79. The Siege of Massilia: Part I

There are many different elements of a siege that can make it worthy of memory in the annals of history. Some, like Alesia, are enthralling due to their sheer drama. Drama that is only heightened by the immensity of what's at stake, the independence of long-haired Gaul. Others are notable due to the privation one or both sides suffered. Starvation is often an ever-present element.

Still other sieges are remembered for their sheer brutality. Often this brutality reaches its crescendo when the frustrated attackers finally storm their way into the city and mask her, the inhabitants. The Siege of Avaricum springs to mind, where Caesar's soldiers butchered every man, woman and child. And of course, the most memorable of sieges often have many of these elements combined. Alesia, for example, has not only the drama, but immense numbers, immense suffering and brutality in the civilians left to starve to death between the two sides.

Regardless of the type of siege, always there are contests of willpower. The Siege of Massilia doesn't fit into any of the categories I've mentioned so far. It stands out in the annals of history for a different reason. The Siege of Massilia is memorable for the sheer breathtaking level of ancient engineering put on display by both sides. But it is especially Caesar's legions who steal the show.

This is a siege where the textbook tactics by a Roman army besieging a city don't always work. Because this time they aren't fighting Gauls who lack engineering sophistication. This time they're fighting Greeks, Greeks with their own sophisticated levels of engineering. This forces Caesar's legions to innovate repeatedly. And as I said before the Siege of Brundisium, where Caesar built a floating wall complete with two-story towers, and Pompey attacked these with three-story towers built onto ships.

It's when both sides have high levels of ancient engineering expertise that sieges often turn into great contests of ancient engineering. Both sides using their considerable expertise and all their creativity to out-think and out-build the enemy. Massilia is one of these sieges, but before we go any further, it's worth taking some time to lay out exactly what Massilia is. I already said Massilia is Greek. That may seem odd to some people since they are on the western Mediterranean, a very long way from Greece, but keep in mind the ancient Greeks built colonies all over the Mediterranean, including in Italy and Sicily, where modern Naples and Syracuse were both Greek colonies.

Massilia is another of those Greek colonies. But of course, the Greeks were not a united people, but a large number of often warring city-states. Massilia was a colony founded by the Ionian city of Phocaea, circa 600 BC. Phocaea was a city on the Mediterranean coast of what is today Turkey. Ionian, by the way, refers to the Greeks from this area of the world, from Asia Minor, or modern Turkey.

And one more aside, the Romans call the city Massilia, the Greeks call it Massalia. Since we're telling this story from the Roman point of view, I've been calling it Massilia, and I will continue to do so. The people of ancient Massilia were known as great explorers and colonizers. Yes, though Massilia was itself a colony, it would go on to found many of its own colonies in Spain, France, and Corsica. As for the exploration, Massilia gave birth to two famous explorers in antiquity.

The first was a man named Euthymenes. Euthymenes explored the western coast of Africa, as far south as what we think today was Senegal, in the late 6th century BC. This guy was way ahead of the Portuguese in the Age of Exploration, roughly 2,000 years ahead of them to put a number on it. Euthymenes even wrote an account of his journey. Unfortunately, as I so often say, that account is lost to us today.

Imagine if they find a copy of that travelogue in the Herculaneum Library though, the one that we talked about in the Rubicon episode. I would be very excited to read that account. The second explorer was a man named Pythias. Somewhere around the year 330 BC, Pythias circumnavigated the British Isles, and claimed to have explored the entirety of the North. In fact, he was the first to write of a land far to the north called Thule, or Thulē, and he described reaching areas so far north that the sea turned to ice, and where the sun set for only two to three hours a day.

Describing this, Pythias wrote, “The barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest.” He even sailed as far into the Baltic Sea as the Vistula River in modern Poland. Once again, his account of this journey is lost to us today, and we only know of it from other ancient sources referencing it. But I bring all of this exploration up to help you understand that Massilia was a proud and storied city with a long history. The Massilia of 49 BC is an independent city-state located on the Mediterranean coast of what is then Gaul.

Today it is the modern city of Marseille in the south of France. Massilia's history with Rome goes way back. In fact, they are one of Rome's oldest allies. By Caesar's day, they have been steadfast allies of Rome for centuries. During the Punic Wars against Carthage, you could always find Massilia on the side of the Romans.

And even before that, when the Gauls sacked Rome way back in 390 BC, the people of Massilia took up a collection to send aid to the Romans. So this is a very deep bond between these city-states that goes back a very, very long way. In the Greek world, the Massiliotes are known to be soft and effeminate due to their addiction to luxury, and more specifically, their habit of wearing long, perfumed robes and tying their hair up. The Greeks even had proverbs such as, you are coming out of Massilia, or you might stay out of Massilia, in reference to a person whose lifestyle is overly soft and effeminate. But the Romans, however, despite their general disdain for effeminacy in men, did not see them in this light.

Perhaps their long friendship with Massilia gave them a better understanding of who these people were. Instead, the Romans saw Massilia as a shining light of Greek culture in an otherwise dark and barbarous land. In fact, Cicero praises them for their discipline and wisdom, and Massilia was famous for its devotion to learning and its schools of rhetoric. And despite this reputation for effeminacy among the Greeks, the Massiliotes are about to shock the ancient world with the doggedness of their resistance against the Roman war machine. And by the way, I know I keep using effeminate as an insult, and that's not because I think effeminacy is something inherently bad or insulting, it's because I always try to give you a flavor of how the ancients viewed the world.

And in antiquity, a city being called effeminate was not a compliment. Massilia was also a common city Roman senators chose to go when exiled. In fact, our old friend Milo is living there right now in 49 BC. Milo to refresh your memory, was Clodius's main rival in Rome's gang wars. Milo had been exiled after killing Clodius on the Via Appia.

And while he doesn't play any part in this siege that we know of, it's always worth reminding yourself as the siege is playing out that, oh yeah, Milo is there. So, with all that said and a background on the city of Massilia having been given, let's get this siege started. We left off with Caesar having arrived outside the city gates of Massilia only to find them closed to him and his army. Massiliotes had then told Caesar that they intended to stay neutral, and so could not aid him or allow him into their city. As Caesar tried to talk them out of this course of action, the Massiliotes had allowed Ahenobarbus and his group of seven ships to come sailing into their harbor.

They then immediately put him in charge of the defenses of their city. So much for remaining neutral. Caesar had then put the city under siege, putting his legate Gaius Trebonius in charge and putting Decimus Brutus in charge of the naval portion of the siege. Caesar then stuck around for some time to supervise, but eventually, with the siege organized and his orders having been given, Caesar continued on his way to meet his army in Spain. Now, like all sieges, to understand the siege of Massilia, you need to understand the position of the city itself and the terrain around it.

