Chapter XXII: Cæsar and Pompey (1)

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE

[Sidenote: [60-59 B.C.]]

Cæsar had taken his departure for Spain before Pompey’s return. In that province he availed himself of some disturbances on the Lusitanian border to declare war against that gallant people. He overran their country, and turned his arms against the Gallæcians, who seem to have been unmolested since the days of Dec. Brutus. In two campaigns he became master of spoils sufficient not only to pay off a great portion of his debts, but also to enrich his soldiery. There can be no doubt that he must have acted with great severity to wring these large sums from the native Spaniards; indeed he never took thought for the sufferings of people not subject to Roman sway. But he was careful not to be guilty of oppression towards the provincials; and his rule in the Spanish provinces was long remarked for its equitable adjustment of debts due to Roman tax-collectors.[b]

Cæsar, who by expeditions against the Lusitanians had, as he considered, gained sufficient materials for a triumph, and was anxious to obtain the consulate, hastened home when the time of the elections was at hand (60). As there was no room for delay, he applied to the senate for permission to enter the city before his triumph in order to canvass the people; but Cato and his friends opposing, it was refused. Cæsar, who was not a man to sacrifice the substance for the show, gave up the triumph; and entering the city formed a coalition with L. Lucceius, a man of wealth who was also a candidate, of which the terms were that Lucceius should distribute money in his own and Cæsar’s name conjointly, and Cæsar in like manner give him a share in his influence. The nobles, when they saw this coalition, resolved to exert all their interest in favour of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the other candidate, and, with even Cato’s consent, authorised him to offer as high as Lucceius, engaging to raise the money among them. Bibulus therefore was elected with Cæsar, whose daring projects the senate thus hoped to restrain.

Cæsar, who well knew the character of Pompey, resolved to make him and Crassus the ladder of his ambition. He represented to them how absurd their jealousy and enmity was, which only gave importance to such people as Cato and Cicero; whereas if they three were united they might command the state. They saw the truth of what he said, and each blinded by his vanity and ambition, expecting to derive the greatest advantage from it, agreed to the coalition; and thus was formed a triumvirate, as it is termed, or confederacy, bound by a secret pledge that no measure displeasing to any one of the parties should be allowed to pass.

Cæsar, as soon as he entered on his office (59), introduced an agrarian law for dividing the public land among Pompey’s soldiers and the poorer citizens; purchasing it however from the present possessors, and appointing twenty commissioners to carry the law into effect, among whom were to be Pompey and Crassus. This law, to which they could make no objection, was highly displeasing to the adverse party in the senate, who suspected Cæsar’s ulterior designs, and Cato declared strongly against any change. Cæsar ordered a lictor to drag him off to prison; he professed himself ready to go that instant, and several rose to follow him. Cæsar then grew ashamed and desisted, but he dismissed the senate, telling them he would bring the matter at once before the people; and he very rarely called the senate together during his consulate.

He then laid before the people his bill for dividing the lands of Campania, in lots of ten jugera, among twenty thousand poor citizens with three or more children;[105] and being desirous to have some of the principal persons to express their approbation of it, he first addressed his colleague, but Bibulus declared himself adverse to innovation; he then affected to entreat him, asking the people to join with him, as if Bibulus wished they might have it; “Then,” cried Bibulus, “you shall not have it this year even if you all will it,” and went away; Cæsar, expecting a similar refusal from the other magistrates, made no application to them, but bringing forward Pompey and Crassus desired them to say what they thought of the law. Pompey then spoke highly in favour of it, and on Cæsar and the people asking him if he would support them against those who opposed it, he cried, elate with this proof of his importance, “If any man dares to draw a sword I will raise a buckler!” Crassus also expressed his approbation, and as the coalition was a secret, the example of these two leading men induced many others to give their consent and support to the law. Bibulus however was still firm, and he was supported by three of the tribunes; and, as a means of impeding the law, he declared all the remaining days of the year _nefasti_, or holy days. When Cæsar, regardless of his proclamations, fixed a day for passing the law, Bibulus and his friends came to the temple of Castor, whence he was haranguing the people, and attempted to oppose him; but he was pushed down, a basket of dung was flung upon him, his lictors’ _fasces_ were broken, his friends (among whom were Cato and the tribunes) were beaten and wounded, and so the law was passed. Bibulus henceforth did not quit his house, whence he continually issued edicts declaring all that was done on the nefast days to be unlawful. The tribune P. Vatinius, one of Cæsar’s creatures, had even attempted to drag him to prison, but he was opposed by his colleagues.

The senate was required to swear to this law, as formerly to that of Saturninus. Metellus Celer, Cato, and Cato’s imitator Favonius at first declared loudly that they would not do so; but having the fate of Numidicus before their eyes, and knowing the inutility of opposition, they yielded to the remonstrances of their friends.

Having thus gained the people, Cæsar proceeded to secure the knights, and here Cato’s Utopian policy aided him. This most influential body thinking, or pretending, that they had taken the tolls at too high a rate, had applied to the senate for a reduction, but Cato insisted on keeping them to their bargain. Cæsar without heeding him or the senate reduced them at once a third, and thus this self-interested body was detached from the party of the aristocracy, and all Cicero’s work undone. Cæsar now found himself strong enough to keep his promise to Pompey, all whose acts in Asia were confirmed by the people.

