History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

Whilst the populace outside, excited by the friends of the conspirators, raised seditious clamours, the knights who formed the guard around the Temple of Concord, exasperated by the language of Cæsar and the length of the debates, broke in upon the assembly; they surrounded Cæsar, and with threatening words, despite his rank of pontiff and of prætor-elect, they drew their swords upon him, which M. Curio and Cicero generously turned aside.[976 - Sallust, Catiline, 49.] Their protection enabled him to regain his home: he declared, however, that he would not appear again in the Senate until the new consuls could ensure order and liberty for the deliberations.

Cicero, without loss of time, went with the prætors to seek the condemned, and conducted them to the prison of the Capitol, where they were immediately executed. Then a restless crowd, ignorant of what was taking place, demanding what had become of the prisoners, Cicero replied with these simple words, “They have lived.”[977 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 8.]

We are easily convinced that Cæsar was not a conspirator; but this accusation is explained by the pusillanimity of some and the rancour of others. Who does not know that in times of crisis, feeble governments always tax sympathy for the accused with complicity, and are not sparing of calumny towards their adversaries? Q. Catulus and C. Piso were animated against him with so deep a hatred that they had importuned the consul to include him in the prosecutions directed against the accomplices of Catiline. Cicero resisted. The report of his participation in the plot was not the less spread, and had been accredited eagerly by the crowd of the envious.[978 - Sallust, Catiline, 49.] Cæsar was not one of the conspirators; if he had been, his influence would have been sufficient to have acquitted them triumphantly.[979 - “They feared his power and the great number of friends by whom he was supported, for everybody was persuaded that the criminals would be involved in the absolution of Cæsar, much more than Cæsar in their punishment.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 27.)] He had too high an idea of himself; he enjoyed too great a consideration to think of arriving at power by an underground way and reprehensible means. However ambitious a man may be, he does not conspire when he can attain his end by lawful means. Cæsar was quite sure of being raised to the consulship, and his impatience never betrayed his ambition. Moreover, he had constantly shown a marked aversion to civil war; and why should he throw himself into a vulgar conspiracy with infamous individuals, he who refused his participation in the attempts of Lepidus when at the head of an army? If Cicero had believed Cæsar guilty, would he have hesitated to accuse him, seeing he scrupled not to compromise, by the aid of a false witness, so high a personage as Licinius Crassus?[980 - “And I have myself since heard Crassus say openly that this cruel affront had been caused him by Cicero.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)] How, on the eve of the condemnation, could he have trusted to Cæsar the custody of one of the conspirators? Would he have exculpated him in the sequel when the accusation was renewed? Lastly, if Cæsar, as will be seen afterwards, according to Plutarch, preferred being the first in a village in the Alps to being second in Rome, how could he have consented to be the second to Catiline?

The attitude of Cæsar in this matter presents nothing, then, which does not admit an easy explanation. Whilst blaming the conspiracy, he was unwilling that, to repress it, the eternal rules of justice should be set aside. He reminded men, blinded by passion and fear, that unnecessary rigour is always followed by fatal reactions. The examples drawn from history served him to prove that moderation is always the best adviser. It is clear also that, whilst despising most of the authors of the conspiracy, he was not without sympathy for a cause which approached his own by common instincts and enemies. In countries delivered up to party divisions, how many men are there not who desire the overthrow of the existing government, yet without the will to take part in a conspiracy? Such was the position of Cæsar.

On the contrary, the conduct of Cicero and of the Senate can hardly be justified. To violate the law was perhaps a necessity; but to misrepresent the sedition in order to make it odious, to have recourse to calumny to vilify the criminals, and to condemn them to death without allowing them a defence, was an evident proof of weakness. In fact, if the intentions of Catiline had not been disguised, the whole of Italy would have responded to his appeal, so weary were people of the humiliating yoke which weighed upon Rome; but they proclaimed him as one meditating conflagration, murder, and pillage. “Already,” it was said, “the torches are lit, the assassins are at their posts, the conspirators drink human blood, and dispute over the shreds of a man they have butchered.”[981 - We may read in the historians of the time the recital of fables invented at will to ruin the conspirators. Thus Catiline, seeking to bind by an oath accomplices in his crime, is represented as causing cups filled with human blood and wine to be passed round. (Sallust, Catiline, 22.) – According to Plutarch, they slaughtered a man, and all ate of his flesh. (Plutarch, Cicero, 14. – Florus, IV. 1.)] It was by these rumours dexterously spread, by these exaggerations which Cicero himself afterwards ridiculed,[982 - Cicero himself acknowledged that these accusations were commonplaces for the necessity of the cause. In a letter to Atticus, he describes a scene which passed in the Senate a short time after the return of Pompey to Rome. He tells us that this general satisfied himself with approving all the acts of the Senate, without imputing anything personal to him (Cicero); “but Crassus,” he continues, “rose and spoke with much eloquence… Brief, he attacked all the commonplace of sword and flame, which I have been accustomed to treat, you know in how many ways, in my orations, of which you are the sovereign critic.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.)] that the disposition of the people, at first favourable to the insurrection, soon turned against it.[983 - “The populace, who at first, through the love of novelty, had been only too much inclined for this war, changes its sentiments, curses the enterprise of Catiline, and exalts Cicero to the skies.” (Sallust, Catiline, 48.)]

