Caesar’s Retreat from Dyrrachium to Thessaly
Pompeius might choose among these plans; no choice was left to Caesar. After that unfortunate engagement he entered on his retreat to Apollonia. Pompeius followed. The march from Dyrrhachium to Apollonia along a difficult road crossed by several rivers was no easy task for a defeated army pursued by the enemy; but the dexterous leadership of their general and the indestructible marching energy of the soldiers compelled Pompeius after four days’ pursuit to suspend it as useless. He had now to decide between the Italian expedition and the march into the interior. However advisable and attractive the former might seem, and though various voices were raised in its favour, he preferred not to abandon the corps of Scipio, the more especially as he hoped by this march to get the corps of Calvinus into his hands. Calvinus lay at the moment on the Egnatian road at Heraclea Lyncestis, between Pompeius and Scipio, and, after Caesar had retreated to Apollonia, farther distant from the latter than from the great army of Pompeius; without knowledge, moreover, of the events at Dyrrhachium and of his hazardous position, since after the successes achieved at Dyrrhachium the whole country inclined to Pompeius and the messengers of Caesar were everywhere seized. It was not till the enemy’s main force had approached within a few hours of him that Calvinus learned from the accounts of the enemy’s advanced posts themselves the state of things. A quick departure in a southerly direction towards Thessaly withdrew him at the last moment from imminent destruction; Pompeius had to content himself with having liberated Scipio from his position of peril. Caesar had meanwhile arrived unmolested at Apollonia. Immediately after the disaster of Dyrrhachium he had resolved if possible to transfer the struggle from the coast away into the interior, with the view of getting beyond the reach of the enemy’s fleet—the