Mobilizing the Alexandrian war · 亚历山大里亚战事的动员
reported-in-source
The Alexandrian War opens with fleets, archers, cavalry, artillery, grain and auxiliary forces being summoned from several regions.
Evidence limit: This is the continuation’s account of mobilization, not a complete supply ledger; its narrator must not be identified securely as Caesar.
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[Pseudo-]Caesar: Alexandrian, African and Spanish Wars. Way, A. G., translator. William Heinemann Ltd.: London; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1955 (printing).
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WHEN the Alexandrian war flared up, Caesar summoned every fleet from Rhodes and Syria and Cilicia: from Crete he raised archers, and cavalry from Malchus, king of the Nabataeans, and ordered artillery to be procured, corn despatched, and auxiliary troops mustered from every quarter. Meanwhile the entrenchments were daily extended by additional works, and all those sectors of the town which appeared to be not strong enough were provided with shelters and mantlets; battering-rams, moreover, were introduced from one building into the next through holes, and the entrenchments were extended to cover all the ground laid bare by demolitions or gained by force of arms. For Alexandria is well-nigh fire-proof, because its buildings contain no wooden joinery and are held together by an arched construction and are roofed with rough-cast or tiling. Caesar was particularly anxious that, by bringing to bear his siege-works and pent-houses, he should isolate from the rest of the city that narrowest part of the town which was most constricted by the barrier of marshland lying to the south: his object being first that, since his army was divided between two sectors of the city, it should be controlled by a single strategy and command secondly, that if they got into difficulties in one sector of the town, assistance and support could be brought from the other sector. But above all his object was to secure himself abundance of water and fodder: of which, as regards the former, he had but a scanty supply, and, as regards the latter, no stocks whatever and the marshland could afford him bountiful supplies of both.
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Not indeed that this occasioned any hesitation or delay on the part of the Alexandrians in concerting their measures. They had in fact despatched emissaries and recruiting officers throughout the entire length and breadth of the territory and kingdom of Egypt for the purpose of holding a levy, and had conveyed into the town a large quantity of weapons and artillery and mustered a countless host. In the city too, no less, vast arms factories had been established. They had, moreover, armed the adult slaves, and these the wealthier owners furnished with their daily food and pay. This numerous force they deployed to guard the fortifications of outlying areas; while they kept their veteran cohorts unemployed in the most frequented quarters of the city so that, no matter in what district fighting occurred, they could be thrown in as fresh and lusty reinforcements. All the streets and alleys were walled off by a triple barricade, built of rectangular stone blocks and not less than forty feet high while as for the lower quarters of the city, these were fortified with very lofty towers, each ten stories high. Besides these there were other towers which they had contrived—mobile ones of the like number of stories: and these, being mounted on wheels with ropes and drought animals attached, they moved along the level streets to any area they saw fit.
Jan Felix Gaertner, “The Corpus Caesarianum,” in Luca Grillo and Christopher B. Krebs (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar (2018), pp. 263–264. Publisher record