Читать книгу The History of Julius Caesar - Napoleon III Emperor of the French - Страница 13

Table of Contents

First Years of Cæsar.

I. About the time when Marius, by his victories over the Cimbri and Teutones, saved Italy from a formidable invasion, was born at Rome the man who would one day, by again subduing the Gauls and Germans, retard for several centuries the irruption of the barbarians, give the knowledge of their rights to oppressed peoples, assure continuance to Roman civilisation, and bequeath his name to the future chiefs of nations, as a consecrated emblem of power.

Caius Julius Cæsar was born at Rome on the 4th of the ides of Quintilis (July 12), 654,743 and the month Quintilis, called Julius [July] in honour of him, has borne for 1,900 years the name of the great man. He was the son of C. Julius Cæsar,744 prætor, who died suddenly at Pisa about 670,745 and of Aurelia, descended from an illustrious plebeian family.

By ancestry and alliances, Cæsar inherited that double prestige which is derived from ancient origin and recent renown.

On one side, he claimed to be descended from Anchises and Venus;746 on the other, he was the nephew of the famous Marius who had married his aunt Julia. When the widow of this great captain died in 686, Cæsar pronounced her funeral oration, and thus traced out his own genealogy:—“My aunt Julia, on the maternal side, is of the issue of kings; on the paternal side, she descends from the immortal gods: for her mother was a Marcia,747 and the family Marcius Rex are the descendants of Ancus Marcius. The Julia family, to which I belong, descends from Venus herself. Thus our house unites to the sacred character of kings, who are the most powerful among men, the venerated holiness of the gods, who hold kings themselves under their subjection.”748

This proud glorification of his race attests the value which was set at Rome upon antiquity of origin; but Cæsar, sprung from that aristocracy which had produced so many illustrious men, and impatient to follow in their footsteps, showed, from early youth, that nobility obliges, instead of imitating those whose conduct would make one believe that nobility dispenses.

Aurelia, a woman of lofty character and severe morals,749 helped above all in the development of his great abilities, by a wise and enlightened education, and prepared him to make himself worthy of the part which destiny had reserved for him.750 This first education, given by a tender and virtuous mother, has ever as much influence over our future as the most precious natural qualities. Cæsar reaped the fruits of it. He also received lessons from M. Antonius Gnipho, the Gaul, a philosopher and master of eloquence, of a rare mind, of vast learning, and well versed in Greek and Latin letters, which he had cultivated at Alexandria.751

Greece was always the country of the arts and sciences, and the language of Demosthenes was familiar to every lettered Roman.752 Thus Greek and Latin might be called the two languages of Italy, as they were, at a later period, by the Emperor Claudius.753 Cæsar spoke both with the same facility; and, when falling beneath the dagger of Brutus, he pronounced in Greek the last words that issued from his lips.754

Though eager for pleasure, he neglected nothing, says Suetonius, by which to acquire those talents which lead to the highest honours. Now, according to Roman habits, the first offices were attainable only by the union of the most diverse merits. The patrician youth, still worthy of their ancestors, were not idle: they sought religious appointments, to give them power over consciences; administrative employments, to influence material interests; discussions and public discourses, to captivate minds by their eloquence; finally, military labours, to strike imaginations by the brilliancy of their glory. Emulous of distinction in all, Cæsar did not confine himself to the study of letters; he early composed works, among which are cited “The Praises of Hercules,” a tragedy of “Œdipus,” “A Collection of Choice Phrases,”755 a book on “Divination.”756 It seems that these works were written in a style so pure and correct, that they gained for him the reputation of an eminent writer, gravis auctor linguæ Latinæ.757 He was less happy in the art of poetry, if we may believe Tacitus.758 However, there remain to us some verses addressed to the memory of Terence, which are not wanting in elegance.759

Education, then, had made Cæsar a distinguished man before he was a great man. He united to goodness of heart a high intelligence, to an invincible courage,760 an enthralling eloquence,761 a wonderful memory,762 an unbounded generosity; finally, he possessed one very rare quality—calmness under anger.763 “His affability,” says Plutarch, “his politeness, his gracious address—qualities which he had to a degree beyond his age—gained him the affection of the people.”764

