(Gaius Scribonius Curio)
The life of Gaius Scribonius Curio has so many points of interest for the
student of Roman politics and society, that one is bewildered by the
variety of situations and experiences which it covers. His private
character is made up of a _mélange_ of contradictory qualities, of
generosity, and profligacy, of sincerity and unscrupulousness. In his
public life there is the same facile change of guiding principles. He is
alternately a follower of Cicero and a supporter of his bitterest enemy, a
Tory and a Democrat, a recognized opponent of Cæsar and his trusted agent
and adviser. His dramatic career stirs Lucan to one of his finest
passages, gives a touch of vigor to the prosaic narrative of Velleius, and
even leads the sedate Pliny to drop into satire.[116] Friend and foe have
helped to paint the picture. Cicero, the counsellor of his youth, writes
of him and to him; Cælius, his bosom friend, analyzes his character;
Cæsar leaves us a record of his military campaigns and death, while
Velleius and Appian recount his public and private sins. His story has
this peculiar charm, that many of the incidents which make it up are
related from day to day, as they occurred, by his contemporaries, Cicero
and Cælius, in the confidential letters which they wrote to their intimate
friends. With all the strange elements which entered into it, however, his
career is not an unusual one for the time in which he lived. Indeed it is
almost typical for the class to which he belonged, and in studying it we
shall come to know something more of that group of brilliant young men,
made up of Cælius, Antony, Dolabella, and others, who were drawn to
Cæsar's cause and played so large a part in bringing him success. The life
of Curio not only illuminates social conditions in the first century
before our era, but it epitomizes and personifies the political history of
his time and the last struggles of the Republic. It brings within its
compass the Catilinarian conspiracy, the agitation of Clodius, the
formation of the first triumvirate, the rivalry of Cæsar and Pompey, and
the civil war, for in all these episodes Curio took an active part.
Students of history have called attention to the striking way in which the
members of certain distinguished Roman families from generation to
generation kept up the political traditions of the family. The Claudian
family is a striking case in point. Recognition of this fact helps us to
understand Curio. His grandfather and his father were both prominent
orators and politicians, as Cicero tells us in his Brutus.[117] The
grandfather reached the praetorship in the year in which Gaius Gracchus
was done to death by his political opponents, while Curio pater was
consul, in 76 B.C., when the confusion which followed the breaking up of
the constitution and of the party of Sulla was at its height. Cicero tells
us that the second Curio had "absolutely no knowledge of letters," but
that he was one of the successful public speakers of his day, thanks to
the training which he had received at home. The third Curio, with whom we
are concerned here, was prepared for public life as his father had been,
for Cicero remarks of him that "although he had not been sufficiently
trained by teachers, he had a rare gift for oratory."[118]
On this point Cicero could speak with authority, because Curio had very
possibly been one of his pupils in oratory and law. At least the very
intimate acquaintance which he has with Curio's character and the
incidents of his life, the fatherly tone of Cicero's letters to him, and
the fact that Curio's nearest friends were among his disciples make this a
natural inference. How intimate this relation was, one can see from the
charming picture which Cicero draws, in the introductory chapters of his
Essay on Friendship, of his own intercourse as a young man with the
learned Augur Scævola. Roman youth attended their counsellor and friend
when he went to the forum to take part in public business, or sat with him
at home discussing matters of public and private interest, as Cicero and
his companions sat on the bench in the garden with the pontiff Scævola,
when he set forth the discourse of Lælius on friendship, and thus, out of
his experience, the old man talked to the young men about him upon the
conduct of life as well as upon the technical points of law and oratory.
So many of the brilliant young politicians of this period had been brought
into close relations with Cicero in this way, that when he found himself
forced out of politics by the Cæsarians, he whimsically writes to his
friend Pætus that he is inclined to give up public life and open a school,
and not more than a year before his death he pathetically complains that
he has not leisure even to take the waters at the spa, because of the
demands which are made upon him for lessons in oratory.
