of the three eminent personages who absorbed public attention was
satisfied; but the aim of this ambition varied according to their
several tempers. Crassus only desired the command of an army, in order
to increase his reputation and his immense riches. Pompey, without deep
convictions, placed his vanity in being the first man of the Republic.
Cæsar, the head of the popular party, aspired to power, in order, above
all other considerations, to ensure the triumph of his cause. The way
which would offer itself to his mind was not to excite civil war, but to
obtain his own nomination several times to the consulship; the great
citizens who had preceded him had followed no other way, and the there
is a natural tendency to take for our example that which has been
successful in the past. The glory acquired in Gaul assured Cæsar
beforehand of the public favour, which was to carry him again to the
first magistracy. Nevertheless, to dispel the obstacles continually
raised by a powerful party, it was necessary to remove hostile
competitors from important offices; to gain the support of distinguished
men, such as Cicero; and, as everything was venal, to buy, with the
produce of the booty he made by war, the consciences which were for
sale. This course, seconded by Pompey and Crassus, promised success.
Pompey, always under the influence of his wife’s charms, appeared to
rest satisfied with the part which was assigned to him. Had he been free
from all engagement, and obeyed his own instincts, he would have
embraced the cause of the Senate rather than that which he was
sustaining; for men of a nature so vain as his, prefer the flattering
adherence of the aristocracy in the middle of which they live, to the
expression of the approbation of the people, which rarely reaches their
ears. Dragged on by the force of circumstances, he was obliged to
wrestle against those who stood in his way; and the more the opposition
showed itself ardent, the more he gave way to the violence of his
temper. Legality, moreover, was observed by nobody, as the following
incident proves. Cato aspired to the prætorship. On the day of the
comitia, the first century, to which the epithet of _prœrogativæ_ was
given, and the suffrage of which exercised a great influence over the
others, voted for him. Pompey, not doubting the same result from the
other centuries, declared suddenly that he heard a clap of
thunder,[661] and dismissed the assembly. Some days afterwards, by
purchasing votes and employing all the means of intimidation at their
disposal, the new consuls caused P. Vatinius, the author of the motion
which, in 695, procured for Cæsar the government of the Cisalpine
province, to be elected prætor, in the place of M. Cato.[662] Most of
the other magistrates were similarly chosen among their creatures, and
there were only two tribunes of the people, C. Ateius Capito and P.
Aquilius Gallus, to represent the opposition. All these elections were
conducted with a certain degree of order, troubled only once in the
comitia for the ædileship. A battle took place in the Campus Martius, in
which there were killed and wounded. Pompey rushed into the middle of
the riot to appease it, and had his toga covered with blood. His slaves
took it to his house to bring another. At the view of this blood, Julia,
who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, believed that her husband had
been slain, and suffered a miscarriage. This accident injured her
health, but was not, as has been stated, the cause of her death, which
occurred only in the year following.[663]
[Sidenote: Motion of Trebonius on the Government of the Provinces.]
V. There was no further resistance to the two consuls. The factions
appeared to be vanquished. Cicero himself and Clodius became reconciled,
and, through the mediation of Pompey and Crassus, promised reciprocal
concessions.[664] The moment had arrived for presenting the law which
was to give provinces and armies to the two first magistrates of the
Republic: the latter wished the motion to come from a tribune of the
people, and they had entrusted it to C. Trebonius, who was subsequently
one of Cæsar’s lieutenants. The Senate had not proceeded to the
distribution of provinces before the consular elections, as the law
required. Trebonius, following the example given a few years before, in
the case of the government of Gaul, addressed the people, and took the
initiative of the two motions, one relating to Pompey and Crassus, the
other to Cæsar.
The provinces destined for the two consuls, on quitting office, were not
named separately for each, but Pompey and Crassus were to arrange the
partition between them: Dio Cassius even pretends that they drew lots.
This assertion appears to be incorrect. An insurrection of the Vaccæi
and the reduction of the revolt of Clunia[665] served as a pretext to
ask that Spain should be given to Pompey with four legions; Crassus was
to have Syria and the neighbouring states, with a considerable army. The
name of Parthians was not pronounced, but everybody knew why Crassus
coveted Syria.[666] Although advanced in age (he was sixty years old),
he dreamt of making the conquest of the countries which extend from the
Euphrates to the Indus.[667] As to Cæsar, he was to be continued in his
province. The duration of these governments was for five years; they
conferred the power of raising Roman or allied troops, and of making
war or peace.
The propositions of Trebonius were warmly combated by M. Cato, by
Favonius, and by two other tribunes of the people, Ateius and Aquilius
Gallus. “But Favonius,” says Plutarch, “was listened to by nobody; some
were retained by their respect for Pompey and Crassus, the greater
number sought to please Cæsar, and remained quiet, placing all their
hopes in him.”[668] The enemies of the consuls in the Senate were
intimidated, and kept silence. Cicero, to avoid the discussion, had
retired to the country.
In the assembly of the people, M. Cato spoke against the project of law
of Trebonius, or rather he employed the two hours allowed him in
declamations on the conduct of the depositaries of power. When the two
hours were expired, Trebonius, who presided over the assembly, enjoined
him to quit the tribune. Cato refused to obey; one of the tribune’s
lictors dragged him from it; he slipped from him, and a moment after
re-appeared on the rostra, trying to speak again. Trebonius ordered him
to be taken to prison, and, to obtain possession of his person, it
required a regular contest; but, in the midst of this tumult, Cato had
gained what he wanted, namely, to make them lose a day.[669]
A second assembly had better success. Considerable sums had been
distributed among the tribes, and armed bands were in readiness to
interfere in case of need. The opposition, on their side, had omitted
no preparation for disputing the victory. The tribune P. Aquilius,
fearing that they might prevent him from approaching the public place,
conceived the idea of hiding himself the previous evening in the Curia
Hostilia, which opened upon the Forum. Trebonius, informed of this,
caused the doors to be locked, and kept him in all the night and the
next day.[670] M. Cato, Favonius, and Ateius succeeded with great
difficulty in reaching the Forum; but, unable to force a way through the
crowd up to the rostra, they mounted on the shoulders of some of their
clients, and began to shout that _Jupiter was thundering_, and that
there could be no deliberation. But it was all in vain; always repulsed,
but always protesting, they gave up the contest when Trebonius had
proclaimed that the law was accepted by the people.[671] One of its
provisions decreed that Pompey should remain at Rome after his
consulship, and that he should govern his province of Spain through his
lieutenants. The vote was published in the midst of the most stormy
tumult. Ateius was wounded in the fray, which cost the lives of several
citizens; this was a thing then too frequent to produce any great
sensation.
Such was the memorable struggle now commenced at Rome between the
consuls and the opposition. If we judge only from certain acts of
violence related by the historians, we are at first tempted to accuse
Crassus and Pompey of having had recourse to a strange abuse of force;
but a more attentive examination proves that they were, so to say,
constrained to it by the turbulent intrigues of a factious minority. In
fact, these same historians, who describe complacently the means of
culpable compulsion employed by the candidates for the consulship, allow
contrary assertions to escape them here and there in the sequel, which
help to deface the disagreeable impression made by their narrative.
Thus, according to Cicero, public opinion blamed the hostility which was
exercised against Pompey and Crassus.[672] Plutarch, after presenting
under the most unfavourable colours the manœuvres of the consuls for
the distribution of the governments of the provinces, adds: “This
partition pleased all parties. The people desired that Pompey might not
be sent away from Rome.”[673]
Cæsar might hope that the consulship of Pompey and Crassus would restore
order and the supremacy of the laws: it did nothing of the sort. After
having themselves so often violated legality and corrupted the
elections, they sought to remedy the evil, which they had contributed to
aggravate, by proposing severe measures against corruption; this tardy
homage rendered to public morality was destined to remain without
effect, like all the remedies which had hitherto been employed.
[Sidenote: Pompey’s Sumptuary Law.]
VI. They sought to repress extravagance by a sumptuary law, but a speech
of Hortensius was sufficient to cause its rejection. The orator, after a
brilliant picture of the greatness of the Republic, and of the progress
of civilisation, of which Rome was the centre, proceeded to laud the
consuls for their magnificence, and for the noble use they made of their
immense riches.[674] And, in fact, at that very moment Pompey was
building the theatre which bore his name, and was giving public games,
in which it seemed his wish to surpass the acts of sumptuous
extravagance of the most prodigal courtiers of the Roman people.[675] In
these games, which lasted several days, 500 lions and eighteen elephants
were slain. This spectacle inspired the mob with admiration; but it was
remarked that, usually insensible to the death of the gladiators who
expired under their eyes, they were affected by the cries of pain of the
elephants. Cicero, who was present at these festivals, places, in the
relation he addresses to one of his friends, the men and the animals on
the same footing, and displays no more regret for the one than for the
other, the spirit of humanity was still so little developed![676]
The splendour of these games had dazzled Rome and Italy, and restored to
Pompey a great part of his prestige; but the levies of troops, which he
was obliged to order soon afterwards, caused great discontent. Several
tribunes vainly opposed their veto; they were obliged to renounce a
struggle which had Pompey, and especially Crassus, to sustain it.
[Sidenote: Departure of Crassus for Syria.]
VII. Without waiting for the end of his consulship, Crassus determined
on quitting Rome; he left in the last days of October.[677] As we have
said, it was not the government of Syria which excited his ardour; his
aim was to carry the war into the country of the Parthians, in order to
acquire new glory, and obtain possession of the treasures of those rich
countries.
The idea of this expedition was not new. The Parthians had long awakened
the jealousy of Rome. They had extended their frontiers from the
Caucasus to the Euphrates,[678] and considerably increased their
importance; their chief assumed, like Agamemnon, the title of _king of
kings_. It is true that the part of Mesopotamia taken from the Parthians
by Tigranes had been restored to them by Lucullus, and Pompey had
renewed the treaty which made the Euphrates the frontier of the empire
of the Arsacides. But this treaty had not always been respected, for it
was not one of the habits of the Republic to suffer a too powerful
neighbour. Nevertheless, different circumstances might, at this moment,
lead the Senate to make war upon the Parthians. While A. Gabinius
exercised the command in Syria, Mithridates, dethroned, on account of
his cruelty, by his younger brother Orodes, had invoked the support of
the proconsul; and the latter was on the point of giving it, when Pompey
sent him orders to repair first into Egypt to replace Ptolemy on his
throne. Mithridates, besieged in Babylon, had surrendered to his
brother, who had caused him to be put to death.[679] On another hand,
the Parthians were always at war with the kings of Armenia, allies of
the Romans. The Senate, had it the wish, was not, therefore, in want of
pretexts for declaring war. It had to avenge the death of a friendly
pretender, and to sustain a threatened ally. To what point could the law
of nations be invoked? That is doubtful; but, for several centuries, the
Republic had been in the habit of consulting its own interests much more
than justice, and the war against the Parthians was quite as legitimate
as the wars against Perseus, Antiochus, or Carthage.
Nevertheless, this enterprise encountered a warm opposition at Rome; the
party hostile to the consuls feared the glory which it might reflect
upon Crassus, and many prudent minds dreaded the perils of so distant an
expedition; but Cæsar, who had inherited that passion of the ancient
Romans who dreamt for their town the empire of the world, encouraged
Crassus in his projects, and, in the winter of 700, he sent Publius to
his father, with 1,000 picked Gaulish cavalry.
Inauspicious auguries marked the departure of the proconsul. The two
tribunes of the people, C. Ateius Capito and P. Aquilius Gallus,
adherents of the party of the nobles, opposed it. They had succeeded in
imparting their sentiments to many of their fellow-citizens. Crassus,
intimidated, took with him Pompey, whose ascendency over the people was
so powerful that his presence was sufficient to put a stop to all
hostile manifestation. Ateius Capito was not discouraged; he gave orders
to an usher to place Crassus under arrest at the moment when he was
leaving Rome. The other tribune prevented this act of violence. Then,
seeing that all his efforts had failed, he had recourse to an extreme
measure: he sent for a chafing-dish, and threw perfumes into it, while
he pronounced against Crassus the most terrible curses. These
imprecations were of a nature to strike the superstitious minds of the
Romans. People did not fail to call them to memory afterwards, when news
came of the Syrian disasters.
[Sidenote: Cato proposes to deliver Cæsar to the Germans.]
VIII. About the same time, the news arrived at Rome of the defeat of the
Usipetes and Tencteri, of the passage of the Rhine, and of the descent
in Britain; they excited a warm enthusiasm, and the Senate decreed
twenty days of thanksgiving.[680] The last expedition especially made a
great impression on people’s minds; it was like the discovery of a new
world; the national pride was flattered at learning that the legions had
penetrated into an unknown country, from which immense advantages for
the Republic were promised.[681] Yet all were not dazzled by the
military successes; some pretended that Cæsar had crossed, not the
ocean, but a mere pool,[682] and Cato, persevering in his hatred,
proposed to deliver him to the Germans. He accused him of having
attacked them at the moment when they were sending deputies, and, by
this violation of the law of nations, drawn upon Rome the anger of
Heaven; “they must,” he said, “turn it upon the head of the perfidious
general:” an impotent diatribe, which did not prevail against the public
feeling![683] Yet, as soon as Cæsar was informed of it, too sensitive,
perhaps, to the insult, he wrote to the Senate a letter full of
invectives and accusations against Cato. The latter at first repelled
them calmly; then, taking advantage of the circumstance, he began to
paint, in the darkest colours, Cæsar’s pretended designs. “It was,” he
said, “neither the Germans nor the Gauls they had to fear, but this
ambitious man, whose designs were apparent to everybody.” These words
produced a strong impression on an auditory already prejudiced
unfavourably. Nevertheless, the fear of the public opinion prevented any
decision; for, according to Plutarch, “Cato made no impression outside
the Senate; the people desired that Cæsar should be raised to the
highest power, and the Senate, though it was of the same opinion as
Cato, dared not to act, through fear of the people.”[684]
CHAPTER V.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 700
[Sidenote: Second Descent in England.]
