Chapter CCCLXXVIII: Section 7 (6)

The consuls were directed to lead the legions against them,
but were ignominiously defeated [B. C. 72]. In the absence of
Pompeius in Spain and of Lucullus in the East, M. Crassus was
the most prominent among the chiefs of the party in power.
This illustrious noble was a man of great influence, acquired
more by his wealth, for which he obtained the surname of
Dives, than for any marked ability in the field or in the
forum; but he had a large following of clients and dependents,
who … now swelled the cry for placing a powerful force under
his orders, and entrusting to his hands the deliverance of
Italy. The brigands themselves were becoming demoralized by
lack of discipline. Crassus drove them before him to the
extremity of the peninsula. … Spartacus could only save a
remnant of them by furiously breaking through the lines of his
assailants. This brave gladiator was still formidable, and it
was feared that Rome itself might be exposed to his desperate
attack. The senate sent importunate messages to recall both
Pompeius and Lucullus to its defence. … Spartacus had now
become an easy prey, and the laurels were quickly won with
which Pompeius was honoured by his partial countrymen. Crassus
was deeply mortified, and the senate itself might feel some
alarm at the redoubled triumphs of a champion of whose loyalty
it was not secure. But the senatorial party had yet another
leader, and a man of more ability than Crassus, at the head of
another army. The authority of Pompeius in the western
provinces was balanced in the East by that of L. Licinius
Lucullus, who commanded the forces of the republic in the
struggle which she was still maintaining against Mithridates.
… The military successes of Lucullus fully justified the
choice of the government." He expelled Mithridates from all
the dominions which he claimed and drove him to take refuge
with the king of Armenia. "The kingdom of Armenia under
Tigranes III. was at the height of its power when Clodius, the
brother-in-law of Lucullus, then serving under him, was
despatched to the royal residence at Tigranocerta to demand
the surrender of Mithridates. … The capital of Armenia was
well defended by its position among the mountains and the
length and severity of its winter season. It was necessary to
strike once for all [B. C. 61)]. Lucullus had a small but
well-trained and well-appointed army of veterans. Tigranes
surrounded and encumbered himself with a vast cloud of
undisciplined barbarians, the flower of whom, consisting of
17,000 mailed cavalry, however formidable in appearance, made
but a feeble resistance to the dint of the Roman spear and
broadsword. When their ranks were broken they fell back upon
the inert masses behind them, and threw them into hopeless
confusion. Tigranes made his escape with dastardly
precipitation. A bloody massacre ensued. … In the following
year Lucullus advanced his posts still further eastward. …
But a spirit of discontent or lassitude had crept over his own
soldiers. … He was constrained to withdraw from the siege of
Artaxata, the furthest stronghold of Tigranes, on the banks of
the Araxes, and after crowning his victories with a successful
assault upon Nisibis, he gave the signal for retreat, leaving
the destruction of Mithridates still unaccomplished. Meanwhile
the brave proconsul's enemies were making head against him at
Rome."

_C. Merivale,
The Roman Triumvirates,
chapter 1._

Lucullus "wished to consummate the ruin of Tigranes, and
afterwards to carry his arms to Parthia. He had not this
perilous glory. Hitherto, his principal means of success had
been to conciliate the people, by restraining the avidity both
of his soldiers and of the Italian publicans. The first
refused to pursue a war which only enriched the general; the
second wrote to Rome, where the party of knights was every day
regaining its ancient ascendancy. They accused of rapacity him
who had repressed theirs. All were inclined to believe, in
short, that Lucullus had drawn enormous sums from the towns
which he preserved from the soldiers and publicans. They
obtained the appointment of a successor, and by this change
the fruit of this conquest was in a great measure lost. Even
before Lucullus had quitted Asia, Mithridates re-entered
Pontus, invaded Cappadocia, and leagued himself more closely
with the pirates."

_J. Michelet,
History of the Roman Republic,
page 308._

"It was imagined at Rome that Mithridates was as good as
conquered, and that a new province of Bithynia and Pontus was
awaiting organisation. … Ten commissioners as usual had been
despatched to assist. … Lucullus had hoped before their
arrival to strike some blow to recover his losses; but Marcius
Rex had refused his appeal for help from Cilicia, and his own
troops had … declined to march … when they learnt that the
command was about to pass from Lucullus to Glabrio."

_E. S. Shuckburgh,
History of Rome to the Battle of Actium,
page 677._

ALSO IN:
_Plutarch,
Pompeius Magnus._

_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 2, chapters 30-33,
and volume 3, chapters 1-5._

_G. Rawlinson,
Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 10._

{2687}

ROME: B. C. 69-63.
The drift towards revolution.
Pompeius in the East.
His extraordinary commission.
His enlargement of the Roman dominions.
His power.
Ambitions and projects of Cæsar.
Consulship of Cicero.