If it did not take us too far from our chosen subject, it would be
interesting to stop and consider at length what effect Cicero's intimate
relations with these young men had upon his character, his political
views, his personal fortunes, and the course of politics. That they kept
him young in his interests and sympathies, that they kept his mind alert
and receptive, comes out clearly in his letters to them, which are full of
jest and raillery and enthusiasm. That he never developed into a Tory, as
Catulus did, or became indifferent to political conditions, as Lucullus
did, may have been due in part to his intimate association with this group
of enthusiastic young politicians. So far as his personal fortunes were
concerned, when the struggle between Cæsar and Pompey came, these former
pupils of Cicero had an opportunity to show their attachment and their
gratitude to him. _They_ were followers of Cæsar, and _he_ cast in his lot
with Pompey. But this made no difference in their relations. To the
contrary, they gave him advice and help; in their most hurried journeys
they found time to visit him, and they interceded with Cæsar in his
behalf. To determine whether he influenced the fortunes of the state
through the effect which his teachings had upon these young men would
require a paper by itself. Perhaps no man has ever had a better
opportunity than Cicero had in their cases to leave a lasting impression
on the political leaders of the coming generation. Curio, Cælius,
Trebatius, Dolabella, Hirtius, and Pansa, who were Cæsar's lieutenants, in
the years when their characters were forming and their political
tendencies were being determined, were moulded by Cicero. They were warmly
attached to him as their guide, philosopher, and friend, and they admired
him as a writer, an orator, and an accomplished man of the world. Later
they attached themselves to Cæsar, and while they were still under his
spell, Cicero's influence over their political course does not seem to
count for so much, but after Cæsar's death, the latent effect of Cicero's
friendship and teaching makes itself clearly felt in the heroic service
which such men as Hirtius and Pansa rendered to the cause of the dying
Republic. Possibly even Curio, had he been living, might have been found,
after the Ides of March, fighting by the side of Cicero.
Perhaps there is no better way of bringing out the intimate relations
which Curio and the other young men of this group bore to the orator than
by translating one of Cicero's early letters to him. It was written in 53
B.C., when the young man was in Asia, just beginning his political career
as quæstor, or treasurer, on the staff of the governor of that province,
and reads:[119]
"Although I grieve to have been suspected of neglect by you, still it has
not been so annoying to me that my failure in duty is complained of by you
as pleasant that it has been noticed, especially since, in so far as I am
accused, I am free from fault. But in so far as you intimate that you
long for a letter from me, you disclose that which I know well, it is
true, but that which is sweet and cherished--your love, I mean. In point
of fact, I never let any one pass, who I think will go to you, without
giving him a letter. For who is so indefatigable in writing as I am? From
you, on the other hand, twice or thrice at most have I received a letter,
and then a very short one. Therefore, if you are an unjust judge toward
me, I shall condemn you on the same charge, but if you shall be unwilling
to have me do that, you must show yourself just to me.
"But enough about letters; I have no fear of not satisfying you by
writing, especially if in that kind of activity you will not scorn my
efforts. I _did_ grieve that you were away from us so long, inasmuch as I
was deprived of the enjoyment of most delightful companionship, but now I
rejoice because, in your absence, you have attained all your ends without
sacrificing your dignity in the slightest degree, and because in all your
undertakings the outcome has corresponded to my desires. What my boundless
affection for you forces me to urge upon you is briefly put. So great a
hope is based, shall I say, on your spirit or on your abilities, that I do
not hesitate to beseech and implore you to come back to us with a
character so moulded that you may be able to preserve and maintain this
confidence in you which you have aroused. And since forgetfulness shall
never blot out my remembrance of your services to me, I beg you to
remember that whatever improvements may come in your fortune, or in your
station in life, you would not have been able to secure them, if you had
not as a boy in the old days followed my most loyal and loving counsels.
Wherefore you ought to have such a feeling toward us, that we, who are now
growing heavy with years, may find rest in your love and your youth."
