History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

On his arrival in Spain, he promptly raised ten new cohorts, which, joined to the twenty others already in the country, furnished him with three legions, a force sufficient for the speedy pacification of the province.1056 Its tranquillity was incessantly disturbed by the depredations of the inhabitants of Mount Herminium,1057 who ravaged the plain. He required them to establish themselves there, but they refused. Cæsar then began a rough mountain war, and succeeded in reducing them to submission. Terrified by this example, and dreading a similar fate, the neighbouring tribes conveyed their families and their most precious effects across the River Durius (Douro). The Roman general hastened to profit by the opportunity, penetrated into the valley of the Mondego to take possession of the abandoned towns, and went in pursuit of the fugitives. The latter, on the point of being overtaken, turned, and resolved to accept battle, driving their flocks and herds before them, in the hope that, through this stratagem, the Romans would leave their ranks in their eagerness to secure the booty, and so be more easily overcome. But Cæsar was not the man to be caught in this clumsy trap; he left the cattle, went straight at the enemy, and routed them. Whilst occupied in the campaign in the north of Lusitania, he learnt that in his rear the inhabitants of Mount Herminium had revolted again with the design of closing the road by which he had come. He then took another; but they made a further attempt to intercept his passage by occupying the country between the Serra Albardos1058 and the sea. Defeated, and their retreat cut off, they were forced to fly in the direction of the ocean, and took refuge in an island now called Peniche de Cima, which, being no longer entirely separated from the continent, has become a peninsula. It is situated about twenty-five leagues from Lisbon.1059 As Cæsar had no ships, he ordered rafts to be constructed, on which some troops crossed. The rest thought that they might venture through some shallows, which, at low tide, formed a ford; but, desperately attacked by the enemy, they were, as they retreated, engulphed by the rising tide. Publius Scævius, their chief, was the only man who escaped, and he, notwithstanding his wounds, succeeded in reaching the mainland by swimming. Subsequently, Cæsar obtained some ships from Cadiz, crossed over to the island with his army, and defeated the barbarians. Thence he sailed in the direction of Brigantium (now La Corogne), the inhabitants of which, terrified at the sight of the vessels, which were strange to them, surrendered voluntarily.1060 The whole of Lusitania became tributary to Rome.

Cæsar received from his soldiers the title of Imperator. When the news of his successes reached Rome, the Senate decreed in his honour a holiday,1061 and granted him the right of a triumph on his return. The expedition ended, the conqueror of the Lusitanians took in hand the civil administration, and caused justice and concord to reign in his province. He merited the gratitude of the Spaniards by suppressing the tribute imposed by Metellus Pius during the war against Sertorius.1062 Above all, he applied himself to putting an end to the differences that arose each day between debtors and creditors, by ordaining that the former should devote, every year, two-thirds of their income to the liquidation of their debts; a measure which, according to Plutarch, brought him great honour.1063 This measure was, in fact, an act which tended to the preservation of property; it prevented the Roman usurers from taking possession of a debtor’s entire capital to reimburse themselves; and we shall see that Cæsar made it of general application when he became dictator.1064 Finally, having healed their dissensions, he loaded the inhabitants of Cadiz with benefits, and left behind him laws, the happy influence of which was felt for a long period. He abolished among the people of Lusitania their barbarous customs, some of which went as far as the sacrifice of human victims.1065 It was there that he became intimate with a man of consideration in Cadiz, L. Cornelius Balbus, who became magister fabrorum (chief engineer) during his Gaulish wars, and who was defended by Cicero when his right of Roman citizen was called in question.1066

Though he administered his province with the greatest equity, yet, during his campaign, he had amassed a rich booty, which enabled him to reward his soldiers, and to pay considerable sums into the treasury without being accused of peculation or of arbitrary acts. His conduct as prætor of Spain1067 was praised by all, and among others by Mark Antony, in a speech pronounced after Cæsar’s death.

It was not then, as Suetonius pretends, by the begging of subsidies1068 (for a general hardly begs at the head of an army), nor was it by an abuse of power, that he amassed such enormous riches; he obtained them by contributions of war, by a good administration, and even by the gratitude of those whom he had governed.

