Читать книгу History of Julius Caesar (Vol. 1&2) - Napoleon III Emperor of the French - Страница 14

Table of Contents

State of the Republic (684).

I. When Pompey and Crassus came to the consulship, Italy had been a prey to intestine convulsions for sixty-three years. But, notwithstanding the repose which society demanded, and which the reconciliation of the two rivals seemed to promise, many opposing passions and interests still seethed in her bosom.828

Sylla believed he had re-established the Republic on its ancient basis, but, instead, he had thrown everything into disorder. The property, the life even of each citizen, was at the mercy of the stronger; the people had lost the right of appeal, and their legitimate share in the elections; the poor, the distribution of wheat; the tribuneship, its secular privileges; and the influential order of the knights, their political and financial importance.

At Rome, no more guarantee for justice; in Italy, no more security for the rights of citizenship, so dearly acquired; in the provinces, no more consideration for subjects and allies. Sylla had restored their prerogatives to the upper class without being able to restore their former prestige; having made use of only corrupt elements, and appealed to only sordid passions, he left behind him a powerless oligarchy, and a thoroughly distracted people. The country was divided between those whom his tyranny had enriched and those whom it had despoiled; the one fearing to lose what they had just acquired, the other hoping to regain what they had lost.

The aristocracy, proud of their wealth and ancestry, absorbed in all the pleasures of luxury, kept the new men829 out of the highest offices, and, by a long continuance of power, had come to look on the chief magistracies as their property. Cato, in a discourse to the Senate, exclaimed:—“Instead of the virtues of our ancestors we have luxury and avarice; the poverty of the State, and the opulence of individuals; we boast of our riches, we cherish idleness; no distinction is made between the good and the wicked; all rewards due to merit are the price of intrigue. Why then are we astonished at this, since each man, isolating himself from the rest, consults only his own interest? At home, the slaves of pleasure; here, of wealth or of favour.”830

The elections had for a long time been the result of a shameless traffic, where every mean of success was allowable. Lucullus himself, to obtain the government of Asia, did not blush to have recourse to the good offices of a courtesan, the mistress of Cethegus.831 The sale of consciences had so planted itself in public morals, that the several instruments of electoral corruption had functions and titles almost recognised. Those who bought votes were called divisores; the go-betweens were interpretes; and those with whom was deposited the purchase money832 were sequestres. Numerous secret societies were formed for making a trade of the right of suffrage; they were divided into decuries, the several heads of which obeyed a supreme head, who treated with the candidates and sold the votes of the associates, either for money, or on the stipulation of certain advantages for himself or his friends. These societies carried most of the elections, and Cicero himself, who so often boasted of the unanimity with which he had been chosen consul, owed to them a great part of the suffrages he obtained.833

All the sentences of the tribunals composed of senators were dictated by a venality so flagrant, that Cicero brands it in these terms:—“I will demonstrate by positive proofs the guilty intrigues, the infamies which have sullied the judicial powers for the ten years that they have been entrusted to the Senate. The Roman people shall learn from me how the knightly order has administered justice for nearly fifty consecutive years, without the faintest suspicion resting on any of its members of having received money for a judgment delivered; how, since senators alone have composed our tribunals, since the people have been despoiled of the right which they had over each of us, Q. Calidius has been able to say, after his condemnation, that they could not honestly require less than 300,000 sestertii to condemn a prætor; how, when the senator P. Septimius was found guilty of embezzlement before the prætor Hortensius, the money he had received in his quality of judge was included in his fine; how C. Herennius and C. Popilius, both senators, having been convicted of the crime of peculation, and M. Atilius of the crime of high treason, it was proved that they had received money as the price of one of their sentences; how it was found that certain senators, when their names were taken from the urn held by C. Verres, then prætor urbanus, instantly went to vote against the accused, without having heard the suit; how, finally, we have seen a senator, judge in this same suit, receive money from the accused to distribute to the other judges, and money from the accuser to condemn the accused. Can I, then, sufficiently deplore this blot, this shame, this calamity which weighs on the whole order?”834

Notwithstanding the severity of the laws against the avidity of the generals and farmers of the revenues, notwithstanding the patronage of the great at Rome, the conquered peoples835 were always a prey to the exactions of the magistrates, and Verres was a type of the most shameless immorality, which drew this exclamation from Cicero: “All the provinces groan; all free peoples lament; all the kingdoms cry out against our cupidity and our violence. There is not between the Ocean and ourselves a spot so remote or so little known that the injustice and tyranny of our fellow-citizens of these days have not penetrated to it.”836 The inhabitants of foreign countries were obliged to borrow, either to satisfy the immoderate demands of their governors and their retinue, or to pay the farmers of the public revenues. Now, capital being nowhere but at Rome, they could only procure it at an excessive rate of interest; and the nobles, giving themselves up to usury, held the provinces in their power.

