History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

944

Cicero, Oration for Rabirius, 9.

945

Suetonius, Cæsar, 12.

946

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 26, 27.

947

Macrobius, Saturnalia, I. 16. – Priscian, vi., p. 710, edit. Putsch. – Macrobius (l. c.) quotes the 16th book of the treatise of Cæsar on the Auspices. – Dio Cassius (xxxvii.) expresses himself thus: “Above all, because he had supported Labienus against Rabirius, and had not voted for the death of Lentulus.” But the Greek author errs: the nomination of Cæsar to the high pontificate took place before the conspiracy of Catiline. (See Velleius Paterculus, II. 43.)

948

Appian, Civil Wars, II. 1, 8, 14.

949

Plutarch, Cæsar, 7.

950

Plutarch, Cæsar, 7.

951

Suetonius, Cæsar, 13.

952

Suetonius, Cæsar, 46.

953

“On the 23rd of August, the day of inauguration of Lentulus, flamen of Mars, the house was decorated, and couches of ivory were set up in the triclinia. In the two first halls were the pontiffs Q. Catulus, M. Æmilius Lepidus, D. Silanus, C. Cæsar, king of the sacrifices, and … L. Julius Cæsar, augur. The third received the vestals. The repast was thus composed: – For the first course: sea-urchins, raw oysters in any quantity, pelorides (a kind of oyster of extraordinary size), spondyli (shell-fish of the oyster kind), thrushes, asparagus; and, lower down, a fat hen, a vol-au-vent of large oysters, and sea-acorns black and white (sea and river shell-fish according to Pliny). Then more spondyli, glycomarides (another shell-fish mentioned by Pliny), sea-nettles, beccaficos, filets of venison and wild boar, fatted fowls powdered with flour, beccaficos, murices and purple fish (shell-fish bristling with points, which yielded the purple of the ancients). Second course: sows’ udders, wild boar’s head, fish-pie, sows’ udder-pie, ducks, boiled teal, hares, roast fowls, starch (flour that is obtained in the same manner as starch, without grinding – many sorts of creams, amylaria, were made of it), loaves from Picenum.” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, III. 9.)

954

“It was at the very point when it required no more to upset the weakly government than a slight impulse from the first bold man who presented himself.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 15.)

955

Cicero, Oration for M. Cælius, 5. This oration was delivered in the year 698.

956

Plutarch, Cicero, 19.

957

Sallust, Catiline, 27, 28.

958

This is deduced from what Florus (III. 6) says of the command of the fleet which L. Gellius had, and from a passage in Cicero. (First Oration after his Return, 7.) – L. Gellius expresses himself clearly upon the danger the Republic had run, and proposed the awarding of a civic crown to Cicero. (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, XII. 21; Oration against Piso, 3. – Aulus Gellius, V. 6.)

959

Cicero, First Catiline Oration, 1; Second Catiline Oration, 1.

960

Sallust, Catiline, 32.

961

Sallust, Catiline, 30, 31. – Plutarch, Cicero, 17.

962

Sallust, Catiline, 47.

963

Sallust, Catiline, 51. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 6.

964

Cicero, Fourth Catiline Oration, 1.

965

Cicero, Fourth Catiline Oration, 2.

966

Second Catiline Oration, 4.

967

First Oration against Catiline, 2.

968

Second Oration on the Agrarian Law, 5.

969

Suetonius, Cæsar, 14.

970

Cicero, Fourth Oration against Catiline, 5.

971

Sallust, Catiline, 52.

972

Plutarch, Cato, 28. – See the Comparison of Alexander and Cæsar, 7.

973

Suetonius, Cæsar, 53.

974

Sallust, Catiline, 52.

975

Plutarch, Cicero, 28.

976

Sallust, Catiline, 49.

977

Suetonius, Cæsar, 8.

978

Sallust, Catiline, 49.

979

“They feared his power and the great number of friends by whom he was supported, for everybody was persuaded that the criminals would be involved in the absolution of Cæsar, much more than Cæsar in their punishment.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 27.)

980

“And I have myself since heard Crassus say openly that this cruel affront had been caused him by Cicero.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)

981

We may read in the historians of the time the recital of fables invented at will to ruin the conspirators. Thus Catiline, seeking to bind by an oath accomplices in his crime, is represented as causing cups filled with human blood and wine to be passed round. (Sallust, Catiline, 22.) – According to Plutarch, they slaughtered a man, and all ate of his flesh. (Plutarch, Cicero, 14. – Florus, IV. 1.)