Two anecdotes of later date must come in here. Plutarch relates that Cæsar, during his campaigns, one day, surprised by a violent storm, took shelter in a hut where was only one room, too small to contain many people. He hastened to offer it to Oppius, one of his officers, who was sick; and himself passed the night in the open air, saying to those who accompanied him, “We must leave to the great the places of honour, but yield to the sick those that are necessary to them.” Another time, Valerius Leo, with whom he was dining at Milan, having set before him an ill-seasoned dish, the companions of Cæsar remonstrated, but he reproached them sharply for their want of consideration for his host, saying “that they were free not to eat of a dish they did not like, but that to complain of it aloud was a want of good breeding.”765

These facts, of small importance in themselves, yet testify to Cæsar’s goodness of heart, and to the delicacy of the well-bred man who is always observant of propriety.

To his natural qualities, developed by a brilliant education, were added physical advantages. His tall stature, his rounded and well-proportioned limbs, stamped his person with a grace that distinguished him from all others.766 He had black eyes, a piercing look, a pale complexion, a straight and high nose. His mouth, small and regular, but with rather thick lips, gave a kindly expression to the lower part of his face, whilst his breadth of brow betokened the development of the intellectual faculties. His face was full, at least, in his youth; for in his busts, doubtless made towards the end of his life, his features are thinner, and bear traces of fatigue.767 He had a sonorous and penetrating voice, a noble gesture, and an air of dignity reigned over all his person.768 His constitution, at first delicate, became robust by a frugal regimen and the habit of exposing himself to the inclemency of the weather.769 Accustomed from his youth to all bodily exercises, he was a bold horseman,770 and bore privations and fatigues without difficulty.771 Habitually temperate, his health was impaired neither by excess of labour nor by excess of pleasure. However, on two occasions—the first at Corduba, the second at Thapsus—he was seized with nervous attacks, wrongly mistaken for epilepsy.772

He paid special attention to his person, carefully shaved or plucked out his beard, and artistically brought his hair forward to the front of his head, which, in more advanced age, served to conceal his bald forehead. He was reproached with the affectation of scratching his head with one finger only, so that he should not disarrange his hair.773 His toilette was refined; his toga was generally ornamented with a laticlavia, fringed down to the hands, and fastened by a girdle carelessly tied about his loins; a costume which distinguished the elegant and effeminate youths of the period. But Sylla was not deceived by these appearances of frivolity, and repeated that they must take care of this young man with the loose girdle.774 He had a taste for pictures, statues, and jewels; and, in memory of his origin, always wore on his finger a ring, on which was engraved the figure of an armed Venus.775

In fine, we discover in Cæsar, both physically and morally, two natures rarely united in the same person. He joined an aristocratic delicacy of body to the muscular constitution of the warrior; the love of luxury and the arts to a passion for military life, in all its simplicity and rudeness: in a word, he allied the elegance of manner which seduces with the energy of character which commands.

Cæsar persecuted by Sylla (672).

II. Such was Cæsar at the age of eighteen, when Sylla seized the dictatorship.776 Already he attracted all eyes at Rome by his name, his intellect, his affable manners, which pleased men, and, perhaps, women still more.

The influence of his uncle Marius caused him to be nominated priest of Jupiter (flamen dialis) at the age of fourteen.777 At sixteen, betrothed, doubtless against his will, to Cossutia, the daughter of a rich knight, he broke his engagement,778 after the death of his father, to draw still closer his alliance with the popular party by marrying, a year after, in 671, Cornelia, daughter of L. Cornelius Cinna, the ancient colleague of Marius, and the representative of his cause. From this marriage was born, the following year, Julia, who became, in after time, the wife of Pompey.779

Sylla saw with displeasure this young man, who already occupied men’s thoughts, although, as yet, he had done nothing, linking himself more closely with those who were opposed to him. He wished to force him to divorce Cornelia, but he found him inflexible. When every one yielded to his will; when, by his orders, Piso separated from Annia, the widow of Cinna,780 and Pompey ignominiously dismissed his wife, the daughter of Antistius, who died for his cause,781 to marry Emilia, the daughter-in-law of the dictator, Cæsar maintained his independence at the price of his personal safety.