That Catiline might have associated, like all promoters of revolutions, with men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, cannot be disputed; but how can we believe that the majority of his accomplices was composed of criminals loaded with vices? By the confession of Cicero, many honourable individuals figured amongst the conspirators.[984 - Sallust, Catiline, 39. – Dio Cassius, XXVII. 36.] Inhabitants of colonies and municipia belonging to the first families in their country, allied themselves with Catiline. Many sons of senators, and amongst others Aulus Fulvius,[985 - “Many young estimable noblemen were attached to this wicked and corrupt man.” (Cicero, Oration for M. Cælius, 4.) – “He had drawn around him men perverse and audacious, at the same time that he had attached to himself numbers of virtuous and steady citizens, by the false semblances of an affected virtue.” (Cicero, ibid. 6.)] were arrested on their way to join the insurgents, and put to death by the order of their fathers. Nearly all the Roman youth, says Sallust, favoured at that time the designs of the bold conspirator, and, on the other hand, throughout the whole empire, the populace, eager for novelty, approved of his enterprise.[986 - Sallust, Catiline, 17.]

That Catiline may have been a perverse and cruel man of the kind of Marius and Sylla, is probable; that he wished to arrive at power by violence, is certain; but that he had gained to his cause so many important individuals, that he had inspired their enthusiasm, that he had so profoundly agitated the peoples of Italy, without having proclaimed one great or generous idea, is not probable. Indeed, although attached to the party of Sylla by his antecedents, he knew that the only standard capable of rallying numerous partisans was that of Marius. Thus for a long time he preserved in his house, with a religious care, the silver eagle which had guided the legions of that illustrious captain.[987 - “And this silver eagle, to which he had consecrated in his house an altar.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 6.)] His speeches confirm still further this view: in addressing himself to his accomplices, he laments seeing the destinies of the Republic in the hands of a faction who excluded the greatest number from all participation in honours and riches.[988 - Sallust, Catiline, 20.] He wrote to Catulus, a person of the highest respect, with whom he was intimate, the following letter, deficient neither in simplicity nor in a certain grandeur, the calmness of which offers a striking contrast to the vehemence of Cicero: —

“L. Catiline to Q. Catulus, salutation, – Thy tried friendship, which has always been precious to me, gives me the assurance that in my misfortune thou wilt hear my prayer. I do not wish to justify the part I have taken. My conscience reproaches me with nothing, and I wish only to expose my motives, which truly thou wilt find lawful. Driven to extremity by the insults and injustices of my enemies, robbed of the recompense due to my services, finally hopeless of ever obtaining the dignity to which I am entitled, I have taken in hand, according to my custom, the common cause of all the unfortunate. I am represented as constrained by debts to this bold resolution: it is a calumny. My personal means are sufficient to acquit my engagements; and it is known that, thanks to the generosity of my wife and of her daughter, I have done honour to other engagements which were foreign to me. But I cannot see with composure unworthy men at the pinnacle of honours, whilst they drive me away from them with groundless accusations. In the extremity to which they have thus reduced me, I embrace the only part that remains to a man of heart to defend his political position. I should like to write more fully, but I hear they are setting on foot against me the last degree of violence. I commend to thee Orestilla, and confide her to thy faith. Protect her, I beseech thee, by the head of thy children. Adieu.”

The same sentiments inspired the band of conspirators commanded by Mallius. They reveal themselves in these words: “We call gods and men to witness that it is not against our country that we have taken up arms, nor against the safety of our fellow-citizens. We, wretched paupers as we are, who, through the violence and cruelty of usurers, are without country, all condemned to scorn and indigence, are actuated by one only wish, to guarantee our personal security against wrong. We demand neither power nor wealth, those great and eternal causes of war and strife among mankind. We only desire freedom, a treasure that no man will surrender except with life itself. We implore you, senators, have pity on your wretched fellow-citizens.”[989 - Sallust, Catiline, 33. Speech of the envoys sent by Mallius to Marcius Rex.]

These quotations indicate with sufficient clearness the real character of the insurrection; and that the partisans of Catiline did not altogether deserve contempt is proved by their energy and resolution. The Senate having declared Catiline and Mallius enemies of their country, promised a free pardon and two hundred thousand sestertii[990 - Sallust, Catiline, 30.] to all who would abandon the ranks of the insurgents; “but not one,” says Sallust,[991 - Sallust, Catiline, 36.] “of so vast an assemblage, was persuaded by the lure of the reward to betray the plot; not one deserted from the camp of Catiline, so deadly was the disease, which, like a pestilence, had infected the minds of most of the citizens.” There is no doubt that Catiline, though without a conscience and without principles, had notwithstanding good feeling enough to maintain a cause that he wished to see ennobled, because, so far from offering freedom to the slaves, as Sylla, Marius, and Cinna had done, an example so full of charms for a conspirator,[992 - “Meanwhile, he kept refusing slaves, who, from the beginning, had never ceased joining him in large bands. Full of confidence in the resources of the conspiracy, he regarded any appearance of confounding the cause of the citizens with that of the slaves as contrary to his policy.” (Sallust, Catiline, 56.)] he refused to make use of them, in despite of the advice of Lentulus, who addressed him in these pregnant words: “Outlawed from Rome, what purpose can a Catiline have in refusing the services of slaves?”[993 - Sallust, Catiline, 44.] Finally, that among these insurgents, who are represented to us as a throng of robbers, ready to melt away without striking a blow,[994 - “People who will fall at our feet, if I show them, I do not say the points of our swords, but the edict of the prætor.” (Cicero, Second Oration against Catiline, 3.)] there existed, notwithstanding, a burning faith and a genuine fanaticism, is proved by the heroism of their final struggle. The two armies met in the plain of Pistoja, on the 5th of January, 692: a terrible battle ensued, and though victory was hopeless, not one of Catiline’s soldiers gave way. To a man they were slain, following the example of their leader, sword in hand; all were found lifeless, but with ranks unbroken, heaped round the eagle of Marius,[995 - Sallust, Catiline, 61.] that glorious relic of the campaign against the Cimbri, that venerated standard of the cause of the people.