"To a superficial observer, at the close of the year 70 B. C.,
it might possibly have seemed that the Republic had been given
a new lease of life. … And, indeed, for two or three years
this promising condition of things continued. The years 69 and
68 B. C. must have been tolerably quiet ones, for our
authorities have very little to tell us of them. … Had a
single real statesman appeared on the scene at this moment, or
even if the average senator or citizen had been possessed of
some honesty and insight, it was not impossible that the
government might have been carried on fairly well even under
republican forms. But there was no leading statesman of a
character suited to raise the whole tone of politics; and
there was no general disposition on the part of either Senate
or people to make the best of the lull in the storm, to repair
damages, or to set the ship on her only true course. So the
next few years show her fast drifting in the direction of
revolution; and the current that bore her was not a local one,
or visible to the eye of the ordinary Roman, but one of
world-wide force, whose origin and direction could only be
perceived by the highest political intelligence. It was during
these years that Cæsar was quietly learning the business of
government, both at home and in the provinces. … Cæsar was
elected quæstor in 69 B. C., and served the office in the
following year. It fell to him to begin his acquaintance with
government in the province of Further Spain, and thus began
his lifelong connection with the peoples of the West. … On his
return to Rome, which must have taken place about the
beginning of 67 B. C., Cæsar was drawn at once into closer
connection with the man who, during the next twenty years, was
to be his friend, his rival, and his enemy. Pompeius was by
this time tired of a quiet life. … Both to him and his
friends, it seemed impossible to be idle any longer. There was
real and abundant reason for the employment of the ablest
soldier of the day. The audacity of the pirates was greater
than ever.

See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.

Lucullus, too, in Asia, had begun to meet with disasters, and
was unable, with his troops in a mutinous temper, to cope with
the combined forces of the kings of Armenia and Pontus. … In
this year, 67 B. C., a bill was proposed by a tribune,
Gabinius, in the assembly of the plebs, in spite of opposition
in the Senate, giving Pompeius exactly that extensive power
against the pirates which he himself desired, and which was
really necessary if the work was to be done swiftly and
completely. He was to have exclusive command for three years
over the whole Mediterranean, and over the resources of the
provinces and dependent states. For fifty miles inland in
every province bordering on these seas—i. e., in the whole
Empire—he was to exercise an authority equal to that of the
existing provincial governor. He was to have almost unlimited
means of raising both fleets and armies, and was to nominate
his own staff of twenty·five 'legati' (lieutenant-generals),
who were all to have the rank of prætor. Nor was this all; for
it was quite understood that this was only part of a plan
which was to place him at the head of the armies in Asia
Minor, superseding the able but now discredited Lucullus. In
fact, by another law of Gabinius, Lucullus was recalled, and
his command given to one of the consuls of the year, neither
of whom, as was well known, was likely to wield it with the
requisite ability. whichever consul it might be, he would only
be recognised as keeping the place warm for Pompeius. …
Pompeius left Rome in the spring of 67 B. C., rapidly cleared
the seas of piracy, and in the following year superseded
Lucullus in the command of the war against Mithridates [with
the powers given him by the Gabinian Law prolonged and
extended by another, known as the Manilian Law]. He did not
return till the beginning of 61 B. C. At first sight it might
seem as though his absence should have cleared the air, and
left the political leaders at Rome a freer hand. But the power
and the resources voted him, and the unprecedented success
with which he used them, made him in reality as formidable to
the parties at home as he was to the peoples of the East. He
put an end at last to the power of Mithridates, received the
submission of Tigranes of Armenia, and added to the Roman
dominion the greater part of the possessions of both these
kings. The sphere of Roman influence now for the first time
reached the river Euphrates, and the Empire was brought into
contact with the great Parthian kingdom beyond it. Asia Minor
became wholly Roman, with the exception of some part of the
interior, which obedient kinglets were allowed to retain.
Syria was made a Roman province. Pompeius took Jerusalem, and
added Judæa to Syria. …

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40].

The man to whom all this was due became at once the leading
figure in the world. It became clear that when his career of
conquest was over yet another task would devolve on him, if he
chose to accept it—the re-organisation of the central
government at Rome. … His gathered power overhung the state
like an avalanche ready to fall; and in the possible path of
an avalanche it is waste of time and labour to build any solid
work. So these years, for Cæsar as for the rest, are years of
plotting and intrigue on one side, and of half-hearted
government on the other. … He was elected to the
curule-ædileship—the next above the quæstorship in the series
of magistracies—and entered on his office on January 1, 65 B.
C. … Cæsar's political connection with Crassus at this time is
by no means clear. The two were sailing the same course, and
watching Pompeius with the same anxiety; but there could not
have been much in common between them, and they were in fact
rapidly getting in each other's way. The great money-lender,
however, must have been in the main responsible for the
enormous expenditure which Cæsar risked in this ædileship and
the next three years. … At the close of the year 64 B. C., on
the accession to office of a new board of tribunes, … an
agrarian bill on a vast scale was promulgated by the tribune
Servilius Rullus.
{2688}
The two most startling features of this were: first, the
creation of a board of ten to carry out its provisions, each
member of which was to be invested with military and judicial
powers like those of the consuls and prætors; and secondly,
the clauses which entrusted this board with enormous financial
resources, to be raised by the public sale of all the
territories and property acquired since the year 88 B. C.,
together with the booty and revenues now in the hands of
Pompeius. The bill included, as its immediate object, a huge
scheme of colonisation for Italy, on the lines of the Gracchan
agrarian bills. … But it was really an attack on the weak
fortress of senatorial government, in order to turn out its
garrison, and occupy and fortify it in the name of the
democratic or Marian party, against the return of the new
Sulla, which was now thought to be imminent. The bill may also
have had another and secondary object—namely, to force the
hand of the able and ambitious consul [Cicero] who would come
into office on January 1, 63; at any rate it succeeded in
doing this, though it succeeded in nothing else. Cicero's
great talents, and the courage and skill with which he had so
far for the most part used them, had made him already a
considerable power in Rome; but no one knew for certain to
which party he would finally attach himself. … On the very
first day of his office he attacked the bill in the Senate and
exposed its real intention, and showed plainly that his policy
was to convert Pompeius into a pillar of the constitution, and
to counteract all democratic plots directed against him. …
Whether it was his eloquence, or the people's indifference,
that caused the bill to be dropped, can only be matter of
conjecture; but it was withdrawn at once by its proposer, and
the whole scheme fell through. This was Cicero's first and
only real victory over Cæsar. … It was about this time, in the
spring of 63 B. C., that the office of Pontifex Maximus became
vacant by the death of old Metellus Pius, and Cæsar at once
took steps to secure it for himself. The chances in his favour
were small, but the prize was a tempting one. Success would
place him at the head of the whole Roman religious system. …
He was eligible, for he had already been for several years one
of the college of pontifices, but as the law of election
stood, a man so young and so democratic would have no chance
against candidates like the venerable conservative leader
Catulus, and Cæsar's own old commander in the East, Servilius
Isauricus, both of whom were standing. Sulla's law, which
placed the election in the hands of the college itself—a law
framed expressly to exclude persons of Cæsar's stamp—must be
repealed, and the choice vested once more in the people. The
useful tribune Labienus was again set to work, the law was
passed, and on March 6th Cæsar was elected by a large
majority. … The latter part of this memorable year was
occupied with a last and desperate attempt of the democratic
party to possess themselves of the state power while there was
yet time to forestall Pompeius. This is the famous conspiracy
of Catilina; it was an attack of the left wing on the
senatorial position, and the real leaders of the democracy
took no open or active part in it."