The ancient city of Massilia was a fraction of the size of the modern city of Marseille. In fact, unsurprisingly, it consists of basically just the old town of modern Marseille. This is a small promontory that juts out into the sea. Caesar describes it as being washed by the sea on three sides. One of these three sides that is washed by the sea faces Massilia's harbor, which is like a finger of water that juts into the land.

Caesar tells us that the fourth side alone allows for approach by land. He also tells us that part of this fourth side is occupied by the citadel, a natural fortification rising steeply out of a valley. This valley actually separates Massilia itself from Trebonius' camp. You see, Trebonius' camp is on a hill or some sort of high ground outside the city. His position that Trebonius is on is high enough that Trebonius and his men can actually see down and into Massilia, actually above the city.

Between this high ground and the stone walls that guard Massilia is that valley that Caesar mentioned. This means that any assault is going to require the Romans to neutralize that valley first. Altogether these terrain advantages make any siege against Massilia, in Caesar's words, a long and difficult process. As always, I will post a map of this siege on our social medias to help you get an image of it. Now, the first thing Trebonius does, or perhaps it is Caesar who started it, but either way, the first thing the Romans do is to circumvallate Massilia.

But since Massilia only has one side you can approach from land, this just involves walling the peninsula off from the mainland. That is to say, there is no need to build a complete circle of ramparts around the city, nor would that be possible. Instead the Romans build a sort of semi-circle of fortifications going from the sea on one side of Massilia and ending near Massilia's harbor on the other side, blocking any approach to the city from land. Massilia now walled off from the mainland, Trebonius moves on to building siege works of a more offensive nature. He knows this is going to be a massive project though, so he first conscripts large numbers of men from all over the province to help with the work.

He also commandeers beasts of burden and orders the province to gather large amounts of timber and for withies to be collected. And remember, withies are flexible branches that can be woven together to create a protective screen from enemy missiles. Basically they are woven to form wicker. With this added manpower, Trebonius begins constructing two separate siege ramps constructed of wood, dirt, and rubble. These are the same sorts of ramps that were built by Caesar's men at the siege of Avaricum.

The idea behind them is to bridge the valley separating the Romans from Massilia, thus creating a smooth path on which the Romans can push siege towers on and push them up to the city walls. Caesar already mentioned giving orders for these siege towers to be constructed back in what was for us episode 71, when he was still organizing the siege. These Roman siege towers will contain a battering ram in addition to ballistae and warriors. And once pushed up to the city walls, the Romans will begin battering the wall repeatedly with the ram. But remember, there is a valley between the high ground the Roman camp is situated on and the city of Massilia.

These ramps bridge that valley and allow the siege towers to wheel their way directly up to the city wall without uneven terrain causing them to break or fall over. Historian T. Rice Holmes details the construction of such a siege ramp for us in his book The Roman Republic and the Founder of the Empire. Calling the ramp a terrace, he writes,

“The terrace was built mainly of wood; and the builders were protected by movable wooden shields. Rows of logs were laid upon the ground in close contact; similar rows were laid upon them at right angles; and, to give coherence to the structure, the interstices were packed with earth and rubble. When the hinder parts of the terrace were completed, a wooden tower, running upon rollers, was erected upon it, and furnished with platforms or stories, upon which catapults (ballistae or scorpions) were mounted. The artillerymen were screened by thick hempen mats, which no missiles could pierce; and ultimately the battering-ram was to be swung against the wall through the open framework of the tower by a crew working in a strong sappers' hut behind.”

To give you a sense of the scale of this project, Caesar tells us that at least one of these ramps was built to a height of 80 feet, the same height as the earthworks or ramps at Avaricum. Of course, all of this construction means men are constantly having to move materials up to the ramp, which keeps growing and moving closer and closer to the city walls.

This creates a problem though in that the men constructing the ramp are increasingly exposed to missiles from Massilia's city walls. So to protect these men, the Romans build what amounts to a long shed parallel to the ramp. Holmes writes that this would have been composed of a series of smaller sheds, each 16 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 7 feet high, and open at both ends. This long series of sheds continues to expand parallel to the ramp so that the soldiers and other requisitioned laborers can pass up building materials from hand to hand, all while being protected from enemy fire. Now, as all this is happening, there is another long shed Caesar calls a testudo, not to be confused with a shield wall, which is also called a testudo.

But this testudo, this shed, is 60 feet long, and it is positioned perpendicular to the ramp. Its job is to move in front of the ramp and level the ground so that as the ramp builds towards Massilia, the construction crew always has flat ground on which to build. Holmes writes that the testudo was 60 feet long because that is the width of the ramp. Caesar tells us that the testudo was built of strong timber and covered with every sort of material that would give protection against stones and firebrands. And again, this is just another variety of long shed, this one seemingly more sturdy than the one that runs parallel to the ramp since it is way out in front and therefore exposed to enemy missiles.

Now, all this construction and the logistics behind it requires time, and somewhere during this time, the first naval battle of Massilia takes place. That's the battle that Caesar got word of when he was trapped between those two rivers in Spain and his army was starving. Caesar had leveraged this news as propaganda and got many Spanish tribes to defect to his side. We won't cover that battle in detail since we already did back in Episode 73, but you are welcome to go back and listen to it again if you like. As a reminder, that is the battle where the soldier of the 10th Legion, Achilles, has his right arm cut off by a sword, and yet clings to his shield and routs the enemy with said shield, seizing possession of their ship.

Moving back to the land portion of our siege, let's take stock. Imagine, we now have the city wall of Massilia, which historian T. Rice Holmes describes as a massive wall of stone with many towers. We have a wall of circumvallation beyond that, built by the Romans. And two siege ramps, one of which is 80 feet tall, working on bridging the valley between the circumvallation wall and the city wall. All the while we have at least one long shed running parallel to the siege ramp, with men underneath handing building materials from hand to hand, and another 60 foot wide testudo shed moving out in front of and perpendicular to the ramp, the 80 foot tall siege ramp, and leveling the ground.

Caesar tells us that one of the siege ramps was near Massilia's harbor and dockyards, on the left hand side of the battlefield when facing Massilia from the Roman lines. Remember, Massilia's harbor is like a finger of water which juts into the land next to Massilia. Holmes writes that this area is comparatively level, and therefore doesn't require such a massive construction project. This is likely why only one of the siege ramps needs to be 80 feet tall, and why Caesar says there was only one testudo leveling ground, because this other project just doesn't need all that extra work. Now the larger siege ramp, the 80 foot tall one, with the testudo out in front of it, is to the right of the smaller siege ramp, again if you are facing Massilia from the Roman lines.

Caesar tells us it was near the city gate that allows access to the city from the direction of Gaul and Spain. If you look at any maps of this siege, it is usually placed in the center of the peninsula. So thus far, Caesar's legions are putting on an impressive show of ancient engineering. But the Massiliotes are not content to let the Romans build their fortifications in peace. Massilia is a proud city with a long history, which means their city is very precious to them, and so they have spent a lot of time and effort planning how to protect their city should they ever find their walls besieged, as they are now.

A key weapon in that plan are the ballistae they have mounted on their city walls. Now these aren't ordinary ballistae, they're massive. If this was Game of Thrones, you'd say they must be built to kill dragons. Caesar tells us they launched what he describes as not darts or spears or javelins, but beams 12 feet long with spikes at the end. Caesar literally describes these ballistae as being enormous, that is the word at least in the translation that I have.

Holmes calls them more powerful than any which Roman engineers could show. Caesar tells us that no screens of woven withies could possibly stand up to these massive giant enormous ballistae. Beams fired from these ballistae would crash through four thicknesses of wickerwork and still have plenty of force to firmly embed themselves in the ground. These things are a terror to the Romans, and they are the main factor that is going to force them again and again to innovate their siege tactics. What's more, the Romans can't even hope the Massiliotes will run out of these beams to launch at them.

Like I said, the Massiliote city is precious to them, so during peacetime they had gathered a large stockpile of ammunition for these giant ballistae. They also have stockpiles of food and other resources, some of which they gathered when Ahenobarbus first took charge, and Caesar thought he was still negotiating with them in good faith. Another defensive weapon, or technique, the Massiliotes have, according to an ancient source named Vitruvius, is to load red-hot iron bolts into their ballistae and fire these at the Roman siege works. The red-hot iron then ignites the siege works and, the Massiliotes hope, burns them down. Vitruvius doesn't say whether the giant ballistae could shoot these sorts of red-hot ammunition, but it's certainly fun to imagine they did.

As for exactly who Vitruvius is, we'll get to that in just a moment. Now, moving back to those sheds the Romans have, the ones running parallel to the siege ramps and the testudo shed leveling the ground in front of the larger of the two siege ramps, these are designed to protect the Romans from enemy missiles. But apparently these aren't strong enough to withstand assault from the enormous Massiliote ballistae. When Caesar writes that these beams could rip through four layers of wickerwork, it's likely because the roof of these sheds had four layers of wickerwork, and the Romans were likely shocked and horrified when these 12-foot-tall logs with spikes in the end came crashing down through their sheds and embedded themselves in the ground. And to be clear, these are not logs being tossed end over end.

These are what amount to giant arrows for these giant crossbows. So in response to this new unprecedented threat, the Romans innovate and start covering their sheds with timber a foot thick. Despite these protective measures, progress is slow. The size of the construction project is huge. The height of the city walls and towers add to this, and the sheer number of ballistae the Massiliotes have firing at the Roman siege works makes everything more difficult.

On top of all this, the Albici, the Gallic tribe Caesar likes to call mountain people, keep making sallies out from the city and throwing firebrands on the Roman siege ramps and towers. According to Caesar, his legions easily fended off these Albici sallies and inflict heavy damage on them before driving them back into Massilia. Maybe the Albici would have told the story differently, though, if they had left written records. The same goes for the Massiliotes for that matter. Now, with the Romans busy building their siege ramps, extending their sheds, and flattening the ground with their testudo, and the Massiliotes busy firing large quantities of beams and hot iron at the Romans from their enormous ballistae, and the Albici making periodic sallies, our tale now brings us to a man named Vitruvius.

Vitruvius is an ancient Roman man who wrote a work on architecture and engineering called On Architecture, or today better known as Ten Books on Architecture. It is actually the only general treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, and as such, it had a major impact on the Renaissance. The famous sketch done by Leonardo da Vinci of a nude man with his arms and legs outstretched, and a square and a circle drawn around him, where his fingertips touch the edges of the square and circle, and his feet do the same, I think we've all seen that sketch in different movies and documentaries and in pop culture, that sketch is called The Vitruvian Man. It is named after our Vitruvius, because it was inspired by him. Da Vinci even mentions him in his description of the drawing.

You see, in his work On Architecture, Vitruvius describes how proportionality and symmetry, which are necessities in architecture, exist in nature too, and gives the example of the human body. Da Vinci's famous drawing was his attempt to illustrate Vitruvius' description of the proportional human body. Moving our focus back to Vitruvius, he covers many topics in his work, but in the tenth and final book, he covers siege equipment, and at the very end of that book, he talks a little about the siege of Massilia, and most of what he says is nowhere mentioned in Caesar's commentaries. Well, who is this Vitruvius, and should we give his account any credence? Vitruvius was, according to his own account, an engineer in the Roman army.

Specifically, he was in charge of ballistae, scorpions, and other artillery. So we can assume he's a guy that knows something about the Roman military and about sieges. But when did Vitruvius live? Why he lived in the first century BC. And in whose army did he serve? Vitruvius served in the army of one Gaius, Julius Caesar. In fact, in his introduction, which is addressed to Augustus, he writes that it was the subject of architecture and engineering which made him known to Julius Caesar, to whom, he says, he was devoted on account of his great qualities. Vitruvius says that he remains devoted to Caesar's memory, and thus to his adopted son, Augustus, even, and these are his words, after the council of heaven gave him a place in the dwellings of immortal life. Vitruvius also tells us that Augustus' sister, Octavia, recommended him to Augustus for a pension in his old age, which gave him freedom from the worry of poverty, and thus the time and freedom to write this work on architecture. So, seeing as Vitruvius served with Julius Caesar's army, in the artillery, and seeing as he knew the man, meaning he knew Julius Caesar, I'd say he's a pretty good source.

Well, Vitruvius tells us that the Romans aren't just approaching the walls of Massilia via siege ramps and towers. Vitruvius tells us the Romans have dug more than 30 mines in the direction of the Massilia walls. He also tells us that some portion of Massilia's walls have a dry moat, and realizing the Romans are digging tunnels and tunneling towards their walls, the clever Massiliotes dig the depth of their dry moat deeper, and when the Roman tunnels reach the moat, they suddenly tunnel directly into the now deeper than expected moat. When this happens, the Massiliotes can see exactly where the Roman tunnels are. They've lost that element of surprise, and if the Romans want to continue their tunnels on the opposite side of the moat and tunnel underneath the walls of Massilia, they will have to cross open ground beneath Massilia's walls, where the Massiliotes can rain down projectiles and boiling pitch on them.

So, essentially, this dry moat, which surprised the Romans, means that their mines become useless, or at least some portion of them. However, there are places where there is no moat, and in these places, the Massiliotes dig what Vitruvius describes as a basin of enormous length and breadth within their city walls. He compares this basin to a fish pond. They then fill this basin with water from wells and from the port, which Holmes writes would have been conducted via pipes into the basin. Then, along come the Roman mines, tunneling under the walls, just to hit this enormous basin of water.