We must admit that Catiline was guilty of an attempt to overthrow the laws of his country by violence; but in doing so he was only following the examples of a Marius and a Sylla. His dreams were of a revolutionary despotism, of the ruin of the aristocratic party, and, according to Dio Cassius,[996 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 10.] of a change in the constitution of the Republic, and of the subjugation of the allies. Yet would his success have been a misfortune: a permanent good can never be the production of hands that are not clean.[997 - The Emperor Napoleon, in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, also treats as a fable this opinion of the historians that Catiline desired to burn Rome, and give it up to pillage, in order afterwards to govern a ruined city. The Emperor thought, said M. de Las Cases, that it was rather some new faction, after the manner of Marius and Sylla, which, having been unsuccessful, had seen all the unfounded accusations that are brought in such cases heaped upon its leader.]

Error of Cicero.

VI. Cicero believed that he had destroyed an entire party. He was wrong: he had only foiled a conspiracy, and disencumbered a grand cause of the rash men who were compromising it. The judicial murder of the conspirators gave them new life, and one day the tomb of Catiline was found covered with flowers.[998 - Cicero, Oration for Flaccus, 38.] Laws may be justly broken when society is hurrying on to its own ruin, and a desperate remedy is indispensable for its salvation; and again, when the government, supported by the mass of the people, becomes the organ of its interests and their hopes. But when, on the contrary, a nation is divided into factions, and the government represents only one of them, its duty, if it intends to foil a plot, is to bind itself to the most exact and scrupulous respect for the law; for at such a juncture every measure not sanctioned by the letter of the law appears to be due rather to a selfish feeling of interest than to a desire for the general weal; and the majority of the public, indifferent or hostile, is always disposed to pity the accused, whoever he may be, and to blame the severity with which he was put down.

Cicero was intoxicated with his success. His vanity made him ridiculous.[999 - “He excited public cavil, not by evil actions, but by his habit of self-glorification. He never went to the Senate, to the assemblies of the people, to the courts of law, without having on his lips the names of Catiline and Lentulus.” (Plutarch, Cicero, 31.)] He thought himself as great as Pompey, and wrote to him with all the pride of a conqueror. But he received a chilling answer,[1000 - Cicero, Familiar Letters, v. 7.] and in a short time saw the accomplishment of Cæsar’s prophetic words: “If even the greatest criminals are too severely dealt with, the heinousness of their offence is lost in the severity of their sentence.”[1001 - See Cæsar’s speech, quoted above.]

Even before the battle of Pistoja, whilst the pursuit of the adherents of Catiline was still being prosecuted, public opinion was already hostile to him who had urged the measure, and Metellus Nepos, sent recently from Asia by Pompey, openly found fault with Cicero’s conduct. When the latter, on quitting office, wished to address the people for the purpose of glorifying his consulship, Metellus, who had been elected tribune, silenced him with these words: “We will not hear the defence of the man who refused to hear the defence of accused persons,” and ordered him to confine himself to the usual oath, that he had in no way contravened the laws. “I swear,” answered Cicero, “that I have saved the Republic.” However loudly this boastful exclamation might be applauded by Cato and the bystanders, who hail him with Father of his Country, their enthusiasm will have but a short duration.[1002 - It may be interesting to reproduce here, from the letters of Cicero, the list of the discourses which he delivered during the year of his consulship. “I wished, I also, after the manner of Demosthenes, to have my political speeches, which may be named consulars. The first and second are on the Agrarian Law; the former before the Senate on the calends of January; the second before the people; the third, about Otho; the fourth, for Rabirius; the fifth, on the children of the proscribed; the sixth, on my relinquishing my province; the seventh is that which put Catiline to flight; the eighth was delivered before the people the day after his flight; the ninth, from the tribune, the day when the Allobroges came to give their evidence; the tenth, before the Senate, on the 5th of December. There are two more, not so long, which may be described as supplementary to the two first on the Agrarian Law.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.)]

Cæsar Prætor (692).

VII. Cæsar, prætor-elect of the city (urbanus) the preceding year, entered upon his office in the year 692. Bibulus, his former colleague in the edileship, and his declared opponent, was his colleague. The more his influence increased, the more he seems to have placed it at the service of Pompey, upon whom, since his departure, the hopes of the popular party rested. He had more share than all the others in causing extraordinary honours to be decreed to the conqueror of Mithridates,[1003 - Velleius Paterculus, II. 40. – Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.] such as the privilege of attending the games of the circus in a robe of triumph and a crown of laurels, and of sitting in the theatre in the official dress of the magistrates, the prætexta.[1004 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 46.] Still more, he used all his endeavours to reserve for Pompey one of those opportunities of gratifying personal vanity which the Romans prized so highly.

