Caesar, having done his small piece of independent service in Caria,
and having finished his course with Apollonius, now came again to Rome
and re-entered practical life. He lived with his wife and his mother
Aurelia in a modest house, attracting no particular notice. But his
defiance of Sylla, his prosecution of Dolabella, and his known
political sympathies made him early a favorite with the people. The
growing disorders at home and abroad, with the exposures on the trial
of Verres, were weakening daily the influence of the Senate. Caesar was
elected military tribune as a reward for his services in Asia, and he
assisted in recovering part of the privileges so dear to the citizens
which Sylla had taken from the tribunes of the people. They were again
enabled to call the assembly together, and though they were still
unable to propose laws without the Senate's sanction, yet they regained
the privilege of consulting directly with the nation on public affairs.
Caesar now spoke well enough to command the admiration of even
Cicero--without ornament, but directly to the purpose. Among the first
uses to which he addressed his influence was to obtain the pardon of
his brother-in-law, the younger Cinna, who had been exiled since the
failure of the attempt of Lepidus. In B.C. 68, being then thirty-two,
he gained his first step on the ladder of high office. He was made
quaestor, which gave him a place in the Senate.
Soon after his election, his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, died. It
was usual on the death of eminent persons for a near relation to make
an oration at the funeral. Caesar spoke on this occasion. It was
observed that he dwelt with some pride on the lady's ancestry,
descending on one side from the gods, on another from the kings of
Rome. More noticeably he introduced into the burial procession the
insignia and images of Marius himself, whose name for some years it had
been unsafe to mention.[1]
Pompey, after Sertorius's death, had pacified Spain. He had assisted
Crassus in extinguishing Spartacus. The Senate had employed him, but
had never liked him or trusted him. The Senate, however, was no longer
omnipotent, and in the year 70 he and Crassus had been consuls. Pompey
was no politician, but he was honorable and straightforward. Like every
true Roman, he was awake to the dangers and disgrace of the existing
mal-administration, and he and Caesar began to know each other, and to
find their interest in working together. Pompey was the elder of the
two by six years. He was already a great man, covered with
distinctions, and perhaps he supposed that he was finding in Caesar a
useful subordinate. Caesar naturally liked Pompey, as a really
distinguished soldier and an upright disinterested man. They became
connected by marriage. Cornelia dying, Caesar took for his second wife
Pompey's cousin, Pompeia; and, no doubt at Pompey's instance, he was
sent into Spain to complete Pompey's work and settle the finances of
that distracted country. His reputation as belonging to the party of
Marius and Sertorius secured him the confidence of Sertorius's friends.
He accomplished his mission completely and easily. On his way back he
passed through northern Italy, and took occasion to say there that he
considered the time to have come for the franchise, which now stopped
at the Po, to be extended to the foot of the Alps.
The consulship of Pompey and Crassus had brought many changes with it,
all tending in the same direction. The tribunes were restored to their
old functions, the censorship was re-established, and the Senate was at
once weeded of many of its disreputable members. Cicero, conservative
as he was, had looked upon these measures if not approvingly yet
without active opposition. To another change he had himself contributed
by his speeches on the Verres prosecution. The exclusive judicial
powers which the Senate had abused so scandalously were again taken
from them. The courts of the equites were remembered in contrast, and a
law was passed that for the future the courts were to be composed two
thirds of knights and one third only of senators. Cicero's hope of
resisting democracy lay in the fusion of the great commoners with the
Senate. It was no longer possible for the aristocracy to rule alone.
The few equites who, since Sylla's time, had made their way into the
Senate had yielded to patrician ascendency. Cicero aimed at a reunion
of the orders; and the consulship of Crassus, little as Cicero liked
Crassus personally, was a sign of a growing tendency in this direction.
At all costs the knights must be prevented from identifying themselves
with the democrats, and therefore all possible compliments and all
possible concessions to their interests were made to them.
They recovered their position in the law-courts; and, which was of more
importance to them, the system of farming the taxes, in which so many
of them had made their fortunes, and which Sylla had abolished, was
once again reverted to. It was not a good system, but it was better
than a state of things in which little of the revenue had reached the
public treasury at all, but had been intercepted and parcelled out
among the oligarchy.
