Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus (17 page)
Read Marcus Agrippa: Right-hand Man of Caesar Augustus Online
Authors: Lindsay Powell
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS002000, #HISTORY / Ancient / General / BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military, #Bisac Code 2: BIO008000 Bisac Code 3: HIS027000
At
Portus Iulius
on 1 July 36 BCE a solemn lustration ceremony was held to purify the fleet and its crews.
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Appian recounts the sacred event:
Altars were erected on the margin of the sea, and the multitude were ranged around them in ships, observing the most profound silence. The priests who performed the ceremony offered the sacrifice while standing at the water’s edge, and carried the expiatory offerings in skiffs three times around the fleet, the commander [Agrippa] sailing with them, beseeching the gods to turn the bad omens against the victims instead of the fleet. Then, dividing the entrails, they cast a part of them into the sea, and put the remainder on the altars and burned them, while the multitude chanted in unison.
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Assured that the gods had been placated, Agrippa’s ship led the fleet out of the safe haven that had been the home of the fleet and into the Gulf of Pozzuoli (
map 5
). Separately Caesar set sail from the harbour at Puteoli, while Lepidus departed from Africa and Statilius Taurus left from Tarentum in command of the ships loaned from Antonius.
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Their destination was Sicily and their strategy was to encircle and blockade the island, land an army and retake it.
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Weather once again scuttled Caesar’s ambition. Just three days after they left port, a severe storm blew up which capsized many of Lepidus’s fleet of ‘1,000 ships of burden’, sinking some part of his ‘12 legions of soldiers, 500 Numidian horse, and a great quantity of apparatus’.
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Despite the setback, Lepidus still managed to land his men and matériel in Sicily and immediately began to lay siege to Plennius in Lilybaeum, securing ‘some towns by persuasion and others by force’.
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Taurus was not so fortunate. The storm forced him to withdraw his 102 ships and sail back to Tarentum.
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At the outset of the storm, Caesar had taken the precaution of sheltering his fleet in the safety of the Bay of Elea, saving all but a six-banked ship, which was wrecked on the promontory.
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Winds, which interminably changed direction, and the choppy sea tested the skill of the oarsmen who tried their best to steady their ships, but neither their strength nor the anchors lodged on the seabed could prevent the vessels colliding with each other or smashing against the rocks. The onset of night only added to the confusion and woe. When the sun rose next day, Caesar was dismayed to discover that six of his heavy-built ships, twenty-six lighter ones and a larger number of
liburniae
had been destroyed.
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He estimated it would take a month to carry out repairs, re-equip his men, heal his wounded and bury his dead. It was an inauspicious start. Time was running out. Cautious by nature, he resolved to postpone the campaign until the following year. He dispatched the crews who now found themselves without ships to Taurus to man the empty vessels under his command. Leaving Agrippa to supervise the repairs, Caesar headed back to Italy, where he visited the new
coloniae
to allay fears that his was not a lost cause, and met with Taurus at Tarentum, before settling in at Vibo (Vibo Valéntia) in Calabria for the winter. To Rome, where supporters of Pompeius still wielded influence, Caesar sent Maecenas whose wealth and charm could buy him time.
Map 5. The War Against Sex. Pompeius, 36 BCE.
In a lapse of judgement Sextus failed to seize the opportunity to smash his opponent’s fleet once and for all. Instead he offered sacrifice to Neptunus in thanks, and convinced himself that he had been favoured by Providence who had seen off his enemies, not once but twice.
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He swapped the red
paludamentum
, the cloak worn by Roman commanders, for a blue one and claimed boastfully to be the adopted son of the sea god. He hoped that his adversary would finally give up on his quest, but across the sea in Vibo a very sober Caesar had his mind firmly fixed on the forthcoming campaign and roused his infantry and expedited the repairs to his fleet.
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Agrippa concerned himself with all aspects of the refurbishment of the damaged ships down to the minutiae of the provision of materials.
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When Sextus learned about Caesar’s intensive reparations his swanky mood changed to one of alarm.
