Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2
In a word, he had made overtures to Pompey, though in secret he admitted that he possessed neither greatness of mind nor nobleness of heart. “He only knows how to curry favour and flatter the people,” he said; “and here am I bound to him on such terms that our interest, as individuals, is served thereby; and, as statesmen, we can both act with greater firmness. The ill-will of our ardent and unprincipled youth had been excited against me. I have been so successful in bringing it round by my address, that at present it cares for no one but me. Finally, I am careful to wound no man’s feelings, and that without servileness or popularity-hunting. My entire conduct is so well planned, that, as a public man, I yield in nothing; and as a private individual, who knows the weakness of honest men, the injustice of the envious, and the hatred of the wicked, I take my precautions, and act with prudence.”1079
Cicero deceived himself with regard to the causes of his change of party, and did not acknowledge to himself the reasons that constrained him to look out for powerful patrons. Like all men destitute of force of character, instead of openly confessing the motives of his conduct, he justified himself to his friends by pretending that, so far from having altered his own opinions, it was he who was converting Pompey, and would soon make the same experiment upon Cæsar. “You rally me pleasantly,” he wrote to Atticus, “on the subject of my intimacy with Pompey; but do not fancy that I have contracted it out of regard for my personal safety. It is all the effect of circumstances. When there was the slightest disagreement between us, there was trouble in the State. I have laid my plans and made my conditions, so that, without laying aside my own principles, which are good, I have led him to better sentiments. He is somewhat cured of his madness for popularity… If I am equally successful with Cæsar, whose ship is now sailing under full canvas, shall I have done great harm to the State?”1080 Cicero, like all men whose strength lies in eloquence, felt that he could play no important part, or even secure his own personal safety, unless he allied himself with men of the sword.
Whilst at Rome the masters of the world were wasting their time in mean quarrels, alarming news came suddenly to create a diversion in political intrigue. Information was brought that the Gaulish allies on the banks of the Saône had been defeated by the Germans, that the Helvetii were in arms, and making raids beyond the frontiers. The terror was universal. Fears were entertained of a fresh invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones; and, as always happened on such occasions, a general levy, without exception, was ordered.1081 The consuls of the previous year drew lots for their provinces, and it was decided to dispatch commissioners to come to an understanding with the Gaulish tribes, with a view to resist foreign invasions. The names of Pompey and Cicero were at once pronounced; but the Senate, influenced by different motives, declared that their presence was too necessary in Rome to allow them to be sent away. They were unwilling to give the former an opportunity of again distinguishing himself, or to deprive themselves of the concurrence of the latter.
Alliance of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus.
III. News of a more re-assuring character having been received from Gaul, the fear of war ceased for a time, and things had returned to their customary course when Cæsar came home from Spain. In the midst of conflicting opinions and interests, the presence of a man of steady purpose and deeply-rooted convictions, and illustrious through recent victories, was, without any doubt, an event. He did not require long to form his estimate of the situation; and, as he could not as yet unite the masses by the realisation of a grand idea, he thought to unite the chiefs by a common interest.
All his endeavours from that time were devoted to making Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero share his ideas. The first had been rather ill disposed towards him. On his return from his campaign against Mithridates, Pompey had called Cæsar his Egistheus,1082 in allusion to the intrigue which he had had with his wife Mutia, whilst he, like Agamemnon, was making war in Asia. Resentment, on this account, usually slight enough among the Romans, soon disappeared before the exigencies of political life. As for Crassus, who had long been separated from Pompey by a jealous feeling of rivalry, it needed all Cæsar’s tact, and all the seduction of his manners, to induce him to become reconciled with his rival. But, to bring them both to follow the same line of conduct, it was necessary, over and above this, to tempt them with such powerful motives as would ensure conviction. The historians, in general, have given no other reason to account for the agreement of these three men than personal interest. Doubtless, Pompey and Crassus were not insensible to a combination that favoured their love of power and wealth; but we ought to lend Cæsar a more elevated motive, and suppose him inspired by a genuine patriotism.
