[Sidenote: B.C. 51.] Crassus had been destroyed by the Parthians. The
nomination of his successor lay with the Senate, and the Senate gave a
notable evidence of their incapacity for selecting competent governors
for the provinces by appointing in his place Caesar's old colleague,
Bibulus. In their whole number there was no such fool as Bibulus. When
he arrived in Syria he shut himself into a fortified town, leaving the
Parthians to plunder and burn at their pleasure. Cicero mocked at him.
The Senate thanked him for his distinguished services. The few serious
men in Rome thought that Caesar or Pompey should be sent out;[1] or, if
they could not be spared, at least one of the consuls of the
year--Sulpicius Rufus or Marcus Marcellus. But the consuls were busy
with home politics and did not wish to go, nor did they wish that
others should go and gather laurels instead of them. Therefore nothing
was done at all,[2] and Syria was left to fate and Bibulus. The consuls
and the aristocracy had, in fact, more serious matters to attend to.
Caesar's time was running out, and when it was over he had been
promised the consulship. That consulship the faction of the
conservatives had sworn that he should never hold. Cato was threatening
him with impeachment, blustering that he should be tried under a guard,
as Milo had been.[3] Marcellus was saying openly that he would call him
home in disgrace before his term was over. Como, one of the most
thriving towns in the north of Italy, had been enfranchised by Caesar.
An eminent citizen from Como happening to be at Rome, Marcellus
publicly flogged him, and bade him go back and tell his fellow-townsmen
the value of Caesar's gift to them, Cicero saw the folly of such
actions;[4] but the aristocracy were mad--mad with pride and conscious
guilt and fear. The ten years of Caesar's government would expire at
the end of 49. The engagement had been entered into that he was to see
his term out with his army and to return to Rome for 48--as consul.
They remembered his first consulship and what he had done with it, and
the laws which he had passed--laws which they could not repeal; yet how
had they observed them? If he had been too strong for them all when he
was but one of themselves, scarcely known beyond the Forum and
senate-house, what would he do now, when he was recognized as the
greatest soldier which Rome had produced, the army, the people, Italy,
the provinces all adoring his name? Consul again he could not, must not
be. Yet how could it be prevented? It was useless now to bribe the
Comitia, to work with clubs and wire-pullers. The enfranchised citizens
would come to vote for Caesar from every country town. The legionaries
to a man would vote for him; and even in the venal city he was the idol
of the hour. No fault could be found with his administration. His wars
had paid their own expenses. He had doubled the pay of his troops, but
his military chest was still full, and his own wealth seemed boundless.
He was adorning the Forum with new and costly buildings. Senators,
knights, young men of rank who had been extravagant, had been relieved
by his generosity and were his pensioners. Gaul might have been
impatient at its loss of liberty, but no word of complaint was heard
against Caesar for oppressive government. The more genius he had shown
the more formidable he was. Let him be consul, and he would be the
master of them all.
Caesar had been credited with far-reaching designs. It has been assumed
that in early life he had designed the overthrow of the Constitution;
that he pursued his purpose steadily through every stage in his career,
and that he sought the command of Gaul only to obtain an army devoted
to him which would execute his will. It has not seemed incredible that
a man of middle age undertook the conquest of a country of which
nothing is known save that it was inhabited by warlike races, who more
than once had threatened to overrun Italy and destroy Rome; that he
went through ten years of desperate fighting exposed to a thousand
dangers from the sword, from exposure and hardship; that for ten years
he had banished himself from Rome, uncertain whether he would ever see
it again; and that he had ventured upon all this with no other object
than that of eventually controlling domestic politics. A lunatic might
have entertained such a scheme, but not a Caesar. The Senate knew him.