I. The expedition to England, in 699, may be said to have been only a
reconnoitring visit, showing the necessity of more numerous forces and
more considerable preparations to subjugate the warlike people of Great
Britain. Accordingly, before starting for Italy, Cæsar gave orders to
build on the coast, and especially at the mouth of the Seine, a great
number of ships fitted for the transport of troops. In the month of June
he left Italy, visited his stocks where the vessels were building,
appointed Boulogne as the general rendezvous of his fleet, and, while it
was assembling, marched rapidly, with four legions, towards the country
of the Treviri, where the inhabitants, who had rebelled against his
orders, were divided into two parties, having at their head, one
Indutiomarus, and the other Cingetorix. He gave the power to the latter,
who was favourable to the Romans. After having thus calmed the agitation
of that country, Cæsar repaired at once to Boulogne, where he found 800
ships ready to put to sea; he embarked with five legions and 2,000
cavalry, and, without any resistance, landed, as in the year before,
near Deal. A first successful combat, not far from Kingston, engaged him
to continue his advance, when he received information that a tempest
had just destroyed part of his fleet; he then returned to the coast,
took the measures necessary for repairing this new disaster, caused all
his ships to be drawn on land, and surrounded them with a retrenchment
adjoining to the camp. He next marched towards the Thames. On his way he
encountered the Britons, who, vanquished in two successive combats, had
nevertheless more than once scattered trouble and disorder through the
ranks of the legions, thanks to their chariots; these engines of war,
mixed with the cavalry, spread terror and disconcerted the Roman
tactics. Cæsar forced the passage of the Thames at Sunbury, went to
attack the citadel of Cassivellaunus near St. Albans, and obtained
possession of it. Several tribes, situated to the south of that river,
made their submission. Then, dreading the approach of the equinox, and
especially the troubles which might break out in Gaul during his
absence, he returned to the continent.
[Sidenote: Displacement of the Army. Disaster of Sabinus.]
II. Immediately on his return, he placed his legions in winter quarters:
Sabinus and Cotta at Tongres; Cicero at Charleroi; Labienus at
Lavacherie, on the Ourthe; Fabius at Saint-Pol; Trebonius at Amiens;
Crassus at Montdidier; Plancus at Champlieu; and, lastly, Roscius in the
country of Séez. This displacement of the army, rendered necessary by
the difficulty of provisioning it, separated by great distances the
quarters from each other, though all, except that of Roscius, were
comprised in a radius of 100 miles.
As in the preceding years, Cæsar believed he might repair into Italy;
but Gaul still chafed under the yoke of the foreigner, and, while the
people of Orleans massacred Tasgetius, who had been given them for their
king three years before, events of a more serious character were in
preparation in the countries situate between the Rhine and the Meuse.
The people of Liége, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus, revolt and attack,
at Tongres, the camp occupied by Sabinus and Cotta with fifteen cohorts.
Unable to take it by assault, they have recourse to stratagem: they
spread abroad the report of the departure of Cæsar, and of the revolt of
the whole of Gaul; they offer the two lieutenants to let them go,
without obstacle, to rejoin the nearest winter quarters. Sabinus
assembles a council of war, in which Cotta, an old experienced soldier,
refused all arrangement with the enemy; but, as often happens in such
meetings, the majority rallies to the least energetic opinion; the
fifteen cohorts, trusting in the promise of the Gauls, abandon their
impregnable position, and begin their march. On arriving at the defile
of Lowaige, they are attacked and massacred by the barbarians, who had
placed themselves in an ambuscade in the woods. Ambiorix, emboldened by
this success, raises all the peoples on his way, and hastens, at
Charleroi, to attack the camp of Cicero. The legion, though taken
unexpectedly, defends itself bravely, but the Gauls have learnt from
deserters the art of besieging fortresses in the Roman manner; they
raise towers, construct covered galleries, and surround the camp with a
countervallation. Meanwhile Cicero has found the means of informing
Cæsar of his critical position. The latter was at Amiens; the morrow of
the day on which he receives this news, he starts with two legions, and
sends a Gaul to announce his approach. The assailants, informed on their
part of Cæsar’s march, abandon the siege, and go to meet him. The two
armies encounter near the little stream of the Haine, at fourteen
kilomètres from Charleroi. Shut up in his retrenchments on Mont
Sainte-Aldegonde, Cæsar counterfeits fear, in order to provoke the Gauls
to attack him; and when they rush upon the ramparts to storm them, he
sallies out through all the gates, puts the enemies to the rout, and
strews the ground with their dead. The same day he rejoins Cicero,
congratulates the soldiers on their courage, and his lieutenant for
having been faithful to the Roman principle of never entering into
negotiation with an enemy in arms. For the moment this victory defeated
at one blow the aggressive attempts of the populations on the banks of
the Rhine against Labienus, and those of the maritime peoples on the
coasts of the Straits against Roscius; but soon new disturbances arose:
the inhabitants of the state of Sens expelled Cavarinus, whom Cæsar had
given them for king; and, a little later, Labienus was forced to combat
the inhabitants of the country of Trèves, whom he defeated in an
engagement in which Indutiomarus was slain. With the exception of the
peoples of Burgundy and Champagne, all Gaul was in fermentation, which
obliged Cæsar to pass the winter in it.
[Sidenote: L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher,
Consuls.]
III. During this time, the struggle of parties continued at Rome, and
Pompey, charged with the supplying of provisions, having under his
orders lieutenants and legions, posted himself at the gates of the town;
his presence in Italy, a pledge of order and tranquillity, was accepted
by all good citizens.[685] His influence was, as Cæsar thought, to
paralyse that of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had obtained the
consulship. In fact, when on the preceding occasion Crassus and Pompey
placed themselves on the ranks as candidates for the consulship, the
opposite party, hopeless of defeating both, had sought the admission of
at least one of their candidates. They tried again the manœuvre they
had employed in 695, by which they succeeded in the nomination of
Bibulus as the colleague of Cæsar. The attempt had failed; but, at the
moment when the question of the election of consuls for the year 700 was
agitated, the aristocratic party, having no longer to contend against
persons of such eminence as Crassus and Pompey, obtained without
difficulty the election of Ahenobarbus. This latter represented alone,
in that high magistracy, the passions hostile to the triumvirs, since
his colleague Appius Claudius Pulcher was still, at that epoch,
favourable to Cæsar.
The authority of the consuls, whoever they might be, was powerless for
remedying the demoralisation of the upper classes, which was revealed by
numerous symptoms at Rome as well as in the provinces. Cicero himself,
as the following event proves, treated legality with contempt when it
interfered with his affections or political opinions.
[Sidenote: Re-establishment of Ptolemy in Egypt.]
IV. The Sibylline oracle, it will be remembered, had forbidden recourse
to arms for the purpose of restoring Ptolemy, King of Egypt, to his
states. In spite of this prohibition, Cicero, as early as the year 698,
had engaged P. Lentulus, proconsul in Cilicia and in Cyprus, to
re-establish him by force, and, to encourage this enterprise, he had
suggested to him the prospect of impunity in success, without, however,
concealing from him that, in case of reverse, the legal question, as
well, as the religious question, would assume a threatening form.[686]
Lentulus had thought it prudent to abstain; but Gabinius, proconsul in
Syria in the following year, had not shown the same degree of scruple.
Bribed by the king, some said, but, as others said, having received
orders from Pompey, he had left his son in Syria with a few troops, and
had marched with his legions towards Egypt.
After having, on his way, plundered Judæa, and sent prisoner to Rome its
king Aristobulus, he crossed the desert, and arrived before Pelusium. A
certain Archelaus, who was looked upon as a good general, and had served
under Mithridates, was detained in Syria. Gabinius, informed that Queen
Berenice wished to place him at the head of her army, and that she
offered a large sum of money for his ransom, immediately set him at
liberty, showing thereby as much avidity for riches as contempt for the
Egyptians. He defeated them in several battles, slew Archelaus, and
entered Alexandria, where he re-established Ptolemy on the throne, and
the latter, it is said, gave him 10,000 talents.[687] In this
expedition, Mark Antony, who was soon to be Cæsar’s quæstor, commanded
the cavalry; he distinguished himself by his intrepidity and by his
military talent.[688] This was the commencement of his fortune.
Gabinius, if we believe Dio Cassius, took good care not to send an
account of his conduct, but it was not long in becoming known, and he
was compelled to return to Rome, where serious accusations awaited him.
Unfortunately for him, when the period of his trial came on, Pompey, his
protector, was no longer consul.
Gabinius had to undergo in succession two accusations: he was acquitted
of the first, on the double head of sacrilege and high treason, because
he paid heavy bribes to his judges.[689] As to the second accusation,
relating to acts of extortion, he experienced more difficulties. Pompey,
who had been obliged to absent himself, in order to provide for the
provisioning with which he was charged, hastened to the gates of Rome,
which his office of proconsul did not allow him to enter, convoked an
assembly of the people outside the Pomœrium, employed all his
authority, and even read letters from Cæsar, in favour of the accused.
Still more, he begged Cicero to undertake his defence, and Cicero
accepted the task, forgetting the invectives with which he had
overwhelmed Gabinius before the Senate. All these efforts failed: it was
necessary to yield to the rage of the public opinion, skilfully excited
by the enemies of Gabinius; and the latter, condemned, went into exile,
where he remained until Cæsar’s dictatorship.[690]
[Sidenote: Corruption of the Elections.]
V. We are astonished to see personages such as Pompey and Cæsar
protecting men who seem to have borne such bad character as Gabinius;
but, to judge with impartiality the men of that period, we must not
forget, in the first place, that there were very few without blemish,
and, further, that the political parties never hesitated in throwing
upon their adversaries the most odious calumnies. Gabinius, belonging to
the popular faction, and the partisan of Pompey, had incurred the hatred
of the aristocracy and of the farmers of the revenues. The nobles never
pardoned him for being the author of the law which had entrusted to
Pompey the command of the expedition against the pirates, and for having
shown, during his proconsulship in Syria, want of deference in regard to
the Senate. So that assembly refused, in 698, to order thanksgivings for
his victories.[691] The farmers of the revenues bore ill-will towards
him on account of his decrees against usury,[692] and his solicitude for
the interests of his province.[693] This proconsul, who is represented
as an adventurer pillaging those under his administration, appears to
have governed Judæa with justice, and to have restored with skill, on
his return from Egypt, the order which had been disturbed during his
absence. His military capacity cannot be called in doubt. In speaking of
him, the historian Josephus closes with these words his account of the
battle against the Nabathæi: “This great captain, after so many
exploits, returned to Rome, and Crassus succeeded him in the government
of Syria.”[694] Nevertheless, it is very probable that Gabinius was not
more scrupulous than the other proconsuls in matter of probity; for, if
corruption then displayed itself with impudence in the provinces, it was
perhaps still more shameless in Rome. The following is a striking
example. Two candidates for the consulship, Domitius Calvinus and
Memmius Gemellus, united their clients and resources of all kinds to
obtain the first magistracy. In their desire to procure the support of
Ahenobarbus and Claudius Pulcher, the consuls in office, they engaged by
writing to secure for them, on their quitting office, the provinces they
desired, and that by a double fraud: they promised first to bring three
augurs to affirm the existence of a supposititious curiate law, and then
to find two consulars who would declare that they had assisted at the
regulation relative to the distribution of the provinces; in case of
non-performance, there was stipulated, for the profit of the consuls,
400,000 sestertii.[695] This shameless traffic and others of the same
kind, in which were compromised Æmilius Scaurus and Valerius Messala,
had caused the interest of money to be doubled.[696] The bargain would
probably have been carried out, if, in consequence of a quarrel between
the two consuls, Memmius had not denounced the convention in full
Senate, and produced the contract. The scandal was enormous, but it
remained unpunished as regarded the consuls.
Memmius, formerly Cæsar’s enemy, had recently joined his party;
nevertheless, the latter, incensed at his impudence, blamed his conduct,
and abandoned him; Memmius was exiled.[697] As to Domitius, he was, it
is true, accused of solicitation, and the Senate intended absolutely to
close the consulship against him by deciding that the consular comitia
should not be held until after judgment had been given on his trial.
All these facts bear witness to the decay of society, for the moral
degradation of the individuals must infallibly bring with it the
abasement of the institutions.
[Sidenote: Death of Cæsar’s Daughter.]
