History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2

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

During the last campaign against the people of the Beauvaisin, his adversaries rejoice in the false rumours which were spread abroad concerning his military operations; they relate in whispers, without concealing their satisfaction, that he is surrounded by the Gauls, that he has lost his cavalry, and that the 7th legion has been nearly annihilated.[785 - “All this,” Cœlius writes to Cicero, “is not said in public, but in secret, in the little circle which you know well, sed inter paucos quos tu nosti palam secreto narrantur.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 1.)] In the Senate, Clodius, Rutilius Lupus, Cicero, Ahenobarbus, and the two Marcelli, move in their turns, either to revoke the acts of his consulship, or to supersede him as governor of Gaul, or, lastly, to reduce his command. Political parties never disarm, not even before the national glory.

Sulpicius Rufus and M. Claudius Marcellus, Consuls.

III. The two factions which divided the Republic had each, in 703, their adherent in the consulship. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a lawyer of reputation, passed for a man attached to Cæsar; M. Claudius Marcellus was his declared enemy. The latter, a distinguished orator, who imitated Cicero, announced, on his entrance into office, the design of giving a successor to Cæsar before the legal period of his command had expired; but this design, counteracted by his colleague, and by the earnest opposition of the tribunes, was from time to time adjourned. “Why,” it was said, “depose a magistrate who has not committed a fault?”[786 - Dio Cassius, XL. 59.] The attention of the Senate was, moreover, called in another direction by grave events.

It will be remembered that C. Cassius Longinus, the quæstor of Crassus, had rallied the wreck of the Roman army; he had even succeeded in repulsing vigorously an invasion of the Parthians into the province of Syria. He was reproached, meanwhile, with great rapacity in his administration; it was pretended that, for the purpose of justifying his acts of rapine, he had drawn in bands of Arabs, and afterwards driven them out, boasting that he had beaten the Parthians.[787 - Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 10.] Syria was an important province, which could not be left in the hands of a simple quæstor; M. Calpurnius Bibulus, Cæsar’s old colleague in the consulship, was sent thither to exercise the command.[788 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. 18.] At the same time Cicero, in obedience to the new law on the consular provinces, started, to his great regret, for Cilicia. As he passed through Tarentum, he paid a visit to Pompey, who, after his consulship, had absented himself from Rome, in order to avoid acting decisively. Cicero, with his ordinary want of discernment, went away enchanted with his interview; declared in his letters that Pompey was an excellent citizen, whose foresight, courage, and wisdom were equal to all events, and that he believed him sincerely allied to the cause of the Senate.[789 - Cicero to Cœlius, Epist. Familiar., II. 8.]

If we reflect on the danger which then threatened the provinces of the East, we have reason to be surprised at these two appointments. Neither Bibulus nor Cicero had given any proof of military talents; the latter even very frankly avowed it.[790 - “I station myself for some days near Issus, on the very site of the camp of Alexander, who was a rather better general than you and I.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. 20.) – “How ill this mission agrees with my habits, and how just is the saying, Every one to his trade!” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. x. 18.)] The Parthians were threatening, and, while Pompey had sent into Spain four old legions, remaining himself in Italy with two others, the Eastern frontiers were only guarded by weak armies,[791 - Cicero had two legions, but very incomplete.] and commanded by two generals who had never seen war.

Spirit which animates Cæsar’s Adversaries.

IV. Marcellus, after he had failed in his project of taking Cæsar away from his army, proposed a measure which displays the true character of the passions which agitated the Republic. Pompey’s father had founded in the Cisalpine the colony of Novum Comum, and had given it the right of Latium, which conferred on the magistrates of the town, after a year’s office, the privileges of Roman citizens.[792 - Asconius, In Pisonem, 3. – Apian, Civil Wars, II. 26.] Cæsar had sent thither 5,000 colonists, of whom 500 were Greeks,[793 - Strabo, V. 177.] and during his first consulship he had conferred upon them the right of Roman citizens. Now Marcellus strove to cause this right to be withdrawn from them; but not having succeeded in this attempt, and unwilling at any price to acknowledge Cæsar’s law,[794 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 28.] he condemned to the rod, it is not known for what offence, an inhabitant of Novum Comum. The latter protested, invoking the privileges conferred on his city, but in vain; Marcellus had him flogged, telling him: “Go, show thy shoulders to Cæsar; it is thus I treat the citizens he makes.”[795 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 26.] This contempt for the new rights proved clearly the haughty disdain of the aristocratic party, blaming one of the things which had contributed most to the greatness of the Republic, the successive extension of the Roman city to the provinces, and to the vanquished themselves. Confounding, in his blind reprobation, both the principle of a liberal policy and him who had applied it, he saw not that the persecution exercised towards the Transpadan citizen contributed further to increase Cæsar’s greatness, and to legitimise his popularity.

