Battle of Dyrrhachium 48 BC - Caesar against Pompey DOCUMENTARY

[Music] gaius julius caesar and neues pompeus magnus were among the most successful generals in roman history who almost doubled the size of the republic during their career however both of them were about to meet the toughest challenge of their lives the great roman civil war was reaching its peak and the two leaders would fight against each other for the first time at derekia in our videos we often explore how information was crucial and this is true in the modern era as it was true back in the day the sponsor of today's video is backblaze and they want to give you peace of mind knowing that your files are backed up securely in the cloud for just six dollars a month you get unlimited backup for macs and pcs back up all of your data docs music photos videos drawings and projects everything is safe with back plays as you can restore files anywhere directly download them on the web or restore them by email backblaze even restores hard drives purchase one and they will overnight fed exit the mobile app allows restoring files on the go backblaze has restored 50 billion files already and has an exabyte that is one billion gigabytes of customer data backed up and ready to be restored it is recommended by the new york times inc mac world tom's guide nine to five mac and us to get a no credit 15 day free trial and support our channel visit backblaze.com kingsandgenerals or click the link in the description so far caesar himself had been largely successful in the civil war his campaign in spain had secured the west as well as neutralizing some of pompey's best legions and he had been recruiting in gaul and italy adding at least another six legions however his subordinates had not been as effective curio had lost two legions in north africa and his inability to take the province meant that supplies of grain in rome would still be stretched around the same time gaia santonius the brother of marc anthony had lost a legion and a half in illyria to defection to make matters worse the veterans of the gallic wars the ninth legion in north italy had mutinied consular elections were due in rome and with both the consuls having fled with pompey there was no one to oversee them threatening the legitimacy of caesar's cause his first priority was the ninth legion as many of his veteran legions were in a similar position rushing to their camp caesar made an impassioned speech pointing out that as a general renowned for his quick action he could not be blamed for prolonging the war he then chastised the men saying that he had brought them fame and fortune and they now repaid him by mutineering the only suitable punishment for the legion would be decimation the legion begged caesar to reconsider magnanimous as ever caesar only executed 12 of the ringleaders bringing the legion back into the fold [Music] caesar needed to maintain an air of legitimacy but with no consoles in rome the elections could not be held lepidus a creator and close ally of caesar suggested caesar be named dictator so that he could preside over the election elections happened and caesar was appointed consul alongside another ally publius sevillas with consular power caesar no longer needed the position of dictator and resigned after just 11 days with these issues now handled caesar gathered his force at brandisium to finally confront pompey [Music] the latter was gathering a huge force from all corners of the roman world in thessalonica in total pompey had around sixty thousand men nine full legions approximately four thousand archers and slingers seven thousand cavalry plus some auxiliaries there were a further two legions on route from syria under the command of matella scipio pompey had spent time drilling and equipping his men however only four of his legions were veterans cicero who was with pompey described the bulk of the force as raw recruits mixed cultures and languages made organization difficult trusting in numbers though pompey marched to the west of greece preparing to create a defensive line down the coast [Music] caesar in brandisium had gathered his ten veteran legions all under strength due to years of campaigning and two newly recruited ones however he only had enough ships to move half his force across and the adriatic was being guarded by pompey's vast navy under the command of bibulus with the path through illyria being too mountainous for rapid movement caesar would have to find a way of crossing the sea however he did have one key advantage [Music] the roman calendar drifted over time and needed to be constantly updated by the pontifex maximus caesar had not performed this duty due to his constant campaigning but he nonetheless knew the true date it was late autumn bibulus was operating under the impression that it was winter and had therefore kept his ships in port confident that caesar would not attempt a winter crossing ordering his men to leave slaves and baggage behind caesar set sail with seven of his veteran legions by the time bibulus found out caesar and his men had already landed frustrated bibulus began a blockade capturing and burning 30 of caesar's ships as they returned to burndisium and preventing the rest from transporting the remainder of caesar's army soon after his landing he was able to take both oricom and apollonia caesar then sent fabulius rufus a man who caesar had captured twice once at coffinium and once atelier to treat with pompey with his force divided caesar was possibly having second thoughts and was seeking a truce offering the same terms as before nonetheless caesar continued marching his force towards deraccium an important supply center for the pompeians however caesar overestimated forbillius's loyalties the latter met pompey and informed him of caesar's location army composition and strategy now the senate's commander planned to exploit this he could not allow darakim to fall into caesar's hands and pushed his men on a forced march caesar still had 70 miles and three rivers to cross before reaching the city and pompey could still beat him there the march took its toll on his more inexperienced men with some of his epirate allies deserting due to this push and their fear of caesar but he was ultimately successful reaching dorachium first la bienes's public speech swearing to follow pompey at whatever cost restored morale and the army encamped outside derekim forcing caesar to stop his advance withdrawing to a defensible position on the southern bank of the river abscess pompey knew that caesar had legitimacy as consul and could force his claim to be the rightful leader of rome in peace so he had to defeat caesar in the field he moved his army south in camping on the opposite side of a river to caesar once again though pompey proved indecisive caesar had just around thirty thousand men compared to pompey's sixty thousand but pompey did not trust his less experienced men to be able to defeat caesar's veterans in a strong defensive position a standoff continued for weeks caesar used this time to his advantage bibulus his navy had to constantly come ashore to resupply caesar dispatched small raiding parties to attack these men whenever they came ashore forcing bibulus to go further and further afield to get supplies bibulus knew he could not abandon his position but after weeks of harassment his men were resorting to drinking the dew collected on leather awnings in desperation he tried to parlay with caesar offering to send peace on voice on his behalf to pompey if caesar would stop caesar countered by saying that he would want to send his own envoys and that if bibulus wanted to resupply unmolested he would have to allow caesar's transports to pass all these talks had done was revealed to caesar how effective his strategy was soon after old and now in increasingly poor health bibulus died and that left the fleet leedless anthony had tried numerous times to break out of the blockade but had been stopped every time the pompeians had kept him under significant pressure even taking a small island in the harbour to try and trap anthony even further however anthony was a talented lieutenant and had retaken the island and had kept his men on alert for any opportunity it came in january 48 bc anthony only had enough ships to transport the three remaining veteran legions and one newly recruited one his ships were almost intercepted by pompey's fleet and he was forced to change route landing as nymphaean [Music] both pompey and caesar's armies had to rush to anthony's position pompey to cut him off from caesar and caesar to unite his forces pompey had a head start and a shorter route caesar having to march a considerable distance in order to be able to forge the river and pompey got to anthony's position first he ordered his men to not light any fires and lie in wait to try and ambush anthony as he moved to meet caesar however some locals sympathetic to the caesarean cause alerted anthony and he set up camp sending a messenger to inform caesar of his location when pompey found anthony encamped and caesar closing in he realized he was in danger of being attacked on two sides and withdrew to a safer position near asparagus with his full army now joined caesar started to take more aggressive actions hearing that scipio was now in macedonia with his syrian legions caesar sent two legions under neus domitius calvinist to cut him off the thessalonians and italians had sent envoys saying they'd support caesar in return for garrisons and so caesar sent the rookie 27th legion under cassius longades to thessaly and g calvisius sabinus with five cohorts to italia to acquire more grain scipio did march his force towards thessaly threatening longerness but calvinus and his legions were able to apply enough pressure to stop him uniting his force with pompey meanwhile one of pompey's sons neas attacked caesar's ships destroying his whole navy in the area leaving caesar stranded in greece and cut off from italy with his navy destroyed caesar knew he had to force an engagement with pompey soon he first attempted to do this at asparagus drawing up his army for battle but pompey on the high ground refused to commit in order to force pompey's hand caesar decided to march on dorechium by threatening this crucial supply center pompey would be forced to respond however he did not want to reveal his plan to pompey and so planned on taking a circuitous route to hide his intentions he struck camp early in the morning in april the plan worked initially pompey thought caesar was withdrawing due to lack of supplies and it was only after his scouts reported caesar's movements that pompey realized what caesar was planning he then gave chase caesar marched through the night only giving his men a brief break and was able to reach duracum first setting up his camp on high ground outside the city pompey arrived soon after and encamped his force on high ground just south of caesar's position [Music] pompey's army outnumbered caesars considerably having sent part of his force to occupy scipio and part to southern greece caesar had just 35 to 40 000 men and 3 000 cavalry pompey on the other hand had around 53 000 infantry and 7 000 cavalry though caesar's men were more experienced pompey did have the crucial advantage of having a better supply line using his navy he could ship supplies from darakim to his camp whereas caesar would be forced to live off the land and requisition food from local tribes even this would be difficult as pompey's forces had already plundered the area in the previous months noting the particularly hilly topography of the area caesar decided to fall back on one of his most favored tactics and fortify the hills around pompey's position encircling his enemy and cutting off their supplies this would be a difficult task considering the size of the armies but the natural topography simplified the task when pompey realized what caesar was doing he countered by constructing his own defenses he ordered his men to fortify as many hills as possible forcing caesar to extend his own fortifications further and further stretching his army frequent skirmishes broke out between the two forces each harassing the other to try and slow their build on one occasion the ninth legion attempting to fortify a