On The Alexandrian War. Caesar Gaius Julius

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      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 fleet, in fact, had run out of water, so they sent a light ship to warn Cesar of the incident, the location and the problem.

      10.

      Caesar, who always wants to see everything in person, embarked on a ship and ordered the entire fleet to follow him; he brought only a few soldiers with him so as not to defeat the defences and entrenches in the city. On reaching the place, a place called Chersoneo (Peninsula), made part of the men land there and sent them to look for some water; but some sailors recklessly decided to raid and were thus captured by the enemy cavalry that patrolled the area. The captured sailors revealed to the enemy that Caesar was there with the entire fleet but did not have the army with him. The Egyptians thus thought that they had had a great stroke of luck and to take advantage of it; then, they armed the entire fleet at their disposal and set out in search of the Roman Consul; they met him while he was on the way back, having already spent most of the day, Caesar tried to avoid the battle also because his oarsmen were tired and the knowledge of the waters was all to the advantage of the Egyptians, which made a battle little advisable nocturnal which would have frightened his men, who were better than their enemies and lacked courage. So, he kept the ships near the coast hoping that there the enemies could not have the audacity to attack him, having him a more favourable position.

      11.

      A Rhodian ship (of Rhodes) to Caesar's right found himself quite far from the rest of the fleet; the enemy seized the opportunity and impetuously launched 4 vessels with prestigious insignia on the attack so as not to miss the opportunity to inflict a loss on the Consul of Rome. Caesar had to intervene so as not to suffer an affront that would have undermined morale even if that ship, due to its negligence, did not deserve that other ships took risks. The clash was immediately hard but the Rhodes, very skilled in naval battles and perhaps even feeling responsible for that avoidable battle, worked hard not to be blamed for any defeat.

      However, the clash had a happy outcome: one enemy quadrireme was captured, another sunk and two others rendered harmless; in addition to this, the Romans massacred enemies on support ships, and only the onset of darkness took away the possibility of an even clearer victory, which would allow him to capture many other enemy ships. This victory disheartened the bold enemy and, with the weakening of the headwind, Caesar was able to return to Alexandria with the whole fleet and the other transport ships loaded with reinforcements.

      12.

      What most discouraged the Alexandrians was the fact that they were not defeated by the soldiers, but only by the sailors of the fleet, so they took refuge in the stands and behind the defences fearing that the Roman fleet, now that he was aware of his strength, would attack them in others points of the coast, bypassing the city defences. The eunuch Ganymede encouraged them in the council, encouraged them to work harder to rebuild the lost ships even to increase their number; so they rearmed the old ships left in the arsenals and even if they had lost more than 110 ships of all cabotage, they were lost in the docks of the port (set on fire by Caesar already at the beginning of the war in the famous stake that caused the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria ), did not despair of being able to rebuild it. Moreover, they had noticed that if they had been stronger on the sea, they could have prevented Caesar from receiving food and reinforcements. Furthermore, being born in a seaside city and in a predominantly maritime country, they were used to navigating from an early age and considered water to be both a precious and a familiar element; they thought they were superior in naval operations even with smaller ships, so they put all the effort into building the new fleet.

      13.

      In all branches of the Nile there were ships used for the collection of taxes which were brought to Alexandria to form this fleet; in addition to these, at the bottom of the Royal Arsenals there were old buildings with old warships unused for many years, which lacked many parts and especially the oars. Thus workers were sent to the city to dismantle the arcades, gymnasiums and all public buildings, and with them oars and other missing parts were obtained; another time, the ingenuity and industriousness of the Alessandrini, combined with the great availability of the city, made it possible to overcome all the needs of the fleet under construction. However, these ships did not have to make long demanding journeys but only to come to battle in the port (understood in a broad sense) of the city.

      It so happened that, in spite of all expectations, the Egyptians managed to have a fleet of 22 quadriremes, 5 quinqueremi and СКАЧАТЬ