History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

It was at Ravenna that Curio, the year of whose tribuneship expired in December, 704,892 hastened to him. Cæsar received him with open arms, thanked him for his devotedness, and conferred with him upon the measures to be taken. Curio proposed that he should call the other legions which he had beyond the Alps, and march upon Rome; but Cæsar did not approve of this counsel, still persuaded that things would yet come to an understanding. He engaged his friends893 at Rome to propose a plan of accommodation which had been approved, it was said, by Cicero, and which Plutarch expressly ascribes to him: Cæsar was to have given up Transalpine Gaul, and kept Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with two legions, until he had obtained the consulship. It was even said that he would be satisfied with Illyria alone and one legion.894 “He made the greatest efforts,” says Velleius Paterculus,895 “to maintain peace: the friends of Pompey refused all conciliatory proposals.” “The appearance of justice,” says Plutarch, “was on the side of Cæsar.” When the negotiation had failed, he charged Curio to carry to the Senate a letter full of impudence, according to Pompey; full of threats, according to Cicero;896 well adapted, on the contrary, according to Plutarch, to draw the multitude to Cæsar’s side.897

Curio, after travelling 1,300 stadia (210 kilomètres) in three days, re-appeared in that assembly on the very day of the installation of the new consuls, the Calends of January, 705. He did not deliver to them, according to custom, the letter of which he was the bearer, for fear that they should not communicate it; and, indeed, at first they opposed the reading of it; but two tribunes of the people devoted to Cæsar, Mark Antony, formerly his quæstor, and Q. Cassius, insisted with so much energy, that the new consuls were unable to refuse.898

Cæsar, after reminding them of what he had done for the Republic, justified himself against the imputations spread against him by his enemies. While he protested his respect for the Senate, he declared that he was ready to resign his proconsular functions, and to disband his army, or deliver it to his successor, provided Pompey did the same. It could not be required of him to deliver himself up unarmed to his enemies while they remained armed, and alone to set the example of submission. He spoke not on this occasion of his pretensions to the consulship; the great question, to know whether he and Pompey should keep their armies, overruled all the others. The conclusion of the letter displayed a strong feeling of resentment. Cæsar declared in it that, if justice were not rendered to him, he should know how, by revenging himself, to revenge his country also. This last expression, which strongly resembled a threat, excited the loudest reclamations in the Senate. “It is war he declares,” they exclaimed, and the irritation rose to the greatest height.899 No deliberation could be obtained on any of his propositions.

Lentulus carries the Senate against Cæsar.

II. The Consul L. Lentulus, in a violent oration, engaged the Senate to show more courage and firmness: he promised to support it, and defend the Republic: “If, on the contrary, the assembly, in this critical moment, was wanting in energy – if, as in the past, it meant to spare Cæsar and to conciliate his good graces, there would be an end of its authority: as far as he was concerned, he should hasten to withdraw from it, and should in future consult only himself. After all, he also might gain the friendship and favour of Cæsar.” Scipio spoke in the same spirit: “Pompey,” said he, “will not fail the Republic, if he is followed by the Senate; but if they hesitate, if they act with weakness, the Senate will henceforth invoke his aid in vain.” This language of Scipio seemed to be the expression of the thoughts of Pompey, who was at the gates of the town with his army. More moderate opinions were also offered. M. Marcellus demanded that, before coming to any decision, the Senate should assemble troops from the different parts of Italy in order to ensure the independence of their deliberations; M. Calidius proposed that Pompey should retire to his province, in order to avoid all motive for a war; for Cæsar might justly fear to see used against him the two legions taken away from his command, and retained under the walls of Rome. M. Rufus gave his opinion nearly in the same terms. Lentulus immediately burst out into violent reproaches against the latter speakers; he upbraided them with their defection, and refused to put the proposal of Calidius to a vote. Marcellus, terrified, withdrew his motion. Then there happened one of those strange and sudden changes, so common in revolutionary assemblies: the violent apostrophes of Lentulus, the threats uttered by the partisans of Pompey, the terror inspired by the presence of an army under the walls of Rome, exerted an irresistible pressure upon the minds of the senators, who, in spite of themselves, adopted the motion of Scipio, and decreed that “if Cæsar did not disband his army on the day prescribed, he should be declared an enemy of the Republic.”900

