Chapter VIII: Events of the Year 703

[Sidenote: New Troubles in Gaul, and the Campaign on the Aisne.]

I. The capture of Alesia and the defeat of the army of succour, composed of all the contingents of Gaul, must have encouraged the hope that the war was ended; but the popular waves, like those of the ocean, once agitated, require time to calm them. In 703, disturbances broke out on several points at the same time. Cæsar, who was wintering at Bibracte, was obliged to proceed with two legions into Berry, and, some time afterwards, into the country of Orleans, to restore order there; next he marched against the people of Beauvais, whose resistance threatened to be the more formidable, as they had taken but a slight part at the siege of Alesia. After having assembled four legions, he established his camp on Mont Saint-Pierre, in the forest of Compiègne, opposite the Gauls, who were posted on Mont Saint-Marc. At the end of a few weeks, unable to draw them to quit their post, and not considering his forces sufficient to surround on all sides the mountain which they occupied, he sent for three other legions, and then threatened to invest their camp, as had happened at Alesia. The Gauls left their position, and retired upon Mont Ganelon, from whence they sent troops to lay in ambush in the forest, in order to fall upon the Romans when they went to forage. The result was a combat in the plain of Choisy-au-Bac, in which the Gauls were defeated, and which led to the submission of the whole country. After this expedition, Cæsar turned his attention to the country situated between the Rhine and the Meuse, the populations of which, in spite of the hard lesson of 701, were again raising the standard of revolt under Ambiorix. The whole country was committed to fire and sword; but the invaders could not lay hold of the person of that implacable enemy of the Roman name.

The remains of the old Gaulish bands had united on the left bank of the Loire, the constant refuge of the last defenders of their country, and were still displaying an energy sufficient to give uneasiness to the conquerors. They joined Dumnacus, the chief of the Angevins, who was besieging, in Poitiers, Duratius, a Gaulish chief faithful to the Romans. Cæsar’s lieutenants, Caninius Rebilus and C. Fabius, obliged Dumnacus to raise the siege, and defeated his army.

During this time, Drappes of Sens and Lucterius of Cahors, who had escaped from the last battle, attempted to invade the Roman province; but, pursued by Rebilus, they threw themselves into the fortress of Uxellodunum (_le Puy d’Issolu_), where the last focus of the insurrection was destined to be extinguished. After a battle outside the fortress, in which the Romans were victorious, Drappes fell into their power; Rebilus and Fabius continued the siege. But the courage of the besieged rendered useless the efforts of the besiegers. At this conjuncture Cæsar arrived there. Seeing that the place, being obstinately defended and abundantly provisioned, could not be reduced either by force or by famine, he conceived the idea of depriving the besieged of water. For this purpose, a subterranean gallery was carried to the veins of the spring which, alone, supplied their wants. It became instantly dry. The Gauls, taking this circumstance for a prodigy, believed they saw in it a manifestation of the will of the gods, and surrendered. Cæsar inflicted on the heroic defenders of Uxellodunum an atrocious punishment: he caused their hands to be cut off; an unpardonable act of cruelty, even although it might have appeared necessary.

These events accomplished, he visited Aquitaine for the first time, with two legions, and saw his authority accepted everywhere. He subsequently proceeded to Narbonne, and from thence to Arras, where he established his head-quarters for the winter. Labienus, on his side, had obtained the complete submission of the country of Trèves.

[Sidenote: Cæsar’s Policy in Gaul and at Rome.]

II. After eight years of sanguinary struggles, Gaul was subdued, and thenceforward, far from meeting enemies in it, Cæsar was destined to find only auxiliaries.

His policy had contributed as much as his arms to this result. Instead of seeking to reduce Gaul into a Roman province, the great captain had applied himself to founding the supremacy of the Republic on powerful alliances, making the conquered countries subject to the states of which he was sure, and leaving to each people its chiefs and its institutions, and to Gaul entire its general assemblies.

It may have been remarked with what consideration Cæsar, in all his wars, deals with the countries which offer him their co-operation, and with what generous ability he treats them. Thus, in his first campaign, he raises the Burgundians from the state of inferiority in which they were held by the people of Franche-Comté, and re-establishes them in possession of their hostages and of their rights of patronage over the states which were their clients;[773] yielding to their prayer, in the second campaign, he pardons the people of Beauvais;[774] in the sixth, the inhabitants of Sens.[775] In 702, the auxiliary troops furnished by the Burgundians revolt; yet he takes no vengeance upon them; the same year these people massacre the Roman merchants: they expect terrible reprisals, and send to implore pardon; Cæsar replies to their deputies that he is far from wishing to throw on the whole country the fault of a few; lastly, when, under the influence of the national feeling, their contingents have taken part in the general insurrection, and are defeated before Alise, instead of reducing them to captivity, Cæsar gives them their liberty. He behaves in the same manner towards the people of Rheims, whose influence he augments by granting their petitions in favour, at one time of the people of Soissons,[776] at another of the inhabitants of Orléanais.[777] He restores similarly to the inhabitants of Auvergne their contingent vanquished at Alise; to the people of Artois, he remits all tribute, restores their laws, and places the territory of the Boulonnaise in subjection to them.[778] In each of his campaigns he follows an equally generous policy towards his allies.

The chiefs whom Cæsar places over the governments of the different states are not chosen arbitrarily; he takes them from the ancient families who have reigned over the country; often even he does no more than confirm the result of a free election. He maintains Ambiorix at the head of the people of Liége, restores to him his son and nephew, prisoners of the people of Namur, and frees him from the tribute which he paid to that people.[779] He gives to the people of Orleans for their chief Tasgetius, and to the inhabitants of Sens, Cavarinus, both issued from families which had possessed the sovereignty.[780] He appoints, as King of Artois, Commius,[781] who, nevertheless, as well as Ambiorix, subsequently revolted against him. In presence of the principal personages of the country of the Treviri, he decides between rival ambitions, and pronounces for Cingetorix,[782] whom he calls to the power. Again, he recognises Convictolitavis as chief of the Burgundians.[783] We can pardon Cæsar some acts of cruel vengeance, when we consider how far his age was still a stranger to the sentiments of humanity, and how far a victorious general must have been provoked to see those whose oath of fidelity he had received, and whom he had loaded with honours, incessantly revolting against his authority.

Almost every year he convokes the assembly of Gaul,[784] either at Lutetia, or at Rheims, or at Bibracte, and he only imposes on the people the rights of the conqueror after having called them to discuss in his presence their several interests; he presides over them more as a protector than as a conqueror. Finally, when the last remains of the insurrection have been annihilated at Uxellodunum (_Puy d’Issolu_), he proceeds to pass the winter in Belgium; there he strives to render obedience more easy to the vanquished, brings into the exercise of power more of leniency and justice, and introduces among these races, still savages, the benefits of civilisation. Such was the efficacy of these measures that, when, finally abandoning Gaul, he was obliged to withdraw his legions from it, the country, formerly so agitated, remained calm and tranquil; the transformation was complete, and, instead of enemies, he left on the other side of the Alps a people always ready to furnish him with numerous soldiers for his new wars.[785]

When we see a man of eminence devote himself, during nine years, with so much perseverance and skill, to the greatness of his country, we ask how so many animosities and rancours could rise against him in Rome. But this angry feeling is explained by the regret and vexation, very excusable indeed, which the privileged castes feel when a system which has, during several centuries, been the cause of their power and of the glory of the country, has just given way under the irresistible action of new ideas; this hatred fell upon Cæsar as the most dangerous promoter of these ideas. It is true that people accused his ambition; in reality, it was his convictions openly pronounced which had long provoked hostility.

Cæsar began his political career with a trial which is always honourable, persecution supported for a good cause. The popular party then rested for support on the memory of Marius; Cæsar did not hesitate in reviving it with glory. Hence the prestige which surrounded him, in his youth, and which ceased not to grow with him. The constancy of his principles gained him all the honours and all the dignities which were conferred upon him; named successively military tribune, quæstor, grand pontiff, guardian of the Appian Way, ædile, urban prætor, proprætor in Spain, and lastly consul, he might consider these different testimonies of public favour as so many victories gained under the same flag against the same enemies. This was the motive of the violent passions of the aristocracy: it made a single man responsible for the decay of an order of things which was falling into the abyss of corruption and anarchy.

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.[786] 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.

[Sidenote: 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?”[787] 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.[788] 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.[789] 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.[790]

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.[791] 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,[792] and commanded by two generals who had never seen war.

[Sidenote: 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.[793] Cæsar had sent thither 5,000 colonists, of whom 500 were Greeks,[794] 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,[795] 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.”[796] 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;”[797] Faustus, Sylla, Lentulus, Scipio, Libo, and so many others, sought to elevate themselves by civil war, and to recover their fortune by pillage;[798] 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!”[799] 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,[800] 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.[801]

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.’”[802] 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;”[803] 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.[804]

[Sidenote: 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,[805] which ought not to surprise us, inasmuch as Cicero himself found the question obscure.[806]

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.[807] 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.[808] 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,[809] 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.[810] Accordingly, Hirtius informs us that, in 703, the Gauls knew that Cæsar had but one summer, that of 704, to pass in Gaul.[811] Dio Cassius says similarly that Cæsar’s power was to end with the year 704.[812] 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.[813] 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?”[814] Some time afterwards, apostrophising Cæsar in a letter to Atticus,[815] 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.[816] 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.[817]

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.[818] 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.[819] 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.[820] This advantage Cæsar calls _beneficium populi_;[821] 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.[822]

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.[823] 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.

[Sidenote: 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.[824] 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.”[825] 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.[826] 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.[827] 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.[828]

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.[829] 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.[830] 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.[831] 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_.[832] From that time he took this title in the subscription of his letters.[833]