notable tragedies. The "itching palm" of Cassius, Brutus' rectitude and
honesty of purpose, and Mark Antony's oration will ever live while the
English language endures. When the great Cæsar was struck down, the
civil war was over and he was master of the world. The month of the year
B.C. 100 in which he was born, Quinctilis, was afterward called in his
honor, July.
Caius Julius Cæsar was one of the greatest figures in history, and early
took a prominent part in the affairs of Rome. He was a rival of Cicero
in forensic eloquence and highly esteemed as a writer, his
_Commentaries_ being universally admired. Ransomed from pirates who had
captured him on his way to study philosophy at Rhodes, he attacked them
in turn, took them to Pergamus, and crucified them.
After various successful engagements Cæsar marched against Pharnaces,
now established in the kingdom of the Bosphorus, gaining at Zela, in
Pontus, the decisive victory which he announced in the famous despatch,
_Veni, vidi, vici_ ["I came, I saw, I conquered"].
His unbounded affability, his liveliness and cordiality, his unaffected
kindness to his friends had made him popular with the high as well as
the low. His ambition began to show itself. During the wrangles over the
election of Afranius as consul, Cæsar returned from his brilliant
successes in Spain. The troops saluted him as imperator and the senate
voted a thanksgiving in his honor. He was now strong enough to take his
place as the leader of the popular party. He was elected consul in spite
of the hostility of the senate.
A coalition was formed between Cæsar and Pompey. Cæsar's agrarian law
added to his popularity with the people, and he gained the influence of
the _equites_ by relief of one-third of the farmed taxes of Asia. He now
became proconsul of Illyricum and Gaul for five years. This suited his
ambition. At this time Pompey was the absolute master of Rome. And now
arose his duel for power with Cæsar. For a time he opposed the latter's
election as consul, but later yielded.
Cæsar had achieved his brilliant success beyond the Alps. He had won
victories in Gaul and Britain; but in the mean time his enemies had been
active at Rome. Still believing that the senate would permit his quiet
election to the consulship, he refused to strike any blow at their
authority. But the senate had determined to humble Cæsar. Both Pompey
and Cæsar were removed from leadership, but the Consul Marcellus refused
to execute the decree. Cæsar was directed by the senate to disband his
army by a fixed day, on pain of being considered a public enemy. Pompey
sided with the senate. This meant civil war. Antony and Cassius fled to
the camp of Cæsar, who was enthusiastically supported by his soldiers
and "crossed the Rubicon."
Having become master of all Italy in three months without a battle,
Cæsar reëntered Rome. Pompey had fled, and at the battle of Pharsalia
was utterly routed, and took refuge in Egypt, where he was murdered a
few days before the arrival of Cæsar.
Upon receipt of the news of Pompey's death Cæsar was named dictator for
one year. The government was now placed without disguise in his hands.
He was invested with the tribunician power for life. He was also again
elected consul and named dictator.
Cæsar had now become a demi-god, and was named dictator for ten years,
being awarded a fourfold triumph, and a thanksgiving being decreed for
forty days. He was also made censor. This was in B.C. 46. After
defeating the remnant of the Pompeians, he returned to Rome in
September, B.C. 45, and was named imperator, and appointed consul for
ten years and dictator for life, being hailed as _Parens Patriæ_.
All these triumphs had caused jealousies. It was thought that he aspired
to become king, and this led to his fall.)
NIEBUHR
It is one of the inestimable advantages of a hereditary government
commonly called the legitimate, whatever its form may be, that it may be
formally inactive in regard to the state and the population--that it may
reserve its interference until it is absolutely necessary, and
apparently leave things to take their own course. If we look around us
and observe the various constitutions, we shall scarcely perceive the
interference of the government; the greater part of the time passes away
without those who have the reins in their hands being obliged to pay any
particular attention to what they are doing, and a very large amount of
individual liberty may be enjoyed. But if the government is what we call
a usurpation, the ruler has not only to take care to maintain his power,
but in all that he undertakes he has to consider by what means and in
what ways he can establish his right to govern, and his own personal
qualifications for it. Men who are in such a position are urged on to
act by a very sad necessity, from which they cannot escape, and such was
the position of Cæsar at Rome.
