78. The Battle of the Bagradas: Curio’s Last Stand

Welcome to the March of History, Episode 78, The Battle of the Bagradas, Curio's last stand.

We left off with Curio having inflicted a defeat upon the army of Publius Attius Varus. Chased them right off the battlefield and just about pushed them out of their camp and into Utica. And once Curio pulled back his forces, Varus did indeed remove his army from their camp for the safety of the city of Utica. The very next day, Curio begins to circumvallate Utica.

That is, he begins to construct ramparts and ditches to surround Utica, much like Caesar had done at Alesia. Inside Utica, this causes consternation. Caesar tells us that the people of Utica were unaccustomed to war due to having lived through a long period of peace. He also tells us that the inhabitants of Utica were very friendly to Caesar due to the fact that Caesar had done them favors in the past. This community was also in a panic because of Varus' and Numidians’ previous defeats against Curio.

And for all of these reasons, the people of Utica begin to openly talk of surrender. And they warn Varus not to jeopardize the fortunes of them all through his own obstinacy. But then, a messenger arrives from King Juba of Numidia. Via this messenger, King Juba announces that he is approaching with a large force and urges the people of Utica to defend their city. Caesar tells us that this news gave the people of Utica's demoralized spirits, as he puts it, fresh resolution.

Curio receives the same news from his own cavalry scouts. Only, at first, Curio refuses to believe this news. Caesar says this is because of the high confidence Curio had in his own resources. Furthermore, Caesar writes, “Besides, news was now arriving by messengers and dispatches of Caesar’s successes in Spain. Curio was carried away by all this, and thought that the king would not make any efforts against him.”.

But then, Curio learns from a reliable authority that King Juba's army is less than 25 miles from Utica. Finally, reacting to this news, Curio abandons the siege works around Utica and retreats with his army to Castra Cornelia. There, he sets about gathering food and timber and strengthening his camp. Now, it's worth pausing here to mention that Curio and King Juba have some history together. Yes, Juba has historic ties to Pompey and Pompey's family, but there are far more personal reasons for Juba's interest in this campaign. You see, back in the year 50 BC, only one year ago, when Curio was tribune, he had proposed a bill to make Juba's kingdom into a Roman province. Essentially, he had tried to take Juba's kingdom away from him. Juba has not forgotten this, and our ancient sources tell us that he was eager for revenge.

There is also another personal source of motivation, which none of our sources, including Caesar, funny enough, mention. You remember way back to when Caesar was a rising politician before the Gallic Wars. He had been involved in a court trial where he had insultingly grabbed a foreign prince by the beard. That foreign prince had been Juba, now King Juba of Numidia. So, seeing as Caesar once yanked on King Juba's beard, and Curio is now representing Caesar's interests, I have to imagine that painful memory of having his beard yanked only adds that much more to the king's motivation to defeat Curio.

Well, Curio now sends word back to Sicily for his two remaining legions and the rest of his cavalry to be transported to Africa as reinforcements. It would appear Curio is now taking this threat from King Juba very seriously. Caesar tells us that Castra Cornelia, where he is camped, was very well suited to Curio's purposes. It has strong defenses, it is near the sea, it has access to fresh water and salt, and the area around the camp has lots of trees for timber and lots of fields laden with crops for food. All of which casts into doubt the poisoning story told to us by Appian. It would not, after all, be a very good camp if the water is poisoned. Of course, it's possible that they discovered some other source of water that was not poisoned, in which case Appian's story could still be accurate. Anyway, for all these reasons mentioned, Caesar tells us that Curio had the full support of his men to hold tight and wait at Castra Cornelia until his reinforcements arrive.

But then, some deserters from Utica show up. They tell Curio that Juba had been recalled over a border war in his own kingdom. Instead, Juba's general, Suburra is leading only a moderate-sized force to Utica. Caesar tells us that Curio accepts this story without question. He changes his plans and decides to offer battle. Caesar chalks his decision up to youthful audacity, his past success, and his confidence in future success.

Once night comes, Curio sends all of his cavalry ahead to attack Suburra, who is camped along the Bagradas River. Traveling through the night, Curio's 500 cavalry reach Suburra’s camp when it's still dark. They find the Numidians, not camped in formation, but spread all about, as is their custom, at least according to Caesar. The Numidian force is considerably larger than Curio's cavalry force, but Curio's men take them completely by surprise. Caesar says many of them were in a heavy sleep. Curio's cavalry kills many of the Numidians and captures others. The rest flee in panic.

