No More Learning

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
VOL. T
144
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
:
l{
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. Euphrates ; so that Cassius obtained time to reorganize the
army in some measure, and with the help of the faithful
defeat,
Repulse Sf^j
164
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
adherent of the Romans, Herodes Antipater, to reduce to obedience the Jews, whom resentment at the spoliation of the temple peipetrated by Crassus had already driven to arms. The Roman government would thus have had full time to send fresh troops for the defence of the threatened frontier ; but this was left undone amidst the convulsions of
61. the incipient revolution, and, when at length in 703 the great Parthian invading army appeared on the Euphrates, Cassius had still nothing to oppose to it but the two weak legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus. Of course with these he could neither prevent the crossing nor defend the province. Syria was overrun by the Parthians, and all Western Asia trembled. But the Parthians did not understand the besieging of towns. They not only retreated from Antioch, into which Cassius had thrown himself with his troops, without having accomplished their object, but they were on their retreat along the Orontes allured into an ambush by Cassius' cavalry and there severely handled by the Roman infantry ; prince Osaces was himself among the slain. Friend and foe thus perceived that the
Parthian army under an ordinary general and on ordinary
was not capable of much more than any other Oriental army. However, the attack was not abandoned.
M-60. Still during the winter of 703-704 Pacorus lay encamped in Cyrrhestica on this side of the Euphrates ; and the new governor of Syria, Marcus Bibulus, as wretched a general as he was an incapable statesman, knew no better course of action than to shut himself up in his fortresses. It was
60. generally expected that the war would break out in 704 with renewed fury. But instead of turning his arms against the Romans, Pacorus turned against his own father, and accordingly even entered into an understanding with the Roman governor. Thus the stain was not wiped from the shield of Roman honour, nor was the reputation of Rome restored in the east ; but the Parthian invasion of Western
ground
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 165
Asia was over, and the Euphrates boundary was, for the time being at least, retained.
In Rome meanwhile the periodical volcano of revolution
was whirling upward its clouds of stupefying smoke. The PrTMluced Romans began to have no longer a soldier or a denarius to the defeat be employed against the public foe—no longer a thought ofCarrha* for the destinies of the nations. It is one of the most
dreadful signs of the times, that the huge national disaster
of Carrhae and Sinnaca gave the politicians of that time far
less to think and speak of than that wretched tumult on the
Appian road, in which, a couple of months after Crassus,
Clodius the partisan-leader perished ; but it is easily con
ceivable and almost excusable. The breach between the
two regents, long felt as inevitable and often announced as
near, was now assuming such a shape that it could not be
arrested. Like the boat of the ancient Greek mariners'
tale, the vessel of the Roman community now found itself
as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other ; expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom
it was bearing, tortured by nameless anguish, into the
eddying surge that rose higher and higher were benumbed ;
and, while every slightest movement there attracted a thousand eyes, no one ventured to give a glance to the right
or the left.
After Caesar had, at the conference of Luca in April The good 698, agreed to considerable concessions as regarded TM ? " *. Pompeius, and the regents had thus placed themselves between substantially on a level, their relation was not without the „i'^eBtl outward conditions of durability, so far as a division of the monarchical power—in itself indivisible— could be lasting
at alL It was a different question whether the regents, at
least for the present, were determined to keep together
and mutually to acknowledge without reserve their title to
rank as equals. That this was the case with Caesar, in so
far as he had acquired the interval necessary for the
impression
166 DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
conquest of Gaul at the price of equalization with Pompeius, has been already set forth. But Pompeius was hardly ever, even provisionally, in earnest with the collegiate scheme. His was one of those petty and mean natures, towards which it is dangerous to practise magnanimity ; to his paltry spirit it appeared certainly a dictate of prudence to supplant at the first opportunity his reluctantly acknow ledged rival, and his mean soul thirsted after a possibility of retaliating on Caesar for the humiliation which he had suffered through Caesar's indulgence. But while it is probable that Pompeius in accordance with his dull and sluggish nature never properly consented to let Caesar hold a position of equality by his side, yet the design of breaking up the alliance doubtless came only by degrees to be distinctly entertained by him. At any rate the public, which usually saw better through the views and intentions of Pompeius than he did himself, could not be mistaken in thinking that at least with the death of the beautiful Julia — who died in the bloom of womanhood in the
64 autumn of 700 and was soon followed by her only child to the tomb — the personal relation between her father and her husband was broken up. Caesar attempted to re-establish the ties of affinity which fate had severed ; he asked for himself the hand of the only daughter of Pompeius, and offered Octavia, his sister's grand-daughter, who was now his nearest relative, in marriage to his fellow- regent; but Pompeius left his daughter to her existing husband Faustus Sulla the son of the regent, and he him self married the daughter of Quintus Metellus Scipio. The personal breach had unmistakeably begun, and it was Pompeius who drew back his hand. It was expected that a political breach would at once follow ; but in this people were mistaken ; in public affairs a collegiate understanding continued for a time to subsist The reason was, that Caesar did not wish publicly to dissolve the relation before
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 167
the subjugation of Gaul was accomplished, and Pompeius
did not wish to dissolve it before the governing authorities
and Italy should be wholly reduced under his power by
his investiture with the dictatorship. It is singular, but
yet readily admits of explanation, that the regents under these circumstances supported each other ; Pompeius after
the disaster of Aduatuca in the winter of 700 handed over 64. one of his Italian legions that were dismissed on furlough
by way of loan to Caesar; on the other hand Caesar granted his consent and his moral support to Pompeius in the repressive measures which the latter took against the stubborn republican opposition.
