Chapter IX

Death of Crassus--Rupture between the Joint Rulers

Crassus Goes to Syria

Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads

of the "three-headed monster," without any proper title

to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance

between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak

more accurately, his weight fell into the scale of Caesar

against Pompeius. This part is not a too reputable one;

but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour

from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open

to be dealt with. What was offered to him was not much;

but, when more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought

to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin

at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless,

amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference

at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with the view

of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius

after concessions so extensive, Caesar gave to his old confederate

Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war

the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war

in Gaul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects

proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become

at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense

with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been

long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast

and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early

as the beginning of 700; he had not even waited for the expiry

of his consulship to depart. Full of impatient ardour he seemed desirous

to redeem every minute with the view of making up for what he had lost,

of gathering in the treasures of the east in addition to those

of the west, of achieving the power and glory of a general

as rapidly as Caesar, and with as little trouble as Pompeius.

Expedition against Parthia Resolved on

He found the Parthian war already commenced. The faithless conduct

of Pompeius towards the Parthians has been already mentioned;(1)

he had not respected the stipulated frontier of the Euphrates

and had wrested several provinces from the Parthian empire

for the benefit of Armenia, which was now a client state of Rome.

King Phraates had submitted to this treatment; but after he had been

murdered by his two sons Mithradates and Orodes, the new king

Mithradates immediately declared war on the king of Armenia, Artavasdes,

son of the recently deceased Tigranes (about 698).(2) This was

at the same time a declaration of war against Rome; therefore

as soon as the revolt of the Jews was suppressed, Gabinius,

the able and spirited governor of Syria, led the legions

over the Euphrates. Meanwhile, however, a revolution had occurred

in the Parthian empire; the grandees of the kingdom, with the young,

bold, and talented grand vizier at their head, had overthrown

king Mithradates and placed his brother Orodes on the throne.

Mithradates therefore made common cause with the Romans

and resorted to the camp of Gabinius. Everything promised

the best results to the enterprise of the Roman governor,

when he unexpectedly received orders to conduct the king of Egypt

back by force of arms to Alexandria.(3) He was obliged to obey;

but, in the expectation of soon coming back, he induced the dethroned

Parthian prince who solicited aid from him to commence the war

in the meanwhile at his own hand. Mithradates did so; and Seleucia

and Babylon declared for him; but the vizier captured Seleucia

by assault, having been in person the first to mount the battlements,

and in Babylon Mithradates himself was forced by famine to surrender,

whereupon he was by his brother's orders put to death.

His death was a palpable loss to the Romans; but it by no means

put an end to the ferment in the Parthian empire, and the Armenian war

continued. Gabinius, after ending the Egyptian campaign,

was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable

opportunity and resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus

arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans

of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated

the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance

in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke

confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already

in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms of Bactria and India.

Plan of the Campaign

The new Alexander, however, was in no haste. Before he carried

into effect these great plans, he found leisure for very tedious

and very lucrative collateral transactions. The temples of Derceto

at Hierapolis Bambyce and of Jehovah at Jerusalem and other rich shrines

of the Syrian province, were by order of Crassus despoiled

of their treasures; and contingents or, still better, sums of money

instead were levied from all the subjects. The military operations

of the first summer were limited to an extensive reconnaissance

in Mesopotamia; the Euphrates was crossed, the Parthian satrap

was defeated at Ichnae (on the Belik to the north of Rakkah),

and the neighbouring towns, including the considerable one of Nicephorium

(Rakkah), were occupied, after which the Romans having left garrisons

behind in them returned to Syria. They had hitherto been in doubt

whether it was more advisable to march to Parthia by the circuitous route

of Armenia or by the direct route through the Mesopotamian desert.

The first route, leading through mountainous regions under the control

of trustworthy allies, commended itself by its greater safety;

king Artavasdes came in person to the Roman headquarters

to advocate this plan of the campaign. But that reconnaissance

decided in favour of the march through Mesopotamia. The numerous

and flourishing Greek and half-Greek towns in the regions

along the Euphrates and Tigris, above all the great city

of Seleucia, were altogether averse to the Parthian rule;

all the Greek townships with which the Romans came into contact had now,

like the citizens of Carrhae at an earlier time,(4) practically shown

how ready they were to shake off the intolerable foreign yoke

and to receive the Romans as deliverers, almost as countrymen.

The Arab prince Abgarus, who commanded the desert of Edessa and Carrhae

and thereby the usual route from the Euphrates to the Tigris,

had arrived in the camp of the Romans to assure them in person

of his devotedness. The Parthians had appeared to be wholly unprepared.

The Euphrates Crossed

Accordingly (701) the Euphrates was crossed (near Biradjik).

To reach the Tigris from this point they had the choice

of two routes; either the army might move downward along the Euphrates

to the latitude of Seleucia where the Euphrates and Tigris

are only a few miles distant from each other; or they might

immediately after crossing take the shortest line to the Tigris

right across the great Mesopotamian desert. The former route

led directly to the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, which lay opposite

Seleucia on the other bank of the Tigris; several weighty voices

were raised in favour of this route in the Roman council of war;

in particular the quaestor Gaius Cassius pointed to the difficulties

of the march in the desert, and to the suspicious reports arriving

from the Roman garrisons on the left bank of the Euphrates

as to the Parthian warlike preparations. But in opposition to this

the Arab prince Abgarus announced that the Parthians were employed

in evacuating their western provinces. They had already packed up

their treasures and put themselves in motion to flee to the Hyrcanians

and Scythians; only through a forced march by the shortest route

was it at all possible still to reach them; but by such a march

the Romans would probably succeed in overtaking and cutting up at least

the rear-guard of the great army under Sillaces and the vizier,

and obtaining enormous spoil. These reports of the friendly Bedouins

decided the direction of the march; the Roman army, consisting

of seven legions, 4000 cavalry, and 4000 slingers and archers,

turned off from the Euphrates and away into the inhospitable plains

of northern Mesopotamia.

The March in the Desert

Far and wide not an enemy showed himself; only hunger and thirst,

and the endless sandy desert, seemed to keep watch at the gates

of the east. At length, after many days of toilsome marching, not far

from the first river which the Roman army had to cross,

the Balissus (Belik), the first horsemen of the enemy were descried.

Abgarus with his Arabs was sent out to reconnoitre; the Parthian

squadrons retired up to and over the river and vanished

in the distance, pursued by Abgarus and his followers. With impatience

the Romans waited for his return and for more exact information.

The general hoped here at length to come upon the constantly

retreating foe; his young and brave son Publius, who had fought

with the greatest distinction in Gaul under Caesar,(5) and had been sent

by the latter at the head of a Celtic squadron of horse to take part

in the Parthian war, was inflamed with a vehement desire

for the fight. When no tidings came, they resolved to advance

at a venture; the signal for starting was given, the Balissus

was crossed, the army after a brief insufficient rest at noon

was led on without delay at a rapid pace. Then suddenly the kettledrums

of the Parthians sounded all around; on every side their silken

gold-embroidered banners were seen waving, and their iron helmets

and coats of mail glittering in the blaze of the hot noonday sun;

and by the side of the vizier stood prince Abgarus with his Bedouins.

Roman and Parthian Systems of Warfare

The Romans saw too late the net into which they had allowed themselves

to be ensnared. With sure glance the vizier had thoroughly seen

both the danger and the means of meeting it. Nothing could

be accomplished against the Roman infantry of the line

with Oriental infantry; so he had rid himself of it, and by

sending a mass, which was useless in the main field of battle,

under the personal leadership of king Orodes to Armenia,

he had prevented king Artavasdes from allowing the promised

10,000 heavy cavalry to join the army of Crassus, who now painfully

felt the want of them. On the other hand the vizier met the Roman

tactics, unsurpassed of their kind, with a system entirely different.