Meanwhile, Curio marches his infantry out of camp to follow behind the cavalry at three in the morning. He leaves five cohorts, or half a legion, to guard the camp. This means he has a legion and a half with him. About six miles into their journey, Curio meets his cavalry, who are returning from their successful surprise attack on Suburra’s camp. Curio then questions some of the prisoners they've taken. He asks them who was in command of the camp his cavalry had attacked. Their answer? Suburra.
Caesar tells us that Curio did not inquire further. So eager was he to continue his march. According to Caesar, Curio then turns to his men and says,
“You see, men, how the prisoner story tallies with that of the deserters? They both say that the king is away and has sent small forces, which failed to be a match for a few cavalry. Hasten on, then, to win spoils and renown, so that we may begin at once to think of rewarding you and rendering due gratitude.”.

Adding to all this, though the cavalry had won a great victory, and Caesar says they had a small number compared to the large host of Numidians they faced, he also says they gave an ‘embroidered’, is the word he uses, account of the victory to Curio, ‘with the usual readiness of men to sound their own praises’, Caesar says. The cavalry then start really trying to sell their victory to Curio, by showing him large quantities of spoils they had taken in addition to horses and men. Now the whole army gets fired up seeing this. Loot has always been a heavy motivator for soldiers throughout history, especially in antiquity.

The army is now in lockstep with Curio. They are every bit as anxious to surge forward, win this war, and capture some booty. Caesar says that any further lapse of time seemed to them to only delay ultimate victory. Curio continues his army's march, but increases the speed. His goal is to reach the remnants of Suburra’s army before they can regroup, and thus smash them once and for all.

His cavalry he orders to follow on behind his army. The cavalry is exhausted, though. They had traveled all through the night to reach Suburra’s camp, fought an engagement there, taken loot, and then transported said loot back to Curio. Now Curio is telling them to again go back the way they had come. Too tired to keep up, they soon fall behind Curio's legions. Caesar tells us that this did nothing to dampen Curio's confidence.

Curio's confidence, though, is built on pillars of sand. Yes, his cavalry had defeated Suburra’s army. But what Curio doesn't know is that King Juba has not in fact turned back to his kingdom. He is instead following behind Suburra with an even larger army. In fact, had Curio's cavalry force gone just another six miles from Suburra’s camp, they would have found King Juba's camp.

And when Suburra informs King Juba of his nighttime defeat, Juba sends 2,000 Spanish and Gallic cavalry ahead to help reinforce him, along with the most reliable part of his infantry. This cavalry force, by the way, these 2,000 Spanish and Gallic cavalry, are King Juba's personal bodyguard. King Juba himself continues his march with the rest of his army, which, by the way, includes 60 war elephants. And they all continue on at a slower pace.

Now, Suburra may have got caught with his pants down, but that doesn't mean he's a complete dolt. Suburra suspects that the cavalry that had surprised his army was just an advanced force. He therefore suspects that Curio is coming behind them with the rest of his army. So, Suburra arrays his cavalry and infantry for battle. Only, he gives them instructions to pretend to be terrified and to gradually give ground to the Romans. Suburra tells them that when the time is right, he will give the command for true battle to commence, and at that time, will give directions as seen appropriate.

Curio, meanwhile, continues on with his army and confronts Suburra's force…which gradually begins to retreat, just as planned. Now, Curio's force starts out with the advantage of some high ground. But, Caesar says Curio's already sky-high confidence was increased even more when he saw the Numidians retreating. And so, Curio leads his men off the high ground and down onto the plain. Curio then continues to pursue the retreating Numidians for 16 miles.

After 16 miles of pursuit, in addition to all the other ground they had covered since 3 AM that morning, Curio's army is worn out. And so, finally, Curio orders them to halt to give them a rest. And it is at this point that Suburra gives the signal. Caesar says he marshaled the battle line and began going about the ranks and encouraging his men. Suburra keeps his infantry in reserve, using them as display, Caesar tells us.