The condition of the Republic must have appeared thus to his comprehensive grasp of thought: – The Roman dominion, stretched, like some vast figure, across the world, clasps it in her sinewy arms; and whilst her limbs are full of life and strength, the heart is wasting by decay. Unless some heroic remedy be applied, the contagion will soon spread from the centre to the extremities, and the mission of Rome will remain unfinished! – Compare with the present the prosperous days of the Republic. Recollect the time when envoys from foreign nations, doing homage to the policy of the Senate, declared openly that they preferred the protecting sovereignty of Rome to independence itself. Since that period, what a change has taken place! All nations execrate the power of Rome, and yet that power preserves them from still greater evils. Cicero is right, “Let Asia think well of it: there is not one of the woes that are bred of war and civil strife, that she would not experience did she cease to live under our laws.”1083 And this advice may be applied to all the countries whither the legions have penetrated. If, then, fate has willed that the nations are to be subject to the sway of a single people, it is the duty of that people, as charged with the execution of the eternal decrees, to be, towards the vanquished, as just and equitable as the Divinity, since he is as inexorable as destiny. How are we to fix a limit to the arbitrary conduct of proconsuls and proprætors, which all the laws promulgated for so many years have been powerless to check? How put a stop to the exactions committed at all points of the empire, if a firmer and stronger direction do not emanate from the central power? – The Republic pursues an irregular system of encroachment, which will exhaust its resources; it is impossible for her to fight against all nations at once, and at the same time to maintain her allies in their allegiance, if, by unjust treatment, they are driven to revolt. The enemies of the Republic must be diminished in number by restoring their freedom to the cities which are worthy of it,1084 and acknowledging as friends of the Roman people those nations with whom there is a chance of living in peace.1085 Our most dangerous enemies are the Gauls, and it is against this turbulent and warlike nation that all the strength of the State ought to be directed. – In Italy, and under this name Cisalpine Gaul must be included, how many citizens are deprived of political rights! At Rome, how many of the proletaries are living on the charity either of the rich or of the State! Why should we not extend the Roman commune as far as the Alps, and why not augment the race of labourers and soldiers by making them landowners? The Roman people must be raised in its own eyes, and the Republic in the eyes of the world! – Absolute liberty of speech and of vote was a great benefit, when, modified by morality, and restrained by a powerful aristocracy, it gave scope to individual faculties without damaging the general well-being; but, ever since the morality of ancient days disappeared with the aristocracy, we have seen the laws become weapons of war for the use of parties, the elections a traffic, the forum a battle-field; while liberty is nothing more than a never-ending cause of weakness and decay. – Our institutions cause such uncertainty in our councils, and such independence in our offices of State, that we search in vain for that spirit of order and control which are indispensable elements in the maintenance of so vast an empire. Without overthrowing institutions which have given five centuries of glory to the Republic, it is possible, by a close union of the most worthy citizens, to establish in the State a moral authority, which governs the passions, tempers the laws, gives a greater stability to power, directs the elections, maintains the representatives of the Roman people in their duty, and frees us from the two most serious dangers of the present: the selfishness of the nobles and the turbulence of the mob. This is what they may realise by their union; their disunion, on the contrary, will only encourage the fatal conduct of these men who are endangering the future equally, some by their opposition, the others by their headlong violence.
These considerations must have been easily understood by Pompey and Crassus, who had themselves been actors in such great events, witnesses of so much blood shed in civil wars, of so many noble ideas, triumphing at one moment and overthrown the next. They accepted Cæsar’s proposal, and thus was concluded an alliance which is wrongly termed the First Triumvirate.1086 As for Cicero, Cæsar tried to persuade him to join the compact which had just been formed, but he refused to become one of what he termed a party of friends.1087 Always uncertain in his conduct, always divided between his admiration for those who held the sovereign power, and his engagements with the oligarchy, and uneasy for the future which his foresight could not penetrate, he set his mind to work to prevent the success of every measure which he approved as soon as it had succeeded. The alliance which these three persons ratified by their oaths,1088 remained long a secret; and it was only during Cæsar’s consulship that it became matter of public notoriety from the unanimity they displayed in all their political resolutions. Cæsar, then, set energetically to work to unite in his own favour every chance that could render his election certain.
