History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

Pompey sole Consul.

III. This time the fear of disorder silenced opposition, and all eyes turned towards Pompey; but what title to give him? That of dictator caused alarm. M. Bibulus, though previously hostile, moved the proposal to elect him sole consul; it offered the only means of averting the dictature, and preventing Cæsar from becoming his colleague.747 M. Cato supported this motion, which passed unanimously.748 It was added that, if Pompey believed a second consul necessary, he should name himself, but not within two months.749 On the 5th of the Calends of March (27th of February) – it was during an intercalary month – Pompey, though absent, was declared consul by the interrex Serv. Sulpicius, and immediately re-entered Rome. “This extraordinary measure, which had never before been adopted for anybody, appeared wise; nevertheless, as Pompey sought less than Cæsar the favour of the people, the Senate flattered itself with the hope of detaching him completely from it, and securing him in its own interests. And so it happened. Proud of this new and altogether unusual honour, Pompey no longer proposed any measure with a view of pleasing the multitude, and did scrupulously all that could be agreeable to the Senate.”750

Three days after his installation, he obtained two senatus-consultus – one, to repress outrages with violence, especially the murder committed on the Appian Way, the burning of the curia, and the attack on the house of the interrex, M. Lepidus; the other, to prevent electoral solicitation by a more rapid proceeding and a more severe penalty. In all criminal actions, a delay of three days was fixed for the interrogation of witnesses, and one day for the contradictory debates. The accuser had two hours to speak, the accused three to defend himself.751

M. Cœlius, tribune of the people, protested against these laws, alleging that they violated the tutelary forms of justice, and that they were only imagined for the ruin of Milo. Pompey replied in a tone of menace: “Let them not oblige me to defend the Republic by arms!” He, moreover, adopted all measures for his personal safety, and went with a military guard, as though he feared some outrage on the part of Milo.

Trial of Milo.

IV. Pompey required farther, that a quæstor should be chosen among the consulars to preside over the hearing of the cause. The comitia were held, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus was elected. It was conceded to Milo that the accusation of murder should be tried first, and that that of solicitation should be adjourned.

The accusers were the elder of the Appii (the nephew of Clodius), M. Antonius, and P. Valerius Nepos. Cicero, assisted by M. Claudius Marcellus, was to defend the accused. Every effort had been made to intimidate Cicero. Pompeius Rufus, C. Sallustius,752 and T. Munatius Plancus had sought to excite the people against him, and to make Pompey look upon him with suspicion. Although he remained firm against the threats of his adversaries, his courage was shaken.

The trial began on the eve of the Nones of April, and on the first day the pleadings were interrupted by a violent agitation. Next day, the interrogation of the witnesses was carried on under the protection of an imposing military force. Most of the evidence was overpowering for the accused, and proved that Clodius had been massacred in cold blood. When Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, appeared, the emotion increased twofold; her tears, and the spectacle of her grief, affected the assembly. When the session was closed, the tribune of the people, T. Munatius Plancus, harangued the mob, engaged the citizens to come next day in great number to the public place, in order to oppose the acquittal of Milo, and he recommended them to show unmistakably their opinion and grief to the judges when it came to the voting.

On the 6th of the Ides of April the shops were closed; guards were placed on the issues of the Forum by order of Pompey, who, with a considerable reserve, stationed himself at the treasury. After the drawing for the judges, the eldest of the Appii, M. Antonius, and P. Valerius Nepos sustained the accusation. Cicero alone replied. He had been advised to represent the murder of Clodius as a service rendered to the Republic; but he rejected this plea, although Cato had dared to declare in full Senate that Milo had performed the act of a good citizen.753 He preferred resting his argument on the right of legitimate defence. He had hardly commenced, when the cries and interruptions of the partisans of Clodius caused him an emotion which was visible in his speech; the soldiers were obliged to make use of their arms.754 The cries of the wounded, and the sight of the blood, deprived Cicero of his presence of mind; he trembled, and often broke off. His pleading was far from being worthy of his talent. Milo was condemned, and went into exile to Marseilles. In the sequel, Cicero composed at his leisure the magnificent oration which we know, and sent it to his unfortunate client, who replied; “If thou hadst spoken formerly as thou hast now written, I should not be eating mullets at Marseilles.”755