His army consisted exclusively of cavalry; the line was formed of the

heavy horsemen armed with long thrusting-lances, and protected, man

and horse, by a coat of mail of metallic plates or a leathern doublet

and by similar greaves; the mass of the troops consisted of mounted

archers. As compared with these, the Romans were thoroughly inferior

in the corresponding arms both as to number and excellence. Their

infantry of the line, excellent as they were in close combat, whether

at a short distance with the heavy javelin or in hand-to-hand combat

with the sword, could not compel an army consisting merely of cavalry

to come to an engagement with them; and they found, even when they

did come to a hand-to-hand conflict, an equal if not superior

adversary in the iron-clad hosts of lancers. As compared with an

army like this Parthian one, the Roman army was at a disadvantage

strategically, because the cavalry commanded the communications;

and at a disadvantage tactically, because every weapon of close

combat must succumb to that which is wielded from a distance,

unless the struggle becomes an individual one, man against man.

The concentrated position, on which the whole Roman method of war

was based, increased the danger in presence of such an attack;

the closer the ranks of the Roman column, the more irresistible

certainly was its onset, but the less also could the missiles

fail to hit their mark. Under ordinary circumstances,

where towns have to be defended and difficulties of the ground

have to be considered, such tactics operating merely with cavalry

against infantry could never be completely carried out;

but in the Mesopotamian desert, where the army, almost like a ship

on the high seas, neither encountered an obstacle nor met

with a basis for strategic dispositions during many days' march,

this mode of warfare was irresistible for the very reason

that circumstances allowed it to be developed there in all its purity

and therefore in all its power. There everything combined to put

the foreign infantry at a disadvantage against the native cavalry.

Where the heavy-laden Roman foot-soldier dragged himself toilsomely

through the sand or the steppe, and perished from hunger or still more

from thirst amid the pathless route marked only by water-springs

that were far apart and difficult to find, the Parthian horseman,

accustomed from childhood to sit on his fleet steed or camel,

nay almost to spend his life in the saddle, easily traversed

the desert whose hardships he had long learned how to lighten

or in case of need to endure. There no rain fell to mitigate

the intolerable heat, and to slacken the bowstrings and leathern thongs

of the enemy's archers and slingers; there amidst the deep sand

at many places ordinary ditches and ramparts could hardly be formed

for the camp. Imagination can scarcely conceive a situation

in which all the military advantages were more on the one side,

and all the disadvantages more thoroughly on the other.

To the question, under what circumstances this new style

of tactics, the first national system that on its own proper ground

showed itself superior to the Roman, arose among the Parthians,

we unfortunately can only reply by conjectures. The lancers

and mounted archers were of great antiquity in the east, and already

formed the flower of the armies of Cyrus and Darius; but hitherto

these arms had been employed only as secondary, and essentially

to cover the thoroughly useless Oriental infantry. The Parthian armies

also by no means differed in this respect from the other Oriental ones;

armies are mentioned, five-sixths of which consisted of infantry.

In the campaign of Crassus, on the other hand, the cavalry

for the first time came forward independently, and this arm

obtained quite a new application and quite a different value.

The irresistible superiority of the Roman infantry in close combat

seems to have led the adversaries of Rome in very different parts

of the world independently of each other--at the same time

and with similar success--to meet it with cavalry and distant weapons.

What as completely successful with Cassivellaunus in Britain(6)

and partially successful with Vercingetorix in Gaul(7)--

what was to a certain degree attempted even by Mithradates Eupator(8)--

the vizier of Orodes carried out only on a larger scale

and more completely. And in doing so he had special advantages:

for he found in the heavy cavalry the means of forming a line; the bow

which was national in the east and was handled with masterly skill

in the Persian provinces gave him an effective weapon for distant combat;

and lastly the peculiarities of the country and the people

enabled him freely to realize his brilliant idea. Here, where

the Roman weapons of close combat and the Roman system of concentration

yielded for the first time before the weapons of more distant warfare

and the system of deploying, was initiated that military revolution

which only reached its completion with the introduction of firearms.

Battle near Carrhae

Under such circumstances the first battle between the Romans

and Parthians was fought amidst the sandy desert thirty miles

to the south of Carrhae (Harran) where there was a Roman garrison,

and at a somewhat less distance to the north of Ichnae. The Roman

archers were sent forward, but retired immediately before the enormous

numerical superiority and the far greater elasticity and range

of the Parthian bows. The legions, which, in spite of the advice

of the more sagacious officers that they should be deployed

as much as possible against the enemy, had been drawn up

in a dense square of twelve cohorts on each side, were soon outflanked

and overwhelmed with the formidable arrows, which under such circumstances

hit their man even without special aim, and against which the soldiers

had no means of retaliation. The hope that the enemy might expend

his missiles vanished with a glance at the endless range of camels

laden with arrows. The Parthians were still extending their line.

That the outflanking might not end in surrounding, Publius Crassus

advanced to the attack with a select corps of cavalry, archers,

and infantry of the line. The enemy in fact abandoned the attempt

to close the circle, and retreated, hotly pursued by the impetuous

leader of the Romans. But, when the corps of Publius had totally lost

sight of the main army, the heavy cavalry made a stand against it,

and the Parthian host hastening up from all sides closed in

like a net round it. Publius, who saw his troops falling thickly

and vainly around him under the arrows of the mounted archers,

threw himself in desperation with his Celtic cavalry unprotected

by any coats of mail on the iron-clad lancers of the enemy;

but the death-despising valour of his Celts, who seized the lances

with their hands or sprang from their horses to stab the enemy,

performed its marvels in vain. The remains of the corps,

including their leader wounded in the sword-arm, were driven

to a slight eminence, where they only served for an easier mark

to the enemy's archers. Mesopotamian Greeks, who were accurately

acquainted with the country, adjured Crassus to ride off with them

and make an attempt to escape; but he refused to separate his fate

from that of the brave men whom his too-daring courage

had led to death, and he caused himself to be stabbed by the hand

of his shield-bearer. Following his example, most of the still

surviving officers put themselves to death. Of the whole division,

about 6000 strong, not more than 500 were taken prisoners;

no one was able to escape. Meanwhile the attack on the main army

had slackened, and the Romans were but too glad to rest.

When at length the absence of any tidings from the corps

sent out startled them out of the deceitful calm, and they drew near

to the scene of the battle for the purpose of learning its fate,

the head of the son was displayed on a pole before his father's eyes;

and the terrible onslaught began once more against the main army

with the same fury and the same hopeless uniformity. They could

neither break the ranks of the lancers nor reach the archers;

night alone put an end to the slaughter. Had the Parthians bivouacked

on the battle-field, hardly a man of the Roman army would have escaped.

But not trained to fight otherwise than on horseback, and therefore

afraid of a surprise, they were wont never to encamp close to the enemy;

jeeringly they shouted to the Romans that they would give the general

a night to bewail his son, and galloped off to return next morning

and despatch the game that lay bleeding on the ground.

Retreat to Carrhae

Of course the Romans did not wait for the morning. The lieutenant-

generals Cassius and Octavius--Crassus himself had completely

lost his judgment--ordered the men still capable of marching

to set out immediately and with the utmost silence (while the whole--

said to amount to 4000--of the wounded and stragglers were left),

with the view of seeking protection within the walls of Carrhae.

The fact that the Parthians, when they returned on the following day,

applied themselves first of all to seek out and massacre

the scattered Romans left behind, and the further fact that the garrison

and inhabitants of Carrhae, early informed of the disaster by fugitives,

had marched forth in all haste to meet the beaten army, saved the remnants

of it from what seemed inevitable destruction.

Departure from Carrhae

Surprise at Sinnaca

The squadrons of Parthian horsemen could not think of undertaking

a siege of Carrhae. But the Romans soon voluntarily departed,

whether compelled by want of provisions, or in consequence

of the desponding precipitation of their commander-in-chief,

whom the soldiers had vainly attempted to remove from the command

and to replace by Cassius. They moved in the direction of the Armenian

mountains; marching by night and resting by day Octavius with a band

of 5000 men reached the fortress of Sinnaca, which was only

a day's march distant from the heights that would give shelter,

and liberated even at the peril of his own life the commander-in-chief,

whom the guide had led astray and given up to the enemy.

