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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10705-0.txt b/10705-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c29bdf6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10705-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27294 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10705 *** + +Note: A compilation of all five volumes of this work is also available + individually in the Project Gutenberg library. + See https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10706 + + The original German version of this work, Roemische Geschichte, + Fuenftes Buch: Die Begruendung der Militaermonarchie, is in the + Project Gutenberg E-Library as E-book #3064. + See https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3064 + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK V + +The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + +by + +THEODOR MOMMSEN + +Translated with the Sanction of the Author + +by + +William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D. +Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow + +A New Edition Revised throughout and Embodying Recent Additions + + + + + + +Preparer's Notes + +This work contains many literal citations of and references to words, +sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many languages, including +Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and Greek. This English +language Gutenberg edition, constrained within the scope of 7-bit +ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions: + +1) Words and phrases regarded as "foreign imports", italicized +in the original text published in 1903; but which in the intervening +century have become "naturalized" into English; words such as "de jure", +"en masse", etc. are not given any special typographic distinction. + +2) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do not +refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the source +manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single preceding, +and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-. + +3) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic equivalents, +are rendered with a preceding and a following double-dash; thus, --xxxx--. +Note that in some cases the root word itself is a compound form such as +xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx-- + +4) Simple non-ideographic references to vocalic sounds, single letters, +or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic references +are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x, or -xxx. + +5) The following refers particularly to the complex discussion +of alphabetic evolution in Ch. XIV: Measuring and Writing). Ideographic +references, meaning pointers to the form of representation itself rather +than to its content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-. "id:" stands for +"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a mental picture +based on the "xxxx" following the colon. "xxxx" may represent a single +symbol, a word, or an attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters. +E. g. --"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form +Followed by the form in lowercase. Such exotic parsing is necessary +to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol +may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages, +or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different +times. Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician +construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually +stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to another one +of lowercase. Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol +that in graphic form most closely resembles an ASCII uppercase "E", +but, in fact, is actually drawn more crudely. + +6) The numerous subheading references, of the form "XX. XX. Topic" +found in the appended section of endnotes are to be taken as "proximate" +rather than topical indicators. That is, the information contained +in the endnote indicates primarily the location in the main text +of the closest indexing "handle", a subheading, which may or may not +echo congruent subject matter. + +The reason for this is that in the translation from an original +paged manuscript to an unpaged "cyberscroll", page numbers are lost. +In this edition subheadings are the only remaining indexing "handles" +of sub-chapter scale. Unfortunately, in some stretches of text these +subheadings may be as sparse as merely one in three pages. Therefore, +it would seem to make best sense to save the reader time and temper +by adopting a shortest path method to indicate the desired reference. + +7) The attentive reader will notice occasional typographic or syntactic +anomalies and errors. In almost all cases this conscious and due to +an editorial decision for the first Gutenberg edition to transmit +transparently all but the most egregious flaws found in the source text +Scribner edition of 1903. Furthermore, a number of sentences may be +virtually unintelligible to the English reader due to the architecture +of relative clauses, prepositions, and verbs as carried over +from the original German. It is the preparer's ambition for a second +Gutenberg edition of the History of Rome to reconstruct and clarify +the most turgid specimens. + +8) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.; +that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be 753 B. C. +To the end of each volume is appended a table of conversion between +the two systems. + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK V: The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + + CHAPTER + + I. Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Sertorius + + II. Rule of the Sullan Restoration + + III. The Fall of the Oligarchy and the Rule of Pompeius + + IV. Pompeius and the East + + V. The Struggle of Parties during the Absence of Pompeius + + VI. Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders + + VII. The Subjugation of the West + + VIII. The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar + + IX. Death of Crassus--Rupture between the Joint Rulers + + X. Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus + + XI. The Old Republic and the New Monarchy + + XII. Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art + + + + +BOOK FIFTH + +The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + + + + +Wie er sich sieht so um und um, +Kehrt es ihm fast den Kopf herum, +Wie er wollt' Worte zu allem finden? +Wie er mocht' so viel Schwall verbinden? +Wie er mocht' immer muthig bleiben +So fort und weiter fort zu schreiben? + +Goethe. + + + + +Chapter I + +Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Sertorius + +The Opposition +Jurists +Aristocrats Friendly to Reform +Democrats + +When Sulla died in the year 676, the oligarchy which he had +restored ruled with absolute sway over the Roman state; but, +as it had been established by force, it still needed force +to maintain its ground against its numerous secret and open foes. +It was opposed not by any single party with objects clearly +expressed and under leaders distinctly acknowledged, but by a mass +of multifarious elements, ranging themselves doubtless +under the general name of the popular party, but in reality opposing +the Sullan organization of the commonwealth on very various grounds +and with very different designs. There were the men of positive +law who neither mingled in nor understood politics, but who detested +the arbitrary procedure of Sulla in dealing with the lives +and property of the burgesses. Even during Sulla's lifetime, +when all other opposition was silent, the strict jurists resisted +the regent; the Cornelian laws, for example, which deprived various +Italian communities of the Roman franchise, were treated +in judicial decisions as null and void; and in like manner the courts +held that, where a burgess had been made a prisoner of war and sold +into slavery during the revolution, his franchise was not forfeited. +There was, further, the remnant of the old liberal minority +in the senate, which in former times had laboured to effect +a compromise with the reform party and the Italians, and was now +in a similar spirit inclined to modify the rigidly oligarchic +constitution of Sulla by concessions to the Populares. +There were, moreover, the Populares strictly so called, +the honestly credulous narrow-minded radicals, who staked property +and life for the current watchwords of the party-programme, +only to discover with painful surprise after the victory +that they had been fighting not for a reality, but for a phrase. +Their special aim was to re-establish the tribunician power, which Sulla +had not abolished but had divested of its most essential prerogatives, +and which exercised over the multitude a charm all the more mysterious, +because the institution had no obvious practical use and was +in fact an empty phantom--the mere name of tribune of the people, +more than a thousand years later, revolutionized Rome. + +Transpadanes +Freedmen +Capitalists +Proletarians of the Capital +The Dispossessed +The Proscribed and Their Adherents + +There were, above all, the numerous and important classes +whom the Sullan restoration had left unsatisfied, or whose political +or private interests it had directly injured. Among those +who for such reasons belonged to the opposition ranked the dense +and prosperous population of the region between the Po and the Alps, +which naturally regarded the bestowal of Latin rights in 665(1) +as merely an instalment of the full Roman franchise, and so afforded +a ready soil for agitation. To this category belonged also +the freedmen, influential in numbers and wealth, and specially +dangerous through their aggregation in the capital, who could +not brook their having been reduced by the restoration to their +earlier, practically useless, suffrage. In the same position +stood, moreover, the great capitalists, who maintained a cautious +silence, but still as before preserved their tenacity of resentment +and their equal tenacity of power. The populace of the capital, +which recognized true freedom in free bread-corn, was likewise +discontented. Still deeper exasperation prevailed among +the burgess-bodies affected by the Sullan confiscations--whether +they like those of Pompeii, lived on their property curtailed +by the Sullan colonists, within the same ring-wall with the latter, +and at perpetual variance with them; or, like the Arretines +and Volaterrans, retained actual possession of their territory, +but had the Damocles' sword of confiscation suspended over them +by the Roman people; or, as was the case in Etruria especially, +were reduced to be beggars in their former abodes, or robbers +in the woods. Finally, the agitation extended to the whole family +connections and freedmen of those democratic chiefs who had lost +their lives in consequence of the restoration, or who were wandering +along the Mauretanian coasts, or sojourning at the court +and in the army of Mithradates, in all the misery of emigrant exile; +for, according to the strict family-associations that governed +the political feeling of this age, it was accounted a point of honour(2) +that those who were left behind should endeavour to procure for exiled +relatives the privilege of returning to their native land, and, +in the case of the dead, at least a removal of the stigma attaching +to their memory and to their children, and a restitution to the latter +of their paternal estate. More especially the immediate children +of the proscribed, whom the regent had reduced in point of law +to political Pariahs,(3) had thereby virtually received from the law +itself a summons to rise in rebellion against the existing +order of things. + +Men of Ruined Fortunes +Men of Ambition + +To all these sections of the opposition there was added the whole +body of men of ruined fortunes. All the rabble high and low, +whose means and substance had been spent in refined or in vulgar +debauchery; the aristocratic lords, who had no farther mark +of quality than their debts; the Sullan troopers whom the regent's +fiat could transform into landholders but not into husbandmen, +and who, after squandering the first inheritance of the proscribed, +were longing to succeed to a second--all these waited only +the unfolding of the banner which invited them to fight against +the existing order of things, whatever else might be inscribed on it. +From a like necessity all the aspiring men of talent, in search +of popularity, attached themselves to the opposition; not only +those to whom the strictly closed circle of the Optimates denied +admission or at least opportunities for rapid promotion, +and who therefore attempted to force their way into the phalanx +and to break through the laws of oligarchic exclusiveness and seniority +by means of popular favour, but also the more dangerous men, +whose ambition aimed at something higher than helping to determine +the destinies of the world within the sphere of collegiate intrigues. +On the advocates' platform in particular--the only field of legal +opposition left open by Sulla--even in the regent's lifetime +such aspirants waged lively war against the restoration with the weapons +of formal jurisprudence and combative oratory: for instance, +the adroit speaker Marcus Tullius Cicero (born 3rd January 648), +son of a landholder of Arpinum, speedily made himself a name +by the mingled caution and boldness of his opposition to the dictator. +Such efforts were not of much importance, if the opponent desired +nothing farther than by their means to procure for himself a curule +chair, and then to sit in it in contentment for the rest of his life. +No doubt, if this chair should not satisfy a popular man +and Gaius Gracchus should find a successor, a struggle for life +or death was inevitable; but for the present at least no name could +be mentioned, the bearer of which had proposed to himself +any such lofty aim. + +Power of the Opposition + +Such was the sort of opposition with which the oligarchic government +instituted by Sulla had to contend, when it had, earlier than +Sulla himself probably expected, been thrown by his death +on its own resources. The task was in itself far from easy, and it +was rendered more difficult by the other social and political evils +of this age--especially by the extraordinary double difficulty +of keeping the military chiefs in the provinces in subjection +to the supreme civil magistracy, and of dealing with the masses +of the Italian and extra-Italian populace accumulating in the capital, +and of the slaves living there to a great extent in de facto freedom, +without having troops at disposal. The senate was placed +as it were, in a fortress exposed and threatened on all sides, +and serious conflicts could not fail to ensue. But the means +of resistance organized by Sulla were considerable and lasting; +and although the majority of the nation was manifestly disinclined +to the government which Sulla had installed, and even animated +by hostile feelings towards it, that government might very well +maintain itself for a long time in its stronghold against +the distracted and confused mass of an opposition which was not agreed +either as to end or means, and, having no head, was broken up +into a hundred fragments. Only it was necessary that it should +be determined to maintain its position, and should bring +at least a spark of that energy, which had built the fortress, +to its defence; for in the case of a garrison which will not +defend itself, the greatest master of fortification constructs +his walls and moats in vain. + +Want of Leaders +Coterie-Systems + +The more everything ultimately depended on the personality +of the leading men on both sides, it was the more unfortunate +that both, strictly speaking, lacked leaders. The politics of +thisperiod were thoroughly under the sway of the coterie-system +in its worst form. This, indeed, was nothing new; close unions +of families and clubs were inseparable from an aristocratic +organizationof the state, and had for centuries prevailed in Rome. +But it was not till this epoch that they became all-powerful, +for it was only now (first in 690) that their influence was attested +rather than checked by legal measures of repression. + +All persons of quality, those of popular leanings no less than +the oligarchy proper, met in Hetaeriae; the mass of the burgesses +likewise, so far as they took any regular part in political events +at all, formed according to their voting-districts close unions +with an almost military organization, which found their natural +captains and agents in the presidents of the districts, "tribe- +distributors" (-divisores tribuum-). With these political clubs +everything was bought and sold; the vote of the elector especially, +but also the votes of the senator and the judge, the fists too +which produced the street riot, and the ringleaders who directed +it--the associations of the upper and of the lower ranks +were distinguished merely in the matter of tariff. The Hetaeria +decided the elections, the Hetaeria decreed the impeachments, +the Hetaeria conducted the defence; it secured the distinguished +advocate, and in case of need it contracted for an acquittal +with one of the speculators who pursued on a great scale lucrative +dealings in judges' votes. The Hetaeria commanded by its compact bands +the streets of the capital, and with the capital but too often the state. +All these things were done in accordance with a certain rule, +and, so to speak, publicly; the system of Hetaeriae was better organized +and managed than any branch of state administration; although there was, +as is usual among civilized swindlers, a tacit understanding +that there should be no direct mention of the nefarious proceedings, +nobody made a secret of them, and advocates of repute were not ashamed +to give open and intelligible hints of their relation to the Hetaeriae +of their clients. If an individual was to be found here or there +who kept aloof from such doings and yet did not forgo public life, +he was assuredly, like Marcus Cato, a political Don Quixote. +Parties and party-strife were superseded by the clubs and their rivalry; +government was superseded by intrigue. A more than equivocal +character, Publius Cethegus, formerly one of the most zealous +Marians, afterwards as a deserter received into favour by Sulla,(4) +acted a most influential part in the political doings +of this period--unrivalled as a cunning tale-bearer and mediator +between the sections of the senate, and as having a statesman's +acquaintance with the secrets of all cabals: at times the appointment +to the most important posts of command was decided by a word +from his mistress Praecia. Such a plight was only possible +where none of the men taking part in politics rose above mediocrity: +any man of more than ordinary talent would have swept away +this system of factions like cobwebs; but there was in reality +the saddest lack of men of political or military capacity. + +Phillipus +Metellus, Catulus, the Luculli + +Of the older generation the civil wars had left not a single man +of repute except the old shrewd and eloquent Lucius Philippus (consul +in 663), who, formerly of popular leanings,(5) thereafter leader +of the capitalist party against the senate,(6) and closely associated +with the Marians,(7) and lastly passing over to the victorious +oligarchy in sufficient time to earn thanks and commendation,(8) +had managed to escape between the parties. Among the men +of the following generation the most notable chiefs of the pure +aristocracy were Quintus Metellus Pius (consul in 674), Sulla's +comrade in dangers and victories; Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul +in the year of Sulla's death, 676, the son of the victor of Vercellae; +and two younger officers, the brothers Lucius and Marcus Lucullus, +of whom the former had fought with distinction under Sulla +in Asia, the latter in Italy; not to mention Optimates like Quintus +Hortensius (640-704), who had importance only as a pleader, +or men like Decimus Junius Brutus (consul in 677), Mamercus +Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (consul in 677), and other such nullities, +whose best quality was a euphonious aristocratic name. +But even those four men rose little above the average calibre +of the Optimates of this age. Catulus was like his father a man of +refined culture and an honest aristocrat, but of moderate talents +and, in particular, no soldier. Metellus was not merely estimable +in his personal character, but an able and experienced officer; +and it was not so much on account of his close relations as a kinsman +and colleague with the regent as because of his recognized ability +that he was sent in 675, after resigning the consulship, to Spain, +where the Lusitanians and the Roman emigrants under Quintus +Sertorius were bestirring themselves afresh. The two Luculli +were also capable officers--particularly the elder, who combined +very respectable military talents with thorough literary culture +and leanings to authorship, and appeared honourable also as a man. +But, as statesmen, even these better aristocrats were not much less +remiss and shortsighted than the average senators of the time. +In presence of an outward foe the more eminent among them, doubtless, +proved themselves useful and brave; but no one of them evinced +the desire or the skill to solve the problems of politics proper, +and to guide the vessel of the state through the stormy sea of intrigues +and factions as a true pilot. Their political wisdom was limited +to a sincere belief in the oligarchy as the sole means of salvation, +and to a cordial hatred and courageous execration of demagogism +as well as of every individual authority which sought to emancipate +itself. Their petty ambition was contented with little. +The stories told of Metellus in Spain--that he not only allowed +himself to be delighted with the far from harmonious lyre +of the Spanish occasional poets, but even wherever he went had himself +received like a god with libations of wine and odours of incense, +and at table had his head crowned by descending Victories amidst +theatrical thunder with the golden laurel of the conqueror-- +are no better attested than most historical anecdotes; but even +such gossip reflects the degenerate ambition of the generations +of Epigoni. Even the better men were content when they had gained +not power and influence, but the consulship and a triumph +and a place of honour in the senate; and at the very time +when with right ambition they would have just begun to be truly useful +to their country and their party, they retired from the political stage +to be lost in princely luxury. Men like Metellus and Lucius Lucullus +were, even as generals, not more attentive to the enlargement +of the Roman dominion by fresh conquests of kings and peoples than +to the enlargement of the endless game, poultry, and dessert lists +of Roman gastronomy by new delicacies from Africa and Asia Minor, +and they wasted the best part of their lives in more or less ingenious +idleness. The traditional aptitude and the individual self-denial, +on which all oligarchic government is based, were lost +in the decayed and artificially restored Roman aristocracy of this age; +in its judgment universally the spirit of clique was accounted +as patriotism, vanity as ambition, and narrow-mindedness as consistency. +Had the Sullan constitution passed into the guardianship of men +such as have sat in the Roman College of Cardinals or the Venetian +Council of Ten, we cannot tell whether the opposition would have been able +to shake it so soon; with such defenders every attack involved, +at all events, a serious peril. + +Pompeius + +Of the men, who were neither unconditional adherents nor open +opponents of the Sullan constitution, no one attracted more the eyes +of the multitude than the young Gnaeus Pompeius, who was at the time +of Sulla's death twenty-eight years of age (born 29th September 648). +The fact was a misfortune for the admired as well as +for the admirers; but it was natural. Sound in body and mind, +a capable athlete, who even when a superior officer vied with his +soldiers in leaping, running, and lifting, a vigorous and skilled +rider and fencer, a bold leader of volunteer bands, the youth had +become Imperator and triumphator at an age which excluded him +from every magistracy and from the senate, and had acquired +the first place next to Sulla in public opinion; nay, had obtained +from the indulgent regent himself--half in recognition, half in irony-- +the surname of the Great. Unhappily, his mental endowments by no means +corresponded with these unprecedented successes. He was neither +a bad nor an incapable man, but a man thoroughly ordinary, created +by nature to be a good sergeant, called by circumstances to be +a general and a statesman. An intelligent, brave and experienced, +thoroughly excellent soldier, he was still, even in his military +capacity, without trace of any higher gifts. It was characteristic +of him as a general, as well as in other respects, to set to work +with a caution bordering on timidity, and, if possible, to give +the decisive blow only when he had established an immense superiority +over his opponent. His culture was the average culture of the time; +although entirely a soldier, he did not neglect, when he went +to Rhodes, dutifully to admire, and to make presents to, +the rhetoricians there. His integrity was that of a rich man +who manages with discretion his considerable property inherited +and acquired. He did not disdain to make money in the usual senatorial +way, but he was too cold and too rich to incur special risks, +or draw down on himself conspicuous disgrace, on that account. +The vice so much in vogue among his contemporaries, rather than +any virtue of his own, procured for him the reputation--comparatively, +no doubt, well warranted--of integrity and disinterestedness. +His "honest countenance" became almost proverbial, and even after +his death he was esteemed as a worthy and moral man; he was in fact +a good neighbour, who did not join in the revolting schemes +by which the grandees of that age extended the bounds of their domains +through forced sales or measures still worse at the expense +of their humbler neighbours, and in domestic life he displayed +attachment to his wife and children: it redounds moreover to his +credit that he was the first to depart from the barbarous custom +of putting to death the captive kings and generals of the enemy, +after they had been exhibited in triumph. But this did not prevent +him from separating from his beloved wife at the command of his lord +and master Sulla, because she belonged to an outlawed family, +nor from ordering with great composure that men who had stood +by him and helped him in times of difficulty should be executed +before his eyes at the nod of the same master:(9) he was not cruel, +thoughhe was reproached with being so, but--what perhaps was worse-- +he was cold and, in good as in evil, unimpassioned. In the tumult +of battle he faced the enemy fearlessly; in civil life he was a shy +man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke +in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, +and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was-- +as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their +independence--a pliant tool in the hands of men who knew how +to manage him, especially of his freedmen and clients, by whom he had +no fear of being controlled. For nothing was he less qualified +than for a statesman. Uncertain as to his aims, unskilful in the choice +of his means, alike in little and great matters shortsighted +and helpless, he was wont to conceal his irresolution and indecision +under a solemn silence, and, when he thought to play a subtle +game, simply to deceive himself with the belief that he was +deceiving others. By his military position and his territorial +connections he acquired almost without any action of his own +a considerable party personally devoted to him, with which +the greatest things might have been accomplished; but Pompeius +was in every respect incapable of leading and keeping together a party, +and, if it still kept together, it did so--in like manner without +his action--through the sheer force of circumstances. In this, +as in other things, he reminds us of Marius; but Marius, with his +nature of boorish roughness and sensuous passion, was still less +intolerable than this most tiresome and most starched of all +artificial great men. His political position was utterly perverse. +He was a Sullan officer and under obligation to stand up for +the restored constitution, and yet again in opposition to Sulla +personally as well as to the whole senatorial government. The gens +of the Pompeii, which had only been named for some sixty years +in the consular lists, had by no means acquired full standing +in the eyes of the aristocracy; even the father of this Pompeius +had occupied a very invidious equivocal position towards +the senate,(10) and he himself had once been in the ranks +of the Cinnans(11)--recollections which were suppressed perhaps, +but not forgotten. The prominent position which Pompeius +acquired for himself under Sulla set him at inward variance +with the aristocracy, quite as much as it brought him into outward +connection with it. Weak-headed as he was, Pompeius was seized +with giddiness on the height of glory which he had climbed +with such dangerous rapidity and ease. Just as if he would himself +ridicule his dry prosaic nature by the parallel with the most +poetical of all heroic figures, he began to compare himself +with Alexander the Great, and to account himself a man of unique +standing, whom it did not beseem to be merely one of the five +hundred senators of Rome. In reality, no one was more fitted +to take his place as a member of an aristocratic government than +Pompeius. His dignified outward appearance, his solemn formality, +his personal bravery, his decorous private life, his want +of all initiative might have gained for him, had he been born +two hundred years earlier, an honourable place by the side +of Quintus Maximus and Publius Decius: this mediocrity, so characteristic +of the genuine Optimate and the genuine Roman, contributed not a little +to the elective affinity which subsisted at all times between Pompeius +and the mass of the burgesses and the senate. Even in his own age +he would have had a clearly defined and respectable position +had he contented himself with being the general of the senate, +for which he was from the outset destined. With this he was +not content, and so he fell into the fatal plight of wishing +to be something else than he could be. He was constantly aspiring +to a special position in the state, and, when it offered itself, +he could not make up his mind to occupy it; he was deeply indignant +when persons and laws did not bend unconditionally before him, +and yet he everywhere bore himself with no mere affectation +of modesty as one of many peers, and trembled at the mere thought +of undertaking anything unconstitutional. Thus constantly +at fundamental variance with, and yet at the same time the obedient +servant of, the oligarchy, constantly tormented by an ambition +which was frightened at its own aims, his much-agitated life +passed joylessly away in a perpetual inward contradiction. + +Crassus + +Marcus Crassus cannot, any more than Pompeius, be reckoned among +the unconditional adherents of the oligarchy. He is a personage +highly characteristic of this epoch. Like Pompeius, whose senior +he was by a few years, he belonged to the circle of the high Roman +aristocracy, had obtained the usual education befitting his rank, +and had like Pompeius fought with distinction under Sulla +in the Italian war. Far inferior to many of his peers in mental gifts, +literary culture, and military talent, he outstripped them +by his boundless activity, and by the perseverance with which he strove +to possess everything and to become all-important. Above all, +he threw himself into speculation. Purchases of estates during +the revolution formed the foundation of his wealth; but he disdained +no branch of gain; he carried on the business of building +in the capital on a great scale and with prudence; he entered +into partnership with his freedmen in the most varied undertakings; +he acted as banker both in and out of Rome, in person or by his agents; +he advanced money to his colleagues in the senate, and undertook-- +as it might happen--to execute works or to bribe the tribunals +on their account. He was far from nice in the matter +of making profit. On occasion of the Sullan proscriptions a forgery +in the lists had been proved against him, for which reason Sulla +made no more use of him thenceforward in the affairs of state: +he did not refuse to accept an inheritance, because the testamentary +document which contained his name was notoriously forged; he made +no objection, when his bailiffs by force or by fraud dislodged +the petty holders from lands which adjoined his own. He avoided open +collisions, however, with criminal justice, and lived himself +like a genuine moneyed man in homely and simple style. In this way +Crassus rose in the course of a few years from a man of ordinary +senatorial fortune to be the master of wealth which not long before +his death, after defraying enormous extraordinary expenses, still +amounted to 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds). He had +become the richest of Romans and thereby, at the same time, a great +political power. If, according to his expression, no one might +call himself rich who could not maintain an army from his revenues, +one who could do this was hardly any longer a mere citizen. +In reality the views of Crassus aimed at a higher object than +the possession of the best-filled money-chest in Rome. He grudged +no pains to extend his connections. He knew how to salute by name +every burgess of the capital. He refused to no suppliant +his assistance in court. Nature, indeed, had not done much +for him as an orator: his speaking was dry, his delivery monotonous, +he had difficulty of hearing; but his tenacity of purpose, +which no wearisomeness deterred and no enjoyment distracted, overcame +such obstacles. He never appeared unprepared, he never extemporized, +and so he became a pleader at all times in request and at all times +ready; to whom it was no derogation that a cause was rarely too bad +for him, and that he knew how to influence the judges not merely +by his oratory, but also by his connections and, on occasion, +by his gold. Half the senate was in debt to him; his habit of advancing +to "friends" money without interest revocable at pleasure rendered +a number of influential men dependent on him, and the more so that, +like a genuine man of business, he made no distinction among +the parties, maintained connections on all hands, and readily lent +to every one who was able to pay or otherwise useful. The most daring +party-leaders, who made their attacks recklessly in all directions, +were careful not to quarrel with Crassus; he was compared +to the bull of the herd, whom it was advisable for none to provoke. +That such a man, so disposed and so situated, could not strive +after humble aims is clear; and, in a very different way from Pompeius, +Crassus knew exactly like a banker the objects and the means +of political speculation. From the origin of Rome capital +was a political power there; the age was of such a sort, that everything +seemed accessible to gold as to iron. If in the time of revolution +a capitalist aristocracy might have thought of overthrowing +the oligarchy of the gentes, a man like Crassus might raise +his eyes higher than to the -fasces- and embroidered mantle +of the triumphators. For the moment he was a Sullan and adherent +of the senate; but he was too much of a financier to devote himself +to a definite political party, or to pursue aught else than his personal +advantage. Why should Crassus, the wealthiest and most intriguing +man in Rome, and no penurious miser but a speculator on the greatest +scale, not speculate also on the crown? Alone, perhaps, +he could not attain this object; but he had already carried out +various great transactions in partnership; it was not impossible +that for this also a suitable partner might present himself. +It is a trait characteristic of the time, that a mediocre orator +and officer, a politician who took his activity for energy +and his covetousness for ambition, one who at bottom had nothing +but a colossal fortune and the mercantile talent of forming +connections--that such a man, relying on the omnipotence of coteries +and intrigues, could deem himself on a level with the first generals +and statesmen of his day, and could contend with them +for the highest prize which allures political ambition. + +Leaders of the Democrats + +In the opposition proper, both among the liberal conservatives +and among the Populares, the storms of revolution had made fearful +havoc. Among the former, the only surviving man of note was Gaius +Cotta (630-c. 681), the friend and ally of Drusus, and as such +banished in 663,(12) and then by Sulla's victory brought back +to his native land;(13) he was a shrewd man and a capable advocate, +but not called, either by the weight of his party or by that of his +personal standing, to act more than a respectable secondary part. +In the democratic party, among the rising youth, Gaius Julius +Caesar, who was twenty-four years of age (born 12 July 652?(14)), +drew towards him the eyes of friend and foe. His relationship +with Marius and Cinna (his father's sister had been the wife of Marius, +he himself had married Cinna's daughter); the courageous refusal +of the youth who had scarce outgrown the age of boyhood to send +a divorce to his young wife Cornelia at the bidding of the dictator, +as Pompeius had in the like case done; his bold persistence +in the priesthood conferred upon him by Marius, but revoked by Sulla; +his wanderings during the proscription with which he was threatened, +and which was with difficulty averted by the intercession +of his relatives; his bravery in the conflicts before Mytilene +and in Cilicia, a bravery which no one had expected from the tenderly +reared and almost effeminately foppish boy; even the warnings +of Sulla regarding the "boy in the petticoat" in whom more than a Marius +lay concealed--all these were precisely so many recommendations +in the eyes of the democratic party. But Caesar could only be the object +of hopes for the future; and the men who from their age and their +public position would have been called now to seize the reins +of the party and the state, were all dead or in exile. + +Lepidus + +Thus the leadership of the democracy, in the absence of a man +with a true vocation for it, was to be had by any one who might please +to give himself forth as the champion of oppressed popular freedom; +and in this way it came to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a Sullan, +who from motives more than ambiguous deserted to the camp +of the democracy. Once a zealous Optimate, and a large purchaser +at the auctions of the proscribed estates, he had, as governor of Sicily, +so scandalously plundered the province that he was threatened +with impeachment, and, to evade it, threw himself into opposition. +It was a gain of doubtful value. No doubt the opposition +thus acquired a well-known name, a man of quality, a vehement orator +in the Forum; but Lepidus was an insignificant and indiscreet +personage, who did not deserve to stand at the head either +in council or in the field. Nevertheless the opposition welcomed him, +and the new leader of the democrats succeeded not only in deterring +his accusers from prosecuting the attack on him which they had +begun, but also in carrying his election to the consulship +for 676; in which, we may add, he was helped not only by the treasures +exacted in Sicily, but also by the foolish endeavour of Pompeius +to show Sulla and the pure Sullans on this occasion what he could do. +Now that the opposition had, on the death of Sulla, found a head +once more in Lepidus, and now that this their leader had become +the supreme magistrate of the state, the speedy outbreak of a new +revolution in the capital might with certainty be foreseen. + +The Emigrants in Spain +Sertorius + +But even before the democrats moved in the capital, the democratic +emigrants had again bestirred themselves in Spain. The soul +of this movement was Quintus Sertorius. This excellent man, +a native of Nursia in the Sabine land, was from the first +of a tender and even soft organization--as his almost enthusiastic love +for his mother, Raia, shows--and at the same time of the most chivalrous +bravery, as was proved by the honourable scars which he brought +home from the Cimbrian, Spanish, and Italian wars. Although wholly +untrained as an orator, he excited the admiration of learned +advocates by the natural flow and the striking self-possession +of his address. His remarkable military and statesmanly talent +had found opportunity of shining by contrast, more particularly +in the revolutionary war which the democrats so wretchedly and stupidly +mismanaged; he was confessedly the only democratic officer +who knew how to prepare and to conduct war, and the only democratic +statesman who opposed the insensate and furious doings of his party +with statesmanlike energy. His Spanish soldiers called him the new +Hannibal, and not merely because he had, like that hero, lost +an eye in war. He in reality reminds us of the great Phoenician +by his equally cunning and courageous strategy, by his rare talent +of organizing war by means of war, by his adroitness in attracting +foreign nations to his interest and making them serviceable to his ends, +by his prudence in success and misfortune, by the quickness +of his ingenuity in turning to good account his victories +and averting the consequences of his defeats. It may be doubted +whether any Roman statesman of the earlier period, or of the present, +can be compared in point of versatile talent to Sertorius. +After Sulla's generals had compelled him to quit Spain,(15) +he had led a restless life of adventure along the Spanish and African +coasts, sometimes in league, sometimes at war, with the Cilician +pirates who haunted these seas, and with the chieftains +of the roving tribes of Libya. The victorious Roman restoration had +pursued him even thither: when he was besieging Tingis (Tangiers), +a corps under Pacciaecus from Roman Africa had come to the help +of the prince of the town; but Pacciaecus was totally defeated, +and Tingis was taken by Sertorius. On the report of such achievements +by the Roman refugee spreading abroad, the Lusitanians, who, +notwithstanding their pretended submission to the Roman supremacy, +practically maintained their independence, and annually fought +with the governors of Further Spain, sent envoys to Sertorius +in Africa, to invite him to join them, and to commit to him +the command of their militia. + +Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection +Metellus Sent to Spain + +Sertorius, who twenty years before had served under Titus Didius +in Spain and knew the resources of the land, resolved to comply +with the invitation, and, leaving behind a small detachment +on the Mauretanian coast, embarked for Spain (about 674). +The straits separating Spain and Africa were occupied by a Roman +squadron commanded by Cotta; to steal through it was impossible; +so Sertorius fought his way through and succeeded in reaching +the Lusitanians. There were not more than twenty Lusitanian +communities that placed themselves under his orders; and even +of "Romans" he mustered only 2600 men, a considerable part +of whom were deserters from the army of Pacciaecus or Africans +armed after the Roman style. Sertorius saw that everything depended on +his associating with the loose guerilla-bands a strong nucleus +of troops possessing Roman organization and discipline: for this end +he reinforced the band which he had brought with him by levying +4000 infantry and 700 cavalry, and with this one legion +and the swarms of Spanish volunteers advanced against the Romans. +The command in Further Spain was held by Lucius Fufidius, +who through his absolute devotion to Sulla--well tried amidst +the proscriptions--had risen from a subaltern to be propraetor; +he was totally defeated on the Baetis; 2000 Romans covered the field +of battle. Messengers in all haste summoned the governor +of the adjoining province of the Ebro, Marcus Domitius Calvinus, +to check the farther advance of the Sertorians; and there soon appeared +(675) also the experienced general Quintus Metellus, sent by Sulla +to relieve the incapable Fufidius in southern Spain. But they did +not succeed in mastering the revolt. In the Ebro province +not only was the army of Calvinus destroyed and he himself slain +by the lieutenant of Sertorius, the quaestor Lucius Hirtuleius, +but Lucius Manlius, the governor of Transalpine Gaul, who had crossed +the Pyrenees with three legions to the help of his colleague, +was totally defeated by the same brave leader. With difficulty +Manlius escaped with a few men to Ilerda (Lerida) and thence +to his province, losing on the march his whole baggage through +a sudden attack of the Aquitanian tribes. In Further Spain Metellus +penetrated into the Lusitanian territory; but Sertorius succeeded +during the siege of Longobriga (not far from the mouth +of the Tagus) in alluring a division under Aquinus into an ambush, +and thereby compelling Metellus himself to raise the siege +and to evacuate the Lusitanian territory. Sertorius followed him, +defeated on the Anas (Guadiana) the corps of Thorius, and inflicted +vast damage by guerilla warfare on the army of the commander-in- +chief himself. Metellus, a methodical and somewhat clumsy +tactician, was in despair as to this opponent, who obstinately +declined a decisive battle, but cut off his supplies +and communications and constantly hovered round him on all sides. + +Organizations of Sertorius + +These extraordinary successes obtained by Sertorius +in the two Spanish provinces were the more significant, +that they were not achieved merely by arms and were not of a mere +military nature. The emigrants as such were not formidable; +nor were isolated successes of the Lusitanians under this or that +foreign leader of much moment. But with the most decided political +and patriotic tact Sertorius acted, whenever he could do so, +not as condottiere of the Lusitanians in revolt against Rome, +but as Roman general and governor of Spain, in which capacity +he had in fact been sent thither by the former rulers. +He began(16) to form the heads of the emigration into a senate, +which was to increase to 300 members and to conduct affairs +and to nominate magistrates in Roman form. He regarded his army +as a Roman one, and filled the officers' posts, without exception, +with Romans. When facing the Spaniards, he was the governor, +who by virtue of his office levied troops and other support +from them; but he was a governor who, instead of exercising +the usual despotic sway, endeavoured to attach the provincials +to Rome and to himself personally. His chivalrous character +rendered it easy for him to enter into Spanish habits, +and excited in the Spanish nobility the most ardent enthusiasm +for the wonderful foreigner who had a spirit so kindred +with their own. According to the warlike custom of personal following +which subsisted in Spain as among the Celts and the Germans, +thousands of the noblest Spaniards swore to stand faithfully +by their Roman general unto death; and in them Sertorius found +more trustworthy comrades than in his countrymen and party-associates. +He did not disdain to turn to account the superstition of the ruder +Spanish tribes, and to have his plans of war brought to him as commands +of Diana by the white fawn of the goddess. Throughout he exercised +a just and gentle rule. His troops, at least so far as his eye +and his arm reached, had to maintain the strictest discipline. +Gentle as he generally was in punishing, he showed himself inexorable +when any outrage was perpetrated by his soldiers on friendly soil. +Nor was he inattentive to the permanent alleviation of the condition +of the provincials; he reduced the tribute, and directed the soldiers +to construct winter barracks for themselves, so that the oppressive +burden of quartering the troops was done away and thus a source +of unspeakable mischief and annoyance was stopped. For the children +of Spaniards of quality an academy was erected at Osca (Huesca), +in which they received the higher instruction usual in Rome, +learning to speak Latin and Greek, and to wear the toga--a remarkable +measure, which was by no means designed merely to take from the allies +in as gentle a form as possible the hostages that in Spain +were inevitable, but was above all an emanation from, and an advance +onthe great project of Gaius Gracchus and the democratic +party for gradually Romanizing the provinces. It was the first +attempt to accomplish their Romanization not by extirpating +the old inhabitants and filling their places with Italian emigrants, +but by Romanizing the provincials themselves. The Optimates +in Rome sneered at the wretched emigrant, the runaway from the Italian +army, the last of the robber-band of Carbo; the sorry taunt +recoiled upon its authors. The masses that had been brought into +the field against Sertorius were reckoned, including the Spanish +general levy, at 120,000 infantry, 2000 archers and slingers, +and 6000 cavalry. Against this enormous superiority of force Sertorius +had not only held his ground in a series of successful conflicts +and victories, but had also reduced the greater part of Spain +under his power. In the Further province Metellus found himself +confined to the districts immediately occupied by his troops; +hereall the tribes, who could, had taken the side of Sertorius. +In the Hither province, after the victories of Hirtuleius, +there no longer existed a Roman army. Emissaries of Sertorius +roamed through the whole territory of Gaul; there, too, +the tribes began to stir, and bands gathering together began +to make the Alpine passes insecure. Lastly the sea too belonged +quite as much to the insurgents as to the legitimate government, +since the allies of the former--the pirates--were almost as powerful +in the Spanish waters as the Roman ships of war. At the promontory +of Diana (now Denia, between Valencia and Alicante) Sertorius established +for the corsairs a fixed station, where they partly lay in wait +for such Roman ships as were conveying supplies to the Roman +maritime towns and the army, partly carried away or delivered goods +for the insurgents, and partly formed their medium of intercourse +with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving +to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration +tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time +when so much combustible matter was everywhere accumulated +in the Roman empire. + +Death of Sulla and Its Consequences + +Amidst this state of matters the sudden death of Sulla took place +(676). So long as the man lived, at whose voice a trained +and trustworthy army of veterans was ready any moment to rise, +the oligarchy might tolerate the almost (as it seemed) +definite abandonment of the Spanish provinces to the emigrants, +and the election of the leader of the opposition at home to be supreme +magistrate, at all events as transient misfortunes; and in their +shortsighted way, yet not wholly without reason, might cherish +confidence either that the opposition would not venture to proceed +to open conflict, or that, if it did venture, he who had twice +saved the oligarchy would set it up a third time. Now the state +of things was changed. The democratic Hotspurs in the capital, +long impatient of the endless delay and inflamed by the brilliant news +from Spain, urged that a blow should be struck; and Lepidus, +with whom the decision for the moment lay, entered into the proposal +with all the zeal of a renegade and with his own characteristic +frivolity. For a moment it seemed as if the torch which kindled +the funeral pile of the regent would also kindle civil war; +but the influence of Pompeius and the temper of the Sullan veterans +induced the opposition to let the obsequies of the regent +pass over in peace. + +Insurrection of Lepidus + +Yet all the more openly were arrangements thenceforth made +to introduce a fresh revolution. Daily the Forum resounded +with accusations against the "mock Romulus" and his executioners. +Even before the great potentate had closed his eyes, the overthrow +of the Sullan constitution, the re-establishment of the distributions +of grain, the reinstating of the tribunes of the people in their +former position, the recall of those who were banished contrary +to law, the restoration of the confiscated lands, were openly indicated +by Lepidus and his adherents as the objects at which they aimed. +Now communications were entered into with the proscribed; +Marcus Perpenna, governor of Sicily in the days of Cinna,(17) +arrived in the capital. The sons of those whom Sulla had declared +guilty of treason--on whom the laws of the restoration bore +with intolerable severity--and generally the more noted men of Marian +views were invited to give their accession. Not a few, such as +the young Lucius Cinna, joined the movement; others, however, +followed the example of Gaius Caesar, who had returned home from Asia +on receiving the accounts of the death of Sulla and of the plans +of Lepidus, but after becoming more accurately acquainted +with the character of the leader and of the movement prudently withdrew. +Carousing and recruiting went on in behalf of Lepidus +in the taverns and brothels of the capital. At length a conspiracy +against the new order of things was concocted among the Etruscan +malcontents.(18) + +All this took place under the eyes of the government The consul +Catulus as well as the more judicious Optimates urged an immediate +decisive interference and suppression of the revolt in the bud; +the indolent majority, however, could not make up their minds to begin +the struggle, but tried to deceive themselves as long as possible +by a system of compromises and concessions. Lepidus also on his +part at first entered into it. The suggestion, which proposed +a restoration of the prerogatives taken away from the tribunes +of the people, he as well as his colleague Catulus repelled. +On the other hand, the Gracchan distribution of grain +was to a limited extent re-established. According to it not all +(as according to the Sempronian law) but only a definite number-- +presumably 40,000--of the poorer burgesses appear to have received +the earlier largesses, as Gracchus had fixed them, of five -modii- +monthly at the price of 6 1/3 -asses- (3 pence)--a regulation +which occasioned to the treasury an annual net loss of at least +40,000 pounds.(19) The opposition, naturally as little satisfied +as it was decidedly emboldened by this partial concession, displayed +all the more rudeness and violence in the capital; and in Etruria, +the true centre of all insurrections of the Italian proletariate, +civil war already broke out, the dispossessed Faesulans resumed +possession of their lost estates by force of arms, and several +of the veterans settled there by Sulla perished in the tumult. +The senate on learning what had occurred resolved to send the two consuls +thither, in order to raise troops and suppress the insurrection.(20) +It was impossible to adopt a more irrational course. The senate, +in presence of the insurrection, evinced its pusillanimity +and its fears by the re-establishment of the corn-law; in order +to be relieved from a street-riot, it furnished the notorious +head of the insurrection with an army; and, when the two consuls +were bound by the most solemn oath which could be contrived not to turn +the arms entrusted to them against each other, it must have required +the superhuman obduracy of oligarchic consciences to think of erecting +such a bulwark against the impending insurrection. Of course Lepidus +armed in Etruria not for the senate, but for the insurrection-- +sarcastically declaring that the oath which he had taken bound him +only for the current year. The senate put the oracular machinery +in motion to induce him to return, and committed to him the conduct +of the impending consular elections; but Lepidus evaded compliance, +and, while messengers passed to and fro and the official year drew +to an end amidst proposals of accommodation, his force swelled to an army. +When at length, in the beginning of the following year (677), +the definite order of the senate was issued to Lepidus to return +without delay, the proconsul haughtily refused obedience, +and demanded in his turn the renewal of the former tribunician power, +the reinstatement of those who had been forcibly ejected +from their civic rights and their property, and, besides this, +his own re-election as consul for the current year or, in other words, +the -tyrannis- in legal form. + +Outbreak of the War +Lepidus Defeated +Death of Lepidus + +Thus war was declared. The senatorial party could reckon, in addition to +the Sullan veterans whose civil existence was threatened by Lepidus, +upon the army assembled by the proconsul Catulus; and so, in compliance +with the urgent warnings of the more sagacious, particularly of Philippus, +Catulus was entrusted by the senate with the defence of the capital +and the repelling of the main force of the democratic party stationed +in Etruria. At the same time Gnaeus Pompeius was despatched with another +corps to wrest from his former protege the valley of the Po, which was held +by Lepidus' lieutenant, Marcus Brutus. While Pompeius speedily +accomplished his commission and shut up the enemy's general closely +in Mutina, Lepidus appeared before the capital in order to conquer +it for the revolution as Marius had formerly done by storm. +The right bank of the Tiber fell wholly into his power, and he was able +even to cross the river. The decisive battle was fought +on the Campus Martius, close under the walls of the city. +But Catulus conquered; and Lepidus was compelled to retreat to Etruria, +while another division, under his son Scipio, threw itself +into the fortress of Alba. Thereupon the rising was substantially +atan end. Mutina surrendered to Pompeius; and Brutus was, +notwithstanding the safe-conduct promised to him, subsequently +put to death by order of that general. Alba too was, after a long siege, +reduced by famine, and the leader there was likewise executed. +Lepidus, pressed on two sides by Catulus and Pompeius, fought another +engagement on the coast of Etruria in order merely to procure +the means of retreat, and then embarked at the port of Cosa for Sardinia +from which point he hoped to cut off the supplies of the capital, +and to obtain communication with the Spanish insurgents. +But the governor of the island opposed to him a vigorous resistance; +and he himself died, not long after his landing, of consumption (677), +whereupon the war in Sardinia came to an end. A part of his soldiers +dispersed; with the flower of the insurrectionary army +and with a well-filled chest the late praetor, Marcus Perpenna, +proceeded to Liguria, and thence to Spain to join the Sertorians. + +Pompeius Extorts the Command in Spain + +The oligarchy was thus victorious over Lepidus; but it found itself +compelled by the dangerous turn of the Sertorian war to concessions, +which violated the letter as well as the spirit of the Sullan +constitution. It was absolutely necessary to send a strong +army and an able general to Spain; and Pompeius indicated, +very plainly, that he desired, or rather demanded, this commission. +The pretension was bold. It was already bad enough that they +had allowed this secret opponent again to attain an extraordinary +command in the pressure of the Lepidian revolution; but it was far +more hazardous, in disregard of all the rules instituted by Sulla +for the magisterial hierarchy, to invest a man who had hitherto +filled no civil office with one of the most important ordinary +provincial governorships, under circumstances in which the observance +of the legal term of a year was not to be thought of. +The oligarchy had thus, even apart from the respect due to their +general Metellus, good reason to oppose with all earnestness +this new attempt of the ambitious youth to perpetuate his exceptional +position. But this was not easy. In the first place, they had +not a single man fitted for the difficult post of general in Spain. +Neither of the consuls of the year showed any desire to measure +himself against Sertorius; and what Lucius Philippus said in a full +meeting of the senate had to be admitted as too true--that, among +all the senators of note, not one was able and willing to command +in a serious war. Yet they might, perhaps, have got over this, +and after the manner of oligarchs, when they had no capable candidate, +have filled the place with some sort of makeshift, if Pompeius had +merely desired the command and had not demanded it at the head +of an army. He had already lent a deaf ear to the injunctions +of Catulus that he should dismiss the army; it was at least doubtful +whether those of the senate would find a better reception, +and the consequences of a breach no one could calculate-- +the scale of aristocracy might very easily mount up, if the sword +of a well-known general were thrown into the opposite scale. +So the majority resolved on concession. Not from the people, +which constitutionally ought to have been consulted in a case +where a private man was to be invested with the supreme magisterial +power, but from the senate, Pompeius received proconsular authority +and the chief command in Hither Spain; and, forty days after he had +received it, crossed the Alps in the summer of 677. + +Pompeius in Gaul + +First of all the new general found employment in Gaul, +where no formal insurrection had broken out, but serious disturbances +of the peace had occurred at several places; in consequence +of which Pompeius deprived the cantons of the Volcae-Arecomici +and the Helvii of their independence, and placed them under Massilia. +He also laid out a new road over the Cottian Alps (Mont Genevre,(21)), +and so established a shorter communication between the valley +of the Po and Gaul. Amidst this work the best season of the year +passed away; it was not till late in autumn that Pompeius crossed +the Pyrenees. + +Appearance of Pompeius in Spain + +Sertorius had meanwhile not been idle. He had despatched +Hirtuleius into the Further province to keep Metellus in check, +and had himself endeavoured to follow up his complete victory +in the Hither province, and to prepare for the reception of Pompeius. +The isolated Celtiberian towns there, which still adhered to Rome, +were attacked and reduced one after another; at last, in the very +middle of winter, the strong Contrebia (south-east of Saragossa) +had fallen. In vain the hard-pressed towns had sent message +after message to Pompeius; he would not be induced by any entreaties +to depart from his wonted rut of slowly advancing. With the exception +of the maritime towns, which were defended by the Roman fleet, +and the districts of the Indigetes and Laletani in the north-east +corner of Spain, where Pompeius established himself after he had +at length crossed the Pyrenees, and made his raw troops bivouac +throughout the winter to inure them to hardships, the whole +of Hither Spain had at the end of 677 become by treaty or force +dependent on Sertorius, and the district on the upper and middle +Ebro thenceforth continued the main stay of his power. Even +the apprehension, which the fresh Roman force and the celebrated name +of the general excited in the army of the insurgents, had a salutary +effect on it. Marcus Perpenna, who hitherto as the equal +of Sertorius in rank had claimed an independent command over the force +which he had brought with him from Liguria, was, on the news +of the arrival of Pompeius in Spain, compelled by his soldiers +to place himself under the orders of his abler colleague. + +For the campaign of 678 Sertorius again employed the corps +of Hirtuleius against Metellus, while Perpenna with a strong army +took up his position along the lower course of the Ebro to prevent +Pompeius from crossing the river, if he should march, as was +to be expected, in a southerly direction with the view of effecting +a junction with Metellus, and along the coast for the sake +of procuring supplies for his troops. The corps of Gaius Herennius +was destined to the immediate support of Perpenna; farther inland +on the upper Ebro, Sertorius in person prosecuted meanwhile +the subjugation of several districts friendly to Rome, and held himself +at the same time ready to hasten according to circumstances +to the aid of Perpenna or Hirtuleius. It was still his intention +to avoid any pitched battle, and to annoy the enemy by petty +conflicts and cutting off supplies. + +Pompeius Defeated + +Pompeius, however, forced the passage of the Ebro against Perpenna +and took up a position on the river Pallantias, near Saguntum, +whence, as we have already said, the Sertorians maintained their +communications with Italy and the east. It was time that Sertorius +should appear in person, and throw the superiority of his numbers +and of his genius into the scale against the greater excellence +of the soldiers of his opponent. For a considerable time the struggle +was concentrated around the town of Lauro (on the Xucar, south +of Valencia), which had declared for Pompeius and was on that account +besieged by Sertorius. Pompeius exerted himself to the utmost +to relieve it; but, after several of his divisions had already been +assailed separately and cut to pieces, the great warrior found +himself--just when he thought that he had surrounded the Sertorians, +and when he had already invited the besieged to be spectators +of the capture of the besieging army--all of a sudden completely +outmanoeuvred; and in order that he might not be himself +surrounded, he had to look on from his camp at the capture +and reduction to ashes of the allied town and at the carrying off +of its inhabitants to Lusitania--an event which induced a number +of towns that had been wavering in middle and eastern Spain +to adhere anew to Sertorius. + +Victories of Metellus + +Meanwhile Metellus fought with better fortune. In a sharp +engagement at Italica (not far from Seville), which Hirtuleius had +imprudently risked, and in which both generals fought hand to hand +and Hirtuleius was wounded, Metellus defeated him and compelled him +to evacuate the Roman territory proper, and to throw himself +into Lusitania. This victory permitted Metellus to unite with Pompeius. +The two generals took up their winter-quarters in 678-79 +at the Pyrenees, and in the next campaign in 679 they resolved +to make a joint attack on the enemy in his position near Valentia. +But while Metellus was advancing, Pompeius offered battle beforehand +to the main army of the enemy, with a view to wipe out the stain +of Lauro and to gain the expected laurels, if possible, alone. +With joy Sertorius embraced the opportunity of fighting with Pompeius +before Metellus arrived. + +Battle on the Sucro + +The armies met on the river Sucro (Xucar): after a sharp conflict +Pompeius was beaten on the right wing, and was himself carried +from the field severely wounded. Afranius no doubt conquered +with the left and took the camp of the Sertorians, but during its pillage +he was suddenly assailed by Sertorius and compelled also to give way. +Had Sertorius been able to renew the battle on the following +day, the army of Pompeius would perhaps have been annihilated. +But meanwhile Metellus had come up, had overthrown the corps +of Perpenna ranged against him, and taken his camp: it was not +possible to resume the battle against the two armies united. The +successes of Metellus, the junction of the hostile forces, the +sudden stagnation after the victory, diffused terror among the +Sertorians; and, as not unfrequently happened with Spanish armies, +in consequence of this turn of things the greater portion +of the Sertorian soldiers dispersed. But the despondency passed away +as quickly as it had come; the white fawn, which represented +in the eyes of the multitude the military plans of the general, +was soon more popular than ever; in a short time Sertorius appeared +with a new army confronting the Romans in the level country +to the south of Saguntum (Murviedro), which firmly adhered to Rome, +while the Sertorian privateers impeded the Roman supplies by sea, +and scarcity was already making itself felt in the Roman camp. +Another battle took place in the plains of the river Turia +(Guadalaviar), and the struggle was long undecided. Pompeius +with the cavalry was defeated by Sertorius, and his brother-in-law +and quaestor, the brave Lucius Memmius, was slain; on the other hand +Metellus vanquished Perpenna, and victoriously repelled the attack +of the enemy's main army directed against him, receiving himself +a wound in the conflict. Once more the Sertorian army dispersed. +Valentia, which Gaius Herennius held for Sertorius, was taken +and razed to the ground. The Romans, probably for a moment, +cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist. +The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating +far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress +Clunia on the upper Douro. But while they vainly invested +this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities +assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even +before the expiry of the year stood once more as general +at the head of an army. + +Again the Roman generals had to take up their winter quarters +with the cheerless prospect of an inevitable renewal of their Sisyphean +war-toils. It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region +of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy +and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe; +Pompeius led his troops first into the territory of the Vascones(22) +(Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei +(about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul. + +Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +For five years the Sertorian war thus continued, and still +there seemed no prospect of its termination. The state suffered +from it beyond description. The flower of the Italian youth perished +amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns. The public treasury +was not only deprived of the Spanish revenues, but had annually +to send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies +very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how +to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman +civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received +a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case +ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness, +and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities. +Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless +hardships to endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided +with necessaries by the Roman fleet, and the situation of the faithful +communities in the interior was almost desperate. Gaul suffered +hardly less, partly from the requisitions for contingents +of infantry and cavalry, for grain and money, partly +from the oppressive burden of the winter-quarters, which rose +to an intolerable degree in consequence of the bad harvest of 680; +almost all the local treasuries were compelled to betake themselves +to the Roman bankers, and to burden themselves with a crushing load +of debt. Generals and soldiers carried on the war with reluctance. +The generals had encountered an opponent far superior in talent, +a tough and protracted resistance, a warfare of very serious perils +and of successes difficult to be attained and far from brilliant; +it was asserted that Pompeius was scheming to get himself recalled +from Spain and entrusted with a more desirable command somewhere +else. The soldiers, too, found little satisfaction in a campaign +in which not only was there nothing to be got save hard blows +and worthless booty, but their very pay was doled out to them +with extreme irregularity. Pompeius reported to the senate, at the end +of 679, that the pay was two years in arrear, and that the army +was threatening to break up. The Roman government might certainly +have obviated a considerable portion of these evils, if they could have +prevailed on themselves to carry on the Spanish war with less +remissness, to say nothing of better will. In the main, however, +it was neither their fault nor the fault of their generals +that a genius so superior as that of Sertorius was able to carry on +this petty warfare year after year, despite of all numerical +and military superiority, on ground so thoroughly favourable +to insurrectionary and piratical warfare. So little could its end +be foreseen, that the Sertorian insurrection seemed rather +as if it would become intermingled with other contemporary revolts +and thereby add to its dangerous character. Just at that time +the Romans were contending on every sea with piratical fleets, +in Italy with the revolted slaves, in Macedonia with the tribes +on the lower Danube; and in the east Mithradates, partly induced +by the successes of the Spanish insurrection, resolved once more +to try the fortune of arms. That Sertorius had formed connections +with the Italian and Macedonian enemies of Rome, cannot be distinctly +affirmed, although he certainly was in constant intercourse +with the Marians in Italy. With the pirates, on the other hand, +he had previously formed an avowed league, and with the Pontic king-- +with whom he had long maintained relations through the medium +of the Roman emigrants staying at his court--he now concluded +a formal treaty of alliance, in which Sertorius ceded to the king +the client-states of Asia Minor, but not the Roman province of Asia, +and promised, moreover, to send him an officer qualified to lead +his troops, and a number of soldiers, while the king, in turn, +bound himself to transmit to Sertorius forty ships and 3000 talents +(720,000 pounds). The wise politicians in the capital were already +recalling the time when Italy found itself threatened by Philip +from the east and by Hannibal from the west; they conceived +that the new Hannibal, just like his predecessor, after having +by himself subdued Spain, could easily arrive with the forces +of Spain in Italy sooner than Pompeius, in order that, +like the Phoenician formerly, he might summon the Etruscans +and Samnites to arms against Rome. + +Collapse of the Power of Sertorius + +But this comparison was more ingenious than accurate. Sertorius +was far from being strong enough to renew the gigantic enterprise +of Hannibal. He was lost if he left Spain, where all his successes +were bound up with the peculiarities of the country and the people; +and even there he was more and more compelled to renounce +the offensive. His admirable skill as a leader could not change +the nature of his troops. The Spanish militia retained its character, +untrustworthy as the wave or the wind; now collected in masses +to the number of 150,000, now melting away again to a mere handful. +The Roman emigrants, likewise, continued insubordinate, arrogant, +and stubborn. Those kinds of armed force which require that a corps +should keep together for a considerable time, such as cavalry +especially, were of course very inadequately represented +in his army. The war gradually swept off his ablest officers +and the flower of his veterans; and even the most trustworthy +communities, weary of being harassed by the Romans and maltreated +by the Sertorian officers, began to show signs of impatience +and wavering allegiance. It is remarkable that Sertorius, +in this respect also like Hannibal, never deceived himself +as to the hopelessness of his position; he allowed no opportunity +for bringing about a compromise to pass, and would have been ready +at any moment to lay down his staff of command on the assurance +of being allowed to live peacefully in his native land. +But political orthodoxy knows nothing of compromise and conciliation. +Sertorius might not recede or step aside; he was compelled inevitably +to move on along the path which he had once entered, however narrow +and giddy it might become. + +The representations which Pompeius addressed to Rome, and which +derived emphasis from the behaviour of Mithradates in the east, +were successful. He had the necessary supplies of money sent +to him by the senate and was reinforced by two fresh legions. +Thus the two generals went to work again in the spring of 680 +and once more crossed the Ebro. Eastern Spain was wrested +from the Sertorians in consequence of the battles on the Xucar +and Guadalaviar; the struggle thenceforth became concentrated +on the upper and middle Ebro around the chief strongholds +of the Sertorians--Calagurris, Osca, Ilerda. As Metellus had done +best in the earlier campaigns, so too on this occasion he gained +the most important successes. His old opponent Hirtuleius, who again +confronted him, was completely defeated and fell himself along with +his brother--an irreparable loss for the Sertorians. Sertorius, +whom the unfortunate news reached just as he was on the point +of assailing the enemy opposed to him, cut down the messenger, +that the tidings might not discourage his troops; but the news +could not be long concealed. One town after another surrendered, +Metellus occupied the Celtiberian towns of Segobriga (between Toledo +and Cuenca) and Bilbilis (near Calatayud). Pompeius besieged +Pallantia (Palencia above Valladolid), but Sertorius relieved it, +and compelled Pompeius to fall back upon Metellus; in front +of Calagurris (Calahorra, on the upper Ebro), into which Sertorius +had thrown himself, they both suffered severe losses. Nevertheless, +when they went into winter-quarters--Pompeius to Gaul, Metellus +to his own province--they were able to look back on considerable +results; a great portion of the insurgents had submitted or had +been subdued by arms. + +In a similar way the campaign of the following year (681) ran +its course; in this case it was especially Pompeius who slowly +but steadily restricted the field of the insurrection. + +Internal Dissension among the Sertorians + +The discomfiture sustained by the arms of the insurgents failed +not to react on the tone of feeling in their camp. The military +successes of Sertorius became like those of Hannibal, of necessity +less and less considerable; people began to call in question +his military talent: he was no longer, it was alleged, +what he had been; he spent the day in feasting or over his cups, +and squandered money as well as time. The number of the deserters, +and of communities falling away, increased. Soon projects formed +by the Roman emigrants against the life of the general were reported +to him; they sounded credible enough, especially as various officers +of the insurgent army, and Perpenna in particular, had submitted +with reluctance to the supremacy of Sertorius, and the Roman +governors had for long promised amnesty and a high reward to any +one who should kill him. Sertorius, on hearing such allegations, +withdrew the charge of guarding his person from the Roman soldiers +and entrusted it to select Spaniards. Against the suspected +themselves he proceeded with fearful but necessary severity, +and condemned various of the accused to death without resorting, +as in other cases, to the advice of his council; he was now +more dangerous--it was thereupon affirmed in the circles +of the malcontents--to his friends than to his foes. + +Assassination of Sertorius + +A second conspiracy was soon discovered, which had its seat +in his own staff; whoever was denounced had to take flight or die; +but all were not betrayed, and the remaining conspirators, +including especially Perpenna, found in the circumstances only +a new incentive to make haste. They were in the headquarters +at Osca. There, on the instigation of Perpenna, a brilliant victory +was reported to the general as having been achieved by his troops; +and at the festal banquet arranged by Perpenna to celebrate +this victory Sertorius accordingly appeared, attended, as was his wont, +by his Spanish retinue. Contrary to former custom in the Sertorian +headquarters, the feast soon became a revel; wild words passed +at table, and it seemed as if some of the guests sought opportunity +to begin an altercation. Sertorius threw himself back on his couch, +and seemed desirous not to hear the disturbance. Then a wine-cup +was dashed on the floor; Perpenna had given the concerted sign. +Marcus Antonius, Sertorius' neighbour at table, dealt the first +blow against him, and when Sertorius turned round and attempted +to rise, the assassin flung himself upon him and held him down +till the other guests at table, all of them implicated +in the conspiracy, threw themselves on the struggling pair, +and stabbed he defenceless general while his arms were pinioned (682). +With him died his faithful attendants. So ended one of the greatest +men, if not the very greatest man, that Rome had hitherto produced-- +a man who under more fortunate circumstances would perhaps +have become the regenerator of his country--by the treason +of the wretched band of emigrants whom he was condemned to lead against +his native land. History loves not the Coriolani; nor has she made +any exception even in the case of this the most magnanimous, +most gifted, most deserving to be regretted of them all. + +Perpenna Succeeds Sertorius + +The murderers thought to succeed to the heritage of the murdered. +After the death of Sertorius, Perpenna, as the highest among +the Roman officers of the Spanish army, laid claim to the chief +command. The army submitted, but with mistrust and reluctance. +However men had murmured against Sertorius in his lifetime, death +reinstated the hero in his rights, and vehement was the indignation +of the soldiers when, on the publication of his testament, the name +of Perpenna was read forth among the heirs. A part of the soldiers, +especially the Lusitanians, dispersed; the remainder had a presentiment +that with the death of Sertorius their spirit and their +fortune had departed. + +Pompeius Puts an End to the Insurrection + +Accordingly, at the first encounter with Pompeius, the wretchedly +led and despondent ranks of the insurgents were utterly broken, +and Perpenna, among other officers, was taken prisoner. The wretch +sought to purchase his life by delivering up the correspondence +of Sertorius, which would have compromised numerous men of standing +in Italy; but Pompeius ordered the papers to be burnt unread, +and handed him, as well as the other chiefs of the insurgents, +overto the executioner. The emigrants who had escaped dispersed; +and most of them went into the Mauretanian deserts or joined the pirates. +Soon afterwards the Plotian law, which was zealously supported +by the young Caesar in particular, opened up to a portion of them +the opportunity of returning home; but all those who had taken part +in the murder of Sertorius, with but a single exception, died +a violent death. Osca, and most of the towns which had still adhered +to Sertorius in Hither Spain, now voluntarily opened their gates +to Pompeius; Uxama (Osma), Clunia, and Calagurris alone had to be +reduced by force. The two provinces were regulated anew; +in the Further province, Metellus raised the annual tribute +of the most guilty communities; in the Hither, Pompeius dispensed +reward and punishment: Calagurris, for example, lost its independence +and was placed under Osca. A band of Sertorian soldiers, which had +collected in the Pyrenees, was induced by Pompeius to surrender, +and was settled by him to the north of the Pyrenees near Lugudunum +(St. Bertrand, in the department Haute-Garonne), as the community +of the "congregated" (-convenae-). The Roman emblems of victory +were erected at the summit of the pass of the Pyrenees; +at the close of 683, Metellus and Pompeius marched with their armies +through the streets of the capital, to present the thanks +of the nation to Father Jovis at the Capitol for the conquest +of the Spaniards. The good fortune of Sulla seemed still to be +with his creation after he had been laid in the grave, and to protect it +better than the incapable and negligent watchmen appointed to guard +it. The opposition in Italy had broken down from the incapacity +and precipitation of its leader, and that of the emigrants +from dissension within their own ranks. These defeats, +although far more the result of their own perverseness and discordance +than of the exertions of their opponents, were yet so many victories +for the oligarchy. The curule chairs were rendered once more secure. + + + + +Chapter II + +Rule of the Sullan Restoration + +External Relations + +When the suppression of the Cinnan revolution, which threatened +the very existence of the senate, rendered it possible for the restored +senatorial government to devote once more the requisite attention +to the internal and external security of the empire, there emerged +affairs enough, the settlement of which could not be postponed +without injuring the most important interests and allowing +present inconveniences to grow into future dangers. Apart from +the very serious complications in Spain, it was absolutely necessary +effectually to check the barbarians in Thrace and the regions +of the Danube, whom Sulla on his march through Macedonia had only +been able superficially to chastise,(1) and to regulate, by military +intervention, the disorderly state of things along the northern +frontier of the Greek peninsula; thoroughly to suppress +the bands of pirates infesting the seas everywhere, but especially +the eastern waters; and lastly to introduce better order +into the unsettled relations of Asia Minor. The peace which Sulla +had concluded in 670 with Mithradates, king of Pontus,(2) +and of which the treaty with Murena in 673(3) was essentially +a repetition, bore throughout the stamp of a provisional arrangement +to meet the exigencies of the moment; and the relations of the Romans +with Tigranes, king of Armenia, with whom they had de facto waged war, +remained wholly untouched in this peace. Tigranes had with right +regarded this as a tacit permission to bring the Roman possessions +in Asia under his power. If these were not to be abandoned, it +was necessary to come to terms amicably or by force with the new +great-king of Asia. + +In the preceding chapter we have described the movements +in Italy and Spain connected with the proceedings of the democracy, +and their subjugation by the senatorial government. In the present +chapter we shall review the external government, as the authorities +installed by Sulla conducted or failed to conduct it. + +Dalmato-Macedonian Expeditions + +We still recognize the vigorous hand of Sulla in the energetic measures +which, in the last period of his regency, the senate adopted almost +simultaneously against the Sertorians, the Dalmatians and Thracians, +and the Cilician pirates. + +The expedition to the Graeco-Illyrian peninsula was designed partly +to reduce to subjection or at least to tame the barbarous tribes +who ranged over the whole interior from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, +and of whom the Bessi (in the great Balkan) especially were, +as it was then said, notorious as robbers even among a race +of robbers; partly to destroy the corsairs in their haunts, +especially along the Dalmatian coast. As usual, the attack took +place simultaneously from Dalmatia and from Macedonia, in which +province an army of five legions was assembled for the purpose. +In Dalmatia the former praetor Gaius Cosconius held the command, +marched through the country in all directions, and took by storm +the fortress of Salona after a two years' siege. In Macedonia +the proconsul Appius Claudius (676-678) first attempted along +the Macedono-Thracian frontier to make himself master of the mountain +districts on the left bank of the Karasu. On both sides the war +was conducted with savage ferocity; the Thracians destroyed +the townships which they took and massacred their captives, +and the Romans returned like for like. But no results of importance +were attained; the toilsome marches and the constant conflicts +with the numerous and brave inhabitants of the mountains decimated +the army to no purpose; the general himself sickened and died. +His successor, Gaius Scribonius Curio (679-681), was induced +by various obstacles, and particularly by a not inconsiderable +military revolt, to desist from the difficult expedition +against the Thracians, and to turn himself instead to the northern +frontier of Macedonia, where he subdued the weaker Dardani (in Servia) +and reached as far as the Danube. The brave and able Marcus Lucullus +(682, 683) was the first who again advanced eastward, defeated the Bessi +in their mountains, took their capital Uscudama (Adrianople), +and compelled them to submit to the Roman supremacy. Sadalas king +of the Odrysians, and the Greek towns on the east coast to the north +and south of the Balkan chain--Istropolis, Tomi, Callatis, +Odessus (near Varna), Mesembria, and others--became dependent +on the Romans. Thrace, of which the Romans had hitherto held little +more than the Attalic possessions on the Chersonese, now became +a portion--though far from obedient--of the province of Macedonia. + +Piracy + +But the predatory raids of the Thracians and Dardani, confined +as they were to a small part of the empire, were far less injurious +to the state and to individuals than the evil of piracy, +which was continually spreading farther and acquiring +more solid organization. The commerce of the whole Mediterranean +was in its power. Italy could neither export its products nor import +grain from the provinces; in the former the people were starving, +in the latter the cultivation of the corn-fields ceased for want +of a vent for the produce. No consignment of money, no traveller +was longer safe: the public treasury suffered most serious losses; +a great many Romans of standing were captured by the corsairs, +and compelled to pay heavy sums for their ransom, if it was not even +the pleasure of the pirates to execute on individuals the sentence +of death, which in that case was seasoned with a savage humour. +The merchants, and even the divisions of Roman troops destined +for the east, began to postpone their voyages chiefly to the unfavourable +season of the year, and to be less afraid of the winter storms +than of the piratical vessels, which indeed even at this season +did not wholly disappear from the sea. But severely as the closing +of the sea was felt, it was more tolerable than the raids +made on the islands and coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. +Just as afterwards in the time of the Normans, piratical squadrons +ran up to the maritime towns, and either compelled them to buy +themselves off with large sums, or besieged and took them by storm. +When Samothrace, Clazomenae, Samos, Iassus were pillaged +by the pirates (670) under the eyes of Sulla after peace was concluded +with Mithradates, we may conceive how matters went where neither +a Roman army nor a Roman fleet was at hand. All the old rich temples +along the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor were plundered +one after another; from Samothrace alone a treasure of 1000 talents +(240,000 pounds) is said to have been carried off. Apollo, according +to a Roman poet of this period, was so impoverished by the pirates that, +when the swallow paid him a visit, he could no longer produce +to it out of all his treasures even a drachm of gold. More than four +hundred townships were enumerated as having been taken or laid +under contribution by the pirates, including cities like Cnidus, +Samos, Colophon; from not a few places on islands or the coast, +which were previously flourishing, the whole population migrated, +that they might not be carried off by the pirates. Even inland +districts were no longer safe from their attacks; there were instances +of their assailing townships distant one or two days' march +from the coast. The fearful debt, under which subsequently +all the communities of the Greek east succumbed, proceeded +in great part from these fatal times. + +Organization of Piracy + +Piracy had totally changed its character. The pirates +were no longer bold freebooters, who levied their tribute +from the large Italo-Oriental traffic in slaves and luxuries, +as it passed through the Cretan waters between Cyrene +and the Peloponnesus--in the language of the pirates the "golden sea"; +no longer even armed slave-catchers, who prosecuted "war, trade, +and piracy" equally side by side; they formed now a piratical state, +with a peculiar esprit de corps, with a solid and very respectable +organization, with a home of their own and the germs of a symmachy, +and doubtless also with definite political designs. The pirates +called themselves Cilicians; in fact their vessels were the rendezvous +of desperadoes and adventurers from all countries--discharged +mercenaries from the recruiting-grounds of Crete, burgesses +from the destroyed townships of Italy, Spain, and Asia, soldiers +and officers from the armies of Fimbria and Sertorius, in a word +the ruined men of all nations, the hunted refugees of all vanquished +parties, every one that was wretched and daring--and where was there not +misery and outrage in this unhappy age? It was no longer +a gang of robbers who had flocked together, but a compact soldier- +state, in which the freemasonry of exile and crime took the place +of nationality, and within which crime redeemed itself, as it so often +does in its own eyes, by displaying the most generous public spirit. +In an abandoned age, when cowardice and insubordination +had relaxed all the bonds of social order, the legitimate commonwealths +might have taken a pattern from this state--the mongrel offspring +of distress and violence--within which alone the inviolable +determination to stand side by side, the sense of comradeship, +respect for the pledged word and the self-chosen chiefs, valour +and adroitness seemed to have taken refuge. If the banner of this state +was inscribed with vengeance against the civil society which, +rightly or wrongly, had ejected its members, it might be a question +whether this device was much worse than those of the Italian oligarchy +and the Oriental sultanship which seemed in the fair way of dividing +the world between them. The corsairs at least felt themselves +on a level with any legitimate state; their robber-pride, +their robber-pomp, and their robber-humour are attested by many +a genuine pirate's tale of mad merriment and chivalrous bandittism: +they professed, and made it their boast, to live at righteous war +with all the world: what they gained in that warfare was designated +not as plunder, but as military spoil; and, while the captured corsair +was sure of the cross in every Roman seaport, they too claimed +the right of executing any of their captives. + +Its Military-Political Power + +Their military-political organization, especially since +the Mithradatic war, was compact. Their ships, for the most part +-myopiarones-, that is, small open swift-sailing barks, +with a smaller proportion of biremes and triremes, now regularly sailed +associated in squadrons and under admirals, whose barges were wont +to glitter in gold and purple. To a comrade in peril, +though he might be totally unknown, no pirate captain refused +the requested aid; an agreement concluded with any one of them +was absolutely recognized by the whole society, and any injury inflicted +on one was avenged by all. Their true home was the sea from the pillars +of Hercules to the Syrian and Egyptian waters; the refuges +which they needed for themselves and their floating houses +on the mainland were readily furnished to them by the Mauretanian +and Dalmatian coasts, by the island of Crete, and, above all, +by the southern coast of Asia Minor, which abounded in headlands +and lurking-places, commanded the chief thoroughfare of the maritime +commerce of that age, and was virtually without a master. +The league of Lycian cities there, and the Pamphylian communities, +were of little importance; the Roman station, which had existed +in Cilicia since 652, was far from adequate to command the extensive +coast; the Syrian dominion over Cilicia had always been +but nominal, and had recently been superseded by the Armenian, +the holder of which, as a true great-king, gave himself no concern +at all about the sea and readily abandoned it to the pillage +of the Cilicians. It was nothing wonderful, therefore, +that the corsairs flourished there as they had never done anywhere else. +Not only did they possess everywhere along the coast signal-places +and stations, but further inland--in the most remote recesses +of the impassable and mountainous interior of Lycia, Pamphylia, +and Cilicia--they had built their rock-castles, in which they concealed +their wives, children, and treasures during their own absence +at sea, and, doubtless, in times of danger found an asylum themselves. +Great numbers of such corsair-castles existed especially +in the Rough Cilicia, the forests of which at the same time furnished +the pirates with the most excellent timber for shipbuilding; and there, +accordingly, their principal dockyards and arsenals were situated. +It was not to be wondered at that this organized military state +gained a firm body of clients among the Greek maritime cities, +which were more or less left to themselves and managed their own +affairs: these cities entered into traffic with the pirates +as with a friendly power on the basis of definite treaties, +and did not comply with the summons of the Roman governors to furnish +vessels against them. The not inconsiderable town of Side +in Pamphylia, for instance, allowed the pirates to build ships +on its quays, and to sell the free men whom they had captured +in its market. + +Such a society of pirates was a political power; and as a political +power it gave itself out and was accepted from the time +when the Syrian king Tryphon first employed it as such and rested +his throne on its support.(4) We find the pirates as allies of king +Mithradates of Pontus as well as of the Roman democratic emigrants; +we find them giving battle to the fleets of Sulla in the eastern +and in the western waters; we find individual pirate princes ruling +over a series of considerable coast towns. We cannot tell how far +the internal political development of this floating state had +already advanced; but its arrangements undeniably contained +the germ of a sea-kingdom, which was already beginning to establish +itself, and out of which, under favourable circumstances, +a permanent state might have been developed. + +Nullity of the Roman Marine Police + +This state of matters clearly shows, as we have partly indicated +already,(5) how the Romans kept--or rather did not keep--order +on "their sea." The protectorate of Rome over the provinces +consisted essentially in military guardianship; the provincials +paid tax or tribute to the Romans for their defence by sea and land, +which was concentrated in Roman hands. But never, perhaps, +did a guardian more shamelessly defraud his ward than the Roman +oligarchy defrauded the subject communities. Instead of Rome equipping +a general fleet for the empire and centralizing her marine police, +the senate permitted the unity of her maritime superintendence-- +without which in this matter nothing could at all be done--to fall +into abeyance, and left it to each governor and each client state +to defend themselves against the pirates as each chose and was able. +Instead of Rome providing for the fleet, as she had bound herself +to do, exclusively with her own blood and treasure and with those +of the client states which had remained formally sovereign, +the senate allowed the Italian war-marine to fall into decay, +and learned to make shift with the vessels which the several +mercantile towns were required to furnish, or still more frequently +with the coast-guards everywhere organized--all the cost +and burden falling, in either case, on the subjects. The provincials +might deem themselves fortunate, if their Roman governor applied +the requisitions which he raised for the defence of the coast +in reality solely to that object, and did not intercept them +for himself; or if they were not, as very frequently happened, called +on to pay ransom for some Roman of rank captured by the buccaneers. +Measures undertaken perhaps with judgment, such as the occupation +of Cilicia in 652, were sure to be spoilt in the execution. +Any Roman of this period, who was not wholly carried away +by the current intoxicating idea of the national greatness, must have +wished that the ships' beaks might be torn down from the orator's +platform in the Forum, that at least he might not be constantly +reminded by them of the naval victories achieved in better times. + +Expedition to the South Coast of Asia Minor +Publius Servilius Isauricus +Zenicetes Vanquished +The Isaurians Subdued + +Nevertheless Sulla, who in the war against Mithradates had +the opportunity of acquiring an adequate conviction of the dangers +which the neglect of the fleet involved, took various steps +seriously to check the evil. It is true that the instructions +which he had left to the governors whom he appointed in Asia, +to equip in the maritime towns a fleet against the pirates, had borne +little fruit, for Murena preferred to begin war with Mithradates, +and Gnaeus Dolabella, the governor of Cilicia, proved wholly +incapable. Accordingly the senate resolved in 675 to send one +of the consuls to Cilicia; the lot fell on the capable Publius +Servilius. He defeated the piratical fleet in a bloody engagement, +and then applied himself to destroy those towns on the south coast +of Asia Minor which served them as anchorages and trading stations. +The fortresses of the powerful maritime prince Zenicetes--Olympus, +Corycus, Phaselis in eastern Lycia, Attalia in Pamphylia-- +were reduced, and the prince himself met his death in the flames +of his stronghold Olympus. A movement was next made against +the Isaurians, who in the north-west corner of the Rough Cilicia, +on the northern slope of Mount Taurus, inhabited a labyrinth +of steep mountain ridges, jagged rocks, and deeply-cut valleys, +covered with magnificent oak forests--a region which is even +at the present day filled with reminiscences of the old robber times. +To reduce these Isaurian fastnesses, the last and most secure retreats +ofthe freebooters, Servilius led the first Roman army over the Taurus, +and broke up the strongholds of the enemy, Oroanda, and above all +Isaura itself--the ideal of a robber-town, situated on the summit +of a scarcely accessible mountain-ridge, and completely overlooking +and commanding the wide plain of Iconium. The war, not ended +till 679, from which Publius Servilius acquired for himself +and his descendants the surname of Isauricus, was not without fruit; +a great number of pirates and piratical vessels fell in consequence +of it into the power of the Romans; Lycia, Pamphylia, West Cilicia +were severely devastated, the territories of the destroyed towns +were confiscated, and the province of Cilicia was enlarged by their +addition to it. But, in the nature of the case, piracy was far +from being suppressed by these measures; on the contrary, it simply +betook itself for the time to other regions, and particularly +to Crete, the oldest harbour for the corsairs of the Mediterranean.(6) +Nothing but repressive measures carried out on a large scale +and with unity of purpose--nothing, in fact, but the establishment +of a standing maritime police--could in such a case +afford thorough relief. + +Asiatic Relations +Tigranes and the New Great-Kingdom of Armenia + +The affairs of the mainland of Asia Minor were connected by various +relations with this maritime war. The variance which existed +between Rome and the kings of Pontus and Armenia did not abate, +but increased more and more. On the one hand Tigranes, +kingof Armenia, pursued his aggressive conquests in the most reckless +manner. The Parthians, whose state was at this period torn +by internal dissensions and enfeebled, were by constant hostilities +driven farther and farther back into the interior of Asia. +Of the countries between Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Iran, the kingdoms +of Corduene (northern Kurdistan), and Media Atropatene (Azerbijan), +were converted from Parthian into Armenian fiefs, and the kingdom +of Nineveh (Mosul), or Adiabene, was likewise compelled, at least +temporarily, to become a dependency of Armenia. In Mesopotamia, +too, particularly in and around Nisibis, the Armenian rule +was established; but the southern half, which was in great part desert, +seems not to have passed into the firm possession of the new great- +king, and Seleucia, on the Tigris, in particular, appears not to have +become subject to him. The kingdom of Edessa or Osrhoene +he handed over to a tribe of wandering Arabs, which he transplanted +from southern Mesopotamia and settled in this region, with the view +of commanding by its means the passage of the Euphrates +and the great route of traffic.(7) + +Cappadocia Armenian + +But Tigranes by no means confined his conquests to the eastern +bank of the Euphrates. Cappadocia especially was the object +of his attacks, and, defenceless as it was, suffered destructive +blows from its too potent neighbour. Tigranes wrested the eastern +province Melitene from Cappadocia, and united it with the opposite +Armenian province Sophene, by which means he obtained command +of the passage of the Euphrates with the great thoroughfare +of traffic between Asia Minor and Armenia. After the death of Sulla +the Armenians even advanced into Cappadocia proper, and carried off +to Armenia the inhabitants of the capital Mazaca (afterwards Caesarea) +and eleven other towns of Greek organization. + +Syria under Tigranes + +Nor could the kingdom of the Seleucids, already in full course +of dissolution, oppose greater resistance to the new great-king. +Here the south from the Egyptian frontier to Straton's Tower +(Caesarea) was under the rule of the Jewish prince Alexander Jannaeus, +who extended and strengthened his dominion step by step +in conflict with his Syrian, Egyptian, and Arabic neighbours +and with the imperial cities. The larger towns of Syria--Gaza, +Straton's Tower, Ptolemais, Beroea--attempted to maintain themselves +on their own footing, sometimes as free communities, sometimes +under so-called tyrants; the capital, Antioch, in particular, +was virtually independent. Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon +had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra. Lastly, +in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway. And for this crown +breaking into a thousand fragments the Seleucid princes continued +perseveringly to quarrel with each other, as though it were their object +to make royalty a jest and an offence to all; nay more, +while this family, doomed like the house of Laius to perpetual discord, +had its own subjects all in revolt, it even raised claims to the throne +of Egypt vacant by the decease of king Alexander II without heirs. +Accordingly king Tigranes set to work there without ceremony. +Eastern Cilicia was easily subdued by him, and the citizens of Soli +and other towns were carried off, just like the Cappadocians, +to Armenia. In like manner the province of Upper Syria, +withthe exception of the bravely-defended town of Seleucia at the mouth +of the Orontes, and the greater part of Phoenicia were reduced +by force; Ptolemais was occupied by the Armenians about 680, +and the Jewish state was already seriously threatened by them. Antioch, +the old capital of the Seleucids, became one of the residences +of the great-king. Already from 671, the year following the peace +between Sulla and Mithradates, Tigranes is designated +in the Syrian annals as the sovereign of the country, and Cilicia +and Syria appear as an Armenian satrapy under Magadates, +the lieutenant of the great-king. The age of the kings of Nineveh, +ofthe Salmanezers and Sennacheribs, seemed to be renewed; again oriental +despotism pressed heavily on the trading population of the Syrian +coast, as it did formerly on Tyre and Sidon; again great states +of the interior threw themselves on the provinces along +the Mediterranean; again Asiatic hosts, said to number +half a million combatants, appeared on the Cilician and Syrian coasts. +As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews +to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new +kingdom--from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia-- +the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens +of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods +and chattels (under penalty of the confiscation of everything +that they left behind) in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities +proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness +of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates +on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new +grand sultan. The new "city of Tigranes," Tigrano-certa, founded +on the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and destined +as the capital of the territories newly acquired for Armenia, became +a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, +and the appendages of palace, garden, and park that were appropriate +to sultanism. In other respects, too, the new great-king proved +faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood +of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns +on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed +himselfin public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor +of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white +half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, +and the royal diadem--attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, +wherever he went or stood, by four "kings." + +Mithradates + +King Mithradates acted with greater moderation. He refrained +from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with-- +what no treaty forbade--placing his dominion along the Black Sea +ona firmer basis, and gradually bringing into more definite dependence +the regions which separated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled +under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus. +But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient, +and especially to arm and organize the latter after the Roman model; +in which the Roman emigrants, who sojourned in great numbers +at his court, rendered essential service. + +Demeanor of the Romans in the East +Egypt not Annexed + +The Romans had no desire to become further involved in Oriental +affairs than they were already. This appears with striking +clearness in the fact, that the opportunity, which at this time +presented itself, of peacefully bringing the kingdom of Egypt +under the immediate dominion of Rome was spurned by the senate. +The legitimate descendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come +to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus +Soter II Lathyrus--Alexander II, a son of Alexander I--was killed, +a few days after he had ascended the throne, on occasion of a tumult +in the capital (673). This Alexander had in his testament(8) appointed +the Roman community his heir. The genuineness of this document +was no doubt disputed; but the senate acknowledged it by assuming +in virtue of it the sums deposited in Tyre on account of the deceased king. +Nevertheless it allowed two notoriously illegitimate sons of king Lathyrus, +Ptolemaeus XI, who was styled the new Dionysos or the Flute-blower +(Auletes), and Ptolemaeus the Cyprian, to take practical possession +of Egypt and Cyprus respectively. They were not indeed expressly +recognized by the senate, but no distinct summons to surrender +their kingdoms was addressed to them. The reason why the senate allowed +this state of uncertainty to continue, and did not commit itself +to a definite renunciation of Egypt and Cyprus, was undoubtedly +the considerable rent which these kings, ruling as it were on sufferance, +regularly paid for the continuance of the uncertainty to the heads +of the Roman coteries. But the motive for waiving that attractive +acquisition altogether was different. Egypt, by its peculiar +position and its financial organization, placed in the hands +of any governor commanding it a pecuniary and naval power and generally +an independent authority, which were absolutely incompatible +with the suspicious and feeble government of the oligarchy: +in this point of view it was judicious to forgo the direct possession +of the country of the Nile. + +Non-Intervention in Asia Minor and Syria + +Less justifiable was the failure of the senate to interfere directly +in the affairs of Asia Minor and Syria. The Roman government did not +indeed recognize the Armenian conqueror as king of Cappadocia +and Syria; but it did nothing to drive him back, although the war, +which under pressure of necessity it began in 676 against the pirates +in Cilicia, naturally suggested its interference more especially +in Syria. In fact, by tolerating the loss of Cappadocia and Syria +without declaring war, the government abandoned not merely +those committed to its protection, but the most important +foundations of its own powerful position. It adopted +a hazardous course, when it sacrificed the outworks of its dominion +in the Greek settlements and kingdoms on the Euphrates +and Tigris; but, when it allowed the Asiatics to establish +themselves on the Mediterranean which was the political +basis of its empire, this was not a proof of love of peace, +but a confession that the oligarchy had been rendered by the Sullan +restoration more oligarchical doubtless, but neither wiser +nor more energetic, and it was for Rome's place as a power +in the world the beginning of the end. + +On the other side, too, there was no desire for war. Tigranes +had no reason to wish it, when Rome even without war abandoned +to him all its allies. Mithradates, who was no mere sultan and had +enjoyed opportunity enough, amidst good and bad fortune, of gaining +experience regarding friends and foes, knew very well that in a second +Roman war he would very probably stand quite as much alone +as in the first, and that he could follow no more prudent course +than to keep quiet and to strengthen his kingdom in the interior. +That he was in earnest with his peaceful declarations, he had +sufficiently proved in the conference with Murena.(9) He continued +to avoid everything which would compel the Roman government +to abandon its passive attitude. + +Apprehensions of Rome + +But as the first Mithradatic war had arisen without any of the partie +properly desiring it, so now there grew out of the opposition +of interests mutual suspicion, and out of this suspicion +mutual preparations for defence; and these, by their very gravity, +ultimately led to an open breach. That distrust of her own readiness +to fight and preparation for fighting, which had for long governed +the policy of Rome--a distrust, which the want of standing armies +and the far from exemplary character of the collegiate rule +render sufficiently intelligible--made it, as it were, an axiom +of her policy to pursue every war not merely to the vanquishing, +but to the annihilation of her opponent; in this point of view +the Romans were from the outset as little content with the peace +of Sulla, as they had formerly been with the terms which Scipio +Africanus had granted to the Carthaginians. The apprehension often +expressed that a second attack by the Pontic king was imminent, +was in some measure justified by the singular resemblance between +the present circumstances and those which existed twelve years before. +Once more a dangerous civil war coincided with serious armaments +of Mithradates; once more the Thracians overran Macedonia, +and piratical fleets covered the Mediterranean; emissaries were coming +and going--as formerly between Mithradates and the Italians-- +so now between the Roman emigrants in Spain and those at the court +of Sinope. As early as the beginning of 677 it was declared +in the senate that the king was only waiting for the opportunity +of falling upon Roman Asia during the Italian civil war; +the Roman armies in Asia and Cilicia were reinforced +to meet possible emergencies. + +Apprehensions of Mithradates +Bithynia Roman +Cyrene a Roman Province +Outbreak of the Mithradatic War + +Mithradates on his part followed with growing apprehension +the development of the Roman policy. He could not but feel +that a war between the Romans and Tigranes, however much +the feeble senate might dread it, was in the long run almost inevitable, +and that he would not be able to avoid taking part in it. His attempt +to obtain from the Roman senate the documentary record of the terms +of peace, which was still wanting, had fallen amidst the disturbances +attending the revolution of Lepidus and remained without result; +Mithradates found in this an indication of the impending renewal +of the conflict. The expedition against the pirates, which indirectly +concerned also the kings of the east whose allies they were, +seemed the preliminary to such a war. Still more suspicious +were the claims which Rome held in suspense over Egypt and Cyprus: +it is significant that the king of Pontus betrothed his two daughters +Mithradatis and Nyssa to the two Ptolemies, to whom the senate +continued to refuse recognition. The emigrants urged him +to strike: the position of Sertorius in Spain, as to which Mithradates +despatched envoys under convenient pretexts to the headquarters +of Pompeius to obtain information, and which was about this very time +really imposing, opened up to the king the prospect of fighting +not, as in the first Roman war, against both the Roman parties, +but in concert with the one against the other. A more favourable +moment could hardly be hoped for, and after all it was always +better to declare war than to let it be declared against him. +In 679 Nicomedes III Philopator king of Bithynia, died, and as +the last of his race--for a son borne by Nysa was, or was said +to be, illegitimate--left his kingdom by testament to the Romans, +who delayed not to take possession of this region bordering +on the Roman province and long ago filled with Roman officials +and merchants. At the same time Cyrene, which had been already +bequeathed to the Romans in 658,(10) was at length constituted +a province, and a Roman governor was sent thither (679). These +measures, in connection with the attacks carried out about +the same time against the pirates on the south coast of Asia Minor, +must have excited apprehensions in the king; the annexation of Bithynia +in particular made the Romans immediate neighbours of the Pontic +kingdom; and this, it may be presumed, turned the scale. The king +took the decisive step and declared war against the Romans +in the winter of 679-680. + +Preparations of Mithradates + +Gladly would Mithradates have avoided undertaking so arduous a work +singlehanded. His nearest and natural ally was the great-king +Tigranes; but that shortsighted man declined the proposal of his +father-in-law. So there remained only the insurgents and the pirates. +Mithradates was careful to place himself in communication +with both, by despatching strong squadrons to Spain and to Crete. +A formal treaty was concluded with Sertorius,(11) by which Rome +ceded to the king Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia-- +all of them, it is true, acquisitions which needed to be ratified +on the field of battle. More important was the support +which the Spanish general gave to the king, by sending Roman officers +to lead his armies and fleets. The most active of the emigrants +inthe east, Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, were appointed by Sertorius +as his representatives at the court of Sinope. From the pirates +also came help; they flocked largely to the kingdom of Pontus, +and by their means especially the king seems to have succeeded +in forming a naval force imposing by the number as well as +by the quality of the ships. His main support still lay in his +own forces, with which the king hoped, before the Romans should arrive +in Asia, to make himself master of their possessions there; +especially as the financial distress produced in the province +of Asia by the Sullan war-tribute, the aversion of Bithynia towards +the new Roman government, and the elements of combustion left +behind by the desolating war recently brought to a close in Cilicia +and Pamphylia, opened up favourable prospects to a Pontic invasion. +There was no lack of stores; 2,000,000 -medimni- of grain lay +in the royal granaries. The fleet and the men were numerous and well +exercised, particularly the Bastarnian mercenaries, a select corps +which was a match even for Italian legionaries. On this occasion +also it was the king who took the offensive. A corps under Diophantus +advanced into Cappadocia, to occupy the fortresses there +and to close the way to the kingdom of Pontus against the Romans; +the leader sent by Sertorius, the propraetor Marcus Marius, +went in company with the Pontic officer Eumachus to Phrygia, with a view +to rouse the Roman province and the Taurus mountains to revolt; +the main army, above 100,000 men with 16,000 cavalry and 100 +scythe-chariots, led by Taxiles and Hermocrates under the personal +superintendence of the king, and the war-fleet of 400 sail +commanded by Aristonicus, moved along the north coast of Asia Minor +to occupy Paphlagonia and Bithynia. + +Roman Preparations + +On the Roman side there was selected for the conduct of the war +in the first rank the consul of 680, Lucius Lucullus, who as governor +of Asia and Cilicia was placed at the head of the four legions +stationed in Asia Minor and of a fifth brought by him from Italy, +and was directed to penetrate with this army, amounting to 30,000 +infantry and 1600 cavalry, through Phrygia into the kingdom +of Pontus. His colleague Marcus Cotta proceeded with the fleet +and another Roman corps to the Propontis, to cover Asia and Bithynia. +Lastly, a general arming of the coasts and particularly +of the Thracian coast more immediately threatened by the Pontic fleet, +was enjoined; and the task of clearing all the seas and coasts +from the pirates and their Pontic allies was, by extraordinary decree, +entrusted to a single magistrate, the choice falling on the praetor +Marcus Antonius, the son of the man who thirty years before had +first chastised the Cilician corsairs.(12) Moreover, the senate +placed at the disposal of Lucullus a sum of 72,000,000 sesterces +(700,000 pounds), in order to build a fleet; which, however, +Lucullus declined. From all this we see that the Roman government +recognized the root of the evil in the neglect of their marine, +and showed earnestness in the matter at least so far as +their decrees reached. + +Beginning of the War + +Thus the war began in 680 at all points. It was a misfortune +for Mithradates, that at the very moment of his declaring war +the Sertorian struggle reached its crisis, by which one of his +principal hopes was from the outset destroyed, and the Roman +government was enabled to apply its whole power to the maritime +and Asiatic contest. In Asia Minor on the other hand Mithradates +reaped the advantages of the offensive, and of the great distance +of the Romans from the immediate seat of war. A considerable +number of cities in Asia Minor opened their gates to the Sertorian +propraetor who was placed at the head of the Roman province, +and they massacred, as in 666, the Roman families settled among them: +the Pisidians, Isaurians, and Cilicians took up arms against Rome. +The Romans for the moment had no troops at the points threatened. +Individual energetic men attempted no doubt at their own hand +to check this mutiny of the provincials; thus on receiving accounts +of these events the young Gaius Caesar left Rhodes where he was staying +on account of his studies, and with a hastily-collected +band opposed himself to the insurgents; but not much could be +effected by such volunteer corps. Had not Deiotarus, the brave +tetrarch of the Tolistobogii--a Celtic tribe settled around +Pessinus--embraced the side of the Romans and fought with success +against the Pontic generals, Lucullus would have had to begin with +recapturing the interior of the Roman province from the enemy. +But even as it was, he lost in pacifying the province and driving +back the enemy precious time, for which the slight successes +achieved by his cavalry were far from affording compensation. +Still more unfavourable than in Phrygia was the aspect of things +for the Romans on the north coast of Asia Minor. Here the great +Pontic army and the fleet had completely mastered Bithynia, +and compelled the Roman consul Cotta to take shelter with his +far from numerous force and his ships within the walls +and port of Chalcedon, where Mithradates kept them blockaded. + +The Romans Defeated at Chalcedon + +This blockade, however, was so far a favourable event +for the Romans, as, if Cotta detained the Pontic army before Chalcedon +and Lucullus proceeded also thither, the whole Roman forces might unite +at Chalcedon and compel the decision of arms there rather than +in the distant and impassable region of Pontus. Lucullus did take +the route for Chalcedon; but Cotta, with the view of executing a great +feat at his own hand before the arrival of his colleague, ordered +his admiral Publius Rutilius Nudus to make a sally, which not only +ended in a bloody defeat of the Romans, but also enabled the Pontic +force to attack the harbour, to break the chain which closed it, +and to burn all the Roman vessels of war which were there, nearly +seventy in number. On the news of these misfortunes reaching +Lucullus at the river Sangarius, he accelerated his march +to the great discontent of his soldiers, in whose opinion Cotta +was of no moment, and who would far rather have plundered an undefended +country than have taught their comrades to conquer. His arrival +made up in part for the misfortunes sustained: the king raised +the siege of Chalcedon, but did not retreat to Pontus; he went +southward into the old Roman province, where he spread his army +along the Propontis and the Hellespont, occupied Lampsacus, +and began to besiege the large and wealthy town of Cyzicus. +He thus entangled himself more and more deeply in the blind alley +which he had chosen to enter, instead of--which alone promised success +for him--bringing the wide distances into play against the Romans. + +Mithradates Besieges Cyzicus + +In few places had the old Hellenic adroitness and aptitude +preserved themselves so pure as in Cyzicus; its citizens, although +they had suffered great loss of ships and men in the unfortunate +double battle of Chalcedon, made the most resolute resistance. +Cyzicus lay on an island directly opposite the mainland +and connected with it by a bridge. The besiegers possessed themselves +not only of the line of heights on the mainland terminating at the bridge +and of the suburb situated there, but also of the celebrated +Dindymene heights on the island itself; and alike on the mainland +and on the island the Greek engineers put forth all their art +to pave the way for an assault. But the breach which they at length +made was closed again during the night by the besieged, +and the exertions of the royal army remained as fruitless as did +the barbarous threat of the king to put to death the captured Cyzicenes +before the walls, if the citizens still refused to surrender. +The Cyzicenes continued the defence with courage and success; +they fell little short of capturing the king himself +in the course of the siege. + +Destruction of the Pontic Army + +Meanwhile Lucullus had possessed himself of a very strong position +in rear of the Pontic army, which, although not permitting him +directly to relieve the hard-pressed city, gave him the means +of cutting off all supplies by land from the enemy. Thus the enormous +army of Mithradates, estimated with the camp-followers at 300,000 +persons, was not in a position either to fight or to march, firmly +wedged in between the impregnable city and the immoveable Roman +army, and dependent for all its supplies solely on the sea, +which fortunately for the Pontic troops was exclusively commanded +by their fleet. But the bad season set in; a storm destroyed a great +part of the siege-works; the scarcity of provisions and above all +of fodder for the horses began to become intolerable. The beasts +of burden and the baggage were sent off under convoy of the greater +portion of the Pontic cavalry, with orders to steal away or break +through at any cost; but at the river Rhyndacus, to the east +of Cyzicus, Lucullus overtook them and cut to pieces the whole body. +Another division of cavalry under Metrophanes and Lucius Fannius +was obliged, after wandering long in the west of Asia Minor, +to return to the camp before Cyzicus. Famine and disease made +fearful ravages in the Pontic ranks. When spring came on (681), +the besieged redoubled their exertions and took the trenches +constructed on Dindymon: nothing remained for the king but to raise +the siege and with the aid of his fleet to save what he could. +He went in person with the fleet to the Hellespont, but suffered +considerable loss partly at its departure, partly through storms +on the voyage. The land army under Hermaeus and Marius likewise +set out thither, with the view of embarking at Lampsacus +under the protection of its walls. They left behind their baggage +as well as the sick and wounded, who were all put to death +by the exasperated Cyzicenes. Lucullus inflicted on them +very considerable loss by the way at the passage of the rivers +Aesepus and Granicus; but they attained their object. The Pontic ships +carried off the remains of the great army and the citizens of Lampsacus +themselves beyond the reach of the Romans. + +Maritime War +Mithradates Driven Back to Pontus + +The consistent and discreet conduct of the war by Lucullus +had not only repaired the errors of his colleague, but had also +destroyed without a pitched battle the flower of the enemy's army-- +it was said 200,000 soldiers. Had he still possessed the fleet +which was burnt in the harbour of Chalcedon, he would have annihilated +the whole army of his opponent. As it was, the work of destruction +continued incomplete; and while he was obliged to remain passive, +the Pontic fleet notwithstanding the disaster of Cyzicus took +its station in the Propontis, Perinthus and Byzantium were blockaded +by it on the European coast and Priapus pillaged on the Asiatic, +and the headquarters of the king were established in the Bithynian port +of Nicomedia. In fact a select squadron of fifty sail, +which carried 10,000 select troops including Marcus Marius +and the flower of the Roman emigrants, sailed forth even into the Aegean; +the report went that it was destined to effect a landing in Italy +and there rekindle the civil war. But the ships, which Lucullus +after the disaster off Chalcedon had demanded from the Asiatic +communities, began to appear, and a squadron ran forth in pursuit +of the enemy's fleet which had gone into the Aegean. Lucullus himself, + experienced as an admiral,(13) took the command. Thirteen quinqueremes +of the enemy on their voyage to Lemnos, under Isidorus, were assailed +and sunk off the Achaean harbour in the waters between the Trojan coast +and the island of Tenedos. At the small island of Neae, between Lemnos +and Scyros, at which little-frequented point the Pontic flotilla +of thirty-two sail lay drawn up on the shore, Lucullus found it, +immediately attacked the ships and the crews scattered over the island, +and possessed himself of the whole squadron. Here Marcus Marius +and the ablest of the Roman emigrants met their death, either in conflict +or subsequently by the axe of the executioner. The whole Aegean fleet +of the enemy was annihilated by Lucullus. The war in Bithynia +was meanwhile continued by Cotta and by the legates of Lucullus, +Voconius, Gaius Valerius Triarius, and Barba, with the land army +reinforced by fresh arrivals from Italy, and a squadron collected +in Asia. Barba captured in the interior Prusias on Olympus and Nicaea +while Triarius along the coast captured Apamea (formerly Myrlea) +and Prusias on the sea (formerly Cius). They then united for a joint +attack on Mithradates himself in Nicomedia; but the king without +even attempting battle escaped to his ships and sailed homeward, +and in this he was successful only because the Roman admiral Voconius, +who was entrusted with the blockade of the port of Nicomedia, +arrived too late. On the voyage the important Heraclea was indeed +betrayed to the king and occupied by him; but a storm in these waters +sank more than sixty of, his ships and dispersed the rest; the king +arrived almost alone at Sinope. The offensive on the part of Mithradates +ended in a complete defeat--not at all honourable, least of all +for the supreme leader--of the Pontic forces by land and sea. + +Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus + +Lucullus now in turn proceeded to the aggressive. Triarius +received the command of the fleet, with orders first of all +to blockade the Hellespont and lie in wait for the Pontic ships +returning from Crete and Spain; Cotta was charged with the siege +of Heraclea; the difficult task of providing supplies +was entrusted to the faithful and active princes of the Galatians +and to Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia; Lucullus himself advanced +in the autumn of 681 into the favoured land of Pontus, which had long +been untrodden by an enemy. Mithradates, now resolved to maintain +the strictest defensive, retired without giving battle from Sinope +to Amisus, and from Amisus to Cabira (afterwards Neocaesarea, +now Niksar) on the Lycus, a tributary of the Iris; he contented +himself with drawing the enemy after him farther and farther +into the interior, and obstructing their supplies and communications. +Lucullus rapidly followed; Sinope was passed by; the Halys, the old +boundary of the Roman dominion, was crossed and the considerable +towns of Amisus, Eupatoria (on the Iris), and Themiscyra (on +the Thermodon) were invested, till at length winter put an end +to the onward march, though not to the investments of the towns. +The soldiers of Lucullus murmured at the constant advance +which did not allow them to reap the fruits of their exertions, +and at the tedious and--amidst the severity of that season-- +burdensome blockades. But it was not the habit of Lucullus +to listen to such complaints: in the spring of 682 he immediately +advanced against Cabira, leaving behind two legions before Amisus +under Lucius Murena. The king had made fresh attempts during the winter +to induce the great-king of Armenia to take part in the struggle; +they remained like the former ones fruitless, or led only +to empty promises. Still less did the Parthians show any desire +to interfere in the forlorn cause. Nevertheless a considerable army, +chiefly raised by enlistments in Scythia, had again assembled +under Diophantus and Taxiles at Cabira. The Roman army, +which still numbered only three legions and was decidedly inferior +to the Pontic in cavalry, found itself compelled to avoid as far as +possible the plains, and arrived, not without toil and loss, +by difficult bypaths in the vicinity of Cabira, At this town +the two armies lay for a considerable period confronting each other. +The chief struggle was for supplies, which were on both sides scarce: +for this purpose Mithradates formed the flower of his cavalry +and a division of select infantry under Diophantus and Taxiles +into a flying corps, which was intended to scour the country between +the Lycus and the Halys and to seize the Roman convoys of provisions +coming from Cappadocia. But the lieutenant of Lucullus, Marcus +Fabius Hadrianus, who escorted such a train, not only completely +defeated the band which lay in wait for him in the defile where it +expected to surprise him, but after being reinforced from the camp +defeated also the army of Diophantus and Taxiles itself, so that it +totally broke up. It was an irreparable loss for the king, +when his cavalry, on which alone he relied, was thus overthrown. + +Victory of Cabira + +As soon as he received through the first fugitives that arrived +at Cabira from the field of battle--significantly enough, the beaten +generals themselves--the fatal news, earlier even than Lucullus +got tidings of the victory, he resolved on an immediate +farther retreat. But the resolution taken by the king spread +with the rapidity of lightning among those immediately around him; and, +when the soldiers saw the confidants of the king packing in all haste, +they too were seized with a panic. No one was willing to be +the hindmost in decamping; all, high and low, ran pell-mell +like startled deer; no authority, not even that of the king, +was longer heeded; and the king himself was carried away amidst +the wild tumult. Lucullus, perceiving the confusion, made his attack, +and the Pontic troops allowed themselves to be massacred almost +without offering resistance. Had the legions been able to maintain +discipline and to restrain their eagerness for spoil, hardly a man +would have escaped them, and the king himself would doubtless have +been taken. With difficulty Mithradates escaped along with a few +attendants through the mountains to Comana (not far from Tocat +and the source of the Iris); from which, however, a Roman corps +under Marcus Pompeius soon scared him off and pursued him, till, +attended by not more than 2000 cavalry, he crossed the frontier +of his kingdom at Talaura in Lesser Armenia. In the empire +of the great-king he found a refuge, but nothing more (end of 682). +Tigranes, it is true, ordered royal honours to be shown to his fugitive +father-in-law; but he did not even invite him to his court, +and detained him in the remote border-province to which he had come +in a sort of decorous captivity. + +Pontus Becomes Roman +Sieges of the Pontic Cities + +The Roman troops overran all Pontus and Lesser Armenia, and as +far as Trapezus the flat country submitted without resistance +to the conqueror. The commanders of the royal treasure-houses also +surrendered after more or less delay, and delivered up their stores +of money. The king ordered that the women of the royal harem--his +sisters, his numerous wives and concubines--as it was not possible +to secure their flight, should all be put to death by one of his +eunuchs at Pharnacea (Kerasunt). The towns alone offered +obstinate resistance. It is true that the few in the interior-- +Cabira, Amasia, Eupatoria--were soon in the power of the Romans; +but the larger maritime towns, Amisus and Sinope in Pontus, +Amastris in Paphlagonia, Tius and the Pontic Heraclea in Bithynia, +defended themselves with desperation, partly animated by attachment +to the king and to their free Hellenic constitution which he had +protected, partly overawed by the bands of corsairs whom the king +had called to his aid. Sinope and Heraclea even sent forth vessels +against the Romans; and the squadron of Sinope seized a Roman +flotilla which was bringing corn from the Tauric peninsula +for the army of Lucullus. Heraclea did not succumb till after +a two years' siege, when the Roman fleet had cut off the city +from intercourse with the Greek towns on the Tauric peninsula and treason +had broken out in the ranks of the garrison. When Amisus was reduced +to extremities, the garrison set fire to the town, and under cover +of the flames took to their ships. In Sinope, where the daring +pirate-captain Seleucus and the royal eunuch Bacchides conducted +the defence, the garrison plundered the houses before it withdrew, +and set on fire the ships which it could not take along with it; +it is said that, although the greater portion of the defenders +were enabled to embark, 8000 corsairs were there put to death +by Lucullus. These sieges of towns lasted for two whole years +and more after the battle of Cabira (682-684); Lucullus prosecuted +them in great part by means of his lieutenants, while he himself +regulated the affairs of the province of Asia, which demanded +and obtained a thorough reform. + +Remarkable, in an historical point of view, as was that obstinate +resistance of the Pontic mercantile towns to the victorious Romans, +it was of little immediate use; the cause of Mithradates was none +the less lost. The great-king had evidently, for the present +at least, no intention at all of restoring him to his kingdom. +The Roman emigrants in Asia had lost their best men by the destruction +of the Aegean fleet; of the survivors not a few, such as the active +leaders Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, had made their peace +with Lucullus; and with the death of Sertorius, who perished in the year +of the battle of Cabira, the last hope of the emigrants vanished. +Mithradates' own power was totally shattered, and one after another +his remaining supports gave way; his squadrons returning from Crete +and Spain, to the number of seventy sail, were attacked and destroyed +by Triarius at the island of Tenedos; even the governor +of the Bosporan kingdom, the king's own son Machares, deserted him, +and as independent prince of the Tauric Chersonese concluded +on his own behalf peace and friendship with the Romans (684). +The king himself, after a not too glorious resistance, was confined +in a remote Armenian mountain-stronghold, a fugitive from his kingdom +and almost a prisoner of his son-in-law. Although the bands +of corsairs might still hold out in Crete, and such as had escaped +from Amisus and Sinope might make their way along the hardly- +accessible east coast of the Black Sea to the Sanigae and Lazi, +the skilful conduct of the war by Lucullus and his judicious +moderation, which did not disdain to remedy the just grievances +of the provincials and to employ the repentant emigrants as officers +in his army, had at a moderate sacrifice delivered Asia Minor +from the enemy and annihilated the Pontic kingdom, so that it might +be converted from a Roman client-state into a Roman province. +A commission of the senate was expected, to settle in concert +with the commander-in-chief the new provincial organization. + +Beginning of the Armenian War + +But the relations with Armenia were not yet settled. +Thata declaration of war by the Romans against Tigranes +was in itself justified and even demanded, we have already shown. +Lucullus, who looked at the state of affairs from a nearer point of view +and with a higher spirit than the senatorial college in Rome, perceived +clearly the necessity of confining Armenia to the other side +of the Tigris and of re-establishing the lost dominion of Rome over +the Mediterranean. He showed himself in the conduct of Asiatic +affairs no unworthy successor of his instructor and friend Sulla. +A Philhellene above most Romans of his time, he was not insensible +to the obligation which Rome had come under when taking up +the heritage of Alexander--the obligation to be the shield and sword +of the Greeks in the east. Personal motives--the wish to earn laurels +also beyond the Euphrates, irritation at the fact that the great- +king in a letter to him had omitted the title of Imperator--may +doubtless have partly influenced Lucullus; but it is unjust +to assume paltry and selfish motives for actions, which motives +of duty quite suffice to explain. The Roman governing college +at any rate--timid, indolent, ill informed, and above all beset +by perpetual financial embarrassments--could never be expected, +without direct compulsion, to take the initiative in an expedition +so vast and costly. About the year 682 the legitimate representatives +of the Seleucid dynasty, Antiochus called the Asiatic and his brother, +moved by the favourable turn of the Pontic war, had gone to Rome +to procure a Roman intervention in Syria, and at the same +time a recognition of their hereditary claims on Egypt. +If the latter demand might not be granted, there could not, at any rate, +be found a more favourable moment or occasion for beginning the war +which had long been necessary against Tigranes. But the senate, +while it recognized the princes doubtless as the legitimate +kings of Syria, could not make up its mind to decree the armed +intervention. If the favourable opportunity was to be employed, +and Armenia was to be dealt with in earnest, Lucullus had to begin +the war, without any proper orders from the senate, at his own hand +and his own risk; he found himself, just like Sulla, placed under +the necessity of executing what he did in the most manifest +interest of the existing government, not with its sanction, +but in spite of it. His resolution was facilitated by the relations +of Rome towards Armenia, for long wavering in uncertainty between +peace and war, which screened in some measure the arbitrariness +of his proceedings, and failed not to suggest formal grounds for war. +The state of matters in Cappadocia and Syria afforded pretexts +enough; and already in the pursuit of the king of Pontus Roman +troops had violated the territory of the great-king. As, however, +the commission of Lucullus related to the conduct of the war +against Mithradates and he wished to connect what he did +with that commission, he preferred to send one of his officers, +Appius Claudius, to the great-king at Antioch to demand the surrender +of Mithradates, which in fact could not but lead to war. + +Difficulties to Be Encountered + +The resolution was a grave one, especially considering +the condition of the Roman army. It was indispensable during +the campaign in Armenia to keep the extensive territory of Pontus +strongly occupied, for otherwise the army stationed in Armenia +might lose its communications with home; and besides it might be +easily foreseen that Mithradates would attempt an inroad into his +former kingdom. The army, at the head of which Lucullus had ended +the Mithradatic war, amounting to about 30,000 men, was obviously +inadequate for this double task. Under ordinary circumstances +the general would have asked and obtained from his government +the despatch of a second army; but as Lucullus wished, +and was in some measure compelled, to take up the war over the head +of the government, he found himself necessitated to renounce +that plan and--although he himself incorporated the captured Thracian +mercenaries of the Pontic king with his troops--to carry the war +over the Euphrates with not more than two legions, or at most +15,000 men. This was in itself hazardous; but the smallness +of the number might be in some degree compensated by the tried valour +of the army consisting throughout of veterans. A far worse feature +was the temper of the soldiers, to which Lucullus, in his high +aristocratic fashion, had given far too little heed. Lucullus +was an able general, and--according to the aristocratic standard-- +an upright and kindly-disposed man, but very far from being +a favourite with his soldiers. He was unpopular, as a decided +adherent of the oligarchy; unpopular, because he had vigorously +checked the monstrous usury of the Roman capitalists in Asia Minor; +unpopular, on account of the toils and fatigues which he inflicted +on his troops; unpopular, because he demanded strict discipline +in his soldiers and prevented as far as possible the pillage +of the Greek towns by his men, but withal caused many a waggon +and many a camel to be laden with the treasures of the east for himself; +unpopular too on account of his manner, which was polished, +haughty, Hellenizing, not at all familiar, and inclining, wherever +it was possible, to ease and pleasure. There was no trace in him +of the charm which weaves a personal bond between the general +and the soldier. Moreover, a large portion of his ablest soldiers +had every reason to complain of the unmeasured prolongation of their +term of service. His two best legions were the same which Flaccus +and Fimbria had led in 668 to the east;(14) notwithstanding +that shortly after the battle of Cabira they had been promised their +discharge well earned by thirteen campaigns, Lucullus now led them +beyond the Euphrates to face a new incalculable war--it seemed +as though the victors of Cabira were to be treated worse than +the vanquished of Cannae.(15) It was in fact more than rash that, +with troops so weak and so much out of humour, a general should at his +own hand and, strictly speaking, at variance with the constitution, +undertake an expedition to a distant and unknown land, full of rapid +streams and snow-clad mountains--a land which from the very vastness +of its extent rendered any lightly-undertaken attack fraught +with danger. The conduct of Lucullus was therefore much +and not unreasonably censured in Rome; only, amidst the censure +the fact should not have been concealed, that the perversity +of the government was the prime occasion of this venturesome +project of the general, and, if it did not justify it, rendered +it at least excusable. + +Lucullus Crosses the Euphrates + +The mission of Appius Claudius was designed not only to furnish +a diplomatic pretext for the war, but also to induce the princes +and cities of Syria especially to take arms against the great-king: +in the spring of 685 the formal attack began. During the winter +the king of Cappadocia had silently provided vessels for transport; +with these the Euphrates was crossed at Melitene, and the further +march was directed by way of the Taurus-passes to the Tigris. +This too Lucullus crossed in the region of Amida (Diarbekr), +and advanced towards the road which connected the second capital +Tigranocerta,(16) recently founded on the south frontier of Armenia, +with the old metropolis Artaxata. At the former was stationed +the great-king, who had shortly before returned from Syria, +after having temporarily deferred the prosecution of his plans +of conquest on the Mediterranean on account of the embroilment +with the Romans. He was just projecting an inroad into Roman Asia +from Cilicia and Lycaonia, and was considering whether the Romans +would at once evacuate Asia or would previously give him battle, +possibly at Ephesus, when the news was brought to him of the advance +of Lucullus, which threatened to cut off his communications +with Artaxata. He ordered the messenger to be hanged, +but the disagreeable reality remained unaltered; so he left +the new capital and resorted to the interior of Armenia, in order +there to raise a force--which had not yet been done--against the Romans. +Meanwhile Mithrobarzanes with the troops actually at his disposal +and in concert with the neighbouring Bedouin tribes, who were called out +in all haste, was to give employment to the Romans. But the corps +of Mithrobarzanes was dispersed by the Roman vanguard, and the Arabs +by a detachment under Sextilius; Lucullus gained the road leading +from Tigranocerta to Artaxata, and, while on the right bank +of the Tigrisa Roman detachment pursued the great-king +retreating northwards, Lucullus himself crossed to the left +and marched forward to Tigranocerta. + +Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta + +The exhaustless showers of arrows which the garrison poured upon +the Roman army, and the setting fire to the besieging machines +by means of naphtha, initiated the Romans into the new dangers +of Iranian warfare; and the brave commandant Mancaeus maintained +the city, till at length the great royal army of relief had assembled +from all parts of the vast empire and the adjoining countries +that were open to Armenian recruiting officers, and had advanced +through the north-eastern passes to the relief of the capital. +The leader Taxiles, experienced in the wars of Mithradates, +advised Tigranes to avoid a battle, and to surround and starve out +the small Roman army by means of his cavalry. But when the king saw +the Roman general, who had determined to give battle without raising +the siege, move out with not much more than 10,000 men against a force +twenty times superior, and boldly cross the river which separated +the two armies; when he surveyed on the one side this little band, +"too many for an embassy, too few for an army," and on the other +side his own immense host, in which the peoples from the Black Sea +and the Caspian met with those of the Mediterranean and of +the Persian Gulf, in which the dreaded iron-clad lancers alone +were more numerous than the whole army of Lucullus, and in which +even infantry armed after the Roman fashion were not wanting; +he resolved promptly to accept the battle desired by the enemy. +But while the Armenians were still forming their array, the quick +eye of Lucullus perceived that they had neglected to occupy a height +which commanded the whole position of their cavalry. He hastened +to occupy it with two cohorts, while at the same time his weak +cavalry by a flank attack diverted the attention of the enemy +from this movement; and as soon as he had reached the height, he led +his little band against the rear of the enemy's cavalry. They were +totally broken and threw themselves on the not yet fully formed +infantry, which fled without even striking a blow. The bulletin +of the victor--that 100,000 Armenians and five Romans had fallen +and that the king, throwing away his turban and diadem, had galloped +off unrecognized with a few horsemen--is composed in the style +of his master Sulla. Nevertheless the victory achieved on the 6th +October 685 before Tigranocerta remains one of the most brilliant +stars in the glorious history of Roman warfare; and it was not less +momentous than brilliant. + +All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +All the provinces wrested from the Parthians or Syrians +to the south of the Tigris were by this means strategically lost +to the Armenians, and passed, for the most part, without delay +into the possession of the victor. The newly-built second capital +itselfset the example. The Greeks, who had been forced in large numbers +to settle there, rose against the garrison and opened to the Roman +army the gates of the city, which was abandoned to the pillage +of the soldiers. It had been created for the new great-kingdom, +and, like this, was effaced by the victor. From Cilicia and Syria +all the troops had already been withdrawn by the Armenian satrap +Magadates to reinforce the relieving army before Tigranocerta. +Lucullus advanced into Commagene, the most northern province +of Syria, and stormed Samosata, the capital; he did not reach Syria +proper, but envoys arrived from the dynasts and communities as far +as the Red Sea--from Hellenes, Syrians, Jews, Arabs--to do homage +to the Romans as their sovereigns. Even the prince of Corduene, +the province situated to the east of Tigranocerta, submitted; +while, on the other hand, Guras the brother of the great-king +maintained himself in Nisibis, and thereby in Mesopotamia. +Lucullus came forward throughout as the protector of the Hellenic +princes and municipalities: in Commagene he placed Antiochus, +a prince of the Seleucid house, on the throne; he recognized +Antiochus Asiaticus, who after the withdrawal of the Armenians had +returned to Antioch, as king of Syria; he sent the forced settlers +of Tigranocerta once more away to their homes. The immense stores +and treasures of the great-king--the grain amounted to 30,000,000 +-medimni-, the money in Tigranocerta alone to 8000 talents (nearly +2,000,000 pounds)--enabled Lucullus to defray the expenses of the war +without making any demand on the state-treasury, and to bestow +on each of his soldiers, besides the amplest maintenance, a present +of 800 -denarii- (33 pounds). + +Tigranes and Mithradates + +The great-king was deeply humbled. He was of a feeble character, +arrogant in prosperity, faint-hearted in adversity. Probably +an agreement would have been come to between him and Lucullus-- +an agreement which there was every reason that the great-king should +purchase by considerable sacrifices, and the Roman general should +grant under tolerable conditions--had not the old Mithradates been +in existence. The latter had taken no part in the conflicts around +Tigranocerta. Liberated after twenty months' captivity about +the middle of 684 in consequence of the variance that had occurred +between the great-king and the Romans, he had been despatched +with 10,000 Armenian cavalry to his former kingdom, to threaten +the communications of the enemy. Recalled even before he could +accomplish anything there, when the great-king summoned his whole +force to relieve the capital which he had built, Mithradates was met +on his arrival before Tigranocerta by the multitudes just fleeing +from the field of battle. To every one, from the great-king +down to the common soldier, all seemed lost. But if Tigranes +should now make peace, not only would Mithradates lose the last +chance of being reinstated in his kingdom, but his surrender would +be beyond doubt the first condition of peace; and certainly +Tigranes would not have acted otherwise towards him than Bocchus +had formerly acted towards Jugurtha. The king accordingly staked +his whole personal weight to prevent things from taking this turn, +and to induce the Armenian court to continue the war, in which +he had nothing to lose and everything to gain; and, fugitive +and dethroned as was Mithradates, his influence at this court +was not slight. He was still a stately and powerful man, who, +although already upwards of sixty years old, vaulted on horseback +in full armour, and in hand-to-hand conflict stood his ground +like the best. Years and vicissitudes seemed to have steeled his spirit: +while in earlier times he sent forth generals to lead his armies +and took no direct part in war himself, we find him henceforth +as an old man commanding in person and fighting in person on the field +of battle. To one who, during his fifty years of rule, had witnessed +so many unexampled changes of fortune, the cause of the great-king +appeared by no means lost through the defeat of Tigranocerta; +whereas the position of Lucullus was very difficult, and, if peace +should not now take place and the war should be judiciously continued, +even in a high degree precarious. + +Renewal of the War + +The veteran of varied experience, who stood towards the great-king +almost as a father, and was now able to exercise a personal +influence over him, overpowered by his energy that weak man, +and induced him not only to resolve on the continuance of the war, +but also to entrust Mithradates with its political and military +management. The war was now to be changed from a cabinet contest +into a national Asiatic struggle; the kings and peoples of Asia +were to unite for this purpose against the domineering and haughty +Occidentals. The greatest exertions were made to reconcile +the Parthians and Armenians with each other, and to induce them +to make common cause against Rome. At the suggestion of Mithradates, +Tigranes offered to give back to the Arsacid Phraates the God (who +had reigned since 684) the provinces conquered by the Armenians-- +Mesopotamia, Adiabene, the "great valleys"--and to enter into friendship +and alliance with him. But, after all that had previously taken place, +this offer could scarcely reckon on a favourable reception; +Phraates preferred to secure the boundary of the Euphrates +by a treaty not with the Armenians, but with the Romans, +and to look on, while the hated neighbour and the inconvenient +foreigner fought out their strife. Greater success attended +the application of Mithradates to the peoples of the east +than to the kings. It was not difficult to represent the war +as a national one of the east against the west, for such it was; +it might very well be made a religious war also, and the report +might be spread that the object aimed at by the army of Lucullus +was the temple of the Persian Nanaea or Anaitis in Elymais or the modern +Luristan, the most celebrated and the richest shrine in the whole +region of the Euphrates.(17) From far and near the Asiatics flocked +in crowds to the banner of the kings, who summoned them to protect +the east and its gods from the impious foreigners. But facts had +shown not only that the mere assemblage of enormous hosts +was of little avail, but that the troops really capable of marching +and fighting were by their very incorporation in such a mass rendered +useless and involved in the general ruin. Mithradates sought +above all to develop the arm which was at once weakest among +the Occidentals and strongest among the Asiatics, the cavalry; +in the army newly formed by him half of the force was mounted. +For the ranks of the infantry he carefully selected, out of the mass +of recruits called forth or volunteering, those fit for service, +and caused them to be drilled by his Pontic officers. The considerable +army, however, which soon assembled under the banner of the great- +king was destined not to measure its strength with the Roman +veterans on the first chance field of battle, but to confine itself +to defence and petty warfare. Mithradates had conducted +the last war in his empire on the system of constantly retreating +and avoiding battle; similar tactics were adopted on this occasion, +and Armenia proper was destined as the theatre of war--the hereditary +land of Tigranes, still wholly untouched by the enemy, and excellently +adapted for this sort of warfare both by its physical character +and by the patriotism of its inhabitants. + +Dissatisfaction with Lucullus in the Capital and in the Army + +The year 686 found Lucullus in a position of difficulty, +which daily assumed a more dangerous aspect. In spite of his brilliant +victories, people in Rome were not at all satisfied with him. +The senate felt the arbitrary nature of his conduct: the capitalist +party, sorely offended by him, set all means of intrigue +and corruption at work to effect his recall. Daily the Forum +echoed with just and unjust complaints regarding the foolhardy, +the covetous, the un-Roman, the traitorous general. The senate +so far yielded to the complaints regarding the union of such unlimited +power--two ordinary governorships and an important extraordinary +command--in the hands of such a man, as to assign the province +of Asia to one of the praetors, and the province of Cilicia +along with three newly-raised legions to the consul Quintus +Marcius Rex, and to restrict the general to the command +against Mithradates and Tigranes. + +These accusations springing up against the general in Rome +found a dangerous echo in the soldiers' quarters on the Iris +andon the Tigris; and the more so that several officers including +the general's own brother-in-law, Publius Clodius, worked upon +the soldiers with this view. The report beyond doubt designedly +circulated by these, that Lucullus now thought of combining +with the Pontic-Armenian war an expedition against the Parthians, +fed the exasperation of the troops. + +Lucullus Advances into Armenia + +But while the troublesome temper of the government and of the soldier +thus threatened the victorious general with recall and mutiny, +he himself continued like a desperate gambler to increase +his stake and his risk. He did not indeed march against the Parthians +but when Tigranes showed himself neither ready to make peace +nor disposed, as Lucullus wished, to risk a second pitched +battle, Lucullus resolved to advance from Tigranocerta, through +the difficult mountain-country along the eastern shore of the lake +of Van, into the valley of the eastern Euphrates (or the Arsanias, +now Myrad-Chai), and thence into that of the Araxes, where, +on the northern slope of Ararat, lay Artaxata the capital of Armenia +proper, with the hereditary castle and the harem of the king. +He hoped, by threatening the king's hereditary residence, +to compel him to fight either on the way or at any rate before +Artaxata. It was inevitably necessary to leave behind a division +at Tigranocerta; and, as the marching army could not possibly be +further reduced, no course was left but to weaken the position +in Pontus and to summon troops thence to Tigranocerta. The main +difficulty, however, was the shortness of the Armenian summer, +so inconvenient for military enterprises. On the tableland +of Armenia, which lies 5000 feet and more above the level of the sea, +the corn at Erzeroum only germinates in the beginning of June, +and the winter sets in with the harvest in September; Artaxata +had to be reached and the campaign had to be ended in four +months at the utmost. + +At midsummer, 686, Lucullus set out from Tigranocerta, +and, marching doubtless through the pass of Bitlis and farther +to the westward along the lake of Van--arrived on the plateau of Musch +and at the Euphrates. The march went on--amidst constant +and very troublesome skirmishing with the enemy's cavalry, +and especially with the mounted archers--slowly, but without material +hindrance; and the passage of the Euphrates, which was seriously +defended by the Armenian cavalry, was secured by a successful engagement; +the Armenian infantry showed itself, but the attempt to involve it +in the conflict did not succeed. Thus the army reached the tableland, +properly so called, of Armenia, and continued its march +into the unknown country. They had suffered no actual misfortune; +but the mere inevitable delaying of the march by the difficulties +of the ground and the horsemen of the enemy was itself a very serious +disadvantage. Long before they had reached Artaxata, winter set +in; and when the Italian soldiers saw snow and ice around them, +the bow of military discipline that had been far too tightly +stretched gave way. + +Lucullus Retreats to Mesopotamia +Capture of Nisibus + +A formal mutiny compelled the general to order a retreat, +which he effected with his usual skill. When he had safely reached +Mesopotamia where the season still permitted farther operations, +Lucullus crossed the Tigris, and threw himself with the mass of his +army on Nisibis, the last city that here remained to the Armenians. +The great-king, rendered wiser by the experience acquired before +Tigranocerta, left the city to itself: notwithstanding its brave +defence it was stormed in a dark, rainy night by the besiegers, +and the army of Lucullus found there booty not less rich and winter- +quarters not less comfortable than the year before in Tigranocerta. + +Conflicts in Pontus and at Tigranocerta + +But, meanwhile, the whole weight of the enemy's offensive fell +on the weak Roman divisions left behind in Pontus and in Armenia. +Tigranes compelled the Roman commander of the latter corps, Lucius +Fannius--the same who had formerly been the medium of communication +between Sertorius and Mithradates (18)--to throw himself +into a fortress, and kept him beleaguered there. Mithradates +advanced into Pontus with 4000 Armenian horsemen and 4000 of his own, +and as liberator and avenger summoned the nation to rise against +the common foe. All joined him; the scattered Roman soldiers +were everywhere seized and put to death: when Hadrianus, the Roman +commandant in Pontus,(19) led his troops against him, the former +mercenaries of the king and the numerous natives of Pontus +following the army as slaves made common cause with the enemy. +For two successive days the unequal conflict lasted; it was only +the circumstance that the king after receiving two wounds had +to be carried off from the field of battle, which gave the Roman +commander the opportunity of breaking off the virtually lost +battle, and throwing himself with the small remnant of his troops +into Cabira. Another of Lucullus' lieutenants who accidentally +came into this region, the resolute Triarius, again gathered round +him a body of troops and fought a successful engagement +with the king; but he was much too weak to expel him afresh +from Pontic soil, and had to acquiesce while the king took up +winter-quarters in Comana. + +Farther Retreat to Pontus + +So the spring of 687 came on. The reunion of the army in Nisibis, +the idleness of winter-quarters, the frequent absence of the general, +had meanwhile increased the insubordination of the troops; +not only did they vehemently demand to be led back, but it was already +tolerably evident that, if the general refused to lead them home, +they would break up of themselves. The supplies were scanty; +Fannius and Triarius, in their distress, sent the most urgent +entreaties to the general to furnish aid. With a heavy heart +Lucullus resolved to yield to necessity, to give up Nisibis +and Tigranocerta, and, renouncing all the brilliant hopes of his +Armenian expedition, to return to the right bank of the Euphrates. +Fannius was relieved; but in Pontus the help was too late. +Triarius, not strong enough to fight with Mithradates, had taken +up a strong position at Gaziura (Turksal on the Iris, to the west +of Tokat), while the baggage was left behind at Dadasa. +But when Mithradates laid siege to the latter place, the Roman soldiers, +apprehensive for their property, compelled their leader to leave +his secure position, and to give battle to the king between Gaziura +and Ziela (Zilleh) on the Scotian heights. + +Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela + +What Triarius had foreseen, occurred. In spite of the stoutest +resistance the wing which the king commanded in person broke +the Roman line and huddled the infantry together into a clayey ravine, +where it could make neither a forward nor a lateral movement +and was cut to pieces without pity. The king indeed was dangerously +wounded by a Roman centurion, who sacrificed his life for it; +but the defeat was not the less complete. The Roman camp was taken; +the flower of the infantry, and almost all the staff and subaltern +officers, strewed the ground; the dead were left lying unburied +on the field of battle, and, when Lucullus arrived on the right bank +of the Euphrates, he learned the defeat not from his own soldiers, +but through the reports of the natives. + +Mutiny of the Soldiers + +Along with this defeat came the outbreak of the military conspiracy. +At this very time news arrived from Rome that the people had resolved +to grant a discharge to the soldiers whose legal term of service had +expired, to wit, to the Fimbrians, and to entrust the chief command +in Pontus and Bithynia to one of the consuls of the current year: +the successor of Lucullus, the consul Manius Acilius Glabrio, +had already landed in Asia Minor. The disbanding of the bravest +and most turbulent legions and the recall of the commander-in-chief, +in connection with the impression produced by the defeat of Ziela, +dissolved all the bonds of authority in the army just when the general +had most urgent need of their aid. Near Talaura in Lesser Armenia +he confronted the Pontic troops, at whose head Tigranes' son-in-law, +Mithradates of Media, had already engaged the Romans successfully +in a cavalry conflict; the main force of the great-king was advancing +to the same point from Armenia. Lucullus sent to Quintus Marcius +the new governor of Cilicia, who had just arrived on the way +to his province with three legions in Lycaonia, to obtain help from him; +Marcius declared that his soldiers refused to march to Armenia. +He sent to Glabrio with the request that he would take up the supreme +command committed to him by the people; Glabrio showed still less +inclination to undertake this task, which had now become so difficult +and hazardous. Lucullus, compelled to retain the command, +with the view of not being obliged to fight at Talaura against +the Armenian and the Pontic armies conjoined, ordered a movement +against the advancing Armenians. + +Farther Retreat to Asia Minor + +The soldiers obeyed the order to march; but, when they reached +the point where the routes to Armenia and Cappadocia diverged, +the bulk of the army took the latter, and proceeded to the province +of Asia. There the Fimbrians demanded their immediate discharge; +and although they desisted from this at the urgent entreaty +of the commander-in-chief and the other corps, they yet persevered +in their purpose of disbanding if the winter should come on without +an enemy confronting them; which accordingly was the case. +Mithradates not only occupied once more almost his whole kingdom, +but his cavalry ranged over all Cappadocia and as far as Bithynia; +king Ariobarzanes sought help equally in vain from Quintus Marcius, +from Lucullus, and from Glabrio. It was a strange, almost +incredible issue for a war conducted in a manner so glorious. +If we look merely to military achievements, hardly any other Roman +general accomplished so much with so trifling means as Lucullus; +the talent and the fortune of Sulla seemed to have devolved on this +his disciple. That under the circumstances the Roman army should +have returned from Armenia to Asia Minor uninjured, is a military +miracle which, so far as we can judge, far excels the retreat +of Xenophon; and, although mainly doubtless to be explained +by the solidity of the Roman, and the inefficiency of the Oriental, +system of war, it at all events secures to the leader of this expedition +an honourable name in the foremost rank of men of military +capacity. If the name of Lucullus is not usually included among these, +it is to all appearance simply owing to the fact that no narrative +of his campaigns which is in a military point of view even tolerable +has come down to us, and to the circumstance that in everything +and particularly in war, nothing is taken into account +but the final result; and this, in reality, was equivalent +to a complete defeat. Through the last unfortunate turn of things, +and principally through the mutiny of the soldiers, all the results +of an eight years' war had been lost; in the winter of 687-688 +the Romans again stood exactly at the same spot +as in the winter of 679-680. + +War with the Pirates + +The maritime war against the pirates, which began at the same time +with the continental war and was all along most closely connected +with it, yielded no better results. It has been already mentioned +(20) that the senate in 680 adopted the judicious resolution +to entrust the task of clearing the seas from the corsairs +to a single admiral in supreme command, the praetor Marcus Antonius. +But at the very outset they had made an utter mistake in the choice +of the leader; or rather those, who had carried this measure +so appropriate in itself, had not taken into account that in the senate +all personal questions were decided by the influence of Cethegus(21) +and similar coterie-considerations. They had moreover +neglected to furnish the admiral of their choice with money +and ships in a manner befitting his comprehensive task, +so that with his enormous requisitions he was almost as burdensome +to the provincials whom he befriended as were the corsairs. + +Defeat of Antonius off Cydonia + +The results were corresponding. In the Campanian waters the fleet +of Antonius captured a number of piratical vessels. But an engagement +took place with the Cretans, who had entered into friendship +and alliance with the pirates and abruptly rejected his demand +that they should desist from such fellowship; and the chains, +with which the foresight of Antonius had provided his vessels +for the purpose of placing the captive buccaneers in irons, +served to fasten the quaestor and the other Roman prisoners +to the masts of the captured Roman ships, when the Cretan generals +Lasthenes and Panares steered back in triumph to Cydonia +from the naval combat in which they had engaged the Romans +off their island. Antonius, after having squandered immense sums +and accomplished not the slightest result by his inconsiderate mode +of warfare, died in 683 at Crete. The ill success of his expedition, +the costliness of building a fleet, and the repugnance of the oligarchy +to confer any powers of a more comprehensive kind on the magistrates, +led them, after the practical termination of this enterprise +by Antonius' death, to make no farther nomination of an admiral-in-chief, +and to revert to the old system of leaving each governor to look +after the suppression of piracy in his own province: the fleet equipped +by Lucullus for instance(22) was actively employed for this purpose +in the Aegean sea. + +Cretan War + +So far however as the Cretans were concerned, a disgrace +like that endured off Cydonia seemed even to the degenerate Romans +of this age as if it could be answered only by a declaration of war. +Yet the Cretan envoys, who in the year 684 appeared in Rome +with the request that the prisoners might be taken back and the old +alliance reestablished, had almost obtained a favourable decree +of the senate; what the whole corporation termed a disgrace, +the individual senator was ready to sell for a substantial price. +It was not till a formal resolution of the senate rendered the loans +of the Cretan envoys among the Roman bankers non-actionable-- +that is, not until the senate had incapacitated itself for undergoing +bribery--that a decree passed to the effect that the Cretan +communities, if they wished to avoid war, should hand over not only +the Roman deserters but the authors of the outrage perpetrated off +Cydonia--the leaders Lasthenes and Panares--to the Romans +for befitting punishment, should deliver up all ships and boats of four +or more oars, should furnish 400 hostages, and should pay a fine +of 4000 talents (975,000 pounds). When the envoys declared that they +were not empowered to enter into such terms, one of the consuls +of the next year was appointed to depart on the expiry of his official +term for Crete, in order either to receive there what was demanded +or to begin the war. + +Metellus Subdues Crete + +Accordingly in 685 the proconsul Quintus Metellus appeared +in the Cretan waters. The communities of the island, with the larger +towns Gortyna, Cnossus, Cydonia at their head, were resolved rather +to defend themselves in arms than to submit to those excessive +demands. The Cretans were a nefarious and degenerate people,(23) +with whose public and private existence piracy was as intimately +associated as robbery with the commonwealth of the Aetolians; +but they resembled the Aetolians in valour as in many other respects, +and accordingly these two were the only Greek communities +that waged a courageous and honourable struggle for independence. +At Cydonia, where Metellus landed his three legions, a Cretan army +of 24,000 men under Lasthenes and Panares was ready to receive him; +a battle took place in the open field, in which the victory +after a hard struggle remained with the Romans. Nevertheless +the towns bade defiance from behind their walls to the Roman general; +Metellus had to make up his mind to besiege them in succession. +First Cydonia, in which the remains of the beaten army had taken +refuge, was after a long siege surrendered by Panares in return +for the promise of a free departure for himself. Lasthenes, who had +escaped from the town, had to be besieged a second time in Cnossus; +and, when this fortress also was on the point of falling, +he destroyed its treasures and escaped once more to places which still +continued their defence, such as Lyctus, Eleuthera, and others. +Two years (686, 687) elapsed, before Metellus became master +of the whole island and the last spot of free Greek soil thereby +passed under the control of the dominant Romans; the Cretan communities, +as they were the first of all Greek commonwealths to develop +the free urban constitution and the dominion of the sea, were also +to be the last of all those Greek maritime states that formerly filled +the Mediterranean to succumb to the Roman continental power. + +The Pirates in the Mediterranean + +All the legal conditions were fulfilled for celebrating another +of the usual pompous triumphs; the gens of the Metelli could add +to its Macedonian, Numidian, Dalmatian, Balearic titles with equal +right the new title of Creticus, and Rome possessed another name +of pride. Nevertheless the power of the Romans in the Mediterranean +was never lower, that of the corsairs never higher, than in those +years. Well might the Cilicians and Cretans of the seas, who are +said to have numbered at this time 1000 ships, mock the Isauricus +and the Creticus, and their empty victories. With what effect +the pirates interfered in the Mithradatic war, and how the obstinate +resistance of the Pontic maritime towns derived its best resources +from the corsair-state, has been already related. But that state +transacted business on a hardly less grand scale on its own behoof. +Almost under the eyes of the fleet of Lucullus, the pirate Athenodorus +surprised in 685 the island of Delos, destroyed its far-famed +shrines and temples, and carried off the whole population +into slavery. The island Lipara near Sicily paid to the pirates +a fixed tribute annually, to remain exempt from like attacks. +Another pirate chief Heracleon destroyed in 682 the squadron +equipped in Sicily against him, and ventured with no more than four +open boats to sail into the harbour of Syracuse. Two years later +his colleague Pyrganion even landed at the same port, established +himself there and sent forth flying parties into the island, +till the Roman governor at last compelled him to re-embark. +People grew at length quite accustomed to the fact that all +the provinces equipped squadrons and raised coastguards, +or were at any rate taxed for both; and yet the pirates appeared +to plunder the provinces with as much regularity as the Roman governors. +But even the sacred soil of Italy was now no longer respected +by the shameless transgressors: from Croton they carried off with them +the temple-treasures of the Lacinian Hera; they landed in Brundisium, +Misenum, Caieta, in the Etruscan ports, even in Ostia itself; they +seized the most eminent Roman officers as captives, among others +the admiral of the Cilician army and two praetors with their whole +retinue, with the dreaded -fasces- themselves and all the insignia +of their dignity; they carried away from a villa at Misenum +the very sister of the Roman admiral-in-chief Antonius, who was sent +forth to annihilate the pirates; they destroyed in the port +of Ostia the Roman war fleet equipped against them and commanded +by a consul. The Latin husbandman, the traveller on the Appian highway, +the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae +were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single +moment; all traffic and all intercourse were suspended; +the most dreadful scarcity prevailed in Italy, and especially +in the capital, which subsisted on transmarine corn. The contemporary +world and history indulge freely in complaints of insupportable +distress; in this case the epithet may have been appropriate. + +Servile Disturbances + +We have already described how the senate restored by Sulla carried +out its guardianship of the frontier in Macedonia, its discipline +over the client kings of Asia Minor, and lastly its marine police; +the results were nowhere satisfactory. Nor did better success +attend the government in another and perhaps even more urgent +matter, the supervision of the provincial, and above all +of the Italian, proletariate. The gangrene of a slave-proletariate +Gnawed at the vitals of all the states of antiquity, and the more so, +the more vigorously they had risen and prospered; for the power +and riches of the state regularly led, under the existing +circumstances, to a disproportionate increase of the body +of slaves. Rome naturally suffered more severely from this cause +than any other state of antiquity. Even the government of the sixth +century had been under the necessity of sending troops against +the gangs of runaway herdsmen and rural slaves. The plantation-system, +spreading more and more among the Italian speculators +had infinitely increased the dangerous evil: in the time of +the Gracchan and Marian crises and in close connection with them +servile revolts had taken place at numerous points of the Roman +empire, and in Sicily had even grown into two bloody wars (619-622 +and 652-654;(24)). But the ten years of the rule of the restoration +after Sulla's death formed the golden age both for the buccaneers +at sea and for bands of a similar character on land, above all +in the Italian peninsula, which had hitherto been comparatively +well regulated. The land could hardly be said any longer to enjoy +peace. In the capital and the less populous districts of Italy +robberies were of everyday occurrence, murders were frequent. +A special decree of the people was issued--perhaps at this epoch-- +against kidnapping of foreign slaves and of free men; a special +summary action was about this time introduced against violent +deprivation of landed property. These crimes could not +but appear specially dangerous, because, while they were usually +perpetrated by the proletariate, the upper class were to a great +extent also concerned in them as moral originators and partakers +in the gain. The abduction of men and of estates was very frequently +suggested by the overseers of the large estates and carried out +by the gangs of slaves, frequently armed, that were collected there: +and many a man even of high respectability did not disdain what +one of his officious slave-overseers thus acquired for him +as Mephistopheles acquired for Faust the lime trees of Philemon. +The state of things is shown by the aggravated punishment for outrages +on property committed by armed bands, which was introduced +by one of the better Optimates, Marcus Lucullus, as presiding over +the administration of justice in the capital about the year 676,(25) +with the express object of inducing the proprietors of large bands +of slaves to exercise a more strict superintendence over them +and thereby avoid the penalty of seeing them judicially condemned. +Where pillage and murder were thus carried on by order +of the world of quality, it was natural for these masses of slaves +and proletarians to prosecute the same business on their own account; +a spark was sufficient to set fire to so inflammable materials, +and to convert the proletariate into an insurrectionary army. +An occasion was soon found. + +Outbreak of the Gladiatorial War in Italy +Spartacus + +The gladiatorial games, which now held the first rank +among the popular amusements in Italy, had led to the institution +of numerous establishments, more especially in and around Capua, +designed partly for the custody, partly for the training +of those slaves who were destined to kill or be killed for the amusement +of the sovereign multitude. These were naturally in great part +brave men captured in war, who had not forgotten that they had once +faced the Romans in the field. A number of these desperadoes broke out +of one of the Capuan gladiatorial schools (681), and sought refuge +on Mount Vesuvius. At their head were two Celts, who were designated +by their slave-names Crixus and Oenomaus, and the Thracian Spartacus. +The latter, perhaps a scion of the noble family of the Spartocids +which attained even to royal honours in its Thracian home +and in Panticapaeum, had served among the Thracian auxiliaries +in the Roman army, had deserted and gone as a brigand to the mountains, +and had been there recaptured and destined for the gladiatorial games. + +The Insurrection Takes Shape + +The inroads of this little band, numbering at first only seventy-four +persons, but rapidly swelling by concourse from the surrounding +country, soon became so troublesome to the inhabitants +of the rich region of Campania, that these, after having vainly +attempted themselves to repel them, sought help against them +from Rome. A division of 3000 men hurriedly collected appeared +under the leadership of Clodius Glaber, and occupied the approaches +to Vesuvius with the view of starving out the slaves. +But the brigands in spite of their small number and their +defective armament had the boldness to scramble down steep declivities +and to fall upon the Roman posts; and when the wretched militia saw +the little band of desperadoes unexpectedly assail them, they took +to their heels and fled on all sides. This first success procured +for the robbers arms and increased accessions to their ranks. +Although even now a great portion of them carried nothing +but pointed clubs, the new and stronger division of the militia-- +two legions under the praetor Publius Varinius--which advanced +from Rome into Campania, found them encamped almost like a regular army +in the plain. Varinius had a difficult position. His militia, +compelled to bivouac opposite the enemy, were severely weakened +by the damp autumn weather and the diseases which it engendered; +and, worse than the epidemics, cowardice and insubordination thinned +the ranks. At the very outset one of his divisions broke up entirely, +so that the fugitives did not fall back on the main corps, but went +straight home. Thereupon, when the order was given to advance +against the enemy's entrenchments and attack them, the greater +portion of the troops refused to comply with it. Nevertheless +Varinius set out with those who kept their ground against +the robber-band; but it was no longer to be found where he sought it. +It had broken up in the deepest silence and had turned to the south +towards Picentia (Vicenza near Amain), where Varinius overtook it +indeed, but could not prevent it from retiring over the Silarus +into the interior of Lucania, the chosen land of shepherds and robbers. +Varinius followed thither, and there at length the despised enemy +arrayed themselves for battle. All the circumstances +under which the combat took place were to the disadvantage +of the Romans: the soldiers, vehemently as they had demanded +battle a little before, fought ill; Varinius was completely +vanquished; his horse and the insignia of his official +dignity fell with the Roman camp itself into the enemy's hand. +The south-Italian slaves, especially the brave half-savage herdsmen, +flocked in crowds to the banner of the deliverers who had +so unexpectedly appeared; according to the most moderate estimates +the number of armed insurgents rose to 40,000 men. Campania, +just evacuated, was speedily reoccupied, and the Roman corps which was +left behind there under Gaius Thoranius, the quaestor of Varinius, +was broken and destroyed. In the whole south and south-west +of Italy the open country was in the hands of the victorious bandit- +chiefs; even considerable towns, such as Consentia in the Bruttian +country, Thurii and Metapontum in Lucania, Nola and Nuceria +in Campania, were stormed by them, and suffered all the atrocities +which victorious barbarians could inflict on defenceless civilized +men, and unshackled slaves on their former masters. That a conflict +like this should be altogether abnormal and more a massacre +than a war, was unhappily a matter of course: the masters +duly crucified every captured slave; the slaves naturally killed +their prisoners also, or with still more sarcastic retaliation +even compelled their Roman captives to slaughter each other +in gladiatorial sport; as was subsequently done with three hundred +of them at the obsequies of a robber-captain who had fallen in combat. + +Great Victories of Spartacus + +In Rome people were with reason apprehensive as to the destructive +conflagration which was daily spreading. It was resolved next year +(682) to send both consuls against the formidable leaders +of the gang. The praetor Quintus Arrius, a lieutenant of the consul +Lucius Gellius, actually succeeded in seizing and destroying +at Mount Garganus in Apulia the Celtic band, which under Crixus +had separated from the mass of the robber-army and was levying +contributions at its own hand. But Spartacus achieved +all the more brilliant victories in the Apennines and in northern Italy, +where first the consul Gnaeus Lentulus who had thought to surround +and capture the robbers, then his colleague Gellius and the so recently +victorious praetor Arrius, and lastly at Mutina the governor +of Cisalpine Gaul Gaius Cassius (consul 681) and the praetor Gnaeus +Manlius, one after another succumbed to his blows. The scarcely- +armed gangs of slaves were the terror of the legions; the series +of defeats recalled the first years of the Hannibalic war. + +Internal Dissension among the Insurgents + +What might have come of it, had the national kings +from the mountains of Auvergne or of the Balkan, and not runaway +gladiatorial slaves, been at the head of the victorious bands, +it is impossible to say; as it was, the movement remained +notwithstanding its brilliant victories a rising of robbers, +and succumbed less to the superior force of its opponents than +to internal discord and the want of definite plan. The unity +in confronting the common foe, which was so remarkably conspicuous +in the earlier servile wars of Sicily, was wanting in this Italian +war--a difference probably due to the fact that, while the Sicilian +slaves found a quasi-national point of union in the common +Syrohellenism, the Italian slaves were separated into the two +bodies of Helleno-Barbarians and Celto-Germans. The rupture +between the Celtic Crixus and the Thracian Spartacus--Oenomaus had +fallen in one of the earliest conflicts--and other similar quarrels +crippled them in turning to account the successes achieved, +and procured for the Romans several important victories. But the want +of a definite plan and aim produced far more injurious effects +on the enterprise than the insubordination of the Celto-Germans. +Spartacus doubtless--to judge by the little which we learn +regarding that remarkable man--stood in this respect above his party. +Along with his strategic ability he displayed no ordinary +talent for organization, as indeed from the very outset +the uprightness, with which he presided over his band and distributed +the spoil, had directed the eyes of the multitude to him quite +as much at least as his valour. To remedy the severely felt want +of cavalry and of arms, he tried with the help of the herds of horses +seized in Lower Italy to train and discipline a cavalry, and, so soon as +he got the port of Thurii into his hands, to procure from that quarter +iron and copper, doubtless through the medium of the pirates. +But in the main matters he was unable to induce the wild hordes +whom he led to pursue any fixed ulterior aims. Gladly would +he have checked the frantic orgies of cruelty, in which the robbers +indulged on the capture of towns, and which formed the chief reason +why no Italian city voluntarily made common cause with the insurgents; +but the obedience which the bandit-chief found in the conflic +ceased with the victory, and his representations and entreaties +were in vain. After the victories obtained in the Apennine +in 682 the slave army was free to move in any direction. +Spartacus himself is said to have intended to cross the Alps, +with a view to open to himself and his followers the means of return +to their Celtic or Thracian home: if the statement is well founded, +it shows how little the conqueror overrated his successes +and his power. When his men refused so speedily to turn their backs +on the riches of Italy, Spartacus took the route for Rome, and is said +to have meditated blockading the capital. The troops, however, +showed themselves also averse to this desperate but yet methodical +enterprise; they compelled their leader, when he was desirous +to be a general, to remain a mere captain of banditti and aimlessly +to wander about Italy in search of plunder. Rome might think herself +fortunate that the matter took this turn; but even as it was, +the perplexity was great. There was a want of trained soldiers +as of experienced generals; Quintus Metellus and Gnaeus Pompeius +were employed in Spain, Marcus Lucullus in Thrace, Lucius Lucullus +in Asia Minor; and none but raw militia and, at best, mediocre +officers were available. The extraordinary supreme command +in Italy was given to the praetor Marcus Crassus, who was not +a general of much reputation, but had fought with honour under Sulla +and had at least character; and an army of eight legions, imposing +if not by its quality, at any rate by its numbers, was placed +at his disposal. The new commander-in-chief began by treating +the first division, which again threw away its arms and fled before +the banditti, with all the severity of martial law, and causing every +tenth man in it to be executed; whereupon the legions in reality +grew somewhat more manly. Spartacus, vanquished in the next +engagement, retreated and sought to reach Rhegium through Lucania. + +Conflicts in the Bruttian Country + +Just at that time the pirates commanded not merely the Sicilian +waters, but even the port of Syracuse;(26) with the help of their +boats Spartacus proposed to throw a corps into Sicily, where the slaves +only waited an impulse to break out a third time. The march to Rhegium +was accomplished; but the corsairs, perhaps terrified by the coastguards +established in Sicily by the praetor Gaius Verres, perhaps also bribed +by the Romans, took from Spartacus the stipulated hire without performing +the service for which it was given. Crassus meanwhile had followed +the robber-army nearly as far as the mouth, of the Crathis, +and, like Scipio before Numantia, ordered his soldiers, +seeing that they did not fight as they ought, to construct +an entrenched wall of the length of thirty-five miles, +which shut off the Bruttian peninsula from the rest of Italy,(27) +intercepted the insurgent army on the return from Rhegium, +and cut off its supplies. But in a dark winter night Spartacus +broke through the lines of the enemy, and in the spring of 683(28) +was once more in Lucania. The laborious work had thus been in vain. +Crassus began to despair of accomplishing his task and demanded +that the senate should for his support recall to Italy the armies +stationed in Macedonia under Marcus Lucullus and in Hither Spain +under Gnaeus Pompeius. + +Disruption of the Rebels and Their Subjugation + +This extreme step however was not needed; the disunion and the arrogance +of the robber-bands sufficed again to frustrate their successes. +Once more the Celts and Germans broke off from the league of which +the Thracian was the head and soul, in order that, under leaders +of their own nation Gannicus and Castus, they might separately +fall victims to the sword of the Romans. Once, at the Lucanian +lake the opportune appearance of Spartacus saved them, +and thereupon they pitched their camp near to his; nevertheless +Crassus succeeded in giving employment to Spartacus by means +of the cavalry, and meanwhile surrounded the Celtic bands and compelled +them to a separate engagement, in which the whole body--numbering +it is said 12,300 combatants--fell fighting bravely all on the spot +and with their wounds in front. Spartacus then attempted to throw +himself with his division into the mountains round Petelia (near +Strongoli in Calabria), and signally defeated the Roman vanguard, +which followed his retreat But this victory proved more injurious +to the victor than to the vanquished. Intoxicated by success, +the robbers refused to retreat farther, and compelled their general +to lead them through Lucania towards Apulia to face the last decisive +struggle. Before the battle Spartacus stabbed his horse: +as in prosperity and adversity he had faithfully kept by his men, +he now by that act showed them that the issue for him and for all +was victory or death. In the battle also he fought with the courage +of a lion; two centurions fell by his hand; wounded and on his knees +he still wielded his spear against the advancing foes. +Thus the great robber-captain and with him the best of his comrades +died the death of free men and of honourable soldiers (683). +After the dearly-bought victory the troops who had achieved it, +and those of Pompeius that had meanwhile after conquering the Sertorians +arrived from Spain, instituted throughout Apulia and Lucania a manhunt, +such as there had never been before, to crush out the last sparks +of the mighty conflagration. Although in the southern districts, +where for instance the little town of Tempsa was seized in 683 +by a gang of robbers, and in Etruria, which was severely affected +by Sulla's evictions, there was by no means as yet a real public +tranquillity, peace was officially considered as re-established +in Italy. At least the disgracefully lost eagles were recovered-- +after the victory over the Celts alone five of them were brought +in; and along the road from Capua to Rome the six thousand crosses +bearing captured slaves testified to the re-establishment of order, +and to the renewed victory of acknowledged law over its living +property that had rebelled. + +The Government of the Restoration as a Whole + +Let us look back on the events which fill up the ten years +of the Sullan restoration. No one of the movements, external +or internal, which occurred during this period--neither the insurrection +of Lepidus, nor the enterprises of the Spanish emigrants, nor the wars +in Thrace and Macedonia and in Asia Minor, nor the risings +of the pirates and the slaves--constituted of itself a mighty danger +necessarily affecting the vital sinews of the nation; and yet +the state had in all these struggles well-nigh fought for its +very existence. The reason was that the tasks were everywhere +left unperformed, so long as they might still have been performed +with ease; the neglect of the simplest precautionary measures produced +the most dreadful mischiefs and misfortunes, and transformed +dependent classes and impotent kings into antagonists on a footing +of equality. The democracy and the servile insurrection +were doubtless subdued; but such as the victories were, the victor +was neither inwardly elevated nor outwardly strengthened by them. +It was no credit to Rome, that the two most celebrated generals +of the government party had during a struggle of eight years marked +by more defeats than victories failed to master the insurgent chief +Sertorius and his Spanish guerillas, and that it was only +the dagger of his friends that decided the Sertorian war in favour +of the legitimate government. As to the slaves, it was far less +an honour to have conquered them than a disgrace to have confronted +them in equal strife for years. Little more than a century had +elapsed since the Hannibalic war; it must have brought a blush +to the cheek of the honourable Roman, when he reflected +on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. +Then the Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans +of Hannibal; now the Italian militia were scattered like chaff before +the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain +acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, +but always with honour; now it was difficult to find among +all the officers of rank a leader of even ordinary efficiency. +Then the government preferred to take the last farmer from the plough +rather than forgo the acquisition of Spain and Greece; now they were +on the eve of again abandoning both regions long since acquired, +merely that they might be able to defend themselves against +the insurgent slaves at home. Spartacus too as well as Hannibal +had traversed Italy with an army from the Po to the Sicilian straits, +beaten both consuls, and threatened Rome with blockade; +the enterprise which had needed the greatest general of antiquity +to conduct it against the Rome of former days could be undertaken +against the Rome of the present by a daring captain of banditti. +Was there any wonder that no fresh life sprang out of such victories +over insurgents and robber-chiefs? + +The external wars, however, had produced a result still less +gratifying. It is true that the Thraco-Macedonian war had yielded +a result not directly unfavourable, although far from corresponding +to the considerable expenditure of men and money. In the wars +in Asia Minor and with the pirates on the other hand, the government +had exhibited utter failure. The former ended with the loss +of the whole conquests made in eight bloody campaigns, the latter +with the total driving of the Romans from "their own sea." Once Rome, +fully conscious of the irresistibleness of her power by land, +had transferred her superiority also to the other element; +now the mighty state was powerless at sea and, as it seemed, +on the point of also losing its dominion at least over the Asiatic +continent. The material benefits which a state exists to confer-- +security of frontier, undisturbed peaceful intercourse, legal protection, +and regulated administration--began all of them to vanish for the whole +of the nations united in the Roman state; the gods of blessing +seemed all to have mounted up to Olympus and to have left +the miserable earth at the mercy of the officially called or volunteer +plunderers and tormentors. Nor was this decay of the state felt +as a public misfortune merely perhaps by such as had political rights +and public spirit; the insurrection of the proletariate, +and the brigandage and piracy which remind us of the times +of the Neapolitan Ferdinands, carried the sense of this decay +into the remotest valley and the humblest hut of Italy, and made +every one who pursued trade and commerce, or who bought +even a bushel of wheat, feel it as a personal calamity. + +If inquiry was made as to the authors of this dreadful and unexampled +misery, it was not difficult to lay the blame of it with good +reason on many. The slaveholders whose heart was in their +money-bags, the insubordinate soldiers, the generals cowardly, +incapable, or foolhardy, the demagogues of the market-place mostly +pursuing a mistaken aim, bore their share of the blame; or, +to speak more truly, who was there that did not share in it? +It was instinctively felt that this misery, this disgrace, this disorder +were too colossal to be the work of any one man. As the greatness +of the Roman commonwealth was the work not of prominent individuals, +but rather of a soundly-organized burgess-body, so the decay +of this mighty structure was the result not of the destructive genius +of individuals, but of a general disorganization. The great majority +of the burgesses were good for nothing, and every rotten stone +in the building helped to bring about the ruin of the whole; the whole +nation suffered for what was the whole nation's fault. It was unjust +to hold the government, as the ultimate tangible organ of the state, +responsible for all its curable and incurable diseases; but it certainly +was true that the government contributed after a very grave fashion +to the general culpability. In the Asiatic war, for example, +where no individual of the ruling lords conspicuously failed, +and Lucullus, in a military point of view at least, behaved with ability +and even glory, it was all the more clear that the blame of failure lay +in the system and in the government as such--primarily, so far +as that war was concerned, in the remissness with which Cappadocia +and Syria were at first abandoned, and in the awkward position +of the able general with reference to a governing college incapable +of any energetic resolution. In maritime police likewise +the true idea which the senate had taken up as to a general hunting +out of the pirates was first spoilt by it in the execution +and then totally dropped, in order to revert to the old foolish system +of sending legions against the coursers of the sea. The expeditions +of Servilius and Marcius to Cilicia, and of Metellus to Crete, +were undertaken on this system; and in accordance with it Triarius +had the island of Delos surrounded by a wall for protection against +the pirates. Such attempts to secure the dominion of the seas remind +us of that Persian great-king, who ordered the sea to be scourged +with rods to make it subject to him. Doubtless therefore +the nation had good reason for laying the blame of its failure +primarily on the government of the restoration. A similar misrule +had indeed always come along with the re-establishment +of the oligarchy, after the fall of the Gracchi as after that +of Marius and Saturninus; yet never before had it shown such violence +and at the same time such laxity, never had it previously emerged +so corrupt and pernicious. But, when a government cannot govern, +it ceases to be legitimate, and whoever has the power has also +the right to overthrow it. It is, no doubt, unhappily true +that an incapable and flagitious government may for a long period trample +under foot the welfare and honour of the land, before the men are +found who are able and willing to wield against that government +the formidable weapons of its own forging, and to evoke out of +the moral revolt of the good and the distress of the many the revolution +which is in such a case legitimate. But if the game attempted +with the fortunes of nations may be a merry one and may be played +perhaps for a long time without molestation, it is a treacherous +game, which in its own time entraps the players; and no one then +blames the axe, if it is laid to the root of the tree that bears +such fruits. For the Roman oligarchy this time had now come. +The Pontic-Armenian war and the affair of the pirates became +the proximate causes of the overthrow of the Sullan constitution +and of the establishment of a revolutionary military dictatorship. + + + + +Chapter III + +The Fall of the Oligarchy and the Rule of Pompeius + +Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution + +The Sullan constitution still stood unshaken. The assault, +which Lepidus and Sertorius had ventured to make on it, +had been repulsed with little loss. The government had neglected, +it is true, to finish the half-completed building in the energetic +spirit of its author. It is characteristic of the government, +that it neither distributed the lands which Sulla had destined +for allotment but had not yet parcelled out, nor directly abandoned +the claim to them, but tolerated the former owners in provisional +possession without regulating their title, and indeed even allowed +various still undistributed tracts of Sullan domain-land to be +arbitrarily taken possession of by individuals according +to the old system of occupation, which was de jure and de facto +set aside by the Gracchan reforms.