A torrent of water rushes in, undermines the supports of the mine, and all those who are in the mine are either drowned or crushed by the collapsing mine. That ladies and gentlemen, is a pretty horrible way to go. Drowned in a small, collapsing, underground mine. And with that, we will move our siege back to the naval front, commanded on Caesar's side by Decimus Brutus. Decimus Brutus has been running a naval blockade of Massilia, but he's about to get thrown a curveball.

You see, at some point, word reaches Pompey over in Greece and Macedonia that Ahenobarbus is making yet another ill-advised stand against Caesar. Having abandoned Ahenobarbus once at Corfinium, where Ahenobarbus had made a stand against Pompey's wishes, Pompey would like to avoid abandoning him a second time if he can help it. So, Pompey sends a fleet of 16 ships under the command of a man named Lucius Nasidius to reinforce Massilia. Several of these ships even have what Caesar describes as brazen beaks, meaning bronze rams. This fleet departs from Pompey's region of the Mediterranean, again, around Greece and Macedonia.

So, to reach Massilia, they need to cross through the Sicilian Straits. At this time, Curio is still in Sicily. Caesar tells us that Curio was entirely unprepared for such a naval incursion. So, not only is Nasidius able to sail through the Sicilian Straits between Italy and Sicily, he is also able to put into harbor at the city of Messana along the way, modern Messina. The council of Messana and its other leaders panic and flee.

Nasidius then has a free hand to seize one of their ships from their harbor. He adds it to his fleet and continues on his way to Massilia, now with a fleet of 17 ships. As Nasidius approaches the region of Massilia, he sends a small ship from his fleet to notify Ahenobarbus and the Massiliotes of their arrival. Via this messenger, Nasidius urges them to combine their fleet with his and again engage Decimus Brutus. The Massiliotes are more than happy to do this.

In fact, they've been making many naval preparations since their last defeat. They've pulled out old ships from their dockyards and worked to repair and refit them to replace the ships they lost in the last naval battle. Caesar tells us that they had plenty of rowers and steersmen to man these ships too, which makes sense, they are a naval city after all. They add to their fleet further by converting fishing boats into warships. They deck these fishing boats over to protect the rowers, meaning the fishing ships typically only had one level.

The Massiliotes construct a deck over this so the rowers, sitting now in this cabin below the upper deck, are protected from missiles. These fishing ships are then filled with archers and ballistic engines. In the meantime, Nasidius and his fleet anchor at Taurois, a Massiliote fort that Holmes describes as being 18 miles southeast of Massilia. All necessary preparations now having been made, the Massiliote fleet prepares to embark and join Nasidius at Taurois. As Caesar writes, amid the tears and prayers of all the old men, mothers and young girls who begged them to rescue their city in its dire need.

I said earlier that Massilia is not a memorable siege because of what is at stake. After all, it is not a major battle in this civil war. No one is going to win or lose this war based on Massilia. However, for the people of Massilia, this is an absolute struggle for their very existence, as sieges are for all defenders. For them, there is nothing minor about this.

Massilia is their city-state, their world, and if Massilia falls to the Romans, quite likely that will be their doom. Extermination and slavery are realistic expectations. After all, about a century ago, Rome had done exactly that to another Greek city, Corinth. The Romans had stormed Corinth, killed and enslaved its remaining inhabitants, and then plundered and burnt the city, using famous paintings to play dice and shipping much of its art back to Italy. Even some of the Romans felt it was a stain upon their reputation that they had done this to Corinth.

All of which is to say, the Massiliotes are under no illusions as to what fate awaits them and their city if they lose this struggle. They may hope for better treatment from Caesar, but Caesar isn't there, and realistically they must operate under the idea that they will be treated no different than Corinth. Hence all the tears, prayers, and begging. Caesar tells us that the courage and confidence of the Massiliotes was as great as when they had fought the last naval battle. In one of his keen observations of human nature, Caesar writes,

“...for it is a common fault in human nature that the unseen and unknown provoke excessive confidence or excessive fear, and so it happened on this occasion. The arrival of Lucius Nasidius had filled the people with optimism and enthusiasm.”

Once a favorable wind blows in, the Massiliote fleet leaves their harbor, apparently outruns Brutus' ships, and joins Nasidius and his fleet at Taurois. There Caesar tells us they prepared their ships, screwed up their resolution to fight again, and discussed their plans.

It is decided that the Massiliotes will hold the right of the line, while Nasidius and his ships hold the left. As all of this is happening, Decimus Brutus receives word of this new fleet arriving, and of the two fleets joining forces at Taurois, that Massiliote 4 18 miles away. Decimus Brutus' base of operations, meanwhile, is on the island of Ratonneau, right outside the harbor of Massilia. He quickly organizes his fleet, which is now 6 ships larger than it had been before, due to the Massiliote ships he had captured. Caesar tells us that Decimus Brutus had repaired and completely refitted these ships out since the last battle, giving him a maximum of 18 ships, which means he is heavily outnumbered, even worse than in the first battle.

Decimus Brutus is not intimidated though. He exhorts his men to score in the men they had already conquered, since they had defeated the Massiliotes already when their force was undamaged, meaning back when the Massiliotes were undamaged. Caesar tells us that he then advanced full of confidence and courage against the enemy. Now Trebonius' camp outside Massilia, as I said previously, is on such high ground that he and his army can actually look down and into the city from their camp. In memorable detail, Caesar describes what the Romans witnessed that day as the Massiliotes awaited news of the naval battle and prayed for victory.

“From the camp of Gaius Trebonius and from all the high ground it was easy to look into the city and to see how all the men of military age who had remained in the town, all the older men, and the wives and children, were stretching up their hands to heaven in the public squares, or at look-out points, or on the wall, or were going to the temples of the immortal gods and prostrating themselves in front of the statues of the gods and begging for victory. There was no one who was not convinced that all his future fortunes depended on the result of that day; for all the best warriors and the men most highly esteemed from every age-group had been called out by name and had responded to entreaties and gone on board ship. As a result, if the Massiliotes should suffer a reverse, they could not see that there would be any possibility left even of attempting a resistance…”

Quite a dramatic scene. And like I said, the Massiliotes are fighting for their very existence.

Well, Brutus and his fleet sail out to meet the enemy fleet at the fort of Taurois. The two enemy naval fleets engage and the fighting begins. Caesar writes that the courage of the Massiliotes left nothing to be desired. They remembered the injunctions their people had given them just before they left. And so, Caesar writes, they fought in the belief that they would have no second chance.