In our European States, men have wide and extensive spheres in which
they can act and move. The much-decried system of centralization has
indeed many disadvantages; but it has this advantage for the ruler, that
he can exert an activity which shows its influence far and wide. But
what could Cæsar do, in the centre of nearly the whole of the known
world? He could not hope to effect any material improvements either in
Italy or in the provinces. He had been accustomed from his youth, and
more especially during the last fifteen years, to an enormous activity,
and idleness was intolerable to him. At the close of the civil war he
would have had little or nothing to do unless he had turned his
attention to some foreign enterprise. He was obliged to venture upon
something that would occupy his whole soul, for he could not rest. His
thoughts were therefore again directed to war, and that in a quarter
where the most brilliant triumphs awaited him, where the bones of the
legions of Crassus lay unavenged--to a war against the Parthians. About
this time the Getae also had spread in Thrace, and he intended to check
their progress likewise. But his main problem was to destroy the
Parthian empire and to extend the Roman dominion as far as India, a plan
in which he would certainly have been successful; and he himself felt so
sure of this that he was already thinking of what he should undertake
afterward.
It is by no means incredible that, as we are told, he intended on his
return to march through the passes of the Caucasus, and through ancient
Scythia into the country of the Getae, and thence through Germany and
Gaul into Italy. Besides this expedition, he entertained other plans of
no less gigantic dimensions. The port of Ostia was bad, and in reality
little better than a mere roadstead, so that great ships could not come
up the river. Accordingly it is said that Cæsar intended to dig a canal
for sea-ships, from the Tiber, above or below Rome, through the Pomptine
marshes as far as Terracina. He further contemplated to cut through the
Isthmus of Corinth. It is not easy to see in what manner he would have
accomplished this, considering the state of hydraulic architecture in
those times. The Roman canals were mere _fossæ_, and canals with
sluices, though not unknown to the Romans, were not constructed by
them.[77]
[Footnote 77: The first canals with sluices were executed by the Dutch
in the fifteenth century.]
The fact of Cæsar forming such enormous plans is not very surprising;
but we can scarcely comprehend how it was possible for him to accomplish
so much of what he undertook in the short time of five months preceding
his death. Following the unfortunate system of Sulla, Cæsar founded
throughout Italy a number of colonies of veterans. The old Sullanian
colonists were treated with great severity, and many of them and their
children were expelled from their lands, and were thus punished for the
cruelty which they or their fathers had committed against the
inhabitants of the municipia. In like manner colonies were established
in Southern Gaul, Italy, Africa, and other parts; I may mention in
particular the colonies founded at Carthage and Corinth. The latter,
however, was a _colonia libertinorum_, and never rose to any importance.
We do not know the details of its foundation, but one would imagine that
Cæsar would have preferred restoring the place as a purely Greek town.
This, however, he did not do. Its population was and remained a mixed
one, and Corinth never rose to a state of real prosperity.
Cæsar made various new arrangements in the State, and among others he
restored the full franchise, or the _jus honorum_, to the sons of those
who had been proscribed in the time of Sulla. He had obtained for
himself the title of imperator and the dictatorship for life and the
consulship for ten years. Half of the offices of the republic to which
persons had before been elected by the centuries were in his gift, and
for the other half he usually recommended candidates; so that the
elections were merely nominal.
The tribes seem to have retained their rights of election uncurtailed,
and the last tribunes must have been elected by the people. But although
Cæsar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic was
reduced to a mere form and appearance. Cæsar made various new laws and
regulations; for example, to lighten the burdens of debtors and the
like; but the changes he introduced in the form of the constitution were
of little importance. He increased the number of prætors, which Sulla
had raised to eight, successively to ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen,
and the number of quaestors was increased to forty. Hence the number of
persons from whom the senate was to be filled up became greater than
that of the vacancies, and Cæsar accordingly increased the number of
senators, though it is uncertain what number he fixed upon, and raised a
great many of his friends to the dignity of senators. In this, as in
many other cases, he acted very arbitrarily; for he elected into the
senate whomsoever he pleased, and conferred the franchise in a manner
equally arbitrary. These things did not fail to create much discontent.