Cæsar demands a Triumph and the Consulship (694).

II. Cæsar returned to Rome towards the month of June1069 without waiting for the arrival of his successor. This return, which the historians describe as hasty, was by no means so, since his regular authority had expired in the month of January, 694. But he was determined to be present at the approaching meeting of the consular comitia; he presented himself with confidence, and whilst preparing for his triumph, demanded at the same time permission to become a candidate for the consulship. Invested with the title of Imperator, having, by a rapid conquest, extended the limits of the empire to the northern shores of the Ocean, he might justly aspire to this double distinction; but it was granted with difficulty. To obtain a triumph, it was necessary to remain without the walls of Rome, to retain the lictors and continue the military uniform, and to wait till the Senate should fix the date of entry. To solicit for the consulship, it was necessary, on the contrary, to be present in Rome, clad in a white robe,1070 the costume of those who were candidates for public offices, and to reside there several days previous to the election. The Senate had not always considered these two demands incompatible:1071 it would perhaps even have granted this indulgence to Cæsar, had not Cato, by speaking till the end of the day, rendered all deliberation impossible.1072 He had not, however, been so severe in 684; but it was because, on that occasion, Pompey was triumphing in reality over Sertorius, that foe to the aristocracy, though officially it was only talked of as a victory over the Spaniards.1073 Constrained to choose between an idle pageant and real power, Cæsar did not hesitate.

The ground had been well prepared for his election. His popularity had been steadily on the increase; and the Senate, too much elated by its successes, had estranged those who possessed the greatest influence. Pompey, discontented at the uniform refusals with which his just demands had been met, knew well also that the recent law, declaring enemies of the State those who bribed the electors, was a direct attack against himself, since he had openly paid for the election of the consul Afranius; but, always infatuated with his own personal attractions, he consoled himself for his checks by strutting about in his gaudy embroidered robe.1074 Crassus, who had long remained faithful to the aristocratic party, had become its enemy, on account of the ill-disguised jealousy of the nobles towards him, and their intrigues to implicate him with Cæsar in the conspiracy of Catiline. However, though he held in his hands the strings of many an intrigue, he was fearful of compromising himself, and shrank from declaring in public against any man in credit.1075 Lucullus, weary of warfare and of intestine struggles, was withdrawing from politics in order to enjoy his vast wealth in tranquillity. Catulus was dead, and the majority of the nobles were ready to follow the impulse given them by certain enthusiastic senators who, caring little about public affairs, thought themselves the happiest of men if they had in their fishponds carp sufficiently tamed to come and eat out of their hands.1076 Cicero felt his own solitary position. The nobles, whose angry feelings he had served, now that the peril was over, regarded him as no better than an upstart. Therefore he prudently changed his principles; he, the exterminator of conspirators, had become the defender of P. Sylla, one of Catiline’s accomplices, and procured his acquittal in the teeth of the evidence;1077 he, the energetic opponent of all partitions of land, had spoken in favour of the agrarian law of Flavius. He wrote to Atticus, “I have seen that those men whose happiness belongs to the passing hour, those illustrious lovers of fishponds, are no longer able to conceal their jealousy of me; so I have sought more solid support.”1078

In a word, he had made overtures to Pompey, though in secret he admitted that he possessed neither greatness of mind nor nobleness of heart. “He only knows how to curry favour and flatter the people,” he said; “and here am I bound to him on such terms that our interest, as individuals, is served thereby; and, as statesmen, we can both act with greater firmness. The ill-will of our ardent and unprincipled youth had been excited against me. I have been so successful in bringing it round by my address, that at present it cares for no one but me. Finally, I am careful to wound no man’s feelings, and that without servileness or popularity-hunting. My entire conduct is so well planned, that, as a public man, I yield in nothing; and as a private individual, who knows the weakness of honest men, the injustice of the envious, and the hatred of the wicked, I take my precautions, and act with prudence.”1079