This conviction is strengthened by their belief that those who risked their lives in battle would not anticipate very long the fate of the rest of the citizens who would have to submit to the same fortune of war should the city be captured. Meaning you might as well risk your life now to save your city because if you don't and you lose this battle, it will be your family, your friends, and your neighbors who will be risking their lives when the city falls. Put another way, what's the point in being timid now and preserving your life just so you can die in a few days time when the city is stormed and your family dies alongside you? Either way, there's a good chance of you dying, so better to risk your life now and at least have a chance to save the life of your family and friends. Now, just like in the first naval battle of Massilia, Decimus Brutus' steersmen are much inferior to those of the seafaring Massiliotes, and soon the Roman ships begin to get separated from each other.

This separation allows the Massiliotes to make use of the skill of their steersmen and the maneuverability of their ships. Decimus Brutus' ships, meanwhile, resort to the tactic that had won them the first naval battle. They start hooking enemy ships with grappling hooks and dragging them toward their own ships so they can board them and turn this sea fight into a fight of hand-to-hand combat. This time, the tactic is running into problems. Every time they hook a ship, the Massiliotes use those gaps between the Roman ships to maneuver in and rescue the hooked ship.

When it does come to hand-to-hand combat, Caesar tells us the Massiliotes and their barbarian mountain men, the Albici, acquitted themselves well. Caesar writes that they did not fall far short of his men in courage, which I think is quite a funny line. It assumes that the courage of the Massiliotes and the Albici is less than that of the Romans. It's just a question of how much less, and in this case, not much less. And while Decimus Brutus' men are embroiled in this battle, hooking enemy ships and trying to reel them in, sometimes getting into fighting with edge-to-edge weapons, suddenly they are periodically surprised by showers of missiles being shot from the smaller fishing boats.

These boats are keeping out of the main fray and are instead hanging off to the side. And when Decimus Brutus' men least expect it, when they are most embroiled in the battle, they send a volley their way. In this way, they wound many of the Romans. Now, Decimus Brutus flies a special flag on his ship so that everyone will know which ship is his. At some point in the battle, two Massiliote triremes spot this flag and realize that this is his ship, the enemy captain.

So they both row hard towards the flanks of Decimus Brutus' ship from opposite directions, intending both to ram and sink his ship. Decimus Brutus has his head on a swivel though, and sees them both. He orders his men to row in order to get his ship out of the target line of these two ships. He must have evaded them just in the nick of time though because both ships end up missing him and smashing into each other at speed. Both ships are severely damaged by this collision.

One ship even has its beak or its ram broken off and starts to sink. This is the naval ancient warfare equivalent of an own goal. Some of Decimus Brutus' nearby ships then take advantage of this collision and swoop in to make sure both ships sink, and they succeed in doing this. Now you may have noticed I've only talked so far about Decimus Brutus' Romans and the Massiliotes. No talk of the Pompeians under Nasidius.

They are supposed to be manning the left side of the Massiliote line. While Caesar tells us Nasidius' ships were of no help and quickly withdrew from the battle. He explains this by saying that their crews had not a sight of their homeland nor the injunctions of their kinfolk to urge them on into mortal danger. As a result, none of their ships are lost during the battle. Which makes it sound like they never really engaged in battle at all.

It's very odd that they would sail all the way across the Mediterranean just to get to the siege and decide that they don't actually want to fight. But maybe they were taken aback by the ferocity of the fighting. Maybe they thought they were going to be there just for moral support for the Massiliotes. Anyway around it, they aren't much help to the Massiliotes who end up losing this naval battle. 5 Massiliote ships are sunk and 4 more are captured.

Another Massiliote ship flees along with Nasidius' Roman ships for nearer Spain. Imagine how that went down in Massilia. Their friends and family are in an existential struggle for their very lives and these guys take off for Spain and abandon them. The remaining Massiliote ships do make it back to Massilia though. One of them is sent ahead of the rest to relay the news to the population. Caesar writes on this,

“On its approach, the whole population poured out to hear the result. And when they heard it, there was such consternation that it seemed as if, at the same time, the city itself had been taken by the enemy. Nonetheless, the people set themselves to do all that remained to be done for the defense of the city.”

So though their soldiers fought in the naval battle as if there would be no second chance, the Massiliotes are not yet ready to give up.

Not even close. And with that, we move back to the land portion of the siege and the great engineering projects the Romans are engaged in. The Romans have continued, ever so slowly, to make progress on their two siege ramps. Finally, after much effort, one of the two is completed and a siege tower is wheeled up. Vitruvius, the army engineer, is our source for this, and he doesn't specify which siege ramp, the smaller ramp on the left near the harbor or the 80 foot high ramp which is needed to bridge the valley.

We don't know which one's complete, but one of these two is complete. Either way, the siege tower is pushed up the ramp toward the city walls of Massilia. This is the great moment the Romans have been laboring towards. All this backbreaking work they've been doing, cutting down trees, chopping them into timber, transporting them to the front, transporting the dirt, building the siege towers and screens, the long sheds, the testudo, the epic siege ramps themselves, all of it has been working towards this moment. You can imagine many of the Roman soldiers and laborers stopped their activities and gathered to watch as the Romans wheeled this siege tower up the ramp to the city walls, complete with the battering ram.

Often these battering rams were capped with actual iron ram's heads too. Once at the wall, the Romans get ready to start battering it with their ram, when suddenly the Massiliotes let down from their wall a noose and managed to loop it around the ram. The other end of the rope of this noose is connected to what my translation describes as a drum and capstan. Historian T. Rice Holmes describes it as a windlass. Basically, it amounts to a winch which the Massiliotes start cranking.

This pulls the ram's head up and toward them, and of course, it can't do any damage if it can't swing back to gain momentum. The Romans have lost control of their ram now. They can't swing it back because the Massiliotes are cranking it upward and forward with their winch. With the ram now neutralized, the Massiliotes start firing at the siege tower with their giant ballistae. They add to this what Vitruvius calls glowing fire darts.

I imagine this to mean flaming arrows and other burning projectiles. In this way, the Massiliotes destroy the siege tower along with the ram. This has to send the Massiliote spirits soaring. The Romans had tried to batter their city walls to pieces, and the Massiliotes had managed to outsmart them. And for the Romans, this must have been discouraging and frustrating.

All that work for what? But Roman armies are not known for giving up easily, so they continue to besiege the city determined as ever. It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. That turns out to be the case in this siege as well. It is at this point that the Romans start to get very creative.

