Dictator

We joined the column around the middle of the morning, and even I, the least military of men, found it exhilarating; even Cicero for that matter was filled with confidence for once. As for young Marcus, he was in heaven, moving back and forth between our section and the cavalry. We rode on horseback. The lictors marched in front of us with their laurelled rods. As we tramped across the plain towards the mountains, the road began to climb and I could see far ahead the reddish-brown dust raised by the endless column and the occasional glitter of steel as a helmet or a javelin caught the sun.

At nightfall we reached the first camp, with its ditch and earthen rampart and its spiked palisade. The tents were already pitched, the fires lit; a wonderful scent of cooking rose into the darkening sky. I remember especially the clink of the blacksmiths’ hammers in the dusk, the whinnying and movement of the horses in their enclosure, and also the pervading smell of leather from the scores of tents, the largest of which had been set aside for Cicero. It stood at the crossroads in the centre of the camp, close to the standards and to the altar, where Cicero that evening presided over the traditional sacrifice to Mars. He bathed and was anointed, dined well, slept peacefully in the fresh air, and the following morning we set off again.

This pattern was repeated for the next fifteen days as we made our way across the mountains of Macedonia towards the border with Illyricum. Cicero constantly expected to receive a summons to confer with Pompey, but none came. We did not know even where the commander-in-chief was, although occasionally Cicero received dispatches, and from these we pieced together a clearer picture of what was happening. Caesar had landed on the fourth day of January with a force of several legions, perhaps fifteen thousand men in all, and had achieved complete surprise, seizing the port of Apollonia, about thirty miles south of Dyrrachium. But that was just one half of his army. While he stayed with the bridgehead, his troopships had set off back to Italy to bring over the second half. (Pompey had never factored into his calculations the audacity of his enemy making two trips.) At this point, however, Caesar’s famous luck ran out. Our admiral, Bibulus, had managed to intercept thirty of his transports. These he set on fire and all their crews he burnt alive, and then he deployed his immense fleet to prevent Caesar’s navy returning.

As matters stood, therefore, Caesar’s position was precarious. He had his back to the sea and was blockaded, with no chance of resupply, with winter coming on, and was about to be confronted by a much larger force.

As we were nearing the end of our march, Cicero received a further dispatch from Pompey:

Pompey Imperator to Cicero Imperator.

I have received a proposal from Caesar that we should hold an immediate peace conference, disband both our armies within three days, renew our old friendship under oath, and return to Italy together. I regard this as proof not of his friendly intentions but of the weakness of his position and of his realisation that he cannot win this war. Accordingly, knowing that you would concur, I have rejected his offer, which I suspect was in any case a trick.

‘Is he right?’ I asked him. ‘Would you have concurred?’

‘No,’ responded Cicero, ‘and he knows perfectly well I wouldn’t. I would do anything to stop this war – which of course is why he never asked for my opinion. I cannot see anything ahead of us except slaughter and ruin.’

At the time I thought that Cicero was being unduly defeatist even for him. Pompey deployed his vast army in and around Dyrrachium, and contrary to expectations, he once again settled down to wait. No one in the supreme war council could fault his reasoning: that with every passing day Caesar’s position became weaker; that he might eventually be starved into submission without the need for fighting; and that in any case, the best time to attack would be in the spring when the weather was less treacherous.

The Ciceros were billeted in a villa just outside Dyrrachium, built up high on a headland. It was a wild spot, with commanding views of the sea, and I found it odd to think of Caesar encamped only thirty miles away. Sometimes I would lean out over the terrace and crane my neck to the south in the hope that I might see some evidence of his presence, but naturally I never did.