that are depicted to us in such grave and temperate guise, always
trembling under the rod of the lictors, and submissive at all times to
an inflexible discipline. It was, doubtless, sternly controlled in time
of danger, and never complained of this. No other army has ever
undergone greater fatigues and executed greater deeds; but when the
danger was over discipline relaxed. Caesar allowed his soldiers rest,
and sometimes diversion. He let them decorate themselves with splendid
arms, and even adorn themselves with studied elegance. “What does it
matter if they use perfumes?” he said, “they will know very well how to
fight.”[267] And in fact these soldiers, whom the Pompeians called
effeminate, are the same who, though dying of hunger at Dyrrhachium,
declared that they would eat the bark of the trees rather than let
Pompey escape. They were recruited for the most part among those
Cisalpine Gauls from whom Roman civilization had not taken the good
qualities of their race, an amiable and brilliant people who loved war
and carried it on gaily. The chiefs very much resembled the common
soldiers; they were lively and ardent, full of resources in critical
moments, and trusted more to inspiration than to routine. It is to be
remarked that no one of them had gained his reputation in earlier wars.
Caesar seems to have wished that their military glory should come from
him only. A few, and among these Labienus, perhaps the greatest of them,
were his political friends, old conspirators like himself, who, after
his example, and without any more preparation, from popular agitators
had become excellent generals. Others, on the contrary, like Fabius
Maximus and Servius Galba, bore illustrious names; they were partisans
whom he secured in the aristocracy, or hostages that he took from it.
The greater number, Crassus, Plancus, Volcatius Tullus, Decimus Brutus,
and later Pollio, were young men whom he treated with marked preference,
and whom he readily trusted in perilous enterprises. He liked the young
by personal preference, and also by policy: as they did not yet belong
to any party, and had not had time to attach themselves to the republic
by serving it, he hoped they would have less difficulty in accustoming
themselves to the new _régime_ that he wished to establish.
These lieutenants, whose number varied, did not alone form the ordinary
retinue of a proconsul. We must remember to add that crowd of young
Romans, sons of illustrious houses, destined by their birth for public
office, who came to serve their apprenticeship in war under him. They
were called his tent-comrades, _contubernales_. Soldiers like the rest,
and exposing themselves on the day of battle, they became after the
fight the friends, the companions of the chief whom they followed in all
his expeditions, as the clients accompanied their patron in the city.
They were present at his receptions, took part in all his recreations
and diversions, sat at his table, surrounded him when he sat on the
judgment-seat; they formed, in sum, what was called the cohort, we
should almost say the court, of the praetor (_praetoria cohors_). Scipio
Africanus, it is said, invented this means of adding splendour to the
public display of the supreme power in the eyes of the conquered
nations, and after him governors had taken great care to preserve all
this pomp which added to their prestige. These were not all; by the side
of these military men there was room for men of very various abilities
and positions. Able financiers, intelligent secretaries, and even
learned lawyers might be necessary for the administration of those vast
countries that a proconsul governed. Thus Trebatius himself, the pacific
Trebatius, was not out of place in the train of an army, and he had
opportunities of exercising his profession even among the Nervii and the
Belgae. If we add to these men, to whom their high offices gave a
certain importance, a crowd of inferior officers or subaltern servants,
such as lictors, ushers, scribes, interpreters, apparitors, doctors,
men-servants, and even soothsayers, we shall have some idea of that
truly royal retinue which a proconsul always carried about with him.
Caesar’s train must have been even more magnificent than that of others.
The ten legions that he commanded, the extent of country that he had to
conquer and govern, explain the great number of officers and persons of
all sorts by whom he was surrounded. Moreover, he naturally loved
magnificence. He readily welcomed all who came to see him, and always
found some office to give them in order to retain them. Even in those
wild countries he took pleasure in astonishing them by his reception.
Suetonius relates that he took with him everywhere marquetry or mosaic
floors, and that he had always two tables laid at which rich Romans who
visited him and provincials of distinction took their places.[268] His
lieutenants imitated him, and Pinarius wrote to Cicero that he was
delighted with the dinners his brother gave him.[269] Caesar did not
care much for these sumptuous repasts, and these rich dwellings, on his
own account. We know that he was temperate, that in case of need he
could sleep well in the open air, and eat rancid oil without blinking;
but he had a taste for display and luxury. Although the republic still
existed, he was almost a king; even in his camps in Britain and Germany
he had assiduous followers and courtiers. He could only be approached
with difficulty; Trebatius made the attempt, and we know that it was a
long time before he could reach him. No doubt Caesar did not receive men
with that stiff and solemn majesty that repelled them in Pompey; but,
however gracious he might wish to be, there was always something in him
that inspired respect, and it was felt that that ease of manner that he
affected with everybody proceeded from a superiority which was sure of
itself. This defender of the democracy was none the less an aristocrat
who never forgot his birth, and willingly spoke of his ancestors. Had
they not heard him, at the commencement of his political life, at the
very time when he attacked with most vivacity the institutions of Sulla,
and tried to get back their ancient powers for the tribunes, had they
not heard him pronounce over his aunt a funeral oration full of
genealogical fictions, in which he complacently related that his family
was descended at once from the kings and the gods? But in this he only
followed the traditions of the Gracchi, his illustrious predecessors.