Cicero deceived himself with regard to the causes of his change of party, and did not acknowledge to himself the reasons that constrained him to look out for powerful patrons. Like all men destitute of force of character, instead of openly confessing the motives of his conduct, he justified himself to his friends by pretending that, so far from having altered his own opinions, it was he who was converting Pompey, and would soon make the same experiment upon Cæsar. “You rally me pleasantly,” he wrote to Atticus, “on the subject of my intimacy with Pompey; but do not fancy that I have contracted it out of regard for my personal safety. It is all the effect of circumstances. When there was the slightest disagreement between us, there was trouble in the State. I have laid my plans and made my conditions, so that, without laying aside my own principles, which are good, I have led him to better sentiments. He is somewhat cured of his madness for popularity… If I am equally successful with Cæsar, whose ship is now sailing under full canvas, shall I have done great harm to the State?”1080 Cicero, like all men whose strength lies in eloquence, felt that he could play no important part, or even secure his own personal safety, unless he allied himself with men of the sword.

Whilst at Rome the masters of the world were wasting their time in mean quarrels, alarming news came suddenly to create a diversion in political intrigue. Information was brought that the Gaulish allies on the banks of the Saône had been defeated by the Germans, that the Helvetii were in arms, and making raids beyond the frontiers. The terror was universal. Fears were entertained of a fresh invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones; and, as always happened on such occasions, a general levy, without exception, was ordered.1081 The consuls of the previous year drew lots for their provinces, and it was decided to dispatch commissioners to come to an understanding with the Gaulish tribes, with a view to resist foreign invasions. The names of Pompey and Cicero were at once pronounced; but the Senate, influenced by different motives, declared that their presence was too necessary in Rome to allow them to be sent away. They were unwilling to give the former an opportunity of again distinguishing himself, or to deprive themselves of the concurrence of the latter.

Alliance of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus.

III. News of a more re-assuring character having been received from Gaul, the fear of war ceased for a time, and things had returned to their customary course when Cæsar came home from Spain. In the midst of conflicting opinions and interests, the presence of a man of steady purpose and deeply-rooted convictions, and illustrious through recent victories, was, without any doubt, an event. He did not require long to form his estimate of the situation; and, as he could not as yet unite the masses by the realisation of a grand idea, he thought to unite the chiefs by a common interest.

All his endeavours from that time were devoted to making Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero share his ideas. The first had been rather ill disposed towards him. On his return from his campaign against Mithridates, Pompey had called Cæsar his Egistheus,1082 in allusion to the intrigue which he had had with his wife Mutia, whilst he, like Agamemnon, was making war in Asia. Resentment, on this account, usually slight enough among the Romans, soon disappeared before the exigencies of political life. As for Crassus, who had long been separated from Pompey by a jealous feeling of rivalry, it needed all Cæsar’s tact, and all the seduction of his manners, to induce him to become reconciled with his rival. But, to bring them both to follow the same line of conduct, it was necessary, over and above this, to tempt them with such powerful motives as would ensure conviction. The historians, in general, have given no other reason to account for the agreement of these three men than personal interest. Doubtless, Pompey and Crassus were not insensible to a combination that favoured their love of power and wealth; but we ought to lend Cæsar a more elevated motive, and suppose him inspired by a genuine patriotism.