This whole siege in the Civil War Commentaries is described by Caesar with a combination of fascination with all the creative engineering and just immense pride in his legions and what they're accomplishing in his absence. Just reading it, you can tell how proud he is of them. And it's the building project the legions embark on next that makes Caesar the most proud. You see, over by the right-hand siege ramp, the siege ramp that needs to bridge the valley, the Romans had gotten tired of the frequent sorties out of the nearby city gate by the Albici. So to protect their soldiers and laborers, they had built a brick fort near to the city wall.

Caesar tells us it was low and small, 30 feet square. However, it is very solid, with brick walls 5 feet thick. The bricks, by the way, are unbaked or sun-dried bricks. The legionaries retreat to this fort in cases where the enemy forces are superior in numbers or when a sortie takes them by surprise. And from this brick fort, they would then offer resistance or make sorties out of their own to drive the Albici back into Massilia.

As time goes by, though, the legionaries start to realize that this fort could be a lot more useful if it was taller, say, more of a tower than a hut. So they embark on an engineering project to do exactly that. They start building up the walls of this fort under cover of very tall siege sheds and screens to give them cover from the Massilia ballistae. They do this until they reach high enough that they can build the first floor, that is, the floor above the ground floor. The soldiers then build this floor in such a way that no wood beams stick out beyond the 5 foot thick brick walls.

And the reason for this is that the Massiliotes will have no pieces of wood to try to light on fire. The soldiers then continue to add bricks, building the walls up above the first floor as high as they can, giving the protection of the siege sheds and screens. And once they reach this point, they've hit a problem. They cannot continue to build upward without losing the protection of their siege sheds and screens. And once they lose cover from these, it will be open season for the massive Massilia ballistae.

To resolve this problem, the legionaries build what I'll call a lid for this growing tower rather than a roof. I call it a lid because it isn't going to be anchored onto the building. It can be lifted right off the building, as will become clear in a few moments. To build this lid, the legionaries first lay two beams across the top of the tower. And once again, these two beams extend to just before the edge of the tower so they don't protrude beyond the brick walls.

And again, that's to prevent the Massiliotes from having any kind of wood they can light on fire. Now perpendicular to these original two beams, they lay what you would call joists. If that isn't a familiar term to you, if you've ever been in an attic, at least in the US, and you see those rows of horizontal wood planks that you have to walk on to avoid putting a hole in your ceiling, those are joists. Essentially they are just smaller wood boards than the original two beams, laid perpendicular to the original beams, with equal space between each one. This forms a sort of grid.

These joists are then made secure by what you would call tie beams. Basically these are smaller pieces of wood placed in between the joists to keep them secure and to keep them from moving around. And I know I'm throwing some construction terminology at you, and this is a lot of visualizing, but hang in there with me. Now the row of joists is actually made slightly longer than the width of the tower, so that they stick out a bit beyond the brick wall. This is done on purpose so that the Romans can hang some sort of covering to deflect enemy missiles from the Massiliote walls.

And we'll get to what that covering is in just a moment. The Romans then cover the planked top of this lid they've built for their tower with bricks and clay to make it fireproof. On top of these bricks and clay they put padded quilts to protect the, again, lid or roof from bullets of artillery that might smash through the timber and stones shot by siege engines that might break up the brickwork. Basically the quilts are padding to soften the blow. So there is your lid or roof constructed.

As for the coverings that the Romans intend to hang from the protruding joists on the lid, the Romans make this out of anchor cables from ships. It seems they took these thick ropes typically used to anchor ships and turned them into mats four feet wide. Whether they did this by weaving them together or via some other method is hard to know. But they create three of these mats, each four feet wide, and they hang them from the protruding joists on the three sides of the tower that are vulnerable to enemy missiles. Caesar tells us that their experience had taught them that this was the one sort of cover that no missile could penetrate.

Apparently that includes the massive ballistae on the city walls. I think the idea is similar to the nets they had behind archery ranges in modern times. There's nothing strong about a net with a bunch of slack in it, but it gives way when you shoot an arrow at it, and so it takes momentum out of any projectile. And it seems these mats made of anchor ropes act in much the same way. So now the Romans have all three exposed sides of their tower protected by these hanging mats which hang all the way down to the ground.

And it would seem there is plenty of slack on the ground, which they are going to need for the next stages of their plan, because they intend to make this tower a lot taller. Now the Romans remove the original sheds and screens which they no longer need for protection. They then use levers on the floor above the ground level to jack up the lid or roof as far up as the slack in the hanging mats will allow. And remember, these mats are hanging from the joists protruding from the lid. So when the lid or roof gets jacked up, the mats go up with it.

The mats have extra slack on the ground, though, so the whole tower remains protected by these mats, even as the roof gets raised. The Romans then go on adding bricks to their tower, building its walls up taller and taller. When they run out of room to build any higher because they are approaching the lid or roof again, they just jack the lid or roof up some more and keep on adding bricks. When they reach the height of a second story, they build another floor, again with no beams protruding beyond the brick walls, and again, that's to prevent any wood being exposed that the Massiliotes can try to light on fire. Once this floor is built, they then use this new second floor to jack the lid up even higher so they can keep on adding bricks to the tower.

And presumably someone is adding length to the mats too as the lid goes higher and higher. Remember, lid, roof, it's the same thing. Caesar tells us that in this way, safely and without casualties or danger, they built six stories of this tower. Along the way, they built small windows or apertures in each floor to allow artillery to fire out. Caesar doesn't say, but I'm thinking that there would also need to be apertures cut into the mats as well.

Well, the Romans now have a six story tall, 30 foot square brick tower with five foot thick walls and artillery on every floor. And this beast is right next to the Massiliote wall. They built this fortress right under the noses of the Massiliotes as they watched and they were unable to do anything about it. This tower is now able to provide cover fire for all nearby siege equipment. With this cover in place, the Romans continue their maniacal building spree.

In the shadow of the tower, and with the added protection of screens, they now begin construction on something they call a musculus. Similar to the tower, Caesar goes into loving detail on how they construct this musculus. I will save you the details though. Essentially, the musculus is another long shed or hut, again, 60 feet long from end to end, four feet wide and tall enough to allow men to stand. There are, however, a few things that make the musculus different.

For one, it is made of extremely thick and therefore robust timber. The Romans want this musculus to be able to take a beating. And with that in mind, we come to the second thing that makes the musculus unique, its roof. The Romans build the roof so that it is gabled or pitched. The roof has a slight pitch though, not a steep pitch, meaning it is a roof that gradually rises to a point rather than having a steep rise.

And the reason for this talk of roof pitches will become clear in a moment. To protect the musculus from fire, the Romans then cover its roof with bricks and clay. However, that opens it up to new dangers of the Massiliotes using pipes to spray water from their walls onto the bricks. The bricks are not baked and so this could cause them to dissolve. Caesar describes this as the bricks being washed to pieces.