During the wars of Greece and Africa, Milo, who had not forgotten his part of conspirator, returned into Italy, invited by Cœlius. They both attempted to organise seditious movements; but they failed, and paid for their rash enterprise with their lives.756

Pompey, having reached the summit of power, believed, like most men who are vain of themselves, that all was saved because they had placed him at the head of affairs; but, instead of attending to these, his first care was to marry again. He espoused, in spite of his advanced age, Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, the young widow of Publius Crassus, who had just perished among the Parthians. “It was considered,” says Plutarch, “that a woman so young, remarkable both for her mental qualities and for external graces, would have been more properly married to his son. The more honest citizens reproached him with having, on this occasion, sacrificed the interests of the Republic, which, in the extremity to which it was reduced, had chosen him for its physician, and trusted to him alone for its cure. Instead of responding to this confidence, he was seen crowned with flowers, offering sacrifices and celebrating nuptial rites, while he ought to have regarded as a public calamity this consulship, which he would not have obtained, according to the laws, alone and without a colleague, if Rome had been more happy.”757

Pompey had, nevertheless, rendered great services by putting down the riots and protecting the exercise of justice. He had delivered Rome from the bands of Clodius and Milo, had given a more regular organisation to the tribunals,758 and caused their judgments to be respected by armed force. Still, if we except these acts, commanded by circumstances, he had used his power with hesitation, as a man who is struggling between his conscience and his interests. Having become, perhaps unknowingly, the instrument of the aristocratic party, the ties which had attached him to Cæsar had often checked him in the way in which they sought to push him. As the defender of order, he had promulgated laws to restore it; but, as the man of a party, he had been incessantly led to violate them, to satisfy the urgencies of his faction. He caused a senatus-consultus to be adopted, authorising prosecutions against those who had exercised public employments since his first consulship. The retrospective effect of this law, which embraced a period of twenty years; and consequently the consulship of Cæsar, excited the indignation of the partisans of the latter; they exclaimed that Pompey would do much better to occupy himself with the present than to call the hateful investigation of the factions to the past conduct of the first magistrates of the Republic; but Pompey replied that, since the law permitted the control of his own acts, he saw no reason why those of Cæsar should be freed from it; and that, moreover, the relaxation of morals during so many years rendered the measure necessary.759

Complaint was made of the power left to orators of pronouncing the eulogy of the accused, whose defence they offered, because the prestige attached to the word of men of consideration procured too easily the acquittal of the guilty. A senatus-consultus prohibited the custom. Yet in contempt of these orders, which he had brought forward, Pompey was not ashamed to pronounce the eulogy of T. Munatius Plancus, accused, with Q. Pompeius Rufus, of the fire which burnt the Curia Hostilia.760 Cato, who was one of the members of the tribunal, exclaimed, stopping his ears: “I do not believe this eulogiser, who speaks against his own laws.” The accused were condemned nevertheless.

With the aim of repressing electoral corruption and bringing to justice those guilty of it, it was enacted that every one condemned for bribery who should succeed in convicting another of the same crime should obtain thereby the remission of his punishment. Memmius, condemned for an act of this description, wishing to take advantage of the benefit of the legal impunity, denounced Scipio. Then Pompey appeared clothed in mourning before the tribunal, at the side of his father-in-law. At the view of this image of sorrow and of the moral pressure which resulted from it, Memmius desisted, deploring the misfortune of the Republic. As to the judges, they pushed flattery to the point of conducting Scipio back to his dwelling.761

To put a stop in the elections to the intrigues arising from the shameless covetousness of the candidates, it was decreed that the consuls and prætors should not be allowed to take the government of a province until five years after their consulship or prætorship.762 This discouraged the ambitious, who threw themselves into extravagant expenses in order to arrive through one of these magistracies at the government of the provinces. And nevertheless Pompey, although consul, not only preserved the proconsulship of Spain, but he caused his government to be prolonged for five years, kept a part of his army in Italy, and received a thousand talents for the maintenance of his troops. In the interest of his partisans, he did not hesitate to violate his own laws, which has made Tacitus say of him, Suarum legum auctor idem ac subversor.763