It was only after Pompeius had in this way procured Dictator-
for himself at the beginning of 702 the undivided consul-
ship and an influence in the capital thoroughly outweighing
that of Caesar, and after all the men capable of arms in
Italy had tendered their military oath to himself personally
and in his name, that he formed the resolution to break
as soon as possible formally with Caesar; and the design became distinctly enough apparent That the judicial Corert
on Caesar,
70.
which took place after the tumult on the p^,TM^
prosecution
Appian Way lighted with unsparing severity precisely on the old democratic partisans of Caesar 149), might perhaps pass as a mere awkwardness. That the new law against electioneering intrigues, which had retrospective effect as far as 684, included also the dubious proceedings at Caesar's candidature for the consulship (p. 146), might likewise be nothing more, although not few Caesarians thought that they perceived in definite design. But people could no longer shut their eyes, however willing they might be to do so, when Pompeius did not select for his colleague in the consulship his former father-in-law Caesar, as was fitting in the circumstances of the case and was in many quarters demanded, but associated with himself puppet wholly dependent on him in his new
p^JTM^
a
it a
a
(p.
168 DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
father-in-law Scipio 149) and still less, when Pompeius
at the same time got the governorship of the two Spains 45. continued to him for five years more, that to 709, and
considerable fixed sum appropriated from the state-chest for the payment of his troops, not only without stipu lating for like prolongation of command and like grant of money to Caesar, but even while labouring ulteriorly to effect the recall of Caesar before the term formerly agreed on through the new regulations which were issued at the same time regarding the holding of the governorships. These encroachments were unmistakeably calculated to undermine Caesar's position and eventually to overthrow him. The moment could not be more favourable. Caesar had conceded so much to Pompeius at Luca, only because Crassus and his Syrian army would necessarily, in the event of any rupture with Pompeius, be thrown into Caesar's scale for upon Crassus — who since the times of Sulla had been at the deepest enmity with Pompeius and almost as long politically and personally allied with Caesar, and who from his peculiar character at all events, he could not himself be king of Rome, would have been content with being the new king's banker— Caesar could always reckon, and could have no appre hension at all of seeing Crassus confronting him as an ally
03. of his enemies. The catastrophe of June 701, by which army and general in Syria perished, was therefore terribly severe blow also for Caesar. few months later the national insurrection blazed up more violendy than ever in Gaul, just when had seemed completely subdued, and for the first time Caesar here encountered an opponent in the Arvernian king Vercingetorix. Once more fate had been working for Pompeius; Crassus was dead, all Gaul was in revolt, Pompeius was practically dictator of Rome and master of the senate. What might have happened, he had now, instead of remotely in-
equal
if
it
A
a
if a
;
(p. ;
a
a
is
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 169
triguing against Caesar, summarily compelled the burgesses
or the senate to recall Caesar at once from Gaul ! But Pompeius never understood how to take advantage of fortune. He heralded the breach clearly enough ; already
in 702 his acts left no doubt about and in the spring 62. of 703 he openly expressed his purpose of breaking with 61. Caesar but he did not break with him, and allowed the months to slip away unemployed.
But however Pompeius might delay, the crisis was The old
incessantly urged on by the mere force of circumstances. The impending war was not struggle possibly between
republic and monarchy — for that had been virtually decided years before — but struggle between Pompeius and Caesar for the possession of the crown of Rome. But neither of the pretenders found his account in uttering the plain truth he would have thereby driven all that very respect able portion of the burgesses, which desired the con tinuance of the republic and believed in its possibility, directly into the camp of his opponent. The old battle- cries raised Gracchus and Drusus, Cinna and Sulla, used up and meaningless as they were, remained still good enough for watchwords in the struggle of the two generals contending for the sole rule and, though for the moment both Pompeius and Caesar ranked themselves officially with the so-called popular party, could not be for moment doubtful that Caesar would inscribe on his banner the people and democratic progress, Pompeius the aristocracy and the legitimate constitution.
j^Ses md the pre-
Caesar had no choice. He was from the outset and The
very earnestly democrat the monarchy as he understood t^°°raeT
differed more outwardly than in reality from the Caesar Gracchan government of the people and he was too
and too profound statesman to conceal his colours and to fight under any other escutcheon than his own. The immediate advantage no doubt, which this
magnanimous
a
;
it,
it
;
a
;
a by
it
;
a
a
;
The aristocracy
Pompeius.
battle-cry brought to him, was trifling; it was confined mainly to the circumstance that he was thereby relieved from the inconvenience of directly naming the kingly office, and so alarming the mass of the lukewarm and his own adherents by that detested word. The democratic banner hardly yielded farther positive gain, since the ideals of Gracchus had been rendered infamous and ridiculous by Clodius ; for where was there now — laying aside perhaps the Transpadanes —any class of any sort of importance, which would have been induced by the battle-cries of the democracy to take part in the struggle ?
This state of things would have decided the part of pornpeius m the impending struggle, even if apart from this it had not been self-evident that he could only enter into it as the general of the legitimate republic. Nature had destined him, if ever any one, to be a member of an aristo cracy; and nothing but very accidental and very selfish motives had carried him over as a deserter from the aristo cratic to the democratic camp. That he should now revert to his Sullan traditions, was not merely befitting in the case, but in every respect of essential advantage. Effete as was the democratic cry, the conservative cry could not but have the more potent effect, if it proceeded from the right maa Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the burgesses, belonged to the constitutional party ; and as respected its numerical and moral strength might well be called to interfere powerfully, perhaps decisively, in the impending struggle of the pretenders. It wanted nothing but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present head, did the duty, as he understood of its leader amidst daily peril to his life and perhaps without hope of success; his fidelity to
duty deserves respect, but to be the last at forlorn post commendable in the soldier, not in the general. He had not the skill either to organize or to bring into action at the proper time the powerful reserve, which had sprung up
170
DEATH OF CRASSUS book y
a
is
it,
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 171
as it were spontaneously in Italy for the party of the over thrown government ; and he had for good reasons never made any pretension to the military leadership, on which everything ultimately depended. If instead of this man, who knew not how to act either as party-chief or as general, a man of the political and military mark of Pompeius should raise the banner of the existing constitution, the municipals of Italy would necessarily flock towards it in crowds, that under it they might help to fight, if not indeed for the kingship of Pompeius, at any rate against the king ship of Caesar.
