On The Alexandrian War

110.

The troops at Achilla's disposal were not despicable either by numerical strength or by military experience: they amounted to 20,000 men of which a part was made up of former legionnaires of Aulus Gabinius, who had remained in Alexandria getting used to that licentious life and now forgetful of the good name of the Roman army and its discipline; many of these had married, and some also had children. Another part was made up of thieves and murderers gathered in Syria, Cilicia and neighbouring regions; also sentenced to death and exiles were enrolled with these. After all, Alexandria, for all our runaway slaves, was a safe haven as long as they enlisted in the army. It also happened, in the event that one of them had been taken over by the master, that the companions went to free him to take him back with them, considering this as the right thing being themselves in the same condition as the companion, and this action was a guarantee for all of them. This composite army used to tyrannise the pharaoh asking for the death of the unwelcome advisers, to plunder the assets of the wealthiest and to besiege the royal palace to obtain a salary increase, to expel the unwanted kings from the kingdom to put others in it. The strength of this army was also given by the presence of 2000 knights and by the fact that they were veterans of many wars on behalf of Alexandria among which the one who put Ptolemy XII on the throne (12), the one with the killing of the two sons of Bibulo and others against the Egyptian people, all things that made them expert soldiers.

111.

Trusting in the value of his soldiers and despising the small number of those available to Caesar, Achilla occupied that large part of the city of Alexandria which was not controlled by the Romans. In the first assault he tried to raid the residence chosen by Caesar to stay there, but the Roman cohorts located in the neighbouring streets supported the assault; but almost simultaneously he attacked at the port, which turned out to be the real target and a much more demanding attack to be repelled. The enemies had divided into squads to be able to fight in several ways, trying with a considerable number of soldiers to take over the many Egyptian warships present in the port. Among those were the 50 sent to aid Pompeo who had returned to Alexandria with the end of the war in Thessaly, it was a question of quadriremi and quinqueremi perfectly equipped and ready for battle. In addition to those there were 22 others, also equipped with a covered bridge, which served as a normal military garrison in Alexandria. If the Alexandrians had succeeded in regaining possession of those ships, they would have taken control of the port and all the surrounding sea, preventing Caesar from providing food and help. For this reason, at the port they fought fiercely, the Alexandrians in the hope of a quick victory, the Romans for their salvation. Caesar's men got the better of it, but since it was too large an area to be defended, Caesar thought it wise to set fire to all those ships and even those in the dry dock (the fire will also spread to the Great Library), so he immediately landed some soldiers at the Great Lighthouse at the mouth of the port.

112.

The Grande Faro is a large, very tall tower of admirable workmanship which bears the name of the island on which it was built; this island was in front of the city creating the port. The first kings of the city threw a long pier of 900 steps (675 meters) that united it to the city almost like a bridge, albeit with a narrow passage. On this island there is a district as big as a city whose inhabitants are also devoted to piracy on those ships that, due to inexperience or storm, end up defenceless too close to the island. Another thing to mention is the fact that due to the narrow access opening to the Grand Port, no one could enter it without the consent of the person who controls it. This is why Caesar, aware of the strategic value of that position for his supplies, while the enemies were busy at the port makes you land soldiers, occupied the Faro tower and placed a garrison there, thus ensuring the flow of wheat by sea and reinforcements which, moreover, he had already arranged to request from all the neighbouring provinces.

In other parts of the city where there was fighting, there were neither losers nor winners, mainly because of the too cramped places, so that few men were killed. During the night Caesar fortified those strategically important points that were in his possession. In that part of the city controlled by Caesar on the mainland, there was a part of the palace that Caesar had immediately used as his residence and a theatre connected to the palace that was used as a stronghold. That area was also connected to the king's port and shipyards; all these parts were fortified in the following days so that they became its walls, to have the possibility of not engaging in fights against one's will.

In the meantime, in the enemy camp it happened that the younger daughter of Ptolemy XII (12), in the hope of occupying the vacant kingdom, left the palace to take refuge with Achilla with the intent to conduct the war with him. But soon discord arose between them regarding the supreme command of the operations, triggering a contest of donations to the soldiers to ingratiate them. Meanwhile, the eunuch Potino, regent of the boy, even though he was with Caesar, sent ambassadors to Achilla urging him not to desist from the undertaking and remain in mind, but he was reported to Caesar who had him killed.

These were the beginnings of the Alexandrian war.

END OF THE BOOK (De Bello Civili)

​On the Alexandrian War

De Bello Alexandrino

1.