The preceding law did not deprive Cæsar of the possibility of arriving at the consulship, but the Senate put in force again the law which prohibited any one who was absent from offering himself as a candidate, forgetting that it had just elected Pompey sole consul, although absent from the town of Rome. The friends of the proconsul of Gaul protested with energy. “Cæsar,” they said, “had merited well of his country; a second consulship would only be the just recompense of his immense labours; or, at all events, if they felt reluctance in conferring this great dignity upon him, they ought at least not to give him a successor, or deprive him of the benefit he had acquired.” Pompey, who had no desire of breaking with Cæsar, had recourse to Cicero764 to add to the law already engraved on a tablet of brass, which was then the form of promulgation, that the prohibition did not apply to those who had obtained the authorisation to offer themselves as candidates in spite of their absence. All the tribunes, who had at first protested, accepted this qualification, at the motion of Cœlius.765

Nevertheless, Cæsar’s friends went to him in great numbers to demonstrate that Pompey’s laws had been all brought forward against his interest, and that it was essential that he should be on his guard against him. Cæsar, proud in the justice of his claims, and strong in the services he had rendered, distrusted neither his son-in-law nor destiny, encouraged them, and praised greatly the conduct of Pompey.766

Pompey takes as his Associate Cæcillus Metellus Pius Scipio.

V. About the first of August, Pompey chose his father-in-law Scipio as his associate in the consulship, for the last five months. This partition of power, purely nominal, and which was subsequently imitated by the emperors, appeared to satisfy men who thought only of forms. The senators boasted of having restored order without injuring the institutions of the Republic.767

Scipio sought to signalise his short administration by abolishing the law of Clodius, which permitted the censors to expel from the Senate only men who had already undergone a condemnation. He restored things to the old footing, by rendering the power of the censors almost unlimited. This change was not received with favour, as Scipio had expected. The old consulars, among whom the censors were usually chosen, found the responsibility of such functions dangerous in a time of trouble and anarchy. Instead of being sought as an honour, the censorship was avoided as a perilous post.768

It was every day more evident, in the eyes of all men of judgment, that the institutions of the Republic were becoming more and more powerless to guarantee order within, and perhaps even peace without. The Senate could no longer meet, the comitia be held, or the judges render judgment, without the protection of a military force; it was necessary, therefore, to place themselves at the discretion of a general, and to abdicate all authority into his hands. Thus, while the popular instinct, which is rarely deceived, saw the safety of the Republic in the power of a single individual, the aristocratic party, on the contrary, saw danger only in this general tendency towards one man. For this reason Cato inscribed himself among the candidates for the consulship for the year 703, denouncing Pompey and Cæsar as equally dangerous, and declaring that he only aspired to the first magistracy to counteract their ambitious designs. This competition, opposed to the spirit of the time and to the powerful instincts which were in play, had no chance of success: the candidature of Cato was defeated without difficulty.

Insurrection of Gaul, and Campaign of 702.

VI. Not only had the murder of Clodius deeply agitated Italy, but the reverberation made itself felt beyond the Alps, and the troubles in Rome had revived in Gaul the desire to shake off the yoke of the Romans. The intestine dissensions, by spreading a belief in the debilitation of the state, awakened incessantly the hopes of its exterior enemies, and, which is sad to confess, these exterior enemies always find accomplices among traitors who are ready to betray their country.769

The campaign of 702 is, without dispute, the most interesting in the double point of view – political and military. To the historian, it presents the affecting scene of tribes, hitherto divided, uniting in one national thought, and arming for the purpose of re-conquering their independence. To the philosopher it presents, as a result consoling for the progress of humanity, the triumph of civilisation against the best combined and most heroic efforts of barbarism. Lastly, in the eyes of the soldier, it is a magnificent example of what may be done by energy and experience in war by a small number contending against masses who are wanting in organisation and discipline.

