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​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).

At first the enemy bravely supported the assault, both from the banks equipped with parapets, and from the roofs of the houses with an audacity similar to ours. To defend the narrow port entrance and the docks, they used ships, in particular five well-maneuvered long vessels. Ours had great difficulty approaching the shore because of the rather steep coasts, but when they found the suitable place for the landing and the signal of attack was given, they conquered the shore with vigour and the enemy who defended it turned away, also abandoned the Torre del Faro, while those who defended the port directed the ships to shore and disembarked to go and defend the houses.

18.

Despite the no our enemies had taken refuge in the houses, and that their number was higher, they did not hold the position for long; and yes their houses were no different from those of the city, built very close to creating almost a wall, and ours were not equipped with stairs or other siege machines. But as often happens, fear takes away judgment and the ardour of war; seeing others run away, and after some of their companions had died, they left the line of defence - which was a solid row of houses up to 30 feet (8 meters) high - and ran towards the sea to swim across it, as the city it was only 800 steps away (580/600 meters); those who did not flee were killed or captured, so that ultimately there were more than 600 prisoners.

19.

The inhabitants evacuated the island of Faro and Caesar left the soldiers free to plunder it, but immediately afterwards occupied the fortification guarding the bridge that connected the island with the long pier Eptastadio to the city, and placed a guard there. The Heptastadio, on the other side, was connected to the city by another bridge well-fortified by the Alexandrians. The next day, with a movement similar to the previous day, Caesar attacked that bridge; it intended to block the connection between the two east and west port basins, so as to completely prevent improvisation with the enemy's ships. With ships loaded with archers and war machines he drove the defenders off the bridge and defences, then landed just under three cohorts to occupy that narrow place that could not contain more. He ordered to fortify the access to the bridge and to the Heptastadium facing the city, and to those who remained on the ships, to fill the channel connecting the two ports with stones and other things; but with work just begun, a large number of Alessandrini came out of the houses and gathered in a space in front of the access to the bridge and, with many boats equipped with incendiary weapons, tried to set our ships on fire in support. Our people found themselves defending themselves on the bridge and on the pier, while the Alexandrians attacked the side of the Heptastadium with the troops in square formation in front of the bridge and with the boats.

20.

While Caesar was busy encouraging and directing the soldiers on the front line, a large number of rowers and sailors alighted from the ships resting on the pier on the Caesarian side of the port. The reason was not clear: some out of curiosity to see the fights, others out of the desire to participate; the fact is that at first this move was positive because these, with throwing stones and other things, managed to keep away the Alexandrian boats that tried to land on the pier on the opposite side. Later, however, after a small group of Alessandrini had managed to get close and set foot on it, they swerved, lost alignments, stopped following their signs and in total chaos tried to get back on the ships. Seeing this, the enemies became bold and bolder, which increased confusion; the moored ships took the catwalks away from the pier, while ours launched from the pier to go up there. The three cohorts, seeing the boats go away, feared to remain closed between the enemies who attacked them from the side of the bridge and those who landed on the pier, and so part of them became intimidated and joined those who fled to the ships; so the worst happened: many fell into the water, others used the shield as a board to swim the boats that were leaving, while those who remained undecided about what to do were killed by the Alexandrians who attacked their position.

21.

Caesar, who was busy inciting and giving orders, found himself in danger and seeing the impossibility of remedying the disaster, he took refuge on his flagship; but then, sensing what could happen, given that this was unable to move because of the chaos and the many men who climbed the sides to find escape, threw himself into the sea and swam to the most distant ships, free from impediments, and from there he sent boats to save as many men as possible. Caesar's ship, which was blocked and weighed down by those seeking escape, overturned and sank with all the crew; in this action Caesar lost more than 400 legionnaires and an even greater number of rowers and sailors. With this battle, the Alessandrini reconquered the fortifications of the bridge near the city, strengthened it considerably with works and war machines, then freed the canal, thus allowing their boats to continue using it.

22.

