Battle of Munda

The Battle of Munda (17 March 45 BC), in southern Hispania Ulterior, was the final battle of Caesar's civil war. After the destruction of the Optimate army in Africa at Thapsus and the suicide of Cato, resistance regrouped in Spain around the surviving sons of Pompey, Gnaeus and Sextus, together with Titus Labienus, Caesar's ablest former lieutenant. They raised a large army — ancient sources credit thirteen legions — and Caesar, forced to campaign with an under-strength force of eight, found them entrenched on hills near Munda. The battle was the hardest of his career: his left wing buckled under the Pompeian counter-attack, and the outcome hung on the veteran Tenth Legion, which held the flank while Caesar, who had come to the front to shame the wavering line, swung the reserve to roll up the enemy position. Labienus died on the field and Gnaeus Pompeius was captured and killed weeks later; Sextus escaped to keep a private war alive for years. Ancient writers record some 30,000 enemy dead, a figure modern historians distrust. Caesar told friends that at Munda he had fought for his life rather than merely for supremacy. With the victory he returned to Rome, celebrated an extravagant triumph, and within a year was assassinated — leaving Munda as the last pitched battle of the free Republic.