Chapter III #3
It was at this point, when the situation seemed hopeless and the battle lost, that a small detachment galloped up on horseback and leaped to the ground.
Someone shouted that Caesar was here. One of the men ripped off his helmet to show his face, and I saw that it was indeed the dictator.
He grabbed a shield from the nearest man and, bareheaded, with his sword drawn, ran into the thick of the fighting, followed by his bodyguards.
I could not catch the words he called out as he rushed past me, but the sight of him, his shield quickly studded with arrows, was enough to banish all thought of retreat.
We fell upon the enemy with such renewed fury we caught them by surprise, and soon we were chasing them up the hill, catching them and slaughtering them singly as if they were sheep.
Our left wing was equally triumphant. By nightfall, the Pompeian position had disintegrated. We lost one thousand dead; they lost thirty thousand. Sextus Pompey managed to escape, but his brother, Gnaeus, was later cornered and beheaded.
So ended the battle – my first and, as it was to prove, Caesar’s last.
It was still necessary to subdue the survivors who had taken refuge in Munda.
Having come so close to death himself, Caesar was not inclined to mercy.
When the garrison refused to surrender, he laid siege to it in a manner most calculated to terrify the defenders.
He ordered it to be surrounded by a wall built of their comrades’ corpses.
They were dragged from the battlefield, their heads cut off and stuck on spikes on top of the ramparts, their faces turned towards the town.
In the Spanish heat, the stench lay shimmering over the ground like an oily mist. The sky was black with crows and vultures, swooping down to peck at the dead.
Caesar moved on, leaving the completion of the siege to his commanders. After a month, the town submitted, and the campaign ended.
Not long after the surrender, I received a message ordering me to report to Caesar’s new headquarters in Hispalis, several days’ ride away. I navigated by the stars and slept by the roadside.
On reaching the town, I was directed to a villa in its centre. Legionaries guarded the walls, and a crowd was gathered nearby, gawping at the broad head of a middle-aged man, displayed on a pole beside the gates. A placard read Gnaeus Pompey, enemy of Caesar.
Waiting for me in the courtyard was Octavius.
It was nearly half a year since I had seen him.
I had not given him much thought. Yet here he was, to my amazement: clean-shaven, immaculate in his freshly issued kit, apparently restored to health.
My scarred and weather-burned skin, thick beard and dusty clothes clearly took him by surprise.
I had lost a lot of weight. I must have looked like a skeleton.
But once he was sure it was me, he came over, arms outstretched, and we embraced.
– Dear gods, Agrippa, you stink like a sewer!
After I had bathed and shaved, he sat beside me while I was massaged.
He described how he had set off for Spain as soon as he was well enough, had taken a ship and narrowly escaped capture by pirates, had been shipwrecked, struggled ashore, travelled for hundreds of miles over mountains and across rivers, had nearly been caught a dozen times by the enemy, but regrettably arrived too late for the battle.
I told him that my own adventures seemed tame by comparison. He agreed.
– Caesar says he is as impressed that I should have come to him ill and alone, with only a small escort, as if I had fought at Munda.
It is not true, of course – at least not as far as I’m concerned.
I envy you the experience of a great battle.
But he assures me I will have plenty more opportunities.
I said I was surprised there was anyone left to fight. His manner became mysterious.
– Oh, he has plans. Great plans.
We stayed in Hispalis another month. Caesar was away throughout this period, touring the province, establishing colonies for his veterans.
We occupied ourselves with guard duty, physical training, and running errands for the general staff.
Then, at the end of June, Octavius received a message that the dictator had completed his mission.
He intended to sail back to Italy and wanted his nephew to join him on the voyage.
When we said goodbye on the day of his departure, I tried to hide my envy. Suddenly, at the last moment, when he was halfway through the gate, as if the idea had only just occurred to him, he asked if I would like to go with him.
I ran to fetch my kitbag.
We boarded Caesar’s flagship in Calpe, the port where I had disembarked at the start of the campaign.
The crew were still making it ready for his arrival.
It was a mighty vessel, luxuriously appointed, with couches and carpets and individual cabins for Caesar and his staff – a far cry from the vessel on which I had travelled to Spain.
He came aboard that afternoon, attended by his customary entourage of secretaries and officers.
He had changed into the purple toga only the dictator was permitted to wear.
I remember this detail because it felt so incongruous to see him out of armour and helmet.
We were made to line up on the main deck so he could greet us one by one.
When my turn came, he patted my cheek and tugged it affectionately between thumb and forefinger. His skin smelled sweetly of crocus oil.
– Well then, young Agrippa, I hear you fought bravely at Munda. I am glad you were able to join us.
He remembered me! I almost swooned with pride.
I had many opportunities to observe him at close quarters over the next few weeks.
He seemed in no hurry to return to Rome.
Our flotilla made leisurely progress eastwards over a calm sea.
As before, we put in at the usual harbours – Carthago Nova, Tarraco, Massilia – and each time he went ashore to consult with the local officials and issue orders.
For the rest of the time he either stayed in his cabin, working with his secretaries, or lay out on his private deck reading poetry, or simply staring for hours at the horizon.
In the evenings, he presided at small dinners.
He had brought a woman with him, his Spanish mistress or so it was said, but she kept out of sight.
I never spoke to her. Nor was I invited to his table, except on two memorable occasions.
At the first, nine of us were present. The meal was served on his deck.
I shared a couch with Octavius and listened as Caesar outlined his plans for his next campaign.
He proposed to amass the greatest army the world had ever seen – thirty-eight legions: two hundred thousand men – and set off in the spring, once he had settled the political situation in Rome.
He called for maps, and ordered lamps to be lit, for it was growing dark by now.
The dishes were cleared. The charts unrolled.
An aide gave him a pointer made of solid gold with a jewelled handle, which he wielded as Jupiter might play with a thunderbolt, tapping the map of the world as he spoke.
The primary objective was to be the Parthian Empire.
He would wipe it out and finally avenge the death of Crassus, fifteen years before.
Then the legions would wheel around the far side of the Black Sea by way of Hyrcania, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, and march west. He would invade Scythia, and after overrunning all the countries bordering Germania, he would conquer Germania itself and return to Italy by way of Gaul, completing the circuit of his empire, which henceforth would be bounded on all sides by the ocean.
I suppose this scheme must have been forming in his head during those long hours of gazing out to sea.
When he had finished, there was silence, followed by murmurs of awed amazement.
I remember one officer asking how long all this would take, and Caesar replying that he would be away from Rome for three years.
He looked around the table and suddenly aimed his golden pointer at me.
– What do you say, Agrippa?’
If someone was to propose such a plan to me today, I would say they were insane. But I was eighteen, and a plebeian. He was fifty-five, and a descendant of the goddess Venus. I said what I felt – that I thought it was wonderful, magnificent, a conception worthy of Alexander himself.
He laughed and rapped the table.