Become suspected, he was deprived of his priesthood,782 and of his wife’s dowry, and declared incapable of inheriting from his family. Obliged to conceal himself in the outskirts of Rome to escape persecution, he changed his place of retreat every night, though ill with fever; but, arrested by a band of assassins in the pay of Sylla, he gained the chief, Cornelius Phagita, by giving him two talents (about 12,000 francs),783 and his life was preserved. Let us note here that, arrived at sovereign power, Cæsar met this same Phagita, and treated him with indulgence, without reminding him of the past.784 Meanwhile, he still wandered about in the Sabine country. His courage, his constancy, his illustrious birth, his former quality of flamen, excited general interest. Soon important personages, such as Aurelius Cotta, his mother’s brother, and Mamercus Lepidus, a connection of his family, interceded in his favour.785 The vestals also, whose sole intervention put an end to all violence, did not spare their prayers.786 Vanquished by so many solicitations, Sylla yielded at last, exclaiming, “Well! be it so, you will it; but know that he, whose pardon you demand, will one day ruin the party of the great for which we have fought together, for, trust me, there are several Mariuses in this young man.”787

Sylla had judged truly: many Mariuses, in effect, had met together in Cæsar: Marius, the great captain, but with a larger military genius; Marius, the enemy of the oligarchy, but without hatred and without cruelty; Marius, in a word, no longer the man of a faction, but the man of his age.

Cæsar in Asia (673, 674).

III. Cæsar could not remain a cold spectator of the sanguinary reign of Sylla, and left for Asia, where he received the hospitality of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. A short time afterwards he took part in the hostilities which continued against Mithridates. The young men of good family who wished to serve their military apprenticeship followed a general to the army. Admitted to his intimacy under the name of contubernales, they were attached to his person. It was in this capacity that Cæsar accompanied the prætor M. Minucius Thermus,788 who sent him to Nicomedes to claim his co-operation in the siege of Mitylene, occupied by the troops of Mithridates. Cæsar succeeded in his mission, and on his return aided in the capture of the city. Having saved the life of a Roman soldier, he received from Thermus a civic crown.789

Shortly afterwards he returned to Bithynia, to defend the cause of one of his clients. His frequent presence at the court of Nicomedes served as the pretext for an accusation of shameful condescension. But Cæsar’s relations with the Bithynians may be explained quite naturally by his feelings of gratitude for the hospitality he had received from them; it was the reason which made him always defend their interests, and at a later period become their patron, as may be gathered from the fragment of a speech preserved by Aulus Gellius.790 The motives of his conduct were, nevertheless, so misconstrued, that insulting allusions are to be found in certain debates of the Senate, and even in the songs of the soldiers who followed his triumphal car.791 But these sarcasms, which told rather of hatred than of truth, as Cicero himself says, magis odio firmata quam præsidio,792 were only set afloat by his adversaries very much later, that is to say, at one of those moments of excitement when political parties shrink from no calumny793 to mutually decry each other. Notwithstanding the relaxation of morals, nothing could have ruined the reputation of Cæsar more than this accusation, for such a crime was not only abhorred in the army,794 but, committed with a foreigner, would have been the most degrading disregard of Roman dignity. Wherefore Cæsar, whose love for women ought to have shielded him from such a suspicion, repelled it with just indignation.795

After having made his first campaign at the siege of Mitylene, Cæsar served in the fleet of the proconsul P. Servilius (676), commissioned to make war on the Cilician pirates, who subsequently received the surname of Isauricus, because he had taken Isaura, their chief place of refuge,796 and conquered part of Cilicia. However, he remained but a short time with Servilius, for, having been informed of the death of Sylla, he returned to Rome.797

Cæsar on his return to Rome (676).

