History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

1160

Cicero, Oration for Sestius, 64. “Liberty torn from nations and individuals on whom it had been conferred, and whose right had been, by virtue of the Julian law, so precisely ensured against all hostile attacks.” (Oration against Piso, xxxvii. 16.)

1161

Cicero, Familiar Letters, VIII. 8. – Several of its chapters have been preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI. It is generally supposed that the fragments inscribed on a tablet of brass in the Museum of Florence belong to the same law. They have been published by Maffei, Museum Veronese, p. 365, No. 4, and commented on by the celebrated Marini, in his work on the Monuments of the Fratres Arvales, I. pp. 39, 40, note 44.

1162

Suetonius, Cæsar, 42.

1163

Cicero, Oration for Rabirimus Postumus, 4, 5.

1164

Fragments of the Julian law, De Repetundis, preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI.

The law is directed against those who, holding a magistracy, an embassy, or any other office, or forming part of the attendants of these functionaries, receive money.

They may receive money to any amount from their cousins, their still nearer relatives, or their wives.

The law includes those who have received money: For speaking in the Senate or any public assembly; for doing their duty or absenting themselves from it; for refusing to obey a public order or for exceeding it; for pronouncing judgment in a criminal or a civil case, or for not pronouncing it; for condemning or acquitting; for awarding or withdrawing the subject of a suit; for adjudging or taking an object in litigation; for appointing a judge or arbitrator, changing him, ordering him to judge, or for not appointing him or changing him, and not ordering him to judge; for causing a man to be imprisoned, put in irons, or set at liberty; for accusing or not accusing; for producing or suppressing a witness; for recognising as complete an unfinished public work; for accepting wheat for the use of the State without testing its good quality; for taking upon himself the maintenance of the public buildings without a certificate of their good condition; for enlisting a soldier or discharging him.

All that has been given to the proconsul or prætor contrary to the provisions of the present law, cannot become his by right of possession.

Sales and leases are declared null and void which have been made, for a high or a low price, with a view to right of possession by a third.

The magistrates are to abstain from all extortion, and receive as salary but 100 pieces of gold each year.

The action will lie equally against the heirs of the accused, but only during the year succeeding his death.

No one who has been condemned under this law can be either judge, accuser, or witness.

The penalties are exile, banishment to an island, or death, according to the gravity of the offence.

1165

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.

1166

De alternis consiliis rejiciendis. (Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, 11. —Scholiast of Bobbio, pp. 321, 323, edit. Orelli.)

1167

“The citizens who, not being of your order, cannot, thanks to the Cornelian laws, challenge more than three judges.” (Cicero, Second Prosecution of Verres, II. 31.)

1168

Suetonius, Cæsar, 28.

1169

Cicero, Familiar Letters, XIII. 35. “Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, re-peopled Comum. Some time after, Scipio established 3,000 inhabitants there; and, finally, Cæsar sent 5,000 colonists, the most distinguished of whom were 500 Greeks.” (Strabo, cxix.)

1170

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 18. – Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8.

1171

Dio Cassius, XXVIII. 8. – Orelli, Index Legum, 178.

1172

Cicero, in his speech against Vatinius, chap. 6, while reproaching him for having disregarded the auspices, exclaims, “I ask you first, Did you refer the matter to the Senate, as Cæsar did?”

“It is true that Cæsar’s acts were, for the benefit of peace, confirmed by the Senate.” (Cicero, Second Philippic, 39.)

1173

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7.

1174

Cæsar conducted himself with discretion in his consulship.” (Plutarch, Crassus, 17.)

1175

“Cæsar published laws that were worthy, I will not say of a consul, but of the most reckless of tribunes.” (Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.)

1176

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, VI. 1. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 13.

1177

Pliny, Natural History, XXXIII. 5. Drumann and Mommsen, like ourselves, refuse their belief to the assertion of Suetonius.

1178

Plutarch, Lucullus, 9.

1179

Suetonius, Cæsar, 22. – Plutarch, Cæsar, 14.

1180

Appian, Civil Wars, II. 14.

1181

Plutarch, Crassus, 17.

1182

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

1183

Suetonius, Cæsar, 22.

1184

Dio Cassius, XL. 34.

1185

“At the gladiatorial exhibition, the giver of the show and all his attendants were received with hisses. At the games in honour of Apollo, the tragedian Diphilus made a pointed allusion to our friend Pompey in the lines —

‘’Tis through our woes that thou art great,’

and was called upon to repeat the words a thousand times. Further on, the whole assembly cheered him when he said,

‘A time shall come, when thou thyself shall weep

That power of thine so deadly’ —

for they are lines that one might have said were written on purpose by an enemy of Pompey. The words

‘If nought, nor law, nor virtue, hold thee back,’

were received with a tempest of acclamation. When Cæsar arrived, he met with a cold reception. Curio, on the other hand, who followed him, was saluted with a thousand cheers, as Pompey used to be in the prosperous times of the Republic. Cæsar was annoyed, and sent off a courier post haste to Pompey, who is, they say, at Capua.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.)

1186

Suetonius, Cæsar, 9.

1187

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19.

1188

“Bibulus is being praised to the skies, I know not why; but he is being extolled as the one only man who, by temporising, has restored the State. Pompey, my idol Pompey, has been his own ruin, as I own with tears to-day; he has no one left who takes his side from affection. I am afraid that they will find it necessary to resort to intimidation. For my own part, I forbear, on the one hand, to combat their views on account of my ancient friendship with them, and, on the other, my antecedents prevent my approving of what they are about; I preserve a middle course. The humour of the people is best seen in the theatres.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 19, 20, 21.)

1189

“He keeps prudently in the background, but hopes at a safe distance to witness their shipwreck.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 7.)