Yet these are the doctrines and acts of those men who are represented as the worthy supports of the Republic! And Marcellus was not the only man who, by denying to the Transpadans the rights they had acquired, showed the perversity of egotistic sentiments; the other principal personages of the aristocratic faction hardly recommended themselves by more moderation and disinterestedness. “Appius Claudius Pulcher,” says Cicero, “had treated with fire and sword the province entrusted to his care; and had bled and drained it in every way;”[796 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. 1.] Faustus, Sylla, Lentulus, Scipio, Libo, and so many others, sought to elevate themselves by civil war, and to recover their fortune by pillage;[797 - In speaking of Pompey’s party, Cicero exclaims: “Men who all, with the exception of a very small number, breathed nothing but pillage, and discourses such as made one tremble, the more as victory might convert them into reality: not a person of rank who was not crippled with debts: there was absolutely nothing beautiful except the cause which they served.” (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VII. 8.) – “They all agree, and Crassipes with them, that yonder there are nothing but imprecations, but threats of hatred to the rich, of war against the municipia (admire their prudence!), but proscriptions in mass; they are nothing but Syllas; and you must see the tone of Lucceius, and all that train of Greeks, and that Theophanes! Yet this is the hope of the Republic! A Scipio, a Faustus, a Libo, with their troops of creditors at their heels, of what enormities are not such people capable? What excesses against their fellow-citizens will such conquerors refuse?” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IX. 11.)] Brutus, whose conduct was that of a usurer, employed the troops of his country to oppress the allied peoples. Having lent money to the inhabitants of Salamina, he reckoned on extorting the repayment of the capital and the interest at the usurious rate of four per cent. a month, or forty-eight per cent. a year. To recover his debt, a certain Scaptius, to whom he had made over his claim, had obtained from Appius a troop of cavalry, with which, according to Cicero, “he held the Senate of Salamina besieged so long that five senators died of hunger.” Cicero, when he became governor of Cilicia, sought to repair this injustice. Brutus, irritated, wrote him letters full of arrogance, of which Cicero complained to Atticus with vivacity: “If Brutus pretends that I ought to pay Scaptius at the rate of four per cent. a month, in spite of my regulations and edicts which fixed the interest at one per cent., and when the least reasonable usurers are satisfied with that rate; if he takes it ill that I have refused him a place of prefect for a tradesman; … if he reproaches me with having withdrawn the cavalry, I regret much to have displeased him, but I regret much more to find him so different from what I had believed!”[798 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. 1.] There was a law of Gabinius, intended to prevent such abuses; it prohibited the towns from borrowing money at Rome to pay their taxes. But Brutus had obtained a senatus-consultus to free him from this constraint,[799 - “The Salaminians sought to borrow money at Rome to pay their taxes, but, as the law Gabinia prohibited it, the friends of Brutus, who offered to lend it them at four per cent. a month, demanded a senatus-consultus for their safety, which Brutus obtained for them.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. 21.)] and he employed even the means of coercion to obtain even two or three times the value of that he had given. Such was the probity of a man who has been vaunted for his virtue. It is thus that the aristocratic party understood liberty; the hatred to Cæsar arose especially from the circumstance that he took to heart the cause of the oppressed, and that, during his first consulship, as Appian says, he had done nothing in favour of the nobles.[800 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 25.]

The prestige of his victories had bridled the opposition; when the end of his command drew near, all the hostilities were awakened; they waited the time when, returning to every-day life, he would be no longer protected by the prerogatives attached to the imperium. “Marcus Cato,” says Suetonius, “swore that he would denounce Cæsar to the magistrates as soon as he had disbanded his army; and it was a matter of common talk that, if Cæsar returned as a private individual, he would be obliged, like Milo, to defend himself before judges, surrounded with armed men. Asinius Pollio makes this account very probable; he relates that, at the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar, casting his eyes on his adversaries vanquished or fugitives, exclaimed: ‘They have willed it! After having accomplished so many great things, I, Caius Cæsar, was condemned, if I had not demanded succour of my army.’”[801 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 30.] Hence Cœlius, writing to Cæsar, put the question in its true light when he said, “Cæsar is persuaded that his only hope lies in keeping his army;”[802 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 14.] and, on another side, as Dio Cassius informs us, Pompey did not dare to submit the difference to the people, knowing well that, if the people were taken for judge, Cæsar would gain the day.[803 - Dio Cassius, XLI. 6.]

The Question of Right between the Senate and Cæsar.

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

Learned historians have long had this subject under consideration; they have devoted themselves to the most profound researches, and to the most ingenious suppositions, still without arriving at a completely satisfactory result,[804 - In our opinion, Professor A.W. Zumpt (Studia Romana, Berlin, 1859) is the only one who has cleared up this question; and we shall borrow of him the greatest part of his arguments. As to M. Th. Mommsen, in a special dissertation, entitled The Question of Right between Cæsar and the Senate, he proves that we must distinguish in the proconsulship between the provincia and the imperium. According to him, the provincia being given at the same time with the consulship, it could be taken possession of, according to the law Sempronia, only on the Calends of the month of January of the following year; the imperium, or military command, was added to it two months later, on the Calends of March. The provincia was given by a senatus-consultus, and counted from January to January; the imperium was given by a curiate law, and went from March to March: the imperium followed the rules of the military service; a year commenced was reputed finished, as for the campaigns of the soldiers, and thus the two first months of 705 might count for a complete year. The learned professor concludes that, if the Senate had the right to deprive Cæsar of his imperium, it could not take from him the command of the province before the end of the year 705, and that then Cæsar would find himself in the same position as all the proconsuls who, during the interval between the 1st of January, the commencement of their proconsulship, and the 1st of March, the time when they received the imperium, had the potestas, and not the military command. This system, we see, rests upon hypotheses which it is difficult to admit.] which ought not to surprise us, inasmuch as Cicero himself found the question obscure.[805 - “Erat autem obscuritas quædam.” (Cicero, Pro Marcello, 10.)]