His main battle line consists of his cavalry. On the other side, Caesar tells us that Curio rose to the occasion. He gives a speech to his men and calls on them to place all of their reliance on their own bravery. According to Caesar, there was no lack of courage or enthusiasm for battle, either among the infantry or the cavalry, though he admits only 200 of the cavalry had made it. He also acknowledges that the infantry were tired and the cavalry exhausted.

Curio's cavalry tries to go on the offensive. Whenever they attack, they are able to force the Numidian cavalry to give way. But their horse is being exhausted, they are unable to pursue the enemy. Caesar literally tells us they are unable to spur their horses strongly. The Numidian cavalry, a sizable number of which, probably even the majority, are composed of Gallic and Spanish cavalry, outnumber Curio's force by a large margin.

Remember, King Juba sent ahead 2,000 cavalrymen, and it's unknown how many Saburra had before they arrived. So we are looking at over 2,000 cavalry versus 200 exhausted cavalry. Saburra's cavalry soon begin to outflank Curio's army on both sides, and indeed to encircle Curio's army. From there, they begin to trample Curio's men from behind. When cohorts of Curio's infantry break off from the main army to charge the Numidians, the Numidians successfully retreat because they are more fresh.

Then, when these Roman cohorts go to return to the main army, they are cut off and surrounded. Caesar writes that it did not seem safe to remain in place with the army or go on the offensive and charge the enemy. All of this is reminiscent of both the Battle of Carrhae and the trap Caesar's 14th Legion fell into in Gaul. These seem to be the textbook tactics on how to defeat a Roman army in battle, and the Numidians have done their homework.

As this tragedy for Curio's army is playing out, more and more Numidians keep arriving from King Juba's army to swell their ranks. Surrounded and outnumbered, the Romans begin to lose heart. Caesar writes on this in the commentaries,
"...our men's strength was sapped by exhaustion. And besides, the wounded could neither leave the line nor be conveyed to a place of safety since the whole army was surrounded and penned in by the enemy cavalry. They abandoned hope of survival, and as men are wont to do in their last hours, either lapsed into self-pity or asked for their relatives to be looked after, if fortune could rescue anyone from this peril. Fear and grief filled the whole army."

Curio can see his men's terror. He knows they're giving up hope of victory, or even of survival. So he attempts to rally the men, to bolster their spirits and renew their fight. But, as Caesar writes, neither his exhortations nor his pleas were heeded. Finding himself ignored, Curio decides there is only one shot left at survival for his army. He orders his legions to march en masse to take a nearby hill, standards and all.

But Suburra, the Numidian general, reacts right away. Seeing Curio's men marching for this hill, he sends his cavalry to take the hill first. And they do. And now Curio's army really begins to fall apart as fear seizes hold of them. Caesar writes,
"Then indeed our men fell into utter despair; some were killed by the cavalry as they attempted to flee. Others threw themselves down, even though they were unhurt. Gnaeus Domitius, a cavalry officer, gathered a few horsemen around Curio and urged him to flee and save himself and to make for the camp, promising that he himself would stay with him. Curio, however, declared that he would never go and face Caesar again after losing the army Caesar had entrusted to him. And so he fought on and was killed.".

And so 35-year-old Curio, spurning the chance to flee the battlefield, dies fighting alongside his men. This death is confirmed by Appian, who writes that “Curio perished fighting bravely together with all of his men.”. It is a defeat in stark contrast to those of Caesar's enemies thus far. Ahenobarbus, Afranius, Petreius, Varro, all of them surrendered and gladly accepted Caesar's clemency. None of them fought to the death rather than surrender, and most of them barely fought at all.

It is yet another reminder from the Caesarian side that there is an alternative to surrendering and accepting Caesar's clemency. We saw the Optergini, live this ethos out on their raft in the middle of the sea. And now we've seen Curio do the same. Of course, the comparison isn't exactly apples to apples. Curio was fighting a foreign enemy in this battle rather than fellow Romans, and clemency was probably a highly unlikely prospect, especially given what comes next.

But according to Caesar, escape was a real possibility, and Curio rejected it, choosing to stand with his men in defeat, dying on the battlefield and thus recovering some of his lost honor. Honor that would have been shredded to bits had he turned and run. In contrast, we can look at Ahenobarbus, who, at Corfinium, when the situation looked dire, lied to his men about reinforcements coming and secretly planned to abandon them, to leave them holding the bag.

