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notice was known, the chief men of Gades agreed with the tribunes of the cohorts, which were then in garrison, to expel Gallonius from the town and keep the city and island for Caesar. Having come to this resolution they warned Gallonius to quit Gades, while he could do so without risk; and if he did not go, they told him that they would look after their own interests. Gallonius yielded to these threats and left Gades. When this news was generally known, one of Varro's two legions, named Vernacula, a legion raised in the province, quitted Varro's camp in the sight of the governor, moved off in military order to Hispalis, and planted themselves in the Forum and the colonnades without doing any harm. Their behaviour pleased so much the Roman citizens of that place that they received the men in their houses most readily and entertained them. Varro was so much frightened by these events that turning round and changing his march in the direction of Italica, he sent notice that he was coming, but he soon learned that the gates were closed and he would not be received. Being now stopped in all directions Varro sent to tell Caesar that he was ready to deliver his remaining legion to any person whom Caesar would name. Caesar sent his kinsman Sextus Caesar, the grandson of Caesar's uncle, Sextus Julius Caesar, consul B.C. 91. When the legion was surrendered, Varro came to Caesar, who was at Corduba: he made a faithful report of the public accounts, delivered up all the money in his possession, and stated what supplies of food he had and what ships.

Caesar held a public meeting at Corduba in which he thanked all classes of people: the Roman citizens, for the zeal which they had shown in keeping possession of the town; the Spaniards of Carmona, for expelling the garrison; the Gaditani, for frustrating the designs of his enemies and asserting their independence; and the tribunes and centurions, who had gone there as a garrison, for supporting the resolutions of the Gaditani by their courage. He remitted the sums of money which the Roman citizens had promised Varro for the public service: he restored their property to those who had been deprived of it for speaking freely. He

2 Vol. i. p. 9.

rewarded some communities and private persons, gave the rest good hope for the future, and after a stay of two days at Corduba he went to Gades, where he ordered the money and decorations, which had been removed from Hercules' temple into a private house, to be placed again in the temple. He set Q. Cassius Longinus over the province with four legions. When the Spanish provinces in B.C. 55 were given to Pompeius by the Lex Trebonia, he sent there in the next year as his quaestor Q. Cassius, who plundered the people. Dion (41. c. 24) says that Caesar left Cassius in Spain because he had become acquainted with the Spaniards during his quaestorship; but his behaviour at that time, which we may assume that Caesar knew, would have been a good reason for not leaving him in Spain. However Caesar could not well avoid employing those who had served him, even if he knew that they were not worthy of his confidence. Caesar set sail in the vessels which Varro and the Gaditani by his order had built, and arrived in a few days at Tarragona, where embassies from nearly every part of the Nearer province were waiting for his arrival. Here also he conferred rewards on certain individuals and communities. Tarragona was one of the towns which had declared for Caesar before the surrender of Afranius. He marched from Tarragona through Narbonne to Marseille, and there he received intelligence of a law being enacted at Rome for the appointment of a dictator, and that he had been declared dictator by the praetor M. Aemilius Lepidus.3

3 Lepidus was governor of Hispania Citerior in B.C. 48. Chapter xxi.

CHAPTER VII.

CURIO IN AFRICA.

B.C. 49.

THE history of Curio's expedition is told by Caesar at the end of the second book of the Civil War (cc. 23-44) and after the siege of Marseille. Curio was directed by Caesar (B. C. i. 32) to take his army over the sea to the province Africa as soon as he had got possession of Sicily. It was Caesar's purpose after securing Sicily, which supplied Rome with grain, to prevent his enemies from stopping the corn trade with Africa (the Regency of Tunis), for the Pompeian party, as it has been stated (p. 10), threatened to starve Rome. When Curio sailed, he took only two of the four legions which he received from Caesar; for from the first, as Caesar says, he despised the two legions which P. Attius Varus had raised in Africa (p. 36). Curio took also five hundred horsemen and after a voyage of two days and three nights from Sicily he landed at Aquilaria, about twenty-two miles from Clupea otherwise named Aspis (Kalibia). Aquilaria had a roadstead for ships which was convenient enough in summer, and was in a large bay bounded on the east and west by two promontories, the eastern that of Mercurius now Cape Bon, and the western that of Apollo now Cape Zebib.' L. Caesar, the son, who has been mentioned in the first book of the Civil War, the man who

1 There is a French map of the Regency of Tunis by E. Pellissier, Membre de la Commission Scientifique d'Algérie. He places Aquilaria at the small inlet named Tonnara, about a dozen miles south-west of Cape Bon. The distance between Tonnara and Kalibia corresponds very well with the distance between Aquilaria and Clupea.