VI. Towards the month of August of the year 700, Cæsar lost his mother
Aurelia, and, a few days afterwards, his daughter Julia. The latter,
whose health had been declining since the troubles of the preceding
year, had become pregnant; she died in giving birth to a son, which did
not survive. Cæsar was painfully affected by this misfortune,[698] of
which he received the news during his expedition to Britain.[699] Pompey
was desirous of burying his wife in his estate of Alba; but the populace
opposed it, carried the body to the Campus Martius, and insisted on its
being buried there. By that rare privilege reserved to illustrious men,
the people sought, according to Plutarch, to honour rather the daughter
of Cæsar than the wife of Pompey.[700] This death broke one of the ties
which united the two most important men of the Republic. To create new
ties, Cæsar proposed his niece Octavia in marriage to Pompey, whose
daughter he offered to espouse, although she was already married to
Faustus Sylla.[701]
[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Buildings at Rome.]
VII. At the same period, the proconsul of Gaul was, with the produce of
his booty, rebuilding at Rome a magnificent edifice, the old basilica of
the Forum, which was extended as far as to the Temple of Liberty. “It
will be the most beautiful thing in the world,” says Cicero; “there will
be in the Campus Martius seven electoral enclosures and galleries of
marble which will be surrounded with great porticoes of a thousand
paces. Near it will be a public villa.” Paulus was charged with the
execution of the works; Cicero and Oppius considered that 60,000,000
sestertii was a small sum for such an undertaking.[702] According to
Pliny, the mere purchase of the site in the Forum cost Cæsar the sum of
100,000,000 sestertii.[703] This building, interrupted by events, was
only finished after the African war.[704]
[Sidenote: His Relations with Cicero.]
VIII. While Cæsar was gaining, by these works destined for the public,
the general admiration, he neglected none of those attentions which were
of a nature to ensure him the alliance of men of importance. Cicero, as
we have seen, was already reconciled with him, and Cæsar had done all in
his power to gain his attachment still further. He flattered his
self-love, listened to all his recommendations,[705] treating with great
friendship Quintus Cicero, whom he had made one of his lieutenants; he
went so far as to place at the disposal of the great orator his credit
and fortune,[706] and accordingly Cicero was in continual
correspondence with him. He composed, as we have seen, poems in his
honour, and he wrote to Quintus “that he placed above everything the
friendship of such a man, whose affection he prized as much as that of
his brother and children.”[707] Elsewhere he said: “The memorable and
truly divine behaviour of Cæsar towards me and towards my brother has
imposed upon me the duty of seconding him in all his designs.”[708] And
he had kept his word. It was at Cæsar’s request that Cicero had
consented to resume his old friendly relations with Crassus,[709] and to
defend Gabinius and Rabirius. This last, compromised in the affairs of
Egypt, was accused of having received great sums of money from King
Ptolemy; but Cicero proved that he was poor, and reduced to live upon
Cæsar’s generosity, and, in the course of the trial, he expressed
himself as follows:--
“Will you, judges, know the truth? If the generosity of C. Cæsar,
extreme towards everybody, had not, in regard to Rabirius, passed all
belief, we should have ceased long ago to see him in the Forum. Cæsar
singly performs towards Postumus the duty of his numerous friends; and
the services which these rendered to his prosperity, Cæsar lavishes them
upon his adversity. Postumus is no longer more than the shadow of a
Roman knight; if he preserves this title, it is by the protection, by
the devotedness of a single friend. This phantom of his old rank, which
Cæsar alone has preserved for him and assists him in sustaining, is the
only wealth that we can now take from him. And this is a reason why we
ought the more to maintain him in it in his distress. It cannot be the
effect of a mean merit, to inspire, absent and in misfortune, so much
interest in such a man, who, in so lofty a fortune, does not disdain to
cast down his looks on the affairs of others. In that pre-occupation
with the great things which he is doing or has done, we should not be
astonished if we saw him forget his friends, and, if he forgot them, he
would easily obtain forgiveness.
“I have recognised in Cæsar very eminent and wonderful qualities; but
his other virtues are, as on a vast theatre, exposed to the gaze of
nations. To choose with skill the place for a camp, to marshal an army,
to take fortresses, break through enemies’ lines, face the rigour of
winter and those frosts which we support with difficulty in the bosom of
our towns and houses, to pursue the enemy in that same season when the
wild beasts hide in the depth of their retreats, and where everywhere
the law of nations gives a truce to combats: these are great things; who
denies it? but they have for their motive the most magnificent of
recompenses, the hope of living for ever in men’s memory. Such efforts
cause us no surprise in the man who aspires to immortality.
“But this is the glory which I admire in Cæsar, a glory which is neither
celebrated by the verses of poets nor by the monuments of history, but
which is weighed in the balance of the sage: a Roman knight, his old
friend, attached, devoted, affectioned to his person, had been ruined,
not by his excesses, not by shameful extravagance and the losses
brought on by indulgence of the passions, but by a speculation which had
for its object to augment his patrimony: Cæsar has arrested him in his
descent; he has not suffered him to fall, he has held out his hand to
him, has sustained him with his wealth, with his credit, and he still
sustains him at the present time; he holds back his friend on the edge
of the precipice, and the calm of his mind is no more disturbed by the
brightness of his own name, than his eyes are dazzled by the blaze of
his glory. May the actions of which I have spoken be as great in our
esteem as they are in reality! Let people think what they will of my
opinion in this respect; but when I see, in the bosom of such a power
and of such a prodigious fortune, this generosity towards others, this
unforgetfulness of friendship, I prefer them to all the other virtues.
And you, judges, far from this character of goodness, so new and so rare
among considerable and illustrious men, being disdained or repulsed by
you, you should wrap it up in your favour, and seek to encourage it; you
should do this the more, since this moment seems to have been chosen for
attacking Cæsar’s consideration, although, in this respect, we could do
nothing but he supports it with constancy or repairs it without
difficulty. But if he hears that one of his best friends has been struck
in his honour, it will be with the deepest pain, and to him an
irreparable misfortune.”[710]
In another circumstance, Cicero explained as follows the reason of his
attachment for the conqueror of Gaul: “Should I refuse my praises to
Cæsar, when I know that the people, and, after its example, the Senate,
from which my heart has never been severed, have shown their esteem for
him by loud and multiplied testimonies? Then, without doubt, it must be
confessed that the general interest has no influence on my sentiments,
and that individuals alone are the objects of my hatred or of my
friendship! What then? Should I see my vessel float with full sails
towards a port which, without being the same which I preferred formerly,
is neither less sure nor less tranquil, and, at the risk of my life,
wrestle against the tempest rather than trust myself to the skill of the
pilot who promises to save me? No, there is no inconstancy in following
the movements which storms impress on the vessel of the state. For me, I
have learned, I have recognized, I have read a truth, and the writers of
our nation, as well as those of other peoples, have consecrated it in
their works by the example of the wisest and most illustrious of men; it
is, that we ought not to persist irrevocably in our opinions, but that
we ought to accept the sentiments which are required by the situation of
the state, the diversity of conjunctures, and the interests of
peace.”[711]
In his _Oration against Piso_, he exclaims: “It would be impossible for
me, in contemplation of the great things which Cæsar has done, and which
he is doing every day, not to be his friend. Since he has the command of
your armies, it is no longer the rampart of the Alps which I seek to
oppose to the invasion of the Gauls; it is no longer by means of the
barrier of the Rhine, with all its gurges, that I seek to arrest the
fierce Germanic nations. Cæsar has done so much that, if the mountains
should be levelled, and the rivers dried, our Italy, deprived of her
natural fortifications, would find, in the result of his victories and
exploits, a safe defence.”[712]
The warm expansion of such sentiments must have touched Cæsar, and
inspired him with confidence; therefore he earnestly engaged Cicero not
to quit Rome.[713]
The influence of Cæsar continued to increase, as the letters and
orations of Cicero sufficiently testify. If it was required to raise
citizens such as C. Messius, M. Orfius, M. Curtius, C. Trebatius,[714]
to elevated positions, or to excite the interest of the judges in favour
of an accused, as in the trials of Balbus, Rabirius, and Gabinius, it
was always the same support which was invoked.[715]
CHAPTER VI.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 701.
[Sidenote: Expedition to the North of Gaul. Second Passage of the
Rhine.]
I. The disturbed state of Gaul and the loss of fifteen cohorts at
Tongres obliged Cæsar to augment his army; he raised two legions in the
Cisalpine, and asked for a third from Pompey. Again at the head of ten
legions, Cæsar, with his usual activity, hastened to repress the
incipient insurrections. From the Scheldt to the Rhine, from the Seine
to the Loire, most of the peoples were in arms. Those of Trèves had
called the Suevi to their assistance.
Without waiting for the end of winter, Cæsar brought together four
legions at Amiens, and, falling unexpectedly upon the peoples of
Hainault, forced from them a speedy submission. Then he convoked in this
latter town the general assembly of Gaul; but the peoples of Sens,
Orleans, and Trèves did not repair to it. He then transferred the
assembly to Paris, and afterwards marched upon Sens, where his
appearance sufficed to pacify not only that country, but also that of
Orleans. Having thus appeased in a short time the troubles of the north
and centre of Gaul, he directed all his attention towards the countries
situated between the Rhine and the Meuse, where Ambiorix continued to
excite revolt. He was impatient to avenge upon him the defeat of
Sabinus; but, to make more sure of overtaking him, he resolved first to
make two expeditions, one into Brabant, the other into the country of
Trèves, and in this manner to cut off that chieftain from all retreat,
either on the side of the north, or on the side of the east, where the
Germans were.
He advanced in person towards Brabant, which he soon reduced to
obedience. During this time, Labienus gained, on the banks of the
Ourthe, a great victory over the inhabitants of the country of Trèves.
At the news of this defeat, the Germans, who had already crossed the
Rhine, returned home. Cæsar rejoined Labienus on the territory of
Trèves, and, determined to chastise the Suevi, he a second time crossed
the Rhine, near Bonn, a little above the place where he had built a
bridge two years before. After compelling the Suevi to take refuge in
the interior of their territory, he returned to Gaul, caused a part of
the bridge to be cut, and left a strong garrison on the left bank.
[Sidenote: Pursuit of Ambiorix.]
II. Having thus rendered all retreat impossible to Ambiorix, he advanced
with his army towards the country of Liége by way of Zulpich and Eupen,
across the forest of the Ardennes. Having arrived on the Meuse, he
divided his troops into three corps, and sent all his baggage with the
14th legion, under the command of Cicero, into the fortress of Tongres,
the scene of the disaster of Sabinus. Of these three corps, the first
was sent towards the north, near the southern frontiers of Brabant; the
second towards the west, between the Meuse and the Demer; and the third
marched towards the Scheldt, under the command of Cæsar, whose intention
was to gain the extremity of the forest of the Ardennes between Brussels
and Antwerp, where Ambiorix was said to have taken refuge. When he
quitted Tongres, he announced that he should return in seven days. But,
unwilling to risk his troops on difficult ground, against men who,
scattered, carried on a war of partisans, he sent messengers to invite
the neighbouring peoples to go and ravage the country of Liége, and, at
his call, all hurried to take part in the pillage. Among them 2,000
Sicambrian cavalry, attracted from beyond the Rhine, conceived the idea
of falling upon Cicero’s camp in order to carry off the riches it
contained. They arrived at the moment when a part of the garrison had
gone to forage. It was with great difficulty, and with the loss of two
cohorts, that the Romans repulsed this attack. The devastation of the
country of Liége was completed, but Ambiorix escaped.
The defeat of Sabinus at Tongres thus cruelly avenged, Cæsar returned to
Rheims, convoked there the assembly of Gaul, and caused judgment to be
passed on the conspiracy of the peoples of Sens and Orleans. Acco, the
head of the revolt, was condemned to death and executed, and Cæsar,
after placing his legions in winter quarters in the countries watered by
the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne, repaired to Italy.
[Sidenote: C. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messala, Consuls.]
III. At Rome, the legal working of the institutions was incessantly
clogged by the ambitions of individuals. The year 700 had closed
without the holding of the consular comitia. Sometimes the tribunes of
the people, the only magistrates whose elections took place on a fixed
day, opposed the holding of the comitia; sometimes the _interreges_
themselves failed to obtain favourable auspices, or, in moments of
trouble, dared not assemble the people.[716] The boldness of the
agitators of all parties explains this anarchy.
Weary of intrigues and disorder, the public opinion looked for the end
of it only from a new power, which wrests from Cicero this painful
confession: “The Republic is without force; Pompey alone is
powerful.”[717] Already people even spoke of the dictatorship.[718]
Several men, according to Plutarch, ventured to say openly “that the
power of a single person was the only remedy for the evils of the
Republic, and that this remedy must be sought from the mildest
physician, which clearly indicated Pompey.”[719] Accordingly, the
tribune Lucceius brought forward the formal motion to elect Pompey
dictator. Cato rose energetically against this ill-timed motion. Several
of Pompey’s friends considered it prudent to justify him by affirming
that he never asked or desired the dictatorship. Cato’s reproaches had
none the less produced their effect; and, to put an end to suspicions,
Pompey permitted the consular comitia to be held.[720] In fact, he had
never the courage equal to his ambition, and “although he affected in
his speeches,” says Plutarch, “to refuse absolute power, all his
actions showed a desire to arrive at it.”[721]
The comitia opened in the month of Sextilis of the year 701; the consuls
named were Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messala. The first had
been placed under accusation, as we have seen above; but the
pre-occupations of the moment had caused his trial to drag out in
length; and it is unknown whether he was acquitted, or whether all
judicial action had been paralysed on account of the absence of
magistrates during the first months of the year 701. Moreover, Calvinus
was protected by Pompey, and his colleague, Messala, was favoured by
Cæsar, at the recommendation of Cicero.
