No More Learning

Tedius, who was passing, caused him to be taken up, placed in a litter,
and carried to Rome, where he arrived at night, and was laid on a bed in
the _atrium_ of his house. But already the news of the fatal meeting was
spread through the whole town, and the crowd hastened towards the
residence of Clodius, where his wife, Fulvia, pointing to the wounds
with which he was covered, urged the people to vengeance. The concourse
was so great that several men of mark, and among others C. Vibienus, a
senator, were stifled in the crowd. The corpse was carried to the Forum,
and exposed on the rostra; two tribunes of the people, T. Munatius
Plancus and Q. Pompeius Rufus, harangued the multitude, and demanded
justice.

Afterwards, at the instigation of a scribe named Sext. Clodius, the body
was carried to the curia, in order to insult the Senate; a funereal pile
was made of the benches, tables, and registers. The fire communicated to
the Curia Hostilia, and thence gained the Basilica Porcia, and the two
buildings were reduced to ashes. Then the multitude, becoming more and
more furious, snatched the fasces which surrounded the funereal
bed,[742] and proceeded to the front of the houses of Hypsæus and Q.
Metellus Scipio, as if to offer them the consulship. Lastly, they
presented themselves before the abode of Pompey; some demanded with loud
shouts that he should be consul or dictator, others shouted the same
wishes for Cæsar. [743]

Nevertheless, nine days after, when the smoke was still rising from the
ruins, the populace, on the occasion of a funereal banquet in the Forum,
sought to burn the house of Milo and that of the interrex, M. Lepidus.
They were driven away by a shower of arrows. [744] Milo, in the first
moment, had dreamt only of hiding himself; but on hearing the
indignation and terror caused by the burning of the curia, he resumed
his courage. Persuaded, moreover, that, to repress these excesses, the
Senate would proceed to severities against the opposite party,[745] he
returned into Rome by night, carried his boldness so far as to announce
that he still solicited the consulship, and began actually to buy the
votes. Cœlius, a tribune of the people, spoke in his favour in the
Forum. Milo himself mounted the tribune, and accused Clodius of having
laid an ambush for him. He was interrupted by a considerable number of
armed men, who rushed into the public place. Milo and Cœlius wrapped
themselves in the mantles of slaves, and took flight. A great slaughter
of their adherents was made. But soon the rioters, profiting by this
pretext for disorder, murdered all they met, whether citizens or
strangers, especially such as attracted their attention by their rich
garments and gold rings; armed slaves were the chief instruments of
these disorders. No crime was spared; under pretence of seeking Milo’s
friends, a great number of houses were pillaged, and during several days
all sorts of outrages were committed. [746]


[Sidenote: The Republic is declared in Danger. ]

II. Meanwhile the Senate declared the Republic in danger, and charged
the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and the proconsul Cn. Pompey,
having the _imperium_ near the town, to watch over the public safety,
and make levies in all Italy. The care of rebuilding the Curia Hostilia
was entrusted to the son of Sylla: it was decided that it should bear
the name of the old dictator, the memory of whom the Senate sought to
place in honour. [747]

As soon as Pompey had assembled a military force sufficiently imposing,
the two nephews of Clodius, both named Appius, demanded the arrest of
the slaves of Milo, and of those of Fausta, his wife. But the first care
of Milo, his enemy once dead, had been to enfranchise his slaves, as a
reward for having defended him, and, once enfranchised, they could no
longer depose against their patron.

About a month after the death of Clodius, Q. Metellus Scipio brought the
affair before the Senate, and accused Milo of falsehood in the
explanations he had given. He arrayed skilfully all the circumstances
which pointed to him as the aggressor: on one side, his escort much more
numerous--the three wounds of Clodius--the eleven slaves of the latter
slain; on the other, certain criminal facts connected with the event--a
taverner slaughtered--two messengers massacred--a slave chopped to
pieces for refusing to give up a son of Clodius; lastly, the sum of
1,000 ases offered by the accused to whoever would undertake his
defence. Then Milo sought to appease Pompey, by offering to desist from
his candidature for the consulship. Pompey replied that the right of
deciding belonged to the Roman people alone. Milo remained under the
accusation not only of murder, but of electoral solicitation, and of an
outrage on the Republic. He could not be judged before the previous
nomination of the urban prætor, and before the convocation of the
comitia.


[Sidenote: Pompey sole Consul. ]

III. This time the fear of disorder silenced opposition, and all eyes
turned towards Pompey; but what title to give him? That of dictator
caused alarm. M. Bibulus, though previously hostile, moved the proposal
to elect him sole consul; it offered the only means of averting the
dictature, and preventing Cæsar from becoming his colleague. [748] M.
Cato supported this motion, which passed unanimously. [749] It was added
that, if Pompey believed a second consul necessary, he should name
himself, but not within two months. [750] On the 5th of the Calends of
March (27th of February)--it was during an intercalary month--Pompey,
though absent, was declared consul by the interrex Serv. Sulpicius, and
immediately re-entered Rome. “This extraordinary measure, which had
never before been adopted for anybody, appeared wise; nevertheless, as
Pompey sought less than Cæsar the favour of the people, the Senate
flattered itself with the hope of detaching him completely from it, and
securing him in its own interests. And so it happened. Proud of this new
and altogether unusual honour, Pompey no longer proposed any measure
with a view of pleasing the multitude, and did scrupulously all that
could be agreeable to the Senate. ”[751]

Three days after his installation, he obtained two
senatus-consultus--one, to repress outrages with violence, especially
the murder committed on the Appian Way, the burning of the curia, and
the attack on the house of the interrex, M. Lepidus; the other, to
prevent electoral solicitation by a more rapid proceeding and a more
severe penalty. In all criminal actions, a delay of three days was fixed
for the interrogation of witnesses, and one day for the contradictory
debates. The accuser had two hours to speak, the accused three to defend
himself. [752]

M. Cœlius, tribune of the people, protested against these laws,
alleging that they violated the tutelary forms of justice, and that they
were only imagined for the ruin of Milo. Pompey replied in a tone of
menace: “Let them not oblige me to defend the Republic by arms! ” He,
moreover, adopted all measures for his personal safety, and went with a
military guard, as though he feared some outrage on the part of Milo.


[Sidenote: Trial of Milo. ]

IV. Pompey required farther, that a quæstor should be chosen among the
consulars to preside over the hearing of the cause. The comitia were
held, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus was elected. It was conceded to Milo
that the accusation of murder should be tried first, and that that of
solicitation should be adjourned.