The army itself had been demoralised by civil wars, and the chiefs no longer maintained discipline. “Flamininus, Aquilius, Paulus Æmilius,” says Dio Cassius, “commanded men well disciplined, who had learnt to execute the orders of their generals in silence. The law was their rule; with a royal soul, simple in life, bounding their expenses within reasonable limits, they held it more shameful to flatter the soldiery than to fear the enemy. From the time of Sylla, on the contrary, the generals, raised to the first rank by violence and not by merit, forced to turn their arms against each other rather than against the enemy, were reduced to court popularity. Charged with the command, they squandered gold to procure enjoyments for an army, the fatigues of which they paid dearly; they rendered their country venal, without caring for it; and made themselves the slaves of the most depraved men, to bring under their authority those who were worth more than themselves. This is what drove Marius out of Rome, and led him back against Sylla; this is what made Cinna the murderer of Octavius, and Fimbria the murderer of Flaccus. Sylla was the principal cause of these evils, he who, to seduce the soldiers enrolled under other chiefs, and bring them under his own flag, scattered gold in handfuls among his army.”837

Far were they from the times when the soldier, after a short campaign, laid down his arms to take up the plough again; since then, retained under his standards for long years, and returning in the train of a victorious general to vote in the Campus Martius, the citizen had disappeared; there remained the warrior, with the sole inspiration of the camp. At the end of the expeditions, the army was disbanded, and Italy thus found itself overrun with an immense number of veterans, united in colonies or dispersed over the territory, more inclined to follow a leader than to obey the law. The veterans of the ancient legions of Marius and Sylla were to be counted by hundreds of thousands.

A State, moreover, is often weakened by an exaggeration of the principle on which it rests; and as war was the chief occupation at Rome, all the institutions had originally a military character. The consuls, the first magistrates of the Republic, elected by centuries—that is to say, by the people voting under arms—commanded the troops. The army, composed of all there was most honourable in the nation, did not take an oath to the Republic, but to the chief who recruited it and led it against the enemy; this oath, religiously kept, rendered the generals the absolute masters of their soldiers, who, in their turn, decreed to them the title of Imperator after a victory: what more natural, then, even after the transformation of society, than that these soldiers should believe themselves the real people, and the generals elected by them the legitimate chiefs of the Republic? Every abuse has deep roots in the past, and we may find the original cause of the power of the prætorians under the emperors in the primitive organisation and functions of the centuries established by Servius Tullius.

Although the army had not as yet acquired this preponderance, it nevertheless weighed heavily on the decisions of the Forum. By the side of men habituated to the noble chances of the fight existed a true army of turbulence, kept at the expense of the State or of private persons, in the principal towns of Italy—above all, at Capua: these were the gladiators, ever ready to undertake anything for those who paid them, either in the electoral contests838 or as soldiers in the times of civil war.839

Thus all was struck with decadence. Brute force bestowed power, and corruption the magistracies. The empire no longer belonged to the Senate, but to the commanders of the armies; the armies no longer belonged to the Republic, but to the chiefs who led them to victory. Numerous elements of dissolution afflicted society: the venality of the judges, the traffic in elections, the absolutism of the Senate, the tyranny of wealth, which oppressed the poor by usury, and braved the law with impunity.

Rome found herself divided into two thoroughly distinct parties; the one, seeing salvation only in the past, attached itself to abuses, in the fear that to displace one stone would be to shatter the whole edifice; the other wished to consolidate it by rendering the base larger and the summit less unsteady. The first party supported itself on the institutions of Sylla; the second had taken the name of Marius as the symbol of its hopes.

Great causes need an historical figure to personify their interests and tendencies. The man once adopted, his faults, his very crimes are forgotten, and his great deeds alone remembered. Thus, the vengeance and massacres of Marius had faded away from memory at Rome. Only his victories, which had preserved Italy from the invasions of the Cimbri and the Teutones, were recalled; his misfortunes were pitied, his hatred to the aristocracy vaunted. The preferences of public opinion were clearly manifested by the language of the orators, even those most favourable to the Senate. Thus Catulus and Cicero, speaking of Sylla or of Marius, the tyranny of both of whom had been substantially almost equally cruel, thought themselves obliged to glorify the one and to brand the other;840 yet the legislation of Sylla was still in full vigour, his party omnipotent—that of Marius dispersed and powerless.841

The struggle, which was perseveringly continued for sixty-three years against the Senate, had never succeeded, because the defence of the people had never been placed in hands either sufficiently strong or sufficiently pure. To the Gracchi had been wanting an army; to Marius a power less disgraced by excesses; to the war of the allies a character less hostile to the national unity of which Rome was the representative. As to Spartacus, by rousing the slaves he went beyond his aim, and his success threatened the whole of society; he was annihilated. To triumph over a long accumulation of prejudices, the popular cause needed a chief of transcendent merit, and a concurrence of circumstances difficult to foresee. But then the genius of Cæsar was not yet revealed, and the vanquisher of Sertorius was the only one who dominated the situation by his antecedents and high achievements.

Consulship of Pompey and Crassus.