Then the vizier rode in front of the Roman camp to offer,

in the name of his king, peace and friendship to the Romans,

and to propose a personal conference between the two generals.

The Roman army, demoralized as it was, adjured and indeed compelled

its leader to accept the offer. The vizier received the consular

and his staff with the usual honours, and offered anew to conclude

a compact of friendship; only, with just bitterness recalling the fate

of the agreements concluded with Lucullus and Pompeius respecting

the Euphrates boundary,(9) he demanded that it should be immediately

reduced to writing. A richly adorned horse was produced;

it was a present from the king to the Roman commander-in-chief;

the servants of the vizier crowded round Crassus, zealous to mount him

on the steed. It seemed to the Roman officers as if there was a design

to seize the person of the commander-in-chief; Octavius, unarmed

as he was, pulled the sword of one of the Parthians from its sheath

and stabbed the groom. In the tumult which thereupon arose,

the Roman officers were all put to death; the gray-haired commander-

in-chief also, like his grand-uncle,(10) was unwilling to serve

as a living trophy to the enemy, and sought and found death.

The multitude left behind in the camp without a leader were partly

taken prisoners, partly dispersed. What the day of Carrhae had begun,

the day of Sinnaca completed (June 9, 701); the two took their place

side by side with the days of the Allia, of Cannae, and of Arausio.

The army of the Euphrates was no more. Only the squadron

of Gaius Cassius, which had been broken off from the main army

on the retreat from Carrhae, and some other scattered bands

and isolated fugitives succeeded in escaping from the Parthians

and Bedouins and separately finding their way back to Syria.

Of above 40,000 Roman legionaries, who had crossed the Euphrates,

not a fourth part returned; the half had perished; nearly 10,000

Roman prisoners were settled by the victors in the extreme east

of their kingdom--in the oasis of Merv--as bondsmen compelled

after the Parthian fashion to render military service.

For the first time since the eagles had headed the legions,

they had become in the same year trophies of victory in the hands

of foreign nations, almost contemporaneously of a German tribe

in the west(11) and of the Parthians in the east. As to the impression

which the defeat of the Romans produced in the east, unfortunately

no adequate information has reached us; but it must have been deep

and lasting. King Orodes was just celebrating the marriage of his son

Pacorus with the sister of his new ally, Artavasdes the king of Armenia,

when the announcement of the victory of his vizier arrived,

and along with it, according to Oriental usage, the cut-off head

of Crassus. The tables were already removed; one of the wandering

companies of actors from Asia Minor, numbers of which at that time

existed and carried Hellenic poetry and the Hellenic drama

far into the east, was just performing before the assembled court

the -Bacchae- of Euripides. The actor playing the part of Agave,

who in her Dionysiac frenzy has torn in pieces her son and returns

from Cithaeron carrying his head on the thyrsus, exchanged this

for the bloody head of Crassus, and to the infinite delight of his

audience of half-Hellenized barbarians began afresh the well-known song:

--pheromin ex oreos

elika neotomon epi melathra

makarian theiran--.

It was, since the times of the Achaemenids, the first serious victory

which the Orientals had achieved over the west; and there was

a deep significance in the fact that, by way of celebrating

this victory, the fairest product of the western world--

Greek tragedy--parodied itself through its degenerate representatives

in that hideous burlesque. The civic spirit of Rome and the genius

of Hellas began simultaneously to accommodate themselves

to the chains of sultanism.

Consequences of the Defeat

The disaster, terrible in itself, seemed also as though

it was to be dreadful in its consequences, and to shake the foundations

of the Roman power in the east. It was among the least of its results

that the Parthians now had absolute sway beyond the Euphrates;

that Armenia, after having fallen away from the Roman alliance

even before the disaster of Crassus, was reduced by it

into entire dependence on Parthia; that the faithful citizens

of Carrhae were bitterly punished for their adherence to the Occidentals

by the new master appointed over them by the Parthians,

one of the treacherous guides of the Romans, named Andromachus.

The Parthians now prepared in all earnest to cross the Euphrates

in their turn, and, in union with the Armenians and Arabs, to dislodge

the Romans from Syria. The Jews and various other Occidentals

awaited emancipation from the Roman rule there, no less impatiently

than the Hellenes beyond the Euphrates awaited relief

from the Parthian; in Rome civil war was at the door; an attack

at this particular place and time was a grave peril. But fortunately

for Rome the leaders on each side had changed. Sultan Orodes

was too much indebted to the heroic prince, who had first placed

the crown on his head and then cleared the land from the enemy,

not to get rid of him as soon as possible by the executioner.

His place as commander-in-chief of the invading army destined for Syria

was filled by a prince, the king's son Pacorus, with whom on account

of his youth and inexperience the prince Osaces had to be associated

as military adviser. On the other side the interim command

in Syria in room of Crassus was taken up by the prudent and resolute

quaestor Gaius Cassius.

Repulse of the Parthians

The Parthians were, just like Crassus formerly, in no haste to attack,

but during the years 701 and 702 sent only weak flying bands,

who were easily repulsed, across the Euphrates; so that Cassius

obtained time to reorganize the army in some measure, and with the help

of the faithful adherent of the Romans, Herodes Antipater,

to reduce to obedience the Jews, whom resentment at the spoliation

of the temple perpetrated by Crassus had already driven to arms.

The Roman government would thus have had full time to send

fresh troops for the defence of the threatened frontier;

but this was left undone amidst the convulsions of the incipient

revolution, and, when at length in 703 the great Parthian invading army

appeared on the Euphrates, Cassius had still nothing to oppose to it

but the two weak legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus.

Of course with these he could neither prevent the crossing

nor defend the province. Syria was overrun by the Parthians,

and all Western Asia trembled. But the Parthians did not understand

the besieging of towns. They not only retreated from Antioch,

into which Cassius had thrown himself with his troops, without having

accomplished their object, but they were on their retreat

along the Orontes allured into an ambush by Cassius' cavalry

and there severely handled by the Roman infantry; prince Osaces

was himself among the slain. Friend and foe thus perceived

that the Parthian army under an ordinary general and on ordinary ground

was not capable of much more than any other Oriental army.

However, the attack was not abandoned. Still during the winter

of 703-704 Pacorus lay encamped in Cyrrhestica on this side

of the Euphrates; and the new governor of Syria, Marcus Bibulus,

as wretched a general as he was an incapable statesman,

knew no better course of action than to shut himself up

in his fortresses. It was generally expected that the war

would break out in 704 with renewed fury. But instead

of turning his arms against the Romans, Pacorus turned against

his own father, and accordingly even entered into an understanding

with the Roman governor. Thus the stain was not wiped

from the shield of Roman honour, nor was the reputation of Rome

restored in the east; but the Parthian invasion of Western Asia

was over, and the Euphrates boundary was, for the time being

at least, retained.

Impression Produced in Rome by the Defeat of Carrhae

In Rome meanwhile the periodical volcano of revolution was whirling

upward its clouds of stupefying smoke. The Romans began to have

no longer a soldier or a denarius to be employed against the public foe--

no longer a thought for the destinies of the nations. It is

one of the most dreadful signs of the times, that the huge national

disaster of Carrhae and Sinnaca gave the politicians of that time

far less to think and speak of than that wretched tumult

on the Appian road, in which, a couple of months after Crassus,

Clodius the partisan-leader perished; but it is easily conceivable

and almost excusable. The breach between the two regents, long felt

as inevitable and often announced as near, was now assuming

such a shape that it could not be arrested. Like the boat

of the ancient Greek mariners' tale, the vessel of the Roman community

now found itself as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other;

expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom it was bearing,

tortured by nameless anguish, into the eddying surge that rose

higher and higher were benumbed; and, while every slightest movement

there attracted a thousand, eyes, no one ventured to give a glance

to the right or the left.