In virtue of a law of C. Sempronius Gracchus, named lex Sempronia, it had been decided that the Senate should designate, before the election of the consuls, the provinces they were to administer after quitting office. When Cæsar and Bibulus were elected, instead of provinces, the inspection of the public ways was given to them; but Cæsar, unwilling to suffer this affront, obtained, by a plebiscitum, on the motion of Vatinius, the government of Cisalpine Gaul for five years; the Senate added to it Transalpine Gaul, which then formed a separate province independent of the other.[806 - The question became complicated through the difference of origin of the powers given for each of the two Gauls. The Senate had the power of taking away from Cæsar’s command Ulterior Gaul, which was given to him by a senatus-consultus, but it could not deprive him of Citerior Gaul, given by a plebiscitum, and yet it was the contrary opinion that Cicero sustained in 698. In fact, he exclaimed then, in his Oration on the Consular Provinces: “He separates the part of the province on which there can be no opposition (because it has been given by a senatus-consultus), and does not touch that which can be easily attacked; and, at the same time that he dares not take away that which has been given by the people, he is in haste to take away all, senator as he is, that which has been given by the Senate.” (Cicero, Orat. de Provinc. Consular., 15. – Velleius Paterculus, II. 44. – Suetonius, Cæsar, 20. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 13. – Dio Cassius, XXXVIII. 8.)] In 699, the law Trebonia prolonged, for five more years, Cæsar’s command in Gaul. This command was therefore to last ten years; and, since Cæsar only entered upon his proconsular functions at the beginning of the year 696, it seems natural to infer that these ten years should reach to the 1st of January, 706. We, nevertheless, see that, at the end of 704, the Senate regarded Cæsar’s power as at an end. We then ask, on what ground that assembly supported the pretence that the ten years devolved to the proconsul were completed at that date. We consider the following to be the explanation: —

It was in the month of March that, according to custom, the retiring consuls took possession of the government of provinces.[807 - The 1st of March was the commencement of the ancient Roman year, the period at which the generals entered into campaign.] It is, consequently, very probable that the law of Vatinius, published, as we have seen, in 695, was voted towards the latter days of the month of February in that same year, and that the proconsulship given to Cæsar was to begin from the day of the promulgation of that law. Nothing would have prevented him, indeed, from shortening the time of his magistracy, and seizing, before the termination of his curule functions, the military command or imperium, as Crassus did in 699, who started for Syria without waiting for the end of his consulship. Supposing, then, which is not impossible, that the whole year of Cæsar’s consulship was included in his proconsulship,[808 - P. Servilius, who was consul in 675, took possession of his province a short time after he entered upon his duties as consul; he returned in 679. Cicero (Orat. III. in Verrem, 90) says that he held the command during five years. This number can only be explained by admitting that the years 675 and 679 were reckoned as complete. L. Piso, who was consul in 696, quitted Rome at the end of his consulship, and returned thither in the summer of 699. Now, he was considered as having exercised the command during three years. (Cicero, In Pisonem, 35, 40.) They must, therefore, have counted as one year of the proconsulship the few months of 695. (See Mommsen, The Question of Right between Cæsar and the Senate, p. 28.)] the five first years of his command would date from 695, and end on the 1st of January, 700. The oration on the Consular Provinces proves that it was so understood. The time when it was pronounced (July or August, 698) was that of the assignment of the provinces destined for the consuls who were to quit office eighteen months after – that is, in 700 – and when the question of superseding Cæsar was agitated. The first quinquennium of his command terminated, therefore, in December, 699, and, consequently, the second in December, 704. Such was the system of the Senate, naturally much inclined to shorten the duration of the proconsulship of Gaul.[809 - At all times the assemblies have been seen striving to shorten the duration of the powers given by the people to a man whose sympathies were not with them. Here is an example. The Constitution of 1848 decided that the President of the French Republic should be named for four years. The Prince Louis Napoleon was elected on the 10th of December, 1848, and proclaimed on the 20th of the same month. His powers ought to have ended on the 20th of December, 1852. Now, the Constituent Assembly, which foresaw the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, fixed the termination of the presidency to the second Sunday of the Month of May, 1852, thus robbing him of seven months.] Accordingly, Hirtius informs us that, in 703, the Gauls knew that Cæsar had but one summer, that of 704, to pass in Gaul.[810 - De Bello Gallico, VIII. 39.] Dio Cassius says similarly that Cæsar’s power was to end with the year 704.[811 - Dio Cassius, XL. 59.] According to Appian, the Consul Claudius Marcellus proposed, at the beginning of 704, to name a successor to Cæsar, whose powers were on the eve of expiring.[812 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 4.] On the other hand, Cicero relates in one of his letters that Pompey seemed to be of the same opinion as the Senate, to require the return of the proconsul on the Ides of the November of 704. At the end of that same year, the great orator expresses, in the following terms, his own opinion on the subject of the claim raised by Cæsar to dispensation from coming to Rome to solicit the consulship: “What, then? must we have regard for a man who will keep his army after the day fixed by the law?”[813 - “Quid ergo? exercitum retinentis, quum legis dies transierit, rationem haberi placet? Mihi vero ne absentis quidem.” (Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 7.)] Some time afterwards, apostrophising Cæsar in a letter to Atticus,[814 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 9.] he exclaims: “You have kept, during ten years, a province of which you have procured the continuance, not by the sovereign will of the Senate, but by your intrigues and your acts of violence. You have overpassed the term fixed, by your ambition, and not by the law… You retain your army longer than the people has ordained and than it is the people’s will.” On another hand, a passage of Suetonius says, in a very formal manner, that Cæsar intended to offer himself as candidate in 705, to exercise the consulship in 706, when he would have completed the time of his proconsulship.[815 - “Absenti sibi, quandocumque imperii tempus expleri cœpisset.” (Suetonius, Cæsar, 26. – Cicero, Epist. Famil., XIII. 11.)] Lastly the Senate so evidently regards the beginning of the year 705 as the obligatory termination of Cæsar’s command, that, in the month of January, it declares him the enemy of the Republic, because he is still at the head of his soldiers, and decrees extreme measures against him.[816 - Cæsar, De Bello Civili, I. 5.]