They also defended public interests with ardour, but they called to mind
the aristocracy from which they had sprung by the haughty elegance of
their manners. We know that they had a court of clients at their rising,
and that they were the first who thought of making distinctions between
them which resembled the public and private admissions to the court of
Louis XIV.
The most remarkable thing in those around Caesar was their love of
letters. Assuredly they belonged no longer to the times when Roman
generals burnt masterpieces of art, or took a pride in being ignorant.
Since Mummius and Marius, letters had succeeded in penetrating even the
camps, which, as we know, are not their usual abode. Nevertheless, I do
not think that so many enlightened men of letters, so many men of
culture and men of fashion have ever been seen united in any other army.
Almost all Caesar’s lieutenants were private friends of Cicero, and they
took pleasure in maintaining a constant intercourse with him who was
regarded as the official patron of literature at Rome. Crassus and
Plancus had learnt eloquence in pleading at his side, and in what
remains to us of the letters of Plancus, we recognize, by a certain
oratorical exuberance, that he had profited by his lessons. Trebonius,
the conqueror of Marseilles, professed to relish his witticisms very
much, and even published a collection of them. Cicero, however, to whom
this admiration was not displeasing, thought that his editor had put too
much of himself into the introduction under pretence of preparing the
effect of the jokes and making them easier to understand. “They have
exhausted their laughter,” he said, “when they get to me.” Hirtius was a
distinguished historian, who undertook later to finish the
_Commentaries_ of his chief. Matius, a devoted friend of Caesar, who
showed himself worthy of this friendship by remaining faithful to him,
translated the _Iliad_ into Latin verse. Quintus was a poet also, but a
tragic poet. During the winter that he had to fight the Nervii, he was
seized with such an ardour for poetry, that he composed four pieces in
sixteen days: but this was to treat tragedy in a somewhat military
fashion. He sent the one he thought the best, the _Erigone_, to his
brother; but it was lost on the road. “Since Caesar has commanded in
Gaul,” said Cicero, “the _Erigone_ alone has not been able to travel in
safety.”[270] It is surprising no doubt to meet all at one time with so
many generals who are also men of letters; but what is still more
astonishing is that all those Roman knights who followed the army, and
whom Caesar made his commissaries and purveyors, collectors of stores,
and farmers of the taxes, seem to have loved literature more than their
habits and occupations usually admit. We find one of those he employed
in offices of this kind, Lepta, thanking Cicero for sending him a
treatise on rhetoric as though he were a man capable of appreciating the
present. The Spaniard Balbus, that intelligent banker, that skilful
administrator, who was able to put the finances of Rome into such good
order, and what was still more difficult, those of Caesar, loved
philosophy with more enthusiasm than one would expect in a banker. He
hastened to have Cicero’s works copied before they were known to the
public, and although he was by character the most discreet of men, he
went so far as even to commit indiscretions in order to be the first to
read them.
