The Battle of Pharsalus
Monday, August 24, 2020
The battle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE was part of what I have previously called The End of the Roman Republic. Let's take a closer look at the battle itself.
Republican Rome had a complex constitution formulated with checks and balances meant to prevent any one man from gaining too much power. Three men joined together to seek a way around this: Julius Caesar, a general, and the chief priest in the Roman religion; Pompey, the greatest general of the time; and Crassus, an extremely wealthy man who was both a general and a politician.
Together, they were called "the Triumvirate" or "Three Men." (Later, when another triumvirate was formed, these came to be called the First Triumvirate). Their alliance brought together three sources of power--religion, politics, and the military--but lasted only seven years, from 60 to 53 BCE. In that year, Crassus was killed in a military campaign against the Parthians while he was governor of the Roman province of Syria.
This left Caesar and Pompey, who in 59 had become father-in-law and son-in-law when Pompey married Caesar's daughter Julia. But the woman died in 54, leaving nothing to stand in the way of enmity between the two powerful personalities.
And so, in January of 48, Caesar and Pompey clashed in the most important battle of a civil war that had been going on for a year and a half. The two armies faced each other on either side of the Enipeus River near Pharsalus, in central Greece.
Though Pompey's army outnumbered Caesar's two-to-one, the seasoned general decided to bide his time, figuring that Caesar's men would eventually surrender due to hunger and exhaustion.
But the Roman senators in Pompey's camp, and along with his officers, urged him into attacking Caesar. The results were disastrous for Pompey. Caesar held back some of his troops, and sent them in at a crucial moment. Six thousand of Pompey's men were killed; most of the rest surrendered.
Pompey himself fled to Egypt, where he was later assassinated (against Caesar's will); Caesar continued fighting against troops led by Pompey's sons, then returned to Rome. His civil war ended in March of 45 BCE--and he himself was assassinated by a faction Roman senators just a year later.