Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders
Pompeius in the East
When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed
to his charge, again turned his eyes homeward, he found for the second
time the diadem at his feet. For long the development of the Roman
commonwealth had been tending towards such a catastrophe;
it was evident to every unbiassed observer, and had been remarked
a thousand times, that, if the rule of the aristocracy
should be brought to an end, monarchy was inevitable. The senate
had now been overthrown at once by the civic liberal opposition
and by the power of the soldiery; the only question remaining
was to settle the persons, names, and forms for the new order of things;
and these were already clearly enough indicated in the partly democratic,
partly military elements of the revolution. The events of the last
five years had set, as it were, the final seal on this impending
transformation of the commonwealth. In the newly-erected
Asiatic provinces, which gave regal honours to their organizer
as the successor of Alexander the Great, and already received
his favoured freedmen like princes, Pompeius had laid the foundations
of his dominion, and found at once the treasures, the army, and the halo
of glory which the future prince of the Roman state required.
The anarchist conspiracy, moreover, in the capital, and the civil
war connected with it, had made it palpably clear to every one
who studied political or even merely material interests,
that a government without authority and without military power,
such as that of the senate, exposed the state to the equally ludicrous
and formidable tyranny of political sharpers, and that a change
of constitution, which should connect the military power more closely
with the government, was an indispensable necessity if social order
was to be maintained. So the ruler had arisen in the east,
the throne had been erected in Italy; to all appearance the year 692
was the last of the republic, the first of monarchy.
The Opponents of the Future Monarchy
This goal, it is true, was not to be reached without a struggle.
The constitution, which had endured for five hundred years,
and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen
to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil
to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate
to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate
and convulse civil society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius
in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set
aside. It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all
these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power,
and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and Marcus Cato united
in opposition to him with Marcus Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus
Labienus. But the inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle
could not well be undertaken under circumstances more favourable.
It was in a high degree probable that, under the fresh impression
of the Catilinarian revolt, a rule which promised order
and security, although at the price of freedom, would receive
the submission of the whole middle party--embracing especially
the merchants who concerned themselves only about their material
interests, but including also a great part of the aristocracy,
which, disorganized in itself and politically hopeless, had to rest
content with securing for itself riches, rank, and influence
by a timely compromise with the prince; perhaps even a portion
of the democracy, so sorely smitten by the recent blows, might submit
to hope for the realization of a portion of its demands
from a military chief raised to power by itself. But, whatever might be
the position of party-relations, of what importance, in the first
instance at least, were the parties in Italy at all in presence
of Pompeius and his victorious army? Twenty years previously Sulla,
after having concluded a temporary peace with Mithradates,
had with his five legions been able to carry a restoration
runningcounter to the natural development of things in the face
of the whole liberal party, which had been arming en masse for years,
from the moderate aristocrats and the liberal mercantile class down
to the anarchists. The task of Pompeius was far less difficult.
He returned, after having fully and conscientiously performed
his different functions by sea and land. He might expect to encounter
no other serious opposition save that of the various extreme
parties, each of which by itself could do nothing, and which even
when leagued together were no more than a coalition of factions
still vehemently hostile to each other and inwardly at thorough
variance. Completely unarmed, they were without a military force
and without a head, without organization in Italy, without support
in the provinces, above all, without a general; there was in their
ranks hardly a soldier of note--to say nothing of an officer--who
could have ventured to call forth the burgesses to a conflict
with Pompeius. The circumstance might further be taken into account,
that the volcano of revolution, which had been now incessantly
blazing for seventy years and feeding on its own flame, was visibly
burning out and verging of itself to extinction. It was very doubtful
whether the attempt to arm the Italians for party interests
would now succeed, as it had succeeded with Cinna and Carbo.
If Pompeius exerted himself, how could he fail to effect
a revolution of the state, which was chalked out by a certain
necessity of nature in the organic development
of the Roman commonwealth?
Mission of Nepos to Rome
Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he undertook his mission
to the east; he seemed desirous to go forward. In the autumn
of 691, Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived from the camp of Pompeius
in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship,
with the express design of employing that position to procure
for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more immediately,
by special decree of the people, the conduct of the war against
Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not
to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect
commission of Pompeius; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy
as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer
simultaneously the supreme military and the supreme civil power
there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne,
and the mission of Nepos a semi-official proclamation of the monarchy.
Pompeius in Relation to the Parties
Everything turned on the attitude which the two great political parties
should assume towards these overtures; their future position
and the future of the nation depended on this. But the reception
which Nepos met with was itself in its turn determined
by the then existing relation of the parties to Pompeius, which was
of a very peculiar kind. Pompeius had gone to the east as general
of the democracy. He had reason enough to be discontented
with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place.
