furnished him with more than three hundred cohorts, divided into thirty
legions. To give the necessary credit and authority to his faction, he
recalled the two Marii and the other exiles.” (Velleius Paterculus, II.
20.)
[709] _Quod parcius telum recepisset._ This expression appears to be
borrowed from the combats of gladiators, which derived their origin from
similar human sacrifices performed at the funerals. (See Cicero, _Speech
for Roscius Amerinus_, 12.--Valerius Maximus, IX. xi. 2.)
[710] Plutarch, _Sylla_, 6.
[711] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 77.
[712] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 79.
[713] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[714] Velleius Paterculus, II. 27. The Samnites thus designated the
Romans, in allusion to the wolf, the nurse of the founder of Rome. A
Samnite medal represents the bull, the symbol of Italy, throwing the
wolf to the ground. It bears the name of C. Papius Mutilus, with the
title _Embratur_, [Illustration: symbols], an Oscan word corresponding
to the Latin _imperator_.
[715] “Thus terminated two most disastrous wars: the _Italic_, called
also the _Social War_, and the _Civil War_; they had lasted together ten
years; they had mown down more than a hundred and fifty thousand men, of
whom twenty-four had been consuls, seven prætors, sixty ediles, and
nearly two hundred senators.” (Eutropius, V. 6.)
[716] “Sylla fomented these disorders by loading his troops with
largesses and profusions without bounds, in order to corrupt and draw to
him the soldiers of the opposite parties.” (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 16.)
[717] Dio Cassius (XXXIV. cxxxvi. § 1) gives the number as 8,000; Appian
as 3,000. Valerius Maximus speaks of three legions (IX. 2, § 1).
[718] “A great number of allies and Latins were deprived by one man of
the right of city, which had been given to them for their numerous and
honourable services.” (_Speech of Lepidus_, Sallust, _Fragm._, I.
5.)--“We have seen the Roman people, at the proposal of the dictator
Sylla, take, in the comitia of centuries, the right of city from several
municipal towns; we have seen it also depriving them of the lands they
possessed.... As to the right of city, the interdiction did not last
even so long as the military despotism of the dictator.” (Cicero,
_Speech for his House_, 30.)
[719] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.--Velleius Paterculus, II. 28.
[720] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 95.
[721] Strabo, V. iv. 207.
[722] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137, § 1.
[723] Dio Cassius, XXXIV. 137.
[724] Valerius Maximus, IX. ii. 1.
[725] Plutarch, _Cato of Utica_, 21.
[726] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 96.--Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[727] Appian, I. 100.--Velleius Paterculus, II. 31.--The _auxilium_ was
the protection accorded by the tribune of the people to whoever claimed
it.
[728] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100 _et seq._
[729] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. (See, on an inscription raised by the
freedmen in honour of the dictator, and which has been discovered in
Italy, Mommsen, _Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168.)
[730] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[731] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100.
[732] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 100.--In 574, the age required for the
different magistracies had already been fixed. (Titus Livius, XL. 44.)
[733] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 101.--Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.
[734] Aulus Gellius, II. 24.
[735] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, III. 6, 8, 10.
[736] Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.--Tacitus, _Annals_, XI.
22.--Aurelius Victor, _Illustrious Men_, lxxv.
[737] Cicero, _De Oratore_, II. 39.--“A law which, among the ancients,
embraced different objects: treasons in the army, seditions at Rome,
diminution of the majesty of the Roman people by the bad administration
of a magistrate.” (Tacitus, _Annals_, I. 72.)
[738] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 104.
[739] He waited the death of the dictator to rob the treasury of a sum
which he owed to the State. (Plutarch, _Sylla_, 46.)
[740] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 106.
[741] Sylla had taken the name of _Fortunate_ (_Felix_). (Mommsen,
_Inscriptiones Latinæ Antiquissimæ_, p. 168), or of _Faustus_, according
to Velleius Paterculus.
[742] “It cannot be denied that Sylla had then the power of a king,
although he had restored the Republic.” (Cicero, _Speech on the Report
of the Aruspices_, 25.)
[743] The celebrated German author, Mommsen (_Roman History_, III. 15),
does not admit this date of 654. He proposes, under correction, the date
of 652, for the reason that the ages required for the higher offices of
State, since Sylla’s time, were thirty-seven for the edileship, forty
for the prætorship, forty-three for the consulship, and as Cæsar was
_curule ædile_ in 689, prætor in 692, consul in 695, he would, had he
been born in 654, have filled each of these offices two years before the
legal age.
This objection, certainly of some force, is dispelled by other
historical testimony. Besides, we know that at Rome they did not always
observe the laws when dealing with eminent men. Lucullus was raised to
be chief magistrate before the required age, and Pompey was consul at
thirty-four. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. 14.)--Tacitus speaks on this
matter thus: “With our ancestors this magistracy (the questorship) was
the prize of merit only, for every citizen of ability had then the right
to aim at these honours; _even age was so little regarded, that extreme
youth did not exclude from either the consulship or the dictatorship_.”
(_Annals_, XI. 22.)--In any case, if the opinion of M. Mommsen be
adopted, the birth of Cæsar must be referred to 651, not 652. For, if he
was born in the month of July, 652, he could only be forty-three years
of age in the month of July, 695; and as the nomination of the consuls
preceded by six months their entering into office, it would be in the
month of July, 694, when he would have attained the legal age, which
would bring the date of his birth to the year 651. But Plutarch
(_Cæsar_, 69), Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 88), and Appian (_Civil Wars_, II.
149) all agree in saying that Cæsar was fifty-six when he was
assassinated on the 15th of March, 710, which fixes his birth in the
year 654. On the other hand, according to Velleius Paterculus (II. 43),
Cæsar was appointed flamen of Jupiter by Marius and Cinna when scarcely
out of infancy, and at Rome infancy ended at about fourteen; and the
consulship of Marius and Cinna being in 668, Cæsar, according to our
calculation, would then, in fact, have entered on his fourteenth year.
The same author adds that he was about eighteen in 672, when he left
Rome to escape the proscriptions of Sylla, a new reason for retaining
the preceding date.
Cæsar made his first campaign in Asia, at the taking of Mitylene, in 674
(Titus Livius, _Epitome_, LXXXIX.), which makes him twenty at the date
of his entrance into the service. According to Sallust (_Catilina_, 49),
when Cæsar was nominated grand pontiff in competition with Catulus, he
was almost a youth (_adolescentulus_); and Dio Cassius says the same, in
nearly the same terms. Doubtless they expressed themselves thus because
of the great disproportion in the age of the two candidates. The
expression of these authors, although unfitting, nevertheless agrees
better with our reckoning, which ascribes thirty-seven years of age to
Cæsar, than to the other, which gives him thirty-nine. Tacitus also, as
we shall see in a note to a subsequent page, when speaking of the
accusation against Dolabella, tends to make Cæsar too young rather than
too old.
[744] The family of the _Julii_ was very ancient, and we find personages
bearing this name from the third century of Rome. The first of whom
history makes mention was C. Julius Julus, consul in 265. There were
other consuls of the same family in 272, 281, 307, 324; consular
tribunes in 330, 351, 362, 367; and a dictator, C. Julius Julus, in 402;
but their filiation is little known. The genealogy of Cæsar begins in a
direct line only from Sextus Julius Cæsar, prætor in 546. We borrow the
genealogy of the family of the Julii from the _History of Rome by
Families_, by the learned professor W. Drumann (Vol. III., page 120;
Kœnigsberg, 1837), introducing one variation only, explained in Note (4)
of page 290.
Sex. Jul. Cæsar, L. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 546. |
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
prætor, 571. trib. mil., 573.
|
+-------------------------------+
| |
L. J. Cæsar, Sex. J. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 588. Cos., 597. |
| |
+----------------+ |
| | |
Sex. J. Cæsar, L. J. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar.
prætor, 631. --Popillia. Marcia.
| |
+----------------+ +----------------------------------+
| | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, C. Jul. Cæsar. C. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos., 664. Strabo. prætor. --C. Marius Cos., 663.
Censor. ædil. cur., 664. --Aurelia. |
--Fulvia. | |
| | |
+-------------+ +------------------------------+ |
| | | | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar, Julia. C. JUL. CÆSAR, Julia, maj. Julia, min. Sex. Jul. Cæsar,
Cos., 690. --M. Antonius. Dictator. --L. Pinarius. M. A. Balbus. flam. Quirin.
| --P. Lentulus. --Cornelia.--+ --Q. Pedius. | |
| | | |
| | | |
L. Jul. Cæsar. Julia Atia Sex. Julius Cæsar.
--708. --Cn. Pomp. Mag. (moth. of Augustus). --708.
|
|
--Cn. Pompeius.
--Pompeia.
--Calpurnia.
The opinion most accredited with the ancients, on the origin of the name
of Cæsar, was that Julius slew an elephant in a fight. In the Punic
tongue _cæsar_ signifies “an elephant.” The medals of Cæsar, as grand
pontiff, confirm this hypothesis; on the reverse is an elephant crushing
a serpent beneath its feet. (Cohen, _Consular Medals_, plate xx.
10.)--We know that some symbols on the Roman medals are a species of
canting heraldry. Pliny gives another etymology of the name of Cæsar:
“Primusque Cæsarum a cæso matris utero dictus, qua de causa et _Cæsones_
appellati.” (_Natural History_, VII. 9.)--Festus (p. 57) thus expresses
himself: “_Cæsar_ a _cæsarie_ dictus est; qui scilicet cum cæsarie natus
est;” and page 45: “_Cæsariati_ (comati).”--Finally, Spartianus (_Life
of Ælius Verus_, ii.) sums up in these words the greater part of the
etymologies: “_Cæsorem_ vel ab elephante (qui lingua Mauroram _cæsar_
dicitur) in prœlio cæso, cum qui primus sic appellatus est, doctissimi
et eruditissimi viri putant dictum; vel quia mortua matre, ventre cæso
sit natus; vel quod cum magnis crinibus sit utero parentis effusus; vel
quod oculis cæsiis et ultra humanum morem viguerit.” (See Isidore,
_Origines_, IX. iii. 12.--Servius, _Commentary on the Æneid_, I. 290,
and Constantine Manasses, p. 71.)