It was the custom for those who were charged with the restoration of any public monument to have their name engraved on it when the work was completed. Catulus had caused his to be inscribed on the Temple of Jupiter, burnt in the Capitol in 671, and of which he had been intrusted with the rebuilding by Sylla. This temple, however, had not been entirely completed. Cæsar appealed against this infraction of the law, accused Catulus of having appropriated a part of the money intended for the restoration, and proposed that the completion of the work should be confided to Pompey on his return, that his name should be placed thereon instead of that of Catulus, and that he should perform the ceremony of dedication.[1005 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44; XLIII. 14.] Cæsar thus not only gave a proof of deference to Pompey, but he sought to please the multitude by gaining a verdict against one of the most esteemed chiefs of the aristocratic party.

The news of this accusation caused a sensation in the Senate, and the eagerness with which the nobles hurried into the Forum to vote against the proposal was such, that on that day they omitted to go, according to custom, to congratulate the new consuls; a proof that in this case also it was entirely a question of party. Catulus pronounced his own defence, but without being able to gain the tribune; and the tumult increasing, Cæsar was obliged to give way to force. The affair went no farther.[1006 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.]

The reaction of public opinion against the conduct of the Senate continued, and men did not hesitate to accuse it openly of having murdered the accomplices of Catiline. Metellus Nepos, supported by the friends of the conspirators, by the partisans of his patron, and by those of Cæsar, proposed a law for the recall of Pompey with his army, that he might, as he said, maintain order in the city, protect the citizens, and prevent their being put to death without a trial. The Senate, and notably Cato and Q. Minucius, offended already by the success of the army of Asia, offered a steady resistance to these proposals.

On the day when the tribes voted, scenes of the greatest turbulence took place. Cato seated himself between the prætor Cæsar and the tribune Metellus, to prevent their conversing together. Blows were given, swords were drawn,[1007 - Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 43. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 16. – Cicero, Oration for Sestius, 29.] and each of the two factions was in turn driven from the Forum; until at last the senatorial party gained the day. Metellus, obliged to fly, declared that he was yielding to force, and that he was going to join Pompey, who would know well how to avenge them both. It was the first time that a tribune had been known to abandon Rome and take refuge in the camp of a general. The Senate deprived him of his office, and Cæsar of that of prætor.[1008 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 16.] The latter paid no attention, kept his lictors, and continued the administration of justice; but, on being warned that it was intended to make use of compulsion against him, he voluntarily resigned his office, and shut himself up in his house.

Nevertheless, this outrage against the laws was not submitted to with indifference. Two days afterwards, a crowd assembled before Cæsar’s house: the people with loud cries urged him to resume his office; while Cæsar, on his part, engaged them not to transgress the laws. The Senate, which had met on hearing of this riot, sent for him, thanked him for his respect for the laws, and reinstated him in his prætorship.

It was thus that Cæsar maintained himself within the pale of the law, and obliged the Senate to overstep it. This body, heretofore so firm, and yet so temperate, no longer shrank from extraordinary acts of authority; a tribune and a prætor were at the same time obliged to fly from their arbitrary proceedings. Ever since the days of the Gracchi, Rome had witnessed the same scenes of violence, sometimes on the part of the nobles, at others on the part of the people.

The justice which the fear of a popular movement had caused to be rendered to Cæsar had not discouraged the hatred of his enemies. They tried to renew against him the accusation of having been an accomplice in Catiline’s conspiracy. At their instigation, Vettius, a man who had been formerly employed by Cicero as a spy to discover the plot, summoned him before the questor Novius Niger;[1009 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 24.] and Curius, to the latter of whom a public reward had been decreed, accused him before the Senate. They both swore to his enrolment among the conspirators, pretending that they had received their information from the lips of Catiline himself. Cæsar had no difficulty in defending himself, and appealed to the testimony of Cicero, who at once declared his innocence. The court, however, sat for a long time; and the rumour of the charge having been spread abroad in the city, the crowd, uneasy as to what might be Cæsar’s fate, assembled in great numbers to demand his release. So irritated they appeared, that to calm them, Cato conceived it necessary to propose to the Senate a decree ordering a distribution of wheat to the poor: a largess which cost the treasury more than 1,250 talents yearly (7,276,250 francs [£291,050]).[1010 - Plutarch, Cæsar, 9.]

No time was lost in pronouncing the charge calumnious; Curius was deprived of his promised reward; and Vettius, on his way to prison, was all but torn to pieces before the rostra.[1011 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.] The questor Nevius was in like manner arrested for having allowed a prætor, whose authority was superior to his own, to be accused before his tribunal.[1012 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 17.]

Not satisfied with conciliating the good-will of the people, Cæsar won for himself the favour of the noblest dames of Rome; and, notwithstanding his notorious passion for women, we cannot help discovering a political aim in his choice of mistresses, since all held by different ties to men who were then playing, or were destined to play, an important part. He had had important relations with Tertulla, the wife of Crassus; with Mucia, wife of Pompey; with Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, who was consul in 696; with Postumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius, who was raised to the consulship in 703, and persuaded to join Cæsar’s party by her influence; but the woman he preferred was Servilia, sister of Cato and mother of Brutus, to whom, during his first consulship, he gave a pearl valued at six millions of sestertii (1,140,000 francs [£45,600]).[1013 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.] This connection throws an air of improbability over the reports in circulation that Servilia favoured an intrigue between him and her daughter Tertia.[1014 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 50.] Was it by the intermediation of Tertulla that Crassus was reconciled with Cæsar? or was that reconciliation due to the injustice of the Senate, and the jealousy of Crassus towards Pompey? Whatever was the cause that brought them together, Crassus seems to have made common cause with him in all the questions in which he was interested, subsequent to the consulship of Cicero.

