We have two main sources for this campaign, Caesar's "Civil War" (De Bella Civili) and Appian's (Appianos) Bella Civila (The Civil War). Plutarch in his "Life of Caesar" gives some information but it is clearly drawn from Caesar. Dio also mentions the campaign in books 40-41 of his "Roman History" but uses Caesar's CW as his source.
BACKGROUND
As the civil struggle between C. Julius Caesar and Gn. Pompeius Magnus, deepened, Caesar sent his trusted Legate Gaius Scribonius Curio, to Sicily to maintain the grain shipments to Rome "...with four legiones (BC 11-44). Once Sicily was secured for Caesar, Gn. Curio prepared to carry the war over to Africa to defeat the Pompeian Lt,. P. Attius Varus. As his intelligence informed him that Attius had very inferior forces, Curio decided to leave his two better legiones in Sicily as a garrison, and shipped over his horse and two legiones.
"He was transporting only two of the four legiones which he had received from Caesar and five hundred cavalry. After spending two days and three nights on the voyage he put in at the place called Anquillaria. This is about twenty-two miles from Clupea; it has fairly good anchorage in summer and is contained between two projecting headlands." (CW 11 23.1.) Once there he brushed aside the small naval force sent by Atticus disembarked, and sent his quaestor Marcius Rufus with his warships to secure Utica.
More Curio in Africa 49 BCE
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