camp on a hilltop came under intense masses of missile fire from the pompeians on a nearby hill caesar who was with the ninth at the time ordered them to abandon the construction and retreat down the slope he also commanded legionary engineers to place wattle screens to dig trenches behind to hinder the enemy from pursuing the legion he then placed slingers in commanding positions to cover the withdrawal the ninth was pursued by the pompeian missiles and light infantry who pushed the screens into the trenches to cross them caesar fearing her out ordered anthony commander of the ninth to charge the pompeians in a brilliant display of discipline the knights immediately turned flung their javelins and charged back up the slope the pompeians only being lightly armed retreated and the ninth was able to withdraw in good order [Music] soon after caesar's defenses were complete it was now late june due to his men's greater experience and discipline he now had pompey's force pinned against the sea this was a great achievement a smaller less supplied force had never done this before against superior numbers though low on grain caesar did manage to level the playing field by having control of all these sources of fresh water in the area pompey was now forced to dig wells and rely on supplies from the sea furthermore caesar could now send his men further afield to gather supplies without fear of harassment pompey however was a skilled general and had his own strategies to keep caesar under pressure sending missile units to harass caesar's lines at night targeting the light of their campfires he also attempted to bring his cavalry into play which stuck behind the fortifications had done little so far boarding them onto ships he sent them up the coast to derekian from here they would be free from the confines of the fortifications and could forage without putting a burden on pompey's supplies as well as attack caesar's line from the rear around this same time in early july caesar received word that there were citizens of dharachum who were willing to be bribed and give him the town looking to capitalize caesar went to the town with a small armed escort leaving publius cornelius sulla in charge however when he reached the outskirts of the city he was attacked by the pompeian cavalry who attempted to surround caesar and he only just managed to cut his way out with his men and survive the ambush while caesar was away from the main line pompey had also launched three simultaneous offensives on the fortifications he ordered four legions to concentrate on a point in the center of the line and one legion each to attack two other points in the line the point the four legions were attacking was atop a hill and well fortified but only defended by 500 men of the sixth legion the cohort was hard pressed thousands of missiles being fired into their position but the men held on doggedly confident that reinforcements would be arriving soon they were correct quickly as he could sulla had marched two legions to their relief and upon seeing this new force the pompeians retreated according to caesar every man of this unit suffered some kind of injury the other two attacks had also been repelled one by three cohorts and another by caesar's german auxiliaries who sallied out taking heavy losses in total caesar claimed that the pompeians lost 2 000 men in these battles and the caesareans just 20. [Music] it is likely that the citizens of darrachium were pompey's agents who had lured caesar into a trap pompey was proving a worthy and cunning enemy but caesar's veterans had proved their mettle bolstered by the confidence of their victories caesar would march his army out in battle formation to offer battle to pompey as a sign of strength pompey also drew his army up for battle so as not to lose face but refused to engage he would need to orchestrate a situation where he would have overwhelming numbers in order to contend with caesar's veterans longinus and sabinas had been successful in taking italia and had taken all the towns between everest and corinth they now planned to push past the isthmus of corinth and into the peloponnese but found their path blocked by a pompeian force nonetheless their success was crucial in giving caesar an abundance of supplies from these new greek territories with more successes under his belt caesar again sent a peace delegation this time to scipio hoping to convince the latter to talk to pompey but even though scipio at first listened with interest his officers were having none of it meanwhile at the requiem caesar fortified the two approaches to the town cutting the pompeian cavalry in the area off from the supplies there with the cavalry now unable to sustain themselves pompey withdrew them by sea back to his entrenchments but pompey's food was still running low and he knew he would have to soon force a breakout to try and achieve this pompey's men occupied the original fortifications of the ninth which were between the two army's fortifications and expanded on them making a second larger camp that encompassed the first he also added a long wall from the camp to a nearby river to secure a water supply this would act as a forward base from where pompey could strike pompey suddenly had a stroke of luck when two gallic officers who served caesar during the gallic wars deserted they had detailed intel about caesar's defenses and knew where the weak points were and they now passed all this information to pompey at the southern end of caesar's defenses where the fortifications met the coast caesar's ninth legion was stationed under marcalinus after having been forced to withdraw from their original camp they had constructed a second camp and fortifications that stretched to the coast behind this they had constructed a second line of defenses facing south preventing pompy landing troops behind and attacking their rear to complete the defenses an extra line of defenses would need to be made between the two walls linking them together and blocking any attack from the sea but these defenses were incomplete formulated his plan he would attack their inner wall with his legions