IV. The Republic, divided into two parties, was on the eve of falling into civil war through the diversity of opinion between the two consuls, Lepidus and Catulus. They were ready to come to blows. The former, elevated to the consulship by the influence of Pompey, against the advice of Sylla, fomented an insurrection. “He lighted up,” says Florus, “the fire of civil war at the very funeral pyre of the dictator.”798 He wished to abrogate the Cornelian laws, restore to the tribunes their power, to the proscribed their rights, to the allies their lands.799 These designs against the system established by the dictator agreed with Cæsar’s ideas, and endeavours were made, by seductive offers, to draw him into the intrigues which were then going on; but he kept aloof.800

The Senate succeeded in making the consuls swear that they would be reconciled, and thought to ensure peace by giving each a military command. Catulus received the government of Italy, and Lepidus that of Cisalpine Gaul. The latter, before going to his province, visited Etruria, where the partisans of Marius flocked to him. The Senate, informed of these doings, recalled him to Rome, towards the end of the year, to hold the comitia.801 Lepidus, leaving Brutus the prætor encamped near Mutina (Modena), marched back to Rome at the head of his army. Beaten by Catulus and Pompey at the bridge of Milvius, he withdrew to the coast of Etruria, and, after a new defeat, fled to Sardinia, where he ended his career miserably.802 Perpenna, his lieutenant, went, with the wreck of his army, to rejoin Sertorius in Spain.

Cæsar acted wisely in keeping out of these movements, for not only did the character of Lepidus inspire him with no confidence,803 but he must have thought that the dictatorship of Sylla was too recent, that it had inspired too many fears, and created too many new interests, to admit of the reaction, still incomplete in men’s minds, succeeding by arms. For the present, they must limit themselves to acting on public opinion, by branding with words the instruments of the past tyranny.

The most general way of entering on a political career was by instituting a prosecution against some high personage.804 Its success mattered little; the real point was to be brought prominently forward by some remarkable speech, and offer a proof of patriotism.

Cornelius Dolabella, one of the friends of Sylla, who had had the honours of the consulate and triumph, and who, two years before, was governor of Macedonia, was now accused by Cæsar of excesses committed in his government (677). He was acquitted by the tribunal composed of the creatures of the dictator.805 Public opinion did not praise Cæsar the less for having dared to attack a man who was supported and defended by orators such as Hortensius and L. Aurelius Cotta. Besides, he displayed so much eloquence, that this first speech gave him at once a veritable celebrity.806 Encouraged by this success, Cæsar cited C. Antonius Hybrida before the prætor M. Lucullus for having, at the head of a body of cavalry, pillaged certain parts of Greece when Sylla was returning from Asia.807 The accused was also acquitted, but the popularity of the accuser still increased. He also spoke, probably, in other causes now unknown. Tacitus speaks of a speech of Cæsar’s in favour of a certain Decius the Samnite,808 without doubt the same mentioned by Cicero, who, flying from the proscription of Sylla, was kindly received by Aulus Cluentius.809 Thus Cæsar boldly offered himself as the defender of the oppressed Greeks or Samnites, who had suffered so much from the regime preceding. He gained especially the good-will of the former, whose opinions, highly influential at Rome, helped to make reputations.

These attacks were certainly a means of attracting public attention, but they also showed the courage of the man, since the partisans of Sylla were still all in power.

Cæsar goes to Rhodes (678–680).

V. Notwithstanding his celebrity as an orator, Cæsar resolved to keep out of the troubles which agitated Italy, and doubtless felt his presence in Rome useless to his cause and irksome to himself. It is often advantageous to political men to disappear for a time from the scene; they thus avoid compromising themselves in daily struggles without aim, and their reputation, instead of losing, increases by absence. During the winter of 678 Cæsar again quitted Italy, for the purpose of going to Rhodes to complete his studies. This island, then the centre of intellectual lights, the dwelling-place of the most celebrated philosophers, was the school of all the well-born youth. Cicero himself had gone there for lessons some years before.

