History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

The Interview at Lucca.

V. In the midst of the general confusion, many citizens turned their eyes towards Cæsar. Appius Claudius had already paid him a visit.632 Crassus left Rome suddenly to join him at Ravenna, at the beginning of the spring of 698, before the campaign against the Veneti, and explain to him the state of affairs, for, as Cicero says in a letter of a subsequent date, there was no occurrence so small in Rome that Cæsar was not informed of it.633

Some time afterwards, Pompey, who was to embark at Pisa, to proceed to Sardinia, in order to hasten the supply of wheat, arrived at Lucca, where he had an interview with Cæsar and Crassus. A crowd of people assembled similarly in that town; some were drawn thither by the prestige of Cæsar’s glory, others by his well-known generosity, all by the vague instinct which, in moments of crisis, points to the place where strength exists, and gives a presentiment of the side from which safety is to come. The Roman people sent him a deputation of senators.634 All the most illustrious and powerful personages in Rome, such as Pompey, Crassus, Appius, governor of Sardinia, Nepos, proconsul of Spain,635 came to show their warm admiration for him and invoke his support;636 even women repaired to Lucca, and the concourse was so great that as many as 200 senators were seen there at a time; 120 lictors, the obligatory escort of the first magistrates,637 besieged the door of the proconsul. “Already,” Appius writes, “he disposed of everything by his ascendance, by his riches, and by the affectionate eagerness with which he conferred obligations upon everybody.”638

What took place in this interview? No one knows; but we may conjecture from the events which were the immediate consequences of it. It is evident, in the first place, that Crassus and Pompey, who had recently quarrelled, were reconciled by Cæsar, who, no doubt, placed before their eyes the arguments most calculated to reconcile them: “The public interest required it; they alone could put an end to the state of anarchy which afflicted the capital; in a country which was a prey to vulgar ambitions, it required, to control them, ambitions which were greater, but, at the same time, purer and more honourable; they must easily have seen that it was not in the power of a man like Cicero, with his tergiversations, his cowardice, and his vanity, or Cato, with his stoicism, belonging to another age, or Domitius Ahenobarbus, with his implacable hatred and his selfish passions, to restore order, or put an end to the divisions of opinion. In order to obtain these results, it was necessary that Crassus and Pompey should labour resolutely to obtain the consulship.639 As to himself, he only asked to remain at the head of his army, and complete the conquest he had undertaken. Gaul was vanquished, but not subjugated. Some years were still necessary to establish there the Roman domination. This fickle and warlike people, always ready for revolt, was secretly incited and openly supported by two neighbouring nations, the Britons and the Germans. In the last war against the Belgæ, the promoters of the rising, according to the confession of the Bellovaci, had clearly shown, by taking refuge in Britain after their defeat, whence came the provocation. Even at this very moment, the insurrection which was in preparation among the tribes of the Veneti, on the shores of the ocean, was instigated by these same islanders. As to the Germans, the defeat of Ariovistus had not discouraged them; and several contingents of that nation were lately found with the troops of Hainault. He intends to chastise these two peoples, and to carry his arms beyond the Rhine as well as beyond the sea; let them, then, leave him to finish his enterprise. Already the Alps are levelled; the barbarians, who, hardly forty-four years ago, were ravaging Italy, are driven back into their deserts and forests. A few years more, and fear or hope, punishments or recompenses, arms or laws, will have bound for ever Gaul to the empire.”640

Language like this could not fail to be understood by Pompey and by Crassus. People are easily persuaded when the public interest offers itself through the prism of self-love and personal interest. Beyond the consulship, Crassus and Pompey saw at once the government of provinces and the command of armies. As to Cæsar, the logical realisation of his desires was the prolongation of his powers. Only one difficulty lay in the way of the execution of this plan. The period of the elections was near at hand, and neither Pompey nor Crassus had taken steps to offer themselves as candidates for the consulship within the time fixed by the law; but it had been so usual for many years to delay the comitia, under frivolous pretexts, that the same thing might easily be done on the present occasion with a more legitimate object.