So to protect their musculus from this new threat, the Romans spread animal hides on top of the bricks to protect them from water. These hides are vulnerable to being set on fire though. So on top of the hides, the Romans put wet quilts. These wet quilts also dampen the impact from any rocks or other projectiles. So now with their indestructible musculus finished, the Romans buy their time and wait for the right moment to put it to work.

And one day when they notice the Massiliotes on the walls aren't paying much attention, Caesar writes that they used a naval trick and put the musculus on rollers and roll it forward until it is right up against the base of one of the towers of the city wall. Now there seems to be some debate as to whether this musculus was perpendicular to the city wall acting as a tunnel that stretches from the brick tower to the city wall or if it is parallel to the wall. The advantage of it being parallel to the wall is that it would allow a lot more men to get at the wall at once. Because that's the purpose of this musculus, to give the Romans cover from objects dropped from above as they take crowbars to the foundations of this tower. A perpendicular musculus would allow only a few men to work at a given time, while a parallel musculus would allow however many men you could fit into 60 feet to all take crowbars to the tower at once.

Historian T. Rice Holmes believes the musculus was parallel. Well, if you are the Massiliote engineer in charge of maintaining the structural integrity of the city wall, you're about to have a stroke right now. There's a small army of guys down there industriously working on prying the foundation of one of your towers loose with crowbars. So the Massiliotes do what you would expect, they start using crowbars of their own to roll the largest rocks they can find off the tower and onto the musculus. The Romans expected this though, this is why they went to all that work in creating a sturdy roof with a slight pitch, and the large rocks roll right off the roof.

So the Massiliotes change course, they take barrels and fill them with pitch and pine shavings and light them on fire, they then roll these off the tower wall and down onto the musculus. But again, the roof takes the impact of the barrels easily and they roll right off. It would seem that the Romans expected this too because they have long forks or poles handy and they immediately use these to push the burning barrels away from the musculus to prevent it from catching fire. At this point, the six story brick tower starts spitting artillery out in all directions. This drives the Massiliotes from their own walls.

Meanwhile, the Roman soldiers are busy levering away at the lowest stones in the foundation of the tower, and soon they've pried a good number of these stones loose, and with its foundation quickly going missing, part of the Massiliote tower collapses. And thus Caesar tells us the rest of the tower was on the verge of collapse. Instantly the Massiliotes can see the sack of their beloved city in their mind's eye. They panic, and Caesar tells us they poured out of the city gates unarmed and with the sacred ribbons of suppliants tied to their foreheads, stretching out their hands for mercy to the army and especially to the officers. These sacred ribbons, by the way, were colored bands of wool typically worn by priests and sacrificial animals.

In his translation of the Civil War commentaries, scholar John Carter writes that this implicitly invoked the protection of the gods and compares it to waving a white flag today. This whole dramatic display seems to have had quite an effect on the army. Caesar writes that the soldiers turned from fighting, eager to listen and discover what was happening. The Massiliotes eventually reach the senior officers of the army, and there they throw themselves at their feet and beg them to wait for Caesar's arrival. They tell the senior officers that they know their city is essentially taken, the siege works are complete, their tower is undermined.

Because of all this, they say they are abandoning the defense of the city. If when Caesar arrives they don't obey his commands to the letter, they say they know nothing can stop an immediate and total sacking of their city. They further say that if the Romans bring the undermined tower down completely, nothing will be able to stop the soldiers from bursting into Massilia in the hope of booty and thus destroying the city. The Massiliotes are famous for their abilities in rhetoric, and they now put all these abilities to use in convincing the Romans to accept their surrender and not sack their beloved city. Caesar writes that they deliver their speeches with great pathos and plentiful tears.

Trebonius and Caesar's other senior officers, for their part, are moved by all this, and so they agree to pull their soldiers back. What's more, Caesar had already sent Trebonius a letter giving him strict instructions that he was not to allow the city to be stormed by force, in case his soldiers, inflamed by Massiliote treachery and contempt for them, and by their great and prolonged labors, should kill all the adults in Massilia. Although, I should mention, I have three different translations of the Civil War commentaries, and all three translate that very last part differently. The Oxford Classics version says that the fear is that the soldiers will kill all adults in Massilia. The Penguin Classics version says that the fear is that the soldiers will kill all men of military age.

Finally, the Leo Classics has it that they would slay all the youths. Regardless, whichever group Caesar is concerned they are going to kill, his concerns are well founded because he tells us the soldiers were openly threatening to do just that. And it would seem here that Caesar has learned from the siege of Avaricum, where his soldiers stormed the city and killed every man, woman, and child they could get their hands on, no exceptions for age or gender. From Caesar's telling of that siege, it seems he did not order this, the soldiers just went wild, intent, as they were, on revenge. And by this time we know that Caesar's personal preference is almost always to show clemency, more so in the case of fellow Romans, but also in the case of foreign peoples to a lesser degree.

So, I think, having seen his soldiers massacre every living person in Avaricum, Caesar is eager to make sure this does not happen again, all the more so because Massilia is a Greek city of culture, and the Roman world would likely look down upon its annihilation, more so than they would care about some barbarian Gauls getting massacred at Avaricum. So, as I said, Trebonius pulls his soldiers back, and they get angry at him for this. Now, these are probably three recently raised legions, not seasoned veterans of the Gallic Wars, which means they are less under Caesar's spell, although all their officers would have been promoted from the ranks of his veteran legions. But, as we saw in the Spanish campaign, even when Caesar is there in person, and even when the legions in question are veterans of the Gallic Wars, they can still get angry with Caesar when he wants to show clemency rather than annihilating an enemy, though in the end, their bond with him allows him to have his way. And no doubt, if Caesar was there at Massilia in person, he would be doing and saying all the right things to get these legions to fall under the spell of his charisma.

But Trebonius is no Julius Caesar. And so they blame Trebonius for the fact that they aren't yet masters of the city. Caesar writes that they bitterly resented him for this. And so, Caesar writes, it was only with difficulty that the soldiers were restrained from bursting into the city. But restrain them, Trebonius does. Caesar writes of this,

“...the officers withdrew their men from the siege operations and stopped the attack, leaving guards on the siege-works. From compassion, a species of truce was granted, and Caesar’s arrival awaited. No weapon was thrown from the wall, no weapon from our side; everyone relaxed and became careless, as if the siege was over.”

So they've reached this sort of strange truce where, technically, the Massiliotes have surrendered, but they have not handed over their weapons nor negotiated any terms and won't do so until Caesar arrives in person.

Well, a few days pass and the new truce holds. So the Roman soldiers cover up their armor and weapons and put them away. And one day at midday, when the Roman soldiers are resting by the siege works, the Massiliotes burst out of the city gates and, with a strong, favorable wind blowing, set fire to the siege works. With the wind defeated, the fire grows and spreads, and soon the 80-foot-tall siege ramp, The siege sheds, the testudo, the siege tower, and some of the artillery all catch fire. Caesar tells us that they were all destroyed before anyone realized how it had happened.