It is probable that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and occupied
with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift
of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through,
at least at that time, the extent and mutual connection
of the democratic intrigues contrived against him; perhaps even
in his haughty and shortsighted manner he had a certain pride
in ignoring these underground proceedings. Then there came the fact,
which with a character of the type of Pompeius had much weight,
that the democracy never lost sight of outward respect for the great man,
and even now (691) unsolicited (as he preferred it so) had granted
to him by a special decree of the people unprecedented honours
and decorations.(1) But, even if all this had not been the case,
it lay in Pompeius' own well-understood interest to continue
his adherence, at least outwardly, to the popular party; democracy
and monarchy stand so closely related that Pompeius, in aspiring
to the crown, could scarcely do otherwise than call himself, as hitherto,
the champion of popular rights. While personal and political
reasons, therefore, co-operated to keep Pompeius and the leaders
of the democracy, despite of all that had taken place, in their
previous connection, nothing was done on the opposite side to fill
up the chasm which separated him since his desertion to the camp
of the democracy from his Sullan partisans. His personal quarrel
with Metellus and Lucullus transferred itself to their extensive
and influential coteries. A paltry opposition of the senate--
but, to a character of so paltry a mould, all the more exasperating
by reason of its very paltriness--had attended him through his whole
career as a general. He felt it keenly, that the senate had not taken
the smallest step to honour the extraordinary man according to
his desert, that is, by extraordinary means. Lastly, it is not
to be forgotten, that the aristocracy was just then intoxicated
by its recent victory and the democracy deeply humbled,
and that the aristocracy was led by the pedantically stiff
and half-witless Cato, and the democracy by the supple master
of intrigue, Caesar.
Rupture between Pompeius and the Aristocracy
Such was the state of parties amidst which the emissary sent
by Pompeius appeared. The aristocracy not only regarded the proposals
which he announced in favour of Pompeius as a declaration of war
against the existing constitution, but treated them openly as such,
and took not the slightest pains to conceal their alarm and their
indignation. With the express design of combating these proposals,
Marcus Cato had himself elected as tribune of the people
along with Nepos, and abruptly repelled the repeated attempts of Pompeius
to approach him personally. Nepos naturally after this found himself
under no inducement to spare the aristocracy, but attached himself
the more readily to the democrats, when these, pliant as ever,
submitted to what was inevitable and chose freely to concede
the office of general in Italy as well as the consulate
rather than let the concession be wrung from them by force of arms.
The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly accepted
(Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions recently decreed
by the majority of the senate, as unconstitutional judicial murders;
and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light,
was shown by his significant silence respecting the voluminous
vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other
hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship
was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged
to have been embezzled by him at the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple,
and to transfer the completion of the temple to Pompeius. This was
a masterstroke. Catulus had already been building at the temple
for fifteen years, and seemed very much disposed to die as he had lived
superintendent of the Capitoline buildings; an attack on this abuse
of a public commission--an abuse covered only by the reputation
of the noble commissioner--was in reality entirely justified
and in a high degree popular. But when the prospect was simultaneously
opened up to Pompeius of being allowed to delete the name of Catulus
and engrave his own on this proudest spot of the first city
of the globe, there was offered to him the very thing which most
of all delighted him and did no harm to the democracy--abundant
but empty honour; while at the same time the aristocracy, which could
not possibly allow its best man to fall, was brought into the most
disagreeable collision with Pompeius.
Meanwhile Nepos had brought his proposals concerning Pompeius
before the burgesses. On the day of voting Cato and his friend
and colleague, Quintus Minucius, interposed their veto. When Nepos
did not regard this and continued the reading out, a formal conflict
took place; Cato and Minucius threw themselves on their colleague
and forced him to stop; an armed band liberated him, and drove
the aristocratic section from the Forum; but Cato and Minucius
returned, now supported likewise by armed bands, and ultimately
maintained the field of battle for the government. Encouraged
by this victory of their bands over those of their antagonist,
the senate suspended the tribune Nepos as well as the praetor Caesar,
who had vigorously supported him in the bringing in of the law,
from their offices; their deposition, which was proposed in the senate,
was prevented by Cato, more, doubtless, because it was
unconstitutional than because it was injudicious. Caesar did
not regard the decree, and continued his official functions till
the senate used violence against him. As soon as this was known,
the multitude appeared before his house and placed itself at his
disposal; it was to depend solely on him whether the struggle
in the streets should begin, or whether at least the proposals made
by Metellus should now be resumed and the military command in Italy
desired by Pompeius should be procured for him; but this was not
in Caesar's interest, and so he induced the crowds to disperse,
whereupon the senate recalled the penalty decreed against him.
Nepos himself had, immediately after his suspension, left
the city and embarked for Asia, in order to report to Pompeius
the result of his mission.
