, and change their tactics mid-charge.
But despite all of this, Caesar's infantry were now locked down, which was exactly what
Pompey wanted.
As this was happening, Pompey ordered his mass of cavalry on his left to advance.
Remember, they were the key to winning the whole thing.
Caesar's cavalry responded, and charged, but they stood no chance.
So after a bit of fighting, Caesar's cavalry broke off and started running back towards
their own lines.
Pompey's cavalry gave chase.
All of a sudden, through the the dust and the horses and the confusion, Pompey's cavalry
could see that there was something right ahead of them.
It was Caesar's infantry, about 3,000 of them.
Caesar had put his cavalry there to shield the infantry from view.
This wasn't a route, it was a feint.
The infantry had abandoned their swords and were using their javelins as spears, perfect
for stopping a cavalry charge.
At this point Pompey's cavalry were in a full-out sprint and not in formation or ready in any
way when they crashed into Caesear's line of infantry.
This threw everything into total chaos.
Pompey's cavalry were totally broken, and they started to flee off the field.
Caesar's men didn't give chase, but showed that incredible discipline again and formed
up as a mix of cavalry and infantry, and advanced as one.
They wheeled, and engaged Pompey's left flank.
At the moment of contact, Caesar ordered his third line forward.
He now had 100% of his men committed, putting as much pressure as possible on Pompey's line.
Things began to fall apart on Pompey's left, and continued falling apart in one long chain
reaction, all the way up to the river.
It was a decisive victory.
According to Caesar - and, it's Caesar, let's take these numbers with a grain of salt - he
only suffered 200 casualties.
He also says that 39,000 men from Pompey's army were either killed or captured, which
was like...the whole army.
But whatever the numbers are, we know that Caesar's losses were superficial, and Pompey's
were catastrophic.
There was still some significant campaigning to do, and Caesar would stay busy for the
next couple of years winning the civil war, but after this battle, Caesar was no longer
the underdog.