Cæsar promised to support their election with all his power, by his recommendations, and by sending his soldiers on leave to vote in the comitia. In fact, his soldiers, either recruited from the veterans whom he had carried from Rome, or among Roman citizens established in great numbers in Cisalpine Gaul, had the right to give their vote in Rome, and enjoy the legitimate influence which is the reward of a life of dangers and self-denial. Cicero assures us of this in these words: “Do you consider, in seeking the consulship, as a weak support the will of the soldiers, so powerful by their number and by the influence which they exercise in their families? Moreover, what authority must the vote of our warriors have over the whole Roman people in the question of nominating a consul! For, in the consular comitia, it is the generals they choose, and not the rhetoricians. It is a very powerful recommendation to be able to say, I was wounded, he has restored me to life; he shared the booty with me. It was under him that we captured the enemy’s camp, that we gave battle; he never required from the soldier more labour than he took upon himself; his success is as great as his courage. Can you imagine what a favourable influence such discourses have upon people’s minds?”641 Thus Cæsar conformed to the established practice, in allowing his soldiers to exercise their rights of citizens.

Consequences of the interview at Lucca. Conduct of Cicero.

VI. The result of the interview at Lucca had been to unite in a common feeling the most important men in the Republic. Some historians have seen in it a mysterious conspiracy, and they have not hesitated to qualify it with the name of triumvirate, a denomination as inapplicable to this agreement as to that which took place in 694. An interview in the midst of so many illustrious citizens, who have assembled from all sides to salute a victorious general, had hardly the appearance of a mystery, and the mutual understanding of some men of influence in the same political thought was not a conspiracy. Some authors have, nevertheless, pretended that the Senate, informed of this plot devised in Cisalpine Gaul, had expressed its indignation; but there is nothing to support this allegation; if it had been the case, would they, a few months after the interview at Lucca, have granted Cæsar everything he desired, and rejected everything that was displeasing to him? We see, indeed, that at the annual distribution of the governments of provinces, the senators hostile to Cæsar proposed that he should be deprived of his command, or, at least, of the part of his command decreed by the Senate.642 Yet, not only was this proposal rejected, but the Senate gave him ten lieutenants and subsidies to pay the legions he had raised on his own authority, in addition to the four legions originally placed at his disposal by the Senate. In fact, the triumphs of Cæsar had excited people’s minds. Public opinion, that irresistible force in all times, had declared loudly for him, and his popularity reflected upon Pompey and Crassus.643 The Senate had then silenced its animosity, and even Cæsar showed himself full of deference for that assembly.644

It must be said, in praise of humanity, that true glory possesses the privilege of rallying all generous hearts; only men who are madly in love with themselves, or hardened by party fanaticism, can resist this general attraction towards those who constitute the greatness of their country. At this period, with the exception of a few spiteful and intractable individuals, the greater part of the senators felt the general impulse, as we learn from the orations of Cicero.645

But if, on one side, the members of this pretended triumvirate are represented as closely leagued together against the Republic, on the other, Dio Cassius asserts that, at this time, Pompey and Crassus were conspiring against Cæsar. This opinion has no better foundation. We see, on the contrary, by a letter of Cicero, how warmly Pompey at that time advocated the party of his father-in-law. Pompey, when he was leaving Lucca, met with Quintus Cicero, and, addressing him with warmth, he bade him remind his brother of his past engagements: “Cicero ought not to forget that what Pompey had done for his recall was also the work of Cæsar, whose acts he had promised not to attack; if he would not serve him, at least let him abstain from all hostility.”646 These reproaches did not remain without effect. Cicero, very apt to turn to the side of fortune, wrote to Atticus: “There is an end to everything; and since those who are without power will have me no longer, I will seek friends among those who have the power.”647

He had already acted with the senators in voting thanks for Cæsar’s victories, since which he had employed all his efforts in seconding every proposal in favour of the conqueror of Gaul. As the part Cicero acted on this occasion has had a particular importance, it will not be uninteresting to quote his words: “Could I be the enemy of a man whose couriers and letters, in concert with his renown, make our ears listen every day to the names of so many peoples, of so many nations, of so many countries which he has added to our empire? I am inflamed with enthusiasm, senators, and you are the less inclined to doubt it, since you are animated by the same sentiments.648 He has combated, with the greatest success, the most warlike and powerful nations of the Germans and Helvetii; he has overthrown, subdued, and driven back the others, and has accustomed them to obey the Roman people. Countries, which no history, no relation, no public report had hitherto brought to our knowledge, have been overrun by our general, our troops, our arms. We had formerly but one way into Gaul; the other parts were occupied by peoples who were either enemies of this empire, or little to be trusted, or unknown, or at least ferocious, barbarous, and warlike; there was no one who was not desirous of seeing them vanquished and subdued.649 A report has been recently presented to us on the pay of the troops. I was not satisfied with giving my opinion, but I laboured to secure its adoption; I replied at great length to those who held a contrary opinion; I assisted in drawing up the decree; then, again, I granted more to the person than to I know not what necessity. I thought that, even without such a succour of money, with the mere produce of the booty, Cæsar might have maintained his army and terminated the war; but I did not consider that we ought, by a narrow parsimony, to diminish the lustre and glory of his triumph.

