LITMIR.BIZ

      ​On the Alexandrian War

      De Bello Alexandrino

       1.

      Gaius Julius Caesar, even before the Alexandrian War broke out, had already called the fleet from Rhodes, Syria and Cilicia, asked for archers in Crete, cavalry in Malco I (1) King of the Nabataeans, made to look for war machines everywhere , in addition to food and aid. At the same time, in Alexandria, Caesar fortifies the part of the city under his control, building defensive works and displacing "tortoises" (military formations) and "cloaks" (an unclear term that can indicate many things or military units, more likely darts protections) where his defences appear weaker. It also creates loopholes in buildings to target the enemy; he knocks down nearby and useless buildings with rams and other means by reusing the recovered material to complete the construction of the defensive perimeter and when he takes possession of new buildings with weapons, he immediately includes them in the defence system.

      2.

      The Alessandrini, for their part, were not slow to react and wasted no time; they sent messengers and delegates throughout the Egyptian territory, gathering a large mass of armed men and war machines. Large arms workshops had been created in the city and all the skilled slaves had been included in the ranks, while the wealthy Alexandrians took care of feeding them and paying them.

      The Alessandrini controlled the peripheral districts of the city; they had well distributed the many men at their disposal, while the more expert units were stationed at strategic points and exempted from the fortification works, so that they were always ready and operational. All crossroads and roads were closed by a triple bastion up to 40 feet high (10 meters, a measure that seems exaggerated or that perhaps refers to towers with much lower walls, however they would be 3/4 floors) and built with stones well squared. The lower quarters were defended by towers up to 10 floors high (one floor was slightly taller than a man then 15/18 meters) and there were other mobile ones, placed on wheels and moved with ropes and horses where needed .

      3.

      The city, rich and abundantly equipped with everything, had allowed the inhabitants, who were largely hardworking and skilled craftsmen, to build all those works suitable for war so well that, ours, seemed to be a copy of theirs; besides these, they made others of their own invention and, with all these, they fought in an orderly and well-coordinated way.

      In addition to this, they added the determination infused by the incitement of their eminent representative, who in the city assemblies ironically stated that inexplicably the Romans had taken the habit of settling in Egypt: years before Aulus Gabinius had come with an army, then Pompey had come to seek refuge there, and even the murder of Pompey had not prevented Caesar from coming and stopping here; therefore they had to brigade to hunt it otherwise Egypt would have become a Roman province, and this had to be done now that Caesar, due to the adverse weather, could not receive aid by sea.

      4.

      A quarrel broke out among the Egyptians; Achilla, general of the veteran troops, clashed with Arsinoe, the younger daughter of the late Ptolemy XII (12), because both wanted the supreme command. The Egyptian princess entrusted the eunuch Ganymede, her skilled minister, with the task of assassinating Achilla. The death of the Egyptian general gave Arsinoe the command of his people and she gave Ganymede the command of the war operations. The latter immediately increased the pay to what had been Achilla's troops, so as to guarantee their loyalty.

      5.

      The city of Alexandria was entirely built from scratch and has underground canals that bring water from the Nile to private homes, where it settles into cisterns by depositing the remaining silt on the bottom and thus becoming drinkable. The servants of wealthy citizens and also the "masters" (probably intended both as educated people and artists or artisans) of the city used only this water, while the poor were forced to drink the muddy Nile that is the bearer of many diseases, even because there was not a single fountain in the whole city. The river flowed on the side occupied by the Egyptians who could dispose of it at will, and so, the fact that the water pipes for the water supply were under their control, gave the idea, to the eunuch Ganimede, to take advantage of it to remove this precious asset to the Romans. In fact, the Capitoline forces, engaged on the perimeter defences, had to go to the few private houses included in the small part of the city under their control to obtain drinking water from the cisterns.

      6.

      To achieve this, the Alexandrians had to do a great deal of work, but they managed to intercept all the canals coming from the Nile and then to introduce sea water; they built engineering works and particular machines that took water from the sea and poured it into the pipes of the upstream districts, which supplied the part controlled by Cesar.

      At first only a part of the cisterns failed, the higher ones, while the lower ones remained with good water and the men did not understand how this could be: they compared the different liquids and did not understand where the brackish water came from . In short, one part became undrinkable, while the other seemed to remain unchanged; but after a few days the latter also began to fail.

      7.

      From that moment there was no longer any doubt that the water had been voluntarily polluted; terror peeped over the faces of the soldiers looking at each other lost. Some claimed that Cesar had been slow in making the decision to embark, others argued that they were too close to the Alessandrini to be able to hide their preparations and embark without running the risk of being attacked and chased during the delicate boarding phase. In addition to this there was also another problem, in the part of the city occupied by Caesar, there were inhabitants of Alexandria that Caesar had not driven out of their homes, because they had proved to be faithful friends; so he had pledged to defend them and meditated to engage them in works that, even if useless, served to demonstrate their loyalty, because, as all those who have been in this land know, in general they are treacherous, shrewd and deceptive people.

      8.

      Caesar noticed the disturbance that this event had caused in his soldiers, so he said that he was able to find water because he knows that each coast is naturally rich in fresh water and that it is enough to dig wells to find it, adding that it may not be that the Egyptian coast is an exception, but that if so, he also explained that, having dominion of the sea as the enemy was devoid of a war fleet, they had no problem supplying it because the winds could not blow at the same time in both directions and in the opposite direction for both east and west navigation. He then explained that in addition to the honour, which forced him to fight, there was also the problem of impossible departure. Those who cared most about life had to consider that it would have been impossible to hide it from the enemies, who would have immediately taken advantage of it to attack them during those delicate boarding phases and that, although lower in military value and technique, abandoning the defensive perimeter would have allowed the enemies to occupy favourable positions, with the added advantage of numbers and elated at the imminent victory, would have denied many of us the escape. So all that remained was to stay and fight for life, if not for honour.

      9.

      After instilling new courage in his men with his discourse, he ordered the centurions to quit all other jobs to engage in the excavation of wells day and night. Everybody worked hard and in a single night a large amount of water was found and with relatively little work the evil that the enemies, with many tribulations and efforts, hoped to do was neutralized.

      Two days after the XXXVII (37) legion, made up of Pompey's soldiers who had surrendered, sent by Domizio Calvino, after being loaded on ships with provisions, weapons and war machines, he landed on the African coast just above Alexandria; this was due to the eastern wind which prevented them from reaching the city port. Fortunately, the coast of this part of Egypt is suitable for anchoring ships, but this created another problem. The

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