In a most unexpected place, in one of Cicero's fiery invectives against
Antony,[120] we come upon an episode illustrating his affectionate care of
Curio during Curio's youth. The elder Curio lies upon a couch, prostrate
with grief at the wreck which his son has brought on the house by his
dissolute life and his extravagance. The younger Curio throws himself at
Cicero's feet in tears. Like a foster-father, Cicero induces the young
man to break off his evil habits, and persuades the father to forgive him
and pay his debts. This scene which he describes here, reminds us of
Curio's first appearance in Cicero's correspondence, where, with Curio's
wild life in mind, he is spoken of as _filiola Curionis_.[121]
It is an appropriate thing that a man destined to lead so stormy a life as
Curio did, should come on the stage as a leader in the wild turmoil of the
Clodian affair. What brought the two Curios to the front in this matter as
champions of Cicero's future enemy Clodius, it is not easy to say. It is
interesting to notice in passing, however, that our Curio enters politics
as a Democrat. He was the leader, in fact, of the younger element in that
party, of the "Catilinarian crowd," as Cicero styles them, and arrayed
himself against Lucullus, Hortensius, Messala, and other prominent
Conservatives. What the methods were which Curio and his followers
adopted, Cicero graphically describes.[122] They blocked up the entrances
to the polling places with professional rowdies, and allowed only one kind
of ballots to be distributed to the voters. This was in 61 B.C., when
Curio can scarcely have been more than twenty-three years old.
In the following year Cæsar was back in Rome from his successful
proprætorship in Spain, and found little difficulty in persuading Pompey
and Crassus to join him in forming that political compact which controlled
the fortunes of Rome for the next ten years. As a part of the agreement,
Cæsar was made consul in 59 B.C., and forced his radical legislation
through the popular assembly in spite of the violent opposition of the
Conservatives. This is the year, too, of the candidacy of Clodius for the
tribunate. Toward both these movements the attitude of Curio is puzzling.
He reports to Cicero[123] that Clodius's main object in running for the
tribunate is to repeal the legislation of Cæsar. It is strange that a man
who had been in the counsels of Clodius, and was so shrewd on other
occasions in interpreting political motives, can have been so deceived. We
can hardly believe that he was double-faced toward Cicero. We must
conclude, I think, that his strong dislike for Cæsar's policy and
political methods colored his view of the situation. His fierce opposition
to Cæsar is the other strange incident in this period of his life. Most
of the young men of the time, even those of good family, were enthusiastic
supporters of Cæsar. Curio, however, is bitterly opposed to him.[124]
Perhaps he resented Cæsar's repression of freedom of speech, for he tells
Cicero that the young men of Rome will not submit to the high-handed
methods of the triumvirs, or perhaps he imbibed his early dislike for
Cæsar from his father, whose sentiments are made clear enough by a savage
epigram at Cæsar's expense, which Suetonius quotes from a speech of the
elder Curio.[125] At all events he is the only man who dares speak out. He
is the idol of the Conservatives, and is surrounded by enthusiastic crowds
whenever he appears in the forum. He is now the recognized leader of the
opposition to Cæsar, and a significant proof of this fact is furnished at
the great games given in honor of Apollo in the summer of 59. When Cæsar
entered the theatre there was faint applause; when Curio entered the crowd
rose and cheered him, "as they used to cheer Pompey when the commonwealth
was safe."[126] Perhaps the mysterious Vettius episode, an ancient Titus
Oates affair, which belongs to this year, reflects the desire of the
triumvirs to get rid of Curio, and shows also their fear of his
opposition. This unscrupulous informer is said to have privately told
Curio of a plot against the life of Pompey, in the hope of involving him
in the meshes of the plot. Curio denounced him to Pompey, and Vettius was
thrown into prison, where he was afterward found dead, before the truth of
the matter could be brought out. Of course Curio's opposition to Cæsar
effected little, except, perhaps, in drawing Cæsar's attention to him as a
clever politician.
