those whom it designs for its victims; and there are no instruments so
ready as the people themselves to put an end to popular liberty. It is
the policy of a tyrant to destroy all power but his own; and the
destruction of legal authority is always favourable to those who are
playing the game of unprincipled ambition. Cæsar began by flattering the
people at the expense of the Senate; and he enacted that records of the
proceedings of the latter should be published under the title of _Acta
Diurna_, which may be regarded as the origin of our journals of the
House of Commons, and our daily newspapers. A second measure was a sort
of Insolvent Act, for the benefit of the farmers of the public revenue,
who, in their anxiety to obtain the contract, had offered more than they
could pay for the privilege of collecting the taxes. His third great
project was an agrarian law, in conformity with which any pauper citizen
who could show at least three children--whether genuine, or borrowed for
the occasion, it might have been difficult to ascertain--were entitled
to a grant of land in Campania. This premium on improvident marriages
called forth such an overwhelming demonstration of paternity, that the
ground in Campania fell far short of the quantity of fatherland that was
required; and it was necessary to purchase several thousands of acres,
in order to widen the field for the operations of Cæsar. Bibulus opposed
the measure; but his opposition, though for the moment busy, proved idle
in the end; when, disgusted with failure, he shut himself up in his
house for the rest of the year; and every one said that he had been
completely shut up by his more powerful colleague.
Cæsar was now more desirous than ever of a near alliance with Pompey;
and, in order to draw the bands closer, the former gave his daughter in
marriage to the latter, though the gentleman was obliged to put away his
old wife, Mucia, to make room for the new; and the lady, Julia, was
under the necessity of breaking off an engagement with an intended
husband. In order to constitute a strong family party for carrying on
the government, Cæsar himself married Calpurnia, the daughter of L.
Calpurnius Piso, who, by means of private influence, was made consul for
the ensuing year with A. Gabinus.
It was customary for a retiring Consul to have a province assigned to
him for a single year; but Cæsar having worked all the principal public
departments with tools of his own, obtained, by a flagrant violation of
the Constitution, a prolonged lease of his own power. The rich provinces
of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyrium were assigned to him for five years; and
Transalpine Gaul was afterwards added by the Senate, because they saw
the people were so completely under his influence, that they would
either have given him all he asked, or he would have taken all he wanted
without asking it.
Among the members of the aristocracy of this degenerate age of the Roman
republic was one Clodius, whose name, like himself, was a corruption of
Claudius, for he belonged to the family of the Claudii. This
disreputable profligate had obtained an infamous notoriety during the
festival of the _Bona Dea_, whose rites were celebrated on the first of
May; and being conducted exclusively by women, the ceremony was no doubt
one of a most confused and tedious character. Clodius having disguised
himself in a female dress, passed unnoticed amid the din of many
tongues, till female curiosity detected him in a flirtation with the
wife of Cæsar, whose house was the scene of the festival. Clodius was
brought to trial for the offence, and sent a retainer to Cicero, with
instructions to the orator to prove an _alibi_. Instead of following the
modern professional course of adopting any falsehood, however gross, for
the sake of a client, Cicero hurried into the opposite extreme, and,
indignantly throwing up his brief, not only rushed into the witness-box
to give evidence against the accused, but threw up his cause in an
explosive burst of eloquence. Notwithstanding this remarkable instance
of honesty at the bar, there was so much corruption on the bench, that
Clodius bribed the judge by throwing into the scales of justice a sum of
gold which turned the balance in his favour. Clodius threatened revenge,
and promised to stick to Cicero through life, for having cast him off,
and refused to stick to him at such a momentous crisis.
[Illustration: Cicero throws up his Brief, like a Gentleman.]
Cæsar, who was the person most interested in the subject of the lawsuit,
allowed it to give him very little uneasiness; for having divorced his
wife, he continued on terms of friendship with Clodius. The latter
became a candidate for the tribuneship; but being disqualified by his
high birth, he got himself adopted into that for which nature had best
adapted him--a very low family. By a bargain with the Consuls he
obtained their support; for he promised that if they helped him to the
tribuneship, he would assist them in helping themselves to a rich
province at the close of their year of office. The disgraceful
arrangement was completed,--the plunderers paying each other at the cost
of the public welfare.