They knew what he had done. They knew what he would now do, and for
this reason they feared and hated him. Caesar was a reformer. He had
long seen that the Roman Constitution was too narrow for the functions
which had fallen to it, and that it was degenerating into an instrument
of tyranny and injustice. The courts of law were corrupt; the elections
wore corrupt. The administration of the provinces was a scandal and a
curse. The soil of Italy had become a monopoly of capitalists, and the
inhabitants of it a population of slaves. He had exerted himself to
stay the mischief at its fountain, to punish bribery, to punish the
rapacity of proconsuls and propraetors, to purify the courts, to
maintain respect for the law. He had endeavored to extend the
franchise, to raise the position of the liberated slaves, to replace
upon the land a free race of Roman citizens. The old Roman sentiment,
the consciousness of the greatness of the country and of its mighty
destinies, was chiefly now to be found in the armies. In the families
of veteran legionaries, spread in farms over Italy and the provinces,
the national spirit might revive; and, with a due share of political
power conceded to them, an enlarged and purified constituency might
control the votes of the venal populace of the city. These were
Caesar's designs, so far as could have been gathered from his earlier
actions; but the manipulation of elections, the miserable contests with
disaffected colleagues and a hostile Senate, were dreary occupations
for such a man as he was. He was conscious of powers which in so poor a
sphere could find no expression. He had ambition doubtless--plenty of
it--ambition not to pass away without leaving his mark on the history
of his country. As a statesman he had done the most which could be done
when he was consul the first time, and he had afterward sought a free
field for his adventurous genius in a new country, and in rounding off
into security the frontiers of the Empire on the side where danger was
most threatening. The proudest self-confidence could not have allowed
him at his time of life to calculate on returning to Rome to take up
again the work of reformation.
But Cæsar had conquered. He had made a name for himself as a soldier
before which the Scipios and the Luculluses, the Syllas and Pompeys
paled their glory. He was coming back to lay at his country's feet a
province larger than Spain--not subdued only, but reconciled to
subjugation; a nation of warriors, as much devoted to him as his own
legions. The aristocracy had watched his progress with the bitterest
malignity. When he was struggling with the last spasms of Gallic
liberty, they had talked in delighted whispers of his reported ruin.[5]
But his genius had risen above his difficulties and shone out more
glorious than before. When the war was over the Senate had been forced
to vote twenty days of thanksgiving. Twenty days were not enough for
Roman, enthusiasm. The people made them into sixty.
If Caesar came to Rome as consul, the Senate knew too well what it
might expect. What he had been before he would be again, but more
severe as his power was greater. Their own guilty hearts perhaps made
them fear another Marian proscription. Unless his command could be
brought to an end in some far different form, their days of power were
numbered, and the days of inquiry and punishment would begin.
[Sidenote: B.C. 50.] Cicero had for some time seen what was coming. He
had preferred characteristically to be out of the way at the moment
when he expected that the storm would break, and had accepted the
government of Cilicia and Cyprus. He was thus absent while the active
plot was in preparation. One great step had been gained--the Senate had
secured Pompey. Caesar's greatness was too much for him. He could never
again hope to be the first on the popular side, and he preferred being
the saviour of the Constitution to playing second to a person whom he
had patronized. Pompey ought long since to have been in Spain with his
troops; but he had stayed at Rome to keep order, and he had lingered on
with the same pretext. The first step was to weaken Caesar and to
provide Pompey with a force in Italy. The Senate discovered suddenly
that Asia Minor was in danger from, the Parthians. They voted that
Caesar and Pompey must each spare a legion for the East. Pompey gave as
his part the legion which he had lent to Caesar for the last campaign.
Caesar was invited to restore it and to furnish another of his own.
Caesar was then in Belgium. He saw the object of the demand perfectly
clearly; but he sent the two legions without a word, contenting himself
with making handsome presents to the officers and men on their leaving
him. When they reached Italy the Senate found that they were wanted for
home service, and they were placed under Pompey's command in Campania.
The consuls chosen for the year 49 were Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and
Caius Marcellus, both of them Caesar's open enemies. Caesar himself had
been promised the consulship (there could be no doubt of his election,
if his name was accepted in his absence) for the year 48. He was to
remain with his troops till his term had run out, and to be allowed to
stand while still in command. This was the distinct engagement which
the assembly had ratified. After the consular election had been secured
in the autumn of 50 to the conservative candidates, it was proposed
that by a displacement of dates Caesar's government should expire, not
at the close of the tenth year, but in the spring, on the 1st of March.
Convenient constitutional excuses were found for the change. On the 1st
of March he was to cease to be governor of Gaul. A successor was to be
named to take over his army. He would then have to return to Rome, and
would lie at the mercy of his enemies. Six months would intervene
before the next elections, during which he might be impeached,
incapacitated, or otherwise disposed of; while Pompey and his two
legions could effectually prevent any popular disturbance in his favor.