(1) Whatever in the Sullan enactments +was indifferent or inconvenient for the Optimates, was without scruple +ignored or cancelled; for instance, the sentences under which whole +communities were deprived of the right of citizenship, the prohibition +against conjoining the new farms, and several of the privileges +conferred by Sulla on particular communities--of course, without +giving back to the communities the sums paid for these exemptions. +But though these violations of the ordinances of Sulla by the government +itself contributed to shake the foundations of his structure, +the Sempronian laws were substantially abolished and remained so. + +Attacks of the Democracy +Corn-Laws +Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power + +There was no lack, indeed, of men who had in view the re-establishment +of the Gracchan constitution, or of projects to attain piecemeal +in the way of constitutional reform what Lepidus and Sertorius +had attempted by the path of revolution. The government +had already under the pressure of the agitation of Lepidus +immediately after the death of Sulla consented to a limited revival +of the largesses of grain (676); and it did, moreover, +what it could to satisfy the proletariate of the capital in regard +to this vital question. When, notwithstanding those distributions, +the high price of grain occasioned chiefly by piracy produced +so oppressive a dearth in Rome as to lead to a violent tumult +in the streets in 679, extraordinary purchases of Sicilian grain +on account of the government relieved for the time the most severe +distress; and a corn-law brought in by the consuls of 681 regulated +for the future the purchases of Sicilian grain and furnished +the government, although at the expense of the provincials, +with better means of obviating similar evils. But the less material +points of difference also--the restoration of the tribunician power +in its old compass, and the setting aside of the senatorial tribunals-- +ceased not to form subjects of popular agitation; and in their +case the government offered more decided resistance. The dispute +regarding the tribunician magistracy was opened as early as 678, +immediately after the defeat of Lepidus, by the tribune of the people +Lucius Sicinius, perhaps a descendant of the man of the same +name who had first filled this office more than four hundred years +before; but it failed before the resistance offered to it +by the active consul Gaius Curio. In 680 Lucius Quinctius resumed +the agitation, but was induced by the authority of the consul Lucius +Lucullus to desist from his purpose. The matter was taken up +in the following year with greater zeal by Gaius Licinius Macer, who-- +in a way characteristic of the period--carried his literary studies +into public life, and, just as he had read in the Annals, +counselled the burgesses to refuse the conscription. + +Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals + +Complaints also, only too well founded, prevailed respecting +the bad administration of justice by the senatorial jurymen. +The condemnation of a man of any influence could hardly be obtained. +Not only did colleague feel reasonable compassion for colleague, +those who had been or were likely to be accused for the poor sinner +under accusation at the moment; the sale also of the votes +of jurymen was hardly any longer exceptional. Several senators +had been judicially convicted of this crime: men pointed +with the finger at others equally guilty; the most respected Optimates, +such as Quintus Catulus, granted in an open sitting of the senate +that the complaints were quite well founded; individual specially +striking cases compelled the senate on several occasions, e. g. in 680, +to deliberate on measures to check the venality of juries, +but only of course till the first outcry had subsided and the matter +could be allowed to slip out of sight. The consequences +of this wretched administration of justice appeared especially +in a system of plundering and torturing the provincials, compared +with which even previous outrages seemed tolerable and moderate. +Stealing and robbing had been in some measure legitimized by custom; +the commission on extortions might be regarded as an institution +for taxing the senators returning from the provinces for the benefit +of their colleagues that remained at home. But when an esteemed +Siceliot, because he had not been ready to help the governor +in a crime, was by the latter condemned to death in his absence +and unheard; when even Roman burgesses, if they were not equites +or senators, were in the provinces no longer safe from the rods +and axes of the Roman magistrate, and the oldest acquisition +of the Roman democracy--security of life and person--began to be +trodden under foot by the ruling oligarchy; then even the public +in the Forum at Rome had an ear for the complaints regarding +its magistrates in the provinces, and regarding the unjust judges +who morally shared the responsibility of such misdeeds. The opposition +of course did not omit to assail its opponents in--what was almost +the only ground left to it--the tribunals. The young Gaius Caesar, +who also, so far as his age allowed, took zealous part +in the agitation for the re-establishment of the tribunician power, +brought to trial in 677 one of the most respected partisans +of Sulla the consular Gnaeus Dolabella, and in the following year +another Sullan officer Gaius Antonius; and Marcus Cicero in 684 +called to account Gaius Verres, one of the most wretched +of the creatures of Sulla, and one of the worst scourges +of the provincials. Again and again were the pictures +of that dark period of the proscriptions, the fearful sufferings +of the provincials, the disgraceful state of Roman criminal justice, +unfolded before the assembled multitude with all the pomp +of Italian rhetoric, and with all the bitterness of Italian sarcasm, +and the mighty dead as well as his living instruments were unrelentingly +exposed to their wrath and scorn. The re-establishment of the full +tribunician power, with the continuance of which the freedom, +might, and prosperity of the republic seemed bound up as by a charm +of primeval sacredness, the reintroduction of the "stern" equestrian +tribunals, the renewal of the censorship, which Sulla had set +aside, for the purifying of the supreme governing board +from its corrupt and pernicious elements, were daily demanded +with a loud voice by the orators of the popular party. + +Want of Results from the Democratic Agitation + +But with all this no progress was made. There was scandal +and outcry enough, but no real result was attained by this exposure +of the government according to and beyond its deserts. The material +power still lay, so long as there was no military interference, +in the hands of the burgesses of the capital; and the "people" +that thronged the streets of Rome and made magistrates and laws +in the Forum, was in fact nowise better than the governing senate. +The government no doubt had to come to terms with the multitude, +where its own immediate interest was at stake; this was the reason +for the renewal of the Sempronian corn-law. But it was not +to be imagined that this populace would have displayed earnestness +on behalf of an idea or even of a judicious reform. What Demosthenes +said of his Athenians was justly applied to the Romans +of this period--the people were very zealous for action, so long +as they stood round the platform and listened to proposals of reforms; +but when they went home, no one thought further of what he had +heard in the market-place. However those democratic agitators might +stir the fire, it was to no purpose, for the inflammable material +was wanting. The government knew this, and allowed no sort +of concession to be wrung from it on important questions +of principle; at the utmost it consented (about 682) to grant +amnesty to a portion of those who had become exiles with Lepidus. +Any concessions that did take place, came not so much from the pressure +of the democracy as from the attempts at mediation of the moderate +aristocracy. But of the two laws which the single still surviving +leader of this section Gaius Cotta carried in his consulate of 679, +that which concerned the tribunals was again set aside +in the very next year; and the second, which abolished the Sullan +enactment that those who had held the tribunate should be disqualified +for undertaking other magistracies, but allowed the other limitations +to continue, merely--like every half-measure--excited the displeasure +of both parties. + +The party of conservatives friendly to reform which lost +its most notable head by the early death of Cotta occurring soon +after (about 681) dwindled away more and more--crushed between +the extremes, which were becoming daily more marked. But of these +the party of the government, wretched and remiss as it was, +necessarily retained the advantage in presence of the equally +wretched and equally remiss opposition. + +Quarrel between the Government and Their General Pompeius + +But this state of matters so favourable to the government +was altered, when the differences became more distinctly developed +which subsisted between it and those of its partisans, whose hopes +aspired to higher objects than the seat of honour in the senate +and the aristocratic villa. In the first rank of these stood Gnaeus +Pompeius. He was doubtless a Sullan; but we have already shown(2) +how little he was at home among his own party, how his lineage, +his past history, his hopes separated him withal from the nobility +as whose protector and champion he was officially regarded. +The breach already apparent had been widened irreparably during +the Spanish campaigns of the general (677-683). With reluctance +and semi-compulsion the government had associated him as colleague +with their true representative Quintus Metellus; and in turn he accused +the senate, probably not without ground, of having by its careless +or malicious neglect of the Spanish armies brought about their +defeats and placed the fortunes of the expedition in jeopardy. +Now he returned as victor over his open and his secret foes, +at the head of an army inured to war and wholly devoted to him, +desiring assignments of land for his soldiers, a triumph +and the consulship for himself. The latter demands came into +collision with the law. Pompeius, although several times invested +in an extraordinary way with supreme official authority, had not yet +administered any ordinary magistracy, not even the quaestorship, +and was still not a member of the senate; and none but one +who had passed through the round of lesser ordinary magistracies +could become consul, none but one who had been invested +with the ordinary supreme power could triumph. The senate +was legally entitled, if he became a candidate for the consulship, +to bid him begin with the quaestorship; if he requested a triumph, +to remind him of the great Scipio, who under like circumstances +had renounced his triumph over conquered Spain. Nor was Pompeius +less dependent constitutionally on the good will of the senate +as respected the lands promised to his soldiers. But, although +the senate--as with its feebleness even in animosity +was very conceivable--should yield those points and concede +to the victorious general, in return for his executioner's service +against the democratic chiefs, the triumph, the consulate, +and the assignations of land, an honourable annihilation +in senatorial indolence among the long series of peaceful +senatorial Imperators was the most favourable lot which the oligarchy +was able to hold in readiness for the general of thirty-six. +That which his heart really longed for--the command +in the Mithradatic war--he could never expect to obtain +from the voluntary bestowal of the senate: in their own well-understood +interest the oligarchy could not permit him to add to his Africa +and European trophies those of a third continent; the laurels +which were to be plucked copiously and easily in the east were reserved +at all events for the pure aristocracy. But if the celebrated general +did not find his account in the ruling oligarchy, there remained-- +for neither was the time ripe, nor was the temperament of Pompeius +at all fitted, for a purely personal outspoken dynastic policy-- +no alternative save to make common cause with the democratic party. +No interest of his own bound him to the Sullan constitution; +he could pursue his personal objects quite as well, if not better, +with one more democratic. On the other hand he found all that he needed +in the democratic party. Its active and adroit leaders were ready +and able to relieve the resourceless and somewhat wooden hero +of the trouble of political leadership, and yet much too insignificant +to be able or even wishful to dispute with the celebrated general +the first place and especially the supreme military control. Even +Gaius Caesar, by far the most important of them, was simply a young +man whose daring exploits and fashionable debts far more than his +fiery democratic eloquence had gained him a name, and who could not +but feel himself greatly honoured when the world-renowned Imperator +allowed him to be his political adjutant. That popularity, +to which men like Pompeius, with pretensions greater than their +abilities, usually attach more value than they are willing +to confess to themselves, could not but fall in the highest measure +to the lot of the young general whose accession gave victory +to the almost forlorn cause of the democracy. The reward of victory +claimed by him for himself and his soldiers would then follow +of itself. In general it seemed, if the oligarchy were overthrown, +that amidst the total want of other considerable chiefs +of the opposition it would depend solely on Pompeius himself +to determine his future position. And of this much there could +hardly be a doubt, that the accession of the general of the army, +which had just returned victorious from Spain and still stood compact +and unbroken in Italy, to the party of opposition must have +as its consequence the fall of the existing order of things. +Government and opposition were equally powerless; so soon as +the latter no longer fought merely with the weapons of declamation, +but had the sword of a victorious general ready to back its demands, +the government would be in any case overcome, perhaps even +without a struggle. + +Coalition of the Military Chiefs and the Democracy + +Pompeius and the democrats thus found themselves urged +into coalition. Personal dislikings were probably not wanting +on either side: it was not possible that the victorious general +could love the street orators, nor could these hail with pleasure +as their chief the executioner of Carbo and Brutus; but political +necessity outweighed at least for the moment all moral scruples. + +The democrats and Pompeius, however, were not the sole parties +to the league. Marcus Crassus was in a similar situation +with Pompeius. Although a Sullan like the latter, his politics +were quite as in the case of Pompeius preeminently of a personal kind, +and by no means those of the ruling oligarchy; and he too was now +in Italy at the head of a large and victorious army, with which +he had just suppressed the rising of the slaves. He had to choose +whether he would ally himself with the oligarchy against the coalition, +or enter that coalition: he chose the latter, which was doubtless +the safer course. With his colossal wealth and his influence +on the clubs of the capital he was in any case a valuable +ally; but under the prevailing circumstances it was an incalculable +gain, when the only army, with which the senate could have met +the troops of Pompeius, joined the attacking force. The democrats +moreover, who were probably somewhat uneasy at their alliance +with that too powerful general, were not displeased to see +a counterpoise and perhaps a future rival associated with him +in the person of Marcus Crassus. + +Thus in the summer of 683 the first coalition took place between +the democracy on the one hand, and the two Sullan generals Gnaeus +Pompeius and Marcus Crassus on the other. The generals adopted +the party-programme of the democracy; and they were promised +immediately in return the consulship for the coming year, while +Pompeius was to have also a triumph and the desired allotments +of land for his soldiers, and Crassus as the conqueror of Spartacus +at least the honour of a solemn entrance into the capital. + +To the two Italian armies, the great capitalists, +and the democracy, which thus came forward in league for the overthrow +of the Sullan constitution, the senate had nothing to oppose save +perhaps the second Spanish army under Quintus Metellus Pius. +But Sulla had truly predicted that what he did would not be done +a second time; Metellus, by no means inclined to involve himself +in a civil war, had discharged his soldiers immediately after crossing +the Alps. So nothing was left for the oligarchy but to submit +to what was inevitable. The senate granted the dispensations +requisite for the consulship and triumph; Pompeius and Crassus +were, without opposition, elected consuls for 684, while their +armies, on pretext of awaiting their triumph, encamped before +the city. Pompeius thereupon, even before entering on office, +gave his public and formal adherence to the democratic programme +in an assembly of the people held by the tribune Marcus Lollius +Palicanus. The change of the constitution was thus +in principle decided. + +Re-establishing of the Tribunician Power + +They now went to work in all earnest to set aside the Sullan +institutions. First of all the tribunician magistracy regained +its earlier authority. Pompeius himself as consul introduced the law +which gave back to the tribunes of the people their time-honoured +prerogatives, and in particular the initiative of legislation-- +a singular gift indeed from the hand of a man who had done more than +any one living to wrest from the community its ancient privileges. + +New Arrangement as to Jurymen + +With respect to the position of jurymen, the regulation of Sulla, +that the roll of the senators was to serve as the list of jurymen, +was no doubt abolished; but this by no means led to a simple +restoration of the Gracchan equestrian courts. In future--so it +was enacted by the new Aurelian law--the colleges of jurymen +were to consist one-third of senators and two-thirds of men +of equestrian census, and of the latter the half must have rilled +the office of district-presidents, or so-called -tribuni aerarii-. +This last innovation was a farther concession made to the democrats, +inasmuch as according to it at least a third part of the criminal +jurymen were indirectly derived from the elections of the tribes. +The reason, again, why the senate was not totally excluded +from the courts is probably to be sought partly in the relations +of Crassus to the senate, partly in the accession of the senatorial +middle party to the coalition; with which is doubtless connected +the circumstance that this law was brought in by the praetor Lucius +Cotta, the brother of their lately deceased leader. + +Renewal of the Asiatic Revenue-Farming + +Not less important was the abolition of the arrangements +as to taxation established for Asia by Sulla,(3) which presumably +likewise fell to this year. The governor of Asia at that time, +Lucius Lucullus, was directed to reestablish the system of farming +the revenue introduced by Gaius Gracchus; and thus this important +source of money and power was restored to the great capitalists. + +Renewal of the Censorship + +Lastly, the censorship was revived. The elections for it, +which the new consuls fixed shortly after entering on their office, +fell, in evident mockery of the senate, on the two consuls of 682, +Gnaeus Lentulus Clodianus and Lucius Gellius, who had been removed +by the senate from their commands on account of their wretched +management of the war against Spartacus.(4) It may readily be conceived +that these men put in motion all the means which their important +and grave office placed at their command, for the purpose of doing +homage to the new-holders of power and of annoying the senate. +At least an eighth part of the senate, sixty-four senators, a number +hitherto unparalleled, were deleted from the roll, including Gaius +Antonius, formerly impeached without success by Gaius Caesar,(5) +and Publius Lentulus Sura, the consul of 683, and presumably also +not a few of the most obnoxious creatures of Sulla. + +The New Constitution + +Thus in 684 they had reverted in the main to the arrangements +that subsisted before the Sullan restoration. + +Again the multitude of the capital was fed from the state-chest, +in other words by the provinces;(6) again the tribunician authority +gave to every demagogue a legal license to overturn the arrangements +of the state; again the moneyed nobility, as farmers of the revenue +and possessed of the judicial control over the governors, raised their +heads alongside of the government as powerfully as ever; again the senate +trembled before the verdict of jurymen of the equestrian order and before +the censorial censure. The system of Sulla, which had based the monopoly +of power by the nobility on the political annihilation of the mercantile +aristocracy and of demagogism, was thus completely overthrown. +Leaving out of view some subordinate enactments, the abolition +of which was not overtaken till afterwards, such as the restoration +of the right of self-completion to the priestly colleges,(7) nothing +of the general ordinances of Sulla survived except, on the one hand, +the concessions which he himself found it necessary to make +to the opposition, such as the recognition of the Roman franchise +of all the Italians, and, on the other hand, enactments without +any marked partisan tendency, and with which therefore even judicious +democrats found no fault--such as, among others, the restriction +of the freedmen, the regulation of the functional spheres +of the magistrates, and the material alterations in criminal law. + +The coalition was more agreed regarding these questions +of principle than with respect to the personal questions which such +a political revolution raised. As might be expected, the democrats +were not content with the general recognition of their programme; +but they too now demanded a restoration in their sense--revival +of the commemoration of their dead, punishment of the murderers, +recall of the proscribed from exile, removal of the political +disqualification that lay on their children, restoration +of the estates confiscated by Sulla, indemnification at the expense +of the heirs and assistants of the dictator. These were certainly +the logical consequences which ensued from a pure victory +of the democracy; but the victory of the coalition of 683 was very far +from being such. The democracy gave to it their name and their +programme, but it was the officers who had joined the movement, +and above all Pompeius, that gave to it power and completion; and these +could never yield their consent to a reaction which would not only +have shaken the existing state of things to its foundations, +but would have ultimately turned against themselves--men still had +a lively recollection who the men were whose blood Pompeius had shed, +and how Crassus had laid the foundation of his enormous fortune. +It was natural therefore, but at the same time significant +of the weakness of the democracy, that the coalition of 683 took +not the slightest step towards procuring for the democrats revenge +or even rehabilitation. The supplementary collection of all +the purchase money still outstanding for confiscated estates +bought by auction, or even remitted to the purchasers by Sulla-- +for which the censor Lentulus provided in a special law-- +can hardly be regarded as an exception; for though not a few Sullans +were thereby severely affected in their personal interests, +yet the measure itself was essentially a confirmation +of the confiscations undertaken by Sulla. + +Impending Miliatry Dictatorship of Pompeius + +The work of Sulla was thus destroyed; but what the future order +of things was to be, was a question raised rather than decided by +that destruction. The coalition, kept together solely by the common +object of setting aside the work of restoration, dissolved +of itself, if not formally, at any rate in reality, when that object +was attained; while the question, to what quarter the preponderance +of power was in the first instance to fall, seemed approaching +an equally speedy and violent solution. The armies of Pompeius +and Crassus still lay before the gates of the city. The former had +indeed promised to disband his soldiers after his triumph (last day +of Dec. 683); but he had at first omitted to do so, in order to let +the revolution in the state be completed without hindrance +under the pressure which the Spanish army in front of the capital +exercised over the city and the senate--a course, which in like manner +applied to the army of Crassus. This reason now existed +no longer; but still the dissolution of the armies was postponed. +In the turn taken by matters it looked as if one of the two generals +allied with the democracy would seize the military dictatorship +and place oligarchs and democrats in the same chains. And this one +could only be Pompeius. From the first Crassus had played +a subordinate part in the coalition; he had been obliged to propose +himself, and owed even his election to the consulship mainly +to the proud intercession of Pompeius. Far the stronger, Pompeius +was evidently master of the situation; if he availed himself of it, +it seemed as if he could not but become what the instinct +of the multitude even now designated him--the absolute ruler +of the mightiest state in the civilized world. Already the whole mass +of the servile crowded around the future monarch. Already his weaker +opponents were seeking their last resource in a new coalition; +Crassus, full of old and recent jealousy towards the younger rival +who so thoroughly outstripped him, made approaches to the senate +and attempted by unprecedented largesses to attach to himself +the multitude of the capital--as if the oligarchy which Crassus himself +had helped to break down, and the ever ungrateful multitude, +would have been able to afford any protection whatever against +the veterans of the Spanish army. For a moment it seemed as if +the armies of Pompeius and Crassus would come to blows before +the gates of the capital. + +Retirement of Pompeius + +But the democrats averted this catastrophe by their sagacity +and their pliancy. For their party too, as well as for the senate +and Crassus, it was all-important that Pompeius should not seize +the dictatorship; but with a truer discernment of their own weakness +and of the character of their powerful opponent their leaders tried +the method of conciliation. Pompeius lacked no condition +for grasping at the crown except the first of all--proper kingly +courage. We have already described the man--with his effort to be +at once loyal republican and master of Rome, with his vacillation +and indecision, with his pliancy that concealed itself +under the boasting of independent resolution. This was the first +great trial to which destiny subjected him; and he failed to stand it. +The pretext under which Pompeius refused to dismiss the army was, +that he distrusted Crassus and therefore could not take the initiative +in disbanding the soldiers. The democrats induced Crassus to make +gracious advances in the matter, and to offer the hand of peace +to his colleague before the eyes of all; in public and in private they +besought the latter that to the double merit of having vanquished +the enemy and reconciled the parties he would add the third and yet +greater service of preserving internal peace to his country, +and banishing the fearful spectre of civil war with which +they were threatened. Whatever could tell on a vain, unskilful, +vacillating man--all the flattering arts of diplomacy, all the theatrical +apparatus of patriotic enthusiasm--was put in motion to obtain +the desired result; and--which was the main point--things had +by the well-timed compliance of Crassus assumed such a shape, +that Pompeius had no alternative but either to come forward openly +as tyrant of Rome or to retire. So he at length yielded and consented +to disband the troops. The command in the Mithradatic war, +which he doubtless hoped to obtain when he had allowed himself to be +chosen consul for 684, he could not now desire, since Lucullus +seemed to have practically ended that war with the campaign of 683. +He deemed it beneath his dignity to accept the consular province +assigned to him by the senate in accordance with the Sempronian +law, and Crassus in this followed his example. Accordingly +when Pompeius after discharging his soldiers resigned his consulship +on the last day of 684, he retired for the time wholly from public +affairs, and declared that he wished thenceforth to live a life +of quiet leisure as a simple citizen. He had taken up such a position +that he was obliged to grasp at the crown; and, seeing that he was +not willing to do so, no part was left to him but the empty one +of a candidate for a throne resigning his pretensions to it. + +Senate, Equites, and Populares + +The retirement of the man, to whom as things stood the first place +belonged, from the political stage reproduced in the first instance +nearly the same position of parties, which we found in the Gracchan +and Marian epochs. Sulla had merely strengthened the senatorial +government, not created it; so, after the bulwarks erected by Sulla +had fallen, the government nevertheless remained primarily +with the senate, although, no doubt, the constitution with which +it governed--in the main the restored Gracchan constitution-- +was pervaded by a spirit hostile to the oligarchy. The democracy +had effected the re-establishment of the Gracchan constitution; +but without a new Gracchus it was a body without a head, +and that neither Pompeius nor Crassus could be permanently such a head, +was in itself clear and had been made still clearer by the recent +events. So the democratic opposition, for want of a leader +who could have directly taken the helm, had to content itself +for the time being with hampering and annoying the government +at every step. Between the oligarchy, however, and the democracy +there rose into new consideration the capitalist party, +which in the recent crisis had made common cause with the latter, +but which the oligarchs now zealously endeavoured to draw over +to their side, so as to acquire in it a counterpoise to the democracy. +Thus courted on both sides the moneyed lords did not neglect to turn +their advantageous position to profit, and to have the only one +of their former privileges which they had not yet regained--the fourteen +benches reserved for the equestrian order in the theatre--now (687) +restored to them by decree of the people. On the whole, without +abruptly breaking with the democracy, they again drew closer +to the government. The very relations of the senate to Crassus +and his clients point in this direction; but a better understanding +between the senate and the moneyed aristocracy seems to have been +chiefly brought about by the fact, that in 686 the senate withdrew +from Lucius Lucullus the ablest of the senatorial officers, +at the instance of the capitalists whom he had sorely annoyed, +the dministration of the province of Asia so important +for their purposes.(8) + +The Events in the East, and Their Reaction on Rome + +But while the factions of the capital were indulging in their +wonted mutual quarrels, which they were never able to bring +to any proper decision, events in the east followed their fatal course, +as we have already described; and it was these events that brought +the dilatory course of the politics of the capital to a crisis. +The war both by land and by sea had there taken a most unfavourable +turn. In the beginning of 687 the Pontic army of the Romans +was destroyed, and their Armenian army was utterly breaking up +on its retreat; all their conquests were lost, the sea was exclusively +in the power of the pirates, and the price of grain in Italy +was thereby so raised that they were afraid of an actual famine. +No doubt, as we saw, the faults of the generals, especially +the utter incapacity of the admiral Marcus Antonius and the temerity +of the otherwise able Lucius Lucullus, were in part the occasion +of these calamities; no doubt also the democracy had by its +revolutionary agitations materially contributed to the breaking up +of the Armenian army. But of course the government was now held +cumulatively responsible for all the mischief which itself +and others had occasioned, and the indignant hungry multitude +desired only an opportunity to settle accounts with the senate. + +Reappearance of Pompeius + +It was a decisive crisis. The oligarchy, though degraded +and disarmed, was not yet overthrown, for the management of public +affairs was still in the hands of the senate; but it would fall, +if its opponents should appropriate to themselves that management, +and more especially the superintendence of military affairs; +and now this was possible. If proposals for another and better +management of the war by land and sea were now submitted to the comitia, +the senate was obviously--looking to the temper of the burgesses-- +not in a position to prevent their passing; and an interference +of the burgesses in these supreme questions of administration +was practically the deposition of the senate and the transference +of the conduct of the state to the leaders of opposition. Once more +the concatenation of events brought the decision into the hands +of Pompeius. For more than two years the famous general had lived +as a private citizen in the capital. His voice was seldom heard +in the senate-house or in the Forum; in the former he was unwelcome +and without decisive influence, in the latter he was afraid +of the stormy proceedings of the parties. But when he did show himself, +it was with the full retinue of his clients high and low, +and the very solemnity of his reserve imposed on the multitude. +If he, who was still surrounded with the full lustre of his extraordinary +successes, should now offer to go to the east, he would beyond +doubt be readily invested by the burgesses with all the plenitude +of military and political power which he might himself ask. +For the oligarchy, which saw in the political-military dictatorship +their certain ruin, and in Pompeius himself since the coalition +of 683 their most hated foe, this was an overwhelming blow; +but the democratic party also could have little comfort in the prospect. +However desirable the putting an end to the government of the senate +could not but be in itself, it was, if it took place in this way, +far less a victory for their party than a personal victory +for their over-powerful ally. In the latter there might easily arise +a far more dangerous opponent to the democratic party than the senate +had been. The danger fortunately avoided a few years before +by the disbanding of the Spanish army and the retirement of Pompeius +would recur in increased measure, if Pompeius should now be placed +at the head of the armies of the east. + +Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius + +On this occasion, however, Pompeius acted or at least allowed +others to act in his behalf. In 687 two projects of law +were introduced, one of which, besides decreeing the discharge-- +long since demanded by the democracy--of the soldiers of the Asiatic +army who had served their term, decreed the recall of its +commander-in-chief Lucius Lucullus and the supplying of his place +by one of the consuls of the current year, Gaius Piso or Manius +Glabrio; while the second revived and extended the plan proposed +seven years before by the senate itself for clearing the seas +from the pirates. A single general to be named by the senate +from the consulars was to be appointed, to hold by sea exclusive command +over the whole Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the coasts +of Pontus and Syria, and to exercise by land, concurrently +with the respective Roman governors, supreme command over the whole +coasts for fifty miles inland. The office was secured to him +for three years. He was surrounded by a staff, such as Rome +had never seen, of five-and-twenty lieutenants of senatorial rank, +all invested with praetorian insignia and praetorian powers, +and of two under-treasurers with quaestorian prerogatives, all of them +selected by the exclusive will of the general commanding-in-chief. +He was allowed to raise as many as 120,000 infantry, 5000 cavalry, +500 ships of war, and for this purpose to dispose absolutely +of the means of the provinces and client-states; moreover, the existing +vessels of war and a considerable number of troops were at once +handed over to him. The treasures of the state in the capital +and in the provinces as well as those of the dependent communities +were to be placed absolutely at his command, and in spite of the severe +financial distress a sum of; 1,400,000 pounds (144,000,000 sesterces) +was at once to be paid to him from the state-chest. + +Effect of the Projects of Law + +It is clear that by these projects of law, especially +by that which related to the expedition against the pirates, +the government of the senate was set aside. Doubtless the ordinary +supreme magistrates nominated by the burgesses were of themselves +the proper generals of the commonwealth, and the extraordinary +magistrates needed, at least according to strict law, confirmation +by the burgesses in order to act as generals; but in the appointment +to particular commands no influence constitutionally belonged +to the community, and it was only on the proposition of the senate, +or at any rate on that of a magistrate entitled in himself +to hold the office of general, that the comitia had hitherto +now and again interfered in this matter and conferred +such special functions. In this field, ever since there had existed +a Roman free state, the practically decisive voice pertained +to the senate, and this its prerogative had in the course of time +obtained full recognition. No doubt the democracy had already +assailed it; but even in the most doubtful of the cases which had +hitherto occurred--the transference of the African command +to Gaius Marius in 647(9)--it was only a magistrate constitutionally +entitled to hold the office of general that was entrusted +by the resolution of the burgesses with a definite expedition. + +But now the burgesses were to invest any private man at their +pleasure not merely with the extraordinary authority of the supreme +magistracy, but also with a sphere of office definitely settled +by them. That the senate had to choose this man from the ranks +of the consulars, was a mitigation only in form; for the selection +was left to it simply because there was really no choice, +and in presence of the vehemently excited multitude the senate +could entrust the chief command of the seas and coasts to no other +save Pompeius alone. But more dangerous still than this negation +in principle of the senatorial control was its practical abolition +by the institution of an office of almost unlimited military +and financial powers. While the office of general was formerly +restricted to a term of one year, to a definite province, +and to military and financial resources strictly measured out, +the new extraordinary office had from the outset a duration +of three years secured to it--which of course did not exclude +a farther prolongation; had the greater portion of all the provinces, +and even Italy itself which was formerly free from military +jurisdiction, subordinated to it; had the soldiers, ships, +treasures of the state placed almost without restriction +at its disposal. Even the primitive fundamental principle +in the state-law of the Roman republic, which we have just mentioned-- +that the highest military and civil authority could not be conferred +without the co-operation of the burgesses--was infringed in favour +of the new commander-in-chief. Inasmuch as the law conferred beforehand +on the twenty-five adjutants whom he was to nominate praetorian +rank and praetorian prerogatives,(10) the highest office +of republican Rome became subordinate to a newly created office, +for which it was left to the future to find the fitting name, +but which in reality even now involved in it the monarchy. +It was a total revolution in the existing order of things, +for which the foundation was laid in this project of law. + +Pompeius and the Gabinian Laws + +These measures of a man who had just given so striking proofs +of his vacillation and weakness surprise us by their decisive energy. +Nevertheless the fact that Pompeius acted on this occasion +more resolutely than during his consulate is very capable of explanation. +The point at issue was not that he should come forward at once +as monarch, but only that he should prepare the way for the monarchy +by a military exceptional measure, which, revolutionary +as it was in its nature, could still be accomplished under the forms +of the existing constitution, and which in the first instance +carried Pompeius so far on the way towards the old object +of his wishes, the command against Mithradates and Tigranes. +Important reasons of expediency also might be urged for the emancipation +of the military power from the senate. Pompeius could not +have forgotten that a plan designed on exactly similar +principles for the suppression of piracy had a few years before +failed through the mismanagement of the senate, and that the issue +of the Spanish war had been placed in extreme jeopardy by the neglect +of the armies on the part of the senate and its injudicious conduct +of the finances; he could not fail to see what were the feelings +with which the great majority of the aristocracy regarded +him as a renegade Sullan, and what fate was in store for him, +if he allowed himself to be sent as general of the government +with the usual powers to the east. It was natural therefore +that he should indicate a position independent of the senate +as the first condition of his undertaking the command, +and that the burgesses should readily agree to it. It is moreover +in a high degree probable that Pompeius was on this occasion urged +to more rapid action by those around him, who were, it may be presumed, +not a little indignant at his retirement two years before. The projects +of law regarding the recall of Lucullus and the expedition against +the pirates were introduced by the tribune of the people Aulus +Gabinius, a man ruined in finances and morals, but a dexterous +negotiator, a bold orator, and a brave soldier. Little as the assurance +of Pompeius, that he had no wish at all for the chief command +in the war with the pirates and only longed for domestic +repose, were meant in earnest, there was probably this much +of truth in them, that the bold and active client, who was +in confidential intercourse with Pompeius and his more immediate +circle and who completely saw through the situation and the men, +took the decision to a considerable extent out of the hands +of his shortsighted and resourceless patron. + +The Parties in Relation to the Gabinian Laws + +The democracy, discontented as its leaders might be in secret, +could not well come publicly forward against the project of law. +It would, to all appearance, have been in no case able to hinder +the carrying of the law; but it would by opposition have openly +broken with Pompeius and thereby compelled him either to make +approaches to the oligarchy or regardlessly to pursue his personal +policy in the face of both parties. No course was left +to the democrats but still even now to adhere to their alliance +with Pompeius, hollow as it was, and to embrace the present opportunity +of at least definitely overthrowing the senate and passing over +from opposition into government, leaving the ulterior issue +to the future and to the well-known weakness of Pompeius' character. +Accordingly their leaders--the praetor Lucius Quinctius, the same +who seven years before had exerted himself for the restoration +of the tribunician power,(11) and the former quaestor Gaius Caesar-- +supported the Gabinian proposals. + +The privileged classes were furious--not merely the nobility, +but also the mercantile aristocracy, which felt its exclusive +rights endangered by so thorough a state-revolution and once +more recognized its true patron in the senate. When the tribune +Gabinius after the introduction of his proposals appeared +in the senate-house, the fathers of the city were almost on the point +of strangling him with their own hands, without considering in their +zeal how extremely disadvantageous for them this method of arguing +must have ultimately proved. The tribune escaped to the Forum +and summoned the multitude to storm the senate-house, when just +at the right time the sitting terminated. The consul Piso, +the champion of the oligarchy, who accidentally fell into the hands +of the multitude, would have certainly become a victim to popular fury, +had not Gabinius come up and, in order that his certain success +might not be endangered by unseasonable acts of violence, liberated +the consul. Meanwhile the exasperation of the multitude remained +undiminished and constantly found fresh nourishment in the high +prices of grain and the numerous rumours more or less absurd +which were in circulation--such as that Lucius Lucullus had invested +the money entrusted to him for carrying on the war at interest in Rome, +or had attempted with its aid to make the praetor Quinctius withdraw +from the cause of the people; that the senate intended to prepare +for the "second Romulus," as they called Pompeius, the fate +of the first,(12) and other reports of a like character. + +The Vote + +Thereupon the day of voting arrived. The multitude stood densely +packed in the Forum; all the buildings, whence the rostra could +be seen, were covered up to the roofs with men. All the colleagues +of Gabinius had promised their veto to the senate; but in presence +of the surging masses all were silent except the single Lucius +Trebellius, who had sworn to himself and the senate rather +to die than yield. When the latter exercised his veto, +Gabinius immediately interrupted the voting on his projects of law +and proposed to the assembled people to deal with his +refractory colleague, as Octavius had formerly been dealt with +on the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus,(13) namely, to depose him +immediately from office. The vote was taken and the reading +out of the voting tablets began; when the first seventeen tribes, +which came to be read out, had declared for the proposal +and the next affirmative vote would give to it the majority, +Trebellius, forgetting his oath, pusillanimously withdrew his veto. +In vain the tribune Otho then endeavoured to procure that at least +the collegiate principle might be preserved, and two generals +elected instead of one; in vain the aged Quintus Catulus, +the most respected man in the senate, exerted his last energies +to secure that the lieutenant-generals should not be nominated +by the commander-in-chief, but chosen by the people. Otho could +not even procure a hearing amidst the noise of the multitude; +the well-calculated complaisance of Gabinius procured a hearing +for Catulus, and in respectful silence the multitude listened +to the old man's words; but they were none the less thrown away. +The proposals were not merely converted into law with all the clauses +unaltered, but the supplementary requests in detail made by Pompeius +were instantaneously and completely agreed to. + +Successes of Pompeius in the East + +With high-strung hopes men saw the two generals Pompeius and Glabrio +depart for their places of destination. The price of grain +had fallen immediately after the passing of the Gabinian laws +to the ordinary rates--an evidence of the hopes attached to the grand +expedition and its glorious leader. These hopes were, as we shall +have afterwards to relate, not merely fulfilled, but surpassed: +in three months the clearing of the seas was completed. +Since the Hannibalic war the Roman government had displayed +no such energy in external action; as compared with the lax +and incapable administration of the oligarchy, the democratic-- +military opposition had most brilliantly made good its title +to grasp and wield the reins of the state. The equally unpatriotic +and unskilful attempts of the consul Piso to put paltry obstacles +in the way of the arrangements of Pompeius for the suppression of piracy +in Narbonese Gaul only increased the exasperation of the burgesses +against the oligarchy and their enthusiasm for Pompeius; it was nothing +but the personal intervention of the latter, that prevented the assembly +of the people from summarily removing the consul from his office. + +Meanwhile the confusion on the Asiatic continent had become still +worse. Glabrio, who was to take up in the stead of Lucullus +the chief command against Mithradates and Tigranes, had remained +stationary in the west of Asia Minor and, while instigating +the soldiers by various proclamations against Lucullus, had not entered +on the supreme command, so that Lucullus was forced to retain it. +Against Mithradates, of course, nothing was done; the Pontic +cavalry plundered fearlessly and with impunity in Bithynia +and Cappadocia. Pompeius had been led by the piratical war to proceed +with his army to Asia Minor; nothing seemed more natural than +to invest him with the supreme command in the Pontic-Armenian war, +to which he himself had long aspired. But the democratic party did +not, as may be readily conceived, share the wishes of its general, +and carefully avoided taking the initiative in the matter. +It is very probable that it had induced Gabinius not to entrust +both the war with Mithradates and that with the pirates from the outset +to Pompeius, but to entrust the former to Glabrio; upon no account +could it now desire to increase and perpetuate the exceptional +position of the already too-powerful general. Pompeius himself +retained according to his custom a passive attitude; and perhaps +he would in reality have returned home after fulfilling the commission +which he had received, but for the occurrence of an incident +unexpected by all parties. + +The Manillian Law + +One Gaius Manilius, an utterly worthless and insignificant man +had when tribune of the people by his unskilful projects of legislation +lost favour both with the aristocracy and with the democracy. +In the hope of sheltering himself under the wing of the powerful +general, if he should procure for the latter what every one knew +that he eagerly desired but had not the boldness to ask, Manilius +proposed to the burgesses to recall the governors Glabrio +from Bithynia and Pontus and Marcius Rex from Cilicia, and to entrust +their offices as well as the conduct of the war in the east, +apparently without any fixed limit as to time and at any rate +with the freest authority to conclude peace and alliance, +to the proconsul of the seas and coasts in addition to his previous +office (beg. of 688). This occurrence very clearly showed how +disorganized was the machinery of the Roman constitution, +whenthe power of legislation was placed as respected the initiative +inthe hands of any demagogue however insignificant, and as respected +the final determination in the hands of the incapable multitude, +while it at the same time was extended to the most important questions +of administration. The Manilian proposal was acceptable to none of +the political parties; yet it scarcely anywhere encountered serious +resistance. The democratic leaders, for the same reasons which had +forced them to acquiesce in the Gabinian law, could not venture +earnestly to oppose the Manilian; they kept their displeasure +and their fears to themselves and spoke in public for the general +of the democracy. The moderate Optimates declared themselves +for the Manilian proposal, because after the Gabinian law resistance +in any case was vain, and far-seeing men already perceived +that the true policy for the senate was to make approaches +as far as possible to Pompeius and to draw him over to their side +on occasion of the breach which might be foreseen between him +and the democrats. Lastly the trimmers blessed the day +when they too seemed to have an opinion and could come forward +decidedly without losing favour with either of the parties-- +it is significant that Marcus Cicero first appeared as an orator +on the political platform in defence of the Manilian proposal. +The strict Optimates alone, with Quintus Catulus at their head, +showed at least their colours and spoke against the proposition. +Of course it was converted into law by a majority bordering on unanimity. +Pompeius thus obtained, in addition to his earlier extensive powers, +the administration of the most important provinces of Asia Minor-- +so that there scarcely remained a spot of land within the wide Roman +bounds that had not to obey him--and the conduct of a war as to which, +like the expedition of Alexander, men could tell where and when +it began, but not where and when it might end. Never since Rome +stood had such power been united in the hands of a single man. + +The Democratic-Military Revolution + +The Gabinio-Manilian proposals terminated the struggle between +the senate and the popular party, which the Sempronian laws had begun +sixty-seven years before. As the Sempronian laws first constituted +the revolutionary party into a political opposition, the Gabinio- +Manilian first converted it from an opposition into the government; +and as it had been a great moment when the first breach +in the existing constitution was made by disregarding the veto +of Octavius, it was a moment no less full of significance +when the last bulwark of the senatorial rule fell with the withdrawal +of Trebellius. This was felt on both sides and even the indolent +souls of the senators were convulsively roused by this death- +struggle; but yet the war as to the constitution terminated +in a very different and far more pitiful fashion than it had begun. +A youth in every sense noble had commenced the revolution; +it was concluded by pert intriguers and demagogues of the lowest type. +On the other hand, while the Optimates had begun the struggle +with a measured resistance and with a defence which earnestly held out +even at the forlorn posts, they ended with taking the initiative +in club-law, with grandiloquent weakness, and with pitiful perjury. +What had once appeared a daring dream, was now attained; the senate +had ceased to govern. But when the few old men who had seen +the first storms of revolution and heard the words of the Gracchi, +compared that time with the present they found that everything +had in the interval changed--countrymen and citizens, state-law +and military discipline, life and manners; and well might those +painfully smile, who compared the ideals of the Gracchan period +with their realization. Such reflections however belonged +to the past. For the present and perhaps also for the future the fall +of the aristocracy was an accomplished fact. The oligarchs resembled +an army utterly broken up, whose scattered bands might serve +to reinforce another body of troops, but could no longer themselves +keep the field or risk a combat on their own account. But as +the old struggle came to an end, a new one was simultaneously +beginning--the struggle between the two powers hitherto leagued +for the overthrow of the aristocratic constitution, the civil- +democratic opposition and the military power daily aspiring +to greater ascendency. The exceptional position of Pompeius +even under the Gabinian, and much more under the Manilian, +law was incompatible with a republican organization. He had been +as even then his opponents urged with good reason, appointed +by the Gabinian law not as admiral, but as regent of the empire; +not unjustly was he designated by a Greek familiar with eastern +affairs "king of kings." If he should hereafter, on returning +from the east once more victorious and with increased glory, +with well-filled chests, and with troops ready for battle and devoted +to his cause, stretch forth his hand to seize the crown--who would +then arrest his arm? Was the consular Quintus Catulus, forsooth, +to summon forth the senators against the first general of his time +and his experienced legions? or was the designated aedile Gaius Caesar +to call forth the civic multitude, whose eyes he had just feasted +on his three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators with their silver +equipments? Soon, exclaimed Catulus, it would be necessary once +more to flee to the rocks of the Capitol, in order to save liberty. +It was not the fault of the prophet, that the storm came not, +as he expected, from the east, but that on the contrary fate, +fulfilling his words more literally than he himself anticipated, +brought on the destroying tempest a few years later from Gaul. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Pompeius and the East + +Pompeius Suppresses Piracy + +We have already seen how wretched was the state of the affairs +of Rome by land and sea in the east, when at the commencement of 687 +Pompeius, with an almost unlimited plenitude of power, undertook +the conduct of the war against the pirates. He began by dividing +the immense field committed to him into thirteen districts +and assigning each of these districts to one of his lieutenants, +for the purpose of equipping ships and men there, of searching +the coasts, and of capturing piratical vessels or chasing them +into the meshes of a colleague. He himself went with the best part +of the ships of war that were available--among which on this occasion +also those of Rhodes were distinguished--early in the year to sea, +and swept in the first place the Sicilian, African, and Sardinian +waters, with a view especially to re-establish the supply of grain +from these provinces to Italy. His lieutenants meanwhile addressed +themselves to the clearing of the Spanish and Gallic coasts. +It was on this occasion that the consul Gaius Piso attempted +from Rome to prevent the levies which Marcus Pomponius, the legate +of Pompeius, instituted by virtue of the Gabinian law in the province +of Narbo--an imprudent proceeding, to check which, and at the same +time to keep the just indignation of the multitude against +the consul within legal bounds, Pompeius temporarily reappeared +in Rome.(1) When at the end of forty days the navigation had been +everywhere set free in the western basin of the Mediterranean, +Pompeius proceeded with sixty of his best vessels to the eastern +seas, and first of all to the original and main seat of piracy, +the Lycian and Cilician waters. On the news of the approach +of the Roman fleet the piratical barks everywhere disappeared +from the open sea; and not only so, but even the strong Lycian fortresses +of Anticragus and Cragus surrendered without offering serious +resistance. The well-calculated moderation of Pompeius helped +even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible +marine strongholds. His predecessors had ordered every captured +freebooter to be nailed to the cross; without hesitation he gave +quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found +in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence. +The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain +at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having +placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for +security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited +the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing +of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well +provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory. +Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up +the mountain-castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer +to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission. Soon +the great multitude desisted from the continuance of a hopeless war +in their strongholds and mountains, and consented to surrender. +Forty-nine days after Pompeius had appeared in the eastern seas, +Cilicia was subdued and the war at an end. + +The rapid suppression of piracy was a great relief, but not a grand +achievement; with the resources of the Roman state, which had been +called forth in lavish measure, the corsairs could as little cope +as the combined gangs of thieves in a great city can cope +with a well-organized police. It was a naive proceeding to celebrate +such a razzia as a victory. But when compared with the prolonged +continuance and the vast and daily increasing extent of the evil, +it was natural that the surprisingly rapid subjugation +of the dreaded pirates should make a most powerful impression +on the public; and the more so, that this was the first trial of rule +centralized in a single hand, and the parties were eagerly waiting +to see whether that hand would understand the art of ruling better +than the collegiate body had done. Nearly 400 ships and boats, +including 90 war vessels properly so called, were either taken +by Pompeius or surrendered to him; in all about 1300 piratical vessels +are said to have been destroyed; besides which the richly-filled +arsenals and magazines of the buccaneers were burnt. +Of the pirates about 10,000 perished; upwards of 20,000 fell alive +into the hands of the victor; while Publius Clodius the admiral +of the Roman army stationed in Cilicia, and a multitude of other +individuals carried off by the pirates, some of them long believed +at home to be dead, obtained once more their freedom through +Pompeius. In the summer of 687, three months after the beginning +of the campaign, commerce resumed its wonted course and instead +of the former famine abundance prevailed in Italy. + +Dissensions between Pompeius and Metellus as to Crete + +A disagreeable interlude in the island of Crete, however, +disturbed in some measure this pleasing success of the Roman arms. +There Quintus Metellus was stationed in the second year of his command, +and was employed in finishing the subjugation-already substantially +effected--of the island,(2) when Pompeius appeared in the eastern +waters. A collision was natural, for according to the Gabinian law +the command of Pompeius extended concurrently with that of Metellus +over the whole island, which stretched to a great length but was +nowhere more than ninety miles broad;(3) but Pompeius was considerate +enough not to assign it to any of his lieutenants. The still resisting +Cretan communities, however, who had seen their subdued countrymen +taken to task by Metellus with the most cruel severity and had learned +on the other hand the gentle terms which Pompeius was in the habit +of imposing on the townships which surrendered to him in the south +of Asia Minor, preferred to give in their joint surrender to Pompeius. +He accepted it in Pamphylia, where he was just at the moment, +from their envoys, and sent along with them his legate Lucius Octavius +to announce to Metellus the conclusion of the conventions +and to take over the towns. This proceeding was, no doubt, +not like that of a colleague; but formal right was wholly on the side +of Pompeius, and Metellus was most evidently in the wrong when, +utterly ignoring the convention of the cities with Pompeius, +he continued to treat them as hostile. In vain Octavius protested; +in vain, as he had himself come without troops, he summoned +from Achaia Lucius Sisenna, the lieutenant of Pompeius stationed there; +Metellus, not troubling himself about either Octavius or Sisenna, +besieged Eleutherna and took Lappa by storm, where Octavius in person +was taken prisoner and ignominiously dismissed, while the Cretans +who were taken with him were consigned to the executioner. +Accordingly formal conflicts took place between the troops of Sisenna, +at whose head Octavius placed himself after that leader's +death, and those of Metellus; even when the former had been +commanded to return to Achaia, Octavius continued the war +in concert with the Cretan Aristion, and Hierapytna, +where both made a stand, was only subdued by Metellus +after the most obstinate resistance. + +In reality the zealous Optimate Metellus had thus begun formal +civil war at his own hand against the generalissimo of the democracy. +It shows the indescribable disorganization in the Roman state, +that these incidents led to nothing farther than a bitter +correspondence between the two generals, who a couple of years +afterwards were sitting once more peacefully and even "amicably" +side by side in the senate. + +Pompeius Takes the Supreme Command against Mithradates + +Pompeius during these events remained in Cilicia; preparing +for the next year, as it seemed, a campaign against the Cretans +or rather against Metellus, in reality waiting for the signal +which should call him to interfere in the utterly confused affairs +of the mainland of Asia Minor. The portion of the Lucullan army +that was still left after the losses which it had suffered +and the departure of the Fimbrian legions remained inactive +on the upper Halys in the country of the Trocmi bordering +on the Pontic territory. Lucullus still held provisionally +the chief command, as his nominated successor Glabrio continued +to linger in the west of Asia Minor. The three legions +commanded by Quintus Marcius Rex lay equally inactive +in Cilicia. The Pontic territory was again wholly in the power +of king Mithradates, who made the individuals and communities +that had joined the Romans, such as the town of Eupatoria, +pay for their revolt with cruel severity. The kings of the east +did not proceed to any serious offensive movement against the Romans, +either because it formed no part of their plan, or--as was asserted-- +because the landing of Pompeius in Cilicia induced Mithradates +and Tigranes to desist from advancing farther. The Manilian law +realized the secretly-cherished hopes of Pompeius more rapidly +than he probably himself anticipated; Glabrio and Rex +were recalled and the governorships of Pontus-Bithynia and Cilicia +with the troops stationed there, as well as the management +of the Pontic-Armenian war along with authority to make war, peace, +and alliance with the dynasts of the east at his own discretion, +were transferred to Pompeius. Amidst the prospect of honours +and spoils so ample Pompeius was glad to forgo the chastising +of an ill-humoured Optimate who enviously guarded his scanty laurels; +he abandoned the expedition against Crete and the farther pursuit +of the corsairs, and destined his fleet also to support the attack +which he projected on the kings of Pontus and Armenia. Yet amidst +this land-war he by no means wholly lost sight of piracy, +which was perpetually raising its head afresh. Before he left Asia +(691) he caused the necessary ships to be fitted out there against +the corsairs; on his proposal in the following year a similar measure +was resolved on for Italy, and the sum needed for the purpose +was granted by the senate. They continued to protect the coasts +with guards of cavalry and small squadrons, and though +as the expeditions to be mentioned afterwards against Cyprus in 696 +and Egypt in 699 show, piracy was not thoroughly mastered, it yet +after the expedition of Pompeius amidst all the vicissitudes +and political crises of Rome could never again so raise its head +and so totally dislodge the Romans from the sea, as it had done +under the government of the mouldering oligarchy. + +War Preparations of Pompeius +Alliance with the Parthians +Variance between Mithradates and Tigranes + +The few months which still remained before the commencement +of the campaign in Asia Minor, were employed by the new commander- +in-chief with strenuous activity in diplomatic and military +preparations. Envoys were sent to Mithradates, rather to reconnoitre +than to attempt a serious mediation. There was a hope at the Pontic +court that Phraates king of the Parthians would be induced by the recent +considerable successes which the allies had achieved over Rome +to enter into the Pontic-Armenian alliance. To counteract this, Roman +envoys proceeded to the court of Ctesiphon; and the internal troubles, +which distracted the Armenian ruling house, came to their aid. +A son of the great-king Tigranes, bearing the same name +had rebelled against his father, either because he was unwilling +to wait for the death of the old man, or because his father's +suspicion, which had already cost several of his brothers their +lives, led him to discern his only chance of safety in open +insurrection. Vanquished by his father, he had taken refuge +with a number of Armenians of rank at the court of the Arsacid, +and intrigued against his father there. It was partly due +to his exertions, that Phraates preferred to take the reward +which was offered to him by both sides for his accession--the secured +possession of Mesopotamia--from the hand of the Romans, renewed +with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting +the boundary of the Euphrates,(4) and even consented to operate +in concert with the Romans against Armenia. But the younger Tigranes +occasioned still greater mischief than that which arose out of his +promoting the alliance between the Romans and the Parthians, +for his insurrection produced a variance between the kings +Tigranes and Mithradates themselves. The great-king cherished +in secret the suspicion that Mithradates might have had a hand +in the insurrection of his grandson--Cleopatra the mother +of the younger Tigranes was the daughter of Mithradates-- +and, though no open rupture took place, the good understanding +between the two monarchs was disturbed at the very moment +when it was most urgently needed. + +At the same time Pompeius prosecuted his warlike preparations +with energy. The Asiatic allied and client communities were warned +to furnish the stipulated contingents. Public notices summoned +the discharged veterans of the legions of Fimbria to return +to the standards as volunteers, and by great promises and the name +of Pompeius a considerable portion of them were induced in reality +to obey the call. The whole force united under the orders +of Pompeius may have amounted, exclusive of the auxiliaries, +to between 40,000 and 50,000 men.(5) + +Pompeius and Lucullus + +In the spring of 688 Pompeius proceeded to Galatia, to take +the chief command of the troops of Lucullus and to advance +with them into the Pontic territory, whither the Cilician legions +were directed to follow. At Danala, a place belonging to the Trocmi, +the two generals met; but the reconciliation, which mutual friends +had hoped to effect, was not accomplished. The preliminary +courtesies soon passed into bitter discussions, and these +into violent altercation: they parted in worse mood than they had met. +As Lucullus continued to make honorary gifts and to distribute +lands just as if he were still in office, Pompeius declared +all the acts performed by his predecessor subsequent to +his own arrival null and void. Formally he was in the right; +customary tactin the treatment of a meritorious and more than +sufficientlymortified opponent was not to be looked for from him. + +Invasion of Pontus +Retreat of Mithradates + +So soon as the season allowed, the Roman troops crossed +the frontier of Pontus. There they were opposed by king Mithradates +with 30,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. Left in the lurch by his +allies and attacked by Rome with reinforced power and energy, +he made an attempt to procure peace; but he would hear nothing +of the unconditional submission which Pompeius demanded--what worse +could the most unsuccessful campaign bring to him? That he might +not expose his army, mostly archers and horsemen, to the formidable +shock of the Roman infantry of the line, he slowly retired before +the enemy, and compelled the Romans to follow him in his various +cross-marches; making a stand at the same time, wherever there was +opportunity, with his superior cavalry against that of the enemy, +and occasioning no small hardship to the Romans by impeding +their supplies. At length Pompeius in his impatience desisted +from following the Pontic army, and, letting the king alone, +proceeded to subdue the land; he marched to the upper Euphrates, +crossed it, and entered the eastern provinces of the Pontic empire. +But Mithradates followed along the left bank of the Euphrates, +and when he had arrived in the Anaitic or Acilisenian province, +he intercepted the route of the Romans at the castle of Dasteira, +which was strong and well provided with water, and from which +with his light troops he commanded the plain. Pompeius, +still wanting the Cilician legions and not strong enough to maintain +himself in this position without them, had to retire over the Euphrates +and to seek protection from the cavalry and archers of the king +in the wooded ground of Pontic Armenia extensively intersected +by rocky ravines and deep valleys. It was not till the troops +from Cilicia arrived and rendered it possible to resume the offensive +with a superiority of force, that Pompeius again advanced, invested +the camp of the king with a chain of posts of almost eighteen miles +in length, and kept him formally blockaded there, while the Roman +detachments scoured the country far and wide. The distress in the Pontic +camp was great; the draught animals even had to be killed; at length +after remaining for forty-five days the king caused his sick +and wounded, whom he could not save and was unwilling to leave +in the hands of the enemy, to be put to death by his own troops, +and departed during the night with the utmost secrecy towards +the east. Cautiously Pompeius followed through the unknown land: +the march was now approaching the boundary which separated +the dominions of Mithradates and Tigranes. When the Roman general +perceived that Mithradates intended not to bring the contest +to a decision within his own territory, but to draw the enemy away +after him into the far distant regions of the east, he determined +not to permit this. + +Battle at Nicopolis + +The two armies lay close to each other. During the rest at noon +the Roman army set out without the enemy observing the movement, +made a circuit, and occupied the heights, which lay in front +and commanded a defile to be passed by the enemy, on the southern bank +of the river Lycus (Jeschil-Irmak) not far from the modern Enderes, +at the point where Nicopolis was afterwards built. The following +morning the Pontic troops broke up in their usual manner, +and, supposing that the enemy was as hitherto behind them, after, +accomplishing the day's march they pitched their camp +in the very valley whose encircling heights the Romans had occupied. +Suddenly in the silence of the night there sounded all around them +the dreaded battle-cry of the legions, and missiles from all sides +poured on the Asiatic host, in which soldiers and camp-followers, +chariots, horses, and camels jostled each other; and amidst +the dense throng, notwithstanding the darkness, not a missile +failed to take effect. When the Romans had expended their darts, +they charged down from the heights on the masses which had now become +visible by the light of the newly-risen moon, and which were +abandoned to them almost defenceless; those that did not fall +by the steel of the enemy were trodden down in the fearful pressure +under the hoofs and wheels. It was the last battle-field +on which the gray-haired king fought with the Romans. With three +attendants--two of his horsemen, and a concubine who was accustomed +to follow him in male attire and to fight bravely by his side-- +he made his escape thence to the fortress of Sinoria, whither +a portion of his trusty followers found their way to him. He divided +among them his treasures preserved there, 6000 talents of gold +(1,400,000 pounds); furnished them and himself with poison; +and hastened with the band that was left to him up the Euphrates +to unite with his ally, the great-king of Armenia. + +Tigranes Breaks with Mithradates +Mithradates Crosses the Phasis + +This hope likewise was vain; the alliance, on the faith of which +Mithradates took the route for Armenia, already by that time +existed no longer. During the conflicts between Mithradates +and Pompeius just narrated, the king of the Parthians, yielding +to the urgency of the Romans and above all of the exiled Armenian prince, +had invaded the kingdom of Tigranes by force of arms, and had +compelled him to withdraw into the inaccessible mountains. +The invading army began even the siege of the capital Artaxata; +but, on its becoming protracted, king Phraates took his departure +with the greater portion of his troops; whereupon Tigranes overpowered +the Parthian corps left behind and the Armenian emigrants led +by his son, and re-established his dominion throughout the kingdom +Naturally, however, the king was under such circumstances little +inclined to fight with the freshly-victorious Romans, and least +of all to sacrifice himself for Mithradates; whom he trusted less +than ever, since information had reached him that his rebellious son +intended to betake himself to his grandfather. So he entered into +negotiations with the Romans for a separate peace; but he did not wait +for the conclusion of the treaty to break off the alliance +which linked him to Mithradates. The latter, when he had arrived +at the frontier of Armenia, was doomed to learn that the great-king +Tigranes had set a price of 100 talents (24,000 pounds) +on his head, had arrested his envoys, and had delivered them +to the Romans. King Mithradates saw his kingdom in the hands +of the enemy, and his allies on the point of coming to an agreement +with them; it was not possible to continue the war; he might deem +himself fortunate, if he succeeded in effecting his escape along +the eastern and northern shores of the Black Sea, in perhaps +dislodging his son Machares--who had revolted and entered into +connection with the Romans(6)--once more from the Bosporan kingdom, +and in finding on the Maeotis a fresh soil for fresh projects. +So he turned northward. When the king in his flight had crossed +the Phasis, the ancient boundary of Asia Minor, Pompeius for the time +discontinued his pursuit; but instead of returning to the region +of the sources of the Euphrates, he turned aside into the region +of the Araxes to settle matters with Tigranes. + +Pompeius at Artaxata +Peace with Tigranes + +Almost without meeting resistance he arrived in the region +of Artaxata (not far from Erivan) and pitched his camp thirteen miles +from the city. There he was met by the son of the great-king, +who hoped after the fall of his father to receive the Armenian diadem +from the hand of the Romans, and therefore had endeavoured in every +way to prevent the conclusion of the treaty between his father +and the Romans. The great-king was only the more resolved to purchase +peace at any price. On horseback and without his purple robe, +but adorned with the royal diadem and the royal turban, he appeared +at the gate of the Roman camp and desired to be conducted +to the presence of the Roman general. After having given up +at the bidding of the lictors, as the regulations of the Roman camp +required, his horse and his sword, he threw himself in barbarian +fashion at the feet of the proconsul and in token of unconditional +surrender placed the diadem and tiara in his hands. Pompeius, +highly delighted at a victory which cost nothing, raised up +the humbled king of kings, invested him again with the insignia +of his dignity, and dictated the peace. Besides a payment of; +1,400,000 pounds (6000 talents) to the war-chest and a present +to the soldiers, out of which each of them received 50 -denarii- +(2 pounds 2 shillings), the king ceded all the conquests which +he had made, not merely his Phoenician, Syrian, Cilician, and Cappadocian +possessions, but also Sophene and Corduene on the right bank +of the Euphrates; he was again restricted to Armenia proper, +and his position of great-king was, of course, at an end. +In a single campaign Pompeius had totally subdued the two mighty kings +of Pontus and Armenia. At the beginning of 688 there was not a Roman +soldier beyond the frontier of the old Roman possessions; at its +close king Mithradates was wandering as an exile and without +an army in the ravines of the Caucasus, and king Tigranes sat +on the Armenian throne no longer as king of kings, but as a vassal +of Rome. The whole domain of Asia Minor to the west of the Euphrates +unconditionally obeyed the Romans; the victorious army took up +its winter-quarters to the east of that stream on Armenian soil, +in the country from the upper Euphrates to the river Kur, +from which the Italians then for the first time watered their horses. + +The Tribes of the Caucasus +Iberians +Albanians + +But the new field, on which the Romans here set foot, raised up +for them new conflicts. The brave peoples of the middle and eastern +Caucasus saw with indignation the remote Occidentals encamping +on their territory. There--in the fertile and well-watered tableland +of the modern Georgia--dwelt the Iberians, a brave, well-organized, +agricultural nation, whose clan-cantons under their patriarchs +cultivated the soil according to the system of common possession, +without any separate ownership of the individual cultivators. Army +and people were one; the people were headed partly by the ruler- +clans--out of which the eldest always presided over the whole +Iberian nation as king, and the next eldest as judge and leader +of the army--partly by special families of priests, on whom chiefly +devolved the duty of preserving a knowledge of the treaties +concluded with other peoples and of watching over their observance. +The mass of the non-freemen were regarded as serfs of the king. +Their eastern neighbours, the Albanians or Alans, who were settled +on the lower Kur as far as the Caspian Sea, were in a far lower +stage of culture. Chiefly a pastoral people they tended, on foot +or on horseback, their numerous herds in the luxuriant meadows +of the modern Shirvan; their few tilled fields were still cultivated +with the old wooden plough without iron share. Coined money +was unknown, and they did not count beyond a hundred. Each of their +tribes, twenty-six in all, had its own chief and spoke its distinct +dialect. Far superior in number to the Iberians, the Albanians +could not at all cope with them in bravery. The mode of fighting +was on the whole the same with both nations; they fought chiefly +with arrows and light javelins, which they frequently after the Indian +fashion discharged from their lurking-places in the woods +behind the trunks of trees, or hurled down from the tops of trees +on the foe; the Albanians had also numerous horsemen partly mailed +after the Medo-Armenian manner with heavy cuirasses and greaves. +Both nations lived on their lands and pastures in a complete +independence preserved from time immemorial. Nature itself +as it were, seems to have raised the Caucasus between Europe and Asia +as a rampart against the tide of national movements; there the arms +of Cyrus and of Alexander had formerly found their limit; +now the brave garrison of this partition-wall set themselves +to defend it also against the Romans. + +Albanians Conquered by Pompeius +Iberians Conquered + +Alarmed by the information that the Roman commander-in-chief +intended next spring to cross the mountains and to pursue +the Pontic king beyond the Caucasus--for Mithradates, they heard, +was passing the winter in Dioscurias (Iskuria between Suchum Kale +and Anaklia) on the Black Sea--the Albanians under their prince +Oroizes first crossed the Kur in the middle of the winter of 688-689 +and threw themselves on the army, which was divided for the sake +of its supplies into three larger corps under Quintus Metellus Celer, +Lucius Flaccus, and Pompeius in person. But Celer, on whom +the chief attack fell, made a brave stand, and Pompeius, after having +delivered himself from the division sent to attack him, pursued +the barbarians beaten at all points as far as the Kur. Artoces +the king of the Iberians kept quiet and promised peace and friendship; +but Pompeius, informed that he was secretly arming so as to fall +upon the Romans on their march in the passes of the Caucasus, +advanced in the spring of 689, before resuming the pursuit +of Mithradates, to the two fortresses just two miles distant +from each other, Harmozica (Horum Ziche or Armazi) and Seusamora +(Tsumar) which a little above the modern Tiflis command the two valleys +of the river Kur and its tributary the Aragua, and with these +the only passes leading from Armenia to Iberia. Artoces, surprised +by the enemy before he was aware of it, hastily burnt the bridge over +the Kur and retreated negotiating into the interior. Pompeius occupied +the fortresses and followed the Iberians to the other bank +of the Kur; by which he hoped to induce them to immediate submission. +But Artoces retired farther and farther into the interior, +and, when at length he halted on the river Pelorus, he did so +not to surrender but to fight. The Iberian archers however withstood +not for a moment the onset of the Roman legions, and, when Artoces +saw the Pelorus also crossed by the Romans, he submitted +at length to the conditions which the victor proposed, and sent +his children as hostages. + +Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis + +Pompeius now, agreeably to the plan which he had formerly projected, +marched through the Sarapana pass from the region of the Kur +to that of the Phasis and thence down that river to the Black Sea, +where on the Colchian coast the fleet under Servilius already +awaited him. But it was for an uncertain idea, and an aim almost +unsubstantial, that the army and fleet were thus brought +to the richly fabled shores of Colchis. The laborious march just +completed through unknown and mostly hostile nations was nothing +when compared with what still awaited them, and if they should +really succeed in conducting the force from the mouth of the Phasis +to the Crimea, through warlike and poor barbarian tribes, +on inhospitable and unknown waters, along a coast where +at certain places the mountains sink perpendicularly into the sea +and it would have been absolutely necessary to embark in the ships-- +if such a march should be successfully accomplished, which was perhaps +more difficult than the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal-- +what was gained by it even at the best, corresponding at all to its toils +and dangers? The war doubtless was not ended, so long as the old +king was still among the living; but who could guarantee that they +would really succeed in catching the royal game for the sake of which +this unparalleled chase was to be instituted? Was it not better +even at the risk of Mithradates once more throwing the torch +of war into Asia Minor, to desist from a pursuit which promised +so little gain and so many dangers? Doubtless numerous voices +in the army, and still more numerous voices in the capital, +urged the general to continue the pursuit incessantly and at any price; +but they were the voices partly of foolhardy Hotspurs, +partly of those perfidious friends, who would gladly at any price +have kept the too-powerful Imperator aloof from the capital +and entangled him amidst interminable undertakings in the east. +Pompeius was too experienced and too discreet an officer to stake +his fame and his army in obstinate adherence to so injudicious +an expedition; an insurrection of the Albanians in rear of the army +furnished the pretext for abandoning the further pursuit +of the king and arranging its return. The fleet received instructions +to cruise in the Black Sea, to protect the northern coast of Asia +Minor against any hostile invasion, and strictly to blockade +the Cimmerian Bosporus under the threat of death to any trader +who should break the blockade. Pompeius conducted the land troops +not without great hardships through the Colchian and Armenian territory +to the lower course of the Kur and onward, crossing the stream, +into the Albanian plain. + +Fresh Conflicts with the Albanians + +For several days the Roman army had to march in the glowing heat +through this almost waterless flat country, without encountering +the enemy; it was only on the left bank of the Abas (probably +the river elsewhere named Alazonius, now Alasan) that the force +of the Albanians under the leadership of Coses, brother of the king +Oroizes, was drawn up against the Romans; they are said to have +amounted, including the contingent which had arrived +from the inhabitants of the Transcaucasian steppes, to 60,000 infantry +and 12,000 cavalry. Yet they would hardly have risked the battle, +unless they had supposed that they had merely to fight with +the Roman cavalry; but the cavalry had only been placed in front, +and, on its retiring, the masses of Roman infantry showed themselves +from their concealment behind. After a short conflict the army +of the barbarians was driven into the woods, which Pompeius +gave orders to invest and set on fire. The Albanians thereupon +consented to make peace; and, following the example of the more +powerful peoples, all the tribes settled between the Kur and the Caspian +concluded a treaty with the Roman general. The Albanians, +Iberians, and generally the peoples settled to the south along, +and at the foot of, the Caucasus, thus entered at least for the moment +into a relation of dependence on Rome. When, on the other hand, +the peoples between the Phasis and the Maeotis--Colchians, Soani, +Heniochi, Zygi, Achaeans, even the remote Bastarnae--were inscribed +in the long list of the nations subdued by Pompeius, the notion +of subjugation was evidently employed in a manner very far from exact. +The Caucasus once more verified its significance in the history +of the world; the Roman conquest, like the Persian and the Hellenic, +found its limit there. + +Mithradates Goes to Panticapaeum + +Accordingly king Mithradates was left to himself and to destiny. +As formerly his ancestor, the founder of the Pontic state +had first entered his future kingdom as a fugitive from the executioners +of Antigonus and attended only by six horsemen, so had the grandson +now been compelled once more to cross the bounds of his kingdom +and to turn his back on his own and his fathers' conquests. +But for no one had the dice of fate turned up the highest gains +and the greatest losses more frequently and more capriciously +than for the old sultan of Sinope; and the fortunes of men +change rapidly and incalculably in the east. Well might +Mithradates now in the evening of his life accept each new +vicissitude with the thought that it too was only in its turn +paving the way for a fresh revolution, and that the only thing +constant was the perpetual change of fortune. Inasmuch as +the Roman rule was intolerable for the Orientals at the very core +of their nature, and Mithradates himself was in good and in evil +a true prince of the east, amidst the laxity of the rule exercised +by the Roman senate over the provinces, and amidst the dissensions +of the political parties in Rome fermenting and ripening into civil +war, Mithradates might, if he was fortunate enough to bide +his time, doubtless re-establish his dominion yet a third time. +For this very reason--because he hoped and planned while still +there was life in him--he remained dangerous to the Romans so long as +he lived, as an aged refugee no less than when he had marched forth +with his hundred thousands to wrest Hellas and Macedonia +from the Romans. The restless old man made his way in the year 689 +from Dioscurias amidst unspeakable hardships partly by land partly +by sea to the kingdom of Panticapaeum, where by his reputation +and his numerous retainers he drove his renegade son Machares +from the throne and compelled him to put himself to death. +From this point he attempted once more to negotiate with the Romans; +he besought that his paternal kingdom might be restored to him, +and declared himself ready to recognize the supremacy of Rome +and to pay tribute as a vassal. But Pompeius refused to grant +the king a position in which he would have begun the old game afresh, +and insisted on his personal submission. + +His Last Preparations against Rome + +Mithradates, however, had no thought of delivering himself into the hands +of the enemy, but was projecting new and still more extravagant plans. +Straining all the resources with which the treasures that he had saved +and the remnant of his states supplied him, he equipped a new army +of 36,000 men consisting partly of slaves which he armed and exercised +after the Roman fashion, and a war-fleet; according to rumour he designed +to march westward through Thrace, Macedonia, and Pannonia, to carry along +with him the Scythians in the Sarmatian steppes and the Celts on the Danube +as allies, and with this avalanche of peoples to throw himself +on Italy. This has been deemed a grand idea, and the plan of war +of the Pontic king has been compared with the military march +of Hannibal; but the same project, which in a gifted man is a stroke +of genius, becomes folly in one who is wrong-headed. This intended +invasion of Italy by the Orientals was simply ridiculous, +and nothing but a product of the impotent imagination of despair. +Through the prudent coolness of their leader the Romans +were prevented from Quixotically pursuing their Quixotic antagonist +and warding off in the distant Crimea an attack, which, if it +were not nipped of itself in the bud, would still have been +soon enough met at the foot of the Alps. + +Revolt against Mithradates + +In fact, while Pompeius, without troubling himself further +as to the threats of the impotent giant, was employed in organizing +the territory which he had gained, the destinies of the aged king +drew on to their fulfilment without Roman aid in the remote north. +His extravagant preparations had produced the most violent excitement +among the Bosporans, whose houses were torn down, and whose oxen +were taken from the plough and put to death, in order to procure +beams and sinews for constructing engines of war. The soldiers +too were disinclined to enter on the hopeless Italian expedition. +Mithradates had constantly been surrounded by suspicion +and treason; he had not the gift of calling forth affection +and fidelity among those around him. As in earlier years he had +compelled his distinguished general Archelaus to seek protection +in the Roman camp; as during the campaigns of Lucullus his most +trusted officers Diodes, Phoenix, and even the most notable of the Roman +emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star +grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered sultan was accessible +to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly +on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria +(on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard +of revolt; he proclaimed the freedom of the town and delivered +the sons of Mithradates that were in the fortress into the hands +of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns, +and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa), +and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion +and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable +eunuchs his most confidential adherents were nailed to the cross; +the king's own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son +who was his father's favourite and was probably destined by him +as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and headed +the insurgents. The servants whom Mithradates sent to arrest him, +and the troops despatched against him, passed over to his side; +the corps of Italian deserters, perhaps the most efficient among +the divisions of Mithradates' army, and for that very reason the least +inclined to share in the romantic--and for the deserters peculiarly +hazardous--expedition against Italy, declared itself en masse +for the prince; the other divisions of the army and the fleet followed +the example thus set. + +Death of Mithadates + +After the country and the army had abandoned the king, the capital +Panticapaeum at length opened its gates to the insurgents +and delivered over to them the old king enclosed in his palace. +From the high wall of his castle the latter besought his son at least +to grant him life and not imbrue his hands in his father's blood; +but the request came ill from the lips of a man whose own hands +were stained with the blood of his mother and with the recently-shed +blood of his innocent son Xiphares; and in heartless severity +and inhumanity Pharnaces even outstripped his father. Seeing therefore +he had now to die, the sultan resolved at least to die as he had +lived; his wives, his concubines and his daughters, including +the youthful brides of the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, had all to suffer +the bitterness of death and drain the poisoned cup, before he too +took it, and then, when the draught did not take effect quickly +enough, presented his neck for the fatal stroke to a Celtic +mercenary Betuitus. So died in 691 Mithradates Eupator, +in the sixty-eighth year of his life and the fifty-seventh of his reign, +twenty-six years after he had for the first time taken the field +against the Romans. The dead body, which king Pharnaces sent +as a voucher of his merits and of his loyalty to Pompeius, was by order +of the latter laid in the royal sepulchre of Sinope. + +The death of Mithradates was looked on by the Romans as equivalent +to a victory: the messengers who reported to the general +the catastrophe appeared crowned with laurel, as if they had a victory +to announce, in the Roman camp before Jericho. In him a great +enemy was borne to the tomb, a greater than had ever yet withstood +the Romans in the indolent east. Instinctively the multitude felt +this: as formerly Scipio had triumphed even more over Hannibal than +over Carthage, so the conquest of the numerous tribes of the east +and of the great-king himself was almost forgotten in the death +of Mithradates; and at the solemn entry of Pompeius nothing attracted +more the eyes of the multitude than the pictures, in which they saw +king Mithradates as a fugitive leading his horse by the rein +and thereafter sinking down in death between the dead bodies of his +daughters. Whatever judgment may be formed as to the idiosyncrasy +of the king, he is a figure of great significance--in the full +sense of the expression--for the history of the world. He was not +a personage of genius, probably not even of rich endowments; +but he possessed the very respectable gift of hating, +and out of this hatred he sustained an unequal conflict +against superior foes throughout half a century, without success +doubtless, but with honour. He became still more significant +through the position in which history had placed him +thanthrough his individual character. As the forerunner +of the national reaction of the Orientals against the Occidentals, +he opened the new conflict of the east against the west; +and the feeling remained with the vanquished as with the victors, +that his death was not so much the end as the beginning. + +Pompeius Proceeds to Syria + +Meanwhile Pompeius, after his warfare in 689 with the peoples +of the Caucasus, had returned to the kingdom of Pontus, +and there reduced the last castles still offering resistance; +these were razed in order to check the evils of brigandage, +and the castle wells were rendered unserviceable by rolling blocks +of rock into them. Thence he set out in the summer of 690 for Syria, +to regulate its affairs. + +State of Syria + +It is difficult to present a clear view of the state of disorganization +which then prevailed in the Syrian provinces. It is true +that in consequence of the attacks of Lucullus the Armenian governor +Magadates had evacuated these provinces in 685,(7) and that the Ptolemies, +gladly as they would have renewed the attempts of their predecessors +to attach the Syrian coast to their kingdom, were yet afraid to provoke +the Roman government by the occupation of Syria; the more so, +as that government had not yet regulated their more than doubtful +legal title even in the case of Egypt, and had been several times +solicited by the Syrian princes to recognize them as the legitimate heirs +of the extinct house of the Lagids. But, though the greater powers +all at the moment refrained from interference in the affairs +of Syria, the land suffered far more than it would have suffered amidst +a great war, through the endless and aimless feuds of the princes, +knights, and cities. + +Arabian Princes + +The actual masters in the Seleucid kingdom were at this time +the Bedouins, the Jews, and the Nabataeans. The inhospitable +sandy steppe destitute of springs and trees, which, stretching +from the Arabianpeninsula up to and beyond the Euphrates, reaches +towards the west as far as the Syrian mountain-chain and its narrow belt +of coast, toward the east as far as the rich lowlands of the Tigris +and lower Euphrates--this Asiatic Sahara--was the primitive home +of the sons of Ishmael; from the commencement of tradition we find +the "Bedawi," the "son of the desert," pitching his tents there +and pasturing his camels, or mounting his swift horse in pursuit +now of the foe of his tribe, now of the travelling merchant. Favoured +formerly by king Tigranes, who made use of them for his plans half +commercial half political,(8) and subsequently by the total absence +of any master in the Syrian land, these children of the desert +spread themselves over northern Syria. Wellnigh the leading part +in a political point of view was enacted by those tribes, +which had appropriated the first rudiments of a settled existence +from the vicinity of the civilized Syrians. The most noted +of these emirs were Abgarus, chief of the Arab tribe of the Mardani, +whom Tigranes had settled about Edessa and Carrhae in upper Mesopotamia;(9) +then to the west of the Euphrates Sampsiceramus, emir of the Arabs +of Hemesa (Homs) between Damascus and Antioch, and master +of the strong fortress Arethusa; Azizus the head of another horde +roaming in the same region; Alchaudonius, the prince of the Rhambaeans, +who had already put himself into communication with Lucullus; +and several others. + +Robber-Chiefs + +Alongside of these Bedouin princes there had everywhere appeared +bold cavaliers, who equalled or excelled the children of the desert +in the noble trade of waylaying. Such was Ptolemaeus son +of Mennaeus, perhaps the most powerful among these Syrian robber- +chiefs and one of the richest men of this period, who ruled over +the territory of the Ityraeans--the modern Druses--in the valleys +of the Libanus as well as on the coast and over the plain +of Massyas to the northward with the cities of Heliopolis (Baalbec) +and Chalcis, and maintained 8000 horsemen at his own expense; +such were Dionysius and Cinyras, the masters of the maritime cities +Tripolis (Tarablus) and Byblus (between Tarablus and Beyrout); +such was the Jew Silas in Lysias, a fortress not far from Apamea +on the Orontes. + +Jews + +In the south of Syria, on the other hand, the race of the Jews +seemed as though it would about this time consolidate itself +into a political power. Through the devout and bold defence +of the primitive Jewish national worship, which was imperilled +by the levelling Hellenism of the Syrian kings, the family +of the Hasmonaeans or the Makkabi had not only attained to their +hereditary principality and gradually to kingly honours;(10) +but these princely high-priests had also spread their conquests +to the north, east, and south. When the brave Jannaeus Alexander +died (675), the Jewish kingdom stretched towards the south over +the whole Philistian territory as far as the frontier of Egypt, towards +the south-east as far as that of the Nabataean kingdom of Petra, +from which Jannaeus had wrested considerable tracts on the right +bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, towards the north over Samaria +and Decapolis up to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already +making arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously +to repel the aggressions of the Ityraeans. The coast obeyed the Jews +from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the important +Gaza--Ascalon alone was still free; so that the territory +of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could now be enumerated +among the asylums of piracy. Now that the Armenian invasion, just +as it approached the borders of Judaea, was averted from that land +by the intervention of Lucullus,(11) the gifted rulers +of the Hasmonaean house would probably have carried their arms still +farther, had not the development of the power of that remarkable +conquering priestly state been nipped in the bud by internal divisions. + +Pharisees +Sadducees + +The spirit of religious independence, and the spirit of national +independence--the energetic union of which had called the Maccabee +state into life--speedily became once more dissociated and even +antagonistic. The Jewish orthodoxy or Pharisaism, as it was called, +was content with the free exercise of religion, as it had +been asserted in defiance of the Syrian rulers; its practical aim +was a community of Jews, composed of the orthodox in the lands +of all rulers, essentially irrespective of the secular government-- +a community which found its visible points of union in the tribute +for the temple at Jerusalem, which was obligatory on every +conscientious Jew, and in the schools of religion and spiritual +courts. Overagainst this orthodoxy, which turned away +from political life and became more and more stiffened into theological +formalism and painful ceremonial service, were arrayed +the defenders of the national independence, invigorated amidst +successful struggles against foreign rule, and advancing towards +the ideal of a restoration of the Jewish state, the representatives +of the old great families--the so-called Sadducees--partly +on dogmatic grounds, in so far as they acknowledged only the sacred +books themselves and conceded authority merely, not canonicity, +to the "bequests of the scribes," that is, to canonical tradition;(12) +partly and especially on political grounds, in so far as, instead +of a fatalistic waiting for the strong arm of the Lord of Zebaoth, +they taught that the salvation of the nation was to be expected +from the weapons of this world, and from the inward and outward +strengthening of the kingdom of David as re-established +in the glorious times of the Maccabees. Those partisans of orthodoxy +found their support in the priesthood and the multitude; they +contested with the Hasmonaeans the legitimacy of their high- +priesthood, and fought against the noxious heretics with all +the reckless implacability, with which the pious are often found +to contend for the possession of earthly goods. The state-party +on the other hand relied for support on intelligence brought into +contact with the influences of Hellenism, on the army, in which +numerous Pisidian and Cilician mercenaries served, and on the abler +kings, who here strove with the ecclesiastical power much as +a thousand years later the Hohenstaufen strove with the Papacy. +Jannaeus had kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; +under his two sons there arose (685 et seq.) a civil and fraternal war, +since the Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted +to obtain their objects under the nominal rule of his brother, +the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not merely +put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also foreign nations +opportunity to interfere and thereby obtain a commanding position +in southern Syria. + +Nabataeans + +This was the case first of all with the Nabataeans. This remarkable +nation has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, +the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramaean +branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramaean or, +according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian stock +must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient +settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of trade, +to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the Nabataeans +on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez and Aila, +and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their ports +the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those of India; +the great southern caravan-route, which ran from Gaza to the mouth +of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf, passed through the capital +of the Nabataeans--Petra--whose still magnificent rock-palaces +and rock-tombs furnish clearer evidence of the Nabataean civilization +than does an almost extinct tradition. The leaders of the Pharisees, +to whom after the manner of priests the victory of their faction +seemed not too dearly bought at the price of the independence +and integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king +of the Nabataeans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which +they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested +from him by Jannaeus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it was +said, 50,000 men into Judaea and, reinforced by the adherents +of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged in his capital. + +Syrian Cities + +Amidst the system of violence and feud which thus prevailed +from one end of Syria to another, the larger cities were of course +the principal sufferers, such as Antioch, Seleucia, Damascus, +whose citizens found themselves paralysed in their husbandry +as well as in their maritime and caravan trade. The citizens of Byblus +and Berytus (Beyrout) were unable to protect their fields +and their ships from the Ityraeans, who issuing from their mountain +and maritime strongholds rendered land and sea equally insecure. +Those of Damascus sought to ward off the attacks of the Ityraeans +and Ptolemaeus by handing themselves over to the more remote kings +of the Nabataeans or of the Jews. In Antioch Sampsiceramus and Azizus +mingled in the internal feuds of the citizens, and the Hellenic +great city had wellnigh become even now the seat of an Arab emir. +The state of things reminds us of the kingless times of the German +middle ages, when Nuremberg and Augsburg found their protection +not in the king's law and the king's courts, but in their own walls +alone; impatiently the merchant-citizens of Syria awaited the strong +arm, which should restore to them peace and security of intercourse. + +The Last Seleucids + +There was no want, however, of a legitimate king in Syria; +there were even two or three of them. A prince Antiochus +from the house of the Seleucids had been appointed by Lucullus +as ruler of the most northerly province in Syria, Commagene.(13) +Antiochus Asiaticus, whose claims on the Syrian throne had met +with recognition both from the senate and from Lucullus,(14) +had been received in Antioch after the retreat of the Armenians +and there acknowledged as king. A third Seleucid prince Philippus +had immediately confronted him there as a rival; and the great +population of Antioch, excitable and delighting in opposition +almost like that of Alexandria, as well as one or two +of the neighbouring Arab emirs had interfered in the family strife +which now seemed inseparable from the rule of the Seleucids. +Was there any wonder that legitimacy became ridiculous and loathsome +to its subjects, and that the so-called rightful kings +were of even somewhat less importance in the land than the petty +princes and robber-chiefs? + +Annexation of Syria + +To create order amidst this chaos did not require either brilliance +of conception or a mighty display of force, but it required a clear +insight into the interests of Rome and of her subjects, and vigour +and consistency in establishing and maintaining the institutions +recognized as necessary. The policy of the senate in support +of legitimacy had sufficiently degraded itself; the general, +whom the opposition had brought into power, was not to be guided +by dynastic considerations, but had only to see that the Syrian kingdom +should not be withdrawn from the clientship of Rome in future either +by the quarrels of pretenders or by the Covetousness of neighbours. +But to secure this end there was only one course; that the Roman +community should send a satrap to grasp with a vigorous hand +the reins of government, which had long since practically slipped +from the hands of the kings of the ruling house more even through +their own fault than through outward misfortunes. This course Pompeius +took. Antiochus the Asiatic, on requesting to be acknowledged +as the hereditary ruler of Syria, received the answer that Pompeius +would not give back the sovereignty to a king who knew neither how +to maintain nor how to govern his kingdom, even at the request +of his subjects, much less against their distinctly expressed wishes. +With this letter of the Roman proconsul the house of Seleucus +was ejected from the throne which it had occupied for two hundred +and fifty years. Antiochus soon after lost his life through +the artifice of the emir Sampsiceramus, as whose client he played +the ruler in Antioch; thenceforth there is no further mention of these +mock-kings and their pretensions. + +Military Pacification of Syria + +But, to establish the new Roman government and introduce +any tolerable order into the confusion of affairs, it was further +necessary to advance into Syria with a military force and to terrify +or subdue all the disturbers of the peace, who had sprung +up during the many years of anarchy, by means of the Roman legions. +Already during the campaigns in the kingdom of Pontus and on the Caucasus +Pompeius had turned his attention to the affairs of Syria +and directed detached commissioners and corps to interfere, +where there was need. Aulus Gabinius--the same who as tribune +of the people had sent Pompeius to the east--had in 689 marched +along the Tigris and then across Mesopotamia to Syria, to adjust +the complicated affairs of Judaea. In like manner the severely pressed +Damascus had already been occupied by Lollius and Metellus. Soon +afterwards another adjutant of Pompeius, Marcus Scaurus, arrived +in Judaea, to allay the feuds ever breaking out afresh there. +Lucius Afranius also, who during the expedition of Pompeius +to the Caucasus held the command of the Roman troops in Armenia, +had proceeded from Corduene (the northern Kurdistan) to upper +Mesopotamia, and, after he had successfully accomplished +the perilous march through the desert with the sympathizing help +of the Hellenes settled in Carrhae, brought the Arabs in Osrhoene +to submission. Towards the end of 690 Pompeius in person arrived +in Syria,(15) and remained there till the summer of the following +year, resolutely interfering and regulating matters for the present +and the future. He sought to restore the kingdom to its state +in the better times of the Seleucid rule; all usurped powers were set +aside, the robber-chiefs were summoned to give up their castles, +the Arab sheiks were again restricted to their desert domains, +the affairs of the several communities were definitely regulated. + +The Robber-Chiefs Chastised + +The legions stood ready to procure obedience to these stern orders, +and their interference proved especially necessary against +the audacious robber-chiefs. Silas the ruler of Lysias, Dionysius +the ruler of Tripolis, Cinyras the ruler of Byblus were taken prisoners +in their fortresses and executed, the mountain and maritime strongholds +of the Ityraeans were broken up, Ptolemaeus son of Mennaeus in Chalcis +was forced to purchase his freedom and his lordship with a ransom +of 1000 talents (240,000 pounds). Elsewhere the commands +of the new master met for the most part with unresisting obedience. + +Negotiations and Conflicts with the Jews + +The Jews alone hesitated. The mediators formerly sent by Pompeius, +Gabinius and Scaurus, had--both, as it was said, bribed +with considerable sums--in the dispute between the brothers +Hyrcanus and Aristobulus decided in favour of the latter, and had also +induced king Aretas to raise the siege of Jerusalem and to proceed +homeward, in doing which he sustained a defeat at the hands +of Aristobulus. But, when Pompeius arrived in Syria, he cancelled +the orders of his subordinates and directed the Jews to resume their +old constitution under high-priests, as the senate had recognized +it about 593,(16) and to renounce along with the hereditary +principality itself all the conquests made by the Hasmonaean +princes. It was the Pharisees, who had sent an embassy of two +hundred of their most respected men to the Roman general and procured +from him the overthrow of the kingdom; not to the advantage +of their own nation, but doubtless to that of the Romans, +who from the nature of the case could not but here revert +to the old rights of the Seleucids, and could not tolerate a conquering +power like that of Jannaeus within the limits of their empire. +Aristobulus was uncertain whether it was better patiently +to acquiesce in his inevitable doom or to meet his fate with arms +in hand; at one time he seemed on the point of submitting to Pompeius, +at another he seemed as though he would summon the national party +among the Jews to a struggle with the Romans. When at length, +with the legions already at the gates, he yielded to the enemy, +the more resolute or more fanatical portion of his army refused +to comply with the orders of a king who was not free. The capital +submitted; the steep temple-rock was defended by that fanatical band +for three months with an obstinacy ready to brave death, till at last +the besiegers effected an entrance while the besieged were resting +on the Sabbath, possessed themselves of the sanctuary, and handed over +the authors of that desperate resistance, so far as they had +not fallen under the sword of the Romans, to the axes of the lictors. +Thus ended the last resistance of the territories newly annexed +to the Roman state. + +The New Relations of the Romans in the East + +The work begun by Lucullus had been completed by Pompeius; +the hitherto formally independent states of Bithynia, Pontus, +and Syria were united with the Roman state; the exchange--which +had been recognized for more than a hundred years as necessary-- +of the feeble system of a protectorate for that of direct sovereignty +over the more important dependent territories,(17) had at length +been realized, as soon as the senate had been overthrown and the Gracchan +party had come to the helm. Rome had obtained in the east +new frontiers, new neighbours, new friendly and hostile relations. +There were now added to the indirect territories of Rome +the kingdom of Armenia and the principalities of the Caucasus, +and also the kingdom on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the small remnant +of the extensive conquests of Mithradates Eupator, now a client-state +of Rome under the government of his son and murderer Pharnaces; +the town of Phanagoria alone, whose commandant Castor had given +the signal for the revolt, was on that account recognized by the Romans +as free and independent. + +Conflicts with the Nabataeans + +No like successes could be boasted of against the Nabataeans. +King Aretas had indeed, yielding to the desire of the Romans, +evacuated Judaea; but Damascus was still in his hands, +and the Nabataean land had not yet been trodden by any Roman soldier. +To subdue that region or at least to show to their new neighbours +in Arabia that the Roman eagles were now dominant on the Orontes +and on the Jordan, and that the time had gone by when any one was free +to levy contributions in the Syrian lands as a domain without a master, +Pompeius began in 691 an expedition against Petra; but detained +by the revolt of the Jews, which broke out during this expedition, +he was not reluctant to leave to his successor Marcus Scaurus +the carrying out of the difficult enterprise against the Nabataean city +situated far off amidst the desert.(18) In reality Scaurus also +soon found himself compelled to return without having accomplished +his object. He had to content himself with making war +on the Nabataeans in the deserts on the left bank of the Jordan, +where he could lean for support on the Jews, but yet bore off only +very trifling successes. Ultimately the adroit Jewish minister +Antipater from Idumaea persuaded Aretas to purchase a guarantee +for all his possessions, Damascus included, from the Roman governor +for a sum of money; and this is the peace celebrated on the coins +of Scaurus, where king Aretas appears--leading his camel-- +as a suppliant offering the olive branch to the Roman. + +Difficulty with the Parthians + +Far more fraught with momentous effects than these new relations +of the Romans to the Armenians, Iberians, Bosporans, and Nabataeans +was the proximity into which through the occupation of Syria they +were brought with the Parthian state. Complaisant as had been +the demeanour of Roman diplomacy towards Phraates while the Pontic +and Armenian states still subsisted, willingly as both Lucullus +and Pompeius had then conceded to him the possession of the regions +beyond the Euphrates,(19) the new neighbour now sternly took up +his position by the side of the Arsacids; and Phraates, if the royal +art of forgetting his own faults allowed him, might well recall now +the warning words of Mithradates that the Parthian by his alliance +with the Occidentals against the kingdoms of kindred race paved +the way first for their destruction and then for his own. +Romans and Parthians in league had brought Armenia to ruin; +when it was overthrown, Rome true to her old policy now reversed +the parts and favoured the humbled foe at the expense +of the powerful ally. The singular preference, which the father +Tigranes experienced from Pompeius as contrasted with his son +the ally and son-in-law of the Parthian king, was already +part of this policy; it was a direct offence, when soon afterwards +by the orders of Pompeius the younger Tigranes and his family +were arrested and were not released even on Phraates interceding +with the friendly general for his daughter and his son-in-law. +But Pompeius paused not here. The province of Corduene, +to which both Phraates and Tigranes laid claim, was at the command +of Pompeius occupied by Roman troops for the latter, and the Parthians +who were found in possession were driven beyond the frontier +and pursued even as far as Arbela in Adiabene, without the government +of Ctesiphon having even been previously heard (689). +Far the most suspicious circumstance however was, that the Romans +seemed not at all inclined to respect the boundary of the Euphrates +fixed by treaty. On several occasions Roman divisions +destined from Armenia for Syria marched across Mesopotamia; +the Arab emir Abgarus of Osrhoene was received under singularly +favourable conditions into Roman protection; nay, Oruros, situated +in Upper Mesopotamia somewhere between Nisibis and the Tigris 220 +miles eastward from the Commagenian passage of the Euphrates, +was designated as the eastern limit of the Roman dominion-- +presumably their indirect dominion, inasmuch as the larger +and more fertile northern half of Mesopotamia had been assigned +by the Romans in like manner with Corduene to the Armenian empire. +The boundary between Romans and Parthians thus became the great +Syro-Mesopotamian desert instead of the Euphrates; and this too +seemed only provisional. To the Parthian envoys, who came to insist +on the maintenance of the agreements--which certainly, as it would +seem, were only concluded orally--respecting the Euphrates +boundary, Pompeius gave the ambiguous reply that the territory +of Rome extended as far as her rights. The remarkable intercourse +between the Roman commander-in-chief and the Parthian satraps +of the region of Media and even of the distant province Elymais +(between Susiana, Media, and Persia, in the modern Luristan) seemed +a commentary on this speech.(20) The viceroys of this latter +mountainous, warlike, and remote land had always exerted themselves +to acquire a position independent of the great-king; it was +the more offensive and menacing to the Parthian government, +when Pompeius accepted the proffered homage of this dynast. +Not less significant was the fact that the title of "king of kings," +which had been hitherto conceded to the Parthian king by the Romans +in official intercourse, was now all at once exchanged by them +for the simple title of king. This was even more a threat than +a violation of etiquette. Since Rome had entered on the heritage +of the Seleucids, it seemed almost as if the Romans had a mind to revert +at a convenient moment to those old times, when all Iran and Turan +were ruled from Antioch, and there was as yet no Parthian empire +but merely a Parthian satrapy. The court of Ctesiphon would thus +have had reason enough for going to war with Rome; it seemed +the prelude to its doing so, when in 690 it declared war on Armenia +on account of the question of the frontier. But Phraates had not +the courage to come to an open rupture with the Romans at a time +when the dreaded general with his strong army was on the borders +of the Parthian empire. When Pompeius sent commissioners to settle +amicably the dispute between Parthia and Armenia, Phraates yielded +to the Roman mediation forced upon him and acquiesced in their +award, which assigned to the Armenians Corduene and northern +Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards his daughter with her son and her +husband adorned the triumph of the Roman general. Even the Parthians +trembled before the superior power of Rome; and, if they had not, +like the inhabitants of Pontus and Armenia, succumbed to the Roman +arms, the reason seemed only to be that they had not ventured +to stand the conflict. + +Organization of the Provinces + +There still devolved on the general the duty of regulating +the internal relations of the newly-acquired provinces and of removing +as far as possible the traces of a thirteen years' desolating war. +The work of organization begun in Asia Minor by Lucullus +and the commission associated with him, and in Crete by Metellus, +received its final conclusion from Pompeius. The former province +of Asia, which embraced Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria, was converted +from a frontier province into a central one. The newly-erected +provinces were, that of Bithynia and Pontus, which was formed +out of the whole former kingdom of Nicomedes and the western half +of the former Pontic state as far as and beyond the Halys; +that of Cilicia, which indeed was older, but was now for the first +time enlarged and organized in a manner befitting its name, +and comprehended also Pamphylia and Isauria; that of Syria, +and that of Crete. Much was no doubt wanting to render that mass +of countries capable of being regarded as the territorial possession +of Rome in the modern sense of the term. The form and order +of the government remained substantially as they were; only the Roman +community came in place of the former monarchs. Those Asiatic provinces +consisted as formerly of a motley mixture of domanial possessions, +urban territories de facto or de jure autonomous, lordships pertaining +to princes and priests, and kingdoms, all of which were as regards +internal administration more or less left to themselves, +and in other respects were dependent, sometimes in milder sometimes +in stricter forms, on the Roman government and its proconsuls +very much as formerly on the great-king and his satraps. + +Feudatory Kings +Cappadocia +Commagene +Galatia + +The first place, in rank at least, among the dependent dynasts +was held by the king of Cappadocia, whose territory Lucullus had +already enlarged by investing him with the province of Melitene +(about Malatia) as far as the Euphrates, and to whom Pompeius +farther granted on the western frontier some districts taken off +Cilicia from Castabala as far as Derbe near Iconium, and on the eastern +frontier the province of Sophene situated on the left bank +of the Euphrates opposite Melitene and at first destined +for the Armenian prince Tigranes; so that the most important passage +of the Euphrates thus came wholly into the power of the Cappadocian +prince. The small province of Commagene between Syria +and Cappadocia with its capital Samosata (Samsat) remained a dependent +kingdom in the hands of the already-named Seleucid Antiochus;(21) +to him too were assigned the important fortress of Seleucia (near +Biradjik) commanding the more southern passage of the Euphrates, +and the adjoining tracts on the left bank of that river; and thus +care was taken that the two chief passages of the Euphrates +with a corresponding territory on the eastern bank were left in the hands +of two dynasts wholly dependent on Rome. Alongside of the kings +of Cappadocia and Commagene, and in real power far superior to them, +the new king Deiotarus ruled in Asia Minor. One of the tetrarchs +of the Celtic stock of the Tolistobogii settled round Pessinus, +and summoned by Lucullus and Pompeius to render military service +with the other small Roman clients, Deiotarus had in these campaigns +so brilliantly proved his trustworthiness and his energy as contrasted +with all the indolent Orientals that the Roman generals conferred +upon him, in addition to his Galatian heritage and his possessions +in the rich country between Amisus and the mouth of the Halys, +the eastern half of the former Pontic empire with the maritime towns +of Pharnacia and Trapezus and the Pontic Armenia as far as +the frontier of Colchis and the Greater Armenia, to form the kingdom +of Lesser Armenia. Soon afterwards he increased his already +considerable territory by the country of the Celtic Trocmi, +whose tetrarch he dispossessed. Thus the petty feudatory became +one of the most powerful dynasts of Asia Minor, to whom might +be entrusted the guardianship of an important part of the frontier +of the empire. + +Princes and Chiefs + +Vassals of lesser importance were, the other numerous Galatian +tetrarchs, one of whom, Bogodiatarus prince of the Trocmi, +was on account of his tried valour in the Mithradatic war presented +by Pompeius with the formerly Pontic frontier-town of Mithradatium; +Attalus prince of Paphlagonia, who traced back his lineage +to the old ruling house of the Pylaemenids; Aristarchus and other petty +lords in the Colchian territory; Tarcondimotus who ruled in eastern +Cilicia in the mountain-valleys of the Amanus; Ptolemaeus son +of Mennaeus who continued to rule in Chalcis on the Libanus; Aretas +king of the Nabataeans as lord of Damascus; lastly, the Arabic +emirs in the countries on either side of the Euphrates, Abgarus +in Osrhoene, whom the Romans endeavoured in every way to draw over +to their interest with the view of using him as an advanced post +against the Parthians, Sampsiceramus in Hemesa, Alchaudonius +the Rhambaean, and another emir in Bostra. + +Priestly Princes + +To these fell to be added the spiritual lords who in the east +frequently ruled over land and people like secular dynasts, +and whose authority firmly established in that native home +of fanaticism the Romans prudently refrained from disturbing, +as they refrained from even robbing the temples of their treasures: +the high-priest of the Goddess Mother in Pessinus; the two high-priests +of the goddess Ma in the Cappadocian Comana (on the upper Sarus) +and in the Pontic city of the same name (Gumenek near Tocat), +both lords who were in their countries inferior only to the king +in power, and each of whom even at a much later period possessed +extensive estates with special jurisdiction and about six thousand +temple-slaves--Archelaus, son of the general of that name +who passed over from Mithradates to the Romans, was invested +by Pompeius with the Pontic high-priesthood--the high-priest +of the Venasian Zeus in the Cappadocian district of Morimene, +whose revenues amounted annually to 3600 pounds (15 talents); +the "archpriest and lord" of that territory in Cilicia Trachea, +where Teucer the son of Ajax had founded a temple to Zeus, over which +his descendants presided by virtue of hereditary right; the "arch-priest +and lord of the people" of the Jews, to whom Pompeius, after having +razed the walls of the capital and the royal treasuries and strongholds +in the land, gave back the presidency of the nation with a serious +admonition to keep the peace and no longer to aim at conquests. + +Urban Communities + +Alongside of these secular and spiritual potentates stood the urban +communities. These were partly associated into larger unions +which rejoiced in a comparative independence, such as in particular +the league of the twenty-three Lycian cities, which was well organized +and constantly, for instance, kept aloof from participation +in the disorders of piracy; whereas the numerous detached communities, +even if they had self-government secured by charter, +were in practice wholly dependent on the Roman governors. + +Elevation of Urban Life in Asia + +The Romans failed not to see that with the task of representing +Hellenism and protecting and extending the domain of Alexander +in the east there devolved on them the primary duty of elevating +the urban system; for, while cities are everywhere the pillars +of civilization, the antagonism between Orientals and Occidentals +was especially and most sharply embodied in the contrast between +the Oriental, military-despotic, feudal hierarchy and the Helleno- +Italic urban commonwealth prosecuting trade and commerce. Lucullus +and Pompeius, however little they in other respects aimed at +the reduction of things to one level in the east, and however much +the latter was disposed in questions of detail to censure and alter +the arrangements of his predecessor, were yet completely agreed +in the principle of promoting as far as they could an urban life in Asia +Minor and Syria. Cyzicus, on whose vigorous resistance the first +violence of the last war had spent itself, received from Lucullus +a considerable extension of its domain. The Pontic Heraclea, +energetically as it had resisted the Romans, yet recovered +its territory and its harbours; and the barbarous fury of Cotta against +the unhappy city met with the sharpest censure in the senate. +Lucullus had deeply and sincerely regretted that fate had refused +him the happiness of rescuing Sinope and Amisus from devastation +by the Pontic soldiery and his own: he did at least what he could +to restore them, extended considerably their territories, peopled them +afresh--partly with the old inhabitants, who at his invitation +returned in troops to their beloved homes, partly with new settlers +of Hellenic descent--and provided for the reconstruction +of the buildings destroyed. Pompeius acted in the same spirit +and on a greater scale. Already after the subjugation of the pirates +he had, instead of following the example of his predecessors +and crucifying his prisoners, whose number exceeded 20,000, settled +them partly in the desolated cities of the Plain Cilicia, +such as Mallus, Adana, Epiphaneia, and especially in Soli, +which thenceforth bore the name of Pompeius' city (Pompeiupolis), +partly at Dyme in Achaia, and even at Tarentum. This colonizing +by means of pirates met with manifold censure,(22) as it seemed +in some measure to set a premium on crime; in reality it was, +politically and morally, well justified, for, as things then stood, +piracy was something different from robbery and the prisoners +might fairly be treated according to martial law. + +New Towns Established + +But Pompeius made it his business above all to promote urban life +in the new Roman provinces. We have already observed how poorly +provided with towns the Pontic empire was:(23) most districts +of Cappadocia even a century after this had no towns, but merely +mountain fortresses as a refuge for the agricultural population +in war; the whole east of Asia Minor, apart from the sparse Greek +colonies on the coasts, must have been at this time in a similar +plight. The number of towns newly established by Pompeius in these +provinces is, including the Cilician settlements, stated at thirty- +nine, several of which attained great prosperity. The most notable +of these townships in the former kingdom of Pontus were Nicopolis, +the "city of victory," founded on the spot where Mithradates +sustained the last decisive defeat(24)--the fairest memorial +of a general rich in similar trophies; Megalopolis, named from Pompeius' +surname, on the frontier of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, +the subsequent Sebasteia (now Siwas); Ziela, where the Romans fought +the unfortunate battle,(25) a township which had arisen round +the temple of Anaitis there and hitherto had belonged to its high- +priest, and to which Pompeius now gave the form and privileges +of a city; Diopolis, formerly Cabira, afterwards Neocaesarea (Niksar), +likewise one of the battle-fields of the late war; Magnopolis +or Pompeiupolis, the restored Eupatoria at the confluence of the Lycus +and the Iris, originally built by Mithradates, but again destroyed +by him on account of the defection of the city to the Romans;(26) +Neapolis, formerly Phazemon, between Amasia and the Halys. Most +of the towns thus established were formed not by bringing +colonists from a distance, but by the suppression of villages +and the collection of their inhabitants within the new ring-wall; +only in Nicopolis Pompeius settled the invalids and veterans of his army, +who preferred to establish a home for themselves there at once +rather than afterwards in Italy. But at other places also +there arose on the suggestion of the regent new centres of Hellenic +civilization. In Paphlagonia a third Pompeiupolis marked the spot +where the army of Mithradates in 666 achieved the great victory +over the Bithynians.(27) In Cappadocia, which perhaps had suffered +more than any other province by the war, the royal residence Mazaca +(afterwards Caesarea, now Kaisarieh) and seven other townships +were re-established by Pompeius and received urban institutions. +In Cilicia and Coelesyria there were enumerated twenty towns laid +out by Pompeius. In the districts ceded by the Jews, Gadara +in the Decapolis rose from its ruins at the command of Pompeius, +and the city of Seleucis was founded. By far the greatest portion +of the domain-land at his disposal on the Asiatic continent must have +been applied by Pompeius for his new settlements; whereas in Crete, +about which Pompeius troubled himself little or not at all, +the Roman domanial possessions seem to have continued tolerably extensive. + +Pompeius was no less intent on regulating and elevating the existing +communities than on founding new townships. The abuses and usurpations +which prevailed were done away with as far as lay in his power; +detailed ordinances drawn up carefully for the different provinces +regulated the particulars of the municipal system. A number +of the most considerable cities had fresh privileges conferred on them. +Autonomy was bestowed on Antioch on the Orontes, the most important +city of Roman Asia and but little inferior to the Egyptian Alexandria +and to the Bagdad of antiquity, the city of Seleucia in the Parthian +empire; as also on the neighbour of Antioch, the Pierian Seleucia, +which was thus rewarded for its courageous resistance to Tigranes; +on Gaza and generally on all the towns liberated from the Jewish rule; +on Mytilene in the west of Asia Minor; and on Phanagoria +on the Black Sea. + +Aggregate Results + +Thus was completed the structure of the Roman state in Asia, +which with its feudatory kings and vassals, its priests made +into princes, and its series of free and half-free cities puts +us vividly in mind of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. +It was no miraculous work, either as respects the difficulties +overcome or as respects the consummation attained; nor was it made +so by all the high-sounding words, which the Roman world of quality +lavished in favour of Lucullus and the artless multitude in praise +of Pompeius. Pompeius in particular consented to be praised, +and praised himself, in such a fashion that people might +almost have reckoned him still more weak-minded than he really was. +If the Mytilenaeans erected a statue to him as their deliverer +and founder, as the man who had as well by land as by sea terminated +the wars with which the world was filled, such a homage might +not seem too extravagant for the vanquisher of the pirates +and of the empires of the east. But the Romans this time surpassed +the Greeks. The triumphal inscriptions of Pompeius himself enumerated +12 millions of people as subjugated and 1538 cities and strongholds +as conquered--it seemed as if quantity was to make up for quality-- +and made the circle of his victories extend from the Maeotic Sea +to the Caspian and from the latter to the Red Sea, when his eyes had +never seen any one of the three; nay farther, if he did not exactly +say so, he at any late induced the public to suppose that the annexation +of Syria, which in truth was no heroic deed, had added +the whole east as far as Bactria and India to the Roman empire-- +so dim was the mist of distance, amidst which according to his +statements the boundary-line of his eastern conquests was lost. +The democratic servility, which has at all times rivalled +that of courts, readily entered into these insipid extravagances. +It was not satisfied by the pompous triumphal procession, which moved +through the streets of Rome on the 28th and 29th Sept. 693-- +the forty-sixth birthday of Pompeius the Great--adorned, to say nothing +of jewels of all sorts, by the crown insignia of Mithradates +and by the children of the three mightiest kings of Asia, Mithradates, +Tigranes, and Phraates; it rewarded its general, who had conquered +twenty-two kings, with regal honours and bestowed on him the golden +chaplet and the insignia of the magistracy for life. The coins struck +in his honour exhibit the globe itself placed amidst the triple +laurels brought home from the three continents, and surmounted +by the golden chaplet conferred by the burgesses on the man +who had triumphed over Africa, Spain, and Asia. It need excite +no surprise, if in presence of such childish acts of homage voices +were heard of an opposite import. Among the Roman world of quality +it was currently affirmed that the true merit of having subdued +the east belonged to Lucullus, and that Pompeius had only gone thither +to supplant Lucullus and to wreathe around his own brow the laurels +which another hand had plucked. Both statements were totally +erroneous: it was not Pompeius but Glabrio that was sent to Asia +to relieve Lucullus, and, bravely as Lucullus had fought, it was +a fact that, when Pompeius took the supreme command, the Romans +had forfeited all their earlier successes and had not a foot's breadth +of Pontic soil in their possession. More pointed and effective +was the ridicule of the inhabitants of the capital, who failed not +to nickname the mighty conqueror of the globe after the great powers +which he had conquered, and saluted him now as "conqueror of Salem," +now as "emir" (-Arabarches-), now as the Roman Sampsiceramus. + +Lucullus and Pompeius as Administrators + +The unprejudiced judge will not agree either with those exaggerations +or with these disparagements. Lucullus and Pompeius, in subduing +and regulating Asia, showed themselves to be, not heroes +and state-creators, but sagacious and energetic army-leaders +and governors. As general Lucullus displayed no common talents +and a self-confidence bordering on rashness, while Pompeius displayed +military judgment and a rare self-restraint; for hardly +has any general with such forces and a position so wholly free +ever acted so cautiously as Pompeius in the east. The most brilliant +undertakings, as it were, offered themselves to him on all sides; +he was free to start for the Cimmerian Bosporus and for the Red +Sea; he had opportunity of declaring war against the Parthians; +the revolted provinces of Egypt invited him to dethrone king +Ptolemaeus who was not recognized by the Romans, and to carry +out the testament of Alexander; but Pompeius marched neither +to Panticapaeum nor to Petra, neither to Ctesiphon nor to Alexandria; +throughout he gathered only those fruits which of themselves fell +to his hand. In like manner he fought all his battles by sea +and land with a crushing superiority of force. Had this moderation +proceeded from the strict observance of the instructions given +to him, as Pompeius was wont to profess, or even from a perception +that the conquests of Rome must somewhere find a limit and that +fresh accessions of territory were not advantageous to the state, +it would deserve a higher praise than history confers on the most +talented officer; but constituted as Pompeius was, his self- +restraint was beyond doubt solely the result of his peculiar want +of decision and of initiative--defects, indeed, which were in his +case far more useful to the state than the opposite excellences +of his predecessor. Certainly very grave errors were perpetrated +both by Lucullus and by Pompeius. Lucullus reaped their fruits himself, +when his imprudent conduct wrested from him all the results +of his victories; Pompeius left it to his successors to bear +the consequences of his false policy towards the Parthians. He might +either have made war on the Parthians, if he had had the courage +to do so, or have maintained peace with them and recognized, +as he had promised, the Euphrates as boundary; he was too timid +for the former course, too vain for the latter, and so he resorted +to the silly perfidy of rendering the good neighbourhood, +which the court of Ctesiphon desired and on its part practised, +impossible through the most unbounded aggressions, and yet allowing +the enemy to choose of themselves the time for rupture and retaliation. +As administrator of Asia Lucullus acquired a more than princely +wealth; and Pompeius also received as reward for its organization +large sums in cash and still more considerable promissory notes +from the king of Cappadocia, from the rich city of Antioch, +and from other lords and communities. But such exactions had become +almost a customary tax; and both generals showed themselves at any rate +to be not altogether venal in questions of greater importance, +and, if possible, got themselves paid by the party whose interests +coincided with those of Rome. Looking to the state of the times, +this does not prevent us from characterizing the administration +of both as comparatively commendable and conducted primarily +in the interest of Rome, secondarily in that of the provincials. + +The conversion of the clients into subjects, the better regulation +of the eastern frontier, the establishment of a single and strong +government, were full of blessing for the rulers as well as +for the ruled. The financial gain acquired by Rome was immense; +the new property tax, which with the exception of some specially +exempted communities all those princes, priests, and cities had to pay +to Rome, raised the Roman state-revenues almost by a half above their +former amount. Asia indeed suffered severely. Pompeius brought +in money and jewels an amount of 2,000,000 pounds (200,000,000 +sesterces) into the state-chest and distributed 3,900,000 pounds +(16,000 talents) among his officers and soldiers; if we add to this +the considerable sums brought home by Lucullus, the non-official +exactions of the Roman army, and the amount of the damage done +by the war, the financial exhaustion of the land may be readily +conceived. The Roman taxation of Asia was perhaps in itself +not worse than that of its earlier rulers, but it formed a heavier +burden on the land, in so far as the taxes thenceforth went +out of the country and only the lesser portion of the proceeds +was again expended in Asia; and at any rate it was, in the old +as well as the newly-acquired provinces, based on a systematic plundering +of the provinces for the benefit of Rome. But the responsibility +for this rests far less on the generals personally than on the parties +at home, whom these had to consider; Lucullus had even exerted himself +energetically to set limits to the usurious dealings of the Roman +capitalists in Asia, and this essentially contributed to bring +about his fall. How much both men earnestly sought to revive +the prosperity of the reduced provinces, is shown by their action +in cases where no considerations of party policy tied their hands, +and especially in their care for the cities of Asia Minor. Although +for centuries afterwards many an Asiatic village lying in ruins +recalled the times of the great war, Sinope might well begin a new +era with the date of its re-establishment by Lucullus, and almost +all the more considerable inland towns of the Pontic kingdom might +gratefully honour Pompeius as their founder. The organization +of Roman Asia by Lucullus and Pompeius may with all its undeniable +defects be described as on the whole judicious and praiseworthy; +serious as were the evils that might still adhere to it, +it could not but be welcome to the sorely tormented Asiatics +for the very reason that it came attended by the inward +and outward peace, the absence of which had been so long +and so painfully felt. + +The East after the Departure of Pompeius + +Peace continued substantially in the east, till the idea--merely +indicated by Pompeius with his characteristic timidity--of joining +the regions eastward of the Euphrates to the Roman empire was taken +up again energetically but unsuccessfully by the new triumvirate +of Roman regents, and soon thereafter the civil war drew the eastern +provinces as well as all the rest into its fatal vortex. +In the interval the governors of Cilicia had to fight constantly +with the mountain-tribes of the Amanus and those of Syria with the hordes +of the desert, and in the latter war against the Bedouins especially +many Roman troops were destroyed; but these movements had no farther +significance. More remarkable was the obstinate resistance, +which the tough Jewish nation opposed to the conquerors. Alexander, +son of the deposed king Aristobulus, and Aristobulus himself +who after some time succeeded in escaping from captivity, +excited during the governorship of Aulus Gabinius (697-700) +three different revolts against the new rulers, to each of which +the government of the high-priest Hyrcanus installed by Rome impotently +succumbed. It was not political conviction, but the invincible repugnance +of the Oriental towards the unnatural yoke, which compelled them +to kick against the pricks; as indeed the last and most dangerous +of these revolts, for which the withdrawal of the Syrian army +of occupation in consequence of the Egyptian crisis furnished +the immediate impulse, began with the murder of the Romans +settled in Palestine. It was not without difficulty +that the able governor succeeded in rescuing the few Romans, +who had escaped this fate and found a temporary refuge +on Mount Gerizim, from the insurgents who kept them blockaded there, +and in overpowering the revolt after several severely contested +battles and tedious sieges. In consequence of this the monarchy +of the high-priests was abolished and the Jewish land was broken up +as Macedonia had formerly been, into five independent districts +administered by governing colleges with an Optimate organization; +Samaria and other townships razed by the Jews were re-established, +to form a counterpoise to Jerusalem; and lastly a heavier tribute +was imposed on the Jews than on the other Syrian subjects of Rome. + +The Kingdom of Egypt + +It still remains that we should glance at the kingdom of Egypt +along with the last dependency that remained to it of the extensive +acquisitions of the Lagids, the fair island of Cyprus. +Egypt was now the only state of the Hellenic east that was still +at least nominally independent; just as formerly, when the Persians +established themselves along the eastern half of the Mediterranean, +Egypt was their last conquest, so now the mighty conquerors +from the west long delayed the annexation of that opulent +and peculiar country. The reason lay, as was already indicated, +neitherin any fear of the resistance of Egypt nor in the want +of a fitting occasion. Egypt was just about as powerless as Syria, +and had already in 673 fallen in all due form of law to the Roman +community.