was sent by Pompeius on a mission to Caesar, was waiting for Curio at Clupea with ten ships of war. Clupea, where there are some remains of the old Roman port, is on the east coast of the Regency of Tunis, and about twenty miles south of Cape Bon. These ten ships had been laid up at Utica after the end of the war with the pirates (B. C. 67) and were refitted for the present occasion by P. Attius Varus. L. Caesar being afraid of Curio's numerous fleet fled from the open sea, where he had been cruising, and running his decked galley on the nearest shore left it there and made his escape to Adrumetum (Soussa, near the southern part of the Bay of Hammamet). C. Considius Longus with one legion was stationed at Adrumetum to protect the place. The rest of L. Caesar's ships followed him to Adrumetum. The quaestor Marcius Rufus with twelve ships, which Curio had brought from Sicily to protect his transports, pursued L. Caesar when his ships left the open sea, but when he saw the vessel which had been run ashore, he towed it off and returned to Curio.

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Curio sent forward Marcius with his ships to Utica, while he marched in the same direction with his army, and in two days reached the river Bagradas (Mejerda). There he left with the legions the legatus C. Caninius Rebilus, who had served under Caesar in Gallia, and went forward himself with the cavalry to examine the Castra Cornelia or Corneliana, for this place was supposed to be very suitable for a camp. It is described by Caesar as a steep eminence projecting into the sea, abrupt and rough on both sides, but with the slope a little easier on the side turned towards Utica, from which it is distant in a direct line a little more than a Roman mile. But in

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2 Curio landed in the great bay, now the Gulf of Tunis, and at a place twentytwo miles from Clupea, the position of which is known. He could not march to the Bagradas in two days. The Bagradas is the largest river in North Africa west of Egypt. It rises in the Algerian province of Constantina, enters the Regency of Tunis north-west of Kef, and from this point it has a general direction from south-west to north-east. The river now flows into the Gulf of Tunis a short distance south of the Lake Ghar-el-Melah, on which is the small town of Ghar-el-Melah, named by Europeans Porto-Farina, and famed in the times of Barbary piracy. The Mejerda is not navigable in any part in consequence of the inequality of the depth of water. Pellissier, La Régence de Tunis, chap. ii.

3 The position of Castra Corneliana is also described by Livy (29. c. 35) as a promontory running some distance out to sea and connected with the mainland VOL. V.

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this distance there is a spring, and at this part the sea comes up some distance into the land and all the ground thereabouts is made a marsh, which if a man would avoid, he must make a circuit of six miles to reach the town.

The Bagradas has certainly changed its direction in the lower part of the course since Caesar's time, and it is conjectured that Utica, which was then on the sea, is now represented by some ruins which are seven miles from the sea at a place which Shaw names Boo-shatter (Bou-Chater in the French map). Shaw supposes that the river has forced a way through the swamp between Utica and the Castra Corneliana, which he supposes to be Gellah, two leagues east of Booshatter. Gellah is "the most northern and rugged part of that remarkable promontory, where P. Cornelius Scipio may be supposed to have fixed his winter quarters, called thence the Castra Cornelia or Corneliana." If Shaw's view is correct, the remains of Utica and the Castra, which are now separated by the Mejerda, were on the same side of the river in Caesar's time, and on the west side.

After exploring the Castra, Curio observed that the camp of Varus was close to the wall and the town of Utica at the gate named "warlike," and was very strongly defended by posi

by a narrow ridge. The passage in Caesar is obscure; perhaps there is some error. He seems to mean this: in the direct line from the hill slope to Utica there was a spring, and the sea came up as far as this direct line. The spring which therefore was close to the sea formed a marsh which touched the sea and spread inland some miles. Guischardt has given I think the correct sense: "Il y a un peu plus de mille pas en droiture de cet endroit à Utique: mais on trouve sur cette route une fontaine, jusques à laquelle la mer s'avance, ce qui fait que toute cette contrée forme un vaste lac." "Quod mare succedit longius, lateque is locus. restagnat," appears to be the best MSS. reading. Oudendorp.

4 Shaw's Travels in Barbary, second edition, 1757. Shaw's Gellah is the Kalat-el-oued of the French map, and of Pellissier's Description de Tunis, p. 223. Pellissier does not say how far Bou-Chater is from the sea: he only observes that it is "at a considerable distance." No inscription has yet been found at BouChater. There are on this site ancient cisterns, remains of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre hollowed in the hill of Bou-Chater, and traces of a theatre which was constructed on the prolongation of the greater axis of the amphitheatre.

5 So in the editions, but " Bellicam " is some proper name probably, and corrupted. Freinsheim (ad Curtium, iii. 3. 16) suggests that it was the gate of Belus.

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