[Sidenote: Expedition of Crassus against the Parthians, and his Death.]
IV. Crassus had left for Syria about eighteen months before, full of
ambitious hopes, and flattering himself with the prospect of immense
conquests. He intended not only to subjugate the Parthians, but even to
renew the campaigns of Alexander, penetrate into Bactriana, and reach
India; unfortunately, he was not equal to such a task. Forgetting the
first rules of a general-in-chief, which consist in never despising his
enemies, and in placing on his side all the chances of success, he had
no care for the army he was going to combat, had made no inquiries
either as to the roads, or as to the countries he had to cross, and
neglected the alliances and succours which the peoples who were
neighbours and enemies to the Parthians might have offered him.
He had started from Brundusium in spite of the bad season, had landed at
Dyrrachium, not without the loss of several vessels; thence, following
the direct military road which led from the coasts of the Adriatic to
the Bosphorus,[722] he had proceeded by land into Galatia, and had
entered into Mesopotamia, after crossing the Euphrates.[723]
The Parthians, taken by surprise, offered no resistance, and the rich
and flourishing Greek colonies on the Euphrates and Tigris, who detested
the Parthian yoke, received Crassus as a liberator. The town of
Nicephorium (_Rakkah_), situated near Ichnæ, on the Balissus, opened its
gates to him; Zenodotium alone stood a siege. Instead of taking
advantage of the concurrence of circumstances, and advancing promptly
upon the Tigris, carrying the considerable town of Seleucia,
Ctesiphon,[724] the ordinary residence of the King of the Parthians, and
even Babylon, he confined himself to plundering the province. Having
left 7,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry in garrison in a few fortresses,
he returned to Syria to take his winter quarters. There, without
occupying himself with the next campaign, he only thought of committing
exactions and of pillaging the temples of Hierapolis and Jerusalem.
At the commencement of 701, Crassus took the field again with seven
legions, nearly 4,000 cavalry, and the same number of light-armed
infantry,[725] and re-entered Mesopotamia. He had for lieutenants his
son Publius, celebrated for his courage, his elevated sentiments, and
his conduct in Gaul; the brave Octavius, who afterwards perished rather
than abandon his general; Vargunteius, Censorinus, and Petronius: for
quæstor, C. Cassius Longinus, esteemed for his valour and prudence, and
who was, ten years afterwards, one of the murderers of Cæsar. An Arab
had become his auxiliary; it was the chief of the Osroenes, Bedouins of
the desert, who had formerly served Pompey in his campaign against
Mithridates; he was named Abgaros, or Abgar,[726] and had been bribed by
the King of the Parthians to betray Crassus.
Artabazus, King of Armenia, visited the proconsul at the head of 6,000
cavalry, promising him 10,000 more, and 30,000 foot, if he consented to
attack the Parthians through Armenia, where the mountainous character of
the country rendered their numerous and formidable cavalry useless.
Crassus rejected this proposal, alleging the necessity of proceeding
into Mesopotamia to the garrisons he had left there in the preceding
year. These, in fact, were already blockaded by the Parthians, and
soldiers who had escaped brought information of the immense preparations
Orodes was making to resist him. A second time, then, he crossed the
Euphrates, not far from Biradjik, the place of the passage of Alexander
the Great.[727] There he had his choice of two roads to reach Seleucia:
either to descend the left bank of the Euphrates to the point where it
approaches the Tigris,[728] or to cross the desert. The first, proposed
by Cassius, although the longest, procured him the immense advantage of
having his right wing constantly supported by the Euphrates, on which
boats could have carried his provisions. The second offered, it is true,
a shorter passage; but in following it, the army was exposed to want of
water and provisions, and to more laborious marches. The perfidious
counsels of Abgar led him to prefer the latter. “There was not,” said
the Arab, “a moment to lose, to prevent the Parthians from carrying away
their treasures, and placing them in safety among the Hyrcanians and
Scythians.” Crassus possessed some of the qualities which make a good
general; he had given proofs of it in the war of the allies, as well as
in that against Spartacus, but his faculties were paralysed by his
covetousness. Glory ought to be the only thought of the soldier.
During this time, Orodes, King of the Parthians, had divided his forces
into two armies: one, of which he took the command in person, went to
ravage Armenia, in order to prevent Artabazus from joining the Romans;
the other was entrusted to the vizier Surena, a man of merit, to whom
Orodes owed his crown. Without undervaluing his intelligence, we are
unwilling to believe, with some writers, that Surena invented new
military tactics to oppose those of the Romans, and that that was the
reason why, renouncing the employment of infantry, he made use only of
cavalry. If he placed all his confidence in that arm, it was because the
Parthians, in conformity with the nature of their country, generally
fought only on horseback, and among them, as Dio Cassius says, infantry
was of no value.[729] Surena’s talent consisted in the employment of the
craft so familiar to the Asiatics, in order to surround Crassus with
snares and traitors, and to draw him into the plains, where the
advantage was all on the side of cavalry.
The army of the Parthians was thus composed solely of cavalry, some
barbed with iron, as well as their horses,[730] and armed with long and
heavy lances; others furnished with powerful bows and arrows, which,
while they carried much farther than those of the Romans, perforated
defensive armour.
After quitting the town of Carrhæ, the Roman army advanced towards the
south, across the desert. The sand and heat made the march painful,
while the enemy remained always invisible. At length, when they arrived
on the banks, of a small river, the Balissus (_Belick_), which flows
into the Euphrates, they perceived a few Parthian horsemen. Abgar, sent
against them with a vanguard to reconnoitre, did not return. The traitor
had betrayed Crassus to Surena. The proconsul, impatient and uneasy,
then crosses the Balissus with his whole army, and, without allowing it
to repose, pushes forward his cavalry, and obliges the infantry to
follow it.
A few soldiers soon arrive to inform Crassus that they are all who have
been able to escape from an ambuscade into which his vanguard has
fallen, and that the whole Parthian army is on its march to encounter
him. At this intelligence, he, who believed that the enemy would not
dare to wait him, becomes confused, and hastily forms his troops in
array of battle on a long front, for fear of being surrounded. The
cavalry is on the wings; the Osroenes form a last line. The Parthians
first throw forward their light cavalry, which makes whirls in the
plain, raising clouds of dust, and causing the air to ring with their
savage cries and the noise of their drums,[731] and then retire as if in
flight.[732] Crassus sends forward against them his light infantry; but,
surrounded and overwhelmed with the more powerful missiles of the
Parthians, it is obliged to take refuge behind the legions.
On a sudden, the Osroenes whom Abgar had not carried with him attack the
Romans in the rear,[733] and at the same time appear, glittering in the
sun, the long lines of the cuirassed horsemen. Crassus then forms his
army in a square. Each face is composed of twelve cohorts, and the rest
is in reserve. The cavalry and light infantry, divided into two corps,
flank two opposite sides of the square.[734] Publius and Cassius
command, one the right, the other the left. Crassus takes his place in
the centre.[735] The heavy cavalry, lance in rest, charge the great
Roman square, and attempt to break it; but the thick and close ranks of
the legions oppose an invincible resistance. The Parthians fall back a
certain distance and call up their numerous archers, then, all together,
they return in line, and throw upon the deep masses of the Romans a
shower of missiles of which none fail of their aim. The legionaries, if
they remain in their position, have the disadvantage of their _pila_ and
slings, which carry but a short distance, and, if they advance to use
their swords, they lose that cohesion which forms their strength.
Without moving, and defending themselves with difficulty, they see their
numbers diminish without being discouraged; they hope that the enemy
will soon have exhausted his munitions. But the ranks of the Parthians
succeed each other; as quickly as the first have used all their arrows,
they go to fetch others near a long line of camels which carry their
provisions. The combat has lasted several hours; and the Parthians
continue to extend their circle, and threaten to surround entirely the
great Roman square.
In this critical position, Crassus can only have recourse to his
cavalry. The side hardest pressed by the enemy is that commanded by
Publius; his father orders him to make a desperate effort to disengage
the army.
This noble and intrepid young man immediately takes 1,300 cavalry, among
whom were the 1,000 Gauls sent by Cæsar, 500 archers, and eight cohorts
of infantry. Two young men of his own age follow him--Censorinus and
Megabacchus; the first a senator and talented orator, the second equally
distinguished. As soon as they are in motion, the Parthians, according
to their custom, fly, shooting their arrows at the same time, in the
manner of the Scythians. Publius takes this flight for a rout, and
allows himself to be drawn too far away. When he has long advanced far
out of sight of the body of the army, the fugitives halt, wheel round,
are joined by numerous reserves, and surround the Roman troop. These
defend themselves heroically, but the Gauls, unprovided with defensive
armour, resist with difficulty the cavalry barbed with iron. Meanwhile
the son of Crassus has been rejoined by his foot, who combat valiantly;
he orders them to advance, but they show him their hands nailed to their
bucklers, and their feet fixed to the ground, by the arrows. Publius
then makes a last appeal to his brave Gaulish cavalry, who, in their
devotedness to him, meet death far from their country, in the service of
a foreign cause. They dash with impetuosity against the wall of iron
which rises before them, they overthrow some of the cavalry under the
weight of their own armour, snatch their lances from others, or leap to
the ground to stab their horses in the belly; but valour must yield to
numbers. Publius, wounded, tries to retreat, and draws up the wreck of
his troops on ground the slope of which is disadvantageous to him. He
attempts in vain to make a retrenchment with bucklers; his cavalry being
placed in form of an amphitheatre, the last ranks are as much exposed as
the first to the arrows of the Parthians. Two Greeks offer to save him
by leading him to Ichnæ, a town not far off; the young hero replies that
he will not abandon his soldiers; he remains to die with them. Of 6,000
men, 500 only are made prisoners, the others are killed fighting.
Publius and his two friends, Censorinus and Megabacchus, slay each
other.
During this time, Crassus, relieved by his son’s offensive movement, had
taken position on a height, and waited in expectation of his victorious
return. But soon messengers come to inform him that, without prompt
succour, his son is lost. He hesitates a moment between the hope of
saving him and the fear of endangering the rest of his army. At last he
decides on marching. Hardly has he put the troops in motion, when he
sees the Parthians approaching to meet him, uttering shouts of victory,
and carrying the head of his son on the end of a pike. In this
circumstance, Crassus recovers an instant that energy familiar to the
Roman character, and, passing along the ranks, “Soldiers,” he exclaims,
“this loss concerns me alone. As long as you live, all the fortune and
all the glory of Rome endure and remain invincible. Be not discouraged
by my misfortune, and let your compassion for me be changed into rage
against your enemies.” These last accents of a presumptuous chief
produced little effect upon an army already disheartened. It fought
with resignation, no longer feeling that ardour which gives the hope of
victory. Taken in flank by the numerous archers, attacked in front by
the heavy cuirassed cavalry, the Romans struggled till evening,
remaining always on the defensive, and seeing the circle in which they
were enclosed incessantly contracting around them. Fortunately, the
Parthians, incapable of holding a position during the night, never
encamped on the field of battle; they withdrew.
This combat, fought at fifteen or twenty leagues to the south of Carrhæ,
was disastrous. Nevertheless, all was not lost, if the general-in-chief
preserved his energy and presence of mind; but, disheartened and plunged
in deep grief, he stood immovable, aside from the rest, incapable of
giving any order. Octavius and Cassius called together the tribunes and
centurions, and decided on retreat; yet it was necessary to abandon
4,000 wounded, who could not be carried away, and even conceal their
departure from them, lest their cries might awaken the attention of the
enemy. The retreat is executed at first in complete silence; suddenly
the miserable victims perceive that they are made a sacrifice, their
groans give warning to the Persians, and excite a frightful tumult among
the Romans: some return to load the wounded on the baggage horses,
others form in battle to repulse the enemy: 300 of the cavalry escape,
reach Carrhæ, and cross the Euphrates over the bridge which Crassus had
built. Meanwhile the Parthians, occupied in massacring the 4,000 wounded
and the stragglers, pursue only faintly the remains of the Roman army,
which, protected by a sally of the garrison of Carrhæ, succeed in
shutting themselves up within its walls.
Either through discouragement, or through want of provisions, the Romans
made no stay in this town, but abandoned it, to seek refuge in Armenia.
Crassus, followed by a small number of troops, trusting again in a
native who was deceiving him, saw his flight retarded by the circuitous
way he was made to take uselessly. At daybreak the Parthians appeared.
