No More Learning

The foreigner has not yet quitted the territory of
their country before the chiefs become jealous of each other, and
rivalries break out between the different states. The Burgundians obey
unwillingly the people of Auvergne; the people of the territory of
Beauvais refuse their contingent, alleging that they will only make war
at their own time and in their own manner. The inhabitants of Savoy,
instead of responding to the appeal made to their old independence,
oppose a vigorous resistance to the attacks of the Gauls, and the
Vivarais shows no less devotedness to the Roman cause.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VIII.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 703.


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

It was in the month of March that, according to custom, the retiring
consuls took possession of the government of provinces. [808] It is,
consequently, very probable that the law of Vatinius, published, as we
have seen, in 695, was voted towards the latter days of the month of
February in that same year, and that the proconsulship given to Cæsar
was to begin from the day of the promulgation of that law. Nothing would
have prevented him, indeed, from shortening the time of his magistracy,
and seizing, before the termination of his curule functions, the
military command or _imperium_, as Crassus did in 699, who started for
Syria without waiting for the end of his consulship. Supposing, then,
which is not impossible, that the whole year of Cæsar’s consulship was
included in his proconsulship,[809] the five first years of his command
would date from 695, and end on the 1st of January, 700. The oration on
the Consular Provinces proves that it was so understood. The time when
it was pronounced (July or August, 698) was that of the assignment of
the provinces destined for the consuls who were to quit office eighteen
months after--that is, in 700--and when the question of superseding
Cæsar was agitated. The first _quinquennium_ of his command terminated,
therefore, in December, 699, and, consequently, the second in December,
704. Such was the system of the Senate, naturally much inclined to
shorten the duration of the proconsulship of Gaul. [810] Accordingly,
Hirtius informs us that, in 703, the Gauls knew that Cæsar had but one
summer, that of 704, to pass in Gaul. [811] Dio Cassius says similarly
that Cæsar’s power was to end with the year 704. [812] According to
Appian, the Consul Claudius Marcellus proposed, at the beginning of 704,
to name a successor to Cæsar, whose powers were on the eve of
expiring. [813] On the other hand, Cicero relates in one of his letters
that Pompey seemed to be of the same opinion as the Senate, to require
the return of the proconsul on the Ides of the November of 704. At the
end of that same year, the great orator expresses, in the following
terms, his own opinion on the subject of the claim raised by Cæsar to
dispensation from coming to Rome to solicit the consulship: “What, then?
must we have regard for a man who will keep his army after the day fixed
by the law? ”[814] Some time afterwards, apostrophising Cæsar in a
letter to Atticus,[815] he exclaims: “You have kept, during ten years, a
province of which you have procured the continuance, not by the
sovereign will of the Senate, but by your intrigues and your acts of
violence. You have overpassed the term fixed, by your ambition, and not
by the law. . . . You retain your army longer than the people has ordained
and than it is the people’s will. ” On another hand, a passage of
Suetonius says, in a very formal manner, that Cæsar intended to offer
himself as candidate in 705, to exercise the consulship in 706, when he
would have completed the time of his proconsulship. [816] Lastly the
Senate so evidently regards the beginning of the year 705 as the
obligatory termination of Cæsar’s command, that, in the month of
January, it declares him the enemy of the Republic, because he is still
at the head of his soldiers, and decrees extreme measures against
him. [817]

But the dispute between the Senate and Cæsar did not turn upon the term
of his command. Cæsar offered himself to the consular comitia of the
year 705. A law, submitted to the people by the ten tribunes, and
supported by Pompey and Cicero, had permitted him to solicit this
charge, although absent. [818] This law would have been without object
unless it had implied the authorisation for Cæsar to keep his army
until the time of the consular elections.
Certain authors even think
that this right must have been formally reserved in the law. The
“Epitome” of Titus Livius says, in fact, that, according to the law, he
was to keep his command until the time of his second consulship. [819] On
the other hand, Cicero writes to Atticus that the best argument for
refusing Cæsar, in his absence, the power of soliciting the second
consulship, is that, by granting it to him, they acknowledge in him, by
the same act, the right of keeping his province and his army. [820] This
advantage Cæsar calls _beneficium populi_;[821] and when he complained
that they were depriving him of six months of his command, he reckoned
the time which had to pass between the 1st of January, 705, and the
month of July, the period of the consular comitia. [822]

Nevertheless, Cæsar had a great interest in keeping his army until he
was elected to the first magistracy of the Republic, for he would then
keep the _imperium_ as long as Pompey, whose powers, prolonged in 702,
would end on the 1st of January, 707. [823] It was evident that he was
unwilling to disarm before his rival; now if, according to the
combination established by law, he remained consul till the 1st of
January, 707, his command ended at the same time as that of Pompey, and
after that he had nothing more to fear from the plots of his enemies.