II. By a line of conduct quite opposite to that of Cæsar, Pompey had greatly risen during the civil wars. From the age of twenty-three he had received from Sylla the title Imperator, and the name of “Great;”842 he passed for the first warrior of his time, and had distinguished himself in Italy, Sicily, and Africa against the partisans of Marius, whom he caused to be pitilessly massacred.843 Fate had ever favoured him. In Spain, the death of Sertorius had made victory easy to him; on his return, the fortuitous defeat of the fugitive remains of the army of Spartacus allowed him to assume the honour of having put an end to that formidable insurrection; soon he will profit by the success already obtained by Lucullus against Mithridates. Thus a distinguished writer has justly said that Pompey always came in time to terminate, to his own glory, the wars which were just going to end to the glory of another.844

The vulgar, who hail good fortune as the equal of genius, surrounded then the conqueror of Spain with their homage, and he himself, of a poor and vain spirit, referred the favours of fortune to his own sole merit. Seeking power for ornament rather than service, he courted it not in the hope of making a cause or a principle triumphant, but to enjoy it peaceably by trimming between different parties. Thus, whilst to Cæsar power was a means, to him it was only the end. Honest, but vacillating, he was unconsciously the instrument of those who flattered him. His courteous manners, and the show of disinterestedness which disguised his ambition, removed all suspicions of his aspiring to the supreme power.845 An able general in ordinary times, he was great only while events were not greater than he. Nevertheless, he then enjoyed the highest reputation at Rome. By his antecedents he was rather the representative of the party of the aristocracy; but the desire of conciliating public favour, and his own intelligence, made him comprehend the necessity of certain modifications in the laws: thus, before entering Rome to celebrate his triumph over the Celtiberians, he manifested the intention of re-establishing the prerogative of the tribunes, of putting an end to the devastation and oppression of the provinces, of restoring impartiality to justice, and respect to the judges.846 He was then consul-elect; his promises excited the most lively enthusiasm; for it was the evil administration of the provinces, and the venality of the senators in their judicial functions, which more than all else made the people demand so ardently the re-establishment of the privileges of the tribuneship, notwithstanding the abuses which they had engendered.847 Excesses in power always give birth to an immoderate desire for liberty.

In publishing the programme of his conduct, of his own free will, before entering Rome, Pompey did not yield to a fascination cleverly exerted over him by Cæsar, as several historians pretend; he obeyed a stronger impulse, that of public opinion. The nobles reproached him with having abandoned their cause,848 but the popular party was satisfied, and Cæsar, seeing the new consul take his ideas and sentiments to heart, resolved to support him energetically.849 Doubtless, he thought that with so many elements of corruption, so much contempt of the laws, so many jealous rivalries, and so much boundless ambition, the ascendency of him whom fortune had raised so high could alone, for the time, assist the destinies of the Republic. Was this a loyal co-operation? We believe so, but it did not exclude a noble rivalry, and Cæsar could not be afraid of smoothing for Pompey the platform on which they must one day meet. The man who understands his own worth has no perfidious jealousy against those who have preceded him in his career; rather, he goes to their aid, for then he has more glory in rejoining them. Where would be the emulation of the contest if one was alone in the power of attaining the end?

Pompey’s colleague was M. Licinius Crassus. This remarkable man, as we have seen, had distinguished himself as a general, but his influence was owing rather to his wealth and his amiable and courteous disposition. Enriched under Sylla by purchasing the property of the proscribed, he possessed whole quarters of the city of Rome, rebuilt after several fires; his fortune was more than forty millions of francs [a million and a half sterling],850 and he pretended that to be rich, one must be able to maintain an army at his own expense.851 Though his chief passion was the love of gold, avarice did not with him exclude liberality. He lent to all his friends without interest, and sometimes scattered his largesses with profusion. Versed in letters, gifted with a rare eloquence, he accepted eagerly all the causes which Pompey, Cæsar, and Cicero disdained to defend; by his eagerness to oblige all those who claimed his services, either to borrow, or to obtain some situation, he acquired a power which balanced that of Pompey. This last had accomplished greater deeds, but his airs of grandeur and dignity, his habit of avoiding crowds and sights, alienated the multitude from him; while Crassus, of easy access, always in the midst of the public and of business, had the advantage over him by his affable manners.852 We do not find very defined principles in him, either in political or private life; he was neither a constant friend nor an irreconcilable enemy.853 Fitter to serve as an instrument for the elevation of another, than to elevate himself to the front rank, he was very useful to Cæsar, who did his best to gain his confidence. “There existed then at Rome,” says Plutarch, “three factions, the chiefs of which were Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus; Cato, whose power did not equal his glory, was more admired than followed. The wise and moderate part of the citizens were for Pompey; energetic, speculative, and bold men attached themselves to the hopes of Cæsar; Crassus, who held the mean between these two factions, used both.”854

During his first consulship, Crassus seems to have been only occupied with extravagant expenditure, and to have preserved a prudent neutrality. He made a grand sacrifice to Hercules, and consecrated to him the tenth part of his revenues; he gave the people an enormous feast, spread out on ten thousand tables, and bestowed corn for three months to every citizen.855

Pompey occupied himself in more serious matters, and, supported by Cæsar, favoured the adoption of several laws, all of which announced a reaction against the system of Sylla.

The effect of the first was to give the tribunes the right anew of presenting laws and appealing to the people; already, in 679, the power of obtaining other magistracies had been restored to them.