Octavius had reached, with 5,000 men, one of the spurs of the mountains
of Armenia, and would have been able to place himself in safety in the
fortress of Sinnaka, at a distance of only a day’s march; he prefers
descending into the plain to the succour of his general, whom he brings
back with him to the heights. If they continue the combat till evening,
all will not be lost; but Surena has again recourse to stratagem: he
sends seductive offers, and proposes an interview. Crassus refuses it;
he is resolved on fighting. Unfortunately, the soldiers, who hitherto
had obeyed imprudent orders, this time refuse to obey the only order
which could save them. Crassus is forced to agree to the interview. At
the moment he is on his way to it, an accidental quarrel, or rather one
raised by the treachery of the Parthians, arises between the escorts of
the two nations. Octavius thrusts his sword through the body of a
Parthian esquire; a battle follows, and all the Roman escort is
massacred. Crassus is slain, and his head carried to Orodes. Of 40,000
legionaries, one quarter alone survived. The cavalry of C. Cassius,
which had separated from the army on their departure from Carrhæ, and a
few other fugitives, succeeded in reaching Syria, in covering Antioch,
and even subsequently in expelling successfully the Parthians from the
Roman province.
[Sidenote: Consequences of the Death of Crassus.]
V. The death of Crassus had two serious consequences: the first was to
raise still higher the merit of the conqueror of Gaul, by showing what
became of the most numerous and best-disciplined armies under the
command of a presumptuous and unskilful chief; the second, to take away
from the scene a man whose influence was a check upon the ambition of
two individuals destined to become rivals. With Crassus, Pompey would
not have been the instrument of a party; without Pompey, the Senate
would not have dared to declare against Cæsar.
The balance thus broken, Pompey sought a new point of support. His
alliance with Cæsar had alone given him the concurrence of the popular
party. Now that this alliance was weakened, he would naturally seek to
be reconciled to the aristocracy, flatter its passions, and serve its
rancours. In the first moments, he provoked disorder rather than
repressed it.
Three competitors disputed the consulship for 702, T. Annius Milo, P.
Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Scipio.[736] They rivalled
each other in intrigue and corruption.[737] Pompey, especially since he
had been reconciled to P. Clodius, treated Milo as an enemy, and,
according to his habitual tactics, pretended to believe that he
harboured designs against his life. Although he retarded the comitia,
he favoured P. Hypsæus and Q. Scipio, who solicited the consulship, and
Clodius, who, the same year, was a candidate for the prætorship. Milo
had a great number of partisans; his largesses to the people and his
spectacles seemed likely to ensure his election; and Pompey, in the way
of whose views he stood, did all he could to prevent the Senate from
naming an interrex to hold the comitia. He desired this important office
for himself; but, obliged to give way before the resistance of Cato, he
confined himself to preventing any election, and the year ended again
without the nomination of consuls.
CHAPTER VII.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 702.
[Sidenote: Murder of Clodius.]
I. Rome seemed to be given up only to the petty contentions of
individuals; but, behind the men who stood in view, grave interests and
violent passions were in agitation. The disease which undermines society
unknown to it, reveals itself when facts, of no great importance in
themselves, occur suddenly to produce an unforeseen crisis, to unveil
dangers which were unperceived, and to show to all men that society on
the brink of an abyss of which nobody had suspected the depth. Thus, by
mere accidents of his life, Clodius seems to have been destined to cause
the explosion of the elements of disorder which the Republic concealed
in its bosom. He is caught in the house of Cæsar’s wife during a
religious sacrifice, and this violation of the mysteries of the _Bona
Dea_ leads to a fatal division in the first bodies of the state. His
impeachment irritates the popular party; his acquittal exposes to the
world the venality of the judges, and separates the order of the knights
from that of the Senate. The animosity with which he is pursued makes
him a chief of a formidable party, which sends Cicero into exile, makes
Pompey tremble, and accelerates the elevation of Cæsar. His death is
destined to awaken all the popular passions, and inspire the opposite
faction with so many fears, that it will forget its rancours and
jealousies to throw itself into the arms of Pompey, and all the people
will be in arms from one end of Italy to the other.
On the 13th of the Calends of February, 702 (13th of December, 701),
Milo started from Rome to proceed to Lanuvium, his native town, of which
he was the dictator.[738] Towards the ninth hour, he met on the Appian
Way, a little beyond Bovillæ, Clodius, who, on his part, was returning
on horseback from Aricia to Rome, accompanied by three friends and
thirty slaves, all armed with swords. Milo was in a chariot with his
wife Fausta, daughter of Sylla, and M. Fufius, his familiar. In his
train marched an escort ten times more numerous than that of Clodius,
and in which were several celebrated gladiators. The two troops passed
near a small temple of the _Bona Dea_,[739] without exchanging a single
word, but casting on each other furious looks. They had hardly passed,
when two of Milo’s gladiators, who lagged behind, picked a quarrel with
the slaves of Clodius. At the noise of this dispute, the latter turned
his bridle, and advanced uttering threats. One of the gladiators, named
Birria, struck him with his sword, and wounded him grievously in the
shoulder;[740] he was carried into a neighbouring tavern.[741]
Milo, learning that Clodius was wounded, feared the consequences of this
aggression, and believed that he would incur less danger by dispatching
his enemy. He therefore sent his men to burst open the tavern; Clodius,
dragged from the bed on which he had been placed, is pierced with blows,
and thrown into the high road. His slaves are slain or put to flight.
The corpse remained stretched on the Appian Way, until a senator, Sext.
Tedius, who was passing, caused him to be taken up, placed in a litter,
and carried to Rome, where he arrived at night, and was laid on a bed in
the _atrium_ of his house. But already the news of the fatal meeting was
spread through the whole town, and the crowd hastened towards the
residence of Clodius, where his wife, Fulvia, pointing to the wounds
with which he was covered, urged the people to vengeance. The concourse
was so great that several men of mark, and among others C. Vibienus, a
senator, were stifled in the crowd. The corpse was carried to the Forum,
and exposed on the rostra; two tribunes of the people, T. Munatius
Plancus and Q. Pompeius Rufus, harangued the multitude, and demanded
justice.
Afterwards, at the instigation of a scribe named Sext. Clodius, the body
was carried to the curia, in order to insult the Senate; a funereal pile
was made of the benches, tables, and registers. The fire communicated to
the Curia Hostilia, and thence gained the Basilica Porcia, and the two
buildings were reduced to ashes. Then the multitude, becoming more and
more furious, snatched the fasces which surrounded the funereal
bed,[742] and proceeded to the front of the houses of Hypsæus and Q.
Metellus Scipio, as if to offer them the consulship. Lastly, they
presented themselves before the abode of Pompey; some demanded with loud
shouts that he should be consul or dictator, others shouted the same
wishes for Cæsar.[743]
Nevertheless, nine days after, when the smoke was still rising from the
ruins, the populace, on the occasion of a funereal banquet in the Forum,
sought to burn the house of Milo and that of the interrex, M. Lepidus.
They were driven away by a shower of arrows.[744] Milo, in the first
moment, had dreamt only of hiding himself; but on hearing the
indignation and terror caused by the burning of the curia, he resumed
his courage. Persuaded, moreover, that, to repress these excesses, the
Senate would proceed to severities against the opposite party,[745] he
returned into Rome by night, carried his boldness so far as to announce
that he still solicited the consulship, and began actually to buy the
votes. Cœlius, a tribune of the people, spoke in his favour in the
Forum. Milo himself mounted the tribune, and accused Clodius of having
laid an ambush for him. He was interrupted by a considerable number of
armed men, who rushed into the public place. Milo and Cœlius wrapped
themselves in the mantles of slaves, and took flight. A great slaughter
of their adherents was made. But soon the rioters, profiting by this
pretext for disorder, murdered all they met, whether citizens or
strangers, especially such as attracted their attention by their rich
garments and gold rings; armed slaves were the chief instruments of
these disorders. No crime was spared; under pretence of seeking Milo’s
friends, a great number of houses were pillaged, and during several days
all sorts of outrages were committed.[746]
[Sidenote: The Republic is declared in Danger.]
II. Meanwhile the Senate declared the Republic in danger, and charged
the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and the proconsul Cn. Pompey,
having the _imperium_ near the town, to watch over the public safety,
and make levies in all Italy. The care of rebuilding the Curia Hostilia
was entrusted to the son of Sylla: it was decided that it should bear
the name of the old dictator, the memory of whom the Senate sought to
place in honour.[747]
As soon as Pompey had assembled a military force sufficiently imposing,
the two nephews of Clodius, both named Appius, demanded the arrest of
the slaves of Milo, and of those of Fausta, his wife. But the first care
of Milo, his enemy once dead, had been to enfranchise his slaves, as a
reward for having defended him, and, once enfranchised, they could no
longer depose against their patron.
About a month after the death of Clodius, Q. Metellus Scipio brought the
affair before the Senate, and accused Milo of falsehood in the
explanations he had given. He arrayed skilfully all the circumstances
which pointed to him as the aggressor: on one side, his escort much more
numerous--the three wounds of Clodius--the eleven slaves of the latter
slain; on the other, certain criminal facts connected with the event--a
taverner slaughtered--two messengers massacred--a slave chopped to
pieces for refusing to give up a son of Clodius; lastly, the sum of
1,000 ases offered by the accused to whoever would undertake his
defence. Then Milo sought to appease Pompey, by offering to desist from
his candidature for the consulship. Pompey replied that the right of
deciding belonged to the Roman people alone. Milo remained under the
accusation not only of murder, but of electoral solicitation, and of an
outrage on the Republic. He could not be judged before the previous
nomination of the urban prætor, and before the convocation of the
comitia.
[Sidenote: Pompey sole Consul.]
III. This time the fear of disorder silenced opposition, and all eyes
turned towards Pompey; but what title to give him? That of dictator
caused alarm. M. Bibulus, though previously hostile, moved the proposal
to elect him sole consul; it offered the only means of averting the
dictature, and preventing Cæsar from becoming his colleague.[748] M.
Cato supported this motion, which passed unanimously.[749] It was added
that, if Pompey believed a second consul necessary, he should name
himself, but not within two months.[750] On the 5th of the Calends of
March (27th of February)--it was during an intercalary month--Pompey,
though absent, was declared consul by the interrex Serv. Sulpicius, and
immediately re-entered Rome. “This extraordinary measure, which had
never before been adopted for anybody, appeared wise; nevertheless, as
Pompey sought less than Cæsar the favour of the people, the Senate
flattered itself with the hope of detaching him completely from it, and
securing him in its own interests. And so it happened. Proud of this new
and altogether unusual honour, Pompey no longer proposed any measure
with a view of pleasing the multitude, and did scrupulously all that
could be agreeable to the Senate.”[751]
Three days after his installation, he obtained two
senatus-consultus--one, to repress outrages with violence, especially
the murder committed on the Appian Way, the burning of the curia, and
the attack on the house of the interrex, M. Lepidus; the other, to
prevent electoral solicitation by a more rapid proceeding and a more
severe penalty. In all criminal actions, a delay of three days was fixed
for the interrogation of witnesses, and one day for the contradictory
debates. The accuser had two hours to speak, the accused three to defend
himself.[752]
M. Cœlius, tribune of the people, protested against these laws,
alleging that they violated the tutelary forms of justice, and that they
were only imagined for the ruin of Milo. Pompey replied in a tone of
menace: “Let them not oblige me to defend the Republic by arms!” He,
moreover, adopted all measures for his personal safety, and went with a
military guard, as though he feared some outrage on the part of Milo.
[Sidenote: Trial of Milo.]
IV. Pompey required farther, that a quæstor should be chosen among the
consulars to preside over the hearing of the cause. The comitia were
held, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus was elected. It was conceded to Milo
that the accusation of murder should be tried first, and that that of
solicitation should be adjourned.
The accusers were the elder of the Appii (the nephew of Clodius), M.
Antonius, and P. Valerius Nepos. Cicero, assisted by M. Claudius
Marcellus, was to defend the accused. Every effort had been made to
intimidate Cicero. Pompeius Rufus, C. Sallustius,[753] and T. Munatius
Plancus had sought to excite the people against him, and to make Pompey
look upon him with suspicion. Although he remained firm against the
threats of his adversaries, his courage was shaken.
The trial began on the eve of the Nones of April, and on the first day
the pleadings were interrupted by a violent agitation. Next day, the
interrogation of the witnesses was carried on under the protection of an
imposing military force. Most of the evidence was overpowering for the
accused, and proved that Clodius had been massacred in cold blood. When
Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, appeared, the emotion increased twofold;
her tears, and the spectacle of her grief, affected the assembly. When
the session was closed, the tribune of the people, T. Munatius Plancus,
harangued the mob, engaged the citizens to come next day in great number
to the public place, in order to oppose the acquittal of Milo, and he
recommended them to show unmistakably _their opinion and grief to the
judges when it came to the voting_.
On the 6th of the Ides of April the shops were closed; guards were
placed on the issues of the Forum by order of Pompey, who, with a
considerable reserve, stationed himself at the treasury. After the
drawing for the judges, the eldest of the Appii, M. Antonius, and P.