[745] Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 53.--“Cæsar was in his sixteenth
year when he lost his father.” (Suetonius, I.)
[746] “He sprang from the noble family of the _Julii_, and, according to
an opinion long believed in, he derived his origin from Venus and
Anchises.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.)
[747] In fact, the _gens_ Marcia, one of the most illustrious patrician
families in Rome, reckoned among its ancestors Numa Marcius, who married
Pompilia, the daughter of Numa Pompilius, by whom he had Ancus Marcius,
who was King of Rome after the death of Tullus Hostilius. (Plutarch,
_Coriolanus_, I; _Numa_, 26.)
[748] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, vi. This passage, as generally translated, is
unintelligible, because the translators render the words Martii Reges by
_the Kings Martius_, instead of the family of Marcius Rex.
[749] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[750] “So Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; Aurelia, mother of Cæsar;
Atia, mother of Augustus, all presided over the education of their
children, we are told, and made them into great men.” (Tacitus,
_Dialogue concerning Orators_, 28.)
[751] “Ingenii magni, memoriæ singularis, nec minus Græce quam Latine
doctus.” (Suetonius, _On Illustrious Grammarians_, 7.)
[752] “A sermone Græco puerum incipere malo.” (Quintilian, _Institution
of Oratory_, I. i.)
[753] Claudius, addressing a foreigner who spoke Greek and Latin, said,
“Since thou possessest our two languages.” (Suetonius, _Claudius_, 42.)
[754] Καἱ σὑ, τἑκνον! (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 82.)
[755] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 56.
[756] “Still quite young, he seems to have attached himself to the kind
of eloquence adopted by Strabo Cæsar, and he has even given, in his
_Divination_, several passages, word for word, of the discourse of this
orator for the Sardinians.” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 55.)
[757] Aulus Gellius, IV. 16.
[758] “For Cæsar and Brutus have also made verses, and have placed them
in the public libraries. Poets as feeble as Cicero, but happier than he,
in that fewer people knew what they had done.” (Tacitus, _Dialogue
concerning Orators_, 21.)
[759]
Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander,
Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator.
Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis
Comica, ut æquato virtus polleret honore
Cum Græcis; neque in hac despectus parte jaceres!
Unum hoc maceror et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.
(Suetonius, _Life of Terence_, 5.)
[760] “Liberal to prodigality, and of a courage above human nature and
even imagination.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.)
[761] “He held, undeniably, the second rank among the orators of Rome.”
(Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 3.)
[762] “Nam cui Hortensio, Lucullove, _vel Cæsari_, tam parata unquam
adfuit recordatio, quam tibi sacra mens tua loco momentoque, quo
jusseris, reddit omne depositum?” (Latinus Pacatus, _Panegyricus in
Theodosium_, XVIII. 3.)--(Pliny, _Natural History_, VII. 25.)
[763] “Quamvis moderate soleret irasci, maluit tamen non posse.”
(Seneca, _De Ira_, II. 23.)
[764] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 4.
[765] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 19.
[766] “To the external advantages which distinguished him from all the
other citizens, Cæsar joined an impetuous and powerful soul.” (Velleius
Paterculus, II. 41.)
[767] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 15.
[768] “By his voice, his gesture, the grand and noble air of his person,
he had a certain brilliant manner of speech, without the least
artifice.” (Cicero, _Brutus_, 75; copied by Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 55.)
[769] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 18.
[770] “From his first youth he was much used to horseback, and had even
acquired the facility of riding with dropped reins and his hands joined
behind his back.” (Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 18.)
[771] “He ate and slept without enjoying the pleasure of either, and
only to obey necessity.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.)
[772] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 53.--(Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 18 and 58.)
[773] “And when,” says Cicero, “I look at his hair, so artistically
arranged; and when I see him scratch his head with one finger, I cannot
believe that such a man could conceive so black a design as to overthrow
the Roman Republic.” (Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 4.)
[774] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 45.--Cicero said likewise, “I suffered myself
to be caught by the fashion of his girdle,” alluding to his hanging
robe, which gave him an effeminate appearance. (Macrobius, _Saturnalia_,
II. 3.)
[775] Dio Cassius, XLIII. 43.
[776] Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.
[777] Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 1) says that Cæsar was _designated_
(_destinatus_) flamen. Velleius Paterculus (II. 43), that he was
_created_ flamen. In our opinion he was created, but not _inaugurated_,
flamen. Now, as long as this formality was not accomplished, he was only
the flamen designate. What proves that he had never been _inaugurated_
is, that Sylla could revoke it; and, on another hand, Tacitus says
(_Annales_, III. 53) that, after the death of Cornelius Merula, the
flamenship of Jupiter remained vacant for seventy-two years, without any
interruption to the special worship of this god. So that, evidently,
they did not count the flamenship of Cæsar as real, since he had never
entered on his office.
[778] “Dimissa Cossutia ... quæ pretextato desponsata fuerat.”
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1.)--This passage from Suetonius clearly indicates
that he was betrothed, and not married, to Cossutia; for Suetonius uses
the word _dimittere_, which means “to _free_,” and not the word
_repudiare_ in its true meaning; besides, _desponsata_ signifies
_betrothed_.--Plutarch says that Cornelia was the first wife of Cæsar,
though he pretends that he married Pompeia as his third. (Plutarch,
_Cæsar_, 5.)
[779] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.
[780] Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.
[781] “What an infamy to introduce into his house a pregnant woman, with
her husband still living; and to thrust from it, ignominiously and
cruelly, Antistia, whose father had just perished for the husband who
repudiated her!” (Plutarch, _Pompey_, 8.)
[782] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1.
[783] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 1.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 74.
[784] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 74.
[785] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1.
[786] The vestals enjoyed great privileges: if they met by chance a
criminal on his way to execution, he was set at liberty. (Plutarch,
_Numa_, 14.)--Valerius Maximus (V. iv. 6) reports the following fact:
“The vestal Claudia, seeing that a tribune of the people was about to
drag her father, Appius Claudius Pulcher, with violence from his
triumphal car, interfered between the tribune and him, by virtue of her
right to oppose violence.”--Cicero (_Oration for Cœlius_, 14) likewise
alludes to this celebrated anecdote.
[787] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1.
[788] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 2.
[789] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 2.--Pliny, XVI. 4.--Aulus Gellius, V. 6.
[790] C. Cæsar, grand pontiff, in his discourse for the Bithynians, thus
expresses himself in his exordium:--“The hospitality which I have
received from King Nicomedes, and the bond of friendship which unites me
to those whose cause is under debate, do not permit me, Marcus Juncus,
to decline this office (_that of being the advocate of the Bithynians_);
for death ought not to efface from the memory of their kindred the
recollection of those who have lived, and we could not, without the last
degree of disgrace, abandon our clients, those to whom, after our
kindred, we owe our support.” (Aulus Gellius, V. xiii. 1.)
[791] “Nothing damaged his reputation for chastity,” says Suetonius,
“except his sojourn with Nicomedes; but the opprobrium which resulted
from it was grave and lasting; it exposed him to the sneers of all. I
will say nothing of those well-known verses of Calvus Licinius--
... ‘Bithynia quidquid
Et pedicator Cæsaris unquam habuit.’
I will be silent on the speeches of Dolabella and Curio the father, ...
neither will I linger over the edicts in which Bibulus publicly exposed
his colleague by speaking of him as the _queen of Bithynia_.... M.
Brutus informs us that a certain Octavius, whose craziness allowed him
to say what he would, being one day in a numerous assembly, called
Pompey _king_, then saluted Cæsar by the name of _queen_. C. Memmius
also reproaches him for having mixed himself up with other debauchees to
present Nicomedes with cups and wine at table, and he quotes the names
of several Roman merchants who were among the guests.... Cicero
apostrophised him once in full Senate. Cæsar was defending there the
cause of Nysa, daughter of Nicomedes; he recalled the obligations which
he owed to this king. ‘Let us pass by all that, I beg you,’ cried
Cicero: ‘we know only too well what he has given thee, and what he has
received from thee.’ On his triumph over the Gauls, the soldiers, among
other satirical verses which it was their custom to sing as they
followed the car of the general, repeated these, which are well known:--
‘Gallias Cæsar subegit, Nicomedes Cæsarem.
Ecce Cæsar nunc triumphat, qui subegit Gallias;
Nicomedes non triumphat, qui subegit Cæsarem.’”
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 40.)
[792] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 19.
[793] These reports, like other calumnies, were propagated by Cæsar’s
enemies, such as Curio and Bibulus, and repeated in the ridiculous
annals of Tanusius Geminus (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 9), the authority of
which Seneca despised. “Thou knowest that not much account is made of
these annals of Tanusius, and how they are designated.” (Seneca,
_Epistle_ 93.)--Catullus (xxxvi. 1) gives us that term of contempt to
which Seneca alludes (_cacata charta_).
[794] “Marius had in his army a nephew, called Caius Lucius, who,
overcome by a shameful passion for one of his subordinates, offered him
an act of violence. The man drew his sword and killed him. Cited before
the tribunal of Marius, instead of being punished he was loaded with
praises by the consul, who gave him one of the crowns which were the
usual reward of courage.” (Plutarch, _Marius_, 15.)
[795] “Cæsar was not vexed at being accused of loving Cleopatra; but he
could not bear that they should say he had been loved by Nicomedes. _He
swore it was a calumny._” (Xiphilinus, _Julius Cæsar_, p. 30, Paris
edition, 1678.)
[796] Orosius, V. 23.
[797] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 3.
[798] Florus, III. 23.
[799] Appian, I. 107.
[800] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 3.
[801] Sallust, _Fragments_, I., p. 363.
[802] Florus, III. 23.
[803] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 3.
[804] “The Romans regarded as honourable accusations which had no
private enmity as their motive, and they liked to see young men attach
themselves to the pursuit of the guilty, as generous dogs attack wild
beasts.” (Plutarch, _Lucullus_, 1.)
[805] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 4.--Asconius, _Discourse for Scaurus_, XVI. ii.
245, edit. Schütz.