The Senate hesitated before decisively voting the recall. An intimation
was conveyed to Caesar that he had been mistaken about his term, which
would end sooner than he had supposed; and the world was waiting to see
how he would take it. Atticus thought that he would give way. His
having parted so easily with two legions did not look like resistance.
Marcus Caelius, a correspondent of Cicero, who had been elected praetor
for 49, and kept his friend informed how things were going on, wrote in
the autumn:
"All is at a standstill about the Gallic government. The subject has
been raised, and is again postponed. Pompey's view is plain that Caesar
must leave his province after the 1st of March ... but he does not
think that before that time the Senate can properly pass a resolution
about it. After the 1st of March he will have no hesitation. When he
was asked what he would do if a tribune interposed, he said it made no
difference whether Caesar himself disobeyed the Senate or provided some
one else to interfere with the Senate. Suppose, said one, Caesar wishes
to be consul and to keep his army. Pompey answered, 'What if my son
wishes to lay a stick on my back'.... It appears that Caesar will
accept one or other of two conditions: either to remain in his
province, and postpone his claim for the consulship; or, if he can be
named for the consulship, then to retire. Curio is all against him.
What he can accomplish, I know not; but I perceive this, that if Caesar
means well, he will not be overthrown." [6]
The object of the Senate was either to ruin Caesar, if he complied with
this order, or to put him in the wrong by provoking him to
disobedience. The scheme was ingenious; but if the Senate could mine,
Caesar could countermine. Caelius said that Curio was violent against
him: and so Curio had been. Curio was a young man of high birth,
dissolute, extravagant, and clever. His father, who had been consul
five-and-twenty years before, was a strong aristocrat and a close
friend of Cicero's. The son had taken the same line; but, among other
loose companions, he had made the acquaintance, to his father's regret,
of Mark Antony, and though they had hitherto been of opposite politics,
the intimacy had continued. The Senate's influence had made Curio
tribune for the year 49. Antony had been chosen tribune also. To the
astonishment of everybody but Cicero, it appeared that these two, who
were expected to neutralize each other, were about to work together,
and to veto every resolution which seemed an unfair return for Caesar's
services. Scandal said that young Curio was in money difficulties, and
that Caesar had paid his debts for him. It was perhaps a lie invented
by political malignity; but if Curio was purchasable, Caesar would not
have hesitated to buy him. His habit was to take facts as they were,
and, when satisfied that his object was just, to go the readiest way to
it.
The desertion of their own tribune was a serious blow to the Senate.
Caelius, who was to be praetor, was inclining to think that Caesar
would win, and therefore might take his side also. The constitutional
opposition would then be extremely strong; and even Pompey, fiercely as
he had spoken, doubted what to do. The question was raised in the
Senate, whether the tribunes' vetoes were to be regarded. Marcellus,
who had flogged the citizen of Como, voted for defying them, but the
rest were timid. Pompey did not know his own mind.[7] Caelius's account
of his own feelings in the matter represented probably those of many
besides himself.
"In civil quarrels," he wrote to Cicero, "we ought to go with the most
honest party, as long as the contest lies within constitutional limits.
When it is an affair of camps and battles, we must go with the
strongest. Pompey will have the Senate and the men of consideration
with him. All the discontented will go with Caesar. I must calculate
the forces on both sides, before I decide on my own part." [8]
When the question next came on in the Senate, Curio, being of course
instructed in Caesar's wishes, professed to share the anxiety lest
there should be a military Dictatorship; but he said that the danger
was as great from Pompey as from Caesar. He did not object to the
recall of Caesar, but Pompey, he thought, should resign his province
also, and the Constitution would then be out of peril. Pompey professed
to be willing, if the Senate desired it; but he insisted that Caesar
must take the first step. Curio's proposal was so fair, that it gained
favor both in Forum and Senate. The populace, who hated Pompey, threw
flowers upon the tribune as he passed. Marcellus, the consul, a few
days later, put the question in the Senate: Was Caesar to be recalled?