To this was added another consideration at least as important It was characteristic of Pompeius, even when he had formed a resolve, not to be able to find his way to its execution. While he knew perhaps how to conduct war but certainly not how to declare the Catonian party, although assuredly unable to conduct was very able and above all very ready to supply grounds for the war against the monarchy on the point of being founded. According to the intention of Pompeius, while he kept himself aloof and in his peculiar way now talked as though he would imme diately depart for his Spanish provinces, now made prepara tions as though he would set out to take over the command on the Euphrates, the legitimate governing board, namely the senate, were to break with Caesar, to declare war against htm, and to entrust the conduct of to Pompeius, who then, yielding to the general desire, was to come forward as the protector of the constitution against demagogico-mon- archical plots, as an upright man and champion of the existing order of things against the profligates and anarchists, as the duly-installed general of the seriate against the Imperator of the street, and so once mJre to save his country. Thus Pompeius gained the alliance with the conservatives both second army addition to his personal adherents, and suitable war-manifesto —advantages which
a
a
in
by
it, it,
it
There- P" icans-
certainly were purchased at the high price of coalescing with those who were in principle opposed to him. Of the countless evils involved in this coalition, there was developed in the meantime only one—but that already a very grave one—that Pompeius surrendered the power of commencing hostilities against Caesar when and how he pleased, and in this decisive point made himself dependent on all the accidents and caprices of an aristocratic corporation.
Thus the republican opposition, after having been for years obliged to rest content with the part of a mere spec tator and having hardly ventured to whisper, was now brought back once more to the political stage by the impending rupture between the regents. It consisted primarily of the circle which rallied round Cato — those republicans who were resolved to venture on the struggle for the republic and against the monarchy under all circum stances, and the sooner the better. The pitiful issue of
172
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
6(5. the attempt made in 698 I28,/C) had taught them that they by themselves alone were not in position either to conduct war or even to call forth was known to every one that even in the senate, while the whole corporation with few isolated exceptions was averse to monarchy, the majority would still only restore the oligarchic government
might be restored without danger— which case, doubtless, had good while to wait In presence of the regents on the one hand, and on the other hand of this indolent majority, which desired peace above all
and at any price, and was averse to any decided action and most of all to decided rupture with one or other of the regents, the only possible course for the Catonian party to obtain restoration of the old rule lay in coalition with the less dangerous of the rulers. If Pompeius acknowledged the oligarchic constitution and offered to fight for against Caesar, the republican opposition might and must recognize him as its general, and alliance with him compel the
things
in
(p.
a it
in
a
it a
a
if
it
a
it
;
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chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS Ift
timid majority tc a declaration of war. That Pompeius was not quite in earnest with his fidelity to the constitution, could indeed escape nobody ; but, undecided as he was in everything, he had by no means arrived like Caesar at a clear and firm conviction that it must be the first business of the new monarch to sweep off thoroughly and conclu sively the oligarchic lumber. At any rate the war would train a really republican army and really republican generals ; and, after the victory over Caesar, they might proceed with more favourable prospects to set aside not merely one of the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement possible for
The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and
the Catonian party was effected with comparative rapidity. p^^Sr Already during the dictatorship of Pompeius remarkable approximation had taken place between them. The whole
behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis, his abrupt
repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship, his
distinct declaration that he would accept this office only
from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers
of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra- democrats, the surprising complaisance with which he treated
Cato and those who shared his views, appeared as much
calculated to gain the men of order as they were offensive
to the democrat Caesar. On the other hand Cato and his
followers, instead of combating with their wonted sternness
the proposal to confer the dictatorship on Pompeius, had
made with immaterial alterations of form their own
Pompeius had received the undivided consulship primarily
from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian
party and Pompeius had thus at least tacit understanding
as early as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held 68.
as formally concluded, when at the consular elections for
/
Their
a
it
;
it. a
Passive
of Caesar.
It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to ^ out at tms moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague, least of all with one of so second ary a sort as was Pompeius ; and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail to perceive that the regulation of the political organism by force of arms does in its consequences deeply
and often permanently disorganize it ; and therefore he could not but seek to solve the difficulty, if at all possible, by peaceful means or at least without open civil war. But even if civil war was not to be avoided, he could not desire to be driven to it at a time, when in Gaul the rising of Vercingetorix imperilled afresh all that had been obtained
and occupied him without interruption from the winter of 701-702 to the winter of 702—703, and when Pompeius and the constitutional party opposed to him on principle were dominant in Italy. Accordingly he sought to preserve the
relation with Pompeius and thereby the peace unbroken,
68-62.
174
DEATH OF CRASSUS book V
II. 703 there was elected not Cato himself indeed, but—along with an insignificant man belonging to the majority of the senate —one of the most decided adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood, this election, so surprising after the repressive measures adopted immediately before against the republican opposition, can hardly have occurred other wise than with the consent, or at least under the tacit per mission, of the regent of Rome for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont, but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture.
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 175
and to attain, if at all possible, by peaceful means to the consulship for 706 already assured to him at Luca. If he i&. should then after a conclusive settlement of Celtic affairs
be placed in a regular manner at the head of the state, he, who was still more decidedly superior to Pompeius as a statesman than as a general, might well reckon on out manoeuvring the latter in the senate-house and in the Forum without special difficulty. Perhaps it was possible
to find out for his awkward, vacillating, and arrogant rival some sort of honourable and influential position, in which the latter might be content to sink into a nullity; the repeated attempts of Caesar to keep himself related by marriage to Pompeius, may have been designed to pave the way for such a solution and to bring about a final settlement of the old quarrel through the succession of off spring inheriting the blood of both competitors. The republican opposition would then remain without a leader and therefore probably quiet, and peace would be preserved.
If this should not be successful, and if there should be, as was certainly possible, a necessity for ultimately resorting to the decision of arms, Caesar would then as consul in Rome dispose of the compliant majority of the senate; and he could impede or perhaps frustrate the coalition of the Pompeians and the republicans, and conduct the war far more suitably and more advantageously, than if he now as proconsul of Gaul gave orders to march against the senate and its general. Certainly the success of this plan
depended on Pompeius being good-natured enough to let Caesar still obtain the consulship for 706 assured to him at 4& Luca ; but, even if it failed, it would be always of advantage
for Caesar to have given practical and repeated evidence of
the most yielding disposition. On the one hand time would thus be gained for attaining his object meanwhile in Gaul ; on the other hand his opponents would be left with the odium of initiating the rupture and consequently the
attacks on Caesar.
diplomatic war which now began. If Caesar were compelled
Attempt
! ? **y of the
either to resign his office of governor before the last day 49.
of December 705, or to postpone the assumption of the 48. magistracy in the capital beyond the 1st January 706, so
that he should remain for a time between the governorship and the consulate without office, and consequently liable to criminal impeachment —which according to Roman law was only allowable against one who was not in office— the public had good reason to prophesy for him in this case the fate of Milo, because Cato had for long been teady to impeach him and Pompeius was a more than doubtful protector.
Now, to attain that object, Caesar's opponents had a very simple means. According to the existing ordinance as to elections, every candidate for the consulship wait
176
DEATH OF CRASSUS book t
civil war—which was of the utmost moment for Caesar with reference to the majority of the senate and the party of material interests, and more especially with reference to his own soldiers.
On these views he acted. He armed certainly; the number of his legions was raised through new levies in
02-61. the winter of 702—703 to eleven, including that borrowed from Pompeius. But at the same time he expressly and openly approved of Pompeius' conduct during the dictator ship and the restoration of order in the capital which he had effected, rejected the warnings of officious friends as calumnies, reckoned every day by which he succeeded in
the catastrophe a gain, overlooked whatever could be overlooked and bore whatever could be borne —immoveably adhering only to the one decisive demand that, when his governorship of Gaul came to an end
49. with 705, the second consulship, admissible by republican state-law and promised to him according to agreement by
48. his colleague, should be granted to him for the year 706. Prepara- This very demand became the battle-field of the
postponing
chap, IX RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 177
obliged to announce himself personally to the presiding magistrate, and to cause his name to be inscribed on the official list of candidates before the election, that is half
a year before entering on office. It had probably been regarded in the conferences at Luca as a matter of course that Caesar would be released from this obligation, which
was purely formal and was very often dispensed with; but
the decree to that effect had not yet been issued, and, as Pompeius was now in possession of the decretive machinery, Caesar depended in this respect on the good will of his rival. Pompeius incomprehensibly abandoned of his own accord this completely secure position ; with his consent and during his dictatorship (702) the personal 62. appearance of Caesar was dispensed with by a tribunician
law. When however soon afterwards the new election- ordinance 146) was issued, the obligation of candidates personally to enrol themselves was repeated in general terms, and no sort of exception was added in favour of those released from by earlier resolutions of the people according to strict form the privilege granted in favour of Caesar was cancelled the later general law. Caesar complained, and the clause was subsequently appended but not confirmed by special decree of the people, so that this enactment inserted by mere interpolation in the
law could only be looked on de jure as nullity. Where Pompeius, therefore, might have
simply kept by the law, he had preferred first to make spontaneous concession, then to recall and lastly to cloak this recall in manner most disloyal.
While in this way the shortening of Caesar's governor- Attempt to ship was only aimed at indirectly, the regulations issued c^^, at the same time as to the governorships sought the same governor-
p"
already promulgated
object directly. The ten years for which the governorship had been secured to Caesar, in the last instance through the law proposed by Pompeius himself in concert with
VOL.
X45
T
(p.
a
it by
it,
a
;
a
178
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
Crassus, ran according to the usual mode of reckoning 69. 49. from 1 March 695 to the last day of February 705. As, however, according to the earlier practice, the proconsul
or propraetor had the right of entering on his provincial magistracy immediately after the termination of his consul ship or praetorship, the successor of Caesar was to be
60. nominated, not from the urban magistrates of 704, but 49. from those of 705, and could not therefore enter before 48. 1st Jan. 706. So far Caesar had still during the last 49. ten months of the year 705 a right to the command, not
on the ground of the Pompeio-Licinian law, but on the
of the old rule that a command with a set term still continued after the expiry of the term up to the arrival of the successor. But now, since the new regulation
62. of 702 called to the governorships not the consuls and praetors going out, but those who had gone out five years ago or more, and thus prescribed an interval between the civil magistracy and the command instead of the previous immediate sequence, there was no longer any difficulty in straightway filling up from another quarter every legally vacant governorship, and so, in the case in question, bringing about for the Gallic provinces the
49. change of command on the 1st March 705, instead of the 48. 1 st Jan. 706. The pitiful dissimulation and procrastinating artifice of Pompeius are after a remarkable manner mixed
up, in these arrangements, with the wily formalism and the constitutional erudition of the republican party. Years before these weapons of state-law could be employed, they had them duly prepared, and put themselves in a condition on the one hand to compel Caesar to the resignation of his command from the day when the term secured to him by Pompeius' own law expired, that is from the 1st
49. March 705, by sending successors to him, and on the other hand to be able to treat as null and void the votes 48. tendered for him at the elections for 706. Caesar, not
ground
CHAP, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 179
<n a position to hinder these moves in the game, kept silence and left things to their own course.
Gradually therefore the slow course of constitutional Debates u procedure developed itself. According to custom the ncayi senate had to deliberate on the governorships of the year
705, so far as they went to former consuls, at the beginning 49.
of 703, so far as they went to former praetors, at the 61. beginning of 704 ; that earlier deliberation gave the first 60. occasion to discuss the nomination of new governors for
the two Gauls in the senate, and thereby the first occasion
for open collision between the constitutional party pushed forward by Pompeius and the senatorial supporters of Caesar. The consul Marcus Marcellus introduced a proposal to give the two provinces hitherto administered
by the proconsul Gaius Caesar from the 1st March 705 49. to the two consulars who were to be provided with governor ships for that year. The long-repressed indignation burst forth in a torrent through the sluice once opened ; every thing that the Catonians were meditating against Caesar
was brought forward in these discussions. For them it was a settled point, that the right granted by exceptional law to the proconsul Caesar of announcing his candidature for the consulship in absence had been again cancelled by a subsequent decree of the people, and that the reservation inserted in the latter was invalid. The senate should in their opinion cause this magistrate, now that the subjugation of Gaul was ended, to discharge immediately the soldiers who had served out their time. The cases in which Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies in Upper Italy were described by them as un constitutional and null; in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim to Roman citizenship 132), should receive the
(p.
18o DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
punishment of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses.
The supporters of Caesar at this time — among whom Gaius Vibius Pansa, who was the son of a man proscribed by Sulla but yet had entered on a political career, formerly
an officer in Caesar's army and in this year tribune of the people, was the most notable—affirmed in the senate that both the state of things in Gaul and equity demanded not only that Caesar should not be recalled before the time, but that he should be allowed to retain the command along with the consulship; and they pointed beyond doubt to the facts, that a few years previously Pompeius had just in the same way combined the Spanish governorships with the consulate, that even at the present time, besides the important office of superintending the supply of food to the capital, he held the supreme command in Italy in addition to the Spanish, and that in fact the whole men capable of arms had been sworn in by him and had not yet been released from their oath.
The process began to take shape, but its course was not on that account more rapid. The majority of the senate, seeing the breach approaching, allowed no sitting capable of issuing a decree to take place for months ; and other months in their turn were lost over the solemn procrastina tion of Pompeius. At length the latter broke the silence and ranged himself, in a reserved and vacillating fashion as usual but yet plainly enough, on the side of the constitu tional party against his former ally. He summarily and abruptly rejected the demand of the Caesarians that their master should be allowed to conjoin the consulship and the proconsulship ; this demand, he added with blunt coarse ness, seemed to him no better than if a son should offer to flog his father. He approved in principle the proposal 01
Marcellus, in so far as he too declared that he would not allow Caesar directly to attach the consulship to the pro
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 181
consulship. He hinted, however, although without making
any binding declaration on the point, that they would perhaps grant to Caesar admission to the elections for 706 48. without requiring his personal announcement, as well as the continuance of his governorship at the utmost to the 13th Nov. 705. But in the meantime the incorrigible pro- 49. crastinator consented to the postponement of the nomination
of successors to the last day of Feb. 704, which was asked 60. by the representatives of Caesar, probably on the ground
of a clause of the Pompeio-Licinian law forbidding
any discussion in the senate as to the nomination of successors before the beginning of Caesar's last year of office.
In this sense accordingly the decrees of the senate were issued (29 Sept 703). The filling up of the Gallic 61. governorships was placed in the order of the day for the 1st March 704 ; but even now it was attempted to break up 60. the army of Caesar — just as had formerly been done by decree of the people with the army of Lucullus (iv. 349, 387) —by inducing his veterans to apply to the senate for their discharge. Caesar's supporters effected, indeed, as far as they constitutionally could, the cancelling of these decrees
by their tribunictan veto; but Pompeius very distinctly declared that the magistrates were bound unconditionally
to obey the senate, and that intercessions and similar antiquated formalities would produce no change. The oligarchical party, whose organ Pompeius now made himself, betrayed not obscurely the design, in the event of
a victory, of revising the constitution in their sense and removing everything which had even the semblance of popular freedom ; as indeed, doubtless for this reason, it omitted to avail itself of the comitia at all in its attacks directed against Caesar. The coalition between Pompeius
and the constitutional party was thus formally declared ;
sentence too was already evidently passed on Caesar, and
Connter- arrange- ments of Caesar.
182 DEATH OF CRASSUS liCJK V
the term of its promulgation was simply postponed. The elections for the following year proved thoroughly idverse to him.
During these party manoeuvres of hia antagonist's pre paratory to war, Caesar had succeeded in getting rid of the Gallic insurrection and restoring the state of peace in the
81. whole subject territory. As early ar. the summer of 703,
under the convenient pretext of defending the frontier
but evidently in token of the fact that the legions in Gaul were now beginning to be no longer needed there, he movee one of them to North Italy. He could not avoid per ceiving now at any rate, not earlier, that he would not br spared the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow-citizens; nevertheless, as was highly desirable to leave the legions still j: time in the barely pacified Gaul, he sought even yet to procrastinate, and, ^i'i acquainted with the extreme lovi of peace in the majority of the senate,
did not abandon the hope of still restrvning them from the declaration cf war in spite of the nrejfure exercised over them by Poirpoius. He did ao'. even hesitate to make great sacrifices, only he might avoiJ for the present open variance with the supreme gx/f. luing board. When the
60. senate (in the spring of 70/,) r. t thti suggestion of Pompeius requested both him and Cvjjx to furnish each legion for the impending Parthkx war (p. 167) and when agreeably to this resolution Po:r. pe:us demanded back from Caesar the legion lent to bira Fjme years before, so as to send to Syria, Caesar complied with the double demand, because neither the opportuneness of this decree of the senate nor the justice of the demand of Pompeius could themselves be disputed, and the keeping within the bounds of the law and of formal loyalty was of more consequence to Caesar than few thousand soldiers. The two legions came without delay and placed themselves at the disposal of the govern
ment, but instead of sending them to the Euphrates, the
03)
a
in
a it
(p. 1
if
f a.
if it
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 183
latter kept them at Capua in readiness for Pompeius ; and the public had once more the opportunity of comparing the manifest endeavours of Caesar to avoid a rupture with the perfidious preparation for war by his opponents.
For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded Curia in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men of parts in this epoch ; 1 unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent and clever oratory, in dexterity
of intrigue, and in that energy which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness ; but also unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing —his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (^600,000) —and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected ; the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar, induced the latter subsequently to buy him up—the price was high, but the commodity was worth the money.
Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the Debates people played the independent republican, and had as such JJ^J^ thundered both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He Caesar and
""1P""1
availed himself with rare skill of the apparently impartia position which this gave him, when in March 704 the 60. proposal as to the filling up of the Gallic governorships for
the next year came up afresh for discussion in the senate ;
he completely approved the decree, but asked that it should
be at the same time extended to Pompeius and his extra ordinary commands. His arguments — that a constitutional state of things could only be brought about by the removal
of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely en trusted by the senate with the proconsulship could still less
* Homo ingtniotissimt ntquam (Vellci. 48).
ii.
i84
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
than Caesar refuse obedience to that the one-sided removal of one of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution —carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public at large and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent any one sided proceedings against Caesar the veto constitutionally belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate. Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same he might safely do so, for
without his Italo-Spanish command was no longer formidable. Pompeius again for that very reason could not avoid refusing his reply—that Caesar must first resign, and that he meant speedily to follow the example thus set—was the less satisfactory, that he did not even specify definite term for his retirement. Again the decision was delayed for months; Pompeius and the Catonians, perceiving the dubious humour of the majority of the senate, did not venture to bring Curio's proposal to a vote. Caesar employed the summer in establishing the state of peace in the regions which he had conquered, in holding great review of his troops on the Scheldt, and in making triumphal march through the province of North Italy, which was entirely devoted to him autumn found him in Ravenna, the southern frontier-town of his province.
The vote which could no longer be delayed on Curio's proposai at length took place, and exhibited the defeat of the party of Pompeius and Cato in all its extent. By 370 votes against 20 the senate resolved that the proconsuls of Spain and Gaul should both be called upon to resign their offices; and with boundless joy the good burgesses of Rome heard the glad news of the saving achievement of Curio. Pompeius was thus recalled the senate no less
Pompeius
Caesar and Pompeius
recalled.
by
it,
;
;
a a
a
;
;
by
chap, 1x RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 185
than Caesar, and while Caesar was ready to comply with the command, Pompeius positively refused obedience. The presiding consul Gaius Marcellus, cousin of Marcus Marcellus and like the latter belonging to the Catonian party, addressed a severe lecture to the servile majority; and it was, no doubt, vexatious to be thus beaten in their own camp and beaten by means of a phalanx of poltroons. But where was victory to come from under a leader, who, instead of shortly and distinctly dictating his orders to the senators, resorted in his old days a second time to the in structions of a professor of rhetoric, that with eloquence polished up afresh he might encounter the youthful vigour
and brilliant talents of Curio ?
The coalition, defeated in the senate, was in the most
painful position. The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out em phatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seem ing peace ; and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot by rapid action, his allies knew very well that they could never expect this from him, and that it was for them, as they had promised, to bring matters to a crisis. After the champions of the constitution and of senatorial government had already declared the constitutional rights of the burgesses and of the tribunes of the people to be
meaningless formalities 181), they now found them selves driven by necessity to treat the constitutional decision; of the senate itself in similar manner and, as the legitimate government would not let itself be saved with its own consent, to save against its will. This was neither new nor accidental Sulla v. 97) and Lucullus
(iv. 33s)hadbeenobligedtocarryeveryenergeticresolu-
DecUrm- non,"w"
;
it
a (i
(p.
The n/caesar1
Caesar had completely attained the object of devolving l^e 'mt'ative °f c'yil war on his opponents. He had, while himself keeping on legal ground, compelled Pompeius to declare war, and to declare not as representative of the legitimate authority, but as general of an openly revolution ary minority of the senate which overawed the majority. This result was not to be reckoned of slight importance, although the instinct of the masses could not and did not deceive itself for moment as to the fact that the war con
BO.
186 DEATH OF CRASSUS book t
tion conceived by them in the true interest of the govern ment with a high hand irrespective of just as Cato and his friends now proposed to do the machinery of the constitution was in fact utterly effete, and the senate was now—as the comitia had been for centuries—nothing but
worn-out wheel slipping constantly out of its track.
It was rumoured (Oct. 704) that Caesar had moved four legions from Transalpine into Cisalpine Gaul and stationed them at Placentia. This transference of troops was of itself within the prerogative of the governor; Curio
moreover palpably showed in the senate the utter ground
lessness of the rumour; and they by
the proposal of the consul Gaius Marcellus to give Pompeius on the strength of orders to march against Caesar. Yet the said consul, in concert with the two consuls elected for
49. 705 who likewise belonged to the Catonian party, proceeded to Pompeius, and these three men by virtue of their own plenitude of power requested the general to put himself at the head of the two legions stationed at Capua, and to call the Italian militia to arms at his discretion. more in formal authorization for the commencement of civil war can hardly be conceived; but people had no longer time to attend to such secondary matters
Pompeius accepted The military preparations, the levies began in order personally to forward them, Pompeius left the capital in
60. December 704.
majority rejected
a
it
it.