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He dispatched Menodorus with seven ships to reconnointre his opponent’s installations and ordered him to cause as much havoc as he could while there; but Sextus’ captain was still smarting from having been overlooked for the supreme naval command and began planning a different outcome. When he reached the triumvir’s shipyard he found neither Caesar nor Agrippa there – Agrippa was away procuring timber, leaving Valerius Messala in charge.
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Menodorus’ hit and run raid on the yard caused consternation, though the actual damage done was more to Agrippa’s troops’ pride than material. Menodorus had a secret plan. Since Agrippa’s appointment to the command of the fleet, he intended to defect to Caesar ‘who had done him no wrong’.
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Inviting Mindius Marcellus, a trusted friend of Caesar, to a meeting on a small island away from the shipyard, he convinced him of the sincerity of his intention. When Caesar approached Menodorus prostrated himself before the commander-in-chief. He acceded to the man’s wishes, though he had him secretly watched because he did not trust him.
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Caesar’s unexpected gain was Sextus’ unforeseen loss.
Caesar gave the order for the campaign to recommence. Two legions under Messala crossed the Strait of Messina and landed on Sicily where they joined up with the army of Lepidus.
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Meanwhile Statilius Taurus sailed from Tarentum around the coast to Mount Scylacium and successfully landed his troops. There he briefly met Caesar, before he returned to his operations base at Vibo. More men and matériel from Africa attempted to land but were intercepted by Papias, one of Sextus’ captains.
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Two legions were lost at sea and any men who managed to reach the shore were struck down without mercy by the Pompeians. Nevertheless, Lepidus’ other legions did manage to land at a later date.
Agrippa was at Caesar’s side in Vibo.
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After first reconnoitering the area, they decided now was the right moment to despatch their refurbished fleet. They agreed to take up a position at Strongyle (modern Stromboli), a small volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily. Caesar then left Agrippa in command of the fleet. Caesar went to join up with Messala and Taurus with the objective of launching an attack on land against Sextus’ stronghold at Tauromenium (Taormina on the east side of the island). In the ensuing naval engagements Agrippa would show the first flashes of tactical genius as a sea warrior.
In early August Agrippa moved his fleet from Strongyle to the island of Hiera (the modern Egadi Islands) laying a few miles off the coast of Trapani (west Sicily).
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Pompeius’ garrison offered no resistance and Agrippa seized Hiera. The following day he planned to attack Demochares, Sextus’ deputy, who had forty ships docked at Mylae.
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The place had special resonance for the Romans. Here in 260 BCE the first real naval battle between Carthage and the Roman Republic took place. It was Rome’s first win at sea. Perhaps buoyed by memory of the ancient victory, Caesar’s deputy adopted a suitably menacing stance.
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Sextus immediately sent 45 ships to Demochares from Messana (present-day Messina) under the command of his freedman Apollophanes, and followed up himself in person with seventy more vessels. Appian’s account of the Battle of Mylae is evocative and worth quoting in full:
Agrippa, with half of his ships, sailed out of Hiera before daylight in order to have a naval engagement with Papias only.
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When he saw the fleet of Apollophanes also, and seventy ships on the other wing, he sent word to Caesar at once that Pompeius was at Mylae with the greater part of his naval forces. Then he placed himself with his heavy ships in the centre, and summoned the remainder of his fleet from Hiera in all haste. The preparations on both sides were superb. The ships had towers on both stem and stern. When the usual exhortation had been given and the standards raised, they rushed against each other, some coming bow on, others making flank attacks, the shouts of the men and the spray from the ships adding terror to the scene. The Pompeian ships were shorter and lighter, and better adapted to blockading and darting about. Those of Caesar were larger and heavier, and, consequently, slower, yet stronger to give blows and not so easily damaged. The Pompeian crews were better sailors than those of Caesar, but the latter were stronger. Accordingly, the former excelled not so much in close fighting as in the nimbleness of their movements, in breaking oar blades and rudders, cutting off oar handles, or separating the enemy’s ships entirely, doing them no less harm than by ramming. Those of Caesar sought to cut down with their beaks the hostile ships, which were smaller in size, or shatter them, or break through them. When they came to close quarters, being higher, they could hurl missiles down upon the enemy, and more easily throw the
corvus
and the grappling-irons. The Pompeians, whenever
they were overpowered in this manner, leaped into the sea and were picked up by their small boats, which were hovering around for this purpose.