The events which had occurred in Rome led the Gauls to think that Cæsar would be detained in Italy, upon which a formidable insurrection is organised among them. All the different peoples act in concert, and form a coalition. The provinces in the military occupation of the legions, or held in fear by their proximity, alone remain foreign to the general agitation. The country of Orleans first gives the signal; the Roman citizens are slaughtered at Gien; Berry and Auvergne join the league; and soon, from the Seine to the Gironde, from the Cévennes to the ocean, the whole country is in arms. As a chief never fails to reveal himself when a great national movement breaks out, Vercingetorix appears, places himself at the head of a war of independence, and, for the first time, proclaims this truth, the stamp of grandeur and patriotism: “If Gaul has the sense to be united, and become one nation, it may defy the universe.” All respond to his call.

The peoples, but lately divided by rivalries, customs, and tradition, forget their reciprocal grievances, and unite under him. Foreign oppression creates nationalities much more than community of ideas and interests. Had Vercingetorix formerly, like so many others, bent his brow under the Roman domination? Dio Cassius is the only historian who says so. Be this as it may, he shows himself, as early as the year 702, the firm and intrepid adversary of the invaders. His plan is as bold as it is well combined: to create in the heart of Gaul a great centre of insurrection, protected by the mountains of the Cévennes and of Auvergne; from this natural fortress to throw his lieutenants upon the Narbonnese, whence Cæsar would be no longer able to draw either succours or provisions; to prevent even the Roman general from returning to his army; to attack separately the legions while deprived of their chief, urge into insurrection the centre of Gaul, and destroy the oppidum of the Boii, that small people, the remains of the defeat of the Helvetii, placed by Cæsar at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire as an advance sentinel.

Informed of these events, Cæsar quits Italy in haste, followed by a small number of troops raised in the Cisalpine. On his descent from the Alps, he finds himself almost alone in presence of wavering allies, and of the greatest part of Gaul in revolt, while his legions are dispersed at a distance on the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne. So many perils excite his ardour instead of abating it, and his resolution is soon taken.

He is going to draw his enemies, by successful and multiplied diversions, to the points where he intends to strike decisive blows; and by sending his infantry into the Vivarais, his cavalry to Vienne, and proceeding in person to Narbonne, he divides the attention of his adversaries, in order to conceal his designs.

His presence in the Roman province is equivalent to an army. He encourages the men who have remained faithful, intimidates the others; doubles, with the local resources, all the garrisons of the towns of the Province as far as Toulouse; and, after having thus raised in the south a barrier against all invasion, he returns, and arrives at the foot of the Cévennes, in the Vivarais, where he finds the troops which had been sent forward. He then crosses the mountains covered with snow, penetrates into Auvergne, and obliges Vercingetorix to abandon Berry, in order to hasten to defend his own country, which is threatened. Satisfied with this result, he starts unexpectedly, and, almost alone, hastens to Vienne. He takes the escort of cavalry which had preceded him, reaches the country of Langres, and proceeds thence to Sens, where he brings together his ten legions.

Thus, in little time, he has placed the Roman Province in security from any attack, forced Vercingetorix to fly to the defence of Auvergne, and rejoined and concentrated his army.

Although the rigour of the season adds to the difficulty of the marches and supplies of provisions (it was in the month of March), he decides upon immediately taking the field. Vercingetorix has just laid siege to Gorgobina, the oppidium of the Boii. These 20,000 Germans, so recently vanquished, preserve the sincere gratitude of a primitive people towards him who has given them lands, instead of selling them for slaves: they remain faithful to the Romans, and face the anger of Vercingetorix and the attacks of revolted Gaul. Cæsar, unwilling that a people who set the example of fidelity should become the victims of their devotedness, marches to their succour. He might go directly to Gorgobina, and cross the Loire at Nevers; but in that case, Vercingetorix, informed of his approach, would have had time to come and dispute the passage. To attempt this by force was a dangerous operation. He leaves at Sens two legions and his baggage, starts at the head of the eight others, and hastens, by the shortest way, to cross the Loire at Gien. He proceeds up the left bank of the river; while Vercingetorix, instead of waiting for him, raises the siege of Gorgobina. He proceeds to meet Cæsar, who beats him at Sancerre in a cavalry encounter, and then marches upon Bourges, without further care for an enemy incapable of arresting him in the open field. The capture of that important town must make him master of the whole country. The Gaulish general confines himself to following by short marches, and burning all the country around, in order to starve the Roman army.