1190

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 13.

1191

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 17.

1192

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 20, 21.

1193

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 11.

1194

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 24.

1195

Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, II. – Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 9.

1196

Scholiast of Bobbio, On Cicero’s Oration against Vatinius, p. 330, edit. Orelli. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 2 and 12.

1197

Appian, Civil Wars, II. 12.

1198

Suetonius, Cæsar, 20.

1199

“He (Ariovistus) knows, by his messengers, that in causing Cæsar’s death he would gratify a number of great persons at Rome; his death would win to him their favour and friendship.” (Cæsar, War in Gaul, I. 44.)

1200

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 12.

1201

Cicero, Letters to Quintus, I. 2.

1202

Suetonius, Cæsar, 23; Nero, 2.

1203

Suetonius, Cæsar, 23. – Valerius Maximus, III. 7, 9.

1204

“At the gates of Rome there was a general invested with authority for many years, and at the head of a great army (cum magno exercitu). Was he my enemy? I do not say he was; but I knew that when people said so, he was silent.” (Cicero, Oration after his return in the Senate, 13.) – “Oppressos, vos, inquit, tenebo exercitu Cæsaris.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 16.) – “Clodius said he would invade the curia at the head of Cæsar’s army.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 22.) – “Cæsar had already gone out of Rome with his army.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.)

1205

In several passages of Cicero’s letters, Cæsar is represented as being at the gates of Rome at the head of his army; and yet we know from his Commentaries that at the beginning of the war in Gaul he had only four legions, of which one was stationed on the banks of the Rhine, and the three others at Aquileia, in Illyria. It is, therefore, difficult to understand how he could have had troops at the gates of Rome, of which no further mention is made in the course of his campaign. The only way to reconcile the letters of Cicero with the Commentaries is to allow that Cæsar, independently of the legions which he found beyond the frontiers of Italy, summoned to his standard the volunteers and Roman veterans who were desirous of following him. Mustering at the gate of Rome, they joined him subsequently in Gaul, and were merged in the legions. This supposition is the more probable, as in 700, when the question of re-electing Pompey and Crassus to the consulship was brought forward, Cæsar sent to Rome a great number of soldiers to vote in the comitia. Hence, as all the legions had been recruited in Cisalpine Gaul, the inhabitants of which did not possess the right of Roman city, he must have had other Roman citizens in his army. Besides, if Cæsar appealed to the veterans, he only followed the example of nearly all the Roman generals, and among others of Scipio, Flamininus, and Marius. In fact, when Cornelius Scipio departed for the war against Antiochus, there were five thousand volunteers at the gates of Rome – citizens as well as allies – who had served in all the campaigns of his brother, Scipio Africanus. (Titus Livius, XXXVII. 4.) – “When Flamininus left to join the legions in Macedonia, he took with him three thousand veterans who had fought against Hannibal and Hasdrubal.” (Plutarch, Flamininus, III.) – “Marius, before leaving for the war against Jugurtha, appealed to all the bravest soldiers of Latium. He knew most of them for having served under his eyes, and the rest by reputation. By force of solicitation, he obliged even the veterans to go with him.” (Sallust, War of Jugurtha, LXXXIV.)

1206

“At the present moment he (Clodius) is agitating and raging; he knows not what he wants; he makes hostile demonstrations on this side and on that, and seems to intend to leave to chance where he shall strike. When he gives a thought to the unpopularity of the present state of things, you would say he was going to fly at the authors of it; but when he sees on which side are the means of action and the armed force, he turns round against us.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 22.)

1207

These clubs (collegia compitalitia) had an organisation which was almost military, divided into districts, and composed exclusively of the proletaries. (See Mommsen, Roman History, III. 290.) – “The slaves enrolled under pretence of forming corporations.” (Cicero, Oration after his return in the Senate, 13.)

1208

An exception, however, was made in 690, in favour of the corporations of artisans. (Asconius, In Pisone, IV. p. 7; In Corneliana, p. 75, edit. Orelli.)

1209

Cicero, Oration against Piso, 4. – Asconius, On the Oration of Cicero against Piso, pp. 7, 8, edit. Orelli. – Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.

1210

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 13.

1211

Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 17.

1212

“I receive from Cæsar the most flattering invitations, asking me to join him as lieutenant.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 17.) – “He has got my enemy (Clodius) transferred to the plebeian order: either because he was irritated to see that even his kindness could not persuade me to join his side, or because he yielded to the urgency of others. My refusal could not have been regarded as an insult, for subsequently to it he advised me, nay, even entreated me, to serve him as lieutenant. I did not accept this office, not because I thought it beneath me, but because I was far from suspecting that the State could possibly have, after Cæsar, any consuls so infamous as these (Piso and Gabinius).” (Cicero, Oration about the Consular Provinces, 17.)

1213

“Thanks to the pains I take, my popularity and my strength increase daily. I do not meddle with politics in any way – not the least. My house is crowded; my friends gather round me when I go abroad; my consulate seems to be beginning afresh. It rains protestations of attachment; and my confidence is such that at times I long for the strife, which I ought always to dread.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 22.) – “Let Clodius bring his accusation. Italy will rise as one man.” (Cicero, Letters to Quintus, I. 2.)

1214

Cicero, Oration against Vatinius, 16.

1215

Plutarch, Pompey, 48.

1216

Plutarch, Cicero, 41.

1217

Velleius Paterculus, II. 45.

1218

Suetonius, XXIII.

1219

“The rumours which preceded Pompey had caused great consternation there, because it had been said that he meant to enter the city with his army.” (Plutarch, Pompey, 45.) – “However, every one dreaded Pompey in the greatest degree; no one knew whether he would disband his army or not.” (Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44.)