Mark Antony and Q. Cassius, tribunes of the people, oppose this decree.901 A report is immediately made of their opposition, invoking the decision taken by the Senate the year before; grave measures are proposed: the more violent they are, the more the enemies of Cæsar applaud. In the evening, after the sitting, Pompey convokes the senators in his gardens: he distributes praise and blame amongst them, encourages some, intimidates others. At the same time, he recalls from all parts a great number of his veterans, promising them rewards and promotion. He addressed himself even to the soldiers of the two legions who had formed part of Cæsar’s army.902

The town is in a state of extreme agitation. The tribune Curio claims the right of the comitia which had been set aside. The friends of the consuls, the adherents of Pompey, all who nourished old rancours against Cæsar, hurry towards the Senate, which is again assembled. Their clamours and threats deprive that assembly of all liberty of decision. The most varied proposals follow each other. The censor L. Piso and the prætor Roscius offer to go to Cæsar, to inform him of what is going on; they only ask a delay of six days. Others desire that deputies be charged to go to make him acquainted with the will of the Senate.

All these motions are rejected. Cato, Lentulus, and Scipio redouble in violence. Cato is animated by old enmities and the mortification of his recent check in the consular elections. Lentulus, overwhelmed with debts, hopes for honours and riches; he boasts among his party that he will become a second Sylla, and be master of the empire.903 Scipio flatters himself with an ambition equally chimerical. Lastly, Pompey, who will have no equal, desires war, the only way to get over the folly of his conduct,904 and this prop of the Republic assumes the title, like Agamemnon, of king of kings.905

The consuls propose to the Senate to assume public mourning, in order to strike the imagination of the people, and to show them that the country is in danger. Mark Antony and his colleague Cassius intercede; but no attention is paid to their opposition. The Senate assembles in mourning attire, decided beforehand on rigorous measures. The tribunes, on the other hand, announce that they intend to make use of their right of veto. In the midst of this general excitement, their obstinacy is no longer considered as a right of their office, but as a proof of their complicity; and, first of all, measures are brought under deliberation to be taken against their opposition. Mark Antony is the most audacious; the Consul Lentulus interrupts him with anger, and orders him to leave the curia, “where,” he says, “his sacred character will not preserve him any longer from the punishment merited by his spirit of hostility towards the Republic.” Mark Antony thereupon, rising impetuously, takes the gods to witness that the privileges of the tribune’s power are violated in his person. “We are insulted,” exclaims he; “we are treated like murderers. You want proscriptions, massacres, conflagrations. May all those evils which you have drawn down fall upon your own heads!” Then, pronouncing the forms of execration, which had always the power of impressing superstitious minds, he leaves the curia, followed by Q. Cassius, Curio, and M. Cœlius.906 It was time: the curia was on the point of being surrounded by a detachment of troops, which were already approaching.907 All four left Rome in the night between the 6th and 7th of January, in the disguise of slaves, in an ordinary chariot, and reached Cæsar’s quarters.908