_W. W. Fowler,
Julius Cæsar,
chapters 4-5._

ALSO IN
_J. A. Froude,
Cæsar,
chapter 10._

_Suetonius,
Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Julius,
sections 7-13._

_C. Middleton,
Life of Cicero,
section 2._

ROME: B. C. 63.
The conspiracy of Catiline.

The conspiracy organized against the senatorial government of
Rome by L. Sergius Catilina, B. C. 63, owes much of its
prominence in Roman history to the preservation of the great
speeches in which Cicero exposed it, and by which he rallied
the Roman people to support him in putting it down. Cicero was
consul that year, and the official responsibility of the
government was on his shoulders. The central conspirators were
a desperate, disreputable clique of men, who had everything to
gain and nothing to lose by revolution. Behind them were all
the discontents and malignant tempers of demoralized and
disorganized Rome; and still behind these were suspected to
be, darkly hidden, the secret intrigues of men like Cæsar and
Crassus, who watched and waited for the expiring breath of the
dying republic. Cicero, having made a timely discovery of the
plot, managed the disclosure of it with great adroitness and
won the support of the people to his proceedings against the
conspirators. Catiline made his escape from Rome and placed
himself' at the head of a small army which his supporters had
raised in Etruria; but he and it were both destroyed in the
single battle fought. Five of his fellow-conspirators were
hastily put to death without trial, by being strangled in the
Tullianum.

_W. Forsyth,
Life of Cicero,
chapter 8._

ALSO IN
_A. Trollope,
Life of c,
chapter 9._

_A. J. Church,
Roman Life in the Days of Cicero,
chapter 7._

_Cicero,
Orations
(translated by (J. D. Yonge),
volume 2._

ROME: B. C. 63-58.
Increasing disorders in the capital.
The wasted opportunities of Pompeius.
His alliance with Cæsar and Crassus.
The First Triumvirate.
Cæsar's consulship.
His appointment to the command in Cisalpine Gaul.
Exile of Cicero.