It's also fascinating to look closely at how Caesar paints these final moments. If you look very closely at what Caesar writes, Curio does not express in these final moments a desire to not abandon his men. He doesn't directly express a desire to die fighting by their side. According to Caesar, Curio says that he will never go and face Caesar again, having lost an army that Caesar had entrusted to him. So, in Caesar's telling, he seems far more concerned with the shame of having let Caesar, his commander, his general down, than the fact that his men are all dying due to his own poor generalship.

It does make you wonder if Caesar's own ego has wormed its way into this story. Caesar was not there, but perhaps he wanted to give himself a larger part in this tale by making Curio's final thoughts and feelings of shame about himself, meaning about Caesar. Though it isn't so outlandish a story as to be impossible, Curio was a fellow noble after all, like Caesar, and he may have accepted a massive bribe to enter Caesar's service.

Perhaps in his final moments he was thinking more about how his senatorial peers would see him than about the fate of his lower-class army. After all, Caesar's type of close bond with his common soldiers is unusual. But, whatever you think of Curio and his end, he did die fighting alongside his men, refusing to flee the battlefield. It's hard to imagine too many politicians today having that kind of grit, fighting on the frontlines of a war that they helped to start, and choosing to die on the battlefield alongside their men that they have led into disaster.

Our story is not over yet, though. According to Caesar, all of the infantry Curio had taken with him are killed on the battlefield. Appian, however, tells us some details that Caesar leaves out. Specifically, Appian writes that, as defeat started to loom, Assinius Pollio did make his escape from the battle with a few men. Another translation has it as, At the beginning of the trouble, Assinius Pollio retreated with a small force. That first version, that is, as defeat started to loom, makes it sound like he was in the battle, but as it became clear they were going to lose and be defeated, he made his escape.

That second translation, at the beginning of the trouble, makes it sound more like he and these men left just before the battle began. Either way, Pollio and these men did escape. And Appian doesn't say, but I assume they were on horseback. Pollio is, after all, an officer, and so the statement that Caesar made that all of the infantry were killed may well be true. Pollio's aim, Appian writes, was to get to Curio's camp outside of Utica. Appian says Pollio did this to prepare and protect the camp in case Varus should hear of this defeat and use it to rally his men and launch an attack on the camp from the city of Utica.

At first glance, this all sounds odd, to say the least. But I can imagine from these details a few different possibilities of how this played out. One being that Curio ordered Pollio to break out from the encirclement if he could, or perhaps before they were encircled, in order to warn the men at the camp near Utica and thus save them. And maybe, at that point, Curio still thought they had a chance at survival. And the camp at Utica maybe needed to be held so that their retreat to Castra Cornelia and therefore to their ships wouldn't be blocked by Varus.

It's also a little surprising that they even still have men in that camp. It seemed like before in our story that they had abandoned that earlier camp near Utica for Castra Cornelia, but I guess, at least according to Appian, some number of men were left near Utica. The other option is that Assinius Pollio saw the writing on the wall, saw their impending doom approaching, and said, “I'm not dying today. Not like this.”, broke out of the encirclement with a few men and just took off for the camp near Utica.

In a case like that, he left his brothers in arms to die. But of course, it's hard to pass judgment on these sorts of things unless you are able to see exactly how they play out, to see the order of events. Maybe Pollio and his men got cut off from Curio's main force in all the chaos. Maybe they looked to one side and saw an opening to freedom, to life. And on the other, Curio's army surrounded and being hacked to pieces.

Do you then try to fight your way back into the battle so that you can die with everyone else? And I'm not saying that that is what happened. I'm just imagining scenarios to illustrate that it is more difficult to judge Assinius Pollio than you may at first think. In the end, we aren't given the details. We're just told that he and some of his men, either at the beginning of the trouble or as defeat started to loom, made their escape or retreated to the camp at Utica. And that they were the only survivors of the battle. At least, excluding the cavalry.

Caesar, meanwhile, makes no mention of Assinius Pollio in any of this. But we do know Assinius Pollio is not disgraced in Caesar's eyes. Because he will continue to serve under Caesar and, as I've said before, he will be at the Battle of Pharsalus and will accompany Caesar on future campaigns as well. This alone tells us something of how Caesar saw this whole affair. And I think we can rely on Appian's story here about Assinius Pollio, since Pollio wrote his own history of this war, and Appian would have had access to it. Of course, that history is lost to us today, as we've said before.