(28) The control exercised over the court of Alexandria +by the royal guard--which appointed and deposed ministers +and occasionally kings, took for itself what it pleased, and, +if it was refused a rise of pay, besieged the king in his palace-- +was by no means liked in the country or rather in the capital (for +the country with its population of agricultural slaves was hardly taken +into account); and at least a party there wished for the annexation +of Egypt by Rome, and even took steps to procure it But the less +the kings of Egypt could think of contending in arms against Rome, +the more energetically Egyptian gold set itself to resist the Roman +plans of union; and in consequence of the peculiar despotico- +communistic centralization of the Egyptian finances the revenues +of the court of Alexandria were still nearly equal to the public +income of Rome even after its augmentation by Pompeius. +The suspicious jealousy of the oligarchy, which was chary of allowing +any individual either to conquer or to administer Egypt, operated +in the same direction. So the de facto rulers of Egypt and Cyprus +were enabled by bribing the leading men in the senate not merely +to respite their tottering crowns, but even to fortify them afresh +and to purchase from the senate the confirmation of their royal title. +But with this they had not yet obtained their object. +Formal state-law required a decree of the Roman burgesses; +until this was issued, the Ptolemies were dependent on the caprice +of every democratic holder of power, and they had thus to commence +the warfare of bribery also against the other Roman party, +which as the more powerful stipulated for far higher prices. + +Cyprus Annexed + +The result in the two cases was different. The annexation +of Cyprus was decreed in 696 by the people, that is, by the leaders +of the democracy, the support given to piracy by the Cypriots +being alleged as the official reason why that course should +now be adopted. Marcus Cato, entrusted by his opponents +with the execution of this measure, came to the island without an army; +but he had no need of one. The king took poison; the inhabitants +submitted without offering resistance to their inevitable fate, +and were placed under the governor of Cilicia. The ample treasure +of nearly 7000 talents (1,700,000 pounds), which the equally +covetous and miserly king could not prevail on himself to apply +for the bribes requisite to save his crown, fell along with the latter +to the Romans, and filled after a desirable fashion the empty vaults +of their treasury. + +Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized but Expelled by His Subjects + +On the other hand the brother who reigned in Egypt succeeded +in purchasing his recognition by decree of the people from the new +masters of Rome in 695; the purchase-money is said to have amounted +to 6000 talents (1,460,000 pounds). The citizens indeed, long +exasperated against their good flute-player and bad ruler, +and now reduced to extremities by the definitive loss of Cyprus +and the pressure of the taxes which were raised to an intolerable +degree in consequence of the transactions with the Romans (696), +chased him on that account out of the country. When the king thereupon +applied, as if on account of his eviction from the estate which he +had purchased, to those who sold it, these were reasonable enough +to see that it was their duty as honest men of business to get back +his kingdom for Ptolemaeus; only the parties could not agree +as to the person to whom the important charge of occupying Egypt +by force along with the perquisites thence to be expected should +be assigned. It was only when the triumvirate was confirmed anew +at the conference of Luca, that this affair was also arranged, +after Ptolemaeus had agreed to a further payment of 10,000 talents +(2,400,000 pounds); the governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, +now obtained orders from those in power to take the necessary steps +immediately for bringing back the king. The citizens of Alexandria +had meanwhile placed the crown on the head of Berenice the eldest +daughter of the ejected king, and given to her a husband +in the person of one of the spiritual princes of Roman Asia, +Archelaus the high-priest of Comana,(29) who possessed ambition enough +to hazard his secure and respectable position in the hope of mounting +the throne of the Lagids. His attempts to gain the Roman regents +to his interests remained without success; but he did not recoil +before the idea of being obliged to maintain his new kingdom +with arms in hand even against the Romans. + +And Brought Back by Gabinius +A Roman Garrison Remains in Alexandria + +Gabinius, without ostensible powers to undertake war against Egypt +but directed to do so by the regents, made a pretext out of +the alleged furtherance of piracy by the Egyptians and the building +of a fleet by Archelaus, and started without delay for the Egyptian +frontier (699). The march through the sandy desert between Gaza +and Pelusium, in which so many invasions previously directed +against Egypt had broken down, was on this occasion successfully +accomplished--a result especially due to the quick and skilful +leader of the cavalry Marcus Antonius. The frontier fortress +of Pelusium also was surrendered without resistance by the Jewish +garrison stationed there. In front of this city the Romans met +the Egyptians, defeated them--on which occasion Antonius again +distinguished himself--and arrived, as the first Roman army, +at the Nile. Here the fleet and army of the Egyptians were drawn up +for the last decisive struggle; but the Romans once more conquered, +and Archelaus himself with many of his followers perished +in the combat. Immediately after this battle the capital surrendered, +and therewith all resistance was at an end. The unhappy land +was handed over to its legitimate oppressor; the hanging and beheading, +with which, but for the intervention of the chivalrous Antonius, +Ptolemaeus would have already in Pelusium begun to celebrate +the restoration of the legitimate government, now took its course +unhindered, and first of all the innocent daughter was sent +by her father to the scaffold. The payment of the reward agreed +upon with the regents broke down through the absolute impossibility +of exacting from the exhausted land the enormous sums required, +although they took from the poor people the last penny; but care +was taken that the country should at least be kept quiet +by the garrison of Roman infantry and Celtic and German cavalry +left in the capital, which took the place of the native praetorians +and otherwise emulated them not unsuccessfully. The previous hegemony +of Rome over Egypt was thus converted into a direct military +occupation, and the nominal continuance of the native monarchy +was not so much a privilege granted to the land as a double +burden imposed on it. + + + + +Chapter V + +The Struggle of Parties During the Absence of Pompeius. + +The Defeated Aristocracy + +With the passing of the Gabinian law the parties in the capital +changed positions. From the time that the elected general +of the democracy held in his hand the sword, his party, +or what was reckoned such, had the preponderance in the capital. +The nobility doubtless still stood in compact array, and still +as before there issued from the comitial machinery none but consuls, +who according to the expression of the democrats were already +designated to the consulate in their cradles; to command the elections +andbreak down the influence of the old families over them was beyond +the power even of the holders of power. But unfortunately the consulate, +at the very moment when they had got the length of virtually excluding +the "new men" from it, began itself to grow pale before the newly- +risen star of the exceptional military power. The aristocracy felt +this, though they did not exactly confess it; they gave themselves +up as lost. Except Quintus Catulus, who with honourable firmness +persevered at his far from pleasant post as champion of a vanquished +party down to his death (694), no Optimate could be named +from the highest ranks of the nobility, who would have sustained +the interests of the aristocracy with courage and steadfastness. +Their very men of most talent and fame, such as Quintus Metellus +Pius and Lucius Lucullus, practically abdicated and retired, +so far as they could at all do so with propriety, to their villas, +in order to forget as much as possible the Forum and the senate-house +amidst their gardens and libraries, their aviaries and fish-ponds. +Still more, of course, was this the case with the younger generation +of the aristocracy, which was either wholly absorbed in luxury +and literature or turning towards the rising sun. + +Cato + +There was among the younger men a single exception; it was +Marcus Porcius Cato (born in 659), a man of the best intentions +and of rare devotedness, and yet one of the most Quixotic +and one of the most cheerless phenomena in this age so abounding +in political caricatures. Honourable and steadfast, earnest in purpose +and in action, full of attachment to his country and to its hereditary +constitution, but dull in intellect and sensuously as well as +morally destitute of passion, he might certainly have made +a tolerable state-accountant. But unfortunately he fell early +under the power of formalism, and swayed partly by the phrases +of the Stoa, which in their abstract baldness and spiritless +isolation were current among the genteel world of that day, partly +by the example of his great-grandfather whom he deemed it his especial +task to reproduce, he began to walk about in the sinful capital +as a model burgess and mirror of virtue, to scold at the times +like the old Cato, to travel on foot instead of riding, to take +no interest, to decline badges of distinction as a soldier, +and to introduce the restoration of the good old days by going after +the precedent of king Romulus without a shirt. A strange caricature +of his ancestor--the gray-haired farmer whom hatred and anger made +an orator, who wielded in masterly style the plough as well as +the sword, who with his narrow, but original and sound common sense +ordinarily hit the nail on the head--was this young unimpassioned +pedant from whose lips dropped scholastic wisdom and who was +everywhere seen sitting book in hand, this philosopher +who understood neither the art of war nor any other art whatever, +this cloud-walker in the realm of abstract morals. Yet he attained +to moral and thereby even to political importance. In an utterly +wretched and cowardly age his courage and his negative virtues told +powerfully on the multitude; he even formed a school, and there were +individuals--it is true they were but few--who in their turn +copied and caricatured afresh the living pattern of a philosopher. +On the same cause depended also his political influence. +As he was the only conservative of note who possessed if not talent +and insight, at any rate integrity and courage, and was always ready +to throw himself into the breach whether it was necessary to do so +or not, he soon became the recognized champion of the Optimate party, +although neither his age nor his rank nor his intellect entitled +him to be so. Where the perseverance of a single resolute man +could decide, he no doubt sometimes achieved a success, +and in questions of detail, more particularly of a financial character, +he often judiciously interfered, as indeed he was absent +from no meeting of the senate; his quaestorship in fact formed +an epoch, and as long as he lived he checked the details of the public +budget, regarding which he maintained of course a constant warfare +with the farmers of the taxes. For the rest, he lacked simply +every ingredient of a statesman. He was incapable of even +comprehending a political aim and of surveying political relations; +his whole tactics consisted in setting his face against every one +who deviated or seemed to him to deviate from the traditionary +moral and political catechism of the aristocracy, and thus +of course he worked as often into the hands of his opponents +as into those of his own party. The Don Quixote of the aristocracy, +he proved by his character and his actions that at this time, +while there was certainly still an aristocracy in existence, +the aristocratic policy was nothing more than a chimera. + +Democratic Attacks + +To continue the conflict with this aristocracy brought little +honour. Of course the attacks of the democracy on the vanquished +foe did not on that account cease. The pack of the Populares threw +themselves on the broken ranks of the nobility like the sutlers +on a conquered camp, and the surface at least of politics +was by this agitation ruffled into high waves of foam. The multitude +entered into the matter the more readily, as Gaius Caesar especially +kept them in good humour by the extravagant magnificence of his games +(689)--in which all the equipments, even the cages of the wild +beasts, appeared of massive silver--and generally by a liberality +which was all the more princely that it was based solely +on the contraction of debt. The attacks on the nobility +were of the most varied kind. The abuses of aristocratic rule afforded +copious materials; magistrates and advocates who were liberal or assumed +a liberal hue, like Gaius Cornelius, Aulus Gabinius, Marcus Cicero, +continued systematically to unveil the most offensive and scandalous +aspects of the Optimate doings and to propose laws against them. +The senate was directed to give access to foreign envoys on set days, +with the view of preventing the usual postponement of audiences. +Loans raised by foreign ambassadors in Rome were declared non-actionable, +as this was the only means of seriously checking the corruptions +which formed the order of the day in the senate (687). The right +of the senate to give dispensation in particular cases from the laws +was restricted (687); as was also the abuse whereby every Roman of rank, +who had private business to attend to in the provinces, got himself +invested by the senate with the character of a Roman envoy thither +(691). They heightened the penalties against the purchase +of votes and electioneering intrigues (687, 691); which latter +were especially increased in a scandalous fashion by the attempts +of the individuals ejected from the senate(1) to get back +to it through re-election. + +What had hitherto been simply understood as matter of course +was now expressly laid down as a law, that the praetors were bound +to administer justice in conformity with the rules set forth by them, +after the Roman fashion, at their entering on office (687). + +Transpadanes +Freedmen + +But, above all, efforts were made to complete the democratic +restoration and to realize the leading ideas of the Gracchan period +in a form suitable to the times. The election of the priests +by the comitia, which Gnaeus Domitius had introduced(2) and Sulla +had again done away,(3) was established by a law of the tribune +of the people Titus Labienus in 691. The democrats were fond +of pointing out how much was still wanting towards the restoration +of the Sempronian corn-laws in their full extent, and at the same +time passed over in silence the fact that under the altered +circumstances--with the straitened condition of the public finances +and the great increase in the number of fully-privileged Roman +citizens--that restoration was absolutely impracticable. +In the country between the Po and the Alps they zealously fostered +the agitation for political equality with the Italians. +As early as 686 Gaius Caesar travelled from place to place there +for this purpose; in 689 Marcus Crassus as censor made arrangements +to enrol the inhabitants directly in the burgess-roll--which was only +frustrated by the resistance of his colleague; in the following +censorships this attempt seems regularly to have been repeated. +As formerly Gracchus and Flaccus had been the patrons of the Latins, +so the present leaders of the democracy gave themselves forth +as protectors of the Transpadanes, and Gaius Piso (consul in 687) +had bitterly to regret that he had ventured to outrage +one of these clients of Caesar and Crassus. On the other hand +the same leaders appeared by no means disposed to advocate +the political equalization of the freedmen; the tribune of the people +Gaius Manilius, who in a thinly attended assembly had procured +the renewal (31 Dec. 687) of the Sulpician law as to the suffrage +of freedmen,(4) was immediately disavowed by the leading men +of the democracy, and with their consent the law was cancelled +by the senate on the very day after its passing. In the same spirit +all the strangers, who possessed neither Roman nor Latin burgess- +rights, were ejected from the capital by decree of the people +in 689. It is obvious that the intrinsic inconsistency +of the Gracchan policy--in abetting at once the effort of the excluded +to obtain admission into the circle of the privileged, and the effort +of the privileged to maintain their distinctive rights--had passed +over to their successors; while Caesar and his friends on the one hand +held forth to the Transpadanes the prospect of the franchise, +they on the other hand gave their assent to the continuance +of the disabilities of the freedmen, and to the barbarous setting aside +of the rivalry which the industry and trading skill of the Hellenes +and Orientals maintained with the Italians in Italy itself. + +Process against Rabirius + +The mode in which the democracy dealt with the ancient criminal +jurisdiction of the comitia was characteristic. It had not been +properly abolished by Sulla, but practically the jury-commissions +on high treason and murder had superseded it,(5) and no rational +man could think of seriously re-establishing the old procedure +which long before Sulla had been thoroughly unpractical. +But as the idea of the sovereignty of the people appeared to require +a recognition at least in principle of the penal jurisdiction +of the burgesses, the tribune of the people Titus Labienus in 691 +brought the old man, who thirty-eight years before had slain or was +alleged to have slain the tribune of the people Lucius Saturninus,(6) +before the same high court of criminal jurisdiction, by virtue of which, +if the annals reported truly, king Tullus had procured the acquittal +of the Horatius who had killed his sister. The accused was one +Gaius Rabirius, who, if he had not killed Saturninus, +had at least paraded with his cut-off head at the tables +of men of rank, and who moreover was notorious among the Apulian +landholders for his kidnapping and his bloody deeds. The object, +if not of the accuser himself, at any rate of the more sagacious men +who backed him, was not at all to make this pitiful wretch +die the death of the cross; they were not unwilling to acquiesce, +when first the form of the impeachment was materially modified +by the senate, and then the assembly of the people called to pronounce +sentence on the guilty was dissolved under some sort of pretext +by the opposite party--so that the whole procedure was set aside. +At all events by this process the two palladia of Roman freedom, +the right of the citizens to appeal and the inviolability of the tribunes +of the people, were once more established as practical rights, +and the legal basis on which the democracy rested was adjusted afresh. + +Personal Attacks + +The democratic reaction manifested still greater vehemence +in all personal questions, wherever it could and dared. +Prudence indeed enjoined it not to urge the restoration of the estates +confiscated by Sulla to their former owners, that it might not quarrel +with its own allies and at the same time fall into a conflict +with material interests, for which a policy with a set purpose +is rarelya match; the recall of the emigrants was too closely connected +with this question of property not to appear quite as unadvisable. +On the other hand great exertions were made to restore to the children +of the proscribed the political rights withdrawn from them (691), +and the heads of the senatorial party were incessantly subjected +to personal attacks. Thus Gaius Memmius set on foot a process aimed +at Marcus Lucullus in 688. Thus they allowed his more famous +brother to wait for three years before the gates of the capital +for his well-deserved triumph (688-691). Quintus Rex and the conqueror +of Crete Quintus Metellus were similarly insulted. + +It produced a still greater sensation, when the young leader +of the democracy Gaius Caesar in 691 not merely presumed to compete +with the two most distinguished men of the nobility, Quintus Catulus +and Publius Servilius the victor of Isaura, in the candidature +for the supreme pontificate, but even carried the day +among the burgesses. The heirs of Sulla, especially his son Faustus, +found themselves constantly threatened with an action for the refunding +of the public moneys which, it was alleged, had been embezzled +by the regent. They talked even of resuming the democratic +impeachments suspended in 664 on the basis of the Varian law.(7) +The individuals who had taken part in the Sullan executions were, +as may readily be conceived, judicially prosecuted with the utmost +zeal. When the quaestor Marcus Cato, in his pedantic integrity, +himself made a beginning by demanding back from them the rewards +which they had received for murder as property illegally alienated +from the state (689), it can excite no surprise that in the following +year (690) Gaius Caesar, as president of the commission +regarding murder, summarily treated the clause in the Sullan +ordinance, which declared that a proscribed person might be +killed with impunity, as null and void, and caused the most +noted of Sulla's executioners, Lucius Catilina, Lucius Bellienus, +Lucius Luscius to be brought before his jurymen and, partially, +to be condemned. + +Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +Lastly, they did not hesitate now to name once more in public +the long-proscribed names of the heroes and martyrs of the democracy, +and to celebrate their memory. We have already mentioned how +Saturninus was rehabilitated by the process directed against +his murderer. But a different sound withal had the name of Gaius +Marius, at the mention of which all hearts once had throbbed; +and it happened that the man, to whom Italy owed her deliverance +from the northern barbarians, was at the same time the uncle +of the present leader of the democracy. Loudly had the multitude +rejoiced, when in 686 Gaius Caesar ventured in spite of +the prohibitions publicly to show the honoured features of the hero +in the Forum at the interment of the widow of Marius. But when, +three years afterwards (689), the emblems of victory, which Marius +had caused to be erected in the Capitol and Sulla had ordered to be +thrown down, one morning unexpectedly glittered afresh in gold +and marble at the old spot, the veterans from the African and Cimbrian +wars crowded, with tears in their eyes, around the statue of their +beloved general; and in presence of the rejoicing masses the senate +did not venture to seize the trophies which the same bold hand had +renewed in defiance of the laws. + +Worthlessness of the Democratic Successes + +But all these doings and disputes, however much noise they made, +were, politically considered, of but very subordinate importance. +The oligarchy was vanquished; the democracy had attained the helm. +That underlings of various grades should hasten to inflict +an additional kick on the prostrate foe; that the democrats also +should have their basis in law and their worship of principles; +that their doctrinaires should not rest till the whole privileges +of the community were in all particulars restored, and should +in that respect occasionally make themselves ridiculous, +as legitimists are wont to do--all this was just as much +to be expected as it was matter of indifference. Taken as a whole, +the agitation was aimless; and we discern in it the perplexity +of its authors to find an object for their activity, for it +turned almost wholly on things already essentially settled +or on subordinate matters. + +Impending Collision between the Democrats and Pompeius + +It could not be otherwise. In the struggle with the aristocracy +the democrats had remained victors; but they had not conquered +alone, and the fiery trial still awaited them--the reckoning +not with their former foe, but with their too powerful ally, +to whom in the struggle with the aristocracy they were substantially +indebted for victory, and to whose hands they had now entrusted +an unexampled military and political power, because they dared +not refuse it to him. The general of the east and of the seas +was still employed in appointing and deposing kings. How long time +he would take for that work, or when he would declare the business +of the war to be ended, no one could tell but himself; +since like everything else the time of his return to Italy, +or in other words the day of decision, was left in his own hands. +The parties in Rome meanwhile sat and waited. The Optimates indeed +looked forward to the arrival of the dreaded general with comparative +calmness; by the rupture between Pompeius and the democracy, which they +saw to be approaching, they could not lose, but could only gain. +The democrats on the contrary waited with painful anxiety, +and sought, during the interval still allowed to them +by the absence of Pompeius, to lay a countermine against +the impending explosion. + +Schemes for Appointing a Democratic Military Dictatorship + +In this policy they again coincided with Crassus, +to whom no course was left for encountering his envied and hated rival +but that of allying himself afresh, and more closely than before, +with the democracy. Already in the first coalition a special +approximation had taken place between Caesar and Crassus +as the two weaker parties; a common interest and a common danger +tightened yet more the bond which joined the richest +and the most insolvent of Romans in closest alliance. +While in public the democrats described the absent general +as the head and pride of their party and seemed to direct +all their arrows against the aristocracy, preparations +were secretly made against Pompeius; and these attempts +of the democracy to escape from the impending military dictatorship +have historically a far higher significance than the noisy agitation, +for the most part employed only as a mask, against the nobility. +It is true that they were carried on amidst a darkness, upon which +our tradition allows only some stray gleams of light to fall; +for not the present alone, but the succeeding age also +had its reasons for throwing a veil over the matter. But in general +both the course and the object of these efforts are completely clear. +The military power could only be effectually checkmated by another +military power. The design of the democrats was to possess +themselves of the reins of government after the example of Marius +and Cinna, then to entrust one of their leaders either with the conquest +of Egypt or with the governorship of Spain or some similar +ordinary or extraordinary office, and thus to find in him +and his military force a counterpoise to Pompeius and his army. +For this they required a revolution, which was directed immediately +against the nominal government, but in reality against Pompeius +as the designated monarch;(8) and, to effect this revolution, +there was from the passing of the Gabinio-Manilian laws down to +the return of Pompeius (688-692) perpetual conspiracy in Rome. +The capital was in anxious suspense; the depressed temper +of the capitalists, the suspensions of payment, the frequent bankruptcies +were heralds of the fermenting revolution, which seemed as though it must +at the same time produce a totally new position of parties. +The project of the democracy, which pointed beyond the senate +at Pompeius, suggested an approximation between that general +and the senate. But the democracy in attempting to oppose +to the dictatorship of Pompeius that of a man more agreeable to it, +recognized, strictly speaking, on its part also the military government, +and in reality drove out Satan by Beelzebub; the question of principles +became in its hands a question of persons. + +League of the Democrats and the Anarchists + +The first step towards the revolution projected by the leaders +of the democracy was thus to be the overthrow of the existing +government by means of an insurrection primarily instigated +in Rome by democratic conspirators. The moral condition of the lowest +as of the highest ranks of society in the capital presented +the materials for this purpose in lamentable abundance. We need not +here repeat what was the character of the free and the servile +proletariate of the capital. The significant saying was already +heard, that only the poor man was qualified to represent the poor; +the idea was thus suggested, that the mass of the poor might +constitute itself an independent power as well as the oligarchy +of the rich, and instead of allowing itself to be tyrannized over, +might perhaps in its own turn play the tyrant. But even in the circles +of the young men of rank similar ideas found an echo. +The fashionable life of the capital shattered not merely the fortunes +of men, but also their vigour of body and mind. That elegant world +of fragrant ringlets, of fashionable mustachios and ruffles--merry +as were its doings in the dance and with the harp, and early +and late at the wine-cup--yet concealed in its bosom an alarming abyss +of moral and economic ruin, of well or ill concealed despair, +and frantic or knavish resolves. These circles sighed without +disguise for a return of the time of Cinna with its proscriptions +and confiscations and its annihilation of account-books for debt; +there were people enough, including not a few of no mean descent +and unusual abilities, who only waited the signal to fall +like a gang of robbers on civil society and to recruit by pillage +the fortune which they had squandered. Where a band gathers, +leaders are not wanting; and in this case the men were soon found +who were fitted to be captains of banditti. + +Catalina + +The late praetor Lucius Catilina, and the quaestor Gnaeus Piso, +were distinguished among their fellows not merely by their genteel +birth and their superior rank. They had broken down the bridge +completely behind them, and impressed their accomplices by their +dissoluteness quite as much as by their talents. Catilina especially +was one of the most wicked men in that wicked age. His villanies +belong to the records of crime, not to history; but his very outward +appearance--the pale countenance, the wild glance, the gait by turns +sluggish and hurried--betrayed his dismal past. He possessed in a high +degree the qualities which are required in the leader of such a band-- +the faculty of enjoying all pleasures and of bearing all privations, +courage, military talent, knowledge of men, the energy of a felon, +and that horrible mastery of vice, which knows how to bring the weak +to fall and how to train the fallen to crime. + +To form out of such elements a conspiracy for the overthrow +of the existing order of things could not be difficult to men +who possessed money and political influence. Catilina, Piso, +and their fellows entered readily into any plan which gave the prospect +of proscriptions and cancelling of debtor-books; the former had +moreover special hostility to the aristocracy, because it had opposed +the candidature of that infamous and dangerous man for the consulship. +As he had formerly in the character of an executioner +of Sulla hunted the proscribed at the head of a band of Celts +and had killed among others his own aged father-in-law +with his own hand, he now readily consented to promise similar services +to the opposite party. A secret league was formed. The number +of individuals received into it is said to have exceeded 400; it +included associates in all the districts and urban communities +of Italy; besides which, as a matter of course, numerous recruits +would flock unbidden from the ranks of the dissolute youth +to an insurrection, which inscribed on its banner the seasonable +programme of wiping out debts. + +Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy + +In December 688--so we are told--the leaders of the league thought +that they had found the fitting occasion for striking a blow. +The two consuls chosen for 689, Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius +Autronius Paetus, had recently been judicially convicted +of electoral bribery, and therefore had according to legal rule +forfeited their expectancy of the highest office. Both thereupon +joined the league. The conspirators resolved to procure +the consulship for them by force, and thereby to put themselves +in possession of the supreme power in the state. On the day +when the new consuls should enter on their office--the 1st Jan. 689-- +the senate-house was to be assailed by armed men, the new consuls +and the victims otherwise designated were to be put to death, and Sulla +and Paetus were to be proclaimed as consuls after the cancelling +of the judicial sentence which excluded them. Crassus was then +to be invested with the dictatorship and Caesar with the mastership +of the horse, doubtless with a view to raise an imposing military +force, while Pompeius was employed afar off at the Caucasus. +Captains and common soldiers were hired and instructed; Catilina +waited on the appointed day in the neighbourhood of the senate- +house for the concerted signal, which was to be given him by Caesar +on a hint from Crassus. But he waited in vain; Crassus was absent +from the decisive sitting of the senate, and for this time +the projected insurrection failed. A similar still more comprehensive +plan of murder was then concerted for the 5th Feb.; but this too +was frustrated, because Catilina gave the signal too early, +before the bandits who were bespoken had all arrived. Thereupon +the secret was divulged. The government did not venture openly +to proceed against the conspiracy, but it assigned a guard +to the consuls who were primarily threatened, and it opposed to the band +of the conspirators a band paid by the government. To remove Piso, +the proposal was made that he should be sent as quaestor +with praetorian powers to Hither Spain; to which Crassus consented, +in the hope of securing through him the resources of that important +province for the insurrection. Proposals going farther +were prevented by the tribunes. + +So runs the account that has come down to us, which evidently gives +the version current in the government circles, and the credibility +of which in detail must, in the absence of any means of checking +it, be left an open question. As to the main matter--the participation +of Caesar and Crassus--the testimony of their political opponents +certainly cannot be regarded as sufficient evidence of it. But their +notorious action at this epoch corresponds with striking exactness +to the secret action which this report ascribes to them. The attempt +of Crassus, who in this year was censor, officially to enrol +the Transpadanes in the burgess-list(9) was of itself directly +a revolutionary enterprise. It is still more remarkable, +that Crassus on the same occasion made preparations to enrol +Egypt and Cyprus in the list of Roman domains,(10) and that Caesar +about the same time (689 or 690) got a proposal submitted +by some tribunes to the burgesses to send him to Egypt, +in order to reinstate king Ptolemaeus whom the Alexandrians +had expelled. These machinations suspiciously coincide +with the charges raised by their antagonists. Certainty cannot be +attained on the point; but there is a great probability that Crassus +and Caesar had projected a plan to possess themselves of the military +dictatorship during the absence of Pompeius; that Egypt was selected +as the basis of this democratic military power; and that, in fine, +the insurrectionary attempt of 689 had been contrived to realize +these projects, and Catilina and Piso had thus been tools in the hands +of Crassus and Caesar. + +Resumption of the Conspiracy + +For a moment the conspiracy came to a standstill. The elections +for 690 took place without Crassus and Caesar renewing their +attempt to get possession of the consulate; which may have been +partly owing to the fact that a relative of the leader +of the democracy, Lucius Caesar, a weak man who was not unfrequently +employed by his kinsman as a tool, was on this occasion a candidate +for the consulship. But the reports from Asia urged them to make +haste. The affairs of Asia Minor and Armenia were already +completely arranged. However clearly democratic strategists showed +that the Mithradatic war could only be regarded as terminated +by the capture of the king, and that it was therefore necessary +to undertake the pursuit round the Black Sea, and above all things +to keep aloof from Syria(11)--Pompeius, not concerning himself +about such talk, had set out in the spring of 690 from Armenia +and marched towards Syria. If Egypt was really selected +as the headquarters of the democracy, there was no time to be lost; +otherwise Pompeius might easily arrive in Egypt sooner than Caesar. +The conspiracy of 688, far from being broken up by the lax +and timid measures of repression, was again astir when the consular +elections for 691 approached. The persons were, it may be +presumed, substantially the same, and the plan was but little +altered. The leaders of the movement again kept in the background. +On this occasion they had set up as candidates for the consulship +Catilina himself and Gaius Antonius, the younger son of the orator +and a brother of the general who had an ill repute from Crete. +They were sure of Catilina; Antonius, originally a Sullan +like Catilina and like the latter brought to trial on that account +some years before by the democratic party and ejected +from the senate(12)--otherwise an indolent, insignificant man, +in no respect called to be a leader, and utterly bankrupt-- +willingly lent himself as a tool to the democrats for the prize +of the consulship and the advantages attached to it. Through these +consuls the heads of the conspiracy intended to seize the government, +to arrest the children of Pompeius, who remained behind in the capital, +as hostages, and to take up arms in Italy and the provinces +against Pompeius. On the first news of the blow struck in the capital, +the governor Gnaeus Piso was to raise the banner of insurrection +in Hither Spain. Communication could not be held with him by way +of the sea, since Pompeius commanded the seas. For this purpose +they reckoned on the Transpadanes the old clients of the democracy-- +among whom there was great agitation, and who would of course have +at once received the franchise--and, further, on different Celtic +tribes.(13) The threads of this combination reached as far as +Mauretania. One of the conspirators, the Roman speculator Publius +Sittius from Nuceria, compelled by financial embarrassments +to keep aloof from Italy, had armed a troop of desperadoes there +and in Spain, and with these wandered about as a leader of free-lances +in western Africa, where he had old commercial connections. + +Consular Elections +Cicero Elected instead of Catalina + +The party put forth all its energies for the struggle +of the election. Crassus and Caesar staked their money--whether their +own or borrowed--and their connections to procure the consulship +for Catilina and Antonius; the comrades of Catilina strained every +nerve to bring to the helm the man who promised them the magistracies +and priesthoods, the palaces and country-estates of their opponents, +and above all deliverance from their debts, and who, they knew, +would keep his word. The aristocracy was in great perplexity, +chiefly because it was not able even to start counter-candidates. +That such a candidate risked his head, was obvious; and the times +were past when the post of danger allured the burgess--now even +ambition was hushed in presence of fear. Accordingly the nobility +contented themselves with making a feeble attempt to check +electioneering intrigues by issuing a new law respecting +the purchase of votes--which, however, was thwarted by the veto +of a tribune of the people--and with turning over their votes +to a candidate who, although not acceptable to them, was at least +inoffensive. This was Marcus Cicero, notoriously a political +trimmer,(14) accustomed to flirt at times with the democrats, +at times with Pompeius, at times from a somewhat greater distance +with the aristocracy, and to lend his services as an advocate to every +influential man under impeachment without distinction of person +or party (he numbered even Catilina among his clients); belonging +properly to no party or--which was much the same--to the party +of material interests, which was dominant in the courts +and was pleased with the eloquent pleader and the courtly and witty +companion. He had connections enough in the capital and the country +towns to have a chance alongside of the candidates proposed +by the democracy; and as the nobility, although with reluctance, +and the Pompeians voted for him, he was elected by a great +majority. The two candidates of the democracy obtained almost +the same number of votes; but a few more fell to Antonius, whose family +was of more consideration than that of his fellow-candidate. +This accident frustrated the election of Catilina and saved Rome +from a second Cinna. A little before this Piso had--it was said +at the instigation of his political and personal enemy Pompeius-- +been put to death in Spain by his native escort.(15) With the consul +Antonius alone nothing could be done; Cicero broke the loose bond +which attached him to the conspiracy, even before they entered +on their offices, inasmuch as he renounced his legal privilege +of having the consular provinces determined by lot, and handed over +to his deeply-embarrassed colleague the lucrative governorship +of Macedonia. The essential preliminary conditions of this project +also had therefore miscarried. + +New Projects of the Conspirators + +Meanwhile the development of Oriental affairs grew daily +more perilous for the democracy. The settlement of Syria rapidly +advanced; already invitations had been addressed to Pompeius +from Egypt to march thither and occupy the country for Rome; +they could not but be afraid that they would next hear of Pompeius +in person having taken possession of the valley of the Nile. +It was by this very apprehension probably that the attempt of Caesar +to get himself sent by the people to Egypt for the purpose of aiding +the king against his rebellious subjects(16) was called forth; +it failed, apparently, through the disinclination of great and small +to undertake anything whatever against the interest of Pompeius. +His return home, and the probable catastrophe which it involved, +were always drawing the nearer; often as the string of the bow +had been broken, it was necessary that there should be a fresh +attempt to bend it. The city was in sullen ferment; frequent +conferences of the heads of the movement indicated that some +step was again contemplated. + +The Servilian Agrarian Law + +What they wished became manifest when the new tribunes +of the people entered on their office (10 Dec. 690), and one of them, +Publius Servilius Rullus, immediately proposed an agrarian law, +which was designed to procure for the leaders of the democrats +a position similar to that which Pompeius occupied in consequence +of 2the Gabinio-Manilian proposals. The nominal object +was the founding of colonies in Italy. The ground for these, however, +was not to be gained by dispossession; on the contrary all existing +private rights were guaranteed, and even the illegal occupations +of the most recent times(17) were converted into full property. +The leased Campanian domain alone was to be parcelled out +and colonized; in other cases the government was to acquire +the land destined for assignation by ordinary purchase. To procure +the sums necessary for this purpose, the remaining Italian, +and more especially all the extra-Italian, domain-land was successively +to be brought to sale; which was understood to include the former +royal hunting domains in Macedonia, the Thracian Chersonese, +Bithynia, Pontus, Cyrene, and also the territories of the cities +acquired in full property by right of war in Spain, Africa, Sicily, +Hellas, and Cilicia. Everything was likewise to be sold +which the state had acquired in moveable and immoveable property +since the year 666, and of which it had not previously disposed; +this was aimed chiefly at Egypt and Cyprus. For the same purpose +all subject communities, with the exception of the towns with Latin +rights and the other free cities, were burdened with very high +rates of taxes and tithes. Lastly there was likewise destined +for those purchases the produce of the new provincial revenues, +to be reckoned from 692, and the proceeds of the whole booty +not yet legally applied; which regulations had reference +to the new sources of taxation opened up by Pompeius in the east +and to the public moneys that might be found in the hands of Pompeius +and the heirs of Sulla. For the execution of this measure decemvirs +with a special jurisdiction and special -imperium- were to be nominated, +who were to remain five years in office and to surround themselves +with 200 subalterns from the equestrian order; but in the election +of the decemvirs only those candidates who should personally +announce themselves were to be taken into account, and, +as in the elections of priests,(18) only seventeen tribes to be fixed +by lot out of the thirty-five were to make the election. It needed +no great acuteness to discern that in this decemviral college it +was intended to create a power after the model of that of Pompeius, +only with somewhat less of a military and more of a democratic hue. +The jurisdiction was especially needed for the sake of deciding +the Egyptian question, the military power for the sake of arming +against Pompeius; the clause, which forbade the choice of an absent +person, excluded Pompeius; and the diminution of the tribes entitled +to vote as well as the manipulation of the balloting were designed +to facilitate the management of the election in accordance +with the views of the democracy. + +But this attempt totally missed its aim. The multitude, finding +it more agreeable to have their corn measured out to them +under the shade of Roman porticoes from the public magazines +than to cultivate it for themselves in the sweat of their brow, +received even the proposal in itself with complete indifference. +They soon came also to feel that Pompeius would never acquiesce +in such a resolution offensive to him in every respect, and that matters +could not stand well with a party which in its painful alarm +condescended to offers so extravagant. Under such circumstances +it was not difficult for the government to frustrate the proposal; +the new consul Cicero perceived the opportunity of exhibiting +here too his talent for giving a finishing stroke to the beaten party; +even before the tribunes who stood ready exercised their veto, +the author himself withdrew his proposal (1 Jan. 691). +The democracy had gained nothing but the unpleasant lesson, +that the great multitude out of love or fear still continued +to adhere to Pompeius, and that every proposal was certain +to fail which the public perceived to be directed against him. + +Preparations of the Anarchists in Etruria + +Wearied by all this vain agitation and scheming without result, +Catilina determined to push the matter to a decision and make +an end of it once for all. He took his measures in the course +of the summer to open the civil war. Faesulae (Fiesole), +a very strong town situated in Etruria--which swarmed with +the impoverished and conspirators--and fifteen years before the centre +of the rising of Lepidus, was again selected as the headquarters +of the insurrection. Thither were despatched the consignments +of money, for which especially the ladies of quality in the capital +implicated in the conspiracy furnished the means; there arms +and soldiers were collected; and there an old Sullan captain, Gaius +Manlius, as brave and as free from scruples of conscience +as was ever any soldier of fortune, took temporarily the chief command. +Similar though less extensive warlike preparations were made +at other points of Italy. The Transpadanes were so excited +that they seemed only waiting for the signal to strike. In the Bruttian +country, on the east coast of Italy, in Capua--wherever great +bodies of slaves were accumulated--a second slave insurrection +like that of Spartacus seemed on the eve of arising. Even in the capital +there was something brewing; those who saw the haughty bearing +with which the summoned debtors appeared before the urban praetor, +could not but remember the scenes which had preceded the murder +of Asellio.(19) The capitalists were in unutterable anxiety; +it seemed needful to enforce the prohibition of the export +of gold and silver, and to set a watch over the principal ports. +The plan of the conspirators was--on occasion of the consular +election for 692, for which Catilina had again announced himself-- +summarily to put to death the consul conducting the election +as well as the inconvenient rival candidates, and to carry +the election of Catilina at any price; in case of necessity, even +to bring armed bands from Faesulae and the other rallying points +against the capital, and with their help to crush resistance. + +Election of Catalina as Consul again Frustrated + +Cicero, who was always quickly and completely informed by his +agents male and female of the transactions of the conspirators, +on the day fixed for the election (20 Oct.) denounced the conspiracy +in the full senate and in presence of its principal leaders. +Catilina did not condescend to deny it; he answered haughtily that, +if the election for consul should fall on him, the great headless +party would certainly no longer want a leader against the small +party led by wretched heads. But as palpable evidences of the plot +were not before them, nothing farther was to be got from the timid +senate, except that it gave its previous sanction in the usual way +to the exceptional measures which the magistrates might deem +suitable (21 Oct.). Thus the election battle approached-- +on this occasion more a battle than an election; for Cicero too +had formed for himself an armed bodyguard out of the younger men, +more especially of the mercantile order; and it was his armed force +that covered and dominated the Campus Martius on the 28th October, +the day to which the election had been postponed by the senate. +The conspirators were not successful either in killing the consul +conducting the election, or in deciding the elections according +to their mind. + +Outbreak of the Insurrection in Etruria +Repressive Measures of the Government + +But meanwhile the civil war had begun. On the 27th Oct. Gaius +Manlius had planted at Faesulae the eagle round which the army +of the insurrection was to flock--it was one of the Marian eagles +from the Cimbrian war--and he had summoned the robbers +from the mountains as well as the country people to join him. +His proclamations, following the old traditions of the popular +party, demanded liberation from the oppressive load of debt +and a modification of the procedure in insolvency, which, if the amount +of the debt actually exceeded the estate, certainly still involved +in law the forfeiture of the debtor's freedom. It seemed as though +the rabble of the capital, in coming forward as if it were +the legitimate successor of the old plebeian farmers and fighting +its battles under the glorious eagles of the Cimbrian war, wished +to cast a stain not only on the present but on the past of Rome. +This rising, however, remained isolated; at the other places +of rendezvous the conspiracy did not go beyond the collection of arms +and the institution of secret conferences, as resolute leaders +were everywhere wanting. This was fortunate for the government; +for, although the impending civil war had been for a considerable time +openly announced, its own irresolution and the clumsiness +of the rusty machinery of administration had not allowed it to make +any military preparations whatever. It was only now that the general +levy was called out, and superior officers were ordered to the several +regions of Italy that each might suppress the insurrection +in his own district; while at the same time the gladiatorial slaves +were ejected from the capital, and patrols were ordered on account +of the apprehension of incendiarism. + +The Conspirators in Rome + +Catilina was in a painful position. According to his design +there should have been a simultaneous rising in the capital +and in Etruria on occasion of the consular elections; the failure +of the former and the outbreak of the latter movement endangered +his person as well as the whole success of his undertaking. +Now that his partisans at Faesulae had once risen in arms against +the government, he could no longer remain in the capital; and yet +not only did everything depend on his inducing the conspirators +of the capital now at least to strike quickly, but this had to be +done even before he left Rome--for he knew his helpmates too well +to rely on them for that matter. The more considerable +of the conspirators--Publius Lentulus Sura consul in 683, afterwards +expelled from the senate and now, in order to get back into +the senate, praetor for the second time, and the two former praetors +Publius Autronius and Lucius Cassius--were incapable men; Lentulus +an ordinary aristocrat of big words and great pretensions, but slow +in conception and irresolute in action; Autronius distinguished +for nothing but his powerful screaming voice; while as to Lucius +Cassius no one comprehended how a man so corpulent and so simple +had fallen among the conspirators. But Catilina could not venture +to place his abler partisans, such as the young senator Gaius +Cethegus and the equites Lucius Statilius and Publius Gabinius +Capito, at the head of the movement; for even among the conspirators +the traditional hierarchy of rank held its ground, and the very +anarchists thought that they should be unable to carry the day +unless a consular or at least a praetorian were at their head. +Therefore, however urgently the army of the insurrection might +long for its general, and however perilous it was for the latter +to remain longer at the seat of government after the outbreak +of the revolt, Catilina nevertheless resolved still to remain +for a time in Rome. Accustomed to impose on his cowardly opponents +by his audacious insolence, he showed himself publicly in the Forum +and in the senate-house and replied to the threats which were +there addressed to him, that they should beware of pushing him +to extremities; that, if they should set the house on fire, he would +be compelled to extinguish the conflagration in ruins. In reality +neither private persons nor officials ventured to lay hands +on the dangerous man; it was almost a matter of indifference +when a young nobleman brought him to trial on account of violence, +for long before the process could come to an end, the question could not +but be decided elsewhere. But the projects of Catilina failed; +chiefly because the agents of the government had made their way +into the circle of the conspirators and kept it accurately informed +of every detail of the plot. When, for instance, the conspirators +appeared before the strong Praeneste (1 Nov.), which they had hoped +to surprise by a -coup de main-, they found the inhabitants warned +and armed; and in a similar way everything miscarried. Catilina +with all his temerity now found it advisable to fix his departure +for one of the ensuing days; but previously on his urgent exhortation, +at a last conference of the conspirators in the night between +the 6th and 7th Nov. it was resolved to assassinate the consul Cicero, +who was the principal director of the countermine, before the departure +of their leader, and, in order to obviate any treachery, +to carry the resolve at once into execution. Early on the morning +of the 7th Nov., accordingly, the selected murderers knocked +at the house of the consul; but they found the guard reinforced +and themselves repulsed--on this occasion too the spies +of the government had outdone the conspirators. + +Catalina Proceed to Etruria + +On the following day (8 Nov.) Cicero convoked the senate. +Even now Catilina ventured to appear and to attempt a defence against +the indignant attacks of the consul, who unveiled before his face +the events of the last few days; but men no longer listened to him, +and in the neighbourhood of the place where he sat the benches became +empty. He left the sitting, and proceeded, as he would doubtless +have done even apart from this incident, in accordance +with the agreement, to Etruria. Here he proclaimed himself consul, +and assumed an attitude of waiting, in order to put his troops +in motion against the capital on the first announcement +of the outbreak of the insurrection there. The government declared +the two leaders Catilina and Manlius, as well as those of their +comrades who should not have laid down their arms by a certain day, +to be outlaws, and called out new levies; but at the head +of the army destined against Catilina was placed the consul Gaius +Antonius, who was notoriously implicated in the conspiracy, +and with whose character it was wholly a matter of accident whether +he would lead his troops against Catilina or over to his side. +They seemed to have directly laid their plans towards converting +this Antonius into a second Lepidus. As little were steps taken +against the leaders of the conspiracy who had remained behind +in the capital, although every one pointed the finger at them +and the insurrection in the capital was far from being abandoned +by the conspirators--on the contrary the plan of it had been settled +by Catilina himself before his departure from Rome. A tribune +was to give the signal by calling an assembly of the people; +in the following night Cethegus was to despatch the consul Cicero; +Gabinius and Statilius were to set the city simultaneously +on fire at twelve places; and a communication was to be established +as speedily as possible with the army of Catilina, which should +have meanwhile advanced. Had the urgent representations of Cethegus +borne fruit and had Lentulus, who after Catilina's departure +was placed at the head of the conspirators, resolved on rapidly +striking a blow, the conspiracy might even now have been successful. +But the conspirators were just as incapable and as cowardly as their +opponents; weeks elapsed and the matter came to no decisive issue. + +Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital + +At length the countermine brought about a decision. Lentulus +in his tedious fashion, which sought to cover negligence in regard +to what was immediate and necessary by the projection of large +and distant plans, had entered into relations with the deputies +of a Celtic canton, the Allobroges, now present in Rome; had attempted +to implicate these--the representatives of a thoroughly disorganized +commonwealth and themselves deeply involved in debt--in the conspiracy; +and had given them on their departure messages and letters to his +confidants. The Allobroges left Rome, but were arrested in the night +between 2nd and 3rd Dec. close to the gates by the Roman authorities, +and their papers were taken from them. It was obvious +that the Allobrogian deputies had lent themselves as spies +to the Roman government, and had carried on the negotiations only +with a view to convey into the hands of the latter the desired proofs +implicating the ringleaders of the conspiracy. On the following +morning orders were issued with the utmost secrecy by Cicero +for the arrest of the most dangerous leaders of the plot, +and executed in regard to Lentulus, Cethegus, Gabinius, +and Statilius, while some others escaped from seizure by flight. +The guilt of those arrested as well as of the fugitives +was completely evident. Immediately after the arrest the letters seized, +the seals and handwriting of which the prisoners could not avoid +acknowledging, were laid before the senate, and the captives +and witnesses were heard; further confirmatory facts, deposits of arms +in the houses of the conspirators, threatening expressions +which they had employed, were presently forthcoming; the actual +subsistence of the conspiracy was fully and validly established, +and the most important documents were immediately on the suggestion +of Cicero published as news-sheets. + +The indignation against the anarchist conspiracy was general. +Gladly would the oligarchic party have made use of the revelations +to settle accounts with the democracy generally and Caesar +in particular, but it was far too thoroughly broken to be able +to accomplish this, and to prepare for him the fate which it had +formerly prepared for the two Gracchi and Saturninus; +in this respect the matter went no farther than good will. +The multitude of the capital was especially shocked by the incendiary +schemes of the conspirators. The merchants and the whole party +of material interests naturally perceived in this war of the debtors +against the creditors a struggle for their very existence; in tumultuous +excitement their youth crowded, with swords in their hands, round +the senate-house and brandished them against the open and secret +partisans of Catilina. In fact, the conspiracy was for the moment +paralyzed; though its ultimate authors perhaps were still at liberty, +the whole staff entrusted with its execution were either captured +or had fled; the band assembled at Faesulae could not possibly +accomplish much, unless supported by an insurrection in the capital. + +Discussions in the Senate as to the Execution of Those Arrested + +In a tolerably well-ordered commonwealth the matter would now +have been politically at an end, and the military and the tribunals +would have undertaken the rest. But in Rome matters had come +to such a pitch, that the government was not even in a position +to keep a couple of noblemen of note in safe custody. The slaves +and freedmen of Lentulus and of the others arrested were stirring; +plans, it was alleged, were contrived to liberate them by force +from the private houses in which they were detained; there was no lack-- +thanks to the anarchist doings of recent years--of ringleaders +in Rome who contracted at a certain rate for riots and deeds +of violence; Catilina, in fine, was informed of what had occurred, +and was near enough to attempt a coup de main with his bands. +How much of these rumours was true, we cannot tell; but there was ground +for apprehension, because, agreeably to the constitution, neither troops +nor even a respectable police force were at the command of the government +in the capital, and it was in reality left at the mercy of every gang +of banditti. The idea was suggested of precluding all possible +attempts at liberation by the immediate execution of the prisoners. +Constitutionally, this was not possible. According to the ancient +and sacred right of appeal, a sentence of death could only be +pronounced against the Roman burgess by the whole body of burgesses, +and not by any other authority; and, as the courts formed by the body +of burgesses had themselves become antiquated, a capital sentence +was no longer pronounced at all. Cicero would gladly have rejected +the hazardous suggestion; indifferent as in itself the legal +question might be to the advocate, he knew well how very useful +it is to an advocate to be called liberal, and he showed +little desire to separate himself for ever from the democratic party +by shedding this blood. But those around him, and particularly +his genteel wife, urged him to crown his services to his country +by this bold step; the consul like all cowards anxiously endeavouring +to avoid the appearance of cowardice, and yet trembling +before the formidable responsibility, in his distress +convoked the senate, and left it to that body to decide +as to the life or death of the four prisoners. This indeed +had no meaning; for as the senate was constitutionally even less +entitled to act than the consul, all the responsibility still +devolved rightfully on the latter: but when was cowardice ever +consistent? Caesar made every exertion to save the prisoners, +and his speech, full of covert threats as to the future inevitable +vengeance of the democracy, made the deepest impression. Although +all the consulars and the great majority of the senate had already +declared for the execution, most of them, with Cicero at their +head, seemed now once more inclined to keep within the limits +of the law. But when Cato in pettifogging fashion brought +the champions of the milder view into suspicion of being accomplices +of the plot, and pointed to the preparations for liberating +the prisoners by a street-riot, he succeeded in throwing the waverers +into a fresh alarm, and in securing a majority for the immediate +execution of the transgressors. + +Execution of the Catalinarians + +The execution of the decree naturally devolved on the consul, +who had called it forth. Late on the evening of the 5th of December +the prisoners were brought from their previous quarters, and conducted +across the market-place still densely crowded by men to the prison +in which criminals condemned to death were wont to be kept. +It was a subterranean vault, twelve feet deep, at the foot +of the Capitol, which formerly had served as a well-house. +The consul himself conducted Lentulus, and praetors the others, +all attended by strong guards; but the attempt at rescue, +which had been expected, did not take place. No one knew whether +the prisoners were being conveyed to a secure place of custody +or to the scene of execution. At the door of the prison they +were handed over to the -tresviri- who conducted the executions, +and were strangled in the subterranean vault by torchlight. The consul +had waited before the door till the executions were accomplished, +and then with his loud well-known voice proclaimed over the Forum +to the multitude waiting in silence, "They are dead." Till far +on in the night the crowds moved through the streets and exultingly +saluted the consul, to whom they believed that they owed +the security of their houses and their property. The senate ordered +public festivals of gratitude, and the first men of the nobility, +Marcus Cato and Quintus Catulus, saluted the author of the sentence +of death with the name--now heard for the first time--of a "father +of his fatherland." + +But it was a dreadful deed, and all the more dreadful that it +appeared to a whole people great and praiseworthy. Never perhaps +has a commonwealth more lamentably declared itself bankrupt, +than did Rome through this resolution--adopted in cold blood +by the majority of the government and approved by public opinion-- +to put to death in all haste a few political prisoners, who were +no doubt culpable according to the laws, but had not forfeited life; +because, forsooth, the security of the prisons was not to be +trusted, and there was no sufficient police. It was the humorous +trait seldom wanting to a historical tragedy, that this act +of the most brutal tyranny had to be carried out by the most unstable +and timid of all Roman statesmen, and that the "first democratic +consul" was selected to destroy the palladium of the ancient +freedom of the Roman commonwealth, the right of -provocatio-. + +Suppression of the Etruscan Insurrection + +After the conspiracy had been thus stifled in the capital +even before it came to an outbreak, there remained the task of putting +an end to the insurrection in Etruria. The army amounting to about +2000 men, which Catilina found on his arrival, had increased nearly +fivefold by the numerous recruits who flocked in, and already +formed two tolerably full legions, in which however only about +a fourth part of the men were sufficiently armed. Catilina had +thrown himself with his force into the mountains and avoided +a battle with the troops of Antonius, with the view of completing +the organization of his bands and awaiting the outbreak +of the insurrection in Rome. But the news of its failure broke up +the army of the insurgents; the mass of the less compromised thereupon +returned home. The remnant of resolute, or rather desperate, +men that were left made an attempt to cut their way through +the Apennine passes into Gaul; but when the little band arrived +at the foot of the mountains near Pistoria (Pistoja), it found itself +here caught between two armies. In front of it was the corps +of Quintus Metellus, which had come up from Ravenna and Ariminum +to occupy the northern slope of the Apennines; behind it was the army +of Antonius, who had at length yielded to the urgency of his officers +and agreed to a winter campaign. Catilina was wedged in +on both sides, and his supplies came to an end; nothing was left +but to throw himself on the nearest foe, which was Antonius. +In a narrow valley enclosed by rocky mountains the conflict took place +between the insurgents and the troops of Antonius, which the latter, +in order not to be under the necessity of at least personally +performing execution on his former allies, had under a pretext +entrusted for this day to a brave officer who had grown gray +under arms, Marcus Petreius. The superior strength of the government +army was of little account, owing to the nature of the field +of battle. Both Catilina and Petreius placed their most trusty men +in the foremost ranks; quarter was neither given nor received. +The conflict lasted long, and many brave men fell on both sides; +Catilina, who before the beginning of the battle had sent back +his horse and those of all his officers, showed on this day +that nature had destined him for no ordinary things, and that he knew +at once how to command as a general and how to fight as a soldier. +At length Petreius with his guard broke the centre of the enemy, +and, after having overthrown this, attacked the two wings from within. +This decided the victory. The corpses of the Catilinarians--there +were counted 3000 of them--covered, as it were in rank and file, +the ground where they had fought; the officers and the general +himself had, when all was lost, thrown themselves headlong +on the enemy and thus sought and found death (beginning of 692). +Antonius was on account of this victory stamped by the senate +with the title of Imperator, and new thanksgiving-festivals showed +that the government and the governed were beginning to become +accustomed to civil war. + +Attitude of Crassus and Caesar toward the Anarchists + +The anarchist plot had thus been suppressed in the capital as in Italy +with bloody violence; people were still reminded of it merely +by the criminal processes which in the Etruscan country towns +and in the capital thinned the ranks of those affiliated to the beaten +party, and by the large accessions to the robber-bands of Italy-- +one of which, for instance, formed out of the remains of the armies +of Spartacus and Catilina, was destroyed by a military force in 694 +in the territory of Thurii. But it is important to keep in view +that the blow fell by no means merely on the anarchists proper, +who had conspired to set the capital on fire and had fought +at Pistoria, but on the whole democratic party. That this party, +and in particular Crassus and Caesar, had a hand in the game +on the present occasion as well as in the plot of 688, +may be regarded--not in a juristic, but in a historical, point of view-- +as an ascertained fact. The circumstance, indeed, that Catulus +and the other heads of the senatorial party accused the leader +of the democrats of complicity in the anarchist plot, +and that the latter as senator spoke and voted against the brutal +judicial murder contemplated by the oligarchy, could only be urged +by partisan sophistry as any valid proof of his participation +in the plans of Catilina. But a series of other facts is of more weight. +According to express and irrefragable testimonies it was especially +Crassus and Caesar that supported the candidature of Catilina +for the consulship. When Caesar in 690 brought the executioners +of Sulla before the commission for murder(20) he allowed the rest +to be condemned, but the most guilty and infamous of all, Catilina, +to be acquitted. In the revelations of the 3rd of December, +it is true, Cicero did not include among the names of the conspirators +of whom he had information those of the two influential men; +but it is notorious that the informers denounced not merely those +against whom subsequently investigation was directed, but "many innocent" +persons besides, whom the consul Cicero thought proper to erase +from the list; and in later years, when he had no reason to disguise +the truth, he expressly named Caesar among the accomplices. An indirect +but very intelligible inculpation is implied also in the circumstance, +that of the four persons arrested on the 3rd of December the two least +dangerous, Statilius and Gabinius, were handed over to be guarded +by the senators Caesar and Crassus; it was manifestly intended that these +should either, if they allowed them to escape, be compromised in the view +of public opinion as accessories, or, if they really detained them, +be compromised in the view of their fellow-conspirators as renegades. + +The following scene which occurred in the senate shows +significantlyhow matters stood. Immediately after the arrest +of Lentulus and his comrades, a messenger despatched by the conspirators +in the capital to Catilina was seized by the agents of the government, +and, after having been assured of impunity, was induced +to make a comprehensive confession in a full meeting of the senate. +But when he came to the critical portions of his confession +and in particular named Crassus as having commissioned him, +he was interrupted by the senators, and on the suggestion +of Cicero it was resolved to cancel the whole statement without +farther inquiry, but to imprison its author notwithstanding +the amnesty assured to him, until such time as he should have +not merely retracted the statement, but should have also confessed +who had instigated him to give such false testimony! Here it is +abundantly clear, not merely that that man had a very accurate +knowledge of the state of matters who, when summoned to make +an attack upon Crassus, replied that he had no desire to provoke +the bull of the herd, but also that the majority of the senate +with Cicero at their head were agreed in not permitting the revelations +to go beyond a certain limit. The public was not so nice; the young men, +who had taken up arms to ward off the incendiaries, were exasperated +against no one so much as against Caesar, on the 5th of December, +when he left the senate, they pointed their swords at his breast +and even now he narrowly escaped with his life on the same spot +where the fatal blow fell on him seventeen years afterwards; +he did not again for a considerable time enter the senate-house. +Any one who impartially considers the course of the conspiracy +will not be able to resist the suspicion that during all this time +Catilina was backed by more powerful men, who--relying on the want +of a legally complete chain of evidence and on the lukewarmness +and cowardice of the majority of the senate, which was but half- +initiated and greedily caught at any pretext for inaction--knew how +to hinder any serious interference with the conspiracy on the part +of the authorities, to procure free departure for the chief +of the insurgents, and even so to manage the declaration of war +and the sending of troops against the insurrection that it was almost +equivalent to the sending of an auxiliary army. While the course +of the events themselves thus testifies that the threads +of the Catilinarian plot reached far higher than Lentulus and Catilina, +it deserves also to be noticed, that at a much later period, +when Caesar had got to the head of the state, he was in the closest +alliance with the only Catilinarian still surviving, Publius Sittius +the leader of the Mauretanian free bands, and that he modified +the law of debt quite in the sense that the proclamations +of Manlius demanded. + +All these pieces of evidence speak clearly enough; but, even were +it not so, the desperate position of the democracy in presence +of the military power--which since the Gabinio-Manilian laws assumed +by its side an attitude more threatening than ever--renders it +almost a certainty that, as usually happens in such cases, +it sought a last resource in secret plots and in alliance +with anarchy. The circumstances were very similar to those +of the Cinnan times. While in the east Pompeius occupied a position +nearly such as Sulla then did, Crassus and Caesar sought to raise +over against him a power in Italy like that which Marius and Cinna +had possessed, with the view of employing it if possible better +than they had done. The way to this result lay once more through +terrorism and anarchy, and to pave that way Catilina was certainly +the fitting man. Naturally the more reputable leaders +of the democracy kept themselves as far as possible in the background, +and left to their unclean associates the execution of the unclean +work, the political results of which they hoped afterwards +to appropriate. Still more naturally, when the enterprise had failed, +the partners of higher position applied every effort to conceal +their participation in it. And at a later period, when the former +conspirator had himself become the target of political plots, +the veil was for that very reason drawn only the more closely +over those darker years in the life of the great man, and even +special apologies for him were written with that very object.(21) + +Total Destruction of the Democratic Party + +For five years Pompeius stood at the head of his armies and fleets +in the east; for five years the democracy at home conspired +to overthrow him. The result was discouraging. With unspeakable +exertions they had not merely attained nothing, but had suffered +morally as well as materially enormous loss. Even the coalition +of 683 could not but be for democrats of pure water a scandal, +although the democracy at that time only coalesced with two +distinguished men of the opposite party and bound these +to its programme. + +But now the democratic party had made common cause with a band +of murderers and bankrupts, who were almost all likewise deserters +from the camp of the aristocracy; and had at least for the time +being accepted their programme, that is to say, the terrorism +of Cinna. The party of material interests, one of the chief elements +of the coalition of 683, was thereby estranged from the democracy, +and driven into the arms of the Optimates in the first instance, +or of any power at all which would and could give protection against +anarchy. Even the multitude of the capital, who, although having +no objection to a street-riot, found it inconvenient to have +their houses set on fire over their heads, became in some measure +alarmed. It is remarkable that in this very year (691) the full +re-establishment of the Sempronian corn-largesses took place, +and was effected by the senate on the proposal of Cato. The league +of the democratic leaders with anarchy had obviously created a breach +between the former and the burgesses of the city; and the oligarchy +sought, not without at least momentary success, to enlarge +this chasm and to draw over the masses to their side. Lastly, +Gnaeus Pompeius had been partly warned, partly exasperated, +by all these cabals; after all that had occurred, and after the democracy +had itself virtually torn asunder the ties which connected it +with Pompeius, it could no longer with propriety make the request-- +which in 684 had had a certain amount of reason on its side-- +that he should not himself destroy with the sword the democratic power +which he had raised, and which had raised him. + +Thus the democracy was disgraced and weakened; but above all it had +become ridiculous through the merciless exposure of its perplexity +and weakness. Where the humiliation of the overthrown government +and similar matters of little moment were concerned, it was great +and potent; but every one of its attempts to attain a real +political success had proved a downright failure. Its relation +to Pompeius was as false as pitiful. While it was loading him +with panegyrics and demonstrations of homage, it was concocting +against him one intrigue after another; and one after another, +like soap-bubbles, they burst of themselves. The general of the east +and of the seas, far from standing on his defence against them, +appeared not even to observe all the busy agitation, and to obtain +his victories over the democracy as Herakles gained his over +the Pygmies, without being himself aware of it. The attempt to kindle +civil war had miserably failed; if the anarchist section +had at least displayed some energy, the pure democracy, while knowing +doubtless how to hire conspirators, had not known how to lead +them or to save them or to die with them. Even the old languid +oligarchy, strengthened by the masses passing over to it +from the ranks of the democracy and above all by the--in this affair +unmistakeable--identity of its interests and those of Pompeius, +had been enabled to suppress this attempt at revolution and thereby +to achieve yet a last victory over the democracy. Meanwhile king +Mithradates was dead, Asia Minor and Syria were regulated, +and the return of Pompeius to Italy might be every moment expected. +The decision was not far off; but was there in fact still room +to speak of a decision between the general who returned more famous +and mightier than ever, and the democracy humbled beyond parallel +and utterly powerless? Crassus prepared to embark his family +and his gold and to seek an asylum somewhere in the east; +and even so elastic and so energetic a nature as that of Caesar seemed +on the point of giving up the game as lost. In this year (691) +occurred his candidature for the place of -pontifex maximus-;(22) +when he left his dwelling on the morning of the election, +he declared that, if he should fail in this also, he would +never again cross the threshold of his house. + + + + +Chapter VI + +Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders + +Pompeius in the East + +When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed +to his charge, again turned his eyes homeward, he found for the second +time the diadem at his feet. For long the development of the Roman +commonwealth had been tending towards such a catastrophe; +it was evident to every unbiassed observer, and had been remarked +a thousand times, that, if the rule of the aristocracy +should be brought to an end, monarchy was inevitable. The senate +had now been overthrown at once by the civic liberal opposition +and by the power of the soldiery; the only question remaining +was to settle the persons, names, and forms for the new order of things; +and these were already clearly enough indicated in the partly democratic, +partly military elements of the revolution. The events of the last +five years had set, as it were, the final seal on this impending +transformation of the commonwealth. In the newly-erected +Asiatic provinces, which gave regal honours to their organizer +as the successor of Alexander the Great, and already received +his favoured freedmen like princes, Pompeius had laid the foundations +of his dominion, and found at once the treasures, the army, and the halo +of glory which the future prince of the Roman state required. +The anarchist conspiracy, moreover, in the capital, and the civil +war connected with it, had made it palpably clear to every one +who studied political or even merely material interests, +that a government without authority and without military power, +such as that of the senate, exposed the state to the equally ludicrous +and formidable tyranny of political sharpers, and that a change +of constitution, which should connect the military power more closely +with the government, was an indispensable necessity if social order +was to be maintained. So the ruler had arisen in the east, +the throne had been erected in Italy; to all appearance the year 692 +was the last of the republic, the first of monarchy. + +The Opponents of the Future Monarchy + +This goal, it is true, was not to be reached without a struggle. +The constitution, which had endured for five hundred years, +and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen +to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil +to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate +to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate +and convulse civil society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius +in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set +aside. It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all +these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power, +and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and Marcus Cato united +in opposition to him with Marcus Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus +Labienus. But the inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle +could not well be undertaken under circumstances more favourable. +It was in a high degree probable that, under the fresh impression +of the Catilinarian revolt, a rule which promised order +and security, although at the price of freedom, would receive +the submission of the whole middle party--embracing especially +the merchants who concerned themselves only about their material +interests, but including also a great part of the aristocracy, +which, disorganized in itself and politically hopeless, had to rest +content with securing for itself riches, rank, and influence +by a timely compromise with the prince; perhaps even a portion +of the democracy, so sorely smitten by the recent blows, might submit +to hope for the realization of a portion of its demands +from a military chief raised to power by itself. But, whatever might be +the position of party-relations, of what importance, in the first +instance at least, were the parties in Italy at all in presence +of Pompeius and his victorious army? Twenty years previously Sulla, +after having concluded a temporary peace with Mithradates, +had with his five legions been able to carry a restoration +runningcounter to the natural development of things in the face +of the whole liberal party, which had been arming en masse for years, +from the moderate aristocrats and the liberal mercantile class down +to the anarchists. The task of Pompeius was far less difficult. +He returned, after having fully and conscientiously performed +his different functions by sea and land. He might expect to encounter +no other serious opposition save that of the various extreme +parties, each of which by itself could do nothing, and which even +when leagued together were no more than a coalition of factions +still vehemently hostile to each other and inwardly at thorough +variance. Completely unarmed, they were without a military force +and without a head, without organization in Italy, without support +in the provinces, above all, without a general; there was in their +ranks hardly a soldier of note--to say nothing of an officer--who +could have ventured to call forth the burgesses to a conflict +with Pompeius. The circumstance might further be taken into account, +that the volcano of revolution, which had been now incessantly +blazing for seventy years and feeding on its own flame, was visibly +burning out and verging of itself to extinction. It was very doubtful +whether the attempt to arm the Italians for party interests +would now succeed, as it had succeeded with Cinna and Carbo. +If Pompeius exerted himself, how could he fail to effect +a revolution of the state, which was chalked out by a certain +necessity of nature in the organic development +of the Roman commonwealth? + +Mission of Nepos to Rome + +Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he undertook his mission +to the east; he seemed desirous to go forward. In the autumn +of 691, Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived from the camp of Pompeius +in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship, +with the express design of employing that position to procure +for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more immediately, +by special decree of the people, the conduct of the war against +Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not +to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect +commission of Pompeius; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy +as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer +simultaneously the supreme military and the supreme civil power +there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne, +and the mission of Nepos a semi-official proclamation of the monarchy. + +Pompeius in Relation to the Parties + +Everything turned on the attitude which the two great political parties +should assume towards these overtures; their future position +and the future of the nation depended on this. But the reception +which Nepos met with was itself in its turn determined +by the then existing relation of the parties to Pompeius, which was +of a very peculiar kind. Pompeius had gone to the east as general +of the democracy. He had reason enough to be discontented +with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place. +It is probable that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and occupied +with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift +of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through, +at least at that time, the extent and mutual connection +of the democratic intrigues contrived against him; perhaps even +in his haughty and shortsighted manner he had a certain pride +in ignoring these underground proceedings. Then there came the fact, +which with a character of the type of Pompeius had much weight, +that the democracy never lost sight of outward respect for the great man, +and even now (691) unsolicited (as he preferred it so) had granted +to him by a special decree of the people unprecedented honours +and decorations.(1) But, even if all this had not been the case, +it lay in Pompeius' own well-understood interest to continue +his adherence, at least outwardly, to the popular party; democracy +and monarchy stand so closely related that Pompeius, in aspiring +to the crown, could scarcely do otherwise than call himself, as hitherto, +the champion of popular rights. While personal and political +reasons, therefore, co-operated to keep Pompeius and the leaders +of the democracy, despite of all that had taken place, in their +previous connection, nothing was done on the opposite side to fill +up the chasm which separated him since his desertion to the camp +of the democracy from his Sullan partisans. His personal quarrel +with Metellus and Lucullus transferred itself to their extensive +and influential coteries. A paltry opposition of the senate-- +but, to a character of so paltry a mould, all the more exasperating +by reason of its very paltriness--had attended him through his whole +career as a general. He felt it keenly, that the senate had not taken +the smallest step to honour the extraordinary man according to +his desert, that is, by extraordinary means. Lastly, it is not +to be forgotten, that the aristocracy was just then intoxicated +by its recent victory and the democracy deeply humbled, +and that the aristocracy was led by the pedantically stiff +and half-witless Cato, and the democracy by the supple master +of intrigue, Caesar. + +Rupture between Pompeius and the Aristocracy + +Such was the state of parties amidst which the emissary sent +by Pompeius appeared. The aristocracy not only regarded the proposals +which he announced in favour of Pompeius as a declaration of war +against the existing constitution, but treated them openly as such, +and took not the slightest pains to conceal their alarm and their +indignation. With the express design of combating these proposals, +Marcus Cato had himself elected as tribune of the people +along with Nepos, and abruptly repelled the repeated attempts of Pompeius +to approach him personally. Nepos naturally after this found himself +under no inducement to spare the aristocracy, but attached himself +the more readily to the democrats, when these, pliant as ever, +submitted to what was inevitable and chose freely to concede +the office of general in Italy as well as the consulate +rather than let the concession be wrung from them by force of arms. +The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly accepted +(Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions recently decreed +by the majority of the senate, as unconstitutional judicial murders; +and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light, +was shown by his significant silence respecting the voluminous +vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other +hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship +was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged +to have been embezzled by him at the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, +and to transfer the completion of the temple to Pompeius. This was +a masterstroke. Catulus had already been building at the temple +for fifteen years, and seemed very much disposed to die as he had lived +superintendent of the Capitoline buildings; an attack on this abuse +of a public commission--an abuse covered only by the reputation +of the noble commissioner--was in reality entirely justified +and in a high degree popular. But when the prospect was simultaneously +opened up to Pompeius of being allowed to delete the name of Catulus +and engrave his own on this proudest spot of the first city +of the globe, there was offered to him the very thing which most +of all delighted him and did no harm to the democracy--abundant +but empty honour; while at the same time the aristocracy, which could +not possibly allow its best man to fall, was brought into the most +disagreeable collision with Pompeius. + +Meanwhile Nepos had brought his proposals concerning Pompeius +before the burgesses. On the day of voting Cato and his friend +and colleague, Quintus Minucius, interposed their veto. When Nepos +did not regard this and continued the reading out, a formal conflict +took place; Cato and Minucius threw themselves on their colleague +and forced him to stop; an armed band liberated him, and drove +the aristocratic section from the Forum; but Cato and Minucius +returned, now supported likewise by armed bands, and ultimately +maintained the field of battle for the government. Encouraged +by this victory of their bands over those of their antagonist, +the senate suspended the tribune Nepos as well as the praetor Caesar, +who had vigorously supported him in the bringing in of the law, +from their offices; their deposition, which was proposed in the senate, +was prevented by Cato, more, doubtless, because it was +unconstitutional than because it was injudicious. Caesar did +not regard the decree, and continued his official functions till +the senate used violence against him. As soon as this was known, +the multitude appeared before his house and placed itself at his +disposal; it was to depend solely on him whether the struggle +in the streets should begin, or whether at least the proposals made +by Metellus should now be resumed and the military command in Italy +desired by Pompeius should be procured for him; but this was not +in Caesar's interest, and so he induced the crowds to disperse, +whereupon the senate recalled the penalty decreed against him. +Nepos himself had, immediately after his suspension, left +the city and embarked for Asia, in order to report to Pompeius +the result of his mission. + +Retirement of Pompeius + +Pompeius had every reason to be content with the turn which things +had taken. The way to the throne now lay necessarily through civil +war; and he owed it to Cato's incorrigible perversity that he could +begin this war with good reason. After the illegal condemnation +of the adherents of Catilina, after the unparalleled acts of violence +against the tribune of the people Metellus, Pompeius might wage war +at once as defender of the two palladia of Roman public freedom-- +the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunate +of the people--against the aristocracy, and as champion of the party +of order against the Catilinarian band. It seemed almost impossible +that Pompeius should neglect this opportunity and with his eyes +open put himself a second time into the painful position, in which +the dismissal of his army in 684 had placed him, and from which +only the Gabinian law had released him. But near as seemed +the opportunity of placing the white chaplet around his brow, +and much as his own soul longed after it, when the question of action +presented itself, his heart and his hand once more failed him. +This man, altogether ordinary in every respect excepting only +his pretensions, would doubtless gladly have placed himself beyond +the law, if only he could have done so without forsaking legal ground. +His very lingering in Asia betrayed a misgiving of this sort. +He might, had he wished, have very well arrived in January 692 +with his fleet and army at the port of Brundisium, and have received +Nepos there. His tarrying the whole winter of 691-692 in Asia had +proximately the injurious consequence, that the aristocracy, +which of course accelerated the campaign against Catilina as it best +could, had meanwhile got rid of his bands, and had thus set aside +the most feasible pretext for keeping together the Asiatic legions +in Italy. For a man of the type of Pompeius, who for want of faith +in himself and in his star timidly clung in public life to formal +right, and with whom the pretext was nearly of as much importance +as the motive, this circumstance was of serious weight. He probably +said to himself, moreover, that, even if he dismissed his army, +he did not let it wholly out of his hand, and could in case +of need still raise a force ready for battle sooner at any rate +than any other party-chief; that the democracy was waiting +in submissive attitude for his signal, and that he could deal +with the refractory senate even without soldiers; and such further +considerations as suggested themselves, in which there was exactly +enough of truth to make them appear plausible to one who wished +to deceive himself. Once more the very peculiar temperament +of Pompeius naturally turned the scale. He was one of those men +who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination; +in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark +respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional +everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which +more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every +man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often +been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined +to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily +when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. +It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate +at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down; +and to this too Pompeius succumbed. + +In the autumn of 692 Pompeius embarked for Italy. While in the capital +all was being prepared for receiving the new monarch, news came +that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up +his legions and with a small escort had entered on his journey +to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown +without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did +for Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every +favour and every gift in vain. + +Pompeius without Influence + +The parties breathed freely. For the second time Pompeius had +abdicated; his already-vanquished competitors might once more begin +the race--in which doubtless the strangest thing was, that Pompeius +was again a rival runner. In January 693 he came to Rome. +His position was an awkward one and vacillated with so much uncertainty +between the parties, that people gave him the nickname of Gnaeus +Cicero. He had in fact lost favour with all. The anarchists saw +in him an adversary, the democrats an inconvenient friend, Marcus +Crassus a rival, the wealthy class an untrustworthy protector, +the aristocracy a declared foe.(2) He was still indeed the most +powerful man in the state; his military adherents scattered through +all Italy, his influence in the provinces, particularly those +of the east, his military fame, his enormous riches gave him a weight +such as no other possessed; but instead of the enthusiastic +reception on which he had counted, the reception which he met +with was more than cool, and still cooler was the treatment given +to the demands which he presented. He requested for himself, +as he had already caused to be announced by Nepos, a second consulship; +demanding also, of course, a confirmation of the arrangements made +by him in the east and a fulfilment of the promise which he had +given to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. Against these +demands a systematic opposition arose in the senate, the chief +elements of which were furnished by the personal exasperation +of Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, the old resentment of Crassus, +and the conscientious folly of Cato. The desired second consulship +was at once and bluntly refused. The very first request +which the returning general addressed to the senate, that the election +of the consuls for 693 might be put off till after his entry +into the capital, had been rejected; much less was there any likelihood +of obtaining from the senate the necessary dispensation from the law +of Sulla as to re-election.(3) As to the arrangements which +he had made in the eastern provinces, Pompeius naturally asked +their confirmation as a whole; Lucullus carried a proposal +thatevery ordinance should be separately discussed and voted upon, +which opened the door for endless annoyances and a multitude of defeats +in detail. The promise of a grant of land to the soldiers +of the Asiatic army was ratified indeed in general by the senate, +but was at the same time extended to the Cretan legions of Metellus; +and--what was worse--it was not executed, because the public chest +was empty and the senate was not disposed to meddle with the domains +for this purpose. Pompeius, in despair of mastering the persistent +and spiteful opposition of the senate, turned to the burgesses. +But he understood still less how to conduct his movements +on this field. The democratic leaders, although they did not +openly oppose him, had no cause at all to make his interests their own, +and so kept aloof. Pompeius' own instruments--such as the consuls +elected by his influence and partly by his money, Marcus Pupius Piso +for 693 and Lucius Afranius for 694--showed themselves unskilful +and useless. When at length the assignation of land for the veterans +of Pompeius was submitted to the burgesses by the tribune +of the people Lucius Flavius in the form of a general agrarian law, +the proposal, not supported by the democrats, openly combated +by the aristocrats, was left in a minority (beg. of 694). The exalted +general now sued almost humbly for the favour of the masses, +for it was on his instigation that the Italian tolls were abolished +by a law introduced by the praetor Metellus Nepos (694). But he played +the demagogue without skill and without success; his reputation +suffered from it, and he did not obtain what he desired. He had +completely run himself into a noose. One of his opponents summed +up his political position at that time by saying that he had +endeavoured "to conserve by silence his embroidered triumphal +mantle." In fact nothing was left for him but to fret. + +Rise of Caesar + +Then a new combination offered itself. The leader +of the democratic party had actively employed in his own interest +the political calm which had immediately followed on the retirement +of the previous holder of power. When Pompeius returned from Asia, +Caesar had been little more than what Catilina was--the chief +of a political party which had dwindled almost into a club +of conspirators, and a bankrupt. But since that event he had, +after administering the praetorship (692), been invested +with the governorship of Further Spain, and thereby had found means +partly to rid himself of his debts, partly to lay the foundation +for his military repute. His old friend and ally Crassus had been +induced by the hope of finding the support against Pompeius, +which he had lost in Piso,(4) once more in Caesar, to relieve him +even before his departure to the province from the most oppressive +portion of his load of debt. He himself had energetically employed +his brief sojourn there. Returning from Spain in the year 694 +with filled chests and as Imperator with well-founded claims +to a triumph, he came forward for the following year as a candidate +for the consulship; for the sake of which, as the senate refused +him permission to announce himself as a candidate for the consular +election in absence, he without hesitation abandoned the honour +of the triumph. For years the democracy had striven to raise +one of its partisans to the possession of the supreme magistracy, +that by way of this bridge it might attain a military power of its own. +It had long been clear to discerning men of all shades that the strife +of parties could not be settled by civil conflict, but only +by military power; but the course of the coalition between +the democracy and the powerful military chiefs, through which the rule +of the senate had been terminated, showed with inexorable clearness +that every such alliance ultimately issued in a subordination +of the civil under the military elements, and that the popular party, +if it would really rule, must not ally itself with generals +properly foreign and even hostile to it, but must make generals +of its own leaders themselves. The attempts made with this view +to carry the election of Catilina as consul, and to gain a military +support in Spain or Egypt, had failed; now a possibility presented +itself of procuring for their most important man the consulship +and the consular province in the usual constitutional way, +and of rendering themselves independent of their dubious and dangerous +ally Pompeius by the establishment, if we may so speak, of a home +power in their own democratic household. + +Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar + +But the more the democracy could not but desire to open up +for itself this path, which offered not so much the most favourable +as the only prospect of real successes, the more certainly it +might reckon on the resolute resistance of its political opponents. +Everything depended on whom it found opposed to it in this matter. +The aristocracy isolated was not formidable; but it had just been +rendered evident in the Catilinarian affair that it could certainly +still exert some influence, where it was more or less openly +supported by the men of material interests and by the adherents +of Pompeius. It had several times frustrated Catilina's candidature +for the consulship, and that it would attempt the like against +Caesar was sufficiently certain. But, even though Caesar should +perhaps be chosen in spite of it, his election alone did not suffice. +He needed at least some years of undisturbed working out of Italy, +in order to gain a firm military position; and the nobility +assuredly would leave no means untried to thwart his plans +during this time of preparation. The idea naturally occurred, +whether the aristocracy might not be again successfully isolated +as in 683-684, and an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might +not be established between the democrats with their ally Crassus +on the one side and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. +For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide. +His weight hitherto in the state rested on the fact, that he was +the only party-leader who at the same time disposed of legions-- +which, though now dissolved, were still in a certain sense +at his disposal. The plan of the democracy was directed +to the very object of depriving him of this preponderance, +and of placing by his side in their own chief a military rival. +Never could he consent to this, and least of all personally help +to a post of supreme command a man like Caesar, who already +as a mere political agitator had given him trouble enough +and had just furnished the most brilliant proofs also of military +capacity in Spain. But on the other hand, in consequence +of the cavilling opposition of the senate and the indifference +of the multitude to Pompeius and Pompeius' wishes, his position, +particularly with reference to his old soldiers, had become so painful +and so humiliating, that people might well expect from his character +to gain him for such a coalition at the price of releasing him +from that disagreeable situation. And as to the so-called +equestrian party, it was to be found on whatever side the power lay; +and as a matter of course it would not let itself be long waited for, +if it saw Pompeius and the democracy combining anew in earnest. +It happened moreover, that on account of Cato's severity-- +otherwise very laudable--towards the lessees of the taxes, +the great capitalists were just at this time once more +at vehement variance with the senate. + +Change in the Position of Caesar + +So the second coalition was concluded in the summer of 694. +Caesar was assured of the consulship for the following year +and a governorship in due course; to Pompeius was promised +the ratification of his arrangements made in the east, +and an assignation of lands for the soldiers of the Asiatic army; +to the equites Caesar likewise promised to procure for them +by means of the burgesses what the senate had refused; Crassus +in fine--the inevitable--was allowed at least to join the league, +although without obtaining definite promises for an accession +which he could not refuse. It was exactly the same elements, +and indeed the same persons, who concluded the league with one another +in the autumn of 683 and in the summer of 694; but how entirely different +was the position of the parties then and now! Then the democracy +was nothing but a political party, while its allies were victorious +generals at the head of their armies; now the leader of the democracy +was himself an Imperator crowned with victory and full +of magnificent military schemes, while his allies were retired +generals without any army. Then the democracy conquered +in questions of principle, and in return for that victory conceded +the highest offices of state to its two confederates; now it had +become more practical and grasped the supreme civil and military +power for itself, while concessions were made to its allies only +in subordinate points and, significantly enough, not even the old +demand of Pompeius for a second consulship was attended to. Then +the democracy sacrificed itself to its allies; now these had +to entrust themselves to it. All the circumstances were completely +changed, most of all, however, the character of the democracy +itself. No doubt it had, ever since it existed at all, +contained at its very core a monarchic element; but the ideal +of a constitution, which floated in more or less clear outline before +its best intellects, was always that of a civil commonwealth, +a Periclean organization of the state, in which the power +of the prince rested on the fact that he represented the burgesses +in the noblest and most accomplished manner, and the most accomplished +and noblest part of the burgesses recognized him as the man in whom +they thoroughly confided. Caesar too set out with such views; +but they were simply ideals, which might have some influence +on realities, but could not be directly realized. Neither the simple +civil power, as Gaius Gracchus possessed it, nor the arming +of the democratic party, such as Cinna though in a very inadequate +fashion had attempted, was able to maintain a permanent superiority +in the Roman commonwealth; the military machine fighting not for a party +but for a general, the rude force of the condottieri--after having +first appeared on the stage in the service of the restoration--soon +showed itself absolutely superior to all political parties. Caesar +could not but acquire a conviction of this amidst the practical +workings of party, and accordingly he matured the momentous +resolution of making this military machine itself serviceable +to his ideals, and of erecting such a commonwealth, as he had +in his view, by the power of condottieri. With this design +he concluded in 683 the league with the generals of the opposite party, +which, notwithstanding that they had accepted the democratic programme, +yet brought the democracy and Caesar himself to the brink +of destruction. With the same design he himself came forward eleven +years afterwards as a condottiere. It was done in both cases +with a certain naivete--with good faith in the possibility +of his being able to found a free commonwealth, if not by the swords +of others, at any rate by his own. We perceive without difficulty +that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit +into his service without becoming himself enslaved to it; +but the greatest men are not those who err the least. +If we still after so many centuries bow in reverence before what +Caesar willed and did, it is not because he desired and gained +a crown (to do which is, abstractly, as little of a great thing +as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal--of a free commonwealth +under one ruler--never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch +from sinking into vulgar royalty. + +Caesar Consul + +The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without +difficulty by the united parties. The aristocracy had to rest +content with giving to him--by means of a bribery, for which +the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited +surprise even in that period of deepest corruption--a colleague +in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy +was regarded in their circles as conservative energy, +and whose good intentions at least were not at fault if the genteel +lords did not get a fit return for their patriotic expenditure. + +Caesar's Agrarian Law + +As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion the requests of his +confederates, among which the assignation of land to the veterans +of the Asiatic army was by far the most important. The agrarian +law projected for this purpose by Caesar adhered in general +to the principles set forth in the project of law, which was introduced +in the previous year at the suggestion of Pompeius but not carried.(5) +There was destined for distribution only the Italian domain-land, +that is to say, substantially, the territory of Capua, and, if this +should not suffice, other Italian estates were to be purchased +out of the revenue of the new eastern provinces at the taxable value +recorded in the censorial rolls; all existing rights of property +and heritable possession thus remained unaffected. The individual +allotments were small. The receivers of land were to be poor +burgesses, fathers of at least three children; the dangerous +principle, that the rendering of military service gave a claim +to landed estate, was not laid down, but, as was reasonable and had +been done at all times, the old soldiers as well as the temporary +lessees to be ejected were simply recommended to the special +consideration of the land-distributors. The execution of the measure +was entrusted to a commission of twenty men, into which Caesar +distinctly declared that he did not wish to be himself elected. + +Opposition of the Aristocracy + +The opposition had a difficult task in resisting this proposal. +It could not rationally be denied, that the state-finances ought +after the erection of the provinces of Pontus and Syria to be +in a position to dispense with the moneys from the Campanian leases; +that it was unwarrantable to withhold one of the finest districts +of Italy, and one peculiarly fitted for small holdings, +from private enterprise; and, lastly, that it was as unjust as it +was ridiculous, after the extension of the franchise to all Italy, +still to withhold municipal rights from the township of Capua. +The whole proposal bore the stamp of moderation, honesty, and solidity, +with which a democratic party-character was very dexterously +combined; for in substance it amounted to the re-establishment +of the Capuan colony founded in the time of Marius and again +done away by Sulla.(6) In form too Caesar observed all possible +consideration. He laid the project of the agrarian law, as well +as the proposal to ratify collectively the ordinances issued +by Pompeius in the east, and the petition of the farmers of the taxes +for remission of a third of the sums payable by them, in the first +instance before the senate for approval, and declared himself +ready to entertain and discuss proposals for alterations. +The corporation had now opportunity of convincing itself how foolishly +it had acted in driving Pompeius and the equites into the arms +of the adversary by refusing these requests. Perhaps it was +the secret sense of this, that drove the high-born lords to the most +vehement opposition, which contrasted ill with the calm demeanour +of Caesar. The agrarian law was rejected by them nakedly and even +without discussion. The decree as to the arrangements of Pompeius +in Asia found quite as little favour in their eyes. Cato attempted, +in accordance with the disreputable custom of Roman parliamentary +debate, to kill the proposal regarding the farmers of the taxes +by speaking, that is, to prolong his speech up to the legal hour +for closing the sitting; when Caesar threatened to have the stubborn +man arrested, this proposal too was at length rejected. + +Proposals before the Burgesses + +Of course all the proposals were now brought before the burgesses. +Without deviating far from the truth, Caesar could tell +the multitude that the senate had scornfully rejected most rational +and most necessary proposals submitted to it in the most respectful +form, simply because they came from the democratic consul. +When he added that the aristocrats had contrived a plot to procure +the rejection of the proposals, and summoned the burgesses, +and more especially Pompeius himself and his old soldiers, to stand +by him against fraud and force, this too was by no means a mere invention. +The aristocracy, with the obstinate weak creature Bibulus +and the unbending dogmatical fool Cato at their head, in reality +intended to push the matter to open violence. Pompeius, instigated +by Caesar to proclaim his position with reference to the pending +question, declared bluntly, as was not his wont on other occasions, +that if any one should venture to draw the sword, he too would +grasp his, and in that case would not leave the shield at home; +Crassus expressed himself to the same effect The old soldiers +of Pompeius were directed to appear on the day of the vote-- +which in fact primarily concerned them--in great numbers, +and with arms under their dress, at the place of voting. + +The nobility however left no means untried to frustrate the proposals +of Caesar. On each day when Caesar appeared before the people, +his colleague Bibulus instituted the well-known political observations +of the weather which interrupted all public business;(7) Caesar +did not trouble himself about the skies, but continued to prosecute +his terrestrial occupation. The tribunician veto was interposed; +Caesar contented himself with disregarding it. Bibulus and Cato +sprang to the rostra, harangued the multitude, and instigated +the usual riot; Caesar ordered that they should be led away +by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm +should befall them--it was for his interest that the political +comedy should remain such as it was. + +The Agrarian Law Carried +Passive Resistance of the Aristocracy + +Notwithstanding all the chicanery and all the blustering +of the nobility, the agrarian law, the confirmation of the Asiatic +arrangements, and the remission to the lessees of taxes +were adopted by the burgesses; and the commission of twenty was elected +with Pompeius and Crassus at its head, and installed in office. +With all their exertions the aristocracy had gained nothing, +save that their blind and spiteful antagonism had drawn the bonds +of the coalition still tighter, and their energy, which they were soon +to need for matters more important, had exhausted itself +on these affairs that were at bottom indifferent. They congratulated +each other on the heroic courage which they had displayed; +the declaration of Bibulus that he would rather die than yield, +the peroration which Cato still continued to deliver when in the hands +of the lictors, were great patriotic feats; otherwise they resigned +themselves to their fate. The consul Bibulus shut himself up +for the remainder of the year in his house, while he at the same time +intimated by public placard that he had the pious intention +of watching the signs of the sky on all the days appropriate +for public assemblies during that year. His colleagues once more +admired the great man who, as Ennius had said of the old Fabius, +"saved the state by wise delay," and they followed his example; +most of them, Cato included, no longer appeared in the senate, +but within their four walls helped their consul to fret over +the fact that the history of the world went on in spite of political +astronomy. To the public this passive attitude of the consul +as well as of the aristocracy in general appeared, as it fairly might, +a political abdication; and the coalition were naturally very well +content that they were left to take their farther steps almost +undisturbed. + +Caesar Governor of the Two Gauls + +The most important of these steps was the regulating of the future +position of Caesar. Constitutionally it devolved on the senate +to fix the functions of the second consular year of office before +the election of the consuls took place; accordingly it had, in prospect +of the election of Caesar, selected with that view for 696 two +provinces in which the governor should find no other employment +than the construction of roads and other such works of utility. +Of course the matter could not so remain; it was determined among +the confederates, that Caesar should obtain by decree of the people +an extraordinary command formed on the model of the Gabinio-Manilian +laws. Caesar however had publicly declared that he would introduce +no proposal in his own favour; the tribune of the people Publius +Vatinius therefore undertook to submit the proposal to the burgesses, +who naturally gave their unconditional assent. By this means +Caesar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and the supreme +command of the three legions which were stationed there +and were already experienced in border warfare under Lucius Afranius, +along with the same rank of propraetor for his adjutants +which those of Pompeius had enjoyed; this office was secured to him +for five years--a longer period than had ever before been assigned +to any general whose appointment was limited to a definite time +at all. The Transpadanes, who for years had in hope of the franchise +been the clients of the democratic party in Rome and of Caesar +in particular,(8) formed the main portion of his province. +His jurisdiction extended south as far as the Arnus and the Rubico, +and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently there was added to Caesar's +official district the province of Narbo with the one legion +stationed there--a resolution adopted by the senate on the proposal +of Pompeius, that it might at least not see this command +also pass to Caesar by extraordinary decree of the burgesses. +What was wished was thus attained. As no troops could constitutionally +be stationed in Italy proper,(9) the commander of the legions +of northern Italy and Gaul dominated at the same time Italy and Rome +for the next five years; and he who was master for five years +was master for life. The consulship of Caesar had attained its object. +As a matter of course, the new holders of power did not neglect +withal to keep the multitude in good humour by games and amusements +of all sorts, and they embraced every opportunity of filling their +exchequer; in the case of the king of Egypt, for instance, +the decree of the people, which recognized him as legitimate ruler,(10) +was sold to him by the coalition at a high price, and in like manner +other dynasts and communities acquired charters and privileges +on this occasion. + +Measures Adopted by the Allies for Their Security + +The permanence of the arrangements made seemed also sufficiently +secured. The consulship was, at least for the next year, entrusted +to safe hands. The public believed at first, that it was destined +for Pompeius and Crassus themselves; the holders of power however +preferred to procure the election of two subordinate but trustworth +men of their party--Aulus Gabinius, the best among Pompeius' adjutants, +and Lucius Piso, who was less important but was Caesar's father-in-law-- +as consuls for 696. Pompeius personally undertook to watch over Italy, +where at the head of the commission of twenty he prosecuted the execution +of the agrarian law and furnished nearly 20,000 burgesses, +in great part old soldiers from his army, with land in the territory +of Capua. Caesar's north-Italian legions served to back him +against the opposition in the capital. There existed no prospect, +immediately at least, of a rupture among the holders of power themselves. +The laws issued by Caesar as consul, in the maintenance of which +Pompeius was at least as much interested as Caesar, formed +a guarantee for the continuance of the breach between Pompeius +and the aristocracy--whose heads, and Cato in particular, +continued to treat these laws as null--and thereby a guarantee +for the subsistence of the coalition. Moreover, the personal bonds +of connection between its chiefs were drawn closer. Caesar had +honestly and faithfully kept his word to his confederates +without curtailing or cheating them of what he had promised, +and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed +in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own, +with dexterity and energy; Pompeius was not insensible to upright +dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man +who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part +of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent +and familiar intercourse with a man of the irresistible amiableness +of Caesar did what was farther requisite to convert the alliance +of interests into an alliance of friendship. The result +and the pledge of this friendship--at the same time, doubtless, +a public announcement which could hardly be misunderstood +of the newly established conjoint rule--was the marriage of Pompeius +with Caesar's only daughter, three-and-twenty years of age. +Julia, who had inherited the charm of her father, lived +in the happiest domestic relations with her husband, who was +nearly twice as old; and the burgesses longing for rest +and order after so many troubles and crises, saw in this nuptial +alliance the guarantee of a peaceful and prosperous future. + +Situation of the Aristocracy + +The more firmly and closely the alliance was thus cemented +between Pompeius and Caesar, the more hopeless grew the cause +of the aristocracy. They felt the sword suspended over their head +and knew Caesar sufficiently to have no doubt that he would, +if necessary, use it without hesitation. "On all sides," wrote +one of them, "we are checkmated; we have already through fear of death +or of banishment despaired of 'freedom'; every one sighs, +no one ventures to speak." More the confederates could not desire. +But though the majority of the aristocracy was in this desirable +frame of mind, there was, of course, no lack of Hotspurs among +this party. Hardly had Caesar laid down the consulship, when some +of the most violent aristocrats, Lucius Domitius and Gaius Memmius, +proposed in a full senate the annulling of the Julian laws. +This indeed was simply a piece of folly, which redounded only +to the benefit of the coalition; for, when Caesar now himself +insisted that the senate should investigate the validity of the laws +assailed, the latter could not but formally recognize their +legality. But, as may readily be conceived, the holders of power +found in this a new call to make an example of some of the most +notable and noisiest of their opponents, and thereby to assure +themselves that the remainder would adhere to that fitting policy +of sighing and silence. At first there had been a hope +that the clause of the agrarian law, which as usual required +all the senators to take an oath to the new law on pain of forfeiting +their political rights, would induce its most vehement opponents +to banish themselves, after the example of Metellus Numidicus,(11) +by refusing the oath. But these did not show themselves +so complaisant; even the rigid Cato submitted to the oath, +and his Sanchos followed him. A second, far from honourable, +attempt to threaten the heads of the aristocracy with criminal +impeachments on account of an alleged plot for the murder of Pompeius, +and so to drive them into exile, was frustrated by the incapacity +of the instruments; the informer, one Vettius, exaggerated +and contradicted himself so grossly, and the tribune Vatinius, +who directed the foul scheme, showed his complicity with that Vettius +so clearly, that it was found advisable to strangle the latter +in prison and to let the whole matter drop. On this occasion however +they had obtained sufficient evidence of the total disorganization +of the aristocracy and the boundless alarm of the genteel lords: +even a man like Lucius Lucullus had thrown himself in person +at Caesar's feet and publicly declared that he found himself compelled +by reason of his great age to withdraw from public life. + +Cato and Cicero Removed + +Ultimately therefore they were content with a few isolated victims. +It was of primary importance to remove Cato, who made no secret +of his conviction as to the nullity of all the Julian laws, +and who was a man to act as he thought. Such a man Marcus Cicero +was certainly not, and they did not give themselves the trouble +to fear him. But the democratic party, which played the leading part +in the coalition, could not possibly after its victory leave +unpunished the judicial murder of the 5th December 691, which it +had so loudly and so justly censured. Had they wished to bring +to account the real authors of the fatal decree, they ought +to have seized not on the pusillanimous consul, but on the section +of the strict aristocracy which had urged the timorous man +to that execution. But in formal law it was certainly not the advisers +of the consul, but the consul himself, that was responsible for it, +and it was above all the gentler course to call the consul alone +to account and to leave the senatorial college wholly out of the case; +for which reason in the grounds of the proposal directed against +Cicero the decree of the senate, in virtue of which he ordered +the execution, was directly described as supposititious. Even against +Cicero the holders of power would gladly have avoided steps +that attracted attention; but he could not prevail on himself either +to give to those in power the guarantees which they required, +or to banish himself from Rome under one of the feasible pretexts +on several occasions offered to him, or even to keep silence. +With the utmost desire to avoid any offence and the most sincere alarm, +he yet had not self-control enough to be prudent; the word had +to come out, when a petulant witticism stung him, or when his self- +conceit almost rendered crazy by the praise of so many noble lords +gave vent to the well-cadenced periods of the plebeian advocate. + +Clodius + +The execution of the measures resolved on against Cato and Cicero +was committed to the loose and dissolute, but clever and pre- +eminently audacious Publius Clodius, who had lived for years +in the bitterest enmity with Cicero, and, with the view of satisfying +that enmity and playing a part as demagogue, had got himself converted +under the consulship of Caesar by a hasty adoption from a patrician +into a plebeian, and then chosen as tribune of the people +for the year 696. To support Clodius, the proconsul Caesar remained +in the immediate vicinity of the capital till the blow was struck +against the two victims. Agreeably to the instructions +which he had received, Clodius proposed to the burgesses to entrust +Cato with the regulation of the complicated municipal affairs +of the Byzantines and with the annexation of the kingdom of Cyprus, +which as well as Egypt had fallen to the Romans by the testament +of Alexander II, but had not like Egypt bought off the Roman +annexation, and the king of which, moreover, had formerly given +personal offence to Clodius. As to Cicero, Clodius brought in +a project of law which characterized the execution of a burgess +without trial and sentence as a crime to be punished with banishment. +Cato was thus removed by an honourable mission, while Cicero +was visited at least with the gentlest possible punishment and, +besides, was not designated by name in the proposal. But they did not +refuse themselves the pleasure, on the one hand, of punishing +a man notoriously timid and belonging to the class of political +weathercocks for the conservative energy which he displayed, +and, on the other hand, of investing the bitter opponent +of all interferences of the burgesses in administration +and of all extraordinary commands with such a command conferred +by decree of the burgesses themselves; and with similar humour +the proposal respecting Cato was based on the ground of the abnormal +virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified +to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation +of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement. +Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful +deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar +in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance. +It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate, +with the view of protesting in some way against the mockery +and censure of their decree in the matter of Catilina, publicly +put on mourning, and that Cicero himself, now when it was too late, +fell on his knees and besought mercy from Pompeius; he had to banish +himself even before the passing of the law which debarred him +from his native land (April 696). Cato likewise did not venture +to provoke sharper measures by declining the commission +which he had received, but accepted itand embarked for the east.(12) +What was most immediately necessary was done; Caesar too +might leave Italy to devote himself to more serious tasks. + + + + +Chapter VII + +The Subjugation of the West + +The Romanizing of the West + +When the course of history turns from the miserable monotony +of the political selfishness, which fought its battles +in the senate-house and in the streets of the capital, to matters +of greater importance than the question whether the first monarch +of Rome should be called Gnaeus, Gaius, or Marcus, we may well +be allowed--on the threshold of an event, the effects of which still +at the present day influence the destinies of the world--to look round us +for a moment, and to indicate the point of view under which the conquest +of what is now France by the Romans, and their first contact +with the inhabitants of Germany and of Great Britain, are to be +apprehended in their bearing on the general history of the world. + +By virtue of the law, that a people which has grown into a state +absorbs its neighbours who are in political nonage, and a civilized +people absorbs its neighbours who are in intellectual nonage-- +by virtue of this law, which is as universally valid and as much +a law of nature as the law of gravity--the Italian nation (the only +one in antiquity which was able to combine a superior political +development and a superior civilization, though it presented +the latter only in an imperfect and external manner) was entitled +to reduce to subjection the Greek states of the east which were ripe +for destruction, and to dispossess the peoples of lower grades +of culture in the west--Libyans, Iberians, Celts, Germans--by means +of its settlers; just as England with equal right has in Asia reduced +to subjection a civilization of rival standing but politically +impotent, and in America and Australia has marked and ennobled, +and still continues to mark and ennoble, extensive barbarian +countries with the impress of its nationality. The Roman aristocracy +had accomplished the preliminary condition required for this task-- +the union of Italy; the task itself it never solved, but always +regarded the extra-Italian conquests either as simply a necessary +evil, or as a fiscal possession virtually beyond the pale +of the state. It is the imperishable glory of the Roman democracy +or monarchy--for the two coincide--to have correctly apprehended +and vigorously realized this its highest destination. What +the irresistible force of circumstances had paved the way for, +through the senate establishing against its will the foundations +of the future Roman dominion in the west as in the east; what thereafter +the Roman emigration to the provinces--which came as a public +calamity, no doubt, but also in the western regions at any rate +as a pioneer of a higher culture--pursued as matter of instinct; +the creator of the Roman democracy, Gaius Gracchus, grasped +and began to carry out with statesmanlike clearness and decision. +The two fundamental ideas of the new policy--to reunite +the territories under the power of Rome, so far as they were Hellenic, +and to colonize them, so far as they were not Hellenic--had already +in the Gracchan age been practically recognized by the annexation +of the kingdom of Attalus and by the Transalpine conquests of Flaccus: +but the prevailing reaction once more arrested their application. +The Roman state remained a chaotic mass of countries without thorough +occupation and without proper limits. Spain and the Graeco-Asiatic +possessions were separated from the mother country by wide +territories, of which barely the borders along the coast +were subject to the Romans; on the north coast of Africa the domains +of Carthage and Cyrene alone were occupied like oases; large tracts +even of the subject territory, especially in Spain, were but nominally +subject to the Romans. Absolutely nothing was done on the part +of the government towards concentrating and rounding off +their dominion, and the decay of the fleet seemed at length +to dissolve the last bond of connection between the distant +possessions. The democracy no doubt attempted, so soon as it +again raised its head, to shape its external policy in the spirit +of Gracchus--Marius in particular cherished such ideas--but as it +did not for any length of time attain the helm, its projects +were left unfulfilled. It was not till the democracy practically took +in hand the government on the overthrow of the Sullan constitution +in 684, that a revolution in this respect occurred. First of all +their sovereignty on the Mediterranean was restored--the most +vital question for a state like that of Rome. Towards the east, +moreover, the boundary of the Euphrates was secured by the annexation +of the provinces of Pontus and Syria. But there still remained beyond +the Alps the task of at once rounding off the Roman territory towards +the north and west, and of gaining a fresh virgin soil there +for Hellenic civilization and for the yet unbroken vigour +of the Italic race. + +Historical Significance of the Conquests of Caesar + +This task Gaius Caesar undertook. It is more than an error, +it is an outrage upon the sacred spirit dominant in history, +to regard Gaul solely as the parade ground on which Caesar +exercised himself and his legions for the impending civil war. +Though the subjugation of the west was for Caesar so far a means +to an end that he laid the foundations of his later height of power +in the Transalpine wars, it is the especial privilege of a statesman +of genius that his means themselves are ends in their turn. Caesar +needed no doubt for his party aims a military power, but he did not +conquer Gaul as a partisan. There was a direct political necessity +for Rome to meet the perpetually threatened invasion of the Germans +thus early beyond the Alps, and to construct a rampart there +which should secure the peace of the Roman world. But even this +important object was not the highest and ultimate reason for which Gaul +was conquered by Caesar. When the old home had become too +narrow for the Roman burgesses and they were in danger of decay, +the senate's policy of Italian conquest saved them from ruin. +Now the Italian home had become in its turn too narrow; once more +the state languished under the same social evils repeating themselves +in similar fashion only on a greater scale. It was a brilliant +idea, a grand hope, which led Caesar over the Alps--the idea +and the confident expectation that he should gain there for his +fellow-burgesses a new boundless home, and regenerate the state +a second time by placing it on a broader basis. + +Caesar in Spain + +The campaign which Caesar undertook in 693 in Further Spain, may +be in some sense included among the enterprises which aimed at +the subjugation of the west. Long as Spain had obeyed the Romans, +its western shore had remained substantially independent of them +even after the expedition of Decimus Brutus against the Callaeci(1), +and they had not even set foot on the northern coast; while +the predatory raids, to which the subject provinces found +themselves continually exposed from those quarters, did no small +injury to the civilization and Romanizing of Spain. Against these +the expedition of Caesar along the west coast was directed. +He crossed the chain of the Herminian mountains (Sierra de Estrella) +bounding the Tagus on the north; after having conquered their +inhabitants and transplanted them in part to the plain, he reduced +the country on both sides of the Douro and arrived at the northwest +point of the peninsula, where with the aid of a flotilla brought +up from Gades he occupied Brigantium (Corunna). By this means +the peoples adjoining the Atlantic Ocean, Lusitanians and Callaecians, +were forced to acknowledge the Roman supremacy, while the conqueror +was at the same time careful to render the position of the subjects +generally more tolerable by reducing the tribute to be paid to Rome +and regulating the financial affairs of the communities. + +But, although in this military and administrative debut of the great +general and statesman the same talents and the same leading ideas are +discernible which he afterwards evinced on a greater stage, his agency +in the Iberian peninsula was much too transient to have any deep effect; +the more especially as, owing to its physical and national peculiarities, +nothing but action steadily continued for a considerable time could +exert any durable influence there. + +Gaul + +A more important part in the Romanic development of the west +was reserved by destiny for the country which stretches between +the Pyrenees and the Rhine, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, +and which since the Augustan age has been especially designated +by the name of the land of the Celts--Gallia--although strictly +speaking the land of the Celts was partly narrower, partly much +more extensive, and the country so called never formed a national +unity, and did not form a political unity before Augustus. +For this very reason it is not easy to present a clear picture +of the very heterogeneous state of things which Caesar encountered +on his arrival there in 696. + +The Roman Province +Wars and Revolts There + +In the region on the Mediterranean, which, embracing approximately +Languedoc on the west of the Rhone, on the east Dauphine and Provence, +had been for sixty years a Roman province, the Roman arms had seldom +been at rest since the Cimbrian invasion which had swept over it. +In 664 Gaius Caelius had fought with the Salyes about Aquae Sextiae, +and in 674 Gaius Flaccus,(2) on his march to Spain, with other +Celtic nations. When in the Sertorian war the governor Lucius Manlius, +compelled to hasten to the aid of his colleagues beyond the Pyrenees, +returned defeated from Ilerda (Lerida) and on his way home +was vanquished a second time by the western neighbours +of the Roman province, the Aquitani (about 676;(3)), this seems +to have provoked a general rising of the provincials between +the Pyrenees and the Rhone, perhaps even of those between the Rhone +and Alps. Pompeius had to make his way with the sword through +the insurgent Gaul to Spain,(4) and by way of penalty for their +rebellion gave the territories of the Volcae-Arecomici +and the Helvii (dep. Gard and Ardeche) over to the Massiliots; +the governor Manius Fonteius (678-680) carried out these arrangements +and restored tranquillity in the province by subduing the Vocontii +(dep. Drome), protecting Massilia from the insurgents, +and liberating the Roman capital Narbo which they invested. +Despair, however, and the financial embarrassment which the participation +in the sufferings of the Spanish war(5) and generally the official +and non-official exactions of the Romans brought upon the Gallic +provinces, did not allow them to be tranquil; and in particular +the canton of the Allobroges, the most remote from Narbo, +was in a perpetual ferment, which was attested by the "pacification" +that Gaius Piso undertook there in 688 as well as by the behaviour +of the Allobrogian embassy in Rome on occasion of the anarchist plot +in 691,(6) and which soon afterwards (693) broke into open revolt +Catugnatus the leader of the Allobroges in this war of despair, +who had at first fought not unsuccessfully, was conquered at Solonium +after a glorious resistance by the governor Gaius Pomptinus. + +Bounds +Relations to Rome + +Notwithstanding all these conflicts the bounds of the Roman +territory were not materially advanced; Lugudunum Convenarum, +where Pompeius had settled the remnant of the Sertorian army,(7) +Tolosa, Vienna and Genava were still the most remote Roman townships +towards the west and north. But at the same time the importance +of these Gallic possessions for the mother country was continually +on the increase. The glorious climate, akin to that of Italy, +the favourable nature of the soil, the large and rich region lying +behind so advantageous for commerce with its mercantile routes +reaching as far as Britain, the easy intercourse by land and sea +with the mother country, rapidly gave to southern Gaul an economic +importance for Italy, which much older possessions, such as those +in Spain, had not acquired in the course of centuries; and as +the Romans who had suffered political shipwreck at this period sought +an asylum especially in Massilia, and there found once more Italian +culture and Italian luxury, voluntary emigrants from Italy also +were attracted more and more to the Rhone and the Garonne. +"The province of Gaul," it was said in a sketch drawn ten years +before Caesar's arrival, "is full of merchants; it swarms with Roman +burgesses. No native of Gaul transacts a piece of business without +the intervention of a Roman; every penny, that passes from one hand +to another in Gaul, goes through the account books of the Roman +burgesses." From the same description it appears that in addition +to the colonists of Narbo there were Romans cultivating land +and rearing cattle, resident in great numbers in Gaul; as to which, +however, it must not be overlooked that most of the provincial land +possessed by Romans, just like the greater part of the English +possessions in the earliest times in America, was in the hands +of the high nobility living in Italy, and those farmers and graziers +consisted for the most part of their stewards--slaves or freedmen. + +Incipient Romanizing + +It is easy to understand how under such circumstances civilization +and Romanizing rapidly spread among the natives. These Celts +were not fond of agriculture; but their new masters compelled them +to exchange the sword for the plough, and it is very credible +that the embittered resistance of the Allobroges was provoked in part +by some such injunctions. In earlier times Hellenism had also +to a certain degree dominated those regions; the elements +of a higher culture, the stimulus to the cultivation of the vine +and the olive,(8) to the use of writing(9) and to the coining of money, +came to them from Massilia. The Hellenic culture was in this case +far from being set aside by the Romans; Massilia gained through +them more influence than it lost; and even in the Roman period +Greek physicians and rhetoricians were publicly employed +in the Gallic cantons. But, as may readily be conceived, Hellenism +in southern Gaul acquired through the agency of the Romans the same +character as in Italy; the distinctively Hellenic civilization +gave place to the Latino-Greek mixed culture, which soon made +proselytes here in great numbers. The "Gauls in the breeches," +as the inhabitants of southern Gaul were called by way of contrast +to the "Gauls in the toga" of northern Italy, were not indeed +like the latter already completely Romanized, but they were even now +very perceptibly distinguished from the "longhaired Gauls" +of the northern regions still unsubdued. The semiculture becoming +naturalized among them furnished, doubtless, materials enough +for ridicule of their barbarous Latin, and people did not fail +to suggest to any one suspected of Celtic descent his "relationship +with the breeches"; but this bad Latin was yet sufficient +to enable even the remote Allobroges to transact business +with the Roman authorities, and even to give testimony in the Roman +courts without an interpreter. + +While the Celtic and Ligurian population of these regions +was thus in the course of losing its nationality, and was languishing +and pining withal under a political and economic oppression, +the intolerable nature of which is sufficiently attested by their +hopeless insurrections, the decline of the native population here +went hand in hand with the naturalizing of the same higher culture +which we find at this period in Italy. Aquae Sextiae and still +more Narbo were considerable townships, which might probably be +named by the side of Beneventum and Capua; and Massilia, the best +organized, most free, most capable of self-defence, and most +powerful of all the Greek cities dependent on Rome, under its +rigorous aristocratic government to which the Roman conservatives +probably pointed as the model of a good urban constitution, +in possession of an important territory which had been considerably +enlarged by the Romans and of an extensive trade, stood by the side +of those Latin towns as Rhegium and Neapolis stood in Italy +by the side of Beneventum and Capua. + +Free Gaul + +Matters wore a different aspect, when one crossed the Roman frontier. +The great Celtic nation, which in the southern districts already +began to be crushed by the Italian immigration, still moved +to the north of the Cevennes in its time-hallowed freedom. +It is not the first time that we meet it: the Italians had already +fought with the offsets and advanced posts of this vast stock +on the Tiber and on the Po, in the mountains of Castile and Carinthia, +and even in the heart of Asia Minor; but it was here that the main stock +was first assailed at its very core by their attacks. The Celtic race +had on its settlement in central Europe diffused itself chiefly +over the rich river-valleys and the pleasant hill-country +of the present France, including the western districts of Germany +and Switzerland, and from thence had occupied at least the southern +part of England, perhaps even at this time all Great Britain +and Ireland;(10) it formed here more than anywhere else a broad, +geographically compact, mass of peoples. In spite of +the differences in language and manners which naturally +were to be found within this wide territory, a close mutual intercourse, +an innate sense of fellowship, seems to have knit together +the tribes from the Rhone and Garonne to the Rhine and the Thames; +whereas, although these doubtless were in a certain measure locally +connected with the Celts in Spain and in the modern Austria, +the mighty mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps +on the one hand, and the encroachments of the Romans and the Germans +which also operated here on the other, interrupted the intercourse +and the intrinsic connection of the cognate peoples far otherwise +than the narrow arm of the sea interrupted the relations +of the continental and the British Celts. Unhappily we are not +permitted to trace stage by stage the history of the internal development +of this remarkable people in these its chief seats; we must be content +with presenting at least some outline of its historical culture +and political condition, as it here meets us in the time of Caesar. + +Population +Agriculture and the Rearing of Cattle + +Gaul was, according to the reports of the ancients, comparatively +well peopled. Certain statements lead us to infer that in the Belgic +districts there were some 200 persons to the square mile-- +a proportion such as nearly holds at present for Wales +and for Livonia--in the Helvetic canton about 245;(11) it is probable +that in the districts which were more cultivated than the Belgic +and less mountainous than the Helvetian, as among the Bituriges, +Arverni, Haedui, the number rose still higher. Agriculture +was no doubt practised in Gaul--for even the contemporaries of Caesar +were surprised in the region of the Rhine by the custom of manuring +with marl,(12) and the primitive Celtic custom of preparing beer +(-cervesia-) from barley is likewise an evidence of the early +and wide diffusion of the culture of grain--but it was not held +in estimation. Even in the more civilized south it was reckoned not +becoming for the free Celts to handle the plough. In far higher +estimation among the Celts stood pastoral husbandry, for which +the Roman landholders of this epoch very gladly availed themselves +both of the Celtic breed of cattle, and of the brave Celtic slaves +skilled in riding and familiar with the rearing of animals.(13) +Particularly in the northern Celtic districts pastoral husbandry +was thoroughly predominant. Brittany was in Caesar's time +a country poor in corn. In the north-east dense forests, attaching +themselves to the heart of the Ardennes, stretched almost without +interruption from the German Ocean to the Rhine; and on the plains +of Flanders and Lorraine, now so fertile, the Menapian and Treverian +herdsman then fed his half-wild swine in the impenetrable oak-forest. +Just as in the valley of the Po the Romans made the production +of wool and the culture of corn supersede the Celtic feeding +of pigs on acorns, so the rearing of sheep and the agriculture +in the plains of the Scheldt and the Maas are traceable +to their influence. In Britain even the threshing of corn +was not yet usual; and in its more northern districts agriculture +was not practised, and the rearing of cattle was the only known mode +of turning the soil to account. The culture of the olive and vine, +which yielded rich produce to the Massiliots, was not yet prosecuted +beyond the Cevennes in the time of Caesar. + +Urban Life + +The Gauls were from the first disposed to settle in groups; +there were open villages everywhere, and the Helvetic canton +alone numbered in 696 four hundred of these, besides a multitude +of single homesteads. But there were not wanting also walled towns, +whose walls of alternate layers surprised the Romans both by their +suitableness and by the elegant interweaving of timber and stones +in their construction; while, it is true, even in the towns +of the Allobroges the buildings were erected solely of wood. +Of such towns the Helvetii had twelve and the Suessiones an equal number; +whereas at all events in the more northern districts, such as among +the Nervii, while there were doubtless also towns, the population +during war sought protection in the morasses and forests rather +than behind their walls, and beyond the Thames the primitive +defence of the wooden barricade altogether took the place +of towns and was in war the only place of refuge for men and herds. + +Intercourse + +In close association with the comparatively considerable +development of urban life stands the activity of intercourse +by land and by water. Everywhere there were roads and bridges. +The river-navigation, which streams like the Rhone, Garonne, Loire, +and Seine, of themselves invited, was considerable and lucrative. +But far more remarkable was the maritime navigation of the Celts. +Not only were the Celts, to all appearance, the nation that first +regularly navigated the Atlantic ocean, but we find that the art +of building and of managing vessels had attained among them +a remarkable development. The navigation of the peoples +of the Mediterranean had, as may readily be conceived from the nature +of the waters traversed by them, for a comparatively long period +adhered to the oar; the war-vessels of the Phoenicians, Hellenes, +and Romans were at all times oared galleys, in which the sail +was applied only as an occasional aid to the oar; the trading vessels +alone were in the epoch of developed ancient civilization "sailers" +properly so called.(14) On the other hand the Gauls doubtless +employed in the Channel in Caesar's time, as for long afterwards, +a species of portable leathern skiffs, which seem to have been +in the main common oared boats, but on the west coast of Gaul +the Santones, the Pictones, and above all the Veneti sailed in large +though clumsily built ships, which were not impelled by oars +but were provided with leathern sails and iron anchor-chains; +and they employed these not only for their traffic with Britain, +but also in naval combat. Here therefore we not only meet +for the first time with navigation in the open ocean, but we find +that here the sailing vessel first fully took the place +of the oared boat--an improvement, it is true, which the declining +activity of the old world did not know how to turn to account, +and the immeasurable results of which our own epoch of renewed culture +is employed in gradually reaping. + +Commerce +Manufactures + +With this regular maritime intercourse between the British +and Gallic coasts, the very close political connection between +the inhabitants on both sides of the Channel is as easily explained +as the flourishing of transmarine commerce and of fisheries. +It was the Celts of Brittany in particular, that brought the tin +of the mines of Cornwall from England and carried it by the river +and land routes of Gaul to Narbo and Massilia. The statement, +that in Caesar's time certain tribes at the mouth of the Rhine subsisted +on fish and birds' eggs, may probably refer to the circumstance +that marine fishing and the collection of the eggs of sea-birds +were prosecuted there on an extensive scale. When we put together +and endeavour to fill up the isolated and scanty statements which have +reached us regarding the Celtic commerce and intercourse, we come +to see why the tolls of the river and maritime ports play a great +part in the budgets of certain cantons, such as those of the Haedui +and the Veneti, and why the chief god of the nation was regarded +by them as the protector of the roads and of commerce, and at +the same time as the inventor of manufactures. Accordingly the Celtic +industry cannot have been wholly undeveloped; indeed the singular +dexterity of the Celts, and their peculiar skill in imitating +any model and executing any instructions, are noticed by Caesar. +In most branches, however, their handicraft does not appear +to have risen above the ordinary level; the manufacture of linen +and woollen stuffs, that subsequently flourished in central +and northern Gaul, was demonstrably called into existence only +by the Romans. The elaboration of metals forms an exception, +and so far as we know the only one. The copper implements +not unfrequently of excellent workmanship and even now malleable, +which are brought to light in the tombs of Gaul, and the carefully +adjusted Arvernian gold coins, are still at the present day +striking witnesses of the skill of the Celtic workers in copper +and gold; and with this the reports of the ancients well accord, +that the Romans learned the art of tinning from the Bituriges +and that of silvering from the Alesini--inventions, the first of which +was naturally suggested by the traffic' in tin, and both of which +were probably made in the period of Celtic freedom. + +Mining + +Hand in hand with dexterity in the elaboration of the metals went +the art of procuring them, which had attained, more especially in +the iron mines on the Loire, such a degree of professional skill +that the miners played an important part in the sieges. The opinion +prevalent among the Romans of this period, that Gaul was one +of the richest gold countries in the world, is no doubt refuted +by the well-known nature of the soil and by the character +of the articles found in the Celtic tombs, in which gold appears +but sparingly and with far less frequency than in the similar +repositories of the true native regions of gold; this conception +no doubt had its origin merely from the descriptions which Greek +travellers and Roman soldiers, doubtless not without strong +exaggeration, gave to their countrymen of the magnificence +of the Arvernian kings,(15) and of the treasures of the Tolosan +temples.(16) But their stories were not pure fictions. It may +well be believed that in and near the rivers which flow +from the Alps and the Pyrenees gold-washing and searches for gold, +which are unprofitable at the present value of labour, were worked +with profit and on a considerable scale in ruder times and with a system +of slavery; besides, the commercial relations of Gaul may, +as is not unfrequently the case with half-civilized peoples, +have favoured the accumulation of a dead stock of the precious metals. + +Art and Science + +The low state of the arts of design is remarkable, +and is the more striking by the side of this mechanical skill +in handling the metals. The fondness for parti-coloured and brilliant +ornaments shows the want of a proper taste, which is sadly confirmed +by the Gallic coins with their representations sometimes exceedingly +simple, sometimes odd, but always childish in design, and almost +without exception rude beyond parallel in their execution. +It is perhaps unexampled that a coinage practised for centuries +with a certain technical skill should have essentially limited itself +to always imitating two or three Greek dies, and always +with increasing deformity. On the other hand the art of poetry +was highly valued by the Celts, and intimately blended +with the religious and even with the political institutions +of the nation; we find religious poetry, as well as that of the court +and of the mendicant, flourishing.(17) Natural science and philosophy +also found, although subject to the forms and fetters of the theology +of the country, a certain amount of attention among the Celts; +and Hellenic humanism met with a ready reception wherever +and in whatever shape it approached them. The knowledge of writing +was general at least among the priests. For the most part in free Gaul +the Greek writing was made use of in Caesar's time, as was done +among others by the Helvetii; but in its most southern districts +even then, in consequence of intercourse with the Romanized Celts, +the Latin attained predominance--we meet with it, for instance, +on the Arvernian coins of this period. + +Political Organization +Cantonal Constitution + +The political development of the Celtic nation also presents +very remarkable phenomena. The constitution of the state was based +in this case, as everywhere, on the clan-canton, with its prince, +its council of the elders, and its community of freemen capable +of bearing arms; but the peculiarity in this case was that it never +got beyond this cantonal constitution. Among the Greeks and Romans +the canton was very early superseded by the ring-wall as the basis +of political unity; where two cantons found themselves together +within the same walls, they amalgamated into one commonwealth; +where a body of burgesses assigned to a portion of their fellow- +burgesses a new ring-wall, there regularly arose in this way a new +state connected with the mother community only by ties of piety +and, at most, of clientship. Among the Celts on the other hand +the "burgess-body" continued at all times to be the clan; prince +and council presided over the canton and not over any town, +and the general diet of the canton formed the authority of last resort +in the state. The town had, as in the east, merely mercantile +and strategic, not political importance; for which reason the Gallic +townships, even when walled and very considerable such as Vienna +and Genava, were in the view of the Greeks and Romans nothing +but villages. In the time of Caesar the original clan-constitution +still subsisted substantially unaltered among the insular Celts +and in the northern cantons of the mainland; the general assembly held +the supreme authority; the prince was in essential questions bound +by its decrees; the common council was numerous--it numbered +in certain clans six hundred members--but does not appear +to have had more importance than the senate under the Roman kings. +In the more stirring southern portion of the land, again, +one or two generations before Caesar--the children of the last kings +were still living in his time--there had occurred, at least +among the larger clans, the Arverni, Haedui, Sequani, Helvetii, +a revolution which set aside the royal dominion and gave the power +into the hands of the nobility. + +Development of Knighthood +Breaking Up of the Old Cantonal Constitution + +It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban +commonwealths among the Celts just noticed, that the opposite pole +of political development, knighthood, so thoroughly preponderates +in the Celtic clan-constitution. The Celtic aristocracy was to all +appearance a high nobility, for the most part perhaps the members +of the royal or formerly royal families; as indeed it is remarkable +that the heads of the opposite parties in the same clan +very frequently belong to the same house. These great families +combined in their hands financial, warlike, and political ascendency. +They monopolized the leases of the profitable rights of the state. +They compelled the free commons, who were oppressed by the burden +of taxation, to borrow from them, and to surrender their freedom +first de facto as debtors, then de jure as bondmen. They developed +the system of retainers, that is, the privilege of the nobility +to surround themselves with a number of hired mounted servants-- +the -ambacti- as they were called (18)--and thereby to form a state +within the state; and, resting on the support of these troops +of their own, they defied the legal authorities and the common levy +and practically broke up the commonwealth. If in a clan, +which numbered about 80,000 men capable of arms, a single noble +could appear at the diet with 10,000 retainers, not reckoning +the bondmen and the debtors, it is clear that such an one +was more an independent dynast than a burgess of his clan. Moreover, +the leading families of the different clans were closely connected +and through intermarriages and special treaties formed virtually +a compact league, in presence of which the single clan was powerless. +Therefore the communities were no longer able to maintain +the public peace, and the law of the strong arm reigned throughout. +The dependent found protection only from his master, whom duty +and interest compelled to redress the injury inflicted on his client; +the state had no longer the power to protect those who were free, +and consequently these gave themselves over in numbers to some +powerful man as clients. + +Abolition of the Monarchy + +The common assembly lost its political importance; and even +the power of the prince, which should have checked the encroachments +of the nobility, succumbed to it among the Celts as well as in Latium. +In place of the king came the "judgment-worker" or -Vergobretus-,(19) +who was like the Roman consul nominated only for a year. +So far as the canton still held together at all, it was led +by the common council, in which naturally the heads of the aristocracy +usurped the government. Of course under such circumstances +there was agitation in the several clans much in the same way +as there had been agitation in Latium for centuries after the expulsion +of the kings: while the nobility of the different communities combined +to form a separate alliance hostile to the power of the community, +the multitude ceased not to desire the restoration of the monarchy; +and not unfrequently a prominent nobleman attempted, as Spurius +Cassius had done in Rome, with the support of the mass of those +belonging to the canton to break down the power of his peers, +and to reinstate the crown in its rights for his own special benefit. + +Efforts towards National Unity + +While the individual cantons were thus irremediably declining, +the sense of unity was at the same time powerfully stirring +in the nation and seeking in various ways to take shape and hold. +That combination of the whole Celtic nobility in contradistinction +to the individual canton-unions, while disturbing the existing order +of things, awakened and fostered the conception of the collective +unity of the nation. The attacks directed against the nation +from without, and the continued diminution of its territory in war +with its neighbours, operated in the same direction. Like the Hellenes +in their wars with the Persians, and the Italians in their wars +with the Celts, the Transalpine Gauls seem to have become conscious +of the existence and the power of their national unity in the wars +against Rome. Amidst the dissensions of rival clans and all their +feudal quarrelling there might still be heard the voices of those +who were ready to purchase the independence of the nation +at the cost of the independence of the several cantons, and even +at that of the seignorial rights of the knights. The thorough +popularity of the opposition to a foreign yoke was shown by the wars +of Caesar, with reference to whom the Celtic patriot party occupied +a position entirely similar to that of the German patriots +towards Napoleon; its extent and organization are attested, +among other things, by the telegraphic rapidity with which news +was communicated from one point to another. + +Religious Union of the Nation +Druids + +The universality and the strength of the Celtic national feeling +would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, amidst +the greatest political disruption, the Celtic nation had for long +been centralized in respect of religion and even of theology. +The Celtic priesthood or, to use the native name, the corporation +of the Druids, certainly embraced the British islands and all Gaul, +and perhaps also other Celtic countries, in a common religious- +national bond. It possessed a special head elected by the priests +themselves; special schools, in which its very comprehensive +tradition was transmitted; special privileges, particularly +exemption from taxation and military service, which every clan +respected; annual councils, which were held near Chartres +at the "centre of the Celtic earth"; and above all, a believing people, +who in painful piety and blind obedience to their priests seem +to have been nowise inferior to the Irish of modern times. It may +readily be conceived that such a priesthood attempted to usurp, +as it partially did usurp, the secular government; where the annual +monarchy subsisted, it conducted the elections in the event +of an interregnum; it successfully laid claim to the right of excluding +individuals and whole communities from religious, and consequently +also from civil, society; it was careful to draw to itself the most +important civil causes, especially processes as to boundaries +and inheritance; on the ground, apparently, of its right to exclude +from the community, and perhaps also of the national custom +that criminals should be by preference taken for the usual +human sacrifices, it developed an extensive priestly criminal +jurisdiction, which was co-ordinate with that of the kings +and vergobrets; it even claimed the right of deciding on war and peace. +The Gauls were not far removed from an ecclesiastical state +with its pope and councils, its immunities, interdicts, +and spiritual courts; only this ecclesiastical state did not, +like that of recent times, stand aloof from the nations, +but was on the contrary pre-eminently national. + +Want of Political Centralization +The Canton-Leagues + +But while the sense of mutual relationship was thus vividly +awakened among the Celtic tribes, the nation was still precluded +from attaining a basis of political centralization such as Italy +found in the Roman burgesses, and the Hellenes and Germans +in the Macedonian and Frank kings. The Celtic priesthood and likewise +the nobility--although both in a certain sense represented and combined +the nation--were yet, on the one hand, incapable of uniting it +in consequence of their particular class-interests, and, on the other +hand, sufficiently powerful to allow no king and no canton to accomplish +the work of union. Attempts at this work were not wanting; +they followed, as the cantonal constitution suggested, +the system of hegemony. A powerful canton induced a weaker +to become subordinate, on such a footing that the leading canton +acted for the other as well as for itself in its external relations +and stipulated for it in state-treaties, while the dependent canton +bound itself to render military service and sometimes also to pay +a tribute. In this way a series of separate leagues arose; +but there was no leading canton for all Gaul--no tie, however +loose, combining the nation as a whole. + +The Belgic League +The Maritime Cantons +The Leagues of Central Gaul + +It has been already mentioned(20) that the Romans +at the commencement of their Transalpine conquests found in the north +a Britanno-Belgic league under the leadership of the Suessiones, +and in central and southern Gaul the confederation of the Arverni, +with which latter the Haedui, although having a weaker body +of clients, carried on a rivalry. In Caesar's time we find the Belgae +in north-eastern Gaul between the Seine and the Rhine still forming +such an association, which, however, apparently no longer extends +to Britain; by their side there appears, in the modern Normandy +and Brittany, the league of the Aremorican or the maritime cantons: +in central or proper Gaul two parties as formerly contended +for the hegemony, the one headed by the Haedui, the other by the Sequani +after the Arvernians weakened by the wars with Rome had retired. +These different confederacies subsisted independently side by side; +the leading states of central Gaul appear never to have extended +their clientship to the north-east nor, seriously, perhaps even +to the north-west of Gaul. + +Character of Those Leagues + +The impulse of the nation towards freedom found doubtless a certain +gratification in these cantonal unions; but they were in every +respect unsatisfactory. The union was of the loosest kind, constantly +fluctuating between alliance and hegemony; the representation +of the whole body in peace by the federal diets, in war +by the general,(21) was in the highest degree feeble. The Belgian +confederacy alone seems to have been bound together somewhat +more firmly; the national enthusiasm, from which the successful +repulse of the Cimbri proceeded,(22) may have proved beneficial +to it. The rivalries for the hegemony made a breach in every +league, which time did not close but widened, because the victory +of one competitor still left his opponent in possession +of political existence, and it always remained open to him, +even though he had submitted to clientship, subsequently to renew +the struggle. The rivalry among the more powerful cantons not only +set these at variance, but spread into every dependent clan, +into every village, often indeed into every house, for each individual +chose his side according to his personal relations. As Hellas +exhausted its strength not so much in the struggle of Athens against +Sparta as in the internal strife of the Athenian and Lacedaemonian +factions in every dependent community, and even in Athens itself, +so the rivalry of the Arverni and Haedui with its repetitions +on a smaller and smaller scale destroyed the Celtic people. + +The Celtic Military System +Cavalry + +The military capability of the nation felt the reflex influence +of these political and social relations. The cavalry was throughout +the predominant arm; alongside of which among the Belgae, and still +more in the British islands, the old national war-chariots appear +in remarkable perfection. These equally numerous and efficient +bands of combatants on horseback and in chariots were formed +from the nobility and its vassals; for the nobles had a genuine knightly +delight in dogs and horses, and were at much expense to procure +noble horses of foreign breed. It is characteristic of the spirit +and the mode of fighting of these nobles that, when the levy +was called out, whoever could keep his seat on horseback, +even the gray-haired old man, took the field, and that, when on the point +of beginning a combat with an enemy of whom they made little account, +they swore man by man that they would keep aloof from house +and homestead, unless their band should charge at least twice through +the enemy's line. Among the hired warriors the free-lance spirit +prevailed with all its demoralized and stolid indifference towards +their own life and that of others. This is apparent from the stories-- +however anecdotic their colouring--of the Celtic custom of tilting +by way of sport and now and then fighting for life or death +at a banquet, and of the usage (which prevailed among the Celts, +and outdid even the Roman gladiatorial games) of selling themselves +to be killed for a set sum of money or a number of casks of wine, +and voluntarily accepting the fatal blow stretched on their shield +before the eyes of the whole multitude. + +Infantry + +By the side of these mounted warriors the infantry fell +into the background. In the main it essentially resembled the bands +of Celts, with whom the Romans had fought in Italy and Spain. +The large shield was, as then, the principal weapon of defence; +among the offensive arms, on the other hand, the long thrusting +lance now played the chief part in room of the sword. Where several +cantons waged war in league, they naturally encamped and fought clan +against clan; there is no trace of their giving to the levy of each +canton military organization and forming smaller and more regular +tactical subdivisions. A long train of waggons still dragged +the baggage of the Celtic army; instead of an entrenched camp, such as +the Romans pitched every night, the poor substitute of a barricade +of waggons still sufficed. In the case of certain cantons, +such as the Nervii, the efficiency of their infantry is noticed +as exceptional; it is remarkable that these had no cavalry, +and perhaps were not even a Celtic but an immigrant German tribe. +But in general the Celtic infantry of this period appears +as an unwarlike and unwieldy levy en masse; most of all +in the more southern provinces, where along with barbarism valour +had also disappeared. The Celt, says Caesar, ventures not to face +the German in battle. The Roman general passed a censure +still more severe than this judgment on the Celtic infantry, +seeing that, after having become acquainted with them +in his first campaign, he never again employed them +in connection with Roman infantry. + +Stage of Development of the Celtic Civilization + +If we survey the whole condition of the Celts as Caesar found it +in the Transalpine regions, there is an unmistakeable advance +in civilization, as compared with the stage of culture at which +the Celts came before us a century and a half previously in the valley +of the Po. Then the militia, excellent of its kind, thoroughly +preponderated in their armies;(23) now the cavalry occupies +the first place. Then the Celts dwelt in open villages; now well- +constructed walls surrounded their townships. The objects too +found in the tombs of Lombardy are, especially as respects articles +of copper and glass, far inferior to those of northern Gaul. +Perhaps the most trustworthy measure of the increase of culture +is the sense of a common relationship in the nation; so little +of it comes to light in the Celtic battles fought on the soil of what +is now Lombardy, while it strikingly appears in the struggles +against Caesar. To all appearance the Celtic nation, when Caesar +encountered it, had already reached the maximum of the culture +allotted to it, and was even now on the decline. The civilization +of the Transalpine Celts in Caesar's time presents, even for us +who are but very imperfectly informed regarding it, several aspects +that are estimable, and yet more that are interesting; in some +respects it is more akin to the modern than to the Hellenic-Roman +culture, with its sailing vessels, its knighthood, its ecclesiastical +constitution, above all with its attempts, however imperfect, +to build the state not on the city, but on the tribe and in a higher +degree on the nation. But just because we here meet the Celtic nation +at the culminating point of its development, its lesser degree +of moral endowment or, which is the same thing, its lesser +capacity of culture, comes more distinctly into view. +It was unable to produce from its own resources either a national +art or a national state; it attained at the utmost a national theology +and a peculiar type of nobility. The original simple valour +was no more; the military courage based on higher morality and judicious +organization, which comes in the train of increased civilization, +had only made its appearance in a very stunted form among +the knights. Barbarism in the strict sense was doubtless outlived; +the times had gone by, when in Gaul the fat haunch was assigned +to the bravest of the guests, but each of his fellow-guests who thought +himself offended thereby was at liberty to challenge the receiver +on that score to combat, and when the most faithful retainers +of a deceased chief were burnt along with him. But human sacrifices +still continued, and the maxim of law, that torture was inadmissible +in the case of the free man but allowable in that of the free +woman as well as of slaves, throws a far from pleasing light +on the position which the female sex held among the Celts +even in their period of culture. The Celts had lost the advantages +which specially belong to the primitive epoch of nations, but had not +acquired those which civilization brings with it when it intimately +and thoroughly pervades a people. + +External Relations +Celts and Iberians + +Such was the internal condition of the Celtic nation. It remains +that we set forth their external relations with their neighbours, +and describe the part which they sustained at this moment in the mighty +rival race and rival struggle of the nations, in which it is +everywhere still more difficult to maintain than to acquire. +Along the Pyrenees the relations of the peoples had for long been +peaceably settled, and the times had long gone by when the Celts +there pressed hard on, and to some extent supplanted, the Iberian, +that is, the Basque, original population. The valleys of the Pyrenees +as well as the mountains of Bearn and Gascony, and also the coast- +steppes to the south of the Garonne, were at the time of Caesar +in the undisputed possession of the Aquitani, a great number +of small tribes of Iberian descent, coming little into contact +with each other and still less with the outer world; in this quarter +only the mouth of the Garonne with the important port of Burdigala +(Bordeaux) was in the hands of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges-Vivisci. + +Celts and Romans +Advance of Roman Trade and Commerce into Free Gaul + +Of far greater importance was the contact of the Celtic nation +with the Roman people, and with the Germans. We need not here repeat-- +what has been related already--how the Romans in their slow advance +had gradually pressed back the Celts, had at last occupied the belt +of coast between the Alps and the Pyrenees, and had thereby totally +cut them off from Italy, Spain and the Mediterranean Sea--a catastrophe, +for which the way had already been prepared centuries before +by the laying out of the Hellenic stronghold at the mouth +of the Rhone. But we must here recall the fact that it was not merely +the superiority of the Roman arms which pressed hard on the Celts, +but quite as much that of Roman culture, which likewise reaped +the ultimate benefit of the respectable beginnings of Hellenic +civilization in Gaul. Here too, as so often happens, trade +and commerce paved the way for conquest. The Celt after northern +fashion was fond of fiery drinks; the fact that like the Scythian +he drank the generous wine unmingled and to intoxication, +excited the surprise and the disgust of the temperate southern; +but the trader has no objection to deal with such customers. +Soon the trade with Gaul became a mine of gold for the Italian merchant; +it was nothing unusual there for a jar of wine to be exchanged +for a slave. Other articles of luxury, such as Italian horses, +found advantageous sale in Gaul. There were instances even already +of Roman burgesses acquiring landed property beyond the Roman +frontier, and turning it to profit after the Italian fashion; +there is mention, for example, of Roman estates in the canton +of the Segusiavi (near Lyons) as early as about 673. Beyond doubt it +was a consequence of this that, as already mentioned(24) in free Gaul +itself, e. g. among the Arverni, the Roman language was not unknown +even before the conquest; although this knowledge was presumably +still restricted to few, and even the men of rank in the allied +canton of the Haedui had to be conversed with through interpreters. +Just as the traffickers in fire-water and the squatters led the way +in the occupation of North America, so these Roman wine-traders +and landlords paved the way for, and beckoned onward, the future +conqueror of Gaul. How vividly this was felt even on the opposite +side, is shown by the prohibition which one of the most energetic +tribes of Gaul, the canton of the Nervii, like some German peoples, +issued against trafficking with the Romans. + +Celts and Germans + +Still more violent even than the pressure of the Romans +from the Mediterranean was that of the Germans downward from the Baltic +and the North Sea--a fresh stock from the great cradle of peoples +in the east, which made room for itself by the side of its elder +brethren with youthful vigour, although also with youthful +rudeness. Though the tribes of this stock dwelling nearest +to the Rhine--the Usipetes, Tencteri, Sugambri, Ubii--had begun to be +in some degree civilized, and had at least ceased voluntarily +to change their abodes, all accounts yet agree that farther inland +agriculture was of little importance, and the several tribes +had hardly yet attained fixed abodes. It is significant +in this respect that their western neighbours at this time hardly knew +how to name any one of the peoples of the interior of Germany +by its cantonal name; these were only known to them under the general +appellations of the Suebi, that is, the roving people or nomads, +and the Marcomani, that is, the land-guard(25)--names which were +hardly cantonal names in Caesar's time, although they appeared +as such to the Romans and subsequently became in various cases +names of cantons. + +The Right Bank of the Rhine Lost to the Celts + +The most violent onset of this great nation fell upon the Celts. +The struggles, in which the Germans probably engaged with the Celts +for the possession of the regions to the east of the Rhine, are +wholly withdrawn from our view. We are only able to perceive, +that about the end of the seventh century of Rome all the land +as far as the Rhine was already lost to the Celts; that the Boii, +who were probably once settled in Bavaria and Bohemia,(26) were homeless +wanderers; and that even the Black Forest formerly possessed +by the Helvetii,(27) if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes +dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border- +land, and was presumably even then, what it was afterwards called, +the Helvetian desert The barbarous strategy of the Germans--which +secured them from hostile attacks by laying waste the neighbourhood +for miles--seems to have been applied here on the greatest scale. + +German Tribes on the Left Bank of the Rhine + +But the Germans had not remained stationary at the Rhine. +The march of the Cimbrian and Teutonic host, composed, as respects +its flower, of German tribes, which had swept with such force fifty +years before over Pannonia, Gaul, Italy, and Spain, seemed to have +been nothing but a grand reconnaissance. Already different German +tribes had formed permanent settlements to the west of the Rhine, +especially of its lower course; having intruded as conquerors, +these settlers continued to demand hostages and to levy annual +tribute from the Gallic inhabitants in their neighbourhood, +as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci, +who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde(28) had grown +into a considerable canton, and a number of other tribes afterwards +comprehended under the name of the Tungri on the Maas in the region +of Liege; even the Treveri (about Treves) and the Nervii +(in Hainault), two of the largest and most powerful peoples +of this region, are directly designated by respectable authorities +as Germans. The complete credibility of these accounts must certainly +remain doubtful, since, as Tacitus remarks in reference to the two +peoples last mentioned, it was subsequently, at least in these regions, +reckoned an honour to be descended of German blood and not to belong +to the little-esteemed Celtic nation; yet the population +in the region of the Scheldt, Maas, and Moselle seems certainly +to have become, in one way or another, largely mingled with German +elements, or at any rate to have come under German influences. +The German settlements themselves were perhaps small; +they were not unimportant, for amidst the chaotic obscurity, +through which we see the stream of peoples on the right bank +of the Rhine ebbing and flowing about this period, we can well perceive +that larger German hordes were preparing to cross the Rhine in the track +of these advanced posts. Threatened on two sides by foreign domination +and torn by internal dissension, it was scarcely to be expected +that the unhappy Celtic nation would now rally and save itself +by its own vigour. Dismemberment, and decay in virtue of dismemberment, +had hitherto been its history; how should a nation, which could +name no day like those of Marathon and Salamis, of Aricia and the Raudine +plain--a nation which, even in its time of vigour, had made +no attempt to destroy Massilia by a united effort--now when evening +had come, defend itself against so formidable foes? + +The Roman Policy with Reference to the German Invasion + +The less the Celts, left to themselves, were a match for the Germans, +the more reason had the Romans carefully to watch over the complications +in which the two nations might be involved. Although the movements +thence arising had not up to the present time directly affected +them, they and their most important interests were yet concerned +in the issue of those movements. As may readily be conceived, +the internal demeanour of the Celtic nation had become speedily +and permanently influenced by its outward relations. As in Greece +the Lacedaemonian party combined with Persia against the Athenians, +so the Romans from their first appearance beyond the Alps had found +a support against the Arverni, who were then the ruling power among +the southern Celts, in their rivals for the hegemony, the Haedui: +and with the aid of these new "brothers of the Roman nation" they had +not merely reduced to subjection the Allobroges and a great portion +of the indirect territory of the Arverni, but had also, in the Gaul +that remained free, occasioned by their influence the transference +of the hegemony from the Arverni to these Haedui. But while the Greeks +were threatened with danger to their nationality only from one side, +the Celts found themselves hard pressed simultaneously by two +national foes; and it was natural that they should seek from the one +protection against the other, and that, if the one Celtic party +attached itself to the Romans, their opponents should +on the contrary form alliance with the Germans. This course +was most natural for the Belgae, who were brought by neighbourhood +and manifold intermixture into closer relation to the Germans who had +crossed the Rhine, and moreover, with their less-developed culture, +probably felt themselves at least as much akin to the Suebian +of alien race as to their cultivated Allobrogian or Helvetic +countryman. But the southern Celts also, among whom now +as already mentioned, the considerable canton of the Sequani +(about Besangon) stood at the head of the party hostile to the Romans, +had every reason at this very time to call in the Germans against +the Romans who immediately threatened them; the remiss government +of the senate and the signs of the revolution preparing in Rome, +which had not remained unknown to the Celts, made this very moment +seem suitable for ridding themselves of the Roman influence +and primarily for humbling the Roman clients, the Haedui. A rupture +had taken place between the two cantons respecting the tolls +on the Saone, which separated the territory of the Haedui +from that of the Sequani, and about the year 683 the German prince +Ariovistus with some 15,000 armed men had crossed the Rhine +as condottiere of the Sequani. + +Ariovistus on the Middle Rhine + +The war was prolonged for some years with varying success; +on the whole the results were unfavourable to the Haedui. Their leader +Eporedorix at length called out their whole clients, and marched +forth with an enormous superiority of force against the Germans. +These obstinately refused battle, and kept themselves under cover +of morasses and forests. It was not till the clans, weary +of waiting, began to break up and disperse, that the Germans appeared +in the open field, and then Ariovistus compelled a battle +at Admagetobriga, in which the flower of the cavalry of the Haedui +were left on the field. The Haedui, forced by this defeat +to conclude peace on the terms which the victor proposed, were obliged +to renounce the hegemony, and to consent with their whole adherents +to become clients of the Sequani; they had to bind themselves +to pay tribute to the Sequani or rather to Ariovistus, and to furnish +the children of their principal nobles as hostages; and lastly +they had to swear that they would never demand back these hostages +nor invoke the intervention of the Romans. + +Inaction of the Romans + +This peace was concluded apparently about 693.(29) Honour +and advantage enjoined the Romans to come forward in opposition to it; +the noble Haeduan Divitiacus, the head of the Roman party in his clan, +and for that reason now banished by his countrymen, went in person +to Rome to solicit their intervention. A still more serious +warning was the insurrection of the Allobroges in 693(30)-- +the neighbours of the Sequani--which was beyond doubt connected +with these events. In reality orders were issued to the Gallic +governors to assist the Haedui; they talked of sending consuls +and consular armies over the Alps; but the senate, to whose decision +these affairs primarily fell, at length here also crowned great +words with little deeds. The insurrection of the Allobroges +was suppressed by arms, but nothing was done for the Haedui; +on the contrary, Ariovistus was even enrolled in 695 in the list +of kings friendly with the Romans.