982

Cicero himself acknowledged that these accusations were commonplaces for the necessity of the cause. In a letter to Atticus, he describes a scene which passed in the Senate a short time after the return of Pompey to Rome. He tells us that this general satisfied himself with approving all the acts of the Senate, without imputing anything personal to him (Cicero); “but Crassus,” he continues, “rose and spoke with much eloquence… Brief, he attacked all the commonplace of sword and flame, which I have been accustomed to treat, you know in how many ways, in my orations, of which you are the sovereign critic.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.)

983

“The populace, who at first, through the love of novelty, had been only too much inclined for this war, changes its sentiments, curses the enterprise of Catiline, and exalts Cicero to the skies.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)

984

Sallust, Catiline, 39. – Dio Cassius, XXVII. 36.

985

“Many young estimable noblemen were attached to this wicked and corrupt man.” (Cicero, Oration for M. Cælius, 4.) – “He had drawn around him men perverse and audacious, at the same time that he had attached to himself numbers of virtuous and steady citizens, by the false semblances of an affected virtue.” (Cicero, ibid. 6.)

986

Sallust, Catiline, 17.

987

“And this silver eagle, to which he had consecrated in his house an altar.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 6.)

988

Sallust, Catiline, 20.

989

Sallust, Catiline, 33. Speech of the envoys sent by Mallius to Marcius Rex.

990

Sallust, Catiline, 30.

991

Sallust, Catiline, 36.

992

“Meanwhile, he kept refusing slaves, who, from the beginning, had never ceased joining him in large bands. Full of confidence in the resources of the conspiracy, he regarded any appearance of confounding the cause of the citizens with that of the slaves as contrary to his policy.” (Sallust, Catiline, 56.)

993

Sallust, Catiline, 44.

994

“People who will fall at our feet, if I show them, I do not say the points of our swords, but the edict of the prætor.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 3.)

995

Sallust, Catiline, 61.

996

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.

997

The Emperor Napoleon, in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, also treats as a fable this opinion of the historians that Catiline desired to burn Rome, and give it up to pillage, in order afterwards to govern a ruined city. The Emperor thought, said M. de Las Cases, that it was rather some new faction, after the manner of Marius and Sylla, which, having been unsuccessful, had seen all the unfounded accusations that are brought in such cases heaped upon its leader.

998

Cicero, Oration for Flaccus, 38.

999

“He excited public cavil, not by evil actions, but by his habit of self-glorification. He never went to the Senate, to the assemblies of the people, to the courts of law, without having on his lips the names of Catiline and Lentulus.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 31.)

1000

Cicero, Familiar Letters, v. 7.

1001

See Cæsar’s speech, quoted above.

1002

It may be interesting to reproduce here, from the letters of Cicero, the list of the discourses which he delivered during the year of his consulship. “I wished, I also, after the manner of Demosthenes, to have my political speeches, which may be named consulars. The first and second are on the Agrarian Law; the former before the Senate on the calends of January; the second before the people; the third, about Otho; the fourth, for Rabirius; the fifth, on the children of the proscribed; the sixth, on my relinquishing my province; the seventh is that which put Catiline to flight; the eighth was delivered before the people the day after his flight; the ninth, from the tribune, the day when the Allobroges came to give their evidence; the tenth, before the Senate, on the 5th of December. There are two more, not so long, which may be described as supplementary to the two first on the Agrarian Law.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.)

1003

Velleius Paterculus, II. 40. – Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.

1004

Suetonius, Cæsar, 46.

1005

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44; XLIII. 14.

1006

Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.

1007

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 43. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 16. – Cicero, Oration for Sestius, 29.

1008

Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.

1009

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 24.

1010

Plutarch, Cæsar, 9.

1011

Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.

1012

Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.

1013

Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.

1014

Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.

1015

Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.

1016

Suetonius, Cæsar, 1. – Plutarch, Cicero, 27; Plutarch, Cæsar, 10. – “This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the right of imperium, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal. The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to men, and whom Clodius terms the Good Goddess (Bona Dea), because she forgave him so gross an outrage.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 17.) – The Good Goddess, like the majority of the divinities of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.

1017

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.

1018

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 16.

1019

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 17.

1020

Appian, Mithridatic War, 101.

1021

Appian, Mithridatic War, 106.

1022

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 20.