Valerius Nepos sustained the accusation. Cicero alone replied. He had
been advised to represent the murder of Clodius as a service rendered to
the Republic; but he rejected this plea, although Cato had dared to
declare in full Senate that Milo had performed the act of a good
citizen.[754] He preferred resting his argument on the right of
legitimate defence. He had hardly commenced, when the cries and
interruptions of the partisans of Clodius caused him an emotion which
was visible in his speech; the soldiers were obliged to make use of
their arms.[755] The cries of the wounded, and the sight of the blood,
deprived Cicero of his presence of mind; he trembled, and often broke
off. His pleading was far from being worthy of his talent. Milo was
condemned, and went into exile to Marseilles. In the sequel, Cicero
composed at his leisure the magnificent oration which we know, and sent
it to his unfortunate client, who replied; “If thou hadst spoken
formerly as thou hast now written, I should not be eating mullets at
Marseilles.”[756]
During the wars of Greece and Africa, Milo, who had not forgotten his
part of conspirator, returned into Italy, invited by Cœlius. They
both attempted to organise seditious movements; but they failed, and
paid for their rash enterprise with their lives.[757]
Pompey, having reached the summit of power, believed, like most men who
are vain of themselves, that all was saved because they had placed him
at the head of affairs; but, instead of attending to these, his first
care was to marry again. He espoused, in spite of his advanced age,
Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, the young widow of Publius Crassus, who
had just perished among the Parthians. “It was considered,” says
Plutarch, “that a woman so young, remarkable both for her mental
qualities and for external graces, would have been more properly married
to his son. The more honest citizens reproached him with having, on this
occasion, sacrificed the interests of the Republic, which, in the
extremity to which it was reduced, had chosen him for its physician, and
trusted to him alone for its cure. Instead of responding to this
confidence, he was seen crowned with flowers, offering sacrifices and
celebrating nuptial rites, while he ought to have regarded as a public
calamity this consulship, which he would not have obtained, according
to the laws, alone and without a colleague, if Rome had been more
happy.”[758]
Pompey had, nevertheless, rendered great services by putting down the
riots and protecting the exercise of justice. He had delivered Rome from
the bands of Clodius and Milo, had given a more regular organisation to
the tribunals,[759] and caused their judgments to be respected by armed
force. Still, if we except these acts, commanded by circumstances, he
had used his power with hesitation, as a man who is struggling between
his conscience and his interests. Having become, perhaps unknowingly,
the instrument of the aristocratic party, the ties which had attached
him to Cæsar had often checked him in the way in which they sought to
push him. As the defender of order, he had promulgated laws to restore
it; but, as the man of a party, he had been incessantly led to violate
them, to satisfy the urgencies of his faction. He caused a
senatus-consultus to be adopted, authorising prosecutions against those
who had exercised public employments since his first consulship. The
retrospective effect of this law, which embraced a period of twenty
years; and consequently the consulship of Cæsar, excited the indignation
of the partisans of the latter; they exclaimed that Pompey would do much
better to occupy himself with the present than to call the hateful
investigation of the factions to the past conduct of the first
magistrates of the Republic; but Pompey replied that, since the law
permitted the control of his own acts, he saw no reason why those of
Cæsar should be freed from it; and that, moreover, the relaxation of
morals during so many years rendered the measure necessary.[760]
Complaint was made of the power left to orators of pronouncing the
eulogy of the accused, whose defence they offered, because the prestige
attached to the word of men of consideration procured too easily the
acquittal of the guilty. A senatus-consultus prohibited the custom. Yet
in contempt of these orders, which he had brought forward, Pompey was
not ashamed to pronounce the eulogy of T. Munatius Plancus, accused,
with Q. Pompeius Rufus, of the fire which burnt the Curia Hostilia.[761]
Cato, who was one of the members of the tribunal, exclaimed, stopping
his ears: “I do not believe this eulogiser, who speaks against his own
laws.” The accused were condemned nevertheless.
With the aim of repressing electoral corruption and bringing to justice
those guilty of it, it was enacted that every one condemned for bribery
who should succeed in convicting another of the same crime should obtain
thereby the remission of his punishment. Memmius, condemned for an act
of this description, wishing to take advantage of the benefit of the
legal impunity, denounced Scipio. Then Pompey appeared clothed in
mourning before the tribunal, at the side of his father-in-law. At the
view of this image of sorrow and of the moral pressure which resulted
from it, Memmius desisted, deploring the misfortune of the Republic. As
to the judges, they pushed flattery to the point of conducting Scipio
back to his dwelling.[762]
To put a stop in the elections to the intrigues arising from the
shameless covetousness of the candidates, it was decreed that the
consuls and prætors should not be allowed to take the government of a
province until five years after their consulship or prætorship.[763]
This discouraged the ambitious, who threw themselves into extravagant
expenses in order to arrive through one of these magistracies at the
government of the provinces. And nevertheless Pompey, although consul,
not only preserved the proconsulship of Spain, but he caused his
government to be prolonged for five years, kept a part of his army in
Italy, and received a thousand talents for the maintenance of his
troops. In the interest of his partisans, he did not hesitate to violate
his own laws, which has made Tacitus say of him, _Suarum legum auctor
idem ac subversor_.[764]
The preceding law did not deprive Cæsar of the possibility of arriving
at the consulship, but the Senate put in force again the law which
prohibited any one who was absent from offering himself as a candidate,
forgetting that it had just elected Pompey sole consul, although absent
from the town of Rome. The friends of the proconsul of Gaul protested
with energy. “Cæsar,” they said, “had merited well of his country; a
second consulship would only be the just recompense of his immense
labours; or, at all events, if they felt reluctance in conferring this
great dignity upon him, they ought at least not to give him a
successor, or deprive him of the benefit he had acquired.” Pompey, who
had no desire of breaking with Cæsar, had recourse to Cicero[765] to add
to the law already engraved on a tablet of brass, which was then the
form of promulgation, that the prohibition did not apply to those who
had obtained the authorisation to offer themselves as candidates in
spite of their absence. All the tribunes, who had at first protested,
accepted this qualification, at the motion of Cœlius.[766]
Nevertheless, Cæsar’s friends went to him in great numbers to
demonstrate that Pompey’s laws had been all brought forward against his
interest, and that it was essential that he should be on his guard
against him. Cæsar, proud in the justice of his claims, and strong in
the services he had rendered, distrusted neither his son-in-law nor
destiny, encouraged them, and praised greatly the conduct of
Pompey.[767]
[Sidenote: Pompey takes as his Associate Cæcillus Metellus Pius Scipio.]
V. About the first of August, Pompey chose his father-in-law Scipio as
his associate in the consulship, for the last five months. This
partition of power, purely nominal, and which was subsequently imitated
by the emperors, appeared to satisfy men who thought only of forms. The
senators boasted of having restored order without injuring the
institutions of the Republic.[768]
Scipio sought to signalise his short administration by abolishing the
law of Clodius, which permitted the censors to expel from the Senate
only men who had already undergone a condemnation. He restored things to
the old footing, by rendering the power of the censors almost unlimited.
This change was not received with favour, as Scipio had expected. The
old consulars, among whom the censors were usually chosen, found the
responsibility of such functions dangerous in a time of trouble and
anarchy. Instead of being sought as an honour, the censorship was
avoided as a perilous post.[769]
It was every day more evident, in the eyes of all men of judgment, that
the institutions of the Republic were becoming more and more powerless
to guarantee order within, and perhaps even peace without. The Senate
could no longer meet, the comitia be held, or the judges render
judgment, without the protection of a military force; it was necessary,
therefore, to place themselves at the discretion of a general, and to
abdicate all authority into his hands. Thus, while the popular instinct,
which is rarely deceived, saw the safety of the Republic in the power of
a single individual, the aristocratic party, on the contrary, saw danger
only in this general tendency towards one man. For this reason Cato
inscribed himself among the candidates for the consulship for the year
703, denouncing Pompey and Cæsar as equally dangerous, and declaring
that he only aspired to the first magistracy to counteract their
ambitious designs. This competition, opposed to the spirit of the time
and to the powerful instincts which were in play, had no chance of
success: the candidature of Cato was defeated without difficulty.
[Sidenote: Insurrection of Gaul, and Campaign of 702.]
VI. Not only had the murder of Clodius deeply agitated Italy, but the
reverberation made itself felt beyond the Alps, and the troubles in Rome
had revived in Gaul the desire to shake off the yoke of the Romans. The
intestine dissensions, by spreading a belief in the debilitation of the
state, awakened incessantly the hopes of its exterior enemies, and,
which is sad to confess, these exterior enemies always find accomplices
among traitors who are ready to betray their country.[770]
The campaign of 702 is, without dispute, the most interesting in the
double point of view--political and military. To the historian, it
presents the affecting scene of tribes, hitherto divided, uniting in one
national thought, and arming for the purpose of re-conquering their
independence. To the philosopher it presents, as a result consoling for
the progress of humanity, the triumph of civilisation against the best
combined and most heroic efforts of barbarism. Lastly, in the eyes of
the soldier, it is a magnificent example of what may be done by energy
and experience in war by a small number contending against masses who
are wanting in organisation and discipline.
The events which had occurred in Rome led the Gauls to think that Cæsar
would be detained in Italy, upon which a formidable insurrection is
organised among them. All the different peoples act in concert, and form
a coalition. The provinces in the military occupation of the legions, or
held in fear by their proximity, alone remain foreign to the general
agitation. The country of Orleans first gives the signal; the Roman
citizens are slaughtered at Gien; Berry and Auvergne join the league;
and soon, from the Seine to the Gironde, from the Cévennes to the ocean,
the whole country is in arms. As a chief never fails to reveal himself
when a great national movement breaks out, Vercingetorix appears, places
himself at the head of a war of independence, and, for the first time,
proclaims this truth, the stamp of grandeur and patriotism: “_If Gaul
has the sense to be united, and become one nation, it may defy the
universe._” All respond to his call.
The peoples, but lately divided by rivalries, customs, and tradition,
forget their reciprocal grievances, and unite under him. Foreign
oppression creates nationalities much more than community of ideas and
interests. Had Vercingetorix formerly, like so many others, bent his
brow under the Roman domination? Dio Cassius is the only historian who
says so. Be this as it may, he shows himself, as early as the year 702,
the firm and intrepid adversary of the invaders. His plan is as bold as
it is well combined: to create in the heart of Gaul a great centre of
insurrection, protected by the mountains of the Cévennes and of
Auvergne; from this natural fortress to throw his lieutenants upon the
Narbonnese, whence Cæsar would be no longer able to draw either succours
or provisions; to prevent even the Roman general from returning to his
army; to attack separately the legions while deprived of their chief,
urge into insurrection the centre of Gaul, and destroy the _oppidum_ of
the Boii, that small people, the remains of the defeat of the Helvetii,
placed by Cæsar at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire as an
advance sentinel.
Informed of these events, Cæsar quits Italy in haste, followed by a
small number of troops raised in the Cisalpine. On his descent from the
Alps, he finds himself almost alone in presence of wavering allies, and
of the greatest part of Gaul in revolt, while his legions are dispersed
at a distance on the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne. So many perils
excite his ardour instead of abating it, and his resolution is soon
taken.
He is going to draw his enemies, by successful and multiplied
diversions, to the points where he intends to strike decisive blows; and
by sending his infantry into the Vivarais, his cavalry to Vienne, and
proceeding in person to Narbonne, he divides the attention of his
adversaries, in order to conceal his designs.
His presence in the Roman province is equivalent to an army. He
encourages the men who have remained faithful, intimidates the others;
doubles, with the local resources, all the garrisons of the towns of the
Province as far as Toulouse; and, after having thus raised in the south
a barrier against all invasion, he returns, and arrives at the foot of
the Cévennes, in the Vivarais, where he finds the troops which had been
sent forward. He then crosses the mountains covered with snow,
penetrates into Auvergne, and obliges Vercingetorix to abandon Berry, in
order to hasten to defend his own country, which is threatened.
Satisfied with this result, he starts unexpectedly, and, almost alone,
hastens to Vienne. He takes the escort of cavalry which had preceded
him, reaches the country of Langres, and proceeds thence to Sens, where
he brings together his ten legions.
Thus, in little time, he has placed the Roman Province in security from
any attack, forced Vercingetorix to fly to the defence of Auvergne, and
rejoined and concentrated his army.
Although the rigour of the season adds to the difficulty of the marches
and supplies of provisions (it was in the month of March), he decides
upon immediately taking the field. Vercingetorix has just laid siege to
Gorgobina, the _oppidium_ of the Boii. These 20,000 Germans, so recently
vanquished, preserve the sincere gratitude of a primitive people towards
him who has given them lands, instead of selling them for slaves: they
remain faithful to the Romans, and face the anger of Vercingetorix and
the attacks of revolted Gaul. Cæsar, unwilling that a people who set the
example of fidelity should become the victims of their devotedness,
marches to their succour. He might go directly to Gorgobina, and cross
the Loire at Nevers; but in that case, Vercingetorix, informed of his
approach, would have had time to come and dispute the passage. To
attempt this by force was a dangerous operation. He leaves at Sens two
legions and his baggage, starts at the head of the eight others, and
hastens, by the shortest way, to cross the Loire at Gien. He proceeds up
the left bank of the river; while Vercingetorix, instead of waiting for
him, raises the siege of Gorgobina. He proceeds to meet Cæsar, who beats
him at Sancerre in a cavalry encounter, and then marches upon Bourges,
without further care for an enemy incapable of arresting him in the open
field. The capture of that important town must make him master of the
whole country. The Gaulish general confines himself to following by
short marches, and burning all the country around, in order to starve
the Roman army.
