Battle of The Bagradas River (49 BC) - Background

Background

Engaged in a civil war with the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and a hostile group of Republican senators, in 49 BC Julius Caesar sent a force to North Africa under the command of Gaius Scribonius Curio to deal with the Pompeian forces there. Overconfident and holding the usurping governor of Africa, Publius Attius Varus, in low esteem, Curio took fewer of his legions than were available to him, leaving two behind in Sicily. After getting the better of Varus’s Numidian allies in a number of skirmishes, he defeated Varus at the Battle of Utica, who fled into the town of Utica. In the confusion of the battle, Curio was urged to take the town before Varus could regroup, but he held himself back, as he did not have the means at hand to undertake an assault of the town. The next day however, he began to form a contravallation of Utica, with the intent of starving the town into submission. Varus was approached by the leading citizens of the town, who begged him to surrender and spare the town the horrors of a siege. Varus, however, had just learned that King Juba was on his way with a large force, and so reassured them that with Juba’s assistance, Curio would soon be defeated. Curio, also hearing that Juba’s army was less than 23 miles from Utica, abandoned the siege, making his way to his base on the Castra Cornelia.