"Recent events had fully demonstrated the impotence of both
the Senate and the democratic party; neither was strong enough
to defeat the other or to govern the State. There was no third
party—no class remaining out of which a government might be
erected; the only alternative was monarchy—the rule of a
single person. Who the monarch would be was still uncertain;
though, at the present moment, Pompeius was clearly the only
man in whose power it lay to take up the crown that offered
itself. … For the moment the question which agitated all minds
was whether Pompeius would accept the gift offered him by
fortune, or would retire and leave the throne vacant. … In the
autumn of 63 B. C. Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived in the
capital from the camp of Pompeius, and got himself elected
tribune with the avowed purpose of procuring for Pompeius the
command against Catilina by special decree, and afterwards the
consulship for 61 B. C. … The aristocracy at once showed their
hostility to the proposals of Metellus, and Cato had himself
elected tribune expressly for the purpose of thwarting him.
But the democrats were more pliant, and it was soon evident
that they had come to a cordial understanding with the
general's emissary. Metellus and his master both adopted the
democratic view of the illegal executions [of the
Catilinarians]; and the first act of Cæsar's prætorship was to
call Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to have been
embezzled by him in rebuilding the Capitoline temple and to
transfer the superintendence of the works to Pompeius. … On
the day of voting, Cato and another of the tribunes put their
veto upon the proposals of Metellus, who disregarded it.
{2689}
There were conflicts of the armed bands of both sides, which
terminated in favour of the government. The Senate followed up
the victory by suspending Metellus and Cæsar from their
offices. Metellus immediately departed for the camp of
Pompeius; and when Cæsar disregarded the decree of suspension
against himself, the Senate had ultimately to revoke it.
Nothing could have been more favourable to the interests of
Pompeius than these late events. After the illegal executions
of the Catilinarians, and the acts of violence against
Metellus, he 'could appear at once as the defender of the two
palladia of Roman liberty'—the right of appeal, and the
inviolability of the tribunate,—and as the champion of the
party of order against the Catilinarian band. But his courage
was unequal to the emergency; he lingered in Asia during the
winter of 63-62 B. C., and thus gave the Senate time to crush
the insurrection in Italy, and deprived himself of a valid
pretext for keeping his legions together. In the autumn of 62
B. C. he landed at Brundisium, and, disbanding his army,
proceeded to Rome with a small escort. On his arrival in the
city in 61 B. C. he found himself in a position of complete
isolation; he was feared by the democrats, hated by the
aristocracy, and distrusted by the wealthy class. He at once
demanded for himself a second consulship, the confirmation of
all his acts in the East, and the fulfilment of the promise he
had made to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. But each
of these demands was met with the most determined opposition.
… His promise of lands to his soldiers was indeed ratified,
but not executed, and no steps were taken to provide the
necessary funds and lands. … From this disagreeable position,
Pompeius was rescued by the sagacity and address of Cæsar, who
saw in the necessities of Pompeius the opportunity of the
democratic party. Ever since the return of Pompeius, Cæsar had
grown rapidly in influence and weight. He had been prætor in
62 B. C., and, in 61, governor in Farther Spain, where he
utilized his position to free himself from his debts, and to
lay the foundation of the military position he desired for
himself. Returning in 60 B. C., he readily relinquished his
claim to a triumph, in order to enter the city in time to
stand for the consulship. … It was quite possible that the
aristocracy might be strong enough to defeat the candidature
of Cæsar, as it had defeated that of Catilina; and again, the
consulship was not enough; an extraordinary command, secured
to him for several years, was necessary for the fulfilment of
his purpose. Without allies such a command could not be hoped
for; and allies were found where they had been found ten years
before, in Pompeius and Crassus, and in the rich equestrian
class. Such a treaty was suicide on the part of Pompeius; …
but he had drifted into a situation so awkward that he was
glad to be released from it on any terms. … The bargain was
struck in the summer of 60 B. C. [forming what became known in
Roman history as the First Triumvirate]. Cæsar was promised
the consulship and a governorship afterwards; Pompeius, the
ratification of his arrangements in the East, and land for his
soldiers; Crassus received no definite equivalent, but the
capitalists were promised a remission of part of the money
they had undertaken to pay for the lease of the Asiatic taxes.
… Cæsar was easily elected consul for 59 B. C. All that the
exertions of the Senate could do was to give him an
aristocratic colleague in Marcus Bibulus. Cæsar at once
proceeded to fulfil his obligations to Pompeius by proposing
an agrarian law. All remaining Italian domain land, which
meant practically the territory of Capua, was to be given up
to allotments, and other estates in Italy were to be purchased
out of the revenues of the new Eastern provinces. The soldiers
were simply recommended to the commission, and thus the
principle of giving rewards of land for military service was
not asserted. The execution of the bill was to be entrusted to
a commission of twenty. … At length all these proposals were
passed by the assembly [after rejection by the Senate], and
the commission of twenty, with Pompeius and Crassus at their
head, began the execution of the agrarian law. Now that the
first victory was won, the coalition was able to carry out the
rest of its programme without much difficulty. … It was
determined by the confederates that Cæsar should be invested
by decree of the people with a special command resembling that
lately held by Pompeius. Accordingly the tribune Vatinius
submitted to the tribes a proposal which was at once adopted.
By it Cæsar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, and
the supreme command of the three legions stationed there, for
five years, with the rank of proprætor for his adjutants. His
jurisdiction extended southwards as far as the Rubicon, and
included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently the province of Narbo
was added by the Senate, on the motion of Pompeius. … Cæsar
had hardly laid down his consulship when it was proposed, in
the Senate, to annul the Julian laws. …

See JULIAN LAWS.

The regents determined to make examples of some of the most
determined of their opponents." Cicero was accordingly sent
into exile, by a resolution of the tribes, and Cato was
appointed to an odious public mission, which carried him out
of the way, to Cyprus.

_T. Mommsen,
History of the Roman Republic,
(abridged by Bryan and Hendy),
chapter 33._

ALSO IN
_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 3, chapters 17-20._

_C. Middleton,
Life of Cicero,
section 4_.

_Napoleon III.,
History of Julius Cæsar,
chapters 3-4._

ROME: B. C. 58-51.
Cæsar's conquest of Gaul.

See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.

ROME: B. C. 57-52.
Effect of Cæsar's Gallic victories.
Return of Cicero from exile.
New arrangements of the Triumvirs.
Cæsar's Proconsulship extended.
The Trebonian Law.
Disaster and death of Crassus at Carrhæ.
Increasing anarchy in the city.