A majority answered Yes. Was Pompey to be deprived of his province? The
same majority said No. Curio then proposed that both Pompey and Caesar
should dismiss their armies. Out of three hundred and ninety-two
senators present, three hundred and seventy agreed. Marcellus told them
bitterly that they had voted themselves Caesar's slaves. But they were
not all insane with envy and hatred, and in the midst of their terrors
they retained some prudence, perhaps some conscience and sense of
justice. By this time, however, the messengers who had been sent to
communicate the Senate's views to Caesar had returned. They brought no
positive answer from himself; but they reported that Caesar's troops
were worn out and discontented, and certainly would refuse to support
him in any violent action. How false their account of the army was, the
Senate had soon reason to know; but it was true that one, and he the
most trusted officer that Caesar had, Labienus, who had fought through
so many battles with him in the Forum as well as in the field, whose
high talents and character his Commentaries could never praise
sufficiently--it was true that Labienus had listened to the offers made
to him. Labienus had made a vast fortune in the war. He perhaps
thought, as other distinguished officers have done, that he was the
person that had won the victories; that without him Caesar, who was
being so much praised and glorified, would have been nothing; and that
he at least was entitled to an equal share of the honors and rewards
that might be coming; while if Caesar was to be disgraced, he might
have the whole recompense for himself. Caesar heard of these overtures;
but he had refused to believe that Labienus could be untrue to him. He
showed his confidence, and he showed at the same time the integrity of
his own intentions, by appointing the officer who was suspected of
betraying him Lieutenant-General of the Cisalpine Province. None the
less it was true that Labienus had been won over. Labienus had
undertaken for his comrades; and the belief that Caesar could not
depend on his troops renewed Pompey's courage and gave heart to the
faction which wished to precipitate extremities. The aspect of things
was now altered. What before seemed rash and dangerous might be safely
ventured. Caesar had himself followed the messengers to Ravenna. To
raise the passions of men to the desired heat, a report was spread that
he had brought his troops across and was marching on Rome. Curio
hastened off to him, to bring back under his own hand a distinct
declaration of his views.
It was at this crisis, in the middle of the winter 50-49, that Cicero
returned to Rome. He had held his government but for two years, and
instead of escaping the catastrophe, he found himself plunged into the
heart of it. He had managed his province well. No one ever suspected
Cicero of being corrupt or unjust. He had gained some respectable
successes in putting down the Cilician banditti. He had been named
imperator by his soldiers in the field after an action in which he had
commanded; he had been flattering himself with the prospect of a
triumph, and had laid up money to meet the cost of it. The quarrel
between the two great men whom he had so long feared and flattered, and
the necessity which might be thrown on him of declaring publicly on one
side or the other, agitated him terribly. In October, as he was on his
way home, he expressed his anxieties with his usual frankness to
Atticus.
"Consider the problem for me," he said, "as it affects myself: you
advised me to keep on terms both with Pompey and Caesar. You bade me
adhere to one because he had been good to me, and to the other because
he was strong. I have done so. I so ordered matters that no one could
be dearer to either of them than I was. I reflected thus: while I stand
by Pompey, I cannot hurt the Commonwealth; if I agree with Caesar, I
need not quarrel with Pompey; so closely they appeared to be connected.
But now they are at a sharp issue. Each regards me as his friend,
unless Caesar dissembles; while Pompey is right in thinking that what
he proposes I shall approve. I heard from both at the time at which I
heard from you. Their letters were most polite. What am I to do? I
don't mean in extremities. If it comes to fighting, it will be better
to be defeated with one than to conquer with the other. But when I
arrive at Rome, I shall be required to say if Caesar is to be proposed
for the consulship in his absence, or if he is to dismiss his army.
What must I answer? Wait till I have consulted Atticus? That will not
do. Shall I go against Caesar? Where are Pompey's resources? I myself
took Caesar's part about it. He spoke to me on the subject at Ravenna.
I recommended his request to the tribunes as a reasonable one. Pompey
talked with me also to the same purpose. Am I to change my mind? I am
ashamed to oppose him now. Will you have a fool's opinion? I will apply
for a triumph, and so I shall have an excuse for not entering the city.
You will laugh. But oh, I wish I had remained in my province. Could I
but have guessed what was impending! Think for me. How shall I avoid
displeasing Caesar? He writes most kindly about a 'Thanksgiving' for my
success." [9]
Caesar had touched the right point in congratulating Cicero on his
military exploits. His friends in the Senate had been less delicate.
Bibulus had been thanked for hiding from the Parthians. When Cicero had
hinted his expectations, the Senate had passed to the order of the day.
