No More Learning

This was a grave political blunder, if Caesar had no other object than to become as quickly as possible king of Rome ; but the ambition of that rare man was not confined to the vulgar aim of a crown. He had the bold ness to prosecute side by side, and to complete, two labours equally vast —the arranging of the internal affairs of Italy, and the acquisition and securing of a new and fresh soil for Italian civilization. These tasks of course interfered with each other ; his Gallic conquests hindered much more than helped him on his way to the throne. It was fraught to him with bitter fruit that, instead of settling the Italian revolution in 698, he postponed it to 706. But as a states man as well as a general Caesar was a peculiarly daring player, who, confiding in himself and despising his op ponents, gave them always great and sometimes extravagant odds.
It was now therefore the turn of the aristocracy to make g00d their high gage, and to wage war as boldly as they had boldly declared it But there is no more pitiable spectacle than when cowardly men have the misfortune to take a bold resolution. They had simply exercised no foresight at alL It seemed to have occurred to nobody that Caesar would possibly stand on his defence, or that
48.
chap, vii1 POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
139
even now Pompeius and Crassus would combine with him afresh and more closely than ever. This seems incredible ;
but it becomes intelligible, when we glance at the persons who then led the constitutional opposition in the senate. Cato was still absent ; 1 the most influential man in the senate at this time was Marcus Bibulus, the hero of passive resistance, the most obstinate and most stupid of all con- sulars. They had taken up arms only to lay them down,
so soon as the adversary merely put his hand to the sheath ;
the bare news of the conferences in Luca sufficed to suppress
all thought of a serious opposition and to bring the mass
of the timid — that the immense majority of the senate — back to their duty as subjects, which in an unhappy hour they had abandoned. There was no further talk of the appointed discussion to try the validity of the Julian laws
the legions raised Caesar on his own behalf were charged
by decree of the senate on the public chest the attempts
on occasion of regulating the next consular provinces to take away both Gauls or one of them by decree from Caesar were rejected the majority (end of May 698). Thus M. the corporation did public penance. In secret the indi vidual lords, one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience —none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late of his perfidy, and in respect
of the most recent period of his life clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether more appropriate than flattering. * Of course the regents agreed to be pacified;
Cato was not yet in Rome when Cicero spoke on nth March 698 in 66 favour of Sestius (Pro Sat. 28, 60) and when the discussion took place in
the senate in consequence of the resolutions of Luca respecting Caesar's legions (Plut Caes, ai) not till the discussions at the beginning of
699 that we find him once more busy, and, as he travelled in winter (Plut 66, Cato Min. 38), he thus returned to Rome in the end of 698. He cannot 60. therefore, as has been mistakenly inferred from Asconius (p. 35, 53), have defended Milo in Feb. 698. 66.
Aft annum gerwianum fuiut (Ad Alt. It. 3), VOL
143
'1 V
5,
; it is
by
by
is,
;
;
Settlement of the new monarch ical rule.
i30 THE JOINT RULE OF BOOK V
they refused nobody pardon, for there was nobody who was worth the trouble of making him an exception. That we may see how suddenly the tone in aristocratic circles changed after the resolutions of Luca became known, it is worth while to compare the pamphlets given forth by Cicero shortly before with the palinode which he caused to be issued to evince publicly his repentance and his good intentions. 1
The regents could thus arrange Italian affairs at their pleasure and more thoroughly than before. Italy and the capital obtained practically a garrison although not as sembled in arms, and one of the regents as commandant Of the troops levied for Syria and Spain by Crassus and Pompeius, those destined for the east no doubt took their departure ; but Pompeius caused the two Spanish provinces to be administered by bis lieutenants with the garrison hitherto stationed there, while he dismissed the officers and soldiers of the legions which were newly raised—nominally for despatch to Spain — on furlough, and remained himself with them in Italy.
Doubtless the tacit resistance of public opinion increased, the more clearly and generally men perceived that the regents were working to put an end to the old constitution and with as much gentleness as possible to accommodate the existing condition of the government and administration to the forms of the monarchy ; but they submitted, because they were obliged to submit First of all, all the more important affairs, and particularly aU that related to military matters and external relations, were disposed of without
1 This palinode is the still extant oration on the Provinces to be assigned to the consuls of 699. It was delivered in the end of May 698. The pieces contrasting with it are the orations for Scstius and against Vatinius and that upon the opinion of the Etruscan soothsayers, dating from the months of March and April, in which the aristocratic regime is glorified to the best of his ability and Caesar in particular is treated in a very cavalier tone. It was but reasonable that Cicero should, as he himself confesses (Ad Att. iv. 5, 1 ), be ashamed to transmit even to intimate friends that attestation of his resumed allegiance.
Nk SO.
CHAP, vii1 POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
131
consulting the senate upon them, sometimes by decree of the people, sometimes by the mere good pleasure of the rulers. The arrangements agreed on at Luca respecting the military command of Gaul were submitted directly to the burgesses by Crassus and Pompeius, those relating to Spain and Syria by the tribune of the people Gaius Tre- bonius, and in other instances the more important governor ships were frequently filled up by decree of the people. That the regents did not need the consent of the authorities to increase their troops at pleasure, Caesar had already sufficiently shown : as little did they hesitate mutually to borrow troops ; Caesar for instance received such col legiate support from Pompeius for the Gallic, and Crassus from Caesar for the Parthian, war. The Transpadanes, who possessed according to the existing constitution only
Latin rights, were treated by Caesar during his administra tion practically as full burgesses of Rome. 1 While formerly
1 This is not stated by our authorities. But the view that Caesar levied no soldiers at all from the Latin communities, that is to say from by far the greater part of his province, is in itself utterly incredible, and is directly refuted by the fact that the opposition-party slightingly designates the force levied by Caesar as "for the most part natives of the Transpadane colonies" (Caes. B. C. iii. 87); for here the Latin colonies of Strabo (Ascon. in Pison. p. 3 ; Sueton. Caes. 8) are evidently meant Yet there is no trace of Latin cohorts in Caesar's Gallic army ; on the contrary according to his express statements all the recruits levied by bim in Cis alpine Gaul were added to the legions or distributed into legions. It b possible that Caesar combined with the levy the bestowal of the franchise ; but more probably he adhered in this matter to the standpoint of his party, which did not so much seek to procure for the Transpadanes the Roman franchise as rather regarded it as already legally belonging to them
Only thus could the report spread, that Caesar had introduced of his own authority the Roman municipal constitution among the Trans padane communities (Cic. Ad Att v. 3, 2 ; Ad Fam. viii. 1, a). This hypothesis too explains why Hirtius designates the Transpadane towns as
(iv. 457).
" colonies of Roman burgesses " {B. G. viii. 24), and why Caesar treated the colony of Comum founded by him as a burgess-colony (Sueton. Caes. 28 ; Strabo, v. 1, p. 213 ; Plutarch, Caes. 29), while the moderate party of the aristocracy conceded to it only the same rights as to the other Transpadane communities, viz. Latin rights, and the ultras even declared the civic rights conferred on the settlers as altogether null, and conse quently did not concede to the Comenses the privileges attached to the holding of a Latin municipal magistracy (Cic. Ad Att v. 11, a ; Appian, B. C. 26). Comp. Hermes, xvi. 30.
ii.
