When Pompey returned to Rome (B. C. 61), he found the senatorial party
predominant, and Cicero incessantly talking about the Catilinarian
conspiracy, and how he had crushed it. Pompey enjoyed a triumph more
splendid than any conquering general had received before him; and the
sums which he added to the public treasury were enormous; yet he could
not procure from the senate that general ratification of his measures
in Asia to which he thought himself entitled. Cato and other senators
insisted on a full investigation of his measures one by one, ere the
sanction which he required should be granted. This conduct on the part
of the senators brought Pompey into closer connection with Cæsar; and
these two eminent men, finding that they agreed in many of their
views, and that at least they were one in their opposition to the
senate, resolved to unite their forces so as to work for their common
ends with double strength. For various reasons, it was found desirable
to admit Crassus to this political partnership; and accordingly, in
the year B. C. 60, was formed that famous coalition for mutual support
between Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar, which is known in Roman history by
the name of the ‘First Triumvirate.’ Elected to the consulship of the
year B. C. 59, Cæsar infused new life into Roman politics, proposing
measures of so liberal a nature, and persevering in them with such
obstinacy, that the senate became almost frantic, and his colleague
Bibulus shut himself up in his house for eight months in disgust.
Among these measures was a ratification of Pompey’s proceedings in
Asia, and an agrarian law for providing lands for Pompey’s disbanded
soldiers and a number of destitute citizens. In the same year Cæsar
gave his daughter Julia in marriage to Pompey, who had already been
married twice. On retiring from the consulship, he obtained, by an
unusual stretch of generosity on the part of the grateful people and
the intimidated senate, the supreme command for five years over the
two Gauls (Cisalpine and Transalpine) and Illyricum. This was probably
the great object of Cæsar’s desires; at all events, it was the best
possible thing which could have happened for him and the republic.
Master of Gaul, and with an army devoted to his will, he could there
mature his power silently and undisturbed, and qualify himself for
entering, at the proper period, upon the career for which he was
destined, and rescuing, by military force, the ill-governed Empire out
of the hands of contending factions.
The condition of affairs in Rome during Cæsar’s absence in Gaul was
indeed such as to prove the necessity of some radical change in the
system of the Commonwealth. All was confusion and violence. Clodius, a
profligate relic of the Catilinarian party, having been elected to the
tribuneship B. C. 58, procured the banishment of Cicero for his
conduct in the affair of the conspiracy. In the following year,
however, Clodius having in the meantime made himself generally odious,
Cicero was recalled. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls for the
year B. C. 55. Mindful of their connection with Cæsar, who was of
course in constant correspondence with them, they procured a
prolongation of his command over the Gauls for a second period of five
years; at the same time obtaining for themselves――Pompey, the
government of Spain for five years; and Crassus that of Syria and
adjacent countries for a similar period. In B. C. 55, Crassus set out
for the scene of his command, where, soon afterwards, he perished in a
fruitless expedition against the Parthians; Pompey remained at home,
governing Spain by deputies. During several subsequent years, Rome was
in a state of anarchy and misrule――the streets perambulated by armed
mobs, partisans on the one hand of Clodius, and on the other of a
powerful citizen called Milo, between whom a feud was carried on, as
desperate and bloody as any that ever distracted a European town in
the middle ages. In one of the numerous scuffles which took place
between the contending parties, Clodius was killed; and taking
advantage of the opportunity, the tottering government asserted its
rights by bringing Milo to trial, and procuring his banishment.
Meanwhile the remedy was preparing. Among the marshes and forests of
Gaul, the great Cæsar was accumulating that strength of men and
purpose with which he was to descend on Italy and shiver the rotton
fabric of the Commonwealth. ‘Fain,’ says the eloquent Michelet――‘fain
would I have seen that fair and pale countenance, prematurely aged by
the debaucheries of the capital――fain would I have seen that delicate
and epileptic man, marching in the rains of Gaul at the head of his
legions, and swimming across our rivers, or else on horseback, between
the litters in which his secretaries were carried, dictating even six
letters at a time, shaking Rome from the extremity of Belgium,
sweeping from his path two millions of men, and subduing in ten years
Gaul, the Rhine, and the ocean of the north. This barbarous and
bellicose chaos of Gaul was a superb material for such a genius. The
Gallic tribes were on every side calling in the stranger; Druidism was
in its decline; Italy was exhausted; Spain untameable; Gaul was
essential to the subjugation of the world.’ Cæsar’s Gallic wars of
themselves form a history. We have an account of them yet remaining
from the pen of the conqueror himself, and that of his friend Hirtius.
Suffice it to say, that in eight years (B. C. 58-50) Cæsar had
conquered all Gaul, including the present France and Belgium; had paid
two visits to the island of Great Britain (B. C. 55-54); and was able,
in the spring of B. C. 50, to take up his residence in Cisalpine Gaul,
leaving the 300 tribes beyond the Alps, which he had conquered by such
bloody means, not only pacified, but even attached to himself
personally. His army, which included many Gauls and Germans, were so
devoted to him, that they would have marched to the end of the world
in his service.
