moderation. He tried to get on with Bibulus by showing him marked
consideration in the way of official precedence, and his first reform
of senatorial practice concerned a subject which might well have been
taken as a non-controversial matter, the publication of the Senate’s
proceedings. Cæsar proposed that a summary of each debate should be
exposed to view in the Forum. It was an intimation to the senators that
they must hold themselves responsible to public opinion.
The next proposal was to make some arrangement by which the veterans of
Pompeius’ army should be supplied with public lands. These lands had
to be acquired by the state from private owners, so the proceeds of
the extensive conquests of Pompeius’ conquests in the East were to be
applied to this purpose. The Senate refused to listen to any agrarian
measure; the very name frightened them. Cato obstructed, trying to talk
the scheme out in the Senate. Cæsar, who had as little respect for
parliamentary procedure as Cromwell, put a stop to this copious oratory
by placing the speaker under arrest. He was soon released, however, in
deference to the pressure of his colleagues.
In the face of the hopeless opposition of the Senate to the Consul’s
legislation, the only course left to pursue was for Cæsar to present
his legislation directly to the popular assembly, without the
authorization of the Senate. This method was extraordinary, but not
absolutely illegal, and it had been employed by reformers since the
time of Tiberius Gracchus. There were, of course, grave objections to
it, for measures could be rushed through without proper discussion, and
it is well known that hasty legislation is often dangerous, even for
those who promote it. A specially drastic feature of the agrarian bill
was the clause which compelled senators and all officers, to be elected
in future, to swear to be faithful to its provisions.
In this way Cæsar hoped to secure his measure from being abrogated
when the year of his magistracy was over. This clause was not,
however, a new expedient, but it was now being used in a new way to
prevent the claim that prerogatives of the Senate had been violated by
passing legislation without consulting its wishes. Pompeius promised
to support the bill by arms if violence were resorted to on the other
side. A Tribune exercised his right to veto on the measure, when it was
introduced in the popular assembly, but this old constitutional check
was contemptuously disregarded. Also, when Bibulus, the conservative
colleague of Cæsar, interfered by formally delaying action in the
measure, he was forcibly removed from the Forum by some of Pompeius’
veterans. Bibulus was equally powerless when he invoked religious
scruples of a technical kind, for Cæsar was Pontifex Maximus as well
as Consul. Bibulus’ interpretations of signs and omens were ruled out
as irregular. Even when the bill was passed by the people, he kept up
opposition in the Senate and tried to induce the senators to declare
the agrarian law null and void. They, however, were not prepared to
join him in such a hazardous undertaking, so in disgust he withdrew for
the rest of his term into private life. His retirement led the people
to remark jokingly that the two Consuls for the year were Julius and
Cæsar, not Cæsar and Bibulus.
The passage of the agrarian democratic measure, as it stood, was
undertaken to fulfil engagements made with Pompeius, whose troops were
especially concerned in this distribution of lands. Equally personal
were the measures passed by the people to regularize the situation of
the territories in the East, where Pompeius, after his conquests, had
acted on his own initiative in making treaties, imposing taxation, and
settling the terms of local administration. The personal relations
between the two triumvirs were now drawn closer by the marriage of
Cæsar’s daughter Julia to Pompeius; she was at this time twenty-two
years old, and as long as she lived she prevented any open rupture
between her husband and her father.
In another legislative enactment Cæsar attested his loyal
interpretation of the triumvirate compact rather than his desire to
forward the public interests of the state. Crassus desired that the
farmers of the taxes in the province of Asia should be relieved from
the contract which they had made with the government. It was a shady
piece of business; even Cicero, who was not apt to be critical where
capitalistic interests were involved, called the scheme of Crassus
shameful. It was defeated in the Senate by the determined efforts of
Cato. The measure was afterwards jammed through the popular assembly in
a form which relieved the taxgatherers of one-third of their financial
burden.
This was really a shrewd move to separate from the senatorial party
the whole mercantile class, who normally acted solidly with them. They
now looked upon the triumvirate combination as favorable to their
interests, and so deprived the Senate of a solid support at a time
when that body needed every element of the population in its unequal
struggle with the triumvirs.
Much more worthy than this act of special legislation was a measure
for dealing with extortion on the part of provincial administrators.
The Roman governors and their subordinates treated the provinces
as legitimate spoil, by which they could balance the large amounts
spent at home in political corruption. This system offered the most
unwholesome example of ring rule. Every man in public life had a good
chance of ruling a province at some time in his career, and there was
no inducement to touch a well-tried system which had proved profitable
to all concerned.
