The second was
connected
with justice.
Napoleon - History of Julius Caesar - a
Cæsar acted wisely in keeping out of these movements, for not only did
the character of Lepidus inspire him with no confidence,[803] but he
must have thought that the dictatorship of Sylla was too recent, that it
had inspired too many fears, and created too many new interests, to
admit of the reaction, still incomplete in men’s minds, succeeding by
arms. For the present, they must limit themselves to acting on public
opinion, by branding with words the instruments of the past tyranny.
The most general way of entering on a political career was by
instituting a prosecution against some high personage. [804] Its success
mattered little; the real point was to be brought prominently forward by
some remarkable speech, and offer a proof of patriotism.
Cornelius Dolabella, one of the friends of Sylla, who had had the
honours of the consulate and triumph, and who, two years before, was
governor of Macedonia, was now accused by Cæsar of excesses committed in
his government (677). He was acquitted by the tribunal composed of the
creatures of the dictator. [805] Public opinion did not praise Cæsar the
less for having dared to attack a man who was supported and defended by
orators such as Hortensius and L. Aurelius Cotta. Besides, he displayed
so much eloquence, that this first speech gave him at once a veritable
celebrity. [806] Encouraged by this success, Cæsar cited C. Antonius
Hybrida before the prætor M. Lucullus for having, at the head of a body
of cavalry, pillaged certain parts of Greece when Sylla was returning
from Asia. [807] The accused was also acquitted, but the popularity of
the accuser still increased. He also spoke, probably, in other causes
now unknown. Tacitus speaks of a speech of Cæsar’s in favour of a
certain Decius the Samnite,[808] without doubt the same mentioned by
Cicero, who, flying from the proscription of Sylla, was kindly received
by Aulus Cluentius. [809] Thus Cæsar boldly offered himself as the
defender of the oppressed Greeks or Samnites, who had suffered so much
from the regime preceding. He gained especially the good-will of the
former, whose opinions, highly influential at Rome, helped to make
reputations.
These attacks were certainly a means of attracting public attention, but
they also showed the courage of the man, since the partisans of Sylla
were still all in power.
[Sidenote: Cæsar goes to Rhodes (678-680). ]
V. Notwithstanding his celebrity as an orator, Cæsar resolved to keep
out of the troubles which agitated Italy, and doubtless felt his
presence in Rome useless to his cause and irksome to himself. It is
often advantageous to political men to disappear for a time from the
scene; they thus avoid compromising themselves in daily struggles
without aim, and their reputation, instead of losing, increases by
absence. During the winter of 678 Cæsar again quitted Italy, for the
purpose of going to Rhodes to complete his studies. This island, then
the centre of intellectual lights, the dwelling-place of the most
celebrated philosophers, was the school of all the well-born youth.
Cicero himself had gone there for lessons some years before.
In his passage, Cæsar was taken by pirates near Pharmacusa, a small
island in the archipelago of the Sporades, at the mouth of the Gulf of
Jassius. [810] Notwithstanding the campaign of P. Servilius Isauricus,
these pirates still infested the sea with numerous fleets. They demanded
twenty talents (£2,329) for his ransom. He offered fifty (£11,640),
which must naturally have given them a high notion of their prisoner,
and insured him better treatment. He sent trusty agents, and among
others Epicrates, one of his Milesian slaves, to raise this sum in the
neighbouring towns. [811] Though the allied provinces and towns were in
this case obliged to furnish the ransom, it was none the less curious,
as a proof of their wealth, to see a young man of twenty-four, arrested
in a little island of Asia Minor, instantly able to borrow so large a
sum.
Left alone with a physician and two slaves[812] in the midst of these
ferocious brigands, he held them in awe by his force of character, and
passed nearly forty days on board without ever loosing either his
sandals or his girdle, to avoid all suspicion of wishing to escape by
swimming. [813] He seemed less a captive, says Plutarch, than a prince
surrounded by his guards; now playing with them, now reciting poems to
them, he made himself loved and feared, and laughingly told them that,
once free, he would have them crucified. [814] Yet the remembrance of
Rome recurred to his mind, and recalled the strifes and enmities he had
left there. He was often heard to say, “What pleasure Crassus will have
at knowing me in these straits! ”[815]
As soon as he received his ransom from Miletus and the other towns, he
paid it. Landed on the coast, he hastened to equip ships, impatient to
revenge himself. The pirates, surprised at anchor in the harbour of the
island, were almost all made prisoners, and their booty fell into his
hands. He secured them in the prison at Pergamus, to deliver them up to
Junius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, whose duty it was to punish them.
But, wishing to sell them and make a profit, Junius replied in an
evasive manner. Cæsar returned to Pergamus, and had them crucified. [816]
He went afterwards to Rhodes, to attend the lessons of Apollonius Molo,
the most illustrious of the masters of eloquence of that time, who had
formerly been to Rome, in 672, as the Rhodian ambassador. About the same
time one of his uncles, the proconsul M. Aurelius Cotta, was appointed
governor of Bithynia, bequeathed by Nicomedes to the Roman people, and
charged, with Lucullus, to oppose the new invasions of Mithridates.
Cotta, beaten by land and sea near Chalcedon, was reduced to great
straits, and Mithridates was advancing against Cyzicus, an allied town,
which Lucullus afterwards relieved. On another side, Eumachius, a
lieutenant of the King of Pontus, ravaged Phrygia, where he massacred
all the Romans, and seized several of the southern provinces of Asia
Minor. The rumours of war, the perils into which the allies were
falling, took Cæsar from his studies. He went over into Asia, levied
troops on his own authority, drove out from the province the king’s
governor, and kept in allegiance towns whose faith was doubtful or
shaken. [817]
[Sidenote: Cæsar Pontiff and Military Tribune (680-684). ]
VI. Whilst he was making war on the coasts of Asia, his friends at Rome
did not forget him; and, seeing clearly the importance of Cæsar’s being
clothed with a sacred character, they nominated him pontiff, in the
place of his uncle, L. Aurelius Cotta, consul in 680, who had died
suddenly in Gaul the following year. [818]
This circumstance obliged him to return to Rome. The sea continued to
swarm with pirates, who must necessarily owe him a grudge for the death
of their comrades. The better to escape them, he crossed the Adriatic in
a boat of four oars, accompanied only by two friends and ten
slaves. [819] In the passage, thinking that he saw sails in the horizon,
he seized his sword, resolved to sell his life dearly; but his fears
were not justified, and he landed safe and sound in Italy.
Immediately on his return to Rome, he was elected military tribune, and
succeeded by a large majority over his rival, C. Popilius. [820] This
already elevated rank, since it gave him the command of about a thousand
men, was the first step which the young nobility easily attained, either
by election or by the choice of the generals. [821] Cæsar does not seem
to have profited by his new position to take part in the important wars
in which the Republic was then engaged. And yet the clang of arms echoed
from all quarters.
