Chapter IX #2
Just after dawn, he asked for me and Salvidienus to attend him.
We had to lean down close to hear what he said.
In a whisper he ordered Salvidienus to hold a line opposite the legions commanded by Brutus.
He entrusted me with the defence of our camp.
Neither of us was to issue an order to attack without first receiving his authority.
In short, he refused to relinquish command, even though he was not fit to exercise it.
Ignore the historians of warfare, with their neat blocks and arrows set down carefully on maps years afterwards.
All battles are chaotic.
But none, in my experience, was more chaotic than Philippi.
The ground was dry and dusty. The lines extended for miles out of sight.
The clouds thrown up by so many thousands of men and horses moving across the steep terrain rendered much of the battlefield invisible.
The command was split between four generals, and I would say that none of them ever really understood what was happening.
All I know for certain is that on the third morning of October, Antony attacked the legions of Cassius, while Brutus launched an assault on ours.
I rode ceaselessly up and down the perimeter of the camp, cursing the gods that prevented me from taking part in the fighting.
As the noise of battle came closer, and our wounded were carried into the camp, it became clear our men were falling back.
In the afternoon, a message arrived from Salvidienus that he had lost three standards and our positions were in danger of being overrun.
He asked for permission to withdraw and urged Caesar to escape while there was still time.
Caesar agreed.
Assisted by his doctors, we transferred him from his bed to a litter, drew the curtains, surrounded him with a bodyguard of a hundred legionaries and made haste towards the rear.
Slipping out of the back gate, we headed west into the scrubby marshland, picking our way along narrow goat trails between patches of bog.
Behind us, the sounds of fighting slowly faded.
After we had put three or four miles between ourselves and the battlefield, we found some stony higher ground on which stood an olive grove.
Here, amid the trees, we set down the litter.
When I drew back the curtain, Caesar was lying with his eyes closed, so still I thought he might be dead. Speaking in a quiet voice that no one else could hear, he asked me if I thought he had been defeated.
I replied that it was too soon to tell.
He said that if he was defeated, he did not wish to be captured, but that he was too weak to kill himself and therefore I would have to do it for him.
– It will be your last service to me.
I knew that if he had been strong, he never would have spoken in such a manner, and I answered angrily.
– Enough of that! Whatever the outcome today, you will still be Caesar, and as long as you draw breath, your cause will never be lost.
I told him to rest.
I sent scouts to discover the state of the battle.
They did not return.
As night fell, a red glow appeared in the sky in the direction of our camp.
I could no longer bear to cower in the marshes. Leaving Caesar with his doctors – under orders, on pain of death themselves, to ensure he did not harm himself – I set out alone on horseback to try to find Antony.
I entered our camp with caution. It had been thoroughly looted.
Stores were strewn everywhere. Tents were still burning, including Caesar’s.
But I was relieved to find that the soldiers dousing the fires were ours, and from their stories, I pieced together what had happened.
Our legions had suffered heavy losses – sixteen thousand dead and wounded, we later calculated – but had retreated to form a new defensive line.
Fortunately for us, Brutus’s men had broken off their attack to pillage the camp, enabling Salvidienus to retake it.
The men were all convinced that Caesar was dead. I was at least able to spread the word that he was still alive.
Antony, when I reached him at his headquarters, had also heard the rumour that Caesar had been killed.
He was eating supper with Salvidienus and could not quite conceal his disappointment when I assured him it was untrue.
The two men shared a glance. I knew then that Salvidienus was not to be trusted.
I quickly made up a story of how Caesar had fought his way out of the camp and was recovering from his wounds, although I could see that Antony did not believe me.
– I am very glad to hear he is still alive. Give him my best wishes and tell him neither side has won a decisive victory today. Tell him we must prepare to fight again.
It is a measure of the chaos at Philippi that even as I was meeting Antony, Cassius had mistakenly become convinced that the battle was lost and had ordered one of his attendants to kill him with his sword.
This was – literally – a great stroke of good fortune for our side.
Cassius was their most experienced commander, a far better soldier than Brutus, who remained at heart a philosopher.
If he had held his nerve and waited until the morning, the whole future of the world might have been different.
When I informed Caesar of his death, he saw at once how foolish he had been himself to talk of suicide. The fortunes of war and life change quickly. One must never give in to despair.
From that moment, his nerve began to strengthen, as if he had been granted a second life.
Even so, it was three days before he could face venturing from his hiding place.
He knew his reputation had been damaged by fleeing the camp.
He was no longer able to stand up to Antony with the same authority.
When Antony convened another council of war, it was humiliating to watch my young friend constantly defer to the older man.
Not that he objected to Antony’s strategy, which was one of attrition – to gradually extend our lines to outflank Brutus, while at the same time offering large bribes to the enemy’s legions to defect.
So successful were these tactics over the next three weeks that Brutus, in sole command of an army that was melting away before his eyes, and with his front becoming dangerously stretched, was eventually forced to abandon his strong defensive position on the higher ground and offer a second battle while he still had the legions to do so.