Cæsar’s law was a blanket measure, evidently drawn with great
intelligence and showing the familiarity of an ex-provincial official
with the concrete needs of the situation. It extended the jurisdiction
of existing courts for cases of provincial extortion, in regard to
the definition of the crime, the persons liable, and the penalties
to be imposed. All the methods of extortion were brought within the
scope of this act. The governor and his official staff were held
liable, and the punishment, hitherto chiefly imposed by damages, was
increased to deprivation of the right to bequeath property, and in some
cases expulsion from the Senate and exile were inflicted on offending
officials.
Good as this legislation was, it contained a political element which
prevented it from meeting the whole situation of provincial misrule.
The triumvirate, we have seen, made a distinct bid for the favor of
the mercantile classes when the previous bill was passed relieving
the taxgatherers of Asia from the full extent of their contract. This
new law only concerned the administration of senatorial officials;
it did not put an end to extortion, nor did it stop the avenues of
public corruption, because the financiers, the men who gathered about
the official ruling class, were left to ply their nefarious trade
unmolested.
But Cæsar’s consulship broke the power of the senatorial aristocracy,
which had been on the decline ever since the death of Sulla. By his
alliance with Pompeius and Crassus a continuity of policy was secured,
under which the old republican principle that cessation of office
meant also cessation of power came to an end. The main business at the
close of his year of service as Consul was to arrange that the system
he had started should continue to work smoothly. The two candidates
for the consulship were pledged supporters of the triumvirate. An even
more important tool was the active and unscrupulous Clodius, who had
made himself notorious because of the Bona Dea scandal. He was made a
Tribune, and as such became the local agent in Rome of the triumvirs’
interests. He signalized his entrance into office by abolishing the
small payment still exacted on the state distribution of grain to the
people, and he organized the masses into guilds, each under a district
leader, so that the populace could be controlled and could be worked
together either as a political machine or as a mob, whether to vote or
to do deeds of violence according to the password of their leader.
The Senate, in arranging the assignment of provinces in B.C. 59, had
tried to diminish Cæsar’s influence by giving him for his work as
Proconsul the duty of attending to the internal condition of Italy.
This meant that he would have no military force at his command, and
that he would be expected to devote himself to the supervision of roads
and public works. The senatorial arrangement for rendering their chief
opponent innocuous was simply an invitation to him to treat it as
non-existing. It was proposed to set the Senate’s action aside and to
give Cisalpine Gaul and the adjoining province of Illyria to Cæsar for
a period of five years.
When the new measure was before the popular assembly, the Senate, under
pressure from Pompeius, voted that in addition to Cisalpine Gaul in the
Celtic region on the Italian side of the Alps, the Gallic province,
with an ample army and suitable staff, should be assigned to Cæsar. It
was known that there was restlessness among the Gauls and the Germans,
who were on the borders of the prosperous Roman province in southern
Gaul along the lower Rhone. This was, of course, an opportunity for
real proconsular duty, but probably no one who voted for the assignment
realized the possibilities of the command which now fell into Cæsar’s
hand.
But before setting out for his province (58 B.C.), Cæsar remained near
at hand to supervise Clodius’ arrangements for muzzling the Senate; it
was not safe for the new Proconsul to absent himself from Rome until
affairs there had been brought so under control that there would be no
chance of a senatorial reactionary movement. Clodius first abolished
the use of indefinitely prolonged obstruction, a practice involved in
the religious privilege of “watching the heavens” for evil omens, and a
method of delay normally used to prevent the assemblies of the people
from being held. The next step was to hinder the Censors from making a
combination to remove from the Senate partisans of Cæsar. This purpose
was secured by another law of Clodius that made it impossible for
the Censor to strike from the roll of the Senate anyone, except on a
formal accusation, and no member could be removed even then unless both
Censors acted together.
Cæsar attempted also to conciliate Cicero by offering him a staff
appointment; on this being refused, as it was desirable to deprive
the senatorial party of the oratorical talents which gave Cicero a
hold on the people, Clodius was allowed to bring charges against him
in connection with the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators.
The terms of the new law were perfectly general; it simply outlawed
any person who had or should hereafter put to death a Roman citizen
uncondemned, that is, without due trial and sentence. Cicero took
the hint and fled from Rome. At the same time the uncompromising
senatorial obstructionist Cato was “kicked upstairs” by being given an
appointment as commissioner to supervise the annexation of the island
of Cyprus. Ample time was allowed him, and it was arranged that when
he had finished with Cyprus, he should go to Byzantium and settle some
unimportant disputes in that free city. With Cato kept busy at a long
distance from Rome, and with Cicero out of the way, there was little to
fear with Clodius acting in the rôle of “boss” of Rome.