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Aboard his flagship, Agrippa identified his adversary and went straight after him:
Agrippa bore down directly upon Papias and struck his ship under the bow, shattering it and breaking a hole in the keel. The men in the towers were shaken down, the water rushed into the ship, and all the oarsmen on the lower benches were cut off. The others broke through the deck and escaped by swimming. Papias escaped to a ship alongside of his own, and returned to the battle.
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From Sextus’ vantage point, the unfolding situation looked increasingly hopeless:
Pompeius, who observed from a mountain that his ships were making little headway, and that whenever they came to close quarters with the enemy they were denuded of fighting men, and that reinforcements were coming to Agrippa from Hiera, gave the signal to retire in good order. This they did, advancing and retreating little by little. Agrippa continued to bear down upon them, and they took refuge, not on the beach, but among the shoals formed in the sea by river deposits.
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He now wanted to move in for the kill, but danger lurked in the waters and
Agrippa’s pilots prevented him from running his large ships on the shoals. He cast anchor in the open sea, intending to blockade the enemy and to fight a battle by night if necessary; but his friends advised him not to be carried away by rashness and not to wear out his soldiers with excessive toil and want of sleep, and not to trust to that tempestuous sea. So in the evening he reluctantly withdrew. The Pompeians made sail to their harbours, having lost thirty of their ships, and sunk five of the enemy’s, and having inflicted considerable other damage and suffered as much in return. Pompeius praised his own men because they had resisted such formidable vessels, saying they had fought against walls rather than against ships; and he rewarded them as though they had been victorious. He encouraged them to believe that, as they were lighter, they would prevail over the enemy in the straits on account of the current. He said also that he would make some addition to the height of his ships. Such was the result of the naval battle at Mylae between Agrippa and Papias.
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Agrippa had won his first naval battle. Hearing the news, Antonius is reported as having reproached Caesar with the words ‘you were not able to take a clear view of the fleet, when drawn up in line of battle, but lay stupidly upon your back, gazing at the sky; nor did you get up and let your men see you, until M. Agrippa had forced the enemies’ ships to sheer off’.
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Caesar may not have deserved the barb, but it was a compliment to Agrippa’s talent.
Now Agrippa had to quickly decide how best to exploit that success. Appian continues,
Pompeius suspected that Caesar had gone to the camp of Taurus for the purpose of attacking Tauromenium, which was the fact. So, directly after supper, he sailed to Messana, leaving a part of his forces at Mylae so that Agrippa might think that he was still there. Agrippa, as soon as his army was sufficiently rested, bestirred himself and set sail for Tyndaris [modern Tindari], which had offered to surrender. He entered the town, but the garrison fought valiantly and drove him out. Some other towns espoused his cause and received his garrisons, and he returned that evening. In the meantime, Caesar had sailed from Scylacium to Leucopetra, [modern Capo dell’ Armi] having learned for a certainty that Pompeius had gone from Messana to Mylae on account of Agrippa. He was about to cross the straits from Leucopetra to Tauromenium by night, but learning of the sea-fight he changed his mind, thinking that a victor ought not to steal his passage, but to cross with his army boldly by daylight; for he was fully convinced that Pompeius was still confronting Agrippa. Looking down from the mountains upon the sea at daybreak and finding that it was clear of enemies, he set sail with as many troops as the ships could carry, leaving the rest with Messala until the fleet could return to him. Arriving at Tauromenium, he sent messengers to demand its surrender. As his guards were not admitted, he made sail to the River Onobalas and the temple of Venus, and moored his fleet at the shrine of the Archegetes, the god of the Naxians, [located at modern Capo di Schiso] intending to pitch his camp there and attack Tauromenium.
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