Retirement of Pompeius
Pompeius had every reason to be content with the turn which things
had taken. The way to the throne now lay necessarily through civil
war; and he owed it to Cato's incorrigible perversity that he could
begin this war with good reason. After the illegal condemnation
of the adherents of Catilina, after the unparalleled acts of violence
against the tribune of the people Metellus, Pompeius might wage war
at once as defender of the two palladia of Roman public freedom--
the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunate
of the people--against the aristocracy, and as champion of the party
of order against the Catilinarian band. It seemed almost impossible
that Pompeius should neglect this opportunity and with his eyes
open put himself a second time into the painful position, in which
the dismissal of his army in 684 had placed him, and from which
only the Gabinian law had released him. But near as seemed
the opportunity of placing the white chaplet around his brow,
and much as his own soul longed after it, when the question of action
presented itself, his heart and his hand once more failed him.
This man, altogether ordinary in every respect excepting only
his pretensions, would doubtless gladly have placed himself beyond
the law, if only he could have done so without forsaking legal ground.
His very lingering in Asia betrayed a misgiving of this sort.
He might, had he wished, have very well arrived in January 692
with his fleet and army at the port of Brundisium, and have received
Nepos there. His tarrying the whole winter of 691-692 in Asia had
proximately the injurious consequence, that the aristocracy,
which of course accelerated the campaign against Catilina as it best
could, had meanwhile got rid of his bands, and had thus set aside
the most feasible pretext for keeping together the Asiatic legions
in Italy. For a man of the type of Pompeius, who for want of faith
in himself and in his star timidly clung in public life to formal
right, and with whom the pretext was nearly of as much importance
as the motive, this circumstance was of serious weight. He probably
said to himself, moreover, that, even if he dismissed his army,
he did not let it wholly out of his hand, and could in case
of need still raise a force ready for battle sooner at any rate
than any other party-chief; that the democracy was waiting
in submissive attitude for his signal, and that he could deal
with the refractory senate even without soldiers; and such further
considerations as suggested themselves, in which there was exactly
enough of truth to make them appear plausible to one who wished
to deceive himself. Once more the very peculiar temperament
of Pompeius naturally turned the scale. He was one of those men
who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination;
in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark
respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional
everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which
more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every
man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often
been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined
to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily
when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks.
It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate
at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down;
and to this too Pompeius succumbed.
In the autumn of 692 Pompeius embarked for Italy. While in the capital
all was being prepared for receiving the new monarch, news came
that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up
his legions and with a small escort had entered on his journey
to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown
without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did
for Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every
favour and every gift in vain.
Pompeius without Influence
The parties breathed freely. For the second time Pompeius had
abdicated; his already-vanquished competitors might once more begin
the race--in which doubtless the strangest thing was, that Pompeius
was again a rival runner. In January 693 he came to Rome.
His position was an awkward one and vacillated with so much uncertainty
between the parties, that people gave him the nickname of Gnaeus
Cicero. He had in fact lost favour with all. The anarchists saw
in him an adversary, the democrats an inconvenient friend, Marcus
Crassus a rival, the wealthy class an untrustworthy protector,
the aristocracy a declared foe.(2) He was still indeed the most
powerful man in the state; his military adherents scattered through
all Italy, his influence in the provinces, particularly those
of the east, his military fame, his enormous riches gave him a weight
such as no other possessed; but instead of the enthusiastic
reception on which he had counted, the reception which he met
with was more than cool, and still cooler was the treatment given
to the demands which he presented. He requested for himself,
as he had already caused to be announced by Nepos, a second consulship;
demanding also, of course, a confirmation of the arrangements made
by him in the east and a fulfilment of the promise which he had
given to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. Against these
demands a systematic opposition arose in the senate, the chief
elements of which were furnished by the personal exasperation
of Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, the old resentment of Crassus,
and the conscientious folly of Cato. The desired second consulship
was at once and bluntly refused. The very first request
which the returning general addressed to the senate, that the election
of the consuls for 693 might be put off till after his entry
into the capital, had been rejected; much less was there any likelihood
of obtaining from the senate the necessary dispensation from the law
of Sulla as to re-election.(3) As to the arrangements which
he had made in the eastern provinces, Pompeius naturally asked
their confirmation as a whole; Lucullus carried a proposal
thatevery ordinance should be separately discussed and voted upon,
which opened the door for endless annoyances and a multitude of defeats
in detail. The promise of a grant of land to the soldiers
of the Asiatic army was ratified indeed in general by the senate,
but was at the same time extended to the Cretan legions of Metellus;
and--what was worse--it was not executed, because the public chest
was empty and the senate was not disposed to meddle with the domains
for this purpose. Pompeius, in despair of mastering the persistent
and spiteful opposition of the senate, turned to the burgesses.