Cæsar’s Election.
IV. Among the candidates was L. Lucceius. Cæsar was desirous of attaching to his cause this person, who was distinguished alike by his writings and his character,1089 and who, possessed of vast wealth, had promised to make abundant use of it for their common profit, in order to command the majority of votes in the centuries. “The aristocratic faction,” says Suetonius, “on learning this arrangement, was seized with fear. They thought that there was nothing which Cæsar would not attempt in the exercise of the sovereign magistracy, if he had a colleague who agreed with him, and who would support all his designs.”1090 The nobles, unable to eject him, resolved to give him Bibulus for a colleague, who had already been his colleague in the edileship and the prætorship, and had constantly shown himself his opponent. They all made a pecuniary contribution to influence the elections; Bibulus spent large sums,1091 and the incorruptible Cato himself, who had solemnly sworn to impeach any one who should be guilty of bribery, contributed his quota, owning that for the interest of the State his principles must for once yield.1092 Neither was Cicero more inflexible: some time before, he expressed to Atticus the necessity of purchasing the concurrence of the equestrian order.1093 We can see how even the most honourable were swept along, by the force of events, in the current of a corrupt society.
By the force of public opinion, and by the support of the two men of greatest influence, Cæsar was elected consul unanimously, and conducted, according to custom, from the Campus Martius to his own house by an enthusiastic crowd of his fellow-citizens, and a vast number of senators.1094
If the party opposed to Cæsar had been unable to stand in the way of his becoming consul, it did not despair of preventing his playing the important part he had a right to expect as proconsul. To effect this, the Senate determined to evade the law of Caius Gracchus, which, to prevent the assignment of provinces from personal considerations, provided that it should take place before the comitia were held. The assembly, therefore, departing from the rule, assigned to Cæsar and his colleague, by an act of flagrant ill-will, the supervision of the public roads and forests; an office somewhat similar, it is true, to that of governor of a province.1095 This humiliating appointment, proof as it was of a persevering hostility, wounded him deeply; but the duties of his new office imposed silence upon his resentments. Cæsar the consul would forget the wrongs done to Cæsar the man, and generously attempt a policy of conciliation.
CHAPTER V.
CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS
(695.)
Attempts at Conciliation.
I. CÆSAR has arrived at the first magistracy of the Republic. Consul with Bibulus at the age of forty-one, he has not yet acquired the just celebrity of Pompey, nor does he enjoy the treasures of Crassus, and yet his influence is perhaps greater than that of those two personages. Political influence, indeed, does not depend solely on military successes or on the possession of immense riches; it is acquired especially by a conduct always in accord with fixed convictions. Cæsar alone represents a principle. From the age of eighteen, he has faced the anger of Sylla and the hostility of the aristocracy, in order to plead unceasingly the grievances of the oppressed and the rights of the provinces.
So long as he is not in power, being exempt from responsibility, he walks invariably in the way he has traced, listens to no compromise, pursues unsparingly the adherents of the opposite party, and maintains his opinions energetically, at the risk of wounding his adversaries; but, once consul, he lays aside all resentment, and makes a loyal appeal to all who will rally round him; he declares to the Senate that he will not act without its concurrence, that he will propose nothing contrary to its prerogatives.1096 He offers his colleague Bibulus a generous reconciliation, conjuring him, in the presence of the senators, to put a term to differences of opinion, the effects of which, already so much to be regretted during their common edileship and prætorship, would become fatal in their new position.1097 He makes advances to Cicero, and, after sending Cornelius Balbus to him in his villa of Antium to assure him that he is ready to follow his counsels and those of Pompey, offers to take him as an associate in his labours.1098
Cæsar must have believed that these offers of co-operation would be embraced. In face of the perils of a society deeply agitated, he supposed that others had the same sentiments which animated himself. Love of the public good, and the consciousness of having entirely devoted himself to it, gave him that confidence without reserve in the patriotism of others which admits neither mean rivalries nor the calculations of selfishness: he was deceived. The Senate showed nothing but prejudices, Bibulus, but rancours, Cicero, but a false pride.
