Book 1
25
Having given these instructions, he arrives at Brundisium with six legions, three veteran, and the rest consisting of those which he had formed from a new levy and raised to their full complement on his march, for he had sent the Domitian cohorts straight off from Corfinium to Sicily. He finds out that the consuls had gone to Dyrrachium with a great part of the army, and that Pompeius was remaining at Brundisium with twenty cohorts, nor could it be ascertained for certain whether he had remained there for the sake of holding Brundisium, in order that he might more easily control the whole Adriatic from the extremities of Italy and the shores of Greece and so carry on war from either side, or whether he had halted there from lack of ships; and fearing lest Pompeius should think that he ought not to abandon Italy, he determined to block the exits and stop the working of the harbour of Brundisium. The following was the method of his operations. Where the mouth of the harbour was narrowest he threw out piers and a dam from the shore on each side because the sea was shallow there. As he proceeded further out, since the mole could not hold together where the water was deeper, he placed two rafts thirty feet square over against the end of the breakwater. He fastened these by four anchors, one at each of the four angles, to prevent them being shifted by the waves. When they were finished and placed in position he attached in order other rafts of a like size. These he covered with soil and a raised causeway that there might be no obstacle in the way of approach or ingress for the purpose of defence. In front and on each side he protected them with fascines and screens; on every fourth raft he ran up towers of two stories that he might thus more conveniently defend them from an attack by ships and from fire.