Attempt of Clodius (692).

VIII. At this period a great scandal arose. A young and wealthy patrician, named Clodius, an ambitious and violent man, conceived a passion for Pompeia, Cæsar’s wife; but the strict vigilance of Aurelia, her mother-in-law, made it difficult to find opportunities for meeting privately.[1015 - Plutarch, Cæsar, 10.] Clodius, disguised in female apparel, chose, for the opportunity to enter her house, the moment when she was celebrating, by night, attended by the matrons, mysteries in honour of the Roman people.[1016 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 1. – Plutarch, Cicero, 27; Plutarch, Cæsar, 10. – “This sacrifice is offered by the vestal virgins, on behalf of the Roman people, in the house of a magistrate who has the right of imperium, with ceremonies that it is not allowable to reveal. The goddess to whom it is offered is one whose very name is a mystery to men, and whom Clodius terms the Good Goddess (Bona Dea), because she forgave him so gross an outrage.” (Cicero, Oration on the Report of the Augurs, 17.) – The Good Goddess, like the majority of the divinities of the earth among the ancients, was regarded as a sort of beneficent fairy who presided over the fertility of the fields and the conception of women. The nocturnal sacrifice was celebrated at the beginning of December, in the house of the consul or the prætor, by the wife of that magistrate, or by the vestal virgins. At the commencement of the festival they made a propitiatory sacrifice of a pig, and prayers were offered for the prosperity of the Roman people.] Now, it was forbidden to a male to be present at these religious ceremonies, which it was believed that his presence even would defile. Clodius, recognised by a female slave, was expelled with ignominy. The pontiffs uttered the cry of sacrilege, and it became the duty of the vestals to begin the mysteries anew. The nobles, who had already met with an enemy in Clodius, saw in this act a means to compass his overthrow, and at the same time to compromise Cæsar. The latter, without condescending to inquire whether Pompeia was guilty or not, repudiated her. A decree of the Senate, carried by four hundred votes against fifteen, decided that Clodius must take his trial.[1017 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 14.] He defended himself by pleading an alibi; and, with the sole exception of Aurelia, not a witness came forward against him. Cæsar himself, when examined, declared that he knew nothing; and when asked to explain his own conduct, replied, with equal regard to his honour and his interest, “The wife of Cæsar must be above suspicion!” But Cicero, yielding to the malicious suggestions of his wife Terentia, came forward to assert that on the day of the event he had seen Clodius in Rome.[1018 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 16.] The people showed its sympathy with the latter, either because they deemed the crime one that did not deserve a severe punishment, or because their religious scruples were not so strong as their political passions. Crassus, on his part, directed the whole intrigue, and lent the accused funds sufficient to buy his judges. They acquitted him by a majority of thirty-one to twenty-five.[1019 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 17.]

The Senate, indignant at this contradiction, passed, on the motion of Cato, a bill of indictment against the judges who had suffered themselves to be bribed. But as they happened to be knights, the equestrian order made common cause with them, and openly separated themselves from the Senate. Thus the outrage of Clodius had two serious consequences: first, it proved in a striking manner the venality of justice; secondly, it once more threw the knights into the arms of the popular party. But far other steps were taken to alienate them. The farmers of the revenue demanded a reduction in the price of the rents of Asia, on the ground that they had been leased to them at a price that had become too high in consequence of the wars. The opposition of Cato caused their demand to be refused. This refusal, though doubtless legal, was, under the circumstances, in the highest degree impolitic.

Pompey’s Triumphal Return (692).

IX. Whilst at Rome dissensions were breaking out on all occasions, Pompey had just brought the war in Asia to a close. Having defeated Mithridates in two battles, he had compelled him to fly towards the sources of the Euphrates, to pass thence into the north of Armenia, and finally to cross thence to Dioscurias, in Colchis, on the western shore of the Black Sea.[1020 - Appian, Mithridatic War, 101.] Pompey had advanced as far as the Caucasus, where he had defeated two mountain tribes, the Albanians and the Iberians, who disputed his passage. When he had arrived within three days’ march of the Caspian, having nothing more to fear from Mithridates, and surrounded by barbarians, he began his retreat through Armenia, where Tigranes came to tender his submission. Next, taking a southerly course, he crossed Mount Taurus, attacked the King of Commagene, fought a battle with the King of Media, invaded Syria, made alliance with the Parthians, received the submission of the Nabathæan Arabs and of Aristobulus, king of the Jews, and took Jerusalem.[1021 - Appian, Mithridatic War, 106.]