Gaius Julius Caesar, even before the Alexandrian War broke out, had already called the fleet from Rhodes, Syria and Cilicia, asked for archers in Crete, cavalry in Malco I (1) King of the Nabataeans, made to look for war machines everywhere , in addition to food and aid. At the same time, in Alexandria, Caesar fortifies the part of the city under his control, building defensive works and displacing "tortoises" (military formations) and "cloaks" (an unclear term that can indicate many things or military units, more likely darts protections) where his defences appear weaker. It also creates loopholes in buildings to target the enemy; he knocks down nearby and useless buildings with rams and other means by reusing the recovered material to complete the construction of the defensive perimeter and when he takes possession of new buildings with weapons, he immediately includes them in the defence system.

2.

The Alessandrini, for their part, were not slow to react and wasted no time; they sent messengers and delegates throughout the Egyptian territory, gathering a large mass of armed men and war machines. Large arms workshops had been created in the city and all the skilled slaves had been included in the ranks, while the wealthy Alexandrians took care of feeding them and paying them.

The Alessandrini controlled the peripheral districts of the city; they had well distributed the many men at their disposal, while the more expert units were stationed at strategic points and exempted from the fortification works, so that they were always ready and operational. All crossroads and roads were closed by a triple bastion up to 40 feet high (10 meters, a measure that seems exaggerated or that perhaps refers to towers with much lower walls, however they would be 3/4 floors) and built with stones well squared. The lower quarters were defended by towers up to 10 floors high (one floor was slightly taller than a man then 15/18 meters) and there were other mobile ones, placed on wheels and moved with ropes and horses where needed .

3.

The city, rich and abundantly equipped with everything, had allowed the inhabitants, who were largely hardworking and skilled craftsmen, to build all those works suitable for war so well that, ours, seemed to be a copy of theirs; besides these, they made others of their own invention and, with all these, they fought in an orderly and well-coordinated way.

In addition to this, they added the determination infused by the incitement of their eminent representative, who in the city assemblies ironically stated that inexplicably the Romans had taken the habit of settling in Egypt: years before Aulus Gabinius had come with an army, then Pompey had come to seek refuge there, and even the murder of Pompey had not prevented Caesar from coming and stopping here; therefore they had to brigade to hunt it otherwise Egypt would have become a Roman province, and this had to be done now that Caesar, due to the adverse weather, could not receive aid by sea.

4.

A quarrel broke out among the Egyptians; Achilla, general of the veteran troops, clashed with Arsinoe, the younger daughter of the late Ptolemy XII (12), because both wanted the supreme command. The Egyptian princess entrusted the eunuch Ganymede, her skilled minister, with the task of assassinating Achilla. The death of the Egyptian general gave Arsinoe the command of his people and she gave Ganymede the command of the war operations. The latter immediately increased the pay to what had been Achilla's troops, so as to guarantee their loyalty.

5.

The city of Alexandria was entirely built from scratch and has underground canals that bring water from the Nile to private homes, where it settles into cisterns by depositing the remaining silt on the bottom and thus becoming drinkable. The servants of wealthy citizens and also the "masters" (probably intended both as educated people and artists or artisans) of the city used only this water, while the poor were forced to drink the muddy Nile that is the bearer of many diseases, even because there was not a single fountain in the whole city. The river flowed on the side occupied by the Egyptians who could dispose of it at will, and so, the fact that the water pipes for the water supply were under their control, gave the idea, to the eunuch Ganimede, to take advantage of it to remove this precious asset to the Romans. In fact, the Capitoline forces, engaged on the perimeter defences, had to go to the few private houses included in the small part of the city under their control to obtain drinking water from the cisterns.

6.

To achieve this, the Alexandrians had to do a great deal of work, but they managed to intercept all the canals coming from the Nile and then to introduce sea water; they built engineering works and particular machines that took water from the sea and poured it into the pipes of the upstream districts, which supplied the part controlled by Cesar.

At first only a part of the cisterns failed, the higher ones, while the lower ones remained with good water and the men did not understand how this could be: they compared the different liquids and did not understand where the brackish water came from . In short, one part became undrinkable, while the other seemed to remain unchanged; but after a few days the latter also began to fail.

7.

From that moment there was no longer any doubt that the water had been voluntarily polluted; terror peeped over the faces of the soldiers looking at each other lost. Some claimed that Cesar had been slow in making the decision to embark, others argued that they were too close to the Alessandrini to be able to hide their preparations and embark without running the risk of being attacked and chased during the delicate boarding phase. In addition to this there was also another problem, in the part of the city occupied by Caesar, there were inhabitants of Alexandria that Caesar had not driven out of their homes, because they had proved to be faithful friends; so he had pledged to defend them and meditated to engage them in works that, even if useless, served to demonstrate their loyalty, because, as all those who have been in this land know, in general they are treacherous, shrewd and deceptive people.

8.