The following days the Senate meets outside the town. Pompey repeats there what he had employed Scipio to say. He applauds the courage and firmness of the assembly; he enumerates his forces, boasts of having ten legions – six in Spain, and four in Italy.909 According to his conviction, the army is not devoted to Cæsar, and will not follow him in his rash undertakings. Besides, would he dare, with one single legion, to face the forces of the Senate? Before he will have had time to summon his troops, which are on the other side of the Alps, Pompey will have assembled a formidable army.910 Then the Senate declares the country in danger (it was the 18th of the Ides of January), an extreme measure reserved for great public calamities; and the care to watch that the Republic receive no harm is confided to the consuls, the proconsuls, the prætors, and the tribunes of the people. Immediately, all his party, whose violence has driven Pompey and the Senate into civil war, fell upon the dignities, the honours, the governments of provinces, as so many objects of prey. Italy is divided into great commands,911 which the principal chiefs divide amongst themselves. Cicero, always prudent, chooses Campania as being more distant from the scene of war. Scribonius Libo is sent to Etruria,912 P. Lentulus Spinther to the coast of Picenum,913 P. Attius Varus to Auximum and Cingulum,914 and Q. Minucius Thermus to Umbria.915 By a false interpretation of the law which allows proconsuls to be chosen among the magistrates who have resigned their functions within five years, the consular and prætorian provinces are shared arbitrarily: Syria is given to Metellus Scipio, Transalpine Gaul to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cisalpine Gaul to Considius Nonianus, Sicily to Cato, Sardinia to M. Aurelius Cotta, Africa to L. Ælius Tuberno, and Cilicia to P. Sextius.916 The obligation of a curiate law to legitimate their power is regarded as useless. Their names are not drawn by lot; they do not wait, according to the established practice, till the people has ratified their election, and till they have put on the dress of war, after having pronounced the usual vows. The consuls, contrary to custom, leave the town; men, till then strangers to all high office, cause lictors to go before them in Rome and in the Capitol. It is proposed to declare King Juba friend and ally of the Roman people. What matters whether he be devoted or not to the Roman domination, provided he become a useful auxiliary for the civil war? A levy of 130,000 men in Italy is decreed. All the resources of the public treasure are placed at the disposal of Pompey; the money preserved in the temples is taken; and if that be not sufficient, the property of private persons themselves shall be employed for the pay of the troops. In the midst of this sudden commotion, rights divine and human are equally trampled under foot.917 And yet a few days had scarcely passed “when the Senate,” says Appian, “regretted not having accepted the conditions of Cæsar, the justice of which they felt at a moment when fear brought them back from the excitement of party spirit to the counsels of wisdom.”918

Cæsar harangues his Troops.

III. Whilst at Rome all was confusion, and Pompey, nominal chief of his party, underwent its various exigencies and impulses, Cæsar, master of himself and free in his resolutions, waited quietly at Ravenna until the thoughtless impetuosity of his enemies should break itself against his firmness and the justice of his cause. The tribunes of the people, Mark Antony and Q. Cassius, accompanied by Curio and M. Cœlius, hasten to him.919 At the news of the events in Rome, he sends couriers to the other side of the Alps, in order to unite his army; but, without waiting for it, he assembles the 13th legion, the only one which had crossed the Alps; he reminds his soldiers in a few words of the ancient insults and the recent injustices of which he is the victim.

“The people had authorised him, although absent, to solicit a new consulship, and, as soon as he thought that he ought to avail himself of this favour, it was opposed. He has been asked, for the interest of his country, to deprive himself of two legions, and, after he has made the sacrifice, it is against him they are employed. The decrees of the Senate and the people, legally rendered, have been disregarded, and other decrees have been sanctioned; notwithstanding the opposition of the tribunes. The right of intercession, which Sylla himself had respected, has been set at naught, and it is under the garb of slaves that the representatives of the Roman people come to seek a refuge in his camp. All his proposals of conciliation have been rejected. What has been refused to him has been granted to Pompey, who, prompted by envious malignity, has broken the ties of an old friendship. Lastly, what pretext is there for declaring the country in danger, and calling the Roman people to arms? Are they in presence of a popular revolt, or a violence of the tribunes, as in the time of the Gracchi, or an invasion of the barbarians, as in the time of Marius? Besides, no law has been promulgated, no motion has been submitted for the sanction of the people; all which has been done without the sanction of the people is unlawful.920 Let the soldiers, then, defend the general under whom, for nine years, they have served the Republic with so much success, gained so many battles, subdued the whole of Gaul, overcome the Germans and the Britons; for his enemies are theirs, and his elevation, as well as his glory, is their work.”

Unanimous acclamations respond to this speech of Cæsar. The soldiers of the 13th legion declare that they are ready to make the greatest sacrifices; they will revenge their general and the tribunes of the people for all these outrages; as a proof of his devotion, each centurion offers to entertain a horseman at his expense; each soldier, to serve gratuitously, the richer ones providing for the poorer ones; and during the whole civil war, Suetonius affirms, not one of them failed in this engagement.921 Such was the devotedness of the army; Labienus alone, whom Cæsar loved especially, whom he had loaded with favours, deserted the cause of the conqueror of Gaul, and passed over to Pompey.922 Cicero and his party thought that this deserter would bring a great addition to their strength. But Labienus,923 though an able general under Cæsar, was only an indifferent one in the opposite camp. Desertions have never made any man great.