Clodius immediately began to exercise his public authority for the
gratification of his private feelings; and got a law passed for the sole
purpose of destroying Cicero. The orator looked to the triumvirate for
protection; but Pompey went out of town; Crassus remembered an old
grudge; and Cæsar sided with his friend Clodius. Cicero, without
waiting to take his trial, left the city, amid the lamentations of all
the good, who formed a mourning party, far more select than numerous.
After his departure, sentence of outlawry was passed upon him; his house
on the Palatine, and his two villas, were by the hand of demolition
brought to the ground, while the rest of his property was brought to the
hammer at a public auction.
Clodius having been successful in the gratification of one of his
personal animosities, began to look about for other victims against whom
he could put in force the power with which "the people" had entrusted
him. Recollecting that he had once been in the hands of pirates, and
that Ptolemy, King of Cyprus, had declined to rescue him, he passed a
law that Ptolemy should be at once deposed; and he, in order to kill two
unfortunate birds with one stone, got rid of Cato, by sending him to
take possession of Cyprus as a Roman province. Ptolemy, instead of
meeting the matter with spirit, met it with a dose of laudanum, and so
far forgot himself as to seek in suicide forgetfulness of his sorrows.
Cicero employed his exile in lamenting his fate; and though by
profession a dealer in philosophy, he had no stock on hand for his own
use, when its consolation was required. He sent whining letters to his
wife; and his signature was so bedewed with tears, that he left a blot
upon his name, through his unmanly weakness.
Clodius being no longer Consul, a portion of the incubus which stifled
the breath of freedom was removed, and the public voice ventured so make
itself heard in demanding the recall of Cicero. The orator returned in
triumph; and he showed his gratitude by supporting any measure that was
proposed by any of those who had been influential in bringing him home
again. His advocacy was demanded, and freely given, in favour of many a
disgraceful proceeding on the part of his friends; and he undertook the
defence of Gabinius, who had carried on a system of extortion in Syria.
Rome was now completely in the hands of an ambitious party, which, by
means of armed mercenaries, disposed of the lives, the liberties, and
even the opinions of the citizens. Pompey and Crassus, at the
instigation of Cæsar, put up for the Consulship a second time, when an
opposition candidate, L. Domitius, having come forward, his servant was
cut down by the soldiers before his face, as a hint to those who should
presume to hold an opinion adverse to the existing authority. The
candidate having seen the skull of his domestic split, feared an equally
decisive plumper for his own poll, and retired into private life,
leaving the executive to be re-elected without any attempt at
opposition. The temporary powers of each member of the triumvirate were,
by treachery and violence, prolonged for five years; and Cato, who
ventured on an opinion that the step was not quite in accordance with
the constitution or the law, was unceremoniously thrown into prison.
Right was in all cases made completely subservient to might; and the
competitors for power kept armed ruffians in their pay, whose collisions
with each other were often of the most desperate character. In one of
these encounters between the creatures of Clodius and the mercenaries of
Milo, the former was killed, which caused the latter to be put upon his
trial. Cicero was engaged to defend the accused; but Pompey, who hated
Milo, had taken care to surround the former with an armed force, which
so intimidated Cicero, that his tongue stuck to his mouth, when he
himself ought to have stuck to his client. The orator had not a word to
say for himself, or rather for Milo; and as not a sentence was said in
his favour, a sentence was pronounced against him. He went into exile at
Marseilles; and Cicero, with tardy zeal, wrote a defence when the trial
was over. He sent a copy of it to Milo, who pronounced it excellent in
its way, but a little too late; and he added, in writing to Cicero, "If
you had only delivered it in time, you would have delivered me from the
dilemma I was placed in."
CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.
OVERTHROW OF CRASSUS. DEFEAT OF POMPEY. DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH OF CÆSAR.
END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
[Illustration]
Cæsar's proceedings in Gaul are sufficiently familiar to enable us to
treat them with a sort of contempt, by omitting even the heads of the
oft-repeated tale from our history. Though his arms were abroad, his eye
was at home, and he watched the affairs of Rome with a jealous interest.