The second was connected with justice. Instead of leaving to the Senate alone the whole judicial power, the prætor Aurelius Cotta, Cæsar’s uncle, proposed a law which would conciliate all interests, by making it legal to take the judges by thirds from the three classes: that is to say, from the Senate, the equestrian order, and the tribunes of the treasury, who were for the most part plebeians.856

But the measure which most helped to heal the wounds of the Republic was the amnesty proposed by the tribune Plotius in favour of all those who had taken part in the civil war. In this number was comprised the wreck of the army of Lepidus, which had remained in Spain after the defeat of Sertorius, and amongst which was to be found C. Cornelius Cinna, brother-in-law of Cæsar. This last, in speeches which have not come down to us, but which are quoted by different authors, spared nothing to assure among the people the success of the proposition.857 “He insisted on the propriety of deciding promptly on this measure of reconciliation, and observed that there could not be a more opportune moment for its adoption.”858 It was adopted without difficulty. All seemed to favour a return to the old institutions. The censorship, interrupted for seventeen years, was re-established, and L. Gellius and C. Lentulus, the censors chosen, exercised their office with so much severity, that they expelled from the Senate sixty-four of its members, probably creatures of Sylla. In the number of those expelled figured Caius Antonius, previously accused by Cæsar, and Publius Lentulus Sura, consul in the year 683.

All these changes had been proposed or accepted by Pompey rather to please the multitude than to obey distinct convictions. And by them he lost his true supporters in the upper classes, without gaining, in the opposite party, the foremost place, already occupied by Cæsar. But Pompey, blind to real worth, imagined then that no one could surpass him in influence; always favoured by circumstances, he had been accustomed to see both the arrogance of Sylla and the majesty of the laws yield before him. Notwithstanding a first refusal by the Dictator, at twenty-six years of age he had obtained the honours of the triumph, without having fulfilled any of the legal conditions. Contrary to the laws, a second triumph had been accorded him, as also the consulship, though out of Rome, and without having followed the necessary order of hierarchy of the magistracies. Full of presumption through the examples of the past, full of confidence in the future through the adulation of the present, he thought he might wound the interests of the nobles without alienating them, and flatter the tastes and passions of the people without losing his dignity. Towards the end of his consulship, he, the chief magistrate of the Republic, he, who thought himself above all others, presented himself as a mere soldier at the annual review of the knights. The momentary effect was immense when the censors, seated on their tribunal, saw Pompey traversing the crowd, preceded by all the pomp of the consular power, and leading before them his horse, which he held by the bridle. The crowd, silent till then, burst out into transports of joy, overcome with admiration at the sight of so great a man glorifying himself for being a simple knight, and modestly submitting himself to the legal forms. But on the demand of the censors if he had made all the campaigns required by law, he answered, “Yes, I have made them all, never having had any other general than myself.”859 The ostentation of this reply shows that this step of Pompey’s was a false modesty, the most insupportable form of pride, according to the expression of Marcus Aurelius.

Cæsar Questor (686).

III. Neither did Cæsar disdain ceremonial; but he sought to give it a significance which should make an impression upon the mind. The opportunity soon presented itself. Soon after he was nominated questor and admitted to the Senate, he lost his aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia, and hastened to make a veritable political manifestation of their funeral oration.860 It was the custom at Rome to pronounce a eulogy on women only when they died at an advanced age. Cæsar obtained public approbation by departing from this usage in favour of his young wife; they saw in it, according to Plutarch,861 a proof of sensibility and softness of manners; but they applauded not the family sentiment only, they glorified much more the inspiration of the politician who dared to make a panegyric on the husband of Julia, the celebrated Marius, whose image, in wax, carried by Cæsar’s orders in the funeral procession, re-appeared for the first time since the proscription of Sylla.862

After having rendered these last honors to his wife, he accompanied, in the capacity of questor, the prætor Antistius Vetus, sent into Ulterior Spain.863 The peninsula was then divided into two great provinces: Citerior Spain, since called Tarraconensis, and Ulterior Spain, comprising Bætica and Lusitania.864 The positive limits, we may well believe, were not very exactly determined, but at this epoch the Saltus Castulonensis, which corresponds with the Sierras Nevada and Cazorla,865 was considered as such between these two provinces. To the north, the limitation could not be made any more distinct, the Asturias not being thoroughly conquered. The capital of Ulterior Spain was Corduba (Cordova), where the prætor resided.866

The chief towns, doubtless connected by military roads, formed so many centres of general meeting, where assizes for the regulation of business were held. These meetings were called conventus civium Romanorum,867 because the members who composed them were Roman citizens dwelling in the country. The prætor, or his delegate, presided over them once a year.868 Each province in Spain had several of them. In the first century of our era, there were three for Lusitania and four for Bætica.869

Cæsar, the delegate of the prætor, visited these towns, presiding over the assemblies and administering justice. He was noted for his spirit of conciliation and equity,870 and showed a lively solicitude for the interests of the Spaniards.871 As the character of illustrious men is revealed in their smallest actions, it is not a matter of indifference to mention the gratitude which Cæsar always had for the good offices of Vetus. Plutarch informs us that a strict union reigned between them ever after, and Cæsar took care to name the son of Vetus questor when he himself was raised to the prætorship,872 as sensible of friendship as he was later forgetful of injuries.