Moving back to the aftermath of the battle, only a few of the cavalry managed to escape with their lives. However, you'll remember how exhausted the cavalry were and how only 200 of the 500 made it to the actual battle to begin with. While the 300 remaining cavalry, arriving late, see the disaster unfolding in the distance. They see their comrades being cut down, being surrounded and outnumbered. And so they turn around and retreat back to camp, leaving their comrades to be butchered. To be fair, though, I don't think, given their small numbers and their exhaustion, that they really could have made any difference in the battle. If they had ridden into battle, they would have just joined their comrades in death. Also, Caesar describes them as ‘seeing at a distance the rout of the entire army’, so they may have approached the battlefield after the battle was already decided, or at least after the turning point.

Back at Castra Cornelia, where five cohorts stand guard, they learn of this devastating defeat. Curio’s quaester, a man named Marcus Rufus is in charge. Rufus does his best to bolster the now crushed confidence of his army. To no avail. The soldiers beg Rufus to be taken back to Sicily by ship. In over his head, with a very small, now demoralized force, Rufus promises them he will do this. So he orders the captains of their fleet to bring their ships ashore come nightfall.

In the meantime, a general panic spreads among the army. Remember, this is an army that was panicking back when they had all of their men and fought nothing but victories under Curio. Curio had to talk them down and renew their courage. Well, now they find themselves in a position where panicking is a lot more understandable. And panic they do. Rumors start flying about from some men that King Juba is approaching.

And why not? That sounds perfectly reasonable, that Juba might be following up his great victory over the Romans. Yet still other rumors spread that Varus is marching after them with his legions. Word goes around that they can already see the dust from his army on the horizon. Meanwhile, another rumor spread that the enemy fleet is going to swoop down on their own ships.

Caesar tells us that none of these rumors were true. But good luck convincing Curio's men of that. “And so”, Caesar writes, “in the general terror, everyone tried to fend for himself.”. And that includes Curio's fleet. Appian tells us that when the admiral of the fleet, a man named Flamma, hears of the catastrophe at the Battle of the Bagradas, he immediately sets sail for Sicily, not taking a single soldier on board his ships. Now that is a betrayal.

Caesar confirms in his account that the fleet did indeed take off. Further, he says that the merchant ships that Curio had ordered to Castra Cornelia got spooked when they saw the military fleet take off, and many of them followed suit. According to Appian, Asinius Pollio then climbs into a small boat and rows out to the few remaining merchant ships anchored off the coast. Pollio then beseeches the captains of these ships to come into land and allow the remaining soldiers to board their ships. Only a few of the captains agree to this.

And so, when night comes, a few of these small merchant ships approach the shore, as Marcus Rufus had ordered and Assinius Pollio had beseeched them to do. On the shore, they find a chaotic scene. There is much controversy over who gets to board. Apparently, the soldiers have already done the math. They see how many ships are coming into shore, and they can see how many men are on shore, and they can tell that not everyone is going to fit on those ships. Some of them are going to be left behind. And at best, that means impressment into the Pompeian army. At worst, that means death or enslavement, potentially even torture. Needless to say, no one wants to be left behind.

Caesar tells us that a few of the soldiers manage to get on board either via personal authority, by which I imagine he means that they are an officer or else somebody who is highly respected, or others who are fathers of children appeal to their comrades for compassion and thus succeed in gaining priority in boarding. But there are just too many men for the number of ships that have come ashore, and no one is willing to be left behind. So men continue to crowd onto these ships. Cassius Dio makes the scene sound quite chaotic, with men losing their footing while attempting to board amid all the jostling and thus falling into the water and drowning. Remember, all of this is happening at night.

But still, the men keep crowding onto these little merchant ships, until some of the ships themselves begin to sink under the weight of so many men. Caesar, Appian, and Dio all agree on this. Men fall into the water as these merchant vessels sink, and according to Dio, some portion of them drown. The other merchant vessels who haven't yet come ashore witness all this. And as you might imagine, they have no intention of joining that mayhem and having their own ships sunk, so they steer well clear of the shore and of the desperate soldiers on the shore.