[Sidenote: B.C. 67.] With recovered vitality a keener apprehension
began to be felt of the pirate scandal. The buccaneers, encouraged by
the Senate's connivance, were more daring than ever. They had become a
sea community, led by high-born adventurers, who maintained out of
their plunder a show of wild magnificence. The oars of the galleys of
their commanders were plated with silver; their cabins were hung with
gorgeous tapestry. They had bands of music to play at their triumphs.
They had a religion of their own, an oriental medley called the
Mysteries of Mithras. They had captured and pillaged four hundred
considerable towns, and had spoiled the temples of the Grecian gods.
They had maintained and extended their depots where they disposed of
their prisoners to the slave-dealers. Roman citizens who could not
ransom themselves, and could not conveniently be sold, were informed
that they might go where they pleased; they were led to a plank
projecting over some vessel's side, and were bidden depart--into the
sea. Not contented with insulting Ostia by their presence outside, they
had ventured into the harbor itself, and had burnt the ships there.
They held complete possession of the Italian waters. Rome, depending on
Sicily and Sardinia and Africa for her supplies of corn, was starving
for want of food, and the foreign trade on which so many of the middle
classes were engaged was totally destroyed. The return of the commoners
to power was a signal for an active movement to put an end to the
disgrace. No one questioned that it could be done if there was a will
to do it. But the work could be accomplished only by persons who would
be proof against corruption. There was but one man in high position who
could be trusted, and that was Pompey. The general to be selected must
have unrestricted and therefore unconstitutional authority. But Pompey
was at once capable and honest. Pompey could not be bribed by the
pirates, and Pompey could be depended on not to abuse his opportunities
to the prejudice of the Commonwealth.
[Sidenote: B.C. 67.] The natural course, therefore, would have been to
declare Pompey dictator; but Sylla had made the name unpopular; the
right to appoint a dictator lay with the Senate, with whom Pompey had
never been a favorite, and the aristocracy had disliked and feared him
more than ever since his consulship. From that quarter no help was to
be looked for, and a method was devised to give him the reality of
power without the title. Unity of command was the one
essential--command untrammelled by orders from committees of weak and
treacherous noblemen, who cared only for the interest of their class.
The established forms were scrupulously observed, and the plan designed
was brought forward first, according to rule, in the Senate. A tribune,
Aulus Gabinius, introduced a proposition there that one person of
consular rank should have absolute jurisdiction during three years over
the whole Mediterranean, and over all Roman territory for fifty miles
inland from the coast; that the money in the treasury should be at his
disposition; that he should have power to raise 500 ships of war and to
collect and organize 130,000 men. No such command for such a time had
ever been committed to any one man since the abolition of the monarchy.
It was equivalent to a suspension of the Senate itself, and of all
constitutional government. The proposal was received with a burst of
fury. Every one knew that the person intended was Pompey. The decorum
of the old days was forgotten. The noble lords started from their
seats, flew at Gabinius, and almost strangled him: but he had friends
outside the house ready to defend their champion; the country people
had flocked in for the occasion; the city was thronged with multitudes
such as had not been seen there since the days of the Gracchi. The
tribune freed himself from the hands that were at his throat; he rushed
out into the Forum, closely pursued by the consul Piso, who would have
been torn in pieces in turn had not Gabinius interposed to save him.
Senate or no Senate, it was decided that Gabinius's proposition should
be submitted to the assembly, and the aristocrats were driven to their
old remedy of bribing other members of the college of tribunes to
interfere. Two renegades were thus secured, and when the voting-day
came, Trebellius, who was one of them, put in a veto; the other,
Roscius, said that the power intended for Pompey was too considerable
to be trusted to a single person, and proposed two commanders instead
of one. The mob was packed so thick that the house-tops were covered. A
yell rose from tens of thousands of throats so piercing that it was
said a crow flying over the Forum dropped dead at the sound of it. The
old patrician Catulus tried to speak, but the people would not hear
him. The vote passed by acclamation, and Pompey was for three years
sovereign of the Roman world.