It was essential for Cæsar to unite Pompey, who was wanting in firmness of character, more closely with his destinies; he gave him in marriage his daughter Julia, a young woman of twenty-three years of age, richly endowed with graces and intelligence, who had already been affianced to Servilius Cæpio. To compensate the latter, Pompey promised him his own daughter, though she also was engaged to another, to Faustus, the son of Sylla. Soon afterwards Cæsar espoused Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Piso.1099 Cato protested energetically against these marriages, which he qualified as disgraceful traffics with the common weal.1100 The nobles, and especially the two Curios, made themselves the echoes of this reprobation. Their party, nevertheless, did not neglect to strengthen themselves by such alliances. Doubtless, when Cato gave his daughter to Bibulus, it was for a political motive; and when he ceded his own wife to Hortensius,1101 although the mother of three children, to take her back again when enriched by the death of her last husband, there was also an interest hardly honourable, which Cæsar subsequently unveiled in a book entitled Anti-Cato.1102
The first care of the new consul was to establish the practice of publishing daily the acts of the Senate and those of the people, in order that public opinion might bear with all its weight upon the resolutions of the conscript fathers, whose deliberations had previously been often secret.1103 The initiative taken by Cæsar from the commencement of his consulship, in questioning the senators on the projects of laws, is an evidence that he had the fasces before Bibulus. We know, in fact, that the consuls enjoyed this honour alternately for a month, and it was in the period when they were invested with the signs distinctive of power that they were permitted to ask the advice of the senators.1104
Agrarian Laws.
II. He proposed next, in the month of January, an agrarian law founded upon wise principles, and which respected all legitimate rights. The following were its principal provisions: —
Partition of all the free part of the ager publicus, except that of Campania and that of Volaterræ; the first excepted originally on account of its great fertility,1105 and the second guaranteed to all those who had got it into their possession.1106– In case of insufficiency of territory, new acquisitions, by means either of money coming from Pompey’s conquests, or from the overplus of the public revenues. – Prohibition of all appropriation by force. – The nomination of twenty commissioners to preside at the distribution of the lands, with exclusion of the author of the proposal. – Estimate of private lands for sale, made according to the declaration at the last census, and not according to the valuation of the commissioners. – Obligation upon each senator to swear obedience to the law, and to engage never to propose anything contrary to it.
It was, as may be seen, the project of Rullus, relieved from the inconveniences pointed out with so much eloquence by Cicero. In fact, instead of ten commissioners, Cæsar proposed twenty, in order to distribute among a greater number a power of which men feared the abuse. He himself, to avoid all suspicion of personal interest, excluded himself from the possibility of forming part of it. The commissioners were not, as in the law of Rullus, authorised to act according to their will, and tax the properties arbitrarily. Acquired rights were respected; those territories only were distributed of which the State had still the full disposal. The sums arising from Pompey’s conquests were to be employed in favour of the old soldiers; and Cæsar said himself that it was just to give the profit of that money to those who had gained it at the peril of their lives.1107 As to the obligation of the oath imposed upon the senators, it was not an innovation, but an established custom. In the present case, the law having been voted before the elections, all the candidates, and especially the tribunes of the following year, had to take the engagement to observe it.1108
“Nobody,” says Dio Cassius,1109 “had reason for complaint on this subject. The population of Rome, the excessive increase of which had been the principal aliment of seditions, was called to labour and a country life; the greater part of the countries of Italy, which had lost their inhabitants, were re-peopled. This law insured means of existence not only to those who had supported the fatigues of the war, but also to all the other citizens, without causing expenditure to the State or loss to the nobles; on the contrary, it gave to several honours and power.”
Thus, while some historians accuse Cæsar of seeking in the populace of Rome the point of support for his ambitious designs, he, on the contrary, obtains a measure, the effect of which is to transport the turbulent part of the inhabitants of the capital into the country.