His confederates, Pompey and Crassus, had quarrelled; and the former
fell out with Cæsar; so that there was a difference between the
triumvirate, though they were all three alike in their unscrupulous
designs upon the commonwealth.
Crassus was busy in his province of Syria, laying his hands on every
thing of any value, until somebody laid hands upon him, notwithstanding
his worthlessness. His engagement with the Parthians was a short passage
in his life, which led to his death; for he had been induced by
treachery to plunge into the mess of the Mesopotamian deserts. There he
encountered an army which endeavoured to strike terror into the Romans,
by brayings, bellowings, the beating of drums, and every kind of hollow
artifice. The Parthians, who were skilful in the use of the bow, sent
forth such a shower of arrows, that fury darted into many an eye, and on
many a lip there was a quiver. Crassus began to faint, and went into a
sort of hysterics, highly incompatible with historic dignity. The enemy,
however, tried a feint of a different kind, and pretended to run away;
but when pursued, turned suddenly round, galloped upon the Romans
through a sand-hill, thus raising so much dust, that the latter were
obliged to lick it, as their mouths were full of it. In this position
they were assailed with arrows, which having been shot at their feet,
pinned many of them to the ground; and their hands being skewered in the
same manner to their breasts, they could neither fly nor defend
themselves.[75] The horses might still have charged; but when the poor
creatures arrived at the Parthian pikes, they were obliged to pull up
rather suddenly. The cavalry being cut to pieces, Crassus and some of
his footmen retired to a sand-hill for safety; but they soon found the
error of building their hopes on such a foundation. Crassus himself hid
his head in the sand, and would see nobody; but ultimately he was
induced to enter into a negotiation with the Parthian general. In the
course of the parley a little misunderstanding arose, when some of the
parties present began to push each other about, first with their hands,
then with their clenched fists, and ultimately with their weapons. At
length Octavius, who had accompanied Crassus, drew his sword, and killed
a groom, when somebody else killed Octavius; and the assassination
having once fairly--or unfairly--set in, Crassus himself was soon
disposed of. The King of the Parthians caused the head of Crassus to be
filled with gold, as in his lifetime he had devoted all his faculties to
the accumulation of the metal.
By the death of Crassus, the triumvirate was reduced to a duumvirate,
and jealousies arose between Pompey and Cæsar; but as the people seemed
to think that two heads at loggerheads were better than one having
everything its own way, the opposing tyrants were left by the public to
fight their own battles. The great prize for which they were now
contending was the army, which is too often exposed to the degradation
of being reckoned upon as the sure means of crushing everything in the
shape of law and liberty.
Cæsar had certainly obtained the attachment of his soldiers; for he had
shared their dangers; but the vain upstart, Pompey, had no more claim
upon the army than he could establish by corrupting them. Cæsar held
them by their affections, but Pompey hoped to unite them to him by those
golden links which never fix themselves to the heart, though effecting a
sort of temporary hanging-on to the pocket. Cæsar stood on the bank of
the Rubicon, which divided his province of Gaul from Italy, and, looking
at the surface of the river, he was soon absorbed in his own
reflections. He knew it was against the law to cross the stream with an
army; but after looking at both sides, and feeling his position to be
that of sink or swim, he made a bold plunge, with one of his legions
after him. The Rubicon was now passed; and Pompey, hearing of Cæsar's
approach, was struck with such a panic before he had received any real
blow, that he had at once quitted the city. So great was his haste, that
he omitted even to follow his natural bent, and went away without
robbing the treasury. The tyrant is so frequently associated in the same
person with the coward, that the ignoble retreat of Pompey was the
natural sequel to his previous despotism; for that which passes for
boldness of action may be prompted by the fears of the knave, instead of
by the courage of the hero.
Cæsar arrived at Rome, which had become freed from the presence of one
tyrant, to receive another; and the people certainly deserved all they
got, or rather all they lost; for they conferred upon the despot many
marks of popularity. When he wanted money, he burst open the
treasury-door like a thief; and when opposed in the name of the law, he
cut down everything in the shape of objection, like a butcher.