Cæsar’s conquests in Gaul were of course a subject of engrossing
interest at Rome, and when the city enjoyed an interval of repose from
the commotions caused by Clodius and Milo, nothing else was talked of.
‘Compared with this man,’ said Cicero, ‘what was Marius?’ and the
saying was but an expression of the popular enthusiasm. Cæsar’s visits
to Britain excited especial interest; and at first there were not
wanting sceptics who maintained that there was no such island in
existence, and that the alleged visit of Cæsar to that place of
savages, where pearls were found in the rivers, was a mere hoax on the
public. As, however, the period of Cæsar’s command drew near its
close, and it became known that he aspired to a second consulship, the
fears of the aristocratic party began to manifest themselves. ‘What
may not this conqueror of Gaul do when he returns to Rome?’ was the
saying of Cato, and others of the senators. ‘Accustomed during so many
years to the large and roomy action of a camp, will he be able to
submit again to civic trammels? Will he not rather treat us as if we
were his subordinate officers――Roman laws as if they were savage
customs――and our city itself as if it were a Gallic forest?’
Unfortunately, also, the Triumvirate no longer existed to support
Cæsar’s interests. Crassus was dead; and Pompey――whose connection with
Cæsar had been severed by the death of his wife, Cæsar’s beloved
daughter Julia (B. C. 54)――had since gone over to the aristocratic
party, to which he had formerly belonged, and whose policy was, upon
the whole, more genial to his character. In B. C. 52, he enjoyed a
third consulship, without a colleague, having been appointed by the
senators as the man most likely to restore order to the distracted
state; and during the following year, he lent his aid to those enemies
of Cæsar who insisted that, ere he should be allowed to stand for the
consulship, he should be obliged to resign his Gallic command, and
resume his station as a private citizen, ready to meet any charges
which might be brought against him. Cæsar did not want agents in
Rome――some of them paid, some of them voluntary――to plead his cause;
and through these he offered to resign his command, provided Pompey
would do the same with regard to Spain. The proposal was not listened
to; and a decree of the senate having been passed that Cæsar should
disband his army against a certain day, under pain of being treated as
a public enemy, his agents left the city, and hastened to his camp in
Cisalpine Gaul (B. C. 50).
Cæsar did not delay a moment. Sending orders to his various legions
distributed through Gaul to follow him as speedily as possible, he
placed himself at the head of such forces as were with him at the
instant, crossed the small stream called the Rubicon, which separated
his province of Cisalpine Gaul from Italy, and advanced towards Rome,
amid cheers of welcome from the populations which he passed through.
Utterly bewildered by his unexpected arrival, the whole senatorial
party, with Pompey at their head, abandoned Rome, and proceeded into
the south of Italy, where they tried to raise forces. Cæsar pursued
them, and drove them into Greece. Then hastening into Spain, he
suppressed a rising Pompeian movement in that country. Returning to
Rome with the title of Dictator, which had been bestowed on him during
his absence, he passed various salutary measures for restoring order
in Italy, and among them one conferring the Roman citizenship on the
Cisalpine Gauls; then crossed over into Greece (B. C. 49) to give
battle to Pompey, who had meanwhile assembled forces from all parts of
the Roman dominion. At length the two armies met on the plain of
Pharsalia in Thessaly (9th August B. C. 48), when Pompey sustained a
complete defeat. Not long afterwards he was killed by the orders of
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, when seeking to land on the coast of that
country. Cæsar, who had used his victory with great moderation,
arrived in Egypt soon after, and remained there several months,
fascinated by Cleopatra, who was then at war with her brother Ptolemy.
Having settled the affairs of Egypt, Cæsar proceeded to Asia Minor,
crushed an insurrection there headed by Pharnaces, the son of
Mithridates, and then (September, B. C. 47) returned to Italy. He
remained there but a few months, setting out in the beginning of B. C.
46 for Africa, where the relics of the Pompeian party had taken
refuge. These were soon defeated; and Cato, the most distinguished man
among them, killed himself rather than to fall into his conqueror’s
hands. Pompey’s two sons escaped to Spain, where they excited an
insurrection, which, however, was soon suppressed.
EXTINCTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH――DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH OF CÆSAR――THE
SECOND TRIUMVIRATE――CIVIL WARS OF MARK ANTONY AND OCTAVIANUS.
