consequence of the complications with Longinus, Bogud king of West Mauretania, who was on Caesar's side and might at least have put some obstacles in the way of king Juba, had been called away with his troops to Spain.
Still more critical were the occurrences among the troops whom Caesar had caused to be collected in southern Italy, in order to his embarkation with them for Africa. They were for the most part the old legions, which had founded Caesar's throne in Gaul, Spain, and Thessaly. The spirit of these troops had not been improved by victories, and had been utterly disorganized by long repose in Lower Italy. The almost superhuman demands which the general made on them, and the effects of which were only too clearly apparent in their fearfully thinned ranks, left behind even in these men of iron a leaven of secret rancour which required only time and quiet to set their minds in a ferment. The only man who had influence over them, had been absent and almost unheard-of for a year; while the officers placed over them were far more afraid of the soldiers than the soldiers of them, and overlooked in the conquerors of the world every outrage against those that gave them quarters, and every breach of discipline. When the orders to embark for Sicily arrived, and the soldier was to exchange the luxurious ease of Campania for a third campaign certainly not inferior to those of Spain and Thessaly in point of hardship, the reins, which had been too long relaxed and were too suddenly tightened, snapt asunder.
The legions refused to obey till the promised presents were paid to them, scornfully repulsed the officers sent by Caesar, and even threw stones at them. An attempt to extinguish the incipient revolt by increasing the sums promised not only had no success, but the soldiers set out in masses to extort the fulfilment of the promises from the general in the capital. Several officers, who attempted to restrain the mutinous bands on the way, were slain. It was a formidable danger. Caesar ordered the few soldiers who were in the city to occupy the gates, with the view of warding off the justly apprehended pillage at least at the first onset, and suddenly appeared among the furious bands demanding to know what they wanted. They exclaimed: 'discharge'. In a moment the request was granted. Respecting the presents, Caesar added, which he had promised to his soldiers at his triumph, as well as respecting the lands which he had not promised to them but had destined for them, they might apply to him on the day when he and the other soldiers should triumph; in the triumph itself they could not of course participate, as having been previously discharged. The masses were not prepared for things taking this turn; convinced that Caesar could not do without them for the African campaign, they had demanded their discharge only in order that, if it were refused, they might annex their own conditions to their service. Half unsettled in their belief as to their own indispensableness; too awkward to return to their object, and to bring the negotiation which had missed its course back to the right channel; ashamed, as men, by the fidelity with which the Imperator kept his word even to soldiers who had forgotten their allegiance, and by his generosity which even now granted far more than he had ever promised; deeply affected, as soldiers, when the general presented to them the prospect of their being necessarily mere civilian spectators of the triumph of their comrades, and when he called them no longer 'comrade', but 'burgesses', - by this very form of address, which from his mouth sounded so strangely, destroying as it were with one blow the whole pride of their past soldierly career; and, besides all this, under the spell of the man whose presence had an irresistible power - the soldiers stood for a while mute and lingering, till from all sides a cry arose that the general would once more receive them into favour and again permit them to be called Caesar's soldiers. Caesar, after having allowed himself to be sufficiently entreated, granted the permission; but the ringleaders in this mutiny had a third cut off from their triumphal presents. History knows no greater psychological masterpiece, and none that was more completely successful.
This mutiny operated injuriously on the African campaign, at least in so far as it considerably delayed the commencement of it. When Caesar arrived at the port of Lilybaeum destined for the embarkation the ten legions intended for Africa werefar from being fully assembled there, and it was the experienced troops that were farthest behind. Hardly however had six legions, of which five were newly formed, arrived there and the necessary war- vessels and transports come forward, when Caesar put to sea with them (25 Dec. 707 of the uncorrected, about 8 Oct. of the Julian, calendar).
The enemy's fleet, which on account of the prevailing equinoctial gales was drawn up on the beach at the island Aegimurus in front of the bay of Carthage, did not oppose the passage; but, the same storms scattered the fleet of Caesar in all directions, and, when he availed himself of the opportunity of landing not far from Hadrumetum (Susa), he could not disembark more than some 3000 men, mostly recruits, and 150 horsemen. His attempt to capture Hadrumetum strongly occupied by the enemy miscarried; but Caesar possessed himself of the two seaports not far distant from each other, Ruspina (Monastir near Susa) and Little Leptis. Here he entrenched himself; but his position was so insecure, that he kept his cavalry in the ships and the ships ready for sea and provided with a supply of water, in order to re-embark at any moment if he should be attacked by a superior force.
This however was not necessary, for just at the right time the ships that had been driven out of their course arrived (3 Jan. 708). On the very following day Caesar, whose army in consequence of the arrangements made by the Pompeians suffered from want of corn, undertook with three legions an expedition into the interior of the country, but was attacked on the march not far from Ruspina by the corps which Labienus had brought up to dislodge Caesar from the coast. As Labienus had exclusively cavalry and archers, and Caesar almost nothing but infantry of the line, the legions were quickly surrounded and exposed to the missiles of the enemy, without being able to retaliate or to attack with success. No doubt the deploying of the entire line relieved once more the flanks, and spirited charges saved the honour of their arms; but a retreat was unavoidable, and had Ruspina not been so near, the Moorish javelin would perhaps have accomplished the same result here as the Parthian bow at Carrhae.
Caesar, whom this day had fully convinced of the difficulty of the impending war, would not again expose his soldiers untried and discouraged by the new mode of fighting to any such attack, but awaited the arrival of his veteran legions. The interval was employed in providing some sort of compensation against the crushing superiority of the enemy in the weapons of distant warfare. The incorporation of the suitable men from the fleet as light horsemen or archers in the land-army could not be of much avail. The diversions which Caesar suggested were somewhat more effectual. He succeeded in bringing into arms against Juba the Gaetulian pastoral tribes wandering on the southern slope of the great Atlas towards the Sahara; for the blows of the Marian and Sullan period had reached even to them, and their indignation against Pompeius, who had at that time made them subordinate to the Numidian kings[48], rendered them from the outset favourably inclined to the heir of the mighty Marius of whose Jugurthine campaign they had still a lively recollection. The Mauretanian kings, Bogud in Tingis and Bocchus in Iol, were Juba's natural rivals and to a certain extent long since in alliance with Caesar.
Further, there still roamed in the border-region between the kingdoms of Juba and Bocchus the last of the Catilinarians, that Publius Sittius of Nuceria[49], who eighteen years before had become converted from a bankrupt Italian merchant into a Mauretanian leader of free bands, and since that time had procured for himself a name and a body of retainers amidst the Libyan quarrels. Bocchus and Sittius united fell on the Numidian land, and occupied the important town of Cirta; and their attack, as well as that of the Gaetulians, compelled king Juba to send a portion of his troops to his southern and western frontiers.
Caesar's situation, however, continued sufficiently unpleasant. His army was crowded together within a space of six square miles; though the fleet conveyed corn, the want of forage was as much felt by Caesar's cavalry as by those of Pompeius before Dyrrhachium. The light troops of the enemy remained notwithstanding all the exertions of Caesar so immeasurably superior to his, that it seemed almost impossible to carry offensive operations into the interior even with veterans. If Scipio retired and abandoned the coast towns, he might perhaps achieve a victory like those which the vizier of Orodes had won over Crassus and Juba over Curio, and he could at least endlessly protract the war. The simplest consideration suggested this plan of campaign; even Cato, although