The final group of soldiers who manage to escape are soldiers who swim out to some of the merchant vessels that still have room. I would assume this requires you to be a strong swimmer, and that only the strongest swimmers made it, or else everyone would have done it. I don't know how far out they had to swim, but depending on how far out these ships are anchored, this seems like it would have been quite a risk. You are swimming likely a sizable distance out into the sea at night to try to board ships which you aren't even certain will let you on board if you get there. And if they refuse to allow you on board, do you have the stamina to swim back to shore again?But desperate times call for desperate measures, so some men do make the swim and indeed manage to get on board a ship.

Appian then tells us a strange detail. He's the only one who mentions it. Appian tells us that, once out at sea, the merchants robbed the soldiers of their money, and then threw the soldiers overboard. At first I thought that this was bewildering, because I thought it was Curio’s fleet behaving this way. But if you look closer, as I said earlier, the fleet took off, and it's just the merchant vessels who were originally anchored off the coast of Utica who do this. I guess that makes more sense since they don't exactly have loyalty to Caesar or to Curio. They just want to be on the winning side, and many of them were likely from Utica to begin with. But even still, it's bizarre they were able to get the jump on these legionaries and overpower them.

But perhaps the soldiers were exhausted and, having just escaped Africa, perhaps they let their guard down and relaxed. And maybe that was all the opportunity the merchants needed to jump them and throw them into the sea to drown. So, as you can see, things keep going from bad to worse for Curio's men. This is a true catastrophe. And there is still one more horror to come. The rest of the army who got left behind on the shore, they need to figure out what to do now.

And, by the way, it seems Assinius Pollio must have been among the men who managed to get on a ship and not get thrown overboard. So some small portion of men do make it back to Sicily safely. They don't all get thrown into the ocean. But as for the men who have been abandoned on shore, they now need to look out for themselves. So, still that same night, the soldiers send some centurion to Utica to surrender to Varus. Varus is a Roman. Their hope is that he will show mercy, seeing as they are his countrymen. And Varus does. He accepts their surrender and they camp outside Utica that night.

But the next day, King Juba arrives. And he sees cohorts of these enemy soldiers sitting outside Utica. According to Caesar, Juba declares these soldiers to be his spoils. He then orders his men to kill most of them and chooses a select few to be sent back to Numidia, presumably as exotic slaves. After all, what could be a greater display of dominance than to show your people that you keep Roman legionaries as slaves? Caesar tells us that Varus protested this execution of Curio's soldiers, but did not dare resist.

In a way, Caesar is verbally tarring and feathering Varus here, letting the whole Roman world know that this is a man who sat and watched as some barbarian king massacred Roman soldiers. Didn't have the courage or fortitude to do anything about it. Even if you are a Pompeian, it might be a little hard to see Varus in the same way again. At best, he was pathetically incompetent and let a barbarian dictate the treatment of surrendered Romans to him. At worst, he's complicit. And Caesar isn't done with his tarring and feathering yet. Caesar tells his audience that King Juba himself then rode into Utica, escorted by a number of Roman senators, two of whom he mentions by name, Servius Sulpicius and Licinius Damasippus. These aren't huge names to us, but every Roman senator would have known exactly who they were.

Finally, Caesar tells us that over the next few days, King Juba decided what he wanted done at Utica, gave orders for these wishes to be carried out, and then left Numidia. Utica is a city in a Roman province. So again, this is Caesar painting his enemies to be stooges of foreign barbarians, almost foreign and barbaric themselves, allowing Roman soldiers to be massacred and taking orders from a barbarian king. The Romans were generally xenophobic. They would have been very offended at their countrymen behaving this way. And it isn't just Caesar who paints the Pompeians in this light. Cassius Dio tells us that after this great victory over Curio, King Juba received honors from Pompey and the other senators with him in Macedonia. Again, this is a case of Roman senators honoring a foreign barbaric king for defeating and killing Romans.

Now, Curio's story isn't quite finished yet. This is the ancient world all this is happening in, and King Juba has a vendetta against Curio for trying to take his kingdom away from him. So of course, killing Curio isn't enough. His head is then cut from his lifeless body and carried to Juba as a sort of grisly trophy. And spare a thought for Fulvia in all of this. Fulvia has a fondness for talented and reckless men who burn bright and die young. And she is repeatedly paying the price for it. This is her second husband to die a young, violent death.