The accusers were the elder of the Appii (the nephew of Clodius), M.
Antonius, and P. Valerius Nepos. Cicero, assisted by M. Claudius
Marcellus, was to defend the accused. Every effort had been made to
intimidate Cicero. Pompeius Rufus, C. Sallustius,[753] and T. Munatius
Plancus had sought to excite the people against him, and to make Pompey
look upon him with suspicion. Although he remained firm against the
threats of his adversaries, his courage was shaken.

The trial began on the eve of the Nones of April, and on the first day
the pleadings were interrupted by a violent agitation. Next day, the
interrogation of the witnesses was carried on under the protection of an
imposing military force. Most of the evidence was overpowering for the
accused, and proved that Clodius had been massacred in cold blood. When
Fulvia, the widow of Clodius, appeared, the emotion increased twofold;
her tears, and the spectacle of her grief, affected the assembly. When
the session was closed, the tribune of the people, T. Munatius Plancus,
harangued the mob, engaged the citizens to come next day in great number
to the public place, in order to oppose the acquittal of Milo, and he
recommended them to show unmistakably _their opinion and grief to the
judges when it came to the voting_.

On the 6th of the Ides of April the shops were closed; guards were
placed on the issues of the Forum by order of Pompey, who, with a
considerable reserve, stationed himself at the treasury. After the
drawing for the judges, the eldest of the Appii, M. Antonius, and P.
Valerius Nepos sustained the accusation. Cicero alone replied. He had
been advised to represent the murder of Clodius as a service rendered to
the Republic; but he rejected this plea, although Cato had dared to
declare in full Senate that Milo had performed the act of a good
citizen. [754] He preferred resting his argument on the right of
legitimate defence. He had hardly commenced, when the cries and
interruptions of the partisans of Clodius caused him an emotion which
was visible in his speech; the soldiers were obliged to make use of
their arms. [755] The cries of the wounded, and the sight of the blood,
deprived Cicero of his presence of mind; he trembled, and often broke
off. His pleading was far from being worthy of his talent. Milo was
condemned, and went into exile to Marseilles. In the sequel, Cicero
composed at his leisure the magnificent oration which we know, and sent
it to his unfortunate client, who replied; “If thou hadst spoken
formerly as thou hast now written, I should not be eating mullets at
Marseilles. ”[756]

During the wars of Greece and Africa, Milo, who had not forgotten his
part of conspirator, returned into Italy, invited by Cœlius. They
both attempted to organise seditious movements; but they failed, and
paid for their rash enterprise with their lives. [757]

Pompey, having reached the summit of power, believed, like most men who
are vain of themselves, that all was saved because they had placed him
at the head of affairs; but, instead of attending to these, his first
care was to marry again. He espoused, in spite of his advanced age,
Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, the young widow of Publius Crassus, who
had just perished among the Parthians. “It was considered,” says
Plutarch, “that a woman so young, remarkable both for her mental
qualities and for external graces, would have been more properly married
to his son. The more honest citizens reproached him with having, on this
occasion, sacrificed the interests of the Republic, which, in the
extremity to which it was reduced, had chosen him for its physician, and
trusted to him alone for its cure. Instead of responding to this
confidence, he was seen crowned with flowers, offering sacrifices and
celebrating nuptial rites, while he ought to have regarded as a public
calamity this consulship, which he would not have obtained, according
to the laws, alone and without a colleague, if Rome had been more
happy. ”[758]

Pompey had, nevertheless, rendered great services by putting down the
riots and protecting the exercise of justice. He had delivered Rome from
the bands of Clodius and Milo, had given a more regular organisation to
the tribunals,[759] and caused their judgments to be respected by armed
force. Still, if we except these acts, commanded by circumstances, he
had used his power with hesitation, as a man who is struggling between
his conscience and his interests. Having become, perhaps unknowingly,
the instrument of the aristocratic party, the ties which had attached
him to Cæsar had often checked him in the way in which they sought to
push him. As the defender of order, he had promulgated laws to restore
it; but, as the man of a party, he had been incessantly led to violate
them, to satisfy the urgencies of his faction. He caused a
senatus-consultus to be adopted, authorising prosecutions against those
who had exercised public employments since his first consulship. The
retrospective effect of this law, which embraced a period of twenty
years; and consequently the consulship of Cæsar, excited the indignation
of the partisans of the latter; they exclaimed that Pompey would do much
better to occupy himself with the present than to call the hateful
investigation of the factions to the past conduct of the first
magistrates of the Republic; but Pompey replied that, since the law
permitted the control of his own acts, he saw no reason why those of
Cæsar should be freed from it; and that, moreover, the relaxation of
morals during so many years rendered the measure necessary. [760]

Complaint was made of the power left to orators of pronouncing the
eulogy of the accused, whose defence they offered, because the prestige
attached to the word of men of consideration procured too easily the
acquittal of the guilty. A senatus-consultus prohibited the custom. Yet
in contempt of these orders, which he had brought forward, Pompey was
not ashamed to pronounce the eulogy of T. Munatius Plancus, accused,
with Q. Pompeius Rufus, of the fire which burnt the Curia Hostilia. [761]
Cato, who was one of the members of the tribunal, exclaimed, stopping
his ears: “I do not believe this eulogiser, who speaks against his own
laws. ” The accused were condemned nevertheless.

With the aim of repressing electoral corruption and bringing to justice
those guilty of it, it was enacted that every one condemned for bribery
who should succeed in convicting another of the same crime should obtain
thereby the remission of his punishment. Memmius, condemned for an act
of this description, wishing to take advantage of the benefit of the
legal impunity, denounced Scipio. Then Pompey appeared clothed in
mourning before the tribunal, at the side of his father-in-law. At the
view of this image of sorrow and of the moral pressure which resulted
from it, Memmius desisted, deploring the misfortune of the Republic. As
to the judges, they pushed flattery to the point of conducting Scipio
back to his dwelling. [762]

To put a stop in the elections to the intrigues arising from the
shameless covetousness of the candidates, it was decreed that the
consuls and prætors should not be allowed to take the government of a
province until five years after their consulship or prætorship. [763]
This discouraged the ambitious, who threw themselves into extravagant
expenses in order to arrive through one of these magistracies at the
government of the provinces. And nevertheless Pompey, although consul,
not only preserved the proconsulship of Spain, but he caused his
government to be prolonged for five years, kept a part of his army in
Italy, and received a thousand talents for the maintenance of his
troops. In the interest of his partisans, he did not hesitate to violate
his own laws, which has made Tacitus say of him, _Suarum legum auctor
idem ac subversor_. [764]

The preceding law did not deprive Cæsar of the possibility of arriving
at the consulship, but the Senate put in force again the law which
prohibited any one who was absent from offering himself as a candidate,
forgetting that it had just elected Pompey sole consul, although absent
from the town of Rome. The friends of the proconsul of Gaul protested
with energy. “Cæsar,” they said, “had merited well of his country; a
second consulship would only be the just recompense of his immense
labours; or, at all events, if they felt reluctance in conferring this
great dignity upon him, they ought at least not to give him a
successor, or deprive him of the benefit he had acquired. ” Pompey, who
had no desire of breaking with Cæsar, had recourse to Cicero[765] to add
to the law already engraved on a tablet of brass, which was then the
form of promulgation, that the prohibition did not apply to those who
had obtained the authorisation to offer themselves as candidates in
spite of their absence. All the tribunes, who had at first protested,
accepted this qualification, at the motion of Cœlius. [766]

Nevertheless, Cæsar’s friends went to him in great numbers to
demonstrate that Pompey’s laws had been all brought forward against his
interest, and that it was essential that he should be on his guard
against him. Cæsar, proud in the justice of his claims, and strong in
the services he had rendered, distrusted neither his son-in-law nor
destiny, encouraged them, and praised greatly the conduct of
Pompey. [767]


[Sidenote: Pompey takes as his Associate Cæcillus Metellus Pius Scipio. ]

V. About the first of August, Pompey chose his father-in-law Scipio as
his associate in the consulship, for the last five months. This
partition of power, purely nominal, and which was subsequently imitated
by the emperors, appeared to satisfy men who thought only of forms. The
senators boasted of having restored order without injuring the
institutions of the Republic. [768]

Scipio sought to signalise his short administration by abolishing the
law of Clodius, which permitted the censors to expel from the Senate
only men who had already undergone a condemnation. He restored things to
the old footing, by rendering the power of the censors almost unlimited.
This change was not received with favour, as Scipio had expected. The
old consulars, among whom the censors were usually chosen, found the
responsibility of such functions dangerous in a time of trouble and
anarchy. Instead of being sought as an honour, the censorship was
avoided as a perilous post. [769]

It was every day more evident, in the eyes of all men of judgment, that
the institutions of the Republic were becoming more and more powerless
to guarantee order within, and perhaps even peace without. The Senate
could no longer meet, the comitia be held, or the judges render
judgment, without the protection of a military force; it was necessary,
therefore, to place themselves at the discretion of a general, and to
abdicate all authority into his hands. Thus, while the popular instinct,
which is rarely deceived, saw the safety of the Republic in the power of
a single individual, the aristocratic party, on the contrary, saw danger
only in this general tendency towards one man. For this reason Cato
inscribed himself among the candidates for the consulship for the year
703, denouncing Pompey and Cæsar as equally dangerous, and declaring
that he only aspired to the first magistracy to counteract their
ambitious designs. This competition, opposed to the spirit of the time
and to the powerful instincts which were in play, had no chance of
success: the candidature of Cato was defeated without difficulty.


[Sidenote: Insurrection of Gaul, and Campaign of 702. ]

VI. Not only had the murder of Clodius deeply agitated Italy, but the
reverberation made itself felt beyond the Alps, and the troubles in Rome
had revived in Gaul the desire to shake off the yoke of the Romans. The
intestine dissensions, by spreading a belief in the debilitation of the
state, awakened incessantly the hopes of its exterior enemies, and,
which is sad to confess, these exterior enemies always find accomplices
among traitors who are ready to betray their country. [770]

The campaign of 702 is, without dispute, the most interesting in the
double point of view--political and military. To the historian, it
presents the affecting scene of tribes, hitherto divided, uniting in one
national thought, and arming for the purpose of re-conquering their
independence. To the philosopher it presents, as a result consoling for
the progress of humanity, the triumph of civilisation against the best
combined and most heroic efforts of barbarism. Lastly, in the eyes of
the soldier, it is a magnificent example of what may be done by energy
and experience in war by a small number contending against masses who
are wanting in organisation and discipline.

The events which had occurred in Rome led the Gauls to think that Cæsar
would be detained in Italy, upon which a formidable insurrection is
organised among them. All the different peoples act in concert, and form
a coalition. The provinces in the military occupation of the legions, or
held in fear by their proximity, alone remain foreign to the general
agitation. The country of Orleans first gives the signal; the Roman
citizens are slaughtered at Gien; Berry and Auvergne join the league;
and soon, from the Seine to the Gironde, from the Cévennes to the ocean,
the whole country is in arms. As a chief never fails to reveal himself
when a great national movement breaks out, Vercingetorix appears, places
himself at the head of a war of independence, and, for the first time,
proclaims this truth, the stamp of grandeur and patriotism: “_If Gaul
has the sense to be united, and become one nation, it may defy the
universe. _” All respond to his call.

The peoples, but lately divided by rivalries, customs, and tradition,
forget their reciprocal grievances, and unite under him. Foreign
oppression creates nationalities much more than community of ideas and
interests. Had Vercingetorix formerly, like so many others, bent his
brow under the Roman domination? Dio Cassius is the only historian who
says so. Be this as it may, he shows himself, as early as the year 702,
the firm and intrepid adversary of the invaders. His plan is as bold as
it is well combined: to create in the heart of Gaul a great centre of
insurrection, protected by the mountains of the Cévennes and of
Auvergne; from this natural fortress to throw his lieutenants upon the
Narbonnese, whence Cæsar would be no longer able to draw either succours
or provisions; to prevent even the Roman general from returning to his
army; to attack separately the legions while deprived of their chief,
urge into insurrection the centre of Gaul, and destroy the _oppidum_ of
the Boii, that small people, the remains of the defeat of the Helvetii,
placed by Cæsar at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire as an
advance sentinel.

Informed of these events, Cæsar quits Italy in haste, followed by a
small number of troops raised in the Cisalpine. On his descent from the
Alps, he finds himself almost alone in presence of wavering allies, and
of the greatest part of Gaul in revolt, while his legions are dispersed
at a distance on the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne. So many perils
excite his ardour instead of abating it, and his resolution is soon
taken.

He is going to draw his enemies, by successful and multiplied
diversions, to the points where he intends to strike decisive blows; and
by sending his infantry into the Vivarais, his cavalry to Vienne, and
proceeding in person to Narbonne, he divides the attention of his
adversaries, in order to conceal his designs.

His presence in the Roman province is equivalent to an army. He
encourages the men who have remained faithful, intimidates the others;
doubles, with the local resources, all the garrisons of the towns of the
Province as far as Toulouse; and, after having thus raised in the south
a barrier against all invasion, he returns, and arrives at the foot of
the Cévennes, in the Vivarais, where he finds the troops which had been
sent forward. He then crosses the mountains covered with snow,
penetrates into Auvergne, and obliges Vercingetorix to abandon Berry, in
order to hasten to defend his own country, which is threatened.
Satisfied with this result, he starts unexpectedly, and, almost alone,
hastens to Vienne. He takes the escort of cavalry which had preceded
him, reaches the country of Langres, and proceeds thence to Sens, where
he brings together his ten legions.

Thus, in little time, he has placed the Roman Province in security from
any attack, forced Vercingetorix to fly to the defence of Auvergne, and
rejoined and concentrated his army.

Although the rigour of the season adds to the difficulty of the marches
and supplies of provisions (it was in the month of March), he decides
upon immediately taking the field. Vercingetorix has just laid siege to
Gorgobina, the _oppidium_ of the Boii. These 20,000 Germans, so recently
vanquished, preserve the sincere gratitude of a primitive people towards
him who has given them lands, instead of selling them for slaves: they
remain faithful to the Romans, and face the anger of Vercingetorix and
the attacks of revolted Gaul. Cæsar, unwilling that a people who set the
example of fidelity should become the victims of their devotedness,
marches to their succour. He might go directly to Gorgobina, and cross
the Loire at Nevers; but in that case, Vercingetorix, informed of his
approach, would have had time to come and dispute the passage. To
attempt this by force was a dangerous operation. He leaves at Sens two
legions and his baggage, starts at the head of the eight others, and
hastens, by the shortest way, to cross the Loire at Gien. He proceeds up
the left bank of the river; while Vercingetorix, instead of waiting for
him, raises the siege of Gorgobina. He proceeds to meet Cæsar, who beats
him at Sancerre in a cavalry encounter, and then marches upon Bourges,
without further care for an enemy incapable of arresting him in the open
field. The capture of that important town must make him master of the
whole country. The Gaulish general confines himself to following by
short marches, and burning all the country around, in order to starve
the Roman army.

The siege of Bourges is one of the most regular and interesting of the
war in Gaul. Cæsar opens the trenches, that is, he makes covered
galleries which permit him to approach the place, to fill the fosse, and
to construct a terrace, a veritable breaching battery, surmounted on
each side by a tower. When, with the assistance of his military engines,
he has thinned the ranks of the defenders, he assembles his legions
under protection of the parallels composed of covered galleries, and by
means of the terrace, which equals the elevation of the wall, he gives
the assault and carries the place.

After the capture of Bourges, he proceeds to Nevers, where he
establishes his magazines; then to Decize, to appease the disputes which
had arisen, among the Burgundians, from the competition of two claimants
to the supreme power. He next divides his army; sends Labienus, with two
legions, against the Parisii and their allies; orders him to take the
two legions left at Sens; and in person, with the six others, directs
his march towards Auvergne, the principal focus of the insurrection. By
means of a stratagem, he crosses the Allier at Varennes without striking
a blow, and obliges Vercingetorix to retire into Gergovia with all his
forces.

Placed on almost inaccessible heights, these vast Gaulish _oppida_,
which enclosed the greater part of the population of a province, could
only be reduced by famine. Cæsar was well aware of this, and resolved on
confining himself to the blockade of Gergovia; but one day he judges the
occasion favourable, and he risks an assault. Repulsed with loss, he
thinks only of retreat, when already the insurrection surrounds him on
all sides. The Burgundians themselves, who owe everything to Cæsar, have
followed the general impulse: by their defection, the communications of
the Roman army are intercepted and its rear threatened. Nevers is burnt,
and the bridges on the Loire are destroyed; the Gauls, in their
presumptuous hope, already see Cæsar humiliated, and obliged to pass
with his soldiers under new Furcæ Caudinæ; but old veteran troops,
commanded by a great captain, do not recoil after a first reverse; and
these six legions, shut up in their camp, isolated in the middle of a
country in insurrection, separated from all succour by rivers and
mountains, yet immovable and unshaken in face of a victorious enemy who
dares not pursue his victory, resemble those rocks beaten by the waves
of the ocean, which defy the tempests, and the approach to which is so
perilous that no one dare brave them.

In this extremity Cæsar has not lost hope.
Far from him the thought of
re-crossing the Cévennes, and returning into the Narbonnese. This
retreat would bear too great a resemblance to a flight. Moreover, he has
fears for the four legions entrusted to Labienus, of whom he has
received no news since they went to combat the Parisii; he is anxious to
rejoin them at all risks. He therefore marches in the direction of Sens,
crosses the Loire by a ford, near Bourbon-Lancy, and, on his arrival
near Joigny, he rallies Labienus, who, after having defeated the army of
Camulogenus under the walls of Paris, had returned to Sens and hastened
to meet him.

What joy Cæsar must have experienced, when he found his lieutenant, then
faithful still, on the banks of the Yonne! for this junction doubled his
forces, and restored the chances of the struggle in his favour. While he
was re-modelling his army, calling to him a re-enforcement of German
cavalry, and preparing to approach nearer to the Roman province,
Vercingetorix had not lost a moment in stirring up the whole of Gaul
against the Romans. The inhabitants of Savoy, as well as those of the
Vivarais, are drawn into revolt; all is agitation from the coasts of the
ocean to the Rhone. He communicates to all hearts the sacred fire which
inflames him, and from Mont Beuvray, as its centre, its action radiates
to the extremities of Gaul.

But it is granted neither to the most eminent of men to create in one
day an army, nor to popular insurrection, however general, to form
suddenly a nation. The foreigner has not yet quitted the territory of
their country before the chiefs become jealous of each other, and
rivalries break out between the different states. The Burgundians obey
unwillingly the people of Auvergne; the people of the territory of
Beauvais refuse their contingent, alleging that they will only make war
at their own time and in their own manner. The inhabitants of Savoy,
instead of responding to the appeal made to their old independence,
oppose a vigorous resistance to the attacks of the Gauls, and the
Vivarais shows no less devotedness to the Roman cause.

As to the Gaulish army, its strength consisted chiefly in cavalry; the
footmen, in spite of the efforts of Vercingetorix, composed only an
undisciplined mass; for military organisation is always a reflection of
the state of society, and where there is no people there is no infantry.
In Gaul, as Cæsar tells us, two classes alone were dominant, the priests
and the nobles. [771] It is not surprising if, then as in the Middle
Ages, the nobility on horseback formed the true sinew of the armies.
Accordingly, the Gauls never incurred the risk of resisting the Romans
in the open field, or rather everything was confined to a combat of
cavalry, and, when their cavalry was defeated, the army retired without
the infantry being engaged at all. This is what happened before
Sancerre: the defeat of his cavalry had forced Vercingetorix to make his
retreat; he had allowed Cæsar to continue his route undisturbed towards
Bourges, and take that town, without ever daring to attack him either
during his march or during the siege.

It will be the same at the battle of the Vingeanne. Cæsar directed his
march from Joigny towards Franche-Comté, across the country of Langres.
His aim was to reach Besançon, an important fortress, from whence he
could at the same time resume the offensive and protect the Roman
Province; but when he arrived at the eastern extremity of the territory
of Langres, in the valley of the Vingeanne, at about sixty-five
kilomètres from Alesia, his army, in march, is brought to a halt by that
of Vercingetorix, whose numerous cavalry have sworn to pass three times
through the Roman lines; this cavalry is repulsed by that of the Germans
in Cæsar’s pay, and Vercingetorix hastens to take refuge in Alesia,
without the least resistance offered by his infantry.

It is the belief of the Gauls that their country can only be defended in
the fortresses, and the example of Gergovia animates them with a
generous hope; but Cæsar will attempt no more imprudent assaults. 80,000
infantry shut themselves up in the walls of Alesia, and the cavalry is
sent into the whole of Gaul to call to arms, and to conduct to the
succour of the invested town the contingents of all the states. About
forty or fifty days after the blockade of the place, 250,000 men, of
whom 8,000 are cavalry, appear on the low hills which bound the plain of
Laumes on the west. The besieged leap with joy. How will the Romans be
able to sustain the double attack from within and from without? Cæsar
has obviated all perils by the art of fortification, which he has
carried to perfection. A line of countervallation against the fortress,
and a line of circumvallation against the army of succour, are rendered
almost impregnable by means of works adapted to the ground, and in which
science has accumulated all the obstacles in use in the warfare of
sieges. These two concentric lines are closely approached to each other,
in order to facilitate the defence. The troops are not scattered over
the great extent of the retrenchments, but distributed into twenty-three
redoubts and eight camps, from which they can move, according to
circumstances, on the points threatened. The redoubts are advanced
posts. The camps of infantry, placed on the heights, form so many
reserves. The cavalry camps are stationed on the banks of the streams.

In the plain especially, where the attacks may be most dangerous, to the
fosses, ramparts, and ordinary towers are added _abatis_, wolf-pits,
things like caltrops, means still employed in modern fortification.
Thanks to so many works, but thanks also to the imperfection of the
projectiles of that time, we see a besieging army, equal in number to
the army besieged, three times less in force than the army of succour,
resist three simultaneous attacks, and finish by vanquishing so many
enemies assembled against it. It is a thing to be remarked that Cæsar,
in the decisive day of the struggle, shut up in his lines, has become,
in a manner, the besieged, and, like all besieged who are victorious, it
is by a sally that he triumphs. The Gauls have nearly forced his
retrenchments on one point; but Labienus, by Cæsar’s order, debouches
from the lines, attacks the enemy with the sword, and puts him to
flight: the cavalry completes the victory.

This siege, so memorable in a military point of view, is still more so
in the historic point of view. Beside the hill, so barren at the present
day, of Mont Auxois, were decided the destinies of the world. In these
fertile plains, on these hills, now silent, nearly 400,000 men
encountered each other; one side led by the spirit of conquest, the
other by the spirit of independence; but none of them were conscious of
the work which destiny was employing them to accomplish. The cause of
all civilisation was at stake.

The defeat of Cæsar would have stopped for a long period the advance of
Roman domination, of that domination which, across rivers of blood, it
is true, conducted the peoples to a better future. The Gauls,
intoxicated with their success, would have called to their aid all those
nomadic peoples who followed the course of the sun to create themselves
a country, and all together would have thrown themselves upon Italy;
that focus of intelligence, destined to enlighten the peoples, would
then have been destroyed, before it had been able to develop its
expansive force. Rome, on her side, would have lost the only chief
capable of arresting her decline, of re-constituting the Republic, and
of bequeathing to her at his death three centuries of existence.

Thus, while we honour duly the memory of Vercingetorix, we are not
allowed to deplore his defeat. Let us admire the ardent and sincere love
of this Gaulish chieftain for the independence of his country; but let
us not forget that it is to the triumph of the Roman armies that we owe
our civilisation; institutions, manners, language, all come to us from
the conquest. Thus are we much more the children of the conquerors than
of the conquered; for, during long years, the former have been our
masters for everything which raises the soul and embellishes life; and,
when at last the invasion of the barbarians came to overthrow the old
Roman edifice, it could not destroy its foundations. Those wild hordes
only ravaged the territory, without having the power to annihilate the
principles of law, justice, and liberty, which, deeply rooted, survived
by their own vitality, like those crops which, bent down for a moment
beneath the tread of the soldiers, soon rise again spontaneously, and
recover a new life. On the ground thus prepared by Roman civilisation,
the Christian idea was able easily to plant itself, and to regenerate
the world.

The victory gained at Alesia was, then, one of those decisive events
which decide the destinies of peoples.

It is towards the end of the third consulship of Pompey that the lictors
must have arrived in Rome, carrying, according to the custom, with their
fasces crowned with laurels, the letters announcing the surrender of
Alesia. The degenerate aristocracy, who placed their rancours above the
interests of their country, would, no doubt, have preferred receiving
the news of the loss of the Roman armies, to seeing Cæsar become greater
than ever by new successes; but public opinion compelled the Senate to
celebrate the victory gained at Mont Auxois: it ordered sacrifices
during twenty days; still more, the people, to testify their joy,
trebled the number. [772]




CHAPTER VIII.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.


[Sidenote: New Troubles in Gaul, and the Campaign on the Aisne. ]

I. The capture of Alesia and the defeat of the army of succour, composed
of all the contingents of Gaul, must have encouraged the hope that the
war was ended; but the popular waves, like those of the ocean, once
agitated, require time to calm them. In 703, disturbances broke out on
several points at the same time. Cæsar, who was wintering at Bibracte,
was obliged to proceed with two legions into Berry, and, some time
afterwards, into the country of Orleans, to restore order there; next he
marched against the people of Beauvais, whose resistance threatened to
be the more formidable, as they had taken but a slight part at the siege
of Alesia. After having assembled four legions, he established his camp
on Mont Saint-Pierre, in the forest of Compiègne, opposite the Gauls,
who were posted on Mont Saint-Marc. At the end of a few weeks, unable to
draw them to quit their post, and not considering his forces sufficient
to surround on all sides the mountain which they occupied, he sent for
three other legions, and then threatened to invest their camp, as had
happened at Alesia. The Gauls left their position, and retired upon Mont
Ganelon, from whence they sent troops to lay in ambush in the forest, in
order to fall upon the Romans when they went to forage. The result was
a combat in the plain of Choisy-au-Bac, in which the Gauls were
defeated, and which led to the submission of the whole country. After
this expedition, Cæsar turned his attention to the country situated
between the Rhine and the Meuse, the populations of which, in spite of
the hard lesson of 701, were again raising the standard of revolt under
Ambiorix. The whole country was committed to fire and sword; but the
invaders could not lay hold of the person of that implacable enemy of
the Roman name.

The remains of the old Gaulish bands had united on the left bank of the
Loire, the constant refuge of the last defenders of their country, and
were still displaying an energy sufficient to give uneasiness to the
conquerors. They joined Dumnacus, the chief of the Angevins, who was
besieging, in Poitiers, Duratius, a Gaulish chief faithful to the
Romans. Cæsar’s lieutenants, Caninius Rebilus and C. Fabius, obliged
Dumnacus to raise the siege, and defeated his army.

During this time, Drappes of Sens and Lucterius of Cahors, who had
escaped from the last battle, attempted to invade the Roman province;
but, pursued by Rebilus, they threw themselves into the fortress of
Uxellodunum (_le Puy d’Issolu_), where the last focus of the
insurrection was destined to be extinguished. After a battle outside the
fortress, in which the Romans were victorious, Drappes fell into their
power; Rebilus and Fabius continued the siege. But the courage of the
besieged rendered useless the efforts of the besiegers. At this
conjuncture Cæsar arrived there. Seeing that the place, being
obstinately defended and abundantly provisioned, could not be reduced
either by force or by famine, he conceived the idea of depriving the
besieged of water. For this purpose, a subterranean gallery was carried
to the veins of the spring which, alone, supplied their wants. It became
instantly dry. The Gauls, taking this circumstance for a prodigy,
believed they saw in it a manifestation of the will of the gods, and
surrendered. Cæsar inflicted on the heroic defenders of Uxellodunum an
atrocious punishment: he caused their hands to be cut off; an
unpardonable act of cruelty, even although it might have appeared
necessary.

These events accomplished, he visited Aquitaine for the first time, with
two legions, and saw his authority accepted everywhere. He subsequently
proceeded to Narbonne, and from thence to Arras, where he established
his head-quarters for the winter. Labienus, on his side, had obtained
the complete submission of the country of Trèves.


[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Policy in Gaul and at Rome. ]

II. After eight years of sanguinary struggles, Gaul was subdued, and
thenceforward, far from meeting enemies in it, Cæsar was destined to
find only auxiliaries.

His policy had contributed as much as his arms to this result. Instead
of seeking to reduce Gaul into a Roman province, the great captain had
applied himself to founding the supremacy of the Republic on powerful
alliances, making the conquered countries subject to the states of which
he was sure, and leaving to each people its chiefs and its institutions,
and to Gaul entire its general assemblies.

It may have been remarked with what consideration Cæsar, in all his
wars, deals with the countries which offer him their co-operation, and
with what generous ability he treats them. Thus, in his first campaign,
he raises the Burgundians from the state of inferiority in which they
were held by the people of Franche-Comté, and re-establishes them in
possession of their hostages and of their rights of patronage over the
states which were their clients;[773] yielding to their prayer, in the
second campaign, he pardons the people of Beauvais;[774] in the sixth,
the inhabitants of Sens. [775] In 702, the auxiliary troops furnished by
the Burgundians revolt; yet he takes no vengeance upon them; the same
year these people massacre the Roman merchants: they expect terrible
reprisals, and send to implore pardon; Cæsar replies to their deputies
that he is far from wishing to throw on the whole country the fault of a
few; lastly, when, under the influence of the national feeling, their
contingents have taken part in the general insurrection, and are
defeated before Alise, instead of reducing them to captivity, Cæsar
gives them their liberty. He behaves in the same manner towards the
people of Rheims, whose influence he augments by granting their
petitions in favour, at one time of the people of Soissons,[776] at
another of the inhabitants of Orléanais. [777] He restores similarly to
the inhabitants of Auvergne their contingent vanquished at Alise; to the
people of Artois, he remits all tribute, restores their laws, and
places the territory of the Boulonnaise in subjection to them. [778] In
each of his campaigns he follows an equally generous policy towards his
allies.

The chiefs whom Cæsar places over the governments of the different
states are not chosen arbitrarily; he takes them from the ancient
families who have reigned over the country; often even he does no more
than confirm the result of a free election. He maintains Ambiorix at the
head of the people of Liége, restores to him his son and nephew,
prisoners of the people of Namur, and frees him from the tribute which
he paid to that people. [779] He gives to the people of Orleans for their
chief Tasgetius, and to the inhabitants of Sens, Cavarinus, both issued
from families which had possessed the sovereignty. [780] He appoints, as
King of Artois, Commius,[781] who, nevertheless, as well as Ambiorix,
subsequently revolted against him. In presence of the principal
personages of the country of the Treviri, he decides between rival
ambitions, and pronounces for Cingetorix,[782] whom he calls to the
power. Again, he recognises Convictolitavis as chief of the
Burgundians. [783] We can pardon Cæsar some acts of cruel vengeance, when
we consider how far his age was still a stranger to the sentiments of
humanity, and how far a victorious general must have been provoked to
see those whose oath of fidelity he had received, and whom he had loaded
with honours, incessantly revolting against his authority.

Almost every year he convokes the assembly of Gaul,[784] either at
Lutetia, or at Rheims, or at Bibracte, and he only imposes on the people
the rights of the conqueror after having called them to discuss in his
presence their several interests; he presides over them more as a
protector than as a conqueror. Finally, when the last remains of the
insurrection have been annihilated at Uxellodunum (_Puy d’Issolu_), he
proceeds to pass the winter in Belgium; there he strives to render
obedience more easy to the vanquished, brings into the exercise of power
more of leniency and justice, and introduces among these races, still
savages, the benefits of civilisation. Such was the efficacy of these
measures that, when, finally abandoning Gaul, he was obliged to withdraw
his legions from it, the country, formerly so agitated, remained calm
and tranquil; the transformation was complete, and, instead of enemies,
he left on the other side of the Alps a people always ready to furnish
him with numerous soldiers for his new wars. [785]

When we see a man of eminence devote himself, during nine years, with so
much perseverance and skill, to the greatness of his country, we ask how
so many animosities and rancours could rise against him in Rome. But
this angry feeling is explained by the regret and vexation, very
excusable indeed, which the privileged castes feel when a system which
has, during several centuries, been the cause of their power and of the
glory of the country, has just given way under the irresistible action
of new ideas; this hatred fell upon Cæsar as the most dangerous promoter
of these ideas. It is true that people accused his ambition; in reality,
it was his convictions openly pronounced which had long provoked
hostility.

Cæsar began his political career with a trial which is always
honourable, persecution supported for a good cause. The popular party
then rested for support on the memory of Marius; Cæsar did not hesitate
in reviving it with glory. Hence the prestige which surrounded him, in
his youth, and which ceased not to grow with him. The constancy of his
principles gained him all the honours and all the dignities which were
conferred upon him; named successively military tribune, quæstor, grand
pontiff, guardian of the Appian Way, ædile, urban prætor, proprætor in
Spain, and lastly consul, he might consider these different testimonies
of public favour as so many victories gained under the same flag against
the same enemies. This was the motive of the violent passions of the
aristocracy: it made a single man responsible for the decay of an order
of things which was falling into the abyss of corruption and anarchy.

When, during his ædileship, Cæsar causes the trophies of Marius,
glorious symbols of the war against the Cimbri and Teutones, to be
replaced in the Capitol, the opposite party already cries out that he
intends to overthrow the Republic; when he returns from Spain, after
having led his victorious legions as far as Portugal, his passage
across the Transpadane colonies inspires the Senate with so many fears,
that two legions, destined for Asia, are retained in Italy; when he
believes that he has a claim to a triumph and the consulate at the same
time--a double favour accorded to many others--he is obliged to renounce
the triumph. As consul he encounters, during the whole period of his
magistracy, the most active and the most spiteful opposition. Hardly
have his functions expired, when an accusation is sought to be brought
against him, which he only escapes by the privilege attached to the
_imperium_. In his interview, not far from the Rhine, with Ariovistus,
he learns that the nobles of Rome have promised their friendship to the
German king, if, by his death, he delivers them from their enemy. His
victories, which transport the people with enthusiasm, excite jealousy
and detraction among the Roman aristocracy. They seek to undervalue his
expeditions beyond the sea, as well as beyond the Rhine. In 701 the news
reached Rome of the defeat of the German tribes who again threatened
Gaul with invasion. Cato, under the pretence that Cæsar had not observed
the truce, proposed that they should deliver up to the barbarians the
glorious chief of the legions of the Republic.

During the last campaign against the people of the Beauvaisin, his
adversaries rejoice in the false rumours which were spread abroad
concerning his military operations; they relate in whispers, without
concealing their satisfaction, that he is surrounded by the Gauls, that
he has lost his cavalry, and that the 7th legion has been nearly
annihilated. [786] In the Senate, Clodius, Rutilius Lupus, Cicero,
Ahenobarbus, and the two Marcelli, move in their turns, either to revoke
the acts of his consulship, or to supersede him as governor of Gaul, or,
lastly, to reduce his command. Political parties never disarm, not even
before the national glory.


[Sidenote: Sulpicius Rufus and M. Claudius Marcellus, Consuls. ]

III. The two factions which divided the Republic had each, in 703, their
adherent in the consulship. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a lawyer of
reputation, passed for a man attached to Cæsar; M. Claudius Marcellus
was his declared enemy. The latter, a distinguished orator, who imitated
Cicero, announced, on his entrance into office, the design of giving a
successor to Cæsar before the legal period of his command had expired;
but this design, counteracted by his colleague, and by the earnest
opposition of the tribunes, was from time to time adjourned. “Why,” it
was said, “depose a magistrate who has not committed a fault? ”[787] The
attention of the Senate was, moreover, called in another direction by
grave events.

It will be remembered that C. Cassius Longinus, the quæstor of Crassus,
had rallied the wreck of the Roman army; he had even succeeded in
repulsing vigorously an invasion of the Parthians into the province of
Syria. He was reproached, meanwhile, with great rapacity in his
administration; it was pretended that, for the purpose of justifying
his acts of rapine, he had drawn in bands of Arabs, and afterwards
driven them out, boasting that he had beaten the Parthians. [788] Syria
was an important province, which could not be left in the hands of a
simple quæstor; M. Calpurnius Bibulus, Cæsar’s old colleague in the
consulship, was sent thither to exercise the command. [789] At the same
time Cicero, in obedience to the new law on the consular provinces,
started, to his great regret, for Cilicia. As he passed through
Tarentum, he paid a visit to Pompey, who, after his consulship, had
absented himself from Rome, in order to avoid acting decisively. Cicero,
with his ordinary want of discernment, went away enchanted with his
interview; declared in his letters that Pompey was an excellent citizen,
whose foresight, courage, and wisdom were equal to all events, and that
he believed him sincerely allied to the cause of the Senate. [790]

If we reflect on the danger which then threatened the provinces of the
East, we have reason to be surprised at these two appointments. Neither
Bibulus nor Cicero had given any proof of military talents; the latter
even very frankly avowed it. [791] The Parthians were threatening, and,
while Pompey had sent into Spain four old legions, remaining himself in
Italy with two others, the Eastern frontiers were only guarded by weak
armies,[792] and commanded by two generals who had never seen war.


[Sidenote: Spirit which animates Cæsar’s Adversaries. ]

IV. Marcellus, after he had failed in his project of taking Cæsar away
from his army, proposed a measure which displays the true character of
the passions which agitated the Republic. Pompey’s father had founded in
the Cisalpine the colony of _Novum Comum_, and had given it the right of
_Latium_, which conferred on the magistrates of the town, after a year’s
office, the privileges of Roman citizens. [793] Cæsar had sent thither
5,000 colonists, of whom 500 were Greeks,[794] and during his first
consulship he had conferred upon them the right of Roman citizens. Now
Marcellus strove to cause this right to be withdrawn from them; but not
having succeeded in this attempt, and unwilling at any price to
acknowledge Cæsar’s law,[795] he condemned to the rod, it is not known
for what offence, an inhabitant of _Novum Comum_. The latter protested,
invoking the privileges conferred on his city, but in vain; Marcellus
had him flogged, telling him: “Go, show thy shoulders to Cæsar; it is
thus I treat the citizens he makes. ”[796] This contempt for the new
rights proved clearly the haughty disdain of the aristocratic party,
blaming one of the things which had contributed most to the greatness of
the Republic, the successive extension of the Roman city to the
provinces, and to the vanquished themselves. Confounding, in his blind
reprobation, both the principle of a liberal policy and him who had
applied it, he saw not that the persecution exercised towards the
Transpadan citizen contributed further to increase Cæsar’s greatness,
and to legitimise his popularity.

Yet these are the doctrines and acts of those men who are represented as
the worthy supports of the Republic! And Marcellus was not the only man
who, by denying to the Transpadans the rights they had acquired, showed
the perversity of egotistic sentiments; the other principal personages
of the aristocratic faction hardly recommended themselves by more
moderation and disinterestedness. “Appius Claudius Pulcher,” says
Cicero, “had treated with fire and sword the province entrusted to his
care; and had bled and drained it in every way;”[797] Faustus, Sylla,
Lentulus, Scipio, Libo, and so many others, sought to elevate themselves
by civil war, and to recover their fortune by pillage;[798] Brutus,
whose conduct was that of a usurer, employed the troops of his country
to oppress the allied peoples. Having lent money to the inhabitants of
Salamina, he reckoned on extorting the repayment of the capital and the
interest at the usurious rate of four per cent. a month, or forty-eight
per cent. a year. To recover his debt, a certain Scaptius, to whom he
had made over his claim, had obtained from Appius a troop of cavalry,
with which, according to Cicero, “he held the Senate of Salamina
besieged so long that five senators died of hunger. ” Cicero, when he
became governor of Cilicia, sought to repair this injustice. Brutus,
irritated, wrote him letters full of arrogance, of which Cicero
complained to Atticus with vivacity: “If Brutus pretends that I ought to
pay Scaptius at the rate of four per cent. a month, in spite of my
regulations and edicts which fixed the interest at one per cent. , and
when the least reasonable usurers are satisfied with that rate; if he
takes it ill that I have refused him a place of prefect for a tradesman;
. . . if he reproaches me with having withdrawn the cavalry, I regret much
to have displeased him, but I regret much more to find him so different
from what I had believed! ”[799] There was a law of Gabinius, intended to
prevent such abuses; it prohibited the towns from borrowing money at
Rome to pay their taxes. But Brutus had obtained a senatus-consultus to
free him from this constraint,[800] and he employed even the means of
coercion to obtain even two or three times the value of that he had
given. Such was the probity of a man who has been vaunted for his
virtue. It is thus that the aristocratic party understood liberty; the
hatred to Cæsar arose especially from the circumstance that he took to
heart the cause of the oppressed, and that, during his first consulship,
as Appian says, he had done nothing in favour of the nobles. [801]

The prestige of his victories had bridled the opposition; when the end
of his command drew near, all the hostilities were awakened; they waited
the time when, returning to every-day life, he would be no longer
protected by the prerogatives attached to the _imperium_. “Marcus Cato,”
says Suetonius, “swore that he would denounce Cæsar to the magistrates
as soon as he had disbanded his army; and it was a matter of common talk
that, if Cæsar returned as a private individual, he would be obliged,
like Milo, to defend himself before judges, surrounded with armed men.
Asinius Pollio makes this account very probable; he relates that, at the
battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar, casting his eyes on his adversaries
vanquished or fugitives, exclaimed: ‘They have willed it! After having
accomplished so many great things, I, Caius Cæsar, was condemned, if I
had not demanded succour of my army. ’”[802] Hence Cœlius, writing to
Cæsar, put the question in its true light when he said, “Cæsar is
persuaded that his only hope lies in keeping his army;”[803] and, on
another side, as Dio Cassius informs us, Pompey did not dare to submit
the difference to the people, knowing well that, if the people were
taken for judge, Cæsar would gain the day. [804]


[Sidenote: The Question of Right between the Senate and Cæsar. ]

V. It is here the place to examine at what period the power of Cæsar
expired, and what was the pretext of the conflict which rose between him
and the Senate.

Learned historians have long had this subject under consideration; they
have devoted themselves to the most profound researches, and to the most
ingenious suppositions, still without arriving at a completely
satisfactory result,[805] which ought not to surprise us, inasmuch as
Cicero himself found the question obscure. [806]

In virtue of a law of C. Sempronius Gracchus, named _lex Sempronia_, it
had been decided that the Senate should designate, before the election
of the consuls, the provinces they were to administer after quitting
office. When Cæsar and Bibulus were elected, instead of provinces, the
inspection of the public ways was given to them; but Cæsar, unwilling to
suffer this affront, obtained, by a _plebiscitum_, on the motion of
Vatinius, the government of Cisalpine Gaul for five years; the Senate
added to it Transalpine Gaul, which then formed a separate province
independent of the other. [807] In 699, the law Trebonia prolonged, for
five more years, Cæsar’s command in Gaul. This command was therefore to
last ten years; and, since Cæsar only entered upon his proconsular
functions at the beginning of the year 696, it seems natural to infer
that these ten years should reach to the 1st of January, 706. We,
nevertheless, see that, at the end of 704, the Senate regarded Cæsar’s
power as at an end. We then ask, on what ground that assembly supported
the pretence that the ten years devolved to the proconsul were completed
at that date. We consider the following to be the explanation:--

It was in the month of March that, according to custom, the retiring
consuls took possession of the government of provinces. [808] It is,
consequently, very probable that the law of Vatinius, published, as we
have seen, in 695, was voted towards the latter days of the month of
February in that same year, and that the proconsulship given to Cæsar
was to begin from the day of the promulgation of that law. Nothing would
have prevented him, indeed, from shortening the time of his magistracy,
and seizing, before the termination of his curule functions, the
military command or _imperium_, as Crassus did in 699, who started for
Syria without waiting for the end of his consulship. Supposing, then,
which is not impossible, that the whole year of Cæsar’s consulship was
included in his proconsulship,[809] the five first years of his command
would date from 695, and end on the 1st of January, 700. The oration on
the Consular Provinces proves that it was so understood. The time when
it was pronounced (July or August, 698) was that of the assignment of
the provinces destined for the consuls who were to quit office eighteen
months after--that is, in 700--and when the question of superseding
Cæsar was agitated. The first _quinquennium_ of his command terminated,
therefore, in December, 699, and, consequently, the second in December,
704. Such was the system of the Senate, naturally much inclined to
shorten the duration of the proconsulship of Gaul. [810] Accordingly,
Hirtius informs us that, in 703, the Gauls knew that Cæsar had but one
summer, that of 704, to pass in Gaul. [811] Dio Cassius says similarly
that Cæsar’s power was to end with the year 704. [812] According to
Appian, the Consul Claudius Marcellus proposed, at the beginning of 704,
to name a successor to Cæsar, whose powers were on the eve of
expiring. [813] On the other hand, Cicero relates in one of his letters
that Pompey seemed to be of the same opinion as the Senate, to require
the return of the proconsul on the Ides of the November of 704. At the
end of that same year, the great orator expresses, in the following
terms, his own opinion on the subject of the claim raised by Cæsar to
dispensation from coming to Rome to solicit the consulship: “What, then?
must we have regard for a man who will keep his army after the day fixed
by the law? ”[814] Some time afterwards, apostrophising Cæsar in a
letter to Atticus,[815] he exclaims: “You have kept, during ten years, a
province of which you have procured the continuance, not by the
sovereign will of the Senate, but by your intrigues and your acts of
violence. You have overpassed the term fixed, by your ambition, and not
by the law. .