(31) + +Foundation of a German Empire in Gaul + +The German warrior-prince naturally took this as a renunciation +by the Romans of the Celtic land which they had not occupied; +he accordingly took up his abode there, and began to establish +a German principality on Gallic soil. It was his intention that +the numerous bands which he had brought with him, and the still +more numerous bands that afterwards followed at his call from home-- +it was reckoned that up to 696 some 120,000 Germans had crossed +the Rhine--this whole mighty immigration of the German nation, +which poured through the once opened sluices like a stream over +the beautiful west, should become settled there and form a basis +on which he might build his dominion over Gaul. The extent +of the German settlements which he called into existence +on the left bank of the Rhine cannot be determined; beyond doubt +it was great, and his projects were far greater still. The Celts +were treated by him as a wholly subjugated nation, and no distinction +was made between the several cantons. Even the Sequani, as whose hired +commander-in-chief he had crossed the Rhine, were obliged, as if they +were vanquished enemies, to cede to him for his people a third +of their territory--presumably upper Alsace afterwards inhabited +by the Triboci--where Ariovistus permanently settled with his followers; +nay, as if this were not enough, a second third was afterwards +demanded of them for the Harudes who arrived subsequently. +Ariovistus seemed as if he wished to take up in Gaul the part +of Philip of Macedonia, and to play the master over the Celts +who were friendly to the Germans no less than over those +who adhered to the Romans. + +The Germans on the Lower Rhine +The Germans on the Upper Rhine +Spread of the Helvetian Invasion to the Interior of Gaul + +The appearance of the energetic German prince in so dangerous +proximity, which could not but in itself excite the most serious +apprehension in the Romans, appeared still more threatening, +inasmuch as it stood by no means alone. The Usipetes and Tencteri +settled on the right bank of the Rhine, weary of the incessant +devastation of their territory by the overbearing Suebian tribes, +had, the year before Caesar arrived in Gaul (695), set out +from their previous abodes to seek others at the mouth of the Rhine. +They had already taken away from the Menapii there the portion +of their territory situated on the right bank, and it might be +foreseen that they would make the attempt to establish themselves +also on the left. Suebian bands, moreover, assembled between +Cologne and Mayence, and threatened to appear as uninvited guests +in the opposite Celtic canton of the Treveri. Lastly, +the territory of the most easterly clan of the Celts, the warlike +and numerous Helvetii, was visited with growing frequency +by the Germans, so that the Helvetii, who perhaps even apart from this +were suffering from over-population through the reflux of their +settlers from the territory which they had lost to the north +of the Rhine, and besides were liable to be completely isolated +from their kinsmen by the settlement of Ariovistus in the territory +of the Sequani, conceived the desperate resolution of voluntarily +evacuating the territory hitherto in their possession to the Germans, +and acquiring larger and more fertile abodes to the west +of the Jura, along with, if possible, the hegemony in the interior +of Gaul--a plan which some of their districts had already formed +and attempted to execute during the Cimbrian invasion.(32) +the Rauraci whose territory (Basle and southern Alsace) was similarly +threatened, the remains, moreover, of the Boii who had already +at an earlier period been compelled by the Germans to forsake their +homes and were now unsettled wanderers, and other smaller tribes, +made common cause with the Helvetii. As early as 693 their flying +parties came over the Jura and even as far as the Roman province; +their departure itself could not be much longer delayed; inevitably +German settlers would then advance into the important region +between the lakes of Constance and Geneva forsaken by its defenders. +From the sources of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean the German tribes +were in motion; the whole line of the Rhine was threatened by them; +it was a moment like that when the Alamanni and the Franks +threw themselves on the falling empire of the Caesars; +and even now there seemed on the eve of being carried into effect +against the Celts that very movement which was successful +five hundred years afterwards against the Romans. + +Caesar Proceeds to Gaul +Caesar's Army + +Under these circumstances the new governor Gaius Caesar arrived +in the spring of 696 in Narbonese Gaul, which had been added by decree +of the senate to his original province embracing Cisalpine Gaul +along with Istria and Dalmatia. His office, which was committed +to him first for five years (to the end of 700), then in 699 +for five more (to the end of 705), gave him the right to nominate +ten lieutenants of propraetorian rank, and (at least according to +his own interpretation) to fill up his legions, or even to form +new ones at his discretion out of the burgess-population--who were +especially numerous in Cisalpine Gaul--of the territory under his +sway. The army, which he received in the two provinces, consisted, +as regards infantry of the line, of four legions trained and inured +to war, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, or at the utmost +24,000 men, to which fell to be added, as usual, the contingents +of the subjects. The cavalry and light-armed troops, moreover, +were represented by horsemen from Spain, and by Numidian, Cretan, +and Balearic archers and slingers. The staff of Caesar--the elite +of the democracy of the capital--contained, along with not a few +useless young men of rank, some able officers, such as Publius +Crassus the younger son of the old political ally of Caesar, +and Titus Labienus, who followed the chief of the democracy +as a faithful adjutant from the Forum to the battle-field. +Caesar had not received definite instructions; to one +who was discerning and courageous these were implied +in the circumstances with which he had to deal. Here too +the negligence of the senate had to be retrieved, and first of all +the stream of migration of the German peoples had to be checked. + +Repulse of the Helvetii + +Just at this time the Helvetic invasion, which was closely +interwoven with the German and had been in preparation for years, +began. That they might not make a grant of their abandoned huts +to the Germans and might render their own return impossible, +the Helvetii had burnt their towns and villages; and their long +trains of waggons, laden with women, children, and the best part +of their moveables, arrived from all sides at the Leman lake near +Genava (Geneva), where they and their comrades had fixed their +rendezvous for the 28th of March(33) of this year. According +to their own reckoning the whole body consisted of 368,000 persons, +of whom about a fourth part were able to bear arms. As the mountain +chain of the Jura, stretching from the Rhine to the Rhone, almost +completely closed in the Helvetic country towards the west, +and its narrow defiles were as ill adapted for the passage +of such a caravan as they were well adapted for defence, the leaders +had resolved to go round in a southerly direction, and to open up +for themselves a way to the west at the point, where the Rhone +has broken through the mountain-chain between the south-western +and highest part of the Jura and the Savoy mountains, near +the modern Fort de l'Ecluse. But on the right bank here the rocks +and precipices come so close to the river that there remained only +a narrow path which could easily be blocked up, and the Sequani, +to whom this bank belonged, could with ease intercept the route +of the Helvetii. They preferred therefore to pass over, above the point +where the Rhone breaks through, to the left Allobrogian bank, +with the view of regaining the right bank further down the stream +where the Rhone enters the plain, and then marching on towards +the level west of Gaul; there the fertile canton of the Santones +(Saintonge, the valley of the Charente) on the Atlantic Ocean +was selected by the wanderers for their new abode. This march led, +where it touched the left bank of the Rhone, through Roman territory; +and Caesar, otherwise not disposed to acquiesce in the establishment +of the Helvetii in western Gaul, was firmly resolved not to permit +their passage. But of his four legions three were stationed far +off at Aquileia; although he called out in haste the militia +of the Transalpine province, it seemed scarcely possible with so small +a force to hinder the innumerable Celtic host from crossing +the Rhone, between its exit from the Leman lake at Geneva +and the point of its breaking through the mountains, over a distance +of more than fourteen miles. Caesar, however, by negotiations +with the Helvetii, who would gladly have effected by peaceable means +the crossing of the river and the march through the Allobrogian +territory, gained a respite of fifteen days, which was employed +in breaking down the bridge over the Rhone at Genava, and barring +the southern bank of the Rhone against the enemy by an entrenchment +nearly nineteen miles long: it was the first application +of the system--afterwards carried out on so immense a scale +by the Romans--of guarding the frontier of the empire in a military point +of view by a chain of forts placed in connection with each other +by ramparts and ditches. The attempts of the Helvetii to gain +the other bank at different places in boats or by means of fords +were successfully frustrated by the Romans in these lines, +and the Helvetii were compelled to desist from the passage of the Rhone. + +The Helvetii Move towards Gaul + +On the other hand, the party in Gaul hostile to the Romans, +which hoped to obtain a powerful reinforcement in the Helvetii, +more especially the Haeduan Dumnorix brother of Divitiacus, +and at the head of the national party in his canton as the latter +wasat the head of the Romans, procured for them a passage +through the passes of the Jura and the territory of the Sequani. +The Romans had no legal title to forbid this; but other and higher +interestswereat stake for them in the Helvetic expedition than +the question of the formal integrity of the Roman territory-- interests +which could only be guarded, if Caesar, instead of confining himself, +as all the governors of the senate and even Marius(34) had done, +to the modest task of watching the frontier, should cross what had hitherto +been the frontier at the head of a considerable army. Caesar was general +not of the senate, but of the state; he showed no hesitation. +He had immediately proceeded from Genava in person to Italy, +and with characteristic speed brought up the three legions +cantoned there as well as two newly-formed legions of recruits. + +The Helvetian War + +These troops he united with the corps stationed at Genava, +and crossed the Rhone with his whole force. His unexpected appearance +in the territory of the Haedui naturally at once restored the Roman +party there to power, which was not unimportant as regarded +supplies. He found the Helvetii employed in crossing the Saone, +and moving from the territory of the Sequani into that +of the Haedui; those of them that were still on the left bank +of the Saone, especially the corps of the Tigorini, were caught +and destroyed by the Romans rapidly advancing. The bulk +of the expedition, however, had already crossed to the right bank +of the river; Caesar followed them and in twenty-four hours effected +the passage, which the unwieldy host of the Helvetii had not been able +to accomplish in twenty days. The Helvetii, prevented by this passage +of the river on the part of the Roman army from continuing +their march westward, turned in a northerly direction, doubtless +under the supposition that Caesar would not venture to follow them +far into the interior of Gaul, and with the intention, if he should +desist from following them, of turning again toward their proper +destination. For fifteen days the Roman army marched behind +that of the enemy at a distance of about four miles, clinging +to its rear, and hoping for an advantageous opportunity of assailing +the Helvetic host under conditions favourable to victory, +and destroying it. But this moment came not: unwieldy as was the march +of the Helvetic caravan, the leaders knew how to guard against +a surprise, and appeared to be copiously provided with supplies +as well as most accurately informed by their spies of every event +in the Roman camp. On the other hand the Romans began to suffer +from want of necessaries, especially when the Helvetii removed +from the Saone and the means of river-transport ceased. The non-arrival +of the supplies promised by the Haedui, from which this embarrassment +primarily arose, excited the more suspicion, as both armies +were still moving about in their territory. Moreover the considerable +Roman cavalry, numbering almost 4000 horse, proved utterly +untrustworthy--which doubtless admitted of explanation, +for they consisted almost wholly of Celtic horsemen, especially +of the mounted retainers of the Haedui, under the command of Dumnorix +the well-known enemy of the Romans, and Caesar himself had taken +them over still more as hostages than as soldiers. There was good +reason to believe that a defeat which they suffered at the hands +of the far weaker Helvetic cavalry was occasioned by themselves, +and that the enemy was informed by them of all occurrences +in the Roman camp. The position of Caesar grew critical; it was +becoming disagreeably evident, how much the Celtic patriot party +could effect even with the Haedui in spite of their official +alliance with Rome, and of the distinctive interests of this canton +inclining it towards the Romans; what was to be the issue, if they +ventured deeper and deeper into a country full of excitement, +and if they removed daily farther from their means of communication? +The armies were just marching past Bibracte (Autun), the capital +of the Haedui, at a moderate distance; Caesar resolved to seize +this important place by force before he continued his march +into the interior; and it is very possible, that he intended to desist +altogether from farther pursuit and to establish himself +in Bibracte. But when he ceased from the pursuit and turned +against Bibracte, the Helvetii thought that the Romans were making +preparations for flight, and now attacked in their turn. + +Battle at Bibracte + +Caesar desired nothing better. The two armies posted themselves +on two parallel chains of hills; the Celts began the engagement, +broke up the Roman cavalry which had advanced into the plain, +and rushed on against the Roman legions posted on the slope of the hill, +but were there obliged to give way before Caesar's veterans. +When the Romans thereupon, following up their advantage, descended +in their turn to the plain, the Celts again advanced against them, +and a reserved Celtic corps took them at the same time in flank. +The reserve of the Roman attacking column was pushed forward +against the latter; it forced it away from the main body towards +the baggage and the barricade of waggons, where it was destroyed. +The bulk of the Helvetic host was at length brought to give way, +and compelled to beat a retreat in an easterly direction--the opposite +of that towards which their expedition led them. This day had +frustrated the scheme of the Helvetii to establish for themselves +new settlements on the Atlantic Ocean, and handed them over +to the pleasure of the victor; but it had been a hot day also +for the conquerors. Caesar, who had reason for not altogether trusting +his staff of officers, had at the very outset sent away +all the officers' horses, so as to make the necessity of holding +their ground thoroughly clear to his troops; in fact the battle, +had the Romans lost it, would have probably brought about +the annihilation of the Roman army. The Roman troops +were too much exhausted to pursue the conquered with vigour; +but in consequence of the proclamation of Caesar that he would +treat all who should support the Helvetii as like the Helvetii +themselves enemies of the Romans, all support was refused +to the beaten army whithersoever it went-- in the first instance, +in the canton of the Lingones (about Langres)--and, deprived +of all supplies and of their baggage and burdened by the mass +of camp-followers incapable of fighting, they were under the necessity +of submitting to the Roman general. + +The Helvetii Sent back to Their Original Abode + +The lot of the vanquished was a comparatively mild one. +The Haedui were directed to concede settlements in their territory +to the homeless Boii; and this settlement of the conquered foe +in the midst of the most powerful Celtic cantons rendered almost +the services of a Roman colony. The survivors of the Helvetii +and Rauraci, something more than a third of the men that had marched +forth, were naturally sent back to their former territory. +It was incorporated with the Roman province, but the inhabitants +were admitted to alliance with Rome under favourable conditions, +in order to defend, under Roman supremacy, the frontier along +the upper Rhine against the Germans. Only the south-western point +of the Helvetic canton was directly taken into the possession +of the Romans, and there subsequently, on the charming shore +of the Leman lake, the old Celtic town Noviodunum (now Nyon) +was converted into a Roman frontier-fortress, +the "Julian equestrian colony."(35) + +Caesar and Ariovistus +Negotiations + +Thus the threatening invasion of the Germans on the upper Rhine +was obviated, and, at the same time, the party hostile to the Romans +among the Celts was humbled. On the middle Rhine also, +where the Germans had already crossed years ago, and where the power +of Ariovistus which vied with that of Rome in Gaul was daily +spreading, there was need of similar action, and the occasion +for a rupture was easily found. In comparison with the yoke threatened +or already imposed on them by Ariovistus, the Roman supremacy probably +now appeared to the greater part of the Celts in this quarter +the lesser evil; the minority, who retained their hatred +of the Romans, had at least to keep silence. A diet of the Celtic +tribes of central Gaul, held under Roman influence, requested +the Roman general in name of the Celtic nation for aid against +the Germans. Caesar consented. At his suggestion the Haedui stopped +the payment of the tribute stipulated to be paid to Ariovistus, +and demanded back the hostages furnished; and when Ariovistus +on account of this breach of treaty attacked the clients of Rome, +Caesar took occasion thereby to enter into direct negotiation +with him and specially to demand, in addition to the return +of the hostages and a promise to keep peace with the Haedui, +that Ariovistus should bind himself to allure no more Germans +over the Rhine. The German general replied to the Roman, in the full +consciousness of equality of rights, that northern Gaul had become +subject to him by right of war as fairly as southern Gaul +to the Romans; and that, as he did not hinder the Romans from taking +tribute from the Allobroges, so they should not prevent him +from taxing his subjects. In later secret overtures it appeared +that the prince was well aware of the circumstances of the Romans; +he mentioned the invitations which had been addressed to him from Rome +to put Caesar out of the way, and offered, if Caesar would leave +to him northern Gaul, to assist him in turn to obtain the sovereignty +of Italy--as the party-quarrels of the Celtic nation had opened up +an entrance for him into Gaul, he seemed to expect from the party- +quarrels of the Italian nation the consolidation of his rule there. +For centuries no such language of power completely on a footing +of equality and bluntly and carelessly expressing its independence had +been held in presence of the Romans, as was now heard from the king +of the German host; he summarily refused to come, when the Roman +general suggested that he should appear personally before him +according to the usual practice with client-princes. + +Ariovistus Attacked +And Beaten + +It was the more necessary not to delay; Caesar immediately set out +against Ariovistus. A panic seized his troops, especially his officers +when they were to measure their strength with the flower +of the German troops that for fourteen years had not come +under shelter of a roof: it seemed as if the deep decay of Roman moral +and military discipline would assert itself and provoke desertion +and mutiny even in Caesar's camp. But the general, while declaring +that in case of need he would march with the tenth legion alone +against the enemy, knew not merely how to influence these +by such an appeal to honour, but also how to bind the other regiments +to their eagles by warlike emulation, and to inspire the troops +with something of his own energy. Without leaving them time +for reflection, he led them onward in rapid marches, and fortunately +anticipated Ariovistus in the occupation of Vesontio (Besancon), +the capital of the Sequani. A personal conference between the two +generals, which took place at the request of Ariovistus, seemed +as if solely meant to cover an attempt against the person of Caesar; +arms alone could decide between the two oppressors of Gaul. The war +came temporarily to a stand. In lower Alsace somewhere in the region +of Muhlhausen, five miles from the Rhine,(36) the two armies +lay at a little distance from each other, till Ariovistus +with his very superior force succeeded in marching past the Roman camp, +placing himself in its rear, and cutting off the Romans +from their base and their supplies. Caesar attempted to free himself +from his painful situation by a battle; but Ariovistus did not accept it. +Nothing remained for the Roman general but, in spite of +his inferior strength, to imitate the movement of the Germans, +and to recover his communications by making two legions march past +the enemy and take up a position beyond the camp of the Germans, +while four legions remained behind in the former camp. Ariovistus, +when he saw the Romans divided, attempted an assault on their lesser +camp; but the Romans repulsed it. Under the impression made +by this success, the whole Roman army was brought forward +to the attack; and the Germans also placed themselves in battle array, +in a long line, each tribe for itself, the cars of the army +with the baggage and women being placed behind them to render flight +more difficult. The right wing of the Romans, led by Caesar himself, +threw itself rapidly on the enemy, and drove them before it; +the right wing of the Germans was in like manner successful. +The balance still stood equal; but the tactics of the reserve, +which had decided so many other conflicts with barbarians, decided +the conflict with the Germans also in favour of the Romans; +their third line, which Publius Crassus seasonably sent to render help, +restored the battle on the left wing and thereby decided +the victory. The pursuit was continued to the Rhine; only a few, +including the king, succeeded in escaping to the other bank (696). + +German Settlements on the Left Bank of the Rhine + +Thus brilliantly the Roman rule announced its advent to the mighty +stream, which the Italian soldiers here saw for the first time; +by a single fortunate battle the line of the Rhine was won. +The fate of the German settlements on the left bank of the Rhine +lay in the hands of Caesar; the victor could destroy them, +but he did not do so. The neighbouring Celtic cantons--the Sequani, +Leuci, Mediomatrici--were neither capable of self-defence +nor trustworthy; the transplanted Germans promised to become +not merely brave guardians of the frontier but also better subjects +of Rome, for their nationality severed them from the Celts, +and their own interest in the preservation of their newly-won +settlements severed them from their countrymen across the Rhine, +so that in their isolated position they could not avoid adhering +to the central power. Caesar here, as everywhere, preferred +conquered foes to doubtful friends; he left the Germans settled +by Ariovistus along the left bank of the Rhine--the Triboci +about Strassburg, the Nemetes about Spires, the Vangiones +about Worms--in possession of their new abodes, and entrusted them +with the guarding of the Rhine-frontier against their countrymen.(37) +The Suebi, who threatened the territory of the Treveri on the middle +Rhine, on receiving news of the defeat of Ariovistus, again retreated +into the interior of Germany; on which occasion they sustained +considerable loss by the way at the hands of the adjoining tribes. + +The Rhine Boundary + +The consequences of this one campaign were immense; they were felt +for many centuries after. The Rhine had become the boundary +of the Roman empire against the Germans. In Gaul, which was no longer +able to govern itself, the Romans had hitherto ruled on the south +coast, while lately the Germans had attempted to establish themselves +farther up. The recent events had decided that Gaul was to succumb +not merely in part but wholly to the Roman supremacy, +and that the natural boundary presented by the mighty river was also +to become the political boundary. The senate in its better times +had not rested, till the dominion of Rome had reached the natural +bounds of Italy--the Alps and the Mediterranean--and its adjacent +islands. The enlarged empire also needed a similar military +rounding off; but the present government left the matter +to accident, and sought at most to see, not that the frontiers +were capable of defence, but that they should not need to be defended +directly by itself. People felt that now another spirit +and another arm began to guide the destinies of Rome. + +Subjugation of Gaul +Belgic Expedition + +The foundations of the future edifice were laid; but in order +to finish the building and completely to secure the recognition +of the Roman rule by the Gauls, and that of the Rhine-frontier by +the Germans, very much still remained to be done. All central Gaul +indeed from the Roman frontier as far up as Chartres and Treves +submitted without objection to the new ruler; and on the upper +and middle Rhine also no attack was for the present to be apprehended +from the Germans. But the northern provinces--as well +the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful +confederation of the Belgae--were not affected by the blows +directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit +to the conqueror of Ariovistus. Moreover, as was already remarked, +very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans +over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes +made themselves ready to cross the stream. In consequence of this +Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, +in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons. Mindful of the brave +and successful resistance which fifty years before they had +with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their +land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them +in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent +their whole first levy--300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba +the king of the Suessiones--to their southern frontier to receive +Caesar there. A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi +(about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners +an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours +the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up +in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul. +The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost +at the same time. + +Conflicts on the Aisne +Submission of the Western Cantons + +Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times +as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern +Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau +rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river +and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself +with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae +to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications. +When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily +collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly. King Galba +was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal +to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil. +No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent +and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp +of the confederates. The Bellovaci in particular, equal to +the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied that the supreme +command of the confederate army had not fallen to them, could no longer +be detained after news had arrived that the Haedui as allies +of the Romans were making preparations to enter the Bellovacic territory. +They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake +all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten +with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked, +the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated +by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe +which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost +on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne, +the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle. +The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general +to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion +of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences +of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced +into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another +gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful +Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci +(about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened +their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines, +the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit +to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain. + +The Conflict with the Nervii + +But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more +energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates +(about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above +all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body +of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci, +far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit, +concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces +on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately +of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge, +and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these +districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often +visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations +for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived +on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied +in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while +the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights, +the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's +forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment +the enemy had crossed this also, and stormed the heights of the left +bank with a determination that braved death. Scarcely was there +time left for the entrenching legionaries to exchange the mattock +for the sword; the soldiers, many without helmets, had to fight +just as they stood, without line of battle, without plan, without +proper command; for, owing to the suddenness of the attack +and the intersection of the ground by tall hedges, the several +divisions had wholly lost their communications. Instead of a battle +there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left +wing overthrew the Atrebates and pursued them even across +the river. The Roman central division forced the Viromandui down +the declivity. But the right wing, where the general himself +was present, was outflanked by the far more numerous Nervii +the more easily, as the central division carried away by its +own success had evacuated the ground alongside of it, and even +the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions, +each separately rolled together into a dense mass and assailed +in front and on both flanks, deprived of most of their officers +and their best soldiers, appeared on the point of being broken and cut +to pieces. The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already +fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions, +like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed, +that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home +the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained. Everything +was at stake. The general himself seized his shield and fought +among the foremost; his example, his call even now inspiring enthusiasm, +induced the wavering ranks to rally. They had already in some +measure extricated themselves and had at least restored the connection +between the two legions of this wing, when help came up-- +partly down from the crest of the bank, where in the interval +the Roman rearguard with the baggage had arrived, partly +from the other bank of the river, where Labienus had meanwhile penetrated +to the enemy's camp and taken possession of it, and now, perceiving +at length the danger that menaced the right wing, despatched +the victorious tenth legion to the aid of his general. The Nervii, +separated from their confederates and simultaneously assailed +on all sides, now showed, when fortune turned, the same heroic courage +as when they believed themselves victors; still over the pile +of corpses of their fallen comrades they fought to the last man. +According to their own statement, of their six hundred senators +only three survived this day. + +Subjugation of the Belgae + +After this annihilating defeat the Nervii, Atrebates, and Viromandui +could not but recognize the Roman supremacy. The Aduatuci, who arrived +too late to take part in the fight on the Sambre, attempted still to hold +their ground in the strongest of their towns (on the mount Falhize +near the Maas not far from Huy), but they too soon submitted. A nocturnal +attack on the Roman camp in front of the town, which they ventured +after the surrender, miscarried; and the perfidy was avenged +by the Romans with fearful severity. The clients of the Aduatuci, +consisting of the Eburones between the Maas and Rhine and other +small adjoining tribes, were declared independent by the Romans, +while the Aduatuci taken prisoners were sold under the hammer en masse +for the benefit of the Roman treasury. It seemed as if the fate +which had befallen the Cimbri still pursued even this last +Cimbrian fragment. Caesar contented himself with imposing +on the other subdued tribes a general disarmament and furnishing +of hostages. The Remi became naturally the leading canton +in Belgic, like the Haedui in central Gaul; even in the latter +several clans at enmity with the Haedui preferred to rank +among the clients of the Remi. Only the remote maritime +cantons of the Morini (Artois) and the Menapii (Flanders and Brabant), +and the country between the Scheldt and the Rhine inhabited in great +part by Germans, remained still for the present exempt from Roman +invasion and in possession of their hereditary freedom. + +Expeditions against the Maritime Cantons +Venetian War + +The turn of the Aremorican cantons came. In the autumn of 697 +Publius Crassus was sent thither with a Roman corps; he induced +the Veneti--who as masters of the ports of the modern Morbihan +and of a respectable fleet occupied the first place among all +the Celtic cantons in navigation and commerce--and generally +the coast-districts between the Loire and Seine, to submit +to the Romans and give them hostages. But they soon repented. +When in the following winter (697-698) Roman officers +came to these legions to levy requisitions of grain there, +they were detained by the Veneti as counter-hostages. The example +thus set was quickly followed not only by the Aremorican cantons, +but also by the maritime cantons of the Belgae that still remained +free; where, as in some cantons of Normandy, the common council +refused to join the insurrection, the multitude put them to death +and attached itself with redoubled zeal to the national cause. +The whole coast from the mouth of the Loire to that of the Rhine +rose against Rome; the most resolute patriots from all the Celtic +cantons hastened thither to co-operate in the great work of liberation; +they already calculated on the rising of the whole Belgic confederacy, +on aid from Britain, on the arrival of Germans from beyond the Rhine. + +Caesar sent Labienus with all the cavalry to the Rhine, with a view +to hold in check the agitation in the Belgic province, and in case +of need to prevent the Germans from crossing the river; another +of his lieutenants, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, went with three legions +to Normandy, where the main body of the insurgents assembled. +But the powerful and intelligent Veneti were the true centre +of the insurrection; the chief attack by land and sea was directed +against them. Caesar's lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, brought up +the fleet formed partly of the ships of the subject Celtic cantons, +partly of a number of Roman galleys hastily built on the Loire +and manned with rowers from the Narbonese province; Caesar himself +advanced with the flower of his infantry into the territory of the Veneti. +But these were prepared beforehand, and had with equal skill +and resolution availed themselves of the favourable circumstances +which the nature of the ground in Brittany and the possession +of a considerable naval power presented. The country was much +intersected and poorly furnished with grain, the towns +were situated for the most part on cliffs and tongues of land, +and were accessible from the mainland only by shallows which it was +difficult to cross; the provision of supplies and the conducting +of sieges were equally difficult for the army attacking by land, +while the Celts by means of their vessels could furnish the towns +easily with everything needful, and in the event of the worst could +accomplish their evacuation. The legions expended their time +and strength in the sieges of the Venetian townships, only to see +the substantial fruits of victory ultimately carried off in the vessels +of the enemy. + +Naval Battle between the Romans and the Veneti +Submission of the Maritime Cantons + +Accordingly when the Roman fleet, long detained by storms +at the mouth of the Loire, arrived at length on the coast of Brittany, +it was left to decide the struggle by a naval battle. The Celts, +conscious of their superiority on this element, brought forth their +fleet against that of the Romans commanded by Brutus. Not only +did it number 220 sail, far more than the Romans had been able +to bring up, but their high-decked strong sailing-vessels with flat +bottoms were also far better adapted for the high-running waves +of the Atlantic Ocean than the low, lightly-built oared galleys +of the Romans with their sharp keels. Neither the missiles +nor the boarding-bridges of the Romans could reach the high deck +of the enemy's vessels, and the iron beaks recoiled powerless +from the strong oaken planks. But the Roman mariners cut the ropes, +by which the yards were fastened to the masts, by means of sickles +fastened to long poles; the yards and sails fell down, and, as they +did not know how to repair the damage speedily, the ship was thus +rendered a wreck just as it is at the present day by the falling +of the masts, and the Roman boats easily succeeded by a joint attack +in mastering the maimed vessel of the enemy. When the Gauls +perceived this manoeuvre, they attempted to move from the coast +on which they had taken up the combat with the Romans, and to gain +the high seas, whither the Roman galleys could not follow them; +but unhappily for them there suddenly set in a dead calm, +and the immense fleet, towards the equipment of which the maritime +cantons had applied all their energies, was almost wholly destroyed +by the Romans. Thus was this naval battle--so far as historical +knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean-- +just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before,(39) +notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour +of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity. +The consequence of the victory achieved by Brutus was the surrender +of the Veneti and of all Brittany. More with a view to impress +the Celtic nation, after so manifold evidences of clemency towards +the vanquished, by an example of fearful severity now against those +whose resistance had been obstinate, than with the view of punishing +the breach of treaty and the arrest of the Roman officers, Caesar +caused the whole common council to be executed and the people +of the Venetian canton to the last man to be sold into slavery. +By this dreadful fate, as well as by their intelligence +and their patriotism, the Veneti have more than any other Celtic clan +acquired a title to the sympathy of posterity. + +Sabinus meanwhile opposed to the levy of the coast-states assembled +on the Channel the same tactics by which Caesar had in the previous +year conquered the Belgic general levy on the Aisne; he stood +on the defensive till impatience and want invaded the ranks of the enemy, +and then managed by deceiving them as to the temper and strength +of his troops, and above all by means of their own impatience, +to allure them to an imprudent assault upon the Roman camp, in which +they were defeated; whereupon the militia dispersed and the country +as far as the Seine submitted. + +Expeditins against the Morini and Menapii + +The Morini and Menapii alone persevered in withholding their +recognition of the Roman supremacy. To compel them to this, Caesar +appeared on their borders; but, rendered wiser by the experiences +of their countrymen, they avoided accepting battle on the borders +of their land, and retired into the forests which then stretched +almost without interruption from the Ardennes towards the German +Ocean. The Romans attempted to make a road through the forest +with the axe, ranging the felled trees on each side as a barricade +against the enemy's attacks; but even Caesar, daring as he was, +found it advisable after some days of most laborious marching, +especially as it was verging towards winter, to order a retreat, +although but a small portion of the Morini had submitted and the powerful +Menapii had not been reached at all. In the following year (699) +while Caesar himself was employed in Britain the greater part +of the army was sent afresh against these tribes; but this expedition +also remained in the main unsuccessful. Nevertheless the result +of the last campaigns was the almost complete reduction of Gaul +under the dominion of the Romans. While central Gaul had submitted +to it without resistance, during the campaign of 697 the Belgic, +and during that of the following year the maritime, cantons +had been compelled by force of arms to acknowledge the Roman rule. +The lofty hopes, with which the Celtic patriots had begun +the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled. Neither Germans +nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence +of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts +of the previous year. + +Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais + +While Caesar was thus forming the Roman domain in the west by force +of arms into a compact whole, he did not neglect to open up +for the newly-conquered country--which was destined in fact to fill up +the wide gap in that domain between Italy and Spain-communications both +with the Italian home and with the Spanish provinces. The communication +between Gaul and Italy had certainly been materially facilitated +by the military road laid out by Pompeius in 677 over Mont Genevre;(40) +but since the whole of Gaul had been subdued by the Romans, there was +need of a route crossing the ridge of the Alps from the valley of the Po, +not in a westerly but in a northerly direction, and furnishing a shorter +communication between Italy and central Gaul. The way which leads over +the Great St. Bernard into the Valais and along the lake of Geneva +had long served the merchant for this purpose; to get this road +into his power, Caesar as early as the autumn of 697 caused Octodurum +(Martigny) to be occupied by Servius Galba, and the inhabitants +of the Valais to be reduced to subjection--a result which was, +of course, merely postponed, not prevented, by the brave resistance +of these mountain-peoples. + +And with Spain + +To gain communication with Spain, moreover, Publius Crassus +was sent in the following year (698) to Aquitania with instructions +to compel the Iberian tribes dwelling there to acknowledge the Roman +rule. The task was not without difficulty; the Iberians held +together more compactly than the Celts and knew better than these +how to learn from their enemies. The tribes beyond the Pyrenees, +especially the valiant Cantabri, sent a contingent to their +threatened countrymen; with this there came experienced officers +trained under the leadership of Sertorius in the Roman fashion, +who introduced as far as possible the principles of the Roman art +of war, and especially of encampment, among the Aquitanian levy +already respectable from its numbers and its valour. +But the excellent officer who led the Romans knew how to surmount +all difficulties, and after some hardly-contested but successful +battles he induced the peoples from the Garonne to the vicinity +of the Pyrenees to submit to the new masters. + +Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans +The Usipetes and Tencteri + +One of the objects which Caesar had proposed to himself-- +the subjugation of Gaul--had been in substance, with exceptions +scarcely worth mentioning, attained so far as it could be attained +at all by the sword. But the other half of the work undertaken +by Caesar was still far from being satisfactorily accomplished, +and the Germans had by no means as yet been everywhere compelled +to recognize the Rhine as their limit. Even now, in the winter +of 698-699, a fresh crossing of the boundary had taken place +on the lower course of the river, whither the Romans had not yet +penetrated. The German tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri +whose attempts to cross the Rhine in the territory of the Menapii +have been already mentioned,(41) had at length, eluding the vigilance +of their opponents by a feigned retreat, crossed in the vessels +belonging to the Menapii--an enormous host, which is said, +including women and children, to have amounted to 430,000 persons. +They still lay, apparently, in the region of Nimeguen and Cleves; +but it was said that, following the invitations of the Celtic +patriot party, they intended to advance into the interior of Gaul; +and the rumour was confirmed by the fact that bands of their +horsemen already roamed as far as the borders of the Treveri. +But when Caesar with his legions arrived opposite to them, the sorely- +harassed emigrants seemed not desirous of fresh conflicts, +but very ready to accept land from the Romans and to till it in peace +under their supremacy. While negotiations as to this were going on, +a suspicion arose in the mind of the Roman general that the Germans +only sought to gain time till the bands of horsemen sent out +by them had returned. Whether this suspicion was well founded or not, +we cannot tell; but confirmed in it by an attack, which in spite +of the de facto suspension of arms a troop of the enemy made +on his vanguard, and exasperated by the severe loss thereby sustained, +Caesar believed himself entitled to disregard every consideration +of international law. When on the second morning the princes +and elders of the Germans appeared in the Roman camp to apologize +for the attack made without their knowledge, they were arrested, +and the multitude anticipating no assault and deprived of their leaders +were suddenly fallen upon by the Roman army. It was rather a manhunt +than a battle; those that did not fall under the swords of the Romans +were drowned in the Rhine; almost none but the divisions detached +at the time of the attack escaped the massacre and succeeded +in recrossing the Rhine, where the Sugambri gave them an asylu +in their territory, apparently on the Lippe. The behaviour of Caesar +towards these German immigrants met with severe and just censure +in the senate; but, however little it can be excused, the German +encroachments were emphatically checked by the terror +which it occasioned. + +Caesar on the Right Bank of the Rhine + +Caesar however found it advisable to take yet a further step +and to lead the legions over the Rhine. He was not without connections +beyond the river. the Germans at the stage of culture +which they had then reached, lacked as yet any national coherence; +in political distraction they--though from other causes--fell nothing +short of the Celts. The Ubii (on the Sieg and Lahn), the most +civilized among the German tribes, had recently been made subject +and tributary by a powerful Suebian canton of the interior, and had +as early as 697 through their envoys entreated Caesar to free them +like the Gauls from the Suebian rule. It was not Caesar's design +seriously to respond to this suggestion, which would have involved +him in endless enterprises; but it seemed advisable, with the view +of preventing the appearance of the Germanic arms on the south +of the Rhine, at least to show the Roman arms beyond it. The protection +which the fugitive Usipetes and Tencteri had found among the Sugambri +afforded a suitable occasion. In the region, apparently between +Coblentz and Andernach, Caesar erected a bridge of piles over the Rhine +and led his legions across from the Treverian to the Ubian territory. +Some smaller cantons gave in their submission; but the Sugambri, +against whom the expedition was primarily directed, withdrew, +on the approach of the Roman army, with those under their protection +into the interior. In like manner the powerful Suebian canton +which oppressed the Ubii--presumably the same which subsequently +appears under the name of the Chatti--caused the districts immediately +adjoining the Ubian territory to be evacuated and the non-combatant +portion of the people to be placed in safety, while all the men +capable of arms were directed to assemble at the centre of the canton. +The Roman general had neither occasion nor desire to accept +this challenge; his object--partly to reconnoitre, partly to produce +an impressive effect if possible upon the Germans, or at least +on the Celts and his countrymen at home, by an expedition +over the Rhine--was substantially attained; after remaining +eighteen days on the right bank of the Rhine he again arrived +in Gaul and broke down the Rhine bridge behind him (699). + +Expeditions to Britain + +There remained the insular Celts. From the close connection +between them and the Celts of the continent, especially +the maritime cantons, it may readily be conceived that they had +at least sympathized with the national resistance, and that if they +did not grant armed assistance to the patriots, they gave at any rate +an honourable asylum in their sea-protected isle to every one +who was no longer safe in his native land. This certainly involved +a danger, if not for the present, at any rate for the future; it +seemed judicious--if not to undertake the conquest of the island +itself--at any rate to conduct there also defensive operations +by offensive means, and to show the islanders by a landing +on the coast that the arm of the Romans reached even across the Channel. +The first Roman officer who entered Brittany, Publius Crassus +had already (697) crossed thence to the "tin-islands" at the south-west +point of England (Stilly islands); in the summer of 699 Caesar +himself with only two legions crossed the Channel at its narrowest +part.(42) He found the coast covered with masses of the enemy's +troops and sailed onward with his vessels; but the British war- +chariots moved on quite as fast by land as the Roman galleys +by sea, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that the Roman +soldiers succeeded in gaining the shore in the face of the enemy, +partly by wading, partly in boats, under the protection +of the ships of war, which swept the beach with missiles thrown +from machines and by the hand. In the first alarm the nearest villages +submitted; but the islanders soon perceived how weak the enemy was, +and how he did not venture to move far from the shore. The natives +disappeared into the interior and returned only to threaten +the camp; and the fleet, which had been left in the open roads, +suffered very considerable damage from the first tempest +that burst upon it. The Romans had to reckon themselves fortunate +in repelling the attacks of the barbarians till they had bestowed +the necessary repairs on the ships, and in regaining with these +the Gallic coast before the bad season of the year came on. + +Caesar himself was so dissatisfied with the results of this expedition +undertaken inconsiderately and with inadequate means, that he immediately +(in the winter of 699-700) ordered a transport fleet of 800 sail +to be fitted out, and in the spring of 700 sailed a second time +for the Kentish coast, on this occasion with five legions +and 2000 cavalry. The forces of the Britons, assembled +this time also on the shore, retired before the mighty armada +without risking a battle; Caesar immediately set out on his march +into the interior, and after some successful conflicts crossed +the river Stour; but he was obliged to halt very much against his will, +because the fleet in the open roads had been again half destroyed +by the storms of the Channel. Before they got the ships drawn +up upon the beach and the extensive arrangements made +for their repair, precious time was lost, which the Celts wisely +turned to account. + +Cassivellaunus + +The brave and cautious prince Cassivellaunus, who ruled in what +is now Middlesex and the surrounding district--formerly the terror +of the Celts to the south of the Thames, but now the protector +and champion of the whole nation--had headed the defence of the land. +He soon saw that nothing at all could be done with the Celtic +infantry against the Roman, and that the mass of the general levy-- +which it was difficult to feed and difficult to control--was only +a hindrance to the defence; he therefore dismissed it and retained +only the war-chariots, of which he collected 4000, and in which +the warriors, accustomed to leap down from their chariots and fight +on foot, could be employed in a twofold manner like the burgess- +cavalry of the earliest Rome. When Caesar was once more able +to continue his march, he met with no interruption to it; +but the British war-chariots moved always in front and alongside +of the Roman army, induced the evacuation of the country +(which from the absence of towns proved no great difficulty), +prevented the sending out of detachments, and threatened +the communications. The Thames was crossed--apparently +between Kingston and Brentford above London--by the Romans; +they moved forward, but made no real progress; the general achieved +no victory, the soldiers made no booty, and the only actual result, +the submission of the Trinobante in the modern Essex, was less +the effect of a dread of the Romans than of the deep hostility +between this canton and Cassivellaunus. The danger increased +with every onward step, and the attack, which the princes of Kent +by the orders of Cassivellaunus made on the Roman naval camp, +although it was repulsed, was an urgent warning to turn back. +The taking by storm of a great British tree-barricade, +in which a multitude of cattle fell into the hands of the Romans, +furnished a passable conclusion to the aimless advance and a tolerable +pretext for returning. Cassivellaunus was sagacious enough +not to drive the dangerous enemy to extremities, and promised, +as Caesar desired him, to abstain from disturbing the Trinobantes, +to pay tribute and to furnish hostages; nothing was said +of delivering up arms or leaving behind a Roman garrison, +and even those promises were, it may be presumed, so far as +they concerned the future, neither given nor received in earnest. +After receiving the hostages Caesar returned to the naval camp +and thence to Gaul. If he, as it would certainly seem, +had hoped on this occasion to conquer Britain, the scheme +was totally thwarted partly by the wise defensive system +of Cassivellaunus, partly and chiefly by the unserviceableness +of the Italian oared fleet in the waters of the North Sea; +for it is certain that the stipulated tribute was never paid. +But the immediate object--of rousing the islanders out of their haughty +security and inducing them in their own interest no longer to allow +their island to be a rendezvous for continental emigrants-- +seems certainly to have been attained; at least no complaints +are afterwards heard as to the bestowal of such protection. + +The Conspiracy of the Patriots + +The work of repelling the Germanic invasion and of subduing +the continental Celts was completed. But it is often easier +to subdue a free nation than to keep a subdued one in subjection. +The rivalry for the hegemony, by which more even than by the attacks +of Rome the Celtic nation had been ruined, was in some measure set +aside by the conquest, inasmuch as the conqueror took the hegemony +to himself. Separate interests were silent; under the common +oppression at any rate they felt themselves again as one people; +and the infinite value of that which they had with indifference +gambled away when they possessed it--freedom and nationality-- +was now, when it was too late, fully appreciated by their infinite +longing. But was it, then, too late? With indignant shame they +confessed to themselves that a nation, which numbered at least +a million of men capable of arms, a nation of ancient and well- +founded warlike renown, had allowed the yoke to be imposed upon it +by, at the most, 50,000 Romans. The submission of the confederacy +of central Gaul without having struck even a blow; the submission +of the Belgic confederacy without having done more than merely +shown a wish to strike; the heroic fall on the other hand +of the Nervii and the Veneti, the sagacious and successful resistance +of the Morini, and of the Britons under Cassivellaunus-- +all that in each case had been done or neglected, had failed +or had succeeded--spurred the minds of the patriots to new attempts, +if possible, more united and more successful. Especially +among the Celtic nobility there prevailed an excitement, which seemed +every moment as if it must break out into a general insurrection. +Even before the second expedition to Britain in the spring of 700 Caesar +had found it necessary to go in person to the Treveri, who, +since they had compromised themselves in the Nervian conflict in 697, +had no longer appeared at the general diets and had formed more than +suspicious connections with the Germans beyond the Rhine. At that +time Caesar had contented himself with carrying the men of most +note among the patriot party, particularly Indutiomarus, along +with him to Britain in the ranks of the Treverian cavalry-contingent; +he did his utmost to overlook the conspiracy, that he might not +by strict measures ripen it into insurrection. But when the Haeduan +Dumnorix, who likewise was present in the army destined for Britain, +nominally as a cavalry officer, but really as a hostage, +peremptorily refused to embark and rode home instead, Caesar could +not do otherwise than have him pursued as a deserter; he was accordingly +overtaken by the division sent after him and, when he stood +on his defence, was cut down (700). That the most esteemed knight +of the most powerful and still the least dependent of the Celtic cantons +should have been put to death by the Romans, was a thunder-clap +for the whole Celtic nobility; every one who was conscious +of similar sentiments--and they formed the great majority-- +saw in that catastrophe the picture of what was in store for himself. + +Insurrection + +If patriotism and despair had induced the heads of the Celtic +nobility to conspire, fear and self-defence now drove the conspirators +to strike. In the winter of 700-701, with the exception of a legion +stationed in Brittany and a second in the very unsettled canton +of the Carnutes (near Chartres), the whole Roman army numbering six +legions was encamped in the Belgic territory. The scantiness +of the supplies of grain had induced Caesar to station his troops +farther apart than he was otherwise wont to do--in six different +camps constructed in the cantons of the Bellovaci, Ambiani, Morini, +Nervii, Remi, and Eburones. The fixed camp placed farthest towards +the east in the territory of the Eburones, probably not far +from the later Aduatuca (the modern Tongern), the strongest of all, +consisting of a legion under one of the most respected of Caesar's +leaders of division, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, besides different +detachments led by the brave Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta(43) and amounting +together to the strength of half a legion, found itself all of a sudden +surrounded by the general levy of the Eburones under the kings Ambiorix +and Catuvolcus. The attack came so unexpectedly, that the very men +absent from the camp could not be recalled and were cut off +by the enemy; otherwise the immediate danger was not great, +as there was no lack of provisions, and the assault, which the Eburones +attempted, recoiled powerless from the Roman intrenchments. +But king Ambiorix informed the Roman commander that all the Roman camps +in Gaul were similarly assailed on the same day, and that the Romans +would undoubtedly be lost if the several corps did not quickly set out +and effect a junction; that Sabinus had the more reason to make haste, +as the Germans too from beyond the Rhine were already advancing +against him; that he himself out of friendship for the Romans +would promise them a free retreat as far as the nearest +Roman camp, only two days' march distant. Some things +in these statements seemed no fiction; that the little canton +of the Eburones specially favoured by the Romans(44) should have +undertaken the attack of its own accord was in reality incredible, +and, owing to the difficulty of effecting a communication with the other +far-distant camps, the danger of being attacked by the whole +mass of the insurgents and destroyed in detail was by no means +to be esteemed slight; nevertheless it could not admit of the smallest +doubt that both honour and prudence required them to reject +the capitulation offered by the enemy and to maintain the post +entrusted to them. Yet, although in the council of war numerous +voices and especially the weighty voice of Lucius Aurunculeius +Cotta supported this view, the commandant determined to accept +the proposal of Ambiorix. The Roman troops accordingly marched +off next morning; but when they had arrived at a narrow valley about +two miles from the camp they found themselves surrounded +by the Eburones and every outlet blocked. They attempted to open +a way for themselves by force of arms; but the Eburones would not enter +into any close combat, and contented themselves with discharging +their missiles from their unassailable positions into the dense +mass of the Romans. Bewildered, as if seeking deliverance +from treachery at the hands of the traitor, Sabinus requested +a conference with Ambiorix; it was granted, and he and the officers +accompanying him were first disarmed and then slain. After the fall +of the commander the Eburones threw themselves from all sides +at once on the exhausted and despairing Romans, and broke their +ranks; most of them, including Cotta who had already been wounded, +met their death in this attack; a small portion, who had succeeded +in regaining the abandoned camp, flung themselves on their own +swords during the following night. The whole corps was annihilated. + +Cicero Attacked + +This success, such as the insurgents themselves had hardly ventured +to hope for, increased the ferment among the Celtic patriots +so greatly that the Romans were no longer sure of a single district +with the exception of the Haedui and Remi, and the insurrection +broke out at the most diverse points. First of all the Eburones +followed up their victory. Reinforced by the levy of the Aduatuci, +who gladly embraced the opportunity of requiting the injury done +to them by Caesar, and of the powerful and still unsubdued Menapii, +they appeared in the territory of the Nervii, who immediately +joined them, and the whole host thus swelled to 60,000 moved +forward to confront the Roman camp formed in the Nervian canton. +Quintus Cicero, who commanded there, had with his weak corps +a difficult position, especially as the besiegers, learning from the foe, +constructed ramparts and trenches, -testudines- and moveable towers +after the Roman fashion, and showered fire-balls and burning +spears over the straw-covered huts of the camp. The only hope +of the besieged rested on Caesar, who lay not so very far off +with three legions in his winter encampment in the region of Amiens. +But--a significant proof of the feeling that prevailed in Gaul- +for a considerable time not the slightest hint reached the general +either of the disaster of Sabinus or of the perilous +situation of Cicero. + +Caesar Proceeds to His Relief +The Insurrection Checked + +At length a Celtic horseman from Cicero's camp succeeded +in stealing through the enemy to Caesar. On receiving the startling +news Caesar immediately set out, although only with two weak +legions, together numbering about 7000, and 400 horsemen; +nevertheless the announcement that Caesar was advancing sufficed +to induce the insurgents to raise the siege. It was time; +not one tenth of the men in Cicero's camp remained unwounded. +Caesar, against whom the insurgent army had turned, deceived the enemy, +in the way which he had already on several occasions successfully +applied, as to his strength; under the most unfavourable +circumstances they ventured an assault upon the Roman camp +and in doing so suffered a defeat. It is singular, but characteristic +of the Celtic nation, that in consequence of this one lost battle, +or perhaps rather in consequence of Caesar's appearance in person +on the scene of conflict, the insurrection, which had commenced +so victoriously and extended so widely, suddenly and pitiably broke +off the war. The Nervii, Menapii, Aduatuci, Eburones, returned +to their homes. The forces of the maritime cantons, who had made +preparations for assailing the legion in Brittany, did the same. +The Treveri, through whose leader Indutiomarus the Eburones, +the clients of the powerful neighbouring canton, had been chiefly +induced to that so successful attack, had taken arms on the news +of the disaster of Aduatuca and advanced into the territory +of the Remi with the view of attacking the legion cantoned there +under the command of Labienus; they too desisted for the present +from continuing the struggle. Caesar not unwillingly postponed +farther measures against the revolted districts till the spring, +in order not to expose his troops which had suffered much to the whole +severity of the Gallic winter, and with the view of only reappearing +in the field when the fifteen cohorts destroyed should have +been replaced in an imposing manner by the levy of thirty new +cohorts which he had ordered. The insurrection meanwhile pursued +its course, although there was for the moment a suspension of arms. +Its chief seats in central Gaul were, partly the districts +of the Carnutes and the neighbouring Senones (about Sens), the latter +of whom drove the king appointed by Caesar out of their country; +partly the region of the Treveri, who invited the whole Celtic +emigrants and the Germans beyond the Rhine to take part +in the impending national war, and called out their whole force, +with a view to advance in the spring a second time into the territory +of the Remi, to capture the corps of Labienus, and to seek +a communication with the insurgents on the Seine and Loire. +The deputies of these three cantons remained absent from the diet +convoked by Caesar in central Gaul, and thereby declared war just +as openly as a part of the Belgic cantons had done by the attacks +on the camps of Sabinus and Cicero. + +And Suppressed + +The winter was drawing to a close when Caesar set out +with his army, which meanwhile had been considerably reinforced, +against the insurgents. The attempts of the Treveri to concentrate +the revolt had not succeeded; the agitated districts were kept in check +by the marching in of Roman troops, and those in open rebellion +were attacked in detail. First the Nervii were routed by Caesar +in person. The Senones and Carnutes met the same fate. The Menapii, +the only canton which had never submitted to the Romans, +were compelled by a grand attack simultaneously directed against them +from three sides to renounce their long-preserved freedom. +Labienus meanwhile was preparing the same fate for the Treveri. +Their first attack had been paralyzed, partly by the refusal +of the adjoining German tribes to furnish them with mercenaries, +partly by the fact that Indutiomarus, the soul of the whole movement +had fallen in a skirmish with the cavalry of Labienus. But they did +not on this account abandon their projects. With their whole levy +they appeared in front of Labienus and waited for the German bands +that were to follow, for their recruiting agents found a better +reception than they had met with from the dwellers on the Rhine, +among the warlike tribes of the interior of Germany, especially, +as it would appear, among the Chatti. But when Labienus seemed +as if he wished to avoid these and to march off in all haste, the Treveri +attacked the Romans even before the Germans arrived and in a most +unfavourable spot, and were completely defeated. Nothing remained +for the Germans who came up too late but to return, nothing for +the Treverian canton but to submit; its government reverted to the head +of the Roman party Cingetorix, the son-in-law of Indutiomarus. +After these expeditions of Caesar against the Menapii and of Labienus +against the Treveri the whole Roman army was again united +in the territory of the latter. With the view of rendering +the Germans disinclined to come back, Caesar once more crossed +the Rhine, in order if possible to strike an emphatic blow against +the troublesome neighbours; but, as the Chatti, faithful to their +tried tactics, assembled not on their western boundary, +but far in the interior, apparently at the Harz mountains, +for the defence of the land, he immediately turned back and contented +himself with leaving behind a garrison at the passage of the Rhine. + +Retaliatory Expedition against the Eburones + +Accounts had thus been settled with all the tribes that took part +in the rising; the Eburones alone were passed over but not forgotten. +Since Caesar had met with the disaster of Aduatuca, he had worn +mourning and had sworn that he would only lay it aside +when he should have avenged his soldiers, who had not fallen +in honourable war, but had been treacherously murdered. +Helpless and passive the Eburones sat in their huts and looked on +as the neighbouring cantons one after another submitted to the Romans, +till the Roman cavalry from the Treverian territory advanced +through the Ardennes into their land. So little were they prepared +for the attack, that the cavalry had almost seized the king +Ambiorix in his house; with great difficulty, while his attendants +sacrificed themselves on his behalf, he escaped into the neighbouring +thicket. Ten Roman legions soon followed the cavalry. +At the same time a summons was issued to the surrounding tribes +to hunt the outlawed Eburones and pillage their land in concert +with the Roman soldiers; not a few complied with the call, including +even an audacious band of Sugambrian horsemen from the other side +of the Rhine, who for that matter treated the Romans no better than +the Eburones, and had almost by a daring coup de main surprised +the Roman camp at Aduatuca. The fate of the Eburones was dreadful. +However they might hide themselves in forests and morasses, +there were more hunters than game. Many put themselves to death +like the gray-haired prince Catuvolcus; only a few saved life +and liberty, but among these few was the man whom the Romans sought +above all to seize, the prince Ambiorix; with but four horsemen +he escaped over the Rhine. This execution against the canton +which had transgressed above all the rest was followed in the other +districts by processes of high treason against individuals. The season +for clemency was past. At the bidding of the Roman proconsul +the eminent Carnutic knight Acco was beheaded by Roman lictors +(701) and the rule of the -fasces- was thus formally inaugurated. +Opposition was silent; tranquillity everywhere prevailed. Caesar +went as he was wont towards the end of the year (701) over the Alps, +that through the winter he might observe more closely +the daily-increasing complications in the capital. + +Second Insurrection + +The sagacious calculator had on this occasion miscalculated. +The fire was smothered, but not extinguished. The stroke, +under which the head of Acco fell, was felt by the whole Celtic nobility. +At this very moment the position of affairs presented better prospects +than ever. The insurrection of the last winter had evidently failed +only through Caesar himself appearing on the scene of action; +now he was at a distance, detained on the Po by the imminence +of civil war, and the Gallic army, which was collected on the upper Seine, +was far separated from its dreaded leader. If a general insurrection +now broke out in central Gaul, the Roman army might be surrounded, +and the almost undefended old Roman province be overrun before Caesar +reappeared beyond the Alps, even if the Italian complications +did not altogether prevent him from further concerning himself about Gaul. + +The Carnutes +The Arverni + +Conspirators from all the cantons of central Gaul assembled; +the Carnutes, as most directly affected by the execution of Acco, +offered to take the lead. On a set day in the winter of 701-702 +the Carnutic knights Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus gave at Cenabum +(Orleans) the signal for the rising, and put to death in a body +the Romans who happened to be there. The most vehement agitation +seized the length and breadth of the great Celtic land; the patriots +everywhere bestirred themselves. But nothing stirred the nation +so deeply as the insurrection of the Arverni. The government +of this community, which had formerly under its kings been the first +in southern Gaul, and had still after the fall of its principality +occasioned by the unfortunate wars against Rome(45) continued to be +one of the wealthiest, most civilized, and most powerful in all Gaul, +had hitherto inviolably adhered to Rome. Even now the patriot party +in the governing common council was in the minority; an attempt +to induce it to join the insurrection was in vain. The attacks +of the patriots were therefore directed against the common council +and the existing constitution itself; and the more so, that the change +of constitution which among the Arverni had substituted the common +council for the prince(46) had taken place after the victories +of the Romans and probably under their influence. + +Vercingetorix + +The leader of the Arvernian patriots Vercingetorix, one of those +nobles whom we meet with among the Celts, of almost regal repute +in and beyond his canton, and a stately, brave, sagacious man +to boot, left the capital and summoned the country people, +who were as hostile to the ruling oligarchy as to the Romans, at once +to re-establish the Arvernian monarchy and to go to war with Rome. +The multitude quickly joined him; the restoration of the throne +of Luerius and Betuitus was at the same time the declaration +of a national war against Rome. The centre of unity, +from the want of which all previous attempts of the nation +to shake off the foreign yoke had failed, was now found +in the new self-nominated king of the Arverni. Vercingetorix +became for the Celts of the continent what Cassivellaunus +was for the insular Celts; the feeling strongly pervaded the masses +that he, if any one, was the man to save the nation. + +Spread of the Insurrection +Appearance of Caesar + +The west from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Seine +was rapidly infected by the insurrection, and Vercingetorix +was recognized by all the cantons there as commander-in-chief; +where the common council made any difficulty, the multitude compelled +it to join the movement; only a few cantons, such as that +of the Bituriges, required compulsion to join it, and these perhaps +only for appearance' sake. The insurrection found a less favourable +soil in the regions to the east of the upper Loire. Everything +here depended on the Haedui; and these wavered. The patriotic +party was very strong in this canton; but the old antagonism +to the leading of the Arverni counterbalanced their influence-- +to the most serious detriment of the insurrection, as the accession +of the eastern cantons, particularly of the Sequani and Helvetii, +was conditional on the accession of the Haedui, and generally +in this part of Gaul the decision rested with them. While the insurgents +were thus labouring partly to induce the cantons that still +hesitated, especially the Haedui, to join them, partly to get +possession of Narbo--one of their leaders, the daring Lucterius, +had already appeared on the Tarn within the limits of the old +province--the Roman commander-in-chief suddenly presented himself +in the depth of winter, unexpected alike by friend and foe, +on this side of the Alps. He quickly made the necessary preparations +to cover the old province, and not only so, but sent also a corps +over the snow-covered Cevennes into the Arvernian territory; +but he could not remain here, where the accession of the Haedui +to the Gallic alliance might any moment cut him off from his army +encamped about Sens and Langres. With all secrecy he went to Vienna, +and thence, attended by only a few horsemen, through the territory +of the Haedui to his troops. The hopes, which had induced +the conspirators to declare themselves, vanished; peace continued +in Italy, and Caesar stood once more at the head of his army. + +The Gallic Plan of War + +But what were they to do? It was folly under such circumstances +to let the matter come to the decision of arms; for these had already +decidedly irrevocably. They might as well attempt to shake +the Alps by throwing stones at them as to shake the legions by means +of the Celtic bands, whether these might be congregated in huge +masses or sacrificed in detail canton after canton. Vercingetorix +despaired of defeating the Romans. He adopted a system of warfare +similar to that by which Cassivellaunus had saved the insular +Celts. The Roman infantry was not to be vanquished; but Caesar's +cavalry consisted almost exclusively of the contingent +of the Celtic nobility, and was practically dissolved by the general +revolt. It was possible for the insurrection, which was in fact +essentially composed of the Celtic nobility, to develop such +a superiority in this arm, that it could lay waste the land far +and wide, burn down towns and villages, destroy the magazines, +and endanger the supplies and the communications of the enemy, +without his being able seriously to hinder it. Vercingetorix +accordingly directed all his efforts to the increase of his cavalry, +and of the infantry-archers who were according to the mode of fighting +of that time regularly associated with it. He did not send the immense +and self-obstructing masses of the militia of the line to their homes, +but he did not allow them to face the enemy, and attempted +to impart to them gradually some capacity of intrenching, marching, +and manoeuvring, and some perception that the soldier is not destined +merely for hand-to-hand combat. Learning from the enemy, he adopted +in particular the Roman system of encampment, on which depended +the whole secret of the tactical superiority of the Romans; +for in consequence of it every Roman corps combined all the advantages +of the garrison of a fortress with all the advantages of an offensive +army.(47) It is true that a system completely adapted to Britain +which had few towns and to its rude, resolute, and on the whole +united inhabitants was not absolutely transferable to the rich +regions on the Loire and their indolent inhabitants on the eve +of utter political dissolution. Vercingetorix at least accomplished +this much, that they did not attempt as hitherto to hold every +town with the result of holding none; they agreed to destroy +the townships not capable of defence before attack reached them, +but to defend with all their might the strong fortresses. At the same +time the Arvernian king did what he could to bind to the cause of their +country the cowardly and backward by stern severity, the hesitating +by entreaties and representations, the covetous by gold, the decided +opponents by force, and to compel or allure the rabble high or low +to some manifestation of patriotism. + +Beginning of the Struggle + +Even before the winter was at an end, he threw himself on the Boii +settled by Caesar in the territory of the Haedui, with the view +of annihilating these, almost the sole trustworthy allies of Rome, +before Caesar came up. The news of this attack induced Caesar, +leaving behind the baggage and two legions in the winter quarters +of Agedincum (Sens), to march immediately and earlier than he would +doubtless otherwise have done, against the insurgents. He remedied +the sorely-felt want of cavalry and light infantry in some measure +by gradually bringing up German mercenaries, who instead of using +their own small and weak ponies were furnished with Italian +and Spanish horses partly bought, partly procured by requisition +of the officers. Caesar, after having by the way caused Cenabum, +the capital of the Carnutes, which had given the signal for the revolt, +to be pillaged and laid in ashes, moved over the Loire +into the country of the Bituriges. He thereby induced Vercingetorix +to abandon the siege of the town of the Boii, and to resort likewise +to the Bituriges. Here the new mode of warfare was first to be +tried. By order of Vercingetorix more than twenty townships +of the Bituriges perished in the flames on one day; the general +decreed a similar self-devastation as to the neighbour cantons, +so far as they could be reached by the Roman foraging parties. + +Caesar before Arvaricum + +According to his intention, Avaricum (Bourges), the rich +and strong capital of the Bituriges, was to meet the same fate; +but the majority of the war-council yielded to the suppliant entreaties +of the Biturigian authorities, and resolved rather to defend that city +with all their energy. Thus the war was concentrated in the first +instance around Avaricum, Vercingetorix placed his infantry amidst +the morasses adjoining the town in a position so unapproachable, +that even without being covered by the cavalry they needed not +to fear the attack of the legions. The Celtic cavalry covered +all the roads and obstructed the communication. The town was strongly +garrisoned, and the connection between it and the army before +the walls was kept open. Caesar's position was very awkward. +The attempt to induce the Celtic infantry to fight was unsuccessful; +it stirred not from its unassailable lines. Bravely as his soldiers +in front of the town trenched and fought, the besieged vied +with them in ingenuity and courage, and they had almost succeeded +in setting fire to the siege apparatus of their opponents. +The task withal of supplying an army of nearly 60,000 men +with provisions in a country devastated far and wide and scoured +by far superior bodies of cavalry became daily more difficult. +The slender stores of the Boii were soon used up; the supply promised +by the Haedui failed to appear; the corn was already consumed, +and the soldier was placed exclusively on flesh-rations. +But the moment was approaching when the town, with whatever contempt +of death the garrison fought, could be held no longer. Still it was +not impossible to withdraw the troops secretly by night and destroy +the town, before the enemy occupied it. Vercingetorix made +arrangements for this purpose, but the cry of distress raised +at the moment of evacuation by the women and children left behind +attracted the attention of the Romans; the departure miscarried. + +Avaricum Conquered +Caesar Divides His Army + +On the following gloomy and rainy day the Romans scaled the walls, +and, exasperated by the obstinate defence, spared neither age +nor sex in the conquered town. The ample stores, which the Celts had +accumulated in it, were welcome to the starved soldiers of Caesar. +With the capture of Avaricum (spring of 702), a first success +had been achieved over the insurrection, and according to former +experience Caesar might well expect that it would now dissolve, +and that it would only be requisite to deal with the cantons +individually. After he had therefore shown himself with his +whole army in the canton of the Haedui and had by this imposing +demonstration compelled the patriot party in a ferment there +to keep quiet at least for the moment, he divided his army and sent +Labienus back to Agedincum, that in combination with the troops +left there he might at the head of four legions suppress +in the first instance the movement in the territory of the Carnutes +and Senones, who on this occasion once more took the lead; +while he himself with the six remaining legions turned to the south +and prepared to carry the war into the Arvernian mountains, the proper +territory of Vercingetorix. + +Labienus before Lutetia + +Labienus moved from Agedincum up the left bank of the Seine with +a view to possess himself of Lutetia (Paris), the town of the Parisii +situated on an island in the Seine, and from this well-secured +position in the heart of the insurgent country to reduce it again +to subjection. But behind Melodunum (Melun), he found his route +barred by the whole army of the insurgents, which had here taken +up a position between unassailable morasses under the leadership +of the aged Camulogenus. Labienus retreated a certain distance, +crossed the Seine at Melodunum, and moved up its right bank +unhindered towards Lutetia; Camulogenus caused this town to be +burnt and the bridges leading to the left bank to be broken down, +and took up a position over against Labienus, in which the latter +could neither bring him to battle nor effect a passage +under the eyes of the hostile army. + +Caesar before Gergovia +Fruitless Blockade + +The Roman main army in its turn advanced along the Allier down +into the canton of the Arverni. Vercingetorix attempted to prevent +it from crossing to the left bank of the Allier, but Caesar +overreached him and after some days stood before the Arvernian +capital Gergovia.(48) Vercingetorix, however, doubtless even while +he was confronting Caesar on the Allier, had caused sufficient +stores to be collected in Gergovia and a fixed camp provided +with strong stone ramparts to be constructed for his troops in front +of the walls of the town, which was situated on the summit of a pretty +steep hill; and, as he had a sufficient start, he arrived before +Caesar at Gergovia and awaited the attack in the fortified camp +under the wall of the fortress. Caesar with his comparatively +weak army could neither regularly besiege the place nor even +sufficiently blockade it; he pitched his camp below the rising +ground occupied by Vercingetorix, and was compelled to preserve +an attitude as inactive as his opponent. It was almost a victory +for the insurgents, that Caesar's career of advance from triumph +to triumph had been suddenly checked on the Seine as on the Allier. +In fact the consequences of this check for Caesar were almost +equivalent to those of a defeat. + +The Haedui Waver + +The Haedui, who had hitherto continued vacillating, now made +preparations in earnest to join the patriotic party; the body +of men, whom Caesar had ordered to Gergovia, had on the march been +induced by its officers to declare for the insurgents; at the same +time they had begun in the canton itself to plunder and kill +the Romans settled there. Caesar, who had gone with two-thirds +of the blockading army to meet that corps of the Haedui which was being +brought up to Gergovia, had by his sudden appearance recalled it +to nominal obedience; but it was more than ever a hollow and fragile +relation, the continuance of which had been almost too dearly +purchased by the great peril of the two legions left behind +in front of Gergovia. For Vercingetorix, rapidly and resolutely +availing himself of Caesar's departure, had during his absence +made an attack on them, which had wellnigh ended in their +being overpowered, and the Roman camp being taken by storm. +Caesar's unrivalled celerity alone averted a second catastrophe +like that of Aduatuca. Though the Haedui made once more fair +promises, it might be foreseen that, if the blockade should still +be prolonged without result, they would openly range themselves +on the side of the insurgents and would thereby compel Caesar to raise +it; for their accession would interrupt the communication between +him and Labienus, and expose the latter especially in his isolation +to the greatest peril. Caesar was resolved not to let matters come +to this pass, but, however painful and even dangerous it was +to retire from Gergovia without having accomplished his object, +nevertheless, if it must be done, rather to set out immediately +and by marching into the canton of the Haedui to prevent +at any cost their formal desertion. + +Caesar Defeated before Gergovia + +Before entering however on this retreat, which was far +from agreeable to his quick and confident temperament, he made +yet a last attempt to free himself from his painful perplexity +by a brilliant success. While the bulk of the garrison of Gergovia +was occupied in intrenching the side on which the assault +was expected, the Roman general watched his opportunity to surprise +another access less conveniently situated but at the moment +left bare. In reality the Roman storming columns scaled the camp-wall, +and occupied the nearest quarters of the camp; but the whole garrison +was already alarmed, and owing to the small distances Caesar found +it not advisable to risk the second assault on the city-wall. +He gave the signal for retreat; but the foremost legions, carried +away by the impetuosity of victory, heard not or did not wish to hear, +and pushed forward without halting, up to the city-wall, some even +into the city. But masses more and more dense threw themselves +in front of the intruders; the foremost fell, the columns stopped; +in vain centurions and legionaries fought with the most devoted +and heroic courage; the assailants were chased with very considerable +loss out of the town and down the hill, where the troops stationed +by Caesar in the plain received them and prevented greater +mischief. The expected capture of Gergovia had been converted +into a defeat, and the considerable loss in killed and wounded-- +there were counted 700 soldiers that had fallen, including 46 +centurions--was the least part of the misfortune suffered. + +Renewed Insurrection +Rising of the Haedui +Rising of the Belgae + +The imposing position of Caesar in Gaul depended essentially +on the halo of victory that surrounded him; and this began to grow pale. +The conflicts around Avaricum, Caesar's vain attempts to compel +the enemy to fight, the resolute defence of the city and its almost +accidental capture by storm bore a stamp different from that +of the earlier Celtic wars, and had strengthened rather than impaired +the confidence of the Celts in themselves and their leader. +Moreover, the new system of warfare--the making head against the enemy +in intrenched camps under the protection of fortresses--had completely +approved itself at Lutetia as well as at Gergovia. Lastly, +this defeat, the first which Caesar in person had suffered +from the Celts crowned their success, and it accordingly gave +as it were the signal for a second outbreak of the insurrection. +The Haedui now broke formally with Caesar and entered into union +with Vercingetorix. Their contingent, which was still with Caesar's +army, not only deserted from it, but also took occasion to carry +off the depots of the army of Caesar at Noviodunum on the Loire, +whereby the chests and magazines, a number of remount-horses, +and all the hostages furnished to Caesar, fell into the hands +of the insurgents. It was of at least equal importance, +that on this news the Belgae, who had hitherto kept aloof +from the whole movement, began to bestir themselves. The powerful +canton of the Bellovaci rose with the view of attacking +in the rear the corps of Labienus, while it confronted +at Lutetia the levy of the surrounding cantons of central Gaul. +Everywhere else too men were taking to arms; the strength +of patriotic enthusiasm carried along with it even the most +decided and most favoured partisans of Rome, such as Commius +king of the Atrebates, who on account of his faithful services had +received from the Romans important privileges for his community +and the hegemony over the Morini. The threads of the insurrection +ramified even into the old Roman province: they cherished the hope, +perhaps not without ground, of inducing the Allobroges themselves +to take arms against the Romans. With the single exception +of the Remi and of the districts--dependent immediately on the Remi-- +of the Suessiones, Leuci, and Lingones, whose peculiar isolation +was not affected even amidst this general enthusiasm, the whole Celtic +nation from the Pyrenees to the Rhine was now in reality, +for the first and for the last time, in arms for its freedom +and nationality; whereas, singularly enough, the whole German +communities, who in the former struggles had held the foremost +rank, kept aloof. In fact, the Treveri, and as it would seem +the Menapii also, were prevented by their feuds with the Germans +from taking an active part in the national war. + +Caesar's Plan of War +Caesar Unites with Labienus + +It was a grave and decisive moment, when after the retreat +from Gergovia and the loss of Noviodunum a council of war was held +in Caesar's headquarters regarding the measures now to be adopted. +Various voices expressed themselves in favour of a retreat over +the Cevennes into the old Roman province, which now lay open +on all sides to the insurrection and certainly was in urgent need +of the legions that had been sent from Rome primarily for its +protection. But Caesar rejected this timid strategy suggested +not by the position of affairs, but by government-instructions +and fear of responsibility. He contented himself with calling +the general levy of the Romans settled in the province to arms, +and having the frontiers guarded by that levy to the best of its +ability. On the other hand he himself set out in the opposite +direction and advanced by forced marches to Agedincum, to which +he ordered Labienus to retreat in all haste. The Celts naturally +endeavoured to prevent the junction of the two Roman armies. +Labienus might by crossing the Marne and marching down the right bank +of the Seine have reached Agedincum, where he had left his reserve +and his baggage; but he preferred not to allow the Celts +again to behold the retreat of Roman troops. He therefore +instead of crossing the Marne crossed the Seine under the eyes +of the deluded enemy, and on its left bank fought a battle +with the hostile forces, in which he conquered, and among many others +the Celtic general himself, the old Camulogenus, was left on the field. +Nor were the insurgents more successful in detaining Caesar +on the Loire; Caesar gave them no time to assemble larger masses there, +and without difficulty dispersed the militia of the Haedui, +which alone he found at that point + +Position of the Insurgents at Alesia + +Thus the junction of the two divisions of the army was happily +accomplished. The insurgents meanwhile had consulted as to the farthe +conduct of the war at Bibracte (Autun) the capital of the Haeduil +the soul of these consultations was again Vercingetorix, +to whom the nation was enthusiastically attached after the victory +of Gergovia. Particular interests were not, it is true, +even now silent; the Haedui still in this death-struggle of the nation +asserted their claims to the hegemony, and made a proposal +in the national assembly to substitute a leader of their own +for Vercingetorix. But the national representatives had not merely +declined this and confirmed Vercingetorix in the supreme command, +but had also adopted his plan of war without alteration. It was +substantially the same as that on which he had operated at Avaricum +and at Gergovia. As the base of the new position there was +selected the strong city of the Mandubii, Alesia (Alise Sainte +Reine near Semur in the department Cote d'Or)(49) and another +entrenched camp was constructed under its walls. Immense stores +were here accumulated, and the army was ordered thither +from Gergovia, having its cavalry raised by resolution of the national +assembly to 15,000 horse. Caesar with the whole strength +of his army after it was reunited at Agedincum took the direction +of Besancon, with the view of now approaching the alarmed province +and protecting it from an invasion, for in fact bands of insurgents +had already shown themselves in the territory of the Helvii +on the south slope of the Cevennes. Alesia lay almost on his way; +the cavalry of the Celts, the only arm with which Vercingetorix +chose to operate, attacked him on the route, but to the surprise +of all was worsted by the new German squadrons of Caesar +and the Roman infantry drawn up in support of them. + +Caesar in Front of Alesia +Siege of Alesia + +Vercingetorix hastened the more to shut himself up in Alesia; +and if Caesar was not disposed altogether to renounce the offensive, +no course was left to him but for the third time in this campaign +to proceed by way of attack with a far weaker force against an army +encamped under a well-garrisoned and well-provisioned fortress +and supplied with immense masses of cavalry. But, while the Celts +had hitherto been opposed by only a part of the Roman legions, +the whole forces of Caesar were united in the lines round Alesia, +and Vercingetorix did not succeed, as he had succeeded at Avaricum +and Gergovia, in placing his infantry under the protection of the walls +of the fortress and keeping his external communications open +for his own benefit by his cavalry, while he interrupted those +of the enemy. The Celtic cavalry, already discouraged by that defeat +inflicted on them by their lightly esteemed opponents, was beaten +by Caesar's German horse in every encounter. The line +of circumvallation of the besiegers extending about nine miles +invested the whole town, including the camp attached to it. +Vercingetorix had been prepared for a struggle under the walls, +but not for being besieged in Alesia; in that point of view +the accumulated stores, considerable as they were, were yet +far from sufficient for his army--which was said to amount to 80,000 +infantry and 15,000 cavalry--and for the numerous inhabitants +of the town. Vercingetorix could not but perceive that his plan +of warfare had on this occasion turned to his own destruction, +and that he was lost unless the whole nation hastened up to the rescue +of its blockaded general. The existing provisions were still, +when the Roman circumvallation was closed, sufficient for a month +and perhaps something more; at the last moment, when there was still +free passage at least for horsemen, Vercingetorix dismissed +his whole cavalry, and sent at the same time to the heads +of the nation instructions to call out all their forces and lead them +to the relief of Alesia. He himself, resolved to bear in person +the responsibility for the plan of war which he had projected +and which had miscarried, remained in the fortress, to share in good +or evil the fate of his followers. But Caesar made up his mind +at once to besiege and to be besieged. He prepared his line +of circumvallation for defence also on its outer side, and furnished +himself with provisions for a longer period. The days passed; +they had no longer a boll of grain in the fortress, and they +were obliged to drive out the unhappy inhabitants of the town +to perish miserably between the entrenchments of the Celts +and of the Romans, pitilessly rejected by both. + +Attempt at Relief +Conflicts before Alesia + +At the last hour there appeared behind Caesar's lines +the interminable array of the Celto-Belgic relieving array, said +to amount to 250,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry, from the Channel +to the Cevennes the insurgent cantons had strained every nerve +to rescue the flower of their patriots and the general of their +choice--the Bellovaci alone had answered that they were doubtless +disposed to fight against the Romans, but not beyond their own bounds. +The first assault, which the besieged of Alesia and the relieving +troops without made on the Roman double line, was repulsed; +but, when after a day's rest it was repeated, the Celts +succeeded--at a spot where the line of circumvallation ran over +the slope of a hill and could be assailed from the height above-- +in filling up the trenches and hurling the defenders down +from the rampart. Then Labienus, sent thither by Caesar, collected +the nearest cohorts and threw himself with four legions on the foe. +Under the eyes of the general, who himself appeared at the most +dangerous moment, the assailants were driven back in a desperate +hand-to-hand conflict, and the squadrons of cavalry that came +with Caesar taking the fugitives in rear completed the defeat. + +Alesia Capitulates + +It was more than a great victory; the fate of Alesia, and indeed +of the Celtic nation, was thereby irrevocably decided. The Celtic +army, utterly disheartened, dispersed at once from the battle-field +and went home. Vercingetorix might perhaps have even now taken +to flight, or at least have saved himself by the last means open +to a free man; he did not do so, but declared in a council of war that, +since he had not succeeded in breaking off the alien yoke, +he was ready to give himself up as a victim and to avert as far as +possible destruction from the nation by bringing it on his own +head. This was done. The Celtic officers delivered their general-- +the solemn choice of the whole nation--over to the energy of their +country for such punishment as might be thought fit. Mounted +on his steed and in full armour the king of the Arverni appeared +before the Roman proconsul and rode round his tribunal; +then he surrendered his horse and arms, and sat down in silence +on the steps at Caesar's feet (702). + +Vercingetorix Executed + +Five years afterwards he was led in triumph through the streets +of the Italian capital, and, while his conqueror was offering solemn +thanks to the gods on the summit of the Capitol, Vercingetorix +was beheaded at its foot as guilty of high treason against the Roman +nation. As after a day of gloom the sun may perhaps break through +the clouds at its setting, so destiny may bestow on nations +in their decline yet a last great man. Thus Hannibal stands +at the close of the Phoenician history, and Vercingetorix +at the close of the Celtic. They were not able to save the nations +to which they belonged from a foreign yoke, but they spared them +the last remaining disgrace--an inglorious fall. Vercingetorix, +just like the Carthaginian, was obliged to contend not merely +against the public foe, but also and above all against that anti-national +opposition of wounded egotists and startled cowards, which regularly +accompanies a degenerate civilization; for him too a place +in history is secured, not by his battles and sieges, +but by the fact that he was able to furnish in his own person +a centre and rallying-point to a nation distracted and ruined +by the rivalry of individual interests. And yet there can hardly +be a more marked contrast than between the sober townsman +of the Phoenician mercantile city, whose plans were directed towards +one great object with unchanging energy throughout fifty years, +and the bold prince of the Celtic land, whose mighty deeds and high- +minded self-sacrifice fall within the compass of one brief summer. +The whole ancient world presents no more genuine knight, whether +as regards his essential character or his outward appearance. +But man ought not to be a mere knight, and least of all the statesman. +It was the knight, not the hero, who disdained to escape from Alesia, +when for the nation more depended on him than on a hundred thousand +ordinary brave men. It was the knight, not the hero, who gave +himself up as a sacrifice, when the only thing gained +by that sacrifice was that the nation publicly dishonoured itself +and with equal cowardice and absurdity employed its last breath +in proclaiming that its great historical death-struggle was a crime +against its oppressor. How very different was the conduct +of Hannibal in similar positions! It is impossible to part +from the noble king of the Arverni without a feeling of historical +and human sympathy; but it is a significant trait of the Celtic nation, +that its greatest man was after all merely a knight. + +The Last Conflicts +With the Bituriges and Carnutes + +The fall of Alesia and the capitulation of the army enclosed +in it were fearful blows for the Celtic insurrection; but blows +quite as heavy had befallen the nation and yet the conflict +had been renewed. The loss of Vercingetorix, however, was irreparable. +With him unity had come to the nation; with him it seemed also +to have departed. We do not find that the insurgents made any attempt +to continue their joint defence and to appoint another generalissimo; +the league of patriots fell to pieces of itself, and every clan +was left to fight or come to terms with the Romans as it pleased. +Naturally the desire after rest everywhere prevailed. +Caesar too had an interest in bringing the war quickly to an end. +Of the ten years of his governorship seven had elapsed, and the last +was called in question by his political opponents in the capital; +he could only reckon with some degree of certainty on two more summers, +and, while his interest as well as his honour required +that he should hand over the newly-acquired regions to his successor +in a condition of tolerable peace and tranquillity, there was +in truth but scanty time to bring about such a state of things. +To exercise mercy was in this case still more a necessity +for the victor than for the vanquished; and he might thank his stars +that the internal dissensions and the easy temperament of the Celts +met him in this respect half way. Where--as in the two most eminent +cantons of central Gaul, those of the Haedui and Arverni--there +existed a strong party well disposed to Rome, the cantons obtained +immediately after the fall of Alesia a complete restoration +of their former relations with Rome, and even their captives, 20,000 +in number, were released without ransom, while those of the other +clans passed into the hard bondage of the victorious legionaries. +The greater portion of the Gallic districts submitted like the Haedui +and Arverni to their fate, and allowed their inevitable +punishment to be inflicted without farther resistance. +But not a few clung in foolish frivolity or sullen despair +to the lost cause, till the Roman troops of execution appeared +within their borders. Such expeditions were in the winter of 702-703 +undertaken against the Bituriges and the Carnutes. + +With the Bellovaci + +More serious resistance was offered by the Bellovaci, +who in the previous year had kept aloof from the relief of Alesia; +they seem to have wished to show that their absence on that decisive day +at least did not proceed from want of courage or of love for freedom. +The Atrebates, Ambiani, Caletes, and other Belgic cantons took part +in this struggle; the brave king of the Atrebates Commius, +whose accession to the insurrection the Romans had least of all forgiven, +and against whom recently Labienus had even directed an atrocious +attempt at assassination, brought to the Bellovaci 500 German +horse, whose value the campaign of the previous year had shown. +The resolute and talented Bellovacian Correus, to whom the chief +conduct of the war had fallen, waged warfare as Vercingetorix +had waged it, and with no small success. Although Caesar had gradually +brought up the greater part of his army, he could neither bring +the infantry of the Bellovaci to a battle, nor even prevent it +from taking up other positions which afforded better protection +against his augmented forces; while the Roman horse, especially +the Celtic contingents, suffered most severe losses in various combats +at the hands of the enemy's cavalry, especially of the German cavalry +of Commius. But after Correus had met his death in a skirmish +with the Roman foragers, the resistance here too was broken; +the victor proposed tolerable conditions, to which the Bellovaci +along with their confederates submitted. The Treveri were reduced +to obedience by Labienus, and incidentally the territory +of the outlawed Eburones was once more traversed and laid waste. +Thus the last resistance of the Belgic confederacy was broken. + +On the Loire + +The maritime cantons still made an attempt to defend themselves +against the Roman domination in concert with their neighbours +on the Loire. Insurgent bands from the Andian, Carnutic, and other +surrounding cantons assembled on the lower Loire and besieged +in Lemonum (Poitiers) the prince of the Pictones who was friendly +to the Romans. But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared +against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated +with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy, +but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon +the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even +the maritime ones, sent in their submission. + +And in Uxellodunum + +The resistance was at an end; save that an isolated leader of free +bands still here and there upheld the national banner. The bold +Drappes and the brave comrade in arms of Vercingetorix Lucterius, +after the breaking up of the army united on the Loire, gathered +together the most resolute men, and with these threw themselves +into the strong mountain-town of Uxellodunum on the Lot,(50) +which amidst severe and fatal conflicts they succeeded in sufficiently +provisioning. In spite of the loss of their leaders, of whom +Drappes had been taken prisoner, and Lucterius had been cut off +from the town, the garrison resisted to the uttermost; it was not +till Caesar appeared in person, and under his orders the spring +from which the besieged derived their water was diverted by means +of subterranean drains, that the fortress, the last stronghold +of the Celtic nation, fell. To distinguish the last champions +of the cause of freedom, Caesar ordered that the whole garrison should +have their hands cut off and should then be dismissed, each one +to his home. Caesar, who felt it all-important to put an end at least +to open resistance throughout Gaul, allowed king Commius, who still +held out in the region of Arras and maintained desultory warfare +with the Roman troops there down to the winter of 703-704, to make +his peace, and even acquiesced when the irritated and justly +distrustful man haughtily refused to appear in person in the Roman +camp. It is very probable that Caesar in a similar way allowed +himself to be satisfied with a merely nominal submission, perhaps +even with a de facto armistice, in the less accessible districts +of the north-west and north-east of Gaul.(51) + +Gaul Subdued + +Thus was Gaul--or, in other words, the land west of the Rhine +and north of the Pyrenees--rendered subject after only eight years +of conflict (696-703) to the Romans. Hardly a year after the full +pacification of the land, at the beginning of 705, the Roman troops +had to be withdrawn over the Alps in consequence of the civil war, +which had now at length broken out in Italy, and there remained +nothing but at the most some weak divisions of recruits in Gaul. +Nevertheless the Celts did not again rise against the foreign yoke; +and, while in all the old provinces of the empire there was +fighting against Caesar, the newly-acquired country alone remained +continuously obedient to its conqueror. Even the Germans +did not during those decisive years repeat their attempts to conquer +new settlements on the left bank of the Rhine. As little did +there occur in Gaul any national insurrection or German invasion +during the crises that followed, although these offered the most +favourable opportunities. If disturbances broke out anywhere, +such as the rising of the Bellovaci against the Romans in 708, +these movements were so isolated and so unconnected with +the complications in Italy, that they were suppressed without material +difficulty by the Roman governors. Certainly this state of peace +was most probably, just as was the peace of Spain for centuries, +purchased by provisionally allowing the regions that were most +remote and most strongly pervaded by national feeling--Brittany, +the districts on the Scheldt, the region of the Pyrenees-- +to withdraw themselves de facto in a more or less definite manner +from the Roman allegiance. Nevertheless the building of Caesar-- +however scanty the time which he found for it amidst other +and at the moment still more urgent labours, however unfinished +and but provisionally rounded off he may have left it--in substance +stood the test of this fiery trial, as respected both the repelling +of the Germans and the subjugation of the Celts. + +Organization +Roman Taxation + +As to administration in chief, the territories newly acquired +by the governor of Narbonese Gaul remained for the time being united +with the province of Narbo; it was not till Caesar gave up +this office (710) that two new governorships--Gaul proper +and Belgica--were formed out of the territory which he conquered. +That the individual cantons lost their political independence, +was implied in the very nature of conquest. They became throughout +tributary to the Roman community. Their system of tribute however was, +of course, not that by means of which the nobles and financial +aristocracy turned Asia to profitable account; but, as was +the case in Spain, a tribute fixed once for all was imposed on each +individual community, and the levying of it was left to itself. +In this way forty million sesterces (400,000 pounds) flowed annually +from Gaul into the chests of the Roman government; which, no doubt, +undertook in return the cost of defending the frontier of the +Rhine. Moreover, the masses of gold accumulated in the temples +of the gods and the treasuries of the grandees found their way, +as a matter of course, to Rome; when Caesar offered his Gallic gold +throughout the Roman empire and brought such masses of it at once +into the money market that gold as compared with silver fell about +25 per cent, we may guess what sums Gaul lost through the war. + +Indulgences towards Existing Arrangements + +The former cantonal constitutions with their hereditary kings, +or their presiding feudal-oligarchies, continued in the main +to subsist after the conquest, and even the system of clientship, +which made certain cantons dependent on others more powerful, +was not abolished, although no doubt with the loss of political +independence its edge was taken off. The sole object of Caesar +was, while making use of the existing dynastic, feudalist, +and hegemonic divisions, to arrange matters in the interest of Rome, +and to bring everywhere into power the men favourably disposed +to the foreign rule. Caesar spared no pains to form a Roman party +in Gaul; extensive rewards in money and specially in confiscated +estates were bestowed on his adherents, and places in the common +council and the first offices of state in their cantons +were procured for them by Caesar's influence. Those cantons +in which a sufficiently strong and trustworthy Roman party existed, +such as those of the Remi, the Lingones, the Haedui, were favoured +by the bestowal of a freer communal constitution--the right +of alliance, as it was called--and by preferences in the regulation +of the matter of hegemony. The national worship and its priests +seem to have been spared by Caesar from the outset as far as possible; +no trace is found in his case of measures such as were adopted +in later times by the Roman rulers against the Druidical system, +and with this is probably connected the fact that his Gallic wars, +so far as we see, do not at all bear the character of religious +warfare after the fashion which formed so prominent a feature +of the Britannic wars subsequently. + +Introduction of the Romanizing of the Country + +While Caesar thus showed to the conquered nation every allowable +consideration and spared their national, political, and religious +institutions as far as was at all compatible with their subjection +to Rome, he did so, not as renouncing the fundamental idea of his +conquest, the Romanization of Gaul, but with a view to realize it +in the most indulgent way. He did not content himself with letting +the same circumstances, which had already in great part Romanized +the south province, produce their effect likewise in the north; +but, like a genuine statesman, he sought to stimulate the natural +course of development and, moreover, to shorten as far as possible +the always painful period of transition. To say nothing +of the admission of a number of Celts of rank into Roman citizenship +and even of several perhaps into the Roman senate, it was probably +Caesar who introduced, although with certain restrictions, +the Latin instead of the native tongue as the official language +within the several cantons in Gaul, and who introduced the Roman +instead of the national monetary system on the footing of reserving +the coinage of gold and of denarii to the Roman authorities, while +the smaller money was to be coined by the several cantons, but only +for circulation within the cantonal bounds, and this too in accordance +with the Roman standard. We may smile at the Latin jargon, +which the dwellers by the Loire and the Seine henceforth employed +in accordance with orders;(52) but these barbarisms were pregnant +with a greater future than the correct Latin of the capital. +Perhaps too, if the cantonal constitution in Gaul afterwards appears +more closely approximated to the Italian urban constitution, +and the chief places of the canton as well as the common councils +attain a more marked prominence in it than was probably the case +in the original Celtic organization, the change may be referred +to Caesar. No one probably felt more than the political heir +of Gaius Gracchus and of Marius, how desirable in a military +as well as in a political point of view it would have been to establish +a series of Transalpine colonies as bases of support for the new rule +and starting-points of the new civilization. If nevertheless +he confined himself to the settlement of his Celtic or German horsemen +in Noviodunum(53) and to that of the Boii in the canton +of the Haedui (54)--which latter settlement already rendered quite +the services of a Roman colony in the war with Vercingetorix(55)-- +the reason was merely that his farther plans did not permit him +to put the plough instead of the sword into the hands of his legions. +What he did in later years for the old Roman province +in this respect, will be explained in its own place; it is probable +that the want of time alone prevented him from extending +the same system to the regions which he had recently subdued. + +The Catastrophe of the Celtic Nation +Traits Common to the Celts and Irish + +All was over with the Celtic nation. Its political dissolution +had been completed by Caesar; its national dissolution was begun +and in course of regular progress. This was no accidental destruction, +such as destiny sometimes prepares even for peoples capable +of development, but a self-incurred and in some measure historically +necessary catastrophe. The very course of the last war proves this, +whether we view it as a whole or in detail. When the establishment +of the foreign rule was in contemplation, only single districts-- +mostly, moreover, German or half-German--offered energetic +resistance. When the foreign rule was actually established, +the attempts to shake it off were either undertaken altogether +without judgment, or they were to an undue extent the work +of certain prominent nobles, and were therefore immediately +and entirely brought to an end with the death or capture of an +Indutiomarus, Camulogenus, Vercingetorix, or Correus. The sieges +and guerilla warfare, in which elsewhere the whole moral depth +of national struggles displays itself, were throughout this Celtic +struggle of a peculiarly pitiable character. Every page of Celtic +history confirms the severe saying of one of the few Romans who had +the judgment not to despise the so-called barbarians--that the Celts +boldly challenge danger while future, but lose their courage +before its presence. In the mighty vortex of the world's history, +which inexorably crushes all peoples that are not as hard +and as flexible as steel, such a nation could not permanently maintain +itself; with reason the Celts of the continent suffered the same +fate at the hands of the Romans, as their kinsmen in Ireland suffer +down to our own day at the hands of the Saxons--the fate +of becoming merged as a leaven of future development in a politically +superior nationality. On the eve of parting from this remarkable +nation we may be allowed to call attention to the fact, +that in the accounts of the ancients as to the Celts on the Loire +and Seine we find almost every one of the characteristic traits +which we are accustomed to recognize as marking the Irish. +Every feature reappears: the laziness in the culture of the fields; +the delight in tippling and brawling; the ostentation--we may recall +that sword of Caesar hung up in the sacred grove of the Arverni +after the victory of Gergovia, which its alleged former owner viewed +with a smile at the consecrated spot and ordered the sacred property +to be carefully spared; the language full of comparisons and hyperboles, +of allusions and quaint turns; the droll humour--an excellent +example of which was the rule, that if any one interrupted a person +speaking in public, a substantial and very visible hole should be +cut, as a measure of police, in the coat of the disturber +of the peace; the hearty delight in singing and reciting the deeds +of past ages, and the most decided gifts of rhetoric and poetry; +the curiosity--no trader was allowed to pass, before he had told +in the open street what he knew, or did not know, in the shape of news-- +and the extravagant credulity which acted on such accounts, +for which reason in the better regulated cantons travellers +were prohibited on pain of severe punishment from communicating +unauthenticated reports to others than the public magistrates; +the childlike piety, which sees in the priest a father and asks +for his counsel in all things; the unsurpassed fervour of national +feeling, and the closeness with which those who are fellow-countrymen +cling together almost like one family in opposition to strangers; +the inclination to rise in revolt under the first chance-leader +that presents himself and to form bands, but at the same time +the utter incapacity to preserve a self-reliant courage equally remote +from presumption and from pusillanimity, to perceive the right time +for waiting and for striking a blow, to attain or even barely +to tolerate any organization, any sort of fixed military or political +discipline. It is, and remains, at all times and all places +the same indolent and poetical, irresolute and fervid, inquisitive, +credulous, amiable, clever, but--in a political point of view-- +thoroughly useless nation; and therefore its fate has been always +and everywhere the same. + +The Beginnings of Romanic Development + +But the fact that this great people was ruined by the Transalpine wars +of Caesar, was not the most important result of that grand enterprise; +far more momentous than the negative was the positive result. +It hardly admits of a doubt that, if the rule of the senate +had prolonged its semblance of life for some generations +longer, the migration of peoples, as it is called, would have +occurred four hundred years sooner than it did, and would have +occurred at a time when the Italian civilization had not become +naturalized either in Gaul, or on the Danube, or in Africa and +Spain. Inasmuch as the great general and statesman of Rome +with sure glance perceived in the German tribes the rival antagonists +of the Romano-Greek world; inasmuch as with firm hand he established +the new system of aggressive defence down even to its details, +and taught men to protect the frontiers of the empire by rivers +or artificial ramparts, to colonize the nearest barbarian tribes along +the frontier with the view of warding off the more remote, +and to recruit the Roman army by enlistment from the enemy's country; +he gained for the Hellenico-Italian culture the interval necessary +to civilize the west just as it had already civilized the east. +Ordinary men see the fruits of their action; the seed sown by men +of genius germinates slowly. Centuries elapsed before men understood +that Alexander had not merely erected an ephemeral kingdom +in the east, but had carried Hellenism to Asia; centuries again +elapsed before men understood that Caesar had not merely conquered +a new province for the Romans, but had laid the foundation +for the Romanizing of the regions of the west. It was only a late +posterity that perceived the meaning of those expeditions +to England and Germany, so inconsiderate in a military point of view, +and so barren of immediate result. An immense circle of peoples, +whose existence and condition hitherto were known barely through +the reports--mingling some truth with much fiction--of the mariner +and the trader, was disclosed by this means to the Greek and Roman +world. "Daily," it is said in a Roman writing of May 698, +"the letters and messages from Gaul are announcing names of peoples, +cantons, and regions hitherto unknown to us." This enlargement +of the historical horizon by the expeditions of Caesar beyond +the Alps was as significant an event in the world's history +as the exploring of America by European bands. To the narrow circle +of the Mediterranean states were added the peoples of central +and northern Europe, the dwellers on the Baltic and North seas; +to the old world was added a new one, which thenceforth was influenced +by the old and influenced it in turn. What the Gothic Theodoric +afterwards succeeded in, came very near to being already carried +out by Ariovistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would have +hardly stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano-Greek than +to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting +the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern +history; that Western Europe is Romanic, and Germanic Europe +classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us +a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; +that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa +attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own +garden--all this is the work of Caesar; and, while the creation +of his great predecessor in the east has been almost wholly reduced +to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar +has outlasted those thousands of years which have changed religion +and polity for the human race and even shifted for it the centre +of civilization itself, and it stands erect for what we may +designate as eternity. + +The Countries on the Danube + +To complete the sketch of the relations of Rome to the peoples +of the north at this period, it remains that we cast a glance +at the countries which stretch to the north of the Italian and Greek +peninsulas, from the sources of the Rhine to the Black Sea. +It is true that the torch of history does not illumine the mighty stir +and turmoil of peoples which probably prevailed at that time there, +and the solitary gleams of light that fall on this region are, +like a faint glimmer amidst deep darkness, more fitted to bewilder +than to enlighten. But it is the duty of the historian to indicate +also the gaps in the record of the history of nations; he may not +deem it beneath him to mention, by the side of Caesar's magnificent +system of defence, the paltry arrangements by which the generals +of the senate professed to protect on this side +the frontier of the empire. + +Alpine Peoples + +North-eastern Italy was still as before(56) left exposed +to the attacks of the Alpine tribes. The strong Roman army +encamped at Aquileia in 695, and the triumph of the governor +of Cisalpine Gaul Lucius Afranius, lead us to infer, that about +this time an expedition to the Alps took place, and it may have been +in consequence of this that we find the Romans soon afterwards +in closer connection with a king of the Noricans. But that even +subsequently Italy was not at all secure on this side, is shown +by the sudden assault of the Alpine barbarians on the flourishing town +of Tergeste in 702, when the Transalpine insurrection had compelled +Caesar to divest upper Italy wholly of troops. + +Illyria + +The turbulent peoples also, who had possession of the district +along the Illyrian coast, gave their Roman masters constant +employment. The Dalmatians, even at an earlier period the most +considerable people of this region, enlarged their power so much +by admitting their neighbours into their union, that the number +of their townships rose from twenty to eighty. When they refused +to give up once more the town of Promona (not far from the river +Kerka), which they had wrested from the Liburnians, Caesar +after the battle of Pharsalia gave orders to march against them; +but the Romans were in the first instance worsted, and in consequence +of this Dalmatia became for some time a rendezvous of the party +hostile to Caesar, and the inhabitants in concert with the Pompeians +and with the pirates offered an energetic resistance +to the generals of Caesar both by land and by water. + +Macedonia + +Lastly Macedonia along with Epirus and Hellas lay in greater +desolation and decay than almost any other part of the Roman +empire. Dyrrhachium, Thessalonica, and Byzantium had still some +trade and commerce; Athens attracted travellers and students +by its name and its philosophical school; but on the whole there lay +over the formerly populous little towns of Hellas, and her seaports +once swarming with men, the calm of the grave. But if the Greeks +stirred not, the inhabitants of the hardly accessible Macedonian +mountains on the other hand continued after the old fashion their +predatory raids and feuds; for instance about 697-698 Agraeans +and Dolopians overran the Aetolian towns, and in 700 the Pirustae +dwelling in the valleys of the Drin overran southern Illyria. +The neighbouring peoples did likewise. The Dardani on the northern +frontier as well as the Thracians in the east had no doubt been +humbled by the Romans in the eight years' conflicts from 676 +to 683; the most powerful of the Thracian princes, Cotys, the ruler +of the old Odrysian kingdom, was thenceforth numbered among the client +kings of Rome. Nevertheless the pacified land had still as before +to suffer invasions from the north and east. The governor Gaius +Antonius was severely handled both by the Dardani and by the tribes +settled in the modern Dobrudscha, who, with the help of the dreaded +Bastarnae brought up from the left bank of the Danube, inflicted +on him an important defeat (692-693) at Istropolis (Istere, not far +from Kustendji). Gaius Octavius fought with better fortune +against the Bessi and Thracians (694). Marcus Piso again (697-698) +as general-in-chief wretchedly mismanaged matters; which was +no wonder, seeing that for money he gave friends and foes whatever +they wished. The Thracian Dentheletae (on the Strymon) under his +governorship plundered Macedonia far and wide, and even stationed +their posts on the great Roman military road leading from Dyrrhachium +to Thessalonica; the people in Thessalonica made up their minds +to stand a siege from them, while the strong Roman army in the province +seemed to be present only as an onlooker when the inhabitants +of the mountains and neighbouring peoples levied contributions +from the peaceful subjects of Rome. + +The New Dacian Kingdom + +Such attacks could not indeed endanger the power of Rome, and a fresh +disgrace had long ago ceased to occasion concern. But just about +this period a people began to acquire political consolidation +beyond the Danube in the wide Dacian steppes--a people which seemed +destined to play a different part in history from that of the Bessi +and the Dentheletae. Among the Getae or Dacians in primeval times +there had been associated with the king of the people a holy man +called Zalmoxis, who, after having explored the ways and wonders +of the gods in distant travel in foreign lands, and having thoroughly +studied in particular the wisdom of the Egyptian priests +and of the Greek Pythagoreans, had returned to his native country +to endhis life as a pious hermit in a cavern of the "holy mountain." +He remained accessible only to the king and his servants, and gave +forth to the king and through him to the people his oracles +with reference to every important undertaking. He was regarded +by his countrymen at first as priest of the supreme god and ultimately +as himself a god, just as it is said of Moses and Aaron that the Lord +had made Aaron the prophet and Moses the god of the prophet. +This had become a permanent institution; there was regularly associated +with the king of the Getae such a god, from whose mouth everything +which the king ordered proceeded or appeared to proceed. +This peculiar constitution, in which the theocratic idea had become +subservient to the apparently absolute power of the king, probably +gave to the kings of the Getae some such position with respect +to their subjects as the caliphs had with respect to the Arabs; +and one result of it was the marvellous religious-political reform +of the nation, which was carried out about this time by the king +of the Getae, Burebistas, and the god Dekaeneos. The people, +which had morally and politically fallen into utter decay through +unexampled drunkenness, was as it were metamorphosed by the new +gospel of temperance and valour; with his bands under the influence, +so to speak, of puritanic discipline and enthusiasm king Burebistas +founded within a few years a mighty kingdom, which extended along +both banks of the Danube and reached southward far into Thrace, +Illyria, and Noricum. No direct contact with the Romans had yet +taken place, and no one could tell what might come out of +this singular state, which reminds us of the early times of Islam; +but this much it needed no prophetic gift to foretell, that proconsuls +like Antonius and Piso were not called to contend with gods. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar + +Pompeius and Caesar in Juxtaposition + +Among the democratic chiefs, who from the time of the consulate +of Caesar were recognized officially, so to speak, as the joint +rulers of the commonwealth, as the governing "triumvirs," Pompeius +according to public opinion occupied decidedly the first place. +It was he who was called by the Optimates the "private dictator"; +it was before him that Cicero prostrated himself in vain; +against him were directed the sharpest sarcasms in the wall-placards +of Bibulus, and the most envenomed arrows of the talk in the saloons +of the opposition. This was only to be expected. According to +the facts before the public Pompeius was indisputably the first general +of his time; Caesar was a dexterous party-leader and party-orator, +of undeniable talents, but as notoriously of unwarlike and indeed +of effeminate temperament. Such opinions had been long current; +it could not be expected of the rabble of quality that it should +trouble itself about the real state of things and abandon +once established platitudes because of obscure feats of heroism +on the Tagus. Caesar evidently played in the league the mere part +of the adjutant who executed for his chief the work which Flavius, +Afranius, and other less capable instruments had attempted +and not performed. Even his governorship seemed not to alter +this state of things. Afranius had but recently occupied +a very similar position, without thereby acquiring any special +importance; several provinces at once had been of late years +repeatedly placed under one governor, and often far more +than four legions had been united in one hand; as matters +were again quiet beyond the Alps and prince Ariovistus +was recognized by the Romans as a friend and neighbour, +there was no prospect of conducting a war of any moment there. +It was natural to compare the position which Pompeius had obtained +by the Gabinio-Manilian law with that which Caesar had obtained +by the Vatinian; but the comparison did not turn out to Caesar's +advantage. Pompeius ruled over nearly the whole Roman empire; +Caesar over two provinces. Pompeius had the soldiers +and the treasures of the state almost absolutely at his disposal; +Caesar had only the sums assigned to him and an army of 24,000 men. +It was left to Pompeius himself to fix the point of time +for his retirement; Caesar's command was secured to him +for a long period no doubt, but yet only for a limited term. +Pompeius, in fine, had been entrusted with the most important +undertakings by sea and land; Caesar was sent to the north, +to watch over the capital from upper Italy and to take care +that Pompeius should rule it undisturbed. + +Pompeius and the Capital +Anarchy + +But when Pompeius was appointed by the coalition to be ruler +of the capital, he undertook a task far exceeding his powers. +Pompeius understood nothing further of ruling than may be summed up +in the word of command. The waves of agitation in the capital +were swelled at once by past and by future revolutions; the problem +of ruling this city--which in every respect might be compared +to the Paris of the nineteenth century--without an armed force +was infinitely difficult, and for that stiff and stately +pattern-soldier altogether insoluble. Very soon matters reached +such a pitch that friends and foes, both equally inconvenient to him, +could, so far as he was concerned, do what they pleased; +after Caesar's departure from Rome the coalition ruled doubtless +still the destinies of the world, but not the streets of the capital. +The senate too, to whom there still belonged a sort of nominal +government, allowed things in the capital to follow their +natural course; partly because the section of this body controlled +by the coalition lacked the instructions of the regents, partly because +the angry opposition kept aloof out of indifference or pessimism, +but chiefly because the whole aristocratic corporation began +to feel at any rate, if not to comprehend, its utter impotence. +For the moment therefore there was nowhere at Rome any power +of resistance in any sort of government, nowhere a real authority. +Men were living in an interregnum between the ruin of the aristocratic, +and the rise of the military, rule; and, if the Roman commonwealth +has presented all the different political functions and organizations +more purely and normally than any other in ancient or modern times, +it has also exhibited political disorganization-anarchy-- +with an unenviable clearness. It is a strange coincidence +that in the same years, in which Caesar was creating beyond the Alps +a workto last for ever, there was enacted in Rome one of the most +extravagant political farces that was ever produced upon the stage +of the world's history. The new regent of the commonwealth +did not rule, but shut himself up in his house and sulked in silence. +The former half-deposed government likewise did not rule, but sighed, +sometimes in private amidst the confidential circles of the villas, +sometimes in chorus in the senate-house. The portion of the burgesses +which had still at heart freedom and order was disgusted +with the reign of confusion, but utterly without leaders +and counsel it maintained a passive attitude-not merely avoiding +all political activity, but keeping aloof, as far as possible, +from the political Sodom itself. + +The Anarchists + +On the other hand the rabble of every sort never had better days, +never found a merrier arena. The number of little great men +was legion. Demagogism became quite a trade, which accordingly +did not lack its professional insignia--the threadbare mantle, +the shaggy beard, the long streaming hair, the deep bass voice; +and not seldom it was a trade with golden soil. For the standing +declamations the tried gargles of the theatrical staff +were an article in much request;(1) Greeks and Jews, freedmen +and slaves, were the most regular attenders and the loudest criers +in the public assemblies; frequently, even when it came to a vote, +only a minority of those voting consisted of burgesses constitutionally +entitled to do so. "Next time," it is said in a letter of this period, +"we may expect our lackeys to outvote the emancipation-tax." +The real powers of the day were the compact and armed bands, +the battalions of anarchy raised by adventurers of rank +out of gladiatorial slaves and blackguards. Their possessors +had from the outset been mostly numbered among the popular party; +but since the departure of Caesar, who alone understood how to impress +the democracy, and alone knew how to manage it, all discipline +had departed from them and every partisan practised politics +at his own hand. Even now, no doubt, these men fought with most pleasure +under the banner of freedom; but, strictly speaking, they were neither +of democratic nor of anti-democratic views; they inscribed on the-- +in itself indispensable--banner, as it happened, now the name +of the people, anon that of the senate or that of a party-chief; +Clodius for instance fought or professed to fight in succession +for the ruling democracy, for the senate, and for Crassus. The leaders +of these bands kept to their colours only so far as they inexorably +persecuted their personal enemies--as in the case of Clodius +against Cicero and Milo against Clodius--while their partisan +position served them merely as a handle in these personal feuds. +We might as well seek to set a charivari to music as to write the history +of this political witches' revel; nor is it of any moment +to enumerate all the deeds of murder, besiegings of houses, +acts of incendiarism and other scenes of violence within a great capital, +and to reckon up how often the gamut was traversed from hissing +and shouting to spitting on and trampling down opponents, +and thence to throwing stones and drawing swords. + +Clodius + +The principal performer in this theatre of political rascality +was that Publius Clodius, of whose services, as already mentioned,(2) +the regents availed themselves against Cato and Cicero. +Left to himself, this influential, talented, energetic and-- +in his trade--really exemplary partisan pursued during his tribunate, +of the people (696) an ultra-democratic policy, gave the citizens +corn gratis, restricted the right of the censors to stigmatize +immoral burgesses, prohibited the magistrates from obstructing +the course of the comitial machinery by religious formalities, +set asidethe limitswhich had shortly before (690), for the purpose +of checking the system of bands, been imposed on the right +of association of the lower classes, and reestablished the "street-clubs" +(-collegia compitalicia-) at that time abolished, which were nothing +else than a formal organization--subdivided according to the streets, +and with an almost military arrangement--of the whole free +or slave proletariate of the capital. If in addition the further law, +which Clodius had likewise already projected and purposed to introduce +when praetor in 702, should give to freedmen and to slaves living +in de facto possession of freedom the same political rights +with the freeborn, the author of all these brave improvements +of the constitution might declare his work complete, and as +a second Numa of freedom and equality might invite the sweet rabble +of the capital to see him celebrate high mass in honour of the arrival +of the democratic millennium in the temple of Liberty which he had +erected on the site of one of his burnings at the Palatine. +Of course these exertions in behalf of freedom did not exclude +a traffic in decrees of the burgesses; like Caesar himself, Caesar's ape +kept governorships and other posts great and small on sale +for the benefit of his fellow-citizens, and sold the sovereign rights +of the state for the benefit of subject kings and cities. + +Quarrel of Pompeius with Clodius + +At all these things Pompeius looked on without stirring. +If he did not perceive how seriously he thus compromised himself, +his opponent perceived it. Clodius had the hardihood to engage +in a dispute with the regent of Rome on a question of little moment, +as to the sending back of a captive Armenian prince; and the variance +soon became a formal feud, in which the utter helplessness +of Pompeius was displayed. The head of the state knew not how to meet +the partisan otherwise than with his own weapons, only wielded +with far less dexterity. If he had been tricked by Clodius respecting +the Armenian prince, he offended him in turn by releasing Cicero, +who was preeminently obnoxious to Clodius, from the exile +into which Clodius had sent him; and he attained his object +so thoroughly, that he converted his opponent into an implacable foe. +If Clodius made the streets insecure with his bands, the victorious +general likewise set slaves and pugilists to work; in the frays +which ensued the general naturally was worsted by the demagogue +and defeated in the street, and Gaius Cato was kept almost constantly +under siege in his garden by Clodius and his comrades. It is not +the least remarkable feature in this remarkable spectacle, +that the regent and the rogue amidst their quarrel vied in courting +the favour of the fallen government; Pompeius, partly to please +the senate, permitted Cicero's recall, Clodius on the other hand +declared the Julian laws null and void, and called on Marcus Bibulus +publicly to testify to their having been unconstitutionally passed. + +Naturally no positive result could issue from this imbroglio +of dark passions; its most distinctive character was just +its utterly ludicrous want of object. Even a man of Caesar's genius +had to learn by experience that democratic agitation was completely +worn out, and that even the way to the throne no longer lay +through demagogism. It was nothing more than a historical makeshift, +if now, in the interregnum between republic and monarchy, +some whimsical fellow dressed himself out with the prophet's mantle +and staff which Caesar had himself laid aside, and the great ideals +of Gaius Gracchus came once more upon the stage distorted into a parody; +the so-called party from which this democratic agitation +proceeded was so little such in reality, that afterwards it had +not even a part falling to it in the decisive struggle. It cannot +even be asserted that by means of this anarchical state of things +the desire after a strong government based on military power +had been vividly kindled in the minds of those who were indifferent +to politics. Even apart from the fact that such neutral burgesses +were chiefly to be sought outside of Rome, and thus were not +directly affected by the rioting in the capital, those minds +which could be at all influenced by such motives had been already +by their former experiences, and especially by the Catilinarian +conspiracy, thoroughly converted to the principle of authority; +but those that were really alarmed were affected far more emphatically +by a dread of the gigantic crisis inseparable from an overthrow +of the constitution, than by dread of the mere continuance of the-- +at bottom withal very superficial--anarchy in the capital. +The only result of it which historically deserves notice +was the painful position in which Pompeius was placed by the attacks +of the Clodians, and which had a material share in determining +his farther steps. + +Pompeius in Relation to the Gallic Victories of Caesar + +Little as Pompeius liked and understood taking the initiative, +he was yet on this occasion compelled by the change of his position +towards both Clodius and Caesar to depart from his previous inaction. +The irksome and disgraceful situation to which Clodius +had reduced him, could not but at length arouse even his sluggish +nature to hatred and anger. But far more important was the change +which took place in his relation to Caesar. While, of the two +confederate regents, Pompeius had utterly failed in the functions +which he had undertaken, Caesar had the skill to turn his official +position to an account which left all calculations and all fears +far behind. Without much inquiry as to permission, Caesar +had doubled his army by levies in his southern province inhabited +in great measure by Roman burgesses; had with this army crossed +the Alps instead of keeping watch over Rome from Northern Italy; +had crushed in the bud a new Cimbrian invasion, and within two years +(696, 697) had carried the Roman arms to the Rhine and the Channel. +In presence of such facts even the aristocratic tactics of ignoring +and disparaging were baffled. He who had often been scoffed +at as effeminate was now the idol of the army, the celebrated victory- +crowned hero, whose fresh laurels outshone the faded laurels +of Pompeius, and to whom even the senate as early as 697 accorded +the demonstrations of honour usual after successful campaigns +in richer measure than had ever fallen to the share of Pompeius. +Pompeius stood towards his former adjutant precisely +as after the Gabinio-Manilian laws the latter had stood towards him. +Caesar was now the hero of the day and the master of the most powerful +Roman army; Pompeius was an ex-general who had once been famous. +It is true that no collision had yet occurred between father-in-law +and son-in-law, and the relation was externally undisturbed; +but every political alliance is inwardly broken up, when the relative +proportions of the power of the parties are materially altered. +While the quarrel with Clodius was merely annoying, the change +in the position of Caesar involved a very serious danger for Pompeius; +just as Caesar and his confederates had formerly sought a military +support against him, he found himself now compelled to seek a military +support against Caesar, and, laying aside his haughty privacy, +to come forward as a candidate for some extraordinary magistracy, +which would enable him to hold his place by the side of the governor +of the two Gauls with equal and, if possible, with superior power. +His tactics, like his position, were exactly those of Caesar +during the Mithradatic war. To balance the military power +of a superior but still remote adversary by the obtaining +of a similar command, Pompeius required in the first instance +the official machinery of government. A year and a half ago +this had been absolutely at his disposal. The regents then ruled +the state both by the comitia, which absolutely obeyed them +as the masters of the street, and by the senate, which was +energetically overawed by Caesar; as representative of the coalition +in Rome and as its acknowledged head, Pompeius would have doubtless +obtained from the senate and from the burgesses any decree +which he wished, even if it were against Caesar's interest. +But by the awkward quarrel with Clodius, Pompeius had lost the command +of the streets, and could not expect to carry a proposal in his favour +in the popular assembly. Things were not quite so unfavourable for him +in the senate; but even there it was doubtful whether Pompeius +after that long and fatal inaction still held the reins of the majority +firmly enough in hand to procure such a decree as he needed. + +The Republican Opposition among the Public + +The position of the senate also, or rather of the nobility +generally, had meanwhile undergone a change. From the very fact +of its complete abasement it drew fresh energy. In the coalition +of 694 various things had come to light, which were by no means +as yet ripe for it. The banishment of Cato and Cicero-- +which public opinion, however much the regents kept themselves +in the background and even professed to lament it, referred +with unerring tact to its real authors--and the marriage-relationship +formed between Caesar and Pompeius suggested to men's minds +with disagreeable clearness monarchical decrees of banishment +and family alliances. The larger public too, which stood +more aloof from political events, observed the foundations +of the future monarchy coming more and more distinctly into view. +From the moment when the public perceived that Caesar's object +was not a modification of the republican constitution, +but that the question at stake was the existence or non-existence +of the republic, many of the best men, who had hitherto reckoned +themselves of the popular party and honoured in Caesar its head, +must infallibly have passed over to the opposite side. It was +no longer in the saloons and the country houses of the governing +nobilityalone that men talked of the "three dynasts," of the "three- +headed monster." The dense crowds of people listened to the consular +orations of Caesar without a sound of acclamation or approval; +not a hand stirred to applaud when the democratic consul entered +the theatre. But they hissed when one of the tools of the regents +showed himself in public, and even staid men applauded when an actor +utteredan anti-monarchic sentence or an allusion against Pompeius. +Nay, when Cicero was to be banished, a great number of burgesses-- +it is said twenty thousand--mostly of the middle classes, put on mourning +after the example of the senate. "Nothing is now more popular," +it is said in a letter of this period, "than hatred +of the popular party." + +Attempts of the Regents to Check It + +The regents dropped hints, that through such opposition the equites +might easily lose their new special places in the theatre, +and the commons their bread-corn; people were therefore somewhat +more guarded perhaps in the expression of their displeasure, +but the feeling remained the same. The lever of material interests +was applied with better success. Caesar's gold flowed in streams. +Men of seeming riches whose finances were in disorder, influential +ladies who were in pecuniary embarrassment, insolvent young nobles, +merchants and bankers in difficulties, either went in person +to Gaul with the view of drawing from the fountain-head, or applied +to Caesar's agents in the capital; and rarely was any man +outwardly respectable--Caesar avoided dealings with vagabonds +who were utterly lost--rejected in either quarter. To this fell +to be added the enormous buildings which Caesar caused to be executed +on his account in the capital--and by which a countless number of men +of all ranks from the consular down to the common porter found +opportunity of profiting--as well as the immense sums expended +for public amusements. Pompeius did the same on a more limited scale; +to him the capital was indebted for the first theatre of stone, +and he celebrated its dedication with a magnificence never seen before. +Of course such distributions reconciled a number of men +who were inclined towards opposition, more especially in the capital, +to the new order of things up to a certain extent; but the marrow +of the opposition was not to be reached by this system of corruption. +Every day more and more clearly showed how deeply the existing +constitution had struck root among the people, and how little, +in particular, the circles more aloof from direct party-agitation, +especially the country towns, were inclined towards monarchy +or even simply ready to let it take its course. + +Increasing Importance of the Senate + +If Rome had had a representative constitution, the discontent +of the burgesses would have found its natural expression +in the elections, and have increased by so expressing itself; +under the existing circumstances nothing was left for those +true to the constitution but to place themselves under the senate, +which, degraded as it was, still appeared the representative +and champion of the legitimate republic. Thus it happened +that the senate, now when it had been overthrown, suddenly found +at its disposal an army far more considerable and far more +earnestly faithful, than when in its power and splendour +it overthrew the Gracchi and under the protection of Sulla's +sword restored the state. The aristocracy felt this; it began +to bestir itself afresh. Just at this time Marcus Cicero, +after having bound himself to join the obsequious party +in the senate and not only to offer no opposition, but to work +with all his might for the regents, had obtained from them +permission to return. Although Pompeius in this matter only made +an incidental concession to the oligarchy, and intended first +of all to play a trick on Clodius, and secondly to acquire +in the fluent consular a tool rendered pliant by sufficient blows, +the opportunity afforded by the return of Cicero was embraced +for republican demonstrations, just as his banishment had been +a demonstration against the senate. With all possible solemnity, +protected moreover against the Clodians by the band of Titus Annius +Milo, the two consuls, following out a resolution of the senate, +submitted a proposal to the burgesses to permit the return +of the consular Cicero, and the senate called on all burgesses +true to the constitution not to be absent from the vote. +An unusual number of worthy men, especially from the country towns, +actually assembled in Rome on the day of voting (4 Aug. 697). +The journey of the consular from Brundisium to the capital +gave occasion to a series of similar, but not less brilliant +manifestations of public feeling. The new alliance between the senate +and the burgesses faithful to the constitution was on this occasion +as it were publicly proclaimed, and a sort of review of the latter +was held, the singularly favourable result of which contributed +not a little to revive the sunken courage of the aristocracy. + +Helplessness of Pompeius + +The helplessness of Pompeius in presence of these daring +demonstrations, as well as the undignified and almost ridiculous +position into which he had fallen with reference to Clodius, deprived +him and the coalition of their credit; and the section of the senate +which adhered to the regents, demoralized by the singular inaptitude +of Pompeius and helplessly left to itself, could not prevent +the republican-aristocratic party from regaining completely +the ascendency in the corporation. The game of this party +really at that time (697) was still by no means desperate +for a courageous and dexterous player. It had now--what it had +not possessed for a century past--a firm support in the people; +if it trusted the people and itself, it might attain its object +in the shortest and most honourable way. Why not attack the regents +openly and avowedly? Why should not a resolute and eminent man +at the head of the senate cancel the extraordinary powers +as unconstitutional, and summon all the republicans of Italy to arms +against the tyrants and their following? It was possible perhaps +in this way once more to restore the rule of the senate. Certainly +the republicans would thus play a bold game; but perhaps in this case, +as often, the most courageous resolution might have been +at the same time the most prudent. Only, it is true, the indolent +aristocracy of this period was scarcely capable of so simple +and bold a resolution. There was however another way perhaps +more sure, at any rate better adapted to the character and nature +of these constitutionalists; they might labour to set the two regents +at variance and through this variance to attain ultimately +to the helm themselves. The relations between the two men ruling +the state had become altered and relaxed, now that Caesar had acquired +a standing of preponderant power by the side of Pompeius +and had compelled the latter to canvass for a new position of command; +it was probable that, if he obtained it, there would arise in one way +or other a rupture and struggle between them. If Pompeius remained +unsupported in this, his defeat was scarcely doubtful, +and the constitutional party would in that event find themselves +after the close of the conflict under the rule of one master +instead of two. But if the nobility employed against Caesar +the same means by which the latter had won his previous victories, +and entered into alliance with the weaker competitor, victory +would probably, with a general like Pompeius, and with an army +such as that of the constitutionalists, fall to the coalition; +and to settle matters with Pompeius after the victory could not-- +judging from the proofs of political incapacity which he had +already given-appear a specially difficult task. + +Attempts of Pompeius to Obtain a Command through the Senate +Administration of the Supplies of Corn + +Things had taken such a turn as naturally to suggest an understanding +between Pompeius and the republican party. Whether such +an approximation was to take place, and what shape the mutual +relations of the two regents and of the aristocracy, which had become +utterly enigmatical, were next to assume, fell necessarily +to be decided, when in the autumn of 697 Pompeius came to the senate +with the proposal to entrust him with extraordinary official power. +He based his proposal once more on that by which he had +eleven years before laid the foundations of his power, +the price of bread in the capital, which had just then--as previously +to the Gabinian law--reached an oppressive height. Whether +it had been forced up by special machinations, such as Clodius imputed +sometimes to Pompeius, sometimes to Cicero, and these in their turn +charged on Clodius, cannot be determined; the continuance of piracy, +the emptiness of the public chest, and the negligent and disorderly +supervision of the supplies of corn by the government were already +quite sufficient of themselves, even without political forestalling, +to produce scarcities of bread in a great city dependent +almost solely on transmarine supplies. The plan of Pompeius +was to get the senate to commit to him the superintendence +of the matters relating to corn throughout the whole Roman empire, +and, with a view to this ultimate object, to entrust him +on the one hand with the unlimited disposal of the Roman state- +treasure, and on the other hand with an army and fleet, as well as +a command which not only stretched over the whole Roman empire, +but was superior in each province to that of the governor--in short +he designed to institute an improved edition of the Gabinian law, +to which the conduct of the Egyptian war just then pending(3) +would therefore quite as naturally have been annexed as the conduct +of the Mithradatic war to the razzia against the pirates. +However much the opposition to the new dynasts had gained ground +in recent years, the majority of the senate was still, when this matter +came to be discussed in Sept. 697, under the constraint of the terror +excited by Caesar. It obsequiously accepted the project in principle, +and that on the proposition of Marcus Cicero, who was expected to give, +and gave, in this case the first proof of the pliableness +learned by him in exile. But in the settlement of the details +very material portions were abated from the original plan, +which the tribune of the people Gaius Messius submitted. +Pompeius obtained neither free control over the treasury, +nor legions and ships of his own, nor even an authority superior +to that of the governors; but they contented themselves +with granting to him, for the purpose of his organizing +due supplies for the capital, considerable sums, fifteen adjutants, +and in allaffairs elating to the supply of grain full proconsular +power throughout the Roman dominions for the next five years, +and with having this decree confirmed by the burgesses. +There were many different reasons which led to this alteration, +almost equivalent to a rejection, of the original plan: a regard +to Caesar, with reference to whom the most timid could not but have +the greatest scruples in investing his colleague not merely with equal +but with superior authority in Gaul itself; the concealed opposition +of Pompeius' hereditary enemy and reluctant ally Crassus, +to whom Pompeius himself attributed or professed to attribute primarily +the failure of his plan; the antipathy of the republican opposition +in the senate to any decree which really or nominally enlarged +the authority of the regents; lastly and mainly, the incapacity +of Pompeius himself, who even after having been compelled to act +could not prevail on himself to acknowledge his own action, but chose +always to bring forward his real design as it were in incognito +by means of his friends, while he himself in his well-known modesty +declared his willingness to be content with even less. No wonder +that they took him at his word, and gave him the less. + +Egyptian Expedition + +Pompeius was nevertheless glad to have found at any rate +a serious employment, and above all a fitting pretext for leaving +the capital. He succeeded, moreover, in providing it with ampler +and cheaper supplies, although not without the provinces severely +feeling the reflex effect. But he had missed his real object; +the proconsular title, which he had a right to bear in all the provinces, +remained an empty name, so long as he had not troops of his own +at his disposal. Accordingly he soon afterwards got a second +proposition made to the senate, that it should confer on him +the charge of conducting back the expelled king of Egypt, if necessary +by force of arms, to his home. But the more that his urgent need +of the senate became evident, the senators received his wishes +with a less pliant and less respectful spirit. It was immediately +discovered in the Sibylline oracles that it was impious to send +a Roman army to Egypt; whereupon the pious senate almost +unanimously resolved to abstain from armed intervention. Pompeius +was already so humbled, that he would have accepted the mission +even without an army; but in his incorrigible dissimulation he left +this also to be declared merely by his friends, and spoke and voted +for the despatch of another senator. Of course the senate rejected +a proposal which wantonly risked a life so precious to his country; +and the ultimate issue of the endless discussions was the resolution +not to interfere in Egypt at all (Jan. 698). + +Attempt at an Aristocratic Restoration +Attack on Caesar's Laws + +These repeated repulses which Pompeius met with in the senate and, +what was worse, had to acquiesce in without retaliation, +were naturally regarded--come from what side they would--by the public +at large as so many victories of the republicans and defeats +of the regents generally; the tide of republican opposition +was accordingly always on the increase. Already the elections for 698 +had gone but partially according to the minds of the dynasts; Caesar's +candidates for the praetorship, Publius Vatinius and Gaius Alfius, +had failed, while two decided adherents of the fallen government, +Gnaeus Lentulus Marcellinus and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, +had been elected, the former as consul, the latter as praetor. +But for 699 there even appeared as candidate for the consulship +Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose election it was difficult to prevent +owing to his influence in the capital and his colossal wealth, and who, +it was sufficiently well known, would not be content with a concealed +opposition. The comitia thus rebelled; and the senate chimed in. +It solemnly deliberated over an opinion, which Etruscan soothsayers +of acknowledged wisdom had furnished respecting certain signs +and wonders at its special request. The celestial revelation announced +that through the dissension of the upper classes the whole power +over the army and treasure threatened to pass to one ruler, +and the state to incur loss of freedom--it seemed that the gods +pointed primarily at the proposal of Gaius Messius. The republicans +soon descended from heaven to earth. The law as to the domain of Capua +and the other laws issued by Caesar as consul had been constantly +described by them as null and void, and an opinion had been expressed +in the senate as early as Dec. 697 that it was necessary to cancel +them on account of their informalities. On the 6th April 698 +the consular Cicero proposed in a full senate to put the consideration +of the Campanian land distribution in the order of the day +for the 15th May. It was the formal declaration of war; +and it was the more significant, that it came from the mouth +of one of those men who only show their colours when they think +that they can do so with safety. Evidently the aristocracy held +that the moment had come for beginning the struggle not with Pompeius +against Caesar, but against the -tyrannis- generally. What would +further follow might easily be seen. Domitius made no secret +that he intended as consul to propose to the burgesses +the immediate recall of Caesar from Gaul. An aristocratic restoration +was at work; and with the attack on the colony of Capua the nobility +threw down the gauntlet to the regents. + +Conference of the Regents at Luca + +Caesar, although receiving from day to day detailed accounts +of the events in the capital and, whenever military considerations +allowed, watching their progress from as near a point of his +southern province as possible, had not hitherto, visibly at least +interfered in them. But now war had been declared against him +as well as his colleague, in fact against him especially; +he was compelled to act, and he acted quickly. He happened +to be in the very neighbourhood; the aristocracy had not even +found it advisable to delay the rupture, till he should have again +crossed the Alps. In the beginning of April 698 Crassus +left the capital, to concert the necessary measures with his +more powerful colleague; he found Caesar in Ravenna. Thence +both proceeded to Luca, and there they were joined by Pompeius, +who had departed from Rome soon after Crassus (11 April), +ostensibly for the purpose of procuring supplies of grain +from Sardinia and Africa. The most noted adherents of the regents, +such as Metellus Nepos the proconsul of Hither Spain, Appius Claudius +the propraetor of Sardinia, and many others, followed them; +a hundred and twenty lictors, and upwards of two hundred senators +were counted at this conference, where already the new monarchical +senate was represented in contradistinction to the republican. +In every respect the decisive voice lay with Caesar. He used it +to re-establish and consolidate the existing joint rule +on a new basis of more equal distribution of power of most importance +in a military point of view, next to that of the two Gauls, +were assigned to his two colleagues--that of the two Spains +to Pompeius, that of Syria to Crassus; and these offices +were to be secured to them by decree of the people for five years +(700-704), and to be suitably provided for in a military +and financial point of view. On the other hand Caesar stipulated +for the prolongation of his command, which expired with the year 700, +to the close of 705, as well as for the prerogative of increasing +his legions to ten and of charging the pay for the troops +arbitrarily levied by him on the state-chest. Pompeius and Crassus +were moreover promised a second consulship for the next year (699) +before they departed for their governorships, while Caesar kept it +open to himself to administer the supreme magistracy a second time +after the termination of his governorship in 706, when the ten years' +interval legally requisite between two consulships should have +in his case elapsed. The military support, which Pompeius +and Crassus required for regulating the affairs of the capital +all the more that the legions of Caesar originally destined +for this purpose could not now be withdrawn from Transalpine Gaul, +was to be found in new legions, which they were to raise for the Spanish +and Syrian armies and were not to despatch from Italy to their several +destinations until it should seem to themselves convenient +to do so. The main questions were thus settled; subordinate matters, +such as the settlement of the tactics to be followed against +the opposition in the capital, the regulation of the candidatures +for the ensuing years, and the like, did not long detain them. +The great master of mediation composed the personal differences +which stood in the way of an agreement with his wonted ease, +and compelled the most refractory elements to act in concert. +An understanding befitting colleagues was reestablished, +externally at least, between Pompeius and Crassus. Even Publius Clodius +was induced to keep himself and his pack quiet, and to give +no farther annoyance to Pompeius--not the least marvellous feat +of the mighty magician. + +Designs of Caesar in This Arrangement + +That this whole settlement of the pending questions proceeded, +not from a compromise among independent and rival regents meeting +on equal terms, but solely from the good will of Caesar, is evident +from the circumstances. Pompeius appeared at Luca in the painful +position of a powerless refugee, who comes to ask aid from his opponent. +Whether Caesar chose to dismiss him and to declare the coalition +dissolved, or to receive him and to let the league continue +just as it stood--Pompeius was in either view politically +annihilated. If he did not in this case break with Caesar, he became +the powerless client of his confederate. If on the other hand +he did break with Caesar and, which was not very probable, +effected even now a coalition with the aristocracy, this alliance +between opponents, concluded under pressure of necessity +and at the last moment, was so little formidable that it was hardly +for the sake of averting it that Caesar agreed to those concessions. +A serious rivalry on the part of Crassus with Caesar was utterly +impossible. It is difficult to say what motives induced Caesar +to surrender without necessity his superior position, +and now voluntarily to concede--what he had refused to his rival +even on the conclusion of the league of 694, and what the latter +had since, with the evident design of being armed against Caesar, +vainly striven in different ways to attain without, nay against, +Caesar's will--the second consulate and military power. Certainly +it was not Pompeius alone that was placed at the head of an army, +but also his old enemy and Caesar's ally throughout many years, Crassus; +and undoubtedly Crassus obtained his respectable military position +merely as a counterpoise to the new power of Pompeius. Nevertheless +Caesar was a great loser, when his rival exchanged his former +powerlessness for an important command. It is possible +that Caesar did not yet feel himself sufficiently master of his soldiers +to lead them with confidence to a warfare against the formal +authorities of the land, and was therefore anxious not to be forced +to civil war now by being recalled from Gaul; but whether civil war +should come or not, depended at the moment far more on the aristocracy +of the capital than on Pompeius, and this would have been +at most a reason for Caesar not breaking openly with Pompeius, +so that the opposition might not be emboldened by this breach, +but not a reason for conceding to him what he did concede. +Purely personal motives may have contributed to the result; +it may be that Caesar recollected how he had once stood in a position +of similar powerlessness in presence of Pompeius, and had been saved +from destruction only by his--pusillanimous, it is true, rather than +magnanimous--retirement; it is probable that Caesar hesitated +to breakthe heart of his beloved daughter who was sincerely attached +to her husband--in his soul there was room for much besides the statesman. +But the decisive reason was doubtless the consideration of Gaul. +Caesar--differing from his biographers--regarded the subjugation +of Gaul not as an incidental enterprise useful to him +for the gaining of the crown, but as one on which depended +the external security and the internal reorganization, in a word +the future, of his country. That he might be enabled to complete +this conquest undisturbed and might not be obliged to take in hand +just at once the extrication of Italian affairs, he unhesitatingly +gave up his superiority over his rivals and granted to Pompeius +sufficient power to settle matters with the senate and its adherents. +This was a grave political blunder, if Caesar had no other object +than to become as quickly as possible king of Rome; but the ambition +of that rare man was not confined to the vulgar aim of a crown. +He had the boldness to prosecute side by side, and to complete, +two labours equally vast--the arranging of the internal affairs +of Italy, and the acquisition and securing of a new and fresh soil +for Italian civilization. These tasks of course interfered +with each other; his Gallic conquests hindered much more than helped +him on his way to the throne. It was fraught to him with bitter fruit +that, instead of settling the Italian revolution in 698, +he postponed it to 706. But as a statesman as well as a general +Caesar was a peculiarly daring player, who, confiding in himself +and despising his opponents, gave them always great +and sometimes extravagant odds. + +The Aristocracy Submits + +It was now therefore the turn of the aristocracy to make good +their high gage, and to wage war as boldly as they had boldly +declared it. But there is no more pitiable spectacle +than when cowardly men have the misfortune to take a bold resolution. +They had simply exercised no foresight at all. It seemed to have +occurred to nobody that Caesar would possibly stand on his defence, +or that Pompeius and Crassus would combine with him afresh +and more closely than ever. This seems incredible; but it becomes +intelligible, when we glance at the persons who then led +the constitutional opposition in the senate. Cato was still absent;(4) +the most influential man in the senate at this time was Marcus Bibulus, +the hero of passive resistance, the most obstinate and most stupid +of all consulars. They had taken up arms only to lay them down, +so soon as the adversary merely put his hand to the sheath; +the bare news of the conferences in Luca sufficed to suppress +all thought of a serious opposition and to bring the mass +of the timid--that is, the immense majority of the senate-- +back to their duty as subjects, which in an unhappy hour +they had abandoned. There was no further talk of the appointed +discussion to try the validity of the Julian laws; the legions raised +by Caesar on his own behalf were charged by decree of the senate +on the public chest; the attempts on occasion of regulating +the next consular provinces to take away both Gauls or one of them +by decree from Caesar were rejected by the majority (end of May 698). +Thus the corporation did public penance. In secret the individual lords, +one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, +came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience-- +none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late +of his perfidy, and in respect of the most recent period of his life +clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether +more appropriate than flattering.(5) Of course the regents agreed +to be pacified; they refused nobody pardon, for there was nobody +who was worth the trouble of making him an exception. That we may +see how suddenly the tone in aristocratic circles changed +after the resolutions of Luca became known, it is worth while +to compare the pamphlets given forth by Cicero shortly before +with the palinode which he caused to be issued to evince publicly +his repentance and his good intentions.(6) + +Settlement of the New Monarchical Rule + +The regents could thus arrange Italian affairs at their pleasure +and more thoroughly than before. Italy and the capital +obtained practically a garrison although not assembled in arms, +and one of the regents as commandant. Of the troops levied for Syria +and Spain by Crassus and Pompeius, those destined for the east no doubt +took their departure; but Pompeius caused the two Spanish provinces +to be administered by his lieutenants with the garrison hitherto +stationed there, while he dismissed the officers and soldiers +of the legions which were newly raised--nominally for despatch +to Spain--on furlough, and remained himself with them in Italy. + +Doubtless the tacit resistance of public opinion increased, +the more clearly and generally men perceived that the regents +were working to put an end to the old constitution and with as much +gentleness as possible to accommodate the existing condition +of the government and administration to the forms of the monarchy; +but they submitted, because they were obliged to submit. +First of all all the more important affairs, and particularly +all that related to military matters and external relations, +were disposed of without consulting the senate upon them, +sometimes by decree of the people, sometimes by the mere good +pleasure of the rulers. The arrangements agreed on at Luca respecting +the military command of Gaul were submitted directly to the burgesses +by Crassus and Pompeius, those relating to Spain and Syria by the tribune +of the people Gaius Trebonius, and in other instances the more important +governorships were frequently filled up by decree of the people. +That the regents did not need the consent of the authorities +to increase their troops at pleasure, Caesar had already sufficiently +shown: as little did they hesitate mutually to borrow troops; +Caesar for instance received such collegiate support from Pompeius +for the Gallic, and Crassus from Caesar for the Parthian, war. +The Transpadanes, who possessed according to the existing constitution +only Latin rights, were treated by Caesar during his administration +practically as full burgesses of Rome.(7) While formerly +the organization of newly-acquired territories had been managed +by a senatorial commission, Caesar organized his extensive Gallic +conquests altogether according to his own judgment, and founded, +for instance, without having received any farther full powers +burgess-colonies, particularly Novum-Comum (Como) with five thousand +colonists. Piso conducted the Thracian, Gabinius the Egyptian, +Crassus the Parthian war, without consulting the senate, +and without even reporting, as was usual, to that body; +in like manner triumphs and other marks of honour were accorded +and carried out, without the senate being asked about them. +Obviously this did not arise from a mere neglect of forms, which would +be the less intelligible, seeing that in the great majority of cases +no opposition from the senate was to be expected. On the contrary, +it was a well-calculated design to dislodge the senate from the domain +of military arrangements and of higher politics, and to restrict +its share of administration to financial questions and internal +affairs; and even opponents plainly discerned this and protested, +so far as they could, against this conduct of the regents by means +of senatorial decrees and criminal actions. While the regents +thus in the main set aside the senate, they still made some use +of the less dangerous popular assemblies--care was taken that in these +the lords of the street should put no farther difficulty in the way +of the lords of the state; in many cases however they dispensed +even with this empty shadow, and employed without disguise +autocratic forms. + +The Senate under the Monarchy +Cicero and the Majority + +The humbled senate had to submit to its position +whether it would or not. The leader of the compliant majority +continued to be Marcus Cicero. He was useful on account +of his lawyer's talent of finding reasons, or at any rate words, +for everything; and there was a genuine Caesarian irony +in employing the man, by means of whom mainly the aristocracy +had conducted their demonstrations against the regents, +as the mouthpiece of servility. Accordingly they pardoned him +for his brief desire to kick against the pricks, not however +without having previously assured themselves of his submissiveness +in every way. His brother had been obliged to take the position +of an officer in the Gallic army to answer in some measure +as a hostage for him; Pompeius had compelled Cicero himself +to accept a lieutenant-generalship under him, which furnished +a handle for politely banishing him at any moment. Clodius +had doubtless been instructed to leave him meanwhile at peace, +but Caesar as little threw off Clodius on account of Cicero +as he threw off Cicero on account of Clodius; and the great saviour +of his country and the no less great hero of liberty entered +into an antechamber-rivalry in the headquarters of Samarobriva, +for the befitting illustration of which there lacked, unfortunately, +a Roman Aristophanes. But not only was the same rod kept in suspense +over Cicero's head, which had once already descended on him +so severely; golden fetters were also laid upon him. Amidst +the serious embarrassment of his finances the loans of Caesar +free of interest, and the joint overseership of those buildings +which occasioned the circulation of enormous sums in the capital, +were in a high degree welcome to him; and many an immortal oration +for the senate was nipped in the bud by the thought of Caesar's agent, +who might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting. +Consequently he vowed "in future to ask no more after right and honour, +but to strive for the favour of the regents," and "to be as flexible +as an ear-lap." They used him accordingly as--what he was good for-- +an advocate; in which capacity it was on various occasions +his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes +at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate, +where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts +and submitted the proposals "to which others probably consented, +but not he himself"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority +of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance. +They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation +accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt +with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection. + +Cato and the Minority + +Certainly there remained a section of their opponents, who at least +kept to their colours and were neither to be terrified nor to be won. +The regents had become convinced that exceptional measures, +such as those against Cato and Cicero, did their cause +more harm than good, and that it was a lesser evil to tolerate +an inconvenient republican opposition than to convert their opponents +into martyrs for the republic Therefore they allowed Cato to return +(end of 698) and thenceforward in the senate and in the Forum, +often at the peril of his life, to offer a continued opposition +to the regents, which was doubtless worthy of honour, but unhappily +was at the same time ridiculous. They allowed him on occasion +of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more +to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate +a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over +to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct +toward those barbarians.