No More Learning

62.
The oppo nents of the future monarchy.
society.
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RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND aoox v
itself riches, rank, and influence by a timely compromise with the prince ; perhaps even a portion of the democracy, so sorely smitten by the recent blows, might submit to hope for the realization of a portion of its demands from a military chief raised to power by itself. But, whatever might be the position of party-relations, of what importance, in the first instance at least, were the parties in Italy at all in presence of Pompeius and his victorious army? Twenty years previously Sulla, after having concluded a temporary peace with Mithradates, had with his five legions been able to carry a restoration running counter to the natural development of things in the face of the whole liberal party, which had been arming at marr: for years, from the moderate aristocrats and the liberal mercantile class down to the anarchists. The task of Pompeius was far less dif‘ficult. He returned, after having fully and conscien tiously performed his different functions by sea and land. He might expect to encounter no other serious opposition save that of the various extreme parties, each of which by itself could do nothing, and which even when leagued together were no more than a coalition of factions still vehemently hostile to each other and inwardly at thorough variance. Completely unarmed, they were without a
force and without a head, without organization in Italy, without support in the provinces, above all, without a general ; there was in their ranks hardly a soldier of note —to say nothing of an ofi'icer—who could have ventured to call forth the burgesses to a conflict with Pompeius. The circumstance might further be taken into account, that the volcano of revolution, which had been now incessantly blazing for seventy years and feeding on its own flame, was visibly burning out and verging of itself to extinction. It was very doubtful whether the attempt to arm the Italians for party interests would now succeed, as it had succeeded with Cinna and Carbo. If Pompeius exerted himself, how
military
CHAP. v1 COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
495
could he fail to effect a revolution of the state, which was chalked out by a certain necessity of nature in the organic development of the Roman commonwealth?
Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he under Mission ll took his mission to the east ; he seemed desirous to go Nepos to
forward. In the autumn of 691, Metellus Quintus
arrived from the camp of Pompeius in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship, with the express design of employing that position to procure for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more 61. immediately, by special decree of the people, the conduct
of the war against Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect commission of Pompeius ; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer simultaneously the
supreme military and the supreme civil power there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne, and the mission of Nepos a semi-oflicial proclamation of the monarchy.
Everything turned on the attitude which the two great Pompeius
their future position and the future of the nation depended parties. on this. But the reception which Nepos met with was it
self in its turn determined by the then existing relation of
the parties to Pompeius, which was of a very peculiar kind Pompeius had gone to the east as general of the democracy.
He had reason enough to be discontented with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place. It is
that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through, at least at that time, the extent and
mutual connection of the democratic intrigues contrived against him 5 perhaps even in his haughty and shortsighted
probable occupied
Rome. Nepos 68.
political parties should assume towards these overtures; in relation’ to the
496
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK v
manner he had a certain pride in ignoring these underground
Then there came the fact, which with a character of the type of Pompeius had much weight, that the democracy never lost sight of outward respect for the
great man, and even now (691) unsolicited (as he preferred it so) had granted to him by a special decree of the people unprecedented honours and decorations 444). But, even all this had not been the case, lay in Pompeius’ own well-understood interest to continue his adherence, at least outwardly, to the popular party; democracy and mon archy stand so closely related that Pompeius, in aspiring to the crown, could scarcely do otherwise than call himself, as hitherto, the champion of popular rights. While personal and political reasons, therefore, co-operated to keep Pompeius and the leaders of the democracy, despite of all that had taken place, in their previous connection, nothing was done on the opposite side to fill up the chasm which separated him since his desertion to the ‘camp of the demo cracy from his Sullan partisans. His personal quarrel with
Metellus and Lucullus transferred itself to their extensive and influential coteries. A paltry opposition of the senate —but, to character of so paltry mould, all the more exasperating by reason of its very paltriness-—had attended him through his whole career as general. He felt keenly, that the senate had not taken the smallest step to honour the extraordinary man according to his desert, that
by extraordinary means. Lastly, not to be forgotten, that the aristocracy was just then intoxicated by its recent victory and the democracy deeply humbled, and that the aristocracy was led by the pedantically stiff and half-witless Cato, and the democracy by the supple master of intrigue, Caesar.
Such was the state of parties amidst which the emissary sent by Pompeius appeared. The aristocracy not only regarded the proposals which he announced in favour of
proceedings.
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can. vr COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
497
Pompeius as a declaration of war against the existing con Rupture
stitution, but treated them openly as such, and took not between Pompeius
the slightest pains to conceal their alarm and their indigna and the tion. With the express design of combating these proposals, aristocracy. Marcus Cato had himself elected as tribune of the people
along with Nepos, and abruptly repelled the repeated attempts of Pompeius to approach him personally. Nepos naturally after this found himself under no inducement to spare the aristocracy, but attached himself the more readily to the democrats, when these, pliant as ever, submitted to what was inevitable and chose freely to concede the oflice of general in Italy as well as the consulate rather than let the concession be wrung from them by force of arms. The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly
accepted (Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions 6S. recently decreed by the majority of the senate, as unconsti tutional judicial murders; and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light, was shown by his signifi cant silence respecting the voluminous vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to have been embezzled by him at the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, and to transfer the completion of the temple to Pompeius. This was a masterstroke. Catulus had already. been building at the temple for fifteen years, and seemed very much disposed to die as he had lived superintendent
of the Capitoline buildings; an attack on this abuse of a public commission—an abuse covered only by the reputation of the noble commissioner-was in reality entirely justified and in a high degree popular. But when the prospect was simultaneously opened up to Pompeius of being allowed to delete the name of Catulus and engrave his own on this proudest spot of the first city of the globe, there was offered to him the very thing which most of all delighted him and
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498
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK v
did no harm to the democracy—abundant but empty honour; while at the same time the aristocracy, which could not possibly allow its best man to fall, was brought into the most disagreeable collision with Pompeius.
Meanwhile Nepos had brought his proposals concerning Pompeius before the burgesses. On the day of voting Cato and his friend and colleague, Quintus Minucius, interposed their veto. When Nepos did not regard this and continued the reading out, a formal conflict took place; Cato and
Minucius threw themselves on their colleague and forced him to stop; an armed band liberated him, and drove the aristocratic section from the Forum ; but Cato and Minucius returned, now supported likewise by armed bands, and ulti mately maintained the field of battle for the government. Encouraged by this victory of their hands over those of their antagonist, the senate suspended the tribune Nepos as well as the praetor Caesar, who had vigorously supported him in the bringing in of the law, from their oflices ; their deposition, which was proposed in the senate, was prevented by Cato, more, doubtless, because it was unconstitutional than because it was injudicious. Caesar did not regard the decree, and continued his official functions till the senate used violence against him. As soon as this was known, the multitude appeared before his house and placed
itself at his disposal; it was to depend solely on him whether the struggle in the streets should begin, or whether at least the proposals made by Metellus should now be resumed and the military command in Italy desired by Pompeius should be procured for him; but this was not in Caesar’s interest, and so he induced the crowds to dis perse, whereupon the senate recalled the penalty decreed against him. Nepos himself had, immediately after his
suspension, left the city and embarked for Asia, in order to report to Pompeius the result of his mission.
Pompeius
had every reason to be content with the turn
CHAP. vi COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS 499
which things had taken. The way to the throne now lay necessarily through civil war; and he owed it to Cato’s incorrigible perversity that he could begin this war with good reason. After the illegal condemnation of the ad herents of Catilina, after the unparalleled acts of violence against the tribune of the people Metellus, Pompeius might wage war at once as defender of the two palladia of Roman public freedom-—the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunate of the people—against the aristocracy, and as champion of the party of order against the Catilinarian band. It seemed almost impossible that Pompeius should neglect this opportunity and with his eyes open put himself
a second time into the painful position, in which the dis missal of his army in 684 had placed him, and from which 70. only the Gabinian law had released him. But near as seemed the opportunity of placing the white chaplet around
his brow, and much as his own soul longed after when the question of action presented itself, his heart and his hand once more failed him. This man, altogether-ordinary in every respect excepting only his pretensions, would doubtless gladly have placed himself beyond the law, only he could have done so without forsaking legal ground. His very lingering in Asia betrayed misgiving of this sort. He might, had he wished, have very well arrived in January
692 with his fleet and army at the port of Brundisium, and 62. have received Nepos there. His tarrying the whole winter
of 691-692 in Asia had proximately the injurious conse- “. 62, quence, that the aristocracy, which of course accelerated
the campaign against Catilina as best could, had mean
while got rid of his bands, and had thus set aside the most feasible pretext for keeping together the Asiatic legions in
Italy. For man of the type of Pompeius, who for want
of faith in himself and in his star timidly clung in public
life to formal right, and with whom the pretext was nearly
of as much importance as the motive, this circumstance was
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500
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND noon v
of serious weight. He probably said to himself, moreover, that, even if he dismissed his army, he did not let it wholly out of his hand, and could in case of need still raise a force ready for battle sooner at any rate than any other party chief; that the democracy was waiting in submissive attitude for his signal, and that he could deal with the refractory senate even without soldiers; and such further considera tions as suggested themselves, in which there was exactly enough of truth to make them appear plausible to one who wished to deceive himself. Once more the very peculiar temperament of Pompeius naturally turned the scale. He was one of those men who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination ; in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional everyday rule ; for this very reason military discipline, in which more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined to refuse obedience to those set over him, invol
when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down ; and to this too Pompeius succumbed.
In the autumn of 692 Pompeius embarked for Italy. While in the capital all was being prepared for receiving the new monarch, news came that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up his legions and with a small escort had entered on his journey to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did for Pompeius ; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every favour and every gift in vain.
The parties breathed freely. For the second time
untarily
can. vi COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
5o!
Pompeius had abdicated; his already-vanquished com- Pompeius petitors might once more begin the race—in which doubt
less the strangest thing was, that Pompeius was again a
rival runner. In January 693 he came to Rome. His posi- 61.
tion was an awkward one and vacillated with so much uncertainty between the parties, that people gave him the
nickname of Gnaeus Cicero. He had in fact lost favour with all. The anarchists saw in him an adversary, the democrats an inconvenient friend, Marcus Crassus a rival,
the wealthy class an untrustworthy protector, the aristocracy
a declared foe. 1 He was still indeed the most powerful man in the state ; his military adherents scattered through
all Italy, his influence in the provinces, particularly those
of the cast, his military fame, his enormous riches gave him a weight such as no other possessed; but instead of the enthusiastic reception on which he had counted, the reception which he met with was more than cool, and still cooler was the treatment given to the demands which he presented. He requested for himself, as he had already caused to be announced by Nepos, a second consulship; demanding also, of course, a confirmation of the arrange ments made by him in the east and a fulfilment of the promise which he had given to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. Against these demands a systematic opposi
tion arose in the senate, the chief elements of which were furnished by the personal exasperation of Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, the old resentment of Crassus, and the conscientious folly of Cato. The desired second consulship
was at once and bluntly refused. The very first request which the returning general addressed to the senate, that
the election of the consuls for 693 might be put off till 61.
l The impression of the first address, which Pompeius made to the burgesses after his return, is thus described by Cicero (ad All. i. 14): prima contia Pompei mm iucunda miren'r (the rabble), inam': improbil (the democrats), beali'r (the wealthy) non grala, bani: (the aristocrats) mm gram’: ; itaquefnjgebat.
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RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND Bc-OK v
after his entry into the capital, had been rejected; much less was there any likelihood of obtaining from the senate the necessary dispensation from the law of Sulla as to re-election 16). As to the arrangements which he had made in the eastern provinces, Pompeius naturally asked their confirmation as whole Lucullus carried proposal that every ordinance should be separately discussed and voted upon, which opened the door for endless annoyances and multitude of defeats in detail. The promise of a grant of land to the soldiers of the Asiatic army was ratified indeed in general the senate, but was at the same time extended to the Cretan legions of Metellus; and—what was worse-—it was not executed, because the public chest was empty and the senate was not disposed to meddle with
the domains for this purpose. Pompeius, in despair of mastering the persistent and spiteful opposition of the senate, turned to the burgesses. But he understood still less how to conduct his movements on this field. The democratic leaders, although they did not openly oppose him, had no cause at all to make his interests their own, and so kept aloof. Pompeius’ own instruments—such as the consuls elected by his influence and partly by his
O1. money, Marcus Puplus Piso for 693 and Lucius Afranius for 694—showed themselves unskilful and useless. When at length the assignation of land for the veterans of Pompeius was submitted to the burgesses the tribune of the people Lucius Flavius in the form of general agrarian law, the proposal, not supported by the democrats, openly combated by the aristocrats, was left in minority
60. (beg. of 694). The exalted general now sued almost humbly for the favour of the masses, for was on his instigation that the Italian tolls were abolished by law
60. introduced by the praetor Metellus Nepos (694). But he played the demagogue without skill and without success; his reputation suffered from and he did not obtain what
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cHAr. VT COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
5°3
he desired. He had completely run himself into a noose. One of his opponents summed up his political position at that time by saying that he had endeavoured “to conserve by silence his embroidered triumphal mantle. " In fact nothing was left for him but to fret.
Then a new combination offered itself. The leader of Rise 0‘ the democratic party had actively employed in his own Caesar. interest the political calm which had immediately followed
on the retirement of the previous holder of power. When Pompeius returned from Asia, Caesar had been little more
than what Catilina was—the chief of a political party
which had dwindled almost into a club of conspirators,
and a bankrupt. But since that event he had, after ad ministering the praetorship (692), been invested with the 63. governorship of Further Spain, and thereby had found
means partly to rid himself of his debts, partly to lay the foundation for his military repute. His old friend and ally Crassus had been induced by the hope of finding the support against Pompeius, which he had lost in Piso (p. 471), once more in Caesar, to relieve him even before his departure to the province from the most oppressive portion of his load of debt. He himself had energetically employed his brief sojourn there. Returning from Spain in the year
694 with filled chests and as Imperator with well-founded 6Q claims to a triumph, he came forward for the following year as a candidate for the consulship; for the sake of which, as the senate refused him permission to announce himself as a candidate for the consular election in absence,
he without hesitation abandoned the honour of the triumph. For years the democracy had striven to raise one of its partisans to the possession of the supreme magis tracy, that by way of this bridge it might attain a military power of its own. It had long been clear to discerning men of all shades that the strife of parties could not be settled by civil conflict, but only by military power; but
Second
of rendering themselves independent of their dubious and dangerous ally Pompeius by the establishment, we may so speak, of home power in their own democratic house— hold.
But the more the democracy could not but desire to
504
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK v
the course of the coalition between the democracy and the powerful military chiefs, through which the rule of the senate had been terminated, showed with inexorable clear ness that every such alliance ultimately issued in a subor dination of the civil under the military elements, and that the popular party, if it would really rule, must not ally itself with generals properly foreign and even hostile to but must make generals of its own leaders themselves. The attempts made with this view to carry the election of Catilina as consul, and to gain a military support in Spain or Egypt, had failed; now possibility presented itself of procuring for their most important man the consulship
and the consular province in the usual constitutional way, and
coalition of open up for itself this path, which offered not so much the Pompeius,
Crassus, and
most favourable as the only prospect of real successes, the more certainly might reckon on the resolute resistance of its political opponents. Everything depended on whom
found opposed to in this matter. The aristocracy isolated was not formidable but had just been rendered evident in the Catilinarian affair that could certainly still exert some influence, where was more or less openly
supported the men of material interests and by the adherents of Pompeius. It had several times frustrated Catilina’s candidature for the consulship, and that would attempt the like against Caesar was sufificiently certain.
But, even though Caesar should perhaps be chosen in spite of his election alone did not suflice. He needed at least some years of undisturbed working out of Italy, in order to gain firm military position; and the nobility assuredly would leave no means untried to thwart his plans
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CHAP- vr COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
505
during this time of preparation. The idea naturally oc curred, whether the aristocracy might not be again success fully isolated as in 68 3-684, and an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might not be established between the democrats with their ally Crassus on the one side and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide. His weight hitherto in the state rested on the fact, that he was the only party-leader who at the same time disposed of legions—which, though now dissolved, were still in a certain sense at his disposal. The plan of the democracy was directed to the very object of depriving him of this
71-10.
and of placing by his side in their own chief a military rival. Never could he consent to this,
and least of all personally help to a post of supreme com mand a man like Caesar, who already as a mere political
had given him trouble enough and had just furnished the most brilliant proofs also of military capacity in Spain. But on the other hand, in consequence of the cavilling opposition of the senate and the indifference of the multitude to Pompeius and Pompeius’ wishes, his position, particularly with reference to his old soldiers, had become so painful and so humiliating, that people might well expect from his character to gain him for such a coalition at the price of releasing him from that disagreeable situation. And as to the so-called equestrian party, it was to be found on whatever side the power lay; and as a matter of course it would not let itself be long waited for, if it saw Pompeius and the democracy combining anew in earnest. It happened moreover, that on account of Cato’s severity—otherwise very laudable-—towards the lessees of the taxes, the great capitalists were just at this time once more at vehement variance with the senate.
preponderance,
agitator
So the second coalition was concluded in the summer
of 694. Caesar was assured of the consulship for the 6G
Change
in the position of Caesar.
following year and a governorship in due course; to Pompeius was promised the ratification of his arrange ments made in the east, and an assignation of lands for the soldiers of the Asiatic army; to the equites Caesar
likewise promised to procure for them by means of the
506
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK v
what the senate had refused; Crassus in fine —the inevitable—was allowed at least to join the league, although without obtaining definite promises for an acces sion which he could not refuse. It was exactly the same
burgesses
" elements, and indeed the same persons, who concluded
the league with one another in the autumn of and 683
in the summer of 694; but how entirely different was the position of the parties then and now! Then the democracy was nothing but a political party, while its allies were victorious generals at the head of their armies; now the leader of the democracy was himself an Imperator crowned with victory and full of magnificent
military schemes, while his allies were retired generals without
any army. Then the democracy conquered in questions of principle, and in return for that victory conceded the highest offices of state to its two confederates ; now it had become more practical and grasped the supreme civil and military power for itself, while concessions were made to its allies only in subordinate points and, signifi cantly enough, not even the old demand of Pompeius for a second consulship was attended to. Then the democracy sacrificed itself to its allies; now these had to entrust themselves to it. All the circumstances were completely changed, most of all, however, the character of the democracy itself. No doubt it had, ever since it existed at all, contained at its very core a monarchic element; but the ideal of a constitution, which floated in more or less clear outline before its best
intellects, was always that of a civil commonwealth, a Periclean organization of the state, in which the power of the prince
can. vl COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
507
rested on the fact that he represented the burgesses in the noblest and most accomplished manner, and the most accomplished and noblest part of the burgesses recognized him as the man in whom they thoroughly confided. Caesar too set out with such views; but they were simply ideals, which might have some influence on realities, but could not be directly realized. Neither the simple civil power,
as Gaius Gracchus possessed nor the arming of the democratic party, such as Cinna though in very inade quate fashion had attempted, was able to maintain permanent superiority in the Roman commonwealth; the military machine fighting not for party but for general, the rude force of the mndott‘z'erz'—after having first appeared
on the stage in the service of the restoration—soon showed itself absolutely superior to all political parties. Caesar could not but acquire conviction of this amidst the practical workings of party, and accordingly he matured the momentous resolution of making this military machine itself serviceable to his ideals, and of erecting such commonwealth, as he had in his view, by the power of " condottieri. With this design he concluded in 683 the league with the generals of the opposite party, which, notwithstanding that they had accepted the democratic programme, yet brought the democracy and Caesar him‘ self to the brink of destruction. With the same
design he himself came forward eleven years afterwards as
condoz‘tiere. was done in both cases with certain naiveté—with good faith in the possibility of his being able to found free commonwealth, not the swords of others, at any rate by his own. We perceive without difficulty that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit into his service without
becoming himself enslaved to it; but the greatest men are not
those who err the least. If we still after so many cen turies bow in reverence before what Caesar willed and
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508
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK v
did, it is not because he desired and gained a crown
do which abstractly, as little of a great thing as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal—of free commonwealth under one ruler—never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch from sinking into vulgar royalty.
The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without difliculty by the united parties. The aristocracy had to rest content with giving to him—by means of a. bribery, for which the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited surprise even in that period of deepest corruption-—a colleague in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy was regarded in their circles as conservative energy, and whose good intentions at least were not at fault the genteel lords did not get fit return for their patriotic expenditure.
(to
Caesar’ a law.
As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion requests of his confederates, among which the assigna tion of land to the veterans of the Asiatic army was by far the most important. The agrarian law projected for this purpose by Caesar adhered in general to the principles set forth in the project of law, which was
in the previous year at the suggestion of Pompeius but
not carried 502). There was destined for distribution only the Italian domain-land, that to say, substantially, the territory of Capua, and, this should not suflice, other Italian estates were to be purchased out of the revenue of the new eastern provinces at the taxable value recorded in the censorial rolls; all existing rights of property and heritable possession thus remained unaffected. The individual allotments were small. The receivers of land were to be poor burgesses, fathers of at least three
children the dangerous principle, that the rendering of military service gave claim to landed estate, was not
introduced
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CHAF. Vt COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
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laid down, but, as was reasonable and had been done at all times, the old soldiers as well as the temporary lessees to be ejected were simply recommended to the special consideration of the land-distributors. The exe cution of the measure was entrusted to a commission of twenty men, into which Caesar distinctly declared that he did not wish to be himself elected.
The opposition had a diflicult task in resisting this pro Opposition posal. It could not rationally be denied, that the state of the finances ought after the erection of the provinces of Pontus aristocracy. and Syria to be in a position to dispense with the moneys
from the Campanian leases; that it was unwarrantable to withhold one of the finest districts of Italy, and one pecu liarly fitted for small holdings, from private enterprise; and, lastly, that it was as unjust as it was ridiculous, after the ‘extension of the franchise to all Italy, still to withhold municipal rights from the township of Capua. The whole proposal bore the stamp of moderation, honesty,
and solidity, with which a democratic party-character was very dexterously combined; for in substance it amounted to the re-establishment of the Capuan colony founded in the time of Marius and again done away by Sulla (p. 70, 107).
In form too Caesar observed all possible consideration. He laid the project of the agrarian law, as well as the proposal to ratify collectively the ordinances issued by Pompeius in the east, and the petition of the farmers of the taxes for remission of a third of the sums payable by them, in the
first instance before the senate for approval, and declared himself ready to entertain and discuss proposals for alter ations. The corporation had now opportunity of convincing itself how foolishly it had acted in driving Pompeius and the equites into the arms of the adversary by refusing these requests. Perhaps it was the secret sense of this, that drove the high-born lords to the most vehement opposition, which contrasted ill with the calm demeanour of Caesar.
Proposals before the burgesses.
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RETIREMENT 0F POMPEIUS AND Bock v
The agrarian law was rejected by them nakedly and even without discussion. The decree as to the arrangements of Pompeius in Asia found quite as little favour in their eyes. Cato attempted, in accordance with the disreput able custom of Roman parliamentary debate, to kill the proposal regarding the farmers of the taxes by speaking, that to prolong his speech up to the legal hour for closing the sitting when Caesar threatened to have the stubborn man arrested, this proposal too was at rejected.
Of course all the proposals were now brought before the burgesses. Without deviating far from the truth, Caesar could tell the multitude that the senate had scornfully
rejected most rational and most necessary proposals sub mitted to in the most respectful form, simply because they came from the democratic consul. When he added that the aristocrats had contrived a plot to procure the rejection of the proposals, and summoned the burgesses, and more especially Pompeius himself and his old soldiers, to stand by him against fraud and force, this too was by no means mere invention. The aristocracy, with the obstinate weak creature Bibulus and the unbending dog matical fool Cato at their head, in reality intended to push the matter to open violence. Pompeius, instigated Caesar to proclaim his position with reference to the pending question, declared bluntly, as was not his wont on other occasions, that any one should venture to draw the sword, he too would grasp his, and in that case would not leave the shield at home Crassus expressed himself to the same effect. The old soldiers of Pompeius were directed to appear on the day of the vote—which in fact primarily concerned them—in great numbers, and with arms under their dress, at the place of voting.
The nobility however left no means untried to frustrate the proposals of Caesar. On each day when Caesar
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CHAP- v1 COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
5t!
appeared before the people, his colleague Bibulus instituted the well-known political observations of the weather which interrupted all public business (p. 208); Caesar did not trouble himself about the skies, but continued to prosecute his terrestrial occupation.
The tribunician veto was inter posed; Caesar contented himself with disregarding Bibulus and Cato sprang to the rostra, harangued the multitude, and instigated the usual riot; Caesar ordered that they should be led away by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm should befall them-—it was for his interest that the political comedy should remain such as was.
Notwithstanding all the chicanery and all the blustering The
law-flu law carried.
of the nobility, the agrarian law, the confirmation of the
Asiatic arrangements, and the remission to the lessees of
taxes were adopted by the burgesses and the commission
of twenty was elected with Pompeius and Crassus at its
head, and installed in office. With all their exertions the aristocracy had gained nothing, save that their blind and
spiteful antagonism had drawn the bonds of the coalition
still tighter, and their energy, which they were soon to need
for matters more important, had exhausted itself on these
affairs that were at bottom indifferent. They congratulated
each other on the heroic courage which they had displayed;
the declaration of Bibulus that he would rather die than
yield, the peroration which Cato still continued to deliver
when in the hands of the lictors, were great patriotic feats; otherwise they resigned themselves to their fate. The Passive consul Bibulus shut himself up for the remainder of the resistance
of the year in his house, while he at the same time intimated aristocracy.
public placard that he had the pious intention of watching the signs of the sky on all the days appropriate for public assemblies during that year. His colleagues once more admired the great man who, as Ennius had said of the old Fabius, “saved the state by wise delay,” and
by
it.
;
it
Caesar governor of the two Gluls.
58.
512 RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS‘ AND BOOK v
they followed his example; most of them, Cato in cluded, no ‘longer appeared in the senate, but within their four walls helped their consul to fret over the fact that the history of the world went on in spite of political astronomy. To the public this passive attitude of the consul as well as of the aristocracy in general appeared, as it fairly might, a political abdication; and the coalition were naturally very well content that they were left to take their farther steps almost undisturbed.
The most important of these steps was the regulating of the future position of Caesar. constitutionally it devolved on the senate to fix the functions of the second consular year of oflice before the election of the consuls took place ; accordingly it had, in prospect of the election of. Caesar, selected with that view for 696 two provinces in which the governor should find no other employment than thevcon struction of roads and other such works of utility. Of course the matter could not so remain; it was determined
the confederates, that Caesar should obtain by decree of the people an extraordinary command formed on the model of the Gabinio-Manilian laws. Caesar however had publicly declared that he would introduce no proposal in his own favour ; the tribune of the people Publius Vatinius therefore undertook to submit the proposal to the burgesses, who naturally gave their unconditional assent. By this means Caesar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and the supreme command of the three legions which were stationed there and were already experienced in border warfare under Lucius Afranius, along with the same rank of propraetor for his adjutants which those of Pompeius had enjoyed, this oflice was secured to him for five years—a longer period than had ever before been assigned to any general whose
was limited to a definite time at all. The who for years had in hope of the franchise
appointment
Transpadanes,
been the clients of the democratic party in Rome and of
among
CHAI’. VI COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
5‘3
Caesar- in particular 457), formed the main portion of his province. His jurisdiction extended south as far as the Arnus and the Rubico, and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently there was added to Caesar’s oi’ficial district‘ the province of Narbo with the one legion stationed there—a resolution adopted by the senate on the proposal of Pom peius, that might at least not see this command also pass
to Caesar by extraordinary decree of the burgesses. What was wished was thus attained. As no troops could consti tutionally be stationed in Italy proper 122), the com mander of the legions of northern Italy and Gaul dominated at the same time Italy and Rome for the next five years; and he who was master for five years was master for life. The consulship of Caesar had attained its object. As a matter of course, the new holders of power did not neglect withal to keep the multitude in good humour by games and
amusements of all sorts, and they embraced every opportunity of filling their exchequer; in the case of the king of Egypt, for instance, the decree of the people, which recognized him as legitimate ruler (p. 450), was sold to him by the coali tion at high price, and in like manner other dynasts and communities acquired charters and privileges on this occasion.
The permanence of the arrangements made seemed also Measures
sufliciently secured. The consulship was, at least for the adopted by the allies
next year, entrusted to safe hands. The public believed at for their
security.
father-in-law—as consuls for 696. Pompeius personally 58. undertook to watch over Italy, where at the head of the commission of twenty he prosecuted the execution of the
agrarian law and furnished nearly 20,000 burgesses, in great
first, that was destined for Pompeius and Crassus them selves; the holders of power however preferred to procure the election of two subordinate but trustworthy men of their party—Aulus Gabinius, the best among Pompeius’ adjutants, and Lucius Piso, who was less important but was Caesar’s
VOL. tv
133
it
it
a
(p.
(p.
514
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND noox v
part old soldiers from his army, with land in the territory of Capua. Caesar’s north-Italian legions served to back him against the opposition in the capital. There existed no prospect, immediately at least, of a rupture among the holders of power themselves. The laws issued by Caesar as consul, in the maintenance of which Pompeius was at least as much interested as Caesar, formed a guarantee for the continuance of the breach between Pompeius and the aristocracy—whose heads, and Cato in particular, continued to treat these laws as null—and thereby a guarantee for the subsistence of the coalition. Moreover, the personal bonds of connection between its chiefs were drawn closer. Caesar had honestly and faithfully kept his word to his confederates without curtailing or cheating them of what he had pro mised, and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own, with dexterity and energy ; Pompeius was
not insensible to upright dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent and familiar inter course with a man of v the irresistible amiableness of Caesar did what was farther requisite to convert the alliance of interests into an alliance of friendship. The result and the pledge of this friendship-—at the same time, doubtless, a public announcement which could hardly be misunderstood of the newly established conjoint rule—was the marriage of Pompeius with Caesar's only daughter, three—and-twenty years of age. Julia, who had inherited the charm of her
father, lived in the happiest domestic relations with her husband, who was nearly twice as old; and the burgesses longing for rest and order after so many troubles and crises, saw in this nuptial alliance the guarantee of a peaceful and prosperous future.
The more firmly and closely the alliance was thus
crur. vi COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
5r 5
cemented between Pompeius and Caesar, the more hopeless Situation grew the cause of the aristocracy. They felt the sword
over their head and knew Caesar sufliciently to have no doubt that he would, if necessary, use it without hesitation. “On all sides,” wrote one of them, “we are checkmated ; we have already through fear of death or of
banishment despaired of ‘freedom’; every one sighs, no one ventures to speak. ” More the confederates could not desire. But though the majority of the aristocracy was in this desirable frame of mind, there was, of course, no lack of Hotspurs among this party. Hardly had Caesar laid down the consulship, when some of the most violent aristocrats, Lucius Domitius and Gaius Memmius, proposed in a full senate the annulling of the Julian laws. This indeed was simply a piece of folly, which redounded only to the benefit of the coalition ; for, when Caesar now himself
insisted that the senate should investigate the validity of the laws assailed, the latter could not but formally recognize their legality. But, as may readily be conceived, the holders of power found in this a new call to make an example of some of the most notable and noisiest of their opponents, and thereby to assure themselves that the remainder would adhere to that fitting policy of sighing and silence. At first there had been a hope that the clause of the agrarian law, which as usual required all the senators to take an oath to the new law on pain of forfeiting their political rights, would induce its most vehement opponents to banish themselves, after the example of Metellus Numidicus (iii. 47 by refus ing the oath. But these did not show themselves so com
‘ plaisant; even the rigid Cato submitted to the oath, and his Sanchos followed him. A second, far from honourable, attempt to threaten the heads of the aristocracy with criminal impeachments on account of an alleged plot for the murder of Pompeius, and so to drive them into exile, was frustrated the incapacity of the instruments; the in
suspended
by
r),
Cato and Cicero removed.
former, one Vettius, exaggerated and contradicted himself so grossly, and the tribune Vatinius, who directed the foul scheme, showed his complicity with that Vettius so clearly, that it was found advisable to strangle the latter in prison and to let the whole matter drop. On this occasion how ever they had obtained sufficient evidence of the total disorganization of the aristocracy and the boundless alarm of the genteel lords : even a man like Lucius Lucullus had thrown himself in person at Caesar's feet and publicly declared that he found himself compelled by reason of his great age to withdraw from public life.
Ultimately therefore they were content with a few isolated victims. It was of primary importance to remove Cato, who made no secret of his conviction as to the nullity of all the Julian laws, and who was a man to act as he thought. Such a man Marcus Cicero was certainly not, and they did not give themselves the trouble to fear him. But the demo cratic party, which played the leading part in the coalition, could not possibly after its victory leave unpunished the judicial murder of the 5th December 691, which it had so loudly and so justly censured. Had they wished to bring to account the real authors of the fatal decree, they ought to have seized not on the pusillanimous consul, but on the section of the strict aristocracy which had urged the timorous man to that execution. But in formal law it was certainly not the advisers of the consul, but the consul him self, that was responsible for and was above all the gentler course to call the consul alone to account and to leave the senatorial college wholly out of the case for which reason in the grounds of the proposal directed against Cicero the decree of the senate, in virtue of which he ordered the execution, was directly described as supposititious. Even against Cicero the holders of power would gladly have avoided steps that attracted attention; but he could not prevail on himself either to give to those power the
516
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK V
in
;
it, it
CHAP. vr COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
517
guarantees which they required, or to banish himself from Rome under one of the feasible pretexts on several occasions offered to him, or even to keep silence. With the utmost desire to avoid any offence and the most sincere alarm, he
yet had not self-control enough to be prudent; the word had to come out, when a petulant witticism stung him, or when nis self-conceit almost rendered crazy by the praise of so many noble lords gave vent to the well-cadenced periods
of the plebeian advocate.
The execution of the measures resolved on against Cato Clad! ‘
and Cicero was committed to the loose and dissolute, but clever and pre-eminently audacious Publius Clodius, who had lived for years in the bitterest enmity with Cicero, and, with the view of satisfying that enmity and playing a part
as demagogue, had got himself converted under the consul ship of Caesar by a hasty adoption from a patrician into a plebeian, and then chosen as tribune of the people for the
year 696. To support Clodius, the proconsul Caesar 51 remained in the immediate vicinity of the capital till the blow was struck against the two victims. Agreeably to the
instructions which he had received, Clodius proposed to the
to entrust Cato with the regulation of the com plicated municipal affairs of the Byzantines and with the annexation of the kingdom of Cyprus, which as well as
had fallen to the Romans by the testament of Alexander 11. , but had not like Egypt bought off the Roman annexation, and the king of which, moreover, had formerly given personal offence to Clodius. As to Cicero,
Clodius brought in a project of law which characterized the execution of a burgess without trial and sentence as a crime to be punished with banishment. Cato was thus removed by an honourable mission, while Cicero was visited at least with the gentlest possible punishment and, besides, was
not designated by name in the proposal. But ‘they did not refuse themselves the pleasure, on the one hand, of
burgesses
Egypt
5I8
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS BOOK v
punishing a man notoriously timid and belonging to the
class of political weathercocks for the conservative
which he displayed, and, on the other hand, of investing the bitter opponent of all interferences of the burgesses in administration and of all extraordinary commands with such a command conferred by decree of the burgesses themselves; and with similar humour the proposal re specting Cato was based on the ground of the abnormal virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement. Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance. It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate, with the view of protesting in some way against the mockery and censure of their decree in the matter of Catilina, publicly put on mourning, and that Cicero himself, now when it was too late, fell on his knees and besought mercy from Pompeius;
he had to banish himself even before the passing of the law which debarred him from his native land (April 696). Cato likewise did not venture to provoke sharper measures by declining the commission which he had received, but accepted it and embarked for the east 450). What was most immediately necessary was done; Caesar too might leave Italy to devote himself to more serious tasks.