First she was devastated when her first husband Clodius was killed in a gang battle on the Via Appia. His body carried back to her house and laid in her courtyard. Remember, fairly or not, Asconius blames her uncontrolled lamenting for stirring the crowd into a frenzy. A frenzy that ended up burning down the senate house as a sort of funeral pyre for Clodius. There will be no similarly fitting funeral for Curio. This time Fulvia's husband dies hundreds of miles away in a foreign land, fighting for his life and those of his soldiers. She likely didn't even have the peace of mind of knowing that he'd been given the courtesy of funeral rights. All we know is that his head was chopped off. But do not pity Fulvia too much. She still has a lot of fight and life left in her yet. Though her taste in men doesn't change. Next up on the husband list, Marc Antony.

Moving on to our protagonist of this podcast, Julius Caesar, this campaign is yet another disaster for him. Even as Caesar wins stunning victories with minimal loss of life in record time in Spain, his subordinates loose three and a half legions, a naval fleet, and at least 500 cavalry between the Illyrian and African theaters. As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. And so the Pompeians in and around Greece and Macedonia and Ilyricum will remain entrenched there until Caesar brings the war to them personally.

And the Pompeians will continue to hold Africa until Caesar arrives on the scene in person. But Curio's campaign is yet another reminder of just how skilled Julius Caesar is as a general. Caesar wins so often and so consistently in warfare that it's easy to be lulled into thinking that it just isn't all that hard. I mean, Caesar has his struggles in every campaign, but he always comes out on top in the end.

But then you study a campaign like Curio's and you see how everything can go so differently in the blink of an eye. One poor decision and an entire campaign can go from victory to disaster. After all, Curio won every engagement he fought right up until he found himself surrounded by the Numidians and his army annihilated. It happened so quick it must have felt utterly surreal to him. One moment he was the triumphant victor pursuing a shattered foe. The next second he was leading an exhausted army in a desperate fight against an enemy who outnumbered him.

We talk so often about Caesar's lightning pace. The fact that he moves so quickly that his enemies have no time to think, never mind to act. We talk about how hard he pushes his soldiers and how he somehow manages to get more out of them than other generals. Well, what was Curio doing but imitating that? He was marching his men hard. He was not giving the Numidians a chance to catch their breath. He was pursuing a defeated foe. But as always, there is nuance in what Caesar does and decision-making is one of his great strengths. It isn't just that Caesar moves so fast. It's also that he knows exactly how hard he can push his army before that speed becomes a liability. It's also that Caesar trains his men hard so that he knows they can keep up with his furious pace.

If Caesar had been in Curio's shoes, he likely would not have been so quick to believe the deserters who told Curio that King Juba had turned back to Numidia. Maybe he would have sent his cavalry further afield and discovered Juba's army only six miles beyond Suburra. Or maybe he would have realized that his army was too exhausted to continue the pursuit and so stopped and built a fortified camp. Or maybe he would have refused to be lured off the high ground or refused to pursue the Numidians 16 miles after leaving said high ground.

If Caesar had done any of these things, it wouldn't seem like some brilliant act of generalship. It would appear like a small, insignificant decision, perhaps not even mentioned. And yet, it's these sorts of decisions which are the difference between losing your head on a dusty African battlefield and winning an unending string of great military victories.

I do have one more thing to say on Curio, or rather, some of our ancient sources do. Some of our ancient sources are harsh on young Curio.Writing from a distance of roughly a century, they level a lot of blame at him for the fall of the Republic. Specifically, Velleius Paterculus and Lucan cast blame on Curio for joining Caesar's side and for Curio's part in aiding Caesar in the lead-up to the crossing of the Rubicon. Ancient historians and poets writing under the rule of the Caesars can have an odd relationship with the idea of the Roman Republic and its fall. Even as they live under emperors and praise said emperors, they often seem to feel that they and their ancestors and their future descendants lost their liberty when the Republic fell. And so they bemoan this.

And in many ways, they are right. The aristocracy did have more power under the Republic because the Republic was basically an oligarchy and they, the ruling class. And so Curio gets blamed by Lucan for allegedly taking Caesar's bribe and for helping to bring about the crossing of the Rubicon and civil war.

