Battle of Thapsus (46 BC): Caesar's Victory in North Africa

The Battle of Thapsus was fought on 6 April 46 BC near the coastal town of Thapsus, in present-day Tunisia, between Julius Caesar and the Pompeian army of Metellus Scipio and King Juba I of Numidia. Caesar’s victory destroyed the largest force still opposing him after Pharsalus. It was followed by the deaths of most of the Pompeian leaders in Africa, including Cato the Younger at Utica.

Background: the war moves to Africa

After Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus in 48 BC and his murder in Egypt, his surviving supporters gathered in the Roman province of Africa, roughly modern northern Tunisia. Their commander was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Scipio, Pompey’s father-in-law, joined by Titus Labienus, Lucius Afranius, Marcus Petreius and Cato the Younger, who held the port city of Utica.

They had a powerful ally in Juba I, king of Numidia, who had destroyed a Caesarian army under Curio near the river Bagradas in 49 BC. Juba brought cavalry, light troops and war elephants. While Caesar was occupied in Egypt and then at the Battle of Zela in Asia Minor, the Pompeians built up a large army.

Caesar’s landing and the campaign

Caesar sailed from Sicily at the end of 47 BC by the Roman calendar and landed near Hadrumetum (Sousse) with only a small part of his forces, as storms had scattered his fleet. He set up a base at Ruspina. On 4 January 46 BC, Labienus and Petreius almost surrounded his troops on the plain near Ruspina, and Caesar escaped defeat only with difficulty.

For the next three months Caesar waited for reinforcements and supplies, avoided a pitched battle on bad terms and drew local towns to his side. His allies in the west, King Bocchus II of Mauretania and the Roman adventurer Publius Sittius, invaded Numidia and forced Juba to divide his attention.

Early in April Caesar marched on Thapsus, a Pompeian town on a narrow strip of land between the sea and a salt lagoon, and began to besiege it. Scipio could not let the town fall and moved to relieve it, with Juba and Afranius camped nearby.

The battle

On 6 April Scipio drew up his army in front of the town, with war elephants on both wings. Caesar placed archers and slingers opposite the elephants and reinforced his flanks with veteran cohorts. According to the African War, Caesar’s soldiers were so eager to fight that a trumpeter on the right wing sounded the attack before Caesar gave the order, and the whole line followed.

The archers and slingers showered the elephants with missiles. Terrified, many of the animals turned and stampeded through their own troops. The Fifth Legion, known as the Alaudae, stood firm against the elephants, and according to later tradition it took the elephant as its emblem in memory of the battle.

The Pompeian line collapsed. Its soldiers fled to their camps, which were stormed one after another. Many tried to surrender, but Caesar’s veterans, exhausted by years of civil war, killed large numbers of them despite the pleas of their own officers. Plutarch reports a story that Caesar suffered an epileptic seizure during the battle, but he notes that others said Caesar was present throughout.

The African War gives about 10,000 Pompeian dead against roughly 50 of Caesar’s men, while Plutarch gives 50,000 enemy dead. Both figures are probably exaggerated and should be treated with caution.

Cato and the end of the Pompeian leaders

News of the defeat reached Utica within days. Cato, who had no army capable of resistance, organised ships for senators and others who wished to flee. He refused to ask for Caesar’s pardon, which he regarded as accepting the authority of a tyrant. In April 46 BC, after spending the evening reading Plato’s dialogue on the immortality of the soul, according to Plutarch, he took his own life.

The other leaders met similar ends. Juba and Petreius, refused entry by the Numidian town of Zama, died in a suicide pact. Scipio’s ships were intercepted near Hippo Regius and he killed himself. Afranius and Faustus Sulla, son of the dictator, were captured and killed. Labienus and Pompey’s sons Gnaeus and Sextus escaped to Spain.

Consequences

Juba’s kingdom was annexed as a new Roman province, Africa Nova, and the historian Sallust became its first governor. Caesar returned to Rome, where he was named dictator for ten years and in 46 BC celebrated four triumphs, over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus and Africa. In the same year he carried out his reform of the calendar that produced the Julian calendar.

The war was not yet over. The survivors raised a new army in Spain, and Caesar had to defeat them one last time at the Battle of Munda in March 45 BC.

Timeline

• 49 BC: Juba I destroys Curio’s Caesarian army near the Bagradas river.
• 47 BC, late December: Caesar lands near Hadrumetum.
• 46 BC, 4 January: Caesar narrowly escapes defeat at Ruspina.
• 46 BC, 6 April: Caesar defeats Scipio and Juba at Thapsus.
• 46 BC, April: Cato takes his own life at Utica; Juba and Petreius die near Zama.
• 46 BC, summer: Caesar celebrates four triumphs in Rome.

Why it matters

Thapsus broke the main Pompeian resistance and removed Cato, the most principled voice of Caesar’s opponents. Cato’s death turned him into a lasting symbol of republican liberty, while Caesar’s victory confirmed his control of Rome and the western Mediterranean.