To Curio's quæstorship in Asia reference has already been made. It fell in
53 B.C., and from his incumbency of this office we can make an approximate
estimate of his date of birth. Thirty or thirty-one was probably the
minimum age for holding the quæstorship at this time, so that Curio must
have been born about 84 B.C. From Cicero's letter to him, which has been
given above, it would seem to follow that he had performed his duties in
his province with eminent success. During his absence from Rome his
father died, and with his father's death one stimulating cause of his
dislike for Cæsar may have disappeared. To Curio's absence in his province
we owe six of the charming letters which Cicero wrote to him. In one of
his letters of this year he writes:[127] "There are many kinds of letters,
as you well know, but one sort, for the sake of which letter-writing was
invented, is best recognized: I mean letters written for the purpose of
informing those who are not with us of whatever it may be to our advantage
or to theirs that they should know. Surely you are not looking for a
letter of this kind from me, for you have correspondents and messengers
from home who report to you about your household. Moreover, so far as my
concerns go, there is absolutely nothing new. There are two kinds of
letters left which please me very much: one, of the informal and jesting
sort; the other, serious and weighty. I do not feel that it is unbecoming
to adopt either of these styles. Am I to jest with you by letter? On my
word I do not think that there is a citizen who can laugh in these days.
Or shall I write something of a more serious character? What subject is
there on which Cicero can write seriously to Curio, unless it be
concerning the commonwealth? And on this matter this is my situation: that
I neither dare to set down in writing that which I think, nor wish to
write what I do not think."
The Romans felt the same indifference toward affairs in the provinces that
we show in this country, unless their investments were in danger. They
were wrapped up in their own concerns, and politics in Rome were so
absorbing in 53 B.C. that people in the city probably paid little
attention to the doings of a quæstor in the far-away province of Asia.
But, as the time for Curio's return approached, men recalled the striking
rôle which he played in politics in earlier days, and wondered what course
he would take when he came back. Events were moving rapidly toward a
crisis. Julia, Cæsar's daughter, whom Pompey had married, died in the
summer of 54 B.C., and Crassus was defeated and murdered by the Parthians
in 53 B.C. The death of Crassus brought Cæsar and Pompey face to face, and
Julia's death broke one of the strongest bonds which had held these two
rivals together. Cæsar's position, too, was rendered precarious by the
desperate struggle against the Belgæ, in which he was involved in 53 B.C.
In Rome the political pot was boiling furiously. The city was in the grip
of the bands of desperadoes hired by Milo and Clodius, who broke up the
elections during 53 B.C., so that the first of January, 52, arrived with
no chief magistrates in the city. To a man of Curio's daring and
versatility this situation offered almost unlimited possibilities, and
recognizing this fact, Cicero writes earnestly to him,[128] on the eve of
his return, to enlist him in support of Milo's candidacy for the
consulship. Curio may have just arrived in the city when matters reached a
climax, for on January 18, 52 B.C., Clodius was killed in a street brawl
by the followers of Milo, and Pompey was soon after elected sole consul,
to bring order out of the chaos, if possible.
Curio was not called upon to support Milo for the consulship, because
Milo's share in the murder of Clodius and the elevation of Pompey to his
extra-constitutional magistracy put an end to Milo's candidacy. What part
he took in supporting or in opposing Pompey's reform legislation of 52
B.C., and what share he had in the preliminary skirmishes between Cæsar
and the senate during the early part of 51, we have no means of knowing.