The condition of the Republic must have appeared thus to his comprehensive grasp of thought: – The Roman dominion, stretched, like some vast figure, across the world, clasps it in her sinewy arms; and whilst her limbs are full of life and strength, the heart is wasting by decay. Unless some heroic remedy be applied, the contagion will soon spread from the centre to the extremities, and the mission of Rome will remain unfinished! – Compare with the present the prosperous days of the Republic. Recollect the time when envoys from foreign nations, doing homage to the policy of the Senate, declared openly that they preferred the protecting sovereignty of Rome to independence itself. Since that period, what a change has taken place! All nations execrate the power of Rome, and yet that power preserves them from still greater evils. Cicero is right, “Let Asia think well of it: there is not one of the woes that are bred of war and civil strife, that she would not experience did she cease to live under our laws.”1083 And this advice may be applied to all the countries whither the legions have penetrated. If, then, fate has willed that the nations are to be subject to the sway of a single people, it is the duty of that people, as charged with the execution of the eternal decrees, to be, towards the vanquished, as just and equitable as the Divinity, since he is as inexorable as destiny. How are we to fix a limit to the arbitrary conduct of proconsuls and proprætors, which all the laws promulgated for so many years have been powerless to check? How put a stop to the exactions committed at all points of the empire, if a firmer and stronger direction do not emanate from the central power? – The Republic pursues an irregular system of encroachment, which will exhaust its resources; it is impossible for her to fight against all nations at once, and at the same time to maintain her allies in their allegiance, if, by unjust treatment, they are driven to revolt. The enemies of the Republic must be diminished in number by restoring their freedom to the cities which are worthy of it,1084 and acknowledging as friends of the Roman people those nations with whom there is a chance of living in peace.1085 Our most dangerous enemies are the Gauls, and it is against this turbulent and warlike nation that all the strength of the State ought to be directed. – In Italy, and under this name Cisalpine Gaul must be included, how many citizens are deprived of political rights! At Rome, how many of the proletaries are living on the charity either of the rich or of the State! Why should we not extend the Roman commune as far as the Alps, and why not augment the race of labourers and soldiers by making them landowners? The Roman people must be raised in its own eyes, and the Republic in the eyes of the world! – Absolute liberty of speech and of vote was a great benefit, when, modified by morality, and restrained by a powerful aristocracy, it gave scope to individual faculties without damaging the general well-being; but, ever since the morality of ancient days disappeared with the aristocracy, we have seen the laws become weapons of war for the use of parties, the elections a traffic, the forum a battle-field; while liberty is nothing more than a never-ending cause of weakness and decay. – Our institutions cause such uncertainty in our councils, and such independence in our offices of State, that we search in vain for that spirit of order and control which are indispensable elements in the maintenance of so vast an empire. Without overthrowing institutions which have given five centuries of glory to the Republic, it is possible, by a close union of the most worthy citizens, to establish in the State a moral authority, which governs the passions, tempers the laws, gives a greater stability to power, directs the elections, maintains the representatives of the Roman people in their duty, and frees us from the two most serious dangers of the present: the selfishness of the nobles and the turbulence of the mob. This is what they may realise by their union; their disunion, on the contrary, will only encourage the fatal conduct of these men who are endangering the future equally, some by their opposition, the others by their headlong violence.

These considerations must have been easily understood by Pompey and Crassus, who had themselves been actors in such great events, witnesses of so much blood shed in civil wars, of so many noble ideas, triumphing at one moment and overthrown the next. They accepted Cæsar’s proposal, and thus was concluded an alliance which is wrongly termed the First Triumvirate.1086 As for Cicero, Cæsar tried to persuade him to join the compact which had just been formed, but he refused to become one of what he termed a party of friends.1087 Always uncertain in his conduct, always divided between his admiration for those who held the sovereign power, and his engagements with the oligarchy, and uneasy for the future which his foresight could not penetrate, he set his mind to work to prevent the success of every measure which he approved as soon as it had succeeded. The alliance which these three persons ratified by their oaths,1088 remained long a secret; and it was only during Cæsar’s consulship that it became matter of public notoriety from the unanimity they displayed in all their political resolutions. Cæsar, then, set energetically to work to unite in his own favour every chance that could render his election certain.

Cæsar’s Election.

IV. Among the candidates was L. Lucceius. Cæsar was desirous of attaching to his cause this person, who was distinguished alike by his writings and his character,1089 and who, possessed of vast wealth, had promised to make abundant use of it for their common profit, in order to command the majority of votes in the centuries. “The aristocratic faction,” says Suetonius, “on learning this arrangement, was seized with fear. They thought that there was nothing which Cæsar would not attempt in the exercise of the sovereign magistracy, if he had a colleague who agreed with him, and who would support all his designs.”1090 The nobles, unable to eject him, resolved to give him Bibulus for a colleague, who had already been his colleague in the edileship and the prætorship, and had constantly shown himself his opponent. They all made a pecuniary contribution to influence the elections; Bibulus spent large sums,1091 and the incorruptible Cato himself, who had solemnly sworn to impeach any one who should be guilty of bribery, contributed his quota, owning that for the interest of the State his principles must for once yield.1092 Neither was Cicero more inflexible: some time before, he expressed to Atticus the necessity of purchasing the concurrence of the equestrian order.1093 We can see how even the most honourable were swept along, by the force of events, in the current of a corrupt society.