[Sidenote: [59-58 B.C.]]

(From a statue)]

The triumvirate, or rather Cæsar, was extremely anxious to gain Cicero over to their side, on account of the influence which he possessed. But though he had a great personal regard for Pompey he rejected all their overtures. Cæsar then resolved to make him feel his resentment, and the best mode seemed to be to let Clodius loose at him. This profligate had long been trying to become a tribune of the people, but for that purpose it was necessary he should be a plebeian, which could only be effected by adoption. His first efforts were unavailing; but when Cicero, in defending his former colleague Antonius, took occasion to make some reflections on the present condition of the commonwealth, Cæsar to punish him had the law for Clodius’ adoption passed at once, Pompey degrading himself by acting as augur on this occasion, in which all the laws and rules on the subject were violated. This affair is said to have been done with such rapidity, that Cicero’s words which gave the offence were only uttered at noon and three hours after Clodius was a plebeian!

Some time after, a knight named L. Vettius, who had been one of Cicero’s informers in the affair of Catiline, being suborned, it is said, by Cæsar, declared that several young noblemen had entered into a plot, in which he himself partook, to murder Pompey; the senate ordered him to prison; next day Cæsar produced him on the rostra, when he omitted some whom he had named to the senate, and added others, among whom were Lucullus and Cicero’s son-in-law Piso, and hinted at Cicero himself. Vettius was taken back to prison, where he was privately murdered by his accomplices, as Cæsar said,--by Cæsar himself, according to others.

The senate, to render Cæsar as innocuous as possible, had, in right of the Sempronian law, assigned the woods and roads as the provinces of the consuls on the expiration of their office. But Cæsar had no idea of being foiled thus; and his creature, the tribune Vatinius, had a law passed by the people, giving him the province of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, with three legions, for five years; and when on the death of Metellus Celer he expressed a wish to have Transalpine Gaul added, the senate, as he would otherwise have applied to the people, granted it to him with another legion. In order to draw the ties more closely between himself and Pompey, he had given him in marriage his lovely and amiable daughter Julia, and he himself married the daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso, whom, with A. Gabinius, a creature of Pompey, the triumvirs had destined for the consulate of the following year. They also secured the tribunate for Clodius; and thus terminated the memorable consulate of Cæsar and Bibulus.

CLODIUS EXILES CICERO

[Sidenote: [58-57 B.C.]]

Clodius lost no time (58) in preparing for his attack on Cicero. To win the people, he proposed a law for distributing corn to them gratis; by another law he re-established the clubs and unions, which the senate had suppressed, and formed new ones out of the dregs of the populace and even of the slaves; by a third law he prohibited any one from watching the heavens on assembly days;[106] by a fourth, to gain the profligate nobility, he forbade the censors to note any senator unless he was openly accused before them, and that they both agreed. He then made sure of the consuls, who were distressed and profligate men, by engaging to get Macedonia and Achaia for Piso as his province, and Syria for Gabinius. Having thus, as he thought, secured the favour of the consuls, the nobility, and the people, and having a sufficient number of ruffians from the clubs and unions at his devotion, he proposed a bill interdicting from fire and water any person who, without sentence of the people, had or should put any citizen to death. Cicero, who, though he was not named, knew that he was aimed at, was so foolish and cowardly as to change his raiment (a thing he afterwards justly regretted), and go about supplicating the people according to custom, as if he were actually accused; but Clodius and his followers met him in all the streets, threw dirt and stones at him, and impeded his supplications. The knights, the young men, and numbers of others, with young Crassus at their head, changed their habits with him and protected him. They also assembled on the Capitol, and sent some of the most respectable of their body on his behalf to the consul Gabinius and the senate, who were in the temple of Concord; but Gabinius would not let them come near the senate, and Clodius had them beaten by his ruffians. On the proposal of the tribune L. Ninnius, the senate decreed that they should change their raiment as in a public calamity; but Gabinius forbade it, and Clodius was at hand with his cut-throats, so that many of them tore their clothes, and rushed out of the temple with loud cries.

Pompey had told Cicero not to fear, and repeatedly promised him his aid; and Cæsar, whose design was only to humble him, had offered to appoint him his legate, to give him an excuse for absenting himself from the city; but Cicero suspecting his object in so doing, and thinking it derogatory to him, had refused it. He now found that Pompey had been deceiving him, for he kept out of the way lest he should be called on to perform his promises. Sooner, as he says, than be the cause of civil tumult and bloodshed, he retired by night from the city, which but five years before he had saved from the associates of those who now expelled him. Cæsar, who had remained in the suburbs waiting for the effect of Clodius’ measures, then set out for his province. When Clodius found that Cicero was gone, he had a bill passed interdicting him from fire and water, and outlawing any person living within four hundred miles of Rome who should entertain him. He burned and destroyed his different villas and his house on the Palatine, the site of which he consecrated to Liberty! His goods were put up to auction, but no one would bid for them; the consuls, however, had taken possession of the more valuable portions of them for themselves.

