No More Learning

On the day when the new consuls should enter on their office-—
65. the 1st Jan. 689—the senate-house was to be assailed by armed men, the new consuls and the victims otherwise designated were to be put to death, and Sulla and Paetus were to be proclaimed as consuls after the cancelling of the judicial sentence which excluded them. Crassus was then to be invested with the dictatorship and Caesar with the mastership of the horse, doubtless with a view to raise an imposing military force, while Pompeius was employed afar off at the Caucasus. Captains and common soldiers were hired and instructed; Catilina waited on the appointed day in the neighbourhood of the senate-house for the con certed signal, which was to be given him by Caesar on a hint from Crassus. But he waited in vain; Crassus was absent from the decisive sitting of the senate, and for this time the projected insurrection failed. A similar still more comprehensive plan of murder was then concerted for the 5th Feb. ; but this too was frustrated, because Catilina
the signal too early, before the bandits who were
gave
bespoken
divulged. The government did not venture openly to proceed against the conspiracy, but it assigned a guard to the consuls who were primarily threatened, and it opposed
had all arrived. Thereupon the secret was
CHAP. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
467
to the band of the conspirators a band paid by the govern ment. To remove Piso, the proposal was made that he should be sent as quaestor with praetorian powers to Hither Spain; to which Crassus consented, in the hope of secur
him the resources of that important province for the insurrection. Proposals going farther were pre vented by the tribunes.
So runs the account that has come down to us, which evidently gives the version current in the government circles, and the credibility of which in detail must, in the absence of any means of checking be left an open question. As to the main matter—the participation of Caesar and Crassus —the testimony of their political opponents certainly cannot be regarded as suflicient evidence of it. But their notorious action at this epoch corresponds with striking exactness to the secret action which this report ascribes to them. The attempt of Crassus, who in this year was censor, ofticially to enrol the Transpadanes in the burgess-list 457) was of itself directly revolutionary enterprise. still more remarkable, that Crassus on the same occasion made preparations to enrol Egypt and Cyprus in the list of Roman domains,1 and that Caesar about the same time (689 or 690) got proposal submitted some tribunes to the burgesses to send him to Egypt, in order to reinstate king
ing through
whom the Alexandrians had expelled. These machinations suspiciously coincide with the charges raised
Plutarch, Crasr. r3; Cicero, a’: Legs agr. 17, 44. To this year (689) belongs Cicero's oration d: reg: Alexandrina, which has been in- correctly assigned to the year 698. In Cicero refutes, as the fragments clearly show, the assertion of Crassus, that Egypt had been rendered Roman property by the testament of king Alexander. This question of law might and must have been discussed in 689 but in 698 had been deprived of its significance through the Julian law of 695. In 698 more- over the discussion related not to the question to whom Egypt belonged, but to the restoration of the king driven out by a revolt, and in this trans action which well known to us Crassus played no part. Lastly, Cicero
after the conference of Luca was not at all in a position seriously to oppose one of the triumvirs.
65. 64.
65, 56,
85, 56. 5,, 66
Ptolemaeus
is a
it ;
by
it
1
ii.
a
It (p. is
it,
Resump
spiracy.
renewing their attempt to get possession of the consulate; which may have been partly owing to the fact that a relative of the leader of the democracy, Lucius Caesar, a weak man who was not unfrequently employed by his kinsman as a tool, was on this occasion a candidate for the consulship. But the reports from Asia urged them to make haste. The affairs of Asia Minor and Armenia were already completely arranged. However clearly democratic strategists showed that the Mithradatic war could only be regarded as ter minated by the capture of the king, and that it was there fore necessary to undertake the pursuit round the Black Sea, and above all things to keep aloof from Syria
64. out in the spring of 690 from Armenia and marched towards
If Egypt was really selected as the headquarters of the democracy, there was no time to be lost; otherwise Pompeius might easily arrive in Egypt sooner than Caesar. The conspiracy of 688, far from being broken up by the lax and timid measures of repression, was again astir when
68. the consular elections for 691 approached. The persons were, may be presumed, substantially the same, and the plan was but little altered. The leaders of the movement again kept in the background. On this occasion they had set up as candidates for the consulship Catilina himself and
468 THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK v
by their antagonists. Certainty cannot be attained on the point; but there is a great probability that Crassus and Caesar had projected a plan to possess themselves of the military dictatorship during the absence of Pompeius; that Egypt was selected as the basis of this democratic military power; and that, in fine, the insurrectionary attempt of
65. 689 had been contrived to realize these
Catilina and Piso had thus been tools in the hands of Crassus and Caesar.
For a moment the conspiracy came to a standstill. The
tion of [64. elections for took place without Crassus and Caesar the con 690
projects, and
415) Pompeius, not concerning himself about such talk, had set
Syria.
it
(p.
CHAP. V DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS 469
Gaius Antonius, the younger son of the orator and a brother of the general who had an ill repute from Crete. They were sure of Catilina; Antonius, originally a Sullan like Catilina and like the latter brought to trial on that account some years before by the democratic party and ejected from the senate 373, 38o)-—otherwise an indo lent, insignificant man, in no respect called to be leader, and utterly bankrupt—willingly lent himself as tool to the democrats for the prize of the consulship and the advantages attached to Through these consuls the heads of the conspiracy intended to seize the government, to arrest the children of Pompeius, who remained behind in the capital, as hostages, and to take up arms in Italy and the provinces against Pompeius. On the first news of the blow struck in the capital, the governor Gnaeus Piso was to raise the banner of insurrection in Hither Spainv Communication could not be held with him way of the sea, since Pompeius commanded the seas. For this purpose they reckoned on the Transpadanes the old clients of the democracy-—among whom there was great agitation, and who would of course have at once received the franchise-— and, further, on different Celtic tribes. 1 The threads of this combination reached as far as Mauretania. One of the conspirators, the Roman speculator Publius Sittius from Nuceria, compelled by financial embarrassments to keep aloof from Italy, had armed troop of desperadoes there and in Spain, and with these wandered about as leader of free-lances in western Africa, where he had old
commercial connections.
The party put forth all its energies for the struggle of Consular
elections whether their own or borrowed—and their connections to
the election. Crassus and Caesar staked their money
The Ambrani (Suet. Cm. are probably not the Ambrones named along with the Cimbri (Plutarch, zllar. 19), but a slip of the pen for Arverni.
9)
(p.
1
a
a
by
it.
a
a
Cicero elected instead of Catilina.
procure the consulship for Catilina and Antonius ; the comrades of Catilina strained every nerve to bring to the helm the man who promised them the magistracies and priesthoods, the palaces and country-estates of their opponents, and above all deliverance from their debts, and who, they knew, would keep his word. The aristocracy was in great perplexity, chiefly because it was not able even to start counter-candidates. That such a candidate risked his head, was obvious ; and the times were past when the post of danger allured the burgess—now even ambition was hushed in presence of fear. Accordingly the nobility con tented themselves with making a feeble attempt to check electioneering intrigues by issuing a new law respecting the purchase of votes—which, however, was thwarted by the veto of a tribune of the people-—and with turning over their votes to a candidate who, although not acceptable to them, was at least inoffensive. This was Marcus Cicero, notoriously a political trimmer,1 accustomed to flirt at times with the democrats, at times with Pompeius, at times from a somewhat greater distance with the aristocracy, and to lend his services as an advocate to every influential man under impeachment without distinction of person or party (he numbered even Catilina among his clients) ; belonging properly to no party or—which was much the same—to the party of material interests, which was dominant in the courts and was pleased with the eloquent pleader and the courtly and witty companion. He had connections enough in the capital and the country towns to have a chance alongside of the candidates proposed by the democracy; and as the nobility, although with reluctance, and the Pompeians voted
1 This cannot well be expressed more naively than is done in the memorial ascribed to his brother (depcf. com. r, 5; r3, 51, 53 ; in 690); the brother himself would hardly have expressed his mind publicly with so much franknus. In proof of this unprejudiced persons will read not with out interest the second oration against Rullus, where the “ first democratic consul," gulling the friendly public in a very delectable fashion, unfolds to it the "true democracy. "
64.
470
THE STR'UGGLE or PARTIES B001: v
CHAP. V DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
471
for him, he was elected by a great majority. The two candidates of the democracy obtained almost the same number of votes; but a few more fell to Antonius, whose family was of more consideration than that of his fellow candidate. This accident frustrated the election of Catilina and saved Rome from a second Cinna. A little before this Piso had—it was said at the instigation of his political and personal enemy Pompeius—been put to death in Spain by his native escort. 1 With the consul Antonius alone nothing could be done ; Cicero broke the loose bond which attached
him to the conspiracy, even before they entered on their oflices, inasmuch as he renounced his legal privilege of having the consular provinces determined by lot, and handed over to his deeply-embarrassed colleague the lucrative governorship of Macedonia. The essential pre liminary conditions of this project also had therefore mis carried.
Meanwhile the development of Oriental affairs grew daily New more perilous for the democracy. The settlement of Syria $21,522:“ rapidly advanced; already invitations had been addressed spinton. to Pompeius from Egypt to march thither and occupy the
country for Rome ; they could not but be afraid that they
would next hear of Pompeius in person having taken possession of the valley of the Nile. It was by this very apprehension probably that the attempt of Caesar to get
himself sent by the people to Egypt for the purpose of aiding
the king against his rebellious subjects (p. 467) was called
forth; it failed, apparently, through the disinclination of
great and small to undertake anything whatever against the
interest of Pompeius. His return home, and the probable catastrophe which it involved, were always drawing the
nearer; often as the string of the bow had been broken,
it was necessary that there should be a fresh attempt to bend
1 His epitaph still extant runs: Cn. Calpumiur Cu. )1 Pin quarter [70 fr. at . r. c. provinciam Hirpanic»: cileriorenl optinuil.
472
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK v
The city was sullen ferment; frequent conference: of the heads of the movement indicated that some step was again contemplated.
What they wished became manifest when the new
The Ser-
$22,“ tribunes of the people entered on their oflice (IO Dec. law. [64. 690), and one of them, Publius Servilius Rullus, immedi
ately proposed an agrarian law, which was designed to procure for the leaders of the democrats position similar to that which Pompeius occupied in consequence of the Gabinio-Manilian proposals. The nominal object was the founding of colonies in Italy. The ground for these, however, was not to be gained by dispossession; on the contrary all existing private rights were guaranteed, and even the illegal occupations of the most recent times
62. from ‘244s
692, and the proceeds of the whole booty not yet
370) were converted into full property. The leased Campanian
domain alone was to be parcelled out and colonized in other cases the government was to acquire the land destined for assignation by ordinary purchase. To procure the sums necessary for this purpose, the remaining Italian, and more especially all the extra-Italian, domain-land was successively to be brought to sale; which was understood to include the former royal hunting domains in Macedonia, the Thracian Chersonese, Bithynia, Pontus, Cyrene, and also the territories of the cities acquired in full property by right of war in Spain, Africa, Sicily, Hellas, and Cilicia. Everything was likewise to be sold which the state had acquired in moveable and immoveable property since the
88. year 666, and of which had not previously disposed; this was aimed chiefly at Egypt and Cyprus. For the same purpose all subject communities, with the exception of the towns with Latin rights and the other free cities, were burdened with very high rates of taxes and tithes. Lastly there was likewise destined for those purchases the produce of the new provincial revenues, to be reckoned
it
;
a
it.
in
CHM‘. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
473
legally applied; which regulations had reference to the new sources of taxation opened up by Pompeius in the east and to the public moneys that might be found in the hands of Pompeius and the heirs of Sulla. For the exe cution of this measure decemvirs with a special jurisdiction and special impm'um were to be nominated, who were to remain five years in office and to surround themselves with 200 subalterns from the equestrian order; but in the election of the decemvirs only those candidates who should personally announce themselves were to be taken into account, and, as in the elections of priests 206), only seventeen tribes to be fixed by lot out of the thirty-five were to make the election. It needed no great acuteness to discern that in this decemviral college was intended to create power after the model of that of Pompeius, only with somewhat less of military and more of demo cratic hue. The jurisdiction was especially needed for the sake of deciding the Egyptian question, the military
for the sake of arming against Pompeius the clause, which forbade the choice of an absent person, excluded Pompeius; and the diminution of the tribes entitled to vote as well as the manipulation of the balloting were designed to facilitate the management of the election in accordance with the views of the democracy.
But this attempt totally missed its aim. The multitude, finding more agreeable to have their corn measured out to them under the shade of Roman porticoes from the public magazines than to cultivate for themselves in the sweat of their brow, received even the proposal in itself with complete indifference. They soon came also to feel that Pompeius would never acquiesce in such resolution offensive to him in every respect, and that matters could not stand well with party which in its painful alarm con descended to offers so extravagant. Under ‘such circum stances was not difficult for the government to frustrate
power
it
it
a
a
it
(p.
it
a ;
a
a
l‘l‘rtpalio llunl . anarchists
474
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK Y
the proposal; the new consul Cicero perceived the oppor tunity of exhibiting here too his talent for giving a finishing stroke to the beaten party; even before the tribunes who stood ready exercised their veto, the author himself with
63. drew his proposal (1 Jan. 691). The democracy had gained nothing but the unpleasant lesson, that the great multitude out of love or fear still continued to adhere to Pompeius, and that every proposal was certain to fail which the public perceived to be directed against him.
Wearied by all this vain agitation and scheming with out result, Catilina determined to push the matter to a i! I Eil‘m'll. decision and make an end of it once for all. He took his measures in the course of the summer to open the civil war. Faesulae (Fiesole), a very strong town situated in
Etruria—which swarmed with the impoverished and con spirators—and fifteen years before the centre of the rising of Lepidus, was again selected as the headquarters of the insurrection. Thither were despatched the consignments of money, for which especially the ladies of quality in the capital implicated in the conspiracy furnished the means; there arms and soldiers were collected; and there an old Sullan captain, Gaius Manlius, as brave and as free from scruples of conscience as was ever any soldier of ‘fortune, took temporarily the chief command. Similar though less extensive warlike preparations were made at other points of Italy. The Transpadanes were so excited that they seemed only waiting for the signal to strike. In the Bruttian country, on the east coast of Italy, in Capua— wherever great bodies of slaves were accumulated—a second slave insurrection like that of Spartacus seemed on the eve of arising. Even in the capital there was some thing brewing; those who saw the haughty bearing with which the summoned debtors appeared before the urban
praetor, could not but remember the scenes which had preceded the murder of Asellio (iii. 530). The capitalists
CRAP. V DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
475
were in unutterable anxiety ; it seemed needful to enforce
the prohibition of the export of gold and silver, and to set
a watch over the principal ports. The plan of the con spirators was-—on occasion of the consular election for 69 2, 62, for which Catilina had again announced himself—summarily
to put to death the consul conducting the election as well as the inconvenient rival candidates, and to carry the election of Catilina at any price ; in case of necessity, even to bring armed bands from Faesulae and the other rallying points against the capital, and with their help to crush resistance.
Cicero, who was always quickly and completely informed Election by his agents male and female of the transactions of the conspirators, on the day fixed for the election (20 Oct. ) again denounced the conspiracy in the full senate and in presence “strand of its principal leaders. Catilina did not condescend to
deny it; he answered haughtily that, if the election for consul should fall on him, the great headless party would certainly no longer want a leader against the small party led by wretched heads. But as palpable evidences of the plot were not before them, nothing farther was to be got from the timid senate, except that it gave its previous sanction in the usual way to the exceptional measures which the magistrates might deem suitable
(21 Oct. ). Thus the election battle approached-—-on this occasion
more a battle than an election ; for Cicero too had formed for himself an armed bodyguard out of the younger men, more especially of the mercantile order; and it was his armed force that covered and dominated the Campus Martius on the 28th October, the day to which the election had been postponed by the senate. The conspirators were not successful either in killing the consul conducting the election, or in deciding the elections according to their mind.
But meanwhile the civil war had begun. On the
Outbreak of the insurrec tion in Etruria.
27th Oct. Gaius Manlius had planted at Faesulae the eagle round which the army of the insurrection was to flock—it was one of the Marian eagles from the Cimbrian war—and he had summoned the robbers from the mountains as well as the country people to jcin him. His proclamations, following the old traditions of the popular party, demanded liberation from the oppressive load of debt and modifi cation of the procedure in insolvency, which, the amount of the debt actually exceeded the estate, certainly still involved in law the forfeiture of the debtor’s freedom. It seemed as though the rabble of the capital, in coming forward as were the legitimate successor of the old plebeian farmers and fighting its battles under the glorious eagles of the Cimbrian war, wished to cast stain not only on the present but on the past of Rome. This rising, however, remained isolated; at the other places of rendez vous the conspiracy did not go beyond the collection of arms and the institution of secret conferences, as resolute
measures of the govern
m
the government; for, although the impending civil war had been for considerable time openly announced, its own irresolution and the clumsiness of the rusty machinery of administration had not allowed to make any military
whatever. was only now that the general levy was called out, and superior oflicers were ordered to the several regions of Italy that each might suppress the insurrection in his own district; while at the same time the gladiatorial slaves were ejected from the capital, and patrols were ordered on account of the apprehension of incendiarism.
Catilina was in painful position. According to his design there should have been simultaneous rising in the capital and in Etruria on occasion of the consular elections the failure of the former and the outbreak of the latter movement endangered his person as well as the whole
The con spirators in Rome.
476
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK v
Repressive leaders were everywhere wanting. This was fortunate for
preparations
;
a
It
it
a
t‘.
I! l
a
if it
a
if
a
CHAP. V DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
477
success of his undertaking. Now that his partisans at Faesulae had once risen in arms against the government, he could no longer remain in the capital; and yet not only did everything depend on his inducing the conspirators of the capital now at least to strike quickly, but this had to be done even before he left Rome—for he knew his helpmates too well to rely on them for that matter. The more considerable of the conspirators-—Publius Lentulus Sura consul in 683, afterwards expelled from the senate and 71 now, in order to get back into the senate, praetor for the second time, and the two former praetors Publius Autronius and Lucius Cassius—were incapable men; Lentulus an ordinary aristocrat of big words and great pretensions, but slow in conception and irresolute in action; Autronius
distinguished for nothing but his powerful screaming voice; while as to Lucius Cassius no one comprehended how a man so corpulent and so simple had fallen among the con
But Catilina could not venture to place his abler partisans, such as the young senator Gaius Cethegus and the equites Lucius Statilius and Publius Gabinius Capito, at the head of the movement 5 for even among the
spirators.
the traditional hierarchy of rank held its and the very anarchists thought that they should
conspirators
ground,
be unable to carry the day unless a consular or at least a praetorian were at their head. Therefore, however urgently the army of the insurrection might long for its general, and however perilous it was for the latter to remain longer at the seat of government after the outbreak of the revolt, Catilina nevertheless resolved still to remain for a time in Rome. Accustomed to impose on his cowardly opponents by his audacious insolence, he showed himself publicly in the Forum and in the senate-house and replied to the threats which were there addressed to him, that they should beware of pushing him to extremities; that, if they should set the house on fire, he would be compelled to extinguish
478
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK V
Catilina
the conflagration in ruins. In reality neither private persons nor oflicials ventured to lay hands on the dangerous man ; it was almost a matter of indifference when a young nobleman brought him to trial on account of violence, for long before the process could come to an end, the question could not but be decided elsewhere. But the projects of Catilina failed; chiefly because the agents of the govern ment had made their way into the circle of the conspirators and kept it accurately informed of every detail of the plot. When, for instance, the conspirators appeared before the strong Praeneste (r Nov. ), which they had hoped to surprise by a am} 0'2 main, they found the inhabitants warned and armed; and in a similar way everything miscarried. Catilina with all his temerity now found it advisable to fix his departure for one of the ensuing days ; but previously on his urgent exhortation, at a last conference of the conspirators in the night between the 6th and 7th Nov. it was resolved to assassinate the consul Cicero, who was the principal director of the countermine, before the departure of their leader, and, in order to obviate any treachery, to carry the resolve at once into execution. Early on the morning of the 7th Nov. , accordingly, the selected murderers knocked at the house of the consul; but they found the guard reinforced and themselves repulsed—on this occasion too the spies of the government had outdone the conspirators.
On the following day (8 Nov. ) Cicero convoked the senate. Even now Catilina ventured to appear and to
a defence against the indignant attacks of the consul, who unveiled before his face the events of the last few days; but men no longer listened to him, and in the
attempt
of the place where he sat the benches became empty. He left the sitting, and proceeded, as he would doubtless have done even apart from this incident, in accordance with the agreement, to Etruria. Here he
neighbourhood
CHAP. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
479
proclaimed himself consul, and assumed an attitude of waiting, in order to put his troops in motion against the capital on the first announcement of the outbreak of the insurrection there. The government declared the two leaders Catilina and Manlius, as well as those of their comrades who should not have laid down their arms by a certain day, to be outlaws, and called out new levies ; but at the head of the army destined against Catilina was placed the consul Gaius Antonius, who was notoriously implicated in the conspiracy, and with whose character it was wholly a matter of accident whether he would lead his troops against Catilina or over to his side. They seemed to have directly laid their plans towards converting this Antonius into a second Lepidus. As little were steps taken against the leaders of the conspiracy who had remained behind in the capital, although every one pointed the finger at them and the insurrection in the capital was far from being abandoned by the conspirators—on the contrary the plan of it had been settled by Catilina himself before his departure from Rome. A tribune was to give the signal by calling an assembly of the people; in the following night Cethegus was to despatch the consul Cicero; Gabinius and Statilius were to set the city simultaneously on fire at twelve places; and a communication was to be established as speedily as possible with the army of Catilina, which should have meanwhile advanced. Had the
urgent representa tions of Cethegus borne fruit and had Lentulus, who after Catilina’s departure was placed at the head of the
conspirators, resolved on rapidly striking a blow, the con spiracy might even now have been successful. But the conspirators were just as incapable and as cowardly as their opponents; weeks elapsed and the matter came to no decisive issue.
At length the countermine brought about a decision. Lentulus in his tedious fashion, which sought to cover
Conviction and arrest of the con spirators in the capitol.
negligence in regard to what was immediate and necessary by the projection of large and distant plans, had entered into relations with the deputies of a Celtic canton, the Allobroges, now present in Rome; had attempted to implicate these—the representatives of a thoroughly dis organized commonwealth and themselves deeply involved in debt—in the conspiracy; and had given them on their departure messages and letters to his confidants. The Allobroges left Rome, but were arrested in the night between 2nd and 3rd Dec. close to the gates by the Roman authorities, and their papers were taken from them. It was obvious that the Allobrogian deputies had lent themselves as spies to the Roman government, and had carried on the negotiations only with a view to convey into the hands of the latter the desired proofs implicating the ringleaders of the conspiracy. On the following morn ing orders were issued with the utmost secrecy by Cicero for the arrest of the most dangerous leaders of the plot, and executed in regard to Lentulus, Cethegus, Gabinius, and Statilius, while some others escaped from seizure by flight. The guilt of those arrested as well as of the fugitives was completely evident. Immediately after the arrest the letters seized, the seals and handwriting of which the prisoners could not avoid acknowledging, were laid before the senate, and the captives and witnesses were heard; further confirmatory facts, deposits of arms in the houses of the conspirators, threatening expressions which they had employed, were presently forthcoming ; the actual subsistence of the conspiracy was fully and validly estab_ lished, and the most important documents were immediately on the suggestion of Cicero published as news-sheets.
The indignation against the anarchist conspiracy was general. Gladly would the oligarchic party have made use of the revelations to settle accounts with the democracy generally and Caesar in particular, but it was far too
480
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK v
CHAP. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
4i
thoroughly broken to be able to accomplish this, and to prepare for him the fate which it had formerly prepared for the two Gracchi and Saturninus ; in this respect the matter went no farther than good will. The multitude of the capital was especially shocked by the incendiary schemes of the conspirators. The merchants and the whole party of material interests naturally perceived in this war of the debtors against the creditors a struggle for their very exist ence ; in tumultuous excitement their youth crowded, with swords in their hands, round the senate-house and bran dished them against the open and secret partisans of Catilina. In fact, the conspiracy was for the moment paralyzed ; though its ultimate authors perhaps were still at liberty, the whole staff entrusted with its execution were either captured or had fled; the band assembled at Faesulae could not possibly accomplish much, unless supported by an insurrection in the capital.
In a tolerably well-ordered commonwealth the matter
would now have been politically at an end, and the military
and the tribunals would have undertaken the rest. But in as to the Rome matters had come to such a pitch, that the govern- 35112:“ ment was not even in a position to keep a couple of noble- wasted men of note in safe custody. The slaves and freedmen of Lentulus and of the others arrested were stirring ; plans, it
was alleged, were contrived to liberate them by force from
the private houses in which they were. detained ; there was
no lack—thanks to the anarchist doings of recent years—
of ringleaders in Rome who contracted at a certain rate for
riots and deeds of violence; Catilina, in fine, was informed of
what had occurred, and was near enough to attempt a map
de main with his bands.
How much of these rumours
was true, we cannot tell; but there was ground for appre
hension, because, agreeably to the constitution, neither troops
not even a respectable police force were at the command
of the government in the capital, and it was in reality left
Vol. iv
131
Discus
filings:
482
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK V
at the mercy of every gang of banditti. The idea was suggested of precluding all possible attempts at liberation by the immediate execution of the prisoners. Constitu tionally, this was not possible. According to the ancient and sacred right of appeal, a sentence of death could only be pronounced against the Roman burgess by the whole body of burgesses, and not by any other authority; and, as the courts formed by the body of burgesses had them selves become antiquated, a capital sentence was no longer pronounced at all. Cicero would gladly have rejected the hazardous suggestion ; indifferent as in itself the legal ques tion might be to the advocate, he knew well how very useful it is to an advocate to be called liberal, and he showed little desire to separate himself for ever from the democratic party by shedding this blood. But those around him, and particularly his genteel wife, urged him to crown his services to his country by this bold step ; the consul like all cowards anxiously endeavouring to avoid the appearance of cowardice, and yet trembling before the formidable responsibility, in his distress convoked the senate, and left it to that body to decide as to the life or death of the four prisoners. This indeed had no mean ing; for as the senate was constitutionally even less entitled to act than the consul, all the responsibility still devolved rightfully on the latter : but when was cowardice ever con sistent ? Caesar made every exertion to save the prisoners, and his speech, full of covert threats as to the future inevitable vengeance of the democracy, made the deepest impression. Although all ‘the consulars and the great majority of the senate had already declared for the execu tion, most of them, with Cicero at their head, seemed now once more inclined to keep within the limits of the law. But when Cato in pettifogging fashion brought the champions of the milder view into suspicion of being accomplices of the plot, and pointed to the preparations
CRAP. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
483
. for liberating the prisoners by a street-riot, he succeeded in throwing the waverers into a fresh alarm, and in securing a majority for the immediate execution of the transgressors.
The execution of the decree naturally devolved on the Execution consul, who had called it forth. Late on the evening of of the Cap
tilinarilnl. the 5th of December the prisoners were brought from their
previous quarters, and conducted across the market-place still densely crowded by men to the prison in which criminals condemned to death were wont to be kept.
It was a subterranean vault, twelve feet deep, at the foot of the Capitol, which formerly had served as a well- house. The consul himself conducted Lentulus, and praetors the others, all attended by strong guards; but the attempt at rescue, which had been expected, did not take place. No one knew whether the prisoners were being conveyed to a secure place of custody or to the scene of execution. At the door of the prison they were handed over to the trerw'n' who conducted the executions, and were strangled in the subterranean vault by torchlight. The consul had waited before the door till the execu tions were accomplished, and then with his loud well known voice proclaimed over the Forum to the multi
tude waiting in silence, “They are dead. ” Till far on in the night the crowds moved through the streets and exult ingly saluted the consul, to whom they believed that they owed the security of their houses and their property. The senate ordered public festivals of gratitude, and the first men of the nobility, Marcus Cato and Quintus Catulus, saluted the author of the sentence of death with the name—now heard for the first time-—of a “ father of his fatherland. ”
But it was a dreadful deed, and all the more dreadful that it appeared to a whole people great and praiseworthy.
Never perhaps has a commonwealth more
declared itself bankrupt, than did Rome through this resolution—adopted in cold blood by the majority of the
lamentably
Suppres sion of the Etruscan insurrec tion.
government and approved by public opinion—to put to death in all haste a few political prisoners, who were no doubt culpable according to the laws, but had not forfeited life ; because, forsooth, the security of the prisons was not to be trusted, and there was no suflicient police. It was the humorous trait seldom wanting to a historical tragedy, that this act of the most brutal tyranny had to be carried out by the most unstable and timid of all Roman statesmen, and that the “first democratic consul” was selected to destroy the palladium of the ancient freedom of the Roman commonwealth, the right of prazlocah'o.
After the conspiracy had been thus stifled in the capital even before it came to an outbreak, there remained the task of putting an end to the insurrection in Etruria. The army amounting to about 2000 men, which Catilina found on his arrival, had increased nearly fivefold by the numerous recruits who flocked in, and already formed two tolerably full legions, in which however only about a fourth part of the men were sufficiently armed. Catilina had thrown himself with his force into the mountains and avoided a battle with the troops of Antonius, with the view of com pleting the organization of his hands and awaiting the out break of the insurrection in Rome. But the news of its failure broke up the army of the insurgents; the mass of the less compromised thereupon returned home. The remnant of resolute, or rather desperate, men that were left made an attempt to cut their way through the Apennine passes into Gaul; but when the little band arrived at the foot of the mountains near Pistoria (Pistoja), it found itself here caught between two armies In front of it was the corps of Quintus Metellus, which had come up from
Ravenna and Ariminum to occupy the northern slope of the Apennines; behind it was the army of Antonius, who had at length vielded to the urgency of his officers and agreed to a winter campaign. Catilina was wedged in on
484
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES noox v
[\i
‘sitar. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
485
both sides, and his supplies came to an end ; nothing was left but to throw himself on the nearest foe, which was Antonius. In a narrow valley enclosed by rocky mountains the conflict took place between the insurgents and the troops of Antonius, which the latter, in order not to be under the necessity of at least personally performing ex: cution on his former allies, had under a pretext entrusted for this day to a brave oflicer who had grown gray under arms, Marcus Petreius. The superior strength of the government army was of little account, owing to the nature of the field of battle. Both Catilina and Petreius placed
their most trusty men in the foremost ranks; quarter was neither given nor received. The conflict lasted long, and many brave men fell on both sides; Catilina, who before the beginning of the battle had sent back his horse and those of all his officers, showed on this day that nature had destined him for no ordinary things, and that he knew at once how to command as a general and how to fight as a soldier. At length Petreius with his guard broke the centre of the enemy, and, after having overthrown this, attacked the two wings from within. This decided the victory. The corpses of the Catilinarians—there were counted 3000 of them—covered, as it were in rank and file, the ground where they had fought; the oflicers and the general himself had, when all was lost, thrown them selves headlong on the enemy and thus sought and found
death (beginning of 692). Antonius was on account of this victory stamped by the senate with the title of Im perator, and new thanksgiving-festivals showed that the
62.
Attitude d Crassus
and Caesar towards the anarchists.
and the governed were beginning to become accustomed to civil war.
The anarchist plot had thus been suppressed in the capital as in Italy with bloody violence; people were still reminded of it merely by the criminal processes which in the Etruscan country towns and in the capital thinned the
government
486
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK v
I“
ranks of those afiiliated to the beaten party, and by the large accessions to the robber-bands of Italy—one of which, l for instance, formed out of the remains of the armies of Spartacus and Catilina, was destroyed by a military force
60. in 694 in the territory of Thurii. But it is important to keep in view that the blow fell by no means merely on the anarchists proper, who had conspired to set the capital on fire and had fought at Pistoria, but on the whole demo cratic party. That this party, and in particular Crassus and Caesar, had a hand in the game on the present occasion as well as in the plot of 688, may be regarded—not in a juristic, but in a historical, point of view—as an ascertained fact. The circumstance, indeed, that Catulus and the other heads of the senatorial party accused the leader of the democrats of complicity in the anarchist plot, and that the latter as senator spoke and voted against the brutal
judicial murder contemplated by the oligarchy, could only be urged by partisan sophistry as any valid proof of his
in the plans of Catilina. But a series of other facts is of more weight. According to express and irrefragable testimonies it was especially Crassus and Caesar that supported the candidature of Catilina for the consul ship. When Caesar in 690 brought the executioners of Sulla before the commission for murder 460) he allowed the rest to be condemned, but the most guilty and infamous of all, Catilina, to be acquitted. In the revelations of the 3rd of December, it is true, Cicero did not include among the names of the conspirators of whom he had information those of the two influential men; but it is notorious that the informers denounced not merely those against whom subsequently investigation was directed, but “many inno cent” persons besides, whom the consul Cicero thought proper to erase from the list; and in later years, when he had no reason to disguise the truth, he expressly named Caesar among the accomplices. An indirect but very
!
l
participation
CHAP- V DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS 487
intelligible inculpation is implied also in the circumstance, that of the four persons arrested on the 3rd of December the two least dangerous, Statilius and Gabinius, were handed over to be guarded by the senators Caesar and Crassus; it was manifestly intended that these should either, if they allowed them to escape, be compromised in the view of public opinion as accessories, or, if they really detained them, be compromised in the view of their fellow-com spirators as renegades.
The following scene which occurred in the senate shows
how matters stood. Immediately after the arrest of Lentulus and his comrades, a messenger despatched by the conspirators in the capital to Catilina was seized by the agents of the government, and, after having been assured of impunity, was induced to make a comprehensive confession in a full meeting of the senate. But when he came to the critical portions of his confession and in parti cular named Crassus as having commissioned him, he was interrupted by the senators, and on the suggestion of Cicero it was resolved to cancel the whole statement without farther inquiry, but to imprison its author notwithstanding the amnesty assured to him, until such time as he should have not merely retracted the statement, but should have also confessed who had instigated him to give such false testimony! Here it is abundantly clear, not merely that that man had a very accurate knowledge of the state of matters who, when summoned to make an attack upon Crassus, replied that he had no desire to provoke the bull of the herd, but also that the majority of the senate with Cicero at their head were agreed in not permitting the revelations to go beyond a certain limit. The public was not so nice; the young men, who had taken up arms to ward off the incendiaries, were exasperated against no one so much as against Caesar , on the 5th of December, when he left the senate, they pointed their swords at his breast,
significantly
488
THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES BOOK V
and even now he narrowly escaped with his life on the same spot where the fatal blow fell on him seventeen years afterwards; he did not again for a considerable time enter the senate-house. Any one who impartially considers the course of the conspiracy will not be able to resist the
that during all this time Catilina was backed by more powerful men, who—relying on the want of a legally complete chain of evidence and on the lukewarmness and cowardice of the majority of the senate, which was but half-initiated and greedily caught at any pretext for inaction —knew how to hinder any serious interference with the conspiracy on the part of the authorities, to procure free departure for the chief of the insurgents, and even so to manage the declaration of war and the sending of troops against the insurrection that it was almost equivalent to the sending of an auxiliary army. While the course of the events themselves thus testifies that the threads of the Catilinarian plot reached far higher than Lentulus and Catilina, it deserves also to be noticed, that at a much later period, when Caesar had got to the head of the state, he was in the closest alliance with the only Catilinarian still surviving, Publius Sittius the leader of the Mauretanian free bands, and that he modified the law of debt quite in the sense that the proclamations of Manlius demanded.
All these pieces of evidence speak clearly enough ; but, even were it not so, the desperate position of the democracy in presence of the military power—which since the Gabinio Manilian laws assumed by its side an attitude more threaten ing than ever—renders it almost a certainty that, as usually happens in such cases, it sought a last resource in secret plots and in alliance with anarchy. The circumstances were very similar to those of the Cinnan times. While in the east Pompeius occupied a position nearly such as Sulla then did, Crassus and Caesar sought to raise over against him a power in Italy like that which Marius and Cinna had
suspicion
CHAP. v DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS
489
possessed, with the view of employing it if possible better than they had done. The way to this result lay once more through terrorism and anarchy, and to pave that way Catilina was certainly the fitting man. Naturally the more reputable leaders of the democracy kept themselves as far as possible in the background, and left to their unclean associates the execution of the unclean work, the political results of which they hoped afterwards to appropriate. Still more naturally, when the enterprise had failed, the partners of higher position applied every effort to conceal ‘their participation in it. And at a later period, when the former conspirator had himself become the target of political plots, the veil was for that very reason drawn only the more closely over those darker years in the life of the great man, and even special apologies for him were written with that
very object. 1
For five years Pompeius stood at the head of his armies
and fleets in the east ; for five years the democracy at home ‘conspired to overthrow him. The result was discouraging.
Total defeat of the demo cratic
With unspeakable exertions they had not merely attained party. nothing, but had suffered morally as well as materially enormous loss. Even the coalition of 683 could not but 71. be for democrats of pure water a scandal, although the democracy at that time only coalesced with two distinguished
men of the opposite party and bound these to its programme.
1 Such an apology is the Catilina of Sallust, which was published by
the author, a. notorious Caesarian, after the year 708, either under the 46. monarchy of Caesar or more probably under the triumvirate of his heirs ; evidently as a treatise with a political drift, which endeavours to bring into credit the democratic party—on which in fact the Roman monarchy was based-and to clear Caesar's memory from the blackest stain that rested on
it ; and with the collateral object of whitewashing as faras possible the uncle
of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (comp. mg. c. 59 with Dio, xxxvii. 39). The lugurtlm of the same author is in an exactly similar way designed partly to expose the pitifulness of the oligarchic government, partly to glorify the Coryphaeus of the democracy, Gaius Marius. The circumstance that the adroit author keeps the apologetic and inculpatory character of these writings of his in the background, proves, not that they are not partisan treatises, but that they are good ones.
490 THE STRUGGLE OF PARTIES DOCK \‘
lint now the democratic party had made common cause with a band of murderers and bankrupts, who were almost all likewise deserters from the camp of the aristocracy ; and had at least for the time being accepted their programme, that is to say, the terrorism of Cinna. The party of material interests, one of the chief elements of the coalition
71. of 683, was thereby estranged from the democracy, and driven into the arms of the Optimates in the first instance,
or of any power at all which would and could
tion against anarchy. Even the multitude of the capital, who, although having no objection to a street-riot, found it inconvenient to have their houses set on fire over their heads, became in some measure alarmed It is re markable that in this very year (691) the full re-establishment of the Sempronian corn-largesses took place, and was effected by the senate on the proposal of Cato. The league of the democratic leaders with anarchy had obviously created a breach between the former and the burgesses of the city; and the oligarchy sought, not without at least momentary success, to enlarge this chasm and to draw over the masses to their side. Lastly, Gnaeus Pompeius had been partly warned, partly exasperated, by all these cabals ; after all that had occurred, and after the democracy had
itself virtually torn asunder the ties which connected it with Pompeius, it could no longer with propriety make the request 70. —which in 684 had had a certain amount of reason on its
side—that he should not himself destroy with the sword the democratic power which he had raised, and which had raised
him.
Thus the democracy was disgraced and weakened ; but
above all it had become ridiculous through the merciless
of its perplexity and weakness. Where the humiliation of the overthrown government and similar matters of little moment were concerned, it was great and potent 5 but every one of its attempts to attain a real political
exposure
give protec
CHAI’. \' DURING THE ABSENCE OF POMPEIUS 49!
success had proved a downright failure. Its relation to Pompeius was as false as pitiful. While it was loading him with panegyrics and demonstrations of homage, it was con cocting against him one intrigue after another; and one after another, like soap-bubbles, they burst of themselves. The general of the east and of the seas, far from standing on his defence against them, appeared not even to observe all the busy agitation, and to obtain his victories over the democracy as I-Ierakles gained his over the Pygmies, with out being himself aware of The attempt to kindle civil war had miserably failed; the anarchist section had at least displayed some energy, the pure democracy, while knowing doubtless how to hire conspirators, had not known how to lead them or to save them or to die with them. Even the old languid oligarchy, strengthened by the masses passing over to from the ranks of the democracy and above all by the—in this affair unmistakeable—identity of its interests and those of Pompeius, had been enabled to suppress this attempt at revolution and thereby to achieve yet last victory over the democracy. Meanwhile king Mithradates was dead, Asia Minor and Syria were regulated, and the return of Pompeius to Italy might be every moment expected. The decision was not far off; but was there in fact still room to speak of decision between the general who returned more famous and mightier than ever, and the democracy humbled beyond parallel and utterly powerless? Crassus prepared to embark his family and his gold and
to seek an asylum somewhere in the east and even so elastic and so energetic nature as that of Caesar seemed
on the point of giving up the game as lost. In this year (691) occurred his candidature for the place of pontzfex 68. maximus 460) when he left his dwelling on the morning
of the election, he declared that, he should fail this also, he would never again cross the threshold of his house.
if
in
(p. ;
it
a
;
a
if it.
a
Pompeius h the east.
CHAPTER VI
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
WHEN Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs com mitted to his charge, again turned his eyes homeward, he found for the second time the diadem at his feet. For long the development of the Roman commonwealth had been tending towards such a catastrophe; it was evident to every unbiassed observer, and had been remarked a thousand times, that, if the rule of the aristocracy should be brought
to an end, monarchy was inevitable. The senate had now been overthrown at once by the civic liberal opposition and
by the power of the soldiery ; the only question remaining was to settle the persons, names, and forms for the new order of things; and these were already clearly enough indicated in the partly democratic, partly military elements of the revolution. The events of the last five years had set, as it were, the final seal on this impending transforma tion of the commonwealth. In the newly-erected Asiatic provinces, which gave regal honours to their organizer as the successor of Alexander the Great, and already re ceived his favoured freedmen like princes, Pompeius had laid the foundations of his dominion, and found at once the treasures, the army, and the halo of glory which the future prince of the Roman state required. The anarchist conspiracy, moreover, in the capital, and the civil war con‘
RETIREMENT OF POMPEIUS AND BOOK ‘I
CHAP- VI COALITION OF THE PRETENDERS
493
nected with had made palpably clear to every one who studied political or even merely material interests, that
without authority and without military power, such as that of the senate, exposed the state to the equally ludicrous and formidable tyranny of political sharpers, and that change of constitution, which should connect the military power more closely with the government, was an indispensable necessity social order was to be maintained. So the ruler had arisen in the east, the throne had been
erected in Italy; to all appearance the year 692 was the last of the republic, the first of monarchy.
This goal, true, was not to be reached without
The constitution, which had endured for five hundred years, and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil to depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate to what extent the attempt to overthrow would penetrate and convulse civil
Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set aside. was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power, and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and Marcus Cato united in opposition to him with Marcus Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus Labienus. But the inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle could not well be undertaken under circumstances more favourable. It was in high degree probable that, under the fresh impression of the Catilinarian revolt, rule which promised
order and security, although at the price of freedom, would receive the submission of the whole middle party-embrac ing especially the merchants who concerned themselves only about their material interests, but including also great part of the aristocracy, which, disorganized in itself and politically hopeless, had to rest content with securing for
government
struggle.
62.
The oppo nents of the future monarchy.
society.
a
a
a
a
It
it
it,
it is
if
it
aa
a
494
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.
is,
it a is
a
it
a
if
it
(p.
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
von. rv
:32
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
Retire Rigs“
a
it
a
it, if
62.
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.