By the force of public opinion, and by the support of the two men of greatest influence, Cæsar was elected consul unanimously, and conducted, according to custom, from the Campus Martius to his own house by an enthusiastic crowd of his fellow-citizens, and a vast number of senators.1094

If the party opposed to Cæsar had been unable to stand in the way of his becoming consul, it did not despair of preventing his playing the important part he had a right to expect as proconsul. To effect this, the Senate determined to evade the law of Caius Gracchus, which, to prevent the assignment of provinces from personal considerations, provided that it should take place before the comitia were held. The assembly, therefore, departing from the rule, assigned to Cæsar and his colleague, by an act of flagrant ill-will, the supervision of the public roads and forests; an office somewhat similar, it is true, to that of governor of a province.1095 This humiliating appointment, proof as it was of a persevering hostility, wounded him deeply; but the duties of his new office imposed silence upon his resentments. Cæsar the consul would forget the wrongs done to Cæsar the man, and generously attempt a policy of conciliation.

CHAPTER V.

CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS

(695.)

Attempts at Conciliation.

I. CÆSAR has arrived at the first magistracy of the Republic. Consul with Bibulus at the age of forty-one, he has not yet acquired the just celebrity of Pompey, nor does he enjoy the treasures of Crassus, and yet his influence is perhaps greater than that of those two personages. Political influence, indeed, does not depend solely on military successes or on the possession of immense riches; it is acquired especially by a conduct always in accord with fixed convictions. Cæsar alone represents a principle. From the age of eighteen, he has faced the anger of Sylla and the hostility of the aristocracy, in order to plead unceasingly the grievances of the oppressed and the rights of the provinces.

So long as he is not in power, being exempt from responsibility, he walks invariably in the way he has traced, listens to no compromise, pursues unsparingly the adherents of the opposite party, and maintains his opinions energetically, at the risk of wounding his adversaries; but, once consul, he lays aside all resentment, and makes a loyal appeal to all who will rally round him; he declares to the Senate that he will not act without its concurrence, that he will propose nothing contrary to its prerogatives.1096 He offers his colleague Bibulus a generous reconciliation, conjuring him, in the presence of the senators, to put a term to differences of opinion, the effects of which, already so much to be regretted during their common edileship and prætorship, would become fatal in their new position.1097 He makes advances to Cicero, and, after sending Cornelius Balbus to him in his villa of Antium to assure him that he is ready to follow his counsels and those of Pompey, offers to take him as an associate in his labours.1098

Cæsar must have believed that these offers of co-operation would be embraced. In face of the perils of a society deeply agitated, he supposed that others had the same sentiments which animated himself. Love of the public good, and the consciousness of having entirely devoted himself to it, gave him that confidence without reserve in the patriotism of others which admits neither mean rivalries nor the calculations of selfishness: he was deceived. The Senate showed nothing but prejudices, Bibulus, but rancours, Cicero, but a false pride.

It was essential for Cæsar to unite Pompey, who was wanting in firmness of character, more closely with his destinies; he gave him in marriage his daughter Julia, a young woman of twenty-three years of age, richly endowed with graces and intelligence, who had already been affianced to Servilius Cæpio. To compensate the latter, Pompey promised him his own daughter, though she also was engaged to another, to Faustus, the son of Sylla. Soon afterwards Cæsar espoused Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Piso.1099 Cato protested energetically against these marriages, which he qualified as disgraceful traffics with the common weal.1100 The nobles, and especially the two Curios, made themselves the echoes of this reprobation. Their party, nevertheless, did not neglect to strengthen themselves by such alliances. Doubtless, when Cato gave his daughter to Bibulus, it was for a political motive; and when he ceded his own wife to Hortensius,1101 although the mother of three children, to take her back again when enriched by the death of her last husband, there was also an interest hardly honourable, which Cæsar subsequently unveiled in a book entitled Anti-Cato.1102