The senate
mot^rch" Cicero
majoritv
I3» THE JOINT RULE OF book V
the organization of newly-acquired territories had been managed by a senatorial commission, Caesar organized his extensive Gallic conquests altogether according to his own judgment, and founded, for instance, without having received any farther full powers burgess-colonies, particularly Novum- Comum (Como) with five thousand colonists. Piso con ducted the Thracian, Gabinius the Egyptian, Crassus the Parthian war, without consulting the senate, and without even reporting, as was usual, to that body ; in like manner triumphs and other marks of honour were accorded and carried out, without the senate being asked about them. Obviously this did not arise from a mere neglect of forms, which would be the less intelligible, seeing that in the great majority of cases no opposition from the senate was to be expected. On the contrary, it was a well-calculated design to dislodge the senate from the domain of military arrange ments and of higher politics, and to restrict its share of administration to financial questions and internal affairs; and even opponents plainly discerned this and protested, so far as they could, against this conduct of the regents by means of senatorial decrees and criminal actions. While the regents thus in the main set aside the senate, they still made some use of the less dangerous popular assemblies— care was taken that in these the lords of the street should put no farther difficulty in the way of the lords of the state ; in many cases however they dispensed even with this empty shadow, and employed without disguise autocratic forms.
The humbled senate had to submit to its position whether lt would or not. The leader of the compliant majority continued to be Marcus Cicero. He was useful on account 0I" bis lawyer's talent of finding reasons, or at any rate words, for everything; and there was a genuine Caesarian irony in employing the man, by means of whom mainly the aristocracy had conducted their demonstrations against the regents, as the mouthpiece of servility. Accord
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
133
ingly they pardoned him for his brief desire to kick against the pricks, not however without having previously assured themselves of his submissiveness in every way. His brother had been obliged to take the position of an officer in the Gallic army to answer in some measure as a hostage for him ; Pompeius had compelled Cicero himself to accept a lieutenant-generalship under him, which furnished a handle for politely banishing him at any moment Clodius had doubtless been instructed to leave him meanwhile at peace, but Caesar as little threw off Clodius on account of Cicero as he threw off Cicero on account of Clodius ; and the great saviour of his country and the no less great hero of liberty entered into an antechamber-rivalry in the head quarters of Samarobriva, for the befitting illustration of which there lacked, unfortunately, a Roman Aristophanes. But not only was the same rod kept in suspense over Cicero's head, which had once already descended on him so severely ; golden fetters were also laid upon him. Amidst the serious embarrassment of his finances the loans of Caesar free of interest, and the joint overseership of those buildings which occasioned the circulation of enormous sums in the capital, were in a high degree welcome to him ; and many an immortal oration for the senate was nipped in the bud by the thought of Caesar's agent, who might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting. Conse quently he vowed " in future to ask no more after right and honour, but to strive for the favour of the regents," and " to be as flexible as an ear-lap. " They used him accord
ingly as—what he was good for — an advocate ; in which capacity it was on various occasions his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate, where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts and submitted the pro
"to which others probably consented, but not he himself"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority of
posals
C*10 minority.
134 THE JOINT RULE OF book v
the compliant, he obtained even a certain political import ance. They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection.
Certainly there remained a section of their opponents, wno at least kept to their colours and were neither to be terrified nor to be won. The regents had become con vinced that exceptional measures, such as those against Cato and Cicero, did their cause more harm than good, and that it was a lesser evil to tolerate an inconvenient republican opposition than to convert their opponents into martyrs for the republic Therefore they allowed
68. Cato to return (end of 698) and thenceforward in the senate and in the Forum, often at the peril of his life, to offer a continued opposition to the regents, which was doubtless worthy of honour, but unhappily was at the same time ridiculous. They allowed him on occasion of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct toward those barbarians (p. 60). They were patient when Marcus Favonius, Cato's Sancho, after the senate had adopted the resolution to charge the legions of Caesar on the state-chest, sprang to the door of the senate-house and proclaimed to the streets the danger of the country ; when the same person in his scurrilous fashion called the white bandage, which Pom- peius wore round his weak leg, a displaced diadeid ; when the consular Lentulus Marcellinus, on being applauded, called out to the assembly to make diligent use of this privilege of expressing their opinion now while they were still allowed to do so ; when the tribune of the people Gaius Ateius Capito consigned Crassus on his departure
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
135
for Syria, with all the formalities of the theology of the day, publicly to the evil spirits. These were, on the whole, vain demonstrations of an irritated minority ; yet the little party from which they issued was so far of importance, that it on the one hand fostered and gave the watchword to the republican opposition fermenting in secret, and on the other hand now and then dragged the majority of the senate, which withal cherished at bottom quite the same sentiments with reference to the
into an isolated decree directed against them.
For even the majority felt the need of giving vent, at least sometimes and in subordinate matters to their suppressed indignation, and especially — after the manner of those who
are servile with reluctance— of exhibiting their resentment towards the great foes in rage against the small. Wherever
it was possible, a gentle blow was administered to the instruments of the regents ; thus Gabinius was refused the thanksgiving-festival that he asked (698) ; thus Piso was 66. recalled from his province ; thus mourning was put on
by the senate, when the tribune of the people Gaius Cato hindered the elections for 699 as long as the consul Mar- 66. cellinus belonging to the constitutional party was in office. Even Cicero, however humbly he always bowed before
the regents, issued an equally envenomed and insipid pamphlet against Caesar's father-in-law. But both these feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only
the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate to the regents as it formerly passed from
the burgesses to the senate ; and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical council of state employed also to absorb the anti- monarchical elements.
" No man," the adherents of the fallen government com plained, "is of the slightest account except the three ; the regents are all-powerful, and they take care that no one
regents,
Continued
2'the elections,
136 THE JOINT RULE OF BOOK V
shall remain in doubt about it ; the whole senate is virtu ally transformed and obeys the dictators ; our generation will not live to see a change of things. " They were living in fact no longer under the republic, but under monarchy.
But if the guidance of the state was at the absolute dis- posa^ of tne regents, there remained still a political domain separated in some measure from the government proper, which it was more easy to defend and more difficult to con quer ; the field of the ordinary elections of magistrates, and that of the jury-courts. That the latter do not fall directly under politics, but everywhere, and above all in Rome, come partly under the control of the spirit dominating state-affairs, is of itself clear. The elections of magistrates certainly belonged by right to the government proper of the state ; but, as at this period the state was administered substantially by extraordinary magistrates or by men wholly without title, and even the supreme ordinary magistrates, if they belonged to the anti-monarchical party, were not able in any tangible way to influence the state-machinery, the ordinary magistrates sank more and more into mere puppets — as, in fact, even those of them who were most disposed to opposition described themselves frankly and with entire justice as powerless ciphers —and their elections therefore sank into mere demonstrations. Thus, after the
had already been wholly dislodged from the field of battle, hostilities might nevertheless be continued in the field of elections and of processes. The regents spared no pains to remain victors also in this field. As to the elections, they had already at Luca settled between themselves the lists of candidates for the next
years, and they left no means untried to cany the can didates agreed upon there. They expended their gold
primarily for the purpose of influencing the elections. A great number of soldiers were dismissed annually on fur
opposition proper
chap, v1i1 POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
137
lough from the armies of Caesar and Pompeias to take part in the voting at Rome. Caesar was wont himself
to guide, and watch over, the election movements from
as near a point as possible of Upper Italy. Yet the object was but very imperfectly attained. For 699 no 68. doubt Pompeius and Crassus were elected consuls, agree
ably to the convention of Luca, and Lucius Domitius,
the only candidate of the opposition who persevered, was
set aside ; but this had been effected only by open violence, on which occasion Cato was wounded and other extremely scandalous incidents occurred. In the next consular elections for 700, in spite of all the exertions 64. of the regents, Domitius was actually elected, and Cato likewise now prevailed in the candidature for the praetor- ship, in which to the scandal of the whole burgesses Caesar's client Vatinius had during the previous year beaten him off the field. At the elections for 701 the St. opposition succeeded in so indisputably convicting the candidates of the regents, along with others, of the most shameful electioneering intrigues that the regents, on whom the scandal recoiled, could not do otherwise than abandon them. These repeated and severe defeats of the dynasts on the battle-field of the elections may be traceable in part to the unmanageableness of the machinery, to the incalculable accidents of the polling,
to the opposition at heart of the middle classes, to the various private considerations that interfere in such cases and often strangely clash with those of party; but the main cause lies elsewhere. The elections were at this time essen tially in the power of the different clubs into which the aristocracy had grouped themselves ; the system of bribery was organized by them on the most extensive scale and with the utmost method. The same aristocracy therefore, which was represented in the senate, ruled also the elections ; but while in the senate it yielded with a
rusty
*nd in the coarxa-
and is shown by the elections of the succeeding years.
The jury-courts occasioned equally great difficulty to the regents. As they were then composed, while the senatorial nobility was here also influential, the decisive voice lay chiefly with the middle class. The fixing of a high-rated census for jurymen by a law proposed by
138 THE JOINT RULE OF book v
grudge, it worked and voted here — in secret and
from all reckoning —absolutely against the regents.
the influence of the nobility in this field was by no means
) broken by the strict penal law against the electioneering 66. intrigues of the clubs, which Crassus when consul in 699 caused to be confirmed by the burgesses, is self-evident,
secure That
66. Pompeius in 699 is a remarkable proof that the opposition to the regents had its chief seat in the middle class properly so called, and that the great capitalists showed themselves here, as everywhere, more compliant than the latter. Nevertheless the republican party was not yet deprived of all hold in the courts, and it was never weary of directing political impeachments, not indeed against the regents themselves, but against their prominent instru ments. This warfare of prosecutions was waged the more
that according to usage the duty of accusation belonged to the senatorial youth, and, as may readily be conceived, there was more of republican passion, fresh talent, and bold delight in attack to be found among these youths than among the older members of their order. Certainly the courts were not free ; if the regents were in earnest, the courts ventured as little as the senate to refuse obedience. None of their antagonists were prosecuted by the opposition with such hatred — so furious that it almoit passed into a proverb — as Vatinius, by far the most audacious and unscrupulous of the closer adherents of Caesar; but his master gave the command, and he was acquitted in all the processes raised against him. But impeachments by men who knew how to wield the sword
keenly,
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
139
of dialectics and the lash of sarcasm as did Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Asinius Pollio, did not miss their mark even when they failed ; nor were isolated successes wanting. They were mostly, no doubt, obtained over subordinate individuals, but even one of the most high -placed and most hated adherents of the dynasts, the consular Gabinius,
was overthrown in this way. Certainly in his case the implacable hatred of the aristocracy, which as little forgave him for the law regarding the conducting of the war with
the pirates as for his disparaging treatment of the senate during his Syrian governorship, was combined with the rage of the great capitalists, against whom he had when governor of Syria ventured to defend the interests of the provincials, and even with the resentment of Crassus, with whom he had stood on ceremony in handing over to him
the province. His only protection against all these foes
was Pompeius, and the latter had every reason to defend
his ablest, boldest, and most faithful adjutant at any price ;
but here, as everywhere, he knew not how to use his power and to defend his clients, as Caesar defended his ; in the end of 700 the jurymen found Gabinius guilty of extortions 64. and sent him into banishment.
On the whole, therefore, in the sphere of the popular elections and of the jury-courts it was the regents that fared worst. The factors which ruled in these were less tangible, and therefore more difficult to be terrified or corrupted than the direct organs of government and administration. The holders of power encountered here, especially in the popular elections, the tough energy of a close oligarchy — grouped in coteries—which is by no means finally disposed of when its rule is overthrown, and which is the more difficult to vanquish the more covert its action. encountered here too, especially in the jury-courts, the repugnance of the middle classes towards the new mon archical rule, which with all the perplexities springing out
They
l4o THE JOINT RULE OF iook v
of it they were as little able to remove. They suffered in both quarters a series of defeats. The election-victories of the opposition had, it is true, merely the value of demon strations, since the regents possessed and employed the means of practically annulling any magistrate whom they disliked ; but the criminal trials in which the opposition carried condemnations deprived them, in a way
keenly felt, of useful auxiliaries. As things stood, the regents could neither set aside nor adequately control the popular
elections and the jury-courts, and the opposition, however much it felt itself straitened even here, maintained to a certain extent the field of battle.
It proved, however, yet a more difficult task to en- counter l^e opposition in a field, to which it turned with the greater zeal the more it was dislodged from direct political action. This was literature. Even the judicial opposition was at the same time a literary one, and indeed pre-eminently so, for the orations were regularly published and served as political pamphlets. The arrows of poetry hit their mark still more rapidly and sharply. The lively youth of the high aristocracy, and still more energetically perhaps the cultivated middle class in the Italian country towns, waged the war of pamphlets and epigrams with zeal and success. There fought side by side on this field the
82-48. genteel senator's son Gaius Licinius Calvus
who was as much feared in the character of an orator and pamphleteer as of a versatile poet, and the municipals of
102-63. Cremona and Verona Marcus Furius Bibaculus (652-691) 87-64. and Quintus Valerius Catullus (66 7-6, 700) whose elegant and pungent epigrams flew swiftly like arrows through Italy and were sure to hit their mark. An oppositional tone
prevails throughout the literature of these years. It is full of indignant sarcasm against the "great Caesar. " "the unique general," against the affectionate father-in-law and son-in-law, who ruin the whole globe in order to give their
Literature oDDosition
(672 — 706)
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
141
dissolute favourites opportunity to parade the spoils of the long-haired Celts through the streets of Rome, to furnish royal banquets with the booty of the farthest isles of the west, and as rivals showering gold to supplant honest youths at home in the favour of their mistresses. There is in the poems of Catullus1 and the other fragments of the literature of this period something of that fervour of personal and political hatred, of that republican agony overflowing in riotous humour or in stern despair, which are more prominently and powerfully apparent in Aristophanes and Demosthenes.