The siege of Bourges is one of the most regular and interesting of the war in Gaul. Cæsar opens the trenches, that is, he makes covered galleries which permit him to approach the place, to fill the fosse, and to construct a terrace, a veritable breaching battery, surmounted on each side by a tower. When, with the assistance of his military engines, he has thinned the ranks of the defenders, he assembles his legions under protection of the parallels composed of covered galleries, and by means of the terrace, which equals the elevation of the wall, he gives the assault and carries the place.

After the capture of Bourges, he proceeds to Nevers, where he establishes his magazines; then to Decize, to appease the disputes which had arisen, among the Burgundians, from the competition of two claimants to the supreme power. He next divides his army; sends Labienus, with two legions, against the Parisii and their allies; orders him to take the two legions left at Sens; and in person, with the six others, directs his march towards Auvergne, the principal focus of the insurrection. By means of a stratagem, he crosses the Allier at Varennes without striking a blow, and obliges Vercingetorix to retire into Gergovia with all his forces.

Placed on almost inaccessible heights, these vast Gaulish oppida, which enclosed the greater part of the population of a province, could only be reduced by famine. Cæsar was well aware of this, and resolved on confining himself to the blockade of Gergovia; but one day he judges the occasion favourable, and he risks an assault. Repulsed with loss, he thinks only of retreat, when already the insurrection surrounds him on all sides. The Burgundians themselves, who owe everything to Cæsar, have followed the general impulse: by their defection, the communications of the Roman army are intercepted and its rear threatened. Nevers is burnt, and the bridges on the Loire are destroyed; the Gauls, in their presumptuous hope, already see Cæsar humiliated, and obliged to pass with his soldiers under new Furcæ Caudinæ; but old veteran troops, commanded by a great captain, do not recoil after a first reverse; and these six legions, shut up in their camp, isolated in the middle of a country in insurrection, separated from all succour by rivers and mountains, yet immovable and unshaken in face of a victorious enemy who dares not pursue his victory, resemble those rocks beaten by the waves of the ocean, which defy the tempests, and the approach to which is so perilous that no one dare brave them.

In this extremity Cæsar has not lost hope. Far from him the thought of re-crossing the Cévennes, and returning into the Narbonnese. This retreat would bear too great a resemblance to a flight. Moreover, he has fears for the four legions entrusted to Labienus, of whom he has received no news since they went to combat the Parisii; he is anxious to rejoin them at all risks. He therefore marches in the direction of Sens, crosses the Loire by a ford, near Bourbon-Lancy, and, on his arrival near Joigny, he rallies Labienus, who, after having defeated the army of Camulogenus under the walls of Paris, had returned to Sens and hastened to meet him.

What joy Cæsar must have experienced, when he found his lieutenant, then faithful still, on the banks of the Yonne! for this junction doubled his forces, and restored the chances of the struggle in his favour. While he was re-modelling his army, calling to him a re-enforcement of German cavalry, and preparing to approach nearer to the Roman province, Vercingetorix had not lost a moment in stirring up the whole of Gaul against the Romans. The inhabitants of Savoy, as well as those of the Vivarais, are drawn into revolt; all is agitation from the coasts of the ocean to the Rhone. He communicates to all hearts the sacred fire which inflames him, and from Mont Beuvray, as its centre, its action radiates to the extremities of Gaul.

But it is granted neither to the most eminent of men to create in one day an army, nor to popular insurrection, however general, to form suddenly a nation. The foreigner has not yet quitted the territory of their country before the chiefs become jealous of each other, and rivalries break out between the different states. The Burgundians obey unwillingly the people of Auvergne; the people of the territory of Beauvais refuse their contingent, alleging that they will only make war at their own time and in their own manner. The inhabitants of Savoy, instead of responding to the appeal made to their old independence, oppose a vigorous resistance to the attacks of the Gauls, and the Vivarais shows no less devotedness to the Roman cause.