[806] Valerius Maximus, VIII. ix. § 3.--“Cæsar was twenty-one years of
age when he attacked Dolabella, in a speech which we still read to-day
with admiration.” (Tacitus, _Dialogue on the Orators_, 34.)--According
to the chronological order which we have adopted, Cæsar, instead of
twenty-one, would have been twenty-three years old; but as Tacitus, in
the same citation, also errs, by two years, in making Crassus, who had
accused Carbo, nineteen instead of twenty-one, we may suppose that he
has committed the same mistake with Cæsar. In fact, Crassus tells his
own age in Cicero (_On the Orators_, III. 20, § 74): “Quippe qui _omnium
maturrime_ ad publicas causas accesserim, annosque natus _unum et
viginti_ nobilissimum hominem in judicium vocarim.”--Crassus, the
orator, was born in 614; he accused Carbo in 635, the date given by
Cicero.
[807] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 3.--Asconius, _Commentaries on the Oration, “In
Toga Candida,”_ pp. 84, 89, edit. Orelli.
[808] _Dialogue on the Orators_, 21.
[809] Cicero, _Oration for Cluentius_, 59. The manuscripts of Cicero
bear _Cn. Decitius_.
[810] This island, now called _Fermaco_, is at the entrance of the Gulf
of Assem-Kalessi. Pliny and Stephen of Byzantium are the only
geographers who mention it, and the last tells us further, that it was
here that Attalus, the famous lieutenant of Philip of Macedon, was slain
by Alexander’s order.
[811] Polyænus, _Stratagems_, VII. 23.
[812] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 4.
[813] Velleius Paterculus, II. 41.
[814] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 2.
[815] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 8.
[816] Suetonius mentions, as an act of humanity, that their corpses
alone were nailed to the cross, Cæsar having had them strangled
beforehand to shorten their agony. (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 74.--Velleius
Paterculus, II. 42.)
[817] Suetonius, Cæsar, 4.
[818] Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.--Asconius, _On the Oration of Cicero
against Pisa_; edit. Orelli.
[819] Velleius Paterculus, II. 53.
[820] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 5.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.
[821] The tribunes by the nomination of the general were usually called
_rufuli_, because they were established by the law of Rutilius Rufus;
the military tribunes elected by the people were called _comitati_; they
were held as veritable magistrates. (Pseudo-Asconius, _Commentary on the
First Speech of Cicero against Verres_, p. 142, edit. Orelli; and Festus
under _Rufuli_, p. 261, edit. Müller.)
[822] Plutarch, _Sertorius_, 15, 16.
[823] “The enemy was already master of the passes which lead to Italy;
from the foot of the Alps, he (Pompey) drove him back to Spain.”
(Sallust, _Letter from Pompey to the Senate_.)
[824] Velleius Paterculus, II. 30.--100,000 according to Appian (_Civil
Wars_, I. 117).
[825] Plutarch, _Lucullus_, 8.
[826] Sallust, _Fragments_, III. 258.
[827] Appian, _Civil Wars_, I. xiv. 121.
[828] “The Republic, wounded and sick, so to say, had need of repose, no
matter at what price.” (Sallust, _Fragments_, I. 68.)
[829] “We see how far are carried the jealousy and animosity which the
virtue and activity of the new men light up in the heart of certain
nobles. If we turn away our eyes never so little, what snares do they
not lay for us! One would say that they were of another nature, another
kind, so much are their feelings and wishes opposed to ours.” (Cicero,
_Second Prosecution of Verres_, v. 71.)--“The nobility transmitted from
hand to hand this supreme dignity (the consulship), of which they were
in exclusive possession. Every new man, whatever his renown and the
glory of his deeds, appeared unworthy of this honour; he was as if
sullied by the stain of his birth.” (Sallust, _Jugurtha_, 63.)
[830] Sallust, _Catilina_, 52.
[831] Plutarch, _Lucullus_, 9.
[832] Cicero, _First Prosecution of Verres_, 8, 9, 12; _Second
Prosecution_, i. 29.--Pseudo-Asconius, _On the first Prosecution of
Verres_, page 145, edit. Orelli. The orations of Cicero are full of
allusions to these agents for the purchase of votes and judges.
[833] “In these later years, the men who make a trade of intriguing in
elections have been enabled, by diligence and address, to obtain from
the citizens of their tribes all that they chose to demand. Endeavour,
by any means you will, to make these men serve you sincerely and with
the steadfast will to succeed. You would obtain it if men were as
grateful as they ought to be; and you will obtain it, I am afraid,
since, for two years, four societies of those most influential in
elections--those of Marcus Fundanius, Quintas Gallius, Gaius Cornelius,
and Gaius Orcivius--have engaged themselves for you. I was present when
the causes of these men were entrusted to you, and I know what was
promised to you, and what guarantees have been given to you by their
associates.” (_On the Petition for the Consulship addressed to Cicero by
his brother Quintus_, 5.)
[834] Cicero, _First Prosecution of Verres_, 13.
[835] “Each city of the conquered peoples has a patron at Rome.”
(Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 4.)
[836] Cicero, _Second Prosecution of Verres_, III. 89. Cicero adds in a
letter, “We may judge, by the sufferings of our own fellow-citizens, of
what the inhabitants of the provinces have to endure from the public
farmers (_publicani_). When several tolls were suppressed in Italy,
remonstrances were made not so much against the principle of taxation as
against abuses in levying it, and the cries of the Romans on the soil of
the country tell only too plainly what must be the fate of the allies at
the extremity of the empire.” (_Letters to Quintus_, I. 1, § 33.)
[837] Dio Cassius, 86; _Fragments_, CCCI. edit. Gros.
[838] Cicero, _On Duties_, II. 17; _Letters to Quintus_, II. 6, §
4.--Plutarch, _Brutus_, 14.
[839] Florus, III. 21.
[840] “The name of C. Marius--of that great man who we may justly call
the father of the country, the regenerator of our liberty, the saviour
of the Republic.” (Cicero, _Speech for Rabirius_, 10.)--“I have, as your
guarantee, your indignation against Sylla.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 17,
_Oration of Catulus to the Senate_.)--“Where can we find a personage
(Marius) more serious, more firm, more distinguished by courage,
circumspection, conscience?” (Cicero, _Speech for Balbus_, 25.)--“Not
only do we suffer his acts (Sylla’s), but to prevent worse disasters,
greater ills, we give them the sanction of public authority.” (Cicero,
_Second Prosecution of Verres_, III. 35.)
[841] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 6.
[842] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 12.
[843] Pompey slew Carbo, Perpenna, and Brutus, the father of the
assassin of Cæsar, who had yielded themselves to him: the first had
protected his youth and saved his patrimony. (Valerius Maximus, V. iii.
v.)
[844] Count Franz de Champagny, _Les Cæsars_, I. p. 50.
[845] “It was in his character to show little regard for what he was
ambitious to obtain.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 7.)--“Pompey, with a heart as
depraved as his face was pure.” (Sallust, _Fragments_, II. 176.)
[846] “At last, when Pompey, haranguing the people for the first time at
the gates of the city, in his capacity of consul-designate, came to
treat of the matter which seemed to have been most ardently expected,
and let it be understood that he would re-establish the power of the
tribunes, he was received with applause, and a slight murmur of assent;
but when he added that the provinces were devastated and oppressed, the
tribunals disgraced, the judges without shame, and that he wished to be
watchful of these abuses, and to restore good order, then it was not by
a simple murmur, but by unanimous acclamations, that the people
testified their desires.” (Cicero, _First Prosecution of Verres_, 15.)
[847] Catulus, when asked his opinion on the re-establishment of the
tribunary power, began in these authoritative words:--“The conscript
fathers administer justice evilly and scandalously; and if, in the
tribunals, they had but answered the expectations of the Roman people,
the power of the tribunes would not have been so warmly regretted.”
(Cicero, _First Prosecution of Verres_, 15.)
[848] “His enemies had nothing else to reproach him with than the
preference which he gave to the people over the Senate.” (Plutarch,
_Pompey_, 20.)
[849] “He seconded with all his might those who wished to restore the
power of the tribunes.” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 5.)
[850] 7,100 talents. (Plutarch, _Crassus_, 1.)
[851] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 2.--Cicero, _On Duties_, I. 8.
[852] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 7.
[853] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 8.
[854] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 8.
[855] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 1, 16.
[856] “Cotta judicandi munus, quod C. Gracchus ereptum Senatui, ad
equites, Sylla ab illis ad Senatum transtulerat, æqualiter inter
utrumque ordinem partitus est.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 32.)
[857] “Equidem mihi videor pro nostra necessitate, non labore, non
opera, non industria defuisse.” (Certainly, I believe I have displayed
all the zeal, all the endeavour, all the ability which our kinship
demands.) Cæsar, quoted by Aulus Gellius, XIII. 3.--Nonius Marcellus,
“_On the different significations of words_,” under the word
_Necessitas_.
[858] Sallust, _Fragments_, I. 68.
[859] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 21.
[860] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 6.
[861] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.
[862] The images of Æneas, of Romulus, and of the Kings of Alba Longa
also figured in the funeral canopy of the Julia family. (Tacitus,
_Annales_, IV. 9.)
[863] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.--Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.
[864] Cicero, _Oration on the Manilian Law_, 12; _For Fonteius_, 2.
[865] Cæsar, _Civil War_, I. 37.
[866] “Sextus Pompeius Cordubam tenebat, quod ejus provinciæ caput esse
existimabatur.” (Cæsar, _The War in Spain_, III.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_,
17.)
[867] Cicero, _Second Prosecution of Verres_, II. 13.--Paulus Diaconus,
under the word _Conventus_.--Müller, p. 41.
[868] Cicero, _Second Prosecution of Verres_, II. 20, 24, 30; IV.
29.--_Familiar Letters_, XV. iv.
[869] Pliny, _Natural History_, III. i., and IV. xxxv. The three
_conventus_ of Lusitania were held at Emerita, Pax Julia (_Béja_), and
at Scalabis: the four of Bætica were, Gades, Corduba, Astijo, Hispalis
(_Cadiz_, _Cordova_, _Ecija_, and _Seville_).
[870] Dio Cassius, XLIV. 39, 41.
[871] “From the beginning of my questorship, I have shown a special
affection for the province.” (Speech of Cæsar to the Spaniards, at
Hispalis, _Commentaries, The War in Spain_, 43.)
[872] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.
[873] Titus Livius, XXI. 21.--Florus, II. 17.