Cicero, it is much to be lamented, bore his exile with far less equanimity than could have been wished for by the admirers of his really estimable character; his extant letters are filled with the most unmanly complaints, and he justly drew on himself the derision of his enemies. But his was not one of those characters which, based on the high consciousness of worth, derive all their support and consolation from within; it could only unfold its bloom and display its strength beneath the fostering sun of public favour and applause, and Cicero was great nowhere but at Rome. It was his first intention to go to Sicily, but the prætor of that island, C. Virgilius, who had been his intimate friend, wrote desiring him not to enter it. He then passed over to Greece, where he was received with the most distinguished honours, and finally fixed his residence in Macedonia, where the quæstor Cn. Plancius showed him every attention.

Having driven Cicero away, Clodius next proceeded to remove Cato, that he might not be on the spot to impede his measures. He proposed at the same time to gratify an old grudge against the king of Cyprus, the brother of the king of Egypt; for when Clodius was in Asia he chanced to be taken by the pirates, and having no money he applied to the king of Cyprus, who being a miser, sent him only two talents, and the pirates sent the paltry sum back, and set Clodius at liberty without ransom. Clodius kept this conduct in his mind; and just as he entered on his tribunate, the Cypriots happening to send to Rome to complain of their king, he caused a bill to be passed for reducing Cyprus to the form of a province, and for selling the king’s private property; he added in the bill, that this province should be committed to Cato as quæstor, with prætorian power, who (to keep him the longer away from Rome) was also directed to go to Byzantium, and restore the exiles who had been driven thence for their crimes. Cato, we are assured, undertook this most iniquitous commission against his will; he executed it, however, most punctually. He went to Rhodes, whence he sent one of his friends named M. Canidius to Cyprus, to desire the king to resign quietly, offering him the priesthood of the Paphian goddess. Ptolemy however preferred death to degradation, and he took poison. Cato then, not trusting Canidius, sent his nephew, M. Junius Brutus, to look after the property, and went himself to Byzantium, where he effected his object without any difficulty. He then proceeded to Cyprus to sell the late king’s property; and being resolved to make this a model sale, he attended the auction constantly himself, saw that every article was sold to the best advantage, and even offended his friends by not allowing them to get bargains. He thus brought together a sum of seven thousand talents, which he made up in vessels containing two talents five hundred drachmæ each, to which he attached a cord and cork, that they might float in case of shipwreck. He also had two separate accounts of the sale drawn out, one of which he kept, and the other he committed to one of his freedmen, but both happened to be lost, and he had not the gratification of proving his ability of making the most of a property.

When the news that Cato had entered the Tiber with the money reached Rome, priests and magistrates, senate and people, poured out to receive him; but though the consuls and prætors were among them, Cato would not quit his charge till he had brought his vessel into the docks. The people were amazed at the quantity of the wealth, and the senate voted a prætorship to Cato, though he was under the legal age, and permission to appear at the games in a _prætexta_, of which however he took no advantage. No one thought of the iniquity of the whole proceeding; and when Cicero, after his return, wished to annul all the acts of Clodius’ tribunate, Cato opposed him, and this caused a coolness between them for some time.

Cicero had been only two months gone when his friend Ninnius the tribune, supported by seven of his colleagues, made a motion in the senate for his recall. The whole house agreed to it, but one of the other tribunes interposed. Pompey himself was, however, now disposed to join in restoring him, for Clodius’ insolence was gone past his endurance. This ruffian had by stratagem got into his hands the young Tigranes, whom Pompey had given in charge to the prætor L. Flavius. He had promised him his liberty for a large sum of money; and when Pompey demanded him, he put him on board a ship bound for Asia. A storm having driven the vessel into Antium, Flavius went with an armed force to seize the prince, but Sex. Clodius, one of the tribune’s bravos, met him on the Appian road, and, after an engagement in which several were slain on both sides, drove him off. While Pompey was brooding over this insult, one of Clodius’ slaves was seized at the door of the senate-house with a dagger, which he said his master had given him that he might kill Pompey; Clodius’ mob also made frequent attacks on him, so that out of real or pretended fear he resolved to keep his house till the end of the year; indeed he had been actually pursued to and besieged in it one day by a mob, headed by Clodius’ freedman Damio, and the consul Gabinius had to fight in his defence. Pompey therefore now resolved to befriend Cicero; and P. Sextius, one of the tribunes-elect, took a journey into Gaul to obtain Cæsar’s consent. About the end of October the eight tribunes again proposed a law for his recall, and P. Lentulus Spinther, the consul-elect, spoke strongly in favour of it. Lentulus’ colleague, Q. Metellus Nepos, though he had been Cicero’s enemy, seeing how Cæsar and Pompey were inclined, promised his aid, as also did all the tribunes-elect: Clodius, however, soon managed to purchase two of them, namely, Num. Quinctius and Sex. Serranus.

THE RECALL OF CICERO

[Sidenote: [57-56 B.C.]]