It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding his mode of filling up the
senate, not even the majority of senators were attached to his cause
after his death.
If we consider the changes and regulations which Cæsar introduced, it
must strike us as a singular circumstance that among all his measures
there is no trace of any indicating that he thought of modifying the
constitution for the purpose of putting an end to the anarchy, for all
his changes are in reality not essential or of great importance. Sulla
felt the necessity of remodelling the constitution, but he did not
attain his end; and the manner, too, in which he set about it was that
of a short-sighted man; but he was at least intelligent enough to see
that the constitution as it then was could not continue to exist. In the
regulations of Cæsar we see no trace of such a conviction; and I think
that he despaired of the possibility of effecting any real good by
constitutional reforms. Hence, among all his laws there is not one that
had any relation to the constitution. The fact of his increasing the
number of patrician families had no reference to the constitution; so
far in fact were the patricians from having any advantages over the
plebeians that the office of the two _oediles Cereales_, which Cæsar
instituted, was confined to the plebeians--a regulation which was
opposed to the very nature of the patriciate.
His raising persons to the rank of patricians was neither more nor less
than the modern practice of raising a family to the rank of nobility; he
picked out an individual and gave him the rank of patrician for himself
and his descendants, but did not elevate a whole gens. The distinction
itself was merely a nominal one and conferred no privilege upon a person
except that of holding certain priestly offices, which could be filled
by none but patricians, and for which their number was scarcely
sufficient. If Cæsar had died quietly the republic would have been in
the same, nay, in a much worse, state of dissolution than if he had not
existed at all. I consider it a proof of the wisdom and good sense of
Cæsar that he did not, like Sulla, think an improvement in the state of
public affairs so near at hand or a matter of so little difficulty. The
cure of the disease lay yet at a very great distance, and the first
condition on which it could be undertaken was the sovereignty of Cæsar,
a condition which would have been quite unbearable even to many of his
followers, who as rebels did not scruple to go along with him. But Rome
could no longer exist as a republic.
It is curious to see in Cicero's work, _de Republica_, the consciousness
running through it that Rome, as it then stood, required the strong hand
of a king. Cicero had surely often owned this to himself; but he saw no
one who would have entered into such an idea. The title of king had a
great fascination for Cæsar, as it had for Cromwell--a surprising
phenomenon in a practical mind like that of Cæsar. Everyone knows the
fact that while Cæsar was sitting on the _suggestum_, during the
celebration of the _Lupercalia_, Antony presented to him the diadem, to
try how the people would take it. Cæsar saw the great alarm which the
act created and declined the diadem for the sake of appearance; but had
the people been silent, Cæsar would unquestionably have accepted it. His
refusal was accompanied by loud shouts of acclamation, which for the
present rendered all further attempts impossible. Antony then had a
statue of Cæsar adorned with the diadem; but two tribunes of the people,
L. Caesetius Flavus and Epidius Marullus, took it away: and here Cæsar
showed the real state of his feelings, for he treated the conduct of the
tribunes as a personal insult toward himself. He had lost his
self-possession and his fate carried him irresistibly onward. He wished
to have the tribunes imprisoned, but was prevailed upon to be satisfied
with their being stripped of their office and sent into exile.
This created a great sensation at Rome. Cæsar had also been guilty of an
act of thoughtlessness, or perhaps merely of distraction, as might
happen very easily to a man in his circumstances. When the senate had
made its last decrees, conferring upon Cæsar unlimited powers, the
senators, consuls, and prætors, or the whole senate, in festal attire,
presented the decrees to him, and Cæsar at the moment forgot to show his
respect for the senators; he did not rise from his _sella curulis_, but
received the decrees in an unceremonious manner. This want of politeness
was never forgiven by the persons who had not scrupled to make him their
master; for it had been expected that he would at least behave politely
and be grateful for such decrees.[78] Cæsar himself had no design in the
act, which was merely the consequence of distraction or thoughtlessness;
but it made the senate his irreconcilable enemies. The affair with the
tribunes, moreover, had made a deep impression upon the people. We must,
however, remember that the people under such circumstances are most
sensible to anything affecting their honor, as we have seen at the
beginning of the French Revolution.