[874] Plutarch, _Parallel between Alexander and Cæsar_, 6.--Suetonius,
_Cæsar_, 7.
[875] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 8.
[876] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 8.
[877] Velleius Paterculus, II. 31.
[878] Daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, and Fausta, daughter of Sylla.
(Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 6.)
[879] The ships of the corsairs amounted to more than a thousand, and
the towns which they took to four hundred. (Plutarch, _Pompey_, 23.)
[880] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 24.
[881] Cicero, _Speech on the Manilian Law_, 12.
[882] “Aulus Gabinius was a very bad citizen, in no wise inspired by
love of the public good.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 6.)
[883] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 7.
[884] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 26.
[885] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 20.--Appian, _War of Mithridates_, 94.
[886] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 27.--“The very day on which you placed your
naval armies under his orders, the price of corn, until then excessive,
fell at once so low that the richest harvest, in the midst of a long
peace, would have scarcely produced so happy an abundance.” (Cicero,
_Oration for the Manilian Law_, 15.)
[887] Florus and Appian do not quite agree on the division of these
commands. (Appian, _War of Mithridates_, 95.--Florus, III. 6.)
[888] Velleius Paterculus, II. 32.--Plutarch, _Pompey_, 29.
[889] Dio Cassius, XXXV. 14 and 15.
[890] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 31.
[891] Cicero, _Oration for the Manilian Law_, 16.
[892] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 31.
[893] Cicero, _Oration for the Manilian Law_, 23.
[894] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 26.--Plutarch, _Lucullus_, 50, 52.
[895] “The tribune Manilius, a venal soul, and the debased instrument of
the ambition of others.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 33.)
[896] “As to the Valerians, informed that the magistrates at Rome had
given them their discharge, they immediately abandoned their flags.”
(Dio Cassius, XXXV. 15.)
[897] “They called _Valerians_ the soldiers of Valerius Flaccus, who,
having passed into the command of Fimbria, had left their general in
Asia to join themselves to Sylla.” “These same soldiers, under the
orders of Pompey (for he enrolled the Valerians anew), did not dream
even of revolt, so much does one man carry it over another.” (Dio
Cassius, XXXV. 16.)
[898] “There was no shame,” he said, “in submitting to him whom fortune
raised above all the others.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 37.)
[899] Dio Cassius, XXXV. 16.
[900] This is taken from a passage of Cicero compared with another of
Sallust. In fact, Cicero, in his _Oration for Murena_ (23), thus
expresses himself _Confusionem suffragiorum_ flagitasti, prorogationem
legis Maniliæ, æquationem gratiæ, dignitatis, suffragiorum.” It is clear
that Cicero could not allude to the Manilian law on the freedmen, but to
that of Caius Gracchus, since Sallust employs nearly the same words
concerning this law, saying: “Sed de magistratibus creandis haud mihi
quidem absurde placet lex, quam C. Gracchus in tribunatu promulgaverat:
ut _ex confusis quinque classibus_ sorte centuriæ vocarentur. Ita
_coæquali dignitate_ pecunia, virtute anteire alius alium properabit.”
(Sallust, _Letters to Cæsar_, vii.)
[901] Dio Cassius, III. 36, 40.
[902] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 5.
[903] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 10.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[904] Titus Livius, IX. 40.
[905] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 8.
[906] “The gladiators whom you have bought are a very fine acquisition.
It is said that they are well trained, and if you had wished to let them
out on the last occasion, you would have regained what they have cost
you.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, IV. 4.)
[907] Servius, _Commentary on Book III. verse 67 of the
Æneid_.--Tertullian, _On the Shows_, V.--Titus Livius, XXIII. 30; XXIX.
46.--Valerius Maximus, II. iv. § 7.
[908] “When Cæsar, afterwards dictator, but then ædile, gave funeral
games in honour of his father, all that was used in the arena was of
silver; silver lances glittered in the hands of the criminals and
pierced the wild beasts, an example which even simple municipal towns
imitate.” (Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXIII. 3.)
[909] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 10.
[910] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 11.
[911] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 6.
[912] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 6.
[913] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 6.
[914] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 11.--Cicero, _First Oration on the Agrarian
Law_, i. 16.
[915] Justin, xxix. 5, Scholiast of Bobbio, _On the Oration of Cicero,
“De Rege Alexandrino,”_ p. 350, edit. Orelli.
[916] Cicero, _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, xvi.
[917] “Augustus made it one, among other state maxims, to sequester
Egypt, forbidding the Roman knights and senators of the first rank ever
to go there without his permission. He feared that Italy might be
famished by the first ambitious person who should seize the province,
where, holding the keys of both land and sea, he might defend himself
with very few soldiers against great armies.” (Tacitus, _Annals_, II.
59.)
[918] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 11.
[919] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 9.
[920] “You name me a foreigner because I have come from a municipal
town. If you regard us as foreigners, although our name and rank were
formerly well established at Rome, and in public opinion, how much then
must these competitors be foreigners in your eyes, this _élite_ of
Italy, who come from all parts to dispute with you magistrateships and
honours?” (Cicero, _Oration for Sylla_, 8.)
[921] See Drumann, _Julii_, 147.
[922] J. Paul, _Sentences_, V. iv., p. 417, edit. Huschke.--Justinian,
_Institutes_, IV. xviii. § 5.--Appian, _On the Office of the Proconsul_,
vii.
[923] “Then, in the instructions directed against the _sicarii_, and the
exceptions proposed by the Cornelian law, he ranked among these
malefactors those who, during the proscription, had received money from
the public treasury for having brought to Sylla the heads of Roman
citizens.” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 11.)
[924] Plutarch, _Cato_, 21.--Dio Cassius, XLVII. 6.
[925] Cicero, _Third Speech on the Agrarian Law_, 4.
[926] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.--Asconius, _Commentary on the Orations of
Cicero, “In Toga Candida,”_ pp. 91, 92, edit Orelli.
[927] Asconius, _In Toga Candida_, p. 91.
[928] Sallust, _Catiline_, 19.
[929] Plutarch, _Cicero_, 15.
[930] “I am preparing at this moment to defend Catiline, my competitor.
I hope, if I obtain his acquittal, to find him disposed to come to an
understanding with me on our next steps. If he is against this, I will
[I shall know what to do (?)] take my way.” (Cicero, _Letters to
Atticus_, I. ii.)
[931] Cicero, _Oration for Sylla_, 29.
[932] Plutarch, _Cato_, 3.
[933] Asconius, _Cicero’s Oration_, “_In Toga Candida_,” p. 82, edit.
Orelli.
[934] Plutarch, _Cicero_, 3.
[935] They called new men those who amongst their ancestors counted none
that had held a high magistracy. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 2.)--Cicero
also confirms this fact: “I am the first new man that, for a great
number of years, is remembered to have been appointed consul; and this
eminent post, in which the nobility were in a manner entrenched, and to
which they had closed all the avenues, you have, to place me at your
head, forced the barriers; you have desired that merit henceforth find
them open.” (Cicero, _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 1.)
[936] Sallust, _Catiline_, 23.
[937] “Cicero favoured sometimes the one, sometimes the other, to be
sought after by both parties.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 26.)
[938] _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 25.
[939] The territories conceded by a treaty being excepted, which freed
from this obligation the African territory, which had become, since
Scipio, the property of the Republic, and given by Pompey to Hiempsal.
In Campania every colonist was obliged to have ten _jugera_, and, on the
territory of Stella, twelve.
[940] Cicero, _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 26.
[941] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.--Plutarch, _Cicero_,
17.--“When young Romans, full of merit and honour, have found themselves
in such a position that their admissibility to magistracies has effected
the overthrow of the State, I have dared to brave their enmity, to
interdict their access to the comitia and to honours.” (Cicero, _Oration
against L. Piso_.)
[942] “They wish to deprive the Republic of all refuge, of every
guarantee of safety in difficult conjunctures.” (Cicero, _Oration for
Rabirius_, 2.)
[943] “This supreme power which, according to the institutions of Rome,
the Senate confers upon the magistrates, consists in raising troops, in
making war, in keeping to their duties, by every means, the allies and
citizens; in exercising supremely, equally at Rome or abroad, both civil
and military authority. In all other cases, without the express order of
the people, none of these prerogatives are conferred upon the consuls.”
(Sallust, _Catiline_, 29.)
[944] Cicero, _Oration for Rabirius_, 9.
[945] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 12.
[946] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 26, 27.
[947] Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, I. 16.--Priscian, vi., p. 710, edit.
Putsch.--Macrobius (_l. c._) quotes the 16th book of the treatise of
Cæsar on the Auspices.--Dio Cassius (xxxvii.) expresses himself thus:
“Above all, because he had supported Labienus against Rabirius, and had
not voted for the death of Lentulus.” But the Greek author errs: the
nomination of Cæsar to the high pontificate took place before the
conspiracy of Catiline. (See Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.)
[948] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 1, 8, 14.
[949] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 7.
[950] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 7.
[951] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 13.
[952] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 46.
[953] “On the 23rd of August, the day of inauguration of Lentulus,
flamen of Mars, the house was decorated, and couches of ivory were set
up in the triclinia. In the two first halls were the pontiffs Q.
Catulus, M. Æmilius Lepidus, D. Silanus, C. Cæsar, king of the
sacrifices, and ... L. Julius Cæsar, augur. The third received the
vestals. The repast was thus composed:--For the first course:
sea-urchins, raw oysters in any quantity, pelorides (a kind of oyster of
extraordinary size), spondyli (shell-fish of the oyster kind), thrushes,
asparagus; and, lower down, a fat hen, a vol-au-vent of large oysters,
and sea-acorns black and white (sea and river shell-fish according to
Pliny). Then more spondyli, glycomarides (another shell-fish mentioned
by Pliny), sea-nettles, beccaficos, filets of venison and wild boar,
fatted fowls powdered with flour, beccaficos, murices and purple fish
(shell-fish bristling with points, which yielded the purple of the
ancients). Second course: sows’ udders, wild boar’s head, fish-pie,
sows’ udder-pie, ducks, boiled teal, hares, roast fowls, starch (flour
that is obtained in the same manner as starch, without grinding--many
sorts of creams, _amylaria_, were made of it), loaves from Picenum.”
(Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, III. 9.)