During this period, Mithridates, whose energy and whose views appeared to expand in proportion to his dangers and his reverses, was executing a bold scheme. He had passed round by the eastern coast of the Black Sea, and, allying himself with the Scythians and the peoples of the Crimea, he had reached the shores of the Cimmerian Hellespont; but he had still more gigantic designs in his mind. His idea was to open communications with the Celts, and so reach the Danube, traverse Thrace, Macedonia, and Illyria, cross the Alps, and, like Hannibal, descend upon Italy. Alone, he was great enough to conceive this enterprise, but he was obliged to give it up; his army deserted him, Pharnaces his son betrayed him, and he committed suicide at Panticapæum (Kertch). By this event the vast and rich territories that lie between the Caspian and the Red Sea were placed at the disposal of Pompey. Pharnaces received the kingdom of the Bosphorus. Tigranes, deprived of a portion of his dominions, only preserved Armenia. Deiotarus, tetrarch of Galatia, obtained an increase of territory, and Ariobarzanes obtained an enlargement of the kingdom of Cappadocia, which was re-established in his favour. Various minor princes devoted to the Roman interests received endowments, and thirty-nine towns were rebuilt or founded. Finally, Pontus, Cilicia, Syria, Phœnicia, declared to be Roman provinces, were obliged to accept the constitution imposed upon them by the conqueror. These countries received institutions which they preserved through several centuries.[1022 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 20.] All the shores of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Egypt, became tributaries of Rome.

The war in Asia terminated, Pompey sent before him his lieutenant, Pupius Piso Calpurnianus, who was soliciting the consulship, and who for that reason requested an adjournment of the elections. This adjournment was granted, and Piso unanimously elected consul for the year 693,[1023 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 44. In contradiction to other authors, Dio Cassius asserts that the elections were adjourned. (Plutarch, Pompey, 45.)] with M. Valerius Messala; to such a degree did the terror of Pompey’s name make every one eager to grant what he desired. For no one knew his designs; and it was feared lest, on his return, he should again march upon Rome at the head of his victorious army. But Pompey, having landed at Brundusium about the month of January, 693, disbanded his army, and arrived at Rome, escorted only by the citizens who had gone out in crowds to meet him.[1024 - “The more men were terrified, the more they were re-assured, on seeing Pompey return to his country as a simple citizen.” (Velleius Paterculus, II. 40.)]

After the first display of public gratitude, he found his reception different from that on which he had reckoned, and domestic griefs came to swell the catalogue of his disappointments. He had been informed of the scandalous conduct of his wife Mutia during his absence, and determined to repudiate her.[1025 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.]

Envy, that scourge of a Republic, raged against him. The nobles did not conceal their jealousy: it seemed as though they were taking revenge for their own apprehensions, to which they were now adding their own feelings of personal resentment. Lucullus had not forgiven him for having frustrated his expectation of the command of the army of Asia. Crassus was jealous of his renown; Cato, always hostile to those who raised themselves above their fellows, could not be favourable to him, and had even refused him the hand of his niece; Metellus Creticus cherished a bitter remembrance of attempts which had been made to wrest from him the merit of conquering Crete;[1026 - Metellus was subjugating Crete, when Pompey sent one of his lieutenants to depose him, under the pretence that that island was included in his own wide jurisdiction by sea.] and Metellus Celer was offended at the repudiation of his sister Mutia.[1027 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 49.] As for Cicero, whose opinion of men varied according to their more or less deference for his merit, he discovered that his hero of other days was destitute of rectitude and greatness of soul.[1028 - “No rectitude, no candour, not a single honourable motive in his policy; nothing elevated, nothing strong, nothing generous.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 12.)] Pompey, foreseeing the ill-feeling he was about to encounter, exerted all his influence, and spent a large sum of money to secure the election of Afranius, one of his old lieutenants, as consul. He reckoned upon him to obtain the two things which he desired most: a general approval of all his acts in the East, and a distribution of lands to his veterans. Notwithstanding violent opposition, Afranius was elected with Q. Metellus Celer. But, before proposing the laws which concerned him, Pompey, who till then had not entered Rome, demanded a triumph. It was granted him, but for two days only. However, the pageant was not less remarkable for its splendour. It was held on the 29th and 30th of September, 693.

Before him were carried boards on which were inscribed the names of the conquered countries, from Judæa to the Caucasus, and from the shores of the Bosphorus to the banks of the Euphrates; the names of the towns and the number of the vessels taken from the pirates; the names of thirty-nine towns re-peopled; the amount of wealth brought in to the treasury, amounting to 20,000 talents (more than 115 millions of francs [£4,600,000]), without counting his largesses to his soldiers, of whom he who received least had 1,500 drachmas (1,455 francs [£57]).[1029 - Plutarch, Pompey, 47.] The public revenues, which before Pompey’s time amounted only to fifty millions of drachmas (forty-eight millions and a half of francs [nearly two millions sterling]), reached the amount of eighty-one millions and a half (seventy-nine millions of francs [£3,160,000]). Among the precious objects that were exposed before the eyes of the Romans was the Dactylotheca (or collection of engraved stones) belonging to the King of Pontus;[1030 - Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII. 5.] a chessboard made of only two precious stones, but which, nevertheless, measured four feet in length by three in breadth, ornamented with a moon in gold, weighing thirty pounds; three couches for dinner, of immense value; vases of gold and precious stones numerous enough to load nine sideboards; thirty-three chaplets of pearls; three gold statues, representing Minerva, Mars, and Apollo; a mountain of the same metal, on a square base, decorated with fruits of all kinds, and with figures of stags and lions, the whole encircled by a golden vine, a present from King Aristobulus; a miniature temple dedicated to the Muses, and provided with a clock; a couch of gold, said to have belonged to Darius, son of Hystaspes; murrhine vases;[1031 - Vases from Carmania that were highly prized. They reflected the colours of the rainbow, and, according to Pliny, a single one was sold for seventy talents (more than 300,000 francs [£12,000]). (Pliny, Natural History, XXXVII, 7, 8.)] a statue in silver of Pharnaces, king of Pontus, the conqueror of Sinope, and the contemporary of Philip III. of Macedon;[1032 - Pliny, XXXIII. 54. – Strabo, XII. 545.] a silver statue of the last Mithridates, and a colossal bust of him in gold, eight cubits high, together with his throne and sceptre; chariots armed with scythes, and enriched with gilt ornaments;[1033 - Appian, War against Mithridates, 116.] then, the portrait of Pompey himself, embroidered in pearls. Lastly, trees were now introduced for the first time as rare and precious objects: these were the ebony-tree and the shrub which produces balsam.[1034 - Pliny, Natural History, XII. 9, 54.] Before the chariot of Pompey came the Cretan Lasthenes and Panares, taken from the triumph of Metellus Creticus;[1035 - Dio Cassius, XXXVI. 2. – Velleius Paterculus, II. 34.] the chiefs of the pirates; the son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, his wife, and his daughter; the widow of the elder Tigranes, called Zosima; Olthaces, chief of the Colchians; Aristobulus, king of the Jews; the sister of Mithridates, with five of his sons; the wives of the chieftains of Scythia; the hostages of the Iberians and Albanians, and those of the princes of Commagene. Pompey was in a chariot, adorned with jewels, and dressed in the costume of Alexander the Great;[1036 - Appian, War against Mithridates, 117.] and as he had already three times obtained the honours of a triumph for his successes in Africa, Europe, and Asia, a grand trophy was displayed, with this inscription, “Over the whole world!”[1037 - Plutarch, Pompey, 47. – Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 21.]

So much splendour flattered the national pride, without disarming the envious. Victories in the East had always been obtained without extraordinary efforts, and therefore people had always depreciated their merit, and Cato went so far as to say that in Asia a general had only women to fight against.[1038 - Cicero, Oration for Murena, 14.] In the Senate, Lucullus, and other influential men of consular rank, threw out the decree that was to ratify all the acts of Pompey; and yet, to refuse to ratify either the treaties concluded with the kings, or the exchange of the provinces, or the amount of tribute imposed upon the vanquished, was as though they questioned all that he had done. But they went still farther.

Towards the month of January, 694, the tribune L. Flavius proposed[1039 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.] to purchase and appropriate to Pompey’s veterans, for purposes of colonisation, all the territory that had been declared public domain in the year 521, and since sold; and to divide among the poor citizens the ager publicus of Volaterræ and Arretium, cities of Etruria, which had been confiscated by Sylla, but not yet distributed.[1040 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 50.] The expense entailed by these measures was to be defrayed by five years’ revenue of the conquered provinces.[1041 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.] Cicero, who wished to gratify Pompey, without damaging the interests of those he termed his rich friends,[1042 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 19.] proposed that the ager publicus should be left intact, but that other lands of equal value should be purchased. Nevertheless, he was in favour of the establishment of colonies, though two years before he had called the attention of his hearers to the danger of such establishments; he was ready to admit that that dangerous populace, those dregs of the city (sentina urbis), must be removed to a distance from Rome, though in former days he had engaged that same populace to remain in Rome, and enjoy their festivals, their games, and their rights of suffrage.[1043 - Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 27.] Finally, he proposed to buy private estates, and leave the ager publicus intact; whereas, in his speech against Rullus, he had blamed the establishment of colonies on private estates as a violation of all precedent.[1044 - “Your ancestors never set you the example of buying lands from individuals in order to send colonies thither. All the laws, up to the present time, have contented themselves with establishing them on the lands belonging to the State.” (Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, II. 25.)] The eloquence of the orator, which had been powerful enough to cause the rejection of the law of Rullus, was unsuccessful in obtaining the adoption of that of Flavius; it was attacked with such violence by the consul Metellus, that the tribune caused him to be put in prison; but this act of severity having met with a general disapproval, Pompey was alarmed at the scandal, and bade Flavius set the consul at liberty, and abandoned the law. Sensitive to so many insults, and seeing his prestige diminish, the conqueror of Mithridates regretted that he had disbanded his army, and determined to make common cause with Clodius, who then enjoyed an extraordinary popularity.[1045 - Plutarch, Cato of Utica, 36.]

About the same period, Metellus Nepos, who had returned a second time to Italy with Pompey, was elected prætor, and obtained a law to abolish tolls throughout Italy, the exaction of which had hitherto given rise to loud complaints. This measure, which had probably been suggested by Pompey and Cæsar, met with general approval; yet the Senate made an unsuccessful attempt to have the name of the proposer erased from the law: which shows, as Dio Cassius says, that that assembly accepted nothing from its adversaries, not even an act of kindness.[1046 - Dio Cassius, XXXVII. 51.]

Destiny regulates Events.