1023

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44. In contradiction to other authors, Dio Cassius asserts that the elections were adjourned. (Plutarch, Pompey, 45.)

1024

“The more men were terrified, the more they were re-assured, on seeing Pompey return to his country as a simple citizen.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 40.)

1025

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.

1026

Metellus was subjugating Crete, when Pompey sent one of his lieutenants to depose him, under the pretence that that island was included in his own wide jurisdiction by sea.

1027

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 49.

1028

“No rectitude, no candour, not a single honourable motive in his policy; nothing elevated, nothing strong, nothing generous.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.)

1029

Plutarch, Pompey, 47.

1030

Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII. 5.

1031

Vases from Carmania that were highly prized. They reflected the colours of the rainbow, and, according to Pliny, a single one was sold for seventy talents (more than 300,000 francs [£12,000]). (Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII, 7, 8.)

1032

Pliny, XXXIII. 54. – Strabo, XII. 545.

1033

Appian, War against Mithridates, 116.

1034

Pliny, Natural History, XII. 9, 54.

1035

Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 2. – Velleius Paterculus, II. 34.

1036

Appian, War against Mithridates, 117.

1037

Plutarch, Pompey, 47. – Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.

1038

Cicero, Oration for Murena, 14.

1039

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

1040

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 50.

1041

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

1042

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.

1043

Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 27.

1044

“Your ancestors never set you the example of buying lands from individuals in order to send colonies thither. All the laws, up to the present time, have contented themselves with establishing them on the lands belonging to the State.” (Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 25.)

1045

Plutarch, Cato of Utica, 36.

1046

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 51.

1047

Plutarch, Cato, 35.

1048

“People abuse the Senate; the equestrian order stands aloof from it. Thus this year will have seen the overthrow of the two solid foundations on which I, single-handed, had planted the Republic – the authority of the Senate and the union of the two orders.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.)

1049

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.

1050

Plutarch, Cæsar, 12. – Appian (Civil Wars, II. 2, § 8) speaks of twenty-five million sestertii —i. e., 4,750,000 francs [£190,000].

1051

Suetonius, Cæsar, 18.

1052

Cicero, Letter to Atticus, I. 14, 16.

1053

“From his youth up he was zealous and true to his clients.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 71.)

1054

Suetonius, Cæsar, 12.

1055

Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

1056

Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

1057

A chain of mountains in Portugal, now called Sierra di Estrella, separating the basin of the Tagus from the valley of Mondego. According to Cellarius (Ancient Geography, I. 60), Mount Herminium is still called Arminno. The principal oppidum belonging to the population of these mountains seems to have been called Medobrega (Membrio). It is mentioned in Cæsar’s Commentaries, War of Alexandria, 48.

1058

Probably in the modern province of Leyria.

1059

A survey made, in August, 1861, by the Duc de Bellune, leaves no doubt that the peninsula of Peniche was once an island. The local traditions state that in ancient times the ocean advanced as far as the town of Atoguia; but since Dio Cassius speaks of the rising tide which swept away soldiers, we must believe that there were fords at low tide. We give extracts from Portuguese authors who have written on this subject.

Bernard de Brito (Portuguese Monarchy, I. p. 429, Lisbon, 1790) says: – “As along the entire coast of Portugal we cannot find, at the present time, a single island that fulfils the conditions of the one where Cæsar sought to disembark better than the peninsula, on which there is a locality which, taking its name from its situation, is called Peniche, we shall maintain, with our countryman Resende, that it is to this that all the authors refer. And I do not believe it possible to find one more suitable in every way than this: because, over and above the fact that it is the only one, and situated at but a short distance from the mainland, we see that when the tide is low it is possible to traverse the strait dryshod, and with still greater facility than would have been possible in ancient times, because the sea has silted up sand against a large portion of this coast, and brought it to pass that the sea does not rise to so high a point upon the land. Still, it rises high enough to make it necessary, at high tide, to use a boat to reach the island, and that in a space of about 500 paces in width, which separates the island from the mainland.”