“Moreover, there has been a question of giving Cæsar ten lieutenants: some absolutely opposed the grant, others required precedents; these would have put off the consideration to another day; those granted it, without employing flattering terms. Under these circumstances, from the manner in which I spoke, everybody understood that, while I sought to serve the interests of the Republic, I did still more to honour Cæsar.”

In another speech, the same orator exclaims: “The Senate has decreed Cæsar public prayers in the most honourable form, and for a number of days hitherto without example. In spite of the exhausted state of the treasury, it has provided for the pay of his victorious army; it has decided that ten lieutenants shall be given to the general, and that, by derogation of the law Sempronia, a successor should not be sent him. It was I who moved these measures, and who spoke in support of them; and, rather than listen to my old disagreement with Cæsar, I lent myself to what is demanded, under present circumstances, by the interest of the Republic and the need of peace.”650

But if in public Cicero expressed himself with so much clearness, in his private intercourse he was still tender of the opinion of his former friends. It is, indeed, the only manner in which we can explain a contradiction too glaring even in a temper so inconstant. In fact, at the moment when he was boasting openly of the services he had assisted in rendering to Cæsar, he wrote to his friend P. Lentulus, proconsul in Cilicia: “They have just granted Cæsar subsidies and ten lieutenants, and they have paid no regard to the law Sempronia, which required that a successor should be given to him. But it is too sorrowful a subject, and I will not dwell upon it.”651

Intrigues of Pompey and Crassus to obtain the Consulship.

VII. From what precedes, it is evident that unpopularity did not fall upon Cæsar, but upon the means employed by Crassus and Pompey for the purpose of obtaining the consulship.

They made use of Caius Cato, kinsman of the Stoic, and of other men equally undeserving of esteem, to cause delay in the time of holding the comitia, and thus lead to the creation of an interrex,652 which would facilitate their election, since the consuls, who were the ordinary presidents of the assembly of the people, were opposed to them.

The relations of the events of this period present great confusion. Dio Cassius informs us that, in the sequel of violent disputes in the curia, between Pompey, who had recently returned from Sardinia, and the Consul Marcellinus, the Senate, in sign of its displeasure, decreed that it would go into mourning, as for a public calamity, and immediately carried the decree into effect. Caius Cato opposed his veto. Then the Consul Cn. Marcellinus, at the head of the Senate, proceeded to the Forum, and harangued the people to ask it for the comitia, without success probably, since the senators returned immediately to the place of their session. Clodius, who, since the conference of Lucca, had become more intimate with Pompey, appeared suddenly among the crowd, interrupted the consul, and bantered him on this display of untimely mourning. In the public place Clodius would easily carry the approval of the multitude; but when he attempted to return to the Senate, he encountered the most resolute opposition. The senators rushed to meet him and prevent him from entering; many of the knights assailed him with insults; they would have treated him still worse, had not the populace rushed to his aid and delivered him, threatening to commit to the flames the entire assembly.653

On another hand, Pompey, with more authority and less violence, protested against the last senatus-consultus. Lentulus Marcellinus, addressing him in full Senate, demanded if it were true, as reported, that he aimed at the consulship. “As yet I know not what I shall do,” replied Pompey, roughly. Then, perceiving the bad impression caused by these disdainful words, he added immediately, “For the good citizens, there is no use in my being consul; against the factious, perhaps I am necessary.”654 To a similar question, Crassus replied, modestly, “that he was ready to do whatever would be useful to the Republic.” Then Lentulus bursting into reproaches against Pompey’s ambition, the latter interrupted him insolently. “Remember,” he said, “that thou art indebted to me for everything. Thou wast dumb, I made thee a talker; thou wast a greedy beggar, I turned thee into a glutton, who vomits to eat again.” This language will give an idea of the violence of political passions at that period. The senators, and Marcellinus himself, seeing that they could not contend against the influence of these two men, withdrew. During the rest of the year they took no part in public affairs; they confined themselves to wearing mourning, and absenting themselves from the festivals of the people.