On the 1st of January (57) Lentulus moved the senate for Cicero’s recall. L. Cotta said that as he had been expelled without law, he did not require a law for his restoration. Pompey agreed, but said that for Cicero’s sake it would be better if the people had a share in restoring him. The senate were unanimously of this opinion, but the tribune Sex. Serranus interposed. The senate then appointed the 22nd for laying the matter before the people. When that day came, the tribune Q. Fabricius set out before it was light with a party to occupy the rostra; but Clodius had already taken possession of the Forum with his own gladiators, and a band he had borrowed from his brother Appius, and his ordinary troop of ruffians. Fabricius’ party was driven off with the loss of several lives, another tribune, M. Cispius, was treated in a similar manner, and Q. Cicero only saved himself by the aid of his slaves and freedmen. In the picture which Cicero draws in his orations of this scene, the Tiber and the sewers are filled with dead bodies, and the Forum covered with blood as in the time of the contest of Cinna and Octavius.

The contest was renewed with daylight, and the tribune Sextius was pierced with twenty wounds and left for dead. Clodius then, elate with his victory, burned the temple of the Nymphs, where the books of the censors were kept; and he attacked the houses of the prætor L. Cæcilius, and the tribune T. Annius Milo. The latter impeached Clodius, _de vi_, but his brother Appius the prætor, and the consul Metellus, screened him, and meantime aided his suit for the ædileship, which would protect him for another year. Milo then, to repel force by force, also purchased a band of gladiators, and daily conflicts occurred in the streets.

The senate, resolved not to be thus bullied, directed the magistrates to summon well-affected voters from all parts of Italy. They came in great numbers from every town and district. Pompey, who was then at Capua, exerted himself greatly in the affair. Encouraged by their presence the senate passed a decree in proper form for Cicero’s restoration; but Clodius still was able to prevent its ratification by the people. The senate then met on the Capitol; Pompey spoke highly in praise of Cicero; others followed him; Metellus, who had been playing a double part all through, ceased to oppose, and a decree was passed, Clodius alone dissenting. The senate met again the next day; and Pompey and the other leading men having previously addressed the people, and told them all that had been said, the law was made ready to be laid before the centuries; on the 4th of August the centuries met on the Field of Mars and by a unanimous vote Cicero was recalled.

That very day Cicero sailed from Dyrrhachium, and the following day he landed at Brundusium. He advanced leisurely towards Rome, the people poured out from every town and village as he passed to congratulate him, and all ranks and orders at Rome received him at the Capena Gate (Sept. 4). Next day he returned thanks to the senate; and to prove his gratitude to Pompey, he was the proposer of a law giving him the superintendence of the corn trade for a term of five years, and Pompey in return made him his first legate. The senate decreed that Cicero’s house and villas should be rebuilt at the public expense. Cicero then asserted that as Clodius had become a plebeian in an illegal manner, all the acts of his tribunate were equally so, and should be annulled. But here he was opposed by Cato, whose vanity took alarm, and who feared lest he should lose the fame of the ability with which he had conducted the robbery of the king of Cyprus; and this produced a coolness between him and Cicero, who also was disgusted, and with reason, with the conduct of several of the other leaders of the aristocratic party, at which we need not be surprised when we find them, purely to annoy Pompey, aiding Clodius so effectually that he was chosen ædile without opposition (56). This pest of Rome immediately accused Milo of the very crime (_de vi_) of which he had been accused himself. Pompey appeared and spoke for Milo, and it came to a regular engagement between their respective partisans, in which the Clodians were worsted and driven off the Forum. Pompey now saw that Crassus was at the bottom of all the insults offered him, and that Bibulus and others of the nobles were anxious to destroy his influence, and he resolved to unite himself more closely than ever with Cæsar in order to counteract their intrigues.

Cicero at this time abstained as much as he could from public affairs, attending entirely to the bar. To understand his conduct we must keep his known character in view, in which vanity and timidity were prominent; but he was also grateful, placable, and humane. He had all his life had a strong personal affection for Pompey, and he was now full of admiration for the exploits of Cæsar in Gaul, by whom he was moreover treated with the utmost consideration, while he was disgusted with the paltry conduct of the leading aristocrats. Hence we find him, at the request of Cæsar or Pompey, employing his eloquence in the defence of even his personal enemies, and doing things for which we sometimes must pity, sometimes despise him. It is pleasing, however, to behold the triumph of his eloquence in the defence of his friend Sextius, whom the Clodians had the audacity to prosecute _de vi_, for not having died, we may suppose, of his wounds. Cicero also carried a motion in the senate, that as there was not money in the treasury to purchase the Campanian lands, which by Cæsar’s law were to be divided, the act itself should be reconsidered. Finding, however, that this was highly displeasing to Cæsar and Pompey, and that those who applauded him for it did it because they expected it would produce a breach between the latter and him, he thought it best to consult his interest, and therefore dropped it.[107]

SECOND CONSULATE OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS

[Sidenote: [56-55 B.C.]]