[954] “It was at the very point when it required no more to upset the
weakly government than a slight impulse from the first bold man who
presented himself.” (Plutarch, _Cicero_, 15.)
[955] Cicero, _Oration for M. Cælius_, 5. This oration was delivered in
the year 698.
[956] Plutarch, _Cicero_, 19.
[957] Sallust, _Catiline_, 27, 28.
[958] This is deduced from what Florus (III. 6) says of the command of
the fleet which L. Gellius had, and from a passage in Cicero. (_First
Oration after his Return_, 7.)--L. Gellius expresses himself clearly
upon the danger the Republic had run, and proposed the awarding of a
civic crown to Cicero. (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, XII. 21; _Oration
against Piso_, 3.--Aulus Gellius, V. 6.)
[959] Cicero, _First Catiline Oration_, 1; _Second Catiline Oration_, 1.
[960] Sallust, _Catiline_, 32.
[961] Sallust, _Catiline_, 30, 31.--Plutarch, _Cicero_, 17.
[962] Sallust, _Catiline_, 47.
[963] Sallust, _Catiline_, 51.--Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 6.
[964] Cicero, _Fourth Catiline Oration_, 1.
[965] Cicero, _Fourth Catiline Oration_, 2.
[966] _Second Catiline Oration_, 4.
[967] _First Oration against Catiline_, 2.
[968] _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 5.
[969] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 14.
[970] Cicero, _Fourth Oration against Catiline_, 5.
[971] Sallust, _Catiline_, 52.
[972] Plutarch, _Cato_, 28.--See the _Comparison of Alexander and
Cæsar_, 7.
[973] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 53.
[974] Sallust, _Catiline_, 52.
[975] Plutarch, _Cicero_, 28.
[976] Sallust, _Catiline_, 49.
[977] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 8.
[978] Sallust, _Catiline_, 49.
[979] “They feared his power and the great number of friends by whom he
was supported, for everybody was persuaded that the criminals would be
involved in the absolution of Cæsar, much more than Cæsar in their
punishment.” (Plutarch, _Cicero_, 27.)
[980] “And I have myself since heard Crassus say openly that this cruel
affront had been caused him by Cicero.” (Sallust, _Catiline_, 48.)
[981] We may read in the historians of the time the recital of fables
invented at will to ruin the conspirators. Thus Catiline, seeking to
bind by an oath accomplices in his crime, is represented as causing cups
filled with human blood and wine to be passed round. (Sallust,
_Catiline_, 22.)--According to Plutarch, they slaughtered a man, and all
ate of his flesh. (Plutarch, _Cicero_, 14.--Florus, IV. 1.)
[982] Cicero himself acknowledged that these accusations were
commonplaces for the necessity of the cause. In a letter to Atticus, he
describes a scene which passed in the Senate a short time after the
return of Pompey to Rome. He tells us that this general satisfied
himself with approving all the acts of the Senate, without imputing
anything personal to him (Cicero); “but Crassus,” he continues, “rose
and spoke with much eloquence.... Brief, he attacked _all the
commonplace of sword and flame_, which I have been accustomed to treat,
you know in how many ways, in my orations, of which you are the
sovereign critic.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 14.)
[983] “The populace, who at first, through the love of novelty, had been
only too much inclined for this war, changes its sentiments, curses the
enterprise of Catiline, and exalts Cicero to the skies.” (Sallust,
_Catiline_, 48.)
[984] Sallust, _Catiline_, 39.--Dio Cassius, XXVII. 36.
[985] “Many young estimable noblemen were attached to this wicked and
corrupt man.” (Cicero, _Oration for M. Cælius_, 4.)--“He had drawn
around him men perverse and audacious, at the same time that he had
attached to himself numbers of virtuous and steady citizens, by the
false semblances of an affected virtue.” (Cicero, _ibid._ 6.)
[986] Sallust, _Catiline_, 17.
[987] “And this silver eagle, to which he had consecrated in his house
an altar.” (Cicero, _Second Oration against Catiline_, 6.)
[988] Sallust, _Catiline_, 20.
[989] Sallust, _Catiline_, 33. Speech of the envoys sent by Mallius to
Marcius Rex.
[990] Sallust, _Catiline_, 30.
[991] Sallust, _Catiline_, 36.
[992] “Meanwhile, he kept refusing slaves, who, from the beginning, had
never ceased joining him in large bands. Full of confidence in the
resources of the conspiracy, he regarded any appearance of confounding
the cause of the citizens with that of the slaves as contrary to his
policy.” (Sallust, _Catiline_, 56.)
[993] Sallust, _Catiline_, 44.
[994] “People who will fall at our feet, if I show them, I do not say
the points of our swords, but the edict of the prætor.” (Cicero, _Second
Oration against Catiline_, 3.)
[995] Sallust, _Catiline_, 61.
[996] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.
[997] The Emperor Napoleon, in the _Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène_, also
treats as a fable this opinion of the historians that Catiline desired
to burn Rome, and give it up to pillage, in order afterwards to govern a
ruined city. The Emperor thought, said M. de Las Cases, that it was
rather some new faction, after the manner of Marius and Sylla, which,
having been unsuccessful, had seen all the unfounded accusations that
are brought in such cases heaped upon its leader.
[998] Cicero, _Oration for Flaccus_, 38.
[999] “He excited public cavil, not by evil actions, but by his habit of
self-glorification. He never went to the Senate, to the assemblies of
the people, to the courts of law, without having on his lips the names
of Catiline and Lentulus.” (Plutarch, _Cicero_, 31.)
[1000] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, v. 7.
[1001] See Cæsar’s speech, quoted above.
[1002] It may be interesting to reproduce here, from the letters of
Cicero, the list of the discourses which he delivered during the year of
his consulship. “I wished, I also, after the manner of Demosthenes, to
have my political speeches, which may be named _consulars_. The first
and second are on the Agrarian Law; the former before the Senate on the
calends of January; the second before the people; the third, about Otho;
the fourth, for Rabirius; the fifth, on the children of the proscribed;
the sixth, on my relinquishing my province; the seventh is that which
put Catiline to flight; the eighth was delivered before the people the
day after his flight; the ninth, from the tribune, the day when the
Allobroges came to give their evidence; the tenth, before the Senate, on
the 5th of December. There are two more, not so long, which may be
described as supplementary to the two first on the Agrarian Law.”
(Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.)
[1003] Velleius Paterculus, II. 40.--Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.
[1004] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 46.
[1005] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44; XLIII. 14.
[1006] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16.
[1007] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 43.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16.--Cicero,
_Oration for Sestius_, 29.
[1008] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16.
[1009] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 24.
[1010] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 9.
[1011] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 17.
[1012] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 17.
[1013] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1014] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1015] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[1016] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1.--Plutarch, _Cicero_, 27; Plutarch,
_Cæsar_, 10.--“This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on
behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the
right of _imperium_, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal.
The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to
men, and whom Clodius terms the _Good Goddess_ (_Bona Dea_), because she
forgave him so gross an outrage.” (Cicero, _Oration on the Report of the
Augurs_, 17.)--The _Good Goddess_, like the majority of the divinities
of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent
fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception
of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of
December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that
magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the
festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were
offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.
[1017] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 14.
[1018] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 16.
[1019] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 17.
[1020] Appian, _Mithridatic War_, 101.
[1021] Appian, _Mithridatic War_, 106.
[1022] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 20.
[1023] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44. In contradiction to other authors, Dio
Cassius asserts that the elections were adjourned. (Plutarch, _Pompey_,
45.)
[1024] “The more men were terrified, the more they were re-assured, on
seeing Pompey return to his country as a simple citizen.” (Velleius
Paterculus, II. 40.)
[1025] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 12.
[1026] Metellus was subjugating Crete, when Pompey sent one of his
lieutenants to depose him, under the pretence that that island was
included in his own wide jurisdiction by sea.
[1027] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 49.
[1028] “No rectitude, no candour, not a single honourable motive in his
policy; nothing elevated, nothing strong, nothing generous.” (Cicero,
_Letters to Atticus_, I. 12.)
[1029] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 47.
[1030] Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXVII. 5.
[1031] Vases from Carmania that were highly prized. They reflected the
colours of the rainbow, and, according to Pliny, a single one was sold
for seventy talents (more than 300,000 francs [£12,000]). (Pliny,
_Natural History_, XXXVII, 7, 8.)
[1032] Pliny, XXXIII. 54.--Strabo, XII. 545.
[1033] Appian, _War against Mithridates_, 116.
[1034] Pliny, _Natural History_, XII. 9, 54.
[1035] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 2.--Velleius Paterculus, II. 34.
[1036] Appian, _War against Mithridates_, 117.
[1037] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 47.--Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.
[1038] Cicero, _Oration for Murena_, 14.
[1039] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1040] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 50.
[1041] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1042] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1043] Cicero, _Oration on the Agrarian Law_, II. 27.
[1044] “Your ancestors never set you the example of buying lands from
individuals in order to send colonies thither. _All the laws, up to the
present time, have contented themselves with establishing them on the
lands belonging to the State._” (Cicero, _Oration on the Agrarian Law_,
II. 25.)
[1045] Plutarch, _Cato of Utica_, 36.
[1046] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 51.
[1047] Plutarch, _Cato_, 35.
[1048] “People abuse the Senate; the equestrian order stands aloof from
it. Thus this year will have seen the overthrow of the two solid
foundations on which I, single-handed, had planted the Republic--the
authority of the Senate and the union of the two orders.” (Cicero,
_Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.)
[1049] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1050] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.--Appian (_Civil Wars_, II. 2, § 8) speaks
of twenty-five million sestertii--_i.e._, 4,750,000 francs [£190,000].
[1051] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 18.
[1052] Cicero, _Letter to Atticus_, I. 14, 16.
[1053] “From his youth up he was zealous and true to his clients.”
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 71.)
[1054] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1055] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1056] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1057] A chain of mountains in Portugal, now called _Sierra di
Estrella_, separating the basin of the Tagus from the valley of Mondego.
According to Cellarius (_Ancient Geography_, I. 60), Mount Herminium is
still called _Arminno_. The principal _oppidum_ belonging to the
population of these mountains seems to have been called Medobrega
(_Membrio_). It is mentioned in _Cæsar’s Commentaries, War of
Alexandria_, 48.