The Roman soldiers in the area of the siege works seize what weapons they can find and try to attack the enemy. Other soldiers follow from the main camp. The Massiliotes withdraw toward the city wall. The Romans try to pursue them, but are driven back by arrows and artillery fired from the wall. This artillery screen protects them and keeps the Romans at bay.

The Massiliotes then set about burning the musculus and even the brick tower. Caesar writes on this,

“In this way the labour of many months was destroyed in a moment by the treachery of the enemy and the force of the gale.”

The next day, the Massiliotes try the same thing with the other smaller siege ramp. This time they attack with greater confidence. The gale wind is still blowing and they managed to set fire to the siege ramp and siege tower at many different points.

But this time the Romans are prepared and on their guard. They kill many of the Massiliotes and drive the rest back into the town. Apparently they managed to put out the fires because this siege ramp and tower are saved. That is all according to Julius Caesar. There is, however, one conflicting source.

Greek historian Cassius Dio, writing two and a half centuries later, tells quite a different story. Dio's account is brief, but it gives an entirely different understanding of what happened. Dio also confirms that the Romans and Massiliotes came to a truce as they waited for Caesar and that when Caesar arrived, they would surrender to him. However, Dio writes that one night during this truce, some of the Roman soldiers tried to attack the Massiliotes, but that the Massiliotes drove them back at great cost. In fact, Dio writes that the Massiliotes inflicted such injuries on the Romans, who attacked that night in violation of the truce, that the Romans made no further attempt to take the city, but instead just waited for Caesar to arrive.

Now, who was right, Caesar or Dio? As always, Caesar is contemporary, but he is also a prime mover in all of these events, so he is hardly an unbiased source. Dio, on the other hand, is Greek, and so may have some sympathies with the Massiliotes, but far more importantly, as I already said, he is writing two and a half centuries after these events have passed. It is possible that some band of unruly Roman soldiers did break the truce by trying to sneak into the city at night. Maybe the Massiliotes then felt justified in burning the Roman siege equipment in response, and maybe Caesar conveniently left this out of his narrative.

One thing I will say, Dio is wildly wrong about the Romans being too afraid to make any further attacks on the city, which makes his whole narrative seem suspect to me. You see, the siege of Massilia is now back on in earnest. Far from giving up, the Roman soldiers are now more determined than ever to take the city. They will now embark on a new building campaign, constructing unprecedented kinds of siege works. But that I will leave for our next episode.

Here is where our narrative ends for today. Before I get into the five-star reviews and announcements, I just want to thank all of you for your patience in waiting for this episode. I hope it was worth the wait. Since I have returned from my illness hiatus, I have been putting out one episode a month, and I haven't missed that schedule until now. A sort of perfect storm came about, whereby this episode was a beast of an episode to research and write.

I had many doctor's appointments in faraway locations, and I have begun on some new medical treatment that, in the short term at least, is making me feel worse and is taking up an enormous amount of my time. Most days I have been unable to think straight, I have so much brain fog, and I mostly feel awful. In fact, both of those things are true of most days, but even more so in the past month. But the hope is that it's one step backward for a lot of steps forward. If things start to work out, and I start to improve health-wise, then I will be happy to share more details with you.

But this whole health journey has consisted of a thousand dead ends, of me being absolutely convinced, oh, this is going to help, this is going to work, and then it leads nowhere. And if I shared all of them with you guys, it would get very tedious and tiring. So that's it for my health update. The final thing I'll say is, despite feeling more exhausted than ever, I think I really am moving in the right direction. So fingers crossed on what the next few months may bring.

I remain an eternal optimist, which I think is required when trying to heal from something. You have to be optimistic. Moving on from my health, don't forget you can support the show by using the Amazon link in the show notes for all of our episodes, it's in every episode, to purchase anything at all. So doing your usual Amazon shopping via this link supports the March of History, and there's no extra charge to you. It's a free, easy way to support the show financially, and it's not like a one-time thing.

If you buy things every week, you can use that link every week and support the show that way. You can also support the show by buying merchandise. You can find the link to our merch store also in our show notes. Well, I think the show notes has a link to our website, which then has the store on the website. In fact, you can find links to every way of supporting the show in our show notes.

Patreon, Venmo, PayPal. Speaking of Patreon, a big thank you to our patrons, Mark, Liga, Peggy, Carrie, Desert Legionnaire, Jared, Timothy, Zaire, Glenn, Tony, and Brian. Like the Medici of the Renaissance, you are all patrons of the art that is the March of History. Not that I claim to be Michelangelo. Thank you.

And now for our five-star reviews. Finally, Apple has fixed the glitch whereby I did not have access to reviews outside the US for, man, it went on for maybe a year and a half. So today I will be reading a couple of those. Our first review is from France, written by a user named Zemnoss. His subject reads, excellent.

He then writes, keep it up. Very entertaining with great storytelling. I look forward to the next episodes after this saga with Julius Caesar ends. Thank you, Zemnoss, for the five-star review, and I'm glad you are excited for the future of the podcast. Our next review is from Brett Goldie in Australia.

Brett's title reads, five stars. He then writes, love this podcast, thanks. Thank you, Brett, for the five-star review, short, sweet, and to the point. And ladies and gentlemen, if what's holding you back from leaving a positive review is that you think you have to write a beautiful essay to adequately convey your love of the March of History, let me put your mind at ease and say that a review in the vein of what Brett just wrote, short, sweet, and to the point, is absolutely welcome and encouraged. Five-star reviews act as social proof to someone who stumbles upon the show.

Yes, it's great to have glowing, eloquent reviews, but it's also great to have a high quantity of positive reviews. It lets people know who stumble upon the show that this is a legitimate show worth pressing play on. But of course, I'll add, to those that do take the time to write out a longer review of how much you love the March of History, your reviews are absolutely treasured. Finally, we have our ending quote. When the Emperor Trajan named his Praetorian prefect, he took the sword the man was required to wear, drew the blade, and held it up. He then said to the prefect,

“Take this sword in order that, if I rule well, you may use it for me, but if ill, against me”.

Talk about holding yourself accountable! It's also a demonstration of immense self-confidence. Many a Praetorian needed no invitation to use that sword on their Emperor. Trajan was clearly not a man who suffered from any kind of paranoia.

That is all for today. Thank you all for listening, and until next episode, may you have all the self-confidence of Trajan. I'm your host, Trevor Fernes. Please keep on spreading the word about the podcast, and I will talk to you in the next episode of the March of History.