The most sagacious of the three rulers at least saw well that it was as impossible to despise this opposition as to suppress it by word of command So far as he could, Caesar tried rather personally to gain over the more notable authors. Cicero himself had to thank his literary reputa tion in good part for the respectful treatment which he especially experienced from Caesar; but the governor of Gaul did not disdain to conclude a special peace even with Catullus himself through the intervention of his father who had become personally known to him in Verona ; and the young poet, who had just heaped upon the powerful general the bitterest and most personal sarcasms, was treated by
him with the most flattering distinction. In fact Caesar was gifted enough to follow his literary opponents on their own domain and to publish —as an indirect way of repelling manifold attacks — a detailed report on the Gallic wars,
1 The collection handed down to us is full of references to the events
of 699 and 700 and was doubtless published in the latter year ; the most
recent event, which it mentions, is the prosecution of Vatinius (Aug. 700). 54. The statement of Hieronymus that Catullus died in 697-698 requires 67-60. therefore to be altered only by a few years. From the circumstance that Vatinius "swears falsely by his consulship," It has been erroneously in
ferred that the collection did not appear till after the consulate of Vatinius
(707) ; it only follows from it that Vatinius, when the collection appeared, 47. might already reckon on becoming consul in a definite year, for which he
had every reason as early as 700 ; for his name certainly stood on the list 64,
of candidates agreed on at Luca (Cicero, Ad. Att iv. 8 i. 2).
65. 64.
143 THE JOINT RULE OF book v
which set forth before the public, with happily assumed naivete", the necessity and constitutional propriety of his military operations. But it is freedom alone that is abso lutely and exclusively poetical and creative ; it and it alone is able even in its most wretched caricature, even with its latest breath, to inspire fresh enthusiasm. All the sound elements of literature were and remained anti-monarchical ; and, if Caesar himself could venture on this domain with out proving a failure, the reason was merely that even now he still cherished at heart the magnificent dream of a free commonwealth, although he was unable to transfer it either to his adversaries or to his adherents. Practical politics was not more absolutely controlled by the regents than literature by the republicans. 1
1 The well-known poem of Catullus (numbered as xxix. ) was written H. 54. in 699 or 700 after Caesar's Britannic expedition and before the death of
Julia:
Qui s hoe potest videre, quis potest pati. Nisi impudicus et vorax et aUo, Mamurram habere quod eomata Gallia Haieiat ante et ultima Britannia t etc.
Mamurra of Formiae, Caesar's favourite and for a time during the Gallic wars an officer in his army, had, presumably a short time before the composition of this poem, returned to the capital and was in all like lihood then occupied with the building of his much -talked- of marble palace furnished with lavish magnificence on the Caelian hill. The Iberian booty mentioned in the poem must have reference to Caesar's governorship of Further Spain, and Mamurra must even then, as certainly afterwards in Gaul, have been found at Caesar's headquarters ; the Pontic booty presumably has reference to the war of Pompeius against Mithradates, especially as according to the hint of the poet it was not merely Caesar that enriched Mamurra.
More innocent than this virulent invective, which was bitterly fdt by Caesar (Suet Caes. 73), is another nearly contemporary poem of the same author (xi. ) to which we may here refer, because with its pathetic introduction to an anything but pathetic commission it very cleverly quizzes the general staff of the new regents — the Gabiniuses, Antoniuses, and such like, suddenly advanced from the lowest haunts to headquarters. Let it be remembered that it was written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation. The poet, as if he too expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives to two of his clients their last instructions before departure :
Furi et Aureli, comites Catulii, etc.
chap, VIII POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
143
It became necessary to take serious steps against this New ex- opposition, which was powerless indeed, but was always be- JSJIL—, coming more troublesome and audacious. The condemna- resolved tion of Gabinius, apparently, turned the . scale (end of 700).
The regents agreed to introduce dictatorship, though only temporary one, and means of this to carry new coercive measures especially respecting the elections and the jury- courts. Pompeius, as the regent on whom primarily devolved the government of Rome and Italy, was charged with the execution of this resolve; which accordingly bore the
impress of the awkwardness in resolution and action that characterized him, and of his singular incapacity of speak
ing out frankly, even where he would and could command. Already at the close of 700 the demand for dictatorship 64. was brought forward in the senate in the form of hints,
and that not by Pompeius himself. There served as its ostensible ground the continuance of the system of clubs and bands in the capital, which acts of bribery and violence certainly exercised the most pernicious pressure on the elections as well as on the jury-courts and kept
in perpetual state of disturbance we must allow that this rendered easy for the regents to justify their ex
measures.
But, as may well be conceived, even
the servile majority shrank from granting what the future dictator himself seemed to shrink from openly asking. When the unparalleled agitation regarding the elections
for the consulship of 701 led to the most scandalous scenes, 53. so that the elections were postponed full year beyond
the fixed time and only took place after seven months' interregnum in July 701, Pompeius found in this state 53. of things the desired occasion for indicating now distinctly
to the senate that the dictatorship was the only means
of cutting, not of loosing the knot; but the decisive word of command was not even yet spoken.
would have still remained for long unuttered, had not
ceptional
Perhaps
it
it
if
a a
it
a
;
by
a
a
by
a
g4|
Mflo.
Publius Plautius Hypsaeus, both men closely connected with Pompeius personally and thoroughly devoted to him.
Milo, endowed with physical courage, with a certain talent for intrigue and for contracting debt, and above all with an ample amount of native assurance which had been carefully cultivated, had made himself a name among the political adventurers of the time, and was the greatest bully in his trade next to Clodius, and naturally therefore through rivalry at the most deadly feud with the latter. As this Achilles of the streets had been acquired by the regents and with their permission was again playing the ultra-democrat, the Hector of the streets became as a matter of course an aristocrat ! and the republican opposi tion, which now would have concluded an alliance with Catilina in person, had he presented himself to them, readily acknowledged Milo as their legitimate champion in all riots. In fact the few successes, which they carried off in this field of battle, were the work of Milo and of his well-trained band of gladiators. So Cato and his friends in return supported the candidature of Milo for the consulship ; even Cicero could not avoid recommend ing one who had been his enemy's enemy and his own protector during many years ; and as Milo himself spared neither money nor violence to carry his election, it seemed secured. For the regents it would have been not only a new and keenly-felt defeat, but also a real danger ; for it was to be foreseen that the bold partisan would not allow himself as consul to be reduced to insignificance so easily as Domitius and other men of the respectable opposition. It happened that Achilles and Hector accidentally encountered each other not far from the
144 THE JOINT RULE OF book y
the most audacious partisan of the republican opposition
Titus Annius Milo stepped into the field at the consular 62. elections for 702 as a candidate in opposition to the candidates of the regents, Quintus Metellus Scipio and
Killing of a°<,uu,
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
145
capital on the Appian Way, and a fray arose between their respective bands, in which Clodius himself received a sword-cut on the shoulder and was compelled to take refuge in a neighbouring house. This had occurred with out orders from Milo; but, as the matter had gone so far and as the storm had now to be encountered at any rate, the whole crime seemed to Milo more desirable and even less dangerous than the half; he ordered his men to drag Clodius forth from his lurking place and to put
him to death (13 Jan. 702). —
The street leaders of the regents' party the tribunes
62.
Anarchy ia of the people Titus Munatius Plancus, Quintus Pompeius Raao-
Rufus, and Gaius Sallustius Crispus —saw in this occurrence a fitting opportunity to thwart in the interest of their masters the candidature of Milo and carry the dictator ship of Pompeius. The dregs of the populace, especially the freedmen and slaves, had lost in Clodius their patron and future deliverer (p. 1n); the requisite excitement was thus easily aroused. After the bloody corpse had been exposed for show at the orators' platform in the Forum and the speeches appropriate to the occasion had been made, the riot broke forth. The seat of the perfidious aristocracy was destined as a funeral pile for the great liberator; the mob carried the body to the senate-house, and set the building on fire. Thereafter the multitude proceeded to the front of Milo's house and kept it under siege, till his band drove off the assailants by discharges of arrows. They passed on to the house of Pompeius and of his consular candidates, of whom the former was saluted as dictator and the latter as consuls, and thence to the house of the interrex Marcus Lepidus, on whom devolved the conduct of the consular elections. When the latter, as in duty bound, refused to make arrangements for the elections immediately, as the clamorous multitude demanded, he
was kept during five days under siege in his dwelling house.
VOL V
143
D ctator- Pompetas.
Changes
rang ement of magis-
{Jejury^ system.
70.
372).
Thus in legal possession of full power, Pompeius set
146 THE JOINT RULE OF book V
But the instigators of these scandalous scenes had over- acte^ their part Certainly their lord and master was resolved to employ this favourable episode in order not merely to set aside Milo, but also to seize the dictatorship ; he wished, however, to receive it not from a mob of bludgeon-men, but from the senate. Pompeius brought up troops to put down the anarchy which prevailed in the capital, and which had in reality become intolerable to everybody; at the same time he now enjoined what he
had hitherto requested, and the senate complied. It was merely an empty subterfuge, that on the proposal of Cato and Bibulus the proconsul Pompeius, retaining his former offices, was nominated as "consul without colleague" instead of dictator (on the 25 th of the intercalary month1
62. 702)—a subterfuge, which admitted an appellation labour ing under a double incongruity* for the mere purpose of avoiding one which expressed the simple fact, and which vividly reminds us of the sagacious resolution of the waning patriciate to concede to the plebeians not the consulship, but only the consular power
to work and proceeded with energy against the republican party which was powerful in the clubs and the jury-courts. The existing enactments as to elections were repeated and enforced by a special law; and by another against electioneering intrigues, which obtained retrospective force for all offences of this sort committed since 684, the penalties hitherto imposed were augmented. Still more important was the enactment, that the governorships, which were by far the more important and especially by far the more lucrative half of official life, should be conferred on the consuls and praetors not immediately on their retire
Id this year the January with 29 and the February with 23 days are followed by the intercalary month with 28, and then by March.
Consul signifies "colleague" 318), and a consul who at the me time proconsul at once an actual consul and a consul's substitute.
is
(i.
(i.
is
'1
chap, Vlll POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
147
ment from the consulate or praetorship, but only after the expiry of other five years ; an arrangement which of course could only come into effect after four years, and therefore made the filling up of the governorships for the next few years substantially dependent on decrees of senate which were to be issued for the regulation of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section ruling the senate at the moment The jury - commissions were left in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea, and —what was perhaps still more important —the liberty of speech in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates and the time of speaking appor tioned to each were restricted by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which had prevailed of adducing, in addition to the witnesses as to facts, witnesses to character or lauda tors, as they were called, in favour of the accused was
The obsequious senate further decreed on the suggestion of Pompeius that the country had been placed in peril by the quarrel on the Appian Way ; accordingly a special commission was appointed by an exceptional law for all crimes connected with the members of which were directly nominated Pompeius. An attempt was also made to give once more serious importance to the office of the censors, and by that agency to purge the deeply disordered burgess-body of the worst rabble.
All these measures were adopted under the pressure of the sword. In consequence of the declaration of the senate that the country was danger, Pompeius called the men capable of service throughout Italy to arms and made them swear allegiance for all contingencies; an adequate and trustworthy corps was temporarily stationed at the Capitol at every stirring of opposition Pompeius threatened armed
intervention, and during the proceedings at the trial re specting the murder of Clodius stationed, contrary to all precedent, guard over the place of trial itself.
prohibited.
a
;
in
by a
it,
the\e-
148 THE JOINT RULE OF book v
The scheme for the revival of the censorship failed, because among the servile majority of the senate no one publicans, possessed sufficient moral courage and authority even to become a candidate for such an office. On the other hand 88. Milo was condemned by the jurymen (8 April 702) and
61. Cato's candidature for the consulship of 703 was frustrated. The opposition of speeches and pamphlets received through the new judicial ordinance a blow from which it never re covered ; the dreaded forensic eloquence was thereby driven from the field of politics, and thenceforth felt the restraints of monarchy. Opposition of course had not disappeared either from the minds of the great majority of the nation or even wholly from public life — to effect that end the popular elections, the jury-courts, and literature must have been not merely restricted, but annihilated. Indeed, in these very transactions themselves, Pompeius by his un- skilfulness and perversity helped the republicans to gain even under his dictatorship several triumphs which he severely felt The special measures, which the rulers took to strengthen their power, were of course officially charac terized as enactments made in the interest of public tran quillity and order, and every burgess, who did not desire anarchy, was described as substantially concurring in them.
But Pompeius pushed this transparent fiction so far, that instead of putting safe instruments into the special com mission for the investigation of the last tumult, he chose the most respectable men of all parties, including even Cato, and applied his influence over the court essentially to maintain order, and to render it impossible for his adherents as well as for his opponents to indulge in the scenes of disturbance customary in the courts of this period. This neutrality of the regent was discernible in the judgments of the special court The jurymen did not venture to acquit Milo himself; but most of the subordinate persons accused belonging to the party of the republican opposition were
Humfli*.
chap, viii POMPEIUS AND CAESAR
149
acquitted, while condemnation inexorably befell those who in the last riot had taken part for Clodius, or in other words for the regents, including not a few of Caesar's and of Pompeius' own most intimate friends—even Hypsaeus his candidate for the consulship, and the tribunes of the people Plancus and Rufus, who had directed the imeute in his interest. That Pompeius did not prevent their condemna tion for the sake of appearing impartial, was one specimen of his folly ; and a second was, that he withal in matters quite indifferent violated his own laws to favour his friends —appearing for example as a witness to character in the trial of Plancus, and in fact protecting from condemnation several accused persons specially connected with him, such as Metellus Scipio. As usual, he wished here also to accomplish opposite things ; in attempting to satisfy the duties at once of the impartial regent and of the party-chief, he fulfilled neither the one nor the other, and was regarded by public opinion with justice as a despotic regent, and by his adherents with equal justice as a leader who either could not or would not protect his followers.
But, although the republicans were still stirring and were even refreshed by an isolated success here and there, chiefly through the blunders of Pompeius, the object which the regents had proposed to themselves in that dictatorship was
on the whole attained, the reins were drawn tighter, the republican party was humbled, and the new monarchy was strengthened. The public began to reconcile themselves
to the latter. When Pompeius not long after recovered from a serious illness, his restoration was celebrated through
out Italy with the accompanying demonstrations of joy which are usual on such occasions in monarchies. The regents showed themselves satisfied ; as early as the 1st of August 702 Pompeius resigned his dictatorship, and shared 62 the consulship with his client Metellus Scipio.