III THE CONQUEST OF GAUL
Very soon after the flight of the great orator, Cæsar, who had been
watching with his army the proceedings within the city, started for his
province of Gaul. The country which was to be the scene of his labors
as governor, and in which through successive campaigns his reputation
in generalship was to be made, was larger than modern France, for it
extended to the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Only a part of
it was familiar to the Romans, and for this reason one of the most
striking proofs of Cæsar’s skill as a commander is the ability and
certainty with which he penetrated into regions unvisited before and
therefore unfamiliar to him except by the hearsay stories of the casual
traveler. The province had originally been occupied by the Romans in
the struggle with Hannibal, because it secured their land communication
with Spain. In its southern part it was well developed and civilized,
but the limit of Roman rule northward was marked by the valley of the
Rhone, and the famous city of Lyons had not yet been founded, which was
later on the headquarters of Roman power in Gaul.
Much trouble was being experienced from Germanic invaders farther
north, who were crossing the Rhine and were in great numbers occupying
the fertile lands to the east of them. The Gauls themselves had no
cohesive power of resistance; they were constantly quarreling among
themselves, and it seemed only a question of time when the Germans,
uniting with the Gauls, who were certain to become subject to their
rule, would overwhelm the peaceful and civilized inhabitants of the
Roman province. The situation required immediate attention, for the
Ædui who lived between the Loire and the Saône were calling on the
Romans as allies for help and protection against their neighbors,
other Gaulish tribes, who with the aid of the German king, Ariovistus,
were threatening to take their land. Besides, it was reported that the
Helvetic and the German peoples were contemplating a migration on a
large scale, induced to leave south Germany by the prospect of finding
better lands farther west.
The country as a whole was in a state of unrest; the unconquered mass
of the free tribes, extending from the fringe of Roman occupation
in the south to the North Sea, might easily become dangerous to the
countries under Roman occupation on the other side of the Pyrenees and
the Alps. Up to the time of Cæsar’s advent, the government at Rome had
shown singular apathy; a few resolutions had been passed, directing
that the allied tribes should be aided, but no additions were made to
the army in the province. The emotional temperament of the Gauls made
them subject to quick changes in their point of view; unless something
were done quickly, even the allies of Rome would have to be counted on
the other side. It was easy for them to drop their present allegiance,
for they were as a mass a servile population, guided by an aristocracy
of nobles or knights, and by a widely extended and mysterious guild,
the Druids, who each year held a solemn assembly in a sacred place in
the center of the land.
The general difficulties of coping with the situation were great when
Cæsar took command, but the special details of the position as it
confronted him increased the obstacles in the way of prompt action.
There was but one legion beyond the Alps; the other three were far
away in Aquileia at the top of the Adriatic. It was fortunate for him
that he could draw on the reserves of Cisalpine Gaul, the richest part
of Italy, the province which extended over the plains of Lombardy
to Tuscany. This province was filled with a hardy race of yeomen
cultivators, a mixed population, having its origin in the conquered
Celtic tribes and in genuine Roman colonists.
Nowhere else could there be found a better recruiting ground for the
legions, and nowhere also, on account of the general intelligence of
the inhabitants, would the personal qualities of a general find a more
immediate response. The tactfulness of Cæsar had already been put to
the test in the arena of political life; he had learned how to make
friends and to hold them. Apart from the technical gifts of military
art, the personal charm of Cæsar’s character was a great factor in
securing for him an army made up of devoted troops and officers.
They trusted him, and they were held to him as a leader, because he
seems from the first to have been able to establish close relations
of a spontaneous and genuine type with those who were under him. His
army was not a mere fighting machine, but an organism reflecting the
individual driving power and coolness of the man who led it.
The series of campaigns in Gaul begins with Cæsar’s successful blocking
of the migration of the Helvetii. All that is known of the details
of the strategy employed by the Romans is derived from Cæsar’s own
report, which has been frequently criticised as intentionally obscure
and misleading. It must be remembered that the famous commentaries on
the Gallic wars were hurriedly dictated, and were meant to tell the
public what the commander-in-chief wished them to know and nothing
more. For example, many modern authorities are agreed that the numbers
of the migrating Helvetii are very much overestimated by Cæsar and that
the real purpose of their migration was artfully concealed. Napoleon,
who was a past master in falsifying military records, declared
that the campaign against the Helvetii as narrated by Cæsar was
incomprehensible.
The real situation in Gaul prior to the migration seems to have been as
follows. As we have said, Ariovistus, the German king, was in control
of the central part of the country. This overlordship was burdensome
to the Gauls, who paid him a yearly tribute. A prince of the Ædui,
Divitiacus, had turned to the Romans for help, but his request was
rejected, for Ariovistus, during Cæsar’s own consulship, had been
acknowledged as king and formally declared an ally and friend of the
Roman people. There was another party among the Ædui, led by Dumnorix,
the brother of Divitiacus, who favored throwing off the German yoke,
and urged a general uprising of the Gauls, unassisted by the Romans.