In Spain Sertorius successfully continued the war begun in 674 against
the lieutenants of Sylla, joined in 677 by Perpenna, at the head of
thirty cohorts,[822] he had got together a formidable army, bravely
maintained the standard of Marius, and given the name of _Senate_ to an
assemblage of 300 Romans. Vanquisher of Metellus for several years,
Sertorius, gifted with a vast military genius, exercising great
influence over the Celtiberians and Lusitanians, and master of the
passes,[823] was dreaming of crossing the Alps. The Spaniards had
already given him the name of a _second Hannibal_. But Pompey, sent in
all haste to Spain, reinforced the army of Metellus, deprived Sertorius
of all hope of penetrating into Italy, and even drove him far back from
the Pyrenees. The united efforts of the two generals, however, did not
effect the subjugation of Spain, which, since 680, had been entirely
re-conquered by Sertorius. But soon after this, his lieutenants
experiencing reverses, desertion began among his soldiers, and he
himself lost his confidence. Yet he would have resisted for a long time
still, had not Perpenna caused him to be assassinated by an infamous act
of treachery. This murder did not profit its author. Though Perpenna
succeeded Sertorius in the command of the troops, he found himself an
object of their hatred and contempt. Soon defeated and taken prisoner by
Pompey, he was put to death. Thus ended the war in Spain in 682.
In Asia, Lucullus successfully pursued the campaign against
Mithridates, who courageously maintained the struggle, and had even been
able to come to an understanding with Sertorius. Lucullus beat him in
Cappadocia (683), and forced him to take refuge with Tigranes, his
son-in-law, King of Armenia, who soon experienced a sanguinary defeat,
and lost his capital, Tigranocerta.
In the East, the barbarians infested the frontiers of Macedonia, the
pirates of Cilicia sailed from end to end of all the seas with impunity,
and the Cretans flew to arms to defend their independence.
Italy was torn by the Servile War. This disinherited class had risen up
anew, despite the bloody repression of the Sicilian insurrection from
620 to 623. It had acquired the knowledge of its strength chiefly from
the circumstance that each party in the civil troubles had by turns
granted its liberty to increase the number of its respective adherents.
In 681, seventy gladiators, kept at Capua, revolted; their chief was
Spartacus, formerly a soldier, made prisoner, then sold as a slave. In
less than a year his band had so much increased that consular armies
were needed to combat him, and, having gained a victory in Picenum, for
a moment he had entertained the thought of marching upon Rome at the
head of 40,000 men. [824] Nevertheless, forced to withdraw to the south
of Italy, he contended against the Roman forces successfully for two
years, when at last, in 683, Licinius Crassus, at the head of eight
legions, conquered him in Apulia. Spartacus perished in the fight; the
remainder of the army of slaves separated into four bodies, one of
which, retiring towards Gaul, was easily dispersed by Pompey, who was
returning from Spain. The 6,000 prisoners taken in the battle fought in
Apulia were hanged all along the road from Capua to Rome.
Occasions for making himself perfect in the art of war were not wanting
to Cæsar; but we can understand his inaction, for Sylla’s partisans
alone were at the heads of the armies; in Spain, Metellus and
Pompey--the first the brother-in-law of the Dictator, the second
formerly his best lieutenant; in Italy, Crassus, the enemy of Cæsar,
equally devoted to the party of Sylla; in Asia, Lucullus, an old friend
of the Dictator, who had dedicated his “_Memoirs_”[825] to him. Cæsar,
then, found everywhere either a cause he would not defend, or a general
under whom he would not serve. In Spain, however, Sertorius represented
the party he would most willingly have embraced; but Cæsar had a horror
of civil wars. Whilst faithful to his convictions, he seems, in the
first years of his career, to have carefully avoided placing between him
and his adversaries that eternal barrier which for ever separates the
children of the same country, after blood has once been shed. He had it
at heart to be able, in his exalted future, to appeal to a past pure
from all violence, so that, instead of being the man of a party, he
might rally round him all good citizens.
The Republic had triumphed everywhere, but she had yet to reckon with
her conquering generals: she found herself in the presence of Crassus
and Pompey, who, proud of their successes, advanced upon Rome at the
head of their armies, to demand or seize the chief power. The Senate
could be but little at ease as to the intentions of the latter, who, not
long before, had sent an insolent letter from Spain, in which he menaced
his country with the sword unless they sent him the supplies necessary
to carry on the war against Sertorius. [826] The same ambition animated
Pompey and Crassus: neither of the two would be the first to disband his
army; each, indeed, brought his own to the gates of the city. Both were
elected consuls, allowed a triumph, and forced by the augurs and public
opinion to be reconciled together; and they held out their hands to each
other, disbanded their troops, and for some time the Republic recovered
an unexpected calm. [827]
CHAPTER II.
(684-691. )
[Sidenote: State of the Republic (684). ]
I. When Pompey and Crassus came to the consulship, Italy had been a prey
to intestine convulsions for sixty-three years. But, notwithstanding the
repose which society demanded, and which the reconciliation of the two
rivals seemed to promise, many opposing passions and interests still
seethed in her bosom. [828]
Sylla believed he had re-established the Republic on its ancient basis,
but, instead, he had thrown everything into disorder. The property, the
life even of each citizen, was at the mercy of the stronger; the people
had lost the right of appeal, and their legitimate share in the
elections; the poor, the distribution of wheat; the tribuneship, its
secular privileges; and the influential order of the knights, their
political and financial importance.
At Rome, no more guarantee for justice; in Italy, no more security for
the rights of citizenship, so dearly acquired; in the provinces, no more
consideration for subjects and allies. Sylla had restored their
prerogatives to the upper class without being able to restore their
former prestige; having made use of only corrupt elements, and appealed
to only sordid passions, he left behind him a powerless oligarchy, and
a thoroughly distracted people. The country was divided between those
whom his tyranny had enriched and those whom it had despoiled; the one
fearing to lose what they had just acquired, the other hoping to regain
what they had lost.