[1058] Probably in the modern province of Leyria.
[1059] A survey made, in August, 1861, by the Duc de Bellune, leaves no
doubt that the peninsula of Peniche was once an island. The local
traditions state that in ancient times the ocean advanced as far as the
town of Atoguia; but since Dio Cassius speaks of the rising tide which
swept away soldiers, we must believe that there were fords at low tide.
We give extracts from Portuguese authors who have written on this
subject.
Bernard de Brito (_Portuguese Monarchy_, I. p. 429, Lisbon, 1790)
says:--“As along the entire coast of Portugal we cannot find, at the
present time, a single island that fulfils the conditions of the one
where Cæsar sought to disembark better than the peninsula, on which
there is a locality which, taking its name from its situation, is called
_Peniche_, we shall maintain, with our countryman Resende, that it is to
this that all the authors refer. And I do not believe it possible to
find one more suitable in every way than this: because, over and above
the fact that it is the only one, and situated at but a short distance
from the mainland, we see that when the tide is low it is possible to
traverse the strait dryshod, and with still greater facility than would
have been possible in ancient times, because the sea has silted up sand
against a large portion of this coast, and brought it to pass that the
sea does not rise to so high a point upon the land. Still, it rises high
enough to make it necessary, at high tide, to use a boat to reach the
island, and that in a space of about 500 paces in width, which separates
the island from the mainland.”
The following is the passage of Resende:--“Sed quærendum utrobique
quænam insula ista fuerit terræ contigua, ad quam sive pedibus sive
natatu profugi transire potuerint, ad quam similiter et milites
trajicere tentarint? Non fuisse Londobrin, cujus meminit Ptolomæus
(_Berligam_ modo dicimus), indicio est distantia a continente non
modica. Et quum alia juxta Lusitaniæ totius littus nulla nostra ævo
exstet, hæc de qua Dion loquitur, vel incumbenti violentius mari abrasa,
vel certe peninsula illa oppidi Peniche juxta Atonguiam, erit
intelligenda. Nam etiam nunc alveo quingentis passibus lato a continente
sejungitur, qui pedibus æstu cedente transitur, redeunte vero insula
plane fit, neque adiri vado potest. Et forte illo sæculo fuerit
aliquanto major.” (L. André de Resende. _De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ
cæteraque Historica quæ exstant Opera_, Conimbricæ, 1790, I., p. 77.)
Antonio Carvalho (_Da costa corografia Portuguesa_, II. p. 144, Lisbon,
1712) sets forth the same view.
The preceding information is confirmed by the following letter of an
English bishop who accompanied the Crusaders, at the time of the siege
of Lisbon, in the reign of Alfonso Henrique, a.d. 1147:--“Die vero quasi
decima, impositis sarcinis nostris cum episcopis velificare incepimus
iter prosperum agentes. Die vero postera ad insulam Phenicis (vulgo
_Peniche_) distantis a continente quasi octingentis passibus feliciter
applicuimus. Insula abundat cervis et maxime cuniculis: liquiricium
(_lege_ glycyrrhizum) habet. Tyrii dicunt eam Erictream. Peni Gaddis, id
est septem, ultra quam non est terra: ideo extremus noti orbis terminus
dicitur. Juxta hanc sunt duæ insulæ quæ vulgo dicuntur Berlinges, id est
Baleares lingua corrupta, in una quarum est palatium admirabilis
architecturæ et multa officinarum diversoria regi cuidam, ut aiunt,
quondam gratissimum secretale hospicium.” (Letter of an English Crusader
on the sack of Lisbon, in _Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, a sæculo
octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, justa Academiæ
Scientiarum Olisiponensis edita_. Volumen I., fasciculus iii. Lisbon,
1861, p. 395.)
[1060] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 52, 53.--“Cæsar, as soon as he arrived,
defeated the Lusitanians and the inhabitants of Galicia, and advanced as
far as the outer sea. Thus he caused people who had never yet recognised
the authority of the Romans to submit to them, and returned from his
government loaded with glory and wealth, of which he gave a part to his
soldiers.” (Zonaras, _Annales_, X. 6.)
[1061] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 8.
[1062] Cæsar, _Spanish War_, 42.
[1063] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1064] “There come forward a whole army of accusers against those who
enriched themselves by usury in contempt of a law passed by Cæsar when
he was dictator, regulating the proportion to be observed between the
debts and possessions in Italy: a law which had for a long while fallen
into desuetude through the interest of individuals.” (Tacitus, _Annals_,
vi. 16.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 42.)
[1065] “I will not enumerate all the marks of honour with which Cæsar
distinguished the people of this town when he was prætor in Spain; the
divisions he found means of healing among the citizens of Gades; the
laws which, with their consent, he gave them; the old barbarism of their
manners and customs, which he caused to disappear; the eagerness with
which, at the request of Balbus, he loaded them with benefits.” (Cicero,
_Oration for Balbus_, 19.)
[1066] “From his youth he was acquainted with Cæsar, and that great man
was pleased with him. Cæsar, among the crowd of friends he had, marked
him out as one of his intimates when he was prætor: when he was consul,
he made him overseer of the manufactory of his military engines. He had
experience of his prudence; appreciated his devotion; accepted his acts
of kindness and his affection. At that time Balbus shared nearly all the
labours of Cæsar.” (Cicero, _Oration for Balbus_, 28.)
[1067] “For this man (Cæsar) began by being prætor in Spain, and,
distrusting the loyalty of this province, he would not give its
inhabitants the chance of being subsequently more dangerous, through a
delusive peace. He chose to do what was of importance to the interests
of the Republic rather than to pass the days of his magistracy in
tranquillity; and as the Spaniards refused to surrender, he compelled
them to it by force. So he surpassed in honour those who had preceded
him in Spain; for it is a harder task to keep a conquest than to make
one.” (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 41.)
[1068] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 54.
[1069] “Cæsar arrives in two days.” (_Cicero to Atticus_, II. 1, June,
694.)
[1070] Thence the name of _candidate_.
[1071] “Many candidates for the consulship had been nominated in their
absence; as, for instance, Marcellus, in 540.” (Titus Livius, XXIV. 9.)
[1072] Plutarch, _Cato_, 36.
[1073] Florus, III. 23.
[1074] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1075] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1076] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1077] “It even appears that Cicero had lent the accused a million of
sestertii to purchase a mansion on the Palatine.” (Aulus Gellius, XII.
12.)
[1078] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 12.
[1079] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1080] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1081] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1082] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1083] Cicero, _Letters to Quintus_, I. 1, 11.
[1084] Cæsar, when consul and dictator, declared many foreign cities
free.
[1085] It will be seen in the next chapter that Cæsar recognized as
friends to the Roman people Auletes, king of Egypt, and Ariovistus, king
of the Germans.
[1086] _Duumvirs_, _decemvirs_, _vigintivirs_ were the names given to
magistrates who shared the same duties in boards of two, ten, or twenty.
In the present case, however, the object was only to bind together the
men of the greatest importance by a secret bond. Therefore the word
_triumvirate_ would be a misnomer.
[1087] “He wished me to join these three intimate consular men.”
(Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 17.)
[1088] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 57.
[1089] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, V. 12.
[1090] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19.--Eutropius, VI. 14.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_,
13.
[1091] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19.
[1092] Plutarch, _Cato_, 26.--Suetonius, 19.
[1093] “But will you say that we can only have the knights on our side
by paying for them? What are we to do? Have we a choice of means?”
(Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.)
[1094]
“Inde domum repetes toto comitante senatu,
Officium populi vix capiente domo.”
Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, IV. Epist. 4.
[1095] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19.
[1096] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1097] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 10.
[1098] Cicero, _Epistle to Atticus_, II. 3.--“When consul, he wished me
to take part in the operations of his consulship. Without approving
them, I felt nevertheless grateful to him for his deference.” (_Oration
on the Consular Provinces_, 17.)
[1099] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 21.
[1100] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14.
[1101] Plutarch, _Cato_, 24.
[1102] Plutarch, _Cato_, 59.
[1103] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1104] Titus Livius, IX. 8.
[1105] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 7.
[1106] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, XIII. 4.
[1107] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1108] _Epistles to Atticus_, I. 18.--In allusion to a former law, we
read as follows: “The senators who have discussed the present law shall
be held, within ten days following the plebiscitum, to swear to maintain
it before the questor, in the treasury, in open day, and taking for
witnesses Jupiter and the gods Penates.” (_Table of Bantia_, Klenze,
_Philologische Abhandlungen_, IV. 16-24.)
[1109] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1110] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 2.
[1111] Ateius Capito, _Treatise on the Duties of the Senator_, quoted by
Aulus Gellius, IV. 10.--Valerius Maximus, II. 10, § 7.
[1112] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 4.
[1113] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 21.
[1114] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 11.
[1115] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 6.
[1116] The consuls, prætors, and generally all those who presided at an
assembly of the people, or even who attended in quality of magistrates,
had a right of veto, founded on popular superstition. This right was
exercised by declaring that a celestial phenomenon had been _observed_
by them, and that it was no longer permitted to deliberate. _Jupiter
darting thunder or rain, all treating on affairs with the people must be
stopped_; such was the text of the law, religious or political,
published in 597. It was not necessary that it should thunder or rain,
in fact; the affirmation of a magistrate qualified to _observe the sky_
being enough. (Cicero, _Oration for Sextius_, 15.--_Oration on the
Consular Provinces_, 19.)--(Asconius, _In Piso_, p. 9, ed.
Orelli.)--(Orelli, Indices to his edition of Cicero, VIII.
126.)--(_Index Legum_, articles _Laws Ælia_ and _Fusia_.)
[1117] Valerius Maximus, III. vii. 6.
[1118] Plutarch, _Cato_, 37.
[1119] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.--“The Campanian law contains a provision
which compels the candidates to swear, in the assembly of the people,
that they will never propose anything contrary to the Italian
legislation upon property. All have sworn, except Laterensis, who
preferred desisting from the candidature for the tribuneship to taking
the oath, and much gratitude has been shown to him for it.” (Cicero,
_Epistles to Atticus_, II. 18.)