Yet the love of glory and the consciousness of his high faculties made him aspire to a more important part. He manifested his impatient desire for this one day when he went to visit the famous temple of Hercules at Gades, as Hannibal and Scipio had done before.873 At the sight of the statue of Alexander, he deplored with a sigh that he had done nothing at the age when this great man had conquered the whole world.874 In fact, Cæsar was then thirty-two years old, nearly the age at which Alexander died. Having obtained his recall to Rome, he stopped on his return in Gallia Transpadana (687).875 The colonies founded in this country possessed the Latin law (jus Latii), which Pompeius Strabo had granted them, but they vainly demanded the rights of Roman city. The presence of Cæsar, already known for his friendly feelings towards the provinces, excited a lively emotion among the inhabitants, who saw in him the representative of their interests and their cause. The enthusiasm was such, that the Senate, terrified, thought itself obliged to retain for some time longer in Italy the legions destined for the army in Asia.876

The ascendency of Pompey still continued, though, since his consulship, he had remained without command, having undertaken, in 684, not to accept the government of any province at the expiration of his magistracy;877 but his popularity began to disquiet the Senate, so much is it in the very essence of the aristocracy to distrust those who raise themselves, and extend their powers beyond itself. This was an additional motive for Cæsar to connect himself more closely with Pompey; whereupon he backed him with all his influence; and either to cement this alliance, or because of his inclination for a beautiful and graceful woman, shortly after his return he married Pompeia, the kinswoman of Pompey, and granddaughter of Sylla.878 He was thus, at one and the same time, the arbiter of elegance, the hope of the democratic party, and the only public man whose opinions and conduct had never varied.

The Gabinian Law (687).

IV. The decadence of a political body is evident when the measures most useful to the glory of a country, instead of arising from its provident initiative, are inaugurated by obscure and often disreputable men, the faithful but dishonoured organs of public opinion. Thus the propositions made at this epoch, far from being inspired by the Senate, were put forward by uninfluential individuals, and carried by the violent attitude of the people. The first referred to the pirates, who, upheld and encouraged by Mithridates, had long infested the seas, and ravaged all the coasts; an energetic repression was indispensable. These bold adventurers, whose number the civil wars had greatly increased, had become a veritable power. Setting out from Cilicia, their common centre, they armed whole fleets, and found a refuge in important towns.879 They had pillaged the much-frequented port of Caieta (Gaëta), dared to land at Ostia, and carry off the inhabitants to slavery; sunk in mid seas a Roman fleet under the orders of a consul, and made two prætors prisoners.880 Not only strangers deputed to Rome, but the ambassadors of the Republic, had fallen into their hands, and had undergone the shame of being ransomed.881 Finally, the pirates intercepted the imports of wheat indispensable for the feeding of the city. To remedy so humiliating a state of things, the tribune of the people, Aulus Gabinius, proposed to confide the war against the pirates to one sole general; to give him, for three years, extended powers, large forces, and to place three lieutenants under his orders.882 The assembly of the people instantly accepted this proposition, notwithstanding the small esteem in which the character of its author was held; and the name of Pompey was in every mouth; but “the senators,” says Dio Cassius, “would have preferred to suffer the greatest evils from the pirates, than to have invested Pompey with such a power;”883 they were ready to put to death, in the curia itself, the tribune who was the author of the motion. Scarcely had the multitude heard of the opposition of the senators, when they flocked in crowds, invaded the place of meeting, and would have massacred them, had they not been protected from their fury.884

The projected law, submitted to the suffrages of the people, attacked by Catulus and Q. Hortensius, energetically supported by Cæsar, is then adopted; and they confer on Pompey, for three years, the proconsular authority over all the seas, over all the coasts, and for fifty miles into the interior; they grant him 6,000 talents (35 millions [£1,400,000]),885 twenty-five lieutenants, and the power of taking such vessels and troops as he should judge necessary. The allies, foreigners, and the provinces, were called on to concur in this expedition. They equipped five hundred ships, they levied a hundred and twenty thousand infantry and five thousand horse. The Senate, in spite of itself, sanctioned the clauses of this law, the utility of which was so manifest that its publication alone was sufficient to lower the price of wheat all through Italy.886

Pompey adopted an able plan for putting an end to piracy. He divided the Mediterranean coasts from the Columns of Hercules to the Hellespont and the southern shores of the Black Sea into ten separate commands;887 at the head of each he placed one of his lieutenants. He himself, retaining the general surveillance, went to Cilicia with the rest of his forces. This vast plan protected all the shores, left the pirates no refuge, and enabled him to destroy their fleet and attack them in their dens at once. In three months Pompey re-established the safety of the seas, took a thousand castles or strongholds, destroyed three hundred towns, took eight hundred ships, and made twenty thousand prisoners, whom he transferred into the interior of Asia, where he employed them in building a city, which received the name of Pompeiopolis.888

The Manilian Law (688).