Not far away from Æduan territory were the Helvetii, who were
independent of the rule of Ariovistus, and with them the autonomous
party among the Ædui entered into friendly relations in order to secure
them as allies against the Germans. The Helvetii were to be persuaded
by their leaders to migrate to western Gaul, and it was arranged that,
when the whole tribe was slowly passing through the land of the Ædui,
there should be a rising against Ariovistus. The Ædui could count on
the assistance of the Helvetii, because as future occupants of Gallic
territory the immigrants would have no desire to be dependents of the
German king.
This situation and this program were known to Cæsar before he left
Rome, for he was in communication with the pro-Roman party among the
Ædui. It was of course his object to frustrate this plan of driving out
the Germans without the help of Rome, because it was to his interest
that Roman overlordship should take the place of German control. The
request of the Helvetii to be allowed to pass peacefully through Roman
territory came just in time. It gave Cæsar the opportunity of defending
the frontier and strengthening his army.
As soon as the Helvetii were refused a passage through the Roman
province, they started directly for the land of the Ædui, crossing
over the Roman territory, and so they abandoned the fiction of a
migration to the west. In the meantime, by the liberal use of money,
the pro-Roman party among the Ædui had got the upper hand. Accordingly
when the Helvetii, whose rear division had been attacked by Cæsar
as they were crossing the Saône, reached the land of their would-be
allies, they were treated as enemies by the Ædui, who were now calling
on Cæsar for help to resist the invaders. The Helvetii, willing to
return, desired to come to terms with the Roman general, but they
refused to accept the Roman conditions as to hostages. They started
to retrace their steps by following a more northerly course on their
return in order to take advantage of the mountainous country, as a
protection against an attack on the part of the Romans.
Cæsar followed warily; his own troops were indeed strengthened by
Æduan cavalry, but these, on the first engagement, had fled before the
enemy. It was obvious their loyalty could not be depended upon, and
significant, too, that Dumnorix was in command. When an attempt to
surround the Helvetii with two Roman legions failed, Cæsar withdrew
to Bibracte, the Æduan capital, to replenish his army and probably
to prevent the defection of his allies. The Helvetii might now have
returned to their old home unmolested, but they were embittered against
the Romans, who had shown constant hostility to their movements,
whether they advanced or retreated, and they were quite willing to
treat with the patriotic party among the Ædui, who asked them now for
help against the Romans. They turned back therefore, with the purpose
of attacking the Romans as they were marching towards Bibracte.
The actual number of the Helvetii engaged in this operation cannot
have been very great, for their wagon train was in a very short time
collected, formed, and turned into an improvised citadel. Their
movements before, during, and after battle show that the number 368,000
given by Cæsar is enormously exaggerated. Altogether, including allied
forces, Cæsar’s army may be reckoned at 40,000 men. There were six
legions (36,000 men) and allied cavalry to the number of 4000.
When the Helvetii approached, the brunt of the fighting was assigned to
four legions of veterans; the rest, the fresh recruits and the allies,
were placed behind the line of battle and directed to protect the camp.
As the Helvetii attacked the four legions, who were advantageously
stationed on the slope of a hill, they were thrown back; but, as the
legions advanced, these in turn were vigorously attacked on their
flanks. The battle was hotly contested, the Romans taking the offensive
both in the front and on the sides. Slowly the enemy withdrew, and it
was dark before the Roman army took the massed wagons by assault. After
the victory, Cæsar remained on the field of battle for three days. The
Helvetii fled towards the east and a few days later surrendered, most
of them being sent back to their old homes. The Helvetian overthrow was
a useful stroke; it made a decided impression on the Gauls, who were
now able to take the measure of the new commander of the Romans.
The next move was to break the power of Ariovistus. Cæsar represents
the suggestion as coming from various Gallic deputations, who besought
him to help them cast off the German yoke. But it is obvious that the
presence of Ariovistus in Gaul was incompatible with the purpose of
Cæsar to subjugate the entire country. All negotiations with the German
chieftain proved futile; he insisted on keeping the Gallic tribes as
his tributaries, and simply asked to be let alone.
Cæsar took his army to the east and came into contact with the Germans
in the neighborhood of Belfort or in southern Alsace; it is impossible
to determine the locality with precision. Ariovistus collected his
wagons into a fortified camp on an elevation a short distance from the
position of the Romans, using his advantage to break up by cavalry
sorties the Roman line of communication. His plan appears to have been
to force the Romans to withdraw and to attack them on their march. The
German leader took full advantage of the mobility of his troops, and
his cavalry proved too strong for the Gallic horse on the side of the
Romans. All attempts to draw Ariovistus from his camp failed, until
Cæsar divided his army, placing two legions in a fortified position,
where they could more efficiently protect the line of communications.
This smaller camp Ariovistus tried to take by storm, and failed.