[1120] This appears from the words of Dio Cassius (XXXVIII. 1). Several
scholars are unwilling to admit the existence of two agrarian laws; yet
Cicero, in his letter to Atticus (II. 7), written in April, announces
that the twenty commissioners are named. In this first law (_Familiar
Letters_, XIII. 4), he mentions the _ager_ of Volaterra, which was
certainly not in Campania. In another letter of the beginning of May
(_Letters to Atticus_, II. 16), he speaks of Campania for the first
time, and says that Pompey had approved the first agrarian law. Finally,
in that written in the month of June (_Letters to Atticus_, II. 18), he
speaks of the oath taken to the agrarian laws. Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 20)
and Appian (_Civil Wars_, II. 10) mention the Julian agrarian laws in
the plural. Titus Livius (_Epitome of Book_ CIII.) speaks of the _leges
agrariæ_ of Cæsar; and Plutarch (_Cato_, 38) says positively: “Elated
with this victory, Cæsar proposed a new law, to share among the poor and
indigent citizens nearly all the lands of Campania;” and previously, in
chapter 36, the same author had said of Cæsar, that he proposed laws for
the distribution of the lands to the poor citizens. Thus there were
positively two laws published at an interval of some months; and if the
object of the second was the distribution of the _ager Campanus_, the
first had without doubt a more general character. Dio Cassius, after
having related the proposal of the first agrarian law, in which Campania
was excepted, says similarly: “Besides, the territory of Campania was
given to those who had three children or more” (XXXVIII. 7).
[1121] Cicero, _Second Philippic_, 15.
[1122] _Liber Coloniarum_, edit. Lachmann, pp. 220, 235, 239, 259,
260.--Several of these colonies probably dated no farther back than the
dictatorship of Cæsar.
[1123] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.--Velleius Paterculus, II. 44.--Appian,
_Civil Wars_, II. 10.--“Capua mura ducta colonia Julia Felix, jussu
imperatoris Cæsaris a xx. viris deducta.” (_Liber Coloniarum_, I. p.
231, edit. Lachmann.)
[1124] Cicero, _Second Philippic_, 39.
[1125] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.--Cicero, _Epistles to Atticus_, II. 19.
[1126] Cicero, _Epistles to Atticus_, II. 7.
[1127] Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 17.
[1128] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, VIII. 10.
[1129] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 13.--_Scholiast_ of Bobbio on
Cicero.--Cicero, _Oration for Plancus_, p. 261, edit. Orelli.
[1130] Cicero, _Oration for Plancus_, 14.
[1131] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1132] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.--Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.--Appian, II.
13.
[1133] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1134] Cicero, _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 16.--_Scholiast_ of
Bobbio on Cicero’s _Oration In Rege Alexandrino_, p. 350, edit. Orelli.
This Ptolemy Alexas, or Alexander, appears to have been a natural son of
Alexander I., younger brother of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who is also called
Ptolemy Soter II.; in this case he would be, though illegitimate, cousin
of Ptolemy Auletes. He had succeeded Alexander II., legitimate son of
Alexander I., who married his step-mother, Berenice, only legitimate
daughter of Ptolemy Soter II.
[1135] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 16.--The King of Egypt gave
nearly 6,000 talents (35 millions of francs) to Cæsar and Pompey.
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 14.)
[1136] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 54.--Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 12.--Cæsar’s
expressions (_War of Alexandria_, 33, and _Civil Wars_, III. 107) show
the friendship of Ptolemy Auletes for the Romans.
[1137] Cæsar, _War in Gaul_, I. 35.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 35.--Dio
Cassius, XXXVIII. 34.
[1138] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1139] Plutarch, _Cato_, 38.--“It was about the sixth hour, when, in the
course of my speech in court for C. Antonius, my colleague, I deplored
certain abuses which prevailed in the State, and which seemed to me to
be closely allied to the case of my unfortunate client. Some
ill-disposed persons reported my words to certain men of high position
in different terms to those I had used; and on the same day, at the
ninth hour, the adoption of Clodius was carried.” (Cicero, _Oration for
his House_, 16.)
[1140] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 14.--Dio Cassius, XXXVIII.
12.--Plutarch, _Pompey_, 50.--Cicero, 39.
[1141] Cicero, _Oration for Sestius_, _loc. cit._
[1142] Cicero, writing to Atticus about Cæsar’s first consulship, says:
“Weak as he was then, Cæsar was stronger than the entire State.”
(_Letters to Atticus_, VII. 9.)
[1143] “Bibulus thought to render Cæsar an object of suspicion. He made
him more powerful than before.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 44.)
[1144] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1145] Cæsar rode an extraordinary horse, whose feet were shaped almost
like those of man, the hoof being divided in such a way as to present
the appearance of fingers. He had reared this horse, which had been
foaled in his house, with great care, for the soothsayers had predicted
the empire of the world to its master. Cæsar was the first who tamed it:
before that time the animal had allowed no one to mount it. Finally, he
erected a statue to its honour in front of the Temple of Venus
Genetrix.” (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 61.)
[1146] “I am quite of opinion that the right of absent candidates to
solicit the offices of the priesthood may be examined by the comitia,
for there is a precedent for that. C. Marius, whilst in Cappadocia, was
elected augur by the law Domitia, and no subsequent law has forbidden
the course; for the Julian Law, the last on the subject of the
priesthood, states: ‘He who is a candidate, or he whose right to become
one has been examined.’” (Cicero, _Letters to Brutus_, I. 5.)
[1147] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 37.
[1148] Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 4.--_Oration against
Piso_, 21.
[1149] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 16; _Letters to Atticus_, V. 10,
16, 21.--_First Philippic_, 8.
[1150] “You have obtained,” says he, addressing Piso, “a consular
province with no other limits than those of your cupidity, in
contravention of the law of your son-in-law. In fact, by a law of
Cæsar’s, as just as it is salutary, free nations used to enjoy a full
and entire liberty.” (Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 16.)
[1151] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 25; _Familiar Letters_, II. 17;
_Letters to Atticus_, VI. 7.--“I will add, that if the ancient right and
antique usage were still in force, I should not have had to send in my
accounts till after I had discoursed about them, and had them audited
with good humour, and the formalities that our intimacy justifies. What
I would have done in Rome according to the old fashion, I ought,
according to the Julian law, to have done in my province: send in my
accounts on the spot, and only deposit in the treasury an exact copy of
them. I was obliged to follow the provisions of the law. The accounts,
duly audited and compared, were to be deposited in two towns, and I
chose, in the terms of the law, the two most important--Laodicea and
Apamea.... I come to the point of the customary presents. You must know
that I had only included in my list the military tribunes, the prefects,
and the officers of my house (_contubernales_). I even made a blunder. I
thought I was allowed any latitude in point of time. Subsequently I
learnt that the request ought to be sent in during the thirty days
allowed for the settling the accounts. Happily, all is safe as far as
the centurions are concerned, and the officers of the household of the
military tribunes--for the law is silent in regard to the latter.
(Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, V. 20.)
[1152] Dio Cassius, XLIII. 25.
[1153] “I say nothing about the golden crown that has been so long a
torture to you, in your uncertainty as to whether you ought to demand it
or not. In fact, the law of your son-in-law forbad them to give it or
you to receive it, unless your triumph had been granted you.” (Cicero,
_Oration against Piso_, 37.)
[1154] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 37; _Letters to Atticus_, V. 10,
16.
[1155] “Take notice, I beg you, that I paid into the hands of the
farmers of the revenues at Ephesus twenty-two millions of sestertii, a
sum to which I have a perfect right, and that Pompey laid hands on the
whole. I have made up my mind on the subject--whether wisely or unwisely
matters not.” (Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, xxxvii. 16.)
[1156] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 21.
[1157] Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 2, 3, 4.
[1158] “Is there any position more disgraceful than that of a senator,
who goes on a mission without the slightest authorisation on the part of
the State? It was this kind of mission that I should have abolished
during my consulship, even with the consent of the Senate,
notwithstanding the apparent advantages it held out, had it not been for
the senseless opposition of a tribune. At any rate I caused its duration
to be shortened: formerly it had no limit; now I have reduced it to a
year.” (Cicero, _On Laws_, III. 8.)
[1159] “Moreover, I think that the Julian law has defined the duration
of free embassies: nor will it be easy to extend it.” (Cicero, _Letters
to Atticus_, XV. 11.--Orelli, _Index Legum_, p. 192.)
[1160] Cicero, _Oration for Sestius_, 64. “Liberty torn from nations and
individuals on whom it had been conferred, and whose right had been, by
virtue of the Julian law, so precisely ensured against all hostile
attacks.” (_Oration against Piso_, xxxvii. 16.)
[1161] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, VIII. 8.--Several of its chapters
have been preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI. It is generally
supposed that the fragments inscribed on a tablet of brass in the Museum
of Florence belong to the same law. They have been published by Maffei,
_Museum Veronese_, p. 365, No. 4, and commented on by the celebrated
Marini, in his work on the Monuments of the Fratres Arvales, I. pp. 39,
40, note 44.
[1162] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 42.
[1163] Cicero, _Oration for Rabirimus Postumus_, 4, 5.
[1164] Fragments of the Julian law, _De Repetundis_, preserved in the
_Digest_, XLVIII. tit. XI.
The law is directed against those who, holding a magistracy, an embassy,
or any other office, or forming part of the attendants of these
functionaries, receive money.
They may receive money to any amount from their cousins, their still
nearer relatives, or their wives.
The law includes those who have received money: For speaking in the
Senate or any public assembly; for doing their duty or absenting
themselves from it; for refusing to obey a public order or for exceeding
it; for pronouncing judgment in a criminal or a civil case, or for not
pronouncing it; for condemning or acquitting; for awarding or
withdrawing the subject of a suit; for adjudging or taking an object in
litigation; for appointing a judge or arbitrator, changing him, ordering
him to judge, or for not appointing him or changing him, and not
ordering him to judge; for causing a man to be imprisoned, put in irons,
or set at liberty; for accusing or not accusing; for producing or
suppressing a witness; for recognising as complete an unfinished public
work; for accepting wheat for the use of the State without testing its
good quality; for taking upon himself the maintenance of the public
buildings without a certificate of their good condition; for enlisting a
soldier or discharging him.
All that has been given to the proconsul or prætor contrary to the
provisions of the present law, cannot become his by right of possession.