The aristocracy, proud of their wealth and ancestry, absorbed in all the
pleasures of luxury, kept the _new men_[829] out of the highest offices,
and, by a long continuance of power, had come to look on the chief
magistracies as their property. Cato, in a discourse to the Senate,
exclaimed:--“Instead of the virtues of our ancestors we have luxury and
avarice; the poverty of the State, and the opulence of individuals; we
boast of our riches, we cherish idleness; no distinction is made between
the good and the wicked; all rewards due to merit are the price of
intrigue. Why then are we astonished at this, since each man, isolating
himself from the rest, consults only his own interest? At home, the
slaves of pleasure; here, of wealth or of favour. ”[830]
The elections had for a long time been the result of a shameless
traffic, where every mean of success was allowable. Lucullus himself, to
obtain the government of Asia, did not blush to have recourse to the
good offices of a courtesan, the mistress of Cethegus. [831] The sale of
consciences had so planted itself in public morals, that the several
instruments of electoral corruption had functions and titles almost
recognised. Those who bought votes were called _divisores_; the
go-betweens were _interpretes_; and those with whom was deposited the
purchase money[832] were _sequestres_. Numerous secret societies were
formed for making a trade of the right of suffrage; they were divided
into decuries, the several heads of which obeyed a supreme head, who
treated with the candidates and sold the votes of the associates, either
for money, or on the stipulation of certain advantages for himself or
his friends. These societies carried most of the elections, and Cicero
himself, who so often boasted of the unanimity with which he had been
chosen consul, owed to them a great part of the suffrages he
obtained. [833]
All the sentences of the tribunals composed of senators were dictated by
a venality so flagrant, that Cicero brands it in these terms:--“I will
demonstrate by positive proofs the guilty intrigues, the infamies which
have sullied the judicial powers for the ten years that they have been
entrusted to the Senate. The Roman people shall learn from me how the
knightly order has administered justice for nearly fifty consecutive
years, without the faintest suspicion resting on any of its members of
having received money for a judgment delivered; how, since senators
alone have composed our tribunals, since the people have been despoiled
of the right which they had over each of us, Q. Calidius has been able
to say, after his condemnation, that they could not honestly require
less than 300,000 sestertii to condemn a prætor; how, when the senator
P. Septimius was found guilty of embezzlement before the prætor
Hortensius, the money he had received in his quality of judge was
included in his fine; how C. Herennius and C. Popilius, both senators,
having been convicted of the crime of peculation, and M. Atilius of the
crime of high treason, it was proved that they had received money as the
price of one of their sentences; how it was found that certain senators,
when their names were taken from the urn held by C. Verres, then prætor
urbanus, instantly went to vote against the accused, without having
heard the suit; how, finally, we have seen a senator, judge in this same
suit, receive money from the accused to distribute to the other judges,
and money from the accuser to condemn the accused. Can I, then,
sufficiently deplore this blot, this shame, this calamity which weighs
on the whole order? ”[834]
Notwithstanding the severity of the laws against the avidity of the
generals and farmers of the revenues, notwithstanding the patronage of
the great at Rome, the conquered peoples[835] were always a prey to the
exactions of the magistrates, and Verres was a type of the most
shameless immorality, which drew this exclamation from Cicero: “All the
provinces groan; all free peoples lament; all the kingdoms cry out
against our cupidity and our violence. There is not between the Ocean
and ourselves a spot so remote or so little known that the injustice and
tyranny of our fellow-citizens of these days have not penetrated to
it. ”[836] The inhabitants of foreign countries were obliged to borrow,
either to satisfy the immoderate demands of their governors and their
retinue, or to pay the farmers of the public revenues. Now, capital
being nowhere but at Rome, they could only procure it at an excessive
rate of interest; and the nobles, giving themselves up to usury, held
the provinces in their power.
The army itself had been demoralised by civil wars, and the chiefs no
longer maintained discipline. “Flamininus, Aquilius, Paulus Æmilius,”
says Dio Cassius, “commanded men well disciplined, who had learnt to
execute the orders of their generals in silence. The law was their rule;
with a royal soul, simple in life, bounding their expenses within
reasonable limits, they held it more shameful to flatter the soldiery
than to fear the enemy. From the time of Sylla, on the contrary, the
generals, raised to the first rank by violence and not by merit, forced
to turn their arms against each other rather than against the enemy,
were reduced to court popularity. Charged with the command, they
squandered gold to procure enjoyments for an army, the fatigues of which
they paid dearly; they rendered their country venal, without caring for
it; and made themselves the slaves of the most depraved men, to bring
under their authority those who were worth more than themselves. This is
what drove Marius out of Rome, and led him back against Sylla; this is
what made Cinna the murderer of Octavius, and Fimbria the murderer of
Flaccus. Sylla was the principal cause of these evils, he who, to seduce
the soldiers enrolled under other chiefs, and bring them under his own
flag, scattered gold in handfuls among his army. ”[837]
Far were they from the times when the soldier, after a short campaign,
laid down his arms to take up the plough again; since then, retained
under his standards for long years, and returning in the train of a
victorious general to vote in the Campus Martius, the citizen had
disappeared; there remained the warrior, with the sole inspiration of
the camp. At the end of the expeditions, the army was disbanded, and
Italy thus found itself overrun with an immense number of veterans,
united in colonies or dispersed over the territory, more inclined to
follow a leader than to obey the law. The veterans of the ancient
legions of Marius and Sylla were to be counted by hundreds of thousands.
A State, moreover, is often weakened by an exaggeration of the principle
on which it rests; and as war was the chief occupation at Rome, all the
institutions had originally a military character. The consuls, the first
magistrates of the Republic, elected by centuries--that is to say, by
the people voting under arms--commanded the troops. The army, composed
of all there was most honourable in the nation, did not take an oath to
the Republic, but to the chief who recruited it and led it against the
enemy; this oath, religiously kept, rendered the generals the absolute
masters of their soldiers, who, in their turn, decreed to them the title
of _Imperator_ after a victory: what more natural, then, even after the
transformation of society, than that these soldiers should believe
themselves the real people, and the generals elected by them the
legitimate chiefs of the Republic? Every abuse has deep roots in the
past, and we may find the original cause of the power of the prætorians
under the emperors in the primitive organisation and functions of the
centuries established by Servius Tullius.
Although the army had not as yet acquired this preponderance, it
nevertheless weighed heavily on the decisions of the Forum. By the side
of men habituated to the noble chances of the fight existed a true army
of turbulence, kept at the expense of the State or of private persons,
in the principal towns of Italy--above all, at Capua: these were the
gladiators, ever ready to undertake anything for those who paid them,
either in the electoral contests[838] or as soldiers in the times of
civil war. [839]
Thus all was struck with decadence. Brute force bestowed power, and
corruption the magistracies. The empire no longer belonged to the
Senate, but to the commanders of the armies; the armies no longer
belonged to the Republic, but to the chiefs who led them to victory.
Numerous elements of dissolution afflicted society: the venality of the
judges, the traffic in elections, the absolutism of the Senate, the
tyranny of wealth, which oppressed the poor by usury, and braved the law
with impunity.
Rome found herself divided into two thoroughly distinct parties; the
one, seeing salvation only in the past, attached itself to abuses, in
the fear that to displace one stone would be to shatter the whole
edifice; the other wished to consolidate it by rendering the base larger
and the summit less unsteady. The first party supported itself on the
institutions of Sylla; the second had taken the name of Marius as the
symbol of its hopes.