The siege of Bourges is one of the most regular and interesting of the
war in Gaul. Cæsar opens the trenches, that is, he makes covered
galleries which permit him to approach the place, to fill the fosse, and
to construct a terrace, a veritable breaching battery, surmounted on
each side by a tower. When, with the assistance of his military engines,
he has thinned the ranks of the defenders, he assembles his legions
under protection of the parallels composed of covered galleries, and by
means of the terrace, which equals the elevation of the wall, he gives
the assault and carries the place.
After the capture of Bourges, he proceeds to Nevers, where he
establishes his magazines; then to Decize, to appease the disputes which
had arisen, among the Burgundians, from the competition of two claimants
to the supreme power. He next divides his army; sends Labienus, with two
legions, against the Parisii and their allies; orders him to take the
two legions left at Sens; and in person, with the six others, directs
his march towards Auvergne, the principal focus of the insurrection. By
means of a stratagem, he crosses the Allier at Varennes without striking
a blow, and obliges Vercingetorix to retire into Gergovia with all his
forces.
Placed on almost inaccessible heights, these vast Gaulish _oppida_,
which enclosed the greater part of the population of a province, could
only be reduced by famine. Cæsar was well aware of this, and resolved on
confining himself to the blockade of Gergovia; but one day he judges the
occasion favourable, and he risks an assault. Repulsed with loss, he
thinks only of retreat, when already the insurrection surrounds him on
all sides. The Burgundians themselves, who owe everything to Cæsar, have
followed the general impulse: by their defection, the communications of
the Roman army are intercepted and its rear threatened. Nevers is burnt,
and the bridges on the Loire are destroyed; the Gauls, in their
presumptuous hope, already see Cæsar humiliated, and obliged to pass
with his soldiers under new Furcæ Caudinæ; but old veteran troops,
commanded by a great captain, do not recoil after a first reverse; and
these six legions, shut up in their camp, isolated in the middle of a
country in insurrection, separated from all succour by rivers and
mountains, yet immovable and unshaken in face of a victorious enemy who
dares not pursue his victory, resemble those rocks beaten by the waves
of the ocean, which defy the tempests, and the approach to which is so
perilous that no one dare brave them.
In this extremity Cæsar has not lost hope. Far from him the thought of
re-crossing the Cévennes, and returning into the Narbonnese. This
retreat would bear too great a resemblance to a flight. Moreover, he has
fears for the four legions entrusted to Labienus, of whom he has
received no news since they went to combat the Parisii; he is anxious to
rejoin them at all risks. He therefore marches in the direction of Sens,
crosses the Loire by a ford, near Bourbon-Lancy, and, on his arrival
near Joigny, he rallies Labienus, who, after having defeated the army of
Camulogenus under the walls of Paris, had returned to Sens and hastened
to meet him.
What joy Cæsar must have experienced, when he found his lieutenant, then
faithful still, on the banks of the Yonne! for this junction doubled his
forces, and restored the chances of the struggle in his favour. While he
was re-modelling his army, calling to him a re-enforcement of German
cavalry, and preparing to approach nearer to the Roman province,
Vercingetorix had not lost a moment in stirring up the whole of Gaul
against the Romans. The inhabitants of Savoy, as well as those of the
Vivarais, are drawn into revolt; all is agitation from the coasts of the
ocean to the Rhone. He communicates to all hearts the sacred fire which
inflames him, and from Mont Beuvray, as its centre, its action radiates
to the extremities of Gaul.
But it is granted neither to the most eminent of men to create in one
day an army, nor to popular insurrection, however general, to form
suddenly a nation. The foreigner has not yet quitted the territory of
their country before the chiefs become jealous of each other, and
rivalries break out between the different states. The Burgundians obey
unwillingly the people of Auvergne; the people of the territory of
Beauvais refuse their contingent, alleging that they will only make war
at their own time and in their own manner. The inhabitants of Savoy,
instead of responding to the appeal made to their old independence,
oppose a vigorous resistance to the attacks of the Gauls, and the
Vivarais shows no less devotedness to the Roman cause.
As to the Gaulish army, its strength consisted chiefly in cavalry; the
footmen, in spite of the efforts of Vercingetorix, composed only an
undisciplined mass; for military organisation is always a reflection of
the state of society, and where there is no people there is no infantry.
In Gaul, as Cæsar tells us, two classes alone were dominant, the priests
and the nobles.[771] It is not surprising if, then as in the Middle
Ages, the nobility on horseback formed the true sinew of the armies.
Accordingly, the Gauls never incurred the risk of resisting the Romans
in the open field, or rather everything was confined to a combat of
cavalry, and, when their cavalry was defeated, the army retired without
the infantry being engaged at all. This is what happened before
Sancerre: the defeat of his cavalry had forced Vercingetorix to make his
retreat; he had allowed Cæsar to continue his route undisturbed towards
Bourges, and take that town, without ever daring to attack him either
during his march or during the siege.
It will be the same at the battle of the Vingeanne. Cæsar directed his
march from Joigny towards Franche-Comté, across the country of Langres.
His aim was to reach Besançon, an important fortress, from whence he
could at the same time resume the offensive and protect the Roman
Province; but when he arrived at the eastern extremity of the territory
of Langres, in the valley of the Vingeanne, at about sixty-five
kilomètres from Alesia, his army, in march, is brought to a halt by that
of Vercingetorix, whose numerous cavalry have sworn to pass three times
through the Roman lines; this cavalry is repulsed by that of the Germans
in Cæsar’s pay, and Vercingetorix hastens to take refuge in Alesia,
without the least resistance offered by his infantry.
It is the belief of the Gauls that their country can only be defended in
the fortresses, and the example of Gergovia animates them with a
generous hope; but Cæsar will attempt no more imprudent assaults. 80,000
infantry shut themselves up in the walls of Alesia, and the cavalry is
sent into the whole of Gaul to call to arms, and to conduct to the
succour of the invested town the contingents of all the states. About
forty or fifty days after the blockade of the place, 250,000 men, of
whom 8,000 are cavalry, appear on the low hills which bound the plain of
Laumes on the west. The besieged leap with joy. How will the Romans be
able to sustain the double attack from within and from without? Cæsar
has obviated all perils by the art of fortification, which he has
carried to perfection. A line of countervallation against the fortress,
and a line of circumvallation against the army of succour, are rendered
almost impregnable by means of works adapted to the ground, and in which
science has accumulated all the obstacles in use in the warfare of
sieges. These two concentric lines are closely approached to each other,
in order to facilitate the defence. The troops are not scattered over
the great extent of the retrenchments, but distributed into twenty-three
redoubts and eight camps, from which they can move, according to
circumstances, on the points threatened. The redoubts are advanced
posts. The camps of infantry, placed on the heights, form so many
reserves. The cavalry camps are stationed on the banks of the streams.
In the plain especially, where the attacks may be most dangerous, to the
fosses, ramparts, and ordinary towers are added _abatis_, wolf-pits,
things like caltrops, means still employed in modern fortification.
Thanks to so many works, but thanks also to the imperfection of the
projectiles of that time, we see a besieging army, equal in number to
the army besieged, three times less in force than the army of succour,
resist three simultaneous attacks, and finish by vanquishing so many
enemies assembled against it. It is a thing to be remarked that Cæsar,
in the decisive day of the struggle, shut up in his lines, has become,
in a manner, the besieged, and, like all besieged who are victorious, it
is by a sally that he triumphs. The Gauls have nearly forced his
retrenchments on one point; but Labienus, by Cæsar’s order, debouches
from the lines, attacks the enemy with the sword, and puts him to
flight: the cavalry completes the victory.
This siege, so memorable in a military point of view, is still more so
in the historic point of view. Beside the hill, so barren at the present
day, of Mont Auxois, were decided the destinies of the world. In these
fertile plains, on these hills, now silent, nearly 400,000 men
encountered each other; one side led by the spirit of conquest, the
other by the spirit of independence; but none of them were conscious of
the work which destiny was employing them to accomplish. The cause of
all civilisation was at stake.
The defeat of Cæsar would have stopped for a long period the advance of
Roman domination, of that domination which, across rivers of blood, it
is true, conducted the peoples to a better future. The Gauls,
intoxicated with their success, would have called to their aid all those
nomadic peoples who followed the course of the sun to create themselves
a country, and all together would have thrown themselves upon Italy;
that focus of intelligence, destined to enlighten the peoples, would
then have been destroyed, before it had been able to develop its
expansive force. Rome, on her side, would have lost the only chief
capable of arresting her decline, of re-constituting the Republic, and
of bequeathing to her at his death three centuries of existence.
Thus, while we honour duly the memory of Vercingetorix, we are not
allowed to deplore his defeat. Let us admire the ardent and sincere love
of this Gaulish chieftain for the independence of his country; but let
us not forget that it is to the triumph of the Roman armies that we owe
our civilisation; institutions, manners, language, all come to us from
the conquest. Thus are we much more the children of the conquerors than
of the conquered; for, during long years, the former have been our
masters for everything which raises the soul and embellishes life; and,
when at last the invasion of the barbarians came to overthrow the old
Roman edifice, it could not destroy its foundations. Those wild hordes
only ravaged the territory, without having the power to annihilate the
principles of law, justice, and liberty, which, deeply rooted, survived
by their own vitality, like those crops which, bent down for a moment
beneath the tread of the soldiers, soon rise again spontaneously, and
recover a new life. On the ground thus prepared by Roman civilisation,
the Christian idea was able easily to plant itself, and to regenerate
the world.
The victory gained at Alesia was, then, one of those decisive events
which decide the destinies of peoples.
It is towards the end of the third consulship of Pompey that the lictors
must have arrived in Rome, carrying, according to the custom, with their
fasces crowned with laurels, the letters announcing the surrender of
Alesia. The degenerate aristocracy, who placed their rancours above the
interests of their country, would, no doubt, have preferred receiving
the news of the loss of the Roman armies, to seeing Cæsar become greater
than ever by new successes; but public opinion compelled the Senate to
celebrate the victory gained at Mont Auxois: it ordered sacrifices
during twenty days; still more, the people, to testify their joy,
trebled the number.[772]
CHAPTER VIII.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.
[Sidenote: New Troubles in Gaul, and the Campaign on the Aisne.]
I. The capture of Alesia and the defeat of the army of succour, composed
of all the contingents of Gaul, must have encouraged the hope that the
war was ended; but the popular waves, like those of the ocean, once
agitated, require time to calm them. In 703, disturbances broke out on
several points at the same time. Cæsar, who was wintering at Bibracte,
was obliged to proceed with two legions into Berry, and, some time
afterwards, into the country of Orleans, to restore order there; next he
marched against the people of Beauvais, whose resistance threatened to
be the more formidable, as they had taken but a slight part at the siege
of Alesia. After having assembled four legions, he established his camp
on Mont Saint-Pierre, in the forest of Compiègne, opposite the Gauls,
who were posted on Mont Saint-Marc. At the end of a few weeks, unable to
draw them to quit their post, and not considering his forces sufficient
to surround on all sides the mountain which they occupied, he sent for
three other legions, and then threatened to invest their camp, as had
happened at Alesia. The Gauls left their position, and retired upon Mont
Ganelon, from whence they sent troops to lay in ambush in the forest, in
order to fall upon the Romans when they went to forage. The result was
a combat in the plain of Choisy-au-Bac, in which the Gauls were
defeated, and which led to the submission of the whole country. After
this expedition, Cæsar turned his attention to the country situated
between the Rhine and the Meuse, the populations of which, in spite of
the hard lesson of 701, were again raising the standard of revolt under
Ambiorix. The whole country was committed to fire and sword; but the
invaders could not lay hold of the person of that implacable enemy of
the Roman name.
The remains of the old Gaulish bands had united on the left bank of the
Loire, the constant refuge of the last defenders of their country, and
were still displaying an energy sufficient to give uneasiness to the
conquerors. They joined Dumnacus, the chief of the Angevins, who was
besieging, in Poitiers, Duratius, a Gaulish chief faithful to the
Romans. Cæsar’s lieutenants, Caninius Rebilus and C. Fabius, obliged
Dumnacus to raise the siege, and defeated his army.
During this time, Drappes of Sens and Lucterius of Cahors, who had
escaped from the last battle, attempted to invade the Roman province;
but, pursued by Rebilus, they threw themselves into the fortress of
Uxellodunum (_le Puy d’Issolu_), where the last focus of the
insurrection was destined to be extinguished. After a battle outside the
fortress, in which the Romans were victorious, Drappes fell into their
power; Rebilus and Fabius continued the siege. But the courage of the
besieged rendered useless the efforts of the besiegers. At this
conjuncture Cæsar arrived there. Seeing that the place, being
obstinately defended and abundantly provisioned, could not be reduced
either by force or by famine, he conceived the idea of depriving the
besieged of water. For this purpose, a subterranean gallery was carried
to the veins of the spring which, alone, supplied their wants. It became
instantly dry. The Gauls, taking this circumstance for a prodigy,
believed they saw in it a manifestation of the will of the gods, and
surrendered. Cæsar inflicted on the heroic defenders of Uxellodunum an
atrocious punishment: he caused their hands to be cut off; an
unpardonable act of cruelty, even although it might have appeared
necessary.