Caesar noticed the disturbance that this event had caused in his soldiers, so he said that he was able to find water because he knows that each coast is naturally rich in fresh water and that it is enough to dig wells to find it, adding that it may not be that the Egyptian coast is an exception, but that if so, he also explained that, having dominion of the sea as the enemy was devoid of a war fleet, they had no problem supplying it because the winds could not blow at the same time in both directions and in the opposite direction for both east and west navigation. He then explained that in addition to the honour, which forced him to fight, there was also the problem of impossible departure. Those who cared most about life had to consider that it would have been impossible to hide it from the enemies, who would have immediately taken advantage of it to attack them during those delicate boarding phases and that, although lower in military value and technique, abandoning the defensive perimeter would have allowed the enemies to occupy favourable positions, with the added advantage of numbers and elated at the imminent victory, would have denied many of us the escape. So all that remained was to stay and fight for life, if not for honour.

9.

After instilling new courage in his men with his discourse, he ordered the centurions to quit all other jobs to engage in the excavation of wells day and night. Everybody worked hard and in a single night a large amount of water was found and with relatively little work the evil that the enemies, with many tribulations and efforts, hoped to do was neutralized.

Two days after the XXXVII (37) legion, made up of Pompey's soldiers who had surrendered, sent by Domizio Calvino, after being loaded on ships with provisions, weapons and war machines, he landed on the African coast just above Alexandria; this was due to the eastern wind which prevented them from reaching the city port. Fortunately, the coast of this part of Egypt is suitable for anchoring ships, but this created another problem. The fleet, in fact, had run out of water, so they sent a light ship to warn Cesar of the incident, the location and the problem.

10.

Caesar, who always wants to see everything in person, embarked on a ship and ordered the entire fleet to follow him; he brought only a few soldiers with him so as not to defeat the defences and entrenches in the city. On reaching the place, a place called Chersoneo (Peninsula), made part of the men land there and sent them to look for some water; but some sailors recklessly decided to raid and were thus captured by the enemy cavalry that patrolled the area. The captured sailors revealed to the enemy that Caesar was there with the entire fleet but did not have the army with him. The Egyptians thus thought that they had had a great stroke of luck and to take advantage of it; then, they armed the entire fleet at their disposal and set out in search of the Roman Consul; they met him while he was on the way back, having already spent most of the day, Caesar tried to avoid the battle also because his oarsmen were tired and the knowledge of the waters was all to the advantage of the Egyptians, which made a battle little advisable nocturnal which would have frightened his men, who were better than their enemies and lacked courage. So, he kept the ships near the coast hoping that there the enemies could not have the audacity to attack him, having him a more favourable position.

11.

A Rhodian ship (of Rhodes) to Caesar's right found himself quite far from the rest of the fleet; the enemy seized the opportunity and impetuously launched 4 vessels with prestigious insignia on the attack so as not to miss the opportunity to inflict a loss on the Consul of Rome. Caesar had to intervene so as not to suffer an affront that would have undermined morale even if that ship, due to its negligence, did not deserve that other ships took risks. The clash was immediately hard but the Rhodes, very skilled in naval battles and perhaps even feeling responsible for that avoidable battle, worked hard not to be blamed for any defeat.

However, the clash had a happy outcome: one enemy quadrireme was captured, another sunk and two others rendered harmless; in addition to this, the Romans massacred enemies on support ships, and only the onset of darkness took away the possibility of an even clearer victory, which would allow him to capture many other enemy ships. This victory disheartened the bold enemy and, with the weakening of the headwind, Caesar was able to return to Alexandria with the whole fleet and the other transport ships loaded with reinforcements.

12.

What most discouraged the Alexandrians was the fact that they were not defeated by the soldiers, but only by the sailors of the fleet, so they took refuge in the stands and behind the defences fearing that the Roman fleet, now that he was aware of his strength, would attack them in others points of the coast, bypassing the city defences. The eunuch Ganymede encouraged them in the council, encouraged them to work harder to rebuild the lost ships even to increase their number; so they rearmed the old ships left in the arsenals and even if they had lost more than 110 ships of all cabotage, they were lost in the docks of the port (set on fire by Caesar already at the beginning of the war in the famous stake that caused the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria ), did not despair of being able to rebuild it. Moreover, they had noticed that if they had been stronger on the sea, they could have prevented Caesar from receiving food and reinforcements. Furthermore, being born in a seaside city and in a predominantly maritime country, they were used to navigating from an early age and considered water to be both a precious and a familiar element; they thought they were superior in naval operations even with smaller ships, so they put all the effort into building the new fleet.

13.

In all branches of the Nile there were ships used for the collection of taxes which were brought to Alexandria to form this fleet; in addition to these, at the bottom of the Royal Arsenals there were old buildings with old warships unused for many years, which lacked many parts and especially the oars. Thus workers were sent to the city to dismantle the arcades, gymnasiums and all public buildings, and with them oars and other missing parts were obtained; another time, the ingenuity and industriousness of the Alessandrini, combined with the great availability of the city, made it possible to overcome all the needs of the fleet under construction. However, these ships did not have to make long demanding journeys but only to come to battle in the port (understood in a broad sense) of the city.