As the situation became more acute, however, toward the end of the year,
we hear of him again as an active political leader. Cicero's absence from
Rome from May, 51 to January, 49 B.C., is a fortunate thing for us, for to
it we owe the clever and gossipy political letters which his friend Cælius
sent him from the capital. In one of these letters, written August 1, 51
B.C., we learn that Curio is a candidate for the tribunate for the
following year, and in it we find a keen analysis of the situation, and an
interesting, though tantaizingly brief, estimate of his character. Coming
from an intimate friend of Curio, it is especially valuable to us. Cælius
writes:[129] "He inspires with great alarm many people who do not know him
and do not know how easily he can be influenced, but judging from my hopes
and wishes, and from his present behavior, he will prefer to support the
Conservatives and the senate. In his present frame of mind he is simply
bubbling over with this feeling. The source and reason of this attitude
of his lies in the fact that Cæsar, who is in the habit of winning the
friendship of men of the worst sort at any cost whatsoever, has shown a
great contempt for him. And of the whole affair it seems to me a most
delightful outcome, and the view has been taken by the rest, too, to such
a degree that Curio, who does nothing after deliberation, seems to have
followed a definite policy and definite plans in avoiding the traps of
those who had made ready to oppose his election to the tribunate--I mean
the Lælii, Antonii, and powerful people of that sort." Without strong
convictions or a settled policy, unscrupulous, impetuous, radical, and
changeable, these are the qualities which Cælius finds in Curio, and what
we have seen of his career leads us to accept the correctness of this
estimate. In 61 he had been the champion of Clodius, and the leader of the
young Democrats, while two years later we found him the opponent of Cæsar,
and an ultra-Conservative. It is in the light of his knowledge of Curio's
character, and after receiving this letter from Cælius, that Cicero writes
in December, 51 B.C., to congratulate him upon his election to the
tribunate. He begs him "to govern and direct his course in all matters in
accordance with his own judgment, and not to be carried away by the advice
of other people." "I do not fear," he says, "that you may do anything in a
fainthearted or stupid way, if you defend those policies which you
yourself shall believe to be right.... Commune with yourself, take
yourself into counsel, hearken to yourself, determine your own policy."
The other point in the letter of Cælius, his analysis of the political
situation, so far as Curio is concerned, is not so easy to follow. Cælius
evidently believes that Curio had coquetted with Cæsar and had been
snubbed by him, that his intrigues with Cæsar had at first led the
aristocracy to oppose his candidacy, but that Cæsar's contemptuous
treatment of his advances had driven him into the arms of the senatorial
party. It is quite possible, however, that an understanding may have been
reached between Cæsar and Curio even at this early date, and that Cæsar's
coldness and Curio's conservatism may both have been assumed. This would
enable Curio to pose as an independent leader, free from all obligations
to Cæsar, Pompey, or the Conservatives, and anxious to see fair play and
safeguard the interests of the whole people, an independent leader who
was driven over in the end to Cæsar's side by the selfish and factious
opposition of the senatorial party to his measures of reform and his
advocacy of even-handed justice for both Cæsar and Pompey.[130]
Whether Curio came to an understanding with Cæsar before he entered on his
tribunate or not, his policy from the outset was well calculated to make
the transfer of his allegiance seem forced upon him, and to help him carry
over to Cæsar the support of those who were not blinded by partisan
feelings. Before he had been in office a fortnight he brought in a bill
which would have annulled the law, passed by Cæsar in his consulship,
assigning land in Campania to Pompey's veterans.[131] The repeal of this
law had always been a favorite project with the Conservatives, and Curio's
proposal seemed to be directed equally against Cæsar and Pompey. In
February of 50 B.C. he brought in two bills whose reception facilitated
his passage to the Cæsarian party. One of them provided for the repair of
the roads, and, as Appian tells us,[132] although "he knew that he could
not carry any such measure, he hoped that Pompey's friends would oppose
him so that he might have that as an excuse for opposing Pompey." The
second measure was to insert an intercalary month. It will be remembered
that before Cæsar reformed the calendar, it was necessary to insert an
extra month in alternate years, and 50 B.C. was a year in which
intercalation was required. Curio's proposal was, therefore, a very proper
one. It would recommend itself also on the score of fairness. March 1 had
been set as the day on which the senate should take up the question of
Cæsar's provinces, and after that date there would be little opportunity
to consider other business. Now the intercalated month would have been
inserted, in accordance with the regular practice, after February 23, and
by its insertion time would have been given for the proper discussion of
the measures which Curio had proposed. Incidentally, and probably this was
in Curio's mind, the date when Cæsar might be called upon to surrender his
provinces would be postponed. The proposal to insert the extra month was
defeated, and Curio, blocked in every move by the partisan and
unreasonable opposition of Pompey and the Conservatives, found the
pretext for which lie had been working, and came out openly for
Cæsar.[133] Those who knew him well were not surprised at the transfer of
his allegiance. It was probably in fear of such a move that Cicero had
urged him not to yield to the influence of others, and when Cicero in
Cilicia hears the news, he writes to his friend Cælius: "Is it possible?