Great causes need an historical figure to personify their interests and
tendencies. The man once adopted, his faults, his very crimes are
forgotten, and his great deeds alone remembered. Thus, the vengeance
and massacres of Marius had faded away from memory at Rome. Only his
victories, which had preserved Italy from the invasions of the Cimbri
and the Teutones, were recalled; his misfortunes were pitied, his hatred
to the aristocracy vaunted. The preferences of public opinion were
clearly manifested by the language of the orators, even those most
favourable to the Senate. Thus Catulus and Cicero, speaking of Sylla or
of Marius, the tyranny of both of whom had been substantially almost
equally cruel, thought themselves obliged to glorify the one and to
brand the other;[840] yet the legislation of Sylla was still in full
vigour, his party omnipotent--that of Marius dispersed and
powerless. [841]
The struggle, which was perseveringly continued for sixty-three years
against the Senate, had never succeeded, because the defence of the
people had never been placed in hands either sufficiently strong or
sufficiently pure. To the Gracchi had been wanting an army; to Marius a
power less disgraced by excesses; to the war of the allies a character
less hostile to the national unity of which Rome was the representative.
As to Spartacus, by rousing the slaves he went beyond his aim, and his
success threatened the whole of society; he was annihilated. To triumph
over a long accumulation of prejudices, the popular cause needed a chief
of transcendent merit, and a concurrence of circumstances difficult to
foresee. But then the genius of Cæsar was not yet revealed, and the
vanquisher of Sertorius was the only one who dominated the situation by
his antecedents and high achievements.
[Sidenote: Consulship of Pompey and Crassus. ]
II. By a line of conduct quite opposite to that of Cæsar, Pompey had
greatly risen during the civil wars. From the age of twenty-three he had
received from Sylla the title _Imperator_, and the name of “Great;”[842]
he passed for the first warrior of his time, and had distinguished
himself in Italy, Sicily, and Africa against the partisans of Marius,
whom he caused to be pitilessly massacred. [843] Fate had ever favoured
him. In Spain, the death of Sertorius had made victory easy to him; on
his return, the fortuitous defeat of the fugitive remains of the army of
Spartacus allowed him to assume the honour of having put an end to that
formidable insurrection; soon he will profit by the success already
obtained by Lucullus against Mithridates. Thus a distinguished writer
has justly said that Pompey always came in time to terminate, to his own
glory, the wars which were just going to end to the glory of
another. [844]
The vulgar, who hail good fortune as the equal of genius, surrounded
then the conqueror of Spain with their homage, and he himself, of a poor
and vain spirit, referred the favours of fortune to his own sole merit.
Seeking power for ornament rather than service, he courted it not in the
hope of making a cause or a principle triumphant, but to enjoy it
peaceably by trimming between different parties. Thus, whilst to Cæsar
power was a means, to him it was only the end. Honest, but vacillating,
he was unconsciously the instrument of those who flattered him. His
courteous manners, and the show of disinterestedness which disguised his
ambition, removed all suspicions of his aspiring to the supreme
power. [845] An able general in ordinary times, he was great only while
events were not greater than he. Nevertheless, he then enjoyed the
highest reputation at Rome. By his antecedents he was rather the
representative of the party of the aristocracy; but the desire of
conciliating public favour, and his own intelligence, made him
comprehend the necessity of certain modifications in the laws: thus,
before entering Rome to celebrate his triumph over the Celtiberians, he
manifested the intention of re-establishing the prerogative of the
tribunes, of putting an end to the devastation and oppression of the
provinces, of restoring impartiality to justice, and respect to the
judges. [846] He was then consul-elect; his promises excited the most
lively enthusiasm; for it was the evil administration of the provinces,
and the venality of the senators in their judicial functions, which more
than all else made the people demand so ardently the re-establishment of
the privileges of the tribuneship, notwithstanding the abuses which they
had engendered. [847] Excesses in power always give birth to an
immoderate desire for liberty.
In publishing the programme of his conduct, of his own free will, before
entering Rome, Pompey did not yield to a fascination cleverly exerted
over him by Cæsar, as several historians pretend; he obeyed a stronger
impulse, that of public opinion. The nobles reproached him with having
abandoned their cause,[848] but the popular party was satisfied, and
Cæsar, seeing the new consul take his ideas and sentiments to heart,
resolved to support him energetically. [849] Doubtless, he thought that
with so many elements of corruption, so much contempt of the laws, so
many jealous rivalries, and so much boundless ambition, the ascendency
of him whom fortune had raised so high could alone, for the time, assist
the destinies of the Republic. Was this a loyal co-operation? We believe
so, but it did not exclude a noble rivalry, and Cæsar could not be
afraid of smoothing for Pompey the platform on which they must one day
meet. The man who understands his own worth has no perfidious jealousy
against those who have preceded him in his career; rather, he goes to
their aid, for then he has more glory in rejoining them. Where would be
the emulation of the contest if one was alone in the power of attaining
the end?
Pompey’s colleague was M. Licinius Crassus. This remarkable man, as we
have seen, had distinguished himself as a general, but his influence was
owing rather to his wealth and his amiable and courteous disposition.
Enriched under Sylla by purchasing the property of the proscribed, he
possessed whole quarters of the city of Rome, rebuilt after several
fires; his fortune was more than forty millions of francs [a million and
a half sterling],[850] and he pretended that to be rich, one must be
able to maintain an army at his own expense. [851] Though his chief
passion was the love of gold, avarice did not with him exclude
liberality. He lent to all his friends without interest, and sometimes
scattered his largesses with profusion. Versed in letters, gifted with a
rare eloquence, he accepted eagerly all the causes which Pompey, Cæsar,
and Cicero disdained to defend; by his eagerness to oblige all those who
claimed his services, either to borrow, or to obtain some situation, he
acquired a power which balanced that of Pompey. This last had
accomplished greater deeds, but his airs of grandeur and dignity, his
habit of avoiding crowds and sights, alienated the multitude from him;
while Crassus, of easy access, always in the midst of the public and of
business, had the advantage over him by his affable manners. [852] We do
not find very defined principles in him, either in political or private
life; he was _neither a constant friend nor an irreconcilable
enemy_. [853] Fitter to serve as an instrument for the elevation of
another, than to elevate himself to the front rank, he was very useful
to Cæsar, who did his best to gain his confidence. “There existed then
at Rome,” says Plutarch, “three factions, the chiefs of which were
Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus; Cato, whose power did not equal his glory,
was more admired than followed. The wise and moderate part of the
citizens were for Pompey; energetic, speculative, and bold men attached
themselves to the hopes of Cæsar; Crassus, who held the mean between
these two factions, used both. ”[854]
During his first consulship, Crassus seems to have been only occupied
with extravagant expenditure, and to have preserved a prudent
neutrality. He made a grand sacrifice to Hercules, and consecrated to
him the tenth part of his revenues; he gave the people an enormous
feast, spread out on ten thousand tables, and bestowed corn for three
months to every citizen. [855]
Pompey occupied himself in more serious matters, and, supported by
Cæsar, favoured the adoption of several laws, all of which announced a
reaction against the system of Sylla.