The Good Understanding between the Regents Relaxed

After Caesar had, at the conference of Luca in April 698,

agreed to considerable concessions as regarded Pompeius,

and the regents had thus placed themselves substantially on a level,

their relation was not without the outward conditions of durability,

so far as a division of the monarchical power--in itself indivisible--

could be lasting at all. It was a different question

whether the regents, at least for the present, were determined

to keep together and mutually to acknowledge without reserve their title

to rank as equals. That this was the case with Caesar, in so far

as he had acquired the interval necessary for the conquest of Gaul

at the price of equalization with Pompeius, has been already set forth.

But Pompeius was hardly ever, even provisionally, in earnest

with the collegiate scheme. His was one of those petty

and mean natures, towards which it is dangerous to practise magnanimity;

to his paltry spirit it appeared certainly a dictate of prudence

to supplant at the first opportunity his reluctantly acknowledged rival,

and his mean soul thirsted after a possibility of retaliating on Caesar

for the humiliation which he had suffered through Caesar's indulgence.

But while it is probable that Pompeius in accordance with his dull

and sluggish nature never properly consented to let Caesar

hold a position of equality by his side, yet the design

of breaking up the alliance doubtless came only by degrees

to be distinctly entertained by him. At any rate the public,

which usually saw better through the views and intentions

of Pompeius than he did himself, could not be mistaken

in thinking that at least with the death of the beautiful Julia--

who died in the bloom of womanhood in the autumn of 700 and was

soon followed by her only child to the tomb--the personal relation

between her father and her husband was broken up. Caesar attempted

to re-establish the ties of affinity which fate had severed;

he asked for himself the hand of the only daughter of Pompeius,

and offered Octavia, his sister's grand-daughter, who was now

his nearest relative, in marriage to his fellow-regent; but Pompeius

left his daughter to her existing husband Faustus Sulla the son

of the regent, and he himself married the daughter of Quintus Metellus

Scipio. The personal breach had unmistakeably begun, and it was

Pompeius who drew back his hand. It was expected that a political

breach would at once follow; but in this people were mistaken;

in public affairs a collegiate understanding continued for a time

to subsist. The reason was, that Caesar did not wish publicly

to dissolve the relation before the subjugation of Gaul

was accomplished, and Pompeius did not wish to dissolve it

before the governing authorities and Italy should be wholly reduced

under his power by his investiture with the dictatorship.

It is singular, but yet readily admits of explanation, that the regents

under these circumstances supported each other; Pompeius

after the disaster of Aduatuca in the winter of 700 handed over

one of his Italian legions that were dismissed on furlough

by way of loan to Caesar; on the other hand Caesar granted his consent

and his moral support to Pompeius in the repressive measures

which the latter took against the stubborn republican opposition.

Dictatorship of Pompeius

Covert Attacks by Pompeius on Caesar

It was only after Pompeius had in this way procured for himself

at the beginning of 702 the undivided consulship and an influence

in the capital thoroughly outweighing that of Caesar,

and after all the men capable of arms in Italy had tendered

their military oath to himself personally and in his name,

that he formed the resolution to break as soon as possible

formally with Caesar; and the design became distinctly enough apparent.

That the judicial prosecution which took place after the tumult

on the Appian Way lighted with unsparing severity precisely

on the old democratic partisans of Caesar,(12) might perhaps pass

as a mere awkwardness. That the new law against electioneering intrigues,

which had retrospective effect as far as 684, included also the dubious

proceedings at Caesar's candidature for the consulship,(13)

might likewise be nothing more, although not a few Caesarians thought

that they perceived in it a definite design. But people

could no longer shut their eyes, however willing they might be

to do so, when Pompeius did not select for his colleague

in the consulship his former father-in-law Caesar, as was fitting

in the circumstances of the case and was in many quarters demanded,

but associated with himself a puppet wholly dependent on him

in his new father-in-law Scipio;(14) and still less, when Pompeius

at the same time got the governorship of the two Spains continued

to him for five years more, that is to 709, and a considerable

fixed sum appropriated from the state-chest for the payment of his troops,

not only without stipulating for a like prolongation of command

and a like grant of money to Caesar, but even while labouring

ulteriorly to effect the recall of Caesar before the term

formerly agreed on through the new regulations which were issued

at the same time regarding the holding of the governorships.

These encroachments were unmistakeably calculated to undermine

Caesar's position and eventually to overthrow him. The moment

could not be more favourable. Caesar had conceded so much to Pompeius

at Luca, only because Crassus and his Syrian army would necessarily,

in the event of any rupture with Pompeius, be thrown into Caesar's scale;

for upon Crassus--who since the times of Sulla had been

at the deepest enmity with Pompeius and almost as long politically

and personally allied with Caesar, and who from his peculiar character

at all events, if he could not himself be king of Rome, would have been

content with being the new king's banker--Caesar could always reckon,

and could have no apprehension at all of seeing Crassus confronting him

as an ally of his enemies. The catastrophe of June 701,

by which army and general in Syria perished, was therefore

a terribly severe blow also for Caesar. A few months later

the national insurrection blazed up more violently than ever in Gaul,

just when it had seemed completely subdued, and for the first time

Caesar here encountered an equal opponent in the Arvernian king

Vercingetorix. Once more fate had been working for Pompeius;

Crassus was dead, all Gaul was in revolt, Pompeius was practically

dictator of Rome and master of the senate. What might have happened,

if he had now, instead of remotely intriguing against Caesar,

summarily compelled the burgesses or the senate to recall Caesar

at once from Gaul! But Pompeius never understood how to take advantage

of fortune. He heralded the breach clearly enough; already in 702

his acts left no doubt about it, and in the spring of 703 he openly

expressed his purpose of breaking with Caesar; but he did not

break with him, and allowed the months to slip away unemployed.

The Old Party Names and the Pretenders

But however Pompeius might delay, the crisis was incessantly urged

on by the mere force of circumstances.

The impending war was not a struggle possibly between republic

and monarchy--for that had been virtually decided years before--

but a struggle between Pompeius and Caesar for the possession

of the crown of Rome. But neither of the pretenders found his account

in uttering the plain truth; he would have thereby driven

all that very respectable portion of the burgesses, which desired

the continuance of the republic and believed in its possibility,

directly into the camp of his opponent. The old battle-cries raised

by Gracchus and Drusus, Cinna and Sulla, used up and meaningless

as they were, remained still good enough for watchwords

in the struggle of the two generals contending for the sole rule;

and, though for the moment both Pompeius and Caesar ranked themselves

officially with the so-called popular party, it could not be

for a moment doubtful that Caesar would inscribe on his banner

the people and democratic progress, Pompeius the aristocracy

and the legitimate constitution.

The Democracy and Caesar

Caesar had no choice. He was from the outset and very earnestly

a democrat; the monarchy as he understood it differed more outwardly

than in reality from the Gracchan government of the people;

and he was too magnanimous and too profound a statesman to conceal

his colours and to fight under any other escutcheon than his own.

The immediate advantage no doubt, which this battle-cry brought to him,

was trifling; it was confined mainly to the circumstance

that he was thereby relieved from the inconvenience of directly naming

the kingly office, and so alarming the mass of the lukewarm

and his own adherents by that detested word. The democratic banner

hardly yielded farther positive gain, since the ideals of Gracchus

had been rendered infamous and ridiculous by Clodius;

for where was there now--laying aside perhaps the Transpadanes--

any class of any sort of importance, which would have been induced

by the battle-cries of the democracy to take part in the struggle?