In fact, everything was now merging into an open struggle between Cæsar
and Pompey. In vain will the former seek all means of conciliation, in
vain will the latter strive to escape from the exactions of his party;
the force of circumstances will infallibly push them one against the
other. And just as we see, in the liquid traversed by an electric
current, all the elements it contains moving towards the two opposite
poles, so in Roman society in a state of dissolution, air the passions,
all the interests, the memories of the past, the hopes of the future,
are going to separate violently and divide themselves between the two
men who personify the antagonism of two opposite causes.


[Sidenote: Intrigues to deprive Cæsar of his Command. ]

VI. Let us return to the relation of events. Pompey, all-powerful,
though a simple proconsul, had, as we have said before, retired to
Tarentum; he seemed to wish to remain foreign to the intrigues which
were at work in Rome; it appears even that he had the intention of going
into Spain to govern his province. [824] At the outset of revolutions,
the majority of the people, and even that of the assemblies, incline
always towards moderation; but soon, overruled by an excitable and
enterprising minority, they are drawn by it into extreme courses. It is
what happened at this time. Marcellus and his party strove first to
carry Pompey, and, when he had once taken his decision, they carried the
Senate. At the moment when, in the month of June, Pompey prepared to
return to the troops stationed at Ariminum, he was called back to Rome;
and when, on the 11th of the Calends of August, the senators assembled
in the temple of Apollo to regulate the pay of the troops, he was asked
why he had lent a legion to Cæsar. Obliged to give an explanation, he
promised to recall it, but not immediately, as he was unwilling to have
the appearance of yielding to threats. He was then pressed to give his
opinion on the recall of Cæsar; upon which, by one of those evasive
phrases which were habitual with him, and which revealed his hesitation,
he replied that “everybody ought equally to obey the Senate. ”[825]
Nothing was enacted in regard to the consular powers.

The question of the government of Gaul was to be resumed on the Ides of
August; then again, in the month of September; but the Senate never
found itself in sufficient numbers to deliberate, so much did it fear to
come to a decision. They did not determine on entering upon the question
frankly until they were convinced of Pompey’s consent to the recall of
Cæsar. [826] beforehand the consuls nominated for the following year,
and imposed upon them a rule of conduct: their hostility to Cæsar had
determined their election. On the 11th of the Calends of October, M.
Marcellus, who made himself the organ of the passions of the moment,
exacted such numerous and unusual guarantees, that we may judge to what
point his party had at heart to carry the day. Thus, the consuls
recently elected were required to enter into the engagement to put the
question on the orders of the day for the Calends of March; until it was
settled, the Senate was bound to assemble to deliberate upon it every
day, even on those which were called _comitiales_, when any meeting of
that body was forbidden, and, to this effect, the senators who should
fill the offices of judges were to be sent for into the curia. The
Senate was also to declare beforehand that those who had the power of
interceding should abstain from exercising it, and that, if they
interceded or demanded an adjournment, they should be considered as
enemies of the Republic; a report of their conduct should be made, at
the same time, to the Senate and to the people. [827] This motion was
adopted and inscribed in the minutes as a _decision_ or an _opinion_ of
the Senate (_senatus auctoritas_). Four tribunes of the people
interceded: C. Cœlius, L. Vinucius, P. Cornelius, and C. Vibius
Pansa.

It was not enough to prepare attacks against Cæsar’s command; the
discontent of the army was also to be feared; and, in order to avert or
weaken its effect, M. Marcellus caused to be further inscribed in the
minutes of the Senate the following decision: “The Senate will take
into consideration the situation of those soldiers of the army of Gaul
whose time of service is expired, or who shall produce sufficient
reasons for being restored to civil life. ” C. Cœlius and C. Vibius
Pansa renewed their opposition. [828]

Some senators, more impatient, demanded that they should not wait for
the time fixed by M. Marcellus to decree upon this subject. Pompey
interfered again as moderator, and said that they could not, without
injustice, take a decision on the subject of Cæsar’s province before the
Calends of March, 704, an epoch at which he should find no further
inconvenience in it. “What will be done,” asked one of the senators, “if
the decision of the Senate be opposed? ”--“It matters little,” replied
Pompey, “whether Cæsar refuses to obey this decision, or suborns people
to intercede. ”--“But,” said another, “if he seeks to be consul, and keep
his army? ”--Pompey only replied with great coolness, “If my son would
beat me with a staff? . . . ” He always, as we see, affected obscurity in
his replies. The natural conclusion from this language was to raise the
suspicion of secret negotiations with Cæsar, and it was believed that
the latter would accept one of these two conditions, either to keep his
province without soliciting the consulship, or to quit his army and
return to Rome when, though absent, he should be elected consul.

The Senate declared also that, for the province of Cilicia and the eight
other prætorian provinces, the governors should be chosen by lot among
the prætors who had not yet had a government. Cœlius and Pansa made
opposition to this decree, which left to that assembly the power of
giving the provinces at its will. [829] These different measures revealed
sufficiently the thoughts of the Senate, and the prudent politicians saw
with uneasiness that it was seeking to precipitate events.

Discord in the interior generally paralyses all national policy on the
exterior. Absorbed by the intrigues at home, the aristocratic party was
sacrificing the great interests of the Republic. Cicero wrote in vain
that his forces were insufficient to resist the Parthians, an invasion
by whom appeared imminent: the consuls refused to occupy the Senate with
his claims, because they were unwilling either to go themselves to
undertake so distant a campaign, or to permit others to go in their
place. [830] They were much more anxious to humble Cæsar than to avenge
Crassus; and yet the public opinion, moved by the dangers with which
Syria was threatened, called for an extraordinary command in the East,
either for Pompey or for Cæsar. [831] Fortunately, the Parthians did not
attack; Bibulus and Cicero had only to combat bands of plunderers. The
latter, on the 3rd of the Ides of October, defeated a party of Cilician
mountaineers near Mount Amanus. He carried their camp, besieged their
fortress of Pindenissus, which he took, and his soldiers saluted him as
_imperator_. [832] From that time he took this title in the subscription
of his letters. [833]




CHAPTER IX.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 704.


[Sidenote: C. Claudius Marcellus and L. Æmilius Paulus, Consuls. ]

I. The year 703 had been employed in intrigues with the object of
overthrowing Cæsar, and the aristocratic party believed that, for the
success of this sort of plot, it could reckon upon the support of the
chief magistrates who were entering upon office in January, 704. Of the
two consuls, C. Claudius Marcellus, nephew of the preceding consul of
the same name, and L. Æmilius Paulus, the first was kinsman, but at the
same time enemy, of Cæsar; the second had not yet shown his party,
though report gave him the same opinions as his colleague. It was
expected that, in concert with C. Scribonius Curio, whose advancement to
the tribuneship was due to Pompey,[834] he would distribute the lands of
Campania which had not yet been given out, the consequence of which
would be that Cæsar, on his return, could no longer dispose of this
property in favour of his veterans. [835] This hope was vain; for already
Paulus and Curio had joined the party of the proconsul of Gaul. Well
informed of the intrigues of his enemies, Cæsar had long taken care to
have always at Rome a consul or tribunes devoted to his interest; in 703
he could reckon on the Consul Sulpicius and the tribunes Pansa and
Cœlius; in 704, Paulus and Curio were devoted to him. If,
subsequently, in 705, the two consuls were opposed to him, he had, at
least on his side, that year, the tribunes Mark Antony and Q. Cassius.

Curio is called by Velleius Paterculus the wittiest of rogues;[836] but
as long as this tribune remained faithful to the cause of the Senate,
Cicero honoured him with his esteem, and paid the greatest compliments
to his character and his high qualities. [837] Curio had acquired
authority by his eloquence, and by the numbers of his clients. His
father had been the declared enemy of Cæsar, against whom he had written
a book,[838] and uttered many jokes, cutting or coarse, which were
repeated in Rome. [839] Inheriting these feelings, Curio had long pursued
the conqueror of Gaul with his sarcasms; but nobody forgot insults so
easily as Cæsar, and, as he appreciated the political importance of this
dangerous adversary, he spared nothing to gain him to his interests.

From his earliest youth, Curio had been bound by close intimacy to Mark
Antony. Both ruined by debts, they had led together the most dissolute
lives; their friendship had never changed. [840] The relationship of Mark
Antony with the Julia family,[841] his connection with Gabinius, and,
above all, his military conduct in Egypt, had gained for him the respect
of Cæsar to whom he withdrew when Gabinius was put on his trial. [842]
Cæsar employed him first as lieutenant, and afterwards, in 701, chose
him as quæstor. His kindness for Mark Antony probably contributed to
soften Curio’s temper; his liberality did the rest. He had given him, if
we can believe Appian, more than 1,500 talents. [843] It is true that, at
the same time, he bought equally dear the Consul L. Æmilius Paulus,
without requiring more than his neutrality. [844] We can hardly
understand how Cæsar, while he was paying his army, could support such
sacrifices, and meet, at the same time, so many other expenses. To
increase by his largesses the number of his partisans in Rome;[845] to
cause to be built in the Narbonnese theatres and monuments; near Aricia,
in Italy, a magnificent villa;[846] to send rich presents to distant
towns--such were his burthens. How, to meet them, could he draw money
enough from a province exhausted by eight years’ war? The immensity of
his resources is explained by the circumstance that, independently of
the tributes paid by the vanquished, which amounted, for Gaul, to
40,000,000 sestertii a year (more than 7,500,000 francs) [£300,000], the
sale of prisoners to Roman traders produced enormous sums. Cicero
informs us that he gained 12,000,000 sestertii from the captives sold
after the unimportant siege of Pindenissus. If we suppose that their
number amounted to 12,000, this sum would represent 1,000 sestertii a
head. Now, in spite of Cæsar’s generosity in often restoring the
captives to the conquered peoples, or in making gifts of them to his
soldiers, as was the case after the siege of Alesia, we may admit that
500,000 Gauls, Germans, or Britons were sold as slaves during the eight
years of the war in Gaul, which must have produced a sum of about
500,000,000 sestertii, or about 95,000,000 francs [£3,800,000]. It was
thus Roman money, given by the slave-dealers, which formed the greatest
part of the booty, in the same manner as in modern times, when, in
distant expeditions, the European nations take possession of the foreign
custom-houses to pay the costs of the war, it is still European money
which forms the advance for the costs.

The reconciliation of Curio with Cæsar was at first kept secret; but,
whether in order to contrive a pretext for changing his party, the new
tribune had moved laws which had no chance of being adopted, or because
he felt offended at the rejection of his propositions, towards the
beginning of the year 704 he declared for Cæsar, or, which was the same
thing, as Cœlius said, he ranged himself on the side of the people.
Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, the following are the
circumstances in the sequel of which his attitude became modified. He
had proposed the intercalation of a month in the current year, in order,
probably, to retard the period for the decision of the question which
agitated the Senate and the town. [847] His character of pontiff
rendered his motion perfectly legal: in spite of its incontestable
utility,[848] it was ill received. He expected this, but he appeared to
take the matter to heart, and to look upon the Senate’s refusal as an
offence. From that moment he began a systematic opposition. [849] Towards
the same time he presented two laws, one concerning the alimentation of
the people, with which he proposed to charge the ædiles;[850] the other,
on the repair of the roads, of which he asked for the direction during
five years. [851] He seems to have intended to make the travellers pay
according to the number and nature of their means of transport; or, in a
word, to establish a tax upon the rich, and thus increase his
popularity. [852] These last two projects were as ill received as the
first, and this double check completed his reconciliation with those
against whom he had hitherto contended.

The nomination of the censors, which took place at this period, brought
new complications. One, L. Calpurnius Piso, Cæsar’s father-in-law,
accepted the office only with regret, and showed an extreme indulgence;
the other, Appius Claudius Pulcher, who had been consul in 700, a fiery
partisan of the nobles, thought he served their cause by displaying
excessive severity. He expelled from the Senate all the freedmen, and
several of the most illustrious nobles, among others the historian
Sallust, a man of mind and talent, who immediately repaired to the
Cisalpine, where Cæsar received him with eagerness. [853]

Appius had no moderation in his harshness. Cicero says of him that, to
efface a mere stain, he cut open veins and entrails. [854] Instead of
remedying the evil, he only envenomed it; he threw into the ranks of the
opposite party all whom he excluded, without giving greater
consideration to those whom he kept. There are times when severity is a
bad adviser, and is not calculated to restore to a government the moral
force it has lost.


[Sidenote: Cæsar repairs to the Cisalpine. ]

II. Cæsar passed the whole of the winter, 704, at Nemetocenna (_Arras_).
“At the beginning of the following year, he started in haste for Italy,
in order,” says Hirtius, “to recommend to the municipal towns and
colonies his quæstor, Mark Antony, who solicited the priesthood.
Supporting him with his credit, he not only sought to serve a faithful
friend whom he had himself persuaded to seek that office, but to strive
against a faction which wished to defeat him, in order to shake Cæsar’s
power at the moment when his government was on the eve of expiring. On
his way, before he reached Italy, he received intelligence of the
election of Antony to the office of augur; he considered it none the
less his duty to visit the municipal towns and colonies, to thank them
for their favourable feeling towards Antony. He sought also to secure
their support next year (705), for his enemies insolently boasted that
they had, on one hand, named to the consulship L. Lentulus and C.
Marcellus, who would strip Cæsar of his offices and dignities; and, on
the other, that they had deprived Servius Galba of the consulship, in
spite of his credit and the number of his votes, for the sole reason
that he was Cæsar’s friend and lieutenant.

“Cæsar was received by the municipal towns and colonies with incredible
marks of respect and affection; it was the first time he appeared among
them since the general insurrection of Gaul. They omitted nothing that
could be imagined in adorning the gates, roads, and places on his
passage; women and children all rushed in crowds to the public places
and into the temples; everywhere they immolated victims and spread
tables. The rich displayed their magnificence, the poor rivalled each
other in zeal. ” Cæsar tasted beforehand the pleasures of a triumph
earnestly desired. [855]

After having thus visited Citerior Gaul, he quickly rejoined the army at
Nemetocenna. In the prospect of his approaching departure, he wished to
strike the minds of the Germans and Gauls by a grand agglomeration of
forces, and show himself once more to his assembled troops. The legions,
who had withdrawn to their quarters, were sent into the country of the
Treviri; Cæsar went there also, and passed the army in review. This
solemnity was necessarily grand. He saw before him his old cohorts, with
whom he had fought so many battles, and of which the youngest soldiers
reckoned eight campaigns. No doubt he reminded them that, general or
consul, he owed everything to the people and to the army, and that the
glory they had acquired formed between them indissoluble ties. Until the
end of the summer he remained in the north of Gaul, “only moving the
troops as much as was necessary to preserve the soldiers’ health. T.
Labienus received afterwards the command of Citerior Gaul, in the aim of
securing more votes for Cæsar’s approaching candidateship for the office
of consul. Although the latter was not ignorant of the manœvres of
his enemies to detach Labienus from him, and of their intrigues to cause
the Senate to deprive him of a part of his army, he could not be
prevailed upon either to doubt Labienus, or to attempt anything against
the authority of the Senate. He knew that, if the votes were free, the
conscript fathers would do him justice. ”[856] In fact, whenever the
Senate was not under the dominion of a factious minority, the majority
pronounced in favour of Cæsar.

It had been decided, in the preceding month of October, that the
question of the consular provinces should be brought under consideration
on the 1st of March, 704, the period at which Pompey had declared that
he would throw no obstacle in the way of the discussion. It was opened
then, as appears from a letter of Cicero, and the Senate showed an
inclination to recall Cæsar for the Ides of November, 704. Nevertheless,
there was no decisive result. People were afraid yet to engage in a
struggle for life: Curio, singly, made the Senate tremble by his
opposition. [857]

When, in the bosom of that assembly, C. Marcellus was declaiming against
Cæsar, Curio began to speak, praised the consul’s prudence, approved
much of the proposal that the conqueror of Gaul should be summoned to
disband his army; but he insinuated that it would not be less desirable
to see Pompey disband his. “Those great generals,” said he, “were
objects of suspicion to him, and there would be no tranquillity for the
Republic until both of them should become private men. ”[858] This speech
pleased the people, who, moreover, began to lose much of their esteem
for Pompey since the time that, by his law on bribery, a great number of
citizens were condemned to exile. On all sides they praised Curio; they
admired his courage in braving two such powerful men, and on several
occasions an immense crowd escorted him to his house, throwing flowers
over him “like an athlete,” says Appian, “who had just sustained a
severe and dangerous combat. ”[859]

The clever manœuvres of Cicero had such success that, when Marcellus
proposed to concert with the tribunes of the people on the means of
opposing the candidature of Cæsar, the majority of the Senate gave their
opinion to the contrary. On this subject, M. Cœlius wrote to Cæsar:
“The opinions have changed so much that now they are ready to reckon as
a candidate for the consulship a man who will give up neither his army
nor his province. ”[860] Pompey gave no sign of life, and let the Senate
have its way.

He always seemed to disdain what he desired most. Thus, at this time, he
affected an entire carelessness, and retrenched himself in his legality,
taking care to avoid all appearance of personal hostility towards Cæsar.
At the same time, either in order to avoid being pressed too soon, or to
appear indifferent to the question which agitated the Republic, he left
his gardens near Rome to visit Campania. Thence he sent a letter to the
Senate, in which, while he praised Cæsar and himself, he reminded them
that he never had solicited a third consulship, nor yet the command of
the armies; that he had received it in spite of himself, in order to
save the Republic, and that he was ready to renounce it without waiting
the term fixed by the law. [861] This letter, studied and artful, was
intended to bring out the contrast between his disinterested conduct and
that of Cæsar, who refused to surrender his government; but Curio
baffled this manœuvre. “If Pompey were sincere,” he said, “he ought
not to promise to give his resignation, but to give it at once; so long
as he should not have retired into private life, the command could not
be taken from Cæsar. Besides, the interest of the State required the
presence of two rivals constantly opposed to each other; and, in his
eyes, it was Pompey who openly aspired to absolute power. ”[862] This
accusation was not without ground; for during the last nineteen
years--that is to say, since 684, the time of his first
consulship--Pompey had nearly always been in possession of the
_imperium_, either as consul, or as general in the wars against the
pirates and against Mithridates, or, finally, as charged with the
victualling of Italy. “To take Cæsar’s army from him,” says Plutarch,
“and to leave his army to Pompey, was, by accusing the one of aspiring
to the tyranny, to give the other the means of obtaining it. ”[863]


[Sidenote: Pompey receives Ovations, and asks Cæsar to return his Two
Legions. ]

III. About this time Pompey fell dangerously ill, and on his recovery
the Neapolitans and the peoples of all Italy showed such joy, that
“every town, great or small,” says Plutarch, “celebrated festivals for
several days. When he returned to Rome, there was no place spacious
enough to contain the crowd which came to meet him; the roads, the
villages, and the ports were full of people offering sacrifices and
making banquets, in order to show their joy at his recovery. A great
number of citizens, crowned with leaves, went to receive him with
torches, and threw flowers on him as they accompanied him; the
procession which followed him in his progress offered the most
agreeable and most magnificent spectacle. ”[864] Although these ovations
had given Pompey an exaggerated opinion of his influence, on his return
to Rome he observed in public the same reserve, though in secret he
supported the measures calculated to diminish Cæsar’s power. Thus,
taking for pretext the demands for re-enforcements renewed incessantly
by Bibulus and Cicero, proconsuls of Syria and Cilicia, who sought to
place their provinces in safety against an invasion of the Parthians, he
represented that the levies ordered by the Senate were insufficient, and
that it was necessary to send experienced troops to the East. It was
thereupon decided that Pompey and Cæsar, who were at the head of
considerable armies, should each of them detach one legion for the
defence of the threatened provinces. A senatus-consultus at once
summoned Cæsar to send his legion, and ordered him, besides, to return
the legion which Pompey had lent him shortly after the conference of
Lucca. Perhaps they hoped for resistance on his part, for this last
legion had been raised, like all those of his army, in Cisalpine Gaul;
but he obeyed without hesitation, so that he alone had to furnish the
re-enforcements required for the East. Before parting with his soldiers,
who had so long fought under his orders, he caused 250 drachmas (225
francs) to be distributed to each legionary. [865]