But among all these lettered men, it was Caesar who had the most decided
taste for letters: they suited his cultivated nature; they seemed to
him, no doubt, the most agreeable exercise and relaxation of an
accomplished mind. I should not, however, venture to say that his love
for them was wholly disinterested, when I see that this taste assisted
his policy so wonderfully. He was compelled to gain public favour by
every means; now, nothing attracts the general judgment more than the
superiority of intelligence united with that of force. His principal
works were composed with this intention, and we might say, from this
point of view, that his writings were part of his actions. It was not
only to please a few idle men of letters that, during the latter part of
his stay in Gaul, he wrote his _Commentaries_ with such a rapidity as to
astonish his friends. He wished to prevent the Romans forgetting his
victories; he wished, by his admirable manner of narrating them, to
renew, and if possible, to increase, the effect they had produced. When
he composed his two books _De Analogia_, he calculated that people would
be struck by seeing the general of an army, who, according to the
expression of Fronto, “busied himself with the formation of words while
arrows were cleaving the air, and sought the laws of language amid the
din of clarions and trumpets.” He knew very well the advantage that his
reputation would draw from these very diverse performances, and how
great would be the surprise and admiration at Rome when they received at
the same moment a treatise on grammar, and the news of a new victory,
from such a distance. The same thought also made him eager for Cicero’s
friendship. If his refined and distinguished nature found a great
pleasure in keeping up some intercourse with a man of so much
cultivation, he was not ignorant of the power this man exercised over
public opinion, and how far his praises would resound when they came
from this eloquent mouth. We have lost the letters that he wrote to
Cicero; but as Cicero was delighted with them, and it was not very easy
to please him, we must believe that they were filled with flatteries and
caresses. Cicero’s answers were also full of the most lively
protestations of friendship. He declared at that time that Caesar came
in his affections immediately after his children, and indeed almost in
the same rank; he bitterly deplored all the prejudices that had up till
then kept him apart from him, and he resolved to make him forget that he
was one of the last who had entered into his friendship. “I shall
imitate,” said he, “the travellers who have risen later than they wished
to do; they double their speed, and make such good haste that they
arrive at their destination before those who have travelled part of the
night.”[271] They vied with each other, as it were, in compliments; they
overwhelmed one another with flatteries, and emulated each other in
works in verse and prose. On reading the first accounts of the
expedition to Britain, Cicero exclaimed in a transport of enthusiasm:
“What prodigious events! what a country! what people! what battles, and
above all, what a general!” He wrote off immediately to his brother:
“Give me Britain to paint; furnish me with the colours, I will use the
brush.”[272] And he had seriously taken in hand an epic poem on this
conquest, which his occupations prevented him completing as quickly as
he wished. Caesar, on his part, dedicated his treatise _De Analogia_ to
Cicero, and on this occasion said to him in splendid phrases: “You have
discovered all the resources of eloquence, and are the first to use
them. In virtue of this you have deserved well of the Roman name, and
you do honour to our country. You have obtained the most illustrious of
all honours, and a triumph preferable to those of the greatest generals,
for it is better to extend the boundaries of the mind than to enlarge
the limits of the empire!”[273] This, coming from a victorious general
like Caesar, was the most delicate flattery for a man of letters.
Such were the relations that Cicero kept up with Caesar and his officers
during the Gallic war. His correspondence, which preserves the memory of
them, makes us better acquainted with the tastes and preferences of all
these men of cultivation, and shows them to us in a very living fashion
and draws us closer to them. This is, assuredly, one of the greatest
services it could render to us. We seem, when we have read it, to be
able to understand of what kind the meetings of these men must have
been, and can imagine ourselves present at their conversations. We are
entitled to suppose that Rome took up very much of their thoughts. From
the depths of Gaul, they had their eyes upon it, and it was to make a
little stir there that they took so much trouble. While marching over so
many unknown countries from the Rhine to the Ocean, all these young men
hoped that they would be talked about at those feasts and assemblies
where men of the world discussed public affairs. Caesar himself, when he
crossed the Rhine on his wooden bridge, reckoned upon striking the
imaginations of all those idlers who met together in the Forum, at the
rostrum, to learn the news. After the landing of his troops in Britain,
we see him hastening to write to his friends, and especially to
Cicero;[274] not that he had much leisure at that moment, but he looked
upon it no doubt as an honour to date his letter from a country where no
Roman had yet set foot. If he was anxious to send glorious news to Rome,
they were also very glad to receive it from Rome. All the letters that
arrived were read with eagerness; they seemed as it were to carry even
to Germany and Britain a whiff of that fashionable life, which those who
have enjoyed can never forget or cease to regret. It was not enough for
Caesar to read the _journals of the Roman people_, which contained a dry
summary of the principal political events, and a concise report of the
proceedings of the assemblies of the people. His messengers constantly
traversed Gaul, bringing him letters accurate and full of the most
minute details. “He is told everything,” said Cicero, “small as well as
great.”[275] This news, impatiently waited for, and commented on with
pleasure, must have been the usual subject of his conversations with his
friends. I suppose that, at that sumptuous table of which I have spoken,
after literature and grammar had been discussed, and they had listened
to the verses of Matius or Quintus, the conversation turned especially
upon Rome, of which these elegant young men, who regretted its
pleasures, were never tired of talking. Certainly, if we could have
heard them chatting about the last news, the political disorders, or,
what interested them more, the private scandals of the city, telling the
last rumours afloat, and quoting the most recent jokes, we should have
found it difficult to believe that we were in the heart of the country
of the Belgae, or near to the Rhine or the Ocean, or on the eve of a
battle. I imagine that we should have rather fancied we were present at
a party of clever men in some aristocratic house on the Palatine or in
the rich quarter of Carinae.
