[1075] Cicero,
_Letters
to Atticus_, I.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - a
[1001] See Cæsar’s speech, quoted above.
[1002] It may be interesting to reproduce here, from the letters of
Cicero, the list of the discourses which he delivered during the year of
his consulship. “I wished, I also, after the manner of Demosthenes, to
have my political speeches, which may be named _consulars_. The first
and second are on the Agrarian Law; the former before the Senate on the
calends of January; the second before the people; the third, about Otho;
the fourth, for Rabirius; the fifth, on the children of the proscribed;
the sixth, on my relinquishing my province; the seventh is that which
put Catiline to flight; the eighth was delivered before the people the
day after his flight; the ninth, from the tribune, the day when the
Allobroges came to give their evidence; the tenth, before the Senate, on
the 5th of December. There are two more, not so long, which may be
described as supplementary to the two first on the Agrarian Law. ”
(Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1. )
[1003] Velleius Paterculus, II. 40. --Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.
[1004] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 46.
[1005] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44; XLIII. 14.
[1006] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16.
[1007] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 43. --Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16. --Cicero,
_Oration for Sestius_, 29.
[1008] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 16.
[1009] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 24.
[1010] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 9.
[1011] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 17.
[1012] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 17.
[1013] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1014] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1015] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 10.
[1016] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 1. --Plutarch, _Cicero_, 27; Plutarch,
_Cæsar_, 10. --“This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on
behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the
right of _imperium_, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal.
The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to
men, and whom Clodius terms the _Good Goddess_ (_Bona Dea_), because she
forgave him so gross an outrage. ” (Cicero, _Oration on the Report of the
Augurs_, 17. )--The _Good Goddess_, like the majority of the divinities
of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent
fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception
of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of
December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that
magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the
festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were
offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.
[1017] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 14.
[1018] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 16.
[1019] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 17.
[1020] Appian, _Mithridatic War_, 101.
[1021] Appian, _Mithridatic War_, 106.
[1022] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 20.
[1023] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44. In contradiction to other authors, Dio
Cassius asserts that the elections were adjourned. (Plutarch, _Pompey_,
45. )
[1024] “The more men were terrified, the more they were re-assured, on
seeing Pompey return to his country as a simple citizen. ” (Velleius
Paterculus, II. 40. )
[1025] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 12.
[1026] Metellus was subjugating Crete, when Pompey sent one of his
lieutenants to depose him, under the pretence that that island was
included in his own wide jurisdiction by sea.
[1027] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 49.
[1028] “No rectitude, no candour, not a single honourable motive in his
policy; nothing elevated, nothing strong, nothing generous. ” (Cicero,
_Letters to Atticus_, I. 12. )
[1029] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 47.
[1030] Pliny, _Natural History_, XXXVII. 5.
[1031] Vases from Carmania that were highly prized. They reflected the
colours of the rainbow, and, according to Pliny, a single one was sold
for seventy talents (more than 300,000 francs [£12,000]). (Pliny,
_Natural History_, XXXVII, 7, 8. )
[1032] Pliny, XXXIII. 54. --Strabo, XII. 545.
[1033] Appian, _War against Mithridates_, 116.
[1034] Pliny, _Natural History_, XII. 9, 54.
[1035] Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 2. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 34.
[1036] Appian, _War against Mithridates_, 117.
[1037] Plutarch, _Pompey_, 47. --Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.
[1038] Cicero, _Oration for Murena_, 14.
[1039] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1040] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 50.
[1041] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1042] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1043] Cicero, _Oration on the Agrarian Law_, II. 27.
[1044] “Your ancestors never set you the example of buying lands from
individuals in order to send colonies thither. _All the laws, up to the
present time, have contented themselves with establishing them on the
lands belonging to the State. _” (Cicero, _Oration on the Agrarian Law_,
II. 25. )
[1045] Plutarch, _Cato of Utica_, 36.
[1046] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 51.
[1047] Plutarch, _Cato_, 35.
[1048] “People abuse the Senate; the equestrian order stands aloof from
it. Thus this year will have seen the overthrow of the two solid
foundations on which I, single-handed, had planted the Republic--the
authority of the Senate and the union of the two orders. ” (Cicero,
_Letters to Atticus_, I. 18. )
[1049] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1050] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12. --Appian (_Civil Wars_, II. 2, § 8) speaks
of twenty-five million sestertii--_i. e. _, 4,750,000 francs [£190,000].
[1051] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 18.
[1052] Cicero, _Letter to Atticus_, I. 14, 16.
[1053] “From his youth up he was zealous and true to his clients. ”
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 71. )
[1054] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1055] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1056] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1057] A chain of mountains in Portugal, now called _Sierra di
Estrella_, separating the basin of the Tagus from the valley of Mondego.
According to Cellarius (_Ancient Geography_, I. 60), Mount Herminium is
still called _Arminno_. The principal _oppidum_ belonging to the
population of these mountains seems to have been called Medobrega
(_Membrio_). It is mentioned in _Cæsar’s Commentaries, War of
Alexandria_, 48.
[1058] Probably in the modern province of Leyria.
[1059] A survey made, in August, 1861, by the Duc de Bellune, leaves no
doubt that the peninsula of Peniche was once an island. The local
traditions state that in ancient times the ocean advanced as far as the
town of Atoguia; but since Dio Cassius speaks of the rising tide which
swept away soldiers, we must believe that there were fords at low tide.
We give extracts from Portuguese authors who have written on this
subject.
Bernard de Brito (_Portuguese Monarchy_, I. p. 429, Lisbon, 1790)
says:--“As along the entire coast of Portugal we cannot find, at the
present time, a single island that fulfils the conditions of the one
where Cæsar sought to disembark better than the peninsula, on which
there is a locality which, taking its name from its situation, is called
_Peniche_, we shall maintain, with our countryman Resende, that it is to
this that all the authors refer. And I do not believe it possible to
find one more suitable in every way than this: because, over and above
the fact that it is the only one, and situated at but a short distance
from the mainland, we see that when the tide is low it is possible to
traverse the strait dryshod, and with still greater facility than would
have been possible in ancient times, because the sea has silted up sand
against a large portion of this coast, and brought it to pass that the
sea does not rise to so high a point upon the land. Still, it rises high
enough to make it necessary, at high tide, to use a boat to reach the
island, and that in a space of about 500 paces in width, which separates
the island from the mainland. ”
The following is the passage of Resende:--“Sed quærendum utrobique
quænam insula ista fuerit terræ contigua, ad quam sive pedibus sive
natatu profugi transire potuerint, ad quam similiter et milites
trajicere tentarint? Non fuisse Londobrin, cujus meminit Ptolomæus
(_Berligam_ modo dicimus), indicio est distantia a continente non
modica. Et quum alia juxta Lusitaniæ totius littus nulla nostra ævo
exstet, hæc de qua Dion loquitur, vel incumbenti violentius mari abrasa,
vel certe peninsula illa oppidi Peniche juxta Atonguiam, erit
intelligenda. Nam etiam nunc alveo quingentis passibus lato a continente
sejungitur, qui pedibus æstu cedente transitur, redeunte vero insula
plane fit, neque adiri vado potest. Et forte illo sæculo fuerit
aliquanto major. ” (L. André de Resende. _De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ
cæteraque Historica quæ exstant Opera_, Conimbricæ, 1790, I. , p. 77. )
Antonio Carvalho (_Da costa corografia Portuguesa_, II. p. 144, Lisbon,
1712) sets forth the same view.
The preceding information is confirmed by the following letter of an
English bishop who accompanied the Crusaders, at the time of the siege
of Lisbon, in the reign of Alfonso Henrique, a. d. 1147:--“Die vero quasi
decima, impositis sarcinis nostris cum episcopis velificare incepimus
iter prosperum agentes. Die vero postera ad insulam Phenicis (vulgo
_Peniche_) distantis a continente quasi octingentis passibus feliciter
applicuimus. Insula abundat cervis et maxime cuniculis: liquiricium
(_lege_ glycyrrhizum) habet. Tyrii dicunt eam Erictream. Peni Gaddis, id
est septem, ultra quam non est terra: ideo extremus noti orbis terminus
dicitur. Juxta hanc sunt duæ insulæ quæ vulgo dicuntur Berlinges, id est
Baleares lingua corrupta, in una quarum est palatium admirabilis
architecturæ et multa officinarum diversoria regi cuidam, ut aiunt,
quondam gratissimum secretale hospicium. ” (Letter of an English Crusader
on the sack of Lisbon, in _Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, a sæculo
octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, justa Academiæ
Scientiarum Olisiponensis edita_. Volumen I. , fasciculus iii. Lisbon,
1861, p. 395. )
[1060] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 52, 53. --“Cæsar, as soon as he arrived,
defeated the Lusitanians and the inhabitants of Galicia, and advanced as
far as the outer sea. Thus he caused people who had never yet recognised
the authority of the Romans to submit to them, and returned from his
government loaded with glory and wealth, of which he gave a part to his
soldiers. ” (Zonaras, _Annales_, X. 6. )
[1061] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 8.
[1062] Cæsar, _Spanish War_, 42.
[1063] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 12.
[1064] “There come forward a whole army of accusers against those who
enriched themselves by usury in contempt of a law passed by Cæsar when
he was dictator, regulating the proportion to be observed between the
debts and possessions in Italy: a law which had for a long while fallen
into desuetude through the interest of individuals. ” (Tacitus, _Annals_,
vi. 16. --Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 42. )
[1065] “I will not enumerate all the marks of honour with which Cæsar
distinguished the people of this town when he was prætor in Spain; the
divisions he found means of healing among the citizens of Gades; the
laws which, with their consent, he gave them; the old barbarism of their
manners and customs, which he caused to disappear; the eagerness with
which, at the request of Balbus, he loaded them with benefits. ” (Cicero,
_Oration for Balbus_, 19. )
[1066] “From his youth he was acquainted with Cæsar, and that great man
was pleased with him. Cæsar, among the crowd of friends he had, marked
him out as one of his intimates when he was prætor: when he was consul,
he made him overseer of the manufactory of his military engines. He had
experience of his prudence; appreciated his devotion; accepted his acts
of kindness and his affection. At that time Balbus shared nearly all the
labours of Cæsar. ” (Cicero, _Oration for Balbus_, 28. )
[1067] “For this man (Cæsar) began by being prætor in Spain, and,
distrusting the loyalty of this province, he would not give its
inhabitants the chance of being subsequently more dangerous, through a
delusive peace. He chose to do what was of importance to the interests
of the Republic rather than to pass the days of his magistracy in
tranquillity; and as the Spaniards refused to surrender, he compelled
them to it by force. So he surpassed in honour those who had preceded
him in Spain; for it is a harder task to keep a conquest than to make
one. ” (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 41. )
[1068] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 54.
[1069] “Cæsar arrives in two days. ” (_Cicero to Atticus_, II. 1, June,
694. )
[1070] Thence the name of _candidate_.
[1071] “Many candidates for the consulship had been nominated in their
absence; as, for instance, Marcellus, in 540. ” (Titus Livius, XXIV. 9. )
[1072] Plutarch, _Cato_, 36.
[1073] Florus, III. 23.
[1074] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1075] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 18.
[1076] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1077] “It even appears that Cicero had lent the accused a million of
sestertii to purchase a mansion on the Palatine. ” (Aulus Gellius, XII.
12. )
[1078] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 12.
[1079] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1080] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1.
[1081] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, I. 19.
[1082] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 50.
[1083] Cicero, _Letters to Quintus_, I. 1, 11.
[1084] Cæsar, when consul and dictator, declared many foreign cities
free.
[1085] It will be seen in the next chapter that Cæsar recognized as
friends to the Roman people Auletes, king of Egypt, and Ariovistus, king
of the Germans.
[1086] _Duumvirs_, _decemvirs_, _vigintivirs_ were the names given to
magistrates who shared the same duties in boards of two, ten, or twenty.
In the present case, however, the object was only to bind together the
men of the greatest importance by a secret bond. Therefore the word
_triumvirate_ would be a misnomer.
[1087] “He wished me to join these three intimate consular men. ”
(Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 17. )
[1088] Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 57.
[1089] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, V. 12.
[1090] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19. --Eutropius, VI. 14. --Plutarch, _Cæsar_,
13.
[1091] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19.
[1092] Plutarch, _Cato_, 26. --Suetonius, 19.
[1093] “But will you say that we can only have the knights on our side
by paying for them? What are we to do? Have we a choice of means? ”
(Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1. )
[1094]
“Inde domum repetes toto comitante senatu,
Officium populi vix capiente domo. ”
Ovid, _Ex Ponto_, IV. Epist. 4.
[1095] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 19.
[1096] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1097] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 10.
[1098] Cicero, _Epistle to Atticus_, II. 3. --“When consul, he wished me
to take part in the operations of his consulship. Without approving
them, I felt nevertheless grateful to him for his deference. ” (_Oration
on the Consular Provinces_, 17. )
[1099] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14. --Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 21.
[1100] Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 14.
[1101] Plutarch, _Cato_, 24.
[1102] Plutarch, _Cato_, 59.
[1103] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1104] Titus Livius, IX. 8.
[1105] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 7.
[1106] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, XIII. 4.
[1107] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1108] _Epistles to Atticus_, I. 18. --In allusion to a former law, we
read as follows: “The senators who have discussed the present law shall
be held, within ten days following the plebiscitum, to swear to maintain
it before the questor, in the treasury, in open day, and taking for
witnesses Jupiter and the gods Penates. ” (_Table of Bantia_, Klenze,
_Philologische Abhandlungen_, IV. 16-24. )
[1109] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1.
[1110] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 2.
[1111] Ateius Capito, _Treatise on the Duties of the Senator_, quoted by
Aulus Gellius, IV. 10. --Valerius Maximus, II. 10, § 7.
[1112] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 4.
[1113] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 21.
[1114] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 11.
[1115] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 6.
[1116] The consuls, prætors, and generally all those who presided at an
assembly of the people, or even who attended in quality of magistrates,
had a right of veto, founded on popular superstition. This right was
exercised by declaring that a celestial phenomenon had been _observed_
by them, and that it was no longer permitted to deliberate. _Jupiter
darting thunder or rain, all treating on affairs with the people must be
stopped_; such was the text of the law, religious or political,
published in 597. It was not necessary that it should thunder or rain,
in fact; the affirmation of a magistrate qualified to _observe the sky_
being enough. (Cicero, _Oration for Sextius_, 15. --_Oration on the
Consular Provinces_, 19. )--(Asconius, _In Piso_, p. 9, ed.
Orelli. )--(Orelli, Indices to his edition of Cicero, VIII.
126. )--(_Index Legum_, articles _Laws Ælia_ and _Fusia_. )
[1117] Valerius Maximus, III. vii. 6.
[1118] Plutarch, _Cato_, 37.
[1119] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7. --“The Campanian law contains a provision
which compels the candidates to swear, in the assembly of the people,
that they will never propose anything contrary to the Italian
legislation upon property. All have sworn, except Laterensis, who
preferred desisting from the candidature for the tribuneship to taking
the oath, and much gratitude has been shown to him for it. ” (Cicero,
_Epistles to Atticus_, II. 18. )
[1120] This appears from the words of Dio Cassius (XXXVIII. 1). Several
scholars are unwilling to admit the existence of two agrarian laws; yet
Cicero, in his letter to Atticus (II. 7), written in April, announces
that the twenty commissioners are named. In this first law (_Familiar
Letters_, XIII. 4), he mentions the _ager_ of Volaterra, which was
certainly not in Campania. In another letter of the beginning of May
(_Letters to Atticus_, II. 16), he speaks of Campania for the first
time, and says that Pompey had approved the first agrarian law. Finally,
in that written in the month of June (_Letters to Atticus_, II. 18), he
speaks of the oath taken to the agrarian laws. Suetonius (_Cæsar_, 20)
and Appian (_Civil Wars_, II. 10) mention the Julian agrarian laws in
the plural. Titus Livius (_Epitome of Book_ CIII. ) speaks of the _leges
agrariæ_ of Cæsar; and Plutarch (_Cato_, 38) says positively: “Elated
with this victory, Cæsar proposed a new law, to share among the poor and
indigent citizens nearly all the lands of Campania;” and previously, in
chapter 36, the same author had said of Cæsar, that he proposed laws for
the distribution of the lands to the poor citizens. Thus there were
positively two laws published at an interval of some months; and if the
object of the second was the distribution of the _ager Campanus_, the
first had without doubt a more general character. Dio Cassius, after
having related the proposal of the first agrarian law, in which Campania
was excepted, says similarly: “Besides, the territory of Campania was
given to those who had three children or more” (XXXVIII. 7).
[1121] Cicero, _Second Philippic_, 15.
[1122] _Liber Coloniarum_, edit. Lachmann, pp. 220, 235, 239, 259,
260. --Several of these colonies probably dated no farther back than the
dictatorship of Cæsar.
[1123] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20. --Velleius Paterculus, II. 44. --Appian,
_Civil Wars_, II. 10. --“Capua mura ducta colonia Julia Felix, jussu
imperatoris Cæsaris a xx. viris deducta. ” (_Liber Coloniarum_, I. p.
231, edit. Lachmann. )
[1124] Cicero, _Second Philippic_, 39.
[1125] Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 1. --Cicero, _Epistles to Atticus_, II. 19.
[1126] Cicero, _Epistles to Atticus_, II. 7.
[1127] Cicero, _Oration on the Consular Provinces_, 17.
[1128] Cicero, _Familiar Letters_, VIII. 10.
[1129] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II. 13. --_Scholiast_ of Bobbio on
Cicero. --Cicero, _Oration for Plancus_, p. 261, edit. Orelli.
[1130] Cicero, _Oration for Plancus_, 14.
[1131] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 1. --Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1132] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20. --Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 7. --Appian, II.
13.
[1133] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1134] Cicero, _Second Oration on the Agrarian Law_, 16. --_Scholiast_ of
Bobbio on Cicero’s _Oration In Rege Alexandrino_, p. 350, edit. Orelli.
This Ptolemy Alexas, or Alexander, appears to have been a natural son of
Alexander I. , younger brother of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who is also called
Ptolemy Soter II. ; in this case he would be, though illegitimate, cousin
of Ptolemy Auletes. He had succeeded Alexander II. , legitimate son of
Alexander I. , who married his step-mother, Berenice, only legitimate
daughter of Ptolemy Soter II.
[1135] Cicero, _Letters to Atticus_, II. 16. --The King of Egypt gave
nearly 6,000 talents (35 millions of francs) to Cæsar and Pompey.
(Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 14. )
[1136] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 54. --Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 12. --Cæsar’s
expressions (_War of Alexandria_, 33, and _Civil Wars_, III. 107) show
the friendship of Ptolemy Auletes for the Romans.
[1137] Cæsar, _War in Gaul_, I. 35. --Plutarch, _Cæsar_, 35. --Dio
Cassius, XXXVIII. 34.
[1138] Suetonius, _Cæsar_, 20.
[1139] Plutarch, _Cato_, 38. --“It was about the sixth hour, when, in the
course of my speech in court for C. Antonius, my colleague, I deplored
certain abuses which prevailed in the State, and which seemed to me to
be closely allied to the case of my unfortunate client. Some
ill-disposed persons reported my words to certain men of high position
in different terms to those I had used; and on the same day, at the
ninth hour, the adoption of Clodius was carried. ” (Cicero, _Oration for
his House_, 16. )
[1140] Appian, _Civil Wars_, II.