It was Cæsar’s custom to return, after his summer campaigns in Gaul, to pass the winter in his Cisalpine province, in order to keep up his intercourse with Rome. He came in the present winter to Lucca, on the verge of his province, whither, in the month of April, 56, Pompey, Crassus, and such a number of the Roman magistrates repaired to him, that 120 lictors have been seen at a time at his gates. It was there privately agreed by the triumvirate that Pompey and Crassus should stand for the consulate, and that if successful, they should obtain a renewal of Cæsar’s government for five years longer. As the actual consuls, Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, and L. Marcius Philippus, were adverse to the triumvirate, the tribune C. Cato was directed to impede all elections for the rest of the year; and in consequence of his opposition, the consular elections were held by an interrex in the beginning of the next year (55). Pompey and Crassus were chosen without opposition, for M. Cato’s brother-in-law, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who alone ventured to stand, was, we are told, attacked by their party as he was going before day to the Field of Mars, where the election was to be held; the slave who carried the torch before him was killed; others were wounded, as was Cato himself; Domitius fled home, and gave up the contest. Cato then stood for the prætorship, but the consuls, aware of the trouble he would give them if elected, made every effort to prevent him from succeeding. They bribed extensively for his opponent P. Vatinius, and procured a decree of the senate that the prætors should enter on their office at once, instead of remaining private men for sixty days, as was the usual course, to give an opportunity of accusing them if they were suspected of bribery. The first century however, when the election came, voted for Cato. Pompey, who presided, pretended that he heard thunder, and put off the election; and the consuls took care to have Vatinius chosen on the following one. The tribune C. Trebonius then by their directions proposed a bill, giving them when out of office the provinces of Syria and the Spains for five years, with authority to raise what troops they pleased; this law, though strongly opposed in the senate, was carried, and then Pompey proposed and carried the one he had promised Cæsar.

[Sidenote: [55-53 B.C.]]

The consuls having drawn lots for their provinces, or more probably arranged them by a private agreement, Syria, as he coveted, fell to Crassus; and Pompey was equally well pleased to have the Spains, which, as being at hand, he could govern by his lieutenants, while he himself, under the pretext of his office of inspector of the corn-market, might remain at Rome and enjoy the domestic happiness in which he so much delighted. The triumvirs not thinking it necessary to interfere, L. Domitius and App. Claudius were elected consuls, and Cato one of the prætors, for the following year.

Crassus, though nothing was said in the law about the Parthians, made little secret of his design to make war on them; and Cæsar, it is said, wrote encouraging him to it. Many, however, were, or affected to be, shocked at the injustice of waging war against a people who had given no just cause of offence, and the tribune C. Ateius Capito was resolved to prevent his departure. Crassus begged of Pompey to see him out of the city, as he knew he should be opposed. Pompey complied with his request, and the people made way in silence; but Ateius meeting them, called to Crassus to stop, and when he did not heed him, sent a beadle to seize him; the other tribunes however interposed. Ateius then ran on to the gate, and kindling a fire on a portable altar, poured wine and incense on it, and pronounced direful curses on Crassus, invoking strange and terrible deities (54).

THE PARTHIAN WAR OF CRASSUS

[Sidenote: [53 B.C.]]

Heedless of the tribune’s imprecations, Crassus proceeded to Brundusium and embarked, though the sea was rough and stormy. He reached Epirus with the loss of several of his ships, and thence took the usual route overland to Syria. He immediately crossed the Euphrates, and began to ravage Mesopotamia. Several of the Greek towns there cheerfully submitted; but instead of pushing on, he returned to Syria to winter, thus giving the Parthians time to collect their forces. He spent the winter busily engaged in amassing treasures; to a Parthian embassy which came to complain of his acts of aggression he made a boastful reply, saying that he would give an answer in Seleucia;[108] the eldest of the envoys laughed, and showing the palm of his hand said, “Crassus, hairs will grow there before _you_ see Seleucia.”

The Roman soldiers, when they heard of the numbers of the Parthians and their mode of fighting, were dispirited; the soothsayers announced evil signs in the victims; C. Cassius Longinus, the quæstor, and his other officers, advised Crassus to pause, but in vain. To as little effect did the Armenian prince Artavasdes, who came with six thousand horse, and promised many more, counsel him to march through Armenia, which was a hilly country, and adverse to cavalry, in which the Parthian strength lay: he replied that he would go through Mesopotamia, where he had left many brave Romans in garrison. The Armenian then retired, and Crassus passed the river at Zeugma (53); thunder roared, lightning flashed and other ominous signs, it is said, appeared; but they did not stop him. He marched along its left bank, his army consisting of seven legions, with nearly one thousand horse, and an equal number of light troops.

As no enemy appeared, Cassius advised to keep along the river till they should reach the nearest point to Seleucia; but an Arab emir named Abgarus, who had been on friendly terms with the Romans when Pompey was there, now came and joined Crassus, and assuring him that the Parthians were collecting their most valuable property with the intention of flying to Hyrcania and Scythia, urged him to push on without delay. But all he said was false; he was come to lead the Romans to their ruin: the Parthian king Orodes had himself invaded Armenia, and his general Surenas[109] was at hand with a large army. Crassus, however, giving credit to the Arab, left the river and entered on the extensive plain of Mesopotamia. Cassius gave over his remonstrances; the Arab led them on, and when he had brought them to the place arranged with the Parthians, he rode off, assuring Crassus that it was for his advantage. That very day a party of horse, sent to reconnoitre, fell in with the enemy, and were nearly all killed. This intelligence perplexed Crassus, but he resolved to proceed; he drew up his infantry in a square, with the horse on the flanks, and moved on. They reached a stream, where his officers wished him to halt for the night, and try to gain further intelligence; but he would go on, and at length they came in sight of the enemy. Surenas however kept the greater part of his troops out of view, and those who appeared had their armour covered to deceive the Romans. At a signal the Parthians began to beat their numerous kettledrums; and when they thought this unusual sound had thrilled the hearts of the Romans, they flung off their coverings and appeared glittering in helms and corslets of steel, and pouring round the solid mass of the Romans, showered their arrows on them, numerous camels being at hand laden with arrows to give them fresh supplies of their missiles. The light troops vainly essayed to drive them off; Crassus then desired his son to charge with his horse and light troops. The Parthians feigning flight drew them on, and when they were at a sufficient distance from the main army turned and assailed them, riding round and round so as to raise such a dust that the Romans could not see to defend themselves. When numbers had been slain, P. Crassus broke through with a part of the horse, and reached an eminence, but the persevering foe gave them no rest. Two Greeks of that country proposed to P. Crassus to escape with them in the night, but he generously refused to quit his comrades. Being wounded, he made his shield-bearer kill him; the Parthians slew all that were with him but five hundred, and cutting off his head set it on a spear.

Crassus was advancing to the relief of his son when the rolling of the Parthians’ drums was heard, and they came exhibiting the head of that unfortunate youth. The spirits of the Romans were now quite depressed; Crassus vainly tried to rouse them, crying that the loss was his not theirs, and urging them to renewed exertions. The Parthians after harassing them through the day retired for the night. Cassius and the legate Octavius, having tried, but in vain, to rouse their general, who was now sunk in despair, called a council of the officers, and it was resolved to attempt a retreat that night. The wailing of the sick and wounded who were left behind informed the Parthians, but it not being their custom to fight at night they remained quiet till morning. They then took the deserted camp, and slaughtered four thousand men whom they found in it, and pursuing after the army cut off the stragglers. The Romans reached the town of Carrhæ, in which they had a garrison. Surenas to keep them from retreat, made feigned proposals of peace; but finding that he was only deceiving them, they set out in the night under the guidance of a Greek: their guide however proved treacherous, and led them into a place full of marshes and ditches. Cassius, who suspected him, turned back and made his escape with five hundred horse; Octavius with five thousand men, having had faithful guides, reached a secure position among the hills, and he brought off Crassus, who was assailed in the marshes by the Parthians. Surenas fearing lest they should get away in the night, let go some of his prisoners, in whose hearing he had caused to be said that the king did not wish to carry things to extremities; and he himself and his officers rode to the hill with unbent bows, and holding out his hand he called on Crassus to come down and meet him. The soldiers were overjoyed, but Crassus put no faith in him; at length when his men, having urged and pressed, began to abuse and threaten him, he took his officers to witness of the force that was put on him, and went down accompanied by Octavius and some of his other officers. The Parthians at first affected to receive him with respect, and a horse was brought for him to mount; but they soon contrived to pick a quarrel, and killed him and all who were with him. The head and right hand of Crassus were cut off; quarter was then offered to the troops, and most of them surrendered. The loss of the Romans in this unjust and ill-fated expedition was twenty thousand men slain and ten thousand captured. The Parthians, it is said, poured molten gold down the throat of Crassus, in reproach of his insatiable avarice. They afterwards made irruptions into Syria, which Cassius gallantly defended against them.

When the news of Crassus’ defeat and death reached Rome, the concern felt for the loss of the army was considerable, that of himself was thought nothing of; yet this was in reality the greater loss of the two, for he alone had the power to keep Cæsar and Pompey at unity, as Julia, whom they both agreed in loving as she deserved, and who was a bond of union between them, had lately died in childbirth, to the grief not merely of her father and husband, but of the whole Roman people (54).

ANARCHY AT ROME

[Sidenote: [54-52 B.C.]]

Affairs at Rome were now indeed in a state of perfect anarchy; violence and bribery were the only modes of obtaining office. In 54 all the candidates for the consulate were prosecuted for bribery; and C. Memmius, one of them, actually read in the senate a written agreement between himself and a fellow-candidate Cn. Domitius Calvinus on one part, and the actual consuls L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and App. Claudius on the other, by which the two former bound themselves, if elected through the consul’s influence, to pay them each forty thousand sesterces unless they produced three augurs to declare that they were present when the curiate law was passed, and two consulars to aver that they were present when the consular provinces were arranged, which would give the ex-consuls the provinces they desired--all utterly false. By these and other delays the elections were kept off for seven months, Pompey looking quietly on in hopes that they would be obliged to create him dictator. Many spoke of it as the only remedy; and though they did not name, they described him very exactly as the fittest person; but Sulla had made the name of dictator too odious; others talked of consular military tribunes. Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messalla were, however, chosen consuls at the end of the seven months.