"In Rome the enemies of Cæsar … were awed into silence [by his
victorious career in Gaul], and the Senate granted the
unprecedented honour of fifteen days' 'supplicatio' to the
gods for the brilliant successes in Gaul. Among the supporters
of this motion was, as Cæsar learnt in the winter from the
magistrates and senators who came to pay court to him at
Ravenna, M. Tullius Cicero. From the day of his exile the
efforts to secure his return had begun, but it was not until
the 4th of August that the Senate, led by the consul, P.
Lentulus Spinther, carried the motion for his return, in spite
of the violence of the armed gang of Clodius, and summoned all
the country tribes to crowd the comitia on Campus Martius, and
ratify the senatus consultum.
{2690}
The return of the great orator to the country which he had
saved in the terrible days of 63 B. C. was more like a triumph
than the entrance of a pardoned criminal. … But he had come
back on sufferance; the great Three must be conciliated. …
Cicero, like many other optimates in Rome, was looking for the
beginnings of a breach between Pompeius, Crassus and Cæsar,
and was anxious to nourish any germs of opposition to the
triple-headed monarchy. He pleaded against Cæsar's friend
Vatinius, and he gave notice of a motion for checking the
action of the agrarian law in Campania. But these signs of an
independent opposition were suddenly terminated by a
humiliating recantation; for before entering upon his third
campaign Cæsar crossed the Apennines, and appeared at the
Roman colony of Lucca. … Two hundred senators crowded to the
rendezvous, but arrangements were made by the Three very
independently of Senate in Rome or Senate in Lucca. It was
agreed that Pompeius and Crassus should hold a joint
consulship again next year, and before the expiration of
Cæsar's five years they were to secure his reappointment for
another five. … Unfortunate Cicero was awed, and in his other
speeches of this year tried to win the favor of the great men
by supporting their proposed provincial arrangements, and
pleading in defence of Cæsar's friend and protege, L. Balbus."
In the year 55 B. C. the Trebonian Law was passed, "which gave
to Crassus and Pompeius, as proconsular provinces, Syria and
Spain, for the extraordinary term of five years. In this
repeated creation of extraordinary powers in favor of the
coalition of dynasts, Cato rightly saw an end of republican
institutions. … Crassus … started in 54 B. C., at the head of
seven legions, in face of the combined opposition of tribunes
and augurs, to secure the eastern frontier of Roman dominion
by vanquishing the Parthian power, which, reared on the ruins
of the kingdom of the Seleucids, was now supreme in Ctesiphon
and Seleucia. Led into the desert by the Arab Sheikh Abgarus,
acting as a traitor, the Roman army was surrounded by the
fleet Parthian horsemen, who could attack and retreat,
shooting their showers of missiles all the time. In the
blinding sand and sun of the desert near Carrhæ [on the river
Belik, one of the branches of the Euphrates, the supposed site
of the Haran of Biblical history], Crassus experienced a
defeat which took its rank with Cannæ and the Arausio. A few
days afterwards (June 9th, 53 B. C.) he was murdered in a
conference to which the commander of the Parthian forces
invited him. … The shock of this event went through the Roman
world, and though Cassius, the lieutenant of Crassus,
retrieved the honour of the Roman arms against the Parthians
in the following year, that agile people remained to the last
unconquered, and the Roman boundary was never to advance
further to the east. Crassus, then, was dead, and Pompeius,
though he lent Cæsar a legion at the beginning of the year,
was more ready to assume the natural antagonism to Cæsar,
since the death of his wife Julia in September, 54 B. C., had
broken a strong tie with his father-in-law. Further, the
condition of the capital seemed reaching a point of anarchy at
which Pompeius, as the only strong man on the spot, would have
to be appointed absolute dictator. In 53 B. C. no consuls
could, in the violence and turmoil of the comitia, be elected
until July, and the year closed without any elections having
taken place for 52 B. C. T. Annius Milo, who was a candidate
for the consulship, and P. Clodius, who was seeking the
prætorship, turned every street of Rome into a gladiatorial
arena." In January Clodius was killed. "Pompeius was waiting
in his new gardens near the Porta Carmentalis, until a
despairing government should invest him with dictatorial
power; he was altogether too timid and too constitutional to
seize it. But with Cato in Rome no one dared mention the word
dictator. Pompeius, disappointed, was named sole consul on the
4th of February [B. C. 52], and by July he had got as his
colleague his new father-in-law, Metellus."

_R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 29._

ALSO IN
_W. Forsyth,
Life of Cicero,
chapters 13-16 (volumes 1-2)._

_C. Merivale,
The Roman Triumvirates,
chapter 5._

_G. Rawlinson,
The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 11._

ROME: B. C. 55-54.
Cæsar's invasions of Britain.

See BRITAIN: B. C. 55-54.

ROME: B. C. 52-50.
Rivalry of Pompeius and Cæsar.
Approach of the crisis.
Cæsar's legions in motion towards the capital.