But he understood still less how to conduct his movements
on this field. The democratic leaders, although they did not
openly oppose him, had no cause at all to make his interests their own,
and so kept aloof. Pompeius' own instruments--such as the consuls
elected by his influence and partly by his money, Marcus Pupius Piso
for 693 and Lucius Afranius for 694--showed themselves unskilful
and useless. When at length the assignation of land for the veterans
of Pompeius was submitted to the burgesses by the tribune
of the people Lucius Flavius in the form of a general agrarian law,
the proposal, not supported by the democrats, openly combated
by the aristocrats, was left in a minority (beg. of 694). The exalted
general now sued almost humbly for the favour of the masses,
for it was on his instigation that the Italian tolls were abolished
by a law introduced by the praetor Metellus Nepos (694). But he played
the demagogue without skill and without success; his reputation
suffered from it, and he did not obtain what he desired. He had
completely run himself into a noose. One of his opponents summed
up his political position at that time by saying that he had
endeavoured "to conserve by silence his embroidered triumphal
mantle." In fact nothing was left for him but to fret.
Rise of Caesar
Then a new combination offered itself. The leader
of the democratic party had actively employed in his own interest
the political calm which had immediately followed on the retirement
of the previous holder of power. When Pompeius returned from Asia,
Caesar had been little more than what Catilina was--the chief
of a political party which had dwindled almost into a club
of conspirators, and a bankrupt. But since that event he had,
after administering the praetorship (692), been invested
with the governorship of Further Spain, and thereby had found means
partly to rid himself of his debts, partly to lay the foundation
for his military repute. His old friend and ally Crassus had been
induced by the hope of finding the support against Pompeius,
which he had lost in Piso,(4) once more in Caesar, to relieve him
even before his departure to the province from the most oppressive
portion of his load of debt. He himself had energetically employed
his brief sojourn there. Returning from Spain in the year 694
with filled chests and as Imperator with well-founded claims
to a triumph, he came forward for the following year as a candidate
for the consulship; for the sake of which, as the senate refused
him permission to announce himself as a candidate for the consular
election in absence, he without hesitation abandoned the honour
of the triumph. For years the democracy had striven to raise
one of its partisans to the possession of the supreme magistracy,
that by way of this bridge it might attain a military power of its own.
It had long been clear to discerning men of all shades that the strife
of parties could not be settled by civil conflict, but only
by military power; but the course of the coalition between
the democracy and the powerful military chiefs, through which the rule
of the senate had been terminated, showed with inexorable clearness
that every such alliance ultimately issued in a subordination
of the civil under the military elements, and that the popular party,
if it would really rule, must not ally itself with generals
properly foreign and even hostile to it, but must make generals
of its own leaders themselves. The attempts made with this view
to carry the election of Catilina as consul, and to gain a military
support in Spain or Egypt, had failed; now a possibility presented
itself of procuring for their most important man the consulship
and the consular province in the usual constitutional way,
and of rendering themselves independent of their dubious and dangerous
ally Pompeius by the establishment, if we may so speak, of a home
power in their own democratic household.
Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar
But the more the democracy could not but desire to open up
for itself this path, which offered not so much the most favourable
as the only prospect of real successes, the more certainly it
might reckon on the resolute resistance of its political opponents.
Everything depended on whom it found opposed to it in this matter.
The aristocracy isolated was not formidable; but it had just been
rendered evident in the Catilinarian affair that it could certainly
still exert some influence, where it was more or less openly
supported by the men of material interests and by the adherents
of Pompeius. It had several times frustrated Catilina's candidature
for the consulship, and that it would attempt the like against
Caesar was sufficiently certain. But, even though Caesar should
perhaps be chosen in spite of it, his election alone did not suffice.
He needed at least some years of undisturbed working out of Italy,
in order to gain a firm military position; and the nobility
assuredly would leave no means untried to thwart his plans
during this time of preparation. The idea naturally occurred,
whether the aristocracy might not be again successfully isolated
as in 683-684, and an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might
not be established between the democrats with their ally Crassus
on the one side and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other.
For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide.
His weight hitherto in the state rested on the fact, that he was
the only party-leader who at the same time disposed of legions--
which, though now dissolved, were still in a certain sense
at his disposal. The plan of the democracy was directed
to the very object of depriving him of this preponderance,
and of placing by his side in their own chief a military rival.
Never could he consent to this, and least of all personally help
to a post of supreme command a man like Caesar, who already
as a mere political agitator had given him trouble enough
and had just furnished the most brilliant proofs also of military
capacity in Spain. But on the other hand, in consequence
of the cavilling opposition of the senate and the indifference
of the multitude to Pompeius and Pompeius' wishes, his position,
particularly with reference to his old soldiers, had become so painful
and so humiliating, that people might well expect from his character
to gain him for such a coalition at the price of releasing him
from that disagreeable situation. And as to the so-called
equestrian party, it was to be found on whatever side the power lay;
and as a matter of course it would not let itself be long waited for,
if it saw Pompeius and the democracy combining anew in earnest.
It happened moreover, that on account of Cato's severity--
otherwise very laudable--towards the lessees of the taxes,
the great capitalists were just at this time once more
at vehement variance with the senate.
Change in the Position of Caesar
So the second coalition was concluded in the summer of 694.