It now appeared how strong the Romans were when a fair chance was
allowed them. Pompey had no extraordinary talents, but not in three
years, but in three months, the pirates were extinguished. He divided
the Mediterranean into thirteen districts, and allotted a squadron to
each, under officers on whom he could thoroughly rely. Ships and seamen
were found in abundance lying idle from the suspension of trade. In
forty days he had cleared the seas between Gibraltar and Italy. He had
captured entire corsair fleets, and had sent the rest flying into the
Cilician creeks. There, in defence of their plunder and their families,
they fought one desperate engagement, and when defeated, they
surrendered without a further blow. Of real strength they had possessed
none from the first. They had subsisted only through the guilty
complicity of the Roman authorities, and they fell at the first stroke
which was aimed at them in earnest. Thirteen hundred pirate ships were
burnt. Their docks and arsenals were destroyed, and their fortresses
were razed. Twenty-two thousand prisoners fell into the hands of
Pompey. To the astonishment of mankind, Pompey neither impaled them, as
the Senate had impaled the followers of Spartacus, nor even sold them
for slaves. He was contented to scatter them among inland colonies,
where they could no longer be dangerous.
The suppression of the buccaneers was really a brilliant piece of work,
and the ease with which it was accomplished brought fresh disgrace on
the Senate and fresh glory on the hero of the hour. Cicero, with his
thoughts fixed on saving the constitution, considered that Pompey might
be the man to save it; or, at all events, that it would be unsafe to
leave him to the democrats who had given him power and were triumphing
in his success. On political grounds Cicero thought that Pompey ought
to be recognized by the moderate party which he intended to form; and a
person like himself who hoped to rise by the popular votes could not
otherwise afford to seem cold amidst the universal enthusiasm. The
pirates were abolished. Mithridates was still undisposed of. Lucullus,
the hope of the aristocracy, was lying helpless within the Roman
frontier, with a disorganized and mutinous army. His victories were
forgotten. He was regarded as the impersonation of every fault which
had made the rule of the Senate so hateful. Pompey, the people's
general, after a splendid success, had come home with clean hands;
Lucullus had sacrificed his country to his avarice. The contrast set
off his failures in colors perhaps darker than really belonged to them,
and the cry naturally rose that Lucullus must be called back, and the
all-victorious Pompey must be sent for the reconquest of Asia. Another
tribune, Manilius, brought the question forward, this time directly
before the assembly, the Senate's consent not being any more asked for.
Caesar again brought his influence to bear on Pompey's side; but Caesar
found support in a quarter where it might not have been looked for. The
Senate was furious as before, but by far the most gifted person in the
conservative party now openly turned against them. Cicero was praetor
this year, and was thus himself a senator. A seat in the Senate had
been the supreme object of his ambition. He was vain of the honor which
he had won, and delighted with the high company into which he had been
received; but he was too shrewd to go along with them upon a road which
could lead only to their overthrow; and for their own sake, and for the
sake of the institution itself of which he meant to be an illustrious
ornament, he not only supported the Manilian proposition, but supported
it in a speech more effective than the wildest outpourings of
democratic rhetoric.
Asia Minor, he said, was of all the Roman provinces the most important,
because it was the most wealthy.[2] So rich it was and fertile that,
for the productiveness of its soil, the variety of its fruits, the
extent of its pastures, and the multitude of its exports, there was no
country in the world to be compared with it; yet Asia was in danger of
being utterly lost through the worthlessnesss of the governors and
military commanders charged with the care of it. "Who does not know,"
Cicero asked, "that the avarice of our generals has been the cause of
the misfortunes of our armies? You can see for yourselves how they act
here at home in Italy; and what will they not venture far away in
distant countries? Officers who cannot restrain their own appetites can
never maintain discipline in their troops. Pompey has been victorious
because he does not loiter about the towns for plunder or pleasure, or
making collections of statues and pictures. Asia is a land of
temptations. Send no one thither who cannot resist gold and jewels and
shrines and pretty women. Pompey is upright and pure-sighted. Pompey
knows that the State has been impoverished because the revenue flows
into the coffers of a few individuals. Our fleets and armies have
availed only to bring the more disgrace upon us through our defeats and
losses." [3]
After passing a deserved panegyric on the suppression of the pirates,
Cicero urged with all the power of his oratory that Manilius's measures
should be adopted, and that the same general who had done so well
already should be sent against Mithridates.