But the dispute between the Senate and Cæsar did not turn upon the term of his command. Cæsar offered himself to the consular comitia of the year 705. A law, submitted to the people by the ten tribunes, and supported by Pompey and Cicero, had permitted him to solicit this charge, although absent.[817 - “I have contended that regard should be had to Cæsar for his absence. It was not to favour him; it is for the honour of a decision of the people, promoted by the consul himself.” (Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VI. 6.)] This law would have been without object unless it had implied the authorisation for Cæsar to keep his army until the time of the consular elections. Certain authors even think that this right must have been formally reserved in the law. The “Epitome” of Titus Livius says, in fact, that, according to the law, he was to keep his command until the time of his second consulship.[818 - Titus Livius, Epitome, CVIII.] On the other hand, Cicero writes to Atticus that the best argument for refusing Cæsar, in his absence, the power of soliciting the second consulship, is that, by granting it to him, they acknowledge in him, by the same act, the right of keeping his province and his army.[819 - “Sed quum id datum est, illud una datum est.” (Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 7.)] This advantage Cæsar calls beneficium populi;[820 - “Doluisse se, quod populi Romani beneficium sibi per contumeliam ab inimicus extorqueretur, erepto semestri imperio in urbem retraheretur.” (Cæsar, De Bello Civili, I. 9.)] and when he complained that they were depriving him of six months of his command, he reckoned the time which had to pass between the 1st of January, 705, and the month of July, the period of the consular comitia.[821 - See, on the period of the comitia, Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, III. 13; Epist. Familiar., VIII. 4.]

Nevertheless, Cæsar had a great interest in keeping his army until he was elected to the first magistracy of the Republic, for he would then keep the imperium as long as Pompey, whose powers, prolonged in 702, would end on the 1st of January, 707.[822 - Although all the facts prove that the term of the power was to cease in 707, Plutarch (Pompey, 55) reckons four years of prolongation, and Dio Cassius (XL. 44, 46) five, which shows the difference in the estimation of dates. (Zumpt, Studia Romana, 85.)] It was evident that he was unwilling to disarm before his rival; now if, according to the combination established by law, he remained consul till the 1st of January, 707, his command ended at the same time as that of Pompey, and after that he had nothing more to fear from the plots of his enemies.

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

Intrigues to deprive Cæsar of his Command.

VI. Let us return to the relation of events. Pompey, all-powerful, though a simple proconsul, had, as we have said before, retired to Tarentum; he seemed to wish to remain foreign to the intrigues which were at work in Rome; it appears even that he had the intention of going into Spain to govern his province.[823 - “I believe certainly in Pompey’s intention of starting for Spain, and it is what I by no means approve. I have easily demonstrated to Theophanes that the best policy was not to go away. I am more uneasy for the Republic since I see by your letters that our friend Pompey is going to Spain.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. 11.)] At the outset of revolutions, the majority of the people, and even that of the assemblies, incline always towards moderation; but soon, overruled by an excitable and enterprising minority, they are drawn by it into extreme courses. It is what happened at this time. Marcellus and his party strove first to carry Pompey, and, when he had once taken his decision, they carried the Senate. At the moment when, in the month of June, Pompey prepared to return to the troops stationed at Ariminum, he was called back to Rome; and when, on the 11th of the Calends of August, the senators assembled in the temple of Apollo to regulate the pay of the troops, he was asked why he had lent a legion to Cæsar. Obliged to give an explanation, he promised to recall it, but not immediately, as he was unwilling to have the appearance of yielding to threats. He was then pressed to give his opinion on the recall of Cæsar; upon which, by one of those evasive phrases which were habitual with him, and which revealed his hesitation, he replied that “everybody ought equally to obey the Senate.”[824 - Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 4.] Nothing was enacted in regard to the consular powers.

The question of the government of Gaul was to be resumed on the Ides of August; then again, in the month of September; but the Senate never found itself in sufficient numbers to deliberate, so much did it fear to come to a decision. They did not determine on entering upon the question frankly until they were convinced of Pompey’s consent to the recall of Cæsar.[825 - “But at last, after several successive adjournments, and the certainty well acquired that Pompey consented to consider the recall of Cæsar on the Calends of March, the senatus-consultus was passed, which I send you.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 8.)] beforehand the consuls nominated for the following year, and imposed upon them a rule of conduct: their hostility to Cæsar had determined their election. On the 11th of the Calends of October, M. Marcellus, who made himself the organ of the passions of the moment, exacted such numerous and unusual guarantees, that we may judge to what point his party had at heart to carry the day. Thus, the consuls recently elected were required to enter into the engagement to put the question on the orders of the day for the Calends of March; until it was settled, the Senate was bound to assemble to deliberate upon it every day, even on those which were called comitiales, when any meeting of that body was forbidden, and, to this effect, the senators who should fill the offices of judges were to be sent for into the curia. The Senate was also to declare beforehand that those who had the power of interceding should abstain from exercising it, and that, if they interceded or demanded an adjournment, they should be considered as enemies of the Republic; a report of their conduct should be made, at the same time, to the Senate and to the people.[826 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 8.] This motion was adopted and inscribed in the minutes as a decision or an opinion of the Senate (senatus auctoritas). Four tribunes of the people interceded: C. Cœlius, L. Vinucius, P. Cornelius, and C. Vibius Pansa.

