Philippi
About
Mark Antony and Octavian fought Caesar's assassins Brutus and Cassius in two engagements three weeks apart on the plain west of Philippi. Cassius, wrongly believing the battle lost, took his own life; Brutus followed after the second defeat. The Liberators' cause died with them, clearing the way for the Second Triumvirate to carve up the Roman world. Tens of thousands of veterans were later resettled at the city as a reward.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
In ancient writing
- Appian, Civil Wars 4.105–138
Two engagements three weeks apart on the marshy plain, and the deaths of Cassius and Brutus, each after mistaking how his own wing had fared.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →