Napoleon III
History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2
Intrigues of Pompey and Crassus to obtain the Consulship.
VII. From what precedes, it is evident that unpopularity did not fall upon Cæsar, but upon the means employed by Crassus and Pompey for the purpose of obtaining the consulship.
They made use of Caius Cato, kinsman of the Stoic, and of other men equally undeserving of esteem, to cause delay in the time of holding the comitia, and thus lead to the creation of an interrex,652 which would facilitate their election, since the consuls, who were the ordinary presidents of the assembly of the people, were opposed to them.
The relations of the events of this period present great confusion. Dio Cassius informs us that, in the sequel of violent disputes in the curia, between Pompey, who had recently returned from Sardinia, and the Consul Marcellinus, the Senate, in sign of its displeasure, decreed that it would go into mourning, as for a public calamity, and immediately carried the decree into effect. Caius Cato opposed his veto. Then the Consul Cn. Marcellinus, at the head of the Senate, proceeded to the Forum, and harangued the people to ask it for the comitia, without success probably, since the senators returned immediately to the place of their session. Clodius, who, since the conference of Lucca, had become more intimate with Pompey, appeared suddenly among the crowd, interrupted the consul, and bantered him on this display of untimely mourning. In the public place Clodius would easily carry the approval of the multitude; but when he attempted to return to the Senate, he encountered the most resolute opposition. The senators rushed to meet him and prevent him from entering; many of the knights assailed him with insults; they would have treated him still worse, had not the populace rushed to his aid and delivered him, threatening to commit to the flames the entire assembly.653
On another hand, Pompey, with more authority and less violence, protested against the last senatus-consultus. Lentulus Marcellinus, addressing him in full Senate, demanded if it were true, as reported, that he aimed at the consulship. “As yet I know not what I shall do,” replied Pompey, roughly. Then, perceiving the bad impression caused by these disdainful words, he added immediately, “For the good citizens, there is no use in my being consul; against the factious, perhaps I am necessary.”654 To a similar question, Crassus replied, modestly, “that he was ready to do whatever would be useful to the Republic.” Then Lentulus bursting into reproaches against Pompey’s ambition, the latter interrupted him insolently. “Remember,” he said, “that thou art indebted to me for everything. Thou wast dumb, I made thee a talker; thou wast a greedy beggar, I turned thee into a glutton, who vomits to eat again.” This language will give an idea of the violence of political passions at that period. The senators, and Marcellinus himself, seeing that they could not contend against the influence of these two men, withdrew. During the rest of the year they took no part in public affairs; they confined themselves to wearing mourning, and absenting themselves from the festivals of the people.
Campaign against the Peoples on the Shores of the Ocean.
VII. While Pompey and Crassus, in accord with the convention of Lucca, employed all the means in their power to arrive at the consulship, Cæsar had his regards still fixed on a conquest which every year seemed achieved, yet every year it had to be commenced again. If the Gauls, divided into so many different peoples, were incapable of uniting for their common defence, they did not allow themselves to be discouraged by a single misfortune. Hardly were they crushed on one point, when the standard of insurrection was raised somewhere else.
In 698, the agitation showed itself first along the shores of the ocean, from the Loire to the Seine. The peoples of the Morbihan, masters of a considerable fleet, and possessing the exterior trade, placed themselves at the head of the movement. They entered into alliance with all the peoples who dwelt on the coasts between the Loire and the Scheldt, and sent for assistance from England, with which country they were in constant relation. Under these circumstances, Cæsar foresaw that it was on the sea that he must curb the spirit of these maritime peoples. He gave orders for the building of ships on the Loire, demanded others from the peoples of the Charente and the Gironde, and sent from Italy Decimus Brutus with galleys and sailors. As soon as the season permitted, he repaired in person to the neighbourhood of Nantes, not far from Angers, where Publius Crassus was in winter quarters with the 7th legion. From the moment of his arrival his attention extended over the vast territory where he was to establish the domination of Rome. With this aim, he distributed his troops as follows: Labienus is sent with the cavalry to the east, in the direction of Trèves, to hold the Germans in check; on his way, he will confirm the fidelity of the people of Champagne and their neighbours; P. Crassus is sent towards Aquitaine, to subdue that country; Sabinus towards Normandy, to combat the insurgents of the Cotentin; Cæsar reserves for himself the operations in the Morbihan. After besieging, not without great difficulties, several small fortresses which, placed at the extremity of promontories, were surrounded with water at high tide, he resolved to wait for his fleet, and took a position on the coast, at Saint-Gildas, to the south of Vannes. Decimus Brutus led his vessels out of the Loire, encountered the enemy in sight of the Roman army, and, by a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, destroyed the Gaulish fleet; the flower of Brittany perished in the combat. The Morbihan and the neighbouring states submitted, and, nevertheless, the conqueror put to death all the principal citizens.
Cæsar’s conduct towards the inhabitants of this province has been justly blamed by the Emperor Napoleon I. “These people,” he says, “had not revolted; they had furnished hostages, and had promised to live peaceably; but they were in possession of all their liberty and all their rights. They had given Cæsar cause to make war upon them, no doubt, but not to violate international law in regard to them, and to commit so atrocious an abuse of victory. This conduct was not just, and it was still less politic. Such means never answer their object, they exasperate and revolt nations. The punishment of particular chiefs is all that justice and policy permit.”655
While Brittany was vanquished on the sea, Sabinus gained a decisive victory over the peoples of Normandy, near Avranches; and, at the same time, Publius Crassus reduced Aquitaine. Although this young lieutenant of Cæsar had only a single legion, a corps of cavalry, and some auxiliaries, he gained possession of the strong fortress of Sos, and inflicted a sanguinary defeat on the peoples situated between the Garonne and the Adour. His glory was the greater, as the Aquitanians had called to their assistance the Spanish chiefs, the wreck of that famous army which Sertorius had so long formed on the model of the Roman tactics.
Although the season was far advanced, Cæsar still resolved to subjugate the peoples of Brabant and the Boulonnais, and marched against them. The Gauls retired into their forests; he was then obliged to clear a road in the woods by cutting down the trees, which, placed to the right and left, formed on each side a rampart against the enemy. The bad state of the weather obliged him to retire before he had completed his task.
In this campaign of 698, most of the countries which extend from the mouth of the Adour to that of the Scheldt had felt the weight of the Roman arms. The sea was free; Cæsar was at liberty to attempt a descent upon England.
CHAPTER IV.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 699
Campaign against the Usipetes and the Tencteri.
I. THE successes of the preceding campaign, and the existence of a Roman fleet in the waters of the Morbihan, must have given Cæsar the hope that nothing henceforth would prevent an expedition against Great Britain; yet new events came to delay his projects.
In the winter between 698 and 699, the Usipetes and the Tencteri, peoples of German origin, to escape the oppression of the Suevi, passed the Rhine not far from its mouth, towards Xanten and Clèves. They numbered 400,000, of all ages and both sexes; they sought new lands to settle in, and, in the spring of 699, the head of the emigration had already reached the country where now stand Aix-la-Chapelle and Liége. Cæsar, alarmed at this event, starts for the army sooner than usual, proceeds to Amiens, there assembles his troops, and finds the Gaulish chiefs profoundly shaken in their fidelity by the approach of these new barbarians, whose co-operation they hope to obtain. He confirms their feeling of duty, obtains a contingent of cavalry, marches to encounter the Usipetes and the Tencteri, and arrives on the Meuse, which he crosses at Maëstricht. These latter, on hearing of the approach of the Roman army, had concentrated in Southern Gueldres. Established on the river Niers, in the plains of Goch, they send a deputation to Cæsar, who had arrived near Venloo, to ask him not to attack them, but to allow them to keep the lands they had conquered. The Roman general refuses, and continues his march. After new conferences, the object of which, on the part of the Germans, was to give their cavalry, sent beyond the Meuse, time to return, a truce of one day is accepted. Cæsar declares, nevertheless, that he will advance to Niers. Suddenly, however, his vanguard is treacherously attacked in its march and routed by the German cavalry; he then believes himself freed from his engagements; and when next day the deputies come to excuse this perfidious aggression, he has them arrested, falls unexpectedly on the camp of the Germans, and pursues them without remission to the confluence of the Rhine and the Meuse (towards the place occupied now by Fort Saint-André), where these unfortunate people nearly all perish.
In the sequel of this exploit, which brought him little glory, and in which doubt has been thrown on his good faith, Cæsar resolved to cross the Rhine, on the pretence of claiming from the Sicambri the cavalry of the Usipetes and the Tencteri, who had taken refuge among them, but, in reality, to intimidate the Germans, and make them abandon the practice of seconding the insurrections in Gaul. He therefore proceeded up the valley of the Rhine, and arrived at Bonn, opposite the territory of the Ubii, a people which had already solicited his alliance and support against the Suevi. He caused to be built in ten days a bridge of piles, which he crossed with his troops, but he did not penetrate far into Germany: unable to come up with either the Sicambri or the Suevi, who had withdrawn into the interior of their country, he re-crossed to the left bank, and caused the bridge to be broken.
First Descent in England.
II. Though the summer was already advanced, Cæsar determined to take advantage of the time which still remained to pass into England and visit that island, concerning which people had but confused notions, and which was only known to the Romans by the intervention of the islanders in all the wars in Gaul. He therefore started from Bonn, travelled towards Boulogne, marking out, as we might say, the road which subsequently Augustus ordered to be constructed between those two towns, and collected in that port the ships of the neighbouring coasts and the fleet which, the year before, had vanquished that of the Morbihan. After sending one of his officers to assure himself of the point of landing, he started from Boulogne, in the night of the 24th to the 25th of August, with two legions, reconnoitred in his turn the coast of Dover, and landed at Deal. The shore was covered with armed men, who offered a vigorous opposition to the landing of the Roman army, which, having repulsed them, established itself on land near the sea. The Britons, astonished at such boldness, came from all sides to implore peace and make their submission. But the elements conspired against the invaders, and a dreadful tempest destroyed the transport ships and galleys. At the news of this disaster, the Britons raised their heads again; on their side the Roman soldiers, far from desponding, hastened to repair their ships with so much zeal that, out of eighty, sixty-eight were made fit for sea again. Not far from Cæsar’s camp, the Britons one day drew a legion into an ambuscade; this led to a general battle, in which the Romans were victorious. Then Cæsar, hurried by the approach of the equinox, treated with the chiefs of some tribes, received hostages, and crossed again to the continent on the 12th of September, having remained eighteen days only in England. On the day after his arrival at Boulogne, the two legions he brought with him were dispatched against the people of the territory of Boulogne, who had taken refuge, since the preceding year, in the marshes of their country; other troops were sent to chastise the inhabitants of Brabant. After these expeditions, Cæsar placed his legions in winter quarters among the Belgæ, and then departed to visit the opposite part of his vast command, namely, Illyria, where also he had to protect the Roman frontiers against the incursion of the barbarians.
Cæsar’s Habits when in Campaign.
We are astonished, in reading the “Commentaries”, at the ease with which Cæsar repaired every year from Gaul into Italy, or into Illyria. There must have been relays established on the principal lines along which he had to travel, not only for his own use, but also for the couriers who carried dispatches. We have seen that, in 696, Cæsar passed in eight days from the banks of the Tiber to Geneva. According to Suetonius, he travelled 100 miles a day, or 150 kilometres in twenty-four hours, which makes a little more than six kilometres an hour. The couriers took twenty-eight or thirty days to go from England to Rome. Plutarch informs us that, in order to lose no time, Cæsar travelled by night, sleeping in a chariot or litter.656 By day he had with him a secretary, who wrote under his dictation, and he was followed by a soldier who carried his sword. In his military marches he went sometimes on horseback, but most frequently he preceded the soldiers on foot, and, with head uncovered, he gave no care either to sun or rain.657
In the midst of the most perilous enterprises, he found time to correspond with men of influence, and even to read poems which Cicero sent him, to whom he sent back his opinions and criticisms;658 his mind was incessantly occupied with the events which were passing in Rome.
Consulship of Pompey and Crassus.
IV. At the beginning of the year 699, the consuls were not yet nominated. In such circumstances, the Senate appointed interreges, who, invested with the consular powers, succeeded each other in office every five days. It was by favour of this interregnum that the comitia were held. The result was foreseen. Besides their immense clientelle, Pompey and Crassus were assured of the support of Cæsar, who, as we have said, had taken care to send on leave a great number of his legionaries to vote.659 They arrived in charge of Publius Crassus, son of the triumvir, whose exploits in Aquitaine had given him celebrity.
The only candidate of the previous year, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, excited by Cato, his brother-in-law, persisted in his candidature to the last moment. Starting before daybreak to the comitia, with M.Cato and many of his clients, he and his followers were exposed to violent attacks. The slave who walked before him with a lantern in his hand was killed, and Cato wounded. Domitius was seized with terror, and sought shelter in his house. The interrex who presided over the comitia proclaimed, without opposition, Crassus and Pompey consuls.
The arrangements concluded at Lucca had thus succeeded, and the ambition of the three eminent personages who absorbed public attention was satisfied; but the aim of this ambition varied according to their several tempers. Crassus only desired the command of an army, in order to increase his reputation and his immense riches. Pompey, without deep convictions, placed his vanity in being the first man of the Republic. Cæsar, the head of the popular party, aspired to power, in order, above all other considerations, to ensure the triumph of his cause. The way which would offer itself to his mind was not to excite civil war, but to obtain his own nomination several times to the consulship; the great citizens who had preceded him had followed no other way, and the there is a natural tendency to take for our example that which has been successful in the past. The glory acquired in Gaul assured Cæsar beforehand of the public favour, which was to carry him again to the first magistracy. Nevertheless, to dispel the obstacles continually raised by a powerful party, it was necessary to remove hostile competitors from important offices; to gain the support of distinguished men, such as Cicero; and, as everything was venal, to buy, with the produce of the booty he made by war, the consciences which were for sale. This course, seconded by Pompey and Crassus, promised success.
Pompey, always under the influence of his wife’s charms, appeared to rest satisfied with the part which was assigned to him. Had he been free from all engagement, and obeyed his own instincts, he would have embraced the cause of the Senate rather than that which he was sustaining; for men of a nature so vain as his, prefer the flattering adherence of the aristocracy in the middle of which they live, to the expression of the approbation of the people, which rarely reaches their ears. Dragged on by the force of circumstances, he was obliged to wrestle against those who stood in his way; and the more the opposition showed itself ardent, the more he gave way to the violence of his temper. Legality, moreover, was observed by nobody, as the following incident proves. Cato aspired to the prætorship. On the day of the comitia, the first century, to which the epithet of prœrogativæ was given, and the suffrage of which exercised a great influence over the others, voted for him. Pompey, not doubting the same result from the other centuries, declared suddenly that he heard a clap of thunder,660 and dismissed the assembly. Some days afterwards, by purchasing votes and employing all the means of intimidation at their disposal, the new consuls caused P. Vatinius, the author of the motion which, in 695, procured for Cæsar the government of the Cisalpine province, to be elected prætor, in the place of M. Cato.661 Most of the other magistrates were similarly chosen among their creatures, and there were only two tribunes of the people, C. Ateius Capito and P. Aquilius Gallus, to represent the opposition. All these elections were conducted with a certain degree of order, troubled only once in the comitia for the ædileship. A battle took place in the Campus Martius, in which there were killed and wounded. Pompey rushed into the middle of the riot to appease it, and had his toga covered with blood. His slaves took it to his house to bring another. At the view of this blood, Julia, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, believed that her husband had been slain, and suffered a miscarriage. This accident injured her health, but was not, as has been stated, the cause of her death, which occurred only in the year following.662
Motion of Trebonius on the Government of the Provinces.
V. There was no further resistance to the two consuls. The factions appeared to be vanquished. Cicero himself and Clodius became reconciled, and, through the mediation of Pompey and Crassus, promised reciprocal concessions.663 The moment had arrived for presenting the law which was to give provinces and armies to the two first magistrates of the Republic: the latter wished the motion to come from a tribune of the people, and they had entrusted it to C. Trebonius, who was subsequently one of Cæsar’s lieutenants. The Senate had not proceeded to the distribution of provinces before the consular elections, as the law required. Trebonius, following the example given a few years before, in the case of the government of Gaul, addressed the people, and took the initiative of the two motions, one relating to Pompey and Crassus, the other to Cæsar.
The provinces destined for the two consuls, on quitting office, were not named separately for each, but Pompey and Crassus were to arrange the partition between them: Dio Cassius even pretends that they drew lots. This assertion appears to be incorrect. An insurrection of the Vaccæi and the reduction of the revolt of Clunia664 served as a pretext to ask that Spain should be given to Pompey with four legions; Crassus was to have Syria and the neighbouring states, with a considerable army. The name of Parthians was not pronounced, but everybody knew why Crassus coveted Syria.665 Although advanced in age (he was sixty years old), he dreamt of making the conquest of the countries which extend from the Euphrates to the Indus.666 As to Cæsar, he was to be continued in his province. The duration of these governments was for five years; they conferred the power of raising Roman or allied troops, and of making war or peace.
The propositions of Trebonius were warmly combated by M. Cato, by Favonius, and by two other tribunes of the people, Ateius and Aquilius Gallus. “But Favonius,” says Plutarch, “was listened to by nobody; some were retained by their respect for Pompey and Crassus, the greater number sought to please Cæsar, and remained quiet, placing all their hopes in him.”667 The enemies of the consuls in the Senate were intimidated, and kept silence. Cicero, to avoid the discussion, had retired to the country.
In the assembly of the people, M. Cato spoke against the project of law of Trebonius, or rather he employed the two hours allowed him in declamations on the conduct of the depositaries of power. When the two hours were expired, Trebonius, who presided over the assembly, enjoined him to quit the tribune. Cato refused to obey; one of the tribune’s lictors dragged him from it; he slipped from him, and a moment after re-appeared on the rostra, trying to speak again. Trebonius ordered him to be taken to prison, and, to obtain possession of his person, it required a regular contest; but, in the midst of this tumult, Cato had gained what he wanted, namely, to make them lose a day.668
A second assembly had better success. Considerable sums had been distributed among the tribes, and armed bands were in readiness to interfere in case of need. The opposition, on their side, had omitted no preparation for disputing the victory. The tribune P. Aquilius, fearing that they might prevent him from approaching the public place, conceived the idea of hiding himself the previous evening in the Curia Hostilia, which opened upon the Forum. Trebonius, informed of this, caused the doors to be locked, and kept him in all the night and the next day.669 M. Cato, Favonius, and Ateius succeeded with great difficulty in reaching the Forum; but, unable to force a way through the crowd up to the rostra, they mounted on the shoulders of some of their clients, and began to shout that Jupiter was thundering, and that there could be no deliberation. But it was all in vain; always repulsed, but always protesting, they gave up the contest when Trebonius had proclaimed that the law was accepted by the people.670 One of its provisions decreed that Pompey should remain at Rome after his consulship, and that he should govern his province of Spain through his lieutenants. The vote was published in the midst of the most stormy tumult. Ateius was wounded in the fray, which cost the lives of several citizens; this was a thing then too frequent to produce any great sensation.
Such was the memorable struggle now commenced at Rome between the consuls and the opposition. If we judge only from certain acts of violence related by the historians, we are at first tempted to accuse Crassus and Pompey of having had recourse to a strange abuse of force; but a more attentive examination proves that they were, so to say, constrained to it by the turbulent intrigues of a factious minority. In fact, these same historians, who describe complacently the means of culpable compulsion employed by the candidates for the consulship, allow contrary assertions to escape them here and there in the sequel, which help to deface the disagreeable impression made by their narrative. Thus, according to Cicero, public opinion blamed the hostility which was exercised against Pompey and Crassus.671 Plutarch, after presenting under the most unfavourable colours the manœuvres of the consuls for the distribution of the governments of the provinces, adds: “This partition pleased all parties. The people desired that Pompey might not be sent away from Rome.”672
Cæsar might hope that the consulship of Pompey and Crassus would restore order and the supremacy of the laws: it did nothing of the sort. After having themselves so often violated legality and corrupted the elections, they sought to remedy the evil, which they had contributed to aggravate, by proposing severe measures against corruption; this tardy homage rendered to public morality was destined to remain without effect, like all the remedies which had hitherto been employed.
Pompey’s Sumptuary Law.