a
;
;aA
it
a
it,
;
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS
187
cerned other things than questions of formal law. Now, when war was declared, it was Caesar's interest to strike a blow as soon as possible. The preparations of his oppo nents were just beginning, and even the capital was not
In ten or twelve days an army three times as strong as the troops of Caesar that were in Upper Italy could be collected at Rome ; but still it was not impossible
to surprise the city undefended, or even perhaps by a rapid winter campaign to seize all Italy, and to shut off the best resources of his opponents before they could make them available. The sagacious and energetic Curio, who after resigning his tribunate (10 Dec. 704) had immediately 60. gone to Caesar at Ravenna, vividly represented the state
of things to his master ; and it hardly needed such a repre sentation to convince Caesar that longer delay now could only be injurious. But, as he with the view of not giving
his antagonists occasion to complain had hitherto brought
no troops to Ravenna itself, he could for the present do nothing but despatch orders to his whole force to set out with all haste; and he had to wait till at least the one legion stationed in Upper Italy reached Ravenna. Mean while he sent an ultimatum to Rome, which, if useful for nothing else, by its extreme submissiveness still farther compromised his opponents in public opinion, and perhaps even, as he seemed himself to hesitate, induced them to prosecute more remissly their preparations against him.
In this ultimatum Caesar dropped all the counter-demands which he formerly made on Pompeius, and offered on his own part both to resign the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, and to dismiss eight of the ten legions belonging to him, at the term fixed by the senate ; he declared himself content, if the senate would leave him either the governor
ship of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with one, or that of Cis
alpine Gaul alone with two, legions, not, forsooth, up to his investiture with the consulship, but till after the close of
occupied.
188 DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
48. the consular elections for 706. He thus consented to those proposals of accommodation, with which at the begin ning of the discussions the senatorial party and even Pompeius himself had declared that they would be satis fied, and showed himself ready to remain in a private position from his election to the consulate down to his entering on office. Whether Caesar was in earnest with these astonishing concessions and had confidence that he should be able to carry through his game against Pompeius even after granting so much, or whether he reckoned that those on the other side had already gone too far to find in these proposals of compromise more than a proof that Caesar regarded his cause itself as lost, can no longer be with certainty determined. The probability that Caesar committed the fault of playing too bold game, far rather than the worse fault of promising something which he was not minded to perform and that, strangely enough his proposals had been accepted, he would have made good his word.
Last
the senate.
Curio undertook once more to represent his master in tne Hon's den. In three days he made the journey from Ravenna to Rome. When the new consuls Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus the younger1 assembled the senate
49. for the first time on Jan. 705, he delivered in full meeting the letter addressed by the general to the senate. The tribunes of the people, Marcus Antonius well known in the chronicle of scandal of the city as the intimate friend of Curio and his accomplice in all his follies, but at the same time known from the Egyptian and Gallic campaigns as brilliant cavalry officer, and Quintus Cassius, Pompeius' former quaestor,—the two, who were now in Curio's stead managing the cause of Caesar in Rome — insisted on the
To be distinguished from the consul having the same name of 704
60.
49. the latter was a cousin, the consul of 705 a brother, of the Marcus Mar ti, cellus who was consul In 703.
;
'
a
1;
a
a if
is,
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 189
immediate reading of the despatch. The grave and clear words in which Caesar set forth the imminence of civil war, the general wish for peace, the arrogance of Pompeius, and his own yielding disposition, with all the irresistible force of truth ; the proposals for a compromise, of a mod eration which doubtless surprised his own partisans; the distinct declaration that this was the last time that he should offer his hand for peace —made the deepest impres sion. In spite of the dread inspired by the numerous soldiers of Pompeius who flocked into the capital, the sentiment of the majority was not doubtful; the consuls could not venture to let it find expression. Respecting the proposal renewed by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made by Marcus Coelius Rums and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius should be urged immediately to depart for Spain, the consuls refused—as they in the capacity of presiding officers were entitled to do—to let a vote take place. Even the pro posal of one of their most decided partisans who was
simply not so blind to the military position of affairs as his party, Marcus Marcellus —to defer the determination till the Italian levy en masse could be under arms and could protect the senate —was not allowed to be brought to a vote. Pompeius caused it to be declared through his usual organ, Quintus Scipio, that he was resolved to take up the cause of the senate now or never, and that he would let it drop if they longer delayed. The consul Lentulus said in plain terms that even the decree of the senate was do longer of consequence, and that, if it should persevere in its servility, he would act of himself and with his power ful friends take the farther steps necessary. Thus over-
awed, the majority decreed what was commanded —that
n*psa. r
should at a definite and not distant day give up
190
DEATH OF CRASSUS book v
Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul to Marcus Servilius Nonianus, and should dismiss his army, failing which he should be esteemed a traitor. When the tribunes of Caesar's party made use of their right of veto against this resolution, not only were they, as they at least asserted, threatened in the senate- house itself by the swords of Pompeian soldiers, and forced, in order to save their lives, to flee in slaves' clothing from the capital ; but the now sufficiently overawed senate treated their formally quite constitutional interference as an attempt at revolution, declared the country in danger, and in the usual forms called the whole burgesses to take up arms, and all magistrates faithful to the constitution to
49. place themselves at the head of the armed (7 Jan. 705). Now it was enough. When Caesar was informed by the
tribunes who had fled to his camp entreating protection as to the reception which his proposals had met with in the capital, he called together the soldiers of the thirteenth legion, which had meanwhile arrived from its cantonments near Tergeste (Trieste) at Ravenna, and unfolded before them the state of things. It was not merely the man of