The effect of the first was to give the tribunes the right anew of
presenting laws and appealing to the people; already, in 679, the power
of obtaining other magistracies had been restored to them.
The second was connected with justice. Instead of leaving to the Senate
alone the whole judicial power, the prætor Aurelius Cotta, Cæsar’s
uncle, proposed a law which would conciliate all interests, by making it
legal to take the judges by thirds from the three classes: that is to
say, from the Senate, the equestrian order, and the tribunes of the
treasury, who were for the most part plebeians. [856]
But the measure which most helped to heal the wounds of the Republic was
the amnesty proposed by the tribune Plotius in favour of all those who
had taken part in the civil war. In this number was comprised the wreck
of the army of Lepidus, which had remained in Spain after the defeat of
Sertorius, and amongst which was to be found C. Cornelius Cinna,
brother-in-law of Cæsar. This last, in speeches which have not come down
to us, but which are quoted by different authors, spared nothing to
assure among the people the success of the proposition. [857] “He
insisted on the _propriety of deciding promptly on this measure of
reconciliation, and observed that there could not be a more opportune
moment for its adoption_. ”[858] It was adopted without difficulty. All
seemed to favour a return to the old institutions. The censorship,
interrupted for seventeen years, was re-established, and L. Gellius and
C. Lentulus, the censors chosen, exercised their office with so much
severity, that they expelled from the Senate sixty-four of its members,
probably creatures of Sylla. In the number of those expelled figured
Caius Antonius, previously accused by Cæsar, and Publius Lentulus Sura,
consul in the year 683.
All these changes had been proposed or accepted by Pompey rather to
please the multitude than to obey distinct convictions. And by them he
lost his true supporters in the upper classes, without gaining, in the
opposite party, the foremost place, already occupied by Cæsar. But
Pompey, blind to real worth, imagined then that no one could surpass him
in influence; always favoured by circumstances, he had been accustomed
to see both the arrogance of Sylla and the majesty of the laws yield
before him. Notwithstanding a first refusal by the Dictator, at
twenty-six years of age he had obtained the honours of the triumph,
without having fulfilled any of the legal conditions. Contrary to the
laws, a second triumph had been accorded him, as also the consulship,
though out of Rome, and without having followed the necessary order of
hierarchy of the magistracies. Full of presumption through the examples
of the past, full of confidence in the future through the adulation of
the present, he thought he might wound the interests of the nobles
without alienating them, and flatter the tastes and passions of the
people without losing his dignity. Towards the end of his consulship,
he, the chief magistrate of the Republic, he, who thought himself above
all others, presented himself as a mere soldier at the annual review of
the knights. The momentary effect was immense when the censors, seated
on their tribunal, saw Pompey traversing the crowd, preceded by all the
pomp of the consular power, and leading before them his horse, which he
held by the bridle. The crowd, silent till then, burst out into
transports of joy, overcome with admiration at the sight of so great a
man glorifying himself for being a simple knight, and modestly
submitting himself to the legal forms. But on the demand of the censors
if he had made all the campaigns required by law, he answered, “Yes, I
have made them all, never having had any other general than
myself. ”[859] The ostentation of this reply shows that this step of
Pompey’s was a false modesty, the most insupportable form of pride,
according to the expression of Marcus Aurelius.
[Sidenote: Cæsar Questor (686). ]
III. Neither did Cæsar disdain ceremonial; but he sought to give it a
significance which should make an impression upon the mind. The
opportunity soon presented itself. Soon after he was nominated questor
and admitted to the Senate, he lost his aunt Julia and his wife
Cornelia, and hastened to make a veritable political manifestation of
their funeral oration. [860] It was the custom at Rome to pronounce a
eulogy on women only when they died at an advanced age. Cæsar obtained
public approbation by departing from this usage in favour of his young
wife; they saw in it, according to Plutarch,[861] a proof of sensibility
and softness of manners; but they applauded not the family sentiment
only, they glorified much more the inspiration of the politician who
dared to make a panegyric on the husband of Julia, the celebrated
Marius, whose image, in wax, carried by Cæsar’s orders in the funeral
procession, re-appeared for the first time since the proscription of
Sylla. [862]
After having rendered these last honors to his wife, he accompanied, in
the capacity of questor, the prætor Antistius Vetus, sent into Ulterior
Spain. [863] The peninsula was then divided into two great provinces:
Citerior Spain, since called Tarraconensis, and Ulterior Spain,
comprising Bætica and Lusitania. [864] The positive limits, we may well
believe, were not very exactly determined, but at this epoch the _Saltus
Castulonensis_, which corresponds with the Sierras Nevada and
Cazorla,[865] was considered as such between these two provinces. To the
north, the limitation could not be made any more distinct, the Asturias
not being thoroughly conquered. The capital of Ulterior Spain was
Corduba (_Cordova_), where the prætor resided. [866]
The chief towns, doubtless connected by military roads, formed so many
centres of general meeting, where assizes for the regulation of business
were held. These meetings were called _conventus civium Romanorum_,[867]
because the members who composed them were Roman citizens dwelling in
the country. The prætor, or his delegate, presided over them once a
year. [868] Each province in Spain had several of them. In the first
century of our era, there were three for Lusitania and four for
Bætica. [869]
Cæsar, the delegate of the prætor, visited these towns, presiding over
the assemblies and administering justice. He was noted for his spirit of
conciliation and equity,[870] and showed a lively solicitude for the
interests of the Spaniards. [871] As the character of illustrious men is
revealed in their smallest actions, it is not a matter of indifference
to mention the gratitude which Cæsar always had for the good offices of
Vetus. Plutarch informs us that a strict union reigned between them ever
after, and Cæsar took care to name the son of Vetus questor when he
himself was raised to the prætorship,[872] as sensible of friendship as
he was later forgetful of injuries.
Yet the love of glory and the consciousness of his high faculties made
him aspire to a more important part. He manifested his impatient desire
for this one day when he went to visit the famous temple of Hercules at
Gades, as Hannibal and Scipio had done before. [873] At the sight of the
statue of Alexander, he deplored with a sigh that he had done nothing at
the age when this great man had conquered the whole world. [874] In fact,
Cæsar was then thirty-two years old, nearly the age at which Alexander
died. Having obtained his recall to Rome, he stopped on his return in
Gallia Transpadana (687). [875] The colonies founded in this country
possessed the Latin law (_jus Latii_), which Pompeius Strabo had granted
them, but they vainly demanded the rights of Roman city. The presence of
Cæsar, already known for his friendly feelings towards the provinces,
excited a lively emotion among the inhabitants, who saw in him the
representative of their interests and their cause. The enthusiasm was
such, that the Senate, terrified, thought itself obliged to retain for
some time longer in Italy the legions destined for the army in
Asia. [876]
The ascendency of Pompey still continued, though, since his consulship,
he had remained without command, having undertaken, in 684, not to
accept the government of any province at the expiration of his
magistracy;[877] but his popularity began to disquiet the Senate, so
much is it in the very essence of the aristocracy to distrust those who
raise themselves, and extend their powers beyond itself. This was an
additional motive for Cæsar to connect himself more closely with Pompey;
whereupon he backed him with all his influence; and either to cement
this alliance, or because of his inclination for a beautiful and
graceful woman, shortly after his return he married Pompeia, the
kinswoman of Pompey, and granddaughter of Sylla. [878] He was thus, at
one and the same time, the arbiter of elegance, the hope of the
democratic party, and the only public man whose opinions and conduct had
never varied.