(8) They were patient when Marcus Favonius, +Cato's Sancho, after the senate had adopted the resolution +to charge the legions of Caesar on the state-chest, sprang to the door +of the senate-house and proclaimed to the streets the danger +of the country; when the same person in his scurrilous fashion +called the white bandage, which Pompeius wore round his weak leg, +a displaced diadem; when the consular Lentulus Marcellinus, +on being applauded, called out to the assembly to make diligent use +of this privilege of expressing their opinion now while they were +still allowed to do so; when the tribune of the people +Gaius Ateius Capito consigned Crassus on his departure for Syria, +with all the formalities of the theology of the day, publicly +to the evil spirits. These were, on the whole, vain demonstrations +of an irritated minority; yet the little party from which they issued +was so far of importance, that it on the one hand fostered and gave +the watchword to the republican opposition fermenting in secret, +and on the other hand now and then dragged the majority of the senate, +which ithal cherished at bottom quite the same sentiments with reference +to the regents, into an isolated decree directed against them. +For even the majority felt the need of giving vent, at least +sometimes and in subordinate matters to their suppressed indignation, +and especially--after the manner of those who are servile +with reluctance--of exhibiting their resentment towards the great foes +in rage against the small. Wherever it was possible, a gentle blow +was administered to the instruments of the regents; thus Gabinius +was refused the thanksgiving-festival that he asked (698); +thus Piso was recalled from his province; thus mourning was put on +by the senate, when the tribune of the people Gaius Cato hindered +the elections for 699 as long as the consul Marcellinus belonging +to the constitutional party was in office. Even Cicero, however humbly +he always bowed before the regents, issued an equally envenomed +and insipid pamphlet against Caesar's father-in-law. But both these +feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate +and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only +the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate +to the regents as it formerly passed from the burgesses to the senate; +and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical +council of state employed also to absorb the anti-monarchical +elements. "No man," the adherents of the fallen government complained, +"is of the slightest account except the three; the regents +are all-powerful, and they take care that no one shall remain +in doubt about it; the whole senate is virtually transformed +and obeys the dictators; our generation will not live to see +a change of things." They were living in fact no longer +under the republic, but under monarchy. + +Continued Oppositon at the Elections + +But if the guidance of the state was at the absolute disposal +of the regents, there remained still a political domain separated +in some measure from the government proper, which it was more easy +to defend and more difficult to conquer; the field of the ordinary +elections of magistrates, and that of the jury-courts. That the latter +do not fall directly under politics, but everywhere, and above all +in Rome, come partly under the control of the spirit dominating +state-affairs, is of itself clear. The elections of magistrates +certainly belonged by right to the government proper of the state; +but, as at this period the state was administered substantially +by extraordinary magistrates or by men wholly without title, +and even the supreme ordinary magistrates, if they belonged +to the anti-monarchical party, were not able in any tangible way +to influence the state-machinery, the ordinary magistrates sank +more and more into mere puppets--as, in fact, even those of them +who were most disposed to opposition described themselves frankly +and with entire justice as powerless ciphers--and their elections +therefore sank into mere demonstrations. Thus, after the opposition +had already been wholly dislodged from the proper field of battle, +hostilities might nevertheless be continued in the field of elections +and of processes. The regents spared no pains to remain victors +also in this field. As to the elections, they had already +at Luca settled between themselves the lists of candidates +for the next years, and they left no means untried to carry +the candidates agreed upon there. They expended their gold primarily +for the purpose of influencing the elections. A great number +of soldiers were dismissed annually on furlough from the armies +of Caesar and Pompeius to take part in the voting at Rome. +Caesar was wont himself to guide, and watch over, the election movements +from as near a point as possible of Upper Italy. Yet the object +was but very imperfectly attained. For 699 no doubt Pompeius +and Crassus were elected consuls, agreeably to the convention of Luca, +and Lucius Domitius, the only candidate of the opposition who persevered +was set aside; but this had been effected only by open violence, +on which occasion Cato was wounded and other extremely scandalous +incidents occurred. In the next consular elections for 700, +in spite of all the exertions of the regents, Domitius was +actually elected, and Cato likewise now prevailed in the candidature +for the praetorship, in which to the scandal of the whole burgesses +Caesar's client Vatinius had during the previous year beaten him +off the field. At the elections for 701 the opposition succeeded +in so indisputably convicting the candidates of the regents, +along with others, of the most shameful electioneering intrigues +that the regents, on whom the scandal recoiled, could not do otherwise +than abandon them. These repeated and severe defeats of the dynasts +on the battle-field of the elections may be traceable in part +to the unmanageableness of the rusty machinery, to the incalculable +accidents of the polling, to the opposition at heart of the middle +classes, to the various private considerations that interfere +in such cases and often strangely clash with those of party; +but the main cause lies elsewhere. The elections were at this time +essentially in the power of the different clubs into which the aristocracy +had grouped themselves; the system of bribery was organized by them +on the most extensive scale and with the utmost method. +The same aristocracy therefore, which was represented in the senate, +ruled also the elections; but while in the senate it yielded +with a grudge, it worked and voted here--in secret and secure +from all reckoning--absolutely against the regents. That the influence +of the nobility in this field was by no means broken by the strict +penal law against the electioneering intrigues of the clubs, +which Crassus when consul in 699 caused to be confirmed by the burgesses, +is self-evident, and is shown by the elections of the succeeding years. + +And in the Courts + +The jury-courts occasioned equally great difficulty to the regents. +As they were then composed, while the senatorial nobility was here +also influential, the decisive voice lay chiefly with the middle class. +The fixing of a high-rated census for jurymen by a law proposed +by Pompeius in 699 is a remarkable proof that the opposition +to the regents had its chief seat in the middle class properly +so called, and that the great capitalists showed themselves here, +as everywhere, more compliant than the latter. Nevertheless +the republican party was not yet deprived of all hold in the courts, +and it was never weary of directing political impeachments, +not indeed against the regents themselves, but against +their prominent instruments. This warfare of prosecutions +was waged the more keenly, that according to usage the duty of accusation +belonged to the senatorial youth, and, as may readily be conceived, +there was more of republican passion, fresh talent, and bold delight +in attack to be found among these youths than among the older members +of their order. Certainly the courts were not free; if the regents +were in earnest, the courts ventured as little as the senate +to refuse obedience. None of their antagonists were prosecuted +by the opposition with such hatred--so furious that it almost +passed into a proverb--as Vatinius, by far the most audacious +and unscrupulous of the closer adherents of Caesar; but his master +gave the command, and he was acquitted in all the processes +raised against him. But impeachments by men who knew how to wield +the sword of dialectics and the lash of sarcasm as did +Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Asinius Pollio, did not miss +their mark even when they failed; nor were isolated successes wanting. +They were mostly, no doubt, obtained over subordinate individuals, +but even one of the most high-placed and most hated adherents +of the dynasts, the consular Gabinius, was overthrown in this way. +Certainly in his case the implacable hatred of the aristocracy, +which as little forgave him for the law regarding the conducting +of the war with the pirates as for his disparaging treatment +of the senate during his Syrian governorship, was combined +with the rage of the great capitalists, against whom he had when governor +of Syria ventured to defend the interests of the provincials, +and even with the resentment of Crassus, with whom he had stood +on ceremony in handing over to him the province. His only protection +against all these foes was Pompeius, and the latter had every reason +to defend his ablest, boldest, and most faithful adjutant at any price; +but here, as everywhere, he knew not how to use his power +and to defend his clients, as Caesar defended his; in the end +of 700 the jurymen found Gabinius guilty of extortions +and sent him into banishment. + +On the whole, therefore, in the sphere of the popular elections +and of the jury-courts it was the regents that fared worst. +The factors which ruled in these were less tangible, and therefore +more difficult to be terrified or corrupted than the direct organs +of government and administration. The holders of power encountered +here, especially in the popular elections, the tough energy +of a close oligarchy--grouped in coteries--which is by no means +finally disposed of when its rule is overthrown, and which is +the more difficult to vanquish the more covert its action. +They encountered here too, especially in the jury-courts, +the repugnance of the middle classes towards the new monarchical rule, +which with all the perplexities springing out of it they were +as little able to remove. They suffered in both quarters a series +of defeats. The election-victories of the opposition had, +it is true, merely the value of demonstrations, since the regents +possessed and employed the means of practically annulling any magistrate +whom they disliked; but the criminal trials in which the opposition +carried condemnations deprived them, in a way keenly felt, +of useful auxiliaries. As things stood, the regents could neither +set aside nor adequately control the popular elections +and the jury-courts, and the opposition, however much it felt itself +straitened even here, maintained to a certain extent the field of battle. + +Literature of the Opposition + +It proved, however, yet a more difficult task to encounter +the opposition in a field, to which it turned with the greater zeal +the more it was dislodged from direct political action. This was +literature. Even the judicial opposition was at the same time +a literary one, and indeed pre-eminently so, for the orations +were regularly published and served as political pamphlets. +The arrows of poetry hit their mark still more rapidly and sharply. +The lively youth of the high aristocracy, and still more energetically +perhaps the cultivated middle class in the Italian country towns, +waged the war of pamphlets and epigrams with zeal and success. +There fought side by side on this field the genteel senator's son +Gaius Licinius Calvus (672-706) who was as much feared +in the character of an orator and pamphleteer as of a versatile poet, +and the municipals of Cremona and Verona Marcus Furius Bibaculus +(652-691) and Quintus Valerius Catullus (667-c. 700) whose elegant +and pungent epigrams flew swiftly like arrows through Italy +and were sure to hit their mark. An oppositional tone prevails +throughout the literature of these years. It is full of indignant +sarcasm against the "great Caesar," "the unique general," +against the affectionate father-in-law and son-in-law, +who ruin the whole globe in order to give their dissolute favourites +opportunity to parade the spoils of the long-haired Celts +through the streets of Rome, to furnish royal banquets with the booty +of the farthest isles of the west, and as rivals showering gold +to supplant honest youths at home in the favour of their mistresses. +There is in the poems of Catullus(9) and the other fragments +of the literature of this period something of that fervour of personal +and political hatred, of that republican agony overflowing +in riotous humour or in stern despair, which are more prominently +and powerfully apparent in Aristophanes and Demosthenes. + +The most sagacious of the three rulers at least saw well +that it was as impossible to despise this opposition as to suppress +it by word of command. So far as he could, Caesar tried +rather personally to gain over the more notable authors. +Cicero himself had to thank his literary reputation in good part +for the respectful treatment which he especially experienced +from Caesar; but the governor of Gaul did not disdain to conclude +a special peace even with Catullus himself through the intervention +of his father who had become personally known to him in Verona; +and the young poet, who had just heaped upon the powerful general +the bitterest and most personal sarcasms, was treated by him +with the most flattering distinction. In fact Caesar was gifted enough +to follow his literary opponents on their own domain and to publish-- +as an indirect way of repelling manifold attacks--a detailed report +on the Gallic wars, which set forth before the public, with happily +assumed naivete, the necessity and constitutional propriety +of his military operations. But it is freedom alone that is absolutely +and exclusively poetical and creative; it and it alone is able +even in its most wretched caricature, even with its latest breath, +to inspire fresh enthusiasm. All the sound elements of literature +were and remained anti-monarchical; and, if Caesar himself +could venture on this domain without proving a failure, the reason +was merely that even now he still cherished at heart the magnificent +dream of a free commonwealth, although he was unable to transfer it +either to his adversaries or to his adherents. Practical politics +was not more absolutely controlled by the regents than literature +by the republicans.(10) + +New Exceptional Measures Resolved on + +It became necessary to take serious steps against this opposition, +which was powerless indeed, but was always becoming more troublesome +and audacious. The condemnation of Gabinius, apparently, +turned the scale (end of 700). The regents agreed to introduce +a dictatorship, though only a temporary one, and by means of this +to carry new coercive measures especially respecting the elections +and the jury-courts. Pompeius, as the regent on whom primarily devolved +the government of Rome and Italy, was charged with the execution +of this resolve; which accordingly bore the impress of the awkwardness +in resolution and action that characterized him, and of his singular +incapacity of speaking out frankly, even where he would and could +command. Already at the close of 700 the demand for a dictatorship +was brought forward in the senate in the form of hints, +and that not by Pompeius himself. There served as its ostensible ground +the continuance of the system of clubs and bands in the capital, +which by acts of bribery and violence certainly exercised +the most pernicious pressure on the elections as well as +on the jury-courts and kept it in a perpetual state of disturbance; +we must allow that this rendered it easy for the regents to justify +their exceptional measures. But, as may well be conceived, +even the servile majority shrank from granting what the future dictator +himself seemed to shrink from openly asking. When the unparalleled +agitation regarding the elections for the consulship of 701 +led to the most scandalous scenes, so that the elections +were postponed a full year beyond the fixed time and only took place +after a seven months' interregnum in July 701, Pompeius found +in this state of things the desired occasion for indicating +now distinctly to the senate that the dictatorship was the only means +of cutting, if not of loosing the knot; but the decisive +word of command was not even yet spoken. Perhaps it would have +still remained for long unuttered, had not the most audacious +partisan of the republican opposition Titus Annius Milo +stepped into the field at the consular elections for 702 +as a candidate in opposition to the candidates of the regents, +Quintus Metellus Scipio and Publius Plautius Hypsaeus, both men +closely connected with Pompeius personally and thoroughly devoted to him. + +Milo +Killing of Clodius + +Milo, endowed with physical courage, with a certain talent for intrigue +and for contracting debt, and above all with an ample amount +of native assurance which had been carefully cultivated, +had made himself a name among the political adventurers +of the time, and was the greatest bully in his trade next to Clodius, +and naturally therefore through rivalry at the most deadly feud +with the latter. As this Achilles of the streets had been acquired +by the regents and with their permission was again playing the ultra- +democrat, the Hector of the streets became as a matter of course +an aristocrat! And the republican opposition, which now would have +concluded an alliance with Catilina in person, had he presented +himself to them, readily acknowledged Milo as their legitimate +champion in all riots. In fact the few successes, which they +carried off in this field of battle, were the work of Milo +and of his well-trained band of gladiators. So Cato and his friends +in return supported the candidature of Milo for the consulship; +even Cicero could not avoid recommending one who had been his enemy's +enemy and his own protector during many years; and as Milo himself +spared neither money nor violence to carry his election, +it seemed secured. For the regents it would have been not only +a new and keenly-felt defeat, but also a real danger; for it was +to be foreseen that the bold partisan would not allow himself +as consul to be reduced to insignificance so easily as Domitius +and other men of the respectable opposition. It happened that Achilles +and Hector accidentally encountered each other not far from the capital +on the Appian Way, and a fray arose between their respective bands, +in which Clodius himself received a sword-cut on the shoulder +and was compelled to take refuge in a neighbouring house. +This had occurred without orders from Milo; but, as the matter +had gone so far and as the storm had now to be encountered at any rate, +the whole crime seemed to Milo more desirable and even less dangerous +than the half; he ordered his men to drag Clodius forth +from his lurking place and to put him to death (13 Jan. 702). + +Anarchy in Rome + +The street leaders of the regents' party--the tribunes of the people +Titus Munatius Plancus, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, and Gaius +Sallustius Crispus--saw in this occurrence a fitting opportunity +to thwart in the interest of their masters the candidature of Milo +and carry the dictatorship of Pompeius. The dregs of the populace, +especially the freedmen and slaves, had lost in Clodius +their patron and future deliverer;(11) the requisite excitement +was thus easily aroused. After the bloody corpse had been exposed +for show at the orators' platform in the Forum and the speeches +appropriate to the occasion had been made, the riot broke forth. +The seat of the perfidious aristocracy was destined as a funeral pile +for the great liberator; the mob carried the body to the senate-house, +and set the building on fire. Thereafter the multitude proceeded +to the front of Milo's house and kept it under siege, till his band +drove off the assailants by discharges of arrows. They passed +on to the house of Pompeius and of his consular candidates, +of whom the former was saluted as dictator and the latter as consuls, +and thence to the house of the interrex Marcus Lepidus, on whom +devolved the conduct of the consular elections. When the latter, +as in duty bound, refused to make arrangements for the elections +immediately, as the clamorous multitude demanded, he was kept +during five days under siege in his dwelling house. + +Dictatorship of Pompeius + +But the instigators of these scandalous scenes had overacted +their part. Certainly their lord and master was resolved to employ +this favourable episode in order not merely to set aside Milo, +but also to seize the dictatorship; he wished, however, to receive it +not from a mob of bludgeon-men, but from the senate. Pompeius brought +up troops to put down the anarchy which prevailed in the capital, +and which had in reality become intolerable to everybody; +at the same time he now enjoined what he had hitherto requested, +and the senate complied. It was merely an empty subterfuge, +that on the proposal of Cato and Bibulus the proconsul Pompeius, +retaining his former offices, was nominated as "consul without +colleague" instead of dictator on the 25th of the intercalary +month(12) (702)--a subterfuge, which admitted an appellation labouring +under a double incongruity(13) for the mere purpose of avoiding +one which expressed the simple fact, and which vividly reminds us +of the sagacious resolution of the waning patriciate to concede +to the plebeians not the consulship, but only the consular power.(14) + +Changes of in the Arrangement of Magistracies and the Jury-System + +Thus in legal possession of full power, Pompeius set to work +and proceeded with energy against the republican party which was +powerful in the clubs and the jury-courts. The existing enactments +as to elections were repeated and enforced by a special law; +and by another against electioneering intrigues, which obtained +retrospective force for all offences of this sort committed +since 684, the penalties hitherto imposed were augmented. +Still more important was the enactment, that the governorships, +which were by far the more important and especially by far +the more lucrative half of official life, should be conferred +on the consuls and praetors not immediately on their retirement +from the consulate or praetorship, but only after the expiry +of other five years; an arrangement which of course could only +come into effect after four years, and therefore made the filling up +of the governorships for the next few years substantially dependent +on decrees of senate which were to be issued for the regulation +of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section +ruling the senate at the moment. The jury-commissions were left +in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea, +and--what was perhaps still more important--the liberty of speech +in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates +and the time of speaking apportioned to each were restricted +by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which had prevailed of adducing, +in addition to the witnesses as to facts, witnesses to character +or -laudatores-, as they were called, in favour of the accused +was prohibited. The obsequious senate further decreed on the suggestion +of Pompeius that the country had been placed in peril by the quarrel +on the Appian Way; accordingly a special commission was appointed +by an exceptional law for all crimes connected with it, +the members of which were directly nominated by Pompeius. +An attempt was also made to give once more a serious importance +to the office of the censors, and by that agency to purge +the deeply disordered burgess-body of the worst rabble. + +All these measures were adopted under the pressure of the sword. +In consequence of the declaration of the senate that the country +was in danger, Pompeius called the men capable of service +throughout Italy to arms and made them swear allegiance +for all contingencies; an adequate and trustworthy corps +was temporarily stationed at the Capitol; at every stirring +of opposition Pompeius threatened armed intervention, and during +the proceedings at the trial respecting the murder of Clodius +stationed contrary to all precedent, a guard over the place +of trial itself. + +Humiliation of the Republicans + +The scheme for the revival of the censorship failed, because +among the servile majority of the senate no one possessed +sufficient moral courage and authority even to become a candidate +for such an office. On the other hand Milo was condemned +by the jurymen (8 April 702) and Cato's candidature for the consulship +of 703was frustrated. The opposition of speeches and pamphlets +received through the new judicial ordinance a blow from which +it never recovered; the dreaded forensic eloquence was thereby +driven from the field of politics, and thenceforth felt +the restraints of monarchy. Opposition of course had not disappeared +either from the minds of the great majority of the nation +or even wholly from public life--to effect that end the popular elections, +the jury-courts, and literature must have been not merely restricted, +but annihilated. Indeed, in these very transactions themselves, +Pompeius by his unskilfulness and perversity helped the republicans +to gain even under his dictatorship several triumphs which +he severely felt. The special measures, which the rulers took +to strengthen their power, were of course officially characterized +as enactments made in the interest of public tranquillity and order, +and every burgess, who did not desire anarchy, was described +as substantially concurring in them. But Pompeius pushed +this transparent fiction so far, that instead of putting +safe instruments into the special commission for the investigation +of the last tumult, he chose the most respectable men of all parties, +including even Cato, and applied his influence over the court essentially +to maintain order, and to render it impossible for his adherents +as well as for his opponents to indulge in the scenes of disturbance +customary in the courts of this period. This neutrality of the regent +was discernible in the judgments of the special court. The jurymen +did not venture to acquit Milo himself; but most of the subordinate +persons accused belonging to the party of the republican opposition +were acquitted, while condemnation inexorably befell those +who in the last riot had taken part for Clodius, or in other words +for the regents, including not a few of Caesar's and of Pompeius' own +most intimate friends--even Hypsaeus his candidate for the consulship, +and the tribunes of the people Plancus and Rufus, who had directed +the -emeute- in his interest. That Pompeius did not prevent +their condemnation for the sake of appearing impartial, was one specimen +of his folly; and a second was, that he withal in matters +quite indifferent violated his own laws to favour his friends-- +appearing for example as a witness to character in the trial of Plancus, +and in fact protecting from condemnation several accused persons +specially connected with him, such as Metellus Scipio. As usual, +he wished here also to accomplish opposite things; in attempting +to satisfy the duties at once of the impartial regent +and of the party-chief, he fulfilled neither the one nor the other, +and was regarded by public opinion with justice as a despotic regent, +and by his adherents with equal justice as a leader who either +could not or would not protect his followers. + +But, although the republicans were still stirring and were even refreshed +by an isolated success here and there, chiefly through the blunders +of Pompeius, the object which the regents had proposed +to themselves in that dictatorship was on the whole attained, +the reins were drawn tighter, the republican party was humbled, +and the new monarchy was strengthened. The public began +to reconcile themselves to the latter. When Pompeius not long after +recovered from a serious illness, his restoration was celebrated +throughout Italy with the accompanying demonstrations of joy +which are usual on such occasions in monarchies. The regents +showed themselves satisfied; as early as the 1st of August 702 +Pompeius resigned his dictatorship, and shared the consulship +with his client Metellus Scipio. + + + + +Chapter IX + +Death of Crassus--Rupture between the Joint Rulers + +Crassus Goes to Syria + +Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads +of the "three-headed monster," without any proper title +to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance +between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak +more accurately, his weight fell into the scale of Caesar +against Pompeius. This part is not a too reputable one; +but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour +from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open +to be dealt with. What was offered to him was not much; +but, when more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought +to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin +at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless, +amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference +at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with the view +of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius +after concessions so extensive, Caesar gave to his old confederate +Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war +the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war +in Gaul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects +proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become +at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense +with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been +long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast +and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early +as the beginning of 700; he had not even waited for the expiry +of his consulship to depart. Full of impatient ardour he seemed desirous +to redeem every minute with the view of making up for what he had lost, +of gathering in the treasures of the east in addition to those +of the west, of achieving the power and glory of a general +as rapidly as Caesar, and with as little trouble as Pompeius. + +Expedition against Parthia Resolved on + +He found the Parthian war already commenced. The faithless conduct +of Pompeius towards the Parthians has been already mentioned;(1) +he had not respected the stipulated frontier of the Euphrates +and had wrested several provinces from the Parthian empire +for the benefit of Armenia, which was now a client state of Rome. +King Phraates had submitted to this treatment; but after he had been +murdered by his two sons Mithradates and Orodes, the new king +Mithradates immediately declared war on the king of Armenia, Artavasdes, +son of the recently deceased Tigranes (about 698).(2) This was +at the same time a declaration of war against Rome; therefore +as soon as the revolt of the Jews was suppressed, Gabinius, +the able and spirited governor of Syria, led the legions +over the Euphrates. Meanwhile, however, a revolution had occurred +in the Parthian empire; the grandees of the kingdom, with the young, +bold, and talented grand vizier at their head, had overthrown +king Mithradates and placed his brother Orodes on the throne. +Mithradates therefore made common cause with the Romans +and resorted to the camp of Gabinius. Everything promised +the best results to the enterprise of the Roman governor, +when he unexpectedly received orders to conduct the king of Egypt +back by force of arms to Alexandria.(3) He was obliged to obey; +but, in the expectation of soon coming back, he induced the dethroned +Parthian prince who solicited aid from him to commence the war +in the meanwhile at his own hand. Mithradates did so; and Seleucia +and Babylon declared for him; but the vizier captured Seleucia +by assault, having been in person the first to mount the battlements, +and in Babylon Mithradates himself was forced by famine to surrender, +whereupon he was by his brother's orders put to death. +His death was a palpable loss to the Romans; but it by no means +put an end to the ferment in the Parthian empire, and the Armenian war +continued. Gabinius, after ending the Egyptian campaign, +was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable +opportunity and resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus +arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans +of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated +the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance +in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke +confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already +in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms of Bactria and India. + +Plan of the Campaign + +The new Alexander, however, was in no haste. Before he carried +into effect these great plans, he found leisure for very tedious +and very lucrative collateral transactions. The temples of Derceto +at Hierapolis Bambyce and of Jehovah at Jerusalem and other rich shrines +of the Syrian province, were by order of Crassus despoiled +of their treasures; and contingents or, still better, sums of money +instead were levied from all the subjects. The military operations +of the first summer were limited to an extensive reconnaissance +in Mesopotamia; the Euphrates was crossed, the Parthian satrap +was defeated at Ichnae (on the Belik to the north of Rakkah), +and the neighbouring towns, including the considerable one of Nicephorium +(Rakkah), were occupied, after which the Romans having left garrisons +behind in them returned to Syria. They had hitherto been in doubt +whether it was more advisable to march to Parthia by the circuitous route +of Armenia or by the direct route through the Mesopotamian desert. +The first route, leading through mountainous regions under the control +of trustworthy allies, commended itself by its greater safety; +king Artavasdes came in person to the Roman headquarters +to advocate this plan of the campaign. But that reconnaissance +decided in favour of the march through Mesopotamia. The numerous +and flourishing Greek and half-Greek towns in the regions +along the Euphrates and Tigris, above all the great city +of Seleucia, were altogether averse to the Parthian rule; +all the Greek townships with which the Romans came into contact had now, +like the citizens of Carrhae at an earlier time,(4) practically shown +how ready they were to shake off the intolerable foreign yoke +and to receive the Romans as deliverers, almost as countrymen. +The Arab prince Abgarus, who commanded the desert of Edessa and Carrhae +and thereby the usual route from the Euphrates to the Tigris, +had arrived in the camp of the Romans to assure them in person +of his devotedness. The Parthians had appeared to be wholly unprepared. + +The Euphrates Crossed + +Accordingly (701) the Euphrates was crossed (near Biradjik). +To reach the Tigris from this point they had the choice +of two routes; either the army might move downward along the Euphrates +to the latitude of Seleucia where the Euphrates and Tigris +are only a few miles distant from each other; or they might +immediately after crossing take the shortest line to the Tigris +right across the great Mesopotamian desert. The former route +led directly to the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, which lay opposite +Seleucia on the other bank of the Tigris; several weighty voices +were raised in favour of this route in the Roman council of war; +in particular the quaestor Gaius Cassius pointed to the difficulties +of the march in the desert, and to the suspicious reports arriving +from the Roman garrisons on the left bank of the Euphrates +as to the Parthian warlike preparations. But in opposition to this +the Arab prince Abgarus announced that the Parthians were employed +in evacuating their western provinces. They had already packed up +their treasures and put themselves in motion to flee to the Hyrcanians +and Scythians; only through a forced march by the shortest route +was it at all possible still to reach them; but by such a march +the Romans would probably succeed in overtaking and cutting up at least +the rear-guard of the great army under Sillaces and the vizier, +and obtaining enormous spoil. These reports of the friendly Bedouins +decided the direction of the march; the Roman army, consisting +of seven legions, 4000 cavalry, and 4000 slingers and archers, +turned off from the Euphrates and away into the inhospitable plains +of northern Mesopotamia. + +The March in the Desert + +Far and wide not an enemy showed himself; only hunger and thirst, +and the endless sandy desert, seemed to keep watch at the gates +of the east. At length, after many days of toilsome marching, not far +from the first river which the Roman army had to cross, +the Balissus (Belik), the first horsemen of the enemy were descried. +Abgarus with his Arabs was sent out to reconnoitre; the Parthian +squadrons retired up to and over the river and vanished +in the distance, pursued by Abgarus and his followers. With impatience +the Romans waited for his return and for more exact information. +The general hoped here at length to come upon the constantly +retreating foe; his young and brave son Publius, who had fought +with the greatest distinction in Gaul under Caesar,(5) and had been sent +by the latter at the head of a Celtic squadron of horse to take part +in the Parthian war, was inflamed with a vehement desire +for the fight. When no tidings came, they resolved to advance +at a venture; the signal for starting was given, the Balissus +was crossed, the army after a brief insufficient rest at noon +was led on without delay at a rapid pace. Then suddenly the kettledrums +of the Parthians sounded all around; on every side their silken +gold-embroidered banners were seen waving, and their iron helmets +and coats of mail glittering in the blaze of the hot noonday sun; +and by the side of the vizier stood prince Abgarus with his Bedouins. + +Roman and Parthian Systems of Warfare + +The Romans saw too late the net into which they had allowed themselves +to be ensnared. With sure glance the vizier had thoroughly seen +both the danger and the means of meeting it. Nothing could +be accomplished against the Roman infantry of the line +with Oriental infantry; so he had rid himself of it, and by +sending a mass, which was useless in the main field of battle, +under the personal leadership of king Orodes to Armenia, +he had prevented king Artavasdes from allowing the promised +10,000 heavy cavalry to join the army of Crassus, who now painfully +felt the want of them. On the other hand the vizier met the Roman +tactics, unsurpassed of their kind, with a system entirely different. +His army consisted exclusively of cavalry; the line was formed of the +heavy horsemen armed with long thrusting-lances, and protected, man +and horse, by a coat of mail of metallic plates or a leathern doublet +and by similar greaves; the mass of the troops consisted of mounted +archers. As compared with these, the Romans were thoroughly inferior +in the corresponding arms both as to number and excellence. Their +infantry of the line, excellent as they were in close combat, whether +at a short distance with the heavy javelin or in hand-to-hand combat +with the sword, could not compel an army consisting merely of cavalry +to come to an engagement with them; and they found, even when they +did come to a hand-to-hand conflict, an equal if not superior +adversary in the iron-clad hosts of lancers. As compared with an +army like this Parthian one, the Roman army was at a disadvantage +strategically, because the cavalry commanded the communications; +and at a disadvantage tactically, because every weapon of close +combat must succumb to that which is wielded from a distance, +unless the struggle becomes an individual one, man against man. +The concentrated position, on which the whole Roman method of war +was based, increased the danger in presence of such an attack; +the closer the ranks of the Roman column, the more irresistible +certainly was its onset, but the less also could the missiles +fail to hit their mark. Under ordinary circumstances, +where towns have to be defended and difficulties of the ground +have to be considered, such tactics operating merely with cavalry +against infantry could never be completely carried out; +but in the Mesopotamian desert, where the army, almost like a ship +on the high seas, neither encountered an obstacle nor met +with a basis for strategic dispositions during many days' march, +this mode of warfare was irresistible for the very reason +that circumstances allowed it to be developed there in all its purity +and therefore in all its power. There everything combined to put +the foreign infantry at a disadvantage against the native cavalry. +Where the heavy-laden Roman foot-soldier dragged himself toilsomely +through the sand or the steppe, and perished from hunger or still more +from thirst amid the pathless route marked only by water-springs +that were far apart and difficult to find, the Parthian horseman, +accustomed from childhood to sit on his fleet steed or camel, +nay almost to spend his life in the saddle, easily traversed +the desert whose hardships he had long learned how to lighten +or in case of need to endure. There no rain fell to mitigate +the intolerable heat, and to slacken the bowstrings and leathern thongs +of the enemy's archers and slingers; there amidst the deep sand +at many places ordinary ditches and ramparts could hardly be formed +for the camp. Imagination can scarcely conceive a situation +in which all the military advantages were more on the one side, +and all the disadvantages more thoroughly on the other. + +To the question, under what circumstances this new style +of tactics, the first national system that on its own proper ground +showed itself superior to the Roman, arose among the Parthians, +we unfortunately can only reply by conjectures. The lancers +and mounted archers were of great antiquity in the east, and already +formed the flower of the armies of Cyrus and Darius; but hitherto +these arms had been employed only as secondary, and essentially +to cover the thoroughly useless Oriental infantry. The Parthian armies +also by no means differed in this respect from the other Oriental ones; +armies are mentioned, five-sixths of which consisted of infantry. +In the campaign of Crassus, on the other hand, the cavalry +for the first time came forward independently, and this arm +obtained quite a new application and quite a different value. +The irresistible superiority of the Roman infantry in close combat +seems to have led the adversaries of Rome in very different parts +of the world independently of each other--at the same time +and with similar success--to meet it with cavalry and distant weapons. +What as completely successful with Cassivellaunus in Britain(6) +and partially successful with Vercingetorix in Gaul(7)-- +what was to a certain degree attempted even by Mithradates Eupator(8)-- +the vizier of Orodes carried out only on a larger scale +and more completely. And in doing so he had special advantages: +for he found in the heavy cavalry the means of forming a line; the bow +which was national in the east and was handled with masterly skill +in the Persian provinces gave him an effective weapon for distant combat; +and lastly the peculiarities of the country and the people +enabled him freely to realize his brilliant idea. Here, where +the Roman weapons of close combat and the Roman system of concentration +yielded for the first time before the weapons of more distant warfare +and the system of deploying, was initiated that military revolution +which only reached its completion with the introduction of firearms. + +Battle near Carrhae + +Under such circumstances the first battle between the Romans +and Parthians was fought amidst the sandy desert thirty miles +to the south of Carrhae (Harran) where there was a Roman garrison, +and at a somewhat less distance to the north of Ichnae. The Roman +archers were sent forward, but retired immediately before the enormous +numerical superiority and the far greater elasticity and range +of the Parthian bows. The legions, which, in spite of the advice +of the more sagacious officers that they should be deployed +as much as possible against the enemy, had been drawn up +in a dense square of twelve cohorts on each side, were soon outflanked +and overwhelmed with the formidable arrows, which under such circumstances +hit their man even without special aim, and against which the soldiers +had no means of retaliation. The hope that the enemy might expend +his missiles vanished with a glance at the endless range of camels +laden with arrows. The Parthians were still extending their line. +That the outflanking might not end in surrounding, Publius Crassus +advanced to the attack with a select corps of cavalry, archers, +and infantry of the line. The enemy in fact abandoned the attempt +to close the circle, and retreated, hotly pursued by the impetuous +leader of the Romans. But, when the corps of Publius had totally lost +sight of the main army, the heavy cavalry made a stand against it, +and the Parthian host hastening up from all sides closed in +like a net round it. Publius, who saw his troops falling thickly +and vainly around him under the arrows of the mounted archers, +threw himself in desperation with his Celtic cavalry unprotected +by any coats of mail on the iron-clad lancers of the enemy; +but the death-despising valour of his Celts, who seized the lances +with their hands or sprang from their horses to stab the enemy, +performed its marvels in vain. The remains of the corps, +including their leader wounded in the sword-arm, were driven +to a slight eminence, where they only served for an easier mark +to the enemy's archers. Mesopotamian Greeks, who were accurately +acquainted with the country, adjured Crassus to ride off with them +and make an attempt to escape; but he refused to separate his fate +from that of the brave men whom his too-daring courage +had led to death, and he caused himself to be stabbed by the hand +of his shield-bearer. Following his example, most of the still +surviving officers put themselves to death. Of the whole division, +about 6000 strong, not more than 500 were taken prisoners; +no one was able to escape. Meanwhile the attack on the main army +had slackened, and the Romans were but too glad to rest. +When at length the absence of any tidings from the corps +sent out startled them out of the deceitful calm, and they drew near +to the scene of the battle for the purpose of learning its fate, +the head of the son was displayed on a pole before his father's eyes; +and the terrible onslaught began once more against the main army +with the same fury and the same hopeless uniformity. They could +neither break the ranks of the lancers nor reach the archers; +night alone put an end to the slaughter. Had the Parthians bivouacked +on the battle-field, hardly a man of the Roman army would have escaped. +But not trained to fight otherwise than on horseback, and therefore +afraid of a surprise, they were wont never to encamp close to the enemy; +jeeringly they shouted to the Romans that they would give the general +a night to bewail his son, and galloped off to return next morning +and despatch the game that lay bleeding on the ground. + +Retreat to Carrhae + +Of course the Romans did not wait for the morning. The lieutenant- +generals Cassius and Octavius--Crassus himself had completely +lost his judgment--ordered the men still capable of marching +to set out immediately and with the utmost silence (while the whole-- +said to amount to 4000--of the wounded and stragglers were left), +with the view of seeking protection within the walls of Carrhae. +The fact that the Parthians, when they returned on the following day, +applied themselves first of all to seek out and massacre +the scattered Romans left behind, and the further fact that the garrison +and inhabitants of Carrhae, early informed of the disaster by fugitives, +had marched forth in all haste to meet the beaten army, saved the remnants +of it from what seemed inevitable destruction. + +Departure from Carrhae +Surprise at Sinnaca + +The squadrons of Parthian horsemen could not think of undertaking +a siege of Carrhae. But the Romans soon voluntarily departed, +whether compelled by want of provisions, or in consequence +of the desponding precipitation of their commander-in-chief, +whom the soldiers had vainly attempted to remove from the command +and to replace by Cassius. They moved in the direction of the Armenian +mountains; marching by night and resting by day Octavius with a band +of 5000 men reached the fortress of Sinnaca, which was only +a day's march distant from the heights that would give shelter, +and liberated even at the peril of his own life the commander-in-chief, +whom the guide had led astray and given up to the enemy. +Then the vizier rode in front of the Roman camp to offer, +in the name of his king, peace and friendship to the Romans, +and to propose a personal conference between the two generals. +The Roman army, demoralized as it was, adjured and indeed compelled +its leader to accept the offer. The vizier received the consular +and his staff with the usual honours, and offered anew to conclude +a compact of friendship; only, with just bitterness recalling the fate +of the agreements concluded with Lucullus and Pompeius respecting +the Euphrates boundary,(9) he demanded that it should be immediately +reduced to writing. A richly adorned horse was produced; +it was a present from the king to the Roman commander-in-chief; +the servants of the vizier crowded round Crassus, zealous to mount him +on the steed. It seemed to the Roman officers as if there was a design +to seize the person of the commander-in-chief; Octavius, unarmed +as he was, pulled the sword of one of the Parthians from its sheath +and stabbed the groom. In the tumult which thereupon arose, +the Roman officers were all put to death; the gray-haired commander- +in-chief also, like his grand-uncle,(10) was unwilling to serve +as a living trophy to the enemy, and sought and found death. +The multitude left behind in the camp without a leader were partly +taken prisoners, partly dispersed. What the day of Carrhae had begun, +the day of Sinnaca completed (June 9, 701); the two took their place +side by side with the days of the Allia, of Cannae, and of Arausio. +The army of the Euphrates was no more. Only the squadron +of Gaius Cassius, which had been broken off from the main army +on the retreat from Carrhae, and some other scattered bands +and isolated fugitives succeeded in escaping from the Parthians +and Bedouins and separately finding their way back to Syria. +Of above 40,000 Roman legionaries, who had crossed the Euphrates, +not a fourth part returned; the half had perished; nearly 10,000 +Roman prisoners were settled by the victors in the extreme east +of their kingdom--in the oasis of Merv--as bondsmen compelled +after the Parthian fashion to render military service. +For the first time since the eagles had headed the legions, +they had become in the same year trophies of victory in the hands +of foreign nations, almost contemporaneously of a German tribe +in the west(11) and of the Parthians in the east. As to the impression +which the defeat of the Romans produced in the east, unfortunately +no adequate information has reached us; but it must have been deep +and lasting. King Orodes was just celebrating the marriage of his son +Pacorus with the sister of his new ally, Artavasdes the king of Armenia, +when the announcement of the victory of his vizier arrived, +and along with it, according to Oriental usage, the cut-off head +of Crassus. The tables were already removed; one of the wandering +companies of actors from Asia Minor, numbers of which at that time +existed and carried Hellenic poetry and the Hellenic drama +far into the east, was just performing before the assembled court +the -Bacchae- of Euripides. The actor playing the part of Agave, +who in her Dionysiac frenzy has torn in pieces her son and returns +from Cithaeron carrying his head on the thyrsus, exchanged this +for the bloody head of Crassus, and to the infinite delight of his +audience of half-Hellenized barbarians began afresh the well-known song: + + --pheromin ex oreos + elika neotomon epi melathra + makarian theiran--. + +It was, since the times of the Achaemenids, the first serious victory +which the Orientals had achieved over the west; and there was +a deep significance in the fact that, by way of celebrating +this victory, the fairest product of the western world-- +Greek tragedy--parodied itself through its degenerate representatives +in that hideous burlesque. The civic spirit of Rome and the genius +of Hellas began simultaneously to accommodate themselves +to the chains of sultanism. + +Consequences of the Defeat + +The disaster, terrible in itself, seemed also as though +it was to be dreadful in its consequences, and to shake the foundations +of the Roman power in the east. It was among the least of its results +that the Parthians now had absolute sway beyond the Euphrates; +that Armenia, after having fallen away from the Roman alliance +even before the disaster of Crassus, was reduced by it +into entire dependence on Parthia; that the faithful citizens +of Carrhae were bitterly punished for their adherence to the Occidentals +by the new master appointed over them by the Parthians, +one of the treacherous guides of the Romans, named Andromachus. +The Parthians now prepared in all earnest to cross the Euphrates +in their turn, and, in union with the Armenians and Arabs, to dislodge +the Romans from Syria. The Jews and various other Occidentals +awaited emancipation from the Roman rule there, no less impatiently +than the Hellenes beyond the Euphrates awaited relief +from the Parthian; in Rome civil war was at the door; an attack +at this particular place and time was a grave peril. But fortunately +for Rome the leaders on each side had changed. Sultan Orodes +was too much indebted to the heroic prince, who had first placed +the crown on his head and then cleared the land from the enemy, +not to get rid of him as soon as possible by the executioner. +His place as commander-in-chief of the invading army destined for Syria +was filled by a prince, the king's son Pacorus, with whom on account +of his youth and inexperience the prince Osaces had to be associated +as military adviser. On the other side the interim command +in Syria in room of Crassus was taken up by the prudent and resolute +quaestor Gaius Cassius. + +Repulse of the Parthians + +The Parthians were, just like Crassus formerly, in no haste to attack, +but during the years 701 and 702 sent only weak flying bands, +who were easily repulsed, across the Euphrates; so that Cassius +obtained time to reorganize the army in some measure, and with the help +of the faithful adherent of the Romans, Herodes Antipater, +to reduce to obedience the Jews, whom resentment at the spoliation +of the temple perpetrated by Crassus had already driven to arms. +The Roman government would thus have had full time to send +fresh troops for the defence of the threatened frontier; +but this was left undone amidst the convulsions of the incipient +revolution, and, when at length in 703 the great Parthian invading army +appeared on the Euphrates, Cassius had still nothing to oppose to it +but the two weak legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus. +Of course with these he could neither prevent the crossing +nor defend the province. Syria was overrun by the Parthians, +and all Western Asia trembled. But the Parthians did not understand +the besieging of towns. They not only retreated from Antioch, +into which Cassius had thrown himself with his troops, without having +accomplished their object, but they were on their retreat +along the Orontes allured into an ambush by Cassius' cavalry +and there severely handled by the Roman infantry; prince Osaces +was himself among the slain. Friend and foe thus perceived +that the Parthian army under an ordinary general and on ordinary ground +was not capable of much more than any other Oriental army. +However, the attack was not abandoned. Still during the winter +of 703-704 Pacorus lay encamped in Cyrrhestica on this side +of the Euphrates; and the new governor of Syria, Marcus Bibulus, +as wretched a general as he was an incapable statesman, +knew no better course of action than to shut himself up +in his fortresses. It was generally expected that the war +would break out in 704 with renewed fury. But instead +of turning his arms against the Romans, Pacorus turned against +his own father, and accordingly even entered into an understanding +with the Roman governor. Thus the stain was not wiped +from the shield of Roman honour, nor was the reputation of Rome +restored in the east; but the Parthian invasion of Western Asia +was over, and the Euphrates boundary was, for the time being +at least, retained. + +Impression Produced in Rome by the Defeat of Carrhae + +In Rome meanwhile the periodical volcano of revolution was whirling +upward its clouds of stupefying smoke. The Romans began to have +no longer a soldier or a denarius to be employed against the public foe-- +no longer a thought for the destinies of the nations. It is +one of the most dreadful signs of the times, that the huge national +disaster of Carrhae and Sinnaca gave the politicians of that time +far less to think and speak of than that wretched tumult +on the Appian road, in which, a couple of months after Crassus, +Clodius the partisan-leader perished; but it is easily conceivable +and almost excusable. The breach between the two regents, long felt +as inevitable and often announced as near, was now assuming +such a shape that it could not be arrested. Like the boat +of the ancient Greek mariners' tale, the vessel of the Roman community +now found itself as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other; +expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom it was bearing, +tortured by nameless anguish, into the eddying surge that rose +higher and higher were benumbed; and, while every slightest movement +there attracted a thousand, eyes, no one ventured to give a glance +to the right or the left. + +The Good Understanding between the Regents Relaxed + +After Caesar had, at the conference of Luca in April 698, +agreed to considerable concessions as regarded Pompeius, +and the regents had thus placed themselves substantially on a level, +their relation was not without the outward conditions of durability, +so far as a division of the monarchical power--in itself indivisible-- +could be lasting at all. It was a different question +whether the regents, at least for the present, were determined +to keep together and mutually to acknowledge without reserve their title +to rank as equals. That this was the case with Caesar, in so far +as he had acquired the interval necessary for the conquest of Gaul +at the price of equalization with Pompeius, has been already set forth. +But Pompeius was hardly ever, even provisionally, in earnest +with the collegiate scheme. His was one of those petty +and mean natures, towards which it is dangerous to practise magnanimity; +to his paltry spirit it appeared certainly a dictate of prudence +to supplant at the first opportunity his reluctantly acknowledged rival, +and his mean soul thirsted after a possibility of retaliating on Caesar +for the humiliation which he had suffered through Caesar's indulgence. +But while it is probable that Pompeius in accordance with his dull +and sluggish nature never properly consented to let Caesar +hold a position of equality by his side, yet the design +of breaking up the alliance doubtless came only by degrees +to be distinctly entertained by him. At any rate the public, +which usually saw better through the views and intentions +of Pompeius than he did himself, could not be mistaken +in thinking that at least with the death of the beautiful Julia-- +who died in the bloom of womanhood in the autumn of 700 and was +soon followed by her only child to the tomb--the personal relation +between her father and her husband was broken up. Caesar attempted +to re-establish the ties of affinity which fate had severed; +he asked for himself the hand of the only daughter of Pompeius, +and offered Octavia, his sister's grand-daughter, who was now +his nearest relative, in marriage to his fellow-regent; but Pompeius +left his daughter to her existing husband Faustus Sulla the son +of the regent, and he himself married the daughter of Quintus Metellus +Scipio. The personal breach had unmistakeably begun, and it was +Pompeius who drew back his hand. It was expected that a political +breach would at once follow; but in this people were mistaken; +in public affairs a collegiate understanding continued for a time +to subsist. The reason was, that Caesar did not wish publicly +to dissolve the relation before the subjugation of Gaul +was accomplished, and Pompeius did not wish to dissolve it +before the governing authorities and Italy should be wholly reduced +under his power by his investiture with the dictatorship. +It is singular, but yet readily admits of explanation, that the regents +under these circumstances supported each other; Pompeius +after the disaster of Aduatuca in the winter of 700 handed over +one of his Italian legions that were dismissed on furlough +by way of loan to Caesar; on the other hand Caesar granted his consent +and his moral support to Pompeius in the repressive measures +which the latter took against the stubborn republican opposition. + +Dictatorship of Pompeius +Covert Attacks by Pompeius on Caesar + +It was only after Pompeius had in this way procured for himself +at the beginning of 702 the undivided consulship and an influence +in the capital thoroughly outweighing that of Caesar, +and after all the men capable of arms in Italy had tendered +their military oath to himself personally and in his name, +that he formed the resolution to break as soon as possible +formally with Caesar; and the design became distinctly enough apparent. +That the judicial prosecution which took place after the tumult +on the Appian Way lighted with unsparing severity precisely +on the old democratic partisans of Caesar,(12) might perhaps pass +as a mere awkwardness. That the new law against electioneering intrigues, +which had retrospective effect as far as 684, included also the dubious +proceedings at Caesar's candidature for the consulship,(13) +might likewise be nothing more, although not a few Caesarians thought +that they perceived in it a definite design. But people +could no longer shut their eyes, however willing they might be +to do so, when Pompeius did not select for his colleague +in the consulship his former father-in-law Caesar, as was fitting +in the circumstances of the case and was in many quarters demanded, +but associated with himself a puppet wholly dependent on him +in his new father-in-law Scipio;(14) and still less, when Pompeius +at the same time got the governorship of the two Spains continued +to him for five years more, that is to 709, and a considerable +fixed sum appropriated from the state-chest for the payment of his troops, +not only without stipulating for a like prolongation of command +and a like grant of money to Caesar, but even while labouring +ulteriorly to effect the recall of Caesar before the term +formerly agreed on through the new regulations which were issued +at the same time regarding the holding of the governorships. +These encroachments were unmistakeably calculated to undermine +Caesar's position and eventually to overthrow him. The moment +could not be more favourable. Caesar had conceded so much to Pompeius +at Luca, only because Crassus and his Syrian army would necessarily, +in the event of any rupture with Pompeius, be thrown into Caesar's scale; +for upon Crassus--who since the times of Sulla had been +at the deepest enmity with Pompeius and almost as long politically +and personally allied with Caesar, and who from his peculiar character +at all events, if he could not himself be king of Rome, would have been +content with being the new king's banker--Caesar could always reckon, +and could have no apprehension at all of seeing Crassus confronting him +as an ally of his enemies. The catastrophe of June 701, +by which army and general in Syria perished, was therefore +a terribly severe blow also for Caesar. A few months later +the national insurrection blazed up more violently than ever in Gaul, +just when it had seemed completely subdued, and for the first time +Caesar here encountered an equal opponent in the Arvernian king +Vercingetorix. Once more fate had been working for Pompeius; +Crassus was dead, all Gaul was in revolt, Pompeius was practically +dictator of Rome and master of the senate. What might have happened, +if he had now, instead of remotely intriguing against Caesar, +summarily compelled the burgesses or the senate to recall Caesar +at once from Gaul! But Pompeius never understood how to take advantage +of fortune. He heralded the breach clearly enough; already in 702 +his acts left no doubt about it, and in the spring of 703 he openly +expressed his purpose of breaking with Caesar; but he did not +break with him, and allowed the months to slip away unemployed. + +The Old Party Names and the Pretenders + +But however Pompeius might delay, the crisis was incessantly urged +on by the mere force of circumstances. + +The impending war was not a struggle possibly between republic +and monarchy--for that had been virtually decided years before-- +but a struggle between Pompeius and Caesar for the possession +of the crown of Rome. But neither of the pretenders found his account +in uttering the plain truth; he would have thereby driven +all that very respectable portion of the burgesses, which desired +the continuance of the republic and believed in its possibility, +directly into the camp of his opponent. The old battle-cries raised +by Gracchus and Drusus, Cinna and Sulla, used up and meaningless +as they were, remained still good enough for watchwords +in the struggle of the two generals contending for the sole rule; +and, though for the moment both Pompeius and Caesar ranked themselves +officially with the so-called popular party, it could not be +for a moment doubtful that Caesar would inscribe on his banner +the people and democratic progress, Pompeius the aristocracy +and the legitimate constitution. + +The Democracy and Caesar + +Caesar had no choice. He was from the outset and very earnestly +a democrat; the monarchy as he understood it differed more outwardly +than in reality from the Gracchan government of the people; +and he was too magnanimous and too profound a statesman to conceal +his colours and to fight under any other escutcheon than his own. +The immediate advantage no doubt, which this battle-cry brought to him, +was trifling; it was confined mainly to the circumstance +that he was thereby relieved from the inconvenience of directly naming +the kingly office, and so alarming the mass of the lukewarm +and his own adherents by that detested word. The democratic banner +hardly yielded farther positive gain, since the ideals of Gracchus +had been rendered infamous and ridiculous by Clodius; +for where was there now--laying aside perhaps the Transpadanes-- +any class of any sort of importance, which would have been induced +by the battle-cries of the democracy to take part in the struggle? + +The Aristocracy and Pompeius + +This state of things would have decided the part of Pompeius +in the impending struggle, even if apart from this it had not been +self-evident that he could only enter into it as the general +of the legitimate republic. Nature had destined him, if ever any one, +to be a member of an aristocracy; and nothing but very accidental +and very selfish motives had carried him over as a deserter +from the aristocratic to the democratic camp. That he should now +revert to his Sullan traditions, was not merely befitting in the case, +but in every respect of essential advantage. Effete as was +the democratic cry, the conservative cry could not but have +the more potent effect, if it proceeded from the right man. +Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the burgesses, +belonged to the constitutional party; and as respected its numerical +and moral strength might well be called to interfere powerfully, +perhaps decisively, in the impending struggle of the pretenders. +It wanted nothing but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present head, +did the duty, as he understood it, of its leader amidst daily peril +to his life and perhaps without hope of success; his fidelity to duty +deserves respect, but to be the last at a forlorn post is commendable +in the soldier, not in the general. He had not the skill +either to organize or to bring into action at the proper time +the powerful reserve, which had sprung up as it were spontaneously +in Italy for the party of the overthrown government; and he had +for good reasons never made any pretension to the military leadership, +on which everything ultimately depended. If instead of this man, +who knew not how to act either as party-chief or as general, +a man of the political and military mark of Pompeius should raise +the banner of the existing constitution, the municipals of Italy +would necessarily flock towards it in crowds, that under it +they might help to fight, if not indeed for the kingship of Pompeius, +at any rate against the kingship of Caesar. + +To this was added another consideration at least as important. +It was characteristic of Pompeius, even when he had formed a resolve, +not to be able to find his way to its execution. While he knew +perhaps how to conduct war but certainly not how to declare it, +the Catonian party, although assuredly unable to conduct it, +was very able and above all very ready to supply grounds for the war +against the monarchy on the point of being founded. According to +the intention of Pompeius, while he kept himself aloof, and in his +peculiar way, now talked as though he would immediately depart +for his Spanish provinces, now made preparations as though he would +set out to take over the command on the Euphrates, the legitimate +governing board, namely the senate, were to break with Caesar, +to declare war against him, and to entrust the conduct of it to Pompeius, +who then, yielding to the general desire, was to come forward +as the protector of the constitution against demagogico- +monarchical plots, as an upright man and champion of the existing +order of things against the profligates and anarchists, +as the duly-installed general of the senate against the Imperator +of the street, and so once more to save his country. Thus Pompeius +gained by the alliance with the conservatives both a second army +in addition to his personal adherents, and a suitable war-manifesto-- +advantages which certainly were purchased at the high price +of coalescing with those who were in principle opposed to him. +Of the countless evils involved in this coalition, there was developed +in the meantime only one--but that already a very grave one-- +that Pompeius surrendered the power of commencing hostilities +against Caesar when and how he pleased, and in this decisive point +made himself dependent on all the accidents and caprices +of an aristocratic corporation. + +The Republicans + +Thus the republican opposition, after having been for years +obliged to rest content with the part of a mere spectator +and having hardly ventured to whisper, was now brought back once more +to the political stage by the impending rupture between the regents. +It consisted primarily of the circle which rallied round Cato-- +those republicans who were resolved to venture on the struggle +for the republic and against the monarchy under all circumstances, +and the sooner the better. The pitiful issue of the attempt +made in 698(15) had taught them that they by themselves alone +were not in a position either to conduct war or even to call it forth; +it was known to every one that even in the senate, while the whole +corporation with a few isolated exceptions was averse to monarchy, +the majority would still only restore the oligarchic government +if it might be restored without danger--in which case, doubtless, +it had a good while to wait. In presence of the regents on the one hand, +and on the other hand of this indolent majority, which desired peace +above all things and at any price, and was averse to any decided action +and most of all to a decided rupture with one or other of the regents, +the only possible course for the Catonian party to obtain a restoration +of the old rule lay in a coalition with the less dangerous +of the rulers. If Pompeius acknowledged the oligarchic constitution +and offered to fight for it against Caesar, the republican opposition +might and must recognize him as its general, and in alliance +with him compel the timid majority to a declaration of war. +That Pompeius was not quite in earnest with his fidelity +to the constitution, could indeed escape nobody; but, undecided +as he was in everything, he had by no means arrived like Caesar +at a clear and firm conviction that it must be the first business +of the new monarch to sweep off thoroughly and conclusively +the oligarchic lumber. At any rate the war would train +a really republican army and really republican generals; +and, after the victory over Caesar, they might proceed +with more favourable prospects to set aside not merely +oneof the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course +of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer +of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement +possible for it. + +Their League with Pompeius + +The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and the Catonian party +was effected with comparative rapidity. Already during the dictatorship +of Pompeius a remarkable approximation had taken place between them. +The whole behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis, +his abrupt repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship, +his distinct declaration that he would accept this office +only from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers +of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra-democrats, +the surprising complaisance with which he treated Cato +and those who shared his views, appeared as much calculated to gain +the men of order as they were offensive to the democrat Caesar. +On the other hand Cato and his followers, instead of combating +with their wonted sternness the proposal to confer the dictatorship +on Pompeius, had made it with immaterial alterations of form +their own; Pompeius had received the undivided consulship +primarily from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian party +and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early +as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally +concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected +not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man +belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided +adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was +no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast +and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war +if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood, +this election, so surprising after the repressive measures +adopted immediately before against the republican opposition, +can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent, +or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome +for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont, +but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture. + +Passive Resistance of Caesar + +It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out +at this moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously +and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague, +least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius; +and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest +of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort +it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer +was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail +to perceive that the regulation of the political organism +by force of arms does in its consequences deeply and often permanently +disorganize it; and therefore he could not but seek to solve +the difficulty, if at all possible, by peaceful means or at least +without open civil war. But even if civil war was not to be avoided, +he could not desire to be driven to it at a time, when in Gaul +the rising of Vercingetorix imperilled afresh all that had been obtained +and occupied him without interruption from the winter of 701-702 +to the winter of 702-703, and when Pompeius and the constitutional party +opposed to him on principle were dominant in Italy. Accordingly +he sought to preserve the relation with Pompeius and thereby +the peace unbroken, and to attain, if at all possible, +by peaceful means to the consulship for 706 already assured +to him at Luca. If he should then after a conclusive settlement +of Celtic affairs be placed in a regular manner at the head +of the state, he, who was still more decidedly superior +to Pompeius as a statesman than as a general, might well reckon +on outmanoeuvring the latter in the senate-house and in the Forum +without special difficulty. Perhaps it was possible to find out +for his awkward, vacillating, and arrogant rival some sort +of honourable and influential position, in which the latter might be +content to sink into a nullity; the repeated attempts of Caesar +to keep himself related by marriage to Pompeius, may have been +designed to pave the way for such a solution and to bring about +a final settlement of the old quarrel through the succession +of offspring inheriting the blood of both competitors. The republican +opposition would then remain without a leader and therefore +probably quiet, and peace would be preserved. If this should not +be successful, and if there should be, as was certainly possible, +a necessity for ultimately resorting to the decision of arms, +Caesar would then as consul in Rome dispose of the compliant majority +of the senate; and he could impede or perhaps frustrate the coalition +of the Pompeians and the republicans, and conduct the war +far more suitably and more advantageously, than if he now as proconsul +of Gaul gave orders to march against the senate and its general. +Certainly the success of this plan depended on Pompeius being good- +natured enough to let Caesar still obtain the consulship for 706 +assured to him at Luca; but, even if it failed, it would be always +of advantage for Caesar to have given practical and repeated +evidence of the most yielding disposition. On the one hand time +would thus be gained for attaining his object meanwhile in Gaul; +on the other hand his opponents would be left with the odium +of initiating the rupture and consequently the civil war-- +which was of the utmost moment for Caesar with reference to the majority +of the senate and the party of material interests, and more especially +with reference to his own soldiers. + +On these views he acted. He armed certainly; the number of his legion +was raised through new levies in the winter of 702-703 to eleven, +including that borrowed from Pompeius. But at the same time +he expressly and openly approved of Pompeius' conduct during +the dictatorship and the restoration of order in the capital +which he had effected, rejected the warnings of officious friends +as calumnies, reckoned every day by which he succeeded +in postponing the catastrophe a gain, overlooked whatever +could be overlooked and bore whatever could be borne-- +immoveably adhering only to the one decisive demand that, +when his governorship of Gaul came to an end with 705, +the second consulship, admissible by republican state-law +and promised to him according to agreement by his colleague, +should be granted to him for the year 706. + +Preparation for Attacks on Caesar + +This very demand became the battle-field of the diplomatic war +which now began. If Caesar were compelled either to resign +his office of governor before the last day of December 705, +or to postpone the assumption of the magistracy in the capital +beyond the 1st January 706, so that he should remain for a time +between the governorship and the consulate without office, +and consequently liable to criminal impeachment--which according +to Roman law was only allowable against one who was not in office-- +the public had good reason to prophesy for him in this case +the fate of Milo, because Cato had for long been ready to impeach him +and Pompeius was a more than doubtful protector. + +Attempt to Keep Caesar Out of the Consulship + +Now, to attain that object, Caesar's opponents had a very simple means. +According to the existing ordinance as to elections, every candidate +for the consulship was obliged to announce himself personally +to the presiding magistrate, and to cause his name to be inscribed +on the official list of candidates before the election, +that is half a year before entering on office. It had probably +been regarded in the conferences at Luca as a matter of course +that Caesar would be released from this obligation, which was +purely formal and was very often dispensed with; but the decree +to that effect had not yet been issued, and, as Pompeius was now +in possession of the decretive machinery, Caesar depended in this respect +on the good will of his rival. Pompeius incomprehensibly abandoned +of his own accord this completely secure position; with his consen +and during his dictatorship (702) the personal appearance +of Caesar was dispensed with by a tribunician law. When however +soon afterwards the new election-ordinance(16) was issued, +the obligation of candidates personally to enrol themselves +was repeated in general terms, and no sort of exception was added +in favour of those released from it by earlier resolutions +of the people; according to strict form the privilege granted in favour +of Caesar was cancelled by the later general law. Caesar complained, +and the clause was subsequently appended but not confirmed +by special decree of the people, so that this enactment inserted +by mere interpolation in the already promulgated law could only be +looked on de jure as a nullity. Where Pompeius, therefore, +might have simply kept by the law, he had preferred first +to make a spontaneous concession, then to recall it, +and lastly to cloak this recall in a manner most disloyal. + +Attempt to Shorten Caesar's Governorship + +While in this way the shortening of Caesar's governorship +was only aimed at indirectly, the regulations issued at the same time +as to the governorships sought the same object directly. +The ten years for which the governorship had been secured to Caesar, +in the last instance through the law proposed by Pompeius himself +in concert with Crassus, ran according to the usual mode of reckoning +from 1 March 695 to the last day of February 705. As, however, +according to the earlier practice, the proconsul or propraetor +had the right of entering on his provincial magistracy immediately +after the termination of his consulship or praetorship, the successor +of Caesar was to be nominated, not from the urban magistrates of 704, +but from those of 705, and could not therefore enter before 1st Jan. 706. +So far Caesar had still during the last ten months of the year 705 +a right to the command, not on the ground of the Pompeio-Licinian law, +but on the ground of the old rule that a command with a set term +still continued after the expiry of the term up to the arrival +of the successor. But now, since the new regulation of 702 +called to the governorships not the consuls and praetors +going out, but those who had gone out five years ago or more, +and thus prescribed an interval between the civil magistracy +and the command instead of the previous immediate sequence, +there was no longer any difficulty in straightway filling up +from another quarter every legally vacant governorship, and so, +in the case in question, bringing about for the Gallic provinces +the change of command on the 1st March 705, instead of the 1st Jan. 706. +The pitiful dissimulation and procrastinating artifice of Pompeius +are after a remarkable manner mixed up, in these arrangements, +with the wily formalism and the constitutional erudition +of the republican party. Years before these weapons of state-law +could be employed, they had them duly prepared, and put themselves +in a condition on the one hand to compel Caesar to the resignation +of his command from the day when the term secured to him by Pompeius' +own law expired, that is from the 1st March 705, by sending successors +to him, and on the other hand to be able to treat as null and void +the votes tendered for him at the elections for 706. Caesar, +not in a position to hinder these moves in the game, kept silence +and left things to their own course. + +Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +Gradually therefore the slow course of constitutional procedure +developed itself. According to custom the senate had to deliberate +on the governorships of the year 705, so far as they went +to former consuls, at the beginning of 703, so far as they went +to former praetors, at the beginning of 704; that earlier deliberation +gave the first occasion to discuss the nomination of new governors +for the two Gauls in the senate, and thereby the first occasion +for open collision between the constitutional party pushed forward +by Pompeius and the senatorial supporters of Caesar. The consul +Marcus Marcellus introduced a proposal to give the two provinces +hitherto administered by the proconsul Gaius Caesar +from the 1st March 705 to the two consulars who were to be provided +with governorships for that year. The long-repressed indignation +burst forth in a torrent through the sluice once opened; +everything that the Catonians were meditating against Caesar +was brought forward in these discussions. For them it was +a settled point, that the right granted by exceptional law +to the proconsul Caesar of announcing his candidature for the consulship +in absence had been again cancelled by a subsequent decree of the people, +and that the reservation inserted in the latter was invalid. +The senate should in their opinion cause this magistrate, +now that the subjugation of Gaul was ended, to discharge immediately +the soldiers who had served out their time. The cases in which +Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies +in Upper Italy were described by them as unconstitutional and null; +in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected +senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place +had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim +to Roman citizenship,(17) should receive the punishment +of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses. + +The supporters of Caesar at this time--among whom Gaius Vibius Pansa, +who was the son of a man proscribed by Sulla but yet had entered +on a political career, formerly an officer in Caesar's army +and in this year tribune of the people, was the most notable-- +affirmed in the senate that both the state of things in Gaul +and equity demanded not only that Caesar should not be recalled +before the time, but that he should be allowed to retain the command +along with the consulship; and they pointed beyond doubt to the facts, +that a few years previously Pompeius had just in the same way +combined the Spanish governorships with the consulate, +that even at the present time, besides the important office +of superintending the supply of food to the capital, he held +the supreme command in Italy in addition to the Spanish, +and that in fact the whole men capable of arms had been sworn in by him +and had not yet been released from their oath. + +The process began to take shape, but its course was not on that account +more rapid. The majority of the senate, seeing the breach approaching, +allowed no sitting capable of issuing a decree to take place for months; +and other months in their turn were lost over the solemn procrastination +of Pompeius. At length the latter broke the silence and ranged himself, +in a reserved and vacillating fashion as usual but yet plainly enough, +on the side of the constitutional party against his former ally. +He summarily and abruptly rejected the demand of the Caesarians +that their master should be allowed to conjoin the consulship +and the proconsulship; this demand, he added with blunt coarseness, +seemed to him no better than if a son should offer to flog +his father. He approved in principle the proposal of Marcellus, +in so far as he too declared that he would not allow Caesar +directly to attach the consulship to the pro-consulship. +He hinted, however, although without making any binding declaration +on the point, that they would perhaps grant to Caesar admission +to the elections for 706 without requiring his personal announcement, +as well as the continuance of his governorship at the utmost +to the 13th Nov. 705. But in the meantime the incorrigible +procrastinator consented to the postponement of the nomination +of successors to the last day of Feb. 704, which was asked +by the representatives of Caesar, probably on the ground of a clause +of the Pompeio-Licinian law forbidding any discussion in the senate +as to the nomination of successors before the beginning of Caesar's +last year of office. + +In this sense accordingly the decrees of the senate were issued +(29 Sept. 703). The filling up of the Gallic governorships +was placed in the order of the day for the 1st March 704; but even now +it was attempted to break up the army of Caesar--just as had formerly +been done by decree of the people with the army of Lucullus(18)-- +by inducing his veterans to apply to the senate for their discharge. +Caesar's supporters effected, indeed, as far as they constitutionally +could, the cancelling of these decrees by their tribunician veto; +but Pompeius very distinctly declared that the magistrates were bound +unconditionally to obey the senate, and that intercessions and similar +antiquated formalities would produce no change. The oligarchical party, +whose organ Pompeius now made himself, betrayed not obscurely the design, +in the event of a victory, of revising the constitution in their sense +and removing everything which had even the semblance of popular freedom; +as indeed, doubtless for this reason, it omitted to avail itself +of the comitia at all in its attacks directed against Caesar. +The coalition between Pompeius and the constitutional party +was thus formally declared; sentence too was already evidently passed +on Caesar, and the term of its promulgation was simply postponed. +The elections for the following year proved thoroughly adverse to him. + +Counter-Arrangements of Caesar + +During these party manoeuvres of his antagonists preparatory to war, +Caesar had succeeded in getting rid of the Gallic insurrection +and restoring the state of peace in the whole subject territory. +As early as the summer of 703, under the convenient pretext +of defending the frontier(19) but evidently in token of the fact +that the legions in Gaul were now beginning to be no longer +needed there, he moved one of them to North Italy. He could not avoid +perceiving now at any rate, if not earlier, that he would not +be spared the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow- +citizens; nevertheless, as it was highly desirable to leave the legions +still for a time in the barely pacified Gaul, he sought even yet +to procrastinate, and, well acquainted with the extreme +love of peace in the majority of the senate, did not abandon +the hope of still restraining them from the declaration of war +in spite of the pressure exercised over them by Pompeius. +He did not even hesitate to make great sacrifices, if only he might +avoid for the present open variance with the supreme governing board. +When the senate (in the spring of 704) at the suggestion of Pompeius +requested both him and Caesar to furnish each a legion +for the impending Parthian war(20) and when agreeably to this resolution +Pompeius demanded back from Caesar the legion lent to him +some years before, so as to send it to Syria, Caesar complied with +the double demand, because neither the opportuneness of this decree +of the senate nor the justice of the demand of Pompeius +could in themselves be disputed, and the keeping within the bounds +of the law and of formal loyalty was of more consequence to Caesar +than a few thousand soldiers. The two legions came without delay +and placed themselves at the disposal of the government, but instead +of sending them to the Euphrates, the latter kept them at Capua +in readiness for Pompeius; and the public had once more the opportunity +of comparing the manifest endeavours of Caesar to avoid a rupture +with the perfidious preparation for war by his opponents. + +Curio + +For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded +in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year, +Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people +Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men +of parts in this epoch;(21) unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent +and clever oratory, in dexterity of intrigue, and in that energy +which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself +only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness; but also +unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing-- +his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (600,000 pounds)-- +and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously +offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected; +the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar, +induced the latter subsequently to buy him up--the price was high, +but the commodity was worth the money. + +Debates as to the Recall of Caesar and Pompeius + +Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the people +played the independent republican, and had as such thundered +both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He availed himself +with rare skill of the apparently impartial position which +this gave him, when in March 704 the proposal as to the filling up +of the Gallic governorships for the next year came up afresh +for discussion in the senate; he completely approved the decree, +but asked that it should be at the same time extended to Pompeius +and his extraordinary commands. His arguments--that a constitutional +state of things could only be brought about by the removal +of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely entrusted +by the senate with the proconsulship could still less than Caesar +refuse obedience to it, that the one-sided removal of one +of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution-- +carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public +at large; and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent +any onesided proceedings against Caesar by the veto constitutionally +belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate. +Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal +and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment +on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same; +he might safely do so, for Pompeius without his Italo-Spanish command +was no longer formidable. Pompeius again for that very reason +could not avoid refusing; his reply--that Caesar must first resign, +and that he meant speedily to follow the example thus set-- +was the less satisfactory, that he did not even specify +a definite term for his retirement. Again the decision was delayed +for months; Pompeius and the Catonians, perceiving the dubious humour +of the majority of the senate, did not venture to bring Curio's +proposal to a vote. Caesar employed the summer in establishing +the state of peace in the regions which he had conquered, in holding +a great review of his troops on the Scheldt, and in making +a triumphal march through the province of North Italy, which was +entirely devoted to him; autumn found him in Ravenna, the southern +frontier-town of his province. + +Caesar and Pompeius Both Recalled + +The vote which could no longer be delayed on Curio's proposal +at length took place, and exhibited the defeat of the party +of Pompeius and Cato in all its extent. By 370 votes against 20 +the senate resolved that the proconsuls of Spain and Gaul +should both be called upon to resign their offices; and with boundless +joy the good burgesses of Rome heard the glad news of the saving +achievement of Curio. Pompeius was thus recalled by the senate +no less than Caesar, and while Caesar was ready to comply with +the command, Pompeius positively refused obedience. The presiding +consul Gaius Marcellus, cousin of Marcus Marcellus and like the latter +belonging to the Catonian party, addressed a severe lecture +to the servile majority; and it was, no doubt, vexatious +to be thus beaten in their own camp and beaten by means of a phalanx +of poltroons. But where was victory to come from under a leader, +who, instead of shortly and distinctly dictating his orders +to the senators, resorted in his old days a second time +to the instructions of a professor of rhetoric, that with eloquence +polished up afresh he might encounter the youthful vigour +and brilliant talents of Curio? + +Declaration of War + +The coalition, defeated in the senate, was in the most painful position. +The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture +and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel +stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent +majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences +to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out +emphatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seeming peace; +and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot +by rapid action, his allies knew very well that they could never expect +this from him, and that it was for them, as they had promised, +to bring matters to a crisis. After the champions of the constitution +and of senatorial government had already declared the constitutional +rights of the burgesses and of the tribunes of the people +to be meaningless formalities,(22) they now found themselves +driven by necessity to treat the constitutional decision; of the senate +itself in a similar manner and, as the legitimate government +would not let itself be saved with its own consent, to save it +against its will. This was neither new nor accidental; Sulla(23) +and Lucullus(24) had been obliged to carry every energetic +resolution conceived by them in the true interest of the government +with a high hand irrespective of it, just as Cato and his friends +now proposed to do; the machinery of the constitution was in fact +utterly effete, and the senate was now--as the comitia had been +for centuries--nothing but a worn-out wheel slipping constantly +out of its track. + +It was rumoured (Oct. 704) that Caesar had moved four legions +from Transalpine into Cisalpine Gaul and stationed them at Placentia. +This transference of troops was of itself within the prerogative +of the governor; Curio moreover palpably showed in the senate +the utter groundlessness of the rumour; and they by a majority +rejected the proposal of the consul Gaius Marcellus to give +Pompeius on the strength of it orders to march against Caesar. +Yet the said consul, in concert with the two consuls elected for 705 +who likewise belonged to the Catonian party, proceeded to Pompeius, +and these three men by virtue of their own plenitude of power +requested the general to put himself at the head of the two legions +stationed at Capua, and to call the Italian militia to arms +at his discretion. A more informal authorization for the commencement +of a civil war can hardly be conceived; but people had no longer time +to attend to such secondary matters; Pompeius accepted it. +The military preparations, the levies began; in order personally +to forward them, Pompeius left the capital in December 704. + +The Ultimatum of Caesar + +Caesar had completely attained the object of devolving +the initiative of civil war on his opponents. He had, while himself +keeping on legal ground, compelled Pompeius to declare war, +and to declare it not as representative of the legitimate authority, +but as general of an openly revolutionary minority of the senate +which overawed the majority. This result was not to be reckoned +of slight importance, although the instinct of the masses could not +and did not deceive itself for a moment as to the fact that the war +concerned other things than questions of formal law. Now, when war +was declared, it was Caesar's interest to strike a blow as soon +as possible. The preparations of his opponents were just beginning +and even the capital was not occupied. In ten or twelve days +an army three times as strong as the troops of Caesar +that were in Upper Italy could be collected at Rome; but still +it was not impossible to surprise the city undefended, or even perhaps +by a rapid winter campaign to seize all Italy, and to shut off +the best resources of his opponents before they could make them available. +The sagacious and energetic Curio, who after resigning his tribunate +(10 Dec. 704) had immediately gone to Caesar at Ravenna, +vividly represented the state of things to his master; +and it hardly needed such a representation to convince Caesar +that longer delay now could only be injurious. But, as he with the view +of not giving his antagonists occasion to complain had hitherto +brought no troops to Ravenna itself, he could for the present do nothing +but despatch orders to his whole force to set out with all haste; +and he had to wait till at least the one legion stationed in Upper Italy +reached Ravenna. Meanwhile he sent an ultimatum to Rome, +which, if useful for nothing else, by its extreme submissiveness +still farther compromised his opponents in public opinion, +and perhaps even, as he seemed himself to hesitate, induced them +to prosecute more remissly their preparations against him. +In this ultimatum Caesar dropped all the counter-demands +which he formerly made on Pompeius, and offered on his own part +both to resign the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, and to dismiss +eight of the ten legions belonging to him, at the term fixed +by the senate; he declared himself content, if the senate would leave him +either the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with one, +or that of Cisalpine Gaul alone with two, legions, not, forsooth, +up to his investiture with the consulship, but till after the close +of the consular elections for 706. He thus consented to those proposals +of accommodation, with which at the beginning of the discussions +the senatorial party and even Pompeius himself had declared +that they would be satisfied, and showed himself ready to remain +in a private position from his election to the consulate down to +his entering on office. Whether Caesar was in earnest with these +astonishing concessions and had confidence that he should be able +to carry through his game against Pompeius even after granting +so much, or whether he reckoned that those on the other side +had already gone too far to find in these proposals of compromise +more than a proof that Caesar regarded his cause itself as lost, +can no longer be with certainty determined. The probability is, +that Caesar committed the fault of playing a too bold game, far worse +rather than the fault of promising something which he was not minded +to perform; and that, if strangely enough his proposals had been +accepted, he would have made good his word. + +Last Debate in the Senate + +Curio undertook once more to represent his master in the lion's den. +In three days he made the journey from Ravenna to Rome. +When the new consuls Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus the younger(25) +assembled the senate for the first time on 1 Jan. 705, he delivered +in a full meeting the letter addressed by the general to the senate. +The tribunes of the people, Marcus Antonius well known +in the chronicle of scandal of the city as the intimate friend +of Curio and his accomplice in all his follies, but at the same time +known from the Egyptian and Gallic campaigns as a brilliant cavalry +officer, and Quintus Cassius, Pompeius' former quaestor,--the two, +who were now in Curio's stead managing the cause of Caesar in Rome-- +insisted on the immediate reading of the despatch. The grave +and clear words in which Caesar set forth the imminence of civil war, +the general wish for peace, the arrogance of Pompeius, and his own +yielding disposition, with all the irresistible force of truth; +the proposals for a compromise, of a moderation which doubtless +surprised his own partisans; the distinct declaration that this was +the last time that he should offer his hand for peace-- +made the deepest impression. In spite of the dread inspired +by the numerous soldiers of Pompeius who flocked into the capital, +the sentiment of the majority was not doubtful; the consuls could not +venture to let it find expression. Respecting the proposal renewed +by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands +simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation +suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made +by Marcus Coelius Rufus and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius +should be urged immediately to depart for Spain, the consuls refused-- +as they in the capacity of presiding officers were entitled to do-- +to let a vote take place. Even the proposal of one of their +most decided partisans who was simply not so blind to the military +position of affairs as his party, Marcus Marcellus--to defer +the determination till the Italian levy en masse could be under arms +and could protect the senate--was not allowed to be brought to a vote. +Pompeius caused it to be declared through his usual organ, +Quintus Scipio, that he was resolved to take up the cause of the senate +now or never, and that he would let it drop if they longer delayed. +The consul Lentulus said in plain terms that even the decree +of the senate was no longer of consequence, and that, if it +should persevere in its servility, he would act of himself +and with his powerful friends take the farther steps necessary. +Thus overawed, the majority decreed what was commanded-- +that Caesar should at a definite and not distant day give up +Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul +to Marcus Servilius Nonianus, and should dismiss his army, +failing which he should be esteemed a traitor. When the tribunes +of Caesar's party made use of their right of veto against this resolution, +not only were they, as they at least asserted, threatened +in the senate-house itself by the swords of Pompeian soldiers, +and forced, in order to save their lives, to flee in slaves' +clothing from the capital; but the now sufficiently overawed senate +treated their formally quite constitutional interference +as an attempt at revolution, declared the country in danger, +and in the usual forms called the whole burgesses to take up arms, +and all magistrates faithful to the constitution to place themselves +at the head of the armed (7 Jan. 705). + +Caesar Marches into Italy + +Now it was enough. When Caesar was informed by the tribunes +who had fled to his camp entreating protection as to the reception +which his proposals had met with in the capital, he called together +the soldiers of the thirteenth legion, which had meanwhile arrived +from its cantonments near Tergeste (Trieste) at Ravenna, +and unfolded before them the state of things. It was not merely +the man of genius versed in the knowledge and skilled in the control +of men's hearts, whose brilliant eloquence shone forth and glowed +in this agitating crisis of his own and the world's destiny; +nor merely the generous commander-in-chief and the victorious general, +addressing soldiers, who had been called by himself to arms +and for eight years had followed his banners with daily-increasing +enthusiasm. There spoke, above all, the energetic and consistent +statesman, who had now for nine-and-twenty years defended +the cause of freedom in good and evil times; who had braved for it +the daggers of assassins and the executioners of the aristocracy, +the swords of the Germans and the waves of the unknown ocean, +without ever yielding or wavering; who had torn to pieces +the Sullan constitution, had overthrown the rule of the senate, +and had furnished the defenceless and unarmed democracy with protection +and with arms by means of the struggle beyond the Alps. And he spoke, +not to the Clodian public whose republican enthusiasm had been +long burnt down to ashes and dross, but to the young men from the towns +and villages of Northern Italy, who still felt freshly and purely +the mighty influence of the thought of civic freedom; who were still +capable of fighting and of dying for ideals; who had themselves +received for their country in a revolutionary way from Caesar +the burgess-rights which the government refused to them; +whom Caesar's fall would leave once more at the mercy of the -fasces-, +and who already possessed practical proofs(26) of the inexorable use +which the oligarchy proposed to make of these against the Transpadanes. +Such were the listeners before whom such an orator set forth the facts-- +the thanks for the conquest of Gaul which the nobility were preparing +for the general and his army; the contemptuous setting aside +of the comitia; the overawing of the senate; the sacred duty +of protecting with armed hand the tribunate of the people wrested +five hundred years ago by their fathers arms in hand from the nobility, +and of keeping the ancient oath which these had taken for themselves +as for their children's children that they would man by man stand firm +even to death for the tribunes of the people.(27) And then, when he-- +the leader and general of the popular party--summoned the soldiers +of the people, now that conciliatory means had been exhausted +and concession had reached its utmost limits, to follow him in the last, +the inevitable, the decisive struggle against the equally hated +and despised, equally perfidious and incapable, and in fact ludicrously +incorrigible aristocracy--there was not an officer or a soldier +who could hold back. The order was given for departure; at the head +of his vanguard Caesar crossed the narrow brook which separated +his province from Italy, and which the constitution forbade +the proconsul of Gaul to pass. When after nine years' absence +he trod once more the soil of his native land, he trod at the same time +the path of revolution. "The die was cast." + + + + +Chapter X + +Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus + +The Resources on Either Side + +Arms were thus to decide which of the two men who had hitherto +jointly ruled Rome was now to be its first sole ruler. Let us see +what were the comparative resources at the disposal of Caesar +and Pompeius for the waging of the impending war. + +Caesar's Absolute Power within His Party + +Caesar's power rested primarily on the wholly unlimited authority +which he enjoyed within his party. If the ideas of democracy +and of monarchy met together in it, this was not the result +of a coalition which had been accidentally entered into and might be +accidentally dissolved; on the contrary it was involved +in the very essence of a democracy without a representative constitution, +that democracy and monarchy should find in Caesar at once their highest +and ultimate expression. In political as in military matters +throughout the first and the final decision lay with Caesar. +However high the honour in which he held any serviceable instrument, +it remained an instrument still; Caesar stood, in his own party +without confederates, surrounded only by military-political +adjutants, who as a rule had risen from the army and as soldiers +were trained never to ask the reason and purpose of any thing, +but unconditionally to obey. On this account especially, +at the decisive moment when the civil war began, of all the officers +and soldiers of Caesar one alone refused him obedience; +and the circumstance that that one was precisely the foremost +of them all, serves simply to confirm this view of the relation +of Caesar to his adherents. + +Labienus + +Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all the troubles of the dark times +of Catilina(1) as well as all the lustre of the Gallic career of victory, +had regularly held independent command, and frequently led half the army; +as he was the oldest, ablest, and most faithful of Caesar's adjutants, +he was beyond question also highest in position and highest in honour. +As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command +in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post +into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass +for the consulship. But from this very position Labienus entered +into communication with the opposite party, resorted at the beginning +of hostilities in 705 to the headquarters of Pompeius instead of those +of Caesar, and fought through the whole civil strife with unparalleled +bitterness against his old friend and master in war. We are not +sufficiently informed either as to the character of Labienus +or as to the special circumstances of his changing sides; +but in the main his case certainly presents nothing but a further proof +of the fact, that a military chief can reckon far more surely +on his captains than on his marshals. To all appearance Labienus +was one of those persons who combine with military efficiency +utter incapacity as statesmen, and who in consequence, if they +unhappily choose or are compelled to take part in politics, are exposed +to those strange paroxysms of giddiness, of which the history +of Napoleon's marshals supplies so many tragi-comic examples. +He may probably have held himself entitled to rank alongside of Caesar +as the second chief of the democracy; and the rejection of this claim +of his may have sent him over to the camp of his opponents. +His case rendered for the first time apparent the whole gravity +of the evil, that Caesar's treatment of his officers as adjutants +without independence admitted of the rise of no men fitted to undertake +a separate command in his camp, while at the same time he stood +urgently in need of such men amidst the diffusion--which might easily +be foreseen--of the impending struggle through all the provinces +of the wide empire. But this disadvantage was far outweighed +by that unity in the supreme leadership, which was the primary condition +of all success, and a condition only to be preserved at such a cost. + +Caesar's Army + +This unity of leadership acquired its full power through the efficiency +of its instruments. Here the army comes, first of all, into view. +It still numbered nine legions of infantry or at the most +50,000 men, all of whom however had faced the enemy and two-thirds +had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry +consisted of German and Noric mercenaries, whose usefulness +and trustworthiness had been proved in the war against Vercingetorix. +The eight years' warfare, full of varied vicissitudes, +against the Celtic nation--which was brave, although in a military +point of view decidedly inferior to the Italian--had given Caesar +the opportunity of organizing his army as he alone knew +how to organize it. The whole efficiency of the soldier +presupposes physical vigour; in Caesar's levies more regard was had +to the strength and activity of the recruits than to their means +or their morals. But the serviceableness of an army, like that +of any other machine, depends above all on the ease and quickness +of its movements; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection +rarely reached and probably never surpassed in their readiness +for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity +of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything; +Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating +martial emulation and the esprit de corps, so that the pre-eminence +accorded to particular soldiers and divisions appeared even to those +who were postponed as the necessary hierarchy of valour. +He weaned his men from fear by not unfrequently--where it could be done +without serious danger--keeping his soldiers in ignorance +of an approaching conflict, and allowing them to encounter +the enemy unexpectedly. But obedience was on a parity with valour. +The soldier was required to do what he was bidden, without asking +the reason or the object; many an aimless fatigue was imposed on him +solely as a training in the difficult art of blind obedience. +The discipline was strict but not harassing; it was exercised +with unrelenting vigour when the soldier was in presence of the enemy; +at other times, especially after victory, the reins were relaxed, +and if an otherwise efficient soldier was then pleased to indulge +in perfumery or to deck himself with elegant arms and the like, +or even if he allowed himself to be guilty of outrages +or irregularities of a very questionable kind, provided only +his military duties were not immediately affected, the foolery +and the crime were allowed to pass, and the general lent a deaf ear +to the complaints of the provincials on such points. Mutiny +on the other hand was never pardoned, either in the instigators, +or even in the guilty corps itself. + +But the true soldier ought to be not merely capable, brave, +and obedient, he ought to be all this willingly and spontaneously; +and it is the privilege of gifted natures alone to induce the animated +machine which they govern to a joyful service by means of example +and of hope, and especially by the consciousness of being turned +to befitting use. As the officer, who would demand valour +from his troops, must himself have looked danger in the face with them, +Caesar had even when general found opportunity of drawing his sword +and had then used it like the best; in activity, moreover, +and fatigue he was constantly far more exacting from himself +than from his soldiers. Caesar took care that victory, which primarily +no doubt brings gain to the general, should be associated also +with personal hopes in the minds of the soldiers. We have already +mentioned that he knew how to render his soldiers enthusiastic +for the cause of the democracy, so far as the times which had become +prosaic still admitted of enthusiasm, and that the political equalization +of the Transpadane country--the native land of most of his soldiers-- +with Italy proper was set forth as one of the objects of the struggle.(2) +Of course material recompenses were at the same time not wanting-- +as well special rewards for distinguished feats of arms as general +rewards for every efficient soldier; the officers had their portions, +the soldiers received presents, and the most lavish gifts were placed +in prospect for the triumph. + +Above all things Caesar as a true commander understood +how to awaken in every single component element, large or small, +of the mighty machine the consciousness of its befitting application. +The ordinary man is destined for service, and he has no objection +to be an instrument, if he feels that a master guides him. Everywhere +and at all times the eagle eye of the general rested on the whole army, +rewarding and punishing with impartial justice, and directing +the action of each towards the course conducive to the good of all: +so that there was no experimenting or trifling with the sweat and blood +of the humblest, but for that very reason, where it was necessary, +unconditional devotion even to death was required. Without allowing +each individual to see into the whole springs of action, +Caesar yet allowed each to catch such glimpses of the political +and military connection of things as to secure that he should +be recognized--and it may be idealized--by the soldiers +as a statesman and a general. He treated his soldiers throughout, +not as his equals, but as men who are entitled to demand and were able +to endure the truth, and who had to put faith in the promises +and the assurances of their general, without thinking of deception +or listening to rumours; as comrades through long years in warfare +and victory, among whom there was hardly any one that was not known +to him by name and that in the course of so many campaigns +had not formed more or less of a personal relation to the general; +as good companions, with whom he talked and dealt confidentially +and with the cheerful elasticity peculiar to him; as clients, +to requite whose services, and to avenge whose wrongs and death, +constituted in his view a sacred duty. Perhaps there never was an army +which was so perfectly what an army ought to be--a machine able +for its ends and willing for its ends, in the hand of a master, +who transfers to it his own elasticity. Caesar's soldiers were, +and felt themselves, a match for a tenfold superior force; +in connection with which it should not be overlooked, that under +the Roman tactics--calculated altogether for hand-to-hand conflict +and especially for combat with the sword--the practised Roman soldier +was superior to the novice in a far higher degree than is now the case +under the circumstances of modern times.(3) But still more +than by the superiority of valour the adversaries of Caesar +felt themselves humbled by the unchangeable and touching fidelity +with which his soldiers clung to their general. It is perhaps +without a parallel in history, that when the general summoned +his soldiers to follow him into the civil war, with the single exception +already mentioned of Labienus, no Roman officer and no Roman soldier +deserted him. The hopes of his opponents as to an extensive +desertion were thwarted as ignominiously as the former attempts +to break up his army like that of Lucullus.(4) Labienus himself +appeared in the camp of Pompeius with a band doubtless of Celtic +and German horsemen but without a single legionary. Indeed +the soldiers, as if they would show that the war was quite as much +their matter as that of their general, settled among themselves +that they would give credit for the pay, which Caesar had promised +to double for them at the outbreak of the civil war, to their commander +up to its termination, and would meanwhile support their poorer comrades +from the general means; besides, every subaltern officer +equipped and paid a trooper out of his own purse. + +Field of Caesar's Power +Upper Italy + +While Caesar thus had the one thing which was needful-- +unlimited political and military authority and a trustworthy army +ready for the fight--his power extended, comparatively speaking, +over only a very limited space. It was based essentially +on the province of Upper Italy. This region was not merely +the most populous of all the districts of Italy, but also devoted +to the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling +which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits +from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long +after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded +on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves +to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering, +and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death +with their own hands during the following night. It is easy to conceive +what might be expected of such a population. As they had already +granted to Caesar the means of more than doubling his original army, +so after the outbreak of the civil war recruits presented themselves +in great numbers for the ample levies that were immediately instituted. + +Italy + +In Italy proper, on the other hand, the influence of Caesar was not +even remotely to be compared to that of his opponents. Although +he had the skill by dexterous manoeuvres to put the Catonian party +in the wrong, and had sufficiently commended the rectitude +of his cause to all who wished for a pretext with a good conscience +either to remain neutral, like the majority of the senate, +or to embrace his side, like his soldiers and the Transpadanes, +the mass of the burgesses naturally did not allow themselves to be misled +by these things and, when the commandant of Gaul put his legions +in motion against Rome, they beheld--despite all formal explanations +as to law--in Cato and Pompeius the defenders of the legitimate republic, +in Caesar the democratic usurper. People in general moreover +expected from the nephew of Marius, the son-in-law of Cinna, +the ally of Catilina, a repetition of the Marian and Cinnan horrors, +a realization of the saturnalia of anarchy projected by Catilina; +and though Caesar certainly gained allies through this expectation-- +so that the political refugees immediately put themselves in a body +at his disposal, the ruined men saw in him their deliverer, +and the lowest ranks of the rabble in the capital and country towns +were thrown into a ferment on the news of his advance,--these belonged +to the class of friends who are more dangerous than foes. + +Provinces + +In the provinces and the dependent states Caesar had +even less influence than in Italy. Transalpine Gaul indeed as far as +the Rhine and the Channel obeyed him, and the colonists of Narbo +as well as the Roman burgesses elsewhere settled in Gaul +were devoted to him; but in the Narbonese province itself +the constitutional party had numerous adherents, and now even +the newly-conquered regions were far more a burden than a benefit +to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons +he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war, +and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces +and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states +Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself support, +had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings +to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need +financial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course, +not much had been gained by this means, and the relations +with the German and Celtic princes in the regions of the Rhine +and the Danube,--particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio, +so important for the recruiting of cavalry,--were probably +the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him. + +The Coalition + +While Caesar thus entered the struggle only as commandant of Gaul, +without other essential resources than efficient adjutants, +a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it +as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full +possession of all the resources that stood at the disposal +of the legitimate government of the great Roman empire. But while +his position was in a political and military point of view +far more considerable, it was also on the other hand far less definite +and firm. The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself +and by necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent +with the nature of a coalition; and although Pompeius, too much +of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable, +attempted to force it on the coalition and got himself nominated +by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea, +yet the senate itself could not be set aside nor hindered +from a preponderating influence on the political, and an occasional +and therefore doubly injurious interference with the military, +superintendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war +waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius +and the constitutional party; the feeling which vividly prevailed +on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed, +that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be +a rupture between the victors; the contempt which they entertained +for each other and with only too good grounds in either case; +the inconvenient number of respectable and influential men in the ranks +of the aristocracy and the intellectual and moral inferiority +of almost all who took part in the matter--altogether produced +among the opponents of Caesar a reluctant and refractory co-operation, +which formed the saddest contrast to the harmonious and compact action +on the other side. + +Field of Power of the Coalition +Juba of Numidia + +While all the disadvantages incident to the coalition of powers +naturally hostile were thus felt in an unusual measure by Caesar's +antagonists, this coalition was certainly still a very considerable power. +It had exclusive command of the sea; all ports, all ships of war, +all the materials for equipping a fleet were at its disposal. +The two Spains--as it were the home of the power of Pompeius +just as the two Gauls were the home of that of Caesar-- +were faithful adherents to their master and in the hands of able +and trustworthy administrators. In the other provinces also, +of course with the exception of the two Gauls, the posts +of the governors and commanders had during recent years been filled up +with safe men under the influence of Pompeius and the minority +of the senate. The client-states throughout and with great decision +took part against Caesar and in favour of Pompeius. The most important +princes and cities had been brought into the closest personal relations +with Pompeius in virtue of the different sections of his manifold +activity. In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been +the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania and had +reestablished the kingdom of the former;(5) in the Mithradatic war, +in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual +and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia, +and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia;(6) +it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken, +and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids +had been confirmed afresh.(7) Even the city of Massilia +in Caesar's own province, while indebted to the latter +doubtless for various favours, was indebted to Pompeius +at the time of the Sertorian war for a very considerable extension +of territory;(8) and, besides, the ruling oligarchy there stood +in natural alliance--strengthened by various mutual relations-- +with the oligarchy in Rome. But these personal and relative +considerations as well as the glory of the victor in three continents, +which in these more remote parts of the empire far outshone +that of the conqueror of Gaul, did perhaps less harm to Caesar +in those quarters than the views and designs--which had not remained +there unknown--of the heir of Gaius Gracchus as to the necessity +of uniting the dependent states and the usefulness of provincial +colonizations. No one of the dependent dynasts found himself +more imminently threatened by this peril than Juba king +of Numidia. Not only had he years before, in the lifetime +of his father Hiempsal, fallen into a vehement personal quarrel +with Caesar, but recently the same Curio, who now occupied almost +the first place among Caesar's adjutants, had proposed to the Roman +burgesses the annexation of the Numidian kingdom. Lastly, if matters +should go so far as to lead the independent neighbouring states +to interfere in the Roman civil war, the only state really powerful, +that of the Parthians, was practically already allied +with the aristocratic party by the connection entered into +between Pacorus and Bibulus,(9) while Caesar was far too much a Roman +to league himself for party-interests with the conquerors +of his friend Crassus. + +Italy against Caesar + +As to Italy the great majority of the burgesses were, as has been +already mentioned, averse to Caesar--more especially, of course, +the whole aristocracy with their very considerable following, +but also in a not much less degree the great capitalists, +who could not hope in the event of a thorough reform of the commonwealth +to preserve their partisan jury-courts and their monopoly of extortion. +Of equally anti-democratic sentiments were the small capitalists, +the landholders and generally all classes that had anything to lose; +but in these ranks of life the cares of the next rent-term and of sowing +and reaping outweighed, as a rule, every other consideration. + +The Pompeian Army + +The army at the disposal of Pompeius consisted chiefly +of the Spanish troops, seven legions inured to war and in every respect +trustworthy; to which fell to be added the divisions of troops-- +weak indeed, and very much scattered--which were to be found +in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In Italy +there were under arms at the outset only the two legions +recently given off by Caesar, whose effective strength did not amount +to more than 7000 men, and whose trustworthiness was more than doubtful, +because--levied in Cisalpine Gaul and old comrades in arms +of Caesar--they were in a high degree displeased at the unbecoming +intrigue by which they had been made to change camps,(10) +and recalled with longing their general who had magnanimously +paid to them beforehand at their departure the presents +which were promised to every soldier for the triumph. +But, apart from the circumstance that the Spanish troops might arrive +in Italy with the spring either by the land route through Gaul +or by sea, the men of the three legions still remaining +from the levies of 699,(11) as well as the Italian levy sworn +to allegiance in 702,(12) could be recalled from their furlough. +Including these, the number of troops standing at the disposal +of Pompeius on the whole, without reckoning the seven legions in Spain +and those scattered in other provinces, amounted in Italy alone +to ten legions(13) or about 60,000 men, so that it was no exaggeration +at all, when Pompeius asserted that he had only to stamp +with his foot to cover the ground with armed men. It is true +that it required some interval--though but short--to render +these soldiers available; but the arrangements for this purpose +as well as for the carrying out of the new levies ordered by the senate +in consequence of the outbreak of the civil war were already +everywhere in progress. Immediately after the decisive decree +of the senate (7 Jan. 705), in the very depth of winter +the most eminent men of the aristocracy set out to the different +districts, to hasten the calling up of recruits and the preparation +of arms. The want of cavalry was much felt, as for this arm +they had been accustomed to rely wholly on the provinces and especially +on the Celtic contingents; to make at least a beginning, +three hundred gladiators belonging to Caesar were taken +from the fencing-schools of Capua and mounted--a step which however +met with so general disapproval, that Pompeius again broke up +this troop and levied in room of it 300 horsemen from the mounted +slave-herdmen of Apulia. + +The state-treasury was at a low ebb as usual; they busied themselves +in supplementing the inadequate amount of cash out of the local +treasuries and even from the temple-treasures of the -municipia-. + +Caesar Takes the Offensive + +Under these circumstances the war opened at the beginning +of January 705. Of troops capable of marching Caesar had not +more than a legion--5000 infantry and 300 cavalry--at Ravenna, +which was by the highway some 240 miles distant from Rome; Pompeius +had two weak legions--7000 infantry and a small squadron of cavalry-- +under the orders of Appius Claudius at Luceria, from which, +likewise by the highway, the distance was just about as great +to the capital. The other troops of Caesar, leaving out of account +the raw divisions of recruits still in course of formation, +were stationed, one half on the Saone and Loire, the other half +in Belgica, while Pompeius' Italian reserves were already arriving +from all sides at their rendezvous; long before even the first +of the Transalpine divisions of Caesar could arrive in Italy, +a far superior army could not but be ready to receive it there. +It seemed folly, with a band of the strength of that of Catilina +and for the moment without any effective reserve, to assume +the aggressive against a superior and hourly-increasing army +under an able general; but it was a folly in the spirit of Hannibal. +If the beginning of the struggle were postponed till spring, +the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive +in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul, +and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him +in experience, was a formidable antagonist in such a campaign +running its regular course. Now perhaps, accustomed as he was +to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might +be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack; and that which +could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion +after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign +in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)--the suddenness of the war and the toil +of a winter campaign--could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps +consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits, +and still only in the course of formation. + +Caesar's Advance + +Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy.(15) Two highways led +at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian +which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome, +and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast +of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running +westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward +to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia. On the former Marcus Antonius +advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself +pushed forward. Resistance was nowhere encountered; the recruiting +officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits +were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious +not to be involved in a siege. When Curio with 1500 men +approached Iguvium, where a couple of thousand Umbrian recruits +had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus, +general and soldiers took to flight at the bare tidings of his approach; +and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued. + +Rome Evacuated + +Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome, from which +his cavalry at Arretium were already only about 130 miles distant, +or against the legions encamped at Luceria. He chose the latter plan. +The consternation of the opposite party was boundless. +Pompeius received the news of Caesar's advance at Rome; he seemed +at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings +arrived of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory +and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered +its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar's +cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality. +The senators, who had been informed that every one who should +remain behind in the capital would be treated as an accomplice +of the rebel Caesar, flocked in crowds out at the gates. +The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they +did not even secure the treasure; when Pompeius called upon them +to fetch it, for which there was sufficient time, they returned +the reply that they would deem it safer, if he should first +occupy Picenum. All was perplexity; consequently a great council of war +was held in Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan.), at which Pompeius, Labienus, +and both consuls were present. First of all proposals of accommodation +from Caesar were again submitted; even now he declared himself +ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces +to the successors nominated, and to become a candidate +in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius +were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed. +The answer was, that if Caesar would immediately return to his province, +they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy +and the departure of Pompeius by a decree of the senate +to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply +was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance +of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite. +The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius +the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not +by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more +the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Concerning +the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius +should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria, +on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended; +that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus' +native country, Picenum; that he should personally call +the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five +years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful +Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar +to set a limit to the advance of the enemy. + +Conflicts in Picenum + +Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out +until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar +with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road +by way of Ancona. Here too the preparations were in full course; +in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band +of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty +of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar +appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop +not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict-- +the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards +Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum, +and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum. The men, +thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned +their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier; +but the district itself was already lost, when the officer +sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence, +Lucius Vibullius Rufus--no genteel senator, but a soldier +experienced in war--arrived there; he had to content himself +with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved +away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them +for the time to the nearest rendezvous. + +Corfinium Besieged +And Captured + +This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian, +Marsian and Paelignian territories; the body of recruits here assembled, +of nearly 15,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike +and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army +in course of formation for the constitutional party. When Vibullius +arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind; +there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably +to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits +along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia. +But the commandant in Corfinium was the designated successor to Caesar +in the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius, +one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy; +and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius, +but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men +from Picenum for Apulia. So firmly was he persuaded that Pompeius +only delayed from obstinacy and must necessarily come up to his relief, +that he scarcely made any serious preparations for a siege +and did not even gather into Corfinium the bands of recruits +placed in the surrounding towns. Pompeius however did not appear, +and for good reasons; for, while he might perhaps apply +his two untrustworthy legions as a reserved support for the Picenian +general levy, he could not with them alone offer battle to Caesar. +Instead of him after a few days Caesar came (14 Feb.). His troops +had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and before Corfinium +by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these, +three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men +that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily, +partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere; +so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head +of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service. So long as + Domitius hoped for the arrival of Pompeius, he caused the town +to be defended; when the letters of Pompeius had at length undeceived him, +he resolved, not forsooth to persevere at the forlorn post-- +by which he would have rendered the greatest service to his party-- +nor even to capitulate, but, while the common soldiers +were informed that relief was close at hand, to make his own escape +along with his officers of quality during the next night. +Yet he had not the judgment to carry into effect even this pretty scheme. +The confusion of his behaviour betrayed him. A part of the men +began to mutiny; the Marsian recruits, who held such an infamy +on the part of their general to be impossible, wished to fight +against the mutineers; but they too were obliged reluctantly +to believe the truth of the accusation, whereupon the whole garrison +arrested their staff and handed it, themselves, and the town +over to Caesar (20 Feb.). The corps in Alba, 3000 strong, +and 1500 recruits assembled in Tarracina thereupon laid down +their arms, as soon as Caesar's patrols of horsemen appeared; +a third division in Sulmo of 3500 men had been previously +compelled to surrender. + +Pompeius Goes to Brundisium +Embarkation for Greece + +Pompeius had given up Italy as lost, so soon as Caesar +had occupied Picenum; only he wished to delay his embarkation +as long as possible, with the view of saving so much of his force +as could still be saved. Accordingly he had slowly put himself +in motion for the nearest seaport Brundisium. Thither came +the two legions of Luceria and such recruits as Pompeius +had been able hastily to collect in the deserted Apulia, +as well as the troops raised by the consuls and other commissioners +in Campania and conducted in all haste to Brundisium; +thither too resorted a number of political fugitives, +including the most respected of the senators accompanied +by their families. The embarkation began; but the vessels at hand +did not suffice to transport all at once the whole multitude, +which still amounted to 25,000 persons. No course remained +but to divide the army. The larger half went first (4 March); +with the smaller division of some 10,000 men Pompeius +awaited at Brundisium the return of the fleet; for, however desirable +the possession of Brundisium might be for an eventual attempt +to reoccupy Italy, they did not presume to hold the place +permanently against Caesar. Meanwhile Caesar arrived +before Brundisium; the siege began. Caesar attempted first of all +to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and floating bridges, +with a view to exclude the returning fleet; but Pompeius +caused the trading vessels lying in the harbour to be armed, +and managed to prevent the complete closing of the harbour +until the fleet appeared and the troops--whom Pompeius +with great dexterity, in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers +and the hostile feeling of the inhabitants, withdrew from the town +to the last man unharmed--were carried off beyond Caesar's reach +to Greece (17 March). The further pursuit, like the siege itself, +failed for want of a fleet. + +In a campaign of two months, without a single serious engagement, +Caesar had so broken up an army of ten legions, that less than +the half of it had with great difficulty escaped in a confused flight +across the sea, and the whole Italian peninsula, including the capital +with the state-chest and all the stores accumulated there, +had fallen into the power of the victor. Not without reason +did the beaten party bewail the terrible rapidity, sagacity, +and energy of the "monster." + +Military and Financial Results of the Seizure of Italy + +But it may be questioned whether Caesar gained or lost more +by the conquest of Italy. In a military respect, no doubt, +very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn +from his opponents, but rendered available for himself; +even in the spring of 705 his army embraced, in consequence +of the levies en masse instituted everywhere, a considerable +number of legions of recruits in addition to the nine old ones +But on the other hand it now became necessary not merely +to leave behind a considerable garrison in Italy, but also +to take measures against the closing of the transmarine traffic +contemplated by his opponents who commanded the sea, and against +the famine with which the capital was consequently threatened; +whereby Caesar's already sufficiently complicated military task +was complicated further still. Financially it was certainly +of importance, that Caesar had the good fortune to obtain +possession of the stock of money in the capital; but the principal +sources of income and particularly the revenues from the east +were withal in the hands of the enemy, and, in consequence +of the greatly increased demands for the army and the new obligation +to provide for the starving population of the capital, +the considerable sums which were found quickly melted away. +Caesar soon found himself compelled to appeal to private credit, +and, as it seemed that he could not possibly gain any long respite +by this means, extensive confiscations were generally anticipated +as the only remaining expedient. + +Its Political Results +Fear of Anarchy + +More serious difficulties still were created by the political relations +amidst which Caesar found himself placed on the conquest of Italy. +The apprehension of an anarchical revolution was universal +among the propertied classes. Friends and foes saw in Caesar +a second Catilina; Pompeius believed or affected to believe +that Caesar had been driven to civil war merely by the impossibility +of paying his debts. This was certainly absurd; but in fact Caesar's +antecedents were anything but reassuring, and still less reassuring +was the aspect of the retinue that now surrounded him. +Individuals of the most broken reputation, notorious personages +like Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Curio, Marcus Antonius,-- +the latter the stepson of the Catilinarian Lentulus who was executed +by the orders of Cicero--were the most prominent actors in it; +the highest posts of trust were bestowed on men who had long ceased +even to reckon up their debts; people saw men who held office +under Caesar not merely keeping dancing-girls--which was done +by others also--but appearing publicly in company with them. +Was there any wonder, that even grave and politically impartial men +expected amnesty for all exiled criminals, cancelling +of creditors' claims, comprehensive mandates of confiscation, +proscription, and murder, nay, even a plundering of Rome +by the Gallic soldiery? + +Dispelled by Caesar + +But in this respect the "monster" deceived the expectations +of his foes as well as of his friends. As soon even as Caesar occupied +the first Italian town, Ariminum, he prohibited all common soldiers +from appearing armed within the walls; the country towns +were protected from all injury throughout and without distinction, +whether they had given him a friendly or hostile reception. +When the mutinous garrison surrendered Corfinium late in the evening, +he in the face of every military consideration postponed +the occupation of the town till the following morning, solely +that he might not abandon the burgesses to the nocturnal invasion +of his exasperated soldiers. Of the prisoners the common soldiers, +as presumably indifferent to politics, were incorporated +with his own army, while the officers were not merely spared, +but also freely released without distinction of person and without +the exaction of any promises whatever; and all which they claimed +as private property was frankly given up to them, without even +investigating with any strictness the warrant for their claims. +Lucius Domitius himself was thus treated, and even Labienus had the money +and baggage which he had left behind sent after him to the enemy's camp. +In the most painful financial embarrassment the immense estates +of his opponents whether present or absent were not assailed; indeed +Caesar preferred to borrow from friends, rather than that he should +stir up the possessors of property against him even by exacting +the formally admissible, but practically antiquated, land tax.(17) +The victor regarded only the half, and that not the more difficult half, +of his task as solved with the victory; he saw the security +for its duration, according to his own expression, only +in the unconditional pardon of the vanquished, and had accordingly +during the whole march from Ravenna to Brundisium incessantly +renewed his efforts to bring about a personal conference +with Pompeius and a tolerable accommodation. + +Threats of the Emigrants +The Mass of Quiet People Gained for Caesar + +But, if the aristocracy had previously refused to listen +to any reconciliation, the unexpected emigration of a kind +so disgraceful had raised their wrath to madness, and the wild vengeance +breathed by the beaten contrasted strangely with the placability +of the victor. The communications regularly coming from the camp +of the emigrants to their friends left behind in Italy +were full of projects for confiscations and proscriptions, +of plans for purifying the senate and the state, compared with which +the restoration of Sulla was child's play, and which even +the moderate men of their own party heard with horror. +The frantic passion of impotence, the wise moderation of power, +produced their effect. The whole mass, in whose eyes material interests +were superior to political, threw itself into the arms of Caesar. +The country towns idolized "the uprightness, the moderation, +the prudence" of the victor; and even opponents conceded +that these demonstrations of respect were meant in earnest. +The great capitalists, farmers of the taxes, and jurymen, +showed no special desire, after the severe shipwreck +which had befallen the constitutional party in Italy, +to entrust themselves farther to the same pilots; capital came +once more to the light, and "the rich lords resorted again to their +daily task of writing their rent-rolls." Even the great majority +of the senate, at least numerically speaking--for certainly but few +of the nobler and more influential members of the senate +were included in it--had notwithstanding the orders of Pompeius +and of the consuls remained behind in Italy, and a portion of them +even in the capital itself; and they acquiesced in Caesar's rule. +The moderation of Caesar, well calculated even in its very semblance +of excess, attained its object: the trembling anxiety of the propertied +classes as to the impending anarchy was in some measure allayed. +This was doubtless an incalculable gain for the future; +the prevention of anarchy, and of the scarcely less dangerous alarm +of anarchy, was the indispensable preliminary condition +to the future reorganization of the commonwealth. + +Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar +The Republican Party in Italy + +But at the moment this moderation was more dangerous for Caesar +than the renewal of the Cinnan and Catilinarian fury would have been; +it did not convert enemies into friends, and it converted +friends into enemies. Caesar's Catilinarian adherents +were indignant that murder and pillage remained in abeyance; +these audacious and desperate personages, some of whom +were men of talent, might be expected to prove cross and untractable. +The republicans of all shades, on the other hand, were neither +converted nor propitiated by the leniency of the conqueror. +According to the creed of the Catonian party, duty towards +what they called their fatherland absolved them from every +other consideration; even one who owed freedom and life to Caesar +remained entitled and in duty bound to take up arms or at least +to engage in plots against him. The less decided sections +of the constitutional party were no doubt found willing to accept peace +and protection from the new monarch; nevertheless they ceased not +to curse the monarchy and the monarch at heart. The more clearly +the change of the constitution became manifest, the more distinctly +the great majority of the burgesses--both in the capital with its +keener susceptibility of political excitement, and among +the more energetic population of the country and country towns-- +awoke to a consciousness of their republican sentiments; so far +the friends of the constitution in Rome reported with truth +to their brethren of kindred views in exile, that at home all classes +and all persons were friendly to Pompeius. The discontented temper +of all these circles was further increased by the moral pressure, +which the more decided and more notable men who shared such views +exercised from their very position as emigrants over the multitude +of the humbler and more lukewarm. The conscience of the honourable man +smote him in regard to his remaining in Italy; the half-aristocrat +fancied that he was ranked among the plebeians, if he did not go +into exile with the Domitii and the Metelli, and even if he took his seat +in the Caesarian senate of nobodies. The victor's special clemency +gave to this silent opposition increased political importance; +seeing that Caesar abstained from terrorism, it seemed as if +his secret opponents could display their disinclination +to his rule without much danger. + +Passive Resistance of the Senate to Caesar + +Very soon he experienced remarkable treatment in this respect +at the hands of the senate. Caesar had begun the struggle +to liberate the overawed senate from its oppressors. This was done; +consequently he wished to obtain from the senate approval +of what had been done, and full powers for the continuance of the war. +for this purpose, when Caesar appeared before the capital (end of March) +the tribunes of the people belonging to his party convoked for him +the senate (1 April). The meeting was tolerably numerous, +but the more notable of the very senators that remained in Italy +were absent, including even the former leader of the servile majority +Marcus Cicero and Caesar's own father-in-law Lucius Piso; +and, what was worse, those who did appear were not inclined +to enter into Caesar's proposals. When Caesar spoke of full power +to continue the war, one of the only two consulars present, +Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a very timid man who desired nothing +but a quiet death in his bed, was of opinion that Caesar would deserve +well of his country if he should abandon the thought of carrying +the war to Greece and Spain. When Caesar thereupon requested the senate +at least to be the medium of transmitting his peace proposals +to Pompeius, they were not indeed opposed to that course in itself, +but the threats of the emigrants against the neutrals had so terrified +the latter, that no one was found to undertake the message of peace. +Through the disinclination of the aristocracy to help the erection +of the monarch's throne, and through the same inertness +of the dignified corporation, by means of which Caesar +had shortly before frustrated the legal nomination of Pompeius +as generalissimo in the civil war, he too was now thwarted when making +a like request. Other impediments, moreover, occurred. Caesar desired, +with the view of regulating in some sort of way his position, +to be named as dictator; but his wish was not complied with, +because such a magistrate could only be constitutionally appointed +by one of the consuls, and the attempt of Caesar to buy +the consul Lentulus--of which owing to the disordered condition +of his finances there was a good prospect--nevertheless proved +a failure. The tribune of the people Lucius Metellus, moreover, +lodged a protest against all the steps of the proconsul, and made signs +as though he would protect with his person the public chest, +when Caesar's men came to empty it. Caesar could not avoid +in this case ordering that the inviolable person should be pushed aside +as gently as possible; otherwise, he kept by his purpose of abstaining +from all violent steps. He declared to the senate, just as +the constitutional party had done shortly before, that he had +certainly desired to regulate things in a legal way and with the help +of the supreme authority; but, since this help was refused, +he could dispense with it. + +Provisional Arrangement of the Affairs of the Capital +The Provinces + +Without further concerning himself about the senate and the formalities +of state law, he handed over the temporary administration +of the capital to the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as city-prefect, +and made the requisite arrangements for the administration +of the provinces that obeyed him and the continuance of the war. +Even amidst the din of the gigantic struggle, and with all +the alluring sound of Caesar's lavish promises, it still made +a deep impression on the multitude of the capital, when they saw +in their free Rome the monarch for the first time wielding +a monarch's power and breaking open the doors of the treasury +by his soldiers. But the times had gone by, when the impressions +and feelings of the multitude determined the course of events; +it was with the legions that the decision lay, and a few +painful feelings more or less were of no farther moment. + +Pompeians in Spain + +Caesar hastened to resume the war. He owed his successes +hitherto to the offensive, and he intended still to maintain it. +The position of his antagonist was singular. After the original plan +of carrying on the campaign simultaneously in the two Gauls +by offensive operations from the bases of Italy and Spain had been +frustrated by Caesar's aggressive, Pompeius had intended to go to Spain. +There he had a very strong position. The army amounted +to seven legions; a large number of Pompeius' veterans served in it, +and several years of conflicts in the Lusitanian mountains +had hardened soldiers and officers. Among its captains Marcus Varro +indeed was simply a celebrated scholar and a faithful partisan; +but Lucius Afranius had fought with distinction in the east +and in the Alps, and Marcus Petreius, the conqueror of Catilina, +was an officer as dauntless as he was able. While in the Further +province Caesar had still various adherents from the time +of his governorship there,(18) the more important province +of the Ebrowas attached by all the ties of veneration and gratitude +to the celebrated general, who twenty years before had held the command +in it during the Sertorian war, and after the termination of that war +had organized it anew. Pompeius could evidently after the Italian +disaster do nothing better than proceed to Spain with the saved remnant +of his army, and then at the head of his whole force advance +to meet Caesar. But unfortunately he had, in the hope of being able +still to save the troops that were in Corfinium, tarried in Apuli +so long that he was compelled to choose the nearer Brundisium +as his place of embarkation instead of the Campanian ports. +Why, master as he was of the sea and Sicily, he did not +subsequently revert to his original plan, cannot be determined; +whether it was that perhaps the aristocracy after their short-sighted +and distrustful fashion showed no desire to entrust themselves +to the Spanish troops and the Spanish population, it is enough +to say that Pompeius remained in the east, and Caesar had the option +of directing his first attack either against the army which was +being organized in Greece under Pompeius' own command, or against +that which was ready for battle under his lieutenants in Spain. +He had decided in favour of the latter course, and, as soon as +the Italian campaign ended, had taken measures to collect +on the lower Rhone nine of his best legions, as also 6000 cavalry-- +partly men individually picked out by Caesar in the Celtic cantons, +partly German mercenaries--and a number of Iberian and Ligurian archers. + +Massilia against Caesar + +But at this point his opponents also had been active. Lucius Domitius, +who was nominated by the senate in Caesar's stead as governor +of Transalpine Gaul, had proceeded from Corfinium--as soon as +Caesar had released him--along with his attendants and with Pompeius' +confidant Lucius Vibullius Rufus to Massilia, and actually induced +that city to declare for Pompeius and even to refuse a passage +to Caesar's troops. Of the Spanish troops the two least trustworthy +legions were left behind under the command of Varro in the Further +province; while the five best, reinforced by 40,000 Spanish infantry-- +partly Celtiberian infantry of the line, partly Lusitanian +and other light troops--and by 5000 Spanish cavalry, under Afranius +and Petreius, had, in accordance with the orders of Pompeius +transmitted by Vibullius, set out to close the Pyrenees +against the enemy. + + +Caesar Occupies the Pyrenees +Position at Ilerda + +Meanwhile Caesar himself arrived in Gaul and, as the commencement +of the siege of Massilia still detained him in person, +he immediately despatched the greater part of his troops assembled +on the Rhone--six legions and the cavalry--along the great road +leading by way of Narbo (Narbonne) to Rhode (Rosas) with the view +of anticipating the enemy at the Pyrenees. The movement was successful; +when Afranius and Petreius arrived at the passes, they found them +already occupied by the Caesarians and the line of the Pyrenees lost. +They then took up a position at Ilerda (Lerida) between the Pyrenees +and the Ebro. This town lies twenty miles to the north +of the Ebro on the right bank of one of its tributaries, +the Sicoris (Segre), which was crossed by only a single solid bridge +immediately at Ilerda. To the south of Ilerda the mountains +which adjoin the left bank of the Ebro approach pretty close to the town; +to the northward there stretches on both sides of the Sicoris +a level country which is commanded by the hill on which the town +is built. For an army, which had to submit to a siege, it was +an excellent position; but the defence of Spain, after the occupation +of the line of the Pyrenees had been neglected, could only be undertaken +in earnest behind the Ebro, and, as no secure communication +was established between Ilerda and the Ebro, and no bridge +existed over the latter stream, the retreat from the temporary +to the true defensive position was not sufficiently secured. +The Caesarians established themselves above Ilerda, in the delta +which the river Sicoris forms with the Cinga (Cinca), +which unites with it below Ilerda; but the attack only began +in earnest after Caesar had arrived in the camp (23 June). +Under the walls of the town the struggle was maintained with equal +exasperation and equal valour on both sides, and with frequent +alternations of success; but the Caesarians did not attain their object-- +which was, to establish themselves between the Pompeian camp +and the town and thereby to possess themselves of the stone bridge-- +and they consequently remained dependent for their communication +with Gaul solely on two bridges which they had hastily constructed +over the Sicoris, and that indeed, as the river at Ilerda itself +was too considerable to be bridged over, about eighteen +or twenty miles farther up. + +Caesar Cut Off + +When the floods came on with the melting of the snow, +these temporary bridges were swept away; and, as they had no vessels +for the passage of the highly swollen rivers and under such circumstance +the restoration of the bridges could not for the present be thought of, +the Caesarian army was confined to the narrow space between the Cinca +and the Sicoris, while the left bank of the Sicoris and with it the road, +by which the army communicated with Gaul and Italy, were exposed +almost undefended to the Pompeians, who passed the river partly +by the town-bridge, partly by swimming after the Lusitanian fashion +on skins. It was the season shortly before harvest; the old produce +was almost used up, the new was not yet gathered, and the narrow stripe +of land between the two streams was soon exhausted. In the camp +actual famine prevailed--the -modius- of wheat cost 50 -denarii- +(1 pound 16 shillings)--and dangerous diseases broke out; whereas +on the left bank there were accumulated provisions and varied supplies, +as well as troops of all sorts--reinforcements from Gaul of cavalry +and archers, officers and soldiers from furlough, foraging parties +returning--in all a mass of 6000 men, whom the Pompeians attacked +with superior force and drove with great loss to the mountains, +while the Caesarians on the right bank were obliged to remain +passive spectators of the unequal conflict. The communications +of the army were in the hands of the Pompeians; in Italy the accounts +from Spain suddenly ceased, and the suspicious rumours, +which began to circulate there, were not so very remote from the truth. +Had the Pompeians followed up their advantage with some energy, +they could not have failed either to reduce under their power +or at least to drive back towards Gaul the mass scarcely capable +of resistance which was crowded together on the left bank +of the Sicoris, and to occupy this bank so completely that not a man +could cross the river without their knowledge. But both points +were neglected; those bands were doubtless pushed aside with loss +but neither destroyed nor completely beaten back, and the prevention +of the crossing of the river was left substantially to the river itself, + + +Caesar Re-establishes the Communications + +Thereupon Caesar formed his plan. He ordered portable boats +of a light wooden frame and osier work lined with leather, +after the model of those used in the Channel among the Britons +and subsequently by the Saxons, to be prepared in the camp +and transported in waggons to the point where the bridges had stood. +On these frail barks the other bank was reached and, as it was found +unoccupied, the bridge was re-established without much difficulty; +the road in connection with it was thereupon quickly cleared, +and the eagerly-expected supplies were conveyed to the camp. +Caesar's happy idea thus rescued the army from the immense peril +in which it was placed. Then the cavalry of Caesar which in efficiency +far surpassed that of the enemy began at once to scour the country +on the left bank of the Sicoris; the most considerable +Spanish communities between the Pyrenees and the Ebro--Osca, Tarraco, +Dertosa, and others--nay, even several to the south of the Ebro, +passed over to Caesar's side. + +Retreat of the Pompeians from Ilerda + +The supplies of the Pompeians were now rendered scarce +through the foraging parties of Caesar and the defection +of the neighbouring communities; they resolved at length to retire +behind the line of the Ebro, and set themselves in all haste to form +a bridge of boats over the Ebro below the mouth of the Sicoris. +Caesar sought to cut off the retreat of his opponents over the Ebro +and to detain them in Ilerda; but so long as the enemy remained +in possession of the bridge at Ilerda and he had control of neither ford +nor bridge there, he could not distribute his army over both banks +of the river and could not invest Ilerda. His soldiers therefore +worked day and night to lower the depth of the river by means of canals +drawing off the water, so that the infantry could wade through it. +But the preparations of the Pompeians to pass the Ebro were sooner +finished than the arrangements of the Caesarians for investing Ilerda; +when the former after finishing the bridge of boats began their march +towards the Ebro along the left bank of the Sicoris, the canals +of the Caesarians seemed to the general not yet far enough advanced +to make the ford available for the infantry; he ordered +only his cavalry to pass the stream and, by clinging to the rear +of the enemy, at least to detain and harass them. + +Caesar Follows + +But when Caesar's legions saw in the gray morning the enemy's columns +which had been retiring since midnight, they discerned +with the sure instinct of experienced veterans the strategic importance +of this retreat, which would compel them to follow their antagonists +into distant and impracticable regions filled by hostile troops; +at their own request the general ventured to lead the infantry +also into the river, and although the water reached up +to the shoulders of the men, it was crossed without accident. +It was high time. If the narrow plain, which separated the town +of Ilerda from the mountains enclosing the Ebro were once traversed +and the army of the Pompeians entered the mountains, their retreat +to the Ebro could no longer be prevented. Already they had, +notwithstanding the constant attacks of the enemy's cavalry +which greatly delayed their march, approached within five miles +of the mountains, when they, having been on the march since midnight +and unspeakably exhausted, abandoned their original plan of traversing +the whole plain on the same day, and pitched their camp. +Here the infantry of Caesar overtook them and encamped opposite to them +in the evening and during the night, as the nocturnal march +which the Pompeians had at first contemplated was abandoned from fear +of the night-attacks of the cavalry. On the following day also +both armies remained immoveable, occupied only +in reconnoitering the country. + + +The Route to the Ebro Closed + +Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry set out, +that by a movement through the pathless mountains alongside of the road +they might turn the position of the enemy and bar their route +to the Ebro. The object of the strange march, which seemed at first +to turn back towards the camp before Ilerda, was not at once +perceived by the Pompeian officers. When they discerned it, +they sacrificed camp and baggage and advanced by a forced march +along the highway, to gain the crest of the ridge before the Caesarians. +But it was already too late; when they came up, the compact masses +of the enemy were already posted on the highway itself. +a desperate attempt of the Pompeians to discover other routes +to the Ebro over the steep mountains was frustrated by Caesar's cavalry, +which surrounded and cut to pieces the Lusitanian troops sent forth +for that purpose. Had a battle taken place between the Pompeian army-- +which had the enemy's cavalry in its rear and their infantry in front, +and was utterly demoralized--and the Caesarians, the issue +was scarcely doubtful, and the opportunity for fighting +several times presented itself; but Caesar made no use of it, +and, not without difficulty, restrained the impatient eagerness +for the combat in his soldiers sure of victory. The Pompeian army +was at any rate strategically lost; Caesar avoided weakening his army +and still further envenoming the bitter feud by useless bloodshed. +On the very day after he had succeeded in cutting off the Pompeians +from the Ebro, the soldiers of the two armies had begun to fraternize +and to negotiate respecting surrender; indeed the terms +asked by the Pompeians, especially as to the sparing of their officers, +had been already conceded by Caesar, when Petreius with his escort +consisting of slaves and Spaniards came upon the negotiators +and caused the Caesarians, on whom he could lay hands, +to be put to death. Caesar nevertheless sent the Pompeians +who had come to his camp back unharmed, and persevered in seeking +a peaceful solution. Ilerda, where the Pompeians had still +a garrison and considerable magazines, became now the point +which they sought to reach; but with the hostile army in front +and the Sicoris between them and the fortress, they marched +without coming nearer to their object. Their cavalry became gradually +so afraid that the infantry had to take them into the centre and legions +had to be set as the rearguard; the procuring of water and forage +became more and more difficult; they had already to kill the beasts +of burden, because they could no longer feed them. At length +the wandering army found itself formally inclosed, with the Sicoris +in its rear and the enemy's force in front, which drew rampart +and trench around it. It attempted to cross the river, but Caesar's +German horsemen and light infantry anticipated it in the occupation +of the opposite bank. + +Capitulation of the Pompeians + +No bravery and no fidelity could longer avert the inevitable +capitulation (2 Aug. 705). Caesar granted to officers and soldiers +their life and liberty, and the possession of the property +which they still retained as well as the restoration of what had been +already taken from them, the full value of which he undertook +personally to make good to his soldiers; and not only so, +but while he had compulsorily enrolled in his army the recruits +captured in Italy, he honoured these old legionaries of Pompeius +by the promise that no one should be compelled against his will +to enter Caesar's army. He required only that each should give up +his arms and repair to his home. Accordingly the soldiers +who were natives of Spain, about a third of the army, were disbanded +at once, while the Italian soldiers were discharged on the borders +of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. + +Further Spain Submits + +Hither Spain on the breaking up of this army fell of itself +into the power of the victor. In Further Spain, where Marcus Varro +held the chief command for Pompeius, it seemed to him, when he learned +the disaster of Ilerda, most advisable that he should throw himself +into the insular town of Gades and should carry thither for safety +the considerable sums which he had collected by confiscating +the treasures of the temples and the property of prominent Caesarians, +the not inconsiderable fleet which he had raised, and the two legions +entrusted to him. But on the mere rumour of Caesar's arrival +the most notable towns of the province which had been for long +attached to Caesar declared for the latter and drove away +the Pompeian garrisons or induced them to a similar revolt; +such was the case with Corduba, Carmo, and Gades itself. +One of the legions also set out of its own accord for Hispalis, +and passed over along with this town to Caesar's side. When at length +even Italica closed its gates against Varro, the latter +resolved to capitulate. + +Siege of Massilia + +About the same time Massilia also submitted. With rare energy +the Massiliots had not merely sustained a siege, but had also kept +the sea against Caesar; it was their native element, and they might hope +to obtain vigorous support on it from Pompeius, who in fact +had the exclusive command of it. But Caesar's lieutenant, the able +Decimus Brutus, the same who had achieved the first naval victory +in the Atlantic over the Veneti,(19) managed rapidly to equip a fleet; +and in spite of the brave resistance of the enemy's crews-- +consisting partly of Albioecian mercenaries of the Massiliots, +partly of slave-herdsmen of Domitius--he vanquished by means of his brave +marines selected from the legions the stronger Massiliot fleet, +and sank or captured the greater part of their ships. When therefore +a small Pompeian squadron under Lucius Nasidius arrived +from the east by way of Sicily and Sardinia in the port of Massilia, +the Massiliots once more renewed their naval armament and sailed forth +along with the ships of Nasidius against Brutus. The engagement +which took place off Tauroeis (La Ciotat to the east of Marseilles) +might probably have had a different result, if the vessels of Nasidius +had fought with the same desperate courage which the Massiliots +displayed on that day; but the flight of the Nasidians +decided the victory in favour of Brutus, and the remains +of the Pompeian fleet fled to Spain. The besieged were completely +driven from the sea. On the landward side, where Gaius Trebonius +conducted the siege, the most resolute resistance was still continued; +but in spite of the frequent sallies of the Albioecian mercenaries +and the skilful expenditure of the immense stores of projectiles +accumulated in the city, the works of the besiegers were at length +advanced up to the walls and one of the towers fell. The Massiliots +declared that they would give up the defence, but desired +to conclude the capitulation with Caesar himself, and entreated +the Roman commander to suspend the siege operations till +Caesar's arrival. Trebonius had express orders from Caesar +to spare the town as far as possible; he granted the armistice desired. +But when the Massiliots made use of it for an artful sally, +in which they completely burnt the one-half of the almost unguarded +Roman works, the struggle of the siege began anew and with increased +exasperation. The vigorous commander of the Romans repaired +with surprising rapidity the destroyed towers and the mound; +soon the Massiliots were once more completely invested. + +Massilia Capitulates + +When Caesar on his return from the conquest of Spain arrived +before their city, he found it reduced to extremities +partly by the enemy's attacks, partly by famine and pestilence, +and ready for the second time--on this occasion in right earnest-- +to surrender on any terms. Domitius alone, remembering the indulgence +of the victor which he had shamefully misused, embarked in a boat +and stole through the Roman fleet, to seek a third battle-field +for his implacable resentment. Caesar's soldiers had sworn +to put to the sword the whole male population of the perfidious city, +and vehemently demanded from the general the signal for plunder. +But Caesar, mindful here also of his great task of establishing +Helleno-Italic civilization in the west, was not to be coerced +into furnishing a sequel to the destruction of Corinth. +Massilia--the most remote from the mother-country of all those cities, +once so numerous, free, and powerful, that belonged to the old Ionic +mariner-nation, and almost the last in which the Hellenic seafaring life +had preserved itself fresh and pure, as in fact it was the last +Greek city that fought at sea--Massilia had to surrender its magazines +of arms and naval stores to the victor, and lost a portion +of its territory and of its privileges; but it retained its freedom +and its nationality and continued, though with diminished proportions +in a material point of view, to be still as before intellectually +the centre of Hellenic culture in that distant Celtic country +which at this very time was attaining a new historical significance. + + +Expeditions of Caesar to the Corn-Provinces + +While thus in the western provinces the war after various critical +vicissitudes was thoroughly decided at length in favour of Caesar, +Spain and Massilia were subdued, and the chief army of the enemy +was captured to the last man, the decision of arms had also taken place +on the second arena of warfare, on which Caesar had found it necessary +immediately after the conquest of Italy to assume the offensive + + +Sardinia Occupied +Sicily Occupied + +We have already mentioned that the Pompeians intended +to reduce Italy to starvation. They had the means of doing so +in their hands. They had thorough command of the sea and laboured +with great zeal everywhere--in Gades, Utica, Messana, above all +in the east--to increase their fleet. They held moreover +all the provinces, from which the capital drew its means of subsistence: +Sardinia and Corsica through Marcus Cotta, Sicily through Marcus Cato, +Africa through the self-nominated commander-in-chief Titus Attius Varus +and their ally Juba king of Numidia It was indispensably needful +for Caesar to thwart these plans of the enemy and to wrest from them +the corn-provinces. Quintus Valerius was sent with a legion to Sardinia +and compelled the Pompeian governor to evacuate the island. +The more important enterprise of taking Sicily and Africa from the enemy +was entrusted to the young Gaius Curio with the assistance +of the able Gaius Caninius Rebilus, who possessed experience in war. +Sicily was occupied by him without a blow; Cato, without a proper army +and not a man of the sword, evacuated the island, after having +in his straightforward manner previously warned the Siceliots +not to compromise themselves uselessly by an ineffectual resistance. + +Landing of Curio in Africa + +Curio left behind half of his troops to protect this island +so important for the capital, and embarked with the other half-- +two legions and 500 horsemen--for Africa. Here he might expect +to encounter more serious resistance; besides the considerable +and in its own fashion efficient army of Juba, the governor Varus +had formed two legions from the Romans settled in Africa +and also fitted out a small squadron of ten sail. With the aid +of his superior fleet, however, Curio effected without difficulty +a landing between Hadrumetum, where the one legion of the enemy +lay along with their ships of war, and Utica, in front of which town +lay the second legion under Varus himself. Curio turned against +the latter, and pitched his camp not far from Utica, just where +a century and a half before the elder Scipio had taken up +his first winter-camp in Africa.