It so happened that, in spite of all expectations, the Egyptians managed to have a fleet of 22 quadriremes, 5 quinqueremi and many others smaller and open deck (walkable bridge) and, after having tried the rowing speed in the port, they armed them with chosen men and war machines.

Caesar had 9 rodie galleys (since of the 10 sent, one had been lost in the battle a few days earlier), 8 pontics, 5 lycians and 12 from Asia; only 10 of these were quinqueremi and quadriremi, while the others were of lower rank and many were without bridges, but he prepared confidently for the battle, trusting in the courage of his men.

14.

So the day came to compete in naval battle; Caesar brought the fleet out of the port part under his control, circumvented the island of Faro and sided with the enemy. He placed the Rhodes on the right wing and the Pontics on the left; between the two wings in the front line it left a space of 400 steps (300 meters), sufficient for naval manoeuvres, and behind it put all the others, keeping them in reserve and giving everyone precise provisions. The Alessandrini adopted a similar line-up, with the 22 quadriremes on the front line and the others behind on the second line as a reserve; in addition to these they also deployed many small boats equipped with incendiary devices with which they hoped to cause some damage to the Romans.

In the sea space between the two fleets there were sandy shoals such that whoever wanted to attack first, would have had to switch to through making yourself vulnerable. The Egyptians used to say that these belong only half to Alexandria and the other half to Africa. So it happened that these shallows made it take a long time for one of the two sides to make the first move, that is, to enter that narrow passage that made it difficult to move and almost impossible to escape.

15.

The Rodie ships were commanded by Euphranor, whose audacity and courage were more comparable to a Latin than to a Greek; the Rodici themselves, knowing their skill and value, chose him as head of their fleet. The latter, noting Caesar's perplexity, approached him and said to him: «You seem to have no faith in me; you fear that by entering that bottleneck first, you may not be able to fight before you have deployed the entire fleet. Entrust this task to us; we will support the clash without prolonging your waiting. As long as the entire fleet has passed, we cannot shamelessly ignore our opponents' invitation to battle. " Caesar praised and encouraged him, gave his consent and ordered to give the battle signal.

Four Rhodian ships were the first to cross the bottleneck and were immediately attacked by the Egyptian ones, but despite a bit of fear they kept the line while others followed them and, with a skilful move, they entered the deployment by widening the bow with the well-turned rostrums to the enemy; despite the narrow spaces the oars between them were not damaged, and in this way they never offered their side to the enemy. The entire fleet followed the Rhodes and since the spaces remained tight, the fleet could not be stretched and measured on the naval expertise, but the courage and the value of men had to be entrusted.

Meanwhile, in Alexandria, everyone had abandoned their duties, even the defence of their mutual positions to go to the roofs and at the highest points to witness the clash on which the fate of many depended; each prayed to their gods, hoping for good luck.

16.

It should be added that the battle was unbalanced not only for the amount of forces on the field, but also for the effects related to its outcome. In fact, for Caesar a defeat would have precluded any possibility of salvation even on the mainland, while a victory would have left the situation unchanged. Instead, for the Alessandrini a defeat would have left everything unchanged and they could even have tried again.

In addition to this, it must be added that this naval battle was fought only by a small part of the army, even if this determined the salvation of all; so it had happened that those who could not fight for their own salvation looked at the others who would participate, wondering if they would give all of themselves in that peril. Caesar noticed this and spoke several times to the soldiers to motivate and encourage them, making them understand that everyone's fate depended on them, so as to increase their determination.

The soldiers spoke among themselves; fellow soldiers, friends and relatives and those who remained warned the chosen ones not to disappoint the expectations placed in them. Thus, in the midst of the battle, the number, far superior, the seafaring ability, the many small vessels and the chosen troops could do nothing: the courage of the Cesarians won them all.

They captured a quinquereme and a bireme with the crews; three went down, while none of the winners was lost. The rest of the fleet fled to Porto Eunoste.

17.

Caesar understood that he had to prevent the enemies from leaving the port to bring him another attack on the sea; it had to conquer the island of Faro and the long 7-stage pier (1290 meters) that connected it to the city, also because the defences had not yet been completed. This would then give him the opportunity to attack the city too.

He decided to do this: he put 10 cohorts of his best light infantry on boats together with a certain number of Gaul knights, in a number suitable for the purpose. He promised them a grand prize, especially to those who first occupied the island; then to deflect his intentions he attacked another part of the island with bridged galleys (ships with a walkable bridge).