Beyond the Boundaries of Fantasia: An ancient imagining of the future of leadership

Caesar the military psychologist

"Pompey seems to have done this [leave his line defensively immobile] irrationally, because there is a certain ardor and enthusiasm, naturally born in everyone, that is inflamed by eagerness for battle. Military commanders ought, not to suppress, but to increase this ardor. Not without reason was it established in the old days that the standards should signal in all directions, and that everyone should raise the battle-cry together. The old ones thought that these things would terrify our enemies and inflame their own men."

Quod nobis quidem nulla ratione factum a Pompeio videtur, propterea quod est quaedam animi incitatio atque alacritas naturaliter innata omnibus, quae studio pugnae incenditur; hanc non reprimere, sed augere imperatores debent; neque frustra antiquitus institutum est, ut signa undique concinerent clamoremque universi tollerent; quibus rebus et hostes terreri et suos incitari existimaverunt.

- Julius Caesar, Civil War 3.92


So, in Caesar's own words, began the final battle in the great civil war between Caesar and his rival Pompey. The fight was the culmination of a bloody civil war, a half-century after another bloody civil war, driven by competition for dominance in a city that had already dominated the Mediterranean for more than a century. The result of this battle, along with the sequelae (Caesar's reign and assassination, followed by yet another war, this time between his adopted son and his greatest general, and the final consolidation of power under the victor, later called Augustus) put the final nail in the long-building coffin of the Roman republic.

This passage from Caesar's Commentarii de bello civili encapsulates two issues we'll discuss throughout this module:
  1. Pompey's position is tactically well-reasoned, but does not factor in the 'natural' psychology of the warrior.
  2. The text is written by Caesar himself, and Caesar intended the Senate to read it.
Caesar wins the battle spectacularly, of course, and Pompey is forced to run for his life. But Caesar injects his explanation of why he wins the battle before the battle even begins; and Pompey's fundamental mistake, in Caesar's version of events, is that Pompey failed to fan the flames of battle-fire in the hearts of his men. Pompey (says Caesar) is a good tactical thinker but a poor military psychologist.

As we'll see in other passages from Caesar's own battle-narratives, Caesar claims to be a successful leader in great part because the Caesar that won the heart of the Egyptian queen also marshaled the hearts of the soldiers in his army. And of course Caesar is a brilliant tactician; but even more importantly, and even with respect to the features of his leadership that allow him to execute tactically, Caesar is a keen military psychologist.

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