These events accomplished, he visited Aquitaine for the first time, with
two legions, and saw his authority accepted everywhere. He subsequently
proceeded to Narbonne, and from thence to Arras, where he established
his head-quarters for the winter. Labienus, on his side, had obtained
the complete submission of the country of Trèves.
[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Policy in Gaul and at Rome.]
II. After eight years of sanguinary struggles, Gaul was subdued, and
thenceforward, far from meeting enemies in it, Cæsar was destined to
find only auxiliaries.
His policy had contributed as much as his arms to this result. Instead
of seeking to reduce Gaul into a Roman province, the great captain had
applied himself to founding the supremacy of the Republic on powerful
alliances, making the conquered countries subject to the states of which
he was sure, and leaving to each people its chiefs and its institutions,
and to Gaul entire its general assemblies.
It may have been remarked with what consideration Cæsar, in all his
wars, deals with the countries which offer him their co-operation, and
with what generous ability he treats them. Thus, in his first campaign,
he raises the Burgundians from the state of inferiority in which they
were held by the people of Franche-Comté, and re-establishes them in
possession of their hostages and of their rights of patronage over the
states which were their clients;[773] yielding to their prayer, in the
second campaign, he pardons the people of Beauvais;[774] in the sixth,
the inhabitants of Sens.[775] In 702, the auxiliary troops furnished by
the Burgundians revolt; yet he takes no vengeance upon them; the same
year these people massacre the Roman merchants: they expect terrible
reprisals, and send to implore pardon; Cæsar replies to their deputies
that he is far from wishing to throw on the whole country the fault of a
few; lastly, when, under the influence of the national feeling, their
contingents have taken part in the general insurrection, and are
defeated before Alise, instead of reducing them to captivity, Cæsar
gives them their liberty. He behaves in the same manner towards the
people of Rheims, whose influence he augments by granting their
petitions in favour, at one time of the people of Soissons,[776] at
another of the inhabitants of Orléanais.[777] He restores similarly to
the inhabitants of Auvergne their contingent vanquished at Alise; to the
people of Artois, he remits all tribute, restores their laws, and
places the territory of the Boulonnaise in subjection to them.[778] In
each of his campaigns he follows an equally generous policy towards his
allies.
The chiefs whom Cæsar places over the governments of the different
states are not chosen arbitrarily; he takes them from the ancient
families who have reigned over the country; often even he does no more
than confirm the result of a free election. He maintains Ambiorix at the
head of the people of Liége, restores to him his son and nephew,
prisoners of the people of Namur, and frees him from the tribute which
he paid to that people.[779] He gives to the people of Orleans for their
chief Tasgetius, and to the inhabitants of Sens, Cavarinus, both issued
from families which had possessed the sovereignty.[780] He appoints, as
King of Artois, Commius,[781] who, nevertheless, as well as Ambiorix,
subsequently revolted against him. In presence of the principal
personages of the country of the Treviri, he decides between rival
ambitions, and pronounces for Cingetorix,[782] whom he calls to the
power. Again, he recognises Convictolitavis as chief of the
Burgundians.[783] We can pardon Cæsar some acts of cruel vengeance, when
we consider how far his age was still a stranger to the sentiments of
humanity, and how far a victorious general must have been provoked to
see those whose oath of fidelity he had received, and whom he had loaded
with honours, incessantly revolting against his authority.
Almost every year he convokes the assembly of Gaul,[784] either at
Lutetia, or at Rheims, or at Bibracte, and he only imposes on the people
the rights of the conqueror after having called them to discuss in his
presence their several interests; he presides over them more as a
protector than as a conqueror. Finally, when the last remains of the
insurrection have been annihilated at Uxellodunum (_Puy d’Issolu_), he
proceeds to pass the winter in Belgium; there he strives to render
obedience more easy to the vanquished, brings into the exercise of power
more of leniency and justice, and introduces among these races, still
savages, the benefits of civilisation. Such was the efficacy of these
measures that, when, finally abandoning Gaul, he was obliged to withdraw
his legions from it, the country, formerly so agitated, remained calm
and tranquil; the transformation was complete, and, instead of enemies,
he left on the other side of the Alps a people always ready to furnish
him with numerous soldiers for his new wars.[785]
When we see a man of eminence devote himself, during nine years, with so
much perseverance and skill, to the greatness of his country, we ask how
so many animosities and rancours could rise against him in Rome. But
this angry feeling is explained by the regret and vexation, very
excusable indeed, which the privileged castes feel when a system which
has, during several centuries, been the cause of their power and of the
glory of the country, has just given way under the irresistible action
of new ideas; this hatred fell upon Cæsar as the most dangerous promoter
of these ideas. It is true that people accused his ambition; in reality,
it was his convictions openly pronounced which had long provoked
hostility.
Cæsar began his political career with a trial which is always
honourable, persecution supported for a good cause. The popular party
then rested for support on the memory of Marius; Cæsar did not hesitate
in reviving it with glory. Hence the prestige which surrounded him, in
his youth, and which ceased not to grow with him. The constancy of his
principles gained him all the honours and all the dignities which were
conferred upon him; named successively military tribune, quæstor, grand
pontiff, guardian of the Appian Way, ædile, urban prætor, proprætor in
Spain, and lastly consul, he might consider these different testimonies
of public favour as so many victories gained under the same flag against
the same enemies. This was the motive of the violent passions of the
aristocracy: it made a single man responsible for the decay of an order
of things which was falling into the abyss of corruption and anarchy.
When, during his ædileship, Cæsar causes the trophies of Marius,
glorious symbols of the war against the Cimbri and Teutones, to be
replaced in the Capitol, the opposite party already cries out that he
intends to overthrow the Republic; when he returns from Spain, after
having led his victorious legions as far as Portugal, his passage
across the Transpadane colonies inspires the Senate with so many fears,
that two legions, destined for Asia, are retained in Italy; when he
believes that he has a claim to a triumph and the consulate at the same
time--a double favour accorded to many others--he is obliged to renounce
the triumph. As consul he encounters, during the whole period of his
magistracy, the most active and the most spiteful opposition. Hardly
have his functions expired, when an accusation is sought to be brought
against him, which he only escapes by the privilege attached to the
_imperium_. In his interview, not far from the Rhine, with Ariovistus,
he learns that the nobles of Rome have promised their friendship to the
German king, if, by his death, he delivers them from their enemy. His
victories, which transport the people with enthusiasm, excite jealousy
and detraction among the Roman aristocracy. They seek to undervalue his
expeditions beyond the sea, as well as beyond the Rhine. In 701 the news
reached Rome of the defeat of the German tribes who again threatened
Gaul with invasion. Cato, under the pretence that Cæsar had not observed
the truce, proposed that they should deliver up to the barbarians the
glorious chief of the legions of the Republic.
During the last campaign against the people of the Beauvaisin, his
adversaries rejoice in the false rumours which were spread abroad
concerning his military operations; they relate in whispers, without
concealing their satisfaction, that he is surrounded by the Gauls, that
he has lost his cavalry, and that the 7th legion has been nearly
annihilated.[786] In the Senate, Clodius, Rutilius Lupus, Cicero,
Ahenobarbus, and the two Marcelli, move in their turns, either to revoke
the acts of his consulship, or to supersede him as governor of Gaul, or,
lastly, to reduce his command. Political parties never disarm, not even
before the national glory.
[Sidenote: Sulpicius Rufus and M. Claudius Marcellus, Consuls.]
III. The two factions which divided the Republic had each, in 703, their
adherent in the consulship. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a lawyer of
reputation, passed for a man attached to Cæsar; M. Claudius Marcellus
was his declared enemy. The latter, a distinguished orator, who imitated
Cicero, announced, on his entrance into office, the design of giving a
successor to Cæsar before the legal period of his command had expired;
but this design, counteracted by his colleague, and by the earnest
opposition of the tribunes, was from time to time adjourned. “Why,” it
was said, “depose a magistrate who has not committed a fault?”[787] The
attention of the Senate was, moreover, called in another direction by
grave events.
It will be remembered that C. Cassius Longinus, the quæstor of Crassus,
had rallied the wreck of the Roman army; he had even succeeded in
repulsing vigorously an invasion of the Parthians into the province of
Syria. He was reproached, meanwhile, with great rapacity in his
administration; it was pretended that, for the purpose of justifying
his acts of rapine, he had drawn in bands of Arabs, and afterwards
driven them out, boasting that he had beaten the Parthians.[788] Syria
was an important province, which could not be left in the hands of a
simple quæstor; M. Calpurnius Bibulus, Cæsar’s old colleague in the
consulship, was sent thither to exercise the command.[789] At the same
time Cicero, in obedience to the new law on the consular provinces,
started, to his great regret, for Cilicia. As he passed through
Tarentum, he paid a visit to Pompey, who, after his consulship, had
absented himself from Rome, in order to avoid acting decisively. Cicero,
with his ordinary want of discernment, went away enchanted with his
interview; declared in his letters that Pompey was an excellent citizen,
whose foresight, courage, and wisdom were equal to all events, and that
he believed him sincerely allied to the cause of the Senate.[790]
If we reflect on the danger which then threatened the provinces of the
East, we have reason to be surprised at these two appointments. Neither
Bibulus nor Cicero had given any proof of military talents; the latter
even very frankly avowed it.[791] The Parthians were threatening, and,
while Pompey had sent into Spain four old legions, remaining himself in
Italy with two others, the Eastern frontiers were only guarded by weak
armies,[792] and commanded by two generals who had never seen war.
[Sidenote: Spirit which animates Cæsar’s Adversaries.]
IV. Marcellus, after he had failed in his project of taking Cæsar away
from his army, proposed a measure which displays the true character of
the passions which agitated the Republic. Pompey’s father had founded in
the Cisalpine the colony of _Novum Comum_, and had given it the right of
_Latium_, which conferred on the magistrates of the town, after a year’s
office, the privileges of Roman citizens.[793] Cæsar had sent thither
5,000 colonists, of whom 500 were Greeks,[794] and during his first
consulship he had conferred upon them the right of Roman citizens. Now
Marcellus strove to cause this right to be withdrawn from them; but not
having succeeded in this attempt, and unwilling at any price to
acknowledge Cæsar’s law,[795] he condemned to the rod, it is not known
for what offence, an inhabitant of _Novum Comum_. The latter protested,
invoking the privileges conferred on his city, but in vain; Marcellus
had him flogged, telling him: “Go, show thy shoulders to Cæsar; it is
thus I treat the citizens he makes.”[796] This contempt for the new
rights proved clearly the haughty disdain of the aristocratic party,
blaming one of the things which had contributed most to the greatness of
the Republic, the successive extension of the Roman city to the
provinces, and to the vanquished themselves. Confounding, in his blind
reprobation, both the principle of a liberal policy and him who had
applied it, he saw not that the persecution exercised towards the
Transpadan citizen contributed further to increase Cæsar’s greatness,
and to legitimise his popularity.
Yet these are the doctrines and acts of those men who are represented as
the worthy supports of the Republic! And Marcellus was not the only man
who, by denying to the Transpadans the rights they had acquired, showed
the perversity of egotistic sentiments; the other principal personages
of the aristocratic faction hardly recommended themselves by more
moderation and disinterestedness. “Appius Claudius Pulcher,” says
Cicero, “had treated with fire and sword the province entrusted to his
care; and had bled and drained it in every way;”[797] Faustus, Sylla,
Lentulus, Scipio, Libo, and so many others, sought to elevate themselves
by civil war, and to recover their fortune by pillage;[798] Brutus,
whose conduct was that of a usurer, employed the troops of his country
to oppress the allied peoples. Having lent money to the inhabitants of
Salamina, he reckoned on extorting the repayment of the capital and the
interest at the usurious rate of four per cent. a month, or forty-eight
per cent. a year. To recover his debt, a certain Scaptius, to whom he
had made over his claim, had obtained from Appius a troop of cavalry,
with which, according to Cicero, “he held the Senate of Salamina
besieged so long that five senators died of hunger.” Cicero, when he
became governor of Cilicia, sought to repair this injustice. Brutus,
irritated, wrote him letters full of arrogance, of which Cicero
complained to Atticus with vivacity: “If Brutus pretends that I ought to
pay Scaptius at the rate of four per cent. a month, in spite of my
regulations and edicts which fixed the interest at one per cent., and
when the least reasonable usurers are satisfied with that rate; if he
takes it ill that I have refused him a place of prefect for a tradesman;
... if he reproaches me with having withdrawn the cavalry, I regret much
to have displeased him, but I regret much more to find him so different
from what I had believed!”[799] There was a law of Gabinius, intended to
prevent such abuses; it prohibited the towns from borrowing money at
Rome to pay their taxes. But Brutus had obtained a senatus-consultus to
free him from this constraint,[800] and he employed even the means of
coercion to obtain even two or three times the value of that he had
given. Such was the probity of a man who has been vaunted for his
virtue. It is thus that the aristocratic party understood liberty; the
hatred to Cæsar arose especially from the circumstance that he took to
heart the cause of the oppressed, and that, during his first consulship,
as Appian says, he had done nothing in favour of the nobles.[801]