It was not enough to prepare attacks against Cæsar’s command; the discontent of the army was also to be feared; and, in order to avert or weaken its effect, M. Marcellus caused to be further inscribed in the minutes of the Senate the following decision: “The Senate will take into consideration the situation of those soldiers of the army of Gaul whose time of service is expired, or who shall produce sufficient reasons for being restored to civil life.” C. Cœlius and C. Vibius Pansa renewed their opposition.[827 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 8.]

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

The Senate declared also that, for the province of Cilicia and the eight other prætorian provinces, the governors should be chosen by lot among the prætors who had not yet had a government. Cœlius and Pansa made opposition to this decree, which left to that assembly the power of giving the provinces at its will.[828 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 8, §§ 3, 4.] These different measures revealed sufficiently the thoughts of the Senate, and the prudent politicians saw with uneasiness that it was seeking to precipitate events.

Discord in the interior generally paralyses all national policy on the exterior. Absorbed by the intrigues at home, the aristocratic party was sacrificing the great interests of the Republic. Cicero wrote in vain that his forces were insufficient to resist the Parthians, an invasion by whom appeared imminent: the consuls refused to occupy the Senate with his claims, because they were unwilling either to go themselves to undertake so distant a campaign, or to permit others to go in their place.[829 - “But the consuls, who fear being obliged, by a decree of the Senate, to leave for the war, and who feel at the same time how disgraceful it will be to them if this commission fall on any other but them, will absolutely not allow the Senate to assemble; they carry it so far as to make people suspect them of want of zeal for the Republic: there is no knowing if it be negligence, or cowardice, or the fear of which I have just spoken; but what is concealed under this appearance of reserve is, that they will not have that province.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 10.)] They were much more anxious to humble Cæsar than to avenge Crassus; and yet the public opinion, moved by the dangers with which Syria was threatened, called for an extraordinary command in the East, either for Pompey or for Cæsar.[830 - “With the succour of Dejotarus, the enemies may be held at bay till the arrival of Pompey, who sends me word that they intend him for this war.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. 1.) – “At this news of the passage of the Euphrates, every one offers to give his advice: this man would have them send Pompey; the other Cæsar and his army.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 10.)] Fortunately, the Parthians did not attack; Bibulus and Cicero had only to combat bands of plunderers. The latter, on the 3rd of the Ides of October, defeated a party of Cilician mountaineers near Mount Amanus. He carried their camp, besieged their fortress of Pindenissus, which he took, and his soldiers saluted him as imperator.[831 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, V. 20] From that time he took this title in the subscription of his letters.[832 - He kept this title until the moment the civil war broke out.]

CHAPTER IX.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 704

C. Claudius Marcellus and L. Æmilius Paulus, Consuls.

I. THE year 703 had been employed in intrigues with the object of overthrowing Cæsar, and the aristocratic party believed that, for the success of this sort of plot, it could reckon upon the support of the chief magistrates who were entering upon office in January, 704. Of the two consuls, C. Claudius Marcellus, nephew of the preceding consul of the same name, and L. Æmilius Paulus, the first was kinsman, but at the same time enemy, of Cæsar; the second had not yet shown his party, though report gave him the same opinions as his colleague. It was expected that, in concert with C. Scribonius Curio, whose advancement to the tribuneship was due to Pompey,[833 - Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 4.] he would distribute the lands of Campania which had not yet been given out, the consequence of which would be that Cæsar, on his return, could no longer dispose of this property in favour of his veterans.[834 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 10.] This hope was vain; for already Paulus and Curio had joined the party of the proconsul of Gaul. Well informed of the intrigues of his enemies, Cæsar had long taken care to have always at Rome a consul or tribunes devoted to his interest; in 703 he could reckon on the Consul Sulpicius and the tribunes Pansa and Cœlius; in 704, Paulus and Curio were devoted to him. If, subsequently, in 705, the two consuls were opposed to him, he had, at least on his side, that year, the tribunes Mark Antony and Q. Cassius.

Curio is called by Velleius Paterculus the wittiest of rogues;[835 - “Ingeniosissime nequam.”] but as long as this tribune remained faithful to the cause of the Senate, Cicero honoured him with his esteem, and paid the greatest compliments to his character and his high qualities.[836 - Cicero to Curio, Epist. Familiar., II. 7.] Curio had acquired authority by his eloquence, and by the numbers of his clients. His father had been the declared enemy of Cæsar, against whom he had written a book,[837 - Cicero, Brutus, lx. 218.] and uttered many jokes, cutting or coarse, which were repeated in Rome.[838 - Suetonius, Cæsar, 49.] Inheriting these feelings, Curio had long pursued the conqueror of Gaul with his sarcasms; but nobody forgot insults so easily as Cæsar, and, as he appreciated the political importance of this dangerous adversary, he spared nothing to gain him to his interests.