Now, whether all this criticism of Curio is fair or not, after all, I'm not at all sure most of the Roman population had any more freedom under the Republic than they did under the Caesars, but even still, whether fair or not, I'd like to leave you with some words from Lucan. Lucan ends Book 4 of his epic poem, Pharsalia, by condemning Curio.

Lucan writes, and before I read this, let me just remind you that this is a poem, so it reads a bit differently. Lucan writes,
“Look!— Curio, a noble corpse,
covered by no tomb, feeds the birds of Libya.
But it is no use to keep quiet about deeds whose own fame
fends off all decay of time—so to you,
young man, we give worthy commendation to the life which earned it.
No other citizen of such great talent did Rome produce,
To no other did the laws owe more had he followed what was right.
As it was, depraved ages damaged Rome, once ambition, luxury, and the dreaded power of wealth
had carried off his wavering mind with sideways current;
and won over by Gallic booty and Caesar's gold,
the altered Curio turned the balance of events.
True, mighty Sulla, and fierce Marius, and bloody Cinna
and the chain of Caesar's house created for themselves
the power of the sword over our throats. But who was ever granted
such power as he? They all bought, but he sold Rome.”

Lucan's accusation at the end there is that while Sulla, and Marius, and Cinna, and the whole dynasty of Caesar's used their wealth, power, influence, and talent to buy control of Rome, Curio alone was different. Curio sold Rome out… to pay off his debts. And as such, we get the impression that Lucan feels that is a far worse crime.

And that is where we'll end our episode today. In our next episode, we move on to the long-awaited siege of Massilia. I teased this episode way back in episode 70, I got a little excited, a little ahead of myself, but it's finally here, one of the most stunning engineering sieges you will ever read about.

Before our ending quote, as always, we have an announcement and a few shout-outs. First up, I've included an Amazon link in the show notes of this episode and all previous episodes. You can do any or all of your Amazon shopping via this link, and at no extra cost to you, it helps support the March of History…so please do so! It's an easy and free way to help the show and its host.

Next, we have Patreon. We have a new patron named Brian! Brian, welcome to our Roman army, we are glad to have you, and thank you for your generous support for this show. So now to list all of our patrons, we have Mark, Liga, Peggy, Carey, Desert Legionnaire, Jared, Timothy, Zaire, Glenn, Tony, and now Brian. Thank you all for your continued support for the March of History!

And now for our five-star reviews. First, we have a review from Kingston Tasker on Podcast Republic, and Kingston and I have since connected on social media. Kingston, and by the way, I love the name Kingston. So Kingston writes, “Congrats on the 5 stars on Podcast Republic you deserve it, man would love to see you continue this into all major history I think you’d do as great a job as you do with Caesar.”
Thank you so much, Kingston, for the kind words and for the 5 star review, I have every intention of continuing this podcast onto many different periods in history, my interests are not just limited to Roman history, and there are just, I mean, there's so much history out there that there's like an infinite number of good stories to tell. So we have no end of material!
Our next five-star review is on Apple Podcasts by Milton. Milton's subject reads, “Fantastic”. He then writes, “Great narrating. A well-balanced mix of faithfulness to the sources and passion as a fan of history makes the podcast really easygoing to follow and at the same time gives a deep tour of the ancient times, as close as it can be to scholarly work. Really well organized and the pacing of the episodes is perfect. Keep going at it. I really enjoy it.”
I love to hear that you enjoy the narration of this podcast, Milton, and that you appreciate the time I put into digging into the ancient sources and bringing those to life for you guys. Believe me when I say, it is my pleasure! And thank you, Milton, for the wonderful review and for the 5 star rating.

And finally, our ending quote.
“It was Gaius Curio, however, a tribune of the people, who, more than anyone else, applied the flaming torch which kindled the Civil War and all the evils which followed for twenty consecutive years.”
And that is a quote by Velleius Paterculus. Now, I should add, that despite me reading these quotes by Lucan and Velleius Paterculus now, I don't necessarily agree with them. It seems to me Curio is being unfairly scapegoated. There is a lot of blame to go around with the Civil War, but it seems to me men like Cato and Pompey bear far more responsibility than Curio. But, as always on this podcast, I do try to give you all points of view, not just the ones I agree with. Plus, they're just great quotes.

That is all for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please share this podcast with one person you know, and I will talk to you in the next episode of The March of History!