"Cato," he wrote, "treats me scurvily. He gives me praise for justice,
clemency, and integrity, which I did not want. What I did want he will
not let me have. Caesar promises me everything.--Cato has given a
twenty days' thanksgiving to Bibulus. Pardon me, if this is more than I
can bear.--But I am relieved from my worst fear. The Parthians have
left Bibulus half alive." [10]
The shame wore off as Cicero drew near to Rome. He blamed the tribunes
for insisting on what he had himself declared to be just. "Any way," he
said, "I stick to Pompey. When they say to me, Marcus Tullius, what do
you think? I shall answer, I go with Pompey; but privately I shall
advise Pompey to come to terms.--We have to do with a man full of
audacity and completely prepared. Every felon, every citizen who is in
disgrace or ought to be in disgrace, almost all the young, the city
mob, the tribunes, debtors, who are more numerous than I could have
believed, all these are with Caesar. He wants nothing but a good cause,
and war is always uncertain." [11]
Pompey had been unwell at the beginning of December, and had gone for a
few days into the country. Cicero met him on the 10th. "We were two
hours together," he said. "Pompey was delighted at my arrival. He spoke
of my triumph, and promised to do his part. He advised me to keep away
from the Senate, till it was arranged, lest I should offend the
tribunes. He spoke of war as certain. Not a word did he utter pointing
to a chance of compromise.--My comfort is that Caesar, to whom even his
enemies had allowed a second consulship, and to whom fortune had given
so much power, will not be so mad as to throw all this away." [12]
Cicero had soon to learn that the second consulship was not so certain.
On the 29th he had another long conversation with Pompey.
"Is there hope of peace?" he wrote, in reporting what had passed. "So
far as I can gather from his very full expressions to me, he does not
desire it. For he thinks thus: If Caesar be made consul, even after he
has parted from his army, the constitution will be at an end. He thinks
also that when Caesar hears of the preparations against him, he will
drop the consulship for this year, to keep his province and his troops.
Should he be so insane as to try extremities, Pompey holds him in utter
contempt. I thought, when he was speaking, of the uncertainties of war;
but I was relieved to hear a man of courage and experience talk like a
statesman of the dangers of an insincere settlement.--Not only he does
not seek for peace, but he seems to fear it.--My own vexation is, that
I must pay Caesar my debt, and spend thus what I had set apart for my
triumph. It is indecent to owe money to a political antagonist." [13]
Events were hurrying on. Cicero entered Rome the first week in January,
to find that the Senate had begun work in earnest. Curio had returned
from Ravenna with a letter from Caesar. He had offered three
alternatives. First, that the agreement already made might stand, and
that he might be nominated, in his absence, for the consulship; or that
when he left his army, Pompey should disband his Italian legions; or,
lastly, that he should hand over Transalpine Gaul to his successor,
with eight of his ten legions, himself keeping the north of Italy and
Illyria with two, until his election. It was the first of January. The
new consuls, Lentulus and Caius Marcellus, with the other magistrates,
had entered on their offices, and were in their places in the Senate.
Pompey was present, and the letter was introduced. The consuls objected
to it being read, but they were overruled by the remonstrances of the
tribunes. The reading over, the consuls forbade a debate upon it, and
moved that the condition of the Commonwealth should be taken into
consideration. Lentulus, the more impassioned of them, said that if the
Senate would be firm, he would do his duty; if they hesitated and tried
conciliation, he should take care of himself, and go over to Caesar's
side. Metellus Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, spoke to the same
purpose. Pompey, he said, was ready to support the constitution, if the
Senate were resolute. If they wavered, they would look in vain for
future help from him. Marcus Marcellus, the consul of the preceding
year, less wild than he had been when he flogged the Como citizen,
advised delay, at least till Pompey was better prepared. Calidius,
another senator, moved that Pompey should go to his province. Caesar's
resentment at the detention of the two legions from the Parthian war he
thought, was natural and justifiable. Marcus Rufus agreed with
Calidius. But moderation was borne down by the violence of Lentulus;
and the Senate, in spite of themselves,[14] voted, at Scipio's
dictation, that Caesar must dismiss his army before a day which was to
be fixed, or, in default, would be declared an enemy to the State. Two
tribunes, Mark Antony and Cassius Longinus, interposed. The tribunes'
veto was as old as their institution. It had been left standing even by
Sylla. But the aristocracy were declaring war against the people. They
knew that the veto was coming, and they had resolved to disregard it.