Curio is now defending Cæsar! Who would have expected it?--except myself,
for, as surely as I hope to live, _I_ expected it. Heavens! how I miss the
laugh we might have had over it." Looking back, as we can now, on the
political rôle which Curio played during the next twelve months, it seems
strange that two of his intimate friends, who were such far-sighted
politicians as Cicero and Cælius were, should have underestimated his
political ability so completely. It shows Cæsar's superior political
sagacity that he clearly saw his qualities as a leader and tactician. What
terms Cæsar was forced to make to secure his support we do not know.
Gossip said that the price was sixty million sesterces,[134] or more than
two and a half million dollars. He was undoubtedly in great straits. The
immense sums which he had spent in celebrating funeral games in honor of
his father had probably left him a bankrupt, and large amounts of money
were paid for political services during the last years of the republic.
Naturally proof of the transaction cannot be had, and even Velleius
Paterculus, in his savage arraignment of Curio,[135] does not feel
convinced of the truth of the story, but the tale is probable.
It was high time for Cæsar to provide himself with an agent in Rome. The
month of March was near at hand, when the long-awaited discussion of his
provinces would come up in the senate. His political future, and his
rights as a citizen, depended upon his success in blocking the efforts of
the senate to take his provinces from him before the end of the year, when
he could step from the proconsulship to the consulship. An interval of
even a month in private life between the two offices would be all that his
enemies would need for bringing political charges against him that would
effect his ruin. His displacement before the end of the year must be
prevented, therefore, at all hazards. To this task Curio addressed
himself, and with surpassing adroitness. He did not come out at once as
Cæsar's champion. His function was to hold the scales true between Cæsar
and Pompey, to protect the Commonwealth against the overweening ambition
and threatening policy of both men. He supported the proposal that Cæsar
should be called upon to surrender his army, but coupled with it the
demand that Pompey also should be required to give up his troops and his
proconsulship. The fairness of his plan appealed to the masses, who would
not tolerate a favor to Pompey at Cæsar's expense. It won over even a
majority of the senate. The cleverness of his policy was clearly shown at
a critical meeting of the senate in December of the year 50 B.C. Appian
tells us the story:[136] "In the senate the opinion of each member was
asked, and Claudius craftily divided the question and took the votes
separately, thus: 'Shall Pompey be deprived of his command?' The majority
voted against the latter proposition, and it was decreed that successors
to Cæsar should be sent. Then Curio put the question whether both should
lay down their commands, and twenty-two voted in the negative, while
three hundred and seventy went back to the opinion of Curio in order to
avoid civil discord. Then Claudius dismissed the senate, exclaiming:
'Enjoy your victory and have Cæsar for a master!'" The senate's action was
vetoed, and therefore had no legal value, but it put Cæsar and Curio in
the right and Pompey' s partisans in the wrong.
As a part of his policy of defending Cæsar by calling attention to the
exceptional position and the extra-constitutional course of Pompey, Curio
offset the Conservative attacks on Cæsar by public speeches fiercely
arraigning Pompey for what he had done during his consulship, five years
before. When we recall Curio's biting wit and sarcasm, and the
unpopularity of Pompey's high-handed methods of that year, we shall
appreciate the effectiveness of this flank attack.