Campaign against the Peoples on the Shores of the Ocean.

VII. While Pompey and Crassus, in accord with the convention of Lucca, employed all the means in their power to arrive at the consulship, Cæsar had his regards still fixed on a conquest which every year seemed achieved, yet every year it had to be commenced again. If the Gauls, divided into so many different peoples, were incapable of uniting for their common defence, they did not allow themselves to be discouraged by a single misfortune. Hardly were they crushed on one point, when the standard of insurrection was raised somewhere else.

In 698, the agitation showed itself first along the shores of the ocean, from the Loire to the Seine. The peoples of the Morbihan, masters of a considerable fleet, and possessing the exterior trade, placed themselves at the head of the movement. They entered into alliance with all the peoples who dwelt on the coasts between the Loire and the Scheldt, and sent for assistance from England, with which country they were in constant relation. Under these circumstances, Cæsar foresaw that it was on the sea that he must curb the spirit of these maritime peoples. He gave orders for the building of ships on the Loire, demanded others from the peoples of the Charente and the Gironde, and sent from Italy Decimus Brutus with galleys and sailors. As soon as the season permitted, he repaired in person to the neighbourhood of Nantes, not far from Angers, where Publius Crassus was in winter quarters with the 7th legion. From the moment of his arrival his attention extended over the vast territory where he was to establish the domination of Rome. With this aim, he distributed his troops as follows: Labienus is sent with the cavalry to the east, in the direction of Trèves, to hold the Germans in check; on his way, he will confirm the fidelity of the people of Champagne and their neighbours; P. Crassus is sent towards Aquitaine, to subdue that country; Sabinus towards Normandy, to combat the insurgents of the Cotentin; Cæsar reserves for himself the operations in the Morbihan. After besieging, not without great difficulties, several small fortresses which, placed at the extremity of promontories, were surrounded with water at high tide, he resolved to wait for his fleet, and took a position on the coast, at Saint-Gildas, to the south of Vannes. Decimus Brutus led his vessels out of the Loire, encountered the enemy in sight of the Roman army, and, by a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, destroyed the Gaulish fleet; the flower of Brittany perished in the combat. The Morbihan and the neighbouring states submitted, and, nevertheless, the conqueror put to death all the principal citizens.

Cæsar’s conduct towards the inhabitants of this province has been justly blamed by the Emperor Napoleon I. “These people,” he says, “had not revolted; they had furnished hostages, and had promised to live peaceably; but they were in possession of all their liberty and all their rights. They had given Cæsar cause to make war upon them, no doubt, but not to violate international law in regard to them, and to commit so atrocious an abuse of victory. This conduct was not just, and it was still less politic. Such means never answer their object, they exasperate and revolt nations. The punishment of particular chiefs is all that justice and policy permit.”655

While Brittany was vanquished on the sea, Sabinus gained a decisive victory over the peoples of Normandy, near Avranches; and, at the same time, Publius Crassus reduced Aquitaine. Although this young lieutenant of Cæsar had only a single legion, a corps of cavalry, and some auxiliaries, he gained possession of the strong fortress of Sos, and inflicted a sanguinary defeat on the peoples situated between the Garonne and the Adour. His glory was the greater, as the Aquitanians had called to their assistance the Spanish chiefs, the wreck of that famous army which Sertorius had so long formed on the model of the Roman tactics.

Although the season was far advanced, Cæsar still resolved to subjugate the peoples of Brabant and the Boulonnais, and marched against them. The Gauls retired into their forests; he was then obliged to clear a road in the woods by cutting down the trees, which, placed to the right and left, formed on each side a rampart against the enemy. The bad state of the weather obliged him to retire before he had completed his task.

In this campaign of 698, most of the countries which extend from the mouth of the Adour to that of the Scheldt had felt the weight of the Roman arms. The sea was free; Cæsar was at liberty to attempt a descent upon England.

CHAPTER IV.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 699

Campaign against the Usipetes and the Tencteri.

I. THE successes of the preceding campaign, and the existence of a Roman fleet in the waters of the Morbihan, must have given Cæsar the hope that nothing henceforth would prevent an expedition against Great Britain; yet new events came to delay his projects.