The more passionate the speakers, the more they were cheered by
Caesar's enemies. The sitting ended in the evening without a final
conclusion; but at a meeting afterwards, at his house, Pompey quieted
alarms by assuring the senators that there was nothing to fear.
Caesar's army he knew to be disaffected. He introduced the officers of
the two legions that had been taken from Caesar, who vouched for their
fidelity to the constitution. Some of Pompey's veterans were present,
called up from their farms; they were enthusiastic for their old
commander. Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, and Roscius, a praetor, begged
for a week's delay, that they might go to Caesar, and explain the
Senate's pleasure. Others proposed to send a deputation to soften the
harshness of his removal. But Lentulus, backed by Cato, would listen to
nothing. Cato detested Caesar as the representative of everything which
he most abhorred. Lentulus, bankrupt and loaded with debts, was looking
for provinces to ruin, and allied sovereigns to lay presents at his
feet. He boasted that he would be a second Sylla.[15] When the Senate
met again in their places, the tribunes' veto was disallowed. They
ordered a general levy through Italy. The consuls gave Pompey the
command-in-chief, with the keys of the treasury. The Senate
redistributed the provinces; giving Syria to Scipio, and in Caesar's
place appointing Domitius Ahenobarbus, the most inveterate and
envenomed of his enemies. Their authority over the provinces had been
taken from them by law, but law was set aside. Finally, they voted the
State in danger, suspended the constitution, and gave the consuls
absolute power.
The final votes were taken on the 7th of January. A single week had
sufficed for a discussion of the resolutions on which the fate of Rome
depended. The Senate pretended to be defending the constitution. They
had themselves destroyed the constitution, and established on the ruins
of it a senatorial oligarchy. The tribunes fled at once to Caesar.
Pompey left the city for Campania, to join his two legions and
superintend the levies.
The unanimity which had appeared in the Senate's final determination
was on the surface only. Cicero, though present in Rome, had taken no
part, and looked on in despair. The "good" were shocked at Pompey's
precipitation. They saw that a civil war could end only in a despotism.
[16] "I have not met one man," Cicero said, "who does not think it
would be better to make concessions to Caesar than to fight him.--Why
fight now? Things are no worse than when we gave him his additional
five years, or agreed to let him be chosen consul in his absence. You
wish for my opinion. I think we ought to use every means to escape war.
But I must say what Pompey says. I cannot differ from Pompey." [17]
A day later, before the final vote had been taken, he thought still
that the Senate was willing to let Caesar keep his province, if he
would dissolve his army. The moneyed interests, the peasant
landholders, were all on Caesar's side; they cared not even if monarchy
came so that they might have peace. "We could have resisted Caesar
easily when he was weak," he wrote. "Now he has eleven legions and as
many cavalry as he chooses with him, the Cisalpine provincials, the
Roman populace, the tribunes, and the hosts of dissolute young men. Yet
we are to fight with him, or take account of him unconstitutionally.
Fight, you say, rather than be a slave. Fight for what? To be
proscribed, if you are beaten; to be a slave still, if you win. What
will you do then? you ask. As the sheep follows the flock and the ox
the herd, so will I follow the 'good,' or those who are called good,
but I see plainly what will come out of this sick state of ours. No one
knows what the fate of war may be. But if the 'good' are beaten, this
much is certain, that Caesar will be as bloody as Cinna, and as greedy
of other men's properties as Sylla." [18]
Once more, and still in the midst of uncertainty:
"The position is this: We must either let Caesar stand for the
consulship, he keeping his army with the Senate's consent, or supported
by the tribunes; or we must persuade him to resign his province and his
army, and so to be consul; or if he refuses, the elections can be held
without him, he keeping his province; or if he forbids the election
through the tribunes, we can hang on and come to an interrex; or,
lastly, if he brings his army on us, we can fight. Should this be his
choice, he will either begin at once, before we are ready, or he will
wait till his election, when his friends will put in his name and it
will not be received. His plea may then be the ill-treatment of
himself, or it may be complicated further should a tribune interpose
and be deprived of office, and so take refuge with him.... You will say
persuade Caesar, then, to give up his army, and be consul. Surely, if
he will agree, no objection can be raised; and if he is not allowed to
stand while he keeps his army, I wonder that he does not let it go. But
a certain person (Pompey) thinks that nothing is so much to be feared
as that Caesar should be consul. Better thus, you will say, than with
an army. No doubt. But a certain person holds that his consulship would
be an irremediable misfortune. We must yield if Caesar will have it so.