The Aristocracy and Pompeius

This state of things would have decided the part of Pompeius

in the impending struggle, even if apart from this it had not been

self-evident that he could only enter into it as the general

of the legitimate republic. Nature had destined him, if ever any one,

to be a member of an aristocracy; and nothing but very accidental

and very selfish motives had carried him over as a deserter

from the aristocratic to the democratic camp. That he should now

revert to his Sullan traditions, was not merely befitting in the case,

but in every respect of essential advantage. Effete as was

the democratic cry, the conservative cry could not but have

the more potent effect, if it proceeded from the right man.

Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the burgesses,

belonged to the constitutional party; and as respected its numerical

and moral strength might well be called to interfere powerfully,

perhaps decisively, in the impending struggle of the pretenders.

It wanted nothing but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present head,

did the duty, as he understood it, of its leader amidst daily peril

to his life and perhaps without hope of success; his fidelity to duty

deserves respect, but to be the last at a forlorn post is commendable

in the soldier, not in the general. He had not the skill

either to organize or to bring into action at the proper time

the powerful reserve, which had sprung up as it were spontaneously

in Italy for the party of the overthrown government; and he had

for good reasons never made any pretension to the military leadership,

on which everything ultimately depended. If instead of this man,

who knew not how to act either as party-chief or as general,

a man of the political and military mark of Pompeius should raise

the banner of the existing constitution, the municipals of Italy

would necessarily flock towards it in crowds, that under it

they might help to fight, if not indeed for the kingship of Pompeius,

at any rate against the kingship of Caesar.

To this was added another consideration at least as important.

It was characteristic of Pompeius, even when he had formed a resolve,

not to be able to find his way to its execution. While he knew

perhaps how to conduct war but certainly not how to declare it,

the Catonian party, although assuredly unable to conduct it,

was very able and above all very ready to supply grounds for the war

against the monarchy on the point of being founded. According to

the intention of Pompeius, while he kept himself aloof, and in his

peculiar way, now talked as though he would immediately depart

for his Spanish provinces, now made preparations as though he would

set out to take over the command on the Euphrates, the legitimate

governing board, namely the senate, were to break with Caesar,

to declare war against him, and to entrust the conduct of it to Pompeius,

who then, yielding to the general desire, was to come forward

as the protector of the constitution against demagogico-

monarchical plots, as an upright man and champion of the existing

order of things against the profligates and anarchists,

as the duly-installed general of the senate against the Imperator

of the street, and so once more to save his country. Thus Pompeius

gained by the alliance with the conservatives both a second army

in addition to his personal adherents, and a suitable war-manifesto--

advantages which certainly were purchased at the high price

of coalescing with those who were in principle opposed to him.

Of the countless evils involved in this coalition, there was developed

in the meantime only one--but that already a very grave one--

that Pompeius surrendered the power of commencing hostilities

against Caesar when and how he pleased, and in this decisive point

made himself dependent on all the accidents and caprices

of an aristocratic corporation.

The Republicans

Thus the republican opposition, after having been for years

obliged to rest content with the part of a mere spectator

and having hardly ventured to whisper, was now brought back once more

to the political stage by the impending rupture between the regents.

It consisted primarily of the circle which rallied round Cato--

those republicans who were resolved to venture on the struggle

for the republic and against the monarchy under all circumstances,

and the sooner the better. The pitiful issue of the attempt

made in 698(15) had taught them that they by themselves alone

were not in a position either to conduct war or even to call it forth;

it was known to every one that even in the senate, while the whole

corporation with a few isolated exceptions was averse to monarchy,

the majority would still only restore the oligarchic government

if it might be restored without danger--in which case, doubtless,

it had a good while to wait. In presence of the regents on the one hand,

and on the other hand of this indolent majority, which desired peace

above all things and at any price, and was averse to any decided action

and most of all to a decided rupture with one or other of the regents,

the only possible course for the Catonian party to obtain a restoration

of the old rule lay in a coalition with the less dangerous

of the rulers. If Pompeius acknowledged the oligarchic constitution

and offered to fight for it against Caesar, the republican opposition

might and must recognize him as its general, and in alliance

with him compel the timid majority to a declaration of war.

That Pompeius was not quite in earnest with his fidelity

to the constitution, could indeed escape nobody; but, undecided

as he was in everything, he had by no means arrived like Caesar

at a clear and firm conviction that it must be the first business

of the new monarch to sweep off thoroughly and conclusively

the oligarchic lumber. At any rate the war would train

a really republican army and really republican generals;

and, after the victory over Caesar, they might proceed

with more favourable prospects to set aside not merely

oneof the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course

of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer

of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement

possible for it.

Their League with Pompeius

The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and the Catonian party

was effected with comparative rapidity. Already during the dictatorship

of Pompeius a remarkable approximation had taken place between them.

The whole behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis,

his abrupt repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship,

his distinct declaration that he would accept this office

only from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers

of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra-democrats,

the surprising complaisance with which he treated Cato

and those who shared his views, appeared as much calculated to gain

the men of order as they were offensive to the democrat Caesar.

On the other hand Cato and his followers, instead of combating

with their wonted sternness the proposal to confer the dictatorship

on Pompeius, had made it with immaterial alterations of form

their own; Pompeius had received the undivided consulship

primarily from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian party

and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early

as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally

concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected

not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man

belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided

adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was

no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast

and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war

if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood,

this election, so surprising after the repressive measures

adopted immediately before against the republican opposition,

can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent,

or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome

for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont,

but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture.

Passive Resistance of Caesar

It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out

at this moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously

and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague,

least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius;

and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest

of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort

it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer

was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail

to perceive that the regulation of the political organism

by force of arms does in its consequences deeply and often permanently

disorganize it; and therefore he could not but seek to solve

the difficulty, if at all possible, by peaceful means or at least

without open civil war. But even if civil war was not to be avoided,

he could not desire to be driven to it at a time, when in Gaul

the rising of Vercingetorix imperilled afresh all that had been obtained

and occupied him without interruption from the winter of 701-702

to the winter of 702-703, and when Pompeius and the constitutional party

opposed to him on principle were dominant in Italy. Accordingly

he sought to preserve the relation with Pompeius and thereby

the peace unbroken, and to attain, if at all possible,

by peaceful means to the consulship for 706 already assured

to him at Luca. If he should then after a conclusive settlement

of Celtic affairs be placed in a regular manner at the head

of the state, he, who was still more decidedly superior

to Pompeius as a statesman than as a general, might well reckon

on outmanoeuvring the latter in the senate-house and in the Forum

without special difficulty. Perhaps it was possible to find out

for his awkward, vacillating, and arrogant rival some sort

of honourable and influential position, in which the latter might be

content to sink into a nullity; the repeated attempts of Caesar

to keep himself related by marriage to Pompeius, may have been

designed to pave the way for such a solution and to bring about

a final settlement of the old quarrel through the succession

of offspring inheriting the blood of both competitors. The republican

opposition would then remain without a leader and therefore

probably quiet, and peace would be preserved. If this should not

be successful, and if there should be, as was certainly possible,

a necessity for ultimately resorting to the decision of arms,

Caesar would then as consul in Rome dispose of the compliant majority

of the senate; and he could impede or perhaps frustrate the coalition

of the Pompeians and the republicans, and conduct the war

far more suitably and more advantageously, than if he now as proconsul

of Gaul gave orders to march against the senate and its general.

Certainly the success of this plan depended on Pompeius being good-

natured enough to let Caesar still obtain the consulship for 706

assured to him at Luca; but, even if it failed, it would be always

of advantage for Caesar to have given practical and repeated

evidence of the most yielding disposition. On the one hand time

would thus be gained for attaining his object meanwhile in Gaul;

on the other hand his opponents would be left with the odium

of initiating the rupture and consequently the civil war--

which was of the utmost moment for Caesar with reference to the majority

of the senate and the party of material interests, and more especially

with reference to his own soldiers.