In his passage, Cæsar was taken by pirates near Pharmacusa, a small island in the archipelago of the Sporades, at the mouth of the Gulf of Jassius.810 Notwithstanding the campaign of P. Servilius Isauricus, these pirates still infested the sea with numerous fleets. They demanded twenty talents (£2,329) for his ransom. He offered fifty (£11,640), which must naturally have given them a high notion of their prisoner, and insured him better treatment. He sent trusty agents, and among others Epicrates, one of his Milesian slaves, to raise this sum in the neighbouring towns.811 Though the allied provinces and towns were in this case obliged to furnish the ransom, it was none the less curious, as a proof of their wealth, to see a young man of twenty-four, arrested in a little island of Asia Minor, instantly able to borrow so large a sum.

Left alone with a physician and two slaves812 in the midst of these ferocious brigands, he held them in awe by his force of character, and passed nearly forty days on board without ever loosing either his sandals or his girdle, to avoid all suspicion of wishing to escape by swimming.813 He seemed less a captive, says Plutarch, than a prince surrounded by his guards; now playing with them, now reciting poems to them, he made himself loved and feared, and laughingly told them that, once free, he would have them crucified.814 Yet the remembrance of Rome recurred to his mind, and recalled the strifes and enmities he had left there. He was often heard to say, “What pleasure Crassus will have at knowing me in these straits!”815

As soon as he received his ransom from Miletus and the other towns, he paid it. Landed on the coast, he hastened to equip ships, impatient to revenge himself. The pirates, surprised at anchor in the harbour of the island, were almost all made prisoners, and their booty fell into his hands. He secured them in the prison at Pergamus, to deliver them up to Junius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, whose duty it was to punish them. But, wishing to sell them and make a profit, Junius replied in an evasive manner. Cæsar returned to Pergamus, and had them crucified.816

He went afterwards to Rhodes, to attend the lessons of Apollonius Molo, the most illustrious of the masters of eloquence of that time, who had formerly been to Rome, in 672, as the Rhodian ambassador. About the same time one of his uncles, the proconsul M. Aurelius Cotta, was appointed governor of Bithynia, bequeathed by Nicomedes to the Roman people, and charged, with Lucullus, to oppose the new invasions of Mithridates. Cotta, beaten by land and sea near Chalcedon, was reduced to great straits, and Mithridates was advancing against Cyzicus, an allied town, which Lucullus afterwards relieved. On another side, Eumachius, a lieutenant of the King of Pontus, ravaged Phrygia, where he massacred all the Romans, and seized several of the southern provinces of Asia Minor. The rumours of war, the perils into which the allies were falling, took Cæsar from his studies. He went over into Asia, levied troops on his own authority, drove out from the province the king’s governor, and kept in allegiance towns whose faith was doubtful or shaken.817

Cæsar Pontiff and Military Tribune (680–684).

VI. Whilst he was making war on the coasts of Asia, his friends at Rome did not forget him; and, seeing clearly the importance of Cæsar’s being clothed with a sacred character, they nominated him pontiff, in the place of his uncle, L. Aurelius Cotta, consul in 680, who had died suddenly in Gaul the following year.818

This circumstance obliged him to return to Rome. The sea continued to swarm with pirates, who must necessarily owe him a grudge for the death of their comrades. The better to escape them, he crossed the Adriatic in a boat of four oars, accompanied only by two friends and ten slaves.819 In the passage, thinking that he saw sails in the horizon, he seized his sword, resolved to sell his life dearly; but his fears were not justified, and he landed safe and sound in Italy.

Immediately on his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, and succeeded by a large majority over his rival, C. Popilius.820 This already elevated rank, since it gave him the command of about a thousand men, was the first step which the young nobility easily attained, either by election or by the choice of the generals.821 Cæsar does not seem to have profited by his new position to take part in the important wars in which the Republic was then engaged. And yet the clang of arms echoed from all quarters.