X. Thus all the forces of society, paralysed by intestine divisions, and powerless for good, appeared to revive only for the purpose of throwing obstacles in its way. Military glory and eloquence, those two instruments of Roman power, inspired only distrust and envy. The triumph of the generals was regarded not so much as a success for the Republic as a source of personal gratification. The gift of eloquence still exercised its ancient empire, so long as the orator remained upon the tribune; but scarcely had he stepped down before the impression he had made was gone; the people remained indifferent to brilliant displays of rhetoric that were employed to encourage selfish passions, and not to defend, as heretofore, the great interests of the fatherland.

It is well worthy of our attention that, when destiny is driving a state of things towards an aim, there is, by a law of fate, a concurrence of all forces in the same direction. Thither tend alike the attacks and the hopes of those who seek change; thither tend the fears and the resistance of those who would put a stop to every movement. After the death of Sylla, Cæsar was the only man who persevered in his endeavours to raise the standard of Marius. Hence nothing more natural than that his acts and speeches should bend in the same direction. But the fact on which we ought to fix our attention is, the spectacle of the partisans of resistance and the system of Sylla, the opponents of all innovation, helping, unconsciously, the progress of the events which smoothed for Cæsar the way to supreme power.

Pompey, the representative of the cause of the Senate, gives the hardest blow to the ancient régime by re-establishing the tribuneship. The popularity which his prodigious successes in the East had won for him, had raised him above all others; by nature, as well as by his antecedents, he leaned to the aristocratic party; the jealousy of the nobles throws him into the popular party and into the arms of Cæsar.

The Senate, on its part, while professing to aim at the preservation of all the old institutions intact, abandons them in the presence of danger; through jealousy of Pompey, it leaves to the tribunes the initiative in all laws of general interest; through fear of Catiline, it lowers the barriers that had been raised between new men and the consulship, and confers that office upon Cicero. In the trial of the accomplices of Catiline, it violates both the forms of justice and the chief safeguard of the liberty of the citizens, the right of appeal to the people. Instead of remembering that the best policy in circumstances of peril is to confer upon men of importance some brilliant mark of acknowledgment for the services they have rendered to the State, either in good or bad fortune; instead of following, after victory, the example given after defeat by the ancient Senate, which thanked Varro because he had not despaired of the Republic, the Senate shows itself ungrateful to Pompey, gives him no credit for his moderation, and, when it can compromise him, and even bind him by the bonds of gratitude, it meets his most legitimate demands with a refusal, a refusal which will teach generals to come, that, when they return to Rome, though they have increased the territory of the Commonwealth, though they have doubled the revenues of the Republic, if they disband their army, the approval of their acts will be disputed, and an attempt made to bargain with their soldiers for the reward due to their glorious labours.

Cicero himself, who is desirous of maintaining the old state of things, undermines it by his language. In his speeches against Verres, he denounces the venality of the Senate, and the extortions of which the provinces complain; in others, he unveils in a most fearful manner the corruption of morals, the traffic in offices, and the dearth of patriotism among the upper classes; in pleading for the Manilian law, he maintains that there is need of a strong power in the hands of one individual to ensure order in Italy and glory abroad; and it is after he has exhausted all the eloquence at his command in pointing out the excess of the evil and the efficacy of the remedy, that he thinks it is possible to stay the stream of public opinion by the chilling counsel of immobility.

Cato declared that he was for no innovations whatever; yet he made them more than ever indispensable by his own opposition. No less than Cicero, he threw the blame on the vices of society; but whilst Cicero wavered often through the natural fickleness of his mind, Cato, with the systematic tenacity of a stoic, remained inflexible in the application of absolute rules. He opposed everything, even schemes of the greatest utility; and, standing in the way of all concession, rendered personal animosities as hard to reconcile as political factions. He had separated Pompey from the Senate by causing all his proposals to be rejected; he had refused him his niece, notwithstanding the advantage for his party of an alliance which would have impeded the designs of Cæsar.[1047 - Plutarch, Cato, 35.] Regardless of the political consequences of a system of extreme rigour, he had caused Metellus to be deposed when he was tribune, and Cæsar when he was prætor; he caused Clodius to be put upon his trial; he impeached his judges, without any foresight of the fatal consequences of an investigation which called in question the honour of an entire order. This immoderate zeal had rendered the knights hostile to the Senate; they became still more so by the opposition offered by Cato to the reduction of the price of the farms of Asia.[1048 - “People abuse the Senate; the equestrian order stands aloof from it. Thus this year will have seen the overthrow of the two solid foundations on which I, single-handed, had planted the Republic – the authority of the Senate and the union of the two orders.” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I. 18.)] And thus Cicero, seeing things in their true light, wrote as follows to Atticus: “With the best intentions in the world, Cato is ruining us: he judges things as if we were living in Plato’s Republic, while we are only the dregs of Romulus.”[1049 - Cicero, Letters to Atticus, II. 1.]

Nothing, then, arrested the march of events; the party of resistance hurried them forward more rapidly than any other. It was evident that they progressed towards a revolution; and a revolution is like a river, which overflows and inundates. Cæsar aimed at digging a bed for it. Pompey, seated proudly at the helm, thought he could command the waves that were sweeping him along. Cicero, always irresolute, at one moment allowed himself to drift with the stream, at another thought himself able to stem it with a fragile bark. Cato, immovable as a rock, flattered himself that alone he could resist the irresistible stream that was carrying away the old order of Roman society.

CHAPTER IV

(693-695.)

Cæsar Proprætor in Spain (693).