Cæsar, then, read his project to the Senate; after which, calling the senators by their names, one after the other, he asked the opinion of each, declaring his readiness to modify the law, or withdraw it altogether, if it were not agreeable to them. But, according to Dio Cassius, “It was unassailable, and, if any disapproved of it, none dared to oppose it; what afflicted its opponents most was, that it was drawn up in such a manner as to leave no room for a complaint.”1110 So the opposition was limited to adjourning from time to time, under frivolous pretexts. Cato, without making a direct opposition, alleged the necessity of changing nothing in the constitution of the Republic, and declared himself the adversary of all kind of innovation; but, when the moment came for voting, he had recourse again to his old tactics, and rendered all deliberation impossible by speaking the entire day, by which he had already succeeded in depriving Cæsar of the triumph.1111 The latter lost patience, and sent the obstinate orator to prison; Cato was followed by a great number of senators, and M. Petreius, one of them, replied to the consul, who reproached him for withdrawing before the meeting was closed: “I would rather be in prison with Cato than here with thee.” Regretting, however, this first movement of anger, and struck by the attitude of the assembly, Cæsar immediately restored Cato to liberty; then he dismissed the Senate, addressing them in the following words: “I had made you supreme judges and arbiters of this law, in order that, if any one of its provisions displeased you, it should not be referred to the people; but, since you have refused the previous deliberation, the people alone shall decide it.”
His attempt at conciliation having failed with the Senate, he renewed it towards his colleague, and, in the assembly of the tribes, adjured Bibulus to support his proposal. On their side, the people joined their entreaties with those of Cæsar; but Bibulus, inflexible, merely said: “You will not prevail with me, though you were all of one voice; and, as long as I shall be consul, I will suffer no innovation.”1112
Then Cæsar, judging other influences necessary, appealed to Pompey and Crassus. Pompey seized happily this opportunity for speaking to the people: he said that he not only approved the agrarian law, but that the senators themselves had formerly admitted the principle, in decreeing, on his return from Spain, a distribution of lands to his soldiers and to those of Metellus; if this measure had been deferred, it was on account of the penury of the treasury, which, thanks to him, had now ceased. Then, replying to Cæsar, who asked him if he would support the law in case it were opposed by violence, “If any one dared to draw his sword,” he cried, “I would take even my buckler;” meaning by that, that he would come into the public place armed as for the combat. This bold declaration of Pompey, supported by Crassus and Cæpio,1113 silenced all opposition except that of Bibulus, who, with three tribunes his partisans, called an assembly of the Senate in his own house, where it was resolved that at all risk the law should be openly rejected.1114
The day of meeting of the comitia having been fixed, the populace occupied the Forum during the night. Bibulus hurried with his friends to the temple of Castor, where his colleague was addressing the multitude; he tried in vain to obtain a hearing, was thrown down from the top of the steps, and obliged to fly, after seeing his fasces broken to pieces and two tribunes wounded. Cato, in his turn, tried to mount the rostra; expelled by force, he returned, but, instead of treating of the question, seeing that nobody listened to him, he attacked Cæsar with bitterness, until he was dragged a second time from the tribune. Calm being restored, the law was adopted. Next day Bibulus tried to propose to the Senate its abrogation; but nobody supported him, such was the effect of this burst of popular enthusiasm;1115 from this moment he took the part of shutting himself up at home during the residue of Cæsar’s consulship. When the latter presented a new law on the days of the comitia, he contented himself with protesting, and with sending by his lictors to say that he was observing the sky, and that consequently all deliberation was illegal.1116 This was to proclaim loudly the political aim of this formality.
Cæsar was far from yielding to this religious scruple, which, indeed, had lost its authority. At this very time Lucullus wrote a bold poem against the popular credulity, and for some time the observation of the auspices had been regarded as a puerile superstition; two centuries and a half before, a great captain had given a remarkable proof of this. Hannibal, then a refugee at the court of King Prusias, engaged the latter to accept his plans of campaign against the Romans; the king refused, because the auspices had not been favourable. “What!” cried Hannibal, “have you more confidence in a miserable calf’s liver than in the experience of an old general like me?”1117
Be this as it may, the obligation not to hold the comitia while the magistrate was observing the sky was a law; and to excuse himself for not having observed it, as well as to prevent his acts from being declared null, Cæsar, before quitting his office, brought the question before the Senate, and thus obtained a legal ratification of his conduct.