VI. They sought to repress extravagance by a sumptuary law, but a speech of Hortensius was sufficient to cause its rejection. The orator, after a brilliant picture of the greatness of the Republic, and of the progress of civilisation, of which Rome was the centre, proceeded to laud the consuls for their magnificence, and for the noble use they made of their immense riches.673 And, in fact, at that very moment Pompey was building the theatre which bore his name, and was giving public games, in which it seemed his wish to surpass the acts of sumptuous extravagance of the most prodigal courtiers of the Roman people.674 In these games, which lasted several days, 500 lions and eighteen elephants were slain. This spectacle inspired the mob with admiration; but it was remarked that, usually insensible to the death of the gladiators who expired under their eyes, they were affected by the cries of pain of the elephants. Cicero, who was present at these festivals, places, in the relation he addresses to one of his friends, the men and the animals on the same footing, and displays no more regret for the one than for the other, the spirit of humanity was still so little developed!675
The splendour of these games had dazzled Rome and Italy, and restored to Pompey a great part of his prestige; but the levies of troops, which he was obliged to order soon afterwards, caused great discontent. Several tribunes vainly opposed their veto; they were obliged to renounce a struggle which had Pompey, and especially Crassus, to sustain it.
Departure of Crassus for Syria.
VII. Without waiting for the end of his consulship, Crassus determined on quitting Rome; he left in the last days of October.676 As we have said, it was not the government of Syria which excited his ardour; his aim was to carry the war into the country of the Parthians, in order to acquire new glory, and obtain possession of the treasures of those rich countries.
The idea of this expedition was not new. The Parthians had long awakened the jealousy of Rome. They had extended their frontiers from the Caucasus to the Euphrates,677 and considerably increased their importance; their chief assumed, like Agamemnon, the title of king of kings. It is true that the part of Mesopotamia taken from the Parthians by Tigranes had been restored to them by Lucullus, and Pompey had renewed the treaty which made the Euphrates the frontier of the empire of the Arsacides. But this treaty had not always been respected, for it was not one of the habits of the Republic to suffer a too powerful neighbour. Nevertheless, different circumstances might, at this moment, lead the Senate to make war upon the Parthians. While A. Gabinius exercised the command in Syria, Mithridates, dethroned, on account of his cruelty, by his younger brother Orodes, had invoked the support of the proconsul; and the latter was on the point of giving it, when Pompey sent him orders to repair first into Egypt to replace Ptolemy on his throne. Mithridates, besieged in Babylon, had surrendered to his brother, who had caused him to be put to death.678 On another hand, the Parthians were always at war with the kings of Armenia, allies of the Romans. The Senate, had it the wish, was not, therefore, in want of pretexts for declaring war. It had to avenge the death of a friendly pretender, and to sustain a threatened ally. To what point could the law of nations be invoked? That is doubtful; but, for several centuries, the Republic had been in the habit of consulting its own interests much more than justice, and the war against the Parthians was quite as legitimate as the wars against Perseus, Antiochus, or Carthage.
Nevertheless, this enterprise encountered a warm opposition at Rome; the party hostile to the consuls feared the glory which it might reflect upon Crassus, and many prudent minds dreaded the perils of so distant an expedition; but Cæsar, who had inherited that passion of the ancient Romans who dreamt for their town the empire of the world, encouraged Crassus in his projects, and, in the winter of 700, he sent Publius to his father, with 1,000 picked Gaulish cavalry.
Inauspicious auguries marked the departure of the proconsul. The two tribunes of the people, C. Ateius Capito and P. Aquilius Gallus, adherents of the party of the nobles, opposed it. They had succeeded in imparting their sentiments to many of their fellow-citizens. Crassus, intimidated, took with him Pompey, whose ascendency over the people was so powerful that his presence was sufficient to put a stop to all hostile manifestation. Ateius Capito was not discouraged; he gave orders to an usher to place Crassus under arrest at the moment when he was leaving Rome. The other tribune prevented this act of violence. Then, seeing that all his efforts had failed, he had recourse to an extreme measure: he sent for a chafing-dish, and threw perfumes into it, while he pronounced against Crassus the most terrible curses. These imprecations were of a nature to strike the superstitious minds of the Romans. People did not fail to call them to memory afterwards, when news came of the Syrian disasters.