[Sidenote: The Gabinian Law (687). ]
IV. The decadence of a political body is evident when the measures most
useful to the glory of a country, instead of arising from its provident
initiative, are inaugurated by obscure and often disreputable men, the
faithful but dishonoured organs of public opinion. Thus the propositions
made at this epoch, far from being inspired by the Senate, were put
forward by uninfluential individuals, and carried by the violent
attitude of the people. The first referred to the pirates, who, upheld
and encouraged by Mithridates, had long infested the seas, and ravaged
all the coasts; an energetic repression was indispensable. These bold
adventurers, whose number the civil wars had greatly increased, had
become a veritable power. Setting out from Cilicia, their common centre,
they armed whole fleets, and found a refuge in important towns. [879]
They had pillaged the much-frequented port of Caieta (_Gaëta_), dared to
land at Ostia, and carry off the inhabitants to slavery; sunk in mid
seas a Roman fleet under the orders of a consul, and made two prætors
prisoners. [880] Not only strangers deputed to Rome, but the ambassadors
of the Republic, had fallen into their hands, and had undergone the
shame of being ransomed. [881] Finally, the pirates intercepted the
imports of wheat indispensable for the feeding of the city. To remedy so
humiliating a state of things, the tribune of the people, Aulus
Gabinius, proposed to confide the war against the pirates to one sole
general; to give him, for three years, extended powers, large forces,
and to place three lieutenants under his orders. [882] The assembly of
the people instantly accepted this proposition, notwithstanding the
small esteem in which the character of its author was held; and the name
of Pompey was in every mouth; but “the senators,” says Dio Cassius,
“would have preferred to suffer the greatest evils from the pirates,
than to have invested Pompey with such a power;”[883] they were ready to
put to death, in the curia itself, the tribune who was the author of the
motion. Scarcely had the multitude heard of the opposition of the
senators, when they flocked in crowds, invaded the place of meeting, and
would have massacred them, had they not been protected from their
fury. [884]
The projected law, submitted to the suffrages of the people, attacked by
Catulus and Q. Hortensius, energetically supported by Cæsar, is then
adopted; and they confer on Pompey, for three years, the proconsular
authority over all the seas, over all the coasts, and for fifty miles
into the interior; they grant him 6,000 talents (35 millions
[£1,400,000]),[885] twenty-five lieutenants, and the power of taking
such vessels and troops as he should judge necessary. The allies,
foreigners, and the provinces, were called on to concur in this
expedition. They equipped five hundred ships, they levied a hundred and
twenty thousand infantry and five thousand horse. The Senate, in spite
of itself, sanctioned the clauses of this law, the utility of which was
so manifest that its publication alone was sufficient to lower the price
of wheat all through Italy. [886]
Pompey adopted an able plan for putting an end to piracy. He divided the
Mediterranean coasts from the Columns of Hercules to the Hellespont and
the southern shores of the Black Sea into ten separate commands;[887] at
the head of each he placed one of his lieutenants. He himself,
retaining the general surveillance, went to Cilicia with the rest of his
forces. This vast plan protected all the shores, left the pirates no
refuge, and enabled him to destroy their fleet and attack them in their
dens at once. In three months Pompey re-established the safety of the
seas, took a thousand castles or strongholds, destroyed three hundred
towns, took eight hundred ships, and made twenty thousand prisoners,
whom he transferred into the interior of Asia, where he employed them in
building a city, which received the name of Pompeiopolis. [888]
[Sidenote: The Manilian Law (688). ]
V. At these tidings, the enthusiasm for Pompey, then in the island of
Crete, redoubled, and they talked of placing in his hands the fate of
another war. Although Lucullus had obtained brilliant successes over
Mithridates and Tigranes, his military position in Asia began to be
compromised. He had experienced reverses; insubordination reigned among
his soldiers; his severity excited their complaints; and the news of the
arrival of the two proconsuls from Cilicia, Acilius Glabrio and Marcius
Rex, sent to command a part of the provinces until then under his
orders, had weakened respect for his authority. [889] These circumstances
determined Manlius, tribune of the people, to propose that the
government of the provinces trusted to Lucullus should be given to
Pompey, joining to them Bithynia, and preserving to him the power which
he already exercised over all the seas. “It was,” says Plutarch, “to
submit the whole Roman empire to one sole man, and to deprive Lucullus
of the fruits of his victories. ”[890] Never, indeed, had such power been
confided to any citizen, neither to the first Scipio to ruin Carthage,
nor to the second to destroy Numantia. The people grew more and more
accustomed to regard this concentration of power in one hand as the only
means of salvation. The Senate, taxing these proposals with ingratitude,
combated them with all its strength; Hortensius asserted that if all the
authority was to be trusted to one man, no person was more worthy of it
than Pompey, but that so much authority ought not to be centred in one
person. [891] Catulus cried that they had done with liberty, and that,
henceforth to enjoy this, they would be forced to retire to the woods
and mountains. [892] Cicero, on the contrary, inaugurated his entrance
into the Senate by a magnificent oration, which has been preserved to
us; he showed that it was for the best interest of the Republic to give
the conduct of this war to a captain whose noble deeds in the past, and
whose moderation and integrity, vouched for the future. “So many other
generals,” he said at the close, “proceed on an expedition only with the
hope of enriching themselves. Can those who think we ought not to grant
all these powers to one man alone ignore this, and do we not see that
what renders Pompey so great is not only his own virtues, but the vices
of others? ”[893] As to Cæsar, he seconded, with all his power, the
efforts of Cicero[894] for the adoption of the law, which, supported by
public feeling, and submitted to the suffrage of the tribes, was adopted
unanimously.
Certainly, Lucullus had deserved well of his country, and it was cruel
to deprive him of the glory of terminating a war which he had
prosperously begun;[895] but the definitive success of the campaign
demanded his substitution, and the instinct of the people did not
deceive them. Often, in difficult cases, they see more clearly than an
assembly preoccupied with the interests of castes or of persons, and
events soon show that they are right.