V. At these tidings, the enthusiasm for Pompey, then in the island of Crete, redoubled, and they talked of placing in his hands the fate of another war. Although Lucullus had obtained brilliant successes over Mithridates and Tigranes, his military position in Asia began to be compromised. He had experienced reverses; insubordination reigned among his soldiers; his severity excited their complaints; and the news of the arrival of the two proconsuls from Cilicia, Acilius Glabrio and Marcius Rex, sent to command a part of the provinces until then under his orders, had weakened respect for his authority.889 These circumstances determined Manlius, tribune of the people, to propose that the government of the provinces trusted to Lucullus should be given to Pompey, joining to them Bithynia, and preserving to him the power which he already exercised over all the seas. “It was,” says Plutarch, “to submit the whole Roman empire to one sole man, and to deprive Lucullus of the fruits of his victories.”890 Never, indeed, had such power been confided to any citizen, neither to the first Scipio to ruin Carthage, nor to the second to destroy Numantia. The people grew more and more accustomed to regard this concentration of power in one hand as the only means of salvation. The Senate, taxing these proposals with ingratitude, combated them with all its strength; Hortensius asserted that if all the authority was to be trusted to one man, no person was more worthy of it than Pompey, but that so much authority ought not to be centred in one person.891 Catulus cried that they had done with liberty, and that, henceforth to enjoy this, they would be forced to retire to the woods and mountains.892 Cicero, on the contrary, inaugurated his entrance into the Senate by a magnificent oration, which has been preserved to us; he showed that it was for the best interest of the Republic to give the conduct of this war to a captain whose noble deeds in the past, and whose moderation and integrity, vouched for the future. “So many other generals,” he said at the close, “proceed on an expedition only with the hope of enriching themselves. Can those who think we ought not to grant all these powers to one man alone ignore this, and do we not see that what renders Pompey so great is not only his own virtues, but the vices of others?”893 As to Cæsar, he seconded, with all his power, the efforts of Cicero894 for the adoption of the law, which, supported by public feeling, and submitted to the suffrage of the tribes, was adopted unanimously.

Certainly, Lucullus had deserved well of his country, and it was cruel to deprive him of the glory of terminating a war which he had prosperously begun;895 but the definitive success of the campaign demanded his substitution, and the instinct of the people did not deceive them. Often, in difficult cases, they see more clearly than an assembly preoccupied with the interests of castes or of persons, and events soon show that they are right.

Lucullus had announced at Rome the end of the war; yet Mithridates was far from being conquered. This fierce enemy of the Romans, who had continued the struggle twenty-four years, and whom evil fortune had never been able to discourage, would not treat, despite his sixty four years and recent reverses, save on conditions inadmissible by the Romans. The fame of Pompey then was not useless against such an adversary. His ascendency alone could bring back discipline into the army and intimidate the enemy. In fact, his presence was sufficient to re-establish order, and retain under their standards the old soldiers who had obtained their discharge, and wished to return to their homes;896 they formed the flower of the army, and were known under the name of Valerians.897 On the other hand, Tigranes, having learned the arrival of Pompey, abandoned the party of his father-in-law, declaring that this general was the only one to whom he would submit,898 so much does the prestige of one man, says Dio Cassius, lord it over that of another.899

Manilius then demanded the re-establishment of the law of Caius Gracchus, by virtue of which the centuria prærogativa, instead of being drawn by lot from the first classes of the tribes, was taken indiscriminately from all the classes, which destroyed the distinctions of rank and fortune in the elections, and deprived the richer of their electoral privileges.900

We see that it was generally the tribunes of the people who, obeying the inspiration of greater men, took the initiative in the more popular measures. But the major part, without disinterestedness or moderation, often compromised those who had recourse to their services by their unruly ardour and subversive opinions. Manilius, in 688, suddenly re-opened a question which always created great agitation at Rome; this was the political emancipation of the freedmen. He obtained, by a surprise, the readoption of the law Sulpicia, which gave a vote to the freedmen by distributing them among the thirty-five tribes, and asserted that he had the consent of Crassus and Pompey. But the Senate revoked the law some time after its adoption, agreeing in this with the chiefs of the popular party, who did not think it was demanded by public opinion.901

Cæsar Curule Ædile (689).

VI. Whilst all the favours of fortune seemed to have accumulated on the idol of the moment, Cæsar, remaining at Rome, was chosen inspector (curator) of the Appian Way (687).902 The maintenance of the highways brought much popularity to those who undertook the charge with disinterestedness; Cæsar gained all the more by his, as he contributed largely to the cost, and even compromised his own fortune thereby.

Two years afterwards (689), nominated curule ædile with Bibulus, he displayed a magnificence which excited the acclamations of the crowd, always greedy of sights. The place named Comitium, the Forum, the Basilicæ, the Capitol itself, were magnificently decorated. Temporary porticoes were erected, under which were exposed a crowd of precious objects.903 These expenses were not unusual: since the triumph of the dictator Papirius Cursor, all the æediles were accustomed to contribute to the embellishment of the Forum.904 Cæsar celebrated with great pomp the Roman games, and the feast of Cybele, and gave the finest shows of wild beasts and gladiators ever yet beheld.905 The number of the combatants amounted to three hundred and twenty couples, according to Plutarch, a contemptuous expression, which proves the small account made of the lives of these men. Cicero, writing to Atticus, speaks of them as we in our day should speak of racehorses;906 and the grave Atticus himself had gladiators, as had most of the great people of his time. These bloody games, which seem so inhuman to us, still preserved the religious character which at first they so exclusively possessed; they were celebrated in honour of the dead;907 Cæsar gave them as a sacrifice to his father’s memory, and displayed in them an unwonted pomp.908 The number of gladiators which he got together terrified the Senate, and for the future it was forbidden to exceed a given number. Bibulus, his colleague, it is true, bore half the expense; nevertheless, the public gave Cæsar all the credit of this sumptuous discharge of the duties of their office. Thus Bibulus said that he was like the temple of Castor and Pollux, which, dedicated to the two brothers, was never called anything but the temple of Castor.909