From his earliest youth, Curio had been bound by close intimacy to Mark Antony. Both ruined by debts, they had led together the most dissolute lives; their friendship had never changed.[839 - Plutarch, Antony, 2. – Cicero, Philippica, II. xix. 48.] The relationship of Mark Antony with the Julia family,[840 - See his biography in Appendix D.] his connection with Gabinius, and, above all, his military conduct in Egypt, had gained for him the respect of Cæsar to whom he withdrew when Gabinius was put on his trial.[841 - Cicero, Philippica, II. xx. 49.] Cæsar employed him first as lieutenant, and afterwards, in 701, chose him as quæstor. His kindness for Mark Antony probably contributed to soften Curio’s temper; his liberality did the rest. He had given him, if we can believe Appian, more than 1,500 talents.[842 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 26. – Yet Cicero, who never spared his adversaries, makes no mention of this act of corruption; and Velleius Paterculus (II. 48) expresses himself as follows: “Did Curio, as has been said, sell himself? It is a question we cannot venture to decide.”] It is true that, at the same time, he bought equally dear the Consul L. Æmilius Paulus, without requiring more than his neutrality.[843 - “Æmilius Paulus built, they say, with this money the famous basilica which bears his name.” (Appian, Civil Wars, II. 26.)] We can hardly understand how Cæsar, while he was paying his army, could support such sacrifices, and meet, at the same time, so many other expenses. To increase by his largesses the number of his partisans in Rome;[844 - “It was said of him that there was no man so low but he thought him worth the trouble of gaining.” (Cicero, Ad Div., VIII. 22.)] to cause to be built in the Narbonnese theatres and monuments; near Aricia, in Italy, a magnificent villa;[845 - A villa near Aricia. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. 1.)] to send rich presents to distant towns – such were his burthens. How, to meet them, could he draw money enough from a province exhausted by eight years’ war? The immensity of his resources is explained by the circumstance that, independently of the tributes paid by the vanquished, which amounted, for Gaul, to 40,000,000 sestertii a year (more than 7,500,000 francs) [£300,000], the sale of prisoners to Roman traders produced enormous sums. Cicero informs us that he gained 12,000,000 sestertii from the captives sold after the unimportant siege of Pindenissus. If we suppose that their number amounted to 12,000, this sum would represent 1,000 sestertii a head. Now, in spite of Cæsar’s generosity in often restoring the captives to the conquered peoples, or in making gifts of them to his soldiers, as was the case after the siege of Alesia, we may admit that 500,000 Gauls, Germans, or Britons were sold as slaves during the eight years of the war in Gaul, which must have produced a sum of about 500,000,000 sestertii, or about 95,000,000 francs [£3,800,000]. It was thus Roman money, given by the slave-dealers, which formed the greatest part of the booty, in the same manner as in modern times, when, in distant expeditions, the European nations take possession of the foreign custom-houses to pay the costs of the war, it is still European money which forms the advance for the costs.

The reconciliation of Curio with Cæsar was at first kept secret; but, whether in order to contrive a pretext for changing his party, the new tribune had moved laws which had no chance of being adopted, or because he felt offended at the rejection of his propositions, towards the beginning of the year 704 he declared for Cæsar, or, which was the same thing, as Cœlius said, he ranged himself on the side of the people. Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, the following are the circumstances in the sequel of which his attitude became modified. He had proposed the intercalation of a month in the current year, in order, probably, to retard the period for the decision of the question which agitated the Senate and the town.[846 - “Curio, in his ill humour at not having obtained the intercalation, has thrown himself, with unequalled levity, into the party of the people, and began to speak on Cæsar’s side.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 6.)] His character of pontiff rendered his motion perfectly legal: in spite of its incontestable utility,[847 - See Appendix A.] it was ill received. He expected this, but he appeared to take the matter to heart, and to look upon the Senate’s refusal as an offence. From that moment he began a systematic opposition.[848 - Dio Cassius, XL. 62.] Towards the same time he presented two laws, one concerning the alimentation of the people, with which he proposed to charge the ædiles;[849 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 6.] the other, on the repair of the roads, of which he asked for the direction during five years.[850 - Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. 1; Ad Div., VIII. vi. 5. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 27.] He seems to have intended to make the travellers pay according to the number and nature of their means of transport; or, in a word, to establish a tax upon the rich, and thus increase his popularity.[851 - The following letter explains the nature of this tax: “This man of importance (P. Vedius) met me with two chariots, a chaise, a litter, and so great a number of valets, that, if Curio’s law passes, Vedius will surely be taxed at 100,000 sestertii. He had, moreover, a cynocephalus in one of his chariots, and wild asses in his equipage. I never saw a man so ridiculous.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VI. i. 22.)] These last two projects were as ill received as the first, and this double check completed his reconciliation with those against whom he had hitherto contended.

The nomination of the censors, which took place at this period, brought new complications. One, L. Calpurnius Piso, Cæsar’s father-in-law, accepted the office only with regret, and showed an extreme indulgence; the other, Appius Claudius Pulcher, who had been consul in 700, a fiery partisan of the nobles, thought he served their cause by displaying excessive severity. He expelled from the Senate all the freedmen, and several of the most illustrious nobles, among others the historian Sallust, a man of mind and talent, who immediately repaired to the Cisalpine, where Cæsar received him with eagerness.[852 - Dio Cassius, XL. 63.]

Appius had no moderation in his harshness. Cicero says of him that, to efface a mere stain, he cut open veins and entrails.[853 - Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 14.] Instead of remedying the evil, he only envenomed it; he threw into the ranks of the opposite party all whom he excluded, without giving greater consideration to those whom he kept. There are times when severity is a bad adviser, and is not calculated to restore to a government the moral force it has lost.

Cæsar repairs to the Cisalpine.

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

“Cæsar was received by the municipal towns and colonies with incredible marks of respect and affection; it was the first time he appeared among them since the general insurrection of Gaul. They omitted nothing that could be imagined in adorning the gates, roads, and places on his passage; women and children all rushed in crowds to the public places and into the temples; everywhere they immolated victims and spread tables. The rich displayed their magnificence, the poor rivalled each other in zeal.” Cæsar tasted beforehand the pleasures of a triumph earnestly desired.[854 - De Bello Gallico, VIII. 50, 51, 52.]