Cicero’s letters render us yet another service. They show us the
prodigious effect that Caesar’s victories produced at Rome. They excited
as much surprise as admiration, for they were discoveries as well as
conquests. What was known before him of those distant countries? A few
ridiculous fables that traders related on their return, to give
themselves importance. It was through Caesar that they were first really
known. He first dared to attack, and he vanquished those Germans who
have been depicted as giants, whose very looks caused terror; he first
adventured as far as Britain, where it was said the night lasted three
entire months, and all the wonders that had been related gave as it were
a tinge of the marvellous to his victories. Nevertheless, not everybody
willingly gave way to this fascination. The most clear-sighted of the
aristocratic party, who felt, though indistinctly, that it was the fate
of the republic that was being decided on the banks of the Rhine, wished
to recall Caesar, and to appoint in his place another general, who might
not perhaps complete the conquest of Gaul, but who would not be tempted
to carry out that of his own country. Cato, who pushed everything to
extremes, when the senate was asked to vote a thanksgiving to the gods
for the defeat of Ariovistus, dared to propose, on the contrary, that
they should deliver up the conqueror to the Germans. But these
objections did not change public opinion, which declared itself in
favour of him who had just conquered with such rapidity so many unknown
countries. The knights, who had become the financiers and merchants of
Rome, congratulated themselves on seeing immense countries opened up to
their operations. Caesar, who wished to attach them to him, invited them
to follow him, and his first care had been to open them a road across
the Alps. The common people, who love military glory and who freely give
way to enthusiasm, were never tired of admiring him who extended the
limits of the Roman world. On the news of each victory, Rome had public
rejoicings, and offered thanksgivings to the gods. After the defeat of
the Belgae, the senate, under pressure of public opinion, was compelled
to vote fifteen days of solemn thanksgiving, which had never been done
for anybody. Twenty days was decreed, when the success of the expedition
against Germany was reported, and twenty more after the taking of
Alesia. Cicero usually demanded these honours for Caesar, and he became
the mouthpiece of the public admiration when he said in his noble
language: “This is the first time we have dared to attack the Gauls,
hitherto we have been content to repulse them. The other generals of the
Roman people regarded it as sufficient for their glory to prevent them
invading us; Caesar has gone to seek them out in their own homes. Our
general, our legions, our arms have overrun those countries of which no
history has ever spoken, of whose name the world was ignorant. We had
only a footpath in Gaul; now the boundaries of these nations have become
the frontiers of our own empire. It is not without the signal favour of
Providence that nature gave the Alps for a rampart to Italy. If the
entrance had been free to this multitude of barbarians, Rome never would
have been the centre and the seat of the empire of the world. Now let
insurmountable mountains sink. From the Alps to the Ocean Italy has
nothing now to fear.”[276]
These magnificent eulogies, for which Cicero has been so much blamed,
are easily understood however, and, whatever politicians may say, it is
easy to explain the enthusiasm that so many honest and sensible people
then felt for Caesar. That which justified the unreserved admiration
that his conquests caused, was less their grandeur than their necessity.
They might threaten the future, at that moment they were indispensable.
They later endangered the liberty of Rome, but they assured her
existence then.[277] The patriotic instinct of the people let them
divine what prejudice and fear, although quite legitimate, hid from the
aristocracy. They understood in a confused way all the dangers that
might soon come from Gaul, if they did not hasten to subdue it. It was
not, in truth, the Gauls who were to be feared—their decadence had
already commenced, and they no longer thought of making conquests—it was
the Germans. Dio is quite wrong in asserting that Caesar wantonly
stirred up wars for the sake of his glory. Whatever advantage he drew
from them, we may certainly say that he rather submitted to them than
provoked them. It was not Rome that went to seek the Germans at that
time, but rather the Germans who came boldly towards her. When Caesar
was appointed proconsul, Ariovistus occupied part of the country of the
Sequani and wished to seize the rest. His compatriots, attracted by the
fertility of this fine country, were crossing the Rhine every day to
join him, and twenty-five thousand had come at one time. What would have
happened to Italy if, while Rome was losing her strength in intestine
struggles, the Suevi and the Sicambri had established themselves on the
Rhone and the Alps? The invasion averted by Marius a century before was
recommencing; it might have caused the downfall of Rome then as it did
four centuries later, if Caesar had not arrested it. His glory is to
have thrown back the Germans beyond the Rhine, as it was to the honour
of the empire to have kept them there for more than three hundred years.