On these views he acted. He armed certainly; the number of his legion

was raised through new levies in the winter of 702-703 to eleven,

including that borrowed from Pompeius. But at the same time

he expressly and openly approved of Pompeius' conduct during

the dictatorship and the restoration of order in the capital

which he had effected, rejected the warnings of officious friends

as calumnies, reckoned every day by which he succeeded

in postponing the catastrophe a gain, overlooked whatever

could be overlooked and bore whatever could be borne--

immoveably adhering only to the one decisive demand that,

when his governorship of Gaul came to an end with 705,

the second consulship, admissible by republican state-law

and promised to him according to agreement by his colleague,

should be granted to him for the year 706.

Preparation for Attacks on Caesar

This very demand became the battle-field of the diplomatic war

which now began. If Caesar were compelled either to resign

his office of governor before the last day of December 705,

or to postpone the assumption of the magistracy in the capital

beyond the 1st January 706, so that he should remain for a time

between the governorship and the consulate without office,

and consequently liable to criminal impeachment--which according

to Roman law was only allowable against one who was not in office--

the public had good reason to prophesy for him in this case

the fate of Milo, because Cato had for long been ready to impeach him

and Pompeius was a more than doubtful protector.

Attempt to Keep Caesar Out of the Consulship

Now, to attain that object, Caesar's opponents had a very simple means.

According to the existing ordinance as to elections, every candidate

for the consulship was obliged to announce himself personally

to the presiding magistrate, and to cause his name to be inscribed

on the official list of candidates before the election,

that is half a year before entering on office. It had probably

been regarded in the conferences at Luca as a matter of course

that Caesar would be released from this obligation, which was

purely formal and was very often dispensed with; but the decree

to that effect had not yet been issued, and, as Pompeius was now

in possession of the decretive machinery, Caesar depended in this respect

on the good will of his rival. Pompeius incomprehensibly abandoned

of his own accord this completely secure position; with his consen

and during his dictatorship (702) the personal appearance

of Caesar was dispensed with by a tribunician law. When however

soon afterwards the new election-ordinance(16) was issued,

the obligation of candidates personally to enrol themselves

was repeated in general terms, and no sort of exception was added

in favour of those released from it by earlier resolutions

of the people; according to strict form the privilege granted in favour

of Caesar was cancelled by the later general law. Caesar complained,

and the clause was subsequently appended but not confirmed

by special decree of the people, so that this enactment inserted

by mere interpolation in the already promulgated law could only be

looked on de jure as a nullity. Where Pompeius, therefore,

might have simply kept by the law, he had preferred first

to make a spontaneous concession, then to recall it,

and lastly to cloak this recall in a manner most disloyal.

Attempt to Shorten Caesar's Governorship

While in this way the shortening of Caesar's governorship

was only aimed at indirectly, the regulations issued at the same time

as to the governorships sought the same object directly.

The ten years for which the governorship had been secured to Caesar,

in the last instance through the law proposed by Pompeius himself

in concert with Crassus, ran according to the usual mode of reckoning

from 1 March 695 to the last day of February 705. As, however,

according to the earlier practice, the proconsul or propraetor

had the right of entering on his provincial magistracy immediately

after the termination of his consulship or praetorship, the successor

of Caesar was to be nominated, not from the urban magistrates of 704,

but from those of 705, and could not therefore enter before 1st Jan. 706.

So far Caesar had still during the last ten months of the year 705

a right to the command, not on the ground of the Pompeio-Licinian law,

but on the ground of the old rule that a command with a set term

still continued after the expiry of the term up to the arrival

of the successor. But now, since the new regulation of 702

called to the governorships not the consuls and praetors

going out, but those who had gone out five years ago or more,

and thus prescribed an interval between the civil magistracy

and the command instead of the previous immediate sequence,

there was no longer any difficulty in straightway filling up

from another quarter every legally vacant governorship, and so,

in the case in question, bringing about for the Gallic provinces

the change of command on the 1st March 705, instead of the 1st Jan. 706.

The pitiful dissimulation and procrastinating artifice of Pompeius

are after a remarkable manner mixed up, in these arrangements,

with the wily formalism and the constitutional erudition

of the republican party. Years before these weapons of state-law

could be employed, they had them duly prepared, and put themselves

in a condition on the one hand to compel Caesar to the resignation

of his command from the day when the term secured to him by Pompeius'

own law expired, that is from the 1st March 705, by sending successors

to him, and on the other hand to be able to treat as null and void

the votes tendered for him at the elections for 706. Caesar,

not in a position to hinder these moves in the game, kept silence

and left things to their own course.

Debates as to Caesar's Recall

Gradually therefore the slow course of constitutional procedure

developed itself. According to custom the senate had to deliberate

on the governorships of the year 705, so far as they went

to former consuls, at the beginning of 703, so far as they went

to former praetors, at the beginning of 704; that earlier deliberation

gave the first occasion to discuss the nomination of new governors

for the two Gauls in the senate, and thereby the first occasion

for open collision between the constitutional party pushed forward

by Pompeius and the senatorial supporters of Caesar. The consul

Marcus Marcellus introduced a proposal to give the two provinces

hitherto administered by the proconsul Gaius Caesar

from the 1st March 705 to the two consulars who were to be provided

with governorships for that year. The long-repressed indignation

burst forth in a torrent through the sluice once opened;

everything that the Catonians were meditating against Caesar

was brought forward in these discussions. For them it was

a settled point, that the right granted by exceptional law

to the proconsul Caesar of announcing his candidature for the consulship

in absence had been again cancelled by a subsequent decree of the people,

and that the reservation inserted in the latter was invalid.

The senate should in their opinion cause this magistrate,

now that the subjugation of Gaul was ended, to discharge immediately

the soldiers who had served out their time. The cases in which

Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies

in Upper Italy were described by them as unconstitutional and null;

in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected

senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place

had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim

to Roman citizenship,(17) should receive the punishment

of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses.

The supporters of Caesar at this time--among whom Gaius Vibius Pansa,

who was the son of a man proscribed by Sulla but yet had entered

on a political career, formerly an officer in Caesar's army

and in this year tribune of the people, was the most notable--

affirmed in the senate that both the state of things in Gaul

and equity demanded not only that Caesar should not be recalled

before the time, but that he should be allowed to retain the command

along with the consulship; and they pointed beyond doubt to the facts,

that a few years previously Pompeius had just in the same way

combined the Spanish governorships with the consulate,

that even at the present time, besides the important office

of superintending the supply of food to the capital, he held

the supreme command in Italy in addition to the Spanish,

and that in fact the whole men capable of arms had been sworn in by him

and had not yet been released from their oath.

The process began to take shape, but its course was not on that account

more rapid. The majority of the senate, seeing the breach approaching,

allowed no sitting capable of issuing a decree to take place for months;

and other months in their turn were lost over the solemn procrastination

of Pompeius. At length the latter broke the silence and ranged himself,

in a reserved and vacillating fashion as usual but yet plainly enough,

on the side of the constitutional party against his former ally.

He summarily and abruptly rejected the demand of the Caesarians

that their master should be allowed to conjoin the consulship

and the proconsulship; this demand, he added with blunt coarseness,

seemed to him no better than if a son should offer to flog

his father. He approved in principle the proposal of Marcellus,

in so far as he too declared that he would not allow Caesar

directly to attach the consulship to the pro-consulship.

He hinted, however, although without making any binding declaration

on the point, that they would perhaps grant to Caesar admission

to the elections for 706 without requiring his personal announcement,

as well as the continuance of his governorship at the utmost

to the 13th Nov. 705. But in the meantime the incorrigible

procrastinator consented to the postponement of the nomination

of successors to the last day of Feb. 704, which was asked

by the representatives of Caesar, probably on the ground of a clause

of the Pompeio-Licinian law forbidding any discussion in the senate

as to the nomination of successors before the beginning of Caesar's

last year of office.