Another weapon which he used freely was his unlimited right of veto as
tribune. As early as April Cælius appreciated how successful these tactics
would be, and he saw the dilemma in which they would put the
Conservatives, for he writes to Cicero: "This is what I have to tell you:
if they put pressure at every point on Curio, Cæsar will defend his right
to exercise the veto; if, as seems likely, they shrink [from overruling
him], Cæsar will stay [in his province] as long as he likes." The veto
power was the weapon which he used against the senate at the meeting of
that body on the first of December, to which reference has already been
made. The elections in July had gone against Cæsar. Two Conservatives had
been returned as consuls. In the autumn the senate had found legal means
of depriving Cæsar of two of his legions. Talk of a compromise was dying
down. Pompey, who had been desperately ill in the spring, had regained his
strength. He had been exasperated by the savage attacks of Curio.
Sensational stories of the movements of Cæsar's troops in the North were
whispered in the forum, and increased the tension. In the autumn, for
instance, Cæsar had occasion to pay a visit to the towns in northern Italy
to thank them for their support of Mark Antony, his candidate for the
tribunate, and the wild rumor flew to Rome that he had advanced four
legions to Placentia,[137] that his march on the city had begun, and
tumult and confusion followed. It was in these circumstances that the
consul Marcellus moved in the senate that successors be sent to take over
Cæsar's provinces, but the motion was blocked by the veto of Curio,
whereupon the consul cried out: "If I am prevented by the vote of the
senate from taking steps for the public safety, I will take such steps on
my own responsibility as consul." After saying this he darted out of the
senate and proceeded to the suburbs with his colleague, where he presented
a sword to Pompey, and said: "My colleague and I command you to march
against Cæsar in behalf of your country, and we give you for this purpose
the army now at Capua, or in any other part of Italy, and whatever
additional forces you choose to levy."[138] Curio had accomplished his
purpose. He had shown that Pompey as well as Cæsar was a menace to the
state; he had prevented Cæsar's recall; he had shown Antony, who was to
succeed him in the tribunate, how to exasperate the senate into using
coercive measures against his sacrosanct person as tribune and thus
justify Cæsar's course in the war, and he had goaded the Conservatives
into taking the first overt step in the war by commissioning Pompey to
begin a campaign against Cæsar without any authorization from the senate
or the people.
The news of the unconstitutional step taken by Marcellus and Pompey
reached Rome December 19 or 20. Curio's work as tribune was done, and on
the twenty-first of the month he set out for the North to join his leader.
The senate would be called together by the new consuls on January 1, and
since, before the reform in the calendar, December had only twenty-nine
days, there were left only eight days for Curio to reach Cæsar's
head-quarters, lay the situation before him, and return to the city with
his reply. Ravenna, where Cæsar had his head-quarters, was two hundred and
forty miles from Rome. He covered the distance, apparently, in three days,
spent perhaps two days with Cæsar, and was back in Rome again for the
meeting of the senate on the morning of January 1. Consequently, he
travelled at the rate of seventy-five or eighty miles a day, twice the
rate of the ordinary Roman courier.
We cannot regret too keenly the fact that we have no account of Curio's
meeting with Cæsar, and his recital to Cæsar of the course of events in
Rome. In drawing up the document which was prepared at this conference,
Cæsar must have been largely influenced by the intimate knowledge which
Curio had of conditions in the capital, and of the temper of the senate.
It was an ultimatum, and, when Curio presented it to the senate, that body
accepted the challenge, and called upon Cæsar to lay down his command on a
specified date or be declared a public enemy. Cæsar replied by crossing
the border of his province and occupying one town after another in
northern Italy in rapid succession. All this had been agreed upon in the
meeting between Curio and Cæsar, and Velleius Paterculus[139] is probably
right in putting the responsibility for the war largely on the shoulders
of Curio, who, as he says, brought to naught the fair terms of peace which
Cæsar was ready to propose and Pompey to accept. The whole situation
points to the conclusion that Cæsar did not desire war, and was not
prepared for it. Had he anticipated its immediate outbreak, he would
scarcely have let it arise when he had only one legion with him on the
border, while his other ten legions were a long distance away.