(20) Caesar, compelled to keep together +his best troops for the Spanish war, had been obliged to make up +the Sicilo-African army for the most part out of the legions taken over +from the enemy, more especially the war-prisoners of Corfinium; +the officers of the Pompeian army in Africa, some of whom had served +in the very legions that were conquered at Corfinium, +now left no means untried to bring back their old soldiers who were +now fighting against them to their first allegiance. But Caesar +had not erred in the choice of his lieutenant. Curio knew as well +how to direct the movements of the army and of the fleet, +as how to acquire personal influence over the soldiers; +the supplies were abundant, the conflicts without exception successful. + +Curio Conquers at Utica + +When Varus, presuming that the troops of Curio wanted opportunity +to pass over to his side, resolved to give battle chiefly for the sake +of affording them this opportunity, the result did not justify +his expectations. Animated by the fiery appeal of their youthful leader +the cavalry of Curio put to flight the horsemen of the enemy +and in presence of the two armies cut down also the light infantry +which had accompanied the horsemen; and emboldened by this success +and by Curio's personal example, his legions advanced through +the difficult ravine separating the two lines to the attack, +for which the Pompeians however did not wait, but disgracefully +fled back to their camp and evacuated even this in the ensuing night. +The victory was so complete that Curio at once took steps +to besiege Utica. When news arrived, however, that king Juba +was advancing with all his forces to its relief, Curio resolved, +just as Scipio had done on the arrival of Syphax, to raise the siege +and to return to Scipio's former camp till reinforcements +should arrive from Sicily. Soon afterwards came a second report, +that king Juba had been induced by the attacks of neighbouring princes +to turn back with his main force and was sending to the aid +of the besieged merely a moderate corps under Saburra. +Curio, who from his lively temperament had only with great reluctance +made up his mind to rest, now set out again at once to fight with Saburra +before he could enter into communication with the garrison of Utica. + +Curio Defeated by Juba on the Bagradas +Death of Curio + +His cavalry, which had gone forward in the evening, actually succeeded +in surprising the corps of Saburra on the Bagradas during the night +and inflicting much damage upon it; and on the news of this victory +Curio hastened the march of the infantry, in order by their means +to complete the defeat Soon they perceived on the last slopes +of the heights that sank towards the Bagradas the corps of Saburra, +which was skirmishing with the Roman horsemen; the legions +coming up helped to drive it completely down into the plain. +But here the combat changed its aspect. Saburra was not, +as they supposed, destitute of support; on the contrary he was +not much more than five miles distant from the Numidian main force. +Already the flower of the Numidian infantry and 2000 Gallic +and Spanish horsemen had arrived on the field of battle +to support Saburra, and the king in person with the bulk of the army +and sixteen elephants was approaching. After the nocturnal march +and the hot conflict there were at the moment not more than 200 +of the Roman cavalry together, and these as well as the infantry, +extremely exhausted by fatigue and fighting, were all surrounded, +in the wide plain into which they had allowed themselves to be allured, +by the continually increasing hosts of the enemy. Vainly Curio +endeavoured to engage in close combat; the Libyan horsemen retreated, +as they were wont, so soon as a Roman division advanced, +only to pursue it when it turned. In vain he attempted +to regain the heights; they were occupied and foreclosed +by the enemy's horse. All was lost. The infantry was cut down +to the last man. Of the cavalry a few succeeded in cutting +their way through; Curio too might have probably saved himself, +but he could not bear to appear alone before his master +without the army entrusted to him, and died sword in hand. +Even the force which was collected in the camp before Utica, +and that which guarded the fleet--which might so easily +have escaped to Sicily--surrendered under the impression made +by the fearfully rapid catastrophe on the following day +to Varus (Aug. or Sept. 705). + +So ended the expedition arranged by Caesar to Sicily and Africa. +It attained its object so far, since by the occupation of Sicily +in connection with that of Sardinia at least the most urgent wants +of the capital were relieved; the miscarriage of the conquest of Africa-- +from which the victorious party drew no farther substantial gain-- +and the loss of two untrustworthy legions might be got over. +But the early death of Curio was an irreparable loss for Caesar, +and indeed for Rome. Not without reason had Caesar entrusted +the most important independent command to this young man, although +he had no military experience and was notorious for his dissolute life; +there was a spark of Caesar's own spirit in the fiery youth. +He resembled Caesar, inasmuch as he too had drained the cup of pleasure +to the dregs; inasmuch as he did not become a statesman +because he was an officer, but on the contrary it was his political +action that placed the sword in his hands; inasmuch as +his eloquence was not that of rounded periods, but the eloquence +of deeply-felt thought; inasmuch as his mode of warfare was based +on rapid action with slight means; inasmuch as his character +was marked by levity and often by frivolity, by pleasant frankness +and thorough life in the moment. If, as his general says of him, +youthful fire and high courage carried him into incautious acts, +and if he too proudly accepted death that he might not submit +to be pardoned for a pardonable fault, traits of similar imprudence +and similar pride are not wanting in Caesar's history also. +We may regret that this exuberant nature was not permitted to work off +its follies and to preserve itself for the following generation +so miserably poor in talents, and so rapidly falling a prey +to the dreadful rule of mediocrities. + +Pompeius' Plan of Campaign for 705 + +How far these events of the war in 705 interfered with Pompeius' +general plan for the campaign, and particularly what part, in that plan +was assigned after the loss of Italy to the important military corps +in the west, can only be determined by conjecture. That Pompeius +had the intention of coming by way of Africa and Mauretania +to the aid of his army fighting in Spain, was simply a romantic, +and beyond doubt altogether groundless, rumour circulating +in the camp of Ilerda. It is much more likely that he still kept +by his earlier plan of attacking Caesar from both sides in Transalpine +and Cisalpine Gaul(21) even after the loss of Italy, and meditated +a combined attack at once from Spain and Macedonia. It may be presumed +that the Spanish army was meant to remain on the defensive +at the Pyrenees till the Macedonian army in the course of organization +was likewise ready to march; whereupon both would then have started +simultaneously and effected a junction according to circumstances +either on the Rhone or on the Po, while the fleet, it may be conjectured, +would have attempted at the same time to reconquer Italy proper. +On this supposition apparently Caesar had first prepared himself +to meet an attack on Italy. One of the ablest of his officers, +the tribune of the people Marcus Antonius, commanded there +with propraetorian powers. The southeastern ports--Sipus, +Brundisium, Tarentum--where an attempt at landing was first +to be expected, had received a garrison of three legions. Besides +this Quintus Hortensius, the degenerate son of the well-known orator, +collected a fleet in the Tyrrhene Sea, and Publius Dolabella +a second fleet in the Adriatic, which were to be employed +partly to support the defence, partly to transport the intended +expedition to Greece. In the event of Pompeius attempting +to penetrate by land into Italy, Marcus Licinius Crassus, +the eldest son of the old colleague of Caesar, was to conduct +the defence of Cisalpine Gaul, Gaius the younger brother +of Marcus Antonius that of Illyricum. + +Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +But the expected attack was long in coming. It was not +till the height of summer that the conflict began in Illyria. +There Caesar's lieutenant Gaius Antonius with his two legions +lay in the island of Curicta (Veglia in the gulf of Quarnero), +and Caesar's admiral Publius Dolabella with forty ships +lay in the narrow arm of the sea between this island and the mainland. +The admirals of Pompeius in the Adriatic, Marcus Octavius with the Greek, +Lucius Scribonius Libo with the Illyrian division of the fleet, +attacked the squadron of Dolabella, destroyed all his ships, +and cut off Antonius on his island. To rescue him, a corps under Basilus +and Sallustius came from Italy and the squadron of Hortensius +from the Tyrrhene Sea; but neither the former nor the latter were able +to effect anything in presence of the far superior fleet of the enemy. +The legions of Antonius had to be abandoned to their fate. +Provisions came to an end, the troops became troublesome and mutinous; +with the exception of a few divisions, which succeeded in reaching +the mainland on rafts, the corps, still fifteen cohorts strong, laid down +their arms and were conveyed in the vessels of Libo to Macedonia +to be there incorporated with the Pompeian army, while Octavius was left +to complete the subjugation of the Illyrian coast now denuded of troops. +The Dalmatae, now far the most powerful tribe in these regions,(22) +the important insular town of Issa (Lissa), and other townships, +embraced the party of Pompeius; but the adherents of Caesar +maintained themselves in Salonae (Spalato) and Lissus (Alessio), +and in the former town not merely sustained with courage a siege, +but when they were reduced to extremities, made a sally with such effect +that Octavius raised the siege and sailed off to Dyrrhachium +to pass the winter there. + +Result of the Campaign as a Whole + +The success achieved in Illyricum by the Pompeian fleet, +although of itself not inconsiderable, had yet but little influence +on the issue of the campaign as a whole; and it appears miserably small, +when we consider that the performances of the land and naval' forces +under the supreme command of Pompeius during the whole eventful year 705 +were confined to this single feat of arms, and that from the east, +where the general, the senate, the second great army, the principal fleet, +the immense military and still more extensive financial resources +of the antagonists of Caesar were united, no intervention at all +took place where it was needed in that all-decisive struggle in the west. +The scattered condition of the forces in the eastern half of the empire, +the method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, +his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition +may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity +of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean +without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence +the course of affairs--nothing for Spain, next to nothing +for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, +Africa, or, if not to reoccupy Italy, at least to obstruct its supplies-- +this makes demands on our ideas of the confusion and perversity +prevailing in the Pompeian camp, which we can only with difficulty meet. + +The aggregate result of this campaign was corresponding. +Caesar's double aggressive movement, against Spain and against Sicily +and Africa, was successful, in the former case completely, +in the latter at least partially; while Pompeius' plan +of starving Italy was thwarted in the main by the taking away +of Sicily, and his general plan of campaign was frustrated completely +by the destruction of the Spanish army; and in Italy only +a very small portion of Caesar's defensive arrangements +had come to be applied. Notwithstanding the painfully-felt losses +in Africa and Illyria, Caesar came forth from this first year +of the war in the most decided and most decisive manner as victor. + +Organizations in Macedonia +The Emigrants + +If, however, nothing material was done from the east to obstruct Caesar +in the subjugation of the west, efforts at least were made towards +securing political and military consolidation there during the respite +so ignominiously obtained. The great rendezvous of the opponents +of Caesar was Macedonia. Thither Pompeius himself and the mass +of the emigrants from Brundisium resorted; thither came +the other refugees from the west: Marcus Cato from Sicily, +Lucius Domitius from Massilia but more especially a number +of the best officers and soldiers of the broken-up army of Spain, +with its generals Afranius and Varro at their head. In Italy +emigration gradually became among the aristocrats a question +not of honour merely but almost of fashion, and it obtained +a fresh impulse through the unfavourable accounts which arrived +regarding Caesar's position before Ilerda; not a few of the more +lukewarm partisans and the political trimmers went over by degrees, +and even Marcus Cicero at last persuaded himself that he did not +adequately discharge his duty as a citizen by writing a dissertatio +on concord. The senate of emigrants at Thessalonica, where the official +Rome pitched its interim abode, numbered nearly 200 members +including many venerable old men and almost all the consulars. +But emigrants indeed they were. This Roman Coblentz displayed +a pitiful spectacle in the high pretensions and paltry performances +of the genteel world of Rome, their unseasonable reminiscences +and still more unseasonable recriminations, their political +perversities and financial embarrassments. It was a matter +of comparatively slight moment that, while the old structure +was falling to pieces, they were with the most painstaking gravity +watching over every old ornamental scroll and every speck of rust +in the constitution; after all it was simply ridiculous, +when the genteel lords had scruples of conscience as to calling +their deliberative assembly beyond the sacred soil of the city +the senate, and cautiously gave it the title of the "three hundred";(23) +or when they instituted tedious investigations in state law +as to whether and how a curiate law could be legitimately enacted +elsewhere than within the ring-wall of Rome. + +The Lukewarm + +Far worse traits were the indifference of the lukewarm +and the narrow-minded stubbornness of the ultras. The former +could not be brought to act or even to keep silence. If they were asked +to exert themselves in some definite way for the common good, +with the inconsistency characteristic of weak people they regarded +any such suggestion as a malicious attempt to compromise them +still further, and either did not do what they were ordered at all +or did it with half heart. At the same time of course, +with their affectation of knowing better when it was too late +and their over-wise impracticabilities, they proved a perpetual clog +to those who were acting; their daily work consisted in criticizing, +ridiculing, and bemoaning every occurrence great and small, +and in unnerving and discouraging the multitude by their own +sluggishness and hopelessness. + +The Ultras + +While these displayed the utter prostration of weakness, the ultras +on the other hand exhibited in full display its exaggerated action. +With them there was no attempt to conceal that the preliminary +to any negotiation for peace was the bringing over of Caesar's head; +every one of the attempts towards peace, which Caesar repeatedly made +even now, was tossed aside without being examined, or employed +only to cover insidious attempts on the lives of the commissioners +of their opponent. That the declared partisans of Caesar +had jointly and severally forfeited life and property, was a matter +of course; but it fared little better with those more or less neutral. +Lucius Domitius, the hero of Corfinium, gravely proposed +in the council of war that those senators who had fought in the army +of Pompeius should come to a vote on all who had either remained neutral +or had emigrated but not entered the army, and should according +to their own pleasure individually acquit them or punish them +by fine or even by the forfeiture of life and property. +Another of these ultras formally lodged with Pompeius a charge +of corruption and treason against Lucius Afranius for his defective +defence of Spain. Among these deep-dyed republicans their +political theory assumed almost the character of a confession +of religious faith; they accordingly hated their own more lukewarm +partisans and Pompeius with his personal adherents, if possible, +still more than their open opponents, and that with all the dull +obstinacy of hatred which is wont to characterize orthodox theologians; +and they were mainly to blame for the numberless and bitter +separate quarrels which distracted the emigrant army and emigrant senate. +But they did not confine themselves to words. Marcus Bibulus, +Titus Labienus, and others of this coterie carried out their theory +in practice, and caused such officers or soldiers of Caesar's army +as fell into their hands to be executed en masse; which, +as may well be conceived, did not tend to make Caesar's troops +fight with less energy. If the counterrevolution in favour +of the friends of the constitution, for which all the elements +were in existence,(24) did not break out in Italy during +Caesar's absence, the reason, according to the assurance +of discerning opponents of Caesar, lay chiefly in the general dread +of the unbridled fury of the republican ultras after the restoration +should have taken place. The better men in the Pompeian camp +were in despair over this frantic behaviour. Pompeius, himself +a brave soldier, spared the prisoners as far as he might and could; +but he was too pusillanimous and in too awkward a position to prevent +or even to punish all atrocities of this sort, as it became him +as commander-in-chief to do. Marcus Cato, the only man who at least +carried moral consistency into the struggle, attempted with more energy +to check such proceedings; he induced the emigrant senate +to prohibit by a special decree the pillage of subject towns +and the putting to death of a burgess otherwise than in battle. +The able Marcus Marcellus had similar views. No one, indeed, +knew better than Cato and Marcellus that the extreme party +would carry out their saving deeds, if necessary, in defiance +of all decrees of the senate. But if even now, when they had still +to regard considerations of prudence, the rage of the ultras +could not be tamed, people might prepare themselves after the victory +for a reign of terror from which Marius and Sulla themselves +would have turned away with horror; and we can understand why Cato, +according to his own confession, was more afraid of the victory +than of the defeat of his own party. + +The Preparations for War + +The management of the military preparations in the Macedonian camp +was in the hands of Pompeius the commander-in-chief. His position, +always troublesome and galling, had become still worse through +the unfortunate events of 705. In the eyes of his partisans he was +mainly to blame for this result. This judgment was in various respects +not just. A considerable part of the misfortunes endured +was to be laid to the account of the perversity and insubordination +of the lieutenant-generals, especially of the consul Lentulus +and Lucius Domitius; from the moment when Pompeius took the head +of the army, he had led it with skill and courage, and had saved +at least very considerable forces from the shipwreck; that he was +not a match for Caesar's altogether superior genius, which was now +recognized by all, could not be fairly made matter of reproach to him. +But the result alone decided men's judgment. Trusting to the general +Pompeius, the constitutional party had broken with Caesar; the pernicious +consequences of this breach recoiled upon the general Pompeius; +and, though owing to the notorious military incapacity +of all the other chiefs no attempt was made to change the supreme +command yet confidence at any rate in the commander-in-chief +was paralyzed. To these painful consequences of the defeats endured +were added the injurious influences of the emigration. +Among the refugees who arrived there were certainly a number +of efficient soldiers and capable officers, especially those +belonging to the former Spanish army; but the number of those +who came to serve and fight was just as small as that of the generals +of quality who called themselves proconsuls and imperators +with as good title as Pompeius, and of the genteel lords +who took part in active military service more or less reluctantly, +was alarmingly great. Through these the mode of life in the capital +was introduced into the camp, not at all to the advantage of the army; +the tents of such grandees were graceful bowers, the ground +elegantly covered with fresh turf, the walls clothed with ivy; +silver plate stood on the table, and the wine-cup often circulated +there even in broad daylight. Those fashionable warriors formed +a singular contrast with Caesar's daredevils, who ate coarse bread +from which the former recoiled, and who, when that failed, devoured +even roots and swore that they would rather chew the bark of trees +than desist from the enemy. While, moreover, the action +of Pompeius was hampered by the necessity of having regard +to the authority of a collegiate board personally disinclined to him, +this embarrassment was singularly increased when the senate of emigrants +took up its abode almost in his very headquarters and all the venom +of the emigrants now found vent in these senatorial sittings. +Lastly there was nowhere any man of mark, who could have thrown +his own weight into the scale against all these preposterous doings. +Pompeius himself was intellectually far too secondary for that purpose, +and far too hesitating, awkward, and reserved. Marcus Cato +would have had at least the requisite moral authority, and would not +have lacked the good will to support Pompeius with it; but Pompeius, +instead of calling him to his assistance, out of distrustful +jealousy kept him in the background, and preferred for instance +to commit the highly important chief command of the fleet +to the in every respect incapable Marcus Bibulus rather than to Cato. + + +The Legions of Pompeius + +While Pompeius thus treated the political aspect of his position +with his characteristic perversity, and did his best to make +what was already bad in itself still worse, he devoted himself +on the other hand with commendable zeal to his duty of giving military +organization to the considerable but scattered forces of his party. +The flower of his force was composed of the troops brought with him +from Italy, out of which with the supplementary aid of the Illyrian +prisoners of war and the Romans domiciled in Greece five legions +in all were formed. Three others came from the east--the two Syrian +legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus, and one made up +out of the two weak legions hitherto stationed in Cilicia. +Nothing stood in the way of the withdrawal of these corps of occupation: +because on the one hand the Pompeians had an understanding +with the Parthians, and might even have had an alliance with them +if Pompeius had not indignantly refused to pay them the price +which they demanded for it--the cession of the Syrian province +added by himself to the empire; and on the other hand +Caesar's plan of despatching two legions to Syria, and inducing +the Jews once more to take up arms by means of the prince Aristobulus +kept a prisoner in Rome, was frustrated partly by other causes, +partly by the death of Aristobulus. New legions were moreover raised-- +one from the veteran soldiers settled in Crete and Macedonia, +two from the Romans of Asia Minor. To all these fell to be added +2000 volunteers, who were derived from the remains of the Spanish +select corps and other similar sources; and, lastly, the contingents +of the subjects. Pompeius like Caesar had disdained to make +requisitions of infantry from them; only the Epirot, Aetolian, +and Thracian militia were called out to guard the coast, and moreover +3000 archers from Greece and Asia Minor and 1200 slingers +were taken up as light troops. + +His Cavalry + +The cavalry on the other hand--with the exception of a noble guard, +more respectable than militarily important, formed from the young +aristocracy of Rome, and of the Apulian slave-herdsmen whom Pompeius +had mounted (25)--consisted exclusively of the contingents +of the subjects and clients of Rome. The flower of it consisted +of the Celts, partly from the garrison of Alexandria,(26) +partly the contingents of king Deiotarus who in spite of his great age +had appeared in person at the head of his troops, and of the other +Galatian dynasts. With them were associated the excellent Thracian +horsemen, who were partly brought up by their princes Sadala +and Rhascuporis, partly enlisted by Pompeius in the Macedonian province; +the Cappadocian cavalry; the mounted archers sent by Antiochus +king of Commagene; the contingents of the Armenians from the west side +of the Euphrates under Taxiles, and from the other side under Megabates, +and the Numidian bands sent by king Juba--the whole body amounted +to 7000 horsemen. + +Fleet + +Lastly the fleet of Pompeius was very considerable. It was formed +partly of the Roman transports brought from Brundisium +or subsequently built, partly of the war vessels of the king of Egypt, +of the Colchian princes, of the Cilician dynast Tarcondimotus, +of the cities of Tyre, Rhodes, Athens, Corcyra, and generally +of all the Asiatic and Greek maritime states; and it numbered nearly +500 sail, of which the Roman vessels formed a fifth. Immense magazines +of corn and military stores were accumulated in Dyrrhachium. +The war-chest was well filled, for the Pompeians found themselves +in possession of the principal sources of the public revenue +and turned to their own account the moneyed resources of the client- +princes, of the senators of distinction, of the farmers of the taxes, +and generally of the whole Roman and non-Roman population +within their reach. Every appliance that the reputation +of the legitimate government and the much-renowned protectorship +of Pompeius over kings and peoples could move in Africa, Egypt, +Macedonia, Greece, Western Asia and Syria, had been put in motion +for the protection of the Roman republic; the report which circulated +in Italy that Pompeius was arming the Getae, Colchians, +and Armenians against Rome, and the designation of "king of kings" +given to Pompeius in the camp, could hardly be called exaggerations. +On the whole he had command over an army of 7000 cavalry +and eleven legions, of which it is true, but five at the most +could be described as accustomed to war, and over a fleet of 500 sail. +The temper of the soldiers, for whose provisioning and pay Pompeius +manifested adequate care, and to whom in the event of victory the most +abundant rewards were promised, was throughout good, in several-- +and these precisely the most efficient--divisions even excellent +but a great part of the army consisted of newly-raised troops, +the formation and training of which, however zealously it was prosecuted, +necessarily required time. The force altogether was imposing, +but at the same time of a somewhat motley character. + +Junction of the Pompeians on the Coast of Epirus + +According to the design of the commander-in-chief the army and fleet +were to be in substance completely united by the winter of 705-706 +along the coast and in the waters of Epirus. The admiral Bibulus +had already arrived with no ships at his new headquarters, Corcyra. +On the other hand the land-army, the headquarters of which had been +during the summer at Berrhoea on the Haliacmon, had not yet come up; +the mass of it was moving slowly along the great highway +from Thessalonica towards the west coast to the future headquarters +Dyrrhachium; the two legions, which Metellus Scipio was bringing up +from Syria, remained at Pergamus in Asia for winter quarters +and were expected in Europe only towards spring. They were taking time +in fact for their movements. For the moment the ports of Epirus +were guarded, over and above the fleet, merely by their own +civic defences and the levies of the adjoining districts. + +Caesar against Pompeius + +It thus remained possible for Caesar, notwithstanding the intervention +of the Spanish war, to assume the offensive also in Macedonia; +and he at least was not slow to act. He had long ago ordered +the collection of vessels of war and transports in Brundisium, +and after the capitulation of the Spanish army and the fall +of Massilia had directed the greater portion of the select troops +employed there to proceed to that destination. The unparalleled +exertions no doubt, which were thus required by Caesar +from his soldiers, thinned the ranks more than their conflicts had done +and the mutiny of one of the four oldest legions, the ninth +on its march through Placentia was a dangerous indication +of the temper prevailing in the army; but Caesar's presence of mind +and personal authority gained the mastery, and from this quarter +nothing impeded the embarkation. But the want of ships, through which +the pursuit of Pompeius had failed in March 705, threatened also +to frustrate this expedition. The war-vessels, which Caesar +had given orders to build in the Gallic, Sicilian, and Italian ports, +were not yet ready or at any rate not on the spot; his squadron +in the Adriatic had been in the previous year destroyed at Curicta;(27) +he found at Brundisium not more than twelve ships of war +and scarcely transports enough to convey over at once the third part +of his army--of twelve legions and 10,000 cavalry--destined for Greece. +The considerable fleet of the enemy exclusively commanded +the Adriatic and especially all the harbours of the mainland +and islands on its eastern coast. Under such circumstances +the question presents itself, why Caesar did not instead +of the maritime route choose the land route through Illyria, +which relieved him from all the perils threatened by the fleet +and besides was shorter for his troops, who mostly came from Gaul, +than the route by Brundisium. It is true that the regions +of Illyria were rugged and poor beyond description; but they +were traversed by other armies not long afterwards, and this obstacle +can hardly have appeared insurmountable to the conqueror of Gaul. +Perhaps he apprehended that during the troublesome march +through Illyria Pompeius might convey his whole force over the Adriatic, +whereby their parts might come at once to be changed--with Caesar +in Macedonia, and Pompeius in Italy; although such a rapid change +was scarcely to be expected from his slow-moving antagonist. +Perhaps Caesar had decided for the maritime route on the supposition +that his fleet would meanwhile be brought into a condition +to command respect, and, when after his return from Spain +he became aware of the true state of things in the Adriatic, +it might be too late to change the plan of campaign. Perhaps-- +and, in accordance with Caesar's quick temperament always urging him +to decision, we may even say in all probability--he found himself +irresistibly tempted by the circumstance that the Epirot coast +was still at the moment unoccupied but would certainly be covered +in a few days by the enemy, to thwart once more by a bold stroke +the whole plan of his antagonist. + +Caesar Lands in Epirus +First Successes + +However this may be, on the 4th Jan. 706(28) Caesar set sail +with six legions greatly thinned by toil and sickness and 600 horsemen +from Brundisium for the coast of Epirus. It was a counterpart +to the foolhardy Britannic expedition; but at least the first throw +was fortunate. The coast was reached in the middle of the Acroceraunian +(Chimara) cliffs, at the little-frequented roadstead of Paleassa +(Paljassa). The transports were seen both from the harbour of Oricum +(creek of Avlona) where a Pompeian squadron of eighteen sail was lying, +and from the headquarters of the hostile fleet at Corcyra; +but in the one quarter they deemed themselves too weak, +in the other they were not ready to sail, so that the first freight +was landed without hindrance. While the vessels at once returned +to bring over the second, Caesar on that same evening scaled +the Acroceraunian mountains. His first successes were as great +as the surprise of his enemies. The Epirot militia nowhere +offered resistance; the important seaport towns of Oricum +and Apollonia along with a number of smaller townships were taken, +and Dyrrhachium, selected by the Pompeians as their chief arsenal +and filled with stores of all sorts, but only feebly garrisoned, +was in the utmost danger. + +Caesar Cut Off from Italy + +But the further course of the campaign did not correspond +to this brilliant beginning. Bibulus subsequently made up in some measure +for the negligence, of which he had allowed himself to be guilty, +by redoubling his exertions. He not only captured nearly thirty +of the transports returning home, and caused them with every living +thing on board to be burnt, but he also established along +the whole district of coast occupied by Caesar, from the island Sason +(Saseno) as far as the ports of Corcyra, a most careful watch, +however troublesome it was rendered by the inclement season +of the year and the necessity of bringing everything necessary +for the guard-ships, even wood and water, from Corcyra; in fact +his successor Libo--for he himself soon succumbed to the unwonted +fatigues--even blockaded for a time the port of Brundisium, +till the want of water again dislodged him from the little island +in front of it on which he had established himself. It was +not possible for Caesar's officers to convey the second portion +of the army over to their general. As little did he himself +succeed in the capture of Dyrrhachium. Pompeius learned through +one of Caesar's peace envoys as to his preparations for the voyage +to the Epirot coast, and, thereupon accelerating his march, +threw himself just at the right time into that important arsenal. +The situation of Caesar was critical. Although he extended his range +in Epirus as far as with his slight strength was at all possible, +the subsistence of his army remained difficult and precarious, +while the enemy, in possession of the magazines of Dyrrhachium +and masters of the sea, had abundance of everything. With his army +presumably little above 20,000 strong he could not offer battle +to that of Pompeius at least twice as numerous, but had to deem himself +fortunate that Pompeius went methodically to work and, instead +of immediately forcing a battle, took up his winter quarters +between Dyrrhachium and Apollonia on the right bank of the Apsus, +facing Caesar on the left, in order that after the arrival +of the legions from Pergamus in the spring he might annihilate +the enemy with an irresistibly superior force. Thus months passed. +If the arrival of the better season, which brought to the enemy +a strong additional force and the free use of his fleet, found Caesar +still in the same position, he was to all appearance lost, +with his weak band wedged in among the rocks of Epirus between +the immense fleet and the three times superior land army of the enemy; +and already the winter was drawing to a close. His sole hope +still depended on the transport fleet; that it should steal +or fight its way through the blockade was hardly to be hoped for; +but after the first voluntary foolhardiness this second venture +was enjoined by necessity. How desperate his situation appeared +to Caesar himself, is shown by his resolution--when the fleet +still came not--to sail alone in a fisherman's boat across the Adriatic +to Brundisium in order to fetch it; which, in reality, was only abandoned +because no mariner was found to undertake the daring voyage. + +Antonius Proceed to Epirus + +But his appearance in person was not needed to induce +the faithful officer who commanded in Italy, Marcus Antonius, +to make this last effort for the saving of his master. Once more +the transport fleet, with four legions and 800 horsemen on board +sailed from the harbour of Brundisium, and fortunately a strong +south wind carried it past Libo's galleys. But the same wind, +which thus saved the fleet, rendered it impossible for it to land +as it was directed on the coast of Apollonia, and compelled it +to sail past the camps of Caesar and Pompeius and to steer +to the north of Dyrrhachium towards Lissus, which town +fortunately still adhered to Caesar.(29) When it sailed +past the harbour of Dyrrhachium, the Rhodian galleys started +in pursuit, and hardly had the ships of Antonius entered +the port of Lissus when the enemy's squadron appeared before it. +But just at this moment the wind suddenly veered, and drove +the pursuing galleys back into the open sea and partly +on the rocky coast. Through the most marvellous good fortune +the landing of the second freight had also been successful. + +Junction of Caesar's Army + +Antonius and Caesar were no doubt still some four days' march +from each other, separated by Dyrrhachium and the whole army +of the enemy; but Antonius happily effected the perilous march +round about Dyrrhachium through the passes of the Graba Balkan, +and was received by Caesar, who had gone to meet him, on the right bank +of the Apsus. Pompeius, after having vainly attempted to prevent +the junction of the two armies of the enemy and to force the corps +of Antonius to fight by itself, took up a new position at Asparagium +on the river Genusus (Skumbi), which flows parallel to the Apsus +between the latter and the town of Dyrrhachium, and here remained +once more immoveable. Caesar felt himself now strong enough +to give battle; but Pompeius declined it. On the other hand Caesar +succeeded in deceiving his adversary and throwing himself unawares +with his better marching troops, just as at Ilerda, between +the enemy's camp and the fortress of Dyrrhachium on which it rested +as a basis. The chain of the Graba Balkan, which stretching +in a direction from east to west ends on the Adriatic +in the narrow tongue of land at Dyrrhachium, sends off--fourteen miles +to the east of Dyrrhachium--in a south-westerly direction a lateral +branch which likewise turns in the form of a crescent towards the sea, +and the main chain and lateral branch of the mountains enclose +between themselves a small plain extending round a cliff on the seashore. + +Pompeius now took up his camp, and, although Caesar's army kept +the land route to Dyrrhachium closed against him, he yet with the aid +of his fleet remained constantly in communication with the town +and was amply and easily provided from it with everything needful; +while among the Caesarians, notwithstanding strong detachments +to the country lying behind, and notwithstanding all the exertions +of the general to bring about an organized system of conveyance +and thereby a regular supply, there was more than scarcity, and flesh, +barley, nay even roots had very frequently to take the place +of the wheat to which they were accustomed. + +Caesar Invests the Camp of Pompeius + +As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar +undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain +on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least +to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy +and to operate with more freedom against Dyrrhachium, and if possible +to compel his opponent either to battle or to embarkation. Nearly +the half of Caesar's troops was detached to the interior; +it seemed almost Quixotic to propose with the rest virtually +to besiege an army perhaps twice as strong, concentrated in position, +and resting on the sea and the fleet. Yet Caesar's veterans by infinite +exertions invested the Pompeian camp with a chain of posts +sixteen miles long, and afterwards added, just as before Alesia, +to this inner line a second outer one, to protect themselves +against attacks from Dyrrhachium and against attempts to turn +their position which could so easily be executed with the aid +of the fleet. Pompeius attacked more than once portions +of these entrenchments with a view to break if possible the enemy's line, +but he did not attempt to prevent the investment by a battle; +he preferred to construct in his turn a number of entrenchments +around his camp, and to connect them with one another by lines. +Both sides exerted themselves to push forward their trenches +as far as possible, and the earthworks advanced but slowly amidst +constant conflicts. At the same time skirmishing went on +on the opposite side of Caesar's camp with the garrison of Dyrrhachium; +Caesar hoped to get the fortress into his power by means +of an understanding with some of its inmates, but was prevented +by the enemy's fleet. There was incessant fighting at very different +points--on one of the hottest days at six places simultaneously-- +and, as a rule, the tried valour of the Caesarians had the advantage +in these skirmishes; once, for instance, a single cohort +maintained itself in its entrenchments against four legions +for several hours, till support came up. No prominent success +was attained on either side; yet the effects of the investment came +by degrees to be oppressively felt by the Pompeians. The stopping +of the rivulets flowing from the heights into the plain compelled them +to be content with scanty and bad well-water. Still more severely felt +was the want of fodder for the beasts of burden and the horses, +which the fleet was unable adequately to remedy; numbers of them died, +and it was of but little avail that the horses were conveyed by the fleet +to Dyrrhachium, because there also they did not find sufficient fodder. + +Caesar's Lines Broken +Caesar Once More Defeated + +Pompeius could not much longer delay to free himself +from his disagreeable position by a blow struck against the enemy. +He was informed by Celtic deserters that the enemy had neglected +to secure the beach between his two chains of entrenchments +600 feet distant from each other by a cross-wall, and on this +he formed his plan. While he caused the inner line of Caesar's +entrenchments to be attacked by the legions from the camp, +and the outer line by the light troops placed in vessels +and landed beyond the enemy's entrenchments, a third division +landed in the space left between the two lines and attacked +in the rear their already sufficiently occupied defenders. +The entrenchment next to the sea was taken, and the garrison fled +in wild confusion; with difficulty the commander of the next trench +Marcus Antonius succeeded in maintaining it and in setting +a limit for the moment to the advance of the Pompeians; but; +apart from the considerable loss, the outermost entrenchment +along the sea remained in the hands of the Pompeians and the lin +was broken through. Caesar the more eagerly seized the opportunity, +which soon after presented itself, of attacking a Pompeian legion, +which had incautiously become isolated, with the bulk +of his infantry. But the attacked offered valiant resistance, +and, as the ground on which the fight took place had been several times +employed for the encampment of larger and lesser divisions +and was intersected in various directions by mounds and ditches, +Caesar's right wing along with the cavalry entirely missed its way; +instead of supporting the left in attacking the Pompeian legion, +it got into a narrow trench that led from one of the old camps +towards the river. So Pompeius, who came up in all haste +with five legions to the aid of his troops, found the two wings +of the enemy separated from each other, and one of them +in an utterly forlorn position. When the Caesarians saw him advance, +a panic seized them; the whole plunged into disorderly flight; +and, if the matter ended with the loss of 1000 of the best soldiers +and Caesar's army did not sustain a complete defeat, this was due +simply to the circumstance that Pompeius also could not freely +develop his force on the broken ground, and to the further fact that, +fearing a stratagem, he at first held back his troops. + +Consequences of Caesar's Defeats + +But, even as it was, these days were fraught with mischief. +Not only had Caesar endured the most serious losses and forfeited +at a blow his entrenchments, the result of four months of gigantic +labour; he was by the recent engagements thrown back again exactly +to the point from which he had set out. From the sea he was +more completely driven than ever, since Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus +had by a bold attack partly burnt, partly carried off, Caesar's +few ships of war lying in the port of Oricum, and had soon afterwards +also set fire to the transport fleet that was left behind in Lissus; +all possibility of bringing up fresh reinforcements to Caesar +by sea from Brundisium was thus lost. The numerous Pompeian cavalry, +now released from their confinement, poured themselves over +the adjacent country and threatened to render the provisioning +of Caesar's army, which had always been difficult, utterly impossible. +Caesar's daring enterprise of carrying on offensive operations +without ships against an enemy in command of the sea and resting +on his fleet had totally failed. On what had hitherto been +the theatre of war he found himself in presence of an impregnable +defensive position, and unable to strike a serious blow either +against Dyrrhachium or against the hostile army; on the other hand +it depended now solely on Pompeius whether he should proceed +to attack under the most favourable circumstances an antagonist +already in grave danger as to his means of subsistence. The war +had arrived at a crisis. Hitherto Pompeius had, to all appearance, +played the game of war without special plan, and only adjusted +his defence according to the exigencies of each attack; and this was +not to be censured, for the protraction of the war gave him opportunity +of making his recruits capable of fighting, of bringing up his reserves, +and of bringing more fully into play the superiority of his fleet +in the Adriatic. Caesar was beaten not merely in tactics +but also in strategy. This defeat had not, it is true, +that effect which Pompeius not without reason expected; the eminent +soldierly energy of Caesar's veterans did not allow matters +to come to an immediate and total breaking up of the army +by hunger and mutiny. But yet it seemed as if it depended solely +on his opponent by judiciously following up his victory +to reap its full fruits. + +War Prospects of Pompeius +Scipio and Calvinus + +It was for Pompeius to assume the aggressive; and he was resolved +to do so. Three different ways of rendering his victory fruitful +presented themselves to him. The first and simplest was not to desist +from assailing the vanquished army, and, if it departed, +to pursue it. Secondly, Pompeius might leave Caesar himself +and his best troops in Greece, and might cross in person, as he had +long been making preparations for doing, with the main army to Italy, +where the feeling was decidedly antimonarchical and the forces +of Caesar, after the despatch of the best troops and their brave +and trustworthy commandant to the Greek army, would not be +of very much moment. Lastly, the victor might turn inland, +effect a junction with the legions of Metellus Scipio, and attempt +to capture the troops of Caesar stationed in the interior. +The latter forsooth had, immediately after the arrival of the second +freight from Italy, on the one hand despatched strong detachments +to Aetolia and Thessaly to procure means of subsistence for his army, +and on the other had ordered a corps of two legions under Gnaeus +Domitius Calvinus to advance on the Egnatian highway towards Macedonia, +with the view of intercepting and if possible defeating in detail +the corps of Scipio advancing on the same road from Thessalonica. +Calvinus and Scipio had already approached within a few miles +of each other, when Scipio suddenly turned southward and, rapidly +crossing the Haliacmon (Inje Karasu) and leaving his baggage there +under Marcus Favonius, penetrated into Thessaly, in order to attack +with superior force Caesar's legion of recruits employed +in the reduction of the country under Lucius Cassius Longinus. +But Longinus retired over the mountains towards Ambracia to join +the detachment under Gnaeus Calvisius Sabinus sent by Caesar +to Aetolia, and Scipio could only cause him to be pursued +by his Thracian cavalry, for Calvinus threatened his reserve +left behind under Favonius on the Haliacmon with the same fate +which he had himself destined for Longinus. So Calvinus and Scipio +met again on the Haliacmon, and encamped there for a considerable time +opposite to each other. + +Caesar's Retreat from Dyrrachium to Thessaly + +Pompeius might choose among these plans; no choice was left to Caesar. +After that unfortunate engagement he entered on his retreat to Apollonia. +Pompeius followed. The march from Dyrrhachium to Apollonia +along a difficult road crossed by several rivers was no easy task +for a defeated army pursued by the enemy; but the dexterous leadership +of their general and the indestructible marching energy of the soldiers +compelled Pompeius after four days' pursuit to suspend it as useless. +He had now to decide between the Italian expedition and the march +into the interior. However advisable and attractive the former +might seem, and though various voices were raised in its favour, +he preferred not to abandon the corps of Scipio, the more especially +as he hoped by this march to get the corps of Calvinus into his hands. +Calvinus lay at the moment on the Egnatian road at Heraclea Lyncestis, +between Pompeius and Scipio, and, after Caesar had retreated +to Apollonia, farther distant from the latter than from the great army +of Pompeius; without knowledge, moreover, of the events at Dyrrhachium +and of his hazardous position, since after the successes achieved +at Dyrrhachium the whole country inclined to Pompeius and the messengers +of Caesar were everywhere seized. It was not till the enemy's +main force had approached within a few hours of him that Calvinus +learned from the accounts of the enemy's advanced posts themselves +the state of things. A quick departure in a southerly direction +towards Thessaly withdrew him at the last moment from imminent +destruction; Pompeius had to content himself with having +liberated Scipio from his position of peril. Caesar had meanwhile +arrived unmolested at Apollonia. Immediately after the disaster +of Dyrrhachium he had resolved if possible to transfer the struggle +from the coast away into the interior, with the view of getting beyond +the reach of the enemy's fleet--the ultimate cause of the failure +of his previous exertions. The march to Apollonia had only been intended +to place his wounded in safety and to pay his soldiers there, +where his depots were stationed; as soon as this was done, +he set out for Thessaly, leaving behind garrisons in Apollonia, +Oricum, and Lissus. The corps of Calvinus had also put itself +in motion towards Thessaly; and Caesar could effect a junction +with the reinforcements coming up from Italy, this time by the land-route +through Illyria--two legions under Quintus Cornificius--still more easily +in Thessaly than in Epirus. Ascending by difficult paths in the valley +of the Aous and crossing the mountain-chain which separates Epirus +from Thessaly, he arrived at the Peneius; Calvinus was likewise +directed thither, and the junction of the two armies was thus accomplished +by the shortest route and that which was least exposed to the enemy. +It took place at Aeginium not far from the source of the Peneius. +The first Thessalian town before which the now united army appeared, +Gomphi, closed its gates against it; it was quickly stormed and given up +to pillage, and the other towns of Thessaly terrified by this example +submitted, so soon as Caesar's legions merely appeared before the walls. +Amidst these marches and conflicts, and with the help of the supplies-- +albeit not too ample--which the region on the Peneius afforded, +the traces and recollections of the calamitous days through which +they had passed gradually vanished. + +The victories of Dyrrhachium had thus borne not much immediate fruit +for the victors. Pompeius with his unwieldy army and his numerous +cavalry had not been able to follow his versatile enemy +into the mountains; Caesar like Calvinus had escaped from pursuit, +and the two stood united and in full security in Thessaly. +Perhaps it would have been the best course, if Pompeius had now +without delay embarked with his main force for Italy, where success +was scarcely doubtful. But in the meantime only a division +of the fleet departed for Sicily and Italy. In the camp of the coalition +the contest with Caesar was looked on as so completely decided +by the battles of Dyrrhachium that it only remained to reap the fruits +of victory, in other words, to seek out and capture the defeated army. +Their former over-cautious reserve was succeeded by an arrogance +still less justified by the circumstances; they gave no heed +to the facts, that they had, strictly speaking, failed in the pursuit, +that they had to hold themselves in readiness to encounter +a completely refreshed and reorganized army in Thessaly, +and that there was no small risk in moving away from the sea, +renouncing the support of the fleet, and following their antagonist +to the battlefield chosen by himself. They were simply resolved +at any price to fight with Caesar, and therefore to get at him +as soon as possible and by the most convenient way. Cato took up +the command in Dyrrhachium, where a garrison was left behind +of eighteen cohorts, and in Corcyra, where 300 ships of war were left; +Pompeius and Scipio proceeded--the former, apparently, following +the Egnatian way as far as Pella and then striking into the great road +to the south, the latter from the Haliacmon through the passes +of Olympus--to the lower Peneius and met at Larisa. + +The Armies at Pharsalus + +Caesar lay to the south of Larisa in the plain--which extends +between the hill-country of Cynoscephalae and the chain of Othrys +and is intersected by a tributary of the Peneius, the Enipeus-- +on the left bank of the latter stream near the town of Pharsalus; +Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank +of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae.(30) +The entire army of Pompeius was assembled; Caesar on the other hand +still expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached +to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus +in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent +after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived +in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions +or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar +in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue +and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions +did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently +not nearly the half of their normal amount. The victorious army +of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had +provisions in abundance, while the troops of Caesar had difficulty +in keeping themselves alive and only hoped for better supplies +from the corn-harvest not far distant. The Pompeian soldiers, +who had learned in the last campaign to know war and trust their leader, +were in the best of humour. All military reasons on the side +of Pompeius favoured the view, that the decisive battle should not be +long delayed, seeing that they now confronted Caesar in Thessaly; +and the emigrant impatience of the many genteel officers and others +accompanying the army doubtless had more weight than even such reasons +in the council of war. Since the events of Dyrrhachium +these lords regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact; +already there was eager strife as to the filling up of Caesar's +supreme pontificate, and instructions were sent to Rome +to hire houses at the Forum for the next elections. When Pompeius +hesitated on his part to cross the rivulet which separated +the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army +did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation; Pompeius, +it was alleged, only delayed the battle in order to rule somewhat longer +over so many consulars and praetorians and to perpetuate his part +of Agamemnon. Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who under the impression +that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected +a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point +of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle, +when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank. + +The Battle + +Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on the 9th August 706, +almost on the same field where a hundred and fifty years before +the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the east.(31) +Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite +to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front +of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain, +covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops. +The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive, +but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, +mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, +and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry +courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, +and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed +the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance, +and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning +the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry, +had stationed behind it on the threatened flank of his right wing +some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen, +driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line, +they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly +against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion by the unexpected +and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed +from the field of battle. The victorious legionaries cut to pieces +the enemy's archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing +of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it. At the same time +Caesar's third division hitherto reserved advanced along +the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm +of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents, +broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius, +who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen +gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, +without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar. +His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook +into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss. + +Its Issue +Flight of Pompeius + +The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, +but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation +of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat +of Dyrrhachium. But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny +had learned that fortune loves to withdraw herself at certain moments +even from her favourites in order to be once more won back +through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto +only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her +when she withdrew from him; and, while in Caesar's grander nature +despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul +of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss +of despondency. As once in the war with Sertorius he had been +on the point of abandoning the office entrusted to him in presence +of his superior opponent and of departing,(33) so now, when he saw +the legions retire over the stream, he threw from him the fatal +general's scarf, and rode off by the nearest route to the sea, +to find means of embarking there. His army discouraged and leaderless-- +for Scipio, although recognized by Pompeius as colleague in supreme +command, was yet general-in-chief only in name--hoped to find protection +behind the camp-walls; but Caesar allowed it no rest; the obstinate +resistance of the Roman and Thracian guard of the camp was speedily +overcome, and the mass was compelled to withdraw in disorder +to the heights of Crannon and Scotussa, at the foot of which +the camp was pitched. It attempted by moving forward along these hills +to regain Larisa; but the troops of Caesar, heeding neither +booty nor fatigue and advancing by better paths in the plain, +intercepted the route of the fugitives; in fact, when late +in the evening the Pompeians suspended their march, their pursuers +were able even to draw an entrenched line which precluded +the fugitives from access to the only rivulet to be found +in the neighbourhood. So ended the day of Pharsalus. The enemy's army +was not only defeated, but annihilated; 15,000 of the enemy +lay dead or wounded on the field of battle, while the Caesarians missed +only 200 men; the body which remained together, amounting still +to nearly 20,000 men, laid down their arms on the morning after +the battle only isolated troops, including, it is true, the officers +of most note, sought a refuge in the mountains; of the eleven eagles +of the enemy nine were handed over to Caesar. Caesar, +who on the very day of the battle had reminded the soldiers +that they should not forget the fellow-citizen in the foe, +did not treat the captives as did Bibulus and Labienus; +nevertheless he too found it necessary now to exercise some severity. +The common soldiers were incorporated in the army, fines +or confiscations of property were inflicted on the men of better rank; +the senators and equites of note who were taken, with few exceptions, +suffered death. The time for clemency was past; the longer +the civil war lasted, the more remorseless and implacable it became. + +The Political Effects of the Battle of Pharsalus +The East Submits + +Some time elapsed, before the consequences of the 9th of August 706 +could be fully discerned. What admitted of least doubt, +was the passing over to the side of Caesar of all those +who had attached themselves to the party vanquished at Pharsalus +merely as to the more powerful; the defeat was so thoroughly +decisive, that the victor was joined by all who were not willing +or were not obliged to fight for a lost cause. All the kings, +peoples, and cities, which had hitherto been the clients of Pompeius, +now recalled their naval and military contingents and declined +to receive the refugees of the beaten party; such as Egypt, Cyrene, +the communities of Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia and Asia Minor, Rhodes, +Athens, and generally the whole east. In fact Pharnaces +king of the Bosporus pushed his officiousness so far, that on the news +of the Pharsalian battle he took possession not only of the town +of Phanagoria which several years before had been declared free +by Pompeius, and of the dominions of the Colchian princes confirmed +by him, but even of the kingdom of Little Armenia which Pompeius +had conferred on king Deiotarus. Almost the sole exceptions +to this general submission were the little town of Megara +which allowed itself to be besieged and stormed by the Caesarians, +and Juba king of Numidia, who had for long expected, and after the victory +over Curio expected only with all the greater certainty, that his kingdom +would be annexed by Caesar, and was thus obliged for better or for worse +to abide by the defeated party. + +The Aristocracy after the Battle of Pharsalus + +In the same way as the client communities submitted to the victor +of Pharsalus, the tail of the constitutional party--all who had +joined it with half a heart or had even, like Marcus Cicero +and his congeners, merely danced around the aristocracy like the witches +around the Brocken--approached to make their peace with the new monarch, +a peace accordingly which his contemptuous indulgence readily +and courteously granted to the petitioners. But the flower +of the defeated party made no compromise. All was over +with the aristocracy; but the aristocrats could never become converted +to monarchy. The highest revelations of humanity are perishable; +the religion once true may become a lie,(34) the polity once fraught +with blessing may become a curse; but even the gospel that is past +still finds confessors, and if such a faith cannot remove mountains +like faith in the living truth, it yet remains true to itself +down to its very end, and does not depart from the realm of the living +till it has dragged its last priests and its last partisans +along with it, and a new generation, freed from those shadows of the past +and the perishing, rules over a world that has renewed its youth. +So it was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic +rule had now sunk, it had once been a great political system; +the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal +had been vanquished, continued to glow--although somewhat dimmed +and dull--in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed, +and rendered a cordial understanding between the men of the old regime +and the new monarch impossible. A large portion of the constitutional +party submitted at least outwardly, and recognized the monarchy +so far as to accept pardon from Caesar and to retire as much as possible +into private life; which, however, ordinarily was not done +without the mental reservation of thereby preserving themselves +for a future change of things. This course was chiefly followed +by the partisans of lesser note; but the able Marcus Marcellus, +the same who had brought about the rupture with Caesar,(35) +was to be found among these judicious persons and voluntarily +banished himself to Lesbos. In the majority, however, of the genuine +aristocracy passion was more powerful than cool reflection; +along with which, no doubt, self-deceptions as to success +being still possible and apprehensions of the inevitable +vengeance of the victor variously co-operated. + +Cato + +No one probably formed a judgment as to the situation of affairs +with so painful a clearness, and so free from fear or hope +on his own account, as Marcus Cato. Completely convinced +that after the days of Ilerda and Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable, +and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth +and to act in accordance with it, he hesitated for a moment whether +the constitutional party ought at all to continue a war, which would +necessarily require sacrifices for a lost cause on the part of many +who did not know why they offered them. And when he resolved +to fight against the monarchy not for victory, but for a speedier +and more honourable fall, he yet sought as far as possible to draw +no one into this war, who chose to survive the fall of the republic +and to be reconciled to monarchy. He conceived that, so long +as the republic had been merely threatened, it was a right and a duty +to compel the lukewarm and bad citizen to take part in the struggle; +but that now it was senseless and cruel to compel the individual +to share the ruin of the lost republic. Not only did he himself +discharge every one who desired to return to Italy; but when the wildest +of the wild partisans, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger, insisted +on the execution of these people and of Cicero in particular: +it was Cato alone who by his moral authority prevented it. + +Pompeius + +Pompeius also had no desire for peace. Had he been a man +who deserved to hold the position which he occupied, we might suppose +him to have perceived that he who aspires to a crown cannot return +to the beaten track of ordinary existence, and that there is +accordingly no place left on earth for one who has failed. +But Pompeius was hardly too noble-minded to ask a favour, +which the victor would have been perhaps magnanimous enough +not to refuse to him; on the contrary, he was probably too mean +to do so. Whether it was that he could not make up his mind +to trust himself to Caesar, or that in his usual vague +and undecided way, after the first immediate impression of the disaster +of Pharsalus had vanished, be began again to cherish hope, Pompeius +was resolved to continue the struggle against Caesar and to seek +for himself yet another battle-field after that of Pharsalus. + +Military Effects of the Battle +The Leaders Scattered + +Thus, however much Caesar had striven by prudence and moderation +to appease the fury of his opponents and to lessen their number, +the struggle nevertheless went on without alteration. But the leading +men had almost all taken part in the fight at Pharsalus; +and, although they all escaped with the exception of Lucius Domitius +Ahenobarbus, who was killed in the flight, they were yet scattered +in all directions, so that they were unable to concert a common plan +for the continuance of the campaign. Most of them found their way, +partly through the desolate mountains of Macedonia and Illyria, +partly by the aid of the fleet, to Corcyra, where Marcus Cato +commanded the reserve left behind. Here a sort of council +of war took place under the presidency of Cato, at which Metellus Scipio, +Titus Labienus, Lucius Afranius, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger +and others were present; but the absence of the commander-in-chief +and the painful uncertainty as to his fate, as well as the internal +dissensions of the party, prevented the adoption of any common +resolution, and ultimately each took the course which seemed to him +the most suitable for himself or for the common cause. It was in fact +in a high degree difficult to say among the many straws +to which they might possibly cling which was the one +that would keep longest above water. + +Macedonia and Greece +Italy +The East +Egypt +Spain +Africa + +Macedonia and Greece were lost by the battle of Pharsalus. +It is true that Cato, who had immediately on the news of the defeat +evacuated Dyrrhachium, still held Corcyra, and Rutilius Lupus +the Peloponnesus, during a time for the constitutional party. +For a moment it seemed also as if the Pompeians would make a stand +at Patrae in the Peloponnesus; but the accounts of the advance +of Calenus sufficed to frighten them from that quarter. As little +was there any attempt to maintain Corcyra. On the Italian +and Sicilian coasts the Pompeian squadrons despatched thither +after the victories of Dyrrhachium(36) had achieved not unimportant +successes against the ports of Brundisium, Messana and Vibo, +and at Messana especially had burnt the whole fleet in course +of being fitted out for Caesar; but the ships that were thus active, +mostly from Asia Minor and Syria, were recalled by their communities +in consequence of the Pharsalian battle, so that the expedition +came to an end of itself. In Asia Minor and Syria there were +at the moment no troops of either party, with the exception +of the Bosporan army of Pharnaces which had taken possession, +ostensibly on Caesar's account, of different regions belonging +to his opponents. In Egypt there was still indeed a considerable +Roman army, formed of the troops left behind there by Gabinius(37) +and thereafter recruited from Italian vagrants and Syrian +or Cilician banditti; but it was self-evident and was soon +officially confirmed by the recall of the Egyptian vessels, +that the court of Alexandria by no means had the intention +of holding firmly by the defeated party or of even placing +its force of troops at their disposal. Somewhat more favourable +prospects presented themselves to the vanquished in the west. +In Spain Pompeian sympathies were so strong among the population, +that the Caesarians had on that account to give up the attack +which they contemplated from this quarter against Africa, +and an insurrection seemed inevitable, so soon as a leader of note +should appear in the peninsula. In Africa moreover the coalition, +or rather Juba king of Numidia, who was the true regent there, +had been arming unmolested since the autumn of 705. While the whole +east was consequently lost to the coalition by the battle +of Pharsalus, it might on the other hand continue the war +after an honourable manner probably in Spain, and certainly in Africa; +for to claim the aid of the king of Numidia, who had for a long time +been subject to the Roman community, against revolutionary fellow- +burgesses was for Romans a painful humiliation doubtless, but by no means +an act of treason. Those again who in this conflict of despair +had no further regard for right or honour, might declare themselves +beyond the pale of the law, and commence hostilities as robbers; +or might enter into alliance with independent neighbouring states, +and introduce the public foe into the intestine strife; or, lastly, +might profess monarchy with the lips and prosecute the restoration +of the legitimate republic with the dagger of the assassin. + +Hostilities of Robbers and Pirates + +That the vanquished should withdraw and renounce the new monarchy, +was at least the natural and so far the truest expression of their +desperate position. The mountains and above all the sea had been +in those times ever since the memory of man the asylum not only +of all crime, but also of intolerable misery and of oppressed right; +it was natural for Pompeians and republicans to wage a defiant war +against the monarchy of Caesar, which had ejected them, +in the mountains and on the seas, and especially natural for them +to take up piracy on a greater scale, with more compact organization, +and with more definite aims. Even after the recall of the squadrons +that had come from the east they still possessed a very considerable +fleet of their own, while Caesar was as yet virtually without +vessels of war; and their connection with the Dalmatae who had risen +in their own interest against Caesar,(38) and their control +over the most important seas and seaports, presented the most +advantageous prospects for a naval war, especially on a small scale. +As formerly Sulla's hunting out of the democrats had ended +in the Sertorian insurrection, which was a conflict first waged +by pirates and then by robbers and ultimately became a very serious war, +so possibly, if there was in the Catonian aristocracy or among +the adherents of Pompeius as much spirit and fire as in the Marian +democracy, and if there was found among them a true sea-king, +a commonwealth independent of the monarchy of Caesar and perhaps a match +for it might arise on the still unconquered sea. + +Parthian Alliance + +Far more serious disapproval in every respect is due to the idea +of dragging an independent neighbouring state into the Roman civil war +and of bringing about by its means a counter-revolution; +law and conscience condemn the deserter more severely than the robber, +and a victorious band of robbers finds its way back to a free +and well-ordered commonwealth more easily than the emigrants who are +conducted back by the public foe. Besides it was scarcely probable +that the beaten party would be able to effect a restoration in this way. +The only state, from which they could attempt to seek support, +was that of the Parthians; and as to this it was at least doubtful +whether it would make their cause its own, and very improbable +that it would fight out that cause against Caesar. + +The time for republican conspiracies had not yet come. + +Caesar Pursues Pompeius to Egypt + +While the remnant of the defeated party thus allowed themselves +to be helplessly driven about by fate, and even those +who had determined to continue the struggle knew not how or where +to do so, Caesar, quickly as ever resolving and quickly acting, +laid everything aside to pursue Pompeius--the only one of his opponents +whom he respected as an officer, and the one whose personal capture +would have probably paralyzed a half, and that perhaps +the more dangerous half, of his opponents. With a few men +he crossed the Hellespont--his single bark encountered in it a fleet +of the enemy destined for the Black Sea, and took the whole crews, +struck as with stupefaction by the news of the battle of Pharsalus, +prisoners--and as soon as the most necessary preparations were made, +hastened in pursuit of Pompeius to the east. The latter had gone +from the Pharsalian battlefield to Lesbos, whence he brought away +his wife and his second son Sextus, and had sailed onward round +Asia Minor to Cilicia and thence to Cyprus. He might have joined +his partisans at Corcyra or Africa; but repugnance toward his +aristocratic allies and the thought of the reception which awaited him +there after the day of Pharsalus and above all after his disgraceful +flight, appear to have induced him to take his own course +and rather to resort to the protection of the Parthian king +than to that of Cato. While he was employed in collecting money +and slaves from the Roman revenue-farmers and merchants in Cyprus, +and in arming a band of 2000 slaves, he received news that Antioch +had declared for Caesar and that the route to the Parthians +was no longer open. So he altered his plan and sailed to Egypt, +where a number of his old soldiers served in the army and the situation +and rich resources of the country allowed him time and opportunity +to reorganize the war. + +In Egypt, after the death of Ptolemaeus Auletes (May 703) +his children, Cleopatra about sixteen years of age and Ptolemaeus Dionysus +about ten, had ascended the throne according to their father's will +jointly, and as consorts; but soon the brother or rather his guardian +Pothinus had driven the sister from the kingdom and compelled her +to seek a refuge in Syria, whence she made preparations +to get back to her paternal kingdom. Ptolemaeus and Pothinus +lay with the whole Egyptian army at Pelusium for the sake +of protecting the eastern frontier against her, just when Pompeius +cast anchor at the Casian promontory and sent a request to the king +to allow him to land. The Egyptian court, long informed of the disaster +at Pharsalus, was on the point of refusing to receive Pompeius; +but the king's tutor Theodotus pointed out that, in that case +Pompeius would probably employ his connections in the Egyptian army +to instigate rebellion; and that it would be safer, and also preferable +with regard to Caesar, if they embraced the opportunity of making away +with Pompeius. Political reasonings of this sort did not readily fail +of their effect among the statesmen of the Hellenic world. + +Death of Pompeius + +Achillas the general of the royal troops and some of the former soldiers +of Pompeius went off in a boat to his vessel; and invited him +to come to the king and, as the water was shallow, to enter their barge. +As he was stepping ashore, the military tribune Lucius Septimius +stabbed him from behind, under the eyes of his wife and son +who were compelled to be spectators of the murder from the deck +of their vessel, without being able to rescue or revenge +(28 Sept. 706). On the same day, on which thirteen years before +he had entered the capital in triumph over Mithradates,(39) +the man, who for a generation had been called the Great and for years +had ruled Rome, died on the desert sands of the inhospitable +Casian shore by the hand of one of his old soldiers. A good officer +but otherwise of mediocre gifts of intellect and of heart, +fate had with superhuman constancy for thirty years allowed him +to solve all brilliant and toilless tasks; had permitted him to pluck +all laurels planted and fostered by others; had brought him +face to face with all the conditions requisite for obtaining +the supreme power--only in order to exhibit in his person an example +of spurious greatness, to which history knows no parallel. +Of all pitiful parts there is none more pitiful than that of passing +for more than one really is; and it is the fate of monarchy +that this misfortune inevitably clings to it, for barely once +in a thousand years does there arise among the people a man +who is a king not merely in name, but in reality. If this disproportion +between semblance and reality has never perhaps been so abruptly marked +as in Pompeius, the fact may well excite grave reflection that it was +precisely he who in a certain sense opened the series of Roman monarchs. + +Arrival of Caesar + +When Caesar following the track of Pompeius arrived in the roadstead +of Alexandria, all was already over. With deep agitation +he turned away when the murderer brought to his ship the head of the man, +who had been his son-in-law and for long years his colleague +in rule, and to get whom alive into his power he had come to Egypt. +The dagger of the rash assassin precluded an answer to the question, +how Caesar would have dealt with the captive Pompeius; but, while +the humane sympathy, which still found a place in the great soul +of Caesar side by side with ambition, enjoined that he should +spare his former friend, his interest also required that he should +annihilate Pompeius otherwise than by the executioner. +Pompeius had been for twenty years the acknowledged ruler +of Rome; a dominion so deeply rooted does not perish +with the ruler's death. The death of Pompeius did not break up +the Pompeians, but gave to them instead of an aged, incapable, +and worn-out chief in his sons Gnaeus and Sextus two leaders, +both of whom were young and active and the second was a man +of decided capacity. To the newly-founded hereditary monarchy +hereditary pretendership attached itself at once like a parasite, +and it was very doubtful whether by this change of persons Caesar +did not lose more than he gained. + +Caesar Regulates Egypt + +Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to do, +and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he would +immediately set sail and apply himself to the subjugation of Africa, +and to the huge task of organization which awaited him after the victory. +But Caesar faithful to his custom--wherever he found himself +in the wide empire--of finally regulating matters at once and in person, +and firmly convinced that no resistance was to be expected +either from the Roman garrison or from the court, being, moreover, +in urgent pecuniary embarrassment, landed in Alexandria +with the two amalgamated legions accompanying him to the number +of 3200 men and 800 Celtic and German cavalry, took up his quarters +in the royal palace, and proceeded to collect the necessary sums of money +and to regulate the Egyptian succession, without allowing himself +to be disturbed by the saucy remark of Pothinus that Caesar +should not for such petty matters neglect his own so important affairs. +In his dealing with the Egyptians he was just and even indulgent. +Although the aid which they had given to Pompeius justified +the imposing of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared +from this; and, while the arrears of the sum stipulated for in 695(40) +and since then only about half paid were remitted, there was required +merely a final payment of 10,000,000 -denarii- (400,000 pounds). +The belligerent brother and sister were enjoined immediately +to suspend hostilities, and were invited to have their dispute +investigated and decided before the arbiter. They submitted; +the royal boy was already in the palace and Cleopatra also presented +herself there. Caesar adjudged the kingdom of Egypt, agreeably +to the testament of Auletes, to the intermarried brother and sister +Cleopatra and Ptolemaeus Dionysus, and further gave unasked +the kingdom of Cyprus--cancelling the earlier act of annexation(41)-- +as the appanageof the second-born of Egypt to the younger children +of Auletes, Arsinoe and Ptolemaeus the younger. + +Insurrection in Alexandria + +But a storm was secretly preparing. Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city +as well as Rome, hardly inferior to the Italian capital in the number +of its inhabitants, far superior to it in stirring commercial spirit, +in skill of handicraft, in taste for science and art: in the citizens +there was a lively sense of their own national importance, +and, if there was no political sentiment, there was at any rate +a turbulent spirit, which induced them to indulge in their +street riots as regularly and as heartily as the Parisians +of the present day: one may conceive their feelings, when they saw +the Roman general ruling in the palace of the Lagids and their kings +accepting the award of his tribunal. Pothinus and the boy-king, +both as may be conceived very dissatisfied at once with the peremptory +requisition of old debts and with the intervention in the throne- +dispute which could only issue, as it did, in favour of Cleopatra, +sent--in order to pacify the Roman demands--the treasures +of the temples and the gold plate of the king with intentional +ostentation to be melted at the mint; with increasing +indignation the Egyptians--who were pious even to superstition, +and who rejoiced in the world-renowned magnificence of their court +as if it were a possession of their own--beheld the bare walls +of their temples and the wooden cups on the table of their king. +The Roman army of occupation also, which had been essentially +denationalized by its long abode in Egypt and the many intermarriages +between the soldiers and Egyptian women, and which moreover +numbered a multitude of the old soldiers of Pompeius and runaway +Italian criminals and slaves in its ranks, was indignant at Caesar, +by whose orders it had been obliged to suspend its action +on the Syrian frontier, and at his handful of haughty legionaries. +The tumult even at the landing, when the multitude saw the Roman axes +carried into the old palace, and the numerous cases in which +his soldiers were assassinated in the city, had taught Caesar +the immense danger in which he was placed with his small force +in presence of that exasperated multitude. But it was difficult +to return on account of the north-west winds prevailing at this season +of the year, and the attempt at embarkation might easily become +a signal for the outbreak of the insurrection; besides, it was not +the nature of Caesar to take his departure without having accomplished +his work. He accordingly ordered up at once reinforcements +from Asia, and meanwhile, till these arrived, made a show +of the utmost self-possession. Never was there greater gaiety +in his camp than during this rest at Alexandria; and while +the beautiful and clever Cleopatra was not sparing of her charms +in general and least of all towards her judge, Caesar also appeared +among all his victories to value most those won over beautiful women. +It was a merry prelude to graver scenes. Under the leadership +of Achillas and, as was afterwards proved, by the secret orders +of the king and his guardian, the Roman army of occupation +stationed in Egypt appeared unexpectedly in Alexandria; and as soon as +the citizens saw that it had come to attack Caesar, they made +common cause with the soldiers. + +Caesar in Alexandria + +With a presence of mind, which in some measure justifies +his earlier foolhardiness, Caesar hastily collected his scattered men; +seized the persons of the king and his ministers; entrenched himself +in the royal residence and the adjoining theatre; and gave orders, +as there was no time to place in safety the war-fleet stationed +in the principal harbour immediately in front of the theatre, +that it should be set on fire and that Pharos, the island +with the light-tower commanding the harbour, should be occupied +by means of boats. Thus at least a restricted position for defence +was secured, and the way was kept open to procure supplies +and reinforcements. At the same time orders were issued +to the commandant of Asia Minor as well as to the nearest +subject countries, the Syrians and Nabataeans, the Cretans +and the Rhodians, to send troops and ships in all haste to Egypt. +The insurrection at the head of which the princess Arsinoe +and her confidant the eunuch Ganymedes had placed themselves, +meanwhilehad free course in all Egypt and in the greater part +of the capital. In the streets of the latter there was daily fighting, +but without success either on the part of Caesar in gaining freer scope +and breaking through to the fresh water lake of Marea which lay behind +the town, where he could have provided himself with water and forage, +or on the part of the Alexandrians in acquiring superiority +over the besieged and depriving them of all drinking water; for, +when the Nile canals in Caesar's part of the town had been spoiled +by the introduction of salt water, drinkable water was unexpectedly found +in wells dug on the beach. + +As Caesar was not to be overcome from the landward side, +the exertions of the besiegers were directed to destroy his fleet +and cut him off from the sea by which supplies reached him. +The island with the lighthouse and the mole by which this was connected +with the mainland divided the harbour into a western and an eastern half, +which were in communication with each other through two arched openings +in the mole. Caesar commanded the island and the east harbour, +while the mole and the west harbour were in possession +of the citizens; and, as the Alexandrian fleet was burnt, +his vessels sailed in and out without hindrance. The Alexandrians, +after having vainly attempted to introduce fire-ships from the western +into the eastern harbour, equipped with the remnant of their arsenal +a small squadron and with this blocked up the way of Caesar's vessels, +when these were towing in a fleet of transports with a legion +that had arrived from Asia Minor; but the excellent Rhodian mariners +of Caesar mastered the enemy. Not long afterwards, however, +the citizens captured the lighthouse- island,(42) and from that point +totally closed the narrow and rocky mouth of the east harbour +for larger ships; so that Caesar's fleet was compelled +to take its station in the open roads before the east harbour, +and his communication with the sea hung only on a weak thread. +Caesar's fleet, attacked in that roadstead repeatedly +by the superior naval force of the enemy, could neither shun +the unequal strife, since the loss of the lighthouse-island +closed the inner harbour against it, nor yet withdraw, for the loss +of the roadstead would have debarred Caesar wholly from the sea. +Though the brave legionaries, supported by the dexterity +of the Rhodian sailors, had always hitherto decided these conflicts +in favour of the Romans, the Alexandrians renewed and augmented +their naval armaments with unwearied perseverance; the besieged +had to fight as often as it pleased the besiegers, and if the former +should be on a single occasion vanquished, Caesar would be +totally hemmed in and probably lost. + +It was absolutely necessary to make an attempt to recover +the lighthouse island. The double attack, which was made by boats +from the side of the harbour and by the war-vessels from the seaboard, +in reality brought not only the island but also the lower part +of the mole into Caesar's power; it was only at the second arch- +opening of the mole that Caesar ordered the attack to be stopped, +and the mole to be there closed towards the city by a transverse wall. +But while a violent conflict arose here around the entrenchers, +the Roman troops left the lower part of the mole adjoining +the island bare of defenders; a division of Egyptians landed there +unexpectedly, attacked in the rear the Roman soldiers and sailors +crowded together on the mole at the transverse wall, and drove +the whole mass in wild confusion into the sea. A part +were taken on board by the Roman ships; the most were drowned. +Some 400 soldiers and a still greater number of men belonging +to the fleet were sacrificed on this day; the general himself, +who had shared the fate of his men, had been obliged to seek refuge, +in his ship, and when this sank from having been overloaded with men, +he had to save himself by swimming to another. But, severe as was +the loss suffered, it was amply compensated by the recovery +of the lighthouse-island, which along with the mole as far as +the first arch-opening remained in the hands of Caesar. + +Relieving Army from Asia Minor + +At length the longed-for relief arrived. Mithradates of Pergamus, +an able warrior of the school of Mithradates Eupator, whose natural son +he claimed to be, brought up by land from Syria a motley army-- +the Ityraeans of the prince of the Libanus,(43) the Bedouins +of Jamblichus, son of Sampsiceramus,(44) the Jews under the minister +Antipater, and the contingents generally of the petty chiefs +and communities of Cilicia and Syria. From Pelusium, which Mithradates +had the fortune to occupy on the day of his arrival, he took +the great road towards Memphis with the view of avoiding +the intersected ground of the Delta and crossing the Nile +before its division; during which movement his troops received +manifold support from the Jewish peasants who were settled +in peculiar numbers in this part of Egypt. The Egyptians, +with the young king Ptolemaeus now at their head, whom Caesar +had released to his people in the vain hope of allaying the insurrection +by his means, despatched an army to the Nile, to detain Mithradates +on its farther bank. This army fell in with the enemy +even beyond Memphis at the so-called Jews'-camp, between Onion +and Heliopolis; nevertheless Mithradates, trained in the Roman fashion +of manoeuvring and encamping, amidst successful conflicts gained +the opposite bank at Memphis. Caesar, on the other hand, as soon as +he obtained news of the arrival of the relieving army, conveyed a part +of his troops in ships to the end of the lake of Marea to the west +of Alexandria, and marched round this lake and down the Nile +to meet Mithradates advancing up the river. + +Battle at the Nile + +The junction took place without the enemy attempting to hinder it. +Caesar then marched into the Delta, whither the king had retreated, +overthrew, notwithstanding the deeply cut canal in their front, +the Egyptian vanguard at the first onset, and immediately stormed +the Egyptian camp itself. It lay at the foot of a rising ground +between the Nile--from which only a narrow path separated it-- +and marshes difficult of access. Caesar caused the camp to be assailed +simultaneously from the front and from the flank on the path +along the Nile; and during this assault ordered a third detachment +to ascend unseen the heights behind the camp. The victory was complete +the camp was taken, and those of the Egyptians who did not fal +beneath the sword of the enemy were drowned in the attempt to escape +to the fleet on the Nile. With one of the boats, which sank +overladen with men, the young king also disappeared in the waters +of his native stream. + +Pacificatin of Alexandria + +Immediately after the battle Caesar advanced at the head +of his cavalry from the land-side straight into the portion +of the capital occupied by the Egyptians. In mourning attire, +with the images of their gods in their hands, the enemy received him +and sued for peace; and his troops, when they saw him return as victor +from the side opposite to that by which he had set forth, welcomed him +with boundless joy. The fate of the town, which had ventured +to thwart the plans of the master of the world and had brought him +within a hair's-breadth of destruction, lay in Caesar's hands; +but he was too much of a ruler to be sensitive, and dealt with +the Alexandrians as with the Massiliots. Caesar--pointing +to their city severely devastated and deprived of its granaries, +of its world-renowned library, and of other important public buildings +on occasion of the burning of the fleet--exhorted the inhabitants +in future earnestly to cultivate the arts of peace alone, and to heal +the wounds which they had inflicted on themselves; for the rest, +he contented himself with granting to the Jews settled in Alexandria +the same rights which the Greek population of the city enjoyed, +and with placing in Alexandria, instead of the previous Roman army +of occupation which nominally at least obeyed the kings of Egypt, +a formal Roman garrison--two of the legions besieged there, +and a third which afterwards arrived from Syria--under a commander +nominated by himself. For this position of trust a man +was purposely selected, whose birth made it impossible for him +to abuse it--Rufio, an able soldier, but the son of a freedman. +Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemaeus obtained the sovereignty +of Egypt under the supremacy of Rome; the princess Arsinoe +was carried off to Italy, that she might not serve once more as a pretext +for insurrections to the Egyptians, who were after the Oriental fashion +quite as much devoted to their dynasty as they were indifferent +towards the individual dynasts; Cyprus became again a part +of the Roman province of Cilicia. + +Course of Things during Caesar's Absence in Alexandria + +This Alexandrian insurrection, insignificant as it was in itself +and slight as was its intrinsic connection with the events +of importance in the world's history which took place at the same time +in the Roman state, had nevertheless so far a momentous influence +on them that it compelled the man, who was all in all and without whom +nothing could be despatched and nothing could be solved, +to leave his proper tasks in abeyance from October 706 up to March 707 +in order to fight along with Jews and Bedouins against a city rabble. +The consequences of personal rule began to make themselves felt. +They had the monarchy; but the wildest confusion prevailed everywhere, +and the monarch was absent. The Caesarians were for the moment, +just like the Pompeians, without superintendence; the ability +of the individual officers and, above all, accident +decided matters everywhere. + +Insubordination of Pharnaces + +In Asia Minor there was, at the time of Caesar's departure for Egypt, +no enemy. But Caesar's lieutenant there, the able Gnaeus Domitius +Calvinus, had received orders to take away again from king Pharnaces +what he had without instructions wrested from the allies of Pompeius; +and, as Pharnaces, an obstinate and arrogant despot like his father, +perseveringly refused to evacuate Lesser Armenia, no course remained +but to march against him. Calvinus had been obliged to despatch +to Egypt two out of the three legions left behind with him and formed +out of the Pharsalian prisoners of war; he filled up the gap +by one legion hastily gathered from the Romans domiciled in Pontus +and two legions of Deiotarus exercised after the Roman manner, +and advanced into Lesser Armenia. But the Bosporan army, +tried in numerous conflicts with the dwellers on the Black Sea, +showed itself more efficient than his own. + +Calvinus Defeated at Nicopolis +Victory of Caesar at Ziela + +In an engagement at Nicopolis the Pontic levy of Calvinus +was cut to pieces and the Galatian legions ran off; only the one old +legion of the Romans fought its way through with moderate loss. +Instead of conquering Lesser Armenia, Calvinus could not even prevent +Pharnaces from repossessing himself of his Pontic "hereditary states," +and pouring forth the whole vials of his horrible sultanic caprices +on their inhabitants, especially the unhappy Amisenes +(winter of 706-707). When Caesar in person arrived in Asia Minor +and intimated to him that the service which Pharnaces had rendered +to him personally by having granted no help to Pompeius could not be +taken into account against the injury inflicted on the empire, +and that before any negotiation he must evacuate the province of Pontus +and send back the property which he had pillaged, he declared himself +doubtless ready to submit; nevertheless, well knowing how good reason +Caesar had for hastening to the west, he made no serious preparations +for the evacuation. He did not know that Caesar finished +whatever he took in hand. Without negotiating further, +Caesar took with him the one legion which he brought from Alexandria +and the troops of Calvinus and Deiotarus, and advanced against +the camp of Pharnaces at Ziela. When the Bosporans saw him approach, +they boldly crossed the deep mountain-ravine which covered their front, +and charged the Romans up the hill. Caesar's soldiers +were still occupied in pitching their camp, and the ranks wavered +for a moment; but the veterans accustomed to war rapidly rallied +and set the example for a general attack and for a complete victory +(2 Aug. 707). In five days the campaign was ended--an invaluable piece +of good fortune at this time, when every hour was precious. + +Regulation of Asia Minor + +Caesar entrusted the pursuit of the king, who had gone home by way +of Sinope to Pharnaces' illegitimate brother, the brave Mithradates +of Pergamus, who as a reward for the services rendered by him in Egypt +received the crown of the Bosporan kingdom in room of Pharnaces. +In other respects the affairs of Syria and Asia Minor were peacefully +settled; Caesar's own allies were richly rewarded, those of Pompeius +were in general dismissed with fines or reprimands. Deiotarus alone, +the most powerful of the clients of Pompeius, was again confined +to his narrow hereditary domain, the canton of the Tolistobogii. +In his stead Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia was invested with +Lesser Armenia, and the tetrarchy of the Trocmi usurped by Deiotarus +was conferred on the new king of the Bosporus, who was descended +by the maternal side from one of the Galatian princely houses +as by the paternal from that of Pontus. + +War by Land and Sea in Illyria +Defeat of Gabinius +Naval Victory at Tauris + +In Illyria also, while Caesar was in Egypt, incidents of a very grave +nature had occurred. The Dalmatian coast had been for centuries +a sore blemish on the Roman rule, and its inhabitants had been +at open feud with Caesar since the conflicts around Dyrrhachium; +while the interior also since the time of the Thessalian war, +swarmed with dispersed Pompeians. Quintus Cornificius +had however, with the legions that followed him from Italy, +kept both the natives and the refugees in check and had +at the same time sufficiently met the difficult task of provisioning +the troops in these rugged districts. Even when the able +Marcus Octavius, the victor of Curicta,(45) appeared with a part +of the Pompeian fleet in these waters to wage war there against Caesar +by sea and land, Cornificius not only knew how to maintain himself, +resting for support on the ships and the harbour of the Iadestini +(Zara), but in his turn also sustained several successful engagements +at sea with the fleet of his antagonist. But when the new governor +of Illyria, the Aulus Gabinius recalled by Caesar from exile,(46) +arrived by the landward route in Illyria in the winter of 706-707 +with fifteen cohorts and 3000 horse, the system of warfare +changed. Instead of confining himself like his predecessor +to war on a small scale, the bold active man undertook at once, +in spite of the inclement season, an expedition with his whole force +to the mountains. But the unfavourable weather, the difficulty +of providing supplies, and the brave resistance of the Dalmatians, +swept away the army; Gabinius had to commence his retreat, +was attacked in the course of it and disgracefully defeated +by the Dalmatians, and with the feeble remains of his fine army +had difficulty in reaching Salonae, where he soon afterwards died. +Most of the Illyrian coast towns thereupon surrendered to the fleet +of Octavius; those that adhered to Caesar, such as Salonae +and Epidaurus (Ragusa vecchia), were so hard pressed by the fleet +at sea and by the barbarians on land, that the surrender +and capitulation of the remains of the army enclosed in Salonae +seemed not far distant. Then the commandant of the depot at Brundisium, +the energetic Publius Vatinius, in the absence of ships of war caused +common boats to be provided with beaks and manned with the soldiers +dismissed from the hospitals, and with this extemporized +war-fleet gave battle to the far superior fleet of Octavius +at the island of Tauris (Torcola between Lesina and Curzola)-- +a battle in which, as in so many cases, the bravery of the leader +and of the marines compensated for the deficiencies of the vessels, +and the Caesarians achieved a brilliant victory. Marcus Octavius +left these waters and proceeded to Africa (spring of 707); +the Dalmatians no doubt continued their resistance for years +with great obstinacy, but it was nothing beyond a local mountain-warfare. +When Caesar returned from Egypt, his resolute adjutant had already got rid +of the danger that was imminent in Illyria. + +Reorganization of the Coalition in Africa + +All the more serious was the position of things in Africa, +where the constitutional party had from the outset of the civil war +ruled absolutely and had continually augmented their power. +Down to the battle of Pharsalus king Juba had, properly speaking, +borne rule there; he had vanquished Curio, and his flying horsemen +and his numberless archers were the main strength of the army; +the Pompeian governor Varus played by his side so subordinate +a part that he even had to deliver those soldiers of Curio, +who had surrendered to him, over to the king, and had to look on +while they were executed or carried away into the interior of Numidia. +After the battle of Pharsalus a change took place. With the exception +of Pompeius himself, no man of note among the defeated party +thought of flight to the Parthians. As little did they attempt to hold +the sea with their united resources; the warfare waged by Marcus Octavius +in the Illyrian waters was isolated, and was without permanent success. +The great majority of the republicans as of the Pompeians +betook themselves to Africa, where alone an honourable +and constitutional warfare might still be waged against the usurper. +There the fragments of the army scattered at Pharsalus, the troops +that had garrisoned Dyrrhachium, Corcyra, and the Peloponnesus, +the remains of the Illyrian fleet, gradually congregated; +there the second commander-in-chief Metellus Scipio, +the two sons of Pompeius, Gnaeus and Sextus, the political leader +of the republicans Marcus Cato, the able officers Labienus, +Afranius, Petreius, Octavius and others met. If the resources +of the emigrants had diminished, their fanaticism had, if possible, +even increased. Not only did they continue to murder their prisoners +and even the officers of Caesar under flag of truce, but king Juba, +in whom the exasperation of the partisan mingled with the fury +of the half-barbarous African, laid down the maxim that in every +community suspected of sympathizing with the enemy the burgesses +ought to be extirpated and the town burnt down, and even practically +carried out this theory against some townships, such as the unfortunate +Vaga near Hadrumetum. In fact it was solely owing to the energetic +intervention of Cato that the capital of the province itself +the flourishing Utica--which, just like Carthage formerly, +had been long regarded with a jealous eye by the Numidian kings-- +did not experience the same treatment from Juba, and that measures +of precaution merely were taken against its citizens, +who certainly were not unjustly accused of leaning towards Caesar. + +As neither Caesar himself nor any of his lieutenants undertook +the smallest movement against Africa, the coalition had full time +to acquire political and military reorganization there. First of all, +it was necessary to fill up anew the place of commander-in-chief +vacant by the death of Pompeius. King Juba was not disinclined +still to maintain the position which he had held in Africa +up to the battle of Pharsalus; indeed he bore himself no longer +as a client of the Romans but as an equal ally or even as a protector, +and took it upon him, for example, to coin Roman silver money +with his name and device; nay, he even raised a claim to be the sole +wearer of purple in the camp, and suggested to the Roman commanders +that they should lay aside their purple mantle of office. +Further Metellus Scipio demanded the supreme command for himself, +because Pompeius had recognized him in the Thessalian campaign +as on a footing of equality, more from the consideration that he was +his son-in-law than on military grounds. The like demand was raised +by Varus as the governor--self-nominated, it is true--of Africa, +seeing that the war was to be waged in his province. Lastly the army +desired for its leader the propraetor Marcus Cato. Obviously +it was right. Cato was the only man who possessed the requisite +devotedness, energy, and authority for the difficult office; +if he was no military man, it was infinitely better to appoint +as commander-in-chief a non-military man who understood how to listen +to reason and make his subordinates act, than an officer of untried +capacity like Varus, or even one of tried incapacity like Metellus +Scipio. But the decision fell at length on this same Scipio, +and it was Cato himself who mainly determined that decision. +He did so, not because he felt himself unequal to such a task, +or because his vanity found its account rather in declining +than in accepting; still less because he loved or respected Scipio, +with whom he on the contrary was personally at variance, +and who with his notorious inefficiency had attained a certain importance +merely in virtue of his position as father-in-law to Pompeius; +but simply and solely because his obstinate legal formalism chose +rather to let the republic go to ruin in due course of law +than to save it in an irregular way. When after the battle of Pharsalus +he met with Marcus Cicero at Corcyra, he had offered to hand over +the command in Corcyra to the latter--who was still from the time +of his Cilician administration invested with the rank of general-- +as the officer of higher standing according to the letter of the law, +and by this readiness had driven the unfortunate advocate, +who now cursed a thousand times his laurels from the Arnanus, +almost to despair; but he had at the same time astonished all men +of any tolerable discernment. The same principles were applied now, +when something more was at stake; Cato weighed the question +to whom the place of commander-in-chief belonged, as if the matter +had reference to a field at Tusculum, and adjudged it to Scipio. +By this sentence his own candidature and that of Varus were set aside. +But he it was also, and he alone, who confronted with energy +the claims of king Juba, and made him feel that the Roman nobility +came to him not suppliant, as to the great-prince of the Parthians, +with a view to ask aid at the hands of a protector, but as entitled +to command and require aid from a subject. In the present state +of the Roman forces in Africa, Juba could not avoid lowering +his claims to some extent; although he still carried the point +with the weak Scipio, that the pay of his troops should be charged +on the Roman treasury and the cession of the province of Africa +should be assured to him in the event of victory. + +By the side of the new general-in-chief the senate of the "three hundred" +again emerged. It established its seat in Utica, and replenished +its thinned ranks by the admission of the most esteemed +and the wealthiest men of the equestrian order. + +The warlike preparations were pushed forward, chiefly through +the zeal of Cato, with the greatest energy, and every man capable +of arms, even the freedman and Libyan, was enrolled in the legions; +by which course so many hands were withdrawn from agriculture +that a great part of the fields remained uncultivated, but an imposing +result was certainly attained. The heavy infantry numbered fourteen +legions, of which two were already raised by Varus, eight others +were formed partly from the refugees, partly from the conscripts +in the province, and four were legions of king Juba armed +in the Roman manner. The heavy cavalry, consisting of the Celts +and Germans who arrived with Labienus and sundry others incorporated +in their ranks, was, apart from Juba's squadron of cavalry equipped +in the Roman style, 1600 strong. The light troops consisted +of innumerable masses of Numidians riding without bridle or rein +and armed merely with javelins, of a number of mounted bowmen, +and a large host of archers on foot. To these fell to be added Juba's +120 elephants, and the fleet of 55 sail commanded by Publius Varus +and Marcus Octavius. The urgent want of money was in some measure +remedied by a self-taxation on the part of the senate, which was +the more productive as the richest African capitalists had been +induced to enter it. Corn and other supplies were accumulated +in immense quantities in the fortresses capable of defence; +at the same time the stores were as far as possible removed +from the open townships. The absence of Caesar, the troublesome temper +of his legions, the ferment in Spain and Italy gradually raised +men's spirits, and the recollection of the Pharsalian defeat +began to give way to fresh hopes of victory. + +The time lost by Caesar in Egypt nowhere revenged itself +more severely than here. Had he proceeded to Africa immediately +after the death of Pompeius, he would have found there a weak, +disorganized, and frightened army and utter anarchy among the leaders; +whereas there was now in Africa, owing more especially to Cato's energy, +an army equal in number to that defeated at Pharsalus, under leaders +of note, and under a regulated superintendence. + +Movements in Spain + +A peculiar evil star seemed altogether to preside over this African +expedition of Caesar. He had, even before his embarkation for Egypt, +arranged in Spain and Italy various measures preliminary and preparatory +to the African war; but out of all there had sprung nothing but mischief. +From Spain, according to Caesar's arrangement, the governor +of the southern province Quintus Cassius Longinus was to cross +with four legions to Africa, to be joined there by Bogud +king of West Mauretania,(47) and to advance with him towards +Numidia and Africa. But that army destined for Africa +included in it a number of native Spaniards and two whole legions +formerly Pompeian; Pompeian sympathies prevailed in the army +as in the province, and the unskilful and tyrannical behaviour +of the Caesarian governor was not fitted to allay them. A formal revolt +took place; troops and towns took part for or against the governor; +already those who had risen against the lieutenant of Caesar +were on the point of openly displaying the banner of Pompeius; +already had Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus embarked from Africa for Spain +to take advantage of this favourable turn, when the disavowal +of the governor by the most respectable Caesarians themselves +and the interference of the commander of the northern province +suppressed just in right time the insurrection. Gnaeus Pompeius, +who had lost time on the way with a vain attempt to establish himself +in Mauretania, came too late; Gaius Trebonius, whom Caesar +after his return from the east sent to Spain to relieve Cassius +(autumn of 707), met everywhere with absolute obedience. But of course +amidst these blunders nothing was done from Spain to disturb +the organization of the republicans in Africa; indeed in consequence +of the complications with Longinus, Bogud king of West Mauretania, +who was on Caesar's side and might at least have put some obstacles +in the way of king Juba, had been called away with his troops to Spain. + +Military Revolt in Campania + +Still more critical were the occurrences among the troops +whom Caesar had caused to be collected in southern Italy, in order +to his embarkation with them for Africa. They were for the most part +the old legions, which had founded Caesar's throne in Gaul, Spain, +and Thessaly. The spirit of these troops had not been improved +by victories, and had been utterly disorganized by long repose +in Lower Italy. The almost superhuman demands which the general +made on them, and the effects of which were only too clearly apparent +in their fearfully thinned ranks, left behind even in these men of iron +a leaven of secret rancour which required only time and quiet +to set their minds in a ferment. The only man who had influence +over them, had been absent and almost unheard-of for a year; +while the officers placed over them were far more afraid of the soldiers +than the soldiers of them, and overlooked in the conquerors +of the world every outrage against those that gave them quarters, +and every breach of discipline. When the orders to embark for Sicily +arrived, and the soldier was to exchange the luxurious ease of Campania +for a third campaign certainly not inferior to those of Spain +and Thessaly in point of hardship, the reins, which had been +too long relaxed and were too suddenly tightened, snapt asunder. +The legions refused to obey till the promised presents +were paid to them, scornfully repulsed the officers sent by Caesar, +and even threw stones at them. An attempt to extinguish the incipient +revolt by increasing the sums promised not only had no success, +but the soldiers set out in masses to extort the fulfilment +of the promises from the general in the capital. Several officers, +who attempted to restrain the mutinous bands on the way, were slain. +It was a formidable danger. Caesar ordered the few soldiers +who were in the city to occupy the gates, with the view of warding off +the justly apprehended pillage at least at the first onset, +and suddenly appeared among the furious bands demanding to know +what they wanted. They exclaimed: "discharge." In a moment +the request was granted. Respecting the presents, Caesar added, +which he had promised to his soldiers at his triumph, as well as +respecting the lands which he had not promised to them +but had destined for them, they might apply to him on the day +when he and the other soldiers should triumph; in the triumph itself +they could not of course participate, as having been previously +discharged. The masses were not prepared for things taking this turn; +convinced that Caesar could not do without them for the African campaign, +they had demanded their discharge only in order that, if it were refused, +they might annex their own conditions to their service. Half unsettled +in their belief as to their own indispensableness; too awkward +to return to their object, and to bring the negotiation +which had missed its course back to the right channel; ashamed, as men, +by the fidelity with which the Imperator kept his word even to soldiers +who had forgotten their allegiance, and by his generosity +which even now granted far more than he had ever promised; +deeply affected, as soldiers, when the general presented to them +the prospect of their being necessarily mere civilian spectators +of the triumph of their comrades, and when he called them no longer +"comrades" but "burgesses,"--by this very form of address, +which from his mouth sounded so strangely, destroying as it were +with one blow the whole pride of their past soldierly career; +and, besides all this, under the spell of the man whose presence +had an irresistible power--the soldiers stood for a while mute +and lingering, till from all sides a cry arose that the general +would once more receive them into favour and again permit them +to be called Caesar's soldiers. Caesar, after having allowed himself +to be sufficiently entreated, granted the permission; but the ringleaders +in this mutiny had a third cut off from their triumphal presents. +History knows no greater psychological masterpiece, and none +that was more completely successful. + +Caesar Proceeds to Africa +Conflict at Ruspina + +This mutiny operated injuriously on the African campaign, +at least in so far as it considerably delayed the commencement of it. +When Caesar arrived at the port of Lilybaeum destined for the embarkation +the ten legions intended for Africa werefar from being +fully assembled there, and it was the experienced troops +that were farthest behind. Hardly however had six legions, +of which five were newly formed, arrived there and the necessary +war-vessels and transports come forward, when Caesar put to sea with them +(25 Dec. 707 of the uncorrected, about 8 Oct. of the Julian, calendar). +The enemy's fleet, which on account of the prevailing equinoctial gales +was drawn up on the beach at the island Aegimurus in front of the bay +of Carthage, did not oppose the passage; but, the same storms scattered +the fleet of Caesar in all directions, and, when he availed himself +of the opportunity of landing not far from Hadrumetum (Susa), +he could not disembark more than some 3000 men, mostly recruits, +and 150 horsemen. His attempt to capture Hadrumetum strongly occupied +by the enemy miscarried; but Caesar possessed himself of the two seaports +not far distant from each other, Ruspina (Monastir near Susa) +and Little Leptis. Here he entrenched himself; but his position +was so insecure, that he kept his cavalry in the ships and the ships +ready for sea and provided with a supply of water, in order to re-embark +at any moment if he should be attacked by a superior force. +This however was not necessary, for just at the right time the ships +that had been driven out of their course arrived (3 Jan. 708). +On the very following day Caesar, whose army in consequence +of the arrangements made by the Pompeians suffered from want of corn, +undertook with three legions an expedition into the interior +of the country, but was attacked on the march not far from Ruspina +by the corps which Labienus had brought up to dislodge Caesar +from the coast. As Labienus had exclusively cavalry and archers, +and Caesar almost nothing but infantry of the line, the legions +were quickly surrounded and exposed to the missiles of the enemy, +without being able to retaliate or to attack with success. No doubt +the deploying of the entire line relieved once more the flanks, +and spirited charges saved the honour of their arms; but a retreat +was unavoidable, and had Ruspina not been so near, the Moorish javelin +would perhaps have accomplished the same result here +as the Parthian bow at Carrhae. + +Caesar's Position at Ruspina + +Caesar, whom this day had fully convinced of the difficulty +of the impending war, would not again expose his soldiers untried +and discouraged by the new mode of fighting to any such attack, +but awaited the arrival of his veteran legions. The interval +was employed in providing some sort of compensation against +the crushing superiority of the enemy in the weapons of distant warfare. +The incorporation of the suitable men from the fleet as light horsemen +or archers in the land-army could not be of much avail. The diversions +which Caesar suggested were somewhat more effectual. He succeeded +in bringing into arms against Juba the Gaetulian pastoral tribes +wandering on the southern slope of the great Atlas towards the Sahara; +for the blows of the Marian and Sullan period had reached even to them, +and their indignation against Pompeius, who had at that time made them +subordinate to the Numidian kings,(48) rendered them from the outset +favourably inclined to the heir of the mighty Marius of whose Jugurthine +campaign they had still a lively recollection. The Mauretanian kings, +Bogud in Tingis and Bocchus in Iol, were Juba's natural rivals +and to a certain extent long since in alliance with Caesar. +Further, there still roamed in the border-region between the kingdoms +of Juba and Bocchus the last of the Catilinarians, that Publius Sittius +of Nuceria,(49) who eighteen years before had become converted +from a bankrupt Italian merchant into a Mauretanian leader +of free bands, and since that time had procured for himself +a name and a body of retainers amidst the Libyan quarrels. +Bocchus and Sittius united fell on the Numidian land, and occupied +the important town of Cirta; and their attack, as well as +that of the Gaetulians, compelled king Juba to send a portion +of his troops to his southern and western frontiers. + +Caesar's situation, however, continued sufficiently unpleasant. +His army was crowded together within a space of six square miles; +though the fleet conveyed corn, the want of forage was as much felt +by Caesar's cavalry as by those of Pompeius before Dyrrhachium. +The light troops of the enemy remained notwithstanding all the exertions +of Caesar so immeasurably superior to his, that it seemed almost +impossible to carry offensive operations into the interior +even with veterans. If Scipio retired and abandoned the coast towns, +he might perhaps achieve a victory like those which the vizier of Orodes +had won over Crassus and Juba over Curio, and he could at least +endlessly protract the war. The simplest consideration suggested +this plan of campaign; even Cato, although far from a strategist, +counselled its adoption, and offered at the same time to cross +with a corps to Italy and to call the republicans there to arms-- +which, amidst the utter confusion in that quarter, might very well +meet with success. But Cato could only advise, not command; Scipio +the commander-in-chief decided that the war should be carried on +in the region of the coast. This was a blunder, not merely inasmuch as +they thereby dropped a plan of war promising a sure result, but also +inasmuch as the region to which they transferred the war was in dangerous +agitation, and a good part of the army which they opposed to Caesar +was likewise in a troublesome temper. The fearfully strict levy, +the carrying off of the supplies, the devastating of the smaller +townships, the feeling in general that they were being sacrificed +for a cause which from the outset was foreign to them +and was already lost, had exasperated the native population against +the Roman republicans fighting out their last struggle of despair +on African soil; and the terrorist proceedings of the latter against +all communities that were but suspected of indifference,(50) +had raised this exasperation to the most fearful hatred. +The African towns declared, wherever they could venture to do so, +for Caesar; among the Gaetulians and the Libyans, who served in numbers +among the light troops and even in the legions, desertion was spreading. +But Scipio with all the obstinacy characteristic of folly persevered +in his plan, marched with all his force from Utica to appear +before the towns of Ruspina and Little Leptis occupied by Caesar, +furnished Hadrumetum to the north and Thapsus to the south +(on the promontory Ras Dimas) with strong garrisons, and in concert +with Juba, who likewise appeared before Ruspina with all his troops +not required by the defence of the frontier, offered battle repeatedly +to the enemy. But Caesar was resolved to wait for his veteran legions. +As these one after another arrived and appeared on the scene +of strife, Scipio and Juba lost the desire to risk a pitched battle, +and Caesar had no means of compelling them to fight owing +to their extraordinary superiority in light cavalry. Nearly two months +passed away in marches and skirmishes in the neighbourhood +of Ruspina and Thapsus, which chiefly had relation to the finding out +of the concealed store-pits (silos) common in the country, +and to the extension of posts. Caesar, compelled by the enemy's +horsemen to keep as much as possible to the heights or even to cover +his flanks by entrenched lines, yet accustomed his soldiers +gradually during this laborious and apparently endless warfare +to the foreign mode of fighting. Friend and foe hardly recognized +the rapid general in the cautious master of fence who trained his men +carefully and not unfrequently in person; and they became almost puzzled +by the masterly skill which displayed itself as conspicuously +in delay as in promptitude of action. + +Battle at Thapsus + +At last Caesar, after being joined by his last reinforcements, +made a lateral movement towards Thapsus. Scipio had, as we have said, +strongly garrisoned this town, and thereby committed the blunder +of presenting to his opponent an object of attack easy to be seized; +to this first error he soon added the second still less excusable +blunder of now for the rescue of Thapsus giving the battle, +which Caesar had wished and Scipio had hitherto rightly refused, +on ground which placed the decision in the hands of the infantry +of the line. Immediately along the shore, opposite to Caesar's camp, +the legions of Scipio and Juba appeared, the fore ranks ready +for fighting, the hinder ranks occupied in forming an entrenched camp; +at the same time the garrison of Thapsus prepared for a sally. +Caesar's camp-guard sufficed to repulse the latter. His legions, +accustomed to war, already forming a correct estimate of the enemy +from the want of precision in their mode of array and their +ill-closed ranks, compelled--while yet the entrenching was going forward +on that side, and before even the general gave the signal-- +a trumpeter to sound for the attack, and advanced along the whole line +headed by Caesar himself, who, when he saw his men advance +without waiting for his orders, galloped forward to lead them +against the enemy. The right wing, in advance of the other divisions, +frightened the line of elephants opposed to it--this was +the last great battle in which these animals were employed-- +by throwing bullets and arrows, so that they wheeled round +on their own ranks. The covering force was cut down, the left wing +of the enemy was broken, and the whole line was overthrown. +The defeat was the more destructive, as the new camp of the beaten army +was not yet ready, and the old one was at a considerable distance; +both were successively captured almost without resistance. The mass +of the defeated army threw away their arms and sued for quarter; +but Caesar's soldiers were no longer the same who had readily refrained +from battle before Ilerda and honourably spared the defenceless +at Pharsalus. The habit of civil war and the rancour left behind +by the mutiny asserted their power in a terrible manner +on the battlefield of Thapsus. If the hydra with which they fought +always put forth new energies, if the army was hurried from Italy +to Spain, from Spain to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Africa, and if +the repose ever more eagerly longed for never came, the soldier sought, +and not wholly without cause, the reason of this state of things +in the unseasonable clemency of Caesar. He had sworn to retrieve +the general's neglect, and remained deaf to the entreaties +of his disarmed fellow-citizens as well as to the commands of Caesar +and the superior officers. The fifty thousand corpses that covered +the battle-field of Thapsus, among whom were several Caesarian officers +known as secret opponents of the new monarchy, and therefore +cut down on this occasion by their own men, showed how the soldier +procures for himself repose. The victorious army on the other hand +numbered no more than fifty dead (6 April 708). + +Cato in Utica +His Death + +There was as little a continuance of the struggle in Africa +after the battle of Thapsus, as there had been a year and a half before +in the east after the defeat of Pharsalus. Cato as commandant +of Utica convoked the senate, set forth how the means of defence stood, +and submitted it to the decision of those assembled whether +they would yield or defend themselves to the last man-- +only adjuring them to resolve and to act not each one for himself, +but all in unison. The more courageous view found several supporters; +it was proposed to manumit on behalf of the state the slaves +capable of arms, which however Cato rejected as an illegal encroachment +on private property, and suggested in its stead a patriotic appeal +to the slave-owners. But soon this fit of resolution in an assembly +consisting in great part of African merchants passed off, and they agreed +to capitulate. Thereupon when Faustus Sulla, son of the regent, +and Lucius Afranius arrived in Utica with a strong division +of cavalry from the field of battle, Cato still made an attempt +to hold the town through them; but he indignantly rejected their demand +to let them first of all put to death the untrustworthy citizens of Utica +en masse, and chose to let the last stronghold of the republicans fall +into the hands of the monarch without resistance rather than to profane +the last moments of the republic by such a massacre. After he had-- +partly by his authority, partly by liberal largesses--checked so far +as he could the fury of the soldiery against the unfortunate Uticans; +after he had with touching solicitude furnished to those who preferred +not to trust themselves to Caesar's mercy the means for flight, +and to those who wished to remain the opportunity of capitulating +under the most tolerable conditions, so far as his ability reached; +and after having thoroughly satisfied himself that he could render +to no one any farther aid, he held himself released from his command, +retired to his bedchamber, and plunged his sword into his breast. + +The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death + +Of the other fugitive leaders only a few escaped. The cavalry +that fled from Thapsus encountered the bands of Sittius, +and were cut down or captured by them; their leaders Afranius and Faustus +were delivered up to Caesar, and, when the latter did not order +their immediate execution, they were slain in a tumult by his veterans. +The commander-in-chief Metellus Scipio with the fleet of the defeated +party fell into the power of the cruisers of Sittius and, +when they were about to lay hands on him, stabbed himself. King Juba, +not unprepared for such an issue, had in that case resolved to die +in a way which seemed to him befitting a king, and had caused +an enormous funeral pile to be prepared in the market-place +of his city Zama, which was intended to consume along with his body +all his treasures and the dead bodies of the whole citizens of Zama. +But the inhabitants of the town showed no desire to let themselves +be employed by way of decoration for the funeral rites +of the African Sardanapalus; and they closed the gates against +the king when fleeing from the battle-field he appeared, accompanied +by Marcus Petreius, before their city. The king--one of those natures +that become savage amidst a life of dazzling and insolent enjoyment, +and prepare for themselves even out of death an intoxicating feast-- +resorted with his companion to one of his country houses, +caused a copious banquet to be served up, and at the close +of the feast challenged Petreius to fight him to death in single combat. +It was the conqueror of Catilina that received his death at the hand +of the king; the latter thereupon caused himself to be stabbed +by one of his slaves. The few men of eminence that escaped, +such as Labienus and Sextus Pompeius, followed the elder brother +of the latter to Spain and sought, like Sertorius formerly, +a last refuge of robbers and pirates in the waters and the mountains +of that still half-independent land. + +Regulation of Africa + +Without resistance Caesar regulated the affairs of Africa. +As Curio had already proposed, the kingdom of Massinissa was broken up. +The most eastern portion or region of Sitifis was united with the kingdom +of Bocchus king of East Mauretania,(51) and the faithful king Bogud +of Tingis was rewarded with considerable gifts. Cirta (Constantine) +and the surrounding district, hitherto possessed under the supremacy +of Juba by the prince Massinissa and his son Arabion, were conferred +on the condottiere Publius Sittius that he might settle +his half-Roman bands there;(52) but at the same time this district, +as well as by far the largest and most fertile portion +of the late Numidian kingdom, were united as "New Africa" +with the older province of Africa, and the defence of the country +along the coast against the roving tribes of the desert, +which the republic had entrusted to a client-king, was imposed +by the new ruler on the empire itself. + +The Victory of Monarchy + +The struggle, which Pompeius and the republicans had undertaken +against the monarchy of Caesar, thus terminated, after having lasted +for four years, in the complete victory of the new monarch. +No doubt the monarchy was not established for the first time +on the battle-fields of Pharsalus and Thapsus; it might already +be dated from the moment when Pompeius and Caesar in league +had established their joint rule and overthrown the previous +aristocratic constitution. Yet it was only those baptisms of blood +of the ninth August 706 and the sixth April 708 that set aside +the conjoint rule so opposed to the nature of absolute dominion, +and conferred fixed status and formal recognition on the new monarchy. +Risings of pretenders and republican conspiracies might ensue and provoke +new commotions, perhaps even new revolutions and restorations; +but the continuity of the free republic that had been uninterrupted +for five hundred years was broken through, and monarchy was established +throughout the range of the wide Roman empire by the legitimacy +of accomplished fact. + +The End of the Republic + +The constitutional struggle was at an end; and that it was so, +was proclaimed by Marcus Cato when he fell on his sword at Utica. +For many years he had been the foremost man in the struggle +of the legitimate republic against its oppressors; he had continued it, +long after he had ceased to cherish any hope of victory. +But now the struggle itself had become impossible; the republic +which Marcus Brutus had founded was dead and never to be revived; +what were the republicans now to do on the earth? The treasure +was carried off, the sentinels were thereby relieved; who could +blame them if they departed? There was more nobility, and above all +more judgment, in the death of Cato than there had been in his life. +Cato was anything but a great man; but with all that short-sightedness, +that perversity, that dry prolixity, and those spurious phrases +which have stamped him, for his own and for all time, +as the ideal of unreflecting republicanism and the favourite of all +who make it their hobby, he was yet the only man who honourably +and courageously championed in the last struggle the great system +doomed to destruction. Just because the shrewdest lie feels itself +inwardly annihilated before the simple truth, and because +all the dignity and glory of human nature ultimately depend +not on shrewdness but on honesty, Cato has played a greater part +in history than many men far superior to him in intellect. +It only heightens the deep and tragic significance of his death +that he was himself a fool; in truth it is just because Don Quixote +is a fool that he is a tragic figure. It is an affecting fact, +that on that world-stage, on which so many great and wise men +had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue. +He too died not in vain. It was a fearfully striking protest +of the republic against the monarchy, that the last republican went +as the first monarch came--a protest which tore asunder like gossamer +all that so-called constitutional character with which Caesar +invested his monarchy, and exposed in all its hypocritical falsehood +the shibboleth of the reconciliation of all parties, under the aegis +of which despotism grew up. The unrelenting warfare which the ghost +of the legitimate republic waged for centuries, from Cassius +and Brutus down to Thrasea and Tacitus, nay, even far later, +against the Caesarian monarchy--a warfare of plots and of literature-- +was the legacy which the dying Cato bequeathed to his enemies. +This republican opposition derived from Cato its whole attitude-- +stately, transcendental in its rhetoric, pretentiously rigid, +hopeless, and faithful to death; and accordingly it began +even immediately after his death to revere as a saint the man +who in his lifetime was not unfrequently its laughing-stock +and its scandal. But the greatest of these marks of respect +was the involuntary homage which Caesar rendered to him, when he made +an exception to the contemptuous clemency with which he was wont +to treat his opponents, Pompeians as well as republicans, +in the case of Cato alone, and pursued him even beyond the grave +with that energetic hatred which practical statesmen are wont to feel +towards antagonists opposing them from a region of ideas +which they regard as equally dangerous and impracticable. + + + + +Chapter XI + +The Old Republic and the New Monarchy + +Character of Caesar + +The new monarch of Rome, the first ruler over the whole domain +of Romano-Hellenic civilization, Gaius Julius Caesar, was in his +fifty-sixth year (born 12 July 652?) when the battle at Thapsus, +the last link in a long chain of momentous victories, placed +the decision as to the future of the world in his hands. Few men +have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Caesar-- +the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced +by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the path +that he marked out for it until its sun went down. Sprung from one +of the oldest noble families of Latium--which traced back its lineage +to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact +to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations--he spent the years +of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch +were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as +the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, +had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, +had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself +initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles +pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as +into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. +But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even +these dissipated and flighty courses; Caesar retained both +his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and of heart unimpaired. +In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, +and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity +of his journeys, which usually for the sake of gaining time +were performed by night--a thorough contrast to the procession-like +slowness with which Pompeius moved from one place to another-- +was the astonishment of his contemporaries and not the least +among the causes of his success. The mind was like the body. +His remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in the precision +and practicability of all his arrangements, even where he gave orders +without having seen with his own eyes. His memory was matchless, +and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously +with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, +and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, +he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia +(his father having died early); to his wives and above all +to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, +which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. +With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high +and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity, +with each after his kind. As he himself never abandoned +any of his partisans after the pusillanimous and unfeeling manner +of Pompeius, but adhered to his friends--and that not merely +from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, +several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, +even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. + +If in a nature so harmoniously organized any one aspect of it +may be singled out as characteristic, it is this--that he stood aloof +from all ideology and everything fanciful. As a matter of course, +Caesar was a man of passion, for without passion there is no genius; +but his passion was never stronger than he could control. +He had had his season of youth, and song, love, and wine had taken +lively possession of his spirit; but with him they did not penetrate +to the inmost core of his nature. Literature occupied him long +and earnestly; but, while Alexander could not sleep for thinking +of the Homeric Achilles, Caesar in his sleepless hours mused +on the inflections of the Latin nouns and verbs. He made verses, +as everybody then did, but they were weak; on the other hand +he was interested in subjects of astronomy and natural science. +While wine was and continued to be with Alexander the destroyer of care, +the temperate Roman, after the revels of his youth were over, +avoided it entirely. Around him, as around all those +whom the full lustre of woman's love has dazzled in youth, +fainter gleams of it continued imperishably to linger; +even in later years he had love-adventures and successes with women, +and he retained a certain foppishness in his outward appearance, +or, to speak more correctly, the pleasing consciousness +of his own manly beauty. He carefully covered the baldness, +which he keenly felt, with the laurel chaplet that he wore in public +in his later years, and he would doubtless have surrendered +some of his victories, if he could thereby have brought back +his youthful locks. But, however much even when monarch +he enjoyed the society of women, he only amused himself +with them, and allowed them no manner of influence over him; +even his much-censured relation to queen Cleopatra was only contrived +to mask a weak point in his political position.(1) Caesar was thoroughly +a realist and a man of sense; and whatever he undertook +and achieved was pervaded and guided by the cool sobriety +which constitutes the most marked peculiarity of his genius. +To this he owed the power of living energetically in the present, +undisturbed either by recollection or by expectation; to this +he owed the capacity of acting at any moment with collected vigour, +and of applying his whole genius even to the smallest +and most incidental enterprise; to this he owed the many-sided power +with which he grasped and mastered whatever understanding can comprehend +and will can compel; to this he owed the self-possessed ease +with which he arranged his periods as well as projected his campaigns; +to this he owed the "marvellous serenity" which remained +steadily with him through good and evil days; to this he owed +the complete independence, which admitted of no control by favourite +or by mistress, or even by friend. It resulted, moreover, +from this clearness of judgment that Caesar never formed to himself +illusions regarding the power of fate and the ability of man; +in his case the friendly veil was lifted up, which conceals from man +the inadequacy of his working. Prudently as he laid his plans +and considered all possibilities, the feeling was never absent +from his breast that in all things fortune, that is to say accident, +must bestow success; and with this may be connected the circumstance +that he so often played a desperate game with destiny, and in particular +again and again hazarded his person with daring indifference. +As indeed occasionally men of predominant sagacity betake themselves +to a pure game of hazard, so there was in Caesar's rationalism a point +at which it came in some measure into contact with mysticism. + +Caesar as a Statesman + +Gifts such as these could not fail to produce a statesman. +From early youth, accordingly, Caesar was a statesman in the deepest +sense of the term, and his aim was the highest which man is allowed +to propose to himself--the political, military, intellectual, +and moral regeneration of his own deeply decayed nation, +and of the still more deeply decayed Hellenic nation intimately akin +to his own. The hard school of thirty years' experience changed +his views as to the means by which this aim was to be reached; his aim +itself remained the same in the times of his hopeless humiliation +and of his unlimited plenitude of power, in the times when as demagogue +and conspirator he stole towards it by paths of darkness, +and in those when, as joint possessor of the supreme power +and then as monarch, he worked at his task in the full light of day +before the eyes of the world. All the measures of a permanent kind +that proceeded from him at the most various times assume their +appropriate places in the great building-plan. We cannot +therefore properly speak of isolated achievements of Caesar; +he did nothing isolated. With justice men commend Caesar the orator +for his masculine eloquence, which, scorning all the arts +of the advocate, like a clear flame at once enlightened and warmed. +With justice men admire in Caesar the author the inimitable simplicity +of the composition, the unique purity and beauty of the language. +With justice the greatest masters of war of all times have praised +Caesar the general, who, in a singular degree disregarding routine +and tradition, knew always how to find out the mode of warfare +by which in the given case the enemy was conquered, and which +was thus in the given case the right one; who with the certainty +of divination found the proper means for every end; who after defeat +stood ready for battle like William of Orange, and ended the campaign +invariably with victory; who managed that element of warfare, +the treatment of which serves to distinguish military genius +from the mere ordinary ability of an officer--the rapid movement +of masses--with unsurpassed perfection, and found the guarantee +of victory not in the massiveness of his forces but in the celerity +of their movements, not in long preparation but in rapid +and daring action even with inadequate means. But all these were +with Caesar mere secondary matters; he was no doubt a great orator, +author, and general, but he became each of these merely because +he was a consummate statesman. The soldier more especially +played in him altogether an accessory part, and it is +one of the principal peculiarities by which he is distinguished +from Alexander, Hannibal, and Napoleon, that he began his political +activity not as an officer, but as a demagogue. According +to his original plan he had purposed to reach his object, like Pericles +and Gaius Gracchus, without force of arms, and throughout eighteen years +he had as leader of the popular party moved exclusively amid +political plans and intrigues--until, reluctantly convinced +of the necessity for a military support, he, when already forty years +of age, put himself at the head of an army. It was natural +that he should even afterwards remain still more statesman +than general--just like Cromwell, who also transformed himself +from a leader of opposition into a military chief and democratic king, +and who in general, little as the prince of Puritans seems to resemble +the dissolute Roman, is yet in his development as well as +in the objects which he aimed at and the results which he achieved +of all statesmen perhaps the most akin to Caesar. Even in his mode +of warfare this improvised generalship may still be recognized; +the enterprises of Napoleon against Egypt and against England +do not more clearly exhibit the artillery-lieutenant who had risen +by service to command than the similar enterprises of Caesar exhibit +the demagogue metamorphosed into a general. A regularly trained +officer would hardly have been prepared, through political +considerations of a not altogether stringent nature, to set aside +the best-founded military scruples in the way in which Caesar did +on several occasions, most strikingly in the case of his landing +in Epirus. Several of his acts are therefore censurable +from a military point of view; but what the general loses, +the statesman gains. The task of the statesman is universal +in its nature like Caesar's genius; if he undertook things +the most varied and most remote one from another, they had all +without exception a bearing on the one great object to which +with infinite fidelity and consistency he devoted himself; +and of the manifold aspects and directions of his great activity +he never preferred one to another. Although a master of the art of war, +he yet from statesmanly considerations did his utmost to avert +civil strife and, when it nevertheless began, to earn laurels +stained as little as possible by blood. Although the founder +of a military monarchy, he yet, with an energy unexampled in history, +allowed no hierarchy of marshals or government of praetorians +to come into existence. If he had a preference for any one form +of services rendered to the state, it was for the sciences and arts +of peace rather than for those of war. + +The most remarkable peculiarity of his action as a statesman +was its perfect harmony. In reality all the conditions +for this most difficult of all human functions were united in Caesar. +A thorough realist, he never allowed the images of the past +or venerable tradition to disturb him; for him nothing was of value +in politics but the living present and the law of reason, just as +in his character of grammarian he set aside historical and antiquarian +research and recognized nothing but on the one hand the living +-usus loquendi- and on the other hand the rule of symmetry. +A born ruler, he governed the minds of men as the wind drives the clouds, +and compelled the most heterogeneous natures to place themselves +at his service--the plain citizen and the rough subaltern, the genteel +matrons of Rome and the fair princesses of Egypt and Mauretania, +the brilliant cavalry-officer and the calculating banker. +His talent for organization was marvellous; no statesman has ever +compelled alliances, no general has ever collected an army +out of unyielding and refractory elements with such decision, +and kept them together with such firmness, as Caesar displayed +in constraining and upholding his coalitions and his legions; +never did regent judge his instruments and assign each to the place +appropriate for him with so acute an eye. + +He was monarch; but he never played the king. Even when absolute +lord of Rome, he retained the deportment of the party-leader; +perfectly pliant and smooth, easy and charming in conversation, +complaisant towards every one, it seemed as if he wished to be +nothing but the first among his peers. Caesar entirely avoided +the blunder into which so many men otherwise on an equality with him +have fallen, of carrying into politics the military tone of command; +however much occasion his disagreeable relations with the senate +gave for it, he never resorted to outrages such as was that +of the eighteenth Brumaire. Caesar was monarch; but he was never +seized with the giddiness of the tyrant. He is perhaps the only one +among the mighty ones of the earth, who in great matters and little +never acted according to inclination or caprice, but always +without exception according to his duty as ruler, and who, +when he looked back on his life, found doubtless erroneous calculations +to deplore, but no false step of passion to regret. There is nothing +in the history of Caesar's life, which even on a small scale(2) +can be compared with those poetico-sensual ebullitions--such as +the murder of Kleitos or the burning of Persepolis--which the history +of his great predecessor in the east records. He is, in fine, +perhaps the only one of those mighty ones, who has preserved +to the end of his career the statesman's tact of discriminating between +the possible and the impossible, and has not broken down in the task +which for greatly gifted natures is the most difficult of all-- +the task of recognizing, when on the pinnacle of success, +its natural limits. What was possible he performed, and never left +the possible good undone for the sake of the impossible better, +never disdained at least to mitigate by palliatives evils +that were incurable. But where he recognized that fate had spoken, +he always obeyed. Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at Moscow, +turned back because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant +at destiny for bestowing even on its favourites merely limited successes; +Caesar turned back voluntarily on the Thames and on the Rhine; +and thought of carrying into effect even at the Danube and the Euphrates +not unbounded plans of world-conquest, but merely well-considered +frontier-regulations. + +Such was this unique man, whom it seems so easy and yet is so infinitely +difficult to describe. His whole nature is transparent clearness; +and tradition preserves more copious and more vivid information +about him than about any of his peers in the ancient world. +Of such a personage our conceptions may well vary in point +of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, strictly speaking, +different; to every not utterly perverted inquirer the grand figure +has exhibited the same essential features, and yet no one +has succeeded in reproducing it to the life. The secret lies +in its perfection. In his character as a man as well as in his place +in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts +of existence meet and balance each other. Of mighty creative power +and yet at the same time of the most penetrating judgment; +no longer a youth and not yet an old man; of the highest energy of will +and the highest capacity of execution; filled with republican ideals +and at the same time born to be a king; a Roman in the deepest essence +of his nature, and yet called to reconcile and combine in himself +as well as in the outer world the Roman and the Hellenic +types of culture--Caesar was the entire and perfect man. +Accordingly we miss in him more than in any other historical personage +what are called characteristic features, which are in reality +nothing else than deviations from the natural course of human development. +What in Caesar passes for such at the first superficial glance is, +when more closely observed, seen to be the peculiarity +not of the individual, but of the epoch of culture or of the nation; +his youthful adventures, for instance, were common to him +with all his more gifted contemporaries of like position, +his unpoetical but strongly logical temperament was the temperament +of Romans in general. It formed part also of Caesar's full humanity +that he was in the highest degree influenced by the conditions +of time and place; for there is no abstract humanity-- +the living man cannot but occupy a place in a given nationality +and in a definite line of culture. Caesar was a perfect man +just because he more than any other placed himself amidst +the currents of his time, and because he more than any other possessed +the essential peculiarity of the Roman nation--practical aptitude +as a citizen--in perfection: for his Hellenism in fact was only +the Hellenism which had been long intimately blended with the Italian +nationality. But in this very circumstance lies the difficulty, +we may perhaps say the impossibility, of depicting Caesar to the life. +As the artist can paint everything save only consummate beauty, +so the historian, when once in a thousand years he encounters +the perfect, can only be silent regarding it. For normality admits +doubtless of being expressed, but it gives us only the negative notion +of the absence of defect; the secret of nature, whereby +in her most finished manifestations normality and individuality +are combined, is beyond expression. Nothing is left for us +but to deem those fortunate who beheld this perfection, and to gain +some faint conception of it from the reflected lustre which rests +imperishably on the works that were the creation of this great nature. +These also, it is true, bear the stamp of the time. The Roman hero +himself stood by the side of his youthful Greek predecessor +not merely as an equal, but as a superior; but the world had meanwhile +become old and its youthful lustre had faded. The action of Caesar +was no longer, like that of Alexander, a joyous marching onward +towards a goal indefinitely remote; he built on, and out of, ruins, +and was content to establish himself as tolerably and as securely +as possible within the ample but yet definite bounds once assigned +to him. With reason therefore the delicate poetic tact +of the nations has not troubled itself about the unpoetical Roman, +and on the other hand has invested the son of Philip with all +the golden lustre of poetry, with all the rainbow hues of legend. +But with equal reason the political life of the nations has during +thousands of years again and again reverted to the lines +which Caesar drew; and the fact, that the peoples to whom the world +belongs still at the present day designate the highest of their monarchs +by his name, conveys a warning deeply significant and, unhappily, +fraught with shame. + +Setting Aside of the Old Parties + +If the old, in every respect vicious, state of things was to be +successfully got rid of and the commonwealth was to be renovated, +it was necessary first of all that the country should be +practically tranquillized and that the ground should be cleared +from the rubbish with which since the recent catastrophe it was +everywhere strewed. In this work Caesar set out from the principle +of the reconciliation of the hitherto subsisting parties or, +to put it more correctly--for, where the antagonistic principles +are irreconcilable, we cannot speak of real reconciliation-- +from the principle that the arena, on which the nobility and the populace +had hitherto contended with each other, was to be abandoned +by both parties, and that both were to meet together on the ground +of the new monarchical constitution. First of all therefore +all the older quarrels of the republican past were regarded as done away +for ever and irrevocably. While Caesar gave orders that the statues +of Sulla which had been thrown down by the mob of the capital +on the news of the battle of Pharsalus should be re-erected, and thus +recognized the fact that it became history alone to sit in judgment +on that great man, he at the same time cancelled the last remaining +effects of Sulla's exceptional laws, recalled from exile those +who had been banished in the times of the Cinnan and Sertorian troubles, +and restored to the children of those outlawed by Sulla +their forfeited privilege of eligibility to office. In like manner +all those were restored, who in the preliminary stage of the recent +catastrophe had lost their seat in the senate or their civil existence +through sentence of the censors or political process, especially +through the impeachments raised on the basis of the exceptional laws +of 702. Those alone who had put to death the proscribed +for money remained, as was reasonable, still under attainder; +and Milo, the most daring condottiere of the senatorial party, +was excluded from the general pardon. + +Discontent of the Democrats + +Far more difficult than the settlement of these questions +which already belonged substantially to the past was the treatment +of the parties confronting each other at the moment--on the one hand +Caesar's own democratic adherents, on the other hand the overthrown +aristocracy. That the former should be, if possible, still less +satisfied than the latter with Caesar's conduct after the victory +and with his summons to abandon the old standing-ground of party, +was to be expected. Caesar himself desired doubtless on the whole +the same issue which Gaius Gracchus had contemplated; but the designs +of the Caesarians were no longer those of the Gracchans. +The Roman popular party had been driven onward in gradual progression +from reform to revolution, from revolution to anarchy, from anarchy +to a war against property; they celebrated among themselve +the memory of the reign of terror and now adorned the tomb +of Catilina, as formerly that of the Gracchi, with flowers +and garlands; they had placed themselves under Caesar's banner, +because they expected him to do for them what Catilina +had not been able to accomplish. But as it speedily became plain +that Caesar was very far from intending to be the testamentary +executor of Catilina, and that the utmost which debtors might expect +from him was some alleviations of payment and modifications +of procedure, indignation found loud vent in the inquiry. +For whom then had the popular party conquered, if not for the people? +And the rabble of this description, high and low, out of pure chagrin +at the miscarriage of their politico-economic Saturnalia began first +to coquet with the Pompeians, and then even during Caesar's absence +of nearly two years from Italy (Jan. 706-autumn 707) to instigate there +a second civil war within the first. + +Caelius and Milo + +The praetor Marcus Caelius Rufus, a good aristocrat and bad payer +of debts, of some talent and much culture, as a vehement +and fluent orator hitherto in the senate and in the Forum +one of the most zealous champions for Caesar, proposed to the people-- +without being instructed from any higher quarter to do so-- +a law which granted to debtors a respite of six years free of interest, +and then, when he was opposed in this step, proposed a second law +which even cancelled all claims arising out of loans and current +house rents; whereupon the Caesarian senate deposed him from his office. +It was just on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus, and the balance +in the great contest seemed to incline to the side of the Pompeians; +Rufus entered into communication with the old senatorian +band-leader Milo, and the two contrived a counter-revolution, +which inscribed on its banner partly the republican constitution, +partly the cancelling of creditors' claims and the manumission of slaves. +Milo left his place of exile Massilia, and called the Pompeians +and the slave-herdsmen to arms in the region of Thurii; Rufus made +arrangements to seize the town of Capua by armed slaves. +But the latter plan was detected before its execution and frustrated +by the Capuan militia; Quintus Pedius, who advanced with a legion +into the territory of Thurii, scattered the band making havoc there; +and the fall of the two leaders put an end to the scandal (706). + +Dolabella + +Nevertheless there was found in the following year (707) a second fool, +the tribune of the people, Publius Dolabella, who, equally insolvent +but far from being equally gifted with his predecessor, +introduced afresh his law as to creditors' claims and house rents, +and with his colleague Lucius Trebellius began on that point once more-- +it was the last time--the demagogic war; there were serious frays +between the armed bands on both sides and various street-riots, +till the commandant of Italy Marcus Antonius ordered the military +to interfere, and soon afterwards Caesar's return from the east +completely put an end to the preposterous proceedings. +Caesar attributed to these brainless attempts to revive the projects +of Catilina so little importance, that he tolerated Dolabella in Italy +and indeed after some time even received him again into favour. +Against a rabble of this sort, which had nothing to do with +any political question at all, but solely with a war against property-- +as against gangs of banditti--the mere existence of a strong government +is sufficient; and Caesar was too great and too considerate +to busy himself with the apprehensions which the Italian alarmists +felt regarding these communists of that day, and thereby unduly +to procure a false popularity for his monarchy. + +Measures against Pompeians and Republicans + +While Caesar thus might leave, and actually left, the late democratic +party to the process of decomposition which had already in its case +advanced almost to the utmost limit, he had on the other hand, +with reference to the former aristocratic party possessing +a far greater vitality, not to bring about its dissolution-- +which time alone could accomplish--but to pave the way for +and initiate it by a proper combination of repression and conciliation. +Among minor measures, Caesar, even from a natural sense of propriety, +avoided exasperating the fallen party by empty sarcasm; +he did not triumph over his conquered fellow-burgesses;(3) +he mentioned Pompeius often and always with respect, and caused +his statue overthrown by the people to be re-erected at the senate- +house, when the latter was restored, in its earlier distinguished place. +To political prosecutions after the victory Caesar assigned +the narrowest possible limits. No investigation was instituted +into the various communications which the constitutional party +had held even with nominal Caesarians; Caesar threw the piles of papers +found in the enemy's headquarters at Pharsalus and Thapsus +into the fire unread, and spared himself and the country from political +processes against individuals suspected of high treason. Further, +all the common soldiers who had followed their Roman or provincial +officers into the contest against Caesar came off with impunity. +The sole exception made was in the case of those Roman burgesses, +who had taken service in the army of the Numidian king Juba; +their property was confiscated by way of penalty for their treason. +Even to the officers of the conquered party Caesar had granted +unlimited pardon up to the close of the Spanish campaign of 705; +but he became convinced that in this he had gone too far, +and that the removal at least of the leaders among them was inevitable. +The rule by which he was thenceforth guided was, that every one +who after the capitulation of Ilerda had served as an officer +in the enemy's army or had sat in the opposition-senate, if he survived +the close of the struggle, forfeited his property and his political +rights, and was banished from Italy for life; if he did not survive +the close of the struggle, his property at least fell to the state; +but any one of these, who had formerly accepted pardon from Caesar +and was once more found in the ranks of the enemy, thereby +forfeited his life. These rules were however materially modified +in the execution. The sentence of death was actually executed +only against a very few of the numerous backsliders. In the confiscation +of the property of the fallen not only were the debts attaching +to the several portions of the estate as well as the claims +of the widows for their dowries paid off, as was reasonable. +But a portion of the paternal estate was left also to the children +of the deceased. Lastly not a few of those, who in consequence +of those rules were liable to banishment and confiscation of property, +were at once pardoned entirely or got off with fines, like the African +capitalists who were impressed as members of the senate of Utica. +And even the others almost without exception got their freedom +and property restored to them, if they could only prevail +on themselves to petition Caesar to that effect; on several +who declined to do so, such as the consular Marcus Marcellus, +pardon was even conferred unasked, and ultimately in 710 +a general amnesty was issued for all who were still unrecalled. + +Amnesty + +The republican opposition submitted to be pardoned; +but it was not reconciled. Discontent with the new order of things +and exasperation against the unwonted ruler were general. +For open political resistance there was indeed no farther opportunity-- +it was hardly worth taking into account, that some oppositional +tribunes on occasion of the question of title acquired for themselves +the republican crown of martyrdom by a demonstrative intervention +against those who had called Caesar king--but republicanism +found expression all the more decidedly as an opposition of sentiment, +and in secret agitation and plotting. Not a hand stirred +when the Imperator appeared in public. There was abundance +of wall-placards and sarcastic verses full of bitter and telling +popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian +ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest +applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme +of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public +all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free. +Caesar indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field; +he himself and his abler confidants replied to the Cato-literature +with Anticatones, and the republican and Caesarian scribes +fought round the dead hero of Utica like the Trojans and Hellenes +round the dead body of Patroclus; but as a matter of course +in this conflict--where the public thoroughly republican in its feelings +was judge--the Caesarians had the worst of it. No course remained +but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known +and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius +Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty +in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, +while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected +to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more +annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded +was utterly arbitrary.(4) The underground machinations +of the overthrown parties against the new monarchy will be more fitly +set forth in another connection. Here it is sufficient to say +that risings of pretenders as well as of republicans were incessantly +brewing throughout the Roman empire; that the flames of civil war kindled +now by the Pompeians, now by the republicans, again burst forth brightly +at various places; and that in the capital there was perpetual +conspiracy against the life of the monarch. But Caesar +could not be induced by these plots even to surround himself +permanently with a body-guard, and usually contented himself +with making known the detected conspiracies by public placards. + +Bearing of Caesar towards the Parties + +However much Caesar was wont to treat all things relating +to his personal safety with daring indifference, he could not possibly +conceal from himself the very serious danger with which this mass +of malcontents threatened not merely himself but also his creations. +If nevertheless, disregarding all the warning and urgency +of his friends, he without deluding himself as to the implacability +of the very opponents to whom he showed mercy, persevered +with marvellous composure and energy in the course of pardoning +by far the greater number of them, he did so neither +from the chivalrous magnanimity of a proud, nor from the sentimental +clemency of an effeminate, nature, but from the correct statesmanly +consideration that vanquished parties are disposed of +more rapidly and with less public injury by their absorption +within the state than by any attempt to extirpate them by proscription +or to eject them from the commonwealth by banishment. Caesar could not +for his high objects dispense with the constitutional party itself, +which in fact embraced not the aristocracy merely but all the elements +of a free and national spirit among the Italian burgesses; +for his schemes, which contemplated the renovation of the antiquated +state, he needed the whole mass of talent, culture, hereditary, +and self-acquired distinction, which this party embraced; +and in this sense he may well have named the pardoning of his opponents +the finest reward of victory. Accordingly the most prominent chiefs +of the defeated parties were indeed removed, but full pardon +was not withheld from the men of the second and third rank +and especially of the younger generation; they were not, however, +allowed to sulk in passive opposition, but were by more or less +gentle pressure induced to take an active part in the new administration, +and to accept honours and offices from it. As with Henry the Fourth +and William of Orange, so with Caesar his greatest difficulties began +only after the victory. Every revolutionary conqueror learns +by experience that, if after vanquishing his opponents he would +not remain like Cinna and Sulla a mere party-chief, but would +like Caesar, Henry the Fourth, and William of Orange substitute +the welfare of the commonwealth for the necessarily one-sided programme +of his own party, for the moment all parties, his own as well as +the vanquished, unite against the new chief; and the more so, +the more great and pure his idea of his new vocation. The friends +of the constitution and the Pompeians, though doing homage +with the lips to Caesar, bore yet in heart a grudge either +at monarchy or at least at the dynasty; the degenerate democracy +was in open rebellion against Caesar from the moment of its perceiving +that Caesar's objects were by no means its own; even the personal +adherents of Caesar murmured, when they found that their chief was +establishing instead of a state of condottieri a monarchy equal +and just towards all, and that the portions of gain accruing to them +were to be diminished by the accession of the vanquished. +This settlement of the commonwealth was acceptable to no party, +and had to be imposed on his associates no less than on his opponents. +Caesar's own position was now in a certain sense more imperilled +than before the victory; but what he lost, the state gained. +By annihilating the parties and not simply sparing the partisans +but allowing every man of talent or even merely of good descent +to attain to office irrespective of his political past, he gained +for his great building all the working power extant in the state; +and not only so, but the voluntary or compulsory participation of men +of all parties in the same work led the nation also over imperceptibly +to the newly prepared ground. The fact that this reconciliation +of the parties was for the moment only externaland that they were +for the present much less agreed in adherence to the new state of things +than in hatred against Caesar, did not mislead him; he knew well +that antagonisms lose their keenness when brought into such outward union, +and that only in this way can the statesman anticipate the work of time, +which alone is able finally to heal such a strife by laying +the old generation in the grave. Still less did he inquire who hated him +or meditated his assassination. Like every genuine statesman he served +not the people for reward--not even for the reward of their love-- +but sacrificed the favour of his contemporaries for the blessing +of posterity, and above all for the permission to save +and renew his nation. + +Caesar's Work + +In attempting to give a detailed account of the mode in which +the transition was effected from the old to the new state of things, +we must first of all recollect that Caesar came not to begin, +but to complete. The plan of a new polity suited to the times, +long ago projected by Gaius Gracchus, had been maintained +by his adherents and successors with more or less of spirit and success, +but without wavering. Caesar, from the outset and as it were +by hereditary right the head of the popular party, had for thirty years +borne aloft its banner without ever changing or even so much +as concealing his colours; he remained democrat even when monarch. +as he accepted without limitation, apart of course from the preposterous +projects of Catilina and Clodius, the heritage of his party; +as he displayed the bitterest, even personal, hatred to the aristocracy +and the genuine aristocrats; and as he retained unchanged +the essential ideas of Roman democracy, viz. alleviation of the burdens +of debtors, transmarine colonization, gradual equalization +of the differences of rights among the classes belonging +to the state, emancipation of the executive power from the senate: +his monarchy was so little at variance with democracy, +that democracy on the contrary only attained its completion +and fulfilment by means of that monarchy. For this monarchy +was not the Oriental despotism of divine right, but a monarchy such as +Gaius Gracchus wished to found, such as Pericles and Cromwell founded-- +the representation of the nation by the man in whom it puts +supreme and unlimited confidence. The ideas, which lay +at the foundation of Caesar's work, were so far not strictly new; +but to him belongs their realization, which after all is everywhere +the main matter; and to him pertains the grandeur of execution, +which would probably have surprised the brilliant projector himself +if he could have seen it, and which has impressed, and will +always impress, every one to whom it has been presented in the living +reality or in the mirror of history--to whatever historical epoch +or whatever shade of politics he may belong--according +to the measure of his ability to comprehend human and historical +greatness, with deep and ever-deepening emotion and admiration. + +At this point however it is proper expressly once for all to claim +what the historian everywhere tacitly presumes, and to protest +against the custom--common to simplicity and perfidy--of using +historical praise and historical censure, dissociated +from the given circumstances, as phrases of general application, +and in the present case of construing the judgment as to Caesar +into a judgment as to what is called Caesarism. It is true +that the history of past centuries ought to be the instructress +of the present; but not in the vulgar sense, as if one could simply +by turning over the leaves discover the conjunctures of the present +in the records of the past, and collect from these the symptoms +for a political diagnosis and the specifics for a prescription; +it is instructive only so far as the observation of older forms +of culture reveals the organic conditions of civilization generally-- +the fundamental forces everywhere alike, and the manner of their +combination everywhere different--and leads and encourages men, +not to unreflecting imitation, but to independent reproduction. +In this sense the history of Caesar and of Roman Imperialism, +with all the unsurpassed greatness of the master-worker, +with all the historical necessity of the work, is in truth +a sharper censure of modern autocracy than could be written +by the hand of man. According to the same law of nature in virtue +of which the smallest organism infinitely surpasses the most artistic +machine, every constitution however defective which gives play +to the free self-determination of a majority of citizens infinitely +surpasses the most brilliant and humane absolutism; for the former +is capable of development and therefore living, the latter is what it is +and therefore dead. This law of nature has verified itself +in the Roman absolute military monarchy and verified itself +all the more completely, that, under the impulse of its creator's genius +and in the absence of all material complications from without, +that monarchy developed itself more purely and freely +than any similar state. From Caesar's time, as the sequel will show +and Gibbon has shown long ago, the Roman system had only an external +coherence and received only a mechanical extension, while internally +it became even with him utterly withered and dead. If in the early +stages of the autocracy and above all in Caesar's own soul(5) +the hopeful dream of a combination of free popular development +and absolute rule was still cherished, the government of the highly- +gifted emperors of the Julian house soon taught men in a terrible form +how far it was possible to hold fire and water in the same vessel. +Caesar's work was necessary and salutary, not because it was +or could be fraught with blessing in itself, but because-- +with the national organization of antiquity, which was based on slavery +and was utterly a stranger to republican-constitutional representation, +and in presence of the legitimate urban constitution which in the course +of five hundred years had ripened into oligarchic absolutism-- +absolute military monarchy was the copestone logically necessary +and the least of evils. When once the slave-holding aristocracy +in Virginia and the Carolinas shall have carried matters as far as +their congeners in the Sullan Rome, Caesarism will there too +be legitimized at the bar of the spirit of history;(6) +where it appears under other conditions of development, it is at once +a caricature and a usurpation. But history will not submit +to curtail the true Caesar of his due honour, because her verdict +may in the presence of bad Caesars lead simplicity astray +and may give to roguery occasion for lying and fraud. She too +is a Bible, and if she cannot any more than the Bible hinder the fool +from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting her, she too will +be able to bear with, and to requite, them both. + +Dictatorship + +The position of the new supreme head of the state appears formally, +at least in the first instance, as a dictatorship. Caesar took +it up at first after his return from Spain in 705, but laid it down +again after a few days, and waged the decisive campaign of 706 +simply as consul--this was the office his tenure of which was +the primary occasion for the outbreak of the civil war.