Cæsar is driven to Civil War.

IV. The moment for action had arrived. Cæsar was reduced to the alternative of maintaining himself at the head of his army, in spite of the Senate, or surrendering himself to his enemies, who would have reserved for him the fate of the accomplices of Catiline, who had been condemned to death, if he were not, like the Gracchi, Saturninus, and so many others, killed in a popular tumult. Here the question naturally offers itself: Ought not Cæsar, who had so often faced death on the battle-fields, have gone to Rome to face it under another form, and to have renounced his command, rather than engage in a struggle which must throw the Republic into all the horrors of a civil war? Yes, if by his abnegation he could save Rome from anarchy, corruption, and tyranny. No, if this abnegation would endanger what he had most at heart, the regeneration of the Republic. Cæsar, like men of his temper, cared little for life, and still less for power for the sake of power; but, as chief of the popular party, he felt a great cause rise behind him; it urged him forward, and obliged him to conquer in despite of legality, the imprecations of his adversaries, and the uncertain judgment of posterity. Roman society, in a state of dissolution, asked for a master; oppressed Italy, for a representative of its rights; the world, bowed under the yoke, for a saviour. Ought he, by deserting his mission, disappoint so many legitimate hopes, so many noble aspirations? What! Cæsar, who owed all his dignities to the people, and confining himself within his right, should he have retired before Pompey, who, having become the docile tool of a factious minority of the Senate, was trampling right and justice under foot; before Pompey, who, according to the admission of Cicero himself, would have been, after victory, a cruel and vindictive despot, and would have allowed the world to be plundered for the benefit of a few families, incapable, moreover, of arresting the decay of the Republic, and founding an order of things sufficiently firm to retard the invasion of barbarians for many centuries! He would have retreated before a party which reckoned it a crime to repair the evils caused by the violence of Sylla, and the severity of Pompey, by recalling the exiles;924 to give rights to the peoples of Italy; to distribute lands among the poor and the veterans; and, by an equitable administration, to ensure the prosperity of the provinces! It would have been madness. The question had not the mean proportions of a quarrel between two generals who contended for power: it was the decisive conflict between two hostile causes, between the privileged classes and the people; it was the continuation of the formidable struggle between Marius and Sylla!925

There are imperious circumstances which condemn public men either to abnegation or to perseverance. To cling to power when one is no longer able to do good, and when, as a representative of the past, one has, as it were, no partisans but among those who live upon abuses, is a deplorable obstinacy; to abandon it when one is the representative of a new era, and the hope of a better future, is a cowardly act and a crime.

Cæsar crosses the Rubicon.

V. Cæsar has taken his resolution. He began the conquest of Gaul with four legions; he is going to commence that of the world with one only. He must first of all, by a surprise, take possession of Ariminum (Rimini), the first important fortress of Italy on the side of Cisalpine Gaul. For this purpose, he sends before him a detachment composed of trusty soldiers and centurions, commanded by Q. Hortensius; he places a part of his cavalry in échelon on the road.926 When evening arrives, pretending an indisposition, he leaves his officers, who were at table, enters a chariot with a few friends, and joins his vanguard. When he arrives at the Rubicon, a stream which formed the limit of his government, and which the laws forbad him to cross, he halts for a moment as though struck with terror; he communicates his apprehensions to Asinius Pollio and those who surround him. A comet has appeared in the sky;927 he foresees the misfortunes which are on the point of befalling Italy, and recollects the dream which the night before had oppressed his mind: he had dreamt that he violated his mother. Was not his country, in fact, his mother; and, notwithstanding the justness of his cause and the greatness of his designs, was not his enterprise an outrage upon her? But the augurs, those flattering interpreters of the future, affirm that this dream promises him the empire of the world; this woman whom he has seen extended on the ground is no other than the earth, the common mother of all mortals.928 Then suddenly an apparition, it is said, strikes the eyes of Cæsar: it is a man of tall stature, blowing martial airs on a trumpet, and calling him to the other bank. All hesitation ceases; he hurries onward and crosses the Rubicon, exclaiming, “The die is cast! Let us go where I am called by the prodigies of the gods and the iniquity of my enemies.”929 Soon he arrived at Ariminum, of which he takes possession without striking a blow. The civil war has commenced!