From the outset Curio took an active part in the war which he had done so
much to bring about, and it was an appropriate thing that the closing
events in his life should have been recorded for us by his great patron,
Cæsar, in his narrative of the Civil War. On the 18th or 19th of January,
within ten days of the crossing of the Rubicon, we hear of his being sent
with a body of troops to occupy Iguvium,[140] and a month later he is in
charge of one of the investing camps before the stronghold of
Corfinium.[141] With the fall of Corfinium, on the 21st of February,
Cæsar's rapid march southward began, which swept the Pompeians out of
Italy within a month and gave Cæsar complete control of the peninsula. In
that brilliant campaign Curio undoubtedly took an active part, for at the
close of it Cæsar gave him an independent commission for the occupation of
Sicily and northern Africa. No more important command could have been
given him, for Sicily and Africa were the granaries of Rome, and if the
Pompeians continued to hold them, the Cæsarians in Italy might be starved
into submission. To this ill-fated campaign Cæsar devotes the latter half
of the second book of his Civil War. In the beginning of his account of it
he remarks: "Showing at the outset a total contempt for the military
strength of his opponent, Publius Attius Varus, Curio crossed over from
Sicily, accompanied by only two of the four legions originally given him
by Cæsar, and by only five hundred cavalry."[142] The estimate which
Cælius had made of him was true, after all, at least in military affairs.
He was bold and impetuous, and lacked a settled policy. Where daring and
rapidity of movement could accomplish his purpose, he succeeded, but he
lacked patience in finding out the size and disposition of the enemy's
forces and calmness of judgment in comparing his own strength with that of
his foe. It was this weakness in his character as a military leader which
led him to join battle with Varus and Juba's lieutenant, Saburra, without
learning beforehand, as he might have done, that Juba, with a large army,
was encamped not six miles in the rear of Saburra. Curio's men were
surrounded by the enemy and cut down as they stood. His staff begged him
to seek safety in flight, but, as Cæsar writes,[143] "He answered without
hesitation that, having lost the army which Cæsar had entrusted to his
charge, he would never return to look him in the face, and with that
answer he died fighting."
Three years later the fortunes of war brought Cæsar to northern Africa,
and he traversed a part of the region where Curio's luckless campaign had
been carried on. With the stern eye of the trained soldier, he marked the
fatal blunders which Curio had made, but he recalled also the charm of his
personal qualities, and the defeat before Utica was forgotten in his
remembrance of the great victory which Curio had won for him,
single-handed, in Rome. Even Lucan, a partisan of the senate which Curio
had flouted, cannot withhold his admiration for Curio's brilliant career,
and his pity for Curio's tragic end. As he stands in imagination before
the fallen Roman leader, he exclaims:[144] "Happy wouldst thou be, O Rome,
and destined to bless thy people, had it pleased the gods above to guard
thy liberty as it pleased them to avenge its loss. Lo! the noble body of
Curio, covered by no tomb, feeds the birds of Libya. But to thee, since it
profiteth not to pass in silence those deeds of thine which their own
glory defends forever 'gainst the decay of time, such tribute now we pay,
O youth, as thy life has well deserved. No other citizen of such talent
has Rome brought forth, nor one to whom the law would be indebted more, if
he the path of right had followed out. As it was, the corruption of the
age ruined the city when desire for office, pomp, and the power which
wealth gives, ever to be dreaded, had swept away his wavering mind with
sidelong flood, and the change of Curio, snared by the spoils of Gaul and
the gold of Cæsar, was that which turned the tide of history. Although
mighty Sulla, fierce Marius, the blood-bespattered Cinna, and all the line
of Cæsar's house have held our throats at their mercy with the sword, to
whom was e'er such power vouchsafed? All others bought, _he_ sold the
state."