[Footnote 78: I have known an instance of a man of rank and influence
who could never forgive another man, who was by far his superior in
every respect, for having forgotten to take off his hat during a visit.]
In the year of Cæsar's death, Brutus and Cassius were prætors. Both had
been generals under Pompey. Brutus' mother, Servilia, was a half-sister
of Cato, for after the death of her first husband Cato's mother had
married Servilius Caepio. She was a remarkable woman, but very immoral,
and unworthy of her son; not even the honor of her own daughter was
sacred to her. The family of Brutus derived its origin from L. Junius
Brutus, and from the time of its first appearance among the plebeians it
had had few men of importance to boast of. During the period subsequent
to the passing of the Licinian laws we meet with some Junii in the
Fasti, but not one of them acquired any great reputation. The family had
become reduced and almost contemptible. One M. Brutus in particular
disgraced his family by sycophancy in the time of Sulla and was
afterward killed in Gaul by Pompey. Although no Roman family belonged to
a more illustrious gens, yet Brutus was not by any means one of those
men who are raised by fortunate circumstances. The education, however,
which he received had a great influence upon him. His uncle Cato, whose
daughter Porcia he married--whether in Cato's lifetime or afterward is
doubtful--had initiated him from his early youth in the Stoic
philosophy, and had instilled into his mind a veneration for it, as
though it had been a religion.
Brutus had qualities which Cato did not possess. The latter had
something of an ascetic nature, and was, if I may say so, a scrupulously
pious character; but Brutus had no such scrupulous timidity; his mind
was more flexible and lovable. Cato spoke well, but could not be
reckoned among the eloquent men of his time. Brutus' great talents had
been developed with the utmost care, and if he had lived longer and in
peace he would have become a classical writer of the highest order. He
had been known to Cicero from his early age, and Cicero felt a fatherly
attachment to him; he saw in him a young man who he hoped would exert a
beneficial influence upon the next generation.
Cæsar too had known and loved him from his childhood; but the stories
which are related to account for this attachment must be rejected as
foolish inventions of idle persons; for nothing is more natural than
that Cæsar should look with great fondness upon a young man of such
extraordinary and amiable qualities. The absence of envy was one of the
distinguishing features in the character of Cæsar, as it was in that of
Cicero. In the battle of Pharsalus, Brutus served in the army of Pompey,
and after the battle he wrote a letter to Cæsar, who had inquired after
him; and when Cæsar heard of his safety he was delighted, and invited
him to his camp. Cæsar afterward gave him the administration of
Cisalpine Gaul, where Brutus distinguished himself in a very
extraordinary manner by his love of justice.
Cassius was related to Brutus, and had likewise belonged to the Pompeian
party, but he was very unlike Brutus; he was much older, and a
distinguished military officer. After the death of Crassus he had
maintained himself as quaestor in Syria against the Parthians, and he
enjoyed a very great reputation in the army, but he was after all no
better than an ordinary officer of Cæsar. After the battle of Pharsalus,
Cæsar did not at first know whither Pompey was gone. Cassius was at the
time stationed with some galleys in the Hellespont, notwithstanding
which Cæsar with his usual boldness took a boat to sail across that
strait, and on meeting Cassius called upon him to embrace his party.
Cassius readily complied, and Cæsar forgave him, as he forgave all his
adversaries: even Marcellus, who had mortally offended him, was pardoned
at the request of Cicero. Cæsar thus endeavored to efface all
recollections of the civil war.