Crura ItSl°
Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads of the " three-headed monster," without any proper title to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak more accurately, his weight fell into the scale of Caesar against Pompeius. This part is not a too reputable one ; but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open to be dealt with. What was offered to him was not much ; but, when more was not to be got he accepted and sought to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin at occupying position so near to power and yet so powerless, amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with the view of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius after concessions so extensive, Caesar gave to his old confederate Crassus an opportunity of attaining Syria through the Parthian war the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war in GauL It was difficult to say whether these new prospects proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become at the age of sixty second nature and grew only the more intense
150
DEATH OF CRASSUS BOOK T
CHAPTER IX
DEATH OF CRASSUS RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS
a
in
a
it,
chap, IX RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 151
with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast
and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early as the beginning of 700 ; he had not even 54. waited for the expiry of his consulship to depart Full of impatient ardour he seemed desirous to redeem every minute with the view of making up for what he had lost, of gathering in the treasures of the east in addition to those
of the west, of achieving the power and glory of a general as rapidly as Caesar, and with as little trouble as Pompeius.
He found the Parthian war already commenced. The ExpedWoa faithless conduct of Pompeius towards the Parthians has S-^-ij1* been already mentioned (iv. 434) ; he had not respected resolved the stipulated frontier of the Euphrates and had wrested on. several provinces from the Parthian empire for the benefit
of Armenia, which was now a client state of Rome. King Phraates had submitted to this treatment ; but after he had been murdered by his two sons Mithradates and Orodes, the new king Mithradates immediately declared war on the king of Armenia, Artavasdes, son of the recently deceased Tigranes (about 698). 1 This was at the same 66. time a declaration of war against Rome ; as soon therefore
as the revolt of the Jews was suppressed, Gabinius, the able and spirited governor of Syria, led the legions over the Euphrates. Meanwhile, however, a revolution had occurred in the Parthian empire ; the grandees of the kingdom, with the young, bold, and talented grand vizier at their head, had overthrown king Mithradates and placed his brother Orodes on the throne. Mithradates therefore made common cause with the Romans and resorted to the camp of Gabinius. Everything promised the best results to the enterprise of the Roman governor, when he un-
1 Tigranes was still living in February 698 (Cic. pro Sat. aj, 59) ; on 66. the other hand Artavasdes was already reigning before 700 (Justin, xlii. 64. a, 4 ; Plut Crass . 49).
Plan of the campaign.
the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter ; he not only spoke confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms of Bactria and India.
The new Alexander, however, was in no haste. Before he carried into effect these great plans, he found leisure for very tedious and very lucrative collateral transactions. The temples of Derceto at Hierapolis Bambyce and of Jehovah at Jerusalem and other rich shrines of the Syrian province, were by order of Crassus despoiled of their treasures; and contingents or, still better, sums of money instead were levied from all the subjects. The military operations of the first summer were limited to an extensive reconnaissance in Mesopotamia ; the Euphrates was crossed, the Parthian satrap was defeated at Ichnae (on
152
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
expectedly received orders to conduct the king of Egypt back by force of arms to Alexandria (iv. 451). He was obliged to obey ; but, in the expectation of soon coming back, he induced the dethroned Parthian prince who solicited aid from him to commence the war in the mean while at his own hand. Mithradates did so ; and Scleucia and Babylon declared for him ; but the vizier captured Seleucia by assault, having been in person the first to mount the battlements, and in Babylon Mithradates him self was forced by famine to surrender, whereupon he was by his brother's orders put to death. His death was a palpable loss to the Romans ; but it by no means put an
end to the ferment in the Parthian empire, and the Armenian war continued. Gabinius, after ending the Egyptian campaign, was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable opportunity and
resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 153
the Belik to the north of Rakkah), and the neighbouring towns, including the considerable one of Nicephorium
were occupied, after which the Romans having left garrisons behind in them returned to Syria. They had hitherto been in doubt whether it was more advisable to march to Parthia by the circuitous route of Armenia or by the direct route through the Mesopotamian desert. The first route, leading through mountainous regions under the control of trustworthy allies, commended itself by its greater safety ; king Artavasdes came in person to the Roman headquarters to advocate this plan of the cam
But that reconnaissance decided in favour of the march through Mesopotamia. The numerous and flourish ing Greek and half-Greek towns in the regions along the Euphrates and Tigris, above all the great city of Seleucia, were altogether averse to the Parthian rule; all the Greek townships with which the Romans came into contact had now, like the citizens of Carrhae at an earlier time (iv. 429), practically shown how ready they were to shake on" the intolerable foreign yoke and to receive the Romans as deliverers, almost as countrymen. The Arab prince Abgarus, who commanded the desert of Edessa and Carrhae and thereby the usual route from the Euphrates to the Tigris, had arrived in the camp of the Romans to assure them in person of his devotedness. The Parthians had appeared to be wholly unprepared.
Accordingly (701) the Euphrates was crossed (near 61. Biradjik). To reach the Tigris from this point they had Euphratei
(Rakkah),
paign.
the choice of two routes ; either the army might move downward along the Euphrates to the latitude of Seleucia where the Euphrates and Tigris are only a few miles dis tant from each other ; or they might immediately after crossing take the shortest line to the Tigris right across the great Mesopotamian desert. The former route led directly to the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, which lay
crossed
154
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
opposite Seleucia on the other bank of the Tigris ; several weighty voices were raised in favour of this route in the Roman council of war; in particular the quaestor Gaius Cassius pointed to the difficulties of the march in the desert, and to the suspicious reports arriving from the Roman garrisons on the left bank of the Euphrates as to the Parthian warlike preparations. But in opposition to this the Arab prince Abgarus announced that the Parthians were employed in evacuating their western
The march in the desert.
provinces. They had already packed up their treasures and put themselves in motion to flee to the Hyrcanians and Scythians ; only through a forced march by the shortest route was it at all possible still to reach them ; but by such a march the Romans would probably succeed in overtaking and cutting up at least the rear-guard of the
great army under Sillaces and the vizier, and obtaining enormous spoil. These reports of the friendly Bedouins decided the direction of the march ; the Roman army, consisting of seven legions, 4000 cavalry, and 4000 slingers and archers, turned off from the Euphrates and away into the inhospitable plains of northern Mesopotamia.
Far and wide not an enemy showed himself ; only hunger and thirst, and the endless sandy desert, seemed to keep watch at the gates of the east. At length, after many days of toilsome marching, not far from the first river which the Roman army had to cross, the Balissus
(Belik), the first horsemen of the enemy were descried. Abgarus with his Arabs was sent out to reconnoitre ; the Parthian squadrons retired up to and over the river and vanished in the distance, pursued by Abgarus and his followers. With impatience the Romans waited for his return and for more exact information. The general hoped here at length to come upon the constantly re treating foe; his young and brave son Publius, who had fought with the greatest distinction in Gaul under Caesar
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 155
(p. 39, 55), and had been sent by the latter at the head of a Celtic squadron of horse to take part in the Parthian war, was inflamed with a vehement desire for the fight. When no tidings came, they resolved to advance at a venture ; the signal for starting was given, the Balissus was crossed, the army after a brief insufficient rest at noon was led on without delay at a rapid pace. Then suddenly the kettledrums of the Parthians sounded all around ; on every side their silken gold - embroidered banners were seen waving, and their iron helmets and coats of mail glittering in the blaze of the hot noonday sun ; and by the side of the vizier stood prince Abgarus with his Bedouins.
The Romans saw too late the net into which they had Roman allowed themselves to be ensnared. With sure glance the p^^^ vizier had thoroughly seen both the danger and the means systems of of meeting Nothing could be accomplished against the w Roman infantry of the line with Oriental infantry so he
had rid himself of and by sending mass, which was
useless in the main field of battle, under the
leadership of king Orodes to Armenia, he had prevented
king Artavasdes from allowing the promised 10,000 heavy
cavalry to join the army of Crassus, who now painfully felt
the want of them. On the other hand the vizier met the
Roman tactics, unsurpassed of their kind, with
entirely different. His army consisted exclusively of
cavalry the line was formed of the heavy horsemen armed with long thrusting-lances, and protected, man and horse, by coat of mail of metallic plates or leathern doublet and similar greaves the mass of the troops consisted of mounted archers. As compared with these, the Romans were thoroughly inferior in the corresponding arms both as to number and excellence. Their infantry of the line, excellent as they were in close combat, whether at
short distance with the heavy javelin or in hand-to-hand combat with the sword, could not compel an army consist-
personal
system
a
by
;
; a
a
a
it,
a
;
it.
156
DEATH OF CRASS US book v
ing merely of cavalry to come to an engagement with them; and they found, even when they did come to a hand-to- hand conflict, an equal if not superior adversary in the iron-clad hosts of lancers. As compared with an army like this Parthian one, the Roman army was at a disadvantage strategically, because the cavalry commanded the communi cations ; and at a disadvantage tactically, because every weapon of close combat must succumb to that which is wielded from a distance, unless the struggle becomes an individual one, man against man. The concentrated posi tion, on which the whole Roman method of war was based, increased the danger in presence of such an attack; the closer the ranks of the Roman column, the more irresistible certainly was its onset, but the less also could the missiles fail to hit their mark Under ordinary circumstances, where towns have to be defended and difficulties of the ground have to be considered, such tactics operating merely with cavalry against infantry could never be completely carried out; but in the Mesopotamian desert, where the army, almost like a ship on the high seas, neither en countered an obstacle nor met with a basis for strategic dispositions during many days' march, this mode of war fare was irresistible for the very reason that circumstances allowed it to be developed there in all its purity and there fore in all its power. There everything combined to put the foreign infantry at a disadvantage against the native cavalry. Where the heavy-laden Roman foot -soldier dragged himself toilsomely through the sand or the steppe, and perished from hunger or still more from thirst amid the
pathless route marked only by water-springs that were far apart and difficult to And, the Parthian horseman, accus tomed from childhood to sit on his fleet steed or camel, nay almost to spend his life in the saddle, easily traversed the desert whose hardships he had long learned how to lighten or in case of need to endure. There no rain fell
CHAr. ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 157
to mitigate the intolerable heat, and to slacken the bow strings and leathern thongs of the enemy's archers and slingers ; there amidst the deep sand at many places ordinary ditches and ramparts could hardly be formed for the camp. Imagination can scarcely conceive a situation in which all the military advantages were more on the one side, and all the disadvantages more thoroughly on the other.
To the question, under what circumstances this new style of tactics, the first national system that on its own proper ground showed itself superior to the Roman, arose among the Parthians, we unfortunately can only reply by conjectures. The lancers and mounted archers were of great antiquity in the east, and already formed the flower of the armies of Cyrus and Darius ; but hitherto these arms had been employed only as secondary, and essentially to cover the thoroughly useless Oriental infantry. The
Parthian armies also by no means differed in this respect from the other Oriental ones ; armies are mentioned, five- sixths of which consisted of infantry. In the campaign of Crassus, on the other hand, the cavalry for the first time came forward independently, and this arm obtained quite a new application and quite a different value. The irresistible superiority of the Roman infantry in close combat seems to have led the adversaries of Rome in very
different parts of the world independently of each other— at the same time and with similar success —to meet it with cavalry and distant weapons. What was completely successful with Cassivellaunus in Britain (p. 64 /. ) and partially successful with Vercingetorix in Gaul 75,/C) — what was to certain degree attempted even by Mithradates Eupator (iv. 344) — the vizier of Orodes carried out only on
larger scale and more completely. And in doing so he had special advantages for he found in the heavy cavalry the means of forming line the bow which was national
a ,
:
a
a
(p.
Battle near *" **"
in the east and was handled with masterly skill in the Persian provinces gave him an effective weapon for distant combat ; and lastly the peculiarities of the country and the people enabled him freely to realize his brilliant idea. Here, where the Roman weapons of close combat and the Roman system of concentration yielded for the first time before the weapons of more distant warfare and the system of deploying, was initiated that military revolution which only reached its completion with the introduction of firearms.
Under such circumstances the first battle between the Romans and Parthians was fought amidst the sandy desert thirty miles to the south of Carrhae (Harran) where there was a Roman garrison, and at a somewhat less distance to the north of Ichnae. The Roman archers were sent forward, but retired immediately before the enormous numerical superiority and the far greater elasticity and range of the Parthian bows. The legions, which, in spite of the advice of the more sagacious officers that they should be deployed as much as possible against the enemy, had been drawn up in a dense square of twelve cohorts on each side, were soon outflanked and overwhelmed with the formidable arrows, which under such circumstances hit
their man even without special aim, and against which the soldiers had no means of retaliation. The hope that the enemy might expend his missiles vanished with a glance at the endless range of camels laden with arrows. The Parthians were still extending their line. That the out flanking might not end in surrounding, Publius Crassus advanced to the attack with a select corps of cavalry, archers, and infantry of the line. The enemy in fact abandoned the attempt to close the circle, and retreated, hotly pursued by the impetuous leader of the Romans. But, when the corps of Publius had totally lost sight of the main army, the heavy cavalry made a stand against and
IS8
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
it,
CHA». ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 159
the Parthian host hastening up from all sides closed in like a net round it Publius, who saw his troops falling thickly and vainly around him under the arrows of the mounted archers, threw himself in desperation with his Celtic cavalry unprotected by any coats of mail on the iron-clad lancers of the enemy ; but the death-despising valour of his Celts, who seized the lances with their hands or sprang from their horses to stab the enemy, performed its marvels in vain. The remains of the corps, including their leader wounded in the sword-arm, were driven to a slight eminence, where they only served for an easier mark to the enemy's archers. Mesopotamian Greeks, who were accurately acquainted with the country, adjured Crassus to ride off with them and make an attempt to escape ; but he refused to separate his fate from that of the brave men whom his too-daring courage had led to death, and he caused himself to be stabbed by the hand of his shield- bearer. Following his example, most of the still surviving officers put themselves to death. Of the whole division, about 6000 strong, not more than 500 were taken prisoners; no one was able to escape. Meanwhile the attack on the main army had slackened, and the Romans were but too glad to rest When at length the absence of any tidings from the corps sent out startled them out of
the deceitful calm, and they drew near to the scene of the battle for the purpose of learning its fate, the head of the son was displayed on a pole before his father's eyes ; and the terrible onslaught began once more against the main army with the same fury and the same hopeless uniformity. They could neither break the ranks of the lancers nor reach the archers ; night alone put an end to the slaughter. Had the Parthians bivouacked on the battle-field, hardly a man of the Roman army would have escaped. But not trained to fight otherwise than on horseback, and therefore afraid of a surprise, they were wont never to encamp close
Retreat to Carrhae.
ifo DEATH OF CRASSUS BOOK V
to the enemy ; jeeringly they shouted to the Romans that they would give the general a night to bewail his son, and galloped off to return next morning and despatch the game that lay bleeding on the ground.
Of course the Romans did not wait for the morning. The lieutenant-generals Cassius and Octavius — Crassus himself had completely lost his judgment — ordered the men still capable of marching to set out immediately and with the utmost silence (while the whole—said to amount to 4000—of the wounded and stragglers were left), with the view of seeking protection within the walls of Carrhae. The fact that the Parthians, when they returned on the following day, applied themselves first of all to seek out and massacre the scattered Romans left behind, and the further fact that the garrison and inhabitants of Carrhae, early informed of the disaster by fugitives, had marched forth in all haste to meet the beaten army, saved the remnants of it from what seemed inevitable destruction.
The squadrons of Parthian horsemen could not think of undertaking a siege of Carrhae. But the Romans soon voluntarily departed, whether compelled by want of provisions, or in consequence of the desponding precipita tion of their commander-in-chief, whom the soldiers had vainly attempted to remove from the command and to replace by Cassius. They moved in the direction of the Armenian mountains ; marching by night and resting by day Octavius with a band of 5000 men reached the fortress of Sinnaca, which was only a day's march distant from the heights that would give shelter, and liberated even at the peril of his own life the commander-in chief, whom the guide had led astray and given up to the enemy. Then the vizier rode in front of the Roman camp to offer, in the name of his king, peace and friendship to the
Romans, and to propose a personal conference between the two generals. The Roman army, demoralized as it
Departure from Carrhae,
Surprise at Sinnaca.
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 161
was, adjured and indeed compelled its leader to accept the offer. The vizier received the consular and his staff with
the usual honours, and offered anew to conclude a compact
of friendship ; only, with just bitterness recalling the fate
of the agreements concluded with Lucullus and Pompeius respecting the Euphrates boundary (iv. 434), he demanded that it should be immediately reduced to writing. A richly adorned horse was produced ; it was a present from
the king to the Roman commander-in-chief; the servants
of the vizier crowded round Crassus, zealous to mount him
on the steed. It seemed to the Roman officers as if there was a design to seize the person of the commander-in-chief; Octavius, unarmed as he was, pulled the sword of one of the Parthians from its sheath and stabbed the groom. In the tumult which thereupon arose, the Roman officers were
all put to death ; the gray-haired commander-in-chief also,
like his grand-uncle (iii. 279), was unwilling to serve as a living trophy to the enemy, and sought and found death. The multitude left behind in the camp without a leader were partly taken prisoners, partly dispersed. What the day of Carrhae had begun, the day of Sinnaca completed (June 9, 701); the two took their place side by side with 68. the days of the Allia, of Cannae, and of Arausio. The army of the Euphrates was no more. Only the squadron
of Gaius Cassius, which had been broken off from the main army on the retreat from Carrhae, and some other scattered bands and isolated fugitives succeeded in escaping from the Parthians and Bedouins and separately finding their way back to Syria. Of above 40,000 Roman legion aries, who had crossed the Euphrates, not a fourth part returned; the half had perished; nearly 10,000 Roman prisoners were settled by the victors in the extreme east of their kingdom — in the oasis of Merv — as bondsmen compelled after the Parthian fashion to render military service. For the first time since the eagles had headed
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io* DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
the legions, they had become in the same year trophies of victory in the hands of foreign nations, almost contempor aneously of a German tribe in the west (p. 69) and of the Farthians in the east As to the impression which the defeat of the Romans produced in the east, unfortunately no adequate information has reached us ; but it must have been deep and lasting. King Orodes was just celebrating the marriage of his son Pacorus with the sister of his new ally, Artavasdes the king of Armenia, when the announce ment of the victory of his vizier arrived, and along with according to Oriental usage, the cut-off head of Crassus. The tables were already removed; one of the wandering companies of actors from Asia Minor, numbers of which at that time existed and carried Hellenic poetry and the
Hellenic drama far into the east, was just
before the assembled court the Bacchae of Euripides. The actor playing the part of Agave, who in her Dionysiac frenzy has torn in pieces her son and returns from Cithaeron carrying his head on the thyrsus, exchanged this for the bloody head of Crassus, and to the infinite delight of his audience of half-Hellenized barbarians began afresh the well-known song
ipipofltV tptot
1\iko. rebropMr M iiFhadpa Haxaplar B-fipia.
was, since the times of the Achaemenids, the first serious victory which the Orientals had achieved over the west and there was deep significance in the fact that, by way of celebrating this victory, the faiiest product of the western world —Greek tragedy—parodied itself through its
degenerate representatives in that hideous burlesque. The civic spirit of Rome and the genius of Hellas began simul taneously to accommodate themselves to the chains of sul tan ism.
The disaster, terrible in itself, seemed also as though
performing
i
it,
;
It
a
:
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chap, IX RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 163
was to be dreadful in its consequences, and to shake the Conaa- foundations of the Roman power in the east. It was ^ftSe*"
among the least of its results, that the Farthians now had absolute sway beyond the Euphrates ; that Armenia, after having fallen away from the Roman alliance even before the disaster of Crassus, was reduced by it into entire dependence on Parthia ; that the faithful citizens of Carrhae were bitterly punished for their adherence to the Occidentals by the new master appointed over them by the Parthians, one of the treacherous guides of the Romans, named Andromachus. The Parthians now prepared in all earnest to cross the Euphrates in their turn, and, in union with the Armenians and Arabs, to dislodge the Romans from Syria. The Jews and various other Occidentals awaited emancipa tion from the Roman rule there, no less impatiently than the Hellenes beyond the Euphrates awaited relief from the Parthian ; in Rome civil war was at the door ; an attack at this particular place and time was a grave peril. But fortunately for Rome the leaders on each side had changed. Sultan Orodes was too much indebted to the heroic prince, who had first placed the crown on his head and then cleared the land from the enemy, not to get rid of him as soon as possible by the executioner. His place as commander-in-chief of the invading army destined for Syria was filled by a prince, the king's son Pacorus, with whom on account of his youth and inexperience the prince Osaces had to be associated as military adviser. On the other side the interim command in Syria in room of Crassus was taken up by the prudent and resolute quaestor Gaius Cassius.
The Parthians were, just like Crassus formerly, in no
haste to attack, but during the years 701 and 702 sent only
weak flying bands, who were easily repulsed, across the 63, 62.