After the Battle of Farsal and the death of Pompey, the province of Africa (now Tunisia) became the gathering place of Caesar's Republican enemies, and so many of them gathered there that the war, which seemed to be over, should have begun again. After the unification of the remnants of the troops defeated at Farsale, with the army of the ruler of Africa Varus, the Republicans now had there fourteen legions, part of them were old soldiers, part - the soldiers recruited again. The king of the neighbouring kingdom of Numidia (now Algeria), Yuba, joined them. Caesar's enemies had numidian and Libyan cavalry, armed in Roman style; in addition, they had 1,600 Celtic and Germanic riders Labien, 120 elephants, a large number of light infantry. The fleet, which was under the command of Var and Octavia, consisted of 55 ships. In Utica and other fortresses large stocks of bread and ammunition were collected. The money for the costs of the war was delivered by voluntary contributions of the optimites, which in Africa, as before in Thessalonica, formed a government council; they admitted the rich horsemen who lived in Africa to it.
With a huge number of troops, the Republicans could easily reflect Caesar's arrival at the end of his stay in Alexandria and Italy to continue the civil war against them to the African coast with a forward detachment of only 3000 infantry men and 150 horsemen. But due to negligence they let him with this small group to go to the African coast near the city of Gadrumet (October 47). Then came to it one by one other detachments departing from Italy as their equipment for the African campaign ran out.
The decision of the Pompeians and Republicans to continue the war with Caesar after the Battle of Farsal was a matter of despair and irreconcilable hatred. They had forgotten to such an extent the demands of the honor of the Roman name that they wanted to conclude an alliance with the Parthians and made excessive concessions to the arrogance of the Numidian king Yuba. They allowed him to take a position equal to that of the Roman generals and even to claim primacy between them. Yuba said that he alone should be given the right to wear the purple robe, and the Roman commanders in Africa should be satisfied with white. The rivalry between them had helped the success of his arrogant claims. Varus and Scipio argued between themselves over who was the commander in chief, and both sought the support of Yuba, who thought of seeking the power of the commander in chief, and in any case agreed to help the Romans only on the condition that he would be given greater benefits and part of the Roman possessions in Africa. The army, which had no trust in either Varus or Scipio, demanded that the power of the commander-in-chief be taken over by Cato the Younger. The preference of the army for him was fair, but he announced that, according to the law, the commander-in-chief should be the eldest of the people who held the rank of consul, and said that the commander-in-chief should be Scipio (son-in-law of Pompey), although he was his personal enemy. During the war against Caesar in Thessaly, Scipio showed himself to be a man of no talent, but the army obeyed the opinion of Cato and consoled itself by the fact that the name of Scipio is a foreshadowing of victory.
But the agreement between the gathered in Africa optimites was not restored by the choice of the commander-in-chief. As before, Pompey, so now Scipio was forced to act violently and recklessly, obeying the vengeance and selfishness of optimism, had to make concessions and ambition Yuba. The misfortunes did not soften, but only increased the hardening of the Pompeians. The optimists continued to act brutally: they killed the messengers who brought them Caesar's letters, and killed the enemy soldiers who had been captured by them. Their military system was brutal: they plundered, devastated, and slaughtered; their vengeance grew with the hope of victory. A model for them was Gnaeus Pompey, the eldest son of the deceased commander, who considered ferocity courage. Their feelings were shared by Hubba, in whom political hardening was combined with the bloodthirstiness of a half-wild African. He offered to burn all the cities that showed sympathy to Caesar, and to kill all the men in them. He advised Scipio to start with Utica, who had previously taken the side of Caesar's supporter, Curio, and now waited only for an opportunity to surrender to Caesar. Scipio, who had already promised to give the Roman treasury a salary to Yuba's army and to give him the province of Africa, was in such a state of daze that he was so weak in character that he was prepared to sacrifice the vengeance of the Numidian king to the first commercial city of the Roman possessions in Africa. But Cato turned this shame away from the Roman name and saved Utica from the ferocity of Yuba, who hated this city, which was famous for its wealth. Cato hardly felt then that he would die in the city he had saved. Utica was placed under his control. He made it the main folding place of military supplies, corrected its fortifications, took care to collect in this fortress as much bread and everything necessary for the war, took precautions against treason of citizens. By order of Scipio, he was unstoppable