The following is the passage of Resende: – “Sed quærendum utrobique quænam insula ista fuerit terræ contigua, ad quam sive pedibus sive natatu profugi transire potuerint, ad quam similiter et milites trajicere tentarint? Non fuisse Londobrin, cujus meminit Ptolomæus (Berligam modo dicimus), indicio est distantia a continente non modica. Et quum alia juxta Lusitaniæ totius littus nulla nostra ævo exstet, hæc de qua Dion loquitur, vel incumbenti violentius mari abrasa, vel certe peninsula illa oppidi Peniche juxta Atonguiam, erit intelligenda. Nam etiam nunc alveo quingentis passibus lato a continente sejungitur, qui pedibus æstu cedente transitur, redeunte vero insula plane fit, neque adiri vado potest. Et forte illo sæculo fuerit aliquanto major.” (L. André de Resende. De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ cæteraque Historica quæ exstant Opera, Conimbricæ, 1790, I., p. 77.)

Antonio Carvalho (Da costa corografia Portuguesa, II. p. 144, Lisbon, 1712) sets forth the same view.

The preceding information is confirmed by the following letter of an English bishop who accompanied the Crusaders, at the time of the siege of Lisbon, in the reign of Alfonso Henrique, a.d. 1147: – “Die vero quasi decima, impositis sarcinis nostris cum episcopis velificare incepimus iter prosperum agentes. Die vero postera ad insulam Phenicis (vulgo Peniche) distantis a continente quasi octingentis passibus feliciter applicuimus. Insula abundat cervis et maxime cuniculis: liquiricium (lege glycyrrhizum) habet. Tyrii dicunt eam Erictream. Peni Gaddis, id est septem, ultra quam non est terra: ideo extremus noti orbis terminus dicitur. Juxta hanc sunt duæ insulæ quæ vulgo dicuntur Berlinges, id est Baleares lingua corrupta, in una quarum est palatium admirabilis architecturæ et multa officinarum diversoria regi cuidam, ut aiunt, quondam gratissimum secretale hospicium.” (Letter of an English Crusader on the sack of Lisbon, in Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, a sæculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, justa Academiæ Scientiarum Olisiponensis edita. Volumen I., fasciculus iii. Lisbon, 1861, p. 395.)

1060

Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 52, 53. – “Cæsar, as soon as he arrived, defeated the Lusitanians and the inhabitants of Galicia, and advanced as far as the outer sea. Thus he caused people who had never yet recognised the authority of the Romans to submit to them, and returned from his government loaded with glory and wealth, of which he gave a part to his soldiers.” (Zonaras, Annales, X. 6.)

1061

Appian, Civil Wars, II. 8.

1062

Cæsar, Spanish War, 42.

1063

Plutarch, Cæsar, 12.

1064

“There come forward a whole army of accusers against those who enriched themselves by usury in contempt of a law passed by Cæsar when he was dictator, regulating the proportion to be observed between the debts and possessions in Italy: a law which had for a long while fallen into desuetude through the interest of individuals.” (Tacitus, Annals, vi. 16. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 42.)

1065

“I will not enumerate all the marks of honour with which Cæsar distinguished the people of this town when he was prætor in Spain; the divisions he found means of healing among the citizens of Gades; the laws which, with their consent, he gave them; the old barbarism of their manners and customs, which he caused to disappear; the eagerness with which, at the request of Balbus, he loaded them with benefits.” (Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 19.)

1066

“From his youth he was acquainted with Cæsar, and that great man was pleased with him. Cæsar, among the crowd of friends he had, marked him out as one of his intimates when he was prætor: when he was consul, he made him overseer of the manufactory of his military engines. He had experience of his prudence; appreciated his devotion; accepted his acts of kindness and his affection. At that time Balbus shared nearly all the labours of Cæsar.” (Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 28.)

1067

“For this man (Cæsar) began by being prætor in Spain, and, distrusting the loyalty of this province, he would not give its inhabitants the chance of being subsequently more dangerous, through a delusive peace. He chose to do what was of importance to the interests of the Republic rather than to pass the days of his magistracy in tranquillity; and as the Spaniards refused to surrender, he compelled them to it by force. So he surpassed in honour those who had preceded him in Spain; for it is a harder task to keep a conquest than to make one.” (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 41.)

1068

Suetonius, Cæsar, 54.

1069

“Cæsar arrives in two days.” (Cicero to Atticus, II. 1, June, 694.)

1070

Thence the name of candidate.

1071

“Many candidates for the consulship had been nominated in their absence; as, for instance, Marcellus, in 540.” (Titus Livius, XXIV. 9.)

1072

Plutarch, Cato, 36.

1073

Florus, III. 23.

1074

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

1075

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.

1076

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.

1077

“It even appears that Cicero had lent the accused a million of sestertii to purchase a mansion on the Palatine.” (Aulus Gellius, XII. 12.)