From August B. C. 48, when he defeated Pompey at Pharsalia, till March
B. C. 44, when he was assassinated, Julius Cæsar was supreme master of
the Roman world. Senate and people vied with each other in conferring
dignities upon him; and all the great offices and titles recognized by
the Roman constitution――as consul, dictator, censor, tribune,
etc.――were concentrated in his person, while he exercised the virtual
patronage of almost all the rest. In short, the Commonwealth may be
said to have ceased when he defeated Pompey; and had he lived long
enough, there is no doubt that he would have fully established the
Empire. It was not so much, however, in organic changes of the
constitution, as in practical reforms of vast moment, that Cæsar
exercised the enormous power which had been placed in his hands.
Besides the various measures of reform which he actually carried into
effect during his dictatorship, among which his famous reform of the
Calendar deserves especial mention, there were innumerable schemes
which he had projected for himself, and some of which he would
probably have executed, had his life not been cut short. To extend the
Roman dominion in the East; to drain the Pontine marshes; to cut
through the Isthmus of Corinth; to prepare a complete map of the Roman
Empire; to draw up a new digest of Roman law; to establish public
libraries in the metropolis――such were a few of the designs which this
great man entertained at the time when the conspiracy was formed which
led to his assassination. At the head of this plot, which consisted of
about sixty persons of note, were Brutus and Cassius, both men of the
highest abilities, and esteemed by Cæsar; and the former at least
actuated by motives of the purest character. The immediate occasion of
the conspiracy was the rumor that Cæsar intended to accept the title
of king, which some of his adherents were pressing upon him. When the
plot was matured (B. C. 44) it was resolved that Cæsar should be
assassinated in the senate-house on the ides (the 15) of March, on
which day it was understood a motion was to be brought forward by some
of his friends for appointing him king of Italy. ‘Upon the first
onset,’ says Plutarch, ‘those who were not privy to the design were
astonished, and their horror of the action was so great, that they
durst not fly, nor assist Cæsar, nor so much as speak a word. But
those who came prepared for the business enclosed him on every side,
with their naked daggers in their hands, and which way soever he
turned he met with blows, and saw their swords leveled at his face and
eyes. Brutus gave him one stab in the groin. Some say that he fought
and resisted all the rest, and moved from one place to another calling
for help; but when he saw Brutus’s sword drawn, he covered his face
with his robe, and quietly surrendered himself, till he was pushed,
either by chance or design, to the pedestal on which Pompey’s statue
stood, which by that means was much stained with his blood: so that
Pompey himself may seem to have had his share in the revenge of his
former enemy, who fell at his feet, and breathed out his soul
through the multitude of his wounds; for they say he received
three-and-twenty.’
The assassination of Cæsar has justly been pronounced ‘the most stupid
action that ever the Romans committed.’ The later ages of the republic
had been one continued scene of violence and anarchy; and not until
Cæsar had risen to the chief power in the state was there a
restoration of order and efficient government. His assassination
plunged the Roman dominions into new and complicated civil wars. On
the one side were the conspirators with Brutus and Cassius at their
head, bent on the futile project of throwing back the Empire into the
condition of a republic. On the other were Mark Antony, an able and
valiant officer of Cæsar’s; Lepidus, another officer of less
distinguished abilities; and Marcus Octavius, a young man of eighteen,
Cæsar’s grandnephew, and who, as his uncle’s heir, now assumed the
name of Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus. These three united themselves
into a triumvirate (November B. C. 44) for avenging Cæsar’s death, and
settling the affairs of the republic. After making themselves masters
of Italy, and putting to death by wholesale proscription all those
citizens whose views they suspected, among others the great and
amiable Cicero, they pursued the conspirators into Greece. At length,
in the autumn of B. C. 42, two great battles were fought at Philippi
in Macedonia between the republican forces and those of the
triumvirate. The former were defeated; Cassius caused himself to be
slain, Brutus committed suicide, and the triumvirs thus remained
masters of the Roman world. They divided it among them: Antony
assuming the government of the East, Lepidus obtaining Africa, and
Octavianus returning to Italy, master of the countries adjacent to
that peninsula. Each continued to govern his share for some time
independently; but a quarrel ensuing between Octavianus and Lepidus,
the latter was deprived of his power, and obliged to retire into
private life. The Empire was now divided between Antony and
Octavianus, the former master of the East, the latter of the West. At
length, however, political and private reasons led to a rupture
between the two potentates (B. C. 33). The rash and pleasure-loving
Antony, who had been caught in the toils of Cleopatra, the licentious
queen of Egypt, and therefore one of his subject sovereigns as master
of the East, was no match for the cunning, abstemious, and remorseless
Octavianus. Defeated at the battle of Actium (2d September B. C. 31),
he fled with Cleopatra to Egypt, where, being hard pressed by
Octavianus, they both died by their own hands. Octavianus thus
remained sole master (B. C. 30) of the great Empire which Julius Cæsar
had prepared for him; and under the new name of Augustus, he continued
to wield the sovereignty during the long period of forty-four years
(B. C. 30-A. D. 14). During these forty-four years, the various races
and nations which so many centuries of conquest had connected
together, became consolidated into that historic entity――‘The Roman
Empire.’