In this sense accordingly the decrees of the senate were issued

(29 Sept. 703). The filling up of the Gallic governorships

was placed in the order of the day for the 1st March 704; but even now

it was attempted to break up the army of Caesar--just as had formerly

been done by decree of the people with the army of Lucullus(18)--

by inducing his veterans to apply to the senate for their discharge.

Caesar's supporters effected, indeed, as far as they constitutionally

could, the cancelling of these decrees by their tribunician veto;

but Pompeius very distinctly declared that the magistrates were bound

unconditionally to obey the senate, and that intercessions and similar

antiquated formalities would produce no change. The oligarchical party,

whose organ Pompeius now made himself, betrayed not obscurely the design,

in the event of a victory, of revising the constitution in their sense

and removing everything which had even the semblance of popular freedom;

as indeed, doubtless for this reason, it omitted to avail itself

of the comitia at all in its attacks directed against Caesar.

The coalition between Pompeius and the constitutional party

was thus formally declared; sentence too was already evidently passed

on Caesar, and the term of its promulgation was simply postponed.

The elections for the following year proved thoroughly adverse to him.

Counter-Arrangements of Caesar

During these party manoeuvres of his antagonists preparatory to war,

Caesar had succeeded in getting rid of the Gallic insurrection

and restoring the state of peace in the whole subject territory.

As early as the summer of 703, under the convenient pretext

of defending the frontier(19) but evidently in token of the fact

that the legions in Gaul were now beginning to be no longer

needed there, he moved one of them to North Italy. He could not avoid

perceiving now at any rate, if not earlier, that he would not

be spared the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow-

citizens; nevertheless, as it was highly desirable to leave the legions

still for a time in the barely pacified Gaul, he sought even yet

to procrastinate, and, well acquainted with the extreme

love of peace in the majority of the senate, did not abandon

the hope of still restraining them from the declaration of war

in spite of the pressure exercised over them by Pompeius.

He did not even hesitate to make great sacrifices, if only he might

avoid for the present open variance with the supreme governing board.

When the senate (in the spring of 704) at the suggestion of Pompeius

requested both him and Caesar to furnish each a legion

for the impending Parthian war(20) and when agreeably to this resolution

Pompeius demanded back from Caesar the legion lent to him

some years before, so as to send it to Syria, Caesar complied with

the double demand, because neither the opportuneness of this decree

of the senate nor the justice of the demand of Pompeius

could in themselves be disputed, and the keeping within the bounds

of the law and of formal loyalty was of more consequence to Caesar

than a few thousand soldiers. The two legions came without delay

and placed themselves at the disposal of the government, but instead

of sending them to the Euphrates, the latter kept them at Capua

in readiness for Pompeius; and the public had once more the opportunity

of comparing the manifest endeavours of Caesar to avoid a rupture

with the perfidious preparation for war by his opponents.

Curio

For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded

in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year,

Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people

Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men

of parts in this epoch;(21) unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent

and clever oratory, in dexterity of intrigue, and in that energy

which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself

only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness; but also

unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing--

his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (600,000 pounds)--

and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously

offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected;

the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar,

induced the latter subsequently to buy him up--the price was high,

but the commodity was worth the money.

Debates as to the Recall of Caesar and Pompeius

Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the people

played the independent republican, and had as such thundered

both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He availed himself

with rare skill of the apparently impartial position which

this gave him, when in March 704 the proposal as to the filling up

of the Gallic governorships for the next year came up afresh

for discussion in the senate; he completely approved the decree,

but asked that it should be at the same time extended to Pompeius

and his extraordinary commands. His arguments--that a constitutional

state of things could only be brought about by the removal

of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely entrusted

by the senate with the proconsulship could still less than Caesar

refuse obedience to it, that the one-sided removal of one

of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution--

carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public

at large; and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent

any onesided proceedings against Caesar by the veto constitutionally

belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate.

Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal

and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment

on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same;

he might safely do so, for Pompeius without his Italo-Spanish command

was no longer formidable. Pompeius again for that very reason

could not avoid refusing; his reply--that Caesar must first resign,

and that he meant speedily to follow the example thus set--

was the less satisfactory, that he did not even specify

a definite term for his retirement. Again the decision was delayed

for months; Pompeius and the Catonians, perceiving the dubious humour

of the majority of the senate, did not venture to bring Curio's

proposal to a vote. Caesar employed the summer in establishing

the state of peace in the regions which he had conquered, in holding

a great review of his troops on the Scheldt, and in making

a triumphal march through the province of North Italy, which was

entirely devoted to him; autumn found him in Ravenna, the southern

frontier-town of his province.

Caesar and Pompeius Both Recalled

The vote which could no longer be delayed on Curio's proposal

at length took place, and exhibited the defeat of the party

of Pompeius and Cato in all its extent. By 370 votes against 20

the senate resolved that the proconsuls of Spain and Gaul

should both be called upon to resign their offices; and with boundless

joy the good burgesses of Rome heard the glad news of the saving

achievement of Curio. Pompeius was thus recalled by the senate

no less than Caesar, and while Caesar was ready to comply with

the command, Pompeius positively refused obedience. The presiding

consul Gaius Marcellus, cousin of Marcus Marcellus and like the latter

belonging to the Catonian party, addressed a severe lecture

to the servile majority; and it was, no doubt, vexatious

to be thus beaten in their own camp and beaten by means of a phalanx

of poltroons. But where was victory to come from under a leader,

who, instead of shortly and distinctly dictating his orders

to the senators, resorted in his old days a second time

to the instructions of a professor of rhetoric, that with eloquence

polished up afresh he might encounter the youthful vigour

and brilliant talents of Curio?

Declaration of War

The coalition, defeated in the senate, was in the most painful position.

The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture

and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel

stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent

majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences

to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out

emphatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seeming peace;

and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot

by rapid action, his allies knew very well that they could never expect

this from him, and that it was for them, as they had promised,

to bring matters to a crisis. After the champions of the constitution

and of senatorial government had already declared the constitutional

rights of the burgesses and of the tribunes of the people

to be meaningless formalities,(22) they now found themselves

driven by necessity to treat the constitutional decision; of the senate

itself in a similar manner and, as the legitimate government

would not let itself be saved with its own consent, to save it

against its will. This was neither new nor accidental; Sulla(23)

and Lucullus(24) had been obliged to carry every energetic

resolution conceived by them in the true interest of the government

with a high hand irrespective of it, just as Cato and his friends

now proposed to do; the machinery of the constitution was in fact

utterly effete, and the senate was now--as the comitia had been

for centuries--nothing but a worn-out wheel slipping constantly

out of its track.

It was rumoured (Oct. 704) that Caesar had moved four legions

from Transalpine into Cisalpine Gaul and stationed them at Placentia.

This transference of troops was of itself within the prerogative

of the governor; Curio moreover palpably showed in the senate

the utter groundlessness of the rumour; and they by a majority

rejected the proposal of the consul Gaius Marcellus to give

Pompeius on the strength of it orders to march against Caesar.

Yet the said consul, in concert with the two consuls elected for 705

who likewise belonged to the Catonian party, proceeded to Pompeius,

and these three men by virtue of their own plenitude of power

requested the general to put himself at the head of the two legions

stationed at Capua, and to call the Italian militia to arms

at his discretion. A more informal authorization for the commencement

of a civil war can hardly be conceived; but people had no longer time

to attend to such secondary matters; Pompeius accepted it.

The military preparations, the levies began; in order personally

to forward them, Pompeius left the capital in December 704.