"Cæsar had long ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as
had Pompey, for that matter, upon his. For Crassus, the fear
of whom had hitherto kept them in peace, having now been
killed in Parthia, if the one of them wished to make himself
the greatest man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other;
and if he again wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing
for it but to be beforehand with him whom he feared. Pompey
had not been long under any such apprehensions, having till
lately despised Cæsar, as thinking it no difficult matter to
put down him whom he himself had advanced. But Cæsar had
entertained this design from the beginning against his rivals,
and had retired, like an expert wrestler, to prepare himself
apart for the combat. Making the Gallic wars his
exercise-ground, he had at once improved the strength of his
soldiery, and had heightened his own glory by his great
actions, so that he was looked on as one who might challenge
comparison with Pompey. Nor did he let go any of those
advantages which were now given him, both by Pompey himself
and the times, and the ill government of Rome, where all who
were candidates for office publicly gave money, and without
any shame bribed the people, who, having received their pay,
did not contend for their benefactors with their bare
suffrages, but with bows, swords and slings. So that after
having many times stained the place of election with the blood
of men killed upon the spot, they left the city at last
without a government at all, to be carried about like a ship
without a pilot to steer her; while all who had any wisdom
could only be thankful if a course of such wild and stormy
disorder and madness might end no worse than in a monarchy.
Some were so bold as to declare openly that the government was
incurable but by a monarchy, and that they ought to take that
remedy from the hands of the gentlest physician, meaning
Pompey, who, though in words he pretended to decline it, yet
in reality made his utmost efforts to be declared dictator.
{2691}
Cato, perceiving his design, prevailed with the Senate to make
him sole consul [B. C. 52], that with the offer of a more
legal sort of monarchy he might be withheld from demanding the
dictatorship. They over and above voted him the continuance of
his provinces, for he had two, Spain and all Africa, which he
governed by his lieutenants, and maintained armies under him,
at the yearly charge of a thousand talents out of the public
treasury. Upon this Cæsar also sent and petitioned for the
consulship, and the continuance of his provinces. Pompey at
first did not stir in it, but Marcellus and Lentulus opposed
it, who had always hated Cæsar, and now did everything,
whether fit or unfit, which might disgrace and affront him.
For they took away the privilege of Roman citizens from the
people of New Comum, who were a colony that Cæsar had lately
planted in Gaul; and Marcellus, who was then consul, ordered
one of the senators of that town, then at Rome, to be whipped
[B. C. 51], and told him he laid that mark upon him to signify
he was no citizen of Rome, bidding him, when he went back
again, to show it to Cæsar. After Marcellus's consulship,
Cæsar began to lavish gifts upon all the public men out of the
riches he had taken from the Gauls; discharged Curio, the
tribune, from his great debts; gave Paulus, then consul, 1,500
talents, with which he built the noble court of justice
adjoining the forum, to supply the place of that called the
Fulvian. Pompey, alarmed at these preparations, now openly
took steps, both by himself and his friends, to have a
successor appointed in Cæsar's room, and sent to demand back
the soldiers whom he had lent him to carry on the wars in
Gaul. Cæsar returned them, and made each soldier a present of
250 drachmas. The officer who brought them home to Pompey,
spread amongst the people no very fair or favorable report of
Cæsar, and flattered Pompey himself with false suggestions
that he was wished for by Cæsar's army; and though his affairs
here were in some embarrassment through the envy of some, and
the ill state of the government, yet there the army was at his
command, and if they once crossed into Italy, would presently
declare for him; so weary were they of Cæsar's endless
expeditions, and so suspicious of his designs for a monarchy.
Upon this Pompey grew presumptuous, and neglected all warlike
preparations, as fearing no danger. … Yet the demands which
Cæsar made had the fairest colors of equity imaginable. For he
proposed to lay down his arms, and that Pompey should do the
same, and both together should become private men, and each
expect a reward of his services from the public. For that
those who proposed to disarm him, and at the same time to
confirm Pompey in all the power he held, were simply
establishing the one in the tyranny which they accused the
other of aiming at. When Curio made these proposals to the
people in Cæsar's name, he was loudly applauded, and some
threw garlands towards him, and dismissed him as they do
successful wrestlers, crowned with flowers. Antony, being
tribune, produced a letter sent from Cæsar on this occasion,
and read it, though the consuls did what they could to oppose
it. But Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, proposed in the
Senate, that if Cæsar did not lay down his arms within such a
time, he should be voted an enemy; and the consuls putting it
to the question, whether Pompey should dismiss his soldiers,
and again, whether Cæsar should disband his, very few assented
to the first, but almost all to the latter. But Antony
proposing again, that both should lay down their commissions,
all but a very few agreed to it. Scipio was upon this very
violent, and Lentulus the consul cried aloud, that they had
need of arms, and not of suffrages, against a robber; so that
the senators for the present adjourned, and appeared in
mourning as a mark of their grief for the dissension.
Afterwards there came other letters from Cæsar, which seemed
yet more moderate, for he proposed to quit everything else,
and only to retain Gaul within the Alps, Illyricum, and two
legions, till he should stand a second time for consul.
Cicero, the orator, who was lately returned from Cilicia,
endeavored to reconcile differences, and softened Pompey, who
was willing to comply in other things, but not to allow him
the soldiers. At last Cicero used his persuasions with Cæsar's
friends to accept of the provinces and 6,000 soldiers only,
and so to make up the quarrel. And Pompey was inclined to give
way to this, but Lentulus, the consul, would not hearken to
it, but drove Antony and Curio out of the senate-house with
insults, by which he afforded Caesar [then at Ravenna] the
most plausible pretence that could be, and one which he could
readily use to inflame the soldiers, by showing them two
persons of such repute and authority, who were forced to
escape in a hired carriage in the dress of slaves. For so they
were glad to disguise themselves, when they fled out of Rome.
There were not about him at that time [November, B. C. 50]
above 300 horse, and 5,000 foot: for the rest of his army,
which was left behind the Alps, was to be brought after him by
officers who had received orders for that purpose. But he
thought the first motion towards the design which he had on
foot did not require large forces at present, and that what
was wanted was to make this first step suddenly, and so as to
astound his enemies with the boldness of it. … Therefore, he
commanded his captains and other officers to go only with
their swords in their hands, without any other arms, and make
themselves masters of Ariminum, a large city cf Gaul, with as
little disturbance and bloodshed as possible. He committed the
care of these forces to Hortensius, and himself spent the day
in public as a stander-by and spectator of the gladiators, who
exercised before him. A little before night he attended to his
person, and then went into the hall, and conversed for some
time with those he had invited to supper, till it began to
grow dusk, when he rose from table, and made his excuses to
the company, begging them to stay till he came back, having
already given private directions to a few immediate friends,
that they should follow him, not all the same way, but some
one way, some another. He himself got into one of the hired
carriages, and drove at first another way, but presently
turned towards Ariminum."

_Plutarch,
Cæsar
(Clough's Dryden's translation)_

ALSO IN
_Cæsar,
Commentaries on the Civil War,
book 1, chapters 1-8._

_T. Arnold,
History of the Later Roman Commonwealth,
chapter 8 (volume 1)._

{2692}

ROME: B. C. 50-49.
Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon.
Flight of Pompeius and the Consuls from Italy.
Cæsar at the capital.