This was perhaps the only occasion on which Cicero ever addressed the
assembly in favor of the proposals of a popular tribune. Well would it
have been for him and well for Rome if he could have held on upon a
course into which he had been led by real patriotism. He was now in his
proper place, where his better mind must have told him that he ought to
have continued, working by the side of Caesar and Pompey. It was
observed that more than once in his speech he mentioned with high honor
the name of Marius. He appeared to have seen clearly that the Senate
was bringing the State to perdition; and that unless the Republic was
to end in dissolution, or in mob rule and despotism, the wise course
was to recognize the legitimate tendencies of popular sentiment, and to
lend the constant weight of his authority to those who were acting in
harmony with it. But Cicero could never wholly forget his own
consequence, or bring himself to persist in any policy where he could
play but a secondary part.
[Sidenote: B.C. 66-63.] The Manilian law was carried. In addition to
his present extraordinary command, Pompey was entrusted with the
conduct of the war in Asia, and he was left unfettered to act at his
own discretion. He crossed the Bosphorus with fifty thousand men; he
invaded Pontus; he inflicted a decisive defeat on Mithridates, and
broke up his army; he drove the Armenians back into their own
mountains, and extorted out of them a heavy war indemnity. The
barbarian king who had so long defied the Roman power was beaten down
at last, and fled across the Black Sea to Kertch, where his sons turned
against him. He was sixty-eight years old, and could not wait till the
wheel should make another turn. Broken down at last, he took leave of a
world in which for him there was no longer a place. His women poisoned
themselves successfully. He, too fortified by antidotes to end as they
ended, sought a surer death, and fell like Saul by the sword of a
slave. Rome had put out her real strength, and at once, as before, all
opposition went down before her. Asia was completely conquered up to
the line of the Euphrates. The Black Sea was held securely by a Roman
fleet. Pompey passed down into Syria. Antioch surrendered without
resistance. Tyre and Damascus followed. Jerusalem was taken by storm,
and the Roman general entered the Holy of Holies. Of all the countries
bordering on the Mediterranean Egypt only was left independent, and of
all the islands only Cyprus. A triumphal inscription in Rome declared
that Pompey, the people's general, had in three years captured fifteen
hundred cities, and had slain, taken, or reduced to submission twelve
million human beings. He justified what Cicero had foretold of his
moral uprightness. In the midst of opportunities such as had fallen to
no commander since Alexander, he outraged no woman's honor, and he kept
his hands clean from "the accursed thing." When he returned to Rome, he
returned, as he went, personally poor, but he filled the treasury to
overflowing. His campaign was not a marauding raid, like the march of
Lucullus on Artaxata. His conquests were permanent. The East, which was
then thickly inhabited by an industrious civilized Graeco-Oriental
race, became incorporated in the Roman dominion, and the annual revenue
of the State rose to twice what it had been. Pompey's success had been
dazzlingly rapid. Envy and hatred, as he well knew, were waiting for
him at home, and he was in no haste to present himself there. He
lingered in Asia, organizing the administration and consolidating his
work, while at Rome the constitution was rushing on upon its old
courses among the broken waters, with the roar of the not distant
cataract growing every moment louder.
[1] The name of Marius, it is to be observed, remained so popular in
Rome that Cicero after this always spoke of him with respect.
[2] "Asia vero tam opima est et fertilis, ut et ubertate agrorum et
varietate fructuum et magnitudine pastionis, et multitudine earum
rerum, quae exportentur, facile omnibus terris antecellat."--_Pro
Lege Maniliâ_. Cicero's expressions are worth notice at a time when
Asia Minor has become of importance to England.
[3] _Pro Lege Maniliâ_. abridged.