[Illustration: "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis."]
Cæsar next proceeded to Spain, but only to be recalled as Dictator, to
which office he had been illegally nominated by one of his creatures,
the Prætor, M. Lepidus. Having laid down the dictatorship in eleven
days, during which period he laid down the law on some very important
questions, including that of debtor and creditor, Cæsar abandoned his
legislative pursuits, and started in pursuit of Pompey. The latter had
proceeded to Greece, where the former suffered much inconvenience in
trying to manage the movements of his army. Only a portion of his troops
having got across the water, he became so impatient at the non-arrival
of the rest, that he went to see after them by going to sea himself in
disguise, on board a small fishing-boat. The winds were extremely
contrary, and were blowing the vessel back, with a force threatening to
dismast her, and to the utmost dismay of the master, when Cæsar, who was
sitting at the stern, put on a stern look, exclaiming, "_Quid times?
Cæsarem vehis._" "What are you afraid of? You carry Cæsar as a
passenger." At this moment the vessel gave a lurch, and the heels of
Cæsar were suddenly brought to the level at which his head had the
moment before been visible. The mariner was about to ask for further
explanation, and had got "_Quid?_" in his mouth, when a wave completely
washed him up, and he remained in soak for the rest of the voyage. The
vessel was driven back, and Cæsar, who was wet through, as well as in
despair, sat wringing alternately his hands and his toga.
At length, soon after his return to his camp, his army was brought to
him by Antony; but provisions were so scarce, that the soldiers had to
live upon bark, which proves that the unlucky "dogs of war" were exposed
to the most biting necessities. There, however, they continued, without
being subdued; and, indeed, the bark seems to have made them more than
usually snappish; for they threw some of it into the hostile camp, and
declared they would live upon grass; nor would they lay down their
swords while there was a single blade remaining.
Cæsar encountered some slight reverses, and took up his quarters at
Pharsalia, where he might have been blocked in and starved out, had not
Pompey been taunted into attacking him. Cæsar was delighted at that
imprudence, the fruits of which were speedily shown; for Pompey's army
was utterly routed; and Pompey himself, retreating to his tent, was
literally sick at the disgusting result of his enterprise. "The way in
which my soldiers turned their backs," exclaimed Pompey to an intimate
friend, "has positively turned my stomach;" and he was only sufficiently
recovered on the following day to start _viâ_ Lesbos for Egypt. There
ill-fortune still awaited him; for Ptolemy, the young king, instead of
receiving the outcast with hospitality, was advised to put him to death,
as a little compliment to Cæsar. Septimius, a Roman, who had served
under Pompey, was sent to meet him, with instructions to stab him in the
back; and the victim had no sooner felt the blow, than, according to the
custom of the period, he arranged the folds of his robe across his face,
so that although very disgracefully killed, he might very gracefully
expire. His wife, Cornelia, who witnessed the scene, sailed away as fast
as she could from the melancholy sight, leaving no one but an old
servant, named Philip, to perform not only the funeral, but all the
characters that the performance required. He was, in fact, the
undertaker of the whole of the sad ceremony, and attended as sole
mourner at the melancholy undertaking.
On the arrival of Cæsar in Egypt, he was welcomed by having the head of
Pompey put into his hand; but the former turned away in disgust, and at
once dropped his old animosity.
Being detained by contrary winds at Alexandria, Cæsar entered into the
disputes between Cleopatra and her elder brother Ptolemy; when the young
lady, relying on her powers of fascination, caused herself to be
brought, concealed in a mattress,[76] into the presence of the Roman
general. Having emerged from under the bed, she pleaded her cause so
earnestly, that he went to war on her account with her brother, who
ultimately fell into the water; thus causing the drowning of himself and
all his enmity. Cleopatra reigned in Egypt; and Cæsar was so enslaved by
her charms, that he remained nine months on a visit; nor would he have
torn himself away, but for the intelligence that Pharnaces, the son of
Mithridates, was endeavouring to recover his father's lost possessions.