genius versed in the knowledge and skilled in the control of men's hearts, whose brilliant eloquence shone forth and glowed in this agitating crisis of his own and the world's destiny; nor merely the generous commander-in-chief and the victorious general, addressing soldiers, who had been called by himself to arms and for eight years had followed his banners with daily - increasing enthusiasm. There spoke, above all, the energetic and consistent states man, who had now for nine-and-twenty years defended the cause of freedom in good and evil times ; who had braved for it the daggers of assassins and the executioners of the aristocracy, the swords of the Germans and the waves of the unknown ocean, without ever yielding or wavering ; who had torn to pieces the Sullan constitution,
Caesar totoltaly
chap, ix RUPTURE BETWEEN THE JOINT RULERS 191
'iad overthrown the rule of the senate, and had furnished the defenceless and unarmed democracy with protection and with arms by means of the struggle beyond the Alps And he spoke, not to the Clodian public whose republican enthusiasm had been long burnt down to ashes and dross, but to the young men from the towns and villages of Northern Italy, who still felt freshly and purely the mighty influence of the thought of civic freedom ; who were still capable of fighting and of dying for ideals ; who had them selves received for their country in a revolutionary way from Caesar the burgess - rights which the government refused to them ; whom Caesar's fall would leave once more at the mercy of the fasces, and who already pos sessed practical proofs 179 /. ) of the inexorable use which the oligarchy proposed to make of these against the Trans- padanes. Such were the listeners before whom such an orator set forth the facts —the thanks for the conquest of Gaul which the nobility were preparing for the general and his army the contemptuous setting aside of the comitia the overawing of the senate the sacred duty of protecting with armed hand the tribunate of the people wrested five hundred years ago by their fathers arms hand from the nobility, and of keeping the ancient oath which these had taken for themselves as for their children's children that they would man man stand firm even to death for the tribunes of the people 350). And then, when he — the leader and general of the popular party — sum moned the soldiers of the people, now that conciliatory means had been exhausted and concession had reached its utmost limits, to follow him in the last, the inevitable, the decisive struggle against the equally hated and despised, equally perfidious and incapable, and fact ludicrously incorrigible aristocracy — there was not an officer or soldier who could hold back. The order was given for
departure
at the head of his vanguard Caesar crossed
;
;
in
(i.
a;
by
(p.
in
;
193
DEATH OF CRASSUS book t
the narrow brook which separated his province from Italy, and which the constitution forbade the proconsul of Gaul to pass. When after nine years' absence he trod once more the soil of his native land, he trod at the same time the path of revolution. " The die was cast. "
CH. X BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, PHARSALUS, THAPSUS
193
CHAPTER X
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, PHARSALUS, AND THAPSU3
Arms were thus to decide which of the two men who had hitherto jointly ruled Rome was now to be its first sole
The
tfao^at on other
tide.
*'
ruler. Let us see what were the comparative resources
at the disposal of Caesar and Pompeius for the waging of the impending war.
Caesar's power rested primarily on the wholly unlimited Caesar's
authority which he enjoyed within his party. If the ideas of democracy and of monarchy met together in this was not the result of coalition which had been accidentally entered into and might be accidentally dissolved on the contrary was involved in the very essence of democracy without representative constitution, that democracy and monarchy should find in Caesar at once their highest and ultimate expressioa In political as in military matters throughout the first and the final decision lay with Caesar. However high the honour in which he held any serviceable instrument, remained an instrument still Caesar stood in his own party without confederates, surrounded only military-political adjutants, who as rule had risen from the army and as soldiers were trained never to ask the reason and purpose of any thing, but unconditionally to obey. On this account especially, at the decisive moment when the civil war began, of all the officers and soldiers of Caesar one alone refused him obedience and the cir-
*bsoIut0
within hi» part'.
vou
146
.
T
a
it
;
a
;
by
it
a
it,
;
a
Labienus.
cumstance that that one was precisely the foremost of them all, serves simply to confirm this view of the relation of Caesar to his adherents.
Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all the troubles of the dark times of Catilina (iv. 457) as well as all the lustre of the Gallic career of victory, had regularly held inde pendent command, and frequently led half the army ; as he was the oldest, ablest, and most faithful of Caesar's adju tants, he was beyond question also highest in position and
194
BRUNDISIUM, ILERDA, book v
60. highest in honour. As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass for the consul ship. But from this very position Labienus entered into communication with the opposite party, resorted at the
49. beginning of hostilities in 705 to the headquarters of Pompeius instead of those of Caesar, and fought through the whole civil strife with unparalleled bitterness against his old friend and master in war. We are not suffi ciently informed either as to the character of Labienus or as to the special circumstances of his changing sides ; but in the main his case certainly presents nothing but a further proof of the fact, that a military chief can reckon far more surely on his captains than on his marshals. To all appearance Labienus was one of those persons who combine with military efficiency utter in
capacity as statesmen, and who in consequence, if they unhappily choose or are compelled to take part in politics, are exposed to those strange paroxysms of giddiness, of which the history of Napoleon's marshals supplies so many tragi-comic examples. He may probably have held himself entitled to rank alongside of Caesar as the second chief of the democracy ; and the rejection of this claim of his may have sent him over to the camp of his opponents. His case rendered for the first time apparent
chap, x PHARSALUS, AND THAPSUS
195
the whole gravity of the evil, that Caesar's treatment of his officers as adjutants without independence admitted of the rise of no men fitted to undertake a separate com mand in his camp, while at the same time he stood urgently in need of such men amidst the diffusion — which might easily be foreseen —of the impending struggle through all the provinces of the wide empire. But this disadvantage was far outweighed by that unity in the supreme leadership, which was the primary condition of all success, and a condition only to be preserved at such a cost
This unity of leadership acquired its full power through Caesar'i the efficiency of its instruments. Here the army comes, army' first of all, into view. It still numbered nine legions of infantry or at the most 50,000 men, all of whom however
had faced the enemy and two-thirds had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry consisted of German and Noric mercenaries, whose usefulness and trust worthiness had been proved in the war against Vercingetorix.