"About ten miles from Ariminum, and twice that distance from
Ravenna, the frontier of Italy and Gaul was traced by the
stream of the Rubicon. This little river, red with the
drainage of the peat mosses from which it descends [and
evidently deriving its name from its color], is formed by the
union of three mountain torrents, and is nearly dry in the
summer, like most of the water courses on the eastern side of
the Appenines. In the month of November the winter flood might
present a barrier more worthy of the important position which
it once occupied; but the northern frontier of Italy had long
been secure from invasion, and the channel was spanned by a
bridge of no great dimensions. … The ancients amused
themselves with picturing the guilty hesitation with which the
founder of a line of despots stood, as they imagined, on the
brink of the fatal river [in the night of the 27th of
November, B. C. 50, corrected calendar, or January 15, B. C.
49, without the correction], and paused for an instant before
he committed the irrevocable act, pregnant with the destinies
of a long futurity. Cæsar, indeed, in his Commentaries, makes
no allusion to the passage of the Rubicon, and, at the moment
of stepping on the bridge, his mind was probably absorbed in
the arrangements he had made for the march of his legions or
for their reception by his friends in Ariminum."

_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 14._

After the crossing of the Rubicon there were still more,
messages between Cæsar and Pompey, and the consuls supporting
the latter. "Each demands that the other shall first abandon
his position. Of course, all these messages mean nothing.
Cæsar, complaining bitterly of injustice, sends a portion of
his small army still farther into the Roman territory. Marc
Antony goes to Arezzo with five cohorts, and Cæsar occupies
three other cities with a cohort each. The marvel is that he
was not attacked and driven back by Pompey. We may probably
conclude that the soldiers, though under the command of
Pompey, were not trustworthy as against Cæsar. As Cæsar
regrets his two legions, so no doubt do the two legions regret
their commander. At any rate, the consular forces, with Pompey
and the consuls and a host of senators, retreat southwards to
Brundusium—Brindisi—intending to leave Italy. … During this
retreat, the first blood in the civil war is spilt at
Corfinium, a town which, if it now stood at all, would stand
in the Abruzzi. Cæsar there is victor in a small engagement,
and obtained possession of the town. The Pompeian officers
whom he finds there he sends away, and allows them even to
carry with them money which he believes to have been taken
from the public treasury. Throughout his route southward the
soldiers of Pompey—who had heretofore been his soldiers—return
to him. Pompey and the consuls still retreat, and still Cæsar
follows them, though Pompey had boasted, when first warned to
beware of Cæsar, that he had only to stamp upon Italian soil
and legions would arise from the earth ready to obey him. He
knows, however, that away from Rome, in her provinces, in
Macedonia and Achaia, in Asia and Cilicia, in Sicily,
Sardinia, and Africa, in Mauritania and the two Spains, there
are Roman legions which as yet know no Cæsar. It may be better
for Pompey that he should stamp his foot somewhere out of
Italy. At any rate he sends the obedient consuls and his
attendant senators over to Dyrrhachium in Illyria with a part
of his army, and follows with the remainder as soon as Cæsar
is at his heels. Cæsar makes an effort to intercept him and
his fleet, but in that he fails. Thus Pompey deserts Rome and
Italy,—and never again sees the imperial city or the fair
land. Cæsar explains to us why he does not follow his enemy
and endeavour at once to put an end to the struggle. Pompey is
provided with shipping and he is not; and he is aware that the
force of Rome lies in her provinces. Moreover, Rome may be
starved by Pompey, unless he, Cæsar, can take care that the
corn-growing countries, which are the granaries of Rome, are
left free for the use of the city."

_A. Trollope,
The Commentaries of Cæsar,
chapter 9._

Turning back from Brundisium, Cæsar proceeded to Rome to take
possession of the seat of government which his enemies had
abandoned to him. He was scrupulous of legal forms, and, being
a proconsul, holding military command, did not enter the city
in person. But he called together, outside of the walls, such
of the senators as were in Rome and such as could be persuaded
to return to the city, and obtained their formal sanction to
various acts. Among the measures so authorized was the
appropriation of the sacred treasure stored up in the vaults
of the temple of Saturn. It was a consecrated reserve, to be
used for no purpose except the repelling of a Gallic invasion
which had been, for many generations, the greatest dread of
Rome. Cæsar claimed it, because he had put an end to that
fear, by conquering the Gauls. His stay at Rome on this
occasion (April, B. C. 49) was brief, for he needed to make
haste to encounter the Pompeian legions in Spain, and to
secure the submission of all the west before he followed
Pompeius into the Eastern world.

_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 1-4._

ALSO IN
J_. A. Froude,
Cæsar,
chapter 21._

ROME: B. C. 49.
Cæsar's first campaign against the Pompeians in Spain.
His conquest of Massilia.