The next year (52) T. Annius Milo, P. Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Metellus Scipio were the candidates, and they all bribed to a most enormous extent. Clodius stood for the prætorship, and between his retainers and those of Milo and the other candidates, scenes of tumult and bloodshed occurred in the streets almost daily. Pompey and the tribune T. Munatius Plancus purposely kept the patricians from meeting to appoint an interrex to hold the elections. On the 20th of January, Milo, who was dictator of his native place Lanuvium, had occasion to go thither to appoint a chief priest of Juno Sospita, the patron deity of the place; Clodius, who had been to harangue the magistrates at Aricia, where he had a great deal of influence, happened to be returning just at this time, and he met Milo near Bovillæ. Milo was in his carriage with his wife, the daughter of Sulla, and a friend, and he was attended by a numerous train, among which were some of his gladiators; Clodius was on horseback, with thirty armed bravos, who always accompanied him. Two of Milo’s people followed those of Clodius and began to quarrel with them, and when he turned round to menace them, one of them ran a long sword through his shoulder. The tumult then became general; Clodius had been conveyed into an adjoining tavern, but Milo forced it, dragged him out, and killed him outright; his dead body was thrown on the highway, where it lay till a senator, who was returning to the city from his country-seat, took it up and brought it with him in his litter. It was laid in the hall of Clodius’ own house, and his wife Fulvia with floods of tears showed his bleeding wounds to the rabble who repaired thither, and excited them to vengeance. Next morning Clodius’ friends, the tribunes Q. Pompeius Rufus and T. Munatius Plancus, exposed it on the rostra, and harangued the populace over it. The mob snatched it up, carried it into the senate house, and making a pyre of the seats burned it and the house together. They then ran to Milo’s house intending to burn it also, but they were beaten off by his slaves.

(After Mirys)]

The excesses committed by the mob having injured the Clodian cause, Milo ventured to return to the city, and to go on bribing and canvassing for the consulate. The tribune M. Cælius, whom he had gained, having filled the Forum with a purchased mob, led Milo thither to defend himself, in hopes of having him acquitted by them as by the people; but the adverse tribunes armed their partisans and fell on and scattered them.[110] Milo and Cælius were forced to fly in the dress of slaves; the rabble killed, wounded, and robbed without distinction; houses were broken open, plundered, and burned, under the pretext of seeking for the friends of Milo. These excesses lasted for several days, and the senate at length decreed that the interrex, the tribunes of the people, and Pompey, should see that the republic sustained no injury; and finally, as there seemed an absolute necessity for some extraordinary power, to avoid a dictatorship and to exclude Cæsar (who was spoken of) from the consulate, it was resolved, on the motion of Bibulus, with the assent of Cato, to make Pompey sole consul.

POMPEY SOLE CONSUL

[Sidenote: [52 B.C.]]

Pompey (who was resolved to crush Milo) as soon as he entered on his office (February 25), had two laws passed, one against violence, the other against bribery. He ordained that trials should last only four days, the first three to be devoted to the hearing of evidence, the last to the pleadings of the parties; he assigned the number of pleaders in a cause, giving two hours to the prosecutor to speak, three to the accused to reply, and forbidding any one to come forward to praise the accused. To insure prosecutions for bribery, he promised a pardon to any one found guilty of it if he convicted two others of an equal or lesser degree or one of a greater. He directed that a consular chosen by the people, and not the prætor as in ordinary cases, should preside in the trials for violence.

These preparations being made, the prosecution of Milo commenced. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the consul of the year 54, was chosen president by the people, and a jury, one of the most respectable we are assured that Rome ever beheld, was appointed. Milo and Cælius had recourse to every means to prevent a conviction. The former was charged with having seized five persons who had witnessed the murder of Clodius, and kept them in close custody for two months at his country-seat; the latter with taking by force one of Milo’s slaves out of the house of one of the triumviri capitales. Cicero was to plead Milo’s cause. On the first day the tumult was so great that the lives of Pompey and his lictors were endangered; soldiers were therefore placed in various parts of the city and Forum, with orders to strike with the flat of their swords any that were making a noise; but this not sufficing, they were obliged to wound and even kill several persons. When Cicero rose to speak on the fourth day, he was received with a loud shout of defiance by the Clodian faction; and the sight of Pompey sitting surrounded by his officers, and the view of the temples and places around the Forum filled with armed men, so daunted him, that he pleaded with far less than his usual ability. Milo was found guilty, and he went into exile at Massilia.

Other offenders were then prosecuted. P. Plautius Hypsæus was found guilty of bribery, as also were P. Sextius, M. Scaurus, and C. Memmius. This last then accused, under the late law, Pompey’s own father-in-law, Q. Metellus Scipio.[111] Pompey was weak enough to become a suppliant for him, and he sent for the three hundred and sixty persons who were on the jury panel, and besought them to aid him. When Memmius saw Scipio come into the Forum surrounded by those who would have to try him, he gave over the prosecution, lamenting the ruin of the constitution. Rufus and Plancus when out of office were prosecuted for the burning of the senate house, and Pompey again was weak enough to break his own law by sending a written eulogy of Plancus into the court. Cato, who was one of the jury, said that Pompey must not be allowed to violate his own law. Plancus then challenged Cato; but it did not avail him, as the others found him guilty.

Pompey, having acted for some time as sole consul, made his father-in-law his colleague for the remaining five months of his consulate. He caused his own command in Spain to be extended for another term of five years, but he governed his province, as before, by legates; and to soothe Cæsar, he had a law passed to enable him to sue for the consulate without coming to Rome in person. To strengthen the laws against bribery, it was enacted that no consul or prætor should obtain a province till he had been five years out of office; and to provide for the next five years, it was decreed that the consulars and prætorians who had not had provinces should now take them. Cicero, therefore, much against his will, was obliged to go as proconsul to Cilicia; his government of it was a model of justice and disinterestedness, and proves how he would have acted had he been free at all times to follow his own inclinations, and we may add, if less under the influence of vain glory and ambition. We must now turn our regards to Cæsar and his exploits in Gaul.