In the winter between 698 and 699, the Usipetes and the Tencteri, peoples of German origin, to escape the oppression of the Suevi, passed the Rhine not far from its mouth, towards Xanten and Clèves. They numbered 400,000, of all ages and both sexes; they sought new lands to settle in, and, in the spring of 699, the head of the emigration had already reached the country where now stand Aix-la-Chapelle and Liége. Cæsar, alarmed at this event, starts for the army sooner than usual, proceeds to Amiens, there assembles his troops, and finds the Gaulish chiefs profoundly shaken in their fidelity by the approach of these new barbarians, whose co-operation they hope to obtain. He confirms their feeling of duty, obtains a contingent of cavalry, marches to encounter the Usipetes and the Tencteri, and arrives on the Meuse, which he crosses at Maëstricht. These latter, on hearing of the approach of the Roman army, had concentrated in Southern Gueldres. Established on the river Niers, in the plains of Goch, they send a deputation to Cæsar, who had arrived near Venloo, to ask him not to attack them, but to allow them to keep the lands they had conquered. The Roman general refuses, and continues his march. After new conferences, the object of which, on the part of the Germans, was to give their cavalry, sent beyond the Meuse, time to return, a truce of one day is accepted. Cæsar declares, nevertheless, that he will advance to Niers. Suddenly, however, his vanguard is treacherously attacked in its march and routed by the German cavalry; he then believes himself freed from his engagements; and when next day the deputies come to excuse this perfidious aggression, he has them arrested, falls unexpectedly on the camp of the Germans, and pursues them without remission to the confluence of the Rhine and the Meuse (towards the place occupied now by Fort Saint-André), where these unfortunate people nearly all perish.

In the sequel of this exploit, which brought him little glory, and in which doubt has been thrown on his good faith, Cæsar resolved to cross the Rhine, on the pretence of claiming from the Sicambri the cavalry of the Usipetes and the Tencteri, who had taken refuge among them, but, in reality, to intimidate the Germans, and make them abandon the practice of seconding the insurrections in Gaul. He therefore proceeded up the valley of the Rhine, and arrived at Bonn, opposite the territory of the Ubii, a people which had already solicited his alliance and support against the Suevi. He caused to be built in ten days a bridge of piles, which he crossed with his troops, but he did not penetrate far into Germany: unable to come up with either the Sicambri or the Suevi, who had withdrawn into the interior of their country, he re-crossed to the left bank, and caused the bridge to be broken.

First Descent in England.

II. Though the summer was already advanced, Cæsar determined to take advantage of the time which still remained to pass into England and visit that island, concerning which people had but confused notions, and which was only known to the Romans by the intervention of the islanders in all the wars in Gaul. He therefore started from Bonn, travelled towards Boulogne, marking out, as we might say, the road which subsequently Augustus ordered to be constructed between those two towns, and collected in that port the ships of the neighbouring coasts and the fleet which, the year before, had vanquished that of the Morbihan. After sending one of his officers to assure himself of the point of landing, he started from Boulogne, in the night of the 24th to the 25th of August, with two legions, reconnoitred in his turn the coast of Dover, and landed at Deal. The shore was covered with armed men, who offered a vigorous opposition to the landing of the Roman army, which, having repulsed them, established itself on land near the sea. The Britons, astonished at such boldness, came from all sides to implore peace and make their submission. But the elements conspired against the invaders, and a dreadful tempest destroyed the transport ships and galleys. At the news of this disaster, the Britons raised their heads again; on their side the Roman soldiers, far from desponding, hastened to repair their ships with so much zeal that, out of eighty, sixty-eight were made fit for sea again. Not far from Cæsar’s camp, the Britons one day drew a legion into an ambuscade; this led to a general battle, in which the Romans were victorious. Then Cæsar, hurried by the approach of the equinox, treated with the chiefs of some tribes, received hostages, and crossed again to the continent on the 12th of September, having remained eighteen days only in England. On the day after his arrival at Boulogne, the two legions he brought with him were dispatched against the people of the territory of Boulogne, who had taken refuge, since the preceding year, in the marshes of their country; other troops were sent to chastise the inhabitants of Brabant. After these expeditions, Cæsar placed his legions in winter quarters among the Belgæ, and then departed to visit the opposite part of his vast command, namely, Illyria, where also he had to protect the Roman frontiers against the incursion of the barbarians.