In Spain, all the strong forces of the country were commanded
by partisans of Pompeius and the Optimate party. Cæsar had
already sent forward C. Fabius from Southern Gaul with three
legions, to take possession of the passes of the Pyrenees and
the principal Spanish roads. Following quickly in person, he
found that his orders had been vigorously obeyed. Fabius was
confronting the Pompeian generals, Afranius and Petreius at
Ilerda (modern Lerida in Catalonia), on the river Sicoris
(modern Segre), where they made their stand. They had five
legions of well-trained veterans, besides native auxiliaries
to a considerable number. Cæsar's army, with the
reinforcements that he had added to it, was about the same.
The Pompeians had every advantage of position, commanding the
passage of the river by a permanent bridge of stone and
drawing supplies from both banks. Cæsar, on the other hand,
had great difficulty in maintaining his communications, and
was placed in mortal peril by a sudden flood which destroyed
his bridges. Yet, without any general battle, by pure
strategic skill and by resistless energy, he forced the
hostile army out of its advantageous position, intercepted its
retreat and compelled an unconditional surrender. This Spanish
campaign, which occupied but forty days, and which was
decisive of the contest for all Spain, was one of the finest
of Cæsar's military achievements.
{2693}
The Greek city of Massilia (modern Marseilles), still
nominally independent and the ally of Rome, although
surrounded by the Roman conquests in Gaul, had seen fit to
range itself on the side of Pompeius and the Optimates, and to
close its gates in the face of Cæsar, when he set out for his
campaign in Spain. He had not hesitated to leave three legions
of his moderate army before the city, while he ordered a fleet
to be built at Arelates (Arles), for coöperation in the siege.
Decimus Brutus commanded the fleet and Trebonius was the
general of the land force. The siege was made notable by
remarkable engineering operations on both sides, but the
courage of the Massiliots was of no long endurance. When Cæsar
returned from his Spanish campaign he found them ready to
surrender. Notwithstanding they had been guilty of a great act
of treachery during the siege, by breaking an armistice, he
spared their city, on account, he said, of its name and
antiquity. His soldiers, who had expected rich booty, were
offended, and a dangerous mutiny, which occurred soon
afterwards at Placentia, had this for its main provocation.

_Cæsar,
The Civil War,
book 1, chapters 36-81,
and book 2, chapters 1-22._

ALSO IN
_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 5 and 8._

_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 15-16._

ROME: B. C. 48.
The war in Epirus and Thessaly.
Cæsar's decisive victory at Pharsalia.

Having established his authority in Italy, Gaul and Spain, and
having legalized it by procuring from the assembly of the
Roman citizens his formal election to the consulship, for the
year A. U. 706 (B. C. 48), Cæsar prepared to follow Pompeius
and the Senatorial party across the Adriatic. As the calendar
then stood, it was in January that he arrived at Brundisium to
take ship; but the season corresponded with November in the
calendar as Cæsar, himself, corrected it soon afterwards. The
vessels at his command were so few that he could transport
only 15,500 of his troops on the first expedition, and it was
with that number that he landed at Palæste on the coast of
Epirus. The sea was swarming with the fleets of his enemies,
and, although he escaped them in going, his small squadron was
caught on the return voyage and many of its ships destroyed.
Moreover, the Pompeian cruisers became so vigilant that the
second detachment of his army, left behind at Brundisium,
under Marcus Antonius, found no opportunity to follow him
until the winter had nearly passed. Meantime, with his small
force, Cæsar proceeded boldly into Macedonia to confront
Pompeius, reducing fortresses and occupying towns as he
marched. Although his great antagonist had been gathering
troops in Macedonia for months, and now numbered an army of
some 90,000 or 100,000 men, it was Cæsar, not Pompeius, who
pressed for a battle, even before Mark Antony had joined him.
As soon as the junction had occurred he pushed the enemy with
all possible vigor. But Pompeius had no confidence in his
untrained host. He drew his whole army into a strongly
fortified, immense camp, on the sea coast near Dyrrhachium, at
a point called Petra, and there he defied Cæsar to dislodge
him. The latter undertook to wall him in on the land-side of
his camp, by a line of ramparts and towers seventeen miles in
length. It was an undertaking too great for his force.
Pompeius made a sudden flank movement which disconcerted all
his plans, and so defeated and demoralized his men that he was
placed in extreme peril for a time. Had the Senatorial chief
shown half of Cæsar's energy at that critical moment, the
cause of Cæsar would probably have been lost. But Pompeius and
his party took time to rejoice over their victory, while Cæsar
framed plans to repair his defeat. He promptly abandoned his
lines before the enemy's camp and fell back into the interior
of the country, to form a junction with certain troops which
he had previously sent eastward to meet reënforcements then
coming to Pompeius. He calculated that Pompeius would follow
him, and Pompeius did so. The result was to give Cæsar, at
last, the opportunity he had been seeking for months, to
confront with his tried legions the motley levies of his
antagonist on an open field. The decisive and ever memorable
battle was fought in Thessaly, on the plain of Pharsalia,
through which flows the river Enipeus, and overlooking which,
from a contiguous height, stood anciently the city of
Pharsalus. It was fought on the 9th of August, in the year 48
before Christ. It was a battle quickly ended. The
foot-soldiers of Pompeius out-numbered those of Cæsar at least
as two to one; but they could not stand the charge which the
latter made upon them. His cavalry was largely composed of the
young nobility of Rome, and Cæsar had few horsemen with which
to meet them; but he set against them a strong reserve of his
sturdy veterans on foot, and they broke the horsemen's ranks.
The defeat was speedily a rout; there was no rallying.
Pompeius fled with a few attendants and made his way to
Alexandria, where his tragical fate overtook him. Some of the
other leaders escaped in different directions. Some, like
Brutus, submitted to Cæsar, who was practically the master,
from that hour, of the Roman realm, although Thapsus had still
to be fought.

_Cæsar,
The Civil War,
book 3._

ALSO IN
_W. W. Fowler,
Julius Cæsar,
chapter 16._

_G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 10-17._

_T. A. Dodge,
Cæsar,
chapters 31-35._

ROME: B. C. 48-47.
Pursuit or Pompeius to Egypt.
His assassination.
Cæsar at Alexandria, with Cleopatra.
The rising against him.
His peril.
His deliverance.

See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47.

ROME: B. C. 47-46.
Cæsar's overthrow or Pharnaces at Zela.
His return to Rome.
The last stand or his opponents in Africa.
Their defeat at Thapsus.