While such was the condition of affairs at Rome, this great man was acquiring the wealth and forming the army by means of which he hoped to become master of his country. He has himself left a narrative of his Gallic campaigns, which, though of course partial, is almost our only authority for this part of the Roman history.

THE GALLIC WARS (58-50 B.C.)

[Sidenote: [58-52 B.C.]]

Fortune favoured Cæsar by furnishing him with an early occasion of war, though his province was tranquil when he received it (58).[112] The Helvetii, a people of Gallic race, who dwelt from Mount Jura far into the Alps, resolved to leave their mountains and seek new seats in Gaul; and having burned all their towns and villages, they set forth with wives and children to the number of 368,000 souls. As their easier way lay through the Roman province, they sent, on hearing that Cæsar [who marched from Rome in eight days] had broken down the bridge over the Rhone at Geneva, and was making preparations to oppose them, to ask a free passage, promising to do no injury. Cæsar, who had not all his troops with him, gave an evasive answer, and meantime ran a ditch and rampart from the Lake of Geneva to Mount Jura. The Helvetii then turned, and going by Mount Jura entered the country of the Sequani and Ædui; but Cæsar fell on them as they were passing the Arar (Saone), and defeated them; he afterwards routed them again, and finally compelled them to return to their own country, lest the Germans should occupy it.

The Ædui, who were ancient allies of Rome, then complained to Cæsar that their neighbours, the Arverni and Sequani, having in their disputes with them invited a German chief named Ariovistus (_Heer-fürst_, ‘Army-prince’?) to their aid, he had been joined by large bodies of his countrymen, and had occupied a great part of the land of the Sequani, and now menaced the freedom of all the surrounding peoples; their only hopes, they added, lay in the Romans. This invitation was, as they knew, precisely what Cæsar desired; he promised aid, and as in his consulate he had been the means of having Ariovistus acknowledged as a king and friend of the Roman people, and he now wished to put him in the wrong, he sent to require him to meet him at a certain place. The German haughtily replied, that if Cæsar wanted to speak with him he should come to him.[113] Cæsar, further to irritate him, desired him to give back the hostages of the allies of Rome, and not to enter their lands or to bring over any more auxiliaries from Germany. Ariovistus replied by seizing on the Sequanian town of Vesontio (Besançon). On learning that the powerful nation of the Suevi was sending troops to Ariovistus, Cæsar resolved to march against him at once. But his soldiers were daunted at what they heard of the strength and ferocity of the Germans, till he made a speech to reassure them, in which he declared that with the tenth legion alone he would prosecute the war. At the desire of Ariovistus a conference was held, at which however nothing could be arranged; and while it was going on, news (true or false) was brought to Cæsar that the Germans had attacked the Romans: this broke off the conference; Cæsar refused to renew it; and a battle taking place, Ariovistus was defeated and forced to recross the Rhine.

Cæsar then retired for the winter to Cisalpine Gaul under the pretext of regulating the province, but in reality to keep up his communication with Rome and acquire new friends there. As he had left his troops in the country of the Sequani, the Belgæ, a powerful people, who were a mixture of Germans and Gauls, and dwelt in the northeast of Gaul, fearing for their independence, resolved to take up arms. The Germans on this side of the Rhine joined them, and they invaded (57) the states in alliance with the Romans. Cæsar lost no time in repairing to the defence of his allies; and the Belgæ finding that the Ædui had invaded their country, and moreover being in want of supplies, returned home; but they were fallen on and defeated with great loss by a division of Cæsar’s troops, and he himself entering their country took the town of Noviodunum (Noyon), and obliged the Suessiones (Soissons), Bellovaci (Beauvais), and Ambiani (Amiens) to sue for peace. He then entered the territory of the Nervians (Hainault). This people, the bravest of the Belgæ, attacked him by surprise, routed his cavalry, and killed all the centurions of two legions; the camps on both sides were taken, and Cæsar himself was for some time surrounded with his guards on a hill; but victory was finally won by the Romans.[c]

THE BATTLE WITH THE NERVII

[Sidenote: [57 B.C.]]

Here is Cæsar’s own account of this famous battle; the narrator, as always, speaking of himself in the third person:

Upon the territories of the Ambiani bordered the Nervii, concerning whose character and customs when Cæsar inquired he received the following information: that “there was no access for merchants to them; that they suffered no wine and other things tending to luxury to be imported; because they thought that by their use the mind is enervated and the courage impaired: that they were a savage people and of great bravery; that they upbraided and condemned the rest of the Belgæ who had surrendered themselves to the Roman people; that they openly declared they would neither send ambassadors, nor accept any condition of peace.”

After he had made three days’ march through their territories, he discovered from some prisoners that the river Sambre was not more than ten miles from his camp; that all the Nervii had stationed themselves on the other side of that river, and together with the Atrebates and the Veromandui, their neighbours, were there awaiting the arrival of the Romans--for they had persuaded both these nations to try the same fortune of war (as themselves); that the forces of the Aduatuci were also expected by them, and were on their march; that they had put their women, and those who through age appeared useless for war, in a place to which there was no approach for an army, on account of the marshes.