Appius Claudius, nephew of the censor of the same name, who had left
Rome with the mission of bringing those troops from the Cisalpine into
Italy, reported on his return that the soldiers of Cæsar, weary of their
long campaigns, sighed for repose, and that it would be impossible to
draw them into a civil war; he pretended even that the legions in winter
quarters in Transalpine Gaul would no sooner have passed the Alps than
they would rally to Pompey’s flag. [866] Events in the sequel proved the
falsity of this information, for not only, as will appear hereafter, did
the troops which had remained under Cæsar’s command continue faithful to
him, but those which had been withdrawn from him preserved the
remembrance of their ancient general. In fact, Pompey himself had not
the least confidence in the two legions he had received, and his letter
to Domitius, proconsul at the commencement of the civil war, explains
his inaction by the danger of bringing them into the presence of the
army of Cæsar, so much he fears to see them pass over to the opposite
camp. [867] At Rome, nevertheless, they believed in the reports which
flattered the pretensions of Pompey, although they were contradicted by
other more certain information, which showed Italy, the Cisalpine
provinces, and Gaul itself, equally devoted to Cæsar. Pompey, deaf to
these last warnings, affected the greatest contempt for the forces of
which his adversary could dispose. According to him, Cæsar was ruining
himself, and had no other chance of safety but in a prompt and complete
submission. When he was asked with what troops he would resist the
conqueror of Gaul, in case he were to march upon Rome, he replied, with
an air of confidence, that he had only to strike the soil of Italy with
his foot to make legions start up out of it. [868]

It was natural that his vanity should make him interpret favourably all
that was passing under his eyes. At Rome, the greatest personages were
devoted to him. Italy had shuddered at the news of his illness, and
celebrated his recovery as if it had been a triumph. The army of Gaul,
it was said, was ready to answer to his call.

With less blindness, Pompey might have discerned the true reason of the
enthusiasm of which he had been the object. He would have understood
that this enthusiasm was much less addressed to his person than to the
depositary of an authority which alone then seemed capable of saving the
Republic: he would have understood that, the day another general should
appear under the same conditions of fame and power as himself, the
people, with its admirable discernment, would at once side with him who
should best identify himself with their interests.

To understand the public opinion correctly, he ought not, though this
might have been a difficult thing to the chief of the aristocratic
cause, to have confined himself solely to the judgment of the official
world, but he should have interrogated the sentiments of those whose
position brought them nearest to the people. Instead of believing the
reports of Appius Claudius, and reckoning on the discontent of certain
of Cæsar’s lieutenants, who, like Labienus, already showed hostile
tendencies, Pompey ought to have meditated upon that exclamation of a
centurion, who, placed at the door of the Senate, when that assembly
rejected the just reclamations of the conqueror of Gaul, exclaimed,
putting his hand to his sword, “This will give him what he asks. ”[869]

The fact is that, in civil commotions, each class of society divines, as
by instinct, the cause which responds to its aspirations, and feels
itself attracted to it by a secret affinity. Men born in the superior
classes, or brought to their level by honours and riches, are always
drawn towards the aristocracy, whilst men kept by fortune in the
inferior ranks remain the firm supports of the popular cause. Thus, at
the return from the isle of Elba, most of the generals of the Emperor
Napoleon, loaded with wealth like the lieutenants of Cæsar,[870] marched
openly against him; but in the army all up to the rank of colonel said,
after the example of the Roman centurion, pointing to their weapons,
“This will place him on the throne again! ”


[Sidenote: The Senate votes impartially. ]

IV. An attentive examination of the correspondence between M. Cœlius
and Cicero, as well as the relations of the various authors, leads to
the conviction that at that period it required great efforts on the part
of the turbulent fraction of the aristocratic party to drag the Senate
into hostility towards Cæsar. The censor Appius, reviewing the list of
that body, _noted_ Curio, that is, wished to strike him from the list;
but at the instances of his colleague and of the Consul Paulus, he
confined himself to expressing a formal reproof, and his regret that he
could not do justice. On hearing him, Curio tore his toga, and protested
with the utmost passion against a disloyal attack. The Consul Marcellus,
who suspected the good understanding between Curio and Cæsar, and who
reckoned on the feelings of the Senate, which were very unfavourable to
both, brought the conduct of the tribune under discussion. While he
protested against this illegal proceeding, Curio accepted the debate,
and declared that, strong in his conscience, and certain of having
always acted in the interests of the Republic, he placed with confidence
his honour and his life in the hands of the Senate. This scene could
have no other result but an honourable vote for Curio;[871] but this
incident was soon left, and the discussion passed to the political
situation. Marcellus proposed at first this question: _Ought Cæsar to be
superseded in his province? _ He urged the Senate to a vote.