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.

Gaius Scribonius Curio was decisively defeated by the Pompeians under Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia. One of Curio's legates, Gnaeus Domitius, rode up to Curio with a handful of men, and urged him to flee and make it back to the camp. Curio queried how he could ever look Caesar in the face after he had lost him his army, and turning to face the oncoming Numidians, fought on until he was killed. Only a few soldiers managed to escape the bloodbath that followed, while the three hundred cavalry that had not followed Curio into battle returned to the camp at Castra Cornelia, bearing the bad news.