landing light infantry and missile troops to the south to attack the outer wall while even more troops would be landed between the two walls doing so he would attack the ninth from three sides this took a lot of careful planning and timing and he withdrew his legions from the ninth old fort and behind his own lines to coordinate after a couple of days of preparation he was ready he moved 60 cohorts of legionaries around 30 000 men to attack caesar's inner fortifications while the light infantry was moved by boat behind the outer wall as they began their attack more men were simultaneously landed at the gap between the entrenchments there were only two cohorts of the ninth present at the time the rest still being in camp these 1000 men now found themselves under furious attack from three sides by overwhelming numbers desperately they tried to form a line and sent word to marcelinus for help but the numbers were too much and the men broke and ran as they did they ran into the reinforcing cohorts sent by marcolinas causing chaos in the narrow gap between the walls the pompeians closed in on marcalino's camp which was now only defended by a couple of cohorts luckily anthony who was close at hand managed to organize 6 000 men and came to their aid stopping the pompeian advance he was soon joined by caesar alerted by smoke signals and another 6500 men both forces now had most of their men committed to this part of the line while pompey's main force had been pushing into the ninth camp more men had already begun construction of a fort outside of caesar's fortifications to the south the blockade had been broken caesar ordered his men to begin construction of a trench plugging the gap between the two walls while this was being done caesar scalp spotted a pompeian legion moving back into the ninth legion's old fort if pompey took this fort he would be able to make a link between his new fort in the south and his old fortifications caesar was determined to stop this from happening gathering around seventeen thousand men and leaving one thousand to continue entrenching caesar took a circuitous route concealing his force as long as possible and then launched the attack his left wing where caesar himself was pushed into the fort forcing the pompeian legion back into the inner camp caesar's right wing however had stumbled across the pompeian entrenchment that led to the river thinking these were part of the fort they followed them looking for a gate through when they reached the river and realized their mistake they managed to break down points in the defenses breaking through followed by the cavalry but they had wasted precious time pompey had seen what was happening and sent all his heavy infantry 25 000 men to assist the legion in the fort the cavalry rode ahead of the legions and fell upon the caesarean cavalry of the right flank routing them almost instantly the infantry around them seeing their comrades fleeing and pompey's men closing in also ran the narrow passages they had made through the entrenchment became clogged and some men took to jumping from the ramparts into the ditches to try and escape many were trampled to death inside the fort itself pompey's legion was fighting back with renewed courage caesar's left afraid that they were about to be trapped inside of the narrow confines of the fort also began to break retreating through the gate caesar tried to stop the route grabbing onto fleeing standard bearers and ordering them to stand their ground one overcome by panic even tried to stab caesar but he was saved by his bodyguards caesar's entire force that had been committed to the attack had retreated broken but pompey fearing caesar had laid a trap did not pursue and the narrow breaches in the defenses stopped his cavalry pursuing further if he had he may well have been able to destroy caesar's army in total caesar gives his dead as being 32 officers centurions and tribunes almost 1 000 legionnaires and 200 horsemen he had also lost many men as prisoners perhaps as many as one thousand on the orders of la bienes all of these men were killed was hailed as imperative but as a sign of respect refused the symbolic bay leaves that went with the title due to his victory being over fellow romans caesar after having committed almost three months to the battle pulled away his full force from derekian defeated the pompeians took this as a full retreat and word was sent to eastern kings that the war was already won however pompey had failed to strike a killing blow he had done well to break out of caesar's encirclement but had missed the opportunity to use his overwhelming numbers caesar was a dangerous enemy and could not be left any space to regroup nonetheless caesar was able to carry out an ordered withdrawal of his army with only light harassment from pompey's forces pulling back to apollonia as he did so he comforted his men saying that just as gogovia had preceded alicia so too would this defeat ash durakian be followed by a far greater victory once again shout out to backblaze for sponsoring this video backblaze helps you keep your files safe for just six dollars a month and you can get it via the links in the description more videos in the 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Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 622,072

Keywords: dyrrachium, dyrrhachium, utica, bagradas, caesar, civil, war, 49 bc, roman empire, julius caesar, animated documentary, history lesson, documentary history, ancient history, kings and generals, world history, king and generals, military history, ilerda, massilia, massalia, roman republic, full documentary, history channel, decisive battles, history documentary, animated historical documentary, ancient rome, pompey, caesars civil war, documentary film, roman history, pharsalus, 48 BC

Id: 9pDIeB3bVyU

Length: 28min 3sec (1683 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/RazorSharpRust]

Great video. Kings and Generals, and HistoryMarche are my two favorite history channels on YT. HistoryMarche did an excellent video of this as well, that goes into a few finer points of detail: https://youtu.be/5MCpvGjjQw4