He will be consul again, the same man that he was before; then, weak as
he was, he proved stronger than the whole of us. What, think you, will
he be now? Pompey, for one thing, will surely be sent to Spain.
Miserable every way; and the worst is, that Caesar cannot be refused,
and by consenting will be taken into supreme favor by all the 'good.'
They say, however, that he cannot be brought to this. Well, then, which
is the worst of the remaining alternatives? Submit to what Pompey calls
an impudent demand? Caesar has held his province for ten years. The
Senate did not give it him. He took it himself by faction and violence.
Suppose he had it lawfully, the time is up. His successor is named. He
disobeys. He says that he ought to be considered. Let him consider us.
Will he keep his army beyond the time for which the people gave it to
him, in despite of the Senate? We must fight him then, and, as Pompey
says, we shall conquer or die free men. If fight we must, time will
show when or how. But if you have any advice to give, let me know it,
for I am tormented day and night." [19]
These letters give a vivid picture of the uncertainties which
distracted public opinion during the fatal first week of January.
Caesar, it seems, might possibly have been consul had he been willing
to retire at once into the condition of a private citizen, even though
Pompey was still undisarmed. Whether in that position he would have
lived to see the election-day is another question. Cicero himself, it
will be seen, had been reflecting already that there were means less
perilous than civil war by which dangerous persons might be got rid of.
And there were weak points in his arguments which his impatience passed
over. Caesar held a positive engagement about his consulship, which the
people had ratified. Of the ten years which the people had allowed him,
one was unexpired, and the Senate had no power to vote his recall
without the tribunes' and the people's consent. He might well hesitate
to put himself in the power of a faction so little scrupulous. It is
evident, however, that Pompey and the two consuls were afraid that, if
such overtures were made to him by a deputation from the Senate, he
might perhaps agree to them; and by their rapid and violent vote they
put an end to the possibility of an arrangement. Caesar, for no other
crime than that as a brilliant democratic general he was supposed
dangerous to the oligarchy, had been recalled from his command in the
face of the prohibition of the tribunes, and was declared an enemy of
his country unless he instantly submitted. After the experience of
Marius and Sylla, the Senate could have paid no higher compliment to
Caesar's character than in believing that he would hesitate over his
answer.
[1] "Caelius ad Ciceronem," _Ad Fam_. viii. 10.
[2] _Ibid_.
[3] Suetonius, _De Vitâ Julii Caesaris_.
[4] "Marcellus foede do Comensi. Etsi ille magistratum non gesserat, erat
tamen Transpadanus. Ita mihi videtur non minus stomachi nostro ac
Caesari fecisse."--_To Atticus_, v. 11.
[5] "Quod ad Caesarem crebri et non belli de eo rumores. Sed susurratores
dumtaxat veniunt.... Neque adhuc certi quidquam est, neque haec
incerta tamen vulgo jactantur. Sed inter paucos, quos tu nosti,
palam secreto narrantur. At Domitius cum manus ad os
apposuit!"--Caelius to Cicero, _Ad Fam_. viii. 1.
[6] Caelius to Cicero, _Ad Fam_. viii. 8.
[7] _Ibid_., viii. 13.
[8] Caelius to Cicero, _Ad Fam_. viii. 14.
[9] _To Atticus_, vii. 1, abridged.
[10] _Ibid._, vii. 2.
[11] _Ibid._, vii. 3.
[12] _To Atticus_, vii. 4.
[13] "Mihi autem illud molestissimum est, quod solvendi sunt nummi
Caesari, et instrumentum triumphi eo conferendum. Est [Greek: amorphon
hantipoliteuomenou chreopheiletaen] esse."--_Ibid_., vii. 8.
[14] "Inviti et coacti" is Caesar's expression. He wished, perhaps, to
soften the Senate's action. (_De Bello Civili_, i. 2.)
[15] "Seque alterum fore Sullam inter suos gloriatur."--_De Bello
Civili_, i. 4.
[16] "Tum certe tyrannus existet."--_To Atticus_, vii. 5.
[17] _To Atticus_, vii. 6.
[18] _Ibid_., vii. 7, abridged.
[19] _To Atticus_, vii. 9, abridged.