Hurrying to Pontus, he looked out for the enemy, drew his sword, struck
one decisive blow, and in the memorable words, "_Veni, vidi, vici,_" he
set an example of the laconic style, which no writer of military
despatches has since followed.
Disturbances had by this time broken out at Rome; and in order to repair
the evil, Cæsar was obliged to repair himself to the capital. So much
enthusiasm had been excited by the battle of Pharsalia--for the people
are always too ready to lick the hand which seems capable of striking
them--that Cæsar had been elected Dictator for one year, Consul for
five, and Tribune for his whole lifetime.
The fact is, that Rome had become so thoroughly tired of the continual
contests for the chief power, which a republican form of government
necessarily invites, that the nation yearned for a permanent head, and
eagerly adopted the very first that offered. It was thought better to be
the slaves of one despotic adventurer, than the victims of half-a-dozen;
and even absolutism was preferred to the republican system, which had
kept the country so long exposed to laceration at the hands of those who
were trying to snatch it from each other, without being able to govern
it.
After a short stay in Rome, during which he exhibited his power by
making various arbitrary changes in the Law and Constitution--for it is
the tendency of a republic to place a whole nation at the will of one
man--Cæsar proceeded to Africa, with the view of quelling there the
party opposed to him. He marched against Utica, which was governed by
Cato, who, when he ought to have been preparing to fight, was standing
upon ceremony, and politely insisting that Scipio ought to take the
command, as being the man of the highest rank present. Scipio, who was
not ambitious of the foremost place in the field, declared that the
pretended deference to his rank was rank nonsense, and that Cato must
assume his proper position. The Governor, however, persisted; and Scipio
went forth to fight; but he seems to have killed nobody except himself,
while Juba and the legate Petreius, two other brave fellows on the same
side, slew each other.
Cato, trembling for the fate of Utica, called a meeting of the Senate,
which resolved unanimously to run away; and the Governor went home to
supper. On retiring to his chamber he called for his sword, which was
nowhere to be found; and he became so irritated, that he savagely struck
the domestic who returned without the missing weapon. At length it
turned out that "one of the young gentlemen had got it;" for the sword
was brought to Cato by his eldest son, and it was quietly put away for
the night under the old gentleman's pillow. Cato went to bed, and fell
asleep while reading one of Plato's dialogues. Waking again at dawn, he
rose, and having methodically finished the perusal of the dialogue he
had commenced over-night, he ran himself through the body. His
attendants rushed in, and sewed up the wound; but they had no sooner
turned their backs, than--if we are to believe the authorities, which we
confess we cannot at all times--he either undid the numerous stitches in
his side, or ran himself through the body again; and, with a compliment
in his mouth to the excellence of the reasoning of Plato, expired.
Cato was only eight-and-forty at the time of his death; and therefore,
though in the course of nature too young to die, he was quite old enough
to have known better than to kill himself. The graver historians inform
us, that "he died the death of a hero and a philosopher;" but being
unable to appreciate the heroism of running away from misfortune,
instead of meeting it, or the philosophy of refusing to endure what one
cannot cure, we must beg to be allowed to differ from the serious
writers, who generally hold up suicide as a subject for respect and
admiration. Cæsar was, of course, deeply affected on hearing of Cato's
decease; but such affectation was common in those days; and there was
nothing extraordinary in Cæsar's having gone into mourning for the man
whose death he had long been compassing.
The victorious general now returned to Rome, where he might have
obtained as long a lease as he pleased of almost unlimited power. He was
named Dictator for ten years; and, instead of pursuing the ordinary
practice of tyranny, which abuses the greatest power to gratify the
pettiest spite, Cæsar not only made no proscriptions, but declared a
general amnesty. He celebrated four triumphs, and gave a succession of
banquets; for he knew that there is no more portentous grumbling than
that which proceeds from an empty stomach.
Being entrusted with supreme power, he turned it, in many instances, to
good account; and introduced, among other wholesome regulations, the
very valuable reform of the Roman Calendar. This was an improvement, not
merely for the day, but for all time, and has handed down the name of
its author to every age, and every civilised country, in every almanack.