The Ultimatum of Caesar

Caesar had completely attained the object of devolving

the initiative of civil war on his opponents. He had, while himself

keeping on legal ground, compelled Pompeius to declare war,

and to declare it not as representative of the legitimate authority,

but as general of an openly revolutionary minority of the senate

which overawed the majority. This result was not to be reckoned

of slight importance, although the instinct of the masses could not

and did not deceive itself for a moment as to the fact that the war

concerned other things than questions of formal law. Now, when war

was declared, it was Caesar's interest to strike a blow as soon

as possible. The preparations of his opponents were just beginning

and even the capital was not occupied. In ten or twelve days

an army three times as strong as the troops of Caesar

that were in Upper Italy could be collected at Rome; but still

it was not impossible to surprise the city undefended, or even perhaps

by a rapid winter campaign to seize all Italy, and to shut off

the best resources of his opponents before they could make them available.

The sagacious and energetic Curio, who after resigning his tribunate

(10 Dec. 704) had immediately gone to Caesar at Ravenna,

vividly represented the state of things to his master;

and it hardly needed such a representation to convince Caesar

that longer delay now could only be injurious. But, as he with the view

of not giving his antagonists occasion to complain had hitherto

brought no troops to Ravenna itself, he could for the present do nothing

but despatch orders to his whole force to set out with all haste;

and he had to wait till at least the one legion stationed in Upper Italy

reached Ravenna. Meanwhile he sent an ultimatum to Rome,

which, if useful for nothing else, by its extreme submissiveness

still farther compromised his opponents in public opinion,

and perhaps even, as he seemed himself to hesitate, induced them

to prosecute more remissly their preparations against him.

In this ultimatum Caesar dropped all the counter-demands

which he formerly made on Pompeius, and offered on his own part

both to resign the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, and to dismiss

eight of the ten legions belonging to him, at the term fixed

by the senate; he declared himself content, if the senate would leave him

either the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with one,

or that of Cisalpine Gaul alone with two, legions, not, forsooth,

up to his investiture with the consulship, but till after the close

of the consular elections for 706. He thus consented to those proposals

of accommodation, with which at the beginning of the discussions

the senatorial party and even Pompeius himself had declared

that they would be satisfied, and showed himself ready to remain

in a private position from his election to the consulate down to

his entering on office. Whether Caesar was in earnest with these

astonishing concessions and had confidence that he should be able

to carry through his game against Pompeius even after granting

so much, or whether he reckoned that those on the other side

had already gone too far to find in these proposals of compromise

more than a proof that Caesar regarded his cause itself as lost,

can no longer be with certainty determined. The probability is,

that Caesar committed the fault of playing a too bold game, far worse

rather than the fault of promising something which he was not minded

to perform; and that, if strangely enough his proposals had been

accepted, he would have made good his word.

Last Debate in the Senate

Curio undertook once more to represent his master in the lion's den.

In three days he made the journey from Ravenna to Rome.

When the new consuls Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus the younger(25)

assembled the senate for the first time on 1 Jan. 705, he delivered

in a full meeting the letter addressed by the general to the senate.

The tribunes of the people, Marcus Antonius well known

in the chronicle of scandal of the city as the intimate friend

of Curio and his accomplice in all his follies, but at the same time

known from the Egyptian and Gallic campaigns as a brilliant cavalry

officer, and Quintus Cassius, Pompeius' former quaestor,--the two,

who were now in Curio's stead managing the cause of Caesar in Rome--

insisted on the immediate reading of the despatch. The grave

and clear words in which Caesar set forth the imminence of civil war,

the general wish for peace, the arrogance of Pompeius, and his own

yielding disposition, with all the irresistible force of truth;

the proposals for a compromise, of a moderation which doubtless

surprised his own partisans; the distinct declaration that this was

the last time that he should offer his hand for peace--

made the deepest impression. In spite of the dread inspired

by the numerous soldiers of Pompeius who flocked into the capital,

the sentiment of the majority was not doubtful; the consuls could not

venture to let it find expression. Respecting the proposal renewed

by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands

simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation

suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made

by Marcus Coelius Rufus and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius

should be urged immediately to depart for Spain, the consuls refused--

as they in the capacity of presiding officers were entitled to do--

to let a vote take place. Even the proposal of one of their

most decided partisans who was simply not so blind to the military

position of affairs as his party, Marcus Marcellus--to defer

the determination till the Italian levy en masse could be under arms

and could protect the senate--was not allowed to be brought to a vote.

Pompeius caused it to be declared through his usual organ,

Quintus Scipio, that he was resolved to take up the cause of the senate

now or never, and that he would let it drop if they longer delayed.

The consul Lentulus said in plain terms that even the decree

of the senate was no longer of consequence, and that, if it

should persevere in its servility, he would act of himself

and with his powerful friends take the farther steps necessary.

Thus overawed, the majority decreed what was commanded--

that Caesar should at a definite and not distant day give up

Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul

to Marcus Servilius Nonianus, and should dismiss his army,

failing which he should be esteemed a traitor. When the tribunes

of Caesar's party made use of their right of veto against this resolution,

not only were they, as they at least asserted, threatened

in the senate-house itself by the swords of Pompeian soldiers,

and forced, in order to save their lives, to flee in slaves'

clothing from the capital; but the now sufficiently overawed senate

treated their formally quite constitutional interference

as an attempt at revolution, declared the country in danger,

and in the usual forms called the whole burgesses to take up arms,

and all magistrates faithful to the constitution to place themselves

at the head of the armed (7 Jan. 705).

Caesar Marches into Italy

Now it was enough. When Caesar was informed by the tribunes

who had fled to his camp entreating protection as to the reception

which his proposals had met with in the capital, he called together

the soldiers of the thirteenth legion, which had meanwhile arrived

from its cantonments near Tergeste (Trieste) at Ravenna,

and unfolded before them the state of things. It was not merely

the man of genius versed in the knowledge and skilled in the control

of men's hearts, whose brilliant eloquence shone forth and glowed

in this agitating crisis of his own and the world's destiny;

nor merely the generous commander-in-chief and the victorious general,

addressing soldiers, who had been called by himself to arms

and for eight years had followed his banners with daily-increasing

enthusiasm. There spoke, above all, the energetic and consistent

statesman, who had now for nine-and-twenty years defended

the cause of freedom in good and evil times; who had braved for it

the daggers of assassins and the executioners of the aristocracy,

the swords of the Germans and the waves of the unknown ocean,

without ever yielding or wavering; who had torn to pieces

the Sullan constitution, had overthrown the rule of the senate,

and had furnished the defenceless and unarmed democracy with protection

and with arms by means of the struggle beyond the Alps. And he spoke,

not to the Clodian public whose republican enthusiasm had been

long burnt down to ashes and dross, but to the young men from the towns

and villages of Northern Italy, who still felt freshly and purely

the mighty influence of the thought of civic freedom; who were still

capable of fighting and of dying for ideals; who had themselves

received for their country in a revolutionary way from Caesar

the burgess-rights which the government refused to them;

whom Caesar's fall would leave once more at the mercy of the -fasces-,

and who already possessed practical proofs(26) of the inexorable use

which the oligarchy proposed to make of these against the Transpadanes.

Such were the listeners before whom such an orator set forth the facts--

the thanks for the conquest of Gaul which the nobility were preparing

for the general and his army; the contemptuous setting aside

of the comitia; the overawing of the senate; the sacred duty

of protecting with armed hand the tribunate of the people wrested

five hundred years ago by their fathers arms in hand from the nobility,

and of keeping the ancient oath which these had taken for themselves

as for their children's children that they would man by man stand firm

even to death for the tribunes of the people.(27) And then, when he--

the leader and general of the popular party--summoned the soldiers

of the people, now that conciliatory means had been exhausted

and concession had reached its utmost limits, to follow him in the last,

the inevitable, the decisive struggle against the equally hated

and despised, equally perfidious and incapable, and in fact ludicrously

incorrigible aristocracy--there was not an officer or a soldier

who could hold back. The order was given for departure; at the head

of his vanguard Caesar crossed the narrow brook which separated

his province from Italy, and which the constitution forbade

the proconsul of Gaul to pass. When after nine years' absence

he trod once more the soil of his native land, he trod at the same time

the path of revolution. "The die was cast."