Lucullus had announced at Rome the end of the war; yet Mithridates was
far from being conquered. This fierce enemy of the Romans, who had
continued the struggle twenty-four years, and whom evil fortune had
never been able to discourage, would not treat, despite his sixty four
years and recent reverses, save on conditions inadmissible by the
Romans. The fame of Pompey then was not useless against such an
adversary. His ascendency alone could bring back discipline into the
army and intimidate the enemy. In fact, his presence was sufficient to
re-establish order, and retain under their standards the old soldiers
who had obtained their discharge, and wished to return to their
homes;[896] they formed the flower of the army, and were known under the
name of _Valerians_. [897] On the other hand, Tigranes, having learned
the arrival of Pompey, abandoned the party of his father-in-law,
declaring that this general was the only one to whom he would
submit,[898] so much does the prestige of one man, says Dio Cassius,
lord it over that of another. [899]
Manilius then demanded the re-establishment of the law of Caius
Gracchus, by virtue of which the _centuria prærogativa_, instead of
being drawn by lot from the first classes of the tribes, was taken
indiscriminately from all the classes, which destroyed the distinctions
of rank and fortune in the elections, and deprived the richer of their
electoral privileges. [900]
We see that it was generally the tribunes of the people who, obeying the
inspiration of greater men, took the initiative in the more popular
measures. But the major part, without disinterestedness or moderation,
often compromised those who had recourse to their services by their
unruly ardour and subversive opinions. Manilius, in 688, suddenly
re-opened a question which always created great agitation at Rome; this
was the political emancipation of the freedmen. He obtained, by a
surprise, the readoption of the law Sulpicia, which gave a vote to the
freedmen by distributing them among the thirty-five tribes, and asserted
that he had the consent of Crassus and Pompey. But the Senate revoked
the law some time after its adoption, agreeing in this with the chiefs
of the popular party, who did not think it was demanded by public
opinion. [901]
[Sidenote: Cæsar Curule Ædile (689). ]
VI. Whilst all the favours of fortune seemed to have accumulated on the
idol of the moment, Cæsar, remaining at Rome, was chosen inspector
(_curator_) of the Appian Way (687). [902] The maintenance of the
highways brought much popularity to those who undertook the charge with
disinterestedness; Cæsar gained all the more by his, as he contributed
largely to the cost, and even compromised his own fortune thereby.
Two years afterwards (689), nominated curule ædile with Bibulus, he
displayed a magnificence which excited the acclamations of the crowd,
always greedy of sights. The place named _Comitium_, the Forum, the
Basilicæ, the Capitol itself, were magnificently decorated. Temporary
porticoes were erected, under which were exposed a crowd of precious
objects. [903] These expenses were not unusual: since the triumph of the
dictator Papirius Cursor, all the æediles were accustomed to contribute
to the embellishment of the Forum. [904] Cæsar celebrated with great pomp
the Roman games, and the feast of Cybele, and gave the finest shows of
wild beasts and gladiators ever yet beheld. [905] The number of the
combatants amounted to three hundred and twenty couples, according to
Plutarch, a contemptuous expression, which proves the small account made
of the lives of these men. Cicero, writing to Atticus, speaks of them as
we in our day should speak of racehorses;[906] and the grave Atticus
himself had gladiators, as had most of the great people of his time.
These bloody games, which seem so inhuman to us, still preserved the
religious character which at first they so exclusively possessed; they
were celebrated in honour of the dead;[907] Cæsar gave them as a
sacrifice to his father’s memory, and displayed in them an unwonted
pomp. [908] The number of gladiators which he got together terrified the
Senate, and for the future it was forbidden to exceed a given number.
Bibulus, his colleague, it is true, bore half the expense; nevertheless,
the public gave Cæsar all the credit of this sumptuous discharge of the
duties of their office. Thus Bibulus said that he was like the temple of
Castor and Pollux, which, dedicated to the two brothers, was never
called anything but the temple of Castor. [909]
The nobles saw in the sumptuousness of these games only a vain
ostentation, a frivolous desire to shine; they congratulated themselves
on the prodigality of the ædile, and predicted in his near ruin a term
to his influence; but Cæsar, while spending millions to amuse the
multitude, did not make this fleeting enthusiasm the sole basis of his
popularity; he established this on more solid grounds, by re-awakening
in the people the memories of glory and liberty.
Not content with having helped in several healing measures, with having
gained over Pompey to his opinions, and sought for the first time to
revive the memory of Marius, he wished to sound public opinion by an
astounding manifestation. At the moment when the splendour of his
ædileship had produced the most favourable impression on the crowd, he
secretly restored the trophies of Marius, formerly overturned by Sylla,
and ordered them to be placed in the Capitol[910] during the night. The
next day, when they saw these images shining with gold, chiselled with
infinite art, and adorned with inscriptions which recalled the victories
gained over Jugurtha, the Cimbri, and the Teutones, the nobles began to
murmur, blaming Cæsar for having dared to revive seditious emblems and
proscribed remembrances; but the partisans of Marius flocked in large
numbers to the Capitol, making its sacred roof resound with their
acclamations. Many shed tears on seeing the venerated features of their
old general, and proclaimed Cæsar the worthy successor of that great
captain. [911]
Uneasy at these demonstrations, the Senate assembled, and Lutatius
Catulus, whose father had been one of the victims of Marius, accused
Cæsar of wishing to overthrow the Republic, “no longer secretly, by
undermining it, but openly, in attacking it by breach. ”[912] Cæsar
repelled this attack, and his partisans, delighted at his success, vied
with each other in saying “that he would carry it over all his rivals,
and with the help of the people would take the first rank in the
Republic. ”[913] Henceforth the popular party had a head.
The term of his ædileship having expired, Cæsar solicited the mission of
transforming Egypt into a Roman province. [914] The matter in hand was
the execution of the will of King Ptolemy Alexas, or Alexander,[915]
who, following the example of other kings, had left his state to the
Roman peoples. But the will was revoked as doubtful,[916] and it seems
that the Senate shrank from taking possession of so rich a country,
fearing, as did Augustus later, to make the proconsul who should govern
it too powerful. [917] The mission of reducing Egypt to a Roman province
was brilliant and fruitful. It would have given to those who might be
charged with it extensive military power, and the disposal of large
resources. Crassus also placed himself on the list, but after long
debates the Senate put an end to all rival pretensions. [918]
About the same time when Crassus was endeavouring to get the inhabitants
of Gallia Transpadana admitted to the rights of Roman citizens, the
tribune of the people, Caius Papius, caused to be adopted a law for the
expulsion of all foreigners from Rome. [919] For, in their pride, the
Romans thus called those who were not Latins by origin. [920] This
measure would specially affect the Transpadanes, who were devoted to
Cæsar, because he had formerly promised to procure for them the title of
citizen, which had been refused. It was feared that they would get into
the comitia, for, since the emancipation of the Italiotes, it was
difficult to distinguish among those who had the right of voting, since
often even slaves fraudulently participated in the elections. [921]
[Sidenote: Cæsar _judex quæstionis_ (660). ]
VIII. Cæsar soon re-commenced the political struggle against the still
living instruments of past oppression, in which he had engaged at the
beginning of his career. He neglected no opportunity of calling down
upon them the rigours of justice or the opprobrium of public opinion.