After having thus visited Citerior Gaul, he quickly rejoined the army at Nemetocenna. In the prospect of his approaching departure, he wished to strike the minds of the Germans and Gauls by a grand agglomeration of forces, and show himself once more to his assembled troops. The legions, who had withdrawn to their quarters, were sent into the country of the Treviri; Cæsar went there also, and passed the army in review. This solemnity was necessarily grand. He saw before him his old cohorts, with whom he had fought so many battles, and of which the youngest soldiers reckoned eight campaigns. No doubt he reminded them that, general or consul, he owed everything to the people and to the army, and that the glory they had acquired formed between them indissoluble ties. Until the end of the summer he remained in the north of Gaul, “only moving the troops as much as was necessary to preserve the soldiers’ health. T. Labienus received afterwards the command of Citerior Gaul, in the aim of securing more votes for Cæsar’s approaching candidateship for the office of consul. Although the latter was not ignorant of the manœvres of his enemies to detach Labienus from him, and of their intrigues to cause the Senate to deprive him of a part of his army, he could not be prevailed upon either to doubt Labienus, or to attempt anything against the authority of the Senate. He knew that, if the votes were free, the conscript fathers would do him justice.”[855 - De Bello Gallico, VIII. 52.] In fact, whenever the Senate was not under the dominion of a factious minority, the majority pronounced in favour of Cæsar.

It had been decided, in the preceding month of October, that the question of the consular provinces should be brought under consideration on the 1st of March, 704, the period at which Pompey had declared that he would throw no obstacle in the way of the discussion. It was opened then, as appears from a letter of Cicero, and the Senate showed an inclination to recall Cæsar for the Ides of November, 704. Nevertheless, there was no decisive result. People were afraid yet to engage in a struggle for life: Curio, singly, made the Senate tremble by his opposition.[856 - “Pompey appears to agree with the Senate in requiring absolutely the return of Cæsar on the Ides of Novembre. Curio is decided to do everything rather than suffer this: the rest he cares little about. Our party – you know them well – do not dare to undertake a deadly combat. This is how things stand now. Pompey, who, without attacking Cæsar, will accord nothing to him but what is just, accuses Curio of being an agent of discord. At the bottom, he will not allow that Cæsar be designated consul before he has given up his army and his province, and his great fear is that that may happen. He is by no means spared by Curio, who throws continually his second consulate in his teeth. I will tell you what will come to pass: if they do not use discretion with Curio, Cæsar will gain a defender in him. With the fear which they show of the opposition of a tribune, they will do so much that Cæsar will remain indefinitely master in Gaul.” Cicero, Epist. ad Familiar. VIII. 11.)]

When, in the bosom of that assembly, C. Marcellus was declaiming against Cæsar, Curio began to speak, praised the consul’s prudence, approved much of the proposal that the conqueror of Gaul should be summoned to disband his army; but he insinuated that it would not be less desirable to see Pompey disband his. “Those great generals,” said he, “were objects of suspicion to him, and there would be no tranquillity for the Republic until both of them should become private men.”[857 - Dio Cassius, XL. 41. – Appian, Civil Wars, II. 27.] This speech pleased the people, who, moreover, began to lose much of their esteem for Pompey since the time that, by his law on bribery, a great number of citizens were condemned to exile. On all sides they praised Curio; they admired his courage in braving two such powerful men, and on several occasions an immense crowd escorted him to his house, throwing flowers over him “like an athlete,” says Appian, “who had just sustained a severe and dangerous combat.”[858 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 27.]

The clever manœuvres of Cicero had such success that, when Marcellus proposed to concert with the tribunes of the people on the means of opposing the candidature of Cæsar, the majority of the Senate gave their opinion to the contrary. On this subject, M. Cœlius wrote to Cæsar: “The opinions have changed so much that now they are ready to reckon as a candidate for the consulship a man who will give up neither his army nor his province.”[859 - Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. Familiar., VIII. 13.] Pompey gave no sign of life, and let the Senate have its way.

He always seemed to disdain what he desired most. Thus, at this time, he affected an entire carelessness, and retrenched himself in his legality, taking care to avoid all appearance of personal hostility towards Cæsar. At the same time, either in order to avoid being pressed too soon, or to appear indifferent to the question which agitated the Republic, he left his gardens near Rome to visit Campania. Thence he sent a letter to the Senate, in which, while he praised Cæsar and himself, he reminded them that he never had solicited a third consulship, nor yet the command of the armies; that he had received it in spite of himself, in order to save the Republic, and that he was ready to renounce it without waiting the term fixed by the law.[860 - “It is his custom to speak in one way and to think in another; but he has not head enough to prevent people from seeing through him.” (Cœlius to Cicero, Epist. ad Familiar., VIII. 1.)] This letter, studied and artful, was intended to bring out the contrast between his disinterested conduct and that of Cæsar, who refused to surrender his government; but Curio baffled this manœuvre. “If Pompey were sincere,” he said, “he ought not to promise to give his resignation, but to give it at once; so long as he should not have retired into private life, the command could not be taken from Cæsar. Besides, the interest of the State required the presence of two rivals constantly opposed to each other; and, in his eyes, it was Pompey who openly aspired to absolute power.”[861 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 28.] This accusation was not without ground; for during the last nineteen years – that is to say, since 684, the time of his first consulship – Pompey had nearly always been in possession of the imperium, either as consul, or as general in the wars against the pirates and against Mithridates, or, finally, as charged with the victualling of Italy. “To take Cæsar’s army from him,” says Plutarch, “and to leave his army to Pompey, was, by accusing the one of aspiring to the tyranny, to give the other the means of obtaining it.”[862 - Plutarch, Cæsar, 34.]