The nobles saw in the sumptuousness of these games only a vain ostentation, a frivolous desire to shine; they congratulated themselves on the prodigality of the ædile, and predicted in his near ruin a term to his influence; but Cæsar, while spending millions to amuse the multitude, did not make this fleeting enthusiasm the sole basis of his popularity; he established this on more solid grounds, by re-awakening in the people the memories of glory and liberty.

Not content with having helped in several healing measures, with having gained over Pompey to his opinions, and sought for the first time to revive the memory of Marius, he wished to sound public opinion by an astounding manifestation. At the moment when the splendour of his ædileship had produced the most favourable impression on the crowd, he secretly restored the trophies of Marius, formerly overturned by Sylla, and ordered them to be placed in the Capitol910 during the night. The next day, when they saw these images shining with gold, chiselled with infinite art, and adorned with inscriptions which recalled the victories gained over Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutones, the nobles began to murmur, blaming Cæsar for having dared to revive seditious emblems and proscribed remembrances; but the partisans of Marius flocked in large numbers to the Capitol, making its sacred roof resound with their acclamations. Many shed tears on seeing the venerated features of their old general, and proclaimed Cæsar the worthy successor of that great captain.911

Uneasy at these demonstrations, the Senate assembled, and Lutatius Catulus, whose father had been one of the victims of Marius, accused Cæsar of wishing to overthrow the Republic, “no longer secretly, by undermining it, but openly, in attacking it by breach.”912 Cæsar repelled this attack, and his partisans, delighted at his success, vied with each other in saying “that he would carry it over all his rivals, and with the help of the people would take the first rank in the Republic.”913 Henceforth the popular party had a head.

The term of his ædileship having expired, Cæsar solicited the mission of transforming Egypt into a Roman province.914 The matter in hand was the execution of the will of King Ptolemy Alexas, or Alexander,915 who, following the example of other kings, had left his state to the Roman peoples. But the will was revoked as doubtful,916 and it seems that the Senate shrank from taking possession of so rich a country, fearing, as did Augustus later, to make the proconsul who should govern it too powerful.917 The mission of reducing Egypt to a Roman province was brilliant and fruitful. It would have given to those who might be charged with it extensive military power, and the disposal of large resources. Crassus also placed himself on the list, but after long debates the Senate put an end to all rival pretensions.918

About the same time when Crassus was endeavouring to get the inhabitants of Gallia Transpadana admitted to the rights of Roman citizens, the tribune of the people, Caius Papius, caused to be adopted a law for the expulsion of all foreigners from Rome.919 For, in their pride, the Romans thus called those who were not Latins by origin.920 This measure would specially affect the Transpadanes, who were devoted to Cæsar, because he had formerly promised to procure for them the title of citizen, which had been refused. It was feared that they would get into the comitia, for, since the emancipation of the Italiotes, it was difficult to distinguish among those who had the right of voting, since often even slaves fraudulently participated in the elections.921

Cæsar judex quæstionis (660).

VIII. Cæsar soon re-commenced the political struggle against the still living instruments of past oppression, in which he had engaged at the beginning of his career. He neglected no opportunity of calling down upon them the rigours of justice or the opprobrium of public opinion.

The long duration of the civil troubles had given birth to a class of malefactors called sicarii,922 who committed all sorts of murders and robberies. In 674 Sylla had promulgated a severe edict against them, which, however, excepted the executors of his vengeance in the pay of the treasury.923 These last were exposed to public animadversion; and though Cato had obtained the restitution of the sums allotted as the price of the heads of the proscribed,924 no one had yet dared to bring them to justice.925 Cæsar, notwithstanding the law of Sylla, undertook their prosecution.

Under his presidency, in his capacity as judex quæstionis, L. Luscius, who, by the dictator’s order, had slain three of the proscribed, and L. Bellienus, uncle of Catiline and murderer of Lucretius Ofella, were prosecuted and condemned.926 Catiline, accused, at the instigation of L. Lucceius, orator and historian, the friend of Cæsar, of having slain the celebrated M. Marius Gratidianus, was acquitted.927

Conspiracies against the Senate (690).

VIII. Whilst Cæsar endeavoured to react legally against the system of Sylla, another party, composed of the ambitious and discontented, ruined by debt, had long sought to arrive at power by plotting. Of this number had been, since 688, Cn. Piso, P. Sylla, P. Autronius, and Catiline. These men, with diverse antecedents and different qualities, were equally decried, yet they did not want for adherents among the lower class, whose passions they flattered, or among the upper class, to whose policy or enmity they were serviceable. P. Sylla and Autronius, after having been made consuls-elect in 688, had been effaced from the senatorial list for solicitation. Public report mixed up the names of Crassus and Cæsar with these secret manœuvres; but was it possible that these two men, in such opposite positions, and even divided between themselves, should enter into an understanding together for the sake of a vulgar plot; and was it not a new inconsistency of calumny to associate in the same conspiracy Cæsar because of his immense debts, and Crassus because of his immense riches?