The long duration of the civil troubles had given birth to a class of
malefactors called _sicarii_,[922] who committed all sorts of murders
and robberies. In 674 Sylla had promulgated a severe edict against them,
which, however, excepted the executors of his vengeance in the pay of
the treasury. [923] These last were exposed to public animadversion; and
though Cato had obtained the restitution of the sums allotted as the
price of the heads of the proscribed,[924] no one had yet dared to bring
them to justice. [925] Cæsar, notwithstanding the law of Sylla, undertook
their prosecution.
Under his presidency, in his capacity as _judex quæstionis_, L. Luscius,
who, by the dictator’s order, had slain three of the proscribed, and L.
Bellienus, uncle of Catiline and murderer of Lucretius Ofella, were
prosecuted and condemned. [926] Catiline, accused, at the instigation of
L. Lucceius, orator and historian, the friend of Cæsar, of having slain
the celebrated M. Marius Gratidianus, was acquitted. [927]
[Sidenote: Conspiracies against the Senate (690). ]
VIII. Whilst Cæsar endeavoured to react legally against the system of
Sylla, another party, composed of the ambitious and discontented, ruined
by debt, had long sought to arrive at power by plotting. Of this number
had been, since 688, Cn. Piso, P. Sylla, P. Autronius, and Catiline.
These men, with diverse antecedents and different qualities, were
equally decried, yet they did not want for adherents among the lower
class, whose passions they flattered, or among the upper class, to whose
policy or enmity they were serviceable. P. Sylla and Autronius, after
having been made consuls-elect in 688, had been effaced from the
senatorial list for solicitation. Public report mixed up the names of
Crassus and Cæsar with these secret manœuvres; but was it possible that
these two men, in such opposite positions, and even divided between
themselves, should enter into an understanding together for the sake of
a vulgar plot; and was it not a new inconsistency of calumny to
associate in the same conspiracy Cæsar because of his immense debts, and
Crassus because of his immense riches?
Let us remark, besides, that each of the factions then in agitation
necessarily sought to compromise, for the purpose of appropriating to
itself, such a personage as Cæsar, notorious for his name, his
generosity, and his courage.
A matter which has remained obscure, but which then made a great noise,
shows the progress of the ideas of disorder. One of the conspirators,
Cn. Piso, had taken part in the attempt to assassinate the Consuls Cotta
and Torquatus; yet he obtained, through the influence of Crassus, the
post of questor _pro prætore_ into Citerior Spain; the Senate, either to
get rid of him, or in the doubtful hope of finding in him some support
against Pompey, whose power began to appear formidable, consented to
grant him this province. But in 691, on his arrival in Spain, he was
slain by his escort--some say by the secret emissaries of Pompey. [928]
As to Catiline, he was not the man to bend under the weight of the
misfortunes of his friends, or under his own losses; he employed new
ardour in braving the perils of a conspiracy, and in pursuing the
honours of the consulship. He was the most dangerous adversary the
Senate had. Cæsar supported this candidature. In a spirit of opposition,
he supported all that could hurt his enemies and favour a change of
system. Besides, all parties were constrained to deal with those who
enjoyed the popular favour. The nobles accepted as candidate C. Antonius
Hybrida, a worthless man, capable only of selling himself and of
treachery. [929] Cicero, in 690, had promised Catiline to defend
him;[930] and a year before, the Consul Torquatus, one of the most
esteemed chiefs of the Senate, pleaded for the same individual accused
of embezzlement. [931]
[Sidenote: the difficulty of constituting a New Party. ]
IX. We thus see that the misfortunes of the times obliged the most
notable men to have dealings with those whose antecedents seemed to
devote them to contempt.
In times of transition, when a choice must be made between a glorious
past and an unknown future, the rock is, that bold and unscrupulous men
alone thrust themselves forward; others, more timid, and the slaves of
prejudices, remain in the shade, or offer some obstacle to the movement
which hurries away society into new ways. It is always a great evil for
a country, a prey to agitations, when the party of the honest, or that
of the good, as Cicero calls them, do not embrace the new ideas, to
direct by moderating them. Hence profound divisions. On the one side,
unknown men often take possession of the good or bad passions of the
crowd; on the other, honourable men, immovable or morose, oppose all
progress, and by their obstinate resistance excite legitimate impatience
and lamentable violence. The opposition of these last has the double
inconvenience of leaving the way clear to those who are less worthy than
themselves, and of throwing doubts into the minds of that floating mass,
which judges parties much more by the honourableness of men than by the
value of ideas.
What was then passing in Rome offers a striking example of this. Was it
not reasonable, in fact, that men should hesitate to prefer a faction
which had at its head such illustrious names as Hortensius, Catulus,
Marcellus, Lucullus, and Cato, to that which had for its main-stays
individuals like Gabinius, Manilius, Catiline, Vatinius, and Clodius?
What more legitimate in the eyes of the descendants of the ancient
families than this resistance to all change, and this disposition to
consider all reform as Utopian and almost as sacrilege? What more
logical for them than to admire Cato’s firmness of soul, who, still
young, allowed himself to be menaced with death rather than admit the
possibility of becoming one day the defender of the cause of the allies
claiming the rights of Roman citizens? [932] How not comprehend the
sentiments of Catulus and Hortensius obstinately defending the
privileges of the aristocracy, and manifesting their fears at this
general inclination to concentrate all power in the hands of one
individual?
And yet the cause maintained by these men was condemned to perish, as
everything which has had its time. Notwithstanding their virtues, they
were only an additional obstacle to the steady march of civilisation,
because they wanted the qualities most essential for a time of
revolution--an appreciation of the wants of the moment, and of the
problems of the future. Instead of trying what they could save from the
shipwreck of the ancient regime, just breaking to pieces against a
fearful rock, the corruption of political morals, they refuse to admit
that the institutions to which the Republic owed its grandeur could
bring about its decay. Terrified at all innovation, they confounded in
the same anathema the seditious enterprises of certain tribunes, and the
just reclamations of the citizens. But their influence was so
considerable, and ideas consecrated by time have so much empire over
minds, that they would have yet hindered the triumph of the popular
cause, if Cæsar, in putting himself at its head, had not given it a new
glory and an irresistible force. A party, like an army, can only conquer
with a chief worthy to command it; and all those who, since the Gracchi,
had unfurled the standard of reform, had sullied it with blood, and
compromised it by revolts. Cæsar raised and purified it. To constitute
his party, it is true, he had recourse to agents but little estimated;
the best architect can build only with the materials under his hand; but
his constant endeavour was to associate to himself the most trustworthy
men, and he spared no effort to gain by turns Pompey, Crassus, Cicero,
Servilius Cæpio, Q. Fufius Calenus, Serv.