Pompey receives Ovations, and asks Cæsar to return his Two Legions.

III. About this time Pompey fell dangerously ill, and on his recovery the Neapolitans and the peoples of all Italy showed such joy, that “every town, great or small,” says Plutarch, “celebrated festivals for several days. When he returned to Rome, there was no place spacious enough to contain the crowd which came to meet him; the roads, the villages, and the ports were full of people offering sacrifices and making banquets, in order to show their joy at his recovery. A great number of citizens, crowned with leaves, went to receive him with torches, and threw flowers on him as they accompanied him; the procession which followed him in his progress offered the most agreeable and most magnificent spectacle.”[863 - Plutarch, Pompey, 61.] Although these ovations had given Pompey an exaggerated opinion of his influence, on his return to Rome he observed in public the same reserve, though in secret he supported the measures calculated to diminish Cæsar’s power. Thus, taking for pretext the demands for re-enforcements renewed incessantly by Bibulus and Cicero, proconsuls of Syria and Cilicia, who sought to place their provinces in safety against an invasion of the Parthians, he represented that the levies ordered by the Senate were insufficient, and that it was necessary to send experienced troops to the East. It was thereupon decided that Pompey and Cæsar, who were at the head of considerable armies, should each of them detach one legion for the defence of the threatened provinces. A senatus-consultus at once summoned Cæsar to send his legion, and ordered him, besides, to return the legion which Pompey had lent him shortly after the conference of Lucca. Perhaps they hoped for resistance on his part, for this last legion had been raised, like all those of his army, in Cisalpine Gaul; but he obeyed without hesitation, so that he alone had to furnish the re-enforcements required for the East. Before parting with his soldiers, who had so long fought under his orders, he caused 250 drachmas (225 francs) to be distributed to each legionary.[864 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 29. – Plutarch, Cæsar, 32.]

Appius Claudius, nephew of the censor of the same name, who had left Rome with the mission of bringing those troops from the Cisalpine into Italy, reported on his return that the soldiers of Cæsar, weary of their long campaigns, sighed for repose, and that it would be impossible to draw them into a civil war; he pretended even that the legions in winter quarters in Transalpine Gaul would no sooner have passed the Alps than they would rally to Pompey’s flag.[865 - Appian, Civil Wars, II. 29. – This officer (Appius) affected to undervalue the exploits which had been accomplished in that country (Gaul), and to spread rumours injurious to Cæsar. “Pompey,” said he, “must have known very little his strength and reputation, otherwise would he, in order to measure himself with Cæsar, seek other troops than those which were at his disposal? He would conquer him with the very legions of his enemy, as soon as he appeared, so much did the soldiers hate Cæsar, and desire to see Pompey again.” (Plutarch, Pompey, 61.)] Events in the sequel proved the falsity of this information, for not only, as will appear hereafter, did the troops which had remained under Cæsar’s command continue faithful to him, but those which had been withdrawn from him preserved the remembrance of their ancient general. In fact, Pompey himself had not the least confidence in the two legions he had received, and his letter to Domitius, proconsul at the commencement of the civil war, explains his inaction by the danger of bringing them into the presence of the army of Cæsar, so much he fears to see them pass over to the opposite camp.[866 - “I should like to come nearer to you; but, I regret to say, I dare not trust myself to the two legions… The two legions must not be exposed in the presence of Cæsar without the cohorts from Picenum.” (Letter from Pompey to Domitius, Proconsul.– Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VIII. 12.) – “All my resources are reduced to two legions, which Pompey has retained in an odious manner, and of which he is no more sure than of foreigners.” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 13.)] At Rome, nevertheless, they believed in the reports which flattered the pretensions of Pompey, although they were contradicted by other more certain information, which showed Italy, the Cisalpine provinces, and Gaul itself, equally devoted to Cæsar. Pompey, deaf to these last warnings, affected the greatest contempt for the forces of which his adversary could dispose. According to him, Cæsar was ruining himself, and had no other chance of safety but in a prompt and complete submission. When he was asked with what troops he would resist the conqueror of Gaul, in case he were to march upon Rome, he replied, with an air of confidence, that he had only to strike the soil of Italy with his foot to make legions start up out of it.[867 - Plutarch, Pompey, 61.]

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

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

To understand the public opinion correctly, he ought not, though this might have been a difficult thing to the chief of the aristocratic cause, to have confined himself solely to the judgment of the official world, but he should have interrogated the sentiments of those whose position brought them nearest to the people. Instead of believing the reports of Appius Claudius, and reckoning on the discontent of certain of Cæsar’s lieutenants, who, like Labienus, already showed hostile tendencies, Pompey ought to have meditated upon that exclamation of a centurion, who, placed at the door of the Senate, when that assembly rejected the just reclamations of the conqueror of Gaul, exclaimed, putting his hand to his sword, “This will give him what he asks.”[868 - Plutarch, Cæsar, 33.]

The fact is that, in civil commotions, each class of society divines, as by instinct, the cause which responds to its aspirations, and feels itself attracted to it by a secret affinity. Men born in the superior classes, or brought to their level by honours and riches, are always drawn towards the aristocracy, whilst men kept by fortune in the inferior ranks remain the firm supports of the popular cause. Thus, at the return from the isle of Elba, most of the generals of the Emperor Napoleon, loaded with wealth like the lieutenants of Cæsar,[869 - “Do you approve that Labienus and Mamurra should have amassed immense riches?” (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, VII. 7.)] marched openly against him; but in the army all up to the rank of colonel said, after the example of the Roman centurion, pointing to their weapons, “This will place him on the throne again!”

The Senate votes impartially.