Cæsar had appointed both Brutus and Cassius prætors for that year. With
the exception of the office of _prætor urbanus_, which was honorable and
lucrative, the prætorship was a burdensome office and conferred little
distinction, since the other prætors were only the presidents of the
courts. Formerly they had been elected by lot, but the office was now
altogether in the gift of Cæsar. Both Brutus and Cassius had wished for
the prætura urbana, and, when Cæsar gave that office to Brutus, Cassius
was not only indignant at Cæsar, but began quarrelling with Brutus also.
While Cassius was in this state of exasperation, a meeting of the senate
was announced for the 15th of March, on which day, as the report went, a
proposal was to be made to offer Cæsar the crown. This was a welcome
opportunity for Cassius, who resolved to take vengeance, for he had even
before entertained a personal hatred of Cæsar, and was now disappointed
at not having obtained the city prætorship. He first sounded Brutus and,
finding that he was safe, made direct overtures to him. During the night
some one wrote on the tribunal and the house of Brutus the words,
"Remember that thou art Brutus."
Brutus became reconciled to Cassius, offered his assistance, and gained
over several other persons to join the conspiracy. All party differences
seemed to have vanished all at once; two of the conspirators were old
generals of Cæsar, C. Trebonius and Decimus Brutus, both of whom had
fought with him in Gaul, and against Massilia, and had been raised to
high honors by their chief. There were among the conspirators persons of
all parties. Men who had fought against one another at Pharsalus now
went hand-in-hand and intrusted their lives to one another. No proposals
were made to Cicero, the reasons usually assigned for which are of the
most calumniatory kind. It is generally said that the conspirators had
no confidence in Cicero, an opinion which is perfectly contemptible.
Cicero would not have betrayed them for any consideration, but what they
feared were his objections. Brutus had as noble a soul as anyone, but he
was passionate; Cicero, on the other hand, who was at an advanced age,
had many sad experiences, and his feelings were so exceedingly delicate
that he could not have consented to take away the life of him to whom he
himself owed his own, who had always behaved most nobly toward him, and
had intentionally drawn him before the world as his friend.
Cæsar's conduct toward those who had fought in the ranks of Pompey and
afterward returned to him was extremely noble, and he regarded the
reconciliation of those men as a personal favor conferred upon himself.
All who knew Cicero must have been convinced that he would not have
given his consent to the plan of the conspirators; and if they ever did
give the matter a serious thought, they must have owned to themselves
that every wise man would have dissuaded them from it; for it was in
fact the most complete absurdity to fancy that the republic could be
restored by Cæsar's death. Goethe says somewhere that the murder of
Cæsar was the most senseless act that the Romans ever committed; and a
truer word was never spoken. The result of it could not possibly be any
other than that which did follow the deed.
Cæsar was cautioned by Hirtius and Pansa, both wise men of noble
character, especially the former, who saw that the republic must become
consolidated and not thrown into fresh convulsions. They advised Cæsar
to be careful, and to take a bodyguard; but he replied that he would
rather not live at all than be in constant fear of losing his life.
Cæsar once expressed to some of his friends his conviction that Brutus
was capable of harboring a murderous design, but he added that as he,
Cæsar, could not live much longer, Brutus would wait, and not be guilty
of such a crime. Cæsar's health was at that time weak, and the general
opinion was that he intended to surrender his power to Brutus as the
most worthy. While the conspirators were making their preparations,
Porcia, the wife of Brutus, inferred from the excitement and
restlessness of her husband that some fearful secret was pressing on his
mind; but as he did not show her any confidence, she seriously wounded
herself with a knife and was seized with a violent wound-fever. No one
knew the cause of her illness; and it was not till after many entreaties
of her husband that at length she revealed it to him, saying that as she
had been able to conceal the cause of her illness, so she could also
keep any secret that might be intrusted to her. Her entreaties induced
Brutus to communicate to her the plan of the conspirators. Cæsar was
also cautioned by the haruspices, by a dream of his wife, and by his own
forebodings, which we have no reason for doubting. But on the morning of
the 15th of March, the day fixed upon for assassinating Cæsar, Decimus
Brutus treacherously enticed him to go with him to the Curia, as it was
impossible to delay the deed any longer.