“The true author of war,” says Montesquieu, “is not he who declares it, but he who renders it necessary.” It is not granted to man, notwithstanding his genius and power, to raise at will the popular waves; yet, when, elected by the public voice, he appears in the midst of the storm which endangers the vessel of the state, then he alone can direct its course and bring it to the harbour. Cæsar was not, therefore, the instigator of this profound perturbation of Roman society: he had become the indispensable pilot. Had it been otherwise, when he disappeared all would have returned to order; on the contrary, his death gave up the whole universe to all the horrors of war. Europe, Asia, Africa, were the theatre of sanguinary struggles between the past and the future, and the Roman world did not find peace until the heir of his name had made his cause triumph. But it was no longer possible for Augustus to renew the work of Cæsar; fourteen years of civil war had exhausted the strength of the nation and used up the characters; the men imbued with the great principles of the past were dead; the survivors had alternately served all parties; to succeed, Augustus himself had made peace with the murderers of his adoptive father; the convictions were extinct, and the world, longing for rest, no longer contained the elements which would have permitted Cæsar, as was his intention, to re-establish the Republic in its ancient splendour and its ancient forms, but on new principles.

NAPOLEON.

The Tuileries, March 20, 1866.

APPENDIX A.

CONCORDANCE OF DATESOF THEANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR WITH THE JULIAN STYLE,FOR THE YEARS OF ROME 691-709

Bases on which the Tables of Concordance are Founded.

BEFORE the Julian reform, the Roman year comprised 355 days, divided into twelve months, namely: Januarius, 29 days; Februarius, 28; Martius, 31; Aprilis, 29; Maius, 31; Junius, 29; Quintilis, 31; Sextilis, 29; September, 29; October, 31; November, 29; December, 29.

Every other year, an intercalation of 22 or 23 days alternately was to be added after the 23rd day of February.

The mean year being thus too long by one day, 24 days were to be subtracted in the last eight years of a period of 24 years. We shall not here have to take this correction into consideration.

The intercalation appears to have been regularly followed from A.U.C. 691 (that of Cicero’s consulship) until 702, when it was of 23 days. In the middle of the troubles, the intercalation was omitted in the years 704, 706, and 708.

Towards the end of the year 708, Cæsar remedied the disorder by placing extraordinarily between November and December 67 days, and by introducing a new mode of intercalation.

The year 708 is the last of the confusion.

The year 709 is the first of the Julian style.

Historical Data which the Concordance must Satisfy

Cicero relates that at the beginning of his consulship the planet Jupiter lighted the whole sky. (De Divin., I. 11.) Cicero entered on office on the Calends of January in the year of Rome 691; that is, on the 14th of December, 64 B.C. Jupiter had reached opposition eleven days before, on the 3rd of December.930

In the year 691, on the 5th of the Ides of November, Cicero, in his Second Oration against Catiline, 10, asks how the effeminate companions of Catiline will support the frosts of the Appenine, especially in these nights already long (his præsertim jam noctibus).931 We are, in fact, on the 15th of October, 63 B.C. Later, in his Oration for Sextius, speaking of the defeat of Catiline at the beginning of January, 692 (the middle of December, 63 B.C.), Cicero asserts that the result is due to Sextius, without whose activity the winter would have been allowed to intervene (datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus).

In the year 696 of Rome (58 B.C.), the Helvetii appoint their rendezvous at Geneva for a day fixed: “is dies erat a.d.v. Kal-Aprilis.” (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, I. 6.) This date corresponds with the Julian 24th of March, the day on which the spring equinox fell. The Helvetii had taken this natural period; Cæsar has referred it to the Roman calendar.932

In the year 700 of Rome (54 B.C.), Cæsar, after his second campaign in Britain, re-embarks his troops “quod æquinoctium suberat.” (De Bello Gallico, V. 23.) He informs Cicero of it on the 6th of the Calends of October, the Julian 21st of September. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV. 17.) The equinox fell on the 26th of September.933