Let us remark, besides, that each of the factions then in agitation necessarily sought to compromise, for the purpose of appropriating to itself, such a personage as Cæsar, notorious for his name, his generosity, and his courage.

A matter which has remained obscure, but which then made a great noise, shows the progress of the ideas of disorder. One of the conspirators, Cn. Piso, had taken part in the attempt to assassinate the Consuls Cotta and Torquatus; yet he obtained, through the influence of Crassus, the post of questor pro prætore into Citerior Spain; the Senate, either to get rid of him, or in the doubtful hope of finding in him some support against Pompey, whose power began to appear formidable, consented to grant him this province. But in 691, on his arrival in Spain, he was slain by his escort—some say by the secret emissaries of Pompey.928 As to Catiline, he was not the man to bend under the weight of the misfortunes of his friends, or under his own losses; he employed new ardour in braving the perils of a conspiracy, and in pursuing the honours of the consulship. He was the most dangerous adversary the Senate had. Cæsar supported this candidature. In a spirit of opposition, he supported all that could hurt his enemies and favour a change of system. Besides, all parties were constrained to deal with those who enjoyed the popular favour. The nobles accepted as candidate C. Antonius Hybrida, a worthless man, capable only of selling himself and of treachery.929 Cicero, in 690, had promised Catiline to defend him;930 and a year before, the Consul Torquatus, one of the most esteemed chiefs of the Senate, pleaded for the same individual accused of embezzlement.931

the difficulty of constituting a New Party.

IX. We thus see that the misfortunes of the times obliged the most notable men to have dealings with those whose antecedents seemed to devote them to contempt.

In times of transition, when a choice must be made between a glorious past and an unknown future, the rock is, that bold and unscrupulous men alone thrust themselves forward; others, more timid, and the slaves of prejudices, remain in the shade, or offer some obstacle to the movement which hurries away society into new ways. It is always a great evil for a country, a prey to agitations, when the party of the honest, or that of the good, as Cicero calls them, do not embrace the new ideas, to direct by moderating them. Hence profound divisions. On the one side, unknown men often take possession of the good or bad passions of the crowd; on the other, honourable men, immovable or morose, oppose all progress, and by their obstinate resistance excite legitimate impatience and lamentable violence. The opposition of these last has the double inconvenience of leaving the way clear to those who are less worthy than themselves, and of throwing doubts into the minds of that floating mass, which judges parties much more by the honourableness of men than by the value of ideas.

What was then passing in Rome offers a striking example of this. Was it not reasonable, in fact, that men should hesitate to prefer a faction which had at its head such illustrious names as Hortensius, Catulus, Marcellus, Lucullus, and Cato, to that which had for its main-stays individuals like Gabinius, Manilius, Catiline, Vatinius, and Clodius? What more legitimate in the eyes of the descendants of the ancient families than this resistance to all change, and this disposition to consider all reform as Utopian and almost as sacrilege? What more logical for them than to admire Cato’s firmness of soul, who, still young, allowed himself to be menaced with death rather than admit the possibility of becoming one day the defender of the cause of the allies claiming the rights of Roman citizens?932 How not comprehend the sentiments of Catulus and Hortensius obstinately defending the privileges of the aristocracy, and manifesting their fears at this general inclination to concentrate all power in the hands of one individual?

And yet the cause maintained by these men was condemned to perish, as everything which has had its time. Notwithstanding their virtues, they were only an additional obstacle to the steady march of civilisation, because they wanted the qualities most essential for a time of revolution—an appreciation of the wants of the moment, and of the problems of the future. Instead of trying what they could save from the shipwreck of the ancient regime, just breaking to pieces against a fearful rock, the corruption of political morals, they refuse to admit that the institutions to which the Republic owed its grandeur could bring about its decay. Terrified at all innovation, they confounded in the same anathema the seditious enterprises of certain tribunes, and the just reclamations of the citizens. But their influence was so considerable, and ideas consecrated by time have so much empire over minds, that they would have yet hindered the triumph of the popular cause, if Cæsar, in putting himself at its head, had not given it a new glory and an irresistible force. A party, like an army, can only conquer with a chief worthy to command it; and all those who, since the Gracchi, had unfurled the standard of reform, had sullied it with blood, and compromised it by revolts. Cæsar raised and purified it. To constitute his party, it is true, he had recourse to agents but little estimated; the best architect can build only with the materials under his hand; but his constant endeavour was to associate to himself the most trustworthy men, and he spared no effort to gain by turns Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Servilius Cæpio, Q. Fufius Calenus, Serv. Sulpicius, and many others.

In moments of transition, when the old system is at an end, and the new not yet established, the greatest difficulty consists, not in overcoming the obstacles which are in the way of the advent of a regime demanded by the country, but to establish the latter solidly, by establishing it upon the concurrence of honourable men penetrated with the new ideas, and steady in their principles.