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Updated: June 23, 2025
LVI. Whilst these affairs are going forward at Ilerda, the Massilians, adopting the advice of Domitius, prepared seventeen ships of war, of which eleven were decked.
Caesar felt himself now strong enough to give battle; but Pompeius declined it. On the other hand Caesar succeeded in deceiving his adversary and throwing himself unawares with his better marching troops, just as at Ilerda, between the enemy's camp and the fortress of Dyrrhachium on which it rested as a basis.
Under the walls of the town the struggle was maintained with equal exasperation and equal valour on both sides, and with frequent alternations of success; but the Caesarians did not attain their object which was, to establish themselves between the Pompeian camp and the town and thereby to possess themselves of the stone bridge and they consequently remained dependent for their communication with Gaul solely on two bridges which they had hastily constructed over the Sicoris, and that indeed, as the river at Ilerda itself was too considerable to be bridged over, about eighteen or twenty miles farther up.
Caesar speaks of him as acting coolly in Pompey's interest until the successes of Afranius at Ilerda roused him to more vigorous measures; but the triumph of the Pompeians was shortlived; and when Caesar convened the delegates at Corduba, Varro found himself shut out from all the fortified towns, and in danger of being deserted by his army.
It was high time. If the narrow plain, which separated the town of Ilerda from the mountains enclosing the Ebro were once traversed and the army of the Pompeians entered the mountains, their retreat to the Ebro could no longer be prevented.
V. The Struggle of Parties during the Absence of Pompeius VI. Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders VII. The Subjugation of the West VIII. The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar IX. Death of Crassus Rupture between the Joint Rulers X. Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus XI. The Old Republic and the New Monarchy XII. Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art
Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry set out, that by a movement through the pathless mountains alongside of the road they might turn the position of the enemy and bar their route to the Ebro. The object of the strange march, which seemed at first to turn back towards the camp before Ilerda, was not at once perceived by the Pompeian officers.
Completely convinced that after the days of Ilerda and Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable, and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth and to act in accordance with it, he hesitated for a moment whether the constitutional party ought at all to continue a war, which would necessarily require sacrifices for a lost cause on the part of many who did not know why they offered them.
Eastern Spain was wrested from the Sertorians in consequence of the battles on the Xucar and Guadalaviar; the struggle thenceforth became concentrated on the upper and middle Ebro around the chief strongholds of the Sertorians Calagurris, Osca, Ilerda. As Metellus had done best in the earlier campaigns, so too on this occasion he gained the most important successes.
In Further Spain, where Marcus Varro held the chief command for Pompeius, it seemed to him, when he learned the disaster of Ilerda, most advisable that he should throw himself into the insular town of Gades and should carry thither for safety the considerable sums which he had collected by confiscating the treasures of the temples and the property of prominent Caesarians, the not inconsiderable fleet which he had raised, and the two legions entrusted to him.
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