In Spain Sertorius successfully continued the war begun in 674 against the lieutenants of Sylla, joined in 677 by Perpenna, at the head of thirty cohorts,822 he had got together a formidable army, bravely maintained the standard of Marius, and given the name of Senate to an assemblage of 300 Romans. Vanquisher of Metellus for several years, Sertorius, gifted with a vast military genius, exercising great influence over the Celtiberians and Lusitanians, and master of the passes,823 was dreaming of crossing the Alps. The Spaniards had already given him the name of a second Hannibal. But Pompey, sent in all haste to Spain, reinforced the army of Metellus, deprived Sertorius of all hope of penetrating into Italy, and even drove him far back from the Pyrenees. The united efforts of the two generals, however, did not effect the subjugation of Spain, which, since 680, had been entirely re-conquered by Sertorius. But soon after this, his lieutenants experiencing reverses, desertion began among his soldiers, and he himself lost his confidence. Yet he would have resisted for a long time still, had not Perpenna caused him to be assassinated by an infamous act of treachery. This murder did not profit its author. Though Perpenna succeeded Sertorius in the command of the troops, he found himself an object of their hatred and contempt. Soon defeated and taken prisoner by Pompey, he was put to death. Thus ended the war in Spain in 682.

In Asia, Lucullus successfully pursued the campaign against Mithridates, who courageously maintained the struggle, and had even been able to come to an understanding with Sertorius. Lucullus beat him in Cappadocia (683), and forced him to take refuge with Tigranes, his son-in-law, King of Armenia, who soon experienced a sanguinary defeat, and lost his capital, Tigranocerta.

In the East, the barbarians infested the frontiers of Macedonia, the pirates of Cilicia sailed from end to end of all the seas with impunity, and the Cretans flew to arms to defend their independence.

Italy was torn by the Servile War. This disinherited class had risen up anew, despite the bloody repression of the Sicilian insurrection from 620 to 623. It had acquired the knowledge of its strength chiefly from the circumstance that each party in the civil troubles had by turns granted its liberty to increase the number of its respective adherents. In 681, seventy gladiators, kept at Capua, revolted; their chief was Spartacus, formerly a soldier, made prisoner, then sold as a slave. In less than a year his band had so much increased that consular armies were needed to combat him, and, having gained a victory in Picenum, for a moment he had entertained the thought of marching upon Rome at the head of 40,000 men.824 Nevertheless, forced to withdraw to the south of Italy, he contended against the Roman forces successfully for two years, when at last, in 683, Licinius Crassus, at the head of eight legions, conquered him in Apulia. Spartacus perished in the fight; the remainder of the army of slaves separated into four bodies, one of which, retiring towards Gaul, was easily dispersed by Pompey, who was returning from Spain. The 6,000 prisoners taken in the battle fought in Apulia were hanged all along the road from Capua to Rome.

Occasions for making himself perfect in the art of war were not wanting to Cæsar; but we can understand his inaction, for Sylla’s partisans alone were at the heads of the armies; in Spain, Metellus and Pompey—the first the brother-in-law of the Dictator, the second formerly his best lieutenant; in Italy, Crassus, the enemy of Cæsar, equally devoted to the party of Sylla; in Asia, Lucullus, an old friend of the Dictator, who had dedicated his “Memoirs”825 to him. Cæsar, then, found everywhere either a cause he would not defend, or a general under whom he would not serve. In Spain, however, Sertorius represented the party he would most willingly have embraced; but Cæsar had a horror of civil wars. Whilst faithful to his convictions, he seems, in the first years of his career, to have carefully avoided placing between him and his adversaries that eternal barrier which for ever separates the children of the same country, after blood has once been shed. He had it at heart to be able, in his exalted future, to appeal to a past pure from all violence, so that, instead of being the man of a party, he might rally round him all good citizens.

The Republic had triumphed everywhere, but she had yet to reckon with her conquering generals: she found herself in the presence of Crassus and Pompey, who, proud of their successes, advanced upon Rome at the head of their armies, to demand or seize the chief power. The Senate could be but little at ease as to the intentions of the latter, who, not long before, had sent an insolent letter from Spain, in which he menaced his country with the sword unless they sent him the supplies necessary to carry on the war against Sertorius.826 The same ambition animated Pompey and Crassus: neither of the two would be the first to disband his army; each, indeed, brought his own to the gates of the city. Both were elected consuls, allowed a triumph, and forced by the augurs and public opinion to be reconciled together; and they held out their hands to each other, disbanded their troops, and for some time the Republic recovered an unexpected calm.827