The law being adopted by the people, each senator was called to take his oath to observe it. Several members, and, among others, Q. Metellus Celer, M. Cato, and M. Favonius,1118 had declared that they would never submit to it; but when the day of taking the oath arrived, their protests vanished before the fear of the punishment decreed against those who abstained, and, except Laterensis, everybody, even Cato, took the oath.1119
Irritated at the obstacles which he had encountered, and sure of the approval of the people, Cæsar included, by a new law, in the distribution of the public domain, the lands of Campania and of Stella, omitted before out of deference to the Senate.1120
In carrying the law into effect, Pompey’s veterans received lands at Casilinum, in Campania;1121 at Minturnæ, Lanuvium, Volturnum, and Aufidena, in Samnium; and at Bovianum; Clibæ, and Veii, in Etruria;1122 twenty thousand fathers of families having more than three children were established in Campania, so that about a hundred thousand persons became husbandmen, and re-peopled with free men a great portion of the territory, while Rome was relieved from a populace which was inconvenient and debased. Capua became a Roman colony, which was a restoration of the democratic work of Marius, destroyed by Sylla.1123 It appears that the ager of Leontinum, in Sicily, was also comprised in the agrarian law.1124 The nomination of the twenty commissioners, chosen among the most commendable of the consulars, was next proceeded with.1125 Of the number were C. Cosconius and Atius Balbus, the husband of Cæsar’s sister. Clodius could not obtain admission among them,1126 and Cicero, after the death of Cosconius, refused to take his place.1127 The latter, in his letters to Atticus, blames especially the distribution of the territory of Capua, as depriving the Republic of an important revenue; and inquires what will remain to the State, unless it be the twentieth on the enfranchisement of slaves, since the rights of toll had already been abandoned through the whole of Italy; but it was objected with reason that, on the other hand, the State was relieved from the enormous charges imposed by the necessity of distributing wheat to all the poor of Rome.
Nevertheless, the allotment of the ager Campanus and of the ager of Stella met with many delays; it was not yet terminated in 703, since at that epoch Pompey was advised to hasten the distribution of the last-mentioned lands, in order that Cæsar, on his return from Gaul, might not have the merit of it.1128
Cæsar’s various Laws.
III. We have seen how, in previous years, Cato was instrumental in refusing the request of those who farmed the taxes of Asia to have the terms of their leases lowered. By this rigorous measure, the Senate had estranged from itself the equestrian order, whose complaints had been far from unreasonable. In fact, the price paid for the farming of the revenues of Asia had been heavy during the war against Mithridates, as may be learnt from the speech of Cicero against the Manilian Law; and the remission of a portion of the money due to the State was a measure not without some show of justice to excuse it. Cæsar, when he became consul, influenced by a sense of justice no less than by policy, lost no time in proposing a law to remit to the farmers of the revenue one-third of the sums for which they were responsible.1129 He first addressed himself to the Senate; but that body having refused to deliberate on the question, he found himself compelled to submit it to the people,1130 who adopted his opinion. This liberality, so far beyond what they had hoped for, filled the farmers of the revenue with joy, and rendered them devoted to the man who showed himself so generous: he advised them, however, publicly, to be more careful in future, and not overbid in an inconsiderate manner at the time of the sale of the taxes.1131
The agrarian law, and the law concerning the rents, having satisfied the interests of the proletaries, the veterans, and the knights, it became important to settle the just demands of Pompey. Therefore Cæsar obtained from the people their approbation of all the acts of the conqueror of Mithridates.1132 Lucullus had been till then one of the most earnest adversaries of this measure. He could not forget the glory of which Pompey had frustrated him; but his dread of a prosecution for peculation was so great, that he fell at Cæsar’s feet, and forswore all opposition.1133