(7) +but in the autumn of this year after the battle of Pharsalus +he reverted to the dictatorship and had it repeatedly entrusted to him, +at first for an undefined period, but from the 1st January 709 +as an annual office, and then in January or February 710(8) +for the duration of his life, so that he in the end expressly dropped +the earlier reservation as to his laying down the office and gave +formal expression to its tenure for life in the new title of -dictator +perpetuus-. This dictatorship, both in its first ephemeral +and in its second enduring tenure, was not that of the old constitution, +but--what was coincident with this merely in the name--the supreme +exceptional office as arranged by Sulla;(9) an office, +the functions of which were fixed, not by the constitutional ordinances +regarding the supreme single magistracy, but by special decree +of the people, to such an effect that the holder received, +in the commission to project laws and to regulate the commonwealth, +an official prerogative de jure unlimited which superseded +the republican partition of powers. Those were merely applications +of this general prerogative to the particular case, when the holder +of power was further entrusted by separate acts with the right +of deciding on war and peace without consulting the senate +and the people, with the independent disposal of armies and finances, +and with the nomination of the provincial governors. Caesar could +accordingly de jure assign to himself even such prerogatives +as lay outside of the proper functions of the magistracy and even +outside of the province of state-powers at all;(10) and it appears +almost as a concession on his part, that he abstained from nominating +the magistrates instead of the Comitia and limited himself to claiming +a binding right of proposal for a proportion of the praetors +and of the lower magistrates; and that he moreover had himself +empowered by special decree of the people for the creation of patricians, +which was not at all allowable according to use and wont. + +Other Magistracies and Attributions + +For other magistracies in the proper sense there remained alongside +of this dictatorship no room; Caesar did not take up the censorship +as such,(11) but he doubtless exercised censorial rights-- +particularly the important right of nominating senators--after +a comprehensive fashion. + +He held the consulship frequently alongside of the dictatorship, +once even without colleague; but he by no means attached it permanently +to his person, and he gave no effect to the calls addressed to him +to undertake it for five or even for ten years in succession. + +Caesar had no need to have the superintendence of worship +now committed to him, since he was already -pontifex maximus-.(12) +as a matter of course the membership of the college of augurs +was conferred on him, and generally an abundance of old and new +honorary rights, such as the title of a "father of the fatherland," +the designation of the month of his birth by the name which it +still bears of Julius, and other manifestations of the incipient +courtly tone which ultimately ran into utter deification. +Two only of the arrangements deserve to be singled out: +namely that Caesar was placed on the same footing with the tribunes +of the people as regards their special personal inviolability, +and that the appellation of Imperator was permanently attached +to his person and borne by him as a title alongside of +his other official designations. + +Men of judgment will not require any proof, either that Caesar +intended to engraft on the commonwealth his supreme power, +and this not merely for a few years or even as a personal office +for an indefinite period somewhat like Sulla's regency, +but as an essential and permanent organ; or that he selected +for the new institution an appropriate and simple designation; +for, if it is a political blunder to create names without substantial +meaning, it is scarcely a less error to set up the substance +of plenary power without a name. Only it is not easy to determine +what definitive formal shape Caesar had in view; partly because +in this period of transition the ephemeral and the permanent buildings +are not clearly discriminated from each other, partly because +the devotion of his clients which already anticipated the nod +of their master loaded him with a multitude--offensive doubtless +to himself--of decrees of confidence and laws conferring honours. +Least of all could the new monarchy attach itself to the consulship, +just on account of the collegiate character that could not well +be separated from this office; Caesar also evidently laboured +to degrade this hitherto supreme magistracy into an empty title, +and subsequently, when he undertook it, he did not hold it +through the whole year, but before the year expired gave it away +to personages of secondary rank. The dictatorship came practically +into prominence most frequently and most definitely, but probably +only because Caesar wished to use it in the significance which it had +of old in the constitutional machinery--as an extraordinary presidency +for surmounting extraordinary crises. On the other hand it was +far from recommending itself as an expression for the new monarchy, +for the magistracy was inherently clothed with an exceptional +and unpopular character, and it could hardly be expected +of the representative of the democracy that he should choose +for its permanent organization that form, which the most gifted champion +of the opposing party had created for his own ends. + +The new name of Imperator, on the other hand, appears in every respect +by far more appropriate for the formal expression of the monarchy; +just because it is in this application(13) new, and no definite +outward occasion for its introduction is apparent. The new wine +might not be put into old bottles; here is a new name for the new thing, +and that name most pregnantly sums up what the democratic party +had already expressed in the Gabinian law, only with less precision, +as the function of its chief--the concentration and perpetuation +of official power (-imperium-) in the hands of a popular chief +independent of the senate. We find on Caesar's coins, +especially those of the last period, alongside of the dictatorship +the title of Imperator prevailing, and in Caesar's law +as to political crimes the monarch seems to have been designated +by this name. Accordingly the following times, though not immediately, +connected the monarchy with the name of Imperator. To lend +to this new office at once a democratic and religious sanction, +Caesar probably intended to associate with it once for all +on the one hand the tribunician power, on the other +the supreme pontificate. + +That the new organization was not meant to be restricted merely +to the lifetime of its founder, is beyond doubt; but he did not succeed +in settling the especially difficult question of the succession, +and it must remain an undecided point whether he had it in view +to institute some sort of form for the election of a successor, +such as had subsisted in the case of the original kingly office, +or whether he wished to introduce for the supreme office +not merely the tenure for life but also the hereditary character, +as his adopted son subsequently maintained.(14) It is not improbable +that he had the intention of combining in some measure the two systems, +and of arranging the succession, similarly to the course +followed by Cromwell and by Napoleon, in such a way that the ruler +should be succeeded in rule by his son, but, if he had no son, +or the son should not seem fitted for the succession, the ruler should +of his free choice nominate his successor in the form of adoption. + +In point of state law the new office of Imperator was based +on the position which the consuls or proconsuls occupied +outside of the -pomerium-, so that primarily the military command, +but, along with this, the supreme judicial and consequently +also the administrative power, were included in it.(15) +But the authority of the Imperator was qualitatively superior +to the consular-proconsular, in so far as the former was not limited +as respected time or space, but was held for life and operative also +in the capital;(16) as the Imperator could not, while the consul could, +be checked by colleagues of equal power; and as all the restrictions +placed in course of time on the original supreme official power-- +especially the obligation to give place to the -provocatio- +and to respect the advice of the senate--did not apply +to the Imperator. + +Re-establishment of the Regal Office + +In a word, this new office of Imperator was nothing else +than the primitive regal office re-established; for it was +those very restrictions--as respected the temporal and local +limitation of power, the collegiate arrangement, and the cooperation +of the senate or the community that was necessary for certain cases-- +which distinguished the consul from the king.(17) There is hardly +a trait of the new monarchy which was not found in the old: +the union of the supreme military, judicial, and administrative authority +in the hands of the prince; a religious presidency over the commonwealth; +the right of issuing ordinances with binding power; the reduction +of the senate to a council of state; the revival of the patriciate +and of the praefecture of the city. But still more striking +than these analogies is the internal similarity of the monarchy +of Servius Tullius and the monarchy of Caesar; if those +old kings of Rome with all their plenitude of power had yet +been rulers of a free community and themselves the protectors +of the commons against the nobility, Caesar too had not come +to destroy liberty but to fulfil it, and primarily to break +the intolerable yoke of the aristocracy. Nor need it surprise us +that Caesar, anything but a political antiquary, went back +five hundred years to find the model for his new state; for, +seeing that the highest office of the Roman commonwealth had remained +at all times a kingship restricted by a number of special laws, +the idea of the regal office itself had by no means become obsolete. +At very various periods and from very different sides-- +in the decemviral power, in the Sullan regency, and in Caesar's +own dictatorship--there had been during the republic a practical +recurrence to it; indeed by a certain logical necessity, +whenever an exceptional power seemed requisite there emerged, +in contradistinction to the usual limited -imperium-, +the unlimited -imperium- which was simply nothing else +than the regal power. + +Lastly, outward considerations also recommended this recurrence +to the former kingly position. Mankind have infinite difficulty +in reaching new creations, and therefore cherish the once developed forms +as sacred heirlooms. Accordingly Caesar very judiciously +connected himself with Servius Tullius, in the same way +as subsequently Charlemagne connected himself with Caesar, +and Napoleon attempted at least to connect himself with Charlemagne. +He did so, not in a circuitous way and secretly, but, as well as +his successors, in the most open manner possible; it was indeed +the very object of this connection to find a clear, national, +and popular form of expression for the new state. From ancient times +there stood on the Capitol the statues of those seven kings, +whom the conventional history of Rome was wont to bring on the stage; +Caesar ordered his own to be erected beside them as the eighth. +He appeared publicly in the costume of the old kings of Alba. +In his new law as to political crimes the principal variation +from that of Sulla was, that there was placed alongside +of the collective community, and on a level with it, the Imperator +as the living and personal expression of the people. In the formula +used for political oaths there was added to the Jovis and the Penates +of the Roman people the Genius of the Imperator. The outward badge +of monarchy was, according to the view univerally diffused in antiquity, +the image of the monarch on the coins; from the year 710 +the head of Caesar appears on those of the Roman state. + +There could accordingly be no complaint at least on the score +that Caesar left the public in the dark as to his view of his position; +as distinctly and as formally as possible he came forward +not merely as monarch, but as very king of Rome. It is possible even, +although not exactly probable, and at any rate of subordinate +importance, that he had it in view to designate his official power +not with the new name of Imperator, but directly with the old one +of King.(18) Even in his lifetime many of his enemies as of his friends +were of opinion that he intended to have himself expressly nominated +king of Rome; several indeed of his most vehement adherents +suggested to him in different ways and at different times +that he should assume the crown; most strikingly of all, +Marcus Antonius, when he as consul offered the diadem to Caesar +before all the people (15 Feb. 710). But Caesar rejected +these proposals without exception at once. If he at the same time +took steps against those who made use of these incidents to stir +republican opposition, it by no means follows from this that he was not +in earnest with his rejection. The assumption that these invitations +took place at his bidding, with the view of preparing the multitude +for the unwonted spectacle of the Roman diadem, utterly misapprehends +the mighty power of the sentimental opposition with which +Caesar had to reckon, and which could not be rendered more compliant, +but on the contrary necessarily gained a broader basis, +through such a public recognition of its warrant on the part +of Caesar himself. It may have been the uncalled-for zeal of vehement +adherents alone that occasioned these incidents; it may be also, +that Caesar merely permitted or even suggested the scene with Antonius, +in order to put an end in as marked a manner as possible +to the inconvenient gossip by a declinature which took place +before the eyes of the burgesses and was inserted by his command +even in the calendar of the state and could not, in fact, +be well revoked. The probability is that Caesar, who appreciated alike +the value of a convenient formal designation and the antipathies +of the multitude which fasten more on the names than on the essence +of things, was resolved to avoid the name of king as tainted +with an ancient curse and as more familiar to the Romans of his time +when applied to the despots of the east than to their own Numa +and Servius, and to appropriate the substance of the regal office +under the title of Imperator. + +The New Court +The New Patrician Nobility + +But, whatever may have been the definitive title present to his thoughts +the sovereign ruler was there, and accordingly the court +established itself at once with all its due accompaniments of pomp, +insipidity, and emptiness. Caesar appeared in public not in the robe +of the consuls which was bordered with purple stripes, +but in the robe wholly of purple which was reckoned in antiquity +as the proper regal attire, and received, seated on his golden chair +and without rising from it, the solemn procession of the senate. +The festivals in his honour commemorative of birthday, of victories, +and of vows, filled the calendar. When Caesar came to the capital, +his principal servants marched forth in troops to great distances +so as to meet and escort him. To be near to him began to be +of such importance, that the rents rose in the quarter of the city +where he dwelt. Personal interviews with him were rendered +so difficult by the multitude of individuals soliciting audience, +that Caesar found himself compelled in many cases to communicate +even with his intimate friends in writing, and that persons +even of the highest rank had to wait for hours in the antechamber. +People felt, more clearly than was agreeable to Caesar himself, +that they no longer approached a fellow-citizen. There arose +a monarchical aristocracy, which was in a remarkable manner at once +new and old, and which had sprung out of the idea of casting +into the shade the aristocracy of the oligarchy by that of royalty, +the nobility by the patriciate. The patrician body still subsisted, +although without essential privileges as an order, in the character +of a close aristocratic guild;(19) but as it could receive +no new -gentes-(20) it had dwindled away more and more in the course +of centuries, and in the time of Caesar there were not more than +fifteen or sixteen patrician -gentes- still in existence. +Caesar, himself sprung from one of them, got the right +of creating new patrician -gentes- conferred on the Imperator +by decree of the people, and so established, in contrast +to the republican nobility, the new aristocracy of the patriciate, +which most happily combined all the requisites of a monarchical +aristocracy--the charm of antiquity, entire dependence +on the government, and total insignificance. On all sides +the new sovereignty revealed itself. + +Under a monarch thus practically unlimited there could hardly +be scope for a constitution at all--still less for a continuance +of the hitherto existing commonwealth based on the legal co-operation +of the burgesses, the senate, and the several magistrates. Caesar fully +and definitely reverted to the tradition of the regal period; +the burgess-assembly remained--what it had already been, in that period-- +by the side of and with the king the supreme and ultimate expression +of the will of the sovereign people; the senate was brought back +to its original destination of giving advice to the ruler +when he requested it; and lastly the ruler concentrated in his person +anew the whole magisterial authority, so that there existed no other +independent state-official by his side any more than by the side +of the kings of the earliest times. + +Legislation +Edicts + +For legislation the democratic monarch adhered to the primitive maxim +of Roman state-law, that the community of the people in concert +with the king convoking them had alone the power of organically +regulating the commonwealth; and he had his constitutive enactments +regularly sanctioned by decree of the people. The free energy +and the authority half-moral, half-political, which the yea or nay +of those old warrior-assemblies had carried with it, could not indeed +be again instilled into the so-called comitia of this period; +the co-operation of the burgesses in legislation, which in the old +constitution had been extremely limited but real and living, +was in the new practically an unsubstantial shadow. There was therefore +no need of special restrictive measures against the comitia; +many years' experience had shown that every government-- +the oligarchy as well as the monarch--easily kept on good terms +with this formal sovereign. These Caesarian comitia were an important +element in the Caesarian system and indirectly of practical significance, +only in so far as they served to retain in principle the sovereignty +of the people and to constitute an energetic protest against sultanism. + +But at the same time--as is not only obvious of itself, but is also +distinctly attested--the other maxim also of the oldest state-law +was revived by Caesar himself, and not merely for the first time +by his successors; viz. that what the supreme, or rather sole, +magistrate commands is unconditionally valid so long as he remains +in office, and that, while legislation no doubt belongs only to the king +and the burgesses in concert, the royal edict is equivalent to law +at least till the demission of its author. + +The Senate as the State-Council of the Monarch + +While the democratic king thus conceded to the community of the people +at least a formal share in the sovereignty, it was by no means +his intention to divide his authority with what had hitherto been +the governing body, the college of senators. The senate of Caesar +was to be--in a quite different way from the later senate of Augustus-- +nothing but a supreme council of state, which he made use +of for advising with him beforehand as to laws, and for the issuing +of the more important administrative ordinances through it, +or at least under its name--for cases in fact occurred where decrees +of senate were issued, of which none of the senators recited +as present at their preparation had any cognizance. There were +no material difficulties of form in reducing the senate to it +original deliberative position, which it had overstepped more de facto +than de jure; but in this case it was necessary to protect himself +from practical resistance, for the Roman senate was as much +the headquarters of the opposition to Caesar as the Attic Areopagus +was of the opposition to Pericles. Chiefly for this reason +the number of senators, which had hitherto amounted at most +to six hundred in its normal condition(21) and had been greatly reduced +by the recent crises, was raised by extraordinary supplement +to nine hundred; and at the same time, to keep it at least +up to this mark, the number of quaestors to be nominated annually, +that is of members annually admitted to the senate, was raised +from twenty to forty.(22) The extraordinary filling up of the senate +was undertaken by the monarch alone. In the case of the ordinary +additions he secured to himself a permanent influence through +the circumstance, that the electoral colleges were bound by law(23) +to give their votes to the first twenty candidates for the quaestorship +who were provided with letters of recommendation from the monarch; +besides, the crown was at liberty to confer the honorary rights +attaching to the quaestorship or to any office superior to it, +and consequently a seat in the senate in particular, by way of exception +even on individuals not qualified. The selection of the extraordinary +members who were added naturally fell in the main on adherents +of the new order of things, and introduced, along with -equites- +of respectable standing, various dubious and plebeian personages +into the proud corporation--former senators who had been erased +from the roll by the censor or in consequence of a judicial sentence, +foreigners from Spain and Gaul who had to some extent to learn +their Latin in the senate, men lately subaltern officers +who had not previously received even the equestrian ring, +sons of freedmen or of such as followed dishonourable trades, +and other elements of a like kind. The exclusive circles +of the nobility, to whom this change in the personal composition +of the senate naturally gave the bitterest offence, saw in it +an intentional depreciation of the very institution itself. +Caesar was not capable of such a self-destructive policy; +he was as determined not to let himself be governed by his council +as he was convinced of the necessity of the institute in itself. +They might more correctly have discerned in this proceeding the intention +of the monarch to take away from the senate its former character +of an exclusive representation of the oligarchic aristocracy, +and to make it once more--what it had been in the regal period-- +a state-council representing all classes of persons belonging +to the state through their most intelligent elements, and not necessarily +excluding the man of humble birth or even the foreigner; just as those +earliest kings introduced non-burgesses,(24) Caesar introduced +non-Italians into his senate. + +Personal Government by Caesar + +While the rule of the nobility was thus set aside and its existence +undermined, and while the senate in its new form was merely a tool +of the monarch, autocracy was at the same time most strictly +carried out in the administration and government of the state, +and the whole executive was concentrated in the hands of the monarch. +First of all, the Imperator naturally decided in person every question +of any moment. Caesar was able to carry personal government +to an extent which we puny men can hardly conceive, and which +is not to be explained solely from the unparalleled rapidity +and decision of his working, but has moreover its ground +in a more general cause. When we see Caesar, Sulla, Gaius Gracchus, +and Roman statesmen in general displaying throughout an activity +which transcends our notions of human powers of working, the reason lies, +not in any change that human nature has undergone since that time, +but in the change which has taken place since then in the organization +of the household. The Roman house was a machine, in which even +the mental powers of the slaves and freedmen yielded their produce +to the master; a master, who knew how to govern these, worked as it were +with countless minds. It was the beau ideal of bureaucratic +centralization; which our counting-house system strives indeed +zealously to imitate, but remains as far behind its prototype +as the modern power of capital is inferior to the ancient system +of slavery. Caesar knew how to profit by this advantage; +wherever any post demanded special confidence, we see him filling it up +on principle--so far as other considerations at all permit-- +with his slaves freedmen, or clients of humble birth. His works +as a whole show what an organizing genius like his could accomplish +with such an instrument; but to the question, how in detail +these marvellous feats were achieved, we have no adequate answer. +Bureaucracy resembles a manufactory also in this respect, +that the work done does not appear as that of the individual +who has worked at it, but as that of the manufactory which stamps it. +This much only is quite clear, that Caesar, in his work had no helper +at all who exerted a personal influence over it or was even so much as +initiated into the whole plan; he was not only the sole master, +but he worked also without skilled associates, +merely with common labourers. + +In Matters of Finance + +With respect to details as a matter of course in strictly political +affairs Caesar avoided, so far as was at all possible, +any delegation of his functions. Where it was inevitable, +as especially when during his frequent absence from Rome he had need +of a higher organ there, the person destined for this purpose was, +significantly enough, not the legal deputy of the monarch, +the prefect of the city, but a confidant without officially-recognized +jurisdiction, usually Caesar's banker, the cunning and pliant +Phoenician merchant Lucius Cornelius Balbus from Gades. +In administration Caesar was above all careful to resume the keys +of the state-chest--which the senate had appropriated to itself +after the fall of the regal power, and by means of which +it had possessed itself of the government--and to entrust them +only to those servants who with their persons were absolutely +and exclusively devoted to him. In respect of ownership indeed +the private means of the monarch remained, of course, strictly +separate from the property of the state; but Caesar took in hand +the administration of the whole financial and monetary system +of the state, and conducted it entirely in the way in which +he and the Roman grandees generally were wont to manage +the administration of their own means and substance. For the future +the levying of the provincial revenues and in the main also +the management of the coinage were entrusted to the slaves and freedmen +of the Imperator and men of the senatorial order were excluded from it-- +a momentous step out of which grew in course of time the important class +of procurators and the "imperial household." + +In the Governorships + +Of the governorships on the other hand, which, after they had handed +their financial business over to the new imperial tax-receivers, +were still more than they had formerly been essentially military commands, +that of Egypt alone was transferred to the monarch's own retainers. +The country of the Nile, in a peculiar manner geographically isolated +and politically centralized, was better fitted than any other district +to break off permanently under an able leader from the central power, +as the attempts which had repeatedly been made by hard-pressed Italian +party-chiefs to establish themselves there during the recent crisis +sufficiently proved. Probably it was just this consideration +thatinduced Caesar not to declare the land formally a province, +but to leave the harmless Lagids there; and certainly for this reason +the legions stationed in Egypt were not entrusted to a man +belonging to the senate or, in other words, to the former government, +but this command was, just like the posts of tax-receivers, +treated as a menial office.(25) In general however the consideration +had weight with Caesar, that the soldiers of Rome should not, +like those of Oriental kings, be commanded by lackeys. It remained +the rule to entrust the more important governorships to those +who had been consuls, the less important to those who had been praetors; +and once more, instead of the five years' interval prescribed +by the law of 702,(26) the commencement of the governorship probably +was in the ancient fashion annexed directly to the close of the official +functions in the city. On the other hand the distribution +of the provinces among the qualified candidates, which had hitherto +been arranged sometimes by decree of the people or senate, +sometimes by concert among the magistrates or by lot, passed over +to the monarch. And, as the consuls were frequently induced +to abdicate before the end of the year and to make room for after- +elected consuls (-consules suffecti-); as, moreover, the number +of praetors annually nominated was raised from eight to sixteen, +and the nomination of half of them was entrusted to the Imperator +in the same way as that of the half of the quaestors; and, lastly, +as there was reserved to the Imperator the right of nominating, +if not titular consuls, at any rate titular praetors and titular +quaestors: Caesar secured a sufficient number of candidates +acceptable to him for filling up the governorships. Their recall +remained of course left to the discretion of the regent as well as +their nomination; as a rule it was assumed that the consular governor +should not remain more than two years, nor the praetorian +more than one year, in the province. + +In the Administration of the Capital + +Lastly, so far as concerns the administration of the city which was +his capital and residence, the Imperator evidently intended for a time +to entrust this also to magistrates similarly nominated by him. +He revived the old city-lieutenancy of the regal period;(27) +on different occasions he committed during his absence the administration +of the capital to one or more such lieutenants nominated by him +without consulting the people and for an indefinite period, +who united in themselves the functions of all the administrative +magistrates and possessed even the right of coining money +with their own name, although of course not with their own effigy +In 707 and in the first nine months of 709 there were, moreover, +neither praetors nor curule aediles nor quaestors; the consuls too +were nominated in the former year only towards its close, +and in the latter Caesar was even consul without a colleague. +This looks altogether like an attempt to revive completely +the old regal authority within the city of Rome, as far as the limits +enjoined by the democratic past of the new monarch; in other words, +of magistrates additional to the king himself, to allow only +the prefect of the city during the king's absence and the tribunes +and plebeian aediles appointed for protecting popular freedom +to continue in existence, and to abolish the consulship, the censorship, +the praetorship, the curule aedileship and the quaestorship.(28) +But Caesar subsequently departed from this; he neither accepted +the royal title himself, nor did he cancel those venerable names +interwoven with the glorious history of the republic. The consuls, +praetors, aediles, tribunes, and quaestors retained substantially +their previous formal powers; nevertheless their position +was totally altered. It was the political idea lying +at the foundation of the republic that the Roman empire was identified +with the city of Rome, and in consistency with it the municipal +magistrates of the capital were treated throughout as magistrates +of the empire. In the monarchy of Caesar that view and this consequence +of it fell into abeyance; the magistrates of Rome formed thenceforth +only the first among the many municipalities of the empire, +and the consulship in particular became a purely titular post, +which preserved a certain practical importance only in virtue +of the reversion of a higher governorship annexed to it. The fate, +which the Roman community had been wont to prepare for the vanquished, +now by means of Caesar befell itself; its sovereignty over +the Roman empire was converted into a limited communal freedom +within the Roman state. That at the same time the number +of the praetors and quaestors was doubled, has been already mentioned; +the same course was followed with the plebeian aediles, to whom +two new "corn-aediles" (-aediles Ceriales-) were added to superintend +the supplies of the capital. The appointment to those offices remained +with the community, and was subject to no restriction as respected +the consuls and perhaps also the tribunes of the people +and plebeian aediles; we have already adverted to the fact, +that the Imperator reserved a right of proposal binding on the electors +as regards the half of the praetors, curule aediles, and quaestors +to be annually nominated. In general the ancient and hallowed +palladia of popular freedom were not touched; which, of course, +did not prevent the individual refractory tribune of the people +from being seriously interfered with and, in fact, deposed and erased +from the roll of senators. + +As the Imperator was thus, for the more general and more important +questions, his own minister; as he controlled the finances +by his servants, and the army by his adjutants; and as the old republican +state-magistracies were again converted into municipal magistracies +of the city of Rome; the autocracy was sufficiently established. + +The State-Hierarchy + +In the spiritual hierarchy on the other hand Caesar, although he issued +a detailed law respecting this portion of the state-economy, +made no material alteration, except that he connected with the person +of the regent the supreme pontificate and perhaps also the membership +of the higher priestly colleges generally; and, partly +in connection with this, one new stall was created in each +of the three supreme colleges, and three new stalls in the fourth college +of the banquet-masters. If the Roman state-hierarchy had hitherto +served as a support to the ruling oligarchy, it might render +precisely the same service to the new monarchy. The conservative +religious policy of the senate was transferred to the new kings of Rome; +when the strictly conservative Varro published about this time +his "Antiquities of Divine Things," the great fundamental +repository of Roman state-theology, he was allowed to dedicate it +to the -Pontifex Maximus- Caesar. The faint lustre which the worship +of Jovis was still able to impart shone round the newly-established +throne; and the old national faith became in its last stages +the instrument of a Caesarian papacy, which, however, +was from the outset but hollow and feeble. + +Regal Jurisdiction + +In judicial matters, first of all, the old regal jurisdiction +was re-established. As the king had originally been judge in criminal +and civil causes, without being legally bound in the former +to respect an appeal to the prerogative of mercy in the people, +or in the latter to commit the decision of the question in dispute +to jurymen; so Caesar claimed the right of bringing capital causes +as well as private processes for sole and final decision to his own bar, +and disposing of them in the event of his presence personally, +in the event of his absence by the city-lieutenant. In fact, +we find him, quite after the manner of the ancient kings, now sitting +in judgment publicly in the Forum of the capital on Roman burgesses +accused of high treason, now holding a judicial inquiry, in his house +regarding the client princes accused of the like crime; +so that the only privilege, which the Roman burgesses had as compared +with the other subjects of the king, seems to have consisted +in the publicity of the judicial procedure. But this resuscitated +supreme jurisdiction of the kings, although Caesar discharged its duties +with impartiality and care, could only from the nature of the case +find practical application in exceptional cases. + +Retention of the Previous Administration of Justice + +For the usual procedure in criminal and civil causes the former +republican mode of administering justice was substantially retained. +Criminal causes were still disposed of as formerly before the different +jury-commissions competent to deal with the several crimes, +civil causes partly before the court of inheritance or, +as it was commonly called, of the -centumviri-, partly before +the single -iudices-; the superintendence of judicial proceedings +was as formerly conducted in the capital chiefly by the praetors, +in the provinces by the governors. Political crimes too continued +even under the monarchy to be referred to a jury-commission; +the new ordinance, which Caesar issued respecting them, specified +the acts legally punishable with precision and in a liberal spirit +which excluded all prosecution of opinions, and it fixed +as the penalty not death, but banishment. As respects the selection +of the jurymen, whom the senatorial party desired to see chosen +exclusively from the senate and the strict Gracchans exclusively +from the equestrian order, Caesar, faithful to the principle +of reconciling the parties, left the matter on the footing +of the compromise-law of Cotta,(29) but with the modification-- +for which the way was probably prepared by the law of Pompeius +of 699(30)-that the -tribuni aerarii- who came from the lower ranks +of the people were set aside; so that there was established a rating +for jurymen of at least 400,000 sesterces (4000 pounds), and senators +and equites now divided the functions of jurymen which had so long +been an apple of discord between them. + +Appeal to the Monarch + +The relations of the regal and the republican jurisdiction were +on the whole co-ordinate, so that any cause might be initiated as well +before the king's bar as before the competent republican tribunal, +the latter of course in the event of collision giving way; +if on the other hand the one or the other tribunal had pronounced +sentence, the cause was thereby finally disposed of. To overturn +a verdict pronounced by the jurymen duly called to act in a civil +or in a criminal cause even the new ruler was not entitled, +except where special incidents, such as corruption or violence, +already according to the law of the republic gave occasion +for cancelling the jurymen's sentence. On the other hand +the principle that, as concerned any decree emanating merely +from magistrates, the person aggrieved by it was entitled to appeal +to the superior of the decreeing authority, probably obtained +even now the great extension, out of which the subsequent imperial +appellate jurisdiction arose; perhaps all the magistrates +administering law, at least the governors of all the provinces, +were regarded so far as subordinates of the ruler, that appeal +to him might be lodged from any of their decrees. + +Decay of the Judicial System + +Certainly these innovations, the most important of which-- +the general extension given to appeal--cannot even be reckoned +absolutely an improvement, by no means healed thoroughly the evils +from which the Roman administration of justice was suffering. +Criminal procedure cannot be sound in any slave-state, inasmuch as +the task of proceeding against slaves lies, if not de jure, +at least de facto in the hands of the master. The Roman master, +as may readily be conceived, punished throughout the crime of his serf, +not as a crime, but only so far as it rendered the slave useless +or disagreeable to him; slave criminals were merely drafted off +somewhat like oxen addicted to goring, and, as the latter +were sold to the butcher, so were the former sold to the fencing-booth. +But even the criminal procedure against free men, which had been +from the outset and always in great part continued to be +a political process, had amidst the disorder of the last generations +become transformed from a grave legal proceeding into a faction- +fight to be fought out by means of favour, money, and violence. +The blame rested jointly on all that took part in it, on the magistrates, +the jury, the parties, even the public who were spectators; +but the most incurable wounds were inflicted on justice by the doings +of the advocates. In proportion as the parasitic plant +of Roman forensic eloquence flourished, all positive ideas of right +became broken up; and the distinction, so difficult of apprehension +by the public, between opinion and evidence was in reality +expelled from the Roman criminal practice. "A plain simple defendant," +says a Roman advocate of much experience at this period, "may be accused +of any crime at pleasure which he has or has not committed, and will be +certainly condemned." Numerous pleadings in criminal causes +have been preserved to us from this epoch; there is hardly one of them +which makes even a serious attempt to fix the crime in question +and to put into proper shape the proof or counterproof.(31) +That the contemporary civil procedure was likewise in various respects +unsound, we need hardly mention; it too suffered from the effects +of the party politics mixed up with all things, as for instance +in the process of Publius Quinctius (671-673), where the most +contradictory decisions were given according as Cinna or Sulla +had the ascendency in Rome; and the advocates, frequently non-jurists, +produced here also intentionally and unintentionally abundance +of confusion. But it was implied in the nature of the case, +that party mixed itself up with such matters only by way of exception, +and that here the quibbles of advocates could not so rapidly or so deeply +break up the ideas of right; accordingly the civil pleadings +which we possess from this epoch, while not according +to our stricter ideas effective compositions for their purpose, +are yet of a far less libellous and far more juristic character +than the contemporary speeches in criminal causes. If Caesar permitted +the curb imposed on the eloquence of advocates by Pompeius(32) +to remain, or even rendered it more severe, there was at least +nothing lost by this; and much was gained, when better selected +and better superintended magistrates and jurymen were nominated +and the palpable corruption and intimidation of the courts +came to an end. But the sacred sense of right and the reverence +for the law, which it is difficult to destroy in the minds +of the multitude, it is still more difficult to reproduce. +Though the legislator did away with various abuses, he could not heal +the root of the evil; and it might be doubted whether time, +which cures everything curable, would in this case bring relief. + +Decay of the Roman Military System + +The Roman military system of this period was nearly in the same condition +as the Carthaginian at the time of Hannibal. The governing classes +furnished only the officers; the subjects, plebeians and provincials, +formed the army. The general was, financially and militarily, +almost independent of the central government, and, whether +in fortune or misfortune, substantially left to himself +and to the resources of his province. Civic and even national spirit +had vanished from the army, and the esprit de corps was alone +left as a bond of inward union. The army had ceased to be +an instrument of the commonwealth; in a political point of view +it had no will of its own, but it was doubtless able to adopt +that of the master who wielded it; in a military point of view +it sank under the ordinary miserable leaders into a disorganized +useless rabble, but under a right general it attained a military +perfection which the burgess-army could never reach. The class +of officers especially had deeply degenerated. The higher ranks, +senators and equites, grew more and more unused to arms. +While formerly there had been a zealous competition for the posts +of staff officers, now every man of equestrian rank, who chose to serve, +was sure of a military tribuneship, and several of these posts +had even to be filled with men of humbler rank; and any man +of quality at all who still served sought at least to finish +his term of service in Sicily or some other province where +he was sure not to face the enemy. Officers of ordinary bravery +and efficiency were stared at as prodigies; as to Pompeius especially, +his contemporaries practised a military idolatry which in every +respect compromised them. The staff, as a rule, gave the signal +for desertion and for mutiny; in spite of the culpable indulgence +of the commanders proposals for the cashiering of officers of rank +were daily occurrences. We still possess the picture-- +drawn not without irony by Caesar's own hand--of the state of matters +at his own headquarters when orders were given to march +against Ariovistus, of the cursing and weeping, and preparing +of testaments, and presenting even of requests for furlough. +In the soldiery not a trace of the better classes could any longer +be discovered. Legally the general obligation to bear arms +still subsisted; but the levy, if resorted to alongside of enlisting, +took place in the most irregular manner; numerous persons +liable to serve were wholly passed over, while those once levied +were retained thirty years and longer beneath the eagles. +The Roman burgess-cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted +noble guard, whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses +only played a part in the festivals of the capital; the so-called +burgess-infantry was a troop of mercenaries swept together +from the lowest ranks of the burgess-population; the subjects furnished +the cavalry and the light troops exclusively, and came to be +more and more extensively employed also in the infantry. The posts +of centurions in the legions, on which in the mode of warfare +of that time the efficiency of the divisions essentially depended, +and to which according to the national military constitution the soldier +served his way upward with the pike, were now not merely regularly +conferred according to favour, but were not unfrequently sold +to the highest bidder. In consequence of the bad financial management +of the government and the venality and fraud of the great majority +of the magistrates, the payment of the soldiers was extremely +defective and irregular. + +The necessary consequence of this was, that in the ordinary +course of things the Roman armies pillaged the provincials, +mutinied against their officers, and ran off in presence of the enemy; +instances occurred where considerable armies, such as the Macedonian army +of Piso in 697,(33) were without any proper defeat utterly ruined, +simply by this misconduct. Capable leaders on the other hand, +such as Pompeius, Caesar, Gabinius, formed doubtless out of the existing +materials able and effective, and to some extent exemplary, +armies; but these armies belonged far more to their general +than to the commonwealth. The still more complete decay +of the Roman marine--which, moreover, had remained an object +of antipathy to the Romans and had never been fully nationalized-- +scarcely requires to be mentioned. Here too, on all sides, +everything that could be ruined at all had been reduced to ruin +under the oligarchic government. + +Its Reorganization by Caesar + +The reorganization of the Roman military system by Caesar +was substantially limited to the tightening and strengthening +of the reins of discipline, which had been relaxed under the negligent +and incapable supervision previously subsisting. The Roman military +system seemed to him neither to need, nor to be capable of, +radical reform; he accepted the elements of the army, just as Hannibal +had accepted them. The enactment of his municipal ordinance that, +in order to the holding of a municipal magistracy or sitting +in the municipal council before the thirtieth year, three years' service +on horseback--that is, as officer--or six years' service on foot +should be required, proves indeed that he wished to attract +the better classes to the army; but it proves with equal clearness +that amidst the ever-increasing prevalence of an unwarlike spirit +in the nation he himself held it no longer possible to associate +the holding of an honorary office with the fulfilment of the time +of service unconditionally as hitherto. This very circumstance +serves to explain why Caesar made no attempt to re-establish +the Roman burgess-cavalry. The levy was better arranged, +the time of service was regulated and abridged; otherwise matters +remained on the footing that the infantry of the line were raised +chiefly from the lower orders of the Roman burgesses, the cavalry +and the light infantry from the subjects. That nothing was done +for the reorganization of the fleet, is surprising. + +Foreign Mercenaries +Adjutants of the Legion + +It was an innovation--hazardous beyond doubt even in the view +of its author--to which the untrustworthy character of the cavalry +furnished by the subjects compelled him,(34) that Caesar +for the first time deviated from the old Roman system of never fighting +with mercenaries, and incorporated in the cavalry hired foreigners, +especially Germans. Another innovation was the appointment of adjutants +of the legion (-legati legionis-). Hitherto the military tribunes, +nominated partly by the burgesses, partly by the governor concerned, +had led the legions in such a way that six of them were placed +over each legion, and the command alternated among these; +a single commandant of the legion was appointed by the general +only as a temporary and extraordinary measure. In subsequent times +on the other hand those colonels or adjutants of legions appear +as a permanent and organic institution, and as nominated no longer +by the governor whom they obey, but by the supreme command in Rome; +both changes seem referable to Caesar's arrangements connected +with the Gabinian law.(35) The reason for the introduction +of this important intervening step in the military hierarchy +must be sought partly in the necessity for a more energetic +centralization of the command, partly in the felt want of capable +superior officers, partly and chiefly in the design of providing +a counterpoise to the governor by associating with him one or more +colonels nominated by the Imperator. + +The New Commandership-in-Chief + +The most essential change in the military system consisted +in the institution of a permanent military head in the person +of the Imperator, who, superseding the previous unmilitary +and in every respect incapable governing corporation, united +in his hands the whole control of the army, and thus converted it +from a direction which for the most part was merely nominal +into a real and energetic supreme command. We are not properly informed +as to the position which this supreme command occupied towards +the special commands hitherto omnipotent in their respective spheres. +Probably the analogy of the relation subsisting between the praetor +and the consul or the consul and the dictator served generally +as a basis, so that, while the governor in his own right retained +the supreme military authority in his province, the Imperator +was entitled at any moment to take it away from him and assume it +for himself or his delegates, and, while the authority of the governor +was confined to the province, that of the Imperator, like the regal +and the earlier consular authority, extended over the whole empire. +Moreover it is extremely probable that now the nomination +of the officers, both the military tribunes and the centurions, +so far as it had hitherto belonged to the governor,(36) as well as +the nomination of the new adjutants of the legion, passed directly +into the hands of the Imperator; and in like manner even now +the arrangement of the levies, the bestowal of leave of absence, +and the more important criminal cases, may have been submitted +to the judgment of the commander-in-chief. With this limitation +of the powers of the governors and with the regulated control +of the Imperator, there was no great room to apprehend +in future either that the armies might be utterly disorganized +or that they might be converted into retainers personally devoted +to their respective officers. + +Caesar's Military Plans +Defence of the Frontier + +But, however decidedly and urgently the circumstances pointed +to military monarchy, and however distinctly Caesar took the supreme +command exclusively for himself, he was nevertheless not at all +inclined to establish his authority by means of, and on, the army. +No doubt he deemed a standing army necessary for his state, +but only because from its geographical position it required +a comprehensive regulation of the frontiers and permanent frontier +garrisons. Partly at earlier periods, partly during the recent +civil war, he had worked at the tranquillizing of Spain, +and had established strong positions for the defence of the frontier +in Africa along the great desert, and in the north-west of the empire +along the line of the Rhine. He occupied himself with similar plans +for the regions on the Euphrates and on the Danube. Above all +he designed an expedition against the Parthians, to avenge the day +of Carrhae; he had destined three years for this war, and was resolved +to settle accounts with these dangerous enemies once for all +and not less cautiously than thoroughly. In like manner +he had projected the scheme of attacking Burebistas king of the Getae, +who was greatly extending his power on both sides of the Danube,(37) +and of protecting Italy in the north-east by border-districts +similar to those which he had created for it in Gaul. On the other hand +there is no evidence at all that Caesar contemplated like Alexander +a career of victory extending indefinitely far; it is said indeed +that he had intended to march from Parthia to the Caspian +and from this to the Black Sea and then along its northern shores +to the Danube, to annex to the empire all Scythia and Germany as far as +the Northern Ocean--which according to the notions of that time was not +so very distant from the Mediterranean--and to return home through Gaul; +but no authority at all deserving of credit vouches for the existence +of these fabulous projects. In the case of a state which, like the Roman +state of Caesar, already included a mass of barbaric elements difficult +to be controlled, and had still for centuries to come more than enough +to do with their assimilation, such conquests, even granting their +military practicability, would have been nothing but blunders +far more brilliant and far worse than the Indian expedition +of Alexander. Judging both from Caesar's conduct in Britain +and Germany and from the conduct of those who became the heirs +of his political ideas, it is in a high degree probable that Caesar +with Scipio Aemilianus called on the gods not to increase the empire, +but to preserve it, and that his schemes of conquest restricted +themselves to a settlement of the frontier--measured, it is true, +by his own great scale--which should secure the line of the Euphrates, +and, instead of the fluctuating and militarily useless boundary +of the empire on the north-east, should establish and render defensible +the line of the Danube. + +Attempts of Caesar to Avert Military Despotism + +But, if it remains a mere probability that Caesar ought not +to be designated a world-conqueror in the same sense as Alexander +and Napoleon, it is quite certain that his design was not to rest +his new monarchy primarily on the support of the army nor generally +to place the military authority above the civil, but to incorporate +it with, and as far as possible subordinate it to, the civil +commonwealth. The invaluable pillars of a military state, +those old and far-famed Gallic legions, were honourably dissolved +just on account of the incompatibility of their esprit de corps +with a civil commonwealth, and their glorious names were only perpetuated +in newly-founded urban communities. The soldiers presented +by Caesar with allotments of land on their discharge were not, +like those of Sulla, settled together--as it were militarily-- +in colonies of their own, but, especially when they settled in Italy, +were isolated as much as possible and scattered throughout the peninsula; +it was only in the case of the portions of the Campanian land +that remained for disposal, that an aggregation of the old soldiers +of Caesar could not be avoided. Caesar sought to solve +the difficult task of keeping the soldiers of a standing army +within the spheres of civil life, partly by retaining the former +arrangement which prescribed merely certain years of service, +and not a service strictly constant, that is, uninterrupted +by any discharge; partly by the already-mentioned shortening of the term +of service, which occasioned a speedier change in the personal +composition of the army; partly by the regular settlement +of the soldiers who had served out their time as agricultural colonists; +partly and principally by keeping the army aloof from Italy +and generally from the proper seats of the civil and political life +of the nation, and directing the soldier to the points, +where according to the opinion of the great king he was alone, +in his place--to the frontier stations, that he might ward off +the extraneous foe. + +Absence of Corps of Guards + +The true criterion also of the military state--the development of, +and the privileged position assigned to, the corps of guards-- +is not to be met with in the case of Caesar. Although as respects +the army on active service the institution of a special bodyguard +for the general had been already long in existence,(38) in Caesar's +system this fell completely into the background; his praetorian +cohort seems to have essentially consisted merely of orderly +officers or non-military attendants, and never to have been +in the proper sense a select corps, consequently never an object +of jealousy to the troops of the line. While Caesar even as general +practically dropped the bodyguard, he still, less as king tolerated +a guard round his person. Although constantly beset by lurking +assassins and well aware of it, he yet rejected the proposal +of the senate to institute a select guard; dismissed, +as soon as things grew in some measure quiet, the Spanish escort +which he had made use of at first in the capital; and contented himself +with the retinue of lictors sanctioned by traditional usage +for the Roman supreme magistrates. + +Impracticableness of Ideal + +However much of the idea of his party and of his youth-- +to found a Periclean government in Rome not by virtue of the sword, +but by virtue of the confidence of the nation--Caesar had been obliged +to abandon in the struggle with realities, he retained even now +the fundamental idea--of not founding a military monarchy-- +with an energy to which history scarcely supplies a parallel. +Certainly this too was an impracticable ideal--it was the sole illusion, +in regard to which the earnest longing of that vigorous mind +was more powerful than its clear judgment. A government, such as Caesar +had in view, was not merely of necessity in its nature highly personal, +and so liable to perish with the death of its author just as + the kindred creations of Pericles and Cromwell with the death +of their founders; but, amidst the deeply disorganized state +of the nation, it was not at all credible that the eighth king of Rome +would succeed even for his lifetime in ruling, as his seven predecessors +had ruled, his fellow-burgesses merely by virtue of law and justice, +and as little probable that he would succeed in incorporating +the standing army--after it had during the last civil war +learned its power and unlearned its reverence--once more +as a subservient element in civil society. To any one who calmly +considered to what extent reverence for the law had disappeared +from the lowest as from the highest ranks of society, the former hope +must have seemed almost a dream; and, if with the Marian reform +of the military system the soldier generally had ceased +to be a citizen,(39) the Campanian mutiny and the battle-field +of Thapsus showed with painful clearness the nature of the support +which the army now lent to the law. Even the great democrat +could only with difficulty and imperfectly hold in check the powers +which he had unchained; thousands of swords still at his signal +flew from the scabbard, but they were no longer equally ready +upon that signal to return to the sheath. Fate is mightier than genius. +Caesar desired to become the restorer of the civil commonwealth, +and became the founder of the military monarchy which he abhorred; +he overthrew the regime of aristocrats and bankers in the state, +only to put a military regime in their place, and the commonwealth +continued as before to be tyrannized and worked for profit +by a privileged minority. And yet it is a privilege of the highest +natures thus creatively to err. The brilliant attempts of great men +to realize the ideal, though they do not reach their aim, +form the best treasure of the nations. It was owing to the work +of Caesar that the Roman military state did not become a police-state +till after the lapse of several centuries, and that the Roman Imperators, +however little they otherwise resembled the great founder +of their sovereignty, yet employed the soldier in the main +not against the citizen but against the public foe, and esteemed +both nation and army too highly to set the latter as constable +over the former. + +Financial Administration + +The regulation of financial matters occasioned comparatively +little difficulty in consequence of the solid foundations +which the immense magnitude of the empire and the exclusion +of the system of credit supplied. If the state had hitherto found itself +in constant financial embarrassment, the fault was far from chargeable +on the inadequacy of the state revenues; on the contrary these had +of late years immensely increased. To the earlier aggregate income, +which is estimated at 200,000,000 sesterces (2,000,000 pounds), +there were added 85,000,000 sesterces (850,000 pounds) +by the erection of the provinces of Bithynia-Pontus and Syria; +which increase, along with the other newly opened up or augmented +sources of income, especially from the constantly increasing produce +of the taxes on luxuries, far outweighed the loss of the Campanian rents. +Besides, immense sums had been brought from extraordinary sources +into the exchequer through Lucullus, Metellus, Pompeius, Cato, +and others. The cause of the financial embarrassments rather la +partly in the increase of the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure, +partly in the disorder of management. Under the former head, +the distribution of corn to the multitude of the capital claimed +almost exorbitant sums; through the extension given to it +by Cato in 691(40) the yearly expenditure for that purpose amounted +to 30,000,000 sesterces (300,000 pounds) and after the abolition +in 696 of the compensation hitherto paid, it swallowed up even +a fifth of the state revenues. The military budget also had risen, +since the garrisons of Cilicia, Syria, and Gaul had been added +to those of Spain, Macedonia, and the other provinces. +Among the extraordinary items of expenditure must be named +in the first place the great cost of fitting out fleets, on which, +for example, five years after the great razzia of 687, 34,000,000 +sesterces (340,000 pounds) were expended at once. Add to this +the very considerable sums which were consumed in wars and warlike +preparations; such as 18,000,000 sesterces (180,000 pounds) +paid at once to Piso merely for the outfit of the Macedonian army, +24,000,000 sesterces (240,000 pounds) even annually to Pompeius +for the maintenance and pay of the Spanish army, and similar sums +to Caesar for the Gallic legions. But considerable as were +these demands made on the Roman exchequer, it would still have +beenable probably to meet them, had not its administration once +so exemplary been affected by the universal laxity and dishonesty +of this age; the payments of the treasury were often suspended +merely because of the neglect to call up its outstanding claims. +The magistrates placed over it, two of the quaestors--young men +annually changed--contented themselves at the best with inaction; +among the official staff of clerks and others, formerly so justly held +in high esteem for its integrity, the worst abuses now prevailed, +more especially since such posts had come to be bought and sold. + +Financial Reforms of Caesar +Leasing of the Direct Taxes Abolished + +As soon however as the threads of Roman state-finance were concentrated +no longer as hitherto in the senate, but in the cabinet of Caesar, +new life, stricter order, and more compact connection at once pervaded +all the wheels and springs of that great machine. the two institutions, +which originated with Gaius Gracchus and ate like a gangrene +into the Roman financial system--the leasing of the direct taxes, +and the distributions of grain--were partly abolished, +partly remodelled. Caesar wished not, like his predecessor, +to hold the nobility in check by the banker-aristocracy +and the populace of the capital, but to set them aside and to deliver +the commonwealth from all parasites whether of high or lower rank; +and therefore he went in these two important questions +not with Gaius Gracchus, but with the oligarch Sulla. The leasing system +was allowed to continue for the indirect taxes, in the case of which +it was very old and--under the maxim of Roman financial administration, +which was retained inviolable also by Caesar, that the levying +of the taxes should at any cost be kept simple and readily manageable-- +absolutely could not be dispensed with. But the direct taxes +were thenceforth universally either treated, like the African +and Sardinian deliveries of corn and oil, as contributions +in kind to be directly supplied to the state, or converted, +like the revenues of Asia Minor, into fixed money payments, +in which case the collection of the several sums payable +was entrusted to the tax-districts themselves. + +Reform of the Distribution of Corn + +The corn-distributions in the capital had hitherto been looked on +as a profitable prerogative of the community which ruled and, +because it ruled, had to be fed by its subjects. This infamous +principle was set aside by Caesar; but it could not be overlooked +that a multitude of wholly destitute burgesses had been protected +solely by these largesses of food from starvation. In this aspect +Caesar retained them. While according to the Sempronian ordinance +renewed by Cato every Roman burgess settled in Rome had legally +a claim to bread-corn without payment, this list of recipients, +which had at last risen to the number of 320,000, was reduced +by the exclusion of all individuals having means or otherwise +provided for to 150,000, and this number was fixed once for all +as the maximum number of recipients of free corn; at the same time +an annual revision of the list was ordered, so that the places vacated +by removal or death might be again filled up with the most needful +among the applicants. By this conversion of the political privilege +into a provision for the poor, a principle remarkable in a moral +as well as in a historical point of view came for the first time +into living operation. Civil society but slowly and gradually +works its way to a perception of the interdependence of interests; +in earlier antiquity the state doubtless protected its members +from the public enemy and the murderer, but it was not bound to protect +the totally helpless fellow-citizen from the worse enemy, want, +by affording the needful means of subsistence. It was the Attic +civilization which first developed, in the Solonian and post-Solonian +legislation, the principle that it is the duty of the community +to provide for its invalids and indeed for its poor generally +and it was Caesar that first developed what in the restricted compass +of Attic life had remained a municipal matter into an organic +institution of state, and transformed an arrangement, +which was a burden and a disgrace for the commonwealth, +into the first of those institutions--in modern times as countless +as they are beneficial--where the infinite depth of human compassion +contends with the infinite depth of human misery. + +The Budget of Income + +In addition to these fundamental reforms a thorough revision +of the income and expenditure took place. The ordinary sources +of income were everywhere regulated and fixed. Exemption from taxation +was conferred on not a few communities and even on whole districts, +whether indirectly by the bestowal of the Roman or Latin franchise, +or directly by special privilege; it was obtained e. g. by all +the Sicilian communities(41) in the former, by the town of Ilion +in the latter way. Still greater was the number of those whose +proportion of tribute was lowered; the communities in Further Spain, +for instance, already after Caesar's governorship had on his suggestion +a reduction of tribute granted to them by the senate, and now +the most oppressed province of Asia had not only the levying of its +direct taxes facilitated, but also a third of them wholly remitted. +The newly-added taxes, such as those of the communities subdued +in Illyria and above all of the Gallic communities--which latter +together paid annually 40,000,000 sesterces (400,000 pounds)-- +were fixed throughout on a low scale. It is true on the other hand +that various towns such as Little Leptis in Africa, Sulci in Sardinia, +and several Spanish communities, had their tribute raised by way +of penalty for their conduct during the last war. The very lucrative +Italian harbour-tolls abolished in the recent times of anarchy +were re-established all the more readily, that this tax fell +essentially on luxuries imported from the east. To these new +or revived sources of ordinary income were added the sums +which accrued by extraordinary means, especially in consequence +of the civil war, to the victor--the booty collected in Gaul; +the stock of cash in the capital; the treasures taken from the Italian +and Spanish temples; the sums raised in the shape of forced loan, +compulsory present, or fine, from the dependent communities +and dynasts, and the pecuniary penalties imposed in a similar way +by judicial sentence, or simply by sending an order to pay, +on individual wealthy Romans; and above all things the proceeds +from the estate of defeated opponents. How productive these sources +of income were, we may learn from the fact, that the fine +of the African capitalists who sat in the opposition-senate alone +amounted to 100,000,000 sesterces (1,000,000 pounds) and the price paid +by the purchasers of the property of Pompeius to 70,000,000 sesterces +(700,000 pounds). This course was necessary, because the power +of the beaten nobility rested in great measure on their colossal wealth +and could only be effectually broken by imposing on them the defrayment +of the costs of the war. But the odium of the confiscations +was in some measure mitigated by the fact that Caesar directed +their proceeds solely to the benefit of the state, +and, instead of overlooking after the manner of Sulla any act of fraud +in his favourites, exacted the purchase-money with rigour +even from his most faithful adherents, e. g. from Marcus Antonius. + +The Budget of Expenditure + +In the expenditure a diminution was in the first place obtained +by the considerable restriction of the largesses of grain. +The distribution of corn to the poor of the capital which was retained, +as well as the kindred supply of oil newly introduced by Caesar +for the Roman baths, were at least in great part charged once for all +on the contributions in kind from Sardinia and especially from Africa, +and were thereby wholly or for the most part kept separate +from the exchequer. On the other hand the regular expenditure +for the military system was increased partly by the augmentation +of the standing army, partly by the raising of the pay of the legionary +from 480 sesterces (5 pounds) to 900 (9 pounds) annually. +Both steps were in fact indispensable. There was a total want +of any real defence for the frontiers, and an indispensable preliminary +to it was a considerable increase of the army. The doubling +of the pay was doubtless employed by Caesar to attach his soldiers +firmly to him,(42) but was not introduced as a permanent innovation +on that account. The former pay of 1 1/3 sesterces (3 1/4 pence) +per day had been fixed in very ancient times, when money had +an altogether different value from that which it had in the Rome +of Caesar's day; it could only have been retained down to a period +when the common day-labourer in the capital earned by the labour +of his hands daily on an average 3 sesterces (7 1/2 pence), +because in those times the soldier entered the army not for the sake +of the pay, but chiefly for the sake of the--in great measure illicit-- +perquisites of military service. The first condition in order +to a serious reform in the military system, and to the getting rid +of those irregular gains of the soldier which formed a burden +mostly on the provincials, was an increase suitable to the times +in the regular pay; and the fixing of it at 2 1/2 sesterces (6 1/2 pence) +may be regarded as an equitable step, while the great burden +thereby imposed on the treasury was a necessary, and in its consequences +a beneficial, course. + +Of the amount of the extraordinary expenses which Caesar +had to undertake or voluntarily undertook, it is difficult +to form a conception. The wars themselves consumed enormous sums; +and sums perhaps not less were required to fulfil the promises +which Caesar had been obliged to make during the civil war. +It was a bad example and one unhappily not lost sight of in the sequel, +that every common soldier received for his participation in the civil war +20,000 sesterces (200 pounds), every burgess of the multitude +in the capital for his non-participation in it 300 sesterces +(3 pounds) as an addition to his aliment; but Caesar, after having once +under the pressure of circumstances pledged his word, was too much +of a king to abate from it. Besides, Caesar answered innumerable +demands of honourable liberality, and put into circulation +immense sums for building more especially, which had been +shamefully neglected during the financial distress of the last times +of the republic--the cost of his buildings executed partly during +the Gallic campaigns, partly afterwards, in the capital was reckoned +at 160,000,000 sesterces (1,600,000 pounds). The general result +of the financial administration of Caesar is expressed in the fact that, +while by sagacious and energetic reforms and by a right combination +of economy and liberality he amply and fully met all equitable claims, +nevertheless already in March 710 there lay in the public treasury +700,000,000 and in his own 100,000,000 sesterces (together +8,000,000 pounds)--a sum which exceeded by tenfold the amount of cash +in the treasury in the most flourishing times of the republic.(43) + +Social Condition of the Nation + +But the task of breaking up the old parties and furnishing +the new commonwealth with an appropriate constitution, +an efficient army, and well-ordered finances, difficult as it was, +was not the most difficult part of Caesar's work. If the Italian nation +was really to be regenerated, it required a reorganization +which should transform all parts of the great empire--Rome, Italy, +and the provinces. Let us endeavour here also to delineate +the old state of things, as well as the beginnings of a new +and more tolerable time. + +The Capital + +The good stock of the Latin nation had long since wholly disappeared +from Rome. It is implied in the very nature of the case, +that a capital loses its municipal and even its national stamp +more quickly than any subordinate community. There the upper classes +speedily withdraw from urban public life, in order to find +their home rather in the state as a whole than in a single city; +there are inevitably concentrated the foreign settlers, the fluctuating +population of travellers for pleasure or business, the mass +of the indolent, lazy, criminal, financially and morally bankrupt, +and for that very reason cosmopolitan, rabble. All this preeminently +applied to Rome. The opulent Roman frequently regarded his town-house +merely as a lodging. When the urban municipal offices were converted +into imperial magistracies; when the civic assembly became the assembly +of burgesses of the empire; and when smaller self-governing tribal +or other associations were not tolerated within the capital: +all proper communal life ceased for Rome. From the whole compass +of the widespread empire people flocked to Rome, for speculation, +for debauchery, for intrigue, for training in crime, +or even for the purpose of hiding there from the eye of the law. + +The Populace There + +These evils arose in some measure necessarily from the very nature +of a capital; others more accidental and perhaps still more grave +were associated with them. There has never perhaps existed a great city +so thoroughly destitute of the means of support as Rome; importation +on the one hand, and domestic manufacture by slaves on the other, +rendered any free industry from the outset impossible there. +The injurious consequences of the radical evil pervading the politics +of antiquity in general--the slave-system--were more conspicuous +in the capital than anywhere else. Nowhere were such masses +of slaves accumulated as in the city palaces of the great families +or of wealthy upstarts. Nowhere were the nations of the three +continents mingled as in the slave-population of the capital-- +Syrians, Phrygians and other half-Hellenes with Libyans and Moors, +Getae, and Iberians with the daily-increasing influx of Celts +and Germans. The demoralization inseparable from the absence +of freedom, and the terrible inconsistency between formal +and moral right, were far more glaringly apparent in the case +of the half or wholly cultivated--as it were genteel--city-slave than, +in that of the rural serf who tilled the field in chains +like the fettered ox. Still worse than the masses of slaves were those +who had been de jure or simply de facto released from slavery-- +a mixture of mendicant rabble and very rich parvenus, no longer slaves +and not yet fully burgesses, economically and even legally dependent +on their master and yet with the pretensions of free men; +and these freedmen made their way above all towards the capital, +where gain of various sorts was to be had and the retail traffic +as well as the minor handicrafts were almost wholly in their hands. +Their influence on the elections is expressly attested; +and that they took a leading part in the street riots, is very evident +from the ordinary signal by means of which these were virtually +proclaimed by the demagogues--the closing of the shops +and places of sale. + +Relations of the Oligarchy to the Populace + +Moreover, the government not only did nothing to counteract +this corruption of the population of the capital, but even encouraged it +for the benefit of their selfish policy. The judicious rule of law, +which prohibited individuals condemned for a capital offence +from dwelling in the capita, was not carried into effect +by the negligent police. The police-supervision--so urgently required-- +of association on the part of the rabble was at first neglected, +and afterwards(44) even declared punishable as a restriction inconsistent +with the freedom of the people. The popular festivals had been allowed +so to increase that the seven ordinary ones alone--the Roman, +the Plebeian, those of the Mother of the Gods, of Ceres, of Apollo, +of Flora(45) and of Victoria--lasted altogether sixty-two days; +and to these were added the gladiatorial games and numerous other +extraordinary amusements. The duty of providing grain at low prices-- +which was unavoidably necessary with such a proletariate living wholly +from hand to mouth--was treated with the most unscrupulous frivolity, +and the fluctuations in the price of bread-corn were of a fabulous +and incalculable description.(46) Lastly, the distribution of grain +formed an official invitation to the whole burgess-proletariate +who were destitute of food and indisposed for work to take up +their abode in the capital. + +Anarchy of the Capital + +The seed sown was bad, and the harvest corresponded. The system +of clubs and bands in the sphere of politics, the worship of Isis +and similar pious extravagances in that of religion, had their root +in this state of things. People were constantly in prospect +of a dearth, and not unfrequently in utter famine. Nowhere was a man +less secure of his life than in the capital; murder professionally +prosecuted by banditti was the single trade peculiar to it; +the alluring of the victim to Rome was the preliminary +to his assassination; no one ventured into the country +in the vicinity of the capital without an armed retinue. +Its outward condition corresponded to this inward disorganization, +and seemed a keen satire on the aristocratic government. +Nothing was done for the regulation of the stream of the Tiber; +excepting that they caused the only bridge, with which they still +made shift,(47) to be constructed of stone at least as far as +the Tiber-island. As little was anything done toward the levelling +of the city of the Seven Hills, except where perhaps the accumulation +of rubbish had effected some improvement. The streets ascended +and descended narrow and angular, and were wretchedly kept; the footpaths +were small and ill paved. The ordinary houses were built of bricks +negligently and to a giddy height, mostly by speculative builders +on account of the small proprietors; by which means the former +became vastly rich, and the latter were reduced to beggary. +Like isolated islands amidst this sea of wretched buildings +were seen the splendid palaces of the rich, which curtailed the space +for the smaller houses just as their owners curtailed the burgess- +rights of smaller men in the state, and beside whose marble pillars +and Greek statues the decaying temples, with their images of the gods +still in great part carved of wood, made a melancholy figure. +A police-supervision of streets, of river-banks, of fires, or of building +was almost unheard of; if the government troubled itself at all +about the inundations, conflagrations, and falls of houses +which were of yearly occurrence, it was only to ask from the state- +theologians their report and advice regarding the true import +of such signs and wonders. If we try to conceive to ourselves +a London with the slave-population of New Orleans, with the police +of Constantinople, with the non-industrial character of the modern Rome, +and agitated by politics after the fashion of the Paris in 1848, +we shall acquire an approximate idea of the republican glory, +the departure of which Cicero and his associates in their +sulky letters deplore. + +Caesar's Treatment of Matters in the Capital + +Caesar did not deplore, but he sought to help so far as help +was possible. Rome remained, of course, what it was-- +a cosmopolitan city. Not only would the attempt to give to it +once more a specifically Italian character have been impracticable; +it would not have suited Caesar's plan. Just as Alexander found +for his Graeco-Oriental empire an appropriate capital in the Hellenic, +Jewish, Egyptian, and above all cosmopolitan, Alexandria, +so the capital of the new Romano-Hellenic universal empire, +situated at the meeting-point of the east and the west, was to be +not an Italian community, but the denationalized capital +of many nations. For this reason Caesar tolerated the worship +of the newly-settled Egyptian gods alongside of Father Jovis, and granted +even to the Jews the free exercise of their strangely foreign ritual +in the very capital of the empire. However offensive was the motley +mixture of the parasitic--especially the Helleno-Oriental-- +population in Rome, he nowhere opposed its extension; it is significant, +that at his popular festivals for the capital he caused dramas +to be performed not merely in Latin and Greek, but also in other +languages, presumably in Phoenician, Hebrew, Syrian, Spanish. + +Diminution of the Proletariate + +But, if Caesar accepted with the full consciousness of what he was doing +the fundamental character of the capital such as he found it, +he yet worked energetically at the improvement of the lamentable +and disgraceful state of things prevailing there. Unhappily +the primary evils were the least capable of being eradicated. +Caesar could not abolish slavery with its train of national calamities; +it must remain an open question, whether he would in the course of time +have attempted at least to limit the slave-population in the capital, +as he undertook to do so in another field. As little could Caesar +conjure into existence a free industry in the capital; +yet the great building-operations remedied in some measure +the want of means of support there, and opened up to the proletariate +a source of small but honourable gain. On the other hand Caesar +laboured energetically to diminish the mass of the free proletariate. +The constant influx of persons brought by the corn-largesses +to Rome was, if not wholly stopped,(48) at least very materially +restricted by the conversion of these largesses into a provision +for the poor limited to a fixed number. The ranks of the existing +proletariate were thinned on the one hand by the tribunals +which were instructed to proceed with unrelenting rigour +against the rabble, on the other hand by a comprehensive transmarine +colonization; of the 80,000 colonists whom Caesar sent beyond the seas +in the few years of his government, a very great portion +must have been taken from the lower ranks of the population +of the capital; most of the Corinthian settlers indeed were freedmen. +When in deviation from the previous order of things, which precluded +the freedmen from any urban honorary office, Caesar opened to them +in his colonies the doors of the senate-house, this was doubtless done +in order to gain those of them who were in better positions to favour +the cause of emigration. This emigration, however, must have been +more than a mere temporary arrangement; Caesar, convinced like every +other man of sense that the only true remedy for the misery +of the proletariate consisted in a well-regulated system of colonization, +and placed by the condition of the empire in a position to realize it +to an almost unlimited extent, must have had the design +of permanently continuing the process, and so opening up a constant means +of abating an evil which was constantly reproducing itself. +Measures were further taken to set bounds to the serious fluctuations +in the price of the most important means of subsistence in the markets +of the capital. The newly-organized and liberally-administered +finances of the state furnished the means for this purpose, +and two newly-nominated magistrates, the corn-aediles(49) were charged +with the special supervision of the contractors and of the market +of the capital. + +The Club System Restricted + +The club system was checked, more effectually than was possible +through prohibitive laws, by the change of the constitution; +inasmuch as with the republic and the republican elections and tribunals +the corruption and violence of the electioneering and judicial +-collegia---and generally the political Saturnalia of the -canaille--- +came to an end of themselves. Moreover the combinations called +into existence by the Clodian law were broken up, and the whole system +of association was placed under the superintendence of the governing +authorities. With the exception of the ancient guilds and associations, +of the religious unions of the Jews, and of other specially excepted +categories, for which a simple intimation to the senate seems +to have sufficed, the permission to constitute a permanent society +with fixed times of assembling and standing deposits was made dependent +on a concession to be granted by the senate, and, as a rule, +doubtless only after the consent of the monarch had been obtained. + +Street Police + +To this was added a stricter administration of criminal justice +and an energetic police. The laws, especially as regards the crime +of violence, were rendered more stringent; and the irrational enactment +of the republican law, that the convicted criminal was entitled +to withdraw himself from a part of the penalty which he had incurred +by self-banishment, was with reason set aside. The detailed regulations, +which Caesar issued regarding the police of the capital, +are in great part still preserved; and all who choose may convince +themselves that the Imperator did not disdain to insist +on the house-proprietors putting the streets into repair +and paving the footpath in its whole breadth with hewn stones, +and to issue appropriate enactments regarding the carrying of litters +and the driving of waggons, which from the nature of the streets +were only allowed to move freely through the capital in the evening +and by night. The supervision of the local police remained as hitherto +chiefly with the four aediles, who were instructed now at least, +if not earlier, each to superintend a distinctly marked-off +police district within the capital. + +Buildings of the Capital + +Lastly, building in the capital, and the provision +connected therewith of institutions for the public benefit, +received from Caesar--who combined in himself the love for building +of a Roman and of an organizer--a sudden stimulus, which not merely +put to shame the mismanagement of the recent anarchic times, +but also left all that the Roman aristocracy had done in their best days +as far behind as the genius of Caesar surpassed the honest endeavours +of the Marcii and Aemilii. It was not merely by the extent +of the buildings in themselves and the magnitude of the sums +expended on them that Caesar excelled his predecessors; +but a genuine statesmanly perception of what was for the public good +distinguishes what Caesar did for the public institutions of Rome +from all similar services. He did not build, like his successors, +temples and other splendid structures, but he relieved the marketplace +of Rome--in which the burgess-assemblies, the seats of the chief courts, +the exchange, and the daily business-traffic as well as +the daily idleness, still were crowded together--at least +from the assemblies and the courts by constructing for the former +a new -comitium-, the Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius, +and for the latter a separate place of judicature, the Forum Julium +between the Capitol and Palatine. Of a kindred spirit is the arrangement +originating with him, by which there were supplied to the baths +of the capital annually three million pounds of oil, mostly from Africa, +and they were thereby enabled to furnish to the bathers gratuitously +the oil required for the anointing of the body--a measure +of cleanliness and sanitary policy which, according +to the ancient dietetics based substantially on bathing and anointing, +was highly judicious. + +But these noble arrangements were only the first steps towards +a complete remodelling of Rome. Projects were already formed +for a new senate-house, for a new magnificent bazaar, for a theatre +to rival that of Pompeius, for a public Latin and Greek library +after the model of that recently destroyed at Alexandria-- +the first institution of the sort in Rome--lastly for a temple of Mars, +which was to surpass all that had hitherto existed in riches and glory. +Still more brilliant was the idea, first, of constructing a canal +through the Pomptine marshes and drawing off their waters +to Tarracina, and secondly, of altering the lower course of the Tiber +and of leading it from the present Ponte Molle, not through +between the Campus Vaticanus and the Campus Martius, but rather +round the Campus Vaticanus and the Janiculum to Ostia, +where the miserable roadstead was to give place to an adequate +artificial harbour. By this gigantic plan on the one hand +the most dangerous enemy of the capital, the malaria of the neighbourhood +would be banished; on the other hand the extremely limited facilities +for building in the capital would be at once enlarged by substituting +the Campus Vaticanus thereby transferred to the left bank of the Tiber +for the Campus Martius, and allowing the latter spacious field +to be applied for public and private edifices; while the capital +would at the same time obtain a safe seaport, the want of which +was so painfully felt. It seemed as if the Imperator would remove +mountains and rivers, and venture to contend with nature herself. + +Much however as the city of Rome gained by the new order of things +in commodiousness and magnificence, its political supremacy was, +as we have already said, lost to it irrecoverably through +that very change. The idea that the Roman state should coincide +with the city of Rome had indeed in the course of time become +more and more unnatural and preposterous; but the maxim had been +so intimately blended with the essence of the Roman republic, +that it could not perish before the republic itself. It was only +in the new state of Caesar that it was, with the exception perhaps +of some legal fictions, completely set aside, and the community +of the capital was placed legally on a level with all other +municipalities; indeed Caesar--here as everywhere endeavouring not merely +to regulate the thing, but also to call it officially by the right name-- +issued his Italian municipal ordinance, beyond doubt purposely, +at once for the capital and for the other urban communities. We may add +that Rome, just because it was incapable of a living communal character +as a capital, was even essentially inferior to the other municipalities +of the imperial period. The republican Rome was a den of robbers, +but it was at the same time the state; the Rome of the monarchy, +although it began to embellish itself with all the glories +of the three continents and to glitter in gold and marble, +was yet nothing in the state but a royal residence in connection +with a poor-house, or in other words a necessary evil. + +Italy +Italian Agriculture + +While in the capital the only object aimed at was to get rid +of palpable evils by police ordinances on the greatest scale, +it was a far more difficult task to remedy the deep disorganization +of Italian economics. Its radical misfortunes were those which +we previously noticed in detail--the disappearance of the agricultural, +and the unnatural increase of the mercantile, population-- +with which an endless train of other evils was associated. +The reader will not fail to remember what was the state +of Italian agriculture. In spite of the most earnest attempts +to check the annihilation of the small holdings, farm-husbandry +was scarcely any longer the predominant species of economy +during this epoch in any region of Italy proper, with the exception +perhaps of the valleys of the Apennines and Abruzzi. As to +the management of estates, no material difference is perceptible +between the Catonian system formerly set forth(50) and that +described to us by Varro, except that the latter shows the traces +for better and for worse of the progress of city-life on a great scale +in Rome. "Formerly," says Varro, "the barn on the estate was larger +than the manor-house; now it is wont to be the reverse." In the domains +of Tusculum and Tibur, on the shores of Tarracina and Baiae-- +where the old Latin and Italian farmers had sown and reaped-- +there now rose in barren splendour the villas of the Roman nobles, +some of which covered the space of a moderate-sized town with their +appurtenances of garden-grounds and aqueducts, fresh and salt water ponds +for the preservation and breeding of river and marine fishes, +nurseries of snails and slugs, game-preserves for keeping hares, +rabbits, stags, roes, and wild boars, and aviaries in which even cranes +and peacocks were kept. But the luxury of a great city enriches also +many an industrious hand, and supports more poor than philanthropy +with its expenditure of alms. Those aviaries and fish-ponds +of the grandees were of course, as a rule, a very costly indulgence. +But this system was carried to such an extent and prosecuted +with so much keenness, that e. g. the stock of a pigeon-house +was valued at 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds); a methodical system +of fattening had sprung up, and the manure got from the aviaries +became of importance in agriculture; a single bird-dealer +was able to furnish at once 5000 fieldfares--for they knew how +to rear these also--at three denarii (2 shillings) each, and a single +possessor of a fish-pond 2000 -muraenae-; and the fishes left behind +by Lucius Lucullus brought 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds). +As may readily be conceived, under such circumstances any one +who followed this occupation industriously and intelligently +might obtain very large profits with a comparatively small outlay +of capital. A small bee-breeder of this period sold from his thyme- +garden not larger than an acre in the neighbourhood of Falerii +honey to an average annual amount of at least 10,000 sesterces +(100 pounds). The rivalry of the growers of fruit was carried so far, +that in elegant villas the fruit-chamber lined with marble +was not unfrequently fitted up at the same time as a dining-room, +and sometimes fine fruit acquired by purchase was exhibited there +as of home growth. At this period the cherry from Asia Minor +and other foreign fruit-trees were first planted in the gardens of Italy. +The vegetable gardens, the beds of roses and violets in Latium +and Campania, yielded rich produce, and the "market for dainties" +(-forum cupedinis-) by the side of the Via Sacra, where fruits, +honey, and chaplets were wont to be exposed for sale, +played an important part in the life of the capital. Generally +the management of estates, worked as they were on the planter-system, +had reached in an economic point of view a height scarcely +to be surpassed. The valley of Rieti, the region round the Fucine lake, +the districts on the Liris and Volturnus, and indeed Central Italy +in general, were as respects husbandry in the most flourishing condition; +even certain branches of industry, which were suitable accompaniments +of the management of an estate by means of slaves, were taken up +by intelligent landlords, and, where the circumstances were favourable, +inns, weaving factories, and especially brickworks were constructed +on the estate. The Italian producers of wine and oil in particular +not only supplied the Italian markets, but carried on also +in both articles a considerable business of transmarine exportation. +A homely professional treatise of this period compares Italy +to a great fruit-garden; and the pictures which a contemporary poet +gives of his beautiful native land, where the well-watered meadow, +the luxuriant corn-field, the pleasant vine-covered hill are fringed +by the dark line of the olive-trees--where the "ornament" of the land, +smiling in varied charms, cherishes the loveliest gardens +in its bosom and is itself wreathed round by food-producing trees-- +these descriptions, evidently faithful pictures of the landscape +daily presented to the eye of the poet, transplant us +into the most flourishing districts of Tuscany and Terra di Lavoro. +The pastoral husbandry, it is true, which for reasons formerly explained +was always spreading farther especially in the south and south-east +of Italy, was in every respect a retrograde movement; but it too +participated to a certain degree in the general progress of agriculture; +much was done for the improvement of the breeds, e. g. asses for breeding +brought 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds), 100,000 (1000 pounds), +and even 400,000 (4000 pounds). The solid Italian husbandry +obtained at this period, when the general development of intelligence +and abundance of capital rendered it fruitful, far more brilliant results +than ever the old system of small cultivators could have given; +and was carried even already beyond the bounds of Italy, +for the Italian agriculturist turned to account large tracts +in the provinces by rearing cattle and even cultivating corn. + +Money-Dealing + +In order to show what dimensions money-dealing assumed by the side +of this estate-husbandry unnaturally prospering over the ruin +of the small farmers, how the Italian merchants vying with the Jews +poured themselves into all the provinces and client-states +of the empire, and how all capital ultimately flowed to Rome, +it will be sufficient, after what has been already said, to point +to the single fact that in the money-market of the capital the regular +rate of interest at this time was six per cent, and consequently +money there was cheaper by a half than it was on an average +elsewhere in antiquity. + +Social Disproportion + +In consequence of this economic system based both in its agrarian +and mercantile aspects on masses of capital and on speculation, +there arose a most fearful disproportion in the distribution +of wealth. The often-used and often-abused phrase of a commonwealth +composed of millionaires and beggars applies perhaps nowhere +so completely as to the Rome of the last age of the republic; +and nowhere perhaps has the essential maxim of the slave-state-- +that the rich man who lives by the exertions of his slaves +is necessarily respectable, and the poor man who lives by the labour +of his hands is necessarily vulgar--been recognized with so terrible +a precision as the undoubted principle underlying all public +and private intercourse.(51) A real middle class in our sense +of the term there was not, as indeed no such class can exist +in any fully-developed slave-state; what appears as if it were +a good middle class and is so in a certain measure, is composed +of those rich men of business and landholders who are so uncultivated +or so highly cultivated as to content themselves within the sphere +of their activity and to keep aloof from public life. Of the men +of business--a class, among whom the numerous freedmen and other +upstarts, as a rule, were seized with the giddy fancy of playing +the man of quality--there were not very many who showed so much judgment. +A model of this sort was the Titus Pomponius Atticus frequently mentioned +in the accounts of this period. He acquired an immense fortune +partly from the great estate-farming which he prosecuted in Italy +and Epirus, partly from his money-transactions which ramified throughout +Italy, Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor; but at the same time +he continued to be throughout the simple man of business, +did not allow himself to be seduced into soliciting office +or even into monetary transactions with the state, +and, equally remote from the avaricious niggardliness and from the prodigal +and burdensome luxury of his time--his table, for instance, +was maintained at a daily cost of 100 sesterces (1 pound)-- +contented himself with an easy existence appropriating to itself +the charms of a country and a city life, the pleasures of intercourse +with the best society of Rome and Greece, and all the enjoyments +of literature and art. + +More numerous and more solid were the Italian landholders +of the old type. Contemporary literature preserves in the description +of Sextus Roscius, who was murdered amidst the proscriptions of 673, +the picture of such a rural nobleman (-pater familias rusticanus-); +his wealth, estimated at 6,000,000 sesterces (60,000 pounds), +is mainly invested in his thirteen landed estates; he attends +to the management of it in person systematically and with enthusiasm; +he comes seldom or never to the capital, and, when he does appear there, +by his clownish manners he contrasts not less with the polished senator +than the innumerable hosts of his uncouth rural slaves +with the elegant train of domestic slaves in the capital. +Far more than the circles of the nobility with their cosmopolitan +culture and the mercantile class at home everywhere and nowhere, +these landlords and the "country towns" to which they essentially +gave tone (-municipia rusticana-) preserved as well the discipline +and manners as the pure and noble language of their fathers. +The order of landlords was regarded as the flower of the nation; +the speculator, who has made his fortune and wishes to appear among +the notables of the land, buys an estate and seeks, if not to become +himself the squire, at any rate to rear his son with that view. +We meet the traces of this class of landlords, wherever a national +movement appears in politics, and wherever literature puts forth +any fresh growth; from it the patriotic opposition to the new monarchy +drew its best strength; to it belonged Varro, Lucretius, Catullus; +and nowhere perhaps does the comparative freshness of this landlord-life +come more characteristically to light than in the graceful Arpinate +introduction to the second book of Cicero's treatise De Legibus-- +a green oasis amidst the fearful desert of that equally empty +and voluminous writer. + +The Poor + +But the cultivated class of merchants and the vigorous order +of landlords were far overgrown by the two classes that gave +tone to society--the mass of beggars, and the world of quality proper. +We have no statistical figures to indicate precisely the relative +proportions of poverty and riches for this epoch; yet we may +here perhaps again recall the expression which a Roman statesman +employed some fifty years before(52)--that the number of families +of firmly-established riches among the Roman burgesses did not +amount to 2000. The burgess-body had since then become different; +but clear indications attest that the disproportion between +poor and rich had remained at least as great. The increasing +impoverishment of the multitude shows itself only too plainly +in their crowding to the corn-largesses and to enlistment in the army; +the corresponding increase of riches is attested expressly +by an author of this generation, when, speaking of the circumstances +of the Marian period, he describes an estate of 2,000,000 sesterces +(20,000 pounds) as "riches according to the circumstances +of that day"; and the statements which we find as to the property +of individuals lead to the same conclusion. The very rich +Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus promised to twenty thousand soldiers +four -iugera- of land each, out of his own property; the estate +of Pompeius amounted to 70,000,000 sesterces (700,000 pounds); +that of Aesopus the actor to 20,000,000 (200,000 pounds); Marcus Crassus, +the richest of the rich, possessed at the outset of his career, +7,000,000 (70,000 pounds), at its close, after lavishing enormous +sums on the people, 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds). +The effect of such poverty and such riches was on both sides +an economic and moral disorganization outwardly different, but at bottom +of the same character. If the common man was saved from starvation +only by support from the resources of the state, it was the necessary +consequence of this mendicant misery--although it also reciprocally +appears as a cause of it--that he addicted himself to the beggar's +laziness and to the beggar's good cheer. The Roman plebeian +was fonder of gazing in the theatre than of working; the taverns +and brothels were so frequented, that the demagogues found their +special account in gaining the possessors of such establishments +over to their interests. The gladiatorial games--which revealed, +at the same time that they fostered, the worst demoralization +of the ancient world--had become so flourishing that a lucrative business +was done in the sale of the programmes for them; and it was at this time +that the horrible innovation was adopted by which the decision +as to the life or death of the vanquished became dependent, +not on the law of duel or on the pleasure of the victor, +but onthe caprice of the onlooking public, and according to its signal +the victor either spared or transfixed his prostrate antagonist. +The trade of fighting had so risen or freedom had so fallen in value, +that the intrepidity and the emulation, which were lacking +on the battle fields of this age, were universal in the armies +of the arena and, where the law of the duel required, every gladiator +allowed himself to be stabbed mutely and without shrinking; that in fact +free men not unfrequently sold themselves to the contractors for board +and wages as gladiatorial slaves. The plebeians of the fifth century +had also suffered want and famine, but they had not sold their freedom; +and still less would the jurisconsults of that period have lent +themselves to pronounce the equally immoral and illegal contract +of such a gladiatorial slave "to let himself be chained, scourged, +burnt or killed without opposition, if the laws of the institution +should so require" by means of unbecoming juristic subtleties +as a contract lawful and actionable. + +Extravagance + +In the world of quality such things did not occur, but at bottom +it was hardly different, and least of all better. In doing nothing +the aristocrat boldly competed with the proletarian; if the latter +lounged on the pavement, the former lay in bed till far on +in the day. Extravagance prevailed here as unbounded as it was +devoid of taste. It was lavished on politics and on the theatre, +of course to the corruption of both; the consular office was purchased +at an incredible price--in the summer of 700 the first voting-division +alone was paid 10,000,000 sesterces (100,000 pounds)-- +and all the pleasure of the man of culture in the drama was spoilt +by the insane luxury of decoration. Rents in Rome appear to have been +on an average four times as high as in the country-towns; +a house there was once sold for 15,000,000 sesterces (150,000 pounds). +The house of Marcus Lepidus (consul in 676) which was at the time +of the death of Sulla the finest in Rome, did not rank a generation +afterwards even as the hundredth on the list of Roman palaces. +We have already mentioned the extravagance practised in the matter +of country-houses; we find that 4,000,000 sesterces (40,000 pounds) +were paid for such a house, which was valued chiefly for its fishpond; +and the thoroughly fashionable grandee now needed at least two villas-- +one in the Sabine or Alban mountains near the capital, and a second +in the vicinity of the Campanian baths--and in addition if possible +a garden immediately outside of the gates of Rome. Still more irrational +than these villa-palaces were the palatial sepulchres, several of which +still existing at the present day attest what a lofty pile of masonry +the rich Roman needed in order that he might die as became his rank. +Fanciers of horses and dogs too were not wanting; 24,000 sesterces +(240 pounds) was no uncommon price for a showy horse. They indulged +in furniture of fine wood--a table of African cypress-wood +cost 1,000,000 sesterces (10,000 pounds); in dresses of purple stuffs +or transparent gauzes accompanied by an elegant adjustment of their folds +before the mirror--the orator Hortensius is said to have brought +an action of damages against a colleague because he ruffled his dress +in a crowd; in precious stones and pearls, which first at this period +took the place of the far more beautiful and more artistic +ornaments of gold--it was already utter barbarism, when at the triumph +of Pompeius over Mithradates the image of the victor appeared +wrought wholly of pearls, and when the sofas and the shelves +in the dining-hall were silver-mounted and even the kitchen-utensils +were made of silver. In a similar spirit the collectors of this period +took out the artistic medallions from the old silver cups, +to set them anew in vessels of gold. Nor was there any lack +of luxury also in travelling. "When the governor travelled," +Cicero tells us as to one of the Sicilian governors, "which of course +he did not in winter, but only at the beginning of spring-- +not the spring of the calendar but the beginning of the season of roses-- +he had himself conveyed, as was the custom with the kings of Bithynia, +in a litter with eight bearers, sitting on a cushion of Maltese gauze +stuffed with rose-leaves, with one garland on his head, and a second +twined round his neck, applying to his nose a little smelling bag +of fine linen, with minute meshes, filled with roses; and thus +he had himself carried even to his bed chamber." + +Table Luxury + +But no sort of luxury flourished so much as the coarsest of all-- +the luxury of the table. The whole villa arrangements and the whole +villa life had ultimate reference to dining; not only had they +different dining-rooms for winter and summer, but dinner was served +in the picture-gallery, in the fruit-chamber, in the aviary, +or on a platform erected in the deer-park, around which, +when the bespoken "Orpheus" appeared in theatrical costume +and blew his flourish, the duly-trained roes and wild boars congregated. +Such was the care bestowed on decoration; but amidst all this +the reality was by no means forgotten. Not only was the cook +a graduate in gastronomy, but the master himself often acted +as the instructor of his cooks. The roast had been long ago +thrown into the shade by marine fishes and oysters; now the Italian +river-fishes were utterly banished from good tables, and Italian +delicacies and Italian wines were looked on as almost vulgar. +Now even at the popular festivals there were distributed, +besides the Italian Falerian, three sorts of foreign wine--Sicilian, +Lesbian, Chian, while a generation before it had been sufficient +even at great banquets to send round Greek wine once; in the cellar +of the orator Hortensius there was found a stock of 10,000 jars +(at 33 quarts) of foreign wine. It was no wonder that the Italian +wine-growers began to complain of the competition of the wines +from the Greek islands. No naturalist could ransack land and sea +more zealously for new animals and plants, than the epicures of that day +ransacked them for new culinary dainties.(53) The circumstance +of the guest taking an emetic after a banquet, to avoid the consequences +of the varied fare set before him, no longer created surprise. +Debauchery of every sort became so systematic and aggravated +that it found its professors, who earned a livelihood by serving +as instructors of the youth of quality in the theory +and practice of vice. + +Debt + +It will not be necessary to dwell longer on this confused picture, +so monotonous in its variety; and the less so, that the Romans +were far from original in this respect, and confined themselves +to exhibiting a copy of the Helleno-Asiatic luxury still more +exaggerated and stupid than their model. Plutos naturally devours +his children as well as Kronos; the competition for all these +mostly worthless objects of fashionable longing so forced up prices, +that those who swam with the stream found the most colossal estate +melt away in a short time, and even those, who only for credit's sake +joined in what was most necessary, saw their inherited +and firmly- established wealth rapidly undermined. The canvass +for the consulship, for instance, was the usual highway to ruin +for houses of distinction; and nearly the same description applies +to the games, the great buildings, and all those other pleasant, +doubtless, but expensive pursuits. The princely wealth of that period +is only surpassed by its still more princely liabilities; +Caesar owed about 692, after deducting his assets, 25,000,000 sesterces +(250,000 pounds); Marcus Antonius, at the age of twenty-four +6,000,000 sesterces (60,000 pounds), fourteen years afterwards +40,000,000 (400,000 pounds); Curio owed 60,000,000 (600,000 pounds); +Milo 70,000,000 (700,000 pounds). That those extravagant habits +of the Roman world of quality rested throughout on credit, +is shown by the fact that the monthly interest in Rome was once +suddenly raised from four to eight per cent, through the borrowing +of the different competitors for the consulship. Insolvency, +instead of leading in due time to a meeting of creditors +or at any rate to a liquidation which might at least place matters +once more on a clear footing, was ordinarily prolonged +by the debtor as much as possible; instead of selling his property +and especially his landed estates, he continued to borrow +and to present the semblance of riches, till the crash only became +the worse and the winding-up yielded a result like that of Milo, +in which the creditors obtained somewhat above four per cent +of the sums for which they ranked. Amidst this startlingly rapid +transition from riches to bankruptcy and this systematic swindling, +nobody of course gained so much as the cool banker, who knew how to give +and refuse credit. The relations of debtor and creditor thus returned +almost to the same point at which they had stood in the worst times +of the social crises of the fifth century; the nominal landowners +held virtually by sufferance of their creditors; the debtors were either +in servile subjection to their creditors, so that the humbler of them +appeared like freedmen in the creditor's train and those of higher rank +spoke and voted even in the senate at the nod of their creditor-lord; +or they were on the point of declaring war on property itself, +and either of intimidating their creditors by threats or getting rid +of them by conspiracy and civil war. On these relations was based +the power of Crassus; out of them arose the insurrections--whose motto +was "a clear sheet"-of Cinna(54) and still more definitely of Catilina, +of Coelius, of Dolabella entirely resembling the battles between those +who had and those who had not, which a century before agitated +the Hellenic world.(55) That amidst so rotten an economic condition +every financial or political crisis should occasion the most dreadful +confusion, was to be expected from the nature of the case; we need +hardly mention that the usual phenomena--the disappearance of capital, +the sudden depreciation of landed estates, innumerable bankruptcies, +and an almost universal insolvency--made their appearance now +during the civil war, just as they had done during the Social +and Mithradatic wars.(56) + +Immortality + +Under such circumstances, as a matter of course, morality +and family life were treated as antiquated things among all ranks +of society. To be poor was not merely the sorest disgrace +and the worst crime, but the only disgrace and the only crime: +for money the statesman sold the state, and the burgess sold his freedom; +the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had +for money; for money the lady of quality surrendered her person +as well as the common courtesan; falsifying of documents and perjuries +had become so common that in a popular poet of this age an oath +is called "the plaster for debts." Men had forgotten what honesty was; +a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, +but as a personal foe. The criminal statistics of all times +and countries will hardly furnish a parallel to the dreadful picture +of crimes--so varied, so horrible, and so unnatural--which the trial +of Aulus Cluentius unrolls before us in the bosom of one of the most +respected families of an Italian country town. + +Friendship + +But while at the bottom of the national life the slime was thus +constantly accumulating more and more deleteriously and deeply, +so much the more smooth and glittering was the surface, +overlaid with the varnish of polished manners and universal friendship. +All the world interchanged visits; so that in the houses of quality +it was necessary to admit the persons presenting themselves every morning +for the levee in a certain order fixed by the master or occasionally +by the attendant in waiting, and to give audience only +to the more notable one by one, while the rest were more summarily admitted +partly in groups, partly en masse at the close--a distinction +which Gaius Gracchus, in this too paving the way for the new monarchy, +is said to have introduced. The interchange of letters of courtesy +was carried to as great an extent as the visits of courtesy; +"friendly" letters flew over land and sea between persons who had +neither personal relations nor business with each other, whereas proper +and formal business-letters scarcely occur except where the letter +is addressed to a corporation. In like manner invitations to dinner, +the customary new year's presents, the domestic festivals, were divested +of their proper character and converted almost into public ceremonials; +even death itself did not release the Roman from these attentions +to his countless "neighbours," but in order to die with due respectability +he had to provide each of them at any rate with a keepsake. Just as + in certain circles of our mercantile world, the genuine intimacy +of family ties and family friendships had so totally vanished +from the Rome of that day that the whole intercourse of business +and acquaintance could be garnished with forms and flourishes +which had lost all meaning, and thus by degrees the reality +came to be superseded by that spectral shadow of "friendship," +which holds by no means the least place among the various evil spirits +brooding over the proscriptions and civil wars of this age. + +Women + +An equally characteristic feature in the brilliant decay of this period +was the emancipation of women. In an economic point of view +the women had long since made themselves independent;(57) +in the present epoch we even meet with solicitors acting specially +for women, who officiously lend their aid to solitary rich ladies +in the management of their property and their lawsuits, +make an impression on them by their knowledge of business and law, +and thereby procure for themselves ampler perquisites and legacies +than other loungers on the exchange. But it was not merely +from the economic guardianship of father or husband that women +felt themselves emancipated. Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly +in progress. The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match +for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits +and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, +Cytheris and the like, pollute even the pages of history. +But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured +by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles. Liaisons +in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal +altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; +a judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous. +An unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in 693 +at the women's festival in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, +although a thousand times worse than the occurrences which fifty years +before had led to a series of capital sentences,(58) passed +almost without investigation and wholly without punishment. +The watering-place season--in April, when political business +was suspended and the world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli-- +derived its chief charm from the relations licit and illicit which, +along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board or on shore, +enlivened the gondola voyages. There the ladies held absolute sway; +but they were by no means content with this domain which rightfully +belonged to them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party +conferences, and took part with their money and their intrigues +in the wild coterie-doings of the time. Any one who beheld +these female statesmen performing on the stage of Scipio +and Cato and saw at their side the young fop--as with smooth chin, +delicate voice, and mincing gait, with headdress and neckerchiefs, +frilled robe, and women's sandals he copied the loose courtesan-- +might well have a horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes +seemed as though they wished to change parts. What ideas as to divorce +prevailed in the circles of the aristocracy may be discerned +in the conduct of their best and most moral hero Marcus Cato, +who did not hesitate to separate from his wife at the request +of a friend desirous to marry her, and as little scrupled +on the death of this friend to marry the same wife a second time. +Celibacy and childlessness became more and more common, especially +among the upper classes. While among these marriage had for long +been regarded as a burden which people took upon them at the best +in the public interest,(59) we now encounter even in Cato and those +who shared Cato's sentiments the maxim to which Polybius +a century before traced the decay of Hellas,(60) that it is the duty +of a citizen to keep great wealth together and therefore not to beget +too many children. Where were the times, when the designation +"children-producer" (-proletarius-) had been a term of honour +for the Roman? + +Depopulation of Italy + +In consequence of such a social condition the Latin stock in Italy +underwent an alarming diminution, and its fair provinces were overspread +partly by parasitic immigrants, partly by sheer desolation. +A considerable portion of the population of Italy flocked +to foreign lands. Already the aggregate amount of talent +and of working power, which the supply of Italian magistrates +and Italian garrisons for the whole domain of the Mediterranean +demanded, transcended the resources of the peninsula, especially +as the elements thus sent abroad were in great part lost for ever +to the nation. For the more that the Roman community grew +into an empire embracing many nations, the more the governing aristocracy +lost the habit of looking on Italy as their exclusive home; +while of the men levied or enlisted for service a considerable portion +perished in the many wars, especially in the bloody civil war, +and another portion became wholly estranged from their native country +by the long period of service, which sometimes lasted for a generation. +In like manner with the public service, speculation kept +a portion of the landholders and almost the whole body +of merchants all their lives or at any rate for a long time +out of the country, and the demoralising itinerant life of trading +in particular estranged the latter altogether from civic existence +in the mother country and from the various conditions of family life. +As a compensation for these, Italy obtained on the one hand +the proletariate of slaves and freedmen, on the other hand +the craftsmen and traders flocking thither from Asia Minor, Syria, +and Egypt, who flourished chiefly in the capital and still more +in the seaport towns of Ostia, Puteoli, and Brundisium.(61) +In the largest and most important part of Italy however, +even such a substitution of impure elements for pure; +but the population was visibly on the decline. Especially +was this true of the pastoral districts such as Apulia, the chosen land +of cattle-breeding, which is called by contemporaries the most deserted +part of Italy, and of the region around Rome, where the Campagna +was annually becoming more desolate under the constant reciprocal +action of the retrograde agriculture and the increasing malaria. +Labici, Gabii, Bovillae, once cheerful little country towns, +were so decayed, that it was difficult to find representatives of them +for the ceremony of the Latin festival. Tusculum, although still +one of the most esteemed communities of Latium, consisted almost solely +of some genteel families who lived in the capital but retained +their native Tusculan franchise, and was far inferior in the number +of burgesses entitled to vote even to small communities +in the interior of Italy. The stock of men capable of arms +in this district, on which Rome's ability to defend herself +had once mainly depended, had so totally vanished, that people read +with astonishment and perhaps with horror the accounts of the annals-- +sounding fabulous in comparison with things as they stood-- +respecting the Aequian and Volscian wars. Matters were not so bad +everywhere, especially in the other portions of Central Italy +and in Campania; nevertheless, as Varro complains, "the once populous +cities of Italy," in general "stood desolate." + +Italy under the Oligarchy + +It is a dreadful picture--this picture of Italy under the rule +of the oligarchy. There was nothing to bridge over or soften +the fatal contrast between the world of the beggars and the world +of the rich. The more clearly and painfully this contrast +was felt on both sides--the giddier the height to which riches rose, +the deeper the abyss of poverty yawned--the more frequently, +amidst that changeful world of speculation and playing at hazard, +were individuals tossed from the bottom to the top and again +from the top to the bottom. The wider the chasm by which the two worlds +were externally divided, the more completely they coincided +in the like annihilation of family life--which is yet the germ +and core of all nationality--in the like laziness and luxury, +the like unsubstantial economy, the like unmanly dependence, +the like corruption differing only in its tariff, the like criminal +demoralization, the like longing to begin the war with property. +Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, +and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly +with awful silence. It is a terrible picture, but not one peculiar +to Italy; wherever the government of capitalists in a slave-state +has fully developed itself, it has desolated God's fair world +in the same way as rivers glisten in different colours, but a common +sewer everywhere looks like itself, so the Italy of the Ciceronian epoch +resembles substantially the Hellas of Polybius and still more decidedly +the Carthage of Hannibal's time, where in exactly similar fashion +the all-powerful rule of capital ruined the middle class, raised trade +and estate-farming to the highest prosperity, and ultimately led to a-- +hypocritically whitewashed--moral and political corruption of the nation. +All the arrant sins that capital has been guilty of against nation +and civilization in the modern world, remain as far inferior +to the abominations of the ancient capitalist-states as the free man, +be he ever so poor, remains superior to the slave; and not until +the dragon-seed of North America ripens, will the world have again +similar fruits to reap. + +Reforms of Caesar + +These evils, under which the national economy of Italy +lay prostrate, were in their deepest essence irremediable, +and so much of them as still admitted of remedy depended essentially +for its amendment on the people and on time; for the wisest government +is as little able as the more skilful physician to give freshness +to the corrupt juices of the organism, or to do more in the case +of the deeper-rooted evils than to prevent those accidents +which obstruct the remedial power of nature in its working. +The peaceful energy of the new rule even of itself furnished +such a preventive, for by its means some of the worst excrescences +were done away, such as the artificial pampering of the proletariate, +the impunity of crimes, the purchase of offices, and various others. +But the government could do something more than simply abstain +from harm. Caesar was not one of those over-wise people who refuse +to embank the sea, because forsooth no dike can defy some sudden influx +of the tide. It is better, if a nation and its economy follow +spontaneously the path prescribed by nature; but, seeing that they +had got out of this path, Caesar applied all his energies to bring back +by special intervention the nation to its home and family life, +and to reform the national economy by law and decree. + +Measures against Absentees from Italy +Measures for the Elevation of the Family + +With a view to check the continued absence of the Italians from Italy +and to induce the world of quality and the merchants to establish +their homes in their native land, not only was the term of service +for the soldiers shortened, but men of senatorial rank were +altogether prohibited from taking up their abode out of Italy +except when on public business, while the other Italians +of marriageable age (from the twentieth to the fortieth year) +were enjoined not to be absent from Italy for more than three +consecutive years. In the same spirit Caesar had already, +in his first consulship on founding the colony of Capua kept specially +in view fathers who had several children;(62) and now as Imperator +he proposed extraordinary rewards for the fathers of numerous families, +while he at the same time as supreme judge of the nation +treated divorce and adultery with a rigour according +to Roman ideas unparalleled. + +Laws Respecting Luxury + +Nor did he even think it beneath his dignity to issue a detailed law +as to luxury--which, among other points, cut down extravagance +in building at least in one of its most irrational forms, +that of sepulchral monuments; restricted the use of purple robes +and pearls to certain times, ages, and classes, and totally prohibited +it in grown-up men; fixed a maximum for the expenditure of the table; +and directly forbade a number of luxurious dishes. Such ordinances +doubtless were not new; but it was a new thing that the "master +of morals" seriously insisted on their observance, superintended +the provision-markets by means of paid overseers, and ordered +that the tables of men of rank should be examined by his officers +and the forbidden dishes on them should be confiscated. It is true +that by such theoretical and practical instructions in moderation +as the new monarchical police gave to the fashionable world, +hardly more could be accomplished than the compelling luxury to retire +somewhat more into concealment; but, if hypocrisy is the homage +which vice pays to virtue, under the circumstances of the times +even a semblance of propriety established by police measures +was a step towards improvement not to be despised. + +The Debt Crisis + +The measures of Caesar for the better regulation of Italian monetary +and agricultural relations were of a graver character and promised +greater results. The first question here related to temporary enactments +respecting the scarcity of money and the debt-crisis generally. +The law called forth by the outcry as to locked-up capital--that no one +should have on hand more than 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds) in gold +and silver cash--was probably only issued to allay the indignation +of the blind public against the usurers; the form of publication, +which proceeded on the fiction that this was merely the renewed +enforcing of an earlier law that had fallen into oblivion, +shows that Caesar was ashamed of this enactment, and it can hardly +have passed into actual application. A far more serious question +was the treatment of the pending claims for debt, the complete remission +of which was vehemently demanded from Caesar by the party which called +itself by his name. We have already mentioned, that he did not yield +to this demand;(63) but two important concessions were made +to the debtors, and that as early as 705. First, the interest +in arrear was struck off,(64) and that which was paid was deducted +from the capital. Secondly, the creditor was compelled to accept +the moveable and immoveable property of the debtor in lieu of payment +at the estimated value which his effects had before the civil war +and the general depreciation which it had occasioned. The latter +enactment was not unreasonable; if the creditor was to be looked on +de facto as the owner of the property of his debtor to the amount +of the sum due to him, it was doubtless proper that he should bear +his share in the general depreciation of the property. On the other hand +the cancelling of the payments of interest made or outstanding-- +which practically amounted to this, that the creditors lost, +besides the interest itself, on an average 25 per cent of what +they were entitled to claim as capital at the time of the issuing +of the law--was in fact nothing else than a partial concession +of that cancelling of creditors' claims springing out of loans, +for which the democrats had clamoured so vehemently; and, however bad +may have been the conduct of the usurers, it is not possible thereby +to justify the retrospective abolition of all claims for interest +without distinction. In order at least to understand this agitation +we must recollect how the democratic party stood towards +the question of interest. The legal prohibition against +taking interest, which the old plebeian opposition had extorted +in 412,(65) had no doubt been practically disregarded by the nobility +which controlled the civil procedure by means of the praetorship, +but had still remained since that period formally valid; +and the democrats of the seventh century, who regarded themselves +throughout as the continuers of that old agitation as to privilege +and social position,(66) had maintained the illegality of payment +of interest at any time, and even already practically enforced +that principle, at least temporarily, in the confusion of the Marian +period.(67) It is not credible that Caesar shared the crude views +of his party on the interest question; the fact, that, in his account +of the matter of liquidation he mentions the enactment +as to the surrender of the property of the debtor in lieu of payment +but is silent as to the cancelling of the interest, is perhaps +a tacit self-reproach. But he was, like every party-leader, +dependent on his party and could not directly repudiate +the traditional maxims of the democracy in the question of interest; +the more especially when he had to decide this question, +not as the all-powerful conqueror of Pharsalus, but even before +his departure for Epirus. But, while he permitted perhaps rather than +originated this violation of legal order and of property, it is certainly +his merit that that monstrous demand for the annulling of all claims +arising from loans was rejected; and it may perhaps be looked on +as a saving of his honour, that the debtors were far more indignant +at the--according to their view extremely unsatisfactory--concession +given to them than the injured creditors, and made under Caelius +and Dolabella those foolish and (as already mentioned) speedily frustrated +attempts to extort by riot and civil war what Caesar refused to them. + +New Ordinance as to Bankruptcy + +But Caesar did not confine himself to helping the debtor +for the moment; he did what as legislator he could, permanently +to keep down the fearful omnipotence of capital. First of all +the great legal maxim was proclaimed, that freedom is not a possession +commensurable with property, but an eternal right of man, +of which the state is entitled judicially to deprive the criminal alone, +not the debtor. It was Caesar, who, perhaps stimulated in this case +also by the more humane Egyptian and Greek legislation, especially +that of Solon,(68) introduced this principle--diametrically opposed +to the maxims of the earlier ordinances as to bankruptcy-- +into the common law, where it has since retained its place undisputed. +According to Roman law the debtor unable to pay became the serf +of his creditor.(69) The Poetelian law no doubt had allowed a debtor, +who had become unable to pay only through temporary embarrassments, +not through genuine insolvency, to save his personal freedom +by the cession of his property;(70) nevertheless for the really insolvent +that principle of law, though doubtless modified in secondary points, +had been in substance retained unaltered for five hundred years; +a direct recourse to the debtor's estate only occurred exceptionally, +when the debtor had died or had forfeited his burgess-rights +or could not be found. It was Caesar who first gave an insolvent +the right--on which our modern bankruptcy regulations are based-- +of formally ceding his estate to his creditors, whether it might suffice +to satisfy them or not, so as to save at all events his personal freedom +although with diminished honorary and political rights, and to begin +a new financial existence, in which he could only be sued +on account of claims proceeding from the earlier period and not protected +in the liquidation, if he could pay them without renewed financial ruin. + +Usury Laws + +While thus the great democrat had the imperishable honour of emancipating +personal freedom in principle from capital, he attempted moreover +to impose a police limit on the excessive power of capital by usury-laws. +He did not affect to disown the democratic antipathy to stipulations +for interest. For Italian money-dealing there was fixed a maximum amount +of the loans at interest to be allowed in the case of the individual +capitalist, which appears to have been proportioned to the Italian +landed estate belonging to each, and perhaps amounted to half its value. +Transgressions of this enactment were, after the fashion of the procedure +prescribed in the republican usury-laws, treated as criminal offence +and sent before a special jury-commission. If these regulations +were successfully carried into effect, every Italian man of business +would be compelled to become at the same time an Italian landholder, +and the class of capitalists subsisting merely on their interest +would disappear wholly from Italy. Indirectly too the no less injurious +category of insolvent landowners who practically managed their estates +merely for their creditors was by this means materially curtailed, +inasmuch as the creditors, if they desired to continue their lending +business, were compelled to buy for themselves. From this very fact +besides it is plain that Caesar wished by no means simply to renew +that naive prohibition of interest by the old popular party, +but on the contrary to allow the taking of interest within certain limits. +It is very probable however that he did not confine himself +to that injunction--which applied merely to Italy--of a maximum amount +of sums to be lent, but also, especially with respect to the provinces, +prescribed maximum rates for interest itself. The enactments-- +that it was illegal to take higher interest than 1 per cent per month, +or to take interest on arrears of interest, or in fine to make +a judicial claim for arrears of interest to a greater amount +than a sum equal to the capital--were, probably also after +the Graeco-Egyptian model,(71) first introduced in the Roman empire +by Lucius Lucullus for Asia Minor and retained there by his +better successors; soon afterwards they were transferred +to other provinces by edicts of the governors, and ultimately at least +part of them was provided with the force of law in all provinces +by a decree of the Roman senate of 704. The fact that these Lucullan +enactments afterwards appear in all their compass as imperial law +and have thus become the basis of the Roman and indeed of modern +legislation as to interest, may also perhaps be traced back +to an ordinance of Caesar. + +Elevation of Agriculture + +Hand in hand with these efforts to guard against the ascendency +of capital went the endeavours to bring back agriculture to the path +which was most advantageous for the commonwealth. For this purpose +the improvement of the administration of justice and of police +was very essential. While hitherto nobody in Italy had been sure +of his life and of his moveable or immoveable property, while Roman +condottieri for instance, at the intervals when their gangs +were not helping to manage the politics of the capital, +applied themselves to robbery in the forests of Etruria or rounded off +the country estates of their paymasters by fresh acquisitions, +this sort of club-law was now at an end; and in particular +the agricultural population of all classes must have felt +the beneficial effects of the change. The plans of Caesar +for great works also, which were not at all limited to the capital, +were intended to tell in this respect; the construction, +for instance, of a convenient high-road from Rome through +the passesof the Apennines to the Adriatic was designed to stimulate +the internal traffic of Italy, and the lowering the level +of the Fucine lake to benefit the Marsian farmers. But Caesar +also sought by more direct measures to influence the state +of Italian husbandry. The Italian graziers were required +to take at least a third of their herdsmen from freeborn adults, +whereby brigandage was checked and at the same time a source of gain +was opened to the free proletariate. + +Distribution of Land + +In the agrarian question Caesar, who already in his first consulship +had been in a position to regulate it,(72) more judicious +than Tiberius Gracchus, did not seek to restore the farmer-system +at any price, even at that of a revolution--concealed under +juristic clauses--directed against property; by him on the contrary, +as by every other genuine statesman, the security of that +which is property or is at any rate regarded by the public +as property was esteemed as the first and most inviolable +of all political maxims, and it was only within the limits assigned +by this maxim that he sought to accomplish the elevation of the Italian +small holdings, which also appeared to him as a vital question +for the nation. Even as it was, there was much still left for him +in this respect to do. Every private right, whether it was called +property or entitled heritable possession, whether traceable to Gracchus +or to Sulla, was unconditionally respected by him. On the other hand, +Caesar, after he had in his strictly economical fashion-- +which tolerated no waste and no negligence even on a small scale-- +instituted a general revision of the Italian titles to possession +by the revived commission of Twenty,(73) destined the whole +actual domain land of Italy (including a considerable portion +of the real estates that were in the hands of spiritual guilds +but legally belonged to the state) for distribution in the Gracchan +fashion, so far, of course, as it was fitted for agriculture; +the Apulian summer and the Samnite winter pastures belonging +to the state continued to be domain; and it was at least the design +of the Imperator, if these domains should not suffice, to procure +the additional land requisite by the purchase of Italian estates +from the public funds. In the selection of the new farmers provision +was naturally made first of all for the veteran soldiers, +and as far as possible the burden, which the levy imposed +on the mother country, was converted into a benefit by the fact +that Caesar gave the proletarian, who was levied from it as a recruit, +back to it as a farmer; it is remarkable also that the desolate +Latin communities, such as Veii and Capena, seem to have been +preferentially provided with new colonists. The regulation +of Caesar that the new owners should not be entitled to alienate +the lands received by them till after twenty years, was a happy medium +between the full bestowal of the right of alienation, which would have +brought the larger portion of the distributed land speedily +back into the hands of the great capitalists, and the permanent +restrictions on freedom of dealing in land which Tiberius Gracchus(74) +and Sulla (75) had enacted, both equally in vain. + +Elevation of the Municipal System + +Lastly while the government thus energetically applied itself +to remove the diseased, and to strengthen the sound, elements +of the Italian national life, the newly-regulated municipal system-- +which had but recently developed itself out of the crisis +of the Social war in and alongside of the state-economy(76)--was intended +to communicate to the new absolute monarchy the communal life +which was compatible with it, and to impart to the sluggish circulation +of the noblest elements of public life once more a quickened action. +The leading principles in the two municipal ordinances issued in 705 +for Cisalpine Gaul and in 709 for Italy,(77) the latter of which remained +the fundamental law for all succeeding times, are apparently, first, +the strict purifying of the urban corporations from all immoral elements, +while yet no trace of political police occurs; secondly, the utmost +restriction of centralization and the utmost freedom of movement +in the communities, to which there was even now reserved the election +of magistrates and an--although limited--civil and criminal jurisdiction. +The general police enactments, such as the restrictions on the right +of association,(78) came, it is true, into operation also here. + +Such were the ordinances, by which Caesar attempted to reform +the Italian national economy. It is easy both to show their +insufficiency, seeing that they allowed a multitude of evils +still to exist, and to prove that they operated in various respects +injuriously by imposing restrictions, some of which were +very severely felt, on freedom of dealing. It is still easier +to show that the evils of the Italian national economy generally +were incurable. But in spite of this the practical statesman +will admire the work as well as the master-workman. It was already +no small achievement that, where a man like Sulla, despairing +of remedy, had contented himself with a mere formal reorganization, +the evil was seized in its proper seat and grappled with there; +and we may well conclude that Caesar with his reforms came as near +to the measure of what was possible as it was given to a statesman +and a Roman to come. He could not and did not expect from them +the regeneration of Italy; but he sought on the contrary to attain +this in a very different way, for the right apprehension +of which it is necessary first of all to review the condition +of the provinces as Caesar found them. + +Provinces + +The provinces, which Caesar found in existence, were fourteen in number: +seven European--the Further and the Hither Spain, Transalpine Gaul, +Italian Gaul with Illyricum, Macedonia with Greece, Sicily, +Sardinia with Corsica; five Asiatic--Asia, Bithynia and Pontus, +Cilicia with Cyprus, Syria, Crete; and two African--Cyrene and Africa. +To these Caesar added three new ones by the erection of the two new +governorships of Lugdunese Gaul and Belgica(79) and by constituting +Illyricum a province by itself.(80) + +Provincial Administration of the Oligarchy + +In the administration of these provinces oligarchic misrule +had reached a point which, notwithstanding various noteworthy +performances in this line, no second government has ever attained +at least in the west, and which according to our ideas it seems +no longer possible to surpass. Certainly the responsibility for this +rests not on the Romans alone. Almost everywhere before their day +the Greek, Phoenician, or Asiatic rule had already driven out +of the nations the higher spirit and the sense of right and of liberty +belonging to better times. It was doubtless bad, that every +accused provincial was bound, when asked, to appear personally +in Rome to answer for himself; that the Roman governor interfered +at pleasure in the administration of justice and the management +of the dependent communities, pronounced capital sentences, and cancelled +transactions of the municipal council; and that in case of war +he treated the militia as he chose and often infamously, as e. g. +when Cotta at the siege of the Pontic Heraclea assigned to the militia +all the posts of danger, to spare his Italians, and on the siege +not going according to his wish, ordered the heads of his engineers +to be laid at his feet. It was doubtless bad, that no rule +of morality or of criminal law bound either the Roman administrators +or their retinue, and that violent outrages, rapes, and murders +with or without form of law were of daily occurrence in the provinces. +But these things were at least nothing new; almost everywhere +men had long been accustomed to be treated like slaves, +and it signified little in the long run whether a Carthaginian overseer, +a Syrian satrap, or a Roman proconsul acted as the local tyrant. +Their material well-being, almost the only thing for which +the provincials still cared, was far less disturbed by those occurrences, +which although numerous in proportion to the many tyrants yet affected +merely isolated individuals, than by the financial exactions pressing +heavily on all, which had never previously been prosecuted +with such energy. + +The Romans now gave in this domain fearful proof of their old master +of money-matters. We have already endeavoured to describe +the Roman system of provincial oppression in its modest +and rational foundations as well as in its growth and corruption +as a matter of course, the latter went on increasing. The ordinary taxes +became far more oppressive from the inequality of their distribution +and from the preposterous system of levying them than from their +high amount. As to the burden of quartering troops, Roman statesmen +themselves expressed the opinion that a town suffered nearly +to the same extent when a Roman army took up winter quarters +in it as when an enemy took it by storm. While the taxation +in its original character had been an indemnification for the burden +of military defence undertaken by Rome, and the community +paying tribute had thus a right to remain exempt from ordinary service, +garrison-service was now--as is attested e. g. in the case +of Sardinia--for the most part imposed on the provincials, +and even in the ordinary armies, besides other duties, the whole +heavy burden of the cavalry-service was devolved on them. +The extraordinary contributions demanded--such as, the deliveries +of grain for little or no compensation to benefit the proletariate +of the capital; the frequent and costly naval armaments and coast- +defences in order to check piracy; the task of supplying works of art, +wild beasts, or other demands of the insane Roman luxury in the theatre +and the chase; the military requisitions in case of war-- +were just as frequent as they were oppressive and incalculable. +A single instance may show how far things were carried. +During the three years' administration of Sicily by Gaius Verres +the number of farmers in Leontini fell from 84 to 32, in Motuca +from 187 to 86, in Herbita from 252 to 120, in Agyrium from 250 to 80; +so that in four of the most fertile districts of Sicily 59 per cent +of the landholders preferred to let their fields lie fallow +than to cultivate them under such government. And these landholders were, +as their small number itself shows and as is expressly stated, by no means +small farmers, but respectable planters and in great part Roman burgesses! + +In the Client-States + +In the client-states the forms of taxation were somewhat different, +but the burdens themselves were if possible still worse, +since in addition to the exactions of the Romans there came +those of the native courts. In Cappadocia and Egypt the farmer +as well as the king was bankrupt; the former was unable to satisfy +the tax-collector, the latter was unable to satisfy his Roman creditor. +Add to these the exactions, properly so called, not merely +of the governor himself, but also of his "friends," each of whom fancied +that he had as it were a draft on the governor and a title accordingly +to come back from the province a made man. The Roman oligarchy +in this respect completely resembled a gang of robbers, +and followed out the plundering of the provincials in a professional +and business-like manner; capable members of the gang set to work +not too nicely, for they had in fact to share the spoil +with the advocates and the jurymen, and the more they stole, +they did so the more securely. The notion of honour in theft too +was already developed; the big robber looked down on the little, +and the latter on the mere thief, with contempt; any one, who had been +once for a wonder condemned, boasted of the high figure of the sums +which he was proved to have exacted. Such was the behaviour +in the provinces of the successors of those men, who had been +accustomed to bring home nothing from their administration but the thanks +of the subjects and the approbation of their fellow-citizens. + +The Roman Capitalists in the Provinces + +But still worse, if possible, and still less subject to any control +was the havoc committed by the Italian men of business among +the unhappy provincials. The most lucrative portions of the landed +property and the whole commercial and monetary business +in the provinces were concentrated in their hands. The estates +in the transmarine regions, which belonged to Italian grandees, +were exposed to all the misery of management by stewards, and never +saw their owners; excepting possibly the hunting-parks, which occur +as early as this time in Transalpine Gaul with an area amounting +to nearly twenty square miles. Usury flourished as it had never +flourished before. The small landowners in Illyricum, Asia, and Egypt +managed their estates even in Varro's time in great part practically +as the debtor-slaves of their Roman or non-Roman creditors, +just as the plebeians in former days for their patrician lords. +Cases occurred of capital being lent even to urban communities +at four per cent per month. It was no unusual thing for an energetic +and influential man of business to get either the title +of envoy(81) given to him by the senate or that of officer +by the governor, and, if possible, to have men put at his service +for the better prosecution of his affairs; a case is narrated +on credible authority, where one of these honourable martial bankers +on account of a claim against the town of Salamis in Cyprus +kept its municipal council blockaded in the town-house, +until five of the members had died of hunger. + +Robberies and Damage by War + +To these two modes of oppression, each of which by itself +was intolerable and which were always becoming better arranged to work +into each other's hands, were added the general calamities, for which +the Roman government was also in great part, at least indirectly, +responsible. In the various wars a large amount of capital +was dragged away from the country and a larger amount destroyed +sometimes by the barbarians, sometimes by the Roman armies. +Owing to the worthlessness of the Roman land and maritime police, +brigands and pirates swarmed every where. In Sardinia and the interior +of Asia Minor brigandage was endemic; in Africa and Further Spain +it became necessary to fortify all buildings constructed +outside of the city-enclosures with walls and towers. The fearful evil +of piracy has been already described in another connection.(82) +The panaceas of the prohibitive system, with which the Roman governor +was wont to interpose when scarcity of money or dearth occurred, +as under such circumstances they could not fail to do-- +the prohibition of the export of gold or grain from the province-- +did not mend the matter. The communal affairs were almost everywhere +embarrassed, in addition to the general distress, by local disorders +and frauds of the public officials. + +The Conditions of the Provinces Generally + +Where such grievances afflicted communities and individuals +not temporarily but for generations with an inevitable, steady, +and yearly-increasing oppression, the best regulated public +or private economy could not but succumb to them, and the most +unspeakable misery could not but extend over all the nations +from the Tagus to the Euphrates. "All the communities," it is said +in a treatise published as early as 684, "are ruined"; the same truth +is specially attested as regards Spain and Narbonese Gaul, +the very provinces which, comparatively speaking, were still +in the most tolerable economic position. In Asia Minor even towns +like Samos and Halicarnassus stood almost empty; legal slavery +seemed here a haven of rest compared with the torments to which +the free provincial succumbed, and even the patient Asiatic had become, +according to the descriptions of Roman statesmen themselves, +weary of life. Any one who desires to fathom the depths to which man +can sink in the criminal infliction, and in the no less criminal +endurance, of all conceivable injustice, may gather together +from the criminal records of this period the wrongs which Roman grandees +could perpetrate and Greeks, Syrians, and Phoenicians could suffer. +Even the statesmen of Rome herself publicly and frankly conceded +that the Roman name was unutterably odious through all Greece +and Asia; and, when the burgesses of the Pontic Heraclea on one occasion +put to death the whole of the Roman tax-collectors, the only matter +for regret was that such things did not occur oftener. + +Caesar and the Provinces + +The Optimates scoffed at the new master who went in person +to inspect his "farms" one after the other; in reality the condition +of the several provinces demanded all the earnestness and all the wisdom +of one of those rare men, who redeem the name of king from being regarded +by the nations as merely a conspicuous example of human insufficiency. +The wounds inflicted had to be healed by time; Caesar took care +that they might be so healed, and that there should be +no fresh inflictions. + +The Caesarian Magistrates + +The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. +The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces +essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; +those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, +who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained +a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects +than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships +were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls +and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated +eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces +among the competitors depended solely on him,(83) they were +in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also +of the governors were practically restricted. The superintendence +of the administration of justice and the administrative control +of the communities remained in their hands; but their command +was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants +associated with the governor,(84) and the raising of the taxes +was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially +to imperial officials,(85) so that the governor was thenceforward +surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent +on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military +hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. +While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if +they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, +the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak +against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless +control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer +for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. +The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar +had already in his first consulate made more stringent, +was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces +with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; +and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge +in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves +and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time +were wont to atone. + +Regulation of Burdens + +The extraordinary public burdens were reduced to the right proportion +and the actual necessity; the ordinary burdens were materially lessened. +We have already mentioned the comprehensive regulation of taxation;(86) +the extension of the exemptions from tribute, the general lowering +of the direct taxes, the limitation of the system of -decumae- to Africa +and Sardinia, the complete setting aside of middlemen in the collection +of the direct taxes, were most beneficial reforms for the provincials. +That Caesar after the example of one of his greatest democratic +predecessors, Sertorius,(87) wished to free the subjects from the burden +of quartering troops and to insist on the soldiers erecting +for themselves permanent encampments resembling towns, cannot indeed +be proved; but he was, at least after he had exchanged the part +of pretender for that of king, not the man to abandon the subject +to the soldier; and it was in keeping with his spirit, when the heirs +of his policy created such military camps, and then converted them +into towns which formed rallying-points for Italian civilization +amidst the barbarian frontier districts. + +Influence on the Capitalist System + +It was a task far more difficult than the checking of official +irregularities, to deliver the provincials from the oppressive +ascendency of Roman capital. Its power could not be directly broken +without applying means which were still more dangerous than the evil; +the government could for the time being abolish only isolated abuses-- +as when Caesar for instance prohibited the employment of the title +of state-envoy for financial purposes--and meet manifest acts of violence +and palpable usury by a sharp application of the general penal laws +and of the laws as to usury, which extended also to the provinces;(88) +but a more radical cure of the evil was only to be expected +from the reviving prosperity of the provincials under a better +administration. Temporary enactments, to relieve the insolvency +of particular provinces, had been issued on several occasions +in recent times. Caesar himself had in 694 when governor +of Further Spain assigned to the creditors two thirds +of the income of their debtors in order to pay themselves +from that source. Lucius Lucullus likewise when governor of Asia Minor +had directly cancelled a portion of the arrears of interest +which had swelled beyond measure, and had for the remaining portion +assigned to the creditors a fourth part of the produce of the lands +of their debtors, as well as a suitable proportion of the profits +accruing to them from house-rents or slave-labour. We are not expressly +informed that Caesar after the civil war instituted similar +general liquidations of debt in the provinces; yet from what +has just been remarked and from what was done in the case of Italy,(89) +it can hardly be doubted that Caesar likewise directed his efforts +towards this object, or at least that it formed part of his plan. + +While thus the Imperator, as far as lay within human power, +relieved the provincials from the oppressions of the magistrates +and capitalists of Rome, it might at the same time be with certaint +expected from the government to which he imparted fresh vigour, +that it would scare off the wild border-peoples and disperse +the freebooters by land and sea, as the rising sun chases away +the mist. However the old wounds might still smart, with Caesar +there appeared for the sorely-tortured subjects the dawn +of a more tolerable epoch, the first intelligent and humane government +that had appeared for centuries, and a policy of peace which rested +not on cowardice but on strength. Well might the subjects above all +mourn along with the best Romans by the bier of the great liberator. + +The Beginning of the Helleno-Italic State + +But this abolition of existing abuses was not the main matter +in Caesar's provincial reform. In the Roman republic, according +to the view of the aristocracy and democracy alike, the provinces +had been nothing but--what they were frequently called--country-estates +of the Roman people, and they were employed and worked out as such. +This view had now passed away. The provinces as such were gradually +to disappear, in order to prepare for the renovated Helleno-Italic nation +a new and more spacious home, of whose several component parts no one +existed merely for the sake of another but all for each and each for all; +the new existence in the renovated home, the fresher, broader, grander +national life, was of itself to overbear the sorrows and wrongs +of the nation for which there was no help in the old Italy. These ideas, +as is well known, were not new. The emigration from Italy +to the provinces that had been regularly going on for centuries +had long since, though unconsciously on the part of the emigrants +themselves, paved the way for such an extension of Italy. The first +who in a systematic way guided the Italians to settle beyond the bounds +of Italy was Gaius Gracchus, the creator of the Roman democratic monarchy, +the author of the Transalpine conquests, the founder of the colonies +of Carthage and Narbo. Then the second statesman of genius +produced by the Roman democracy, Quintus Sertorius, began to introduce +the barbarous Occidentals to Latin civilization; he gave to the Spanish +youth of rank the Roman dress, and urged them to speak Latin +and to acquire the higher Italian culture at the training institute +founded by him in Osca. When Caesar entered on the government, +a large Italian population--though, in great part, lacking stability +and concentration--already existed in all the provinces and client- +states. To say nothing of the formally Italian towns in Spain +and southern Gaul, we need only recall the numerous troops of burgesses +raised by Sertorius and Pompeius in Spain, by Caesar in Gaul, +by Juba in Numidia, by the constitutional party in Africa, Macedonia, +Greece, Asia Minor, and Crete; the Latin lyre--ill-tuned doubtless-- +on which the town-poets of Corduba as early as the Sertorian war +sang the praises of the Roman generals; and the translations +of Greek poetry valued on account of their very elegance of language, +which the earliest extra-Italian poet of note, the Transalpine +Publius Terentius Varro of the Aude, published +shortly after Caesar's death. + +On the other hand the interpenetration of the Latin and Hellenic +character was, we might say, as old as Rome. On occasion +of the union of Italy the conquering Latin nation had assimilated +to itself all the other conquered nationalities, excepting only +the Greek, which was received just as it stood without any attempt +at external amalgamation. Wherever the Roman legionary went, +the Greek schoolmaster, no less a conqueror in his own way, followed; +at an early date we find famous teachers of the Greek language +settled on the Guadalquivir, and Greek was as well taught as Latin +in the institute of Osca. The higher Roman culture itself +was in fact nothing else than the proclamation of the great gospel +of Hellenic manners and art in the Italian idiom; against the modest +pretension of the civilizing conquerors to proclaim it first of all +in their own language to the barbarians of the west the Hellene +at least could not loudly protest. Already the Greek every where-- +and, most decidedly, just where the national feeling was purest +and strongest, on the frontiers threatened by barbaric denationalization, +e. g. in Massilia, on the north coast of the Black Sea, +and on the Euphrates and Tigris--descried the protector and avenger +of Hellenism in Rome; and in fact the foundation of towns by Pompeius +in the far east resumed after an interruption of centuries +the beneficent work of Alexander. + +The idea of an Italo-Hellenic empire with two languages +and a single nationality was not new--otherwise it would have been +nothing but a blunder; but the development of it from floating projects +to a firmly-grasped conception, from scattered initial efforts +to the laying of a concentrated foundation, was the work of the third +and greatest of the democratic statesmen of Rome. + +The Ruling Nations +The Jews + +The first and most essential condition for the political +and national levelling of the empire was the preservation and extension +of the two nations destined to joint dominion, along with the absorption +as rapidly as possible of the barbarian races, or those termed barbarian +existing by their side. In a certain sense we might no doubt name +along with Romans and Greeks a third nationality, which vied with them +in ubiquity in the world of that day, and was destined to play +no insignificant part in the new state of Caesar. We speak of the Jews. +This remarkable people, yielding and yet tenacious, was in the ancient +as in the modern world everywhere and nowhere at home, and everywhere +and nowhere powerful. The successors of David and Solomon were of hardly +more significance for the Jews of that age than Jerusalem for those +of the present day; the nation found doubtless for its religious +and intellectual unity a visible rallying-point in the petty kingdom +of Jerusalem, but the nation itself consisted not merely of the subjects +of the Hasmonaeans, but of the innumerable bodies of Jews +scattered through the whole Parthian and the whole Roman empire. +Within the cities of Alexandria especially and of Cyrene the Jews +formed special communities administratively and even locally distinct, +not unlike the "Jews' quarters" of our towns, but with a freer position +and superintended by a "master of the people" as superior judge +and administrator. How numerous even in Rome the Jewish population +was already before Caesar's time, and how closely at the same time +the Jews even then kept together as fellow-countrymen, is shown +by the remark of an author of this period, that it was dangerous +for a governor to offend the Jews, in his province, because he might +then certainly reckon on being hissed after his return by the populace +of the capital. Even at this time the predominant business of the Jews +was trade; the Jewish trader moved everywhere with the conquering Roman +merchant then, in the same way as he afterwards accompanied the Genoese +and the Venetian, and capital flowed in on all hands to the Jewish, +by the side of the Roman, merchants. At this period too we encounter +the peculiar antipathy of the Occidentals towards this so thoroughly +Oriental race and their foreign opinions and customs. This Judaism, +although not the most pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture +of the mixture of nations which then prevailed, was nevertheless +a historical element developing itself in the natural course of things, +which the statesman could neither ignore nor combat, and which Caesar +on the contrary, just like his predecessor Alexander, with correct +discernment of the circumstances, fostered as far as possible. +While Alexander, by laying the foundation of Alexandrian Judaism, +did not much less for the nation than its own David by planning +the temple of Jerusalem, Caesar also advanced the interests of the Jews +in Alexandria and in Rome by special favours and privileges, +and protected in particular their peculiar worship against the Roman +as well as against the Greek local priests. The two great men +of course did not contemplate placing the Jewish nationality +on an equal footing with the Hellenic or Italo-Hellenic. +But the Jew who has not like the Occidental received the Pandora's gift +of political organization, and stands substantially in a relation +of indifference to the state; who moreover is as reluctant +to give up the essence of his national idiosyncrasy, as he is ready +to clothe it with any nationality at pleasure and to adapt himself +up to a certain degree to foreign habits--the Jew was for this +very reason as it were made for a state, which was to be built +on the ruins of a hundred living polities and to be endowed +with a somewhat abstract and, from the outset, toned-down nationality. +Even in the ancient world Judaism was an effective leaven +of cosmopolitanism and of national decomposition, and to that extent +a specially privileged member in the Caesarian state, the polity +of which was strictly speaking nothing but a citizenship of the world, +and the nationality of which was at bottom nothing but humanity. + +Hellenism + +But the Latin and Hellenic nationalities continued to be +exclusively the positive elements of the new citizenship. +The distinctively Italian state of the republic was thus at an end; +but the rumour that Caesar was ruining Italy and Rome on purpose +to transfer the centre of the empire to the Greek east and to make +Ilion or Alexandria its capital, was nothing but a piece of talk-- +very easy to be accounted for, but also very silly--of the angry +nobility. On the contrary in Caesar's organizations the Latin +nationality always retained the preponderance; as is indicated +in the very fact that he issued all his enactments in Latin, +although those destined for the Greek-speaking countries were +at the same time issued in Greek. In general he arranged the relations +of the two great nations in his monarchy just as his republican +predecessors had arranged them in the united Italy; the Hellenic +nationality was protected where it existed, the Italian was extended +as far as circumstances permitted, and the inheritance +of the races to be absorbed was destined for it. This was necessary, +because an entire equalizing of the Greek and Latin elements +in the state would in all probability have in a very short time +occasioned that catastrophe which Byzantinism brought about +several centuries later; for the Greek element was superior +to the Roman not merely in all intellectual aspects, but also +in the measure of its predominance, and it had within Italy itself +in the hosts of Hellenes and half-Hellenes who migrated compulsorily +or voluntarily to Italy an endless number of apostles apparently +insignificant, but whose influence could not be estimated +too highly. To mention only the most conspicuous phenomenon +in this respect, the rule of Greek lackeys over the Roman monarchs +is as old as the monarchy. The first in the equally long and repulsive +list of these personages is the confidential servant of Pompeius, +Theophanes of Mytilene, who by his power over his weak master +contributed probably more than any one else to the outbreak of the war +between Pompeius and Caesar. Not wholly without reason he was +after his death treated with divine honours by his countrymen; +he commenced, forsooth, the -valet de chambre- government +of the imperial period, which in a certain measure was just +a dominion of the Hellenes over the Romans. The government +had accordingly every reason not to encourage by its fostering action +the spread of Hellenism at least in the west. If Sicily was not simply +relieved of the pressure of the -decumae- but had its communities +invested with Latin rights, which was presumably meant to be followed +in due time by full equalization with Italy, it can only have been +Caesar's design that this glorious island, which was at that time +desolate and had as to management passed for the greater part +into Italian hands, but which nature has destined to be not so much +a neighbouring land to Italy as rather the finest of its provinces, +should become altogether merged in Italy. But otherwise +the Greek element, wherever it existed, was preserved and protected. +However political crises might suggest to the Imperator the demolition +of the strong pillars of Hellenism in the west and in Egypt, Massilia +and Alexandria were neither destroyed nor denationalized. + +Latinizing + +On the other hand the Roman element was promoted by the government +through colonization and Latinizing with all vigour and at the most +various points of the empire. The principle, which originated +no doubt from a bad combination of formal law and brute force, +but was inevitably necessary in order to freedom in dealing +with the nations destined to destruction--that all the soil +in the provinces not ceded by special act of the government +to communities or private persons was the property of the state, +and the holder of it for the time being had merely an heritable +possession on sufferance and revocable at any time--was retained +also by Caesar and raised by him from a democratic party-theory +to a fundamental principle of monarchical law. + +Cisalpine Gaul + +Gaul, of course, fell to be primarily dealt with in the extension +of Roman nationality. Cisalpine Gaul obtained throughout-- +what a great part of the inhabitants had long enjoyed-- +political equalization with the leading country by the admission +of the Transpadane communities into the Roman burgess-union, +which had for long been assumed by the democracy as accomplished,(90) +and was now (705) finally accomplished by Caesar. Practically +this province had already completely Latinized itself during +the forty years which had elapsed since the bestowal of Latin rights. +The exclusives might ridicule the broad and gurgling accent +of the Celtic Latin, and miss "an undefined something of the grace +of the capital" in the Insubrian or Venetian, who as Caesar's legionary +had conquered for himself with his sword a place in the Roman Forum +and even in the Roman senate-house. Nevertheless Cisalpine Gaul +with its dense chiefly agricultural population was even before +Caesar's time in reality an Italian country, and remained +for centuries the true asylum of Italian manners and Italian culture; +indeed the teachers of Latin literature found nowhere else +out of the capital so much encouragement and approbation. + +The Province of Narbo + +While Cisalpine Gaul was thus substantially merged in Italy, +the place which it had hitherto occupied was taken by the Transalpine +province, which had been converted by the conquests of Caesar +from a frontier into an inland province, and which by its vicinity +as well as by its climate was fitted beyond all other regions +to become in due course of time likewise an Italian land. +Thither principally, according to the old aim of the transmarine +settlements of the Roman democracy, was the stream of Italian +emigration directed. There the ancient colony of Narbo was reinforced +by new settlers, and four new burgess-colonies were instituted +at Baeterrae (Beziers) not far from Narbo, at Arelate (Aries) +and Arausio (Orange) on the Rhone, and at the new seaport Forum Julii +(Frejus); while the names assigned to them at the same time preserved +the memory of the brave legions which had annexed northern Gaul +to the empire.(91) The townships not furnished with colonists appear, +at least for the most part, to have been led on toward Romanization +in the same way as Transpadane Gaul in former times(92) by the bestowal +of Latin urban rights; in particular Nemausus (Nimes), as the chief place +of the territory taken from the Massiliots in consequence of their revolt +against Caesar,(93)was converted from a Massiliot village into a Latin +urban community, and endowed with a considerable territory and even +with the right of coinage.(94) While Cisalpine Gaul thus advanced +from the preparatory stage to full equality with Italy, the Narbonese +province advanced at the same time into that preparatory stage; +just as previously in Cisalpine Gaul, the most considerable +communities there had the full franchise, the rest Latin rights. + +Northern Gaul + +In the other non-Greek and non-Latin regions of the empire, +which were still more remote from the influence of Italy and the process +of assimilation, Caesar confined himself to the establishment +of several centres for Italian civilization such as Narbo had hitherto +been in Gaul, in order by their means to pave the way for a future +complete equalization. Such initial steps can be pointed out +in all the provinces of the empire, with the exception of the poorest +and least important of all, Sardinia. How Caesar proceeded +in Northern Gaul, we have already set forth;(95) the Latin language +there obtained throughout official recognition, though not yet +employed for all branches of public intercourse, and the colony +of Noviodunum (Nyon) arose on the Leman lake as the most northerly town +with an Italian constitution. + +Spain + +In Spain, which was presumably at that time the most densely peopled +country of the Roman empire, not merely were Caesarian colonists +settled in the important Helleno-Iberian seaport town of Emporiae +by the side of the old population; but, as recently-discovered +records have shown, a number of colonists probably taken +predominantly from the proletariate of the capital were provided for +in the town of Urso (Osuna), not far from Seville in the heart +of Andalusia, and perhaps also in several other townships +of this province. The ancient and wealthy mercantile city of Gades, +whose municipal system Caesar even when praetor had remodelled +suitably to the times, now obtained from the Imperator the full rights +of the Italian -municipia-(705) and became--what Tusculum had been +in Italy(96)--the first extra-Italian community not founded by Rome +which was admitted into the Roman burgess-union. Some years +afterwards (709) similar rights were conferred also on some other +Spanish communities, and Latin rights presumably on still more. + +Carthage + +In Africa the project, which Gaius Gracchus had not been allowed +to bring to an issue, was now carried out, and on the spot +where the city of the hereditary foes of Rome had stood, 3000 Italian +colonists and a great number of the tenants on lease and sufferance +resident in the Carthaginian territory were settled; and the new +"Venus-colony," the Roman Carthage, throve with amazing rapidity +under the incomparably favourable circumstances of the locality. +Utica, hitherto the capital and first commercial town in the province, +had already been in some measure compensated beforehand, +apparently by the bestowal of Latin rights, for the revival +of its superior rival. In the Numidian territory newly annexed +to the empire the important Cirta and the other communities assigned +to the Roman condottiere Publius Sittius for himself and his troops(97) +obtained the legal position of Roman military colonies. +The stately provincial towns indeed, which the insane fury of Juba +and of the desperate remnant of the constitutional party had converted +into ruins, did not revive so rapidly as they had been reduced to ashes, +and many a ruinous site recalled long afterwards this fatal period; +but the two new Julian colonies, Carthage and Cirta, became +and continued to be the centres of Africano-Roman civilization. + +Corinth +The East + +In the desolate land of Greece, Caesar, besides other plans +such as the institution of a Roman colony in Buthrotum (opposite Corfu), +busied himself above all with the restoration of Corinth. Not only +was a considerable burgess-colony conducted thither, but a plan +was projected for cutting through the isthmus, so as to avoid +the dangerous circumnavigation of the Peloponnesus and to make +the whole traffic between Italy and Asia pass through the Corintho- +Saronic gulf. Lastly even in the remote Hellenic east the monarch +called into existence Italian settlements; on the Black Sea, +for instance, at Heraclea and Sinope, which towns the Italian +colonists shared, as in the case of Emporiae, with the old inhabitants; +on the Syrian coast, in the important port of Berytus, +which like Sinope obtained an Italian constitution; and even in Egypt, +where a Roman station was established on the lighthouse-island +commanding the harbour of Alexandria. + +Extension of the Italian Municipal Constitution to the Provinces + +Through these ordinances the Italian municipal freedom was carried +into the provinces in a manner far more comprehensive than had been +previously the case. The communities of full burgesses--that is, +all the towns of the Cisalpine province and the burgess-colonies +and burgess-municipia--scattered in Transalpine Gaul and elsewhere-- +were on an equal footing with the Italian, in so far as they administered +their own affairs, and even exercised a certainly limited jurisdiction; +while on the other hand the more important processes came before +the Roman authorities competent to deal with them--as a rule the governor +of the province.