Seeking to secure his strength amongst the Gal-
lic population, Caesar then marched against the tribal
leader Ariovistus, chief of the clan known as the Suebi.
Although Ariovistus had been an ally of Gaul, his power
threatened Roman control of the area. In 58 b.c., in a
huge battle, apparently fought somewhere in what is now
in the region of Upper Alsace in France, Caesar and the
Romans defeated the Subei and ended their threat. Over
the next several years, he went to war with the tribes of
Gaul, and although his Roman forces were vastly out-
numbered, the Gallic armies never consolidated and did
not present the threat to the Romans that they could
have. Caesar later wrote of these battles in his landmark
work De Bellum Gallico (Commentaries on the Gal-
lic War), one of the earliest books on military history.
Writing in the third person, he penned details on battles
which otherwise would be lost to history, described how
he had defeated the Belgae, and told of how he had sent
Marcus Crassus to fight the tribes called Armorica in
what is now Normandy in northwestern France.
Following the murder of Marcus Crassus after his
disastrous defeat at the battle of Carrhae in 53 b.c., jeal-
ousy and hatred spread amongst the followers of Rome’s
other commander, Gnaeus Pompeus, also known as
PomPey. Pompey feared that Caesar, with his military
victories and growing popularity, would become a dicta-
tor if not opposed, and Pompey therefore allied himself
with Caesar’s opponents in the Roman Senate. Upon his
recommendation, in 49 b.c. the Senate ordered Caesar
to return home. Caesar thereupon marched his armies
back toward Rome, crossing the Rubicon river in north-
ern Italy and setting off a massive civil war. In what
could only be called an enormous demonstration of
military power, he pursued Pompey’s small army down
to the southern Italian city of Brundisium, but they es-
caped to Greece.
Rather than following Pompey, Caesar marched back
through northern Italy and into Spain to attack Pompey’s
supporters there; he defeated them at the battle of Illerda
(49 b.c.). Then, armed with warships, he sailed to the
west coast of Greece to attack Pompey unsuccessfully at
his base at Dyrrhachium. Despite this, Caesar advanced
further into Greece, pursued by Pompey, as per his plan.
At Pharsalus (9 August 48 b.c.), a city in Thessaly, Greece,
Caesar won a key victory. Historian George Bruce writes:
“The Pompeian cavalry drove back that of Caesar, but
following in pursuit were thrown into confusion by the
legionaries, whereupon they turned and fled from the
field; the infantry followed and the battle became a rout
in which 8,000 Pompeians and only 200 Caesarians fell.
After the battle 20,000 Pompeians surrendered.”
Pompey and some of his remaining army escaped
to Egypt, where he asked the Egyptian king Ptolemy for
asylum. Upon being brought ashore, however, he was
murdered and his head removed, on Ptolemy’s orders.
When Caesar came to Egypt to confront Pompey again,
instead he was presented with his opponent’s head. He
continued to fight with Pompey’s legions, clashing with
them at Thapsus in northern Africa (46 b.c.) and at
Munda in Spain (45 b.c.).
Following these triumphs, Caesar began to make
Julius Caesar peace with his opponents and political enemies, includ- cAeSAR, JuliuS gAiuS