Despite this failure, ours were far from feeling defeated; rather, they were burning with revenge and put even more effort into overcoming and removing the barriers of the enemies. They conquered new positions in the city and in all those daily battles that took place here and there; thus, the Alexandrians understood that the Romans exalted themselves in victory and became determined hoist me in redeeming myself after a defeat. Legions continued to be duty-bound as usual, while, on the contrary, Caesar's incitement had failed. The defeat had proved it and it was at this moment that we found ourselves in greater difficulty, because the Alessandrini attacked with more vigour.

23.

The enemies, noting that despite their recent victory the Romans had not been demoralized but were even more determined than before, decided to try another path. Caesar had little Pharaoh as his prisoner; among the Egyptians within the perimeter there were partisans of this who worked for the liberation of the legitimate sovereign. With messages and the assent of their King, they decided to make this request to Caesar, or to leave their sovereign free by reporting that many subjects were tired of the despotic government of a young girl and the eunuch Ganymede. They made him realize that this would bring him benefits and even the end of the war, because with a just agreement, beneficial for little Pharaoh, Egypt could agree to return to the Roman Protectorate.

24.

Caesar was aware that the people were able to conceal their true feelings and instinctively would have denied their assent, however he assessed differently. If it really was as they claimed, the release of their legitimate ruler would bring order to the kingdom. If, on the other hand, the intent was only to put that legitimate King at the head of the army, there would have been more glory and honour for him to face a Pharaoh rather than a counsellor, however, very skilled and capable. So Caesar called him and spoke to him; despite the apparent innocence, the young man was already able to camouflage his feelings: whimpering he tried to move the consul of Rome, who held him by the hand and handed him back to freedom and his subjects, while he said that it was difficult to reign over Egypt and that, if he could, he preferred to stay and enjoy the company of Caesar.

Once free, however, the exact opposite occurred of what his words and his advisers had announced, and as part of Caesar already expected: the Alexandrian war operations resumed with more vigour, once again showing the falsity of those people. Caesar's men, but also friends, centurions and soldiers, thought that this time their commander had been made fun of by a boy and that he had acted more out of kindness than with sensible and thoughtful caution.

25.

The Alessandrini realized that, even if they now had only one leader, they had not become stronger than the Romans, and furthermore, following the continuous failures of their attacks, they lost confidence in their new guide who, as foreseen by Caesar, had ousted the capable eunuch Ganymede.

Word came to the Alexandrians that reinforcements for the besieged were already on the march from Syria and Cilicia, so they decided to try again to intercept supplies for us. Having ships in Canopus in the Nile Delta and reinforcing them with other units, they prepared to take our convoy by surprise.

Caesar did not know where his reinforcements were, but when he learned that the Egyptians were preparing to attack his supplies, he gave order to the fleet to sail and in command placed Tiberius Claudio Nero. With him went the Rodie ships commanded by the lucky Euphranor who had participated in all the battles and always with a happy outcome, but the luck that had always supported the skilled Euphranor that day changed his opinion and abandoned the Rhodium. In fact, when the two fleets near Canobio engaged in battle, Euphranor, with his ship, attacked first as he used to do; he sank a trireme and then went further to attack another one not far away, but he went too far from his fleet that had failed to follow him and found himself isolated and surrounded by enemy ships. Nobody cared to support him, perhaps because they were confident in his seafaring skills or because they were afraid of danger; it happened that alone he faced the glorious struggle, covered himself with honour but finally perished sinking with his ship that until then had always been victorious.

26.

In the same days Mithridates of Pergamum, noble by birth, skilled and courageous strategist, faithful friend of Caesar who had been sent to Syria and Cilicia to enlist troops since the beginning of the Alexandrian war, had come to Pelusio with a large army of those fond people who also thanks to his dignity and fame gladly followed him.

Pelusio was well guarded by a strong contingent left by Achilla, who well knew the strengths of the place; in fact Pelusio connected Egypt to Syria by land and was, together with the port of Alexandria, one of the two entrances to the kingdom.