Sales and leases are declared null and void which have been made, for a
high or a low price, with a view to right of possession by a third.
The magistrates are to abstain from all extortion, and receive as salary
but 100 pieces of gold each year.
The action will lie equally against the heirs of the accused, but only
during the year succeeding his death.
No one who has been condemned under this law can be either judge,
accuser, or witness.
The penalties are exile, banishment to an island, or death, according to
the gravity of the offence.
[1165] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.
[1166] _De alternis consiliis rejiciendis._ (Cicero, _Oration against
Vatinius_, 11.--_Scholiast_ of Bobbio, pp. 321, 323, edit. Orelli.)
[1167] “The citizens who, not being of your order, cannot, thanks to the
Cornelian laws, challenge more than three judges.” (Cicero, _Second
Prosecution of Verres_, II. 31.)
[1168] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 28.
[1169] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, XIII. 35. “Pompeius Strabo, father of
Pompey the Great, re-peopled Comum. Some time after, Scipio established
3,000 inhabitants there; and, finally, Cæsar sent 5,000 colonists, the
most distinguished of whom were 500 Greeks.” (Strabo, cxix.)
[1170] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 18.--Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8.
[1171] Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8.--Orelli, _Index Legum_, 178.
[1172] Cicero, in his speech against Vatinius, chap. 6, while
reproaching him for having disregarded the auspices, exclaims, “I ask
you first, Did you refer the matter to the Senate, as Cæsar did?”
“It is true that Cæsar’s acts were, for the benefit of peace, confirmed
by the Senate.” (Cicero, _Second Philippic_, 39.)
[1173] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.
[1174] Cæsar conducted himself with discretion in his consulship.”
(Plutarch, _Crassus_, 17.)
[1175] “Cæsar published laws that were worthy, I will not say of a
consul, but of the most reckless of tribunes.” (Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14.)
[1176] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, VI. 1.--Appian, _Civil Wars_, II.
13.
[1177] Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXIII. 5. Drumann and Mommsen, like
ourselves, refuse their belief to the assertion of Suetonius.
[1178] Plutarch, _Lucullus_, 9.
[1179] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 22.--Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14.
[1180] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 14.
[1181] Plutarch, _Crassus_, 17.
[1182] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.--Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 22.
[1183] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 22.
[1184] Dio Cassius, XL. 34.
[1185] “At the gladiatorial exhibition, the giver of the show and all
his attendants were received with hisses. At the games in honour of
Apollo, the tragedian Diphilus made a pointed allusion to our friend
Pompey in the lines--
‘’Tis through our woes that thou art great,’
and was called upon to repeat the words a thousand times. Further on,
the whole assembly cheered him when he said,
‘A time shall come, when thou thyself shall weep
That power of thine so deadly’--
for they are lines that one might have said were written on purpose by
an enemy of Pompey. The words
‘If nought, nor law, nor virtue, hold thee back,’
were received with a tempest of acclamation. When Cæsar arrived, he met
with a cold reception. Curio, on the other hand, who followed him, was
saluted with a thousand cheers, as Pompey used to be in the prosperous
times of the Republic. Cæsar was annoyed, and sent off a courier post
haste to Pompey, who is, they say, at Capua.” (Cicero, _Letters to
Atticus_, II. 19.)
[1186] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 9.
[1187] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 19.
[1188] “Bibulus is being praised to the skies, I know not why; but he is
being extolled as the one only man who, by temporising, has restored the
State. Pompey, my idol Pompey, has been his own ruin, as I own with
tears to-day; he has no one left who takes his side from affection. I am
afraid that they will find it necessary to resort to intimidation. For
my own part, I forbear, on the one hand, to combat their views on
account of my ancient friendship with them, and, on the other, my
antecedents prevent my approving of what they are about; I preserve a
middle course. The humour of the people is best seen in the theatres.”
(Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 19, 20, 21.)
[1189] “He keeps prudently in the background, but hopes at a safe
distance to witness their shipwreck.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II.
7.)
[1190] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 13.
[1191] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 17.
[1192] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 20, 21.
[1193] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 11.
[1194] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 24.
[1195] Cicero, _Oration against Vatinius_, II.--Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 9.
[1196] Scholiast of Bobbio, _On Cicero’s Oration against Vatinius_, p.
330, edit. Orelli.--Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 2 and 12.
[1197] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 12.
[1198] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1199] “He (Ariovistus) knows, by his messengers, that in causing
Cæsar’s death he would gratify a number of great persons at Rome; his
death would win to him their favour and friendship.” (Cæsar, _War in
Gaul_, I. 44.)
[1200] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 12.
[1201] Cicero, _Letters to Quintus_, I. 2.
[1202] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 23; _Nero_, 2.
[1203] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 23.--Valerius Maximus, III. 7, 9.
[1204] “At the gates of Rome there was a general invested with authority
for many years, and at the head of a great army (_cum magno exercitu_).
Was he my enemy? I do not say he was; but I knew that when people said
so, he was silent.” (Cicero, _Oration after his return in the Senate_,
13.)--“Oppressos, vos, inquit, tenebo _exercitu_ Cæsaris.” (Cicero,
_Letters to Atticus_, II. 16.)--“Clodius said he would invade the curia
at the head of Cæsar’s _army_.” (Cicero, _Oration on the Report of the
Augurs_, 22.)--“Cæsar had already gone out of Rome _with his army_.”
(Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.)
[1205] In several passages of Cicero’s letters, Cæsar is represented as
being at the gates of Rome at the head of his army; and yet we know from
his _Commentaries_ that at the beginning of the war in Gaul he had only
four legions, of which one was stationed on the banks of the Rhine, and
the three others at Aquileia, in Illyria. It is, therefore, difficult to
understand how he could have had troops at the gates of Rome, of which
no further mention is made in the course of his campaign. The only way
to reconcile the letters of Cicero with the _Commentaries_ is to allow
that Cæsar, independently of the legions which he found beyond the
frontiers of Italy, summoned to his standard the volunteers and Roman
veterans who were desirous of following him. Mustering at the gate of
Rome, they joined him subsequently in Gaul, and were merged in the
legions. This supposition is the more probable, as in 700, when the
question of re-electing Pompey and Crassus to the consulship was brought
forward, Cæsar sent to Rome a great number of soldiers to vote in the
comitia. Hence, as all the legions had been recruited in Cisalpine Gaul,
the inhabitants of which did not possess the right of Roman city, he
must have had other Roman citizens in his army. Besides, if Cæsar
appealed to the veterans, he only followed the example of nearly all the
Roman generals, and among others of Scipio, Flamininus, and Marius. In
fact, when Cornelius Scipio departed for the war against Antiochus,
there were five thousand volunteers at the gates of Rome--citizens as
well as allies--who had served in all the campaigns of his brother,
Scipio Africanus. (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 4.)--“When Flamininus left to
join the legions in Macedonia, he took with him three thousand veterans
who had fought against Hannibal and Hasdrubal.” (Plutarch, _Flamininus_,
III.)--“Marius, before leaving for the war against Jugurtha, appealed to
all the bravest soldiers of Latium. He knew most of them for having
served under his eyes, and the rest by reputation. By force of
solicitation, he obliged even the veterans to go with him.” (Sallust,
_War of Jugurtha_, LXXXIV.)
[1206] “At the present moment he (Clodius) is agitating and raging; he
knows not what he wants; he makes hostile demonstrations on this side
and on that, and seems to intend to leave to chance where he shall
strike. When he gives a thought to the unpopularity of the present state
of things, you would say he was going to fly at the authors of it; but
when he sees on which side are the means of action and the armed force,
he turns round against us.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 22.)
[1207] These clubs (_collegia compitalitia_) had an organisation which
was almost military, divided into districts, and composed exclusively of
the proletaries. (See Mommsen, _Roman History_, III. 290.)--“The slaves
enrolled under pretence of forming corporations.” (Cicero, _Oration
after his return in the Senate_, 13.)
[1208] An exception, however, was made in 690, in favour of the
corporations of artisans. (Asconius, _In Pisone_, IV. p. 7; _In
Corneliana_, p. 75, edit. Orelli.)
[1209] Cicero, _Oration against Piso_, 4.--Asconius, _On the Oration of
Cicero against Piso_, pp. 7, 8, edit. Orelli.--Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.
[1210] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.
[1211] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.
[1212] “I receive from Cæsar the most flattering invitations, asking me
to join him as lieutenant.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 17.)--“He
has got my enemy (Clodius) transferred to the plebeian order: either
because he was irritated to see that even his kindness could not
persuade me to join his side, or because he yielded to the urgency of
others. My refusal could not have been regarded as an insult, for
subsequently to it he advised me, nay, even entreated me, to serve him
as lieutenant. I did not accept this office, not because I thought it
beneath me, but because I was far from suspecting that the State could
possibly have, after Cæsar, any consuls so infamous as these (Piso and
Gabinius).” (Cicero, _Oration about the Consular Provinces_, 17.)
[1213] “Thanks to the pains I take, my popularity and my strength
increase daily. I do not meddle with politics in any way--not the least.
My house is crowded; my friends gather round me when I go abroad; my
consulate seems to be beginning afresh. It rains protestations of
attachment; and my confidence is such that at times I long for the
strife, which I ought always to dread.” (Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_,
II. 22.)--“Let Clodius bring his accusation. Italy will rise as one
man.” (Cicero, _Letters to Quintus_, I. 2.)
[1214] Cicero, _Oration against Vatinius_, 16.
[1215] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 48.
[1216] Plutarch, _Cicero_, 41.
[1217] Velleius Paterculus, II. 45.
[1218] Suetonius, XXIII.
[1219] “The rumours which preceded Pompey had caused great consternation
there, because it had been said that he meant to enter the city with his
army.” (Plutarch, _Pompey_, 45.)--“However, every one dreaded Pompey in
the greatest degree; no one knew whether he would disband his army or
not.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44.)
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
considererable=> considerable {pg 109}
acquiaed=> acquired {pg 118}
in Alterthum=> im Alterthum {pg 169 fn. 508}
There was, as we have seen, two peoples=> There were, as we have seen,
two peoples {pg 227}
Titus Livis=> Titus Livius {pg 256 fn. 691}
astembly=> assembly {pg 427}
ensreaties=> entreaties {pg 427}