Caesar was assured of the consulship for the following year
and a governorship in due course; to Pompeius was promised
the ratification of his arrangements made in the east,
and an assignation of lands for the soldiers of the Asiatic army;
to the equites Caesar likewise promised to procure for them
by means of the burgesses what the senate had refused; Crassus
in fine--the inevitable--was allowed at least to join the league,
although without obtaining definite promises for an accession
which he could not refuse. It was exactly the same elements,
and indeed the same persons, who concluded the league with one another
in the autumn of 683 and in the summer of 694; but how entirely different
was the position of the parties then and now! Then the democracy
was nothing but a political party, while its allies were victorious
generals at the head of their armies; now the leader of the democracy
was himself an Imperator crowned with victory and full
of magnificent military schemes, while his allies were retired
generals without any army. Then the democracy conquered
in questions of principle, and in return for that victory conceded
the highest offices of state to its two confederates; now it had
become more practical and grasped the supreme civil and military
power for itself, while concessions were made to its allies only
in subordinate points and, significantly enough, not even the old
demand of Pompeius for a second consulship was attended to. Then
the democracy sacrificed itself to its allies; now these had
to entrust themselves to it. All the circumstances were completely
changed, most of all, however, the character of the democracy
itself. No doubt it had, ever since it existed at all,
contained at its very core a monarchic element; but the ideal
of a constitution, which floated in more or less clear outline before
its best intellects, was always that of a civil commonwealth,
a Periclean organization of the state, in which the power
of the prince rested on the fact that he represented the burgesses
in the noblest and most accomplished manner, and the most accomplished
and noblest part of the burgesses recognized him as the man in whom
they thoroughly confided. Caesar too set out with such views;
but they were simply ideals, which might have some influence
on realities, but could not be directly realized. Neither the simple
civil power, as Gaius Gracchus possessed it, nor the arming
of the democratic party, such as Cinna though in a very inadequate
fashion had attempted, was able to maintain a permanent superiority
in the Roman commonwealth; the military machine fighting not for a party
but for a general, the rude force of the condottieri--after having
first appeared on the stage in the service of the restoration--soon
showed itself absolutely superior to all political parties. Caesar
could not but acquire a conviction of this amidst the practical
workings of party, and accordingly he matured the momentous
resolution of making this military machine itself serviceable
to his ideals, and of erecting such a commonwealth, as he had
in his view, by the power of condottieri. With this design
he concluded in 683 the league with the generals of the opposite party,
which, notwithstanding that they had accepted the democratic programme,
yet brought the democracy and Caesar himself to the brink
of destruction. With the same design he himself came forward eleven
years afterwards as a condottiere. It was done in both cases
with a certain naivete--with good faith in the possibility
of his being able to found a free commonwealth, if not by the swords
of others, at any rate by his own. We perceive without difficulty
that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit
into his service without becoming himself enslaved to it;
but the greatest men are not those who err the least.
If we still after so many centuries bow in reverence before what
Caesar willed and did, it is not because he desired and gained
a crown (to do which is, abstractly, as little of a great thing
as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal--of a free commonwealth
under one ruler--never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch
from sinking into vulgar royalty.
Caesar Consul
The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without
difficulty by the united parties. The aristocracy had to rest
content with giving to him--by means of a bribery, for which
the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited
surprise even in that period of deepest corruption--a colleague
in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy
was regarded in their circles as conservative energy,
and whose good intentions at least were not at fault if the genteel
lords did not get a fit return for their patriotic expenditure.
Caesar's Agrarian Law
As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion the requests of his
confederates, among which the assignation of land to the veterans
of the Asiatic army was by far the most important. The agrarian
law projected for this purpose by Caesar adhered in general
to the principles set forth in the project of law, which was introduced
in the previous year at the suggestion of Pompeius but not carried.(5)
There was destined for distribution only the Italian domain-land,
that is to say, substantially, the territory of Capua, and, if this
should not suffice, other Italian estates were to be purchased
out of the revenue of the new eastern provinces at the taxable value
recorded in the censorial rolls; all existing rights of property
and heritable possession thus remained unaffected. The individual
allotments were small. The receivers of land were to be poor
burgesses, fathers of at least three children; the dangerous
principle, that the rendering of military service gave a claim
to landed estate, was not laid down, but, as was reasonable and had
been done at all times, the old soldiers as well as the temporary
lessees to be ejected were simply recommended to the special
consideration of the land-distributors. The execution of the measure
was entrusted to a commission of twenty men, into which Caesar
distinctly declared that he did not wish to be himself elected.
Opposition of the Aristocracy
The opposition had a difficult task in resisting this proposal.
It could not rationally be denied, that the state-finances ought
after the erection of the provinces of Pontus and Syria to be
in a position to dispense with the moneys from the Campanian leases;
that it was unwarrantable to withhold one of the finest districts
of Italy, and one peculiarly fitted for small holdings,
from private enterprise; and, lastly, that it was as unjust as it
was ridiculous, after the extension of the franchise to all Italy,
still to withhold municipal rights from the township of Capua.