(98) The formally autonomous Latin and the other +emancipated communities-thus including all those of Sicily +and of Narbonese Gaul, so far as they were not burgess-communities, +and a considerable number also in the other provinces--had not merely +free administration, but probably unlimited jurisdiction; so that +the governor was only entitled to interfere there by virtue of his-- +certainly very arbitrary--administrative control. No doubt even earlier +there had been communities of full burgesses within the provinces +of governors, such as Aquileia, and Narbo, and whole governors' +provinces, such as Cisalpine Gaul, had consisted of communities +with Italian constitution; but it was, if not in law, at least +in a political point of view a singularly important innovation, +that there was now a province which as well as Italy was peopled +solely by Roman burgesses,(99) and that others promised to become such. + +Italy and the Provinces Reduced to One Level + +With this disappeared the first great practical distinction +that separated Italy from the provinces; and the second--that ordinarily +no troops were stationed in Italy, while they were stationed +in the provinces--was likewise in the course of disappearing; +troops were now stationed only where there was a frontier to be defended, +and the commandants of the provinces in which this was not the case, +such as Narbo and Sicily, were officers only in name. The formal +contrast between Italy and the provinces, which had at all times +depended on other distinctions,(100) continued certainly +even now to subsist, for Italy was the sphere of civil jurisdiction +and of consuls and praetors, while the provinces were districts +under the jurisdiction of martial law and subject to proconsuls +and propraetors; but the procedure according to civil and according +to martial law had for long been practically coincident, +and the different titles of the magistrates signified little +after the one Imperator was over all. + +In all these various municipal foundations and ordinances-- +which are traceable at least in plan, if not perhaps all in execution, +to Caesar--a definite system is apparent. Italy was converted +from the mistress of the subject peoples into the mother +of the renovated Italo-Hellenic nation. The Cisalpine province +completely equalized with the mother-country was a promise +and a guarantee that, in the monarchy of Caesar just as + in the healthier times of the republic, every Latinized +district might expect to be placed on an equal footing +by the side of its elder sisters and of the mother herself. +On the threshold of full national and political equalization +with Italy stood the adjoining lands, the Greek Sicily +and the south of Gaul, which was rapidly becoming Latinized. +In a more remote stage of preparation stood the other provinces +of the empire, in which, just as hitherto in southern Gaul Narbo +had been a Roman colony, the great maritime cities--Emporiae, Gades, +Carthage, Corinth, Heraclea in Pontus, Sinope, Berytus, Alexandria-- +now became Italian or Helleno-Italian communities, the centres +of an Italian civilization even in the Greek east, the fundamental +pillars of the future national and political levelling of the empire. +The rule of the urban community of Rome over the shores +of the Mediterranean was at an end; in its stead came the new +Mediterranean state, and its first act was to atone for the two +greatest outrages which that urban community had perpetrated +on civilization. While the destruction of the two greatest marts +of commerce in the Roman dominions marked the turning-point at which +the protectorate of the Roman community degenerated into political +tyrannizing over, and financial exaction from, the subject lands, +the prompt and brilliant restoration of Carthage and Corinth marked +the foundation of the new great commonwealth which was to train up +all the regions on the Mediterranean to national and political +equality, to union in a genuine state. Well might Caesar bestow +on the city of Corinth in addition to its far-famed ancient name +the new one of "Honour to Julius" (-Lavs Jvli-). + +Organization of the New Empire + +While thus the new united empire was furnished with a national character, +which doubtless necessarily lacked individuality and was rather +an inanimate product of art than a fresh growth of nature, +it further had need of unity in those institutions which express +the general life of nations--in constitution and administration, +in religion and jurisprudence, in money, measures, and weights; +as to which, of course, local diversities of the most varied character +were quite compatible with essential union. In all these departments +we can only speak of the initial steps, for the thorough formation +of the monarchy of Caesar into an unity was the work of the future, +and all that he did was to lay the foundation for the building +of centuries. But of the lines, which the great man drew in these +departments, several can still be recognized; and it is more pleasing +to follow him here, than in the task of building from the ruins +of the nationalities. + +Census of the Empire + +As to constitution and administration, we have already noticed +elsewhere the most important elements of the new unity-- +the transition of the sovereignty from the municipal council of Rome +to the sole master of the Mediterranean monarchy; the conversion +of that municipal council into a supreme imperial council representing +Italy and the provinces; above all, the transference--now commenced-- +of the Roman, and generally of the Italian, municipal organization +to the provincial communities. This latter course--the bestowal +of Latin, and thereafter of Roman, rights on the communities +ripe for full admission to the united state--gradually of itself +brought about uniform communal arrangements. In one respect alone +this process could not be waited for. The new empire needed +immediately an institution which should place before the government +at a glance the principal bases of administration--the proportions +of population and property in the different communities-- +in other words an improved census. First the census of Italy +was reformed. According to Caesar's ordinance(101)--which probably, +indeed, only carried out the arrangements which were, at least +as to principle, adopted in consequence of the Social war-- +in future, when a census took place in the Roman community, +there were to be simultaneously registered by the highest authority +in each Italian community the name of every municipal burgess +and that of his father or manumitter, his district, his age, +and his property; and these lists were to be furnished to the Roman +censor early enough to enable him to complete in proper time +the general list of Roman burgesses and of Roman property. +That it was Caesar's intention to introduce similar institutions +also in the provinces is attested partly by the measurement +and survey of the whole empire ordered by him, partly by the nature +of the arrangement itself; for it in fact furnished the general +instrument appropriate for procuring, as well in the Italian +as in the non-Italian communities of the state, the information +requisite for the central administration. Evidently here too +it was Caesar's intention to revert to the traditions +of the earlier republican times, and to reintroduce the census +of the empire, which the earlier republic had effected-- +essentially in the same way as Caesar effected the Italian-- +by analogous extension of the institution of the urban censorship +with its set terms and other essential rules to all the subject +communities of Italy and Sicily.(102) This had been +one of the first institutions which the torpid aristocracy allowed +to drop, and in this way deprived the supreme administrative authority +of any view of the resources in men and taxation at its disposal +and consequently of all possibility of an effective control.(103) +The indications still extant, and the very connection of things, +show irrefragably that Caesar made preparations to renew +the general census that had been obsolete for centuries. + +Religion of the Empire + +We need scarcely say that in religion and in jurisprudence +no thorough levelling could be thought of; yet with all toleration +towards local faiths and municipal statutes the new state needed +a common worship corresponding to the Italo-Hellenic nationality +and a general code of law superior to the municipal statutes. +It needed them; for de facto both were already in existence. +In the field of religion men had for centuries been busied +in fusing together the Italian and Hellenic worships partly +by external adoption, partly by internal adjustment of their respective +conceptions of the gods; and owing to the pliant formless character +of the Italian gods, there had been no great difficulty in resolving +Jupiter into Zeus, Venus into Aphrodite, and so every essential idea +of the Latin faith into its Hellenic counterpart. The Italo-Hellenic +religion stood forth in its outlines ready-made; how much +in this very department men were conscious of having gone beyond +the specifically Roman point of view and advanced towards +an Italo-Hellenic quasi-nationality, is shown by the distinction made +in the already-mentioned theology of Varro between the "common" gods, +that is, those acknowledged by Romans and Greeks, and the special gods +of the Roman community. + +Law of the Empire + +So far as concerns the field of criminal and police law, +where the government more directly interferes and the necessities +of the case are substantially met by a judicious legislation, +there was no difficulty in attaining, in the way of legislative action, +that degree of material uniformity which certainly was in this department +needful for the unity of the empire. In the civil law again, +where the initiative belongs to commercial intercourse and merely +the formal shape to the legislator, the code for the united empire, +which the legislator certainly could not have created, had been already +long since developed in a natural way by commercial intercourse itself. +The Roman urban law was still indeed legally based on the embodiment +of the Latin national law contained in the Twelve Tables. +Later laws had doubtless introduced various improvements +of detail suited to the times, among which the most important +was probably the abolition of the old inconvenient mode +of commencing a process through standing forms of declaration +by the parties(104) and the substitution of an instruction drawn up +in writing by the presiding magistrate for the single juryman +(formula): but in the main the popular legislation had only piled upon +that venerable foundation an endless chaos of special laws +long since in great part antiquated and forgotten, which can +only be compared to the English statute-law. The attempts to impart +to them scientific shape and system had certainly rendered +the tortuous paths of the old civil law accessible, and thrown light +upon them;(105) but no Roman Blackstone could remedy the fundamental +defect, that an urban code composed four hundred years ago +with its equally diffuse and confused supplements was now to serve +as the law of a great state. + +The New Urban Law or the Edict + +Commercial intercourse provided for itself a more thorough remedy. +The lively intercourse between Romans and non-Romans had long ago +developed in Rome an international private law (-ius gentium-;(106)), +that is to say, a body of maxims especially relating to commercial +matters, according to which Roman judges pronounced judgment, +when a cause could not be decided either according to their own +or any other national code and they were compelled--setting aside +the peculiarities of Roman, Hellenic, Phoenician and other law-- +to revert to the common views of right underlying all dealings. +The formation of the newer law attached itself to this basis. +In the first place as a standard for the legal dealings +of Roman burgesses with each other, it de facto substituted +for the old urban law, which had become practically useless, +a new code based in substance on a compromise between the national law +of the Twelve Tables and the international law or so-called +law of nations. The former was essentially adhered to, +though of course with modifications suited to the times, +in the law of marriage, family, and inheritance; whereas +in all regulations which concerned dealings with property, +and consequently in reference to ownership and contracts, +the international law was the standard; in these matters indeed +various important arrangements were borrowed even from local +provincial law, such as the legislation as to usury,(107) +and the institution of -hypotheca-. Through whom, when, +and how this comprehensive innovation came into existence, +whether at once or gradually, whether through one or several authors, +are questions to which we cannot furnish a satisfactory answer. +We know only that this reform, as was natural, proceeded +in the first instance from the urban court; that it first took +formal shape in the instructions annually issued by the -praetor +urbanus-, when entering on office, for the guidance of the parties +in reference to the most important maxims of law to be observed +in the judicial year then beginning (-edictum annuum- or -perpetuum +praetoris urbani de iuris dictione-); and that, although various +preparatory steps towards it may have been taken in earlier times, +it certainly only attained its completion in this epoch. The new code +was theoretic and abstract, inasmuch as the Roman view of law +had therein divested itself of such of its national peculiarities +as it had become aware of; but it was at the same time practical +and positive, inasmuch as it by no means faded away into the dim +twilight of general equity or even into the pure nothingness +of the so-called law of nature, but was applied by definite +functionaries for definite concrete cases according to fixed rules, +and was not merely capable of, but had already essentially received, +a legal embodiment in the urban edict. This code moreover corresponded +in matter to the wants of the time, in so far as it furnished +the more convenient forms required by the increase of intercourse +for legal procedure, for acquisition of property, and for conclusion +of contracts. Lastly, it had already in the main become subsidiary law +throughout the compass of the Roman empire, inasmuch as-- +while the manifold local statutes were retained for those legal relations +which were not directly commercial, as well as for local transactions +between members of the same legal district--dealings relating +to property between subjects of the empire belonging to different +legal districts were regulated throughout after the model +of the urban edict, though not applicable de jure to these cases, +both in Italy and in the provinces. The law of the urban edict +had thus essentially the same position in that age which the Roman law +has occupied in our political development; this also is, so far as +such opposites can be combined, at once abstract and positive; +this also recommended itself by its (compared with the earlier +legal code) flexible forms of intercourse, and took its place by the side +of the local statutes as universal subsidiary law. But the Roman +legal development had an essential advantage over ours in this, +that the denationalized legislation appeared not, as with us, +prematurely and by artificial birth, but at the right time +and agreeably to nature. + +Caesar's Project of Codification + +Such was the state of the law as Caesar found it. If he projected +the plan for a new code, it is not difficult to say what were +his intentions. This code could only comprehend the law of Roman +burgesses, and could be a general code for the empire merely so far as +a code of the ruling nation suitable to the times could not +but of itself become general subsidiary law throughout the compass +of the empire. In criminal law, if the plan embraced this at all, +there was needed only a revision and adjustment of the Sullan +ordinances. In civil law, for a state whose nationality +was properly humanity, the necessary and only possible formal shape +was to invest that urban edict, which had already spontaneously grown +out of lawful commerce, with the security and precision of statute-law. +The first step towards this had been taken by the Cornelian law +of 687, when it enjoined the judge to keep to the maxims set forth +at the beginning of his magistracy and not arbitrarily +to administer other law (108)--a regulation, which may well +be compared with the law of the Twelve Tables, and which became +almost as significant for the fixing of the later urban law +as that collection for the fixing of the earlier. But although +after the Cornelian decree of the people the edict was no longer +subordinate to the judge, but the judge was by law subject to the edict; +and though the new code had practically dispossessed the old urban law +in judicial usage as in legal instruction--every urban judge +was still free at his entrance on office absolutely and arbitrarily +to alter the edict, and the law of the Twelve Tables with its additions +still always outweighed formally the urban edict, so that +in each individual case of collision the antiquated rule had to be +set aside by arbitrary interference of the magistrates, +and therefore, strictly speaking, by violation of formal law. +The subsidiary application of the urban edict in the court +of the -praetor peregrinus- at Rome and in the different provincial +judicatures was entirely subject to the arbitrary pleasure +of the individual presiding magistrates. It was evidently necessary +to set aside definitely the old urban law, so far as it had not +been transferred to the newer, and in the case of the latter +to set suitable limits to its arbitrary alteration by each individual +urban judge, possibly also to regulate its subsidiary application +by the side of the local statutes. This was Caesars design, +when he projected the plan for his code; for it could not have been +otherwise. The plan was not executed; and thus that troublesome +state of transition in Roman jurisprudence was perpetuated +till this necessary reform was accomplished six centuries afterwards, +and then but imperfectly, by one of the successors of Caesar, +the Emperor Justinian. + +Lastly, in money, measures, and weights the substantial equalization +of the Latin and Hellenic systems had long been in progress. +It was very ancient so far as concerned the definitions of weight +and the measures of capacity and of length indispensable for trade +and commerce,(109) and in the monetary system little more recent +than the introduction of the silver coinage.(110) But these older +equations were not sufficient, because in the Hellenic world itself +the most varied metrical and monetary systems subsisted side by side; +it was necessary, and formed part doubtless of Caesar's plan, +now to introduce everywhere in the new united empire, so far as +this had not been done already, Roman money, Roman measures, +and Roman weights in such a manner that they alone should be reckoned +by in official intercourse, and that the non-Roman systems +should be restricted to local currency or placed in a--once for all +regulated--ratio to the Roman.(111) The action of Caesar, +however, can only be pointed out in two of the most important +of these departments, the monetary system and the calendar. + +Gold Coin as Imperial Currency + +The Roman monetary system was based on the two precious metals +circulating side by side and in a fixed relation to each other, +gold being given and taken according to weight,(112) silver +in the form of coin; but practically in consequence of the extensive +transmarine intercourse the gold far preponderated over the silver. +Whether the acceptance of Roman silver money was not even +at an earlier period obligatory throughout the empire, is uncertain; +at any rate uncoined gold essentially supplied the place of imperial +money throughout the Roman territory, the more so as the Romans +had prohibited the coining of gold in all the provinces and client- +states, and the -denarius- had, in addition to Italy, de jure +or de facto naturalized itself in Cisalpine Gaul, in Sicily, +in Spain and various other places, especially in the west.(113) + but the imperial coinage begins with Caesar. Exactly like Alexander, +he marked the foundation of the new monarchy embracing the civilized +world by the fact that the only metal forming an universal medium +obtained the first place in the coinage. The greatness of the scale +on which the new Caesarian gold piece (20 shillings 7 pence +according to the present value of the metal) was immediately coined, +is shown by the fact that in a single treasure buried seven years +after Caesar's death 80,000 of these pieces were found together. +It is true that financial speculations may have exercised +a collateral influence in this respect.(114) as to the silver money, +the exclusive rule of the Roman -denarius- in all the west, +for which the foundation had previously been laid, was finally +established by Caesar, when he definitively closed the only +Occidental mint that still competed in silver currency with the Roman, +that of Massilia. The coining of silver or copper small money +was still permitted to a number of Occidental communities; +three-quarter -denarii- were struck by some Latin communities +of southern Gaul, half -denarii- by several cantons in northern Gaul, +copper small coins in various instances even after Caesar's time +by communes of the west; but this small money was throughout coined +after the Roman standard, and its acceptance moreover was probably +obligatory only in local dealings. Caesar does not seem any more +than the earlier government to have contemplated the regulation +with a view to unity of the monetary system of the east, +where great masses of coarse silver money--much of which too easily +admitted of being debased or worn away--and to some extent even, +as in Egypt, a copper coinage akin to our paper money +were in circulation, and the Syrian commercial cities would have felt +very severely the want of their previous national coinage corresponding +to the Mesopotamian currency. We find here subsequently +the arrangement that the -denarius- has everywhere legal currency +and is the only medium of official reckoning,(115) while the local coins +have legal currency within their limited range but according +to a tariff unfavourable for them as compared with the -denarius-.(116) +This was probably not introduced all at once, and in part perhaps +may have preceded Caesar; but it was at any rate the essential +complement of the Caesarian arrangement as to the imperial coinage, +whose new gold piece found its immediate model in the almost equally +heavy coin of Alexander and was doubtless calculated especially +for circulation in the east. + +Reform of the Calendar + +Of a kindred nature was the reform of the calendar. +The republican calendar, which strangely enough was still +the old decemviral calendar--an imperfect adoption of the -octaeteris- +that preceded Meton (117)--had by a combination of wretched mathematics +and wretched administration come to anticipate the true time +by 67 whole days, so that e. g. the festival of Flora was celebrated +on the 11th July instead of the 28th April. Caesar finally removed +this evil, and with the help of the Greek mathematician Sosigenes +introduced the Italian farmer's year regulated according to the Egyptian +calendar of Eudoxus, as well as a rational system of intercalation, +into religious and official use; while at the same time +the beginning of the year on the 1st March of the old calendar +was abolished, and the date of the 1st January--fixed at first +as the official term for changing the supreme magistrates and, +in consequence of this, long since prevailing in civil life-- +was assumed also as the calendar-period for commencing the year. +Both changes came into effect on the 1st January 709, and along +with them the use of the Julian calendar so named after its author, +which long after the fall of the monarchy of Caesar remained +the regulative standard of the civilized world and in the main +is so still. By way of explanation there was added in a detailed edict +a star-calendar derived from the Egyptian astronomical observations +and transferred--not indeed very skilfully--to Italy, which fixed +the rising and setting of the stars named according to days +of the calendar.(118) In this domain also the Roman and Greek worlds +were thus placed on a par. + +Caesar and His Works + +Such were the foundations of the Mediterranean monarchy of Caesar. +For the second time in Rome the social question had reached +a crisis, at which the antagonisms not only appeared to be, +but actually were, in the form of their exhibition, insoluble and, +in the form of their expression, irreconcilable. On the former +occasion Rome had been saved by the fact that Italy was merged +in Rome and Rome in Italy, and in the new enlarged and altered home +those old antagonisms were not reconciled, but fell into abeyance. +Now Rome was once more saved by the fact that the countries +of the Mediterranean were merged in it or became prepared for merging; +the war between the Italian poor and rich, which in the old Italy +could only end with the destruction of the nation, had no longer +a battle-field or a meaning in the Italy of three continents. +The Latin colonies closed the gap which threatened to swallow up +the Roman community in the fifth century; the deeper chasm +of the seventh century was filled by the Transalpine and transmarine +colonizations of Gaius Gracchus and Caesar. For Rome alone history +not merely performed miracles, but also repeated its miracles, +and twice cured the internal crisis, which in the state itself +was incurable, by regenerating the state. There was doubtless +much corruption in this regeneration; as the union of Italy +was accomplished over the ruins of the Samnite and Etruscan nations, +so the Mediterranean monarchy built itself on the ruins of countless +states and tribes once living and vigorous; but it was a corruption +out of which sprang a fresh growth, part of which remains green +at the present day. What was pulled down for the sake of the new +building, was merely the secondary nationalities which had long since +been marked out for destruction by the levelling hand of civilization. +Caesar, wherever he came forward as a destroyer, only carried out +the pronounced verdict of historical development; but he protected +the germs of culture, where and as he found them, in his own land +as well as among the sister nation of the Hellenes. He saved +and renewed the Roman type; and not only did he spare the Greek type, +but with the same self-relying genius with which he accomplished +the renewed foundation of Rome he undertook also the regeneration +of the Hellenes, and resumed the interrupted work of the great Alexander, +whose image, we may well believe, never was absent from Caesar's soul. +He solved these two great tasks not merely side by side, +but the one by means of the other. The two great essentials +of humanity--general and individual development, or state and culture-- +once in embryo united in those old Graeco-Italians feeding their flocks +in primeval simplicity far from the coasts and islands +of the Mediterranean, had become dissevered when these were parted +into Italians and Hellenes, and had thenceforth remained apart +for many centuries. Now the descendant of the Trojan prince +and the Latin king's daughter created out of a state without +distinctive culture and a cosmopolitan civilization a new whole, +in which state and culture again met together at the acme +of human existence in the rich fulness of blessed maturity +and worthily filled the sphere appropriate to such an union. + +The outlines have thus been set forth, which Caesar drew for this work, +according to which he laboured himself, and according to which posterity-- +for many centuries confined to the paths which this great man marked out-- +endeavoured to prosecute the work, if not with the intellect +and energy, yet on the whole in accordance with the intentions, +of the illustrious master. Little was finished; much even +was merely begun. Whether the plan was complete, those who venture +to vie in thought with such a man may decide; we observe no material +defect in what lies before us--every single stone of the building +enough to make a man immortal, and yet all combining to form +one harmonious whole. Caesar ruled as king of Rome for five years +and a half, not half as long as Alexander; in the intervals +of seven great campaigns, which allowed him to stay not more +than fifteen months altogether(119) in the capital of his empire, +he regulated the destinies of the world for the present +and the future, from the establishment of the boundary-line +between civilization and barbarism down to the removal of the pools +of rain in the streets of the capital, and yet retained time +and composure enough attentively to follow the prize-pieces in the theatre +and to confer the chaplet on the victor with improvised verses. +The rapidity and self-precision with which the plan was executed +prove that it had been long meditated thoroughly and all its parts +settled in detail; but, even thus, they remain not much less wonderful than +the plan itself. The outlines were laid down and thereby the new state +was defined for all coming time; the boundless future alone could complete +the structure. So far Caesar might say, that his aim was attained; +and this was probably the meaning of the words which were sometimes +heard to fall from him--that he had "lived enough." But precisely because +the building was an endless one, the master as long as he lived restlessly +added stone to stone, with always the same dexterity and always the same +elasticity busy at his work, without ever overturning or postponing, +just as if there were for him merely a to-day and no to-morrow. +Thus he worked and created as never did any mortal before or after him; +and as a worker and creator he still, after wellnigh two thousand years, +lives in the memory of the nations--the first, and withal unique, +Imperator Caesar. + + + + +Chapter XII + +Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art + +State Religion + +In the development of religion and philosophy no new element +appeared during this epoch. The Romano-Hellenic state-religion +and the Stoic state-philosophy inseparably combined with it +were for every government--oligarchy, democracy or monarchy--not merely +a convenient instrument, but quite indispensable for the very reason +that it was just as impossible to construct the state wholly without +religious elements as to discover any new state-religion fitted +to take the place of the old. So the besom of revolution swept doubtless +at times very roughly through the cobwebs of the augural bird-lore;(1) +nevertheless the rotten machine creaking at every joint +survived the earthquake which swallowed up the republic itself, +and preserved its insipidity and its arrogance without diminution +for transference to the new monarchy. As a matter of course, +it fell more and more into disfavour with all those who preserved +their freedom of judgment. Towards the state-religion indeed +public opinion maintained an attitude essentially indifferent; +it was on all sides recognized as an institution of political convenience, +and no one specially troubled himself about it with the exception +of political and antiquarian literati. But towards its philosophical +sister there gradually sprang up among the unprejudiced public +that hostility, which the empty and yet perfidious hypocrisy of set phrases +never fails in the long run to awaken. That a presentiment of its own +worthlessness began to dawn on the Stoa itself, is shown by its attempt +artificially to infuse into itself some fresh spirit in the way +of syncretism. Antiochus of Ascalon (flourishing about 675), who professed +to have patched together the Stoic and Platonic-Aristotelian systems +into one organic unity, in reality so far succeeded that his misshapen +doctrine became the fashionable philosophy of the conservatives +of his time and was conscientiously studied by the genteel dilettanti +and literati of Rome. Every one who displayed any intellectual vigour, +opposed the Stoa or ignored it. It was principally antipathy +towards the boastful and tiresome Roman Pharisees, coupled doubtless +with the increasing disposition to take refuge from practical life +in indolent apathy or empty irony, that occasioned during this epoch +the extension of the system of Epicurus to a larger circle +and the naturalization of the Cynic philosophy of Diogenes in Rome. +However stale and poor in thought the former might be, a philosophy, +which did not seek the way to wisdom through an alteration +of traditional terms but contented itself with those in existence, +and throughout recognized only the perceptions of sense as true, +was always better than the terminological jingle and the hollow +conceptions of the Stoic wisdom; and the Cynic philosophy +was of all the philosophical systems of the times in so far +by much the best, as its system was confined to the having +no system at all and sneering at all systems and all systematizers. +In both fields war was waged against the Stoa with zeal and success; +for serious men, the Epicurean Lucretius preached with the full accents +of heartfelt conviction and of holy zeal against the Stoical faith +in the gods and providence and the Stoical doctrine of the immortality +of the soul; for the great public ready to laugh, the Cynic Varro +hit the mark still more sharply with the flying darts of his extensively- +read satires. While thus the ablest men of the older generation +made war on the Stoa, the younger generation again, such as Catullus, +stood in no inward relation to it at all, and passed a far sharper +censure on it by completely ignoring it. + +The Oriental Religions + +But, if in the present instance a faith no longer believed in +was maintained out of political convenience, they amply made up +for this in other respects. Unbelief and superstition, different hues +of the same historical phenomenon, went in the Roman world +of that day hand in hand, and there was no lack of individuals +who in themselves combined both--who denied the gods with Epicurus, +and yet prayed and sacrificed before every shrine. Of course only +the gods that came from the east were still in vogue, and, as the men +continued to flock from the Greek lands to Italy, so the gods +of the east migrated in ever-increasing numbers to the west. +The importance of the Phrygian cultus at that time in Rome is shown +both by the polemical tone of the older men such as Varro and Lucretius, +and by the poetical glorification of it in the fashionable Catullus, +which concludes with the characteristic request that the goddess +may deign to turn the heads of others only, and not that +of the poet himself. + +Worship of Mithra + +A fresh addition was the Persian worship, which is said +to have first reached the Occidental through the medium of the pirates +who met on the Mediterranean from the east and from the west; +the oldest seat of this cultus in the west is stated to have been +Mount Olympus in Lycia. That in the adoption of Oriental worships +in the west such higher speculative and moral elements as they contained +were generally allowed to drop, is strikingly evinced by the fact +that Ahuramazda, the supreme god of the pure doctrine of Zarathustra, +remained virtually unknown in the west, and adoration there +was especially directed to that god who had occupied the first place +in the old Persian national religion and had been transferred +by Zarathustra to the second--the sun-god Mithra. + +Worship of Isis + +But the brighter and gentler celestial forms of the Persian religion +did not so rapidly gain a footing in Rome as the wearisome mystical host +of the grotesque divinities of Egypt--Isis the mother of nature +with her whole train, the constantly dying and constantly reviving +Osiris, the gloomy Sarapis, the taciturn and grave Harpocrates, +the dog-headed Anubis. In the year when Clodius emancipated +the clubs and conventicles (696), and doubtless in consequence +of this very emancipation of the populace, that host even prepared +to make its entry into the old stronghold of the Roman Jupiter +in the Capitol, and it was with difficulty that the invasion +was prevented and the inevitable temples were banished +at least to the suburbs of Rome. No worship was equally popular +among the lower orders of the population in the capital: when the senate +ordered the temples of Isis constructed within the ring-wall +to be pulled down, no labourer ventured to lay the first hand on them, +and the consul Lucius Paullus was himself obliged to apply +the first stroke of the axe(704); a wager might be laid, +that the more loose any woman was, the more piously she worshipped Isis. +That the casting of lots, the interpretation of dreams, and similar +liberal arts supported their professors, was a matter of course. +The casting of horoscopes was already a scientific pursuit; +Lucius Tarutius of Firmum, a respectable and in his own way learned man, +a friend of Varro and Cicero, with all gravity cast the nativity +of kings Romulus and Numa and of the city of Rome itself, +and for the edification of the credulous on either side confirmed +by means of his Chaldaean and Egyptian wisdom the accounts +of the Roman annals. + +The New Pythagoreanism +Nigidius Figulus + +But by far the most remarkable phenomenon in this domain +was the first attempt to mingle crude faith with speculative thought, +the first appearance of those tendencies, which we are accustomed +to describe as Neo-Platonic, in the Roman world. Their oldest apostle +there was Publius Nigidius Figulus, a Roman of rank belonging +to the strictest section of the aristocracy, who filled +the praetorship in 696 and died in 709 as a political exile +beyond the bounds of Italy. With astonishing copiousness of learning +and still more astonishing strength of faith he created +out of the most dissimilar elements a philosophico-religious structure, +the singular outline of which he probably developed still more +in his oral discourses than in his theological and physical writings. +In philosophy, seeking deliverance from the skeletons of the current +systems and abstractions, he recurred to the neglected fountain +of the pre-Socratic philosophy, to whose ancient sages thought +had still presented itself with sensuous vividness. The researches +of physical science--which, suitably treated, afford even now +so excellent a handle for mystic delusion and pious sleight of hand, +and in antiquity with its more defective insight into physical laws +lent themselves still more easily to such objects--played in this case, +as may readily be conceived, a considerable part. His theology +was based essentially on that strange medley, in which Greeks +of a kindred spirit had intermingled Orphic and other very old +or very new indigenous wisdom with Persian, Chaldaean, +and Egyptian secret doctrines, and with which Figulus incorporated +the quasi-results of the Tuscan investigation into nothingness +and of the indigenous lore touching the flight of birds, +so as to produce further harmonious confusion. The whole system obtained +its consecration--political, religious, and national--from the name +of Pythagoras, the ultra-conservative statesman whose supreme principle +was "to promote order and to check disorder," the miracle-worker +and necromancer, the primeval sage who was a native of Italy, +who was interwoven even with the legendary history of Rome, +and whose statue was to be seen in the Roman Forum. As birth +and death are kindred with each other, so--it seemed--Pythagoras +was to stand not merely by the cradle of the republic as friend +of the wise Numa and colleague of the sagacious mother Egeria, +but also by its grave as the last protector of the sacred bird-lore. +But the new system was not merely marvellous, it also worked marvels; +Nigidius announced to the father of the subsequent emperor Augustus, +on the very day when the latter was born, the future greatness +of his son; nay the prophets conjured up spirits for the credulous, +and, what was of more moment, they pointed out to them the places +where their lost money lay. The new-and-old wisdom, such as it was, +made a profound impression on its contemporaries; men of the highest rank, +of the greatest learning, of the most solid ability, belonging +to very different parties--the consul of 705, Appius Claudius, +the learned Marcus Varro, the brave officer Publius Vatinius-- +took part in the citation of spirits, and it even appears +that a police interference was necessary against the proceedings +of these societies. These last attempts to save the Roman theology, +like the kindred efforts of Cato in the field of politics, produce at once +a comical and a melancholy impression; we may smile at the creed +and its propagators, but still it is a grave matter when even able men +begin to addict themselves to absurdity. + +Training of Youth +Sciences of General Culture at This Period + +The training of youth followed, as may naturally be supposed, +the course of bilingual humane culture chalked out in the previous epoch, +and the general culture also of the Roman world conformed +more and more to the forms established for that purpose by the Greeks. +Even the bodily exercises advanced from ball-playing, running, +and fencing to the more artistically-developed Greek gymnastic contests; +though there were not yet any public institutions for gymnastics, +in the principal country-houses the palaestra was already to be found +by the side of the bath-rooms. The manner in which the cycle +of general culture had changed in the Roman world during the course +of a century, is shown by a comparison of the encyclopaedia of Cato(2) +with the similar treatise of Varro "concerning the school-sciences." +As constituent elements of non-professional culture, there appear in Cato +the art of oratory, the sciences of agriculture, of law, of war, +and of medicine; in Varro--according to probable conjecture--grammar, +logic or dialectics, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, +music, medicine, and architecture. Consequently in the course +of the seventh century the sciences of war, jurisprudence, +and agriculture had been converted from general into professional +studies. On the other hand in Varro the Hellenic training of youth +appears already in all its completeness: by the side of the course +of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, which had been introduced +at an earlier period into Italy, we now find the course which had +longer remained distinctively Hellenic, of geometry, arithmetic, +astronomy, and music.(3) That astronomy more especially, +which ministered, in the nomenclature of the stars, to the thoughtless +erudite dilettantism of the age and, in its relations to astrology, +to the prevailing religious delusions, was regularly and zealously +studied by the youth in Italy, can be proved also otherwise; +the astronomical didactic poems of Aratus, among all the works +of Alexandrian literature, found earliest admittance into the instruction +of Roman youth. To this Hellenic course there was added the study +of medicine, which was retained from the older Roman instruction, +and lastly that of architecture--indispensable to the genteel Roman +of this period, who instead of cultivatingthe ground built +houses and villas. + +Greek Instruction +Alexandrinism + +In comparison with the previous epoch the Greek as well as +the Latin training improved in extent and in scholastic strictness +quite as much as it declined in purity and in refinement. +The increasing eagerness after Greek lore gave to instruction +of itself an erudite character. To explain Homer or Euripides +was after all no art; teachers and scholars found their account better +in handling the Alexandrian poems, which, besides, were in their spirit +far more congenial to the Roman world of that day than the genuine Greek +national poetry, and which, if they were not quite so venerable +as the Iliad, possessed at any rate an age sufficiently respectable +to pass as classics with schoolmasters. The love-poems of Euphorion, +the "Causes" of Callimachus and his "Ibis," the comically obscure +"Alexandra" of Lycophron contained in rich abundance rare vocables +(-glossae-) suitable for being extracted and interpreted, +sentences laboriously involved and difficult of analysis, +prolix digressions full of mystic combinations of antiquated myths, +and generally a store of cumbersome erudition of all sorts. +Instruction needed exercises more and more difficult; these productions, +in great part model efforts of schoolmasters, were excellently +adapted to be lessons for model scholars. Thus the Alexandrian poems +took a permanent place in Italian scholastic instruction, +especially as trial-themes, and certainly promoted knowledge, +although at the expense of taste and of discretion. The same unhealthy +appetite for culture moreover impelled the Roman youths to derive +their Hellenism as much as possible from the fountain-head. The courses +of the Greek masters in Rome sufficed only for a first start; +every one who wished to be able to converse heard lectures +on Greek philosophy at Athens, and on Greek rhetoric at Rhodes, +and made a literary and artistic tour through Asia Minor, +where most of the old art-treasures of the Hellenes were still +to be found on the spot, and the cultivation of the fine arts +had been continued, although after a mechanical fashion; +whereas Alexandria, more distant and more celebrated as the seat +of the exact sciences, was far more rarely the point whither young men +desirous of culture directed their travels. + +Latin Instruction + +The advance in Latin instruction was similar to that of Greek. +This in part resulted from the mere reflex influence of the Greek, +from which it in fact essentially borrowed its methods +and its stimulants. Moreover, the relations of politics, the impulse +to mount the orators' platform in the Forum which was imparted +by the democratic doings to an ever-widening circle, contributed +not a little to the diffusion and enhancement of oratorical exercises; +"wherever one casts his eyes," says Cicero, "every place is full +of rhetoricians." Besides, the writings of the sixth century, +the farther they receded into the past, began to be more decidedly +regarded as classical texts of the golden age of Latin literature, +and thereby gave a greater preponderance to the instruction +which was essentially concentrated upon them. Lastly the immigration +and spreading of barbarian elements from many quarters +and the incipient Latinizing of extensive Celtic and Spanish districts, +naturally gave to Latin grammar and Latin instruction a higher importance +than they could have had, so long as Latium only spoke Latin; +the teacher of Latin literature had from the outset a different +position in Comum and Narbo than he had in Praeneste and Ardea. +Taken as a whole, culture was more on the wane than on the advance. +The ruin of the Italian country towns, the extensive intrusion of foreign +elements, the political, economic, and moral deterioration of the nation, +above all, the distracting civil wars inflicted more injury +on the language than all the schoolmasters of the world could repair. +The closer contact with the Hellenic culture of the present, +the more decided influence of the talkative Athenian wisdom +and of the rhetoric of Rhodes and Asia Minor, supplied +to the Roman youth just the very elements that were most pernicious +in Hellenism. The propagandist mission which Latium undertook +among the Celts, Iberians, and Libyans--proud as the task was-- +could not but have the like consequences for the Latin language +as the Hellenizing of the east had had for the Hellenic. +The fact that the Roman public of this period applauded +the well arranged and rhythmically balanced periods of the orator, +and any offence in language or metre cost the actor dear, doubtless +shows that the insight into the mother tongue which was the reflection +of scholastic training was becoming the common possession of an ever- +widening circle. But at the same time contemporaries capable +of judging complain that the Hellenic culture in Italy about 690 +was at a far lower level than it had been a generation before; +that opportunities of hearing pure and good Latin were but rare, +and these chiefly from the mouth of elderly cultivated ladies; +that the tradition of genuine culture, the good old Latin mother wit, +the Lucilian polish, the cultivated circle of readers +of the Scipionic age were gradually disappearing. The circumstance +that the term -urbanitas-, and the idea of a polished national culture +which it expressed, arose during this period, proves, not that +it was prevalent, but that it was on the wane, and that people +were keenly alive to the absence of this -urbanitas- in the language +and the habits of the Latinized barbarians or barbarized Latins. +Where we still meet with the urbane tone of conversation, as in Varro's +Satires and Cicero's Letters, it is an echo of the old fashion +which was not yet so obsolete in Reate and Arpinum as in Rome. + +Germs of State Training-Schools + +Thus the previous culture of youth remained substantially unchanged, +except that--not so much from its own deterioration as +from the general decline of the nation--it was productive of less good +and more evil than in the preceding epoch. Caesar initiated +a revolution also in this department. While the Roman senate +had first combated and then at the most had simply tolerated culture, +the government of the new Italo-Hellenic empire, whose essence +in fact was -humanitas-, could not but adopt measures to stimulate it +after the Hellenic fashion. If Caesar conferred the Roman franchise +on all teachers of the liberal sciences and all the physicians +of the capital, we may discover in this step a paving of the way +in some degree for those institutions in which subsequently +the higher bilingual culture of the youth of the empire +was provided for on the part of the state, and which form +the most significant expression of the new state of -humanitas-; +and if Caesar had further resolved on the establishment +of a public Greek and Latin library in the capital and had already +nominated the most learned Roman of the age, Marcus Varro, +as principal librarian, this implied unmistakeably the design +of connecting the cosmopolitan monarchy with cosmopolitan literature. + +Language +The Vulgarism of Asia Minor + +The development of the language during this period turned +on the distinction between the classical Latin of cultivated society +and the vulgar language of common life. The former itself +was a product of the distinctively Italian culture; even in the Scipionic +circle "pure Latin" had become the cue, and the mother tongue was spoken, +no longer in entire naivete, but in conscious contradistinction +to the language of the great multitude. This epoch opens +with a remarkable reaction against the classicism which had hitherto +exclusively prevailed in the higher language of conversation +and accordingly also in literature--a reaction which had +inwardly and outwardly a close connection with the reaction +of a similar nature in the language of Greece. Just about this time +the rhetor and romance-writer Hegesias of Magnesia and the numerous +rhetors and literati of Asia Minor who attached themselves to him +began to rebel against the orthodox Atticism. They demanded +full recognition for the language of life, without distinction, +whether the word or the phrase originated in Attica or in Caria +and Phrygia; they themselves spoke and wrote not for the taste +of learned cliques, but for that of the great public. There could not +be much objection to the principle; only, it is true, the result +could not be better than was the public of Asia Minor of that day, +which had totally lost the taste for chasteness and purity +of production, and longed only after the showy and brilliant. +To say nothing of the spurious forms of art that sprang +out of this tendency--especially the romance and the history assuming +the form of romance--the very style of these Asiatics was, +as may readily be conceived, abrupt and without modulation and finish, +minced and effeminate, full of tinsel and bombast, thoroughly vulgar +and affected; "any one who knows Hegesias," says Cicero, +"knows what silliness is." + +Roman Vulgarism +Hortensius +Reaction +The Rhodian School + +Yet this new style found its way also into the Latin world. +When the Hellenic fashionable rhetoric, after having at the close +of the previous epoch obtruded into the Latin instruction of youth,(4) +took at the beginning of the present period the final step and mounted +the Roman orators' platform in the person of Quintus Hortensius +(640-704), the most celebrated pleader of the Sullan age, +it adhered closely even in the Latin idiom to the bad Greek taste +of the time; and the Roman public, no longer having the pure +and chaste culture of the Scipionic age, naturally applauded +with zeal the innovator who knew how to give to vulgarism +the semblance of an artistic performance. This was of great importance. +As in Greece the battles of language were always waged at first +in the schools of the rhetoricians, so in Rome the forensic oration +to a certain extent even more than literature set the standard of style, +and accordingly there was combined, as it were of right, +with the leadership of the bar the prerogative of giving the tone +to the fashionable mode of speaking and writing. The Asiatic vulgarism +of Hortensius thus dislodged classicism from the Roman platform +and partly also from literature. But the fashion soon changed +once more in Greece and in Rome. In the former it was the Rhodian school +of rhetoricians, which, without reverting to all the chaste severity +of the Attic style, attempted to strike out a middle course between it +and the modern fashion: if the Rhodian masters were not too particular +as to the internal correctness of their thinking and speaking, +they at least insisted on purity of language and style, on the careful +selection of words and phrases, and the giving thorough effect +to the modulation of sentences. + +Ciceronianism + +In Italy it was Marcus Tullius Cicero (648-711) who, after having +in his early youth gone along with the Hortensian manner, +was brought by hearing the Rhodian masters and by his own +more matured taste to better paths, and thenceforth addicted himself +to strict purity of language and the thorough periodic arrangement +and modulation of his discourse. The models of language, which, +in this respect he followed, he found especially in those circles +of the higher Roman society which had suffered but little or not at all +from vulgarism; and, as was already said, there were still such, +although they were beginning to disappear. The earlier Latin +and the good Greek literature, however considerable was the influence +of the latter more especially on the rhythm of his oratory, +were in this matter only of secondary moment: this purifying +of the language was by no means a reaction of the language of books +against that of conversation, but a reaction of the language +of the really cultivated against the jargon of spurious +and partial culture. Caesar, in the department of language +also the greatest master of his time, expressed the fundamental idea +of Roman classicism, when he enjoined that in speech and writing +every foreign word should be avoided, as rocks are avoided +by the mariner; the poetical and the obsolete word of the older +literature was rejected as well as the rustic phrase or that borrowed +from the language of common life, and more especially the Greek words +and phrases which, as the letters of this period show, +had to a very great extent found their way into conversational language. +Nevertheless this scholastic and artificial classicism +of the Ciceronian period stood to the Scipionic as repentance +to innocence, or the French of the classicists under Napoleon +to the model French of Moliere and Boileau; while the former classicism +had sprung out of the full freshness of life, the latter as it were +caught just in right time the last breath of a race perishing +beyond recovery. Such as it was, it rapidly diffused itself. +With the leadership of the bar the dictatorship of language and taste +passed from Hortensius to Cicero, and the varied and copious +authorship of the latter gave to this classicism--what it had +hitherto lacked--extensive prose texts. Thus Cicero became +the creator of the modern classical Latin prose, and Roman classicism +attached itself throughout and altogether to Cicero as a stylist; +it was to the stylist Cicero, not to the author, still less +to the statesman, that the panegyrics--extravagant yet not made up +wholly of verbiage--applied, with which the most gifted representatives +of classicism, such as Caesar and Catullus, loaded him. + +The New Roman Poetry + +They soon went farther. What Cicero did in prose, was carried out +in poetry towards the end of the epoch by the new Roman school +of poets, which modelled itself on the Greek fashionable poetry, +and in which the man of most considerable talent was Catullus. +Here too the higher language of conversation dislodged the archaic +reminiscences which hitherto to a large extent prevailed +in this domain, and as Latin prose submitted to the Attic rhythm, +so Latin poetry submitted gradually to the strict or rather painful +metrical laws of the Alexandrines; e. g. from the time of Catullus, +it is no longer allowable at once to begin a verse and to close +a sentence begun in the verse preceding with a monosyllabic word +or a dissyllabic one not specially weighty. + +Grammatical Science + +At length science stepped in, fixed the law of language, +and developed its rule, which was no longer determined on the basis +of experience, but made the claim to determine experience. +The endings of declension, which hitherto had in part been variable, +were now to be once for all fixed; e. g. of the genitive and dative +forms hitherto current side by side in the so-called fourth declension +(-senatuis- and -senatus-, -senatui-, and -senatu-) Caesar recognized +exclusively as valid the contracted forms (-us and -u). +In orthography various changes were made, to bring the written +more fully into correspondence with the spoken language; +thus the -u in the middle of words like -maxumus- was replaced +after Caesar's precedent by -i; and of the two letters +which had become superfluous, -k and -q, the removal of the first +was effected, and that of the second was at least proposed. +The language was, if not yet stereotyped, in the course of becoming so; +it was not yet indeed unthinkingly dominated by rule, but it had already +become conscious of it. That this action in the department +of Latin grammar derived generally its spirit and method +from the Greek, and not only so, but that the Latin language was also +directly rectified in accordance with Greek precedent, is shown, +for example, by the treatment of the final -s, which till +towards the close of this epoch had at pleasure passed sometimes +as a consonant, sometimes not as one, but was treated by the new- +fashioned poets throughout, as in Greek, as a consonantal +termination. This regulation of language is the proper domain +of Roman classicism; in the most various ways, and for that very reason +all the more significantly, the rule is inculcated and the offence +against it rebuked by the coryphaei of classicism, by Cicero, +by Caesar, even in the poems of Catullus; whereas the older generation +expresses itself with natural keenness of feeling respecting +the revolution which had affected the field of language +as remorselessly as the field of politics.(5) But while the new +classicism--that is to say, the standard Latin governed by rule +and as far as possible placed on a parity with the standard Greek-- +which arose out of a conscious reaction against the vulgarism +intruding into higher society and even into literature, +acquired literary fixity and systematic shape, the latter by no means +evacuated the field. Not only do we find it naively employed +in the works of secondary personages who have drifted into the ranks +of authors merely by accident, as in the account of Caesar's second +Spanish war, but we shall meet it also with an impress more or less +distinct in literature proper, in the mime, in the semi-romance, +in the aesthetic writings of Varro; and it is a significant +circumstance, that it maintains itself precisely in the most national +departments of literature, and that truly conservative men, +like Varro, take it into protection. Classicism was based +on the death of the Italian language as monarchy on the decline +of the Italian nation; it was completely consistent that the men, +in whom the republic was still living, should continue to give +to the living language its rights, and for the sake of its comparative +vitality and nationality should tolerate its aesthetic defects. +Thus then the linguistic opinions and tendencies of this epoch +are everywhere divergent; by the side of the old-fashioned poetry +of Lucretius appears the thoroughly modern poetry of Catullus, +by the side of Cicero's well-modulated period stands the sentence +of Varro intentionally disdaining all subdivision. In this field +likewise is mirrored the distraction of the age. + +Literary Effort +Greek Literati in Rome + +In the literature of this period we are first of all struck +by the outward increase, as compared with the former epoch, +of literary effort in Rome. It was long since the literary activity +of the Greeks flourished no more in the free atmosphere +of civic independence, but only in the scientific institutions +of the larger cities and especially of the courts. Left to depend +on the favour and protection of the great, and dislodged +from the former seats of the Muses(6) by the extinction +of the dynasties of Pergamus (621), Cyrene (658), Bithynia (679), +and Syria (690) and by the waning splendour of the court +of the Lagids--moreover, since the death of Alexander the Great, +necessarily cosmopolitan and at least quite as much strangers +among the Egyptians and Syrians as among the Latins-- +the Hellenic literati began more and more to turn their eyes +towards Rome. Among the host of Greek attendants with which +the Roman of quality at this time surrounded himself, the philosopher, +the poet, and the memoir-writer played conspicuous parts +by the side of the cook, the boy-favourite, and the jester. +We meet already literati of note in such positions; the Epicurean +Philodemus, for instance, was installed as domestic philosopher +with Lucius Piso consul in 696, and occasionally edified the initiated +with his clever epigrams on the coarse-grained Epicureanism +of his patron. From all sides the most notable representatives +of Greek art and science migrated in daily-increasing numbers to Rome +where literary gains were now more abundant than anywhere else. +Among those thus mentioned as settled in Rome we find the physician +Asclepiades whom king Mithradates vainly endeavoured to draw away from it +into his service; the universalist in learning, Alexander of Miletus, +termed Polyhistor; the poet Parthenius from Nicaea in Bithynia; +Posidonius of Apamea in Syria equally celebrated as a traveller, +teacher, and author, who at a great age migrated in 703 from Rhodes +to Rome; and various others. A house like that of Lucius Lucullus +was a seat of Hellenic culture and a rendezvous for Hellenic literati +almost like the Alexandrian Museum; Roman resources and Hellenic +connoisseurship had gathered in these halls of wealth and science +an incomparable collection of statues and paintings of earlier +and contemporary masters, as well as a library as carefully selected +as it was magnificently fitted up, and every person of culture +and especially every Greek was welcome there--the master of the house +himself was often seen walking up and down the beautiful colonnade +in philological or philosophical conversation with one of his +learned guests. No doubt these Greeks brought along with their +rich treasures of culture their preposterousness and servility +to Italy; one of these learned wanderers for instance, the author +of the "Art of Flattery," Aristodemus of Nysa (about 700) +recommended himself to his masters by demonstrating that Homer +was a native of Rome! + +Extent of the Literary Pursuits of the Romans + +In the same measure as the pursuits of the Greek literati prospered +in Rome, literary activity and literary interest increased among +the Romans themselves. Even Greek composition, which the stricter +taste of the Scipionic age had totally set aside, now revived. +The Greek language was now universally current, and a Greek treatise +found a quite different public from a Latin one; therefore Romans +of rank, such as Lucius Lucullus, Marcus Cicero, Titus Atticus, +Quintus Scaevola (tribune of the people in 700), like the kings +of Armenia and Mauretania, published occasionally Greek prose +and even Greek verses. Such Greek authorship however by native Romans +remained a secondary matter and almost an amusement; the literary +as well as the political parties of Italy all coincided in adhering +to their Italian nationality, only more or less pervaded +by Hellenism. Nor could there be any complaint at least as to want +of activity in the field of Latin authorship. There was a flood +of books and pamphlets of all sorts, and above all of poems, in Rome. +Poets swarmed there, as they did only in Tarsus or Alexandria; +poetical publications had become the standing juvenile sin +of livelier natures, and even then the writer was reckoned fortunate +whose youthful poems compassionate oblivion withdrew from criticism. +Any one who understood the art, wrote without difficulty +at a sitting his five hundred hexameters in which no schoolmaster +found anything to censure, but no reader discovered anything to praise. +The female world also took a lively part in these literary pursuits; +the ladies did not confine themselves to dancing and music, +but by their spirit and wit ruled conversation and talked excellently +on Greek and Latin literature; and, when poetry laid siege +to a maiden's heart, the beleaguered fortress not seldom surrendered +likewise in graceful verses. Rhythms became more and more +the fashionable plaything of the big children of both sexes; +poetical epistles, joint poetical exercises and competitions +among good friends, were of common occurrence, and towards the end +of this epoch institutions were already opened in the capital, +at which unfledged Latin poets might learn verse-making for money. +In consequence of the large consumption of books the machinery +for the manufacture of copies was substantially perfected, +and publication was effected with comparative rapidity and cheapness; +bookselling became a respectable and lucrative trade, and the bookseller's +shop a usual meeting-place of men of culture. Reading had become +a fashion, nay a mania; at table, where coarser pastimes had not +already intruded, reading was regularly introduced, and any one +who meditated a journey seldom forgot to pack up a travelling library. +The superior officer was seen in the camp-tent with the obscene +Greek romance, the statesman in the senate with the philosophical +treatise, in his hands. Matters accordingly stood in the Roman state +as they have stood and will stand in every state where the citizens +read "from the threshold to the closet." The Parthian vizier +was not far wrong, when he pointed out to the citizens of Seleucia +the romances found in the camp of Crassus and asked them whether +they still regarded the readers of such books as formidable opponents. + +The Classicists and the Moderns + +The literary tendency of this age was varied and could not be otherwise, +for the age itself was divided between the old and the new modes. +The same tendencies which came into conflict on the field of politics, +the national-Italian tendency of the conservatives, the Helleno-Italian +or, if the term be preferred, cosmopolitan tendency of the new monarchy, +fought their battles also on the field of literature. The former +attached itself to the older Latin literature, which in the theatre, +in the school, and in erudite research assumed more and more +the character of classical. With less taste and stronger party +tendencies than the Scipionic epoch showed, Ennius, Pacuvius, +and especially Plautus were now exalted to the skies. The leaves +of the Sibyl rose in price, the fewer they became; the relatively +greater nationality and relatively greater productiveness of the poets +of the sixth century were never more vividly felt than in this epoch +of thoroughly developed Epigonism, which in literature as decidedly +as in politics looked up to the century of the Hannibalic warriors +as to the golden age that had now unhappily passed away beyond recall. +No doubt there was in this admiration of the old classics no small portion +of the same hollowness and hypocrisy which are characteristic +of the conservatism of this age in general; and here too +there was no want of trimmers. Cicero for instance, although in prose +one of the chief representatives of the modern tendency, +revered nevertheless the older national poetry nearly with the same +antiquarian respect which he paid to the aristocratic constitution +and the augural discipline; "patriotism requires," we find him saying, +"that we should rather read a notoriously wretched translation +of Sophocles than the original." While thus the modern literary tendency +cognate to the democratic monarchy numbered secret adherents enough even +among the orthodox admirers of Ennius, there were not wanting already +bolder judges, who treated the native literature as disrespectfully +as the senatorial politics. Not only did they resume the strict +criticism of the Scipionic epoch and set store by Terence only in order +to condemn Ennius and still more the Ennianists, but the younger +and bolder men went much farther and ventured already--though only as yet +in heretical revolt against literary orthodoxy--to call Plautus +a rude jester and Lucilius a bad verse-smith. This modern tendency +attached itself not to the native authorship, but rather +to the more recent Greek literature or the so-called Alexandrinism. + +The Greek Alexandrinism + +We cannot avoid saying at least so much respecting +this remarkable winter-garden of Hellenic language and art, +as is requisite for the understanding of the Roman literature +of this and the later epochs. The Alexandrian literature was based +on the decline of the pure Hellenic idiom, which from the time +of Alexander the Great was superseded in daily life by an inferior +jargon deriving its origin from the contact of the Macedonian dialect +with various Greek and barbarian tribes; or, to speak more accurately, +the Alexandrian literature sprang out of the ruin of the Hellenic nation +generally, which had to perish, and did perish, in its national +individuality in order to establish the universal monarchy of Alexander +and the empire of Hellenism. Had Alexander's universal empire continued +to subsist, the former national and popular literature would have been +succeeded by a cosmopolitan literature Hellenic merely in name, +essentially denationalized and called into life in a certain measure +by royal patronage, but at all events ruling the world; +but, as the state of Alexander was unhinged by his death, +the germs of the literature corresponding to it rapidly perished. +Nevertheless the Greek nation with all that it had possessed-- +with its nationality, its language, its art--belonged to the past. +It was only in a comparatively narrow circle not of men of culture-- +for such, strictly speaking, no longer existed--but of men of erudition +that the Greek literature was still cherished even when dead; +that the rich inheritance which it had left was inventoried +with melancholy pleasure or arid refinement of research; and that, +possibly, the living sense of sympathy or the dead erudition +was elevated into a semblance of productiveness. This posthumous +productiveness constitutes the so-called Alexandrinism. +It is essentially similar to that literature of scholars, which, +keeping aloof from the living Romanic nationalities and their vulgar +idioms, grew up during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries +among a cosmopolitan circle of erudite philologues--as an artificial +aftergrowth of the departed antiquity; the contrast between +the classical and the vulgar Greek of the period of the Diadochi +is doubtless less strongly marked, but is not, properly speaking, +different from that between the Latin of Manutius +and the Italian of Macchiavelli. + +The Roman Alexandrinism + +Italy had hitherto been in the main disinclined towards Alexandrinism. +Its season of comparative brilliance was the period shortly before +and after the first Punic war; yet Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius +and generally the whole body of the national Roman authors +down to Varro and Lucretius in all branches of poetical production, +not excepting even the didactic poem, attached themselves, +not to their Greek contemporaries or very recent predecessors, +but without exception to Homer, Euripides, Menander and the other masters +of the living and national Greek literature. Roman literature +was never fresh and national; but, as long as there was a Roman people, +its authors instinctively sought for living and national models, +and copied, if not always to the best purpose or the best authors, +at least such as were original. The Greek literature originating +after Aexander found its first Roman imitators--for the slight +initial attempts from the Marian age(7) can scarcely be taken +into account--among the contemporaries of Cicero and Caesar; +and now the Roman Alexandrinism spread with singular rapidity. +In part this arose from external causes. The increased contact +with the Greeks, especially the frequent journeys of the Romans +into the Hellenic provinces and the assemblage of Greek literati +in Rome, naturally procured a public even among the Italians +for the Greek literature of the day, for the epic and elegiac poetry, +epigrams, and Milesian tales current at that time in Greece. Moreover, +as we have already stated(8) the Alexandrian poetry had its established +place in the instruction of the Italian youth; and thus reacted +on Latin literature all the more, since the latter continued to be +essentially dependent at all times on the Hellenic school-training. +We find in this respect even a direct connection of the new Roman +with the new Greek literature; the already-mentioned Parthenius, +one of the better known Alexandrian elegists, opened, apparently +about 700, a school for literature and poetry in Rome, and the excerpts +are still extant in which he supplied one of his pupils of rank +with materials for Latin elegies of an erotic and mythological +nature according to the well-known Alexandrian receipt. +But it was by no means simply such accidental occasions which called +into existence the Roman Alexandrinism; it was on the contrary +a product--perhaps not pleasing, but thoroughly inevitable-- +of the political and national development of Rome. On the one hand, +as Hellas resolved itself into Hellenism, so now Latium +resolved itself into Romanism; the national development of Italy +outgrew itself, and was merged in Caesar's Mediterranean empire, +just as the Hellenic development in the eastern empire of Alexander. +On the other hand, as the new empire rested on the fact +that the mighty streams of Greek and Latin nationality, after having +flowed in parallel channels for many centuries, now at length coalesced, +the Italian literature had not merely as hitherto to seek +its groundwork generally in the Greek, but had also to put itself +on a level with the Greek literature of the present, or in other words +with Alexandrinism. With the scholastic Latin, with the closed number +of classics, with the exclusive circle of classic-reading -urbani-, +the national Latin literature was dead and at an end; there arose +instead of it a thoroughly degenerate, artificially fostered, +imperial literature, which did not rest on any definite nationality, +but proclaimed in two languages the universal gospel of humanity, +and was dependent in point of spirit throughout and consciously +on the old Hellenic, in point of language partly on this, +partly on the old Roman popular, literature. This was no improvement. +The Mediterranean monarchy of Caesar was doubtless a grand and-- +what is more--a necessary creation; but it had been called +into life by an arbitrary superior will, and therefore +there was nothing to be found in it of the fresh popular life, +of the overflowing national vigour, which are characteristic of younger, +more limited, and more natural commonwealths, and which the Italian +state of the sixth century had still been able to exhibit. +The ruin of the Italian nationality, accomplished in the creation +of Caesar, nipped the promise of literature. Every one who has +any sense of the close affinity between art and nationality +will always turn back from Cicero and Horace to Cato and Lucretius; +and nothing but the schoolmaster's view of history and of literature-- +which has acquired, it is true, in this department the sanction +of prescription--could have called the epoch of art beginning +with the new monarchy pre-eminently the golden age. But while +the Romano-Hellenic Alexandrinism of the age of Caesar and Augustus +must be deemed inferior to the older, however imperfect, national +literature, it is on the other hand as decidedly superior +to the Alexandrinism of the age of the Diadochi as Caesar's enduring +structure to the ephemeral creation of Alexander. We shall have +afterwards to show that the Augustan literature, compared with +the kindred literature of the period of the Diadochi, was far less +a literature of philologues and far more an imperial literature +than the latter, and therefore had a far more permanent +and far more general influence in the upper circles of society +than the Greek Alexandrinism ever had. + +Dramatic Literature +Tragedy and Comedy Disappear + +Nowhere was the prospect more lamentable than in dramatic literature. +Tragedy and comedy had already before the present epoch +become inwardly extinct in the Roman national literature. +New pieces were no longer performed. That the public still +in the Sullan age expected to see such, appears from the reproductions-- +belonging to this epoch--of Plautine comedies with the titles +and names of the persons altered, with reference to which +the managers well added that it was better to see a good old piece +than a bad new one. From this the step was not great to that entire +surrender of the stage to the dead poets, which we find +in the Ciceronian age, and to which Alexandrinism made no opposition. +Its productiveness in this department was worse than none. +Real dramatic composition the Alexandrian literature never knew; +nothing but the spurious drama, which was written primarily for reading +and not for exhibition, could be introduced by it into Italy, and soon +accordingly these dramatic iambics began to be quite as prevalent +in Rome as in Alexandria, and the writing of tragedy in particular +began to figure among the regular diseases of adolescence. +We may form a pretty accurate idea of the quality of these productions +from the fact that Quintus Cicero, in order homoeopathically +to beguile the weariness of winter quarters in Gaul, +composed four tragedies in sixteen days. + +The Mime +Laberius + +In the "picture of life" or mime alone the last still vigorous +product of the national literature, the Atellan farce, +became engrafted with the ethological offshoots of Greek comedy, +which Alexandrinism cultivated with greater poetical vigour +and better success than any other branch of poetry. The mime originated +out of the dances in character to the flute, which had long been usual, +and which were performed sometimes on other occasions, e. g. +for the entertainment of the guests during dinner, but more especially +in the pit of the theatre during the intervals between the acts. +It was not difficult to form out of these dances--in which the aid +of speech had doubtless long since been occasionally employed-- +by means of the introduction of a more organized plot and a regular +dialogue little comedies, which were yet essentially distinguished +from the earlier comedy and even from the farce by the facts, +that the dance and the lasciviousness inseparable from such dancing +continued in this case to play a chief part, and that the mime, +as belonging properly not to the boards but to the pit, threw aside +all ideal scenic effects, such as masks for the face and theatrical +buskins, and--what was specially important--admitted of the female +characters being represented by women. This new mime, which first +seems to have come on the stage of the capital about 672, +soon swallowed up the national harlequinade, with which it indeed +in the most essential respects coincided, and was employed +as the usual interlude and especially as afterpiece along with +the other dramatic performances.(9) The plot was of course +still more indifferent, loose, and absurd than in the harlequinade; +if it was only sufficiently chequered, the public did not ask +why it laughed, and did not remonstrate with the poet, who instead +of untying the knot cut it to pieces. The subjects were chiefly +of an amorous nature, mostly of the licentious sort; for example, +poet and public without exception took part against the husband, +and poetical justice consisted in the derision of good morals. +The artistic charm depended wholly, as in the Atellana, +on the portraiture of the manners of common and low life; +in which rural pictures are laid aside for those of the life +and doings of the capital, and the sweet rabble of Rome-- +just as in the similar Greek pieces the rabble of Alexandria-- +is summoned to applaud its own likeness. Many subjects +are taken from the life of tradesmen; there appear the-- +here also inevitable--"Fuller," then the "Ropemaker," the "Dyer," +the "Salt-man," the "Female Weavers," the "Rascal"; other pieces +give sketches of character, as the "Forgetful," the "Braggart," +the "Man of 100,000 sesterces";(10) or pictures of other lands, +the "Etruscan Woman," the "Gauls," the "Cretan," "Alexandria"; +or descriptions of popular festivals, as the "Compitalia," +the "Saturnalia," "Anna Perenna," the "Hot Baths"; or parodies +of mythology, as the "Voyage to the Underworld," the "Arvernian Lake." +Apt nicknames and short commonplaces which were easily retained +and applied were welcome; but every piece of nonsense +was of itself privileged; in this preposterous world Bacchus +is applied to for water and the fountain-nymph for wine. +Isolated examples even of the political allusions formerly +so strictly prohibited in the Roman theatre are found in these mimes.(11) +As regards metrical form, these poets gave themselves, as they tell us, +"but moderate trouble with the versification"; the language abounded, +even in the pieces prepared for publication, with vulgar expressions +and low newly-coined words. The mime was, it is plain, +in substance nothing but the former farce; with this exception, +that the character-masks and the standing scenery of Atella +as well as the rustic impress are dropped, and in their room +the life of the capital in its boundless liberty and licence +is brought on the stage. Most pieces of this sort were doubtless +of a very fugitive nature and made no pretension to a place +in literature; but the mimes of Laberius, full of pungent +delineation of character and in point of language and metre +exhibiting the hand of a master, maintained their ground in it; +and even the historian must regret that we are no longer permitted +to compare the drama of the republican death-struggle in Rome +with its great Attic counterpart. + +Dramatic Spectacles + +With the worthlessness of dramatic literature the increase +of scenic spectacles and of scenic pomp went hand in hand. +Dramatic representations obtained their regular place in the public life +not only of the capital but also of the country towns; the former +also now at length acquired by means of Pompeius a permanent theatre +(699;(12)), and the Campanian custom of stretching canvas +over the theatre for the protection of the actors and spectators +during the performance, which in ancient times always took place +in the open air, now likewise found admission to Rome (676). +As at that time in Greece it was not the--more than pale-Pleiad +of the Alexandrian dramatists, but the classic drama, above all +the tragedies of Euripides, which amidst the amplest development +of scenic resources kept the stage, so in Rome at the time of Cicero +the tragedies of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, and the comedies +of Plautus were those chiefly produced. While the latter had been +in the previous period supplanted by the more tasteful but in point +of comic vigour far inferior Terence, Roscius and Varro, +or in other words the theatre and philology, co-operated to procure +for him a resurrection similar to that which Shakespeare experienced +at the hands of Garrick and Johnson; but even Plautus had to suffer +from the degenerate susceptibility and the impatient haste +of an audience spoilt by the short and slovenly farces, so that +the managers found themselves compelled to excuse the length +of the Plautine comedies and even perhaps to make omissions +and alterations. The more limited the stock of plays, the more +the activity of the managing and executive staff as well as +the interest of the public was directed to the scenic representation +of the pieces. There was hardly any more lucrative trade in Rome +than that of the actor and the dancing-girl of the first rank. +The princely estate of the tragic actor Aesopus has been +already mentioned;(13) his still more celebrated contemporary +Roscius(14) estimated his annual income at 600,000 sesterces +(6000 pounds)(15) and Dionysia the dancer estimated hers +at 200,000 sesterces (2000 pounds). At the same time +immense sums were expended on decorations and costume; +now and then trains of six hundred mules in harness crossed +the stage, and the Trojan theatrical army was employed +to present to the public a tableau of the nations vanquished +by Pompeius in Asia. The music which accompanied the delivery +of the inserted choruses likewise obtained a greater +and more independent importance; as the wind sways the waves, +says Varro, so the skilful flute-player sways the minds of the listeners +with every modulation of melody. It accustomed itself to the use +of quicker time, and thereby compelled the player to more lively action. +Musical and dramatic connoisseurship was developed; the -habitue- +recognized every tune by the first note, and knew the texts +by heart; every fault in the music or recitation was severely +censured by the audience. The state of the Roman stage in the time +of Cicero vividly reminds us of the modern French theatre. +As the Roman mime corresponds to the loose tableaux of the pieces +of the day, nothing being too good and nothing too bad for either +the one or the other, so we find in both the same traditionally +classic tragedy and comedy, which the man of culture is in duty bound +to admire or at least to applaud. The multitude is satisfied, +when it meets its own reflection in the farce, and admires +the decorative pomp and receives the general impression of an ideal world +in the drama; the man of higher culture concerns himself at the theatre +not with the piece, but only with its artistic representation. +Moreover the Roman histrionic art oscillated in its different spheres, +just like the French, between the cottage and the drawing-room. +It was nothing unusual for the Roman dancing-girls to throw off +at the finale the upper robe and to give a dance in undress +for the benefit of the public; but on the other hand in the eyes +of the Roman Talma the supreme law of his art was, not the truth +of nature, but symmetry. + +Metrical Annals + +In recitative poetry metrical annals after the model of those +of Ennius seem not to have been wanting; but they were perhaps +sufficiently criticised by that graceful vow of his mistress +of which Catullus sings--that the worst of the bad heroic poems +should be presented as a sacrifice to holy Venus, if she would only +bring back her lover from his vile political poetry to her arms. + +Lucretius + +Indeed in the whole field of recitative poetry at this epoch +the older national-Roman tendency is represented only by a single work +of note, which, however, is altogether one of the most important +poetical products of Roman literature. It is the didactic poem +of Titus Lucretius Carus (655-699) "Concerning the Nature of Things," +whose author, belonging to the best circles of Roman society, +but taking no part in public life whether from weakness of health +or from disinclination, died in the prime of manhood shortly before +the outbreak of the civil war. As a poet he attached himself +decidedly to Ennius and thereby to the classical Greek literature. +Indignantly he turns away from the "hollow Hellenism" of his time, +and professes himself with his whole soul and heart to be the scholar +of the "chaste Greeks," as indeed even the sacred earnestness +of Thucydides has found no unworthy echo in one of the best-known +sections of this Roman poem. As Ennius draws his wisdom +from Epicharmus and Euhemerus, so Lucretius borrows the form +of his representation from Empedocles, "the most glorious +treasure of the richly gifted Sicilian isle"; and, as to the matter, +gathers "all the golden words together from the rolls of Epicurus," +"who outshines other wise men as the sun obscures the stars." +Like Ennius, Lucretius disdains the mythological lore with which +poetry was overloaded by Alexandrinism, and requires nothing +from his reader but a knowledge of the legends generally current.(16) +In spite of the modern purism which rejected foreign words from poetry, +Lucretius prefers to use, as Ennius had done, a significant Greek word +in place of a feeble and obscure Latin one. The old Roman alliteration, +the want of due correspondence between the pauses of the verse and those +of the sentence, and generally the older modes of expression +and composition, are still frequently found in Lucretius' rhythms, +and although he handles the verse more melodiously than Ennius, +his hexameters move not, as those of the modern poetical school, +with a lively grace like the rippling brook, but with a stately slowness +like the stream of liquid gold. Philosophically and practically +also Lucretius leans throughout on Ennius, the only indigenous poet +whom his poem celebrates. The confession of faith of the singer +of Rudiae(17)-- + + -Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum, + Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus-:-- + +describes completely the religious standpoint of Lucretius, +and not unjustly for that reason he himself terms his poem +as it were the continuation of Ennius:-- + + -Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno + Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam, + Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret-. + +Once more--and for the last time--the poem of Lucretius is resonant +with the whole poetic pride and the whole poetic earnestness +of the sixth century, in which, amidst the images of the formidable +Carthaginian and the glorious Scipiad, the imagination of the poet +is more at home than in his own degenerate age.(18) To him too +his own song "gracefully welling up out of rich feeling" sounds, +as compared with the common poems, "like the brief song of the swan +compared with the cry of the crane";--with him too the heart swells, +listening to the melodies of its own invention, with the hope +of illustrious honours--just as Ennius forbids the men to whom +he "gave from the depth of the heart a foretaste of fiery song," +to mourn at his, the immortal singer's, tomb. + +It is a remarkable fatality, that this man of extraordinary talents, +far superior in originality of poetic endowments to most +if not to all his contemporaries, fell upon an age in which +he felt himself strange and forlorn, and in consequence of this +made the most singular mistake in the selection of a subject. The system +of Epicurus, which converts the universe into a great vortex of atoms +and undertakes to explain the origin and end of the world as well as +all the problems of nature and of life in a purely mechanical way, +was doubtless somewhat less silly than the conversion of myths +into history which was attempted by Euhemerus and after him by Ennius; +but it was not an ingenious or a fresh system, and the task +of poetically unfolding this mechanical view of the world +was of such a nature that never probably did poet expend life +and art on a more ungrateful theme. The philosophic reader censures +in the Lucretian didactic poem the omission of the finer points +of the system, the superficiality especially with which controversies +are presented, the defective division, the frequent repetitions, +with quite as good reason as the poetical reader frets +at the mathematics put into rhythm which makes a great part +of the poem absolutely unreadable. In spite of these incredible defects, +before which every man of mediocre talent must inevitably have succumbed, +this poet might justly boast of having carried off from the poetic +wilderness a new chaplet such as the Muses had not yet bestowed on any; +and it was by no means merely the occasional similitudes, +and the other inserted descriptions of mighty natural phenomena +and yet mightier passions, which acquired for the poet this chaplet. +The genius which marks the view of life as well as the poetry +of Lucretius depends on his unbelief, which came forward +and was entitled to come forward with the full victorious power +of truth, and therefore with the full vigour of poetry, in opposition +to the prevailing hypocrisy or superstition. + + -Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret + In terris oppressa gravi sub religione, + Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat + Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, + Primum Graius homo mortalis tendere contra + Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra. + Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra + Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi + Atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque-. + +The poet accordingly was zealous to overthrow the gods, +as Brutus had overthrown the kings, and "to release nature +from her stern lords." But it was not against the long ago enfeebled +throne of Jovis that these flaming words were hurled; just like Ennius, +Lucretius fights practically above all things against the wild +foreign faiths and superstitions of, the multitude, the worship +of the Great Mother for instance and the childish lightning-lore +of the Etruscans. Horror and antipathy towards that terrible world +in general, in which and for which the poet wrote, suggested his poem. +It was composed in that hopeless time when the rule of the oligarchy +had been overthrown and that of Caesar had not yet been established, +in the sultry years during which the outbreak of the civil war +was awaited with long and painful suspense. If we seem to perceive +in its unequal and restless utterance that the poet daily +expected to see the wild tumult of revolution break forth +over himself and his work, we must not with reference to his view +of men and things forget amidst what men, and in prospect +of what things, that view had its origin. In the Hellas of the epoch +before Alexander it was a current saying, and one profoundly felt +by all the best men, that the best thing of all was not to be born, +and the next best to die. Of all views of the world possible +to a tender and poetically organized mind in the kindred Caesarian age +this was the noblest and the most ennobling, that it is a benefit +for man to be released from a belief in the immortality of the soul +and thereby from the evil dread of death and of the gods +which malignantly steals over men like terror creeping over children +in a dark room; that, as the sleep of the night is more refreshing +than the trouble of the day, so death, eternal repose +from all hope and fear, is better than life, as indeed the gods +of the poet themselves are nothing, and have nothing, but an eternal +blessed rest; that the pains of hell torment man, not after life, +but during its course, in the wild and unruly passions +of his throbbing heart; that the task of man is to attune his soul +to equanimity, to esteem the purple no higher than the warm dress +worn at home, rather to remain in the ranks of those that obey +than to press into the confused crowd of candidates for the office +of ruler, rather to lie on the grass beside the brook than to take part +under the golden ceiling of the rich in emptying his countless dishes. +This philosophico-practical tendency is the true ideal essence +of the Lucretian poem and is only overlaid, not choked, +by all the dreariness of its physical demonstrations. Essentially +on this rests its comparative wisdom and truth. The man who +with a reverence for his great predecessors and a vehement zeal, +to which this century elsewhere knew no parallel, preached such doctrine +and embellished it with the charm of art, may be termed at once +a good citizen and a great poet. The didactic poem concerning +the Nature of Things, however much in it may challenge censure, +has remained one of the most brilliant stars in the poorly illuminated +expanse of Roman literature; and with reason the greatest of German +philologues chose the task of making the Lucretian poem +once more readable as his last and most masterly work. + +The Hellenic Fashionable Poetry + +Lucretius, although his poetical vigour as well as his art was admired +by his cultivated contemporaries, yet remained--of late growth +as he was--a master without scholars. In the Hellenic fashionable +poetry on the other hand there was no lack at least of scholars, +who exerted themselves to emulate the Alexandrian masters. +With true tact the more gifted of the Alexandrian poets +avoided larger works and the pure forms of poetry--the drama, +the epos, the lyric; the most pleasing and successful performances +consisted with them, just as with the new Latin poets, in "short- +winded" tasks, and especially in such as belonged to the domains +bordering on the pure forms of art, more especially to the wide field +intervening between narrative and song. Multifarious didactic +poems were written. Small half-heroic, half-erotic epics +were great favourites, and especially an erudite sort of love-elegy +peculiar to this autumnal summer of Greek poetry and characteristic +of the philological source whence it sprang, in which the poet +more or less arbitrarily interwove the description of his own feelings, +predominantly sensuous, with epic shreds from the cycle of Greek legend. +Festal lays were diligently and artfully manufactured; in general, +owing to the want of spontaneous poetical invention, the occasional poem +preponderated and especially the epigram, of which the Alexandrians +produced excellent specimens. The poverty of materials and the want +of freshness in language and rhythm, which inevitably cleave +to every literature not national, men sought as much as possible +to conceal under odd themes, far-fetched phrases, rare words, +and artificial versification, and generally under the whole apparatus +of philologico-antiquarian erudition and technical dexterity. +Such was the gospel which was preached to the Roman boys of this period, +and they came in crowds to hear and to practise it; already (about 700) +the love-poems of Euphorion and similar Alexandrian poetry formed +the ordinary reading and the ordinary pieces for declamation +of the cultivated youth.(19) The literary revolution took place; +but it yielded in the first instance with rare exceptions only premature +or unripe fruits. The number of the "new-fashioned poets" was legion, +but poetry was rare and Apollo was compelled, as always when so many +throng towards Parnassus, to make very short work. The long poems never +were worth anything, the short ones seldom. Even in this literary age +the poetry of the day had become a public nuisance; it sometimes +happened that one's friend would send home to him by way of mockery +as a festal present a pile of trashy verses fresh from the bookseller's +shop, whose value was at once betrayed by the elegant binding +and the smooth paper. A real public, in the sense in which national +literature has a public, was wanting to the Roman Alexandrians +as well as to the Hellenic; it was thoroughly the poetry of a clique +or rather cliques, whose members clung closely together, +abused intruders, read and criticised among themselves the new poems, +sometimes also quite after the Alexandrian fashion celebrated +the successful productions in fresh verses, and variously sought +to secure for themselves by clique-praises a spurious and ephemeral +renown. A notable teacher of Latin literature, himself poetically +active in this new direction, Valerius Cato appears to have exercised +a sort of scholastic patronage over the most distinguished men +of this circle and to have pronounced final decision on the relative +value of the poems. As compared with their Greek models, +these Roman poets evince throughout a want of freedom, +sometimes a schoolboy dependence; most of their products +must have been simply the austere fruits of a school poetry +still occupied in learning and by no means yet dismissed as mature. +Inasmuch as in language and in measure they adhered to the Greek patterns +far more closely than ever the national Latin poetry had done, +a greater correctness and consistency in language and metre +were certainly attained; but it was at the expense of the flexibility +and fulness of the national idiom. As respects the subject-matter, +under the influence partly of effeminate models, partly +of an immoral age, amatory themes acquired a surprising preponderance +little conducive to poetry; but the favourite metrical compendia +of the Greeks were also in various cases translated, such as +the astronomical treatise of Aratus by Cicero, and, either at the end +of this or more probably at the commencement of the following period, +the geographical manual of Eratosthenes by Publius Varro of the Aude +and the physico-medicinal manual of Nicander by Aemilius Macer. +It is neither to be wondered at nor regretted that of this countless +host of poets but few names have been preserved to us; +and even these are mostly mentioned merely as curiosities +or as once upon a time great; such as the orator Quintus Hortensius +with his "five hundred thousand lines" of tiresome obscenity, +and the somewhat more frequently mentioned Laevius, whose -Erotopaegnia- +attracted a certain interest only by their complicated measures +and affected phraseology. Even the small epic Smyrna by Gaius +Helvius Cinna (d. 710?), much as it was praised by the clique, +bears both in its subject--the incestuous love of a daughter +for her father--and in the nine years' toil bestowed on it the worst +characteristics of the time. + +Catullus + +Those poets alone of this school constitute an original +and pleasing exception, who knew how to combine with its neatness +and its versatility of form the national elements of worth still existing +in the republican life, especially in that of the country-towns. +To say nothing here of Laberius and Varro, this description +applies especially to the three poets already mentioned above(20) +of the republican opposition, Marcus Furius Libaculus (652-691), +Gaius Licinius Calvus (672-706) and Quintus Valerius Catullus +(667-c. 700). Of the two former, whose writings have perished, +we can indeed only conjecture this; respecting the poems of Catullus +we can still form a judgment. He too depends in subject and form +on the Alexandrians. We find in his collection translations of pieces +of Callimachus, and these not altogether the very good, +but the very difficult. Among the original pieces, we meet +with elaborately-turned fashionable poems, such as the over-artificial +Galliambics in praise of the Phrygian Mother; and even the poem, +otherwise so beautiful, of the marriage of Thetis has been +artistically spoiled by the truly Alexandrian insertion +of the complaint of Ariadne in the principal poem. But by the side +of these school-pieces we meet with the melodious lament +of the genuine elegy, the festal poem in the full pomp of individual +and almost dramatic execution, above all, the freshest miniature painting +of cultivated social life, the pleasant and very unreserved +amatory adventures of which half the charm consists in prattling +and poetizing about the mysteries of love, the delightful life +of youth with full cups and empty purses, the pleasures +of travel and of poetry, the Roman and still more frequently +the Veronese anecdote of the town, and the humorous jest +amidst the familiar circle of friends. But not only does Apollo +touch the lyre of the poet, he wields also the bow; the winged dart +of sarcasm spares neither the tedious verse-maker nor the provincial +who corrupts the language, but it hits none more frequently +and more sharply than the potentates by whom the liberty of the people +is endangered. The short-lined and merry metres, often enlivened +by a graceful refrain, are of finished art and yet free +from the repulsive smoothness of the manufactory. These poems lead us +alternately to the valleys of the Nile and the Po; but the poet +is incomparably more at home in the latter. His poems are based +on Alexandrian art doubtless, but at the same time on the self- +consciousness of a burgess and a burgess in fact of a rural town, +on the contrast of Verona with Rome, on the contrast of the homely +municipal with the high-born lords of the senate who usually +maltreat their humble friends--as that contrast was probably felt +more vividly than anywhere else in Catullus' home, the flourishing +and comparatively vigorous Cisalpine Gaul. The most beautiful +of his poems reflect the sweet pictures of the Lago di Garda, +and hardly at this time could any man of the capital have written +a poem like the deeply pathetic one on his brother's death, +or the excellent genuinely homely festal hymn for the marriage of Manlius +and Aurunculeia. Catullus, although dependent on the Alexandrian masters +and standing in the midst of the fashionable and clique poetry +of that age, was yet not merely a good scholar among many mediocre +and bad ones, but himself as much superior to his masters +as the burgess of a free Italian community was superior +to the cosmopolitan Hellenic man of letters. Eminent creative vigour +indeed and high poetic intentions we may not look for in him; +he is a richly gifted and graceful but not a great poet, and his poems +are, as he himself calls them, nothing but "pleasantries +and trifles." Yet when we find not merely his contemporaries +electrified by these fugitive songs, but the art-critics +of the Augustan age also characterizing him along with Lucretius +as the most important poet of this epoch, his contemporaries +as well as their successors were completely right. The Latin nation +has produced no second poet in whom the artistic substance +and the artistic form appear in so symmetrical perfection +as in Catullus; and in this sense the collection of the poems of Catullus +is certainly the most perfect which Latin poetry as a whole can show. + +Poems in Prose +Romances + +Lastly, poetry in a prose form begins in this epoch. The law +of genuine naive as well as conscious art, which had hitherto remained +unchangeable--that the poetical subject-matter and the metrical setting +should go together--gave way before the intermixture and disturbance +of all kinds and forms of art, which is one of the most significant +features of this period. As to romances indeed nothing farther +is to be noticed, than that the most famous historian of this epoch, +Sisenna, did not esteem himself too good to translate into Latin +the much-read Milesian tales of Aristides--licentious fashionable novels +of the most stupid sort. + +Varro's Aesthetic Writings + +A more original and more pleasing phenomenon in this debateable +border-land between poetry and prose was the aesthetic writings +of Varro, who was not merely the most important representative +of Latin philologico-historical research, but one of the most fertile +and most interesting authors in belles-lettres. Descended +from a plebeian gens which had its home in the Sabine land +but had belonged for the last two hundred years to the Roman senate, +strictly reared in antique discipline and decorum,(21) and already +at the beginning of this epoch a man of maturity, Marcus Terentius Varro +of Reate (638-727) belonged in politics, as a matter of course, +to the institutional party, and bore an honourable and energetic +part in its doings and sufferings. He supported it, partly +in literature--as when he combated the first coalition, +the "three-headed monster," in pamphlets; partly in more serious +warfare, where we found him in the army of Pompeius as commandant +of Further Spain.(22) When the cause of the republic was lost, +Varro was destined by his conqueror to be librarian of the library +which was to be formed in the capital. The troubles +of the following period drew the old man once more into their vortex, +and it was not till seventeen years after Caesar's death, +in the eighty-ninth year of his well-occupied life, that death +called him away. + +Varros' Models + +The aesthetic writings, which have made him a name, +were brief essays, some in simple prose and of graver contents, +others humorous sketches the prose groundwork of which was inlaid +with various poetical effusions. The former were the "philosophico- +historical dissertations" (-logistorici-), the latter the Menippean +Satires. In neither case did he follow Latin models, +and the -Satura- of Varro in particular was by no means based +on that of Lucilius. In fact the Roman -Satura- in general +was not properly a fixed species of art, but only indicated negatively +the fact that the "multifarious poem" was not to be included +under any of the recognized forms of art; and accordingly the -Satura- +poetry assumed in the hands of every gifted poet a different and peculiar +character. It was rather in the pre-Alexandrian Greek philosophy +that Varro found the models for his more severe as well as +for his lighter aesthetic works; for the graver dissertations, +in the dialogues of Heraclides of Heraclea on the Black Sea +(d. about 450), for the satires, in the writings of Menippus of Gadara +in Syria (flourishing about 475). The choice was significant. +Heraclides, stimulated as an author by Plato's philosophic +dialogues, had amidst the brilliance of their form totally +lost sight of the scientific contents and made the poetico-fabulistic +dress the main matter; he was an agreeable and largely-read author, +but far from a philosopher. Menippus was quite as little +a philosopher, but the most genuine literary representative +of that philosophy whose wisdom consisted in denying philosophy +and ridiculing philosophers the cynical wisdom of Diogenes; +a comic teacher of serious wisdom, he proved by examples +and merry sayings that except an upright life everything is vain +in earth and heaven, and nothing more vain than the disputes +of so-called sages. These were the true models for Varro, +a man full of old Roman indignation at the pitiful times and full +of old Roman humour, by no means destitute withal of plastic talent +but as to everything which presented the appearance not of palpable fact +but of idea or even of system, utterly stupid, and perhaps +the most unphilosophical among the unphilosophical Romans.(23) +But Varro was no slavish pupil. The impulse and in general +the form he derived from Heraclides and Menippus; but his was a nature +too individual and too decidedly Roman not to keep his imitative +creations essentially independent and national. + +Varro's Philosophico-Historical Essays + +For his grave dissertations, in which a moral maxim +or other subject of general interest is handled, he disdained, +in his framework to approximate to the Milesian tales, as Heraclides +had done, and so to serve up to the reader even childish little stories +like those of Abaris and of the maiden reawakened to life +after being seven days dead. But seldom he borrowed the dress +from the nobler myths of the Greeks, as in the essay "Orestes +or concerning Madness"; history ordinarily afforded him a worthier +frame for his subjects, more especially the contemporary history +of his country, so that these essays became, as they were called +-laudationes- of esteemed Romans, above all of the Coryphaei +of the constitutional party. Thus the dissertation "concerning Peace" +was at the same time a memorial of Metellus Pius, the last +in the brilliant series of successful generals of the senate; +that "concerning the Worship of the Gods" was at the same time +destined to preserve the memory of the highly-respected +Optimate and Pontifex Gaius Curio; the essay "on Fate" was connected +with Marius, that "on the Writing of History" with Sisenna +the first historian of this epoch, that "on the Beginnings +of the Roman Stage" with the princely giver of scenic spectacles +Scaurus, that "on Numbers" with the highly-cultured +Roman banker Atticus. The two philosophico-historical essays +"Laelius or concerning Friendship," "Cato or concerning Old Age," +which Cicero wrote probably after the model of those of Varro, +may give us some approximate idea of Varro's half-didactic, +half-narrative, treatment of these subjects. + +Varros' Menippean Satires + +The Menippean satire was handled by Varro with equal originality +of form and contents; the bold mixture of prose and verse is foreign +to the Greek original, and the whole intellectual contents +are pervaded by Roman idiosyncrasy--one might say, by a savour +of the Sabine soil. These satires like the philosophico-historical +essays handle some moral or other theme adapted to the larger public, +as is shown by the several titles---Columnae Herculis-, --peri doxeis--; +--Euren ei Lopas to Poma, peri gegameikoton--, -Est Modus +Matulae-, --peri metheis--; -Papiapapae-, --peri egkomios--. +The plastic dress, which in this case might not be wanting, +is of course but seldom borrowed from the history of his native country, +as in the satire -Serranus-, --peri archairesion--. The Cynic- +world of Diogenes on the other hand plays, as might be expected, +a great part; we meet with the --Kounistor--, the --Kounorreiton--, +the 'Ippokouon, the --'Oudrokouon--, the --Kounodidaskalikon-- +and others of a like kind. Mythology is also laid under contribution +for comic purposes; we find a -Prometheus Liber-, an -Ajax +Stramenticius-, a -Hercules Socraticus-, a -Sesqueulixes- +who had spent not merely ten but fifteen years in wanderings. +The outline of the dramatic or romantic framework is still discoverable +from the fragments in some pieces, such as the -Prometheus Liber-, +the -Sexagessis-, -Manius-; it appears that Varro frequently, +perhaps regularly, narrated the tale as his own experience; +e. g. in the -Manius- the dramatis personae go to Varro and discourse +to him "because he was known to them as a maker of books." +as to the poetical value of this dress we are no longer allowed +to form any certain judgment; there still occur in our fragments +several very charming sketches full of wit and liveliness-- +thus in the -Prometheus Liber- the hero after the loosing +of his chains opens a manufactory of men, in which Goldshoe the rich +(-Chrysosandalos-) bespeaks for himself a maiden, of milk and finest wax, +such as the Milesian bees gather from various flowers, a maiden +without bones and sinews, without skin or hair, pure and polished, slim, +smooth, tender, charming. The life-breath of this poetry is polemics-- +not so much the political warfare of party, such as Lucilius +and Catullus practised, but the general moral antagonism of the stern +elderly man to the unbridled and perverse youth, of the scholar +living in the midst of his classics to the loose and slovenly, +or at any rate in point of tendency reprobate, modern poetry,(24) +of the good burgess of the ancient type to the new Rome in which +the Forum, to use Varro's language, was a pigsty and Numa, if he turned +his eyes towards his city, would see no longer a trace of his wise +regulations. In the constitutional struggle Varro did what seemed to him +the duty of a citizen; but his heart was not in such party-doings-- +"why," he complains on one occasion, "do ye call me +from my pure life into the filth of your senate-house?" He belonged +to the good old time, when the talk savoured of onions and garlic, +but the heart was sound. His polemic against the hereditary foes +of the genuine Roman spirit, the Greek philosophers, was only +a single aspect of this old-fashioned opposition to the spirit +of the new times; but it resulted both from the nature of the Cynical +philosophy and from the temperament of Varro, that the Menippean lash +was very specially plied round the cars of the philosophers +and put them accordingly into proportional alarm--it was not +without palpitation that the philosophic scribes of the time +transmitted to the "severe man" their newly-issued treatises. +Philosophizing is truly no art. With the tenth part of the trouble +with which a master rears his slave to be a professional baker, +he trains himself to be a philosopher; no doubt, when the baker +and the philosopher both come under the hammer, the artist of pastry +goes off a hundred times dearer than the sage. Singular people, +these philosophers! One enjoins that corpses be buried in honey-- +it is a fortunate circumstance that his desire is not complied with, +otherwise where would any honey-wine be left? Another thinks +that men grow out of the earth like cresses. A third has invented +a world-borer (--Kosmotorounei--) by which the earth will some +day be destroyed. + + -Postremo, nemo aegrotus quicquam somniat + Tam infandum, quod non aliquis dicat philosophus-. + +It is ludicrous to observe how a Long-beard--by which is meant +an etymologizing Stoic--cautiously weighs every word in goldsmith's +scales; but there is nothing that surpasses the genuine +philosophers' quarrel--a Stoic boxing-match far excels any encounter +of athletes. In the satire -Marcopolis-, --peri archeis--, +when Marcus created for himself a Cloud-Cuckoo-Home after his own heart, +matters fared, just as in the Attic comedy, well with the peasant, +but ill with the philosopher; the -Celer- -- -di'-enos- -leimmatos-logos--, +son of Antipater the Stoic, beats in the skull of his opponent-- +evidently the philosophic -Dilemma---with the mattock. + +With this morally polemic tendency and this talent for embodying it +in caustic and picturesque expression, which, as the dress of dialogue +given to the books on Husbandry written in his eightieth year shows, +never forsook him down to extreme old age, Varro most happily +combined an incomparable knowledge of the national manners +and language, which is embodied in the philological writings +of his old age after the manner of a commonplace-book, but displays +itself in his Satires in all its direct fulness and freshness. +Varro was in the best and fullest sense of the term a local antiquarian, +who from the personal observation of many years knew his nation +in its former idiosyncrasy and seclusion as well as in its modern state +of transition and dispersion, and had supplemented and deepened +his direct knowledge of the national manners and national language +by the most comprehensive research in historical and literary archives. +His partial deficiency in rational judgment and learning-- +in our sense of the words--was compensated for by his clear +intuition and the poetry which lived within him. He sought +neither after antiquarian notices nor after rare antiquated +or poetical words;(25) but he was himself an old and old-fashioned man +and almost a rustic, the classics of his nation were his favourite +and long-familiar companions; how could it fail that many details +of the manners of his forefathers, which he loved above all +and especially knew, should be narrated in his writings, and that +his discourse should abound with proverbial Greek and Latin phrases, +with good old words preserved in the Sabine conversational language, +with reminiscences of Ennius, Lucilius, and above all of Plautus? +We should not judge as to the prose style of these aesthetic +writings of Varro's earlier period by the standard of his work +on Language written in his old age and probably published +in an unfinished state, in which certainly the clauses +of the sentence are arranged on the thread of the relative +like thrushes on a string; but we have already observed that Varro +rejected on principle the effort after a chaste style and Attic periods, +and his aesthetic essays, while destitute of the mean bombast +and the spurious tinsel of vulgarism, were yet written after an unclassic +and even slovenly fashion, in sentences rather directly joined +on to each other than regularly subdivided. The poetical pieces +inserted on the other hand show not merely that their author +knew how to mould the most varied measures with as much mastery +as any of the fashionable poets, but that he had a right +to include himself among those to whom a god has granted the gift +of "banishing cares from the heart by song and sacred poesy."(26) +the sketches of Varro no more created a school than the didactic poem +of Lucretius; to the more general causes which prevented this +there falls to be added their thoroughly individual stamp, +which was inseparable from the greater age, from the rusticity, +and even from the peculiar erudition of their author. But the grace +and humour of the Menippean satires above all, which seem to have been +in number and importance far superior to Varro's graver works, +captivated his contemporaries as well as those in after times +who had any relish for originality and national spirit; and even we, +who are no longer permitted to read them, may still from the fragments +preserved discern in some measure that the writer "knew how to laugh +and how to jest in moderation." And as the last breath +of the good spirit of the old burgess-times ere it departed, +as the latest fresh growth which the national Latin poetry put forth, +the Satires of Varro deserved that the poet in his poetical testament +should commend these his Menippean children to every one +"who had at heart the prosperity of Rome and of Latium"; +and they accordingly retain an honourable place in the literature +as in the history of the Italian people.(27) + +Historical Composition +Sisenna + +The critical writing of history, after the manner in which +the Attic authors wrote the national history in their classic period +and in which Polybius wrote the history of the world, was never +properly developed in Rome. Even in the field most adapted for it-- +the representation of contemporary and of recently past events-- +there was nothing, on the whole, but more or less inadequate attempts; +in the epoch especially from Sulla to Caesar the not very important +contributions, which the previous epoch had to show in this field-- +the labours of Antipater and Asellius--were barely even equalled. +The only work of note belonging to this field, which arose +in the present epoch, was the history of the Social and Civil Wars +by Lucius Cornelius Sisenna (praetor in 676). Those who had read it +testify that it far excelled in liveliness and readableness +the old dry chronicles, but was written withal in a style +thoroughly impure and even degenerating into puerility; as indeed +the few remaining fragments exhibit a paltry painting of horrible +details,(28) and a number of words newly coined or derived +from the language of conversation. When it is added that the author's +model and, so to speak, the only Greek historian familiar to him +was Clitarchus, the author of a biography of Alexander the Great +oscillating between history and fiction in the manner of the semi- +romance which bears the name of Curtius, we shall not hesitate +to recognize in Sisenna's celebrated historical work, not a product +of genuine historical criticism and art, but the first Roman essay +in that hybrid mixture of history and romance so much a favourite +with the Greeks, which desires to make the groundwork of facts +life-like and interesting by means of fictitious details and thereby +makes it insipid and untrue; and it will no longer excite surprise +that we meet with the same Sisenna also as translator of Greek +fashionable romances.(29) + +Annals of the City + +That the prospect should be still more lamentable in the field +of the general annals of the city and even of the world, was implied +in the nature of the case. The increasing activity of antiquarian +research induced the expectation that the current narrative +would be rectified from documents and other trustworthy sources; +but this hope was not fulfilled. The more and the deeper men +investigated, the more clearly it became apparent what a task it was +to write a critical history of Rome. The difficulties even, +which opposed themselves to investigation and narration, were immense; +but the most dangerous obstacles were not those of a literary kind. +The conventional early history of Rome, as it had now been narrated +and believed for at least ten generations; was most intimately mixed up +with the civil life of the nation; and yet in any thorough +and honest inquiry not only had details to be modified here and there, +but the whole building had to be overturned as much as +the Franconian primitive history of king Pharamund or the British +of king Arthur. An inquirer of conservative views, such as was Varro +for instance, could have no wish to put his hand to such a work; +and if a daring freethinker had undertaken it, an outcry +would have been raised by all good citizens against this worst +of all revolutionaries, who was preparing to deprive the constitutional +party even of their past Thus philological and antiquarian research +deterred from the writing of history rather than conduced towards it. +Varro and the more sagacious men in general evidently gave up +the task of annals as hopeless; at the most they arranged, +as did Titus Pomponius Atticus, the official and gentile lists +in unpretending tabular shape--a work by which the synchronistic +Graeco-Roman chronology was finally brought into the shape in which +it was conventionally fixed for posterity. But the manufacture +of city-chronicles of course did not suspend its activity; +it continued to supply its contributions both in prose and verse +to the great library written by ennui for ennui, while the makers +of the books, in part already freedmen, did not trouble themselves +at all about research properly so called. Such of these writings +as are mentioned to us--not one of them is preserved--seem to have been +not only of a wholly secondary character, but in great part +even pervaded by interested falsification. It is true +that the chronicle of Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius (about 676?) +was written in an old-fashioned but good style, and studied at least +a commendable brevity in the representation of the fabulous period. +Gaius Licinius Macer (d. as late praetor in 688), father of the poet +Calvus,(30) and a zealous democrat, laid claim more than +any other chronicler to documentary research and criticism, +but his -libri lintei- and other matters peculiar to him are +in the highest degree suspicious, and an interpolation +of the whole annals in the interest of democratic tendencies-- +an interpolation of a very extensive kind, and which has passed over +in part to the later annalists--is probably traceable to him. + +Valerius Antias + +Lastly, Valerius Antias excelled all his predecessors in prolixity +as well as in puerile story-telling. The falsification of numbers +was here systematically carried out down even to contemporary history, +and the primitive history of Rome was elaborated once more +from one form of insipidity to another; for instance the narrative +of the way in which the wise Numa according to the instructions +of the nymph Egeria caught the gods Faunus and Picus; with wine, +and the beautiful conversation thereupon held by the same Numa +with the god Jupiter, cannot be too urgently recommended +to all worshippers of the so-called legendary history of Rome +in order that, if possible, they may believe these things--of course, +in substance. It would have been a marvel if the Greek novel-writers +of this period had allowed such materials, made as if for their use, +to escape them. In fact there were not wanting Greek literati, +who worked up the Roman history into romances; such a composition, +for instance, was the Five Books "Concerning Rome" of the Alexander +Polyhistor already mentioned among the Greek literati living in Rome,(31) +a preposterous mixture of vapid historical tradition and trivial, +principally erotic, fiction. He, it may be presumed, +took the first steps towards filling up the five hundred years, +which were wanting to bring the destruction of Troy and the origin +of Rome into the chronological connection required by the fables +on either side, with one of those lists of kings without achievements +which are unhappily familiar to the Egyptian and Greek chroniclers; +for, to all appearance, it was he that launched into the world +the kings Aventinus and Tiberinus and the Alban gens of the Silvii, +whom the following times accordingly did not neglect to furnish +in detail with name, period of reigning, and, for the sake of greater +definiteness, also a portrait. + +Thus from various sides the historical romance of the Greeks +finds its way into Roman historiography; and it is more than probable +that not the least portion of what we are accustomed nowadays +to call tradition of the Roman primitive times proceeds from sources +of the stamp of Amadis of Gaul and the chivalrous romances +of Fouque--an edifying consideration, at least for those who have +a relish for the humour of history and who know how to appreciate +the comical aspect of the piety still cherished in certain circles +of the nineteenth century for king Numa. + +Universal History +Nepos + +A novelty in the Roman literature of this period is the appearance +of universal history or, to speak more correctly, of Roman +and Greek history conjoined, alongside of the native annals. +Cornelius Nepos from Ticinum (c. 650-c. 725) first supplied +an universal chronicle (published before 700) and a general collection +of biographies--arranged according to certain categories--of Romans +and Greeks distinguished in politics or literature or of men +at any rate who exercised influence on the Roman or Greek history. +These works are of a kindred nature with the universal histories +which the Greeks had for a considerable time been composing; +and these very Greek world-chronicles, such as that of Kastor son-in-law +of the Galatian king Deiotarus, concluded in 698, now began to include +in their range the Roman history which previously they had neglected. +These works certainly attempted, just like Polybius, to substitute +the history of the Mediterranean world for the more local one; +but that which in Polybius was the result of a grand and clear +conception and deep historical feeling was in these chronicles +rather the product of the practical exigencies of school +and self-instruction. These general chronicles, text-books +for scholastic instruction or manuals for reference, and the whole +literature therewith connected which subsequently became very copious +in the Latin language also, can hardly be reckoned as belonging +to artistic historical composition; and Nepos himself in particular +was a pure compiler distinguished neither by spirit nor even merely +by symmetrical plan. + +The historiography of this period is certainly remarkable +and in a high degree characteristic, but it is as far from pleasing +as the age itself. The interpenetration of Greek and Latin literature +is in no field so clearly apparent as in that of history; +here the respective literatures become earliest equalized in matter +and form, and the conception of Helleno-Italic history as an unity, +in which Polybius was so far in advance of his age, was now learned +even by Greek and Roman boys at school. But while the Mediterranean +state had found a historian before it had become conscious +of its own existence, now, when that consciousness had been attained, +there did not arise either among the Greeks or among the Romans +any man who was able to give to it adequate expression. +"There is no such thing," says Cicero, "as Roman historical +composition"; and, so far as we can judge, this is no more than +the simple truth. The man of research turns away from writing history, +the writer of history turns away from research; historical literature +oscillates between the schoolbook and the romance. All the species +of pure art--epos, drama, lyric poetry, history--are worthless +in this worthless world; but in no species is the intellectual decay +of the Ciceronian age reflected with so terrible a clearness +as in its historiography. + +Literature Subsidiary to History +Caesar's Report + +The minor historical literature of this period displays +on the other hand, amidst many insignificant and forgotten productions, +one treatise of the first rank--the Memoirs of Caesar, or rather +the Military Report of the democratic general to the people +from whom he had received his commission. The finished section, +and that which alone was published by the author himself, describing +the Celtic campaigns down to 702, is evidently designed to justify +as well as possible before the public the formally unconstitutional +enterprise of Caesar in conquering a great country and constantly +increasing his army for that object without instructions +from the competent authority; it was written and given forth in 703, +when the storm broke out against Caesar in Rome and he was summoned +to dismiss his army and answer for his conduct.(32) The author +of this vindication writes, as he himself says, entirely as an officer +and carefully avoids extending his military report to the hazardous +departments of political organization and administration. +His incidental and partisan treatise cast in the form of a military +report is itself a piece of history like the bulletins of Napoleon, +but it is not, and was not intended to be, a historical work +in the true sense of the word; the objective form which the narrative +assumes is that of the magistrate, not that of the historian. +But in this modest character the work is masterly and finished, +more than any other in all Roman literature. The narrative +is always terse and never scanty, always simple and never careless, +always of transparent vividness and never strained or affected. +The language is completely pure from archaisms and from vulgarisms-- +the type of the modern -urbanitas-. In the Books concerning +the Civil War we seem to feel that the author had desired to avoid war +and could not avoid it, and perhaps also that in Caesar's soul, +as in every other, the period of hope was a purer and fresher one +than that of fulfilment; but over the treatise on the Gallic war +there is diffused a bright serenity, a simple charm, which are +no less unique in literature than Caesar is in history. + +Correspondence + +Of a kindred nature were the letters interchanged between the statesmen +and literati of this period, which were carefully collected +and published in the following epoch; such as the correspondence +of Caesar himself, of Cicero, Calvus and others. They can still less +be numbered among strictly literary performances; but this literature +of correspondence was a rich store-house for historical +as for all other research, and the most faithful mirror of an epoch +in which so much of the worth of past times and so much spirit, +cleverness, and talent were evaporated and dissipated in trifling. + +News-Sheet + +A journalist literature in the modern sense was never formed in Rome; +literary warfare continued to be confined to the writing +of pamphlets and, along with this, to the custom generally diffused +at that time of annotating the notices destined for the public +in places of resort with the pencil or the pen. On the other hand +subordinate persons were employed to note down the events +of the day and news of the city for the absent men of quality; +and Caesar as early as his first consulship took fitting measures +for the immediate publication of an extract from the transactions +of the senate. From the private journals of those Roman penny-a-liners +and these official current reports there arose a sort of news-sheet +for the capital (-acta diurna-), in which the resume of the business +discussed before the people and in the senate, and births, deaths, +and such like were recorded. This became a not unimportant +source for history, but remained without proper political +as without literary significance. + +Speeches +Decline of Political Oratory + +To subsidiary historical literature belongs of right also +the composition of orations. The speech, whether written down or not, +is in its nature ephemeral and does not belong to literature; +but it may, like the report and the letter, and indeed still +more readily than these, come to be included, through the significance +of the moment and the power of the mind from which it springs, +among the permanent treasures of the national literature. +Thus in Rome the records of orations of a political tenor delivered +before the burgesses or the jurymen had for long played a great part +in public life; and not only so, but the speeches of Gaius Gracchus +in particular were justly reckoned among the classical Roman writings. +But in this epoch a singular change occurred on all hands. +The composition of political speeches was on the decline like political +speaking itself. The political speech in Rome, as generally +in the ancient polities, reached its culminating point in the discussions +before the burgesses; here the orator was not fettered, as in the senate, +by collegiate considerations and burdensome forms, nor, +as in the judicial addresses, by the interests--in themselves foreign +to politics--of the accusation and defence; here alone his heart +swelled proudly before the whole great and mighty Roman people +hanging on his lips. But all this was now gone. Not as though +there was any lack of orators or of the publishing of speeches +delivered before the burgesses; on the contrary political +authorship only now waxed copious, and it began to become +a standing complaint at table that the host incommoded his guests +by reading before them his latest orations. Publius Clodius +had his speeches to the people issued as pamphlets, +just like Gaius Gracchus; but two men may do the same thing +without producing the same effect. The more important leaders +even of the opposition, especially Caesar himself, did not often address +the burgesses, and no longer published the speeches which they delivered; +indeed they partly sought for their political fugitive writings +another form than the traditional one of -contiones-, in which respect +more especially the writings praising and censuring Cato(33) +are remarkable. This is easily explained. Gaius Gracchus +had addressed the burgesses; now men addressed the populace; +and as the audience, so was the speech. No wonder that the reputable +political author shunned a dress which implied that he had directed +his words to the crowd assembled in the market-place of the capital. + +Rise of A Literature of Pleadings +Cicero + +While the composition of orations thus declined from its former +literary and political value in the same way as all branches +of literature which were the natural growth of the national life, +there began at the same time a singular, non-political, literature +of pleadings. Hitherto the Romans had known nothing of the idea +that the address of an advocate as such was destined not only +for the judges and the parties, but also for the literary edification +of contemporaries and posterity; no advocate had written down +and published his pleadings, unless they were possibly at the same time +political orations and in so far were fitted to be circulated +as party writings, and this had not occurred very frequently. +Even Quintus Hortensius (640-704), the most celebrated Roman advocate +in the first years of this period, published but few speeches +and these apparently only such as were wholly or half political. +It was his successor in the leadership of the Roman bar, +Marcus Tullius Cicero (648-711) who was from the outset quite as much +author as forensic orator; he published his pleadings regularly, +even when they were not at all or but remotely connected +with politics. This was a token, not of progress, but of an unnatural +and degenerate state of things. Even in Athens the appearance +of non-political pleadings among the forms of literature was a sign +of debility; and it was doubly so in Rome, which did not, +like Athens, by a sort of necessity produce this malformation +from the exaggerated pursuit of rhetoric, but borrowed it +from abroad arbitrarily and in antagonism to the better traditions +of the nation. Yet this new species of literature came rapidly +into vogue, partly because it had various points of contact +and coincidence with the earlier authorship of political orations, +partly because the unpoetic, dogmatical, rhetorizing temperament +of the Romans offered a favourable soil for the new seed, as indeed +at the present day the speeches of advocates and even a sort +of literature of law-proceedings are of some importance in Italy. + +His Character + +Thus oratorical authorship emancipated from politics +was naturalized in the Roman literary world by Cicero. +We have already had occasion several times to mention +this many-sided man. As a statesman without insight, idea, +or purpose, he figured successively as democrat, as aristocrat, +and as a tool of the monarchs, and was never more than +a short-sighted egotist. Where he exhibited the semblance of action, +the questions to which his action applied had, as a rule, +just reached their solution; thus he came forward in the trial +of Verres against the senatorial courts when they were already +set aside; thus he was silent at the discussion on the Gabinian, +and acted as a champion of the Manilian, law; thus he thundered +against Catilina when his departure was already settled, +and so forth. He was valiant in opposition to sham attacks, +and he knocked down many walls of pasteboard with a loud din; +no serious matter was ever, either in good or evil, decided by him, +and the execution of the Catilinarians in particular was far more +due to his acquiescence than to his instigation. In a literary +point of view we have already noticed that he was the creator +of the modern Latin prose;(34) his importance rests on his mastery +of style, and it is only as a stylist that he shows confidence +in himself. In the character of an author, on the other hand, +he stands quite as low as in that of a statesman. He essayed +the most varied tasks, sang the great deeds of Marius +and his own petty achievements in endless hexameters, +beat Demosthenes off the field with his speeches, and Plato +with his philosophic dialogues; and time alone was wanting for him +to vanquish also Thucydides. He was in fact so thoroughly a dabbler, +that it was pretty much a matter of indifference to what work +he applied his hand. By nature a journalist in the worst +sense of that term--abounding, as he himself says, in words, +poor beyond all conception in ideas--there was no department +in which he could not with the help of a few books have rapidly got up +by translation or compilation a readable essay. His correspondence +mirrors most faithfully his character. People are in the habit +of calling it interesting and clever; and it is so, as long as +it reflects the urban or villa life of the world of quality; +but where the writer is thrown on his own resources, as in exile, +in Cilicia, and after the battle of Pharsalus, it is stale +and emptyas was ever the soul of a feuilletonist banished from his +familiar circles. It is scarcely needful to add that such a statesman +and such a -litterateur- could not, as a man, exhibit aught else +than a thinly varnished superficiality and heart-lessness. +Must we still describe the orator? The great author is also a great man; +and in the great orator more especially conviction or passion +flows forth with a clearer and more impetuous stream from the depths +of the breast than in the scantily-gifted many who merely count +and are nothing. Cicero had no conviction and no passion; +he was nothing but an advocate, and not a good one. He understood +how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote, +to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality +of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading +by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort; +his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the free +gracefulness and the sure point of the most excellent compositions +of this sort, for instance the Memoirs of Beaumarchais, yet form +easy and agreeable reading. But while the very advantages +just indicated will appear to the serious judge as advantages +of very dubious value, the absolute want of political discernment +in the orations on constitutional questions and of juristic deduction +in the forensic addresses, the egotism forgetful of its duty +and constantly losing sight of the cause while thinking +of the advocate, the dreadful barrenness of thought in the Ciceronian +orations must revolt every reader of feeling and judgment. + +Ciceronianism + +If there is anything wonderful in the case, it is in truth +not the orations, but the admiration which they excited. As to Cicero +every unbiassed person will soon make up his mind: Ciceronianism +is a problem, which in fact cannot be properly solved, but can only +be resolved into that greater mystery of human nature--language +and the effect of language on the mind. Inasmuch as the noble Latin +language, just before it perished as a national idiom, was once more +as it were comprehensively grasped by that dexterous stylist +and deposited in his copious writings, something of the power +which language exercises, and of the piety which it awakens, +was transferred to the unworthy vessel. The Romans possessed +no great Latin prose-writer; for Caesar was, like Napoleon, +only incidentally an author. Was it to be wondered at that, +in the absence of such an one, they should at least honour the genius +of the language in the great stylist? And that, like Cicero himself, +Cicero's readers also should accustom themselves to ask not what, +but how he had written? Custom and the schoolmaster then completed +what the power of language had begun. + +Opposition to Ciceronianism +Calvus and His Associates + +Cicero's contemporaries however were, as may readily be conceived, +far less involved in this strange idolatry than many of their successors. +The Ciceronian manner ruled no doubt throughout a generation +the Roman advocate-world, just as the far worse manner of Hortensius +had done; but the most considerable men, such as Caesar, +kept themselves always aloof from it, and among the younger +generation there arose in all men of fresh and living talent +the most decided opposition to that hybrid and feeble rhetoric. +They found Cicero's language deficient in precision and chasteness, +his jests deficient in liveliness, his arrangement deficient +in clearness and articulate division, and above all his whole eloquence +wanting in the fire which makes the orator. Instead of the Rhodian +eclectics men began to recur to the genuine Attic orators +especially to Lysias and Demosthenes, and sought to naturalize +a more vigorous and masculine eloquence in Rome. Representatives +of this tendency were, the solemn but stiff Marcus Junius Brutus +(669-712); the two political partisans Marcus Caelius Rufus +(672-706;(35)) and Gaius Scribonius Curio (d. 705(36);)-- +both as orators full of spirit and life; Calvus well known +also as a poet (672-706), the literary coryphaeus of this younger +group of orators; and the earnest and conscientious Gaius Asinius Pollio +(678-757). Undeniably there was more taste and more spirit +in this younger oratorical literature than in the Hortensian +and Ciceronian put together; but we are not able to judge how far, +amidst the storms of the revolution which rapidly swept away the whole +of this richly-gifted group with the single exception of Pollio, +those better germs attained development. The time allotted to them +was but too brief. The new monarchy began by making war on freedom +of speech, and soon wholly suppressed the political oration. +Thenceforth the subordinate species of the pure advocate-pleading +was doubtless still retained in literature; but the higher art +and literature of oratory, which thoroughly depend on political +excitement, perished with the latter of necessity and for ever. + +The Artificial Dialogue Applied to the Professional Sciences +Cicero's Dialogues + +Lastly there sprang up in the aesthetic literature of this period +the artistic treatment of subjects of professional science +in the form of the stylistic dialogue, which had been very extensively +in use among the Greeks and had been already employed also +in isolated cases among the Romans.(37) Cicero especially made +various attempts at presenting rhetorical and philosophical subjects +in this form and making the professional manual a suitable book +for reading. His chief writings are the -De Oratore- (written in 699), +to which the history of Roman eloquence (the dialogue -Brutus-, +written in 708) and other minor rhetorical essays were added +by way of supplement; and the treatise -De Republica- (written in 700), +with which the treatise -De Legibus- (written in 702?) after the model +of Plato is brought into connection. They are no great works +of art, but undoubtedly they are the works in which the excellences +of the author are most, and his defects least, conspicuous. +The rhetorical writings are far from coming up to the didactic +chasteness of form and precision of thought of the Rhetoric +dedicated to Herennius, but they contain instead a store +of practical forensic experience and forensic anecdotes of all sorts +easily and tastefully set forth, and in fact solve the problem +of combining didactic instruction with amusement. The treatise +-De Republica- carries out, in a singular mongrel compound of history +and philosophy, the leading idea that the existing constitution +of Rome is substantially the ideal state-organization sought for +by the philosophers; an idea indeed just as unphilosophical +as unhistorical, and besides not even peculiar to the author, +but which, as may readily be conceived, became and remained popular. +The scientific groundwork of these rhetorical and political +writings of Cicero belongs of course entirely to the Greeks, +and many of the details also, such as the grand concluding effect +in the treatise -De Republica- the Dream of Scipio, are directly +borrowed from them; yet they possess comparative originality, +inasmuch as the elaboration shows throughout Roman local colouring, +and the proud consciousness of political life, which the Roman +was certainly entitled to feel as compared with the Greeks, +makes the author even confront his Greek instructors with a certain +independence. The form of Cicero's dialogue is doubtless neither +the genuine interrogative dialectics of the best Greek artificial +dialogue nor the genuine conversational tone of Diderot or Lessing; +but the great groups of advocates gathering around Crassus +and Antonius and of the older and younger statesmen of the Scipionic +circle furnish a lively and effective framework, fitting channels +for the introduction of historical references and anecdotes, +and convenient resting-points for the scientific discussion. +The style is quite as elaborate and polished as in the best-written +orations, and so far more pleasing than these, since the author +does not often in this field make a vain attempt at pathos. + +While these rhetorical and political writings of Cicero +with a philosophic colouring are not devoid of merit, the compiler +on the other hand completely failed, when in the involuntary leisure +of the last years of his life (709-710) he applied himself +to philosophy proper, and with equal peevishness and precipitation +composed in a couple of months a philosophical library. The receipt +was very simple. In rude imitation of the popular writings +of Aristotle, in which the form of dialogue was employed +chiefly for the setting forth and criticising of the different +older systems, Cicero stitched together the Epicurean, Stoic, +and Syncretist writings handling the same problem, as they came +or were given to his hand, into a so-called dialogue. And all +that he did on his own part was, to supply an introduction prefixed +to the new book from the ample collection of prefaces for future works +which he had beside him; to impart a certain popular character, +inasmuch as he interwove Roman examples and references, and sometimes +digressed to subjects irrelevant but more familiar to the writer +and the reader, such as the treatment of the deportment +of the orator in the -De Officiis-; and to exhibit that sort +of bungling, which a man of letters, who has not attained to philosophic +thinking or even to philosophic knowledge and who works rapidly +and boldly, shows in the reproduction of dialectic trains of thought. +In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly +come into existence--"They are copies," wrote the author himself +to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble, +for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance." +Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks +classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study +in literary matters a becoming silence. + +Professional Sciences. +Latin Philology +Varro + +Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life, +that of Latin philology. The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian +research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo, +was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale. +There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores +of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries +of Figulus and the great work of Varro -De Lingua Latina-; +monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as +Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms, +on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue; +scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus; +works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations +into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies +of Plautus, and into their genuineness. Latin archaeology, +which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart +from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities +of Things Human and Divine," which was and for all times remained +the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687 +and 709). The first portion, "Of Things Human," described the primeval +age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences +of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions +at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine," the state- +theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts, +of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial +and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily +unfolded. Moreover, besides a number of monographs-- +e. g. on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes +descended from Troy, on the tribes--there was added, as a larger +and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life +of the Roman People"--a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners, +which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance, +and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic, +and the most recent period. These labours of Varro were based +on an empiric knowledge of the Roman world and its adjacent Hellenic +domain more various and greater in its kind than any other Roman +either before or after him possessed--a knowledge to which living +observation and the study of literature alike contributed. +The eulogy of his contemporaries was well deserved, that Varro +had enabled his countrymen--strangers in their own world--to know +their position in their native land, and had taught the Romans +who and where they were. But criticism and system will be sought for +in vain. His Greek information seems to have come from somewhat +confused sources, and there are traces that even in the Roman field +the writer was not free from the influence of the historical +romance of his time. The matter is doubtless inserted +in a convenient and symmetrical framework, but not classified +or treated methodically; and with all his efforts to bring tradition +and personal observation into harmony, the scientific labours of Varro +are not to be acquitted of a certain implicit faith in tradition +or of an unpractical scholasticism.(38) The connection with Greek +philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than +of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies +on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other +philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often +into downright absurdity.(39) In its empiric confidence +and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method +the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology, +and just like the latter, finds its centre in the study +of the older drama. We have already observed that the monarchical +literature developed the rules of language in contradistinction +to this linguistic empiricism.(40) It is in a high degree significant +that there stands at the head of the modern grammarians no less a man +than Caesar himself, who in his treatise on Analogy (given forth +between 696 and 704) first undertook to bring free language +under the power of law. + +The Other Professional Sciences + +Alongside of this extraordinary stir in the field of philology +The small amount of activity in the other sciences is surprising. +What appeared of importance in philosophy--such as Lucretius' +representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress +of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero-- +produced its effect and found its audience not through its +philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely +through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean +writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise +on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus +concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific +nor formal value. + +Even the professional sciences were but feebly cultivated. Varro's +Books on Husbandry written in the form of dialogue are no doubt +more methodical than those of his predecessors Cato and Saserna-- +on which accordingly he drops many a side glance of censure-- +but have on the whole proceeded more from the study than, like those +earlier works, from living experience. Of the juristic labours of Varro +and of Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul in 703) hardly aught more +can be said, than that they contributed to the dialectic +and philosophical embellishment of Roman jurisprudence. And there is +nothing farther here to be mentioned, except perhaps the three +books of Gaius Matius on cooking, pickling, and making preserves-- +so far as we know, the earliest Roman cookery-book, and, as the work +of a man of rank, certainly a phenomenon deserving of notice. +That mathematics and physics were stimulated by the increased +Hellenistic and utilitarian tendencies of the monarchy, is apparent +from their growing importance in the instruction of youth (41) +and from various practical applications; under which, besides +the reform of the calendar,(42) may perhaps be included the appearance +of wall-maps at this period, the technical improvements +in shipbuilding and in musical instruments, designs and buildings +like the aviary specified by Varro, the bridge of piles over the Rhine +executed by the engineers of Caesar, and even two semicircular +stages of boards arranged for being pushed together, and employed +first separately as two theatres and then jointly as an amphitheatre. +The public exhibition of foreign natural curiosities at the popular +festivals was not unusual; and the descriptions of remarkable animals, +which Caesar has embodied in the reports of his campaigns, +show that, had an Aristotle appeared, he would have again +found his patron-prince. But such literary performances +as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated +with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, +i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings +concerning animals, winds, and generative organs. After Greek +physical research generally had swerved from the Aristotelian effort +to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more +passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external +and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward +as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening +and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze; +and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied +with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom, +that the investigation of nature either seeks after things +which nobody can know, or after such things as nobody needs to know. + +Art +Architecture + +If, in fine, we cast a glance at art, we discover here +the same unpleasing phenomena which pervade the whole mental life +of this period. Building on the part of the state was virtually +brought to a total stand amidst the scarcity of money that marked +the last age of the republic. We have already spoken of the luxury +in building of the Roman grandees; the architects learned in consequence +of this to be lavish of marble--the coloured sorts such as +the yellow Numidian (Giallo antico) and others came into vogue +at this time, and the marble-quarries of Luna (Carrara) +were now employed for the first time--and began to inlay the floors +of the rooms with mosaic work, to panel the walls with slabs of marble, +or to paint the compartments in imitation of marble--the first steps +towards the subsequent fresco-painting. But art was not a gainer +by this lavish magnificence. + +Arts of Design + +In the arts of design connoisseurship and collecting were always +on the increase. It was a mere affectation of Catonian simplicity, +when an advocate spoke before the jurymen of the works of art +"of a certain Praxiteles"; every one travelled and inspected, +and the trade of the art-ciceroni, or, as they were then called, +the -exegetae-, was none of the worst. Ancient works of art +were formally hunted after--statues and pictures less, it is true, +than, in accordance with the rude character of Roman luxury, +artistically wrought furniture and ornaments of all sorts for the room +and the table. As early as that age the old Greek tombs of Capua +and Corinth were ransacked for the sake of the bronze and earthenware +vessels which had been placed in the tomb along with the dead. +for a small statuette of bronze 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds) +were paid, and 200,000 (2000 pounds) for a pair of costly carpets; +a well-wrought bronze cooking machine came to cost more than +an estate. In this barbaric hunting after art the rich amateur was, +as might be expected, frequently cheated by those who supplied him; +but the economic ruin of Asia Minor in particular so exceedingly rich +in artistic products brought many really ancient and rare ornaments +and works of art into the market, and from Athens, Syracuse, +Cyzicus, Pergamus, Chios, Samos, and other ancient seats of art, +everything that was for sale and very much that was not migrated +to the palaces and villas of the Roman grandees. We have +already mentioned what treasures of art were to be found within +the house of Lucullus, who indeed was accused, perhaps not unjustly, +of having gratified his interest in the fine arts at the expense +of his duties as a general. The amateurs of art crowded thither +as they crowd at present to the Villa Borghese, and complained +even then of such treasures being confined to the palaces +and country-houses of the men of quality, where they could be seen +only with difficulty and after special permission from the possessor. +The public buildings on the other hand were far from filled +in like proportion with famous works of Greek masters, +and in many cases there still stood in the temples of the capital +nothing but the old images of the gods carved in wood. +As to the exercise of art there is virtually nothing to report; +there is hardly mentioned by name from this period any Roman sculptor +or painter except a certain Arellius, whose pictures rapidly went off +not on account of their artistic value, but because the cunning reprobate +furnished, in his pictures of the goddesses faithful portraits +of his mistresses for the time being. + +Dancing and Music + +The importance of music and dancing increased in public +as in domestic life. We have already set forth how theatrical music +and the dancing-piece attained to an independent standing +in the development of the stage at this period;(43) we may add +that now in Rome itself representations were very frequently given +by Greek musicians, dancers, and declaimers on the public stage-- +such as were usual in Asia Minor and generally in the whole Hellenic +and Hellenizing world.(44) To these fell to be added the musicians +and dancing-girls who exhibited their arts to order at table +and elsewhere, and the special choirs of stringed and wind instruments +and singers which were no longer rare in noble houses. But that even +the world of quality itself played and sang with diligence, is shown +by the very adoption of music into the cycle of the generally +recognized subjects of instruction;(45) as to dancing, it was, +to say nothing of women, made matter of reproach even against +consulars that they exhibited themselves in dancing performances +amidst a small circle. + +Incipient Influence of the Monarchy + +Towards the end of this period, however, there appears +with the commencement of the monarchy the beginning of a better time +also in art. We have already mentioned the mighty stimulus +which building in the capital received, and building throughout +the empire was destined to receive, through Caesar. Even in the cutting +of the dies of the coins there appears about 700 a remarkable change; +the stamping, hitherto for the most part rude and negligent, +is thenceforward managed with more delicacy and care. + +Conclusion + +We have reached the end of the Roman republic. We have seen +it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries +on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to ruin in politics +and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence +but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy +of Caesar. There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much +of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp +and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all +true delight in life. It was indeed an old world; and even +the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar could not make it young again. +The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in +and run its course. But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed +peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon; +and when at length after a long historical night the new day dawned +once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement +commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found +among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up, +and which owed, as they still owe, to him their national individuality. + + + + +Notes for Chapter I + +1. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts, 527 + +2. It is a significant trait, that a distinguished teacher of +literature, the freedman Staberius Eros, allowed the children of +the proscribed to attend his course gratuitously. + +3. IV. X. Proscription-Lists + +4. IV. IX. Pompeius + +5. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration + +6. IV. IV. Livius Drusus + +7. IV. IX. Government of Cinna + +8. IV. IX. Pompeius + +9. IV. IX. Sertorius Embarks + +10. IV. VII. Strabo, IV. IX. Dubious Attitude of Strabo + +11. IV. IX. Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria + +12. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation + +13. IV. X. Reorganization of the Senate + +14. It is usual to set down the year 654 as that of Caesar's +birth, because according to Suetonius (Caes. 88), Plutarch (Caes. +69), and Appian (B. C. ii. 149) he was at his death (15 March 710) +in his 56th year; with which also the statement that he was 18 +years old at the time of the Sullan proscription (672; Veil. ii. +41) nearly accords. But this view is utterly inconsistent with +the facts that Caesar filled the aedileship in 689, the praetorship in +692, and the consulship in 695, and that these offices could, +according to the -leges annales-, be held at the very earliest in +the 37th-38th, 40th-41st, and 43rd-44th years of a man's life +respectively. We cannot conceive why Caesar should have filled all +the curule offices two years before the legal time, and still less +why there should be no mention anywhere of his having done so. +These facts rather suggest the conjecture that, as his birthday +fell undoubtedly on July 12, he was born not in 654, but in 652; so +that in 672 he was in his 20th-21st year, and he died not in his +56th year, but at the age of 57 years 8 months. In favour of this +latter view we may moreover adduce the circumstance, which has been +strangely brought forward in opposition to it, that Caesar "-paene +puer-" was appointed by Marius and Cinna as Flamen of Jupiter +(Veil. ii. 43); for Marius died in January 668, when Caesar was, +according to the usual view, 13 years 6 months old, and therefore +not "almost," as Velleius says, but actually still a boy, and most +probably for this very reason not at all capable of holding such +a priesthood. If, again, he was born in July 652, he was at +the death of Marius in his sixteenth year; and with this the expression +in Velleius agrees, as well as the general rule that civil +positions were not assumed before the expiry of the age of boyhood. +Further, with this latter view alone accords the fact that +the -denarii- struck by Caesar about the outbreak of the civil war are +marked with the number LII, probably the year of his life; for +when it began, Caesar's age was according to this view somewhat +over 52 years. Nor is it so rash as it appears to us who are +accustomed to regular and official lists of births, to charge our +authorities with an error in this respect. Those four statements +may very well be all traceable to a common source; nor can they at +all lay claim to any very high credibility, seeing that for +the earlier period before the commencement of the -acta diurna- +the statements as to the natal years of even the best known and most +prominent Romans, e. g. as to that of Pompeius, vary in the most +surprising manner. (Comp. Staatsrecht, I. 8 p. 570.) + +In the Life of Caesar by Napoleon III (B. 2, ch. 1) it is objected +to this view, first, that the -lex annalis- would point for +Caesar's birth-year not to 652, but to 651; secondly and +especially, that other cases are known where it was not attended +to. But the first assertion rests on a mistake; for, as +the example of Cicero shows, the -lex annalis- required only that at +the entering on office the 43rd year should be begun, not that it +should be completed. None of the alleged exceptions to the rule, +moreover, are pertinent. When Tacitus (Ann. xi. 22) says that +formerly in conferring magistracies no regard was had to age, and +that the consulate and dictatorship were entrusted to quite young +men, he has in view, of course, as all commentators acknowledge, +the earlier period before the issuing of the -leges annales---the +consulship of M. Valerius Corvus at twenty-three, and similar +cases. The assertion that Lucullus received the supreme magistracy +before the legal age is erroneous; it is only stated (Cicero, Acad. +pr. i. 1) that on the ground of an exceptional clause not more +particularly known to us, in reward for some sort of act performed +by him, he had a dispensation from the legal two years' interval +between the aedileship and praetorship--in reality he was aedile in +675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of +Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to +Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de +Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him +from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with +Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief +crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and +after his coalition with Crassus also of a powerful party, we can +readily conceive. But it would be in the highest degree +surprising, if the same thing should have been done with Caesar on +his candidature for the minor magistracies, when he was of little +more importance than other political beginners; and it would be, if +possible, more surprising still, that, while there is mention of +that--in itself readily understood--exception, there should be no +notice of this more than strange deviation, however naturally such +notices would have suggested themselves, especially with reference +to Octavianus consul at 21 (comp., e. g., Appian, iii. 88). When +from these irrelevant examples the inference is drawn, "that +the law was little observed in Rome, where distinguished men were +concerned," anything more erroneous than this sentence was never +uttered regarding Rome and the Romans. The greatness of the Roman +commonwealth, and not less that of its great generals and +statesmen, depends above all things on the fact that the law held +good in their case also. + +15. IV. IX. Spain + +16. At least the outline of these organizations must be assigned +to the years 674, 675, 676, although the execution of them +doubtless belonged, in great part, only to the subsequent years. + +17 IV. IX. The Provinces + +18. The following narrative rests substantially on the account of +Licinianus, which, fragmentary as it is at this very point, still +gives important information as to the insurrection of Lepidus. + +19. Under the year 676 Licinianus states (p. 23, Pertz; p. 42, +Bonn); [Lepidus?] -[le]gem frumentari[am] nullo resistente +l[argi]tus est, ut annon[ae] quinque modi popu[lo da]rentur-. +According to this account, therefore, the law of the consuls of 681 +Marcus Terentius Lucullus and Gaius Cassius Varus, which Cicero +mentions (in Verr. iii. 70, 136; v. 21, 52), and to which also +Sallust refers (Hist. iii. 61, 19 Dietsch), did not first reestablish +the five -modii-, but only secured the largesses of grain by +regulating the purchases of Sicilian corn, and perhaps made +various alterations of detail. That the Sempronian law +(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus) +allowed every burgess domiciled in Rome to share in the largesses +of grain, is certain. But the later distribution of grain was not +so extensive as this, for, seeing that the monthly corn of +the Roman burgesses amounted to little more than 33,000 -medimni- = +198,000 -modii- (Cic. Verr. iii. 30, 72), only some 40,000 +burgesses at that time received grain, whereas the number of +burgesses domiciled in the capital was certainly far more +considerable. This arrangement probably proceeded from +the Octavian law, which introduced instead of the extravagant +Sempronian amount "a moderate largess, tolerable for the state and +necessary for the common people" (Cic. de Off. ii. 21, 72, Brut. +62, 222); and to all appearance it is this very law that is +the -lex frumentaria- mentioned by Licinianus. That Lepidus should have +entered into such a proposal of compromise, accords with his attitude +as regards the restoration of the tribunate. It is likewise in +keeping with the circumstances that the democracy should find itself +not at all satisfied by the regulation, brought about in this way, +of the distribution of grain (Sallust, l. c.). The amount of loss +is calculated on the basis of the grain being worth at least double +(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus); +when piracy or other causes drove up the price of grain, +a far more considerable loss must have resulted. + +20. From the fragments of the account of Licinianus (p. 44, Bonn) +it is plain that the decree of the senate, -uti Lepidus et Catulus +decretis exercitibus maturrime proficiscerentur- (Sallust, Hist. i. +44 Dietsch), is to be understood not of a despatch of the consuls +before the expiry of their consulship to their proconsular +provinces, for which there would have been no reason, but of their +being sent to Etruria against the revolted Faesulans, just as in +the Catilinarian war the consul Gaius Antonius was despatched to +the same quarter. The statement of Philippus in Sallust (Hist. i. +48, 4) that Lepidus -ob seditionem provinciam cum exercitu adeptus +est-, is entirely in harmony with this view; for the extraordinary +consular command in Etruria was just as much a -provincia- as +the ordinary proconsular command in Narbonese Gaul. + +21. III. IV. Hannibal's Passage of the Alps + +22. In the recently found fragments of Sallust, which appear to +belong to the campaign of 679, the following words relate to this +incident: -Romanus [exer]citus (of Pompeius) frumenti gra[tia +r]emotus in Vascones i... [it]emque Sertorius mon... e, cuius +multum in[terer]it, ne ei perinde Asiae [iter et Italiae +intercluderetur]. + + + + +Notes for Chapter II + +1. IV. VIII. New Difficulties + +2. IV. VIII. Preliminaries of Delium, IV. VIII. Peace at Dardanus + +3. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +4. IV. I. Cilicia + +5. IV. I. Piracy + +6. IV. I. Crete + +7. The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa is placed by native +chronicles in 620 (IV. I. The Parthian Empire), but it was not till +some time after its rise that it passed into the hands of the Arabic +dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards +find there. This dynasty is obviously connected with the settlement +of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa, +Callirrhoe, Carrhae (Plin. H. N. v. 20, 85; ax, 86; vi. 28, 142); +respecting which Plutarch also (Luc. 21) states that Tigranes, +changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to his +kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade. +We may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were +accustomed to open routes for traffic through their territory and +to levy on these routes fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were +to serve the great-king as a sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy +tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates. +These "Osrhoenian Arabs" (-Orei Arabes-), as Pliny calls them, +must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued +(Plut. Pomp. 39). + +8. The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament +proceeded from Alexander I (d. 666) or Alexander II (d. 673), is +usually decided in favour of the former alternative. But +the reasons are inadequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38; +16, 41) does not say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it +did so in or after this year; and while the circumstance that +Alexander I died abroad, and Alexander II in Alexandria, has led +some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in +question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former, they +have overlooked that Alexander II was killed nineteen days after +his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, Inscr, de I'Egypte, ii. 20), when +his treasure might still very well be in Tyre. On the other hand +the circumstance that the second Alexander was the last genuine +Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergamus, +Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by the last scion of +the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir. The ancient +constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client- +states, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of +ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in +the absence of -agnati- entitled to succeed. Comp. Gutschmid's remark +in the German translation of S. Sharpe's History of Egypt, ii. 17. + +Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained, +and is of no great moment; there are no special reasons for +assuming a forgery. + +9. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +10. IV. VIII. Cyrene Roman + +11. V. I. Collapse of the Power of Sertorius + +12. IV. IV. The Provinces + +13. IV. VIII. Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast + +14. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia + +15. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. The African Expedition +of Scipio + +16. That Tigranocerta was situated in the region of Mardln some +two days' march to the west of Nisibis, has been proved by +the investigation instituted on the spot by Sachau ("-Ueber die Lage +von Tigranokerta-," Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1880), although +the more exact fixing of the locality proposed by Sachau is not beyond +doubt. On the other hand, his attempt to clear up the campaign of +Lucullus encounters the difficulty that, on the route assumed in +it, a crossing of the Tigris is in reality out of the question. + +17. Cicero (De Imp. Pomp. 9, 23) hardly means any other than one +of the rich temples of the province Elymais, whither the predatory +expeditions of the Syrian and Parthian kings were regularly +directed (Strabo, xvi. 744; Polyb, xxxi. 11. 1 Maccab. 6, etc.), +and probably this as the best known; on no account can +the allusion be to the temple of Comana or any shrine at all in +the kingdom of Pontus. + +18. V. II. Preparations of Mithradates, 328, 334 + +19. V. II. Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus + +20. V. II. Roman Preparations + +21. V. I. Want of Leaders + +22. V. II. Maritime War + +23. IV. I. Crete + +24. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War, IV. IV. Revolts of the Slaves + +25. These enactments gave rise to the conception of robbery +as a separate crime, while the older law comprehended robbery +under theft. + +26. V. II. The Pirates in the Mediterranean + +27. As the line was thirty-five miles long (Sallust, Hist, iv, 19, +Dietsch; Plutarch, Crass. 10), it probably passed not from +Squillace to Pizzo, but more to the north, somewhere near +Castrovillari and Cassano, over the peninsula which is here in +a straight line about twenty-seven miles broad. + +28. That Crassus was invested with the supreme command in 682, +follows from the setting aside of the consuls (Plutarch, Crass. +10); that the winter of 682-683 was spent by the two armies at +the Bruttian wall, follows from the "snowy night" (Plut. l. c). + + + + +Notes for Chapter III + +1. IV. X. Assignations to the Soldiers + +2. V. I. Pompeius + +3. IV. X. Abolition of the Gracchan Institutions + +4. V. II. The Insurrection Takes Shape + +5. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals + +6. V. I. Insurrection of Lepidus + +7. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges + +8. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers + +9. IV. IV. Marius Commander-in-Chief + +10. The extraordinary magisterial power (-pro consule-, -pro +praetore-, -pro quaestore-) might according to Roman state-law +originate in three ways. Either it arose out of the principle +which held good for the non-urban magistracy, that the office +continued up to the appointed legal term, but the official +authority up to the arrival of the successor, which was the oldest, +simplest, and most frequent case. Or it arose in the way of +the appropriate organs--especially the comitia, and in later times also +perhaps the senate--nominating a chief magistrate not contemplated +in the constitution, who was otherwise on a parity with +the ordinary magistrate, but in token of the extraordinary nature of +his office designated himself merely "instead of a praetor" or "of +a consul." To this class belong also the magistrates nominated in +the ordinary way as quaestors, and then extraordinarily furnished +with praetorian or even consular official authority (-quaestores +pro praetore- or -pro consule-); in which quality, for example, +Publius Lentulus Marcellinus went in 679 to Cyrene (Sallust, Hist. +ii. 39 Dietsch), Gnaeus Piso in 689 to Hither Spain (Sallust, Cat. +19), and Cato in 696 to Cyprus (Vell. ii. 45). Or, lastly, +the extraordinary magisterial authority was based on the right of +delegation vested in the supreme magistrate. If he left the bounds +of his province or otherwise was hindered from administering his +office, he was entitled to nominate one of those about him as his +substitute, who was then called -legatus pro praetore-(Sallust, +lug. 36, 37, 38), or, if the choice fell on the quaestor, -quaestor +pro praetore- (Sallust, Iug. 103). In like manner he was entitled, +if he had no quaestor, to cause the quaestorial duties to be +discharged by one of his train, who was then called -legatus pro +quaestore-, a name which is to be met with, perhaps for the first +time, on the Macedonian tetradrachms of Sura, lieutenant of +the governor of Macedonia, 665-667. But it was contrary to the nature +of delegation and therefore according to the older state-law +inadmissible, that the supreme magistrate should, without having +met with any hindrance in the discharge of his functions, +immediately upon his entering on office invest one or more of +his subordinates with supreme official authority; and so far +the -legati pro praetore-of the proconsul Pompeius were an innovation, +and already similar in kind to those who played so great a part in +the times of the Empire. + +11. V. III. Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power + +12. According to the legend king Romulus was torn