The whole proposal bore the stamp of moderation, honesty, and solidity,
with which a democratic party-character was very dexterously
combined; for in substance it amounted to the re-establishment
of the Capuan colony founded in the time of Marius and again
done away by Sulla.(6) In form too Caesar observed all possible
consideration. He laid the project of the agrarian law, as well
as the proposal to ratify collectively the ordinances issued
by Pompeius in the east, and the petition of the farmers of the taxes
for remission of a third of the sums payable by them, in the first
instance before the senate for approval, and declared himself
ready to entertain and discuss proposals for alterations.
The corporation had now opportunity of convincing itself how foolishly
it had acted in driving Pompeius and the equites into the arms
of the adversary by refusing these requests. Perhaps it was
the secret sense of this, that drove the high-born lords to the most
vehement opposition, which contrasted ill with the calm demeanour
of Caesar. The agrarian law was rejected by them nakedly and even
without discussion. The decree as to the arrangements of Pompeius
in Asia found quite as little favour in their eyes. Cato attempted,
in accordance with the disreputable custom of Roman parliamentary
debate, to kill the proposal regarding the farmers of the taxes
by speaking, that is, to prolong his speech up to the legal hour
for closing the sitting; when Caesar threatened to have the stubborn
man arrested, this proposal too was at length rejected.
Proposals before the Burgesses
Of course all the proposals were now brought before the burgesses.
Without deviating far from the truth, Caesar could tell
the multitude that the senate had scornfully rejected most rational
and most necessary proposals submitted to it in the most respectful
form, simply because they came from the democratic consul.
When he added that the aristocrats had contrived a plot to procure
the rejection of the proposals, and summoned the burgesses,
and more especially Pompeius himself and his old soldiers, to stand
by him against fraud and force, this too was by no means a mere invention.
The aristocracy, with the obstinate weak creature Bibulus
and the unbending dogmatical fool Cato at their head, in reality
intended to push the matter to open violence. Pompeius, instigated
by Caesar to proclaim his position with reference to the pending
question, declared bluntly, as was not his wont on other occasions,
that if any one should venture to draw the sword, he too would
grasp his, and in that case would not leave the shield at home;
Crassus expressed himself to the same effect The old soldiers
of Pompeius were directed to appear on the day of the vote--
which in fact primarily concerned them--in great numbers,
and with arms under their dress, at the place of voting.
The nobility however left no means untried to frustrate the proposals
of Caesar. On each day when Caesar appeared before the people,
his colleague Bibulus instituted the well-known political observations
of the weather which interrupted all public business;(7) Caesar
did not trouble himself about the skies, but continued to prosecute
his terrestrial occupation. The tribunician veto was interposed;
Caesar contented himself with disregarding it. Bibulus and Cato
sprang to the rostra, harangued the multitude, and instigated
the usual riot; Caesar ordered that they should be led away
by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm
should befall them--it was for his interest that the political
comedy should remain such as it was.
The Agrarian Law Carried
Passive Resistance of the Aristocracy
Notwithstanding all the chicanery and all the blustering
of the nobility, the agrarian law, the confirmation of the Asiatic
arrangements, and the remission to the lessees of taxes
were adopted by the burgesses; and the commission of twenty was elected
with Pompeius and Crassus at its head, and installed in office.
With all their exertions the aristocracy had gained nothing,
save that their blind and spiteful antagonism had drawn the bonds
of the coalition still tighter, and their energy, which they were soon
to need for matters more important, had exhausted itself
on these affairs that were at bottom indifferent. They congratulated
each other on the heroic courage which they had displayed;
the declaration of Bibulus that he would rather die than yield,
the peroration which Cato still continued to deliver when in the hands
of the lictors, were great patriotic feats; otherwise they resigned
themselves to their fate. The consul Bibulus shut himself up
for the remainder of the year in his house, while he at the same time
intimated by public placard that he had the pious intention
of watching the signs of the sky on all the days appropriate
for public assemblies during that year. His colleagues once more
admired the great man who, as Ennius had said of the old Fabius,
"saved the state by wise delay," and they followed his example;
most of them, Cato included, no longer appeared in the senate,
but within their four walls helped their consul to fret over
the fact that the history of the world went on in spite of political
astronomy. To the public this passive attitude of the consul
as well as of the aristocracy in general appeared, as it fairly might,
a political abdication; and the coalition were naturally very well
content that they were left to take their farther steps almost
undisturbed.
Caesar Governor of the Two Gauls
The most important of these steps was the regulating of the future
position of Caesar. Constitutionally it devolved on the senate
to fix the functions of the second consular year of office before
the election of the consuls took place; accordingly it had, in prospect
of the election of Caesar, selected with that view for 696 two
provinces in which the governor should find no other employment
than the construction of roads and other such works of utility.
Of course the matter could not so remain; it was determined among
the confederates, that Caesar should obtain by decree of the people
an extraordinary command formed on the model of the Gabinio-Manilian
laws. Caesar however had publicly declared that he would introduce
no proposal in his own favour; the tribune of the people Publius
Vatinius therefore undertook to submit the proposal to the burgesses,
who naturally gave their unconditional assent. By this means
Caesar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and the supreme
command of the three legions which were stationed there
and were already experienced in border warfare under Lucius Afranius,
along with the same rank of propraetor for his adjutants
which those of Pompeius had enjoyed; this office was secured to him
for five years--a longer period than had ever before been assigned
to any general whose appointment was limited to a definite time
at all. The Transpadanes, who for years had in hope of the franchise
been the clients of the democratic party in Rome and of Caesar
in particular,(8) formed the main portion of his province.
His jurisdiction extended south as far as the Arnus and the Rubico,
and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently there was added to Caesar's
official district the province of Narbo with the one legion
stationed there--a resolution adopted by the senate on the proposal
of Pompeius, that it might at least not see this command
also pass to Caesar by extraordinary decree of the burgesses.
What was wished was thus attained. As no troops could constitutionally
be stationed in Italy proper,(9) the commander of the legions
of northern Italy and Gaul dominated at the same time Italy and Rome
for the next five years; and he who was master for five years
was master for life. The consulship of Caesar had attained its object.
As a matter of course, the new holders of power did not neglect
withal to keep the multitude in good humour by games and amusements
of all sorts, and they embraced every opportunity of filling their
exchequer; in the case of the king of Egypt, for instance,
the decree of the people, which recognized him as legitimate ruler,(10)
was sold to him by the coalition at a high price, and in like manner
other dynasts and communities acquired charters and privileges
on this occasion.
Measures Adopted by the Allies for Their Security
The permanence of the arrangements made seemed also sufficiently
secured. The consulship was, at least for the next year, entrusted
to safe hands. The public believed at first, that it was destined
for Pompeius and Crassus themselves; the holders of power however
preferred to procure the election of two subordinate but trustworth
men of their party--Aulus Gabinius, the best among Pompeius' adjutants,
and Lucius Piso, who was less important but was Caesar's father-in-law--
as consuls for 696. Pompeius personally undertook to watch over Italy,
where at the head of the commission of twenty he prosecuted the execution
of the agrarian law and furnished nearly 20,000 burgesses,
in great part old soldiers from his army, with land in the territory
of Capua. Caesar's north-Italian legions served to back him
against the opposition in the capital. There existed no prospect,
immediately at least, of a rupture among the holders of power themselves.
The laws issued by Caesar as consul, in the maintenance of which
Pompeius was at least as much interested as Caesar, formed
a guarantee for the continuance of the breach between Pompeius
and the aristocracy--whose heads, and Cato in particular,
continued to treat these laws as null--and thereby a guarantee
for the subsistence of the coalition. Moreover, the personal bonds
of connection between its chiefs were drawn closer. Caesar had
honestly and faithfully kept his word to his confederates
without curtailing or cheating them of what he had promised,
and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed
in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own,
with dexterity and energy; Pompeius was not insensible to upright
dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man
who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part
of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent
and familiar intercourse with a man of the irresistible amiableness
of Caesar did what was farther requisite to convert the alliance
of interests into an alliance of friendship. The result
and the pledge of this friendship--at the same time, doubtless,
a public announcement which could hardly be misunderstood
of the newly established conjoint rule--was the marriage of Pompeius
with Caesar's only daughter, three-and-twenty years of age.
Julia, who had inherited the charm of her father, lived
in the happiest domestic relations with her husband, who was
nearly twice as old; and the burgesses longing for rest
and order after so many troubles and crises, saw in this nuptial
alliance the guarantee of a peaceful and prosperous future.
Situation of the Aristocracy
The more firmly and closely the alliance was thus cemented
between Pompeius and Caesar, the more hopeless grew the cause
of the aristocracy. They felt the sword suspended over their head
and knew Caesar sufficiently to have no doubt that he would,
if necessary, use it without hesitation. "On all sides," wrote
one of them, "we are checkmated; we have already through fear of death
or of banishment despaired of 'freedom'; every one sighs,
no one ventures to speak." More the confederates could not desire.
But though the majority of the aristocracy was in this desirable
frame of mind, there was, of course, no lack of Hotspurs among
this party. Hardly had Caesar laid down the consulship, when some
of the most violent aristocrats, Lucius Domitius and Gaius Memmius,
proposed in a full senate the annulling of the Julian laws.
This indeed was simply a piece of folly, which redounded only
to the benefit of the coalition; for, when Caesar now himself
insisted that the senate should investigate the validity of the laws
assailed, the latter could not but formally recognize their
legality. But, as may readily be conceived, the holders of power
found in this a new call to make an example of some of the most
notable and noisiest of their opponents, and thereby to assure
themselves that the remainder would adhere to that fitting policy
of sighing and silence. At first there had been a hope
that the clause of the agrarian law, which as usual required
all the senators to take an oath to the new law on pain of forfeiting
their political rights, would induce its most vehement opponents
to banish themselves, after the example of Metellus Numidicus,(11)
by refusing the oath. But these did not show themselves
so complaisant; even the rigid Cato submitted to the oath,
and his Sanchos followed him. A second, far from honourable,
attempt to threaten the heads of the aristocracy with criminal
impeachments on account of an alleged plot for the murder of Pompeius,
and so to drive them into exile, was frustrated by the incapacity
of the instruments; the informer, one Vettius, exaggerated
and contradicted himself so grossly, and the tribune Vatinius,
who directed the foul scheme, showed his complicity with that Vettius
so clearly, that it was found advisable to strangle the latter
in prison and to let the whole matter drop. On this occasion however
they had obtained sufficient evidence of the total disorganization
of the aristocracy and the boundless alarm of the genteel lords:
even a man like Lucius Lucullus had thrown himself in person
at Caesar's feet and publicly declared that he found himself compelled
by reason of his great age to withdraw from public life.
Cato and Cicero Removed
Ultimately therefore they were content with a few isolated victims.
It was of primary importance to remove Cato, who made no secret
of his conviction as to the nullity of all the Julian laws,
and who was a man to act as he thought. Such a man Marcus Cicero
was certainly not, and they did not give themselves the trouble
to fear him. But the democratic party, which played the leading part
in the coalition, could not possibly after its victory leave
unpunished the judicial murder of the 5th December 691, which it
had so loudly and so justly censured. Had they wished to bring
to account the real authors of the fatal decree, they ought
to have seized not on the pusillanimous consul, but on the section
of the strict aristocracy which had urged the timorous man
to that execution. But in formal law it was certainly not the advisers
of the consul, but the consul himself, that was responsible for it,
and it was above all the gentler course to call the consul alone
to account and to leave the senatorial college wholly out of the case;
for which reason in the grounds of the proposal directed against
Cicero the decree of the senate, in virtue of which he ordered
the execution, was directly described as supposititious. Even against
Cicero the holders of power would gladly have avoided steps
that attracted attention; but he could not prevail on himself either
to give to those in power the guarantees which they required,
or to banish himself from Rome under one of the feasible pretexts
on several occasions offered to him, or even to keep silence.
With the utmost desire to avoid any offence and the most sincere alarm,
he yet had not self-control enough to be prudent; the word had
to come out, when a petulant witticism stung him, or when his self-
conceit almost rendered crazy by the praise of so many noble lords
gave vent to the well-cadenced periods of the plebeian advocate.
Clodius
The execution of the measures resolved on against Cato and Cicero
was committed to the loose and dissolute, but clever and pre-
eminently audacious Publius Clodius, who had lived for years
in the bitterest enmity with Cicero, and, with the view of satisfying
that enmity and playing a part as demagogue, had got himself converted
under the consulship of Caesar by a hasty adoption from a patrician
into a plebeian, and then chosen as tribune of the people
for the year 696. To support Clodius, the proconsul Caesar remained
in the immediate vicinity of the capital till the blow was struck
against the two victims. Agreeably to the instructions
which he had received, Clodius proposed to the burgesses to entrust
Cato with the regulation of the complicated municipal affairs
of the Byzantines and with the annexation of the kingdom of Cyprus,
which as well as Egypt had fallen to the Romans by the testament
of Alexander II, but had not like Egypt bought off the Roman
annexation, and the king of which, moreover, had formerly given
personal offence to Clodius. As to Cicero, Clodius brought in
a project of law which characterized the execution of a burgess
without trial and sentence as a crime to be punished with banishment.
Cato was thus removed by an honourable mission, while Cicero
was visited at least with the gentlest possible punishment and,
besides, was not designated by name in the proposal. But they did not
refuse themselves the pleasure, on the one hand, of punishing
a man notoriously timid and belonging to the class of political
weathercocks for the conservative energy which he displayed,
and, on the other hand, of investing the bitter opponent
of all interferences of the burgesses in administration
and of all extraordinary commands with such a command conferred
by decree of the burgesses themselves; and with similar humour
the proposal respecting Cato was based on the ground of the abnormal
virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified
to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation
of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement.
Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful
deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar
in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance.
It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate,
with the view of protesting in some way against the mockery
and censure of their decree in the matter of Catilina, publicly
put on mourning, and that Cicero himself, now when it was too late,
fell on his knees and besought mercy from Pompeius; he had to banish
himself even before the passing of the law which debarred him
from his native land (April 696). Cato likewise did not venture
to provoke sharper measures by declining the commission
which he had received, but accepted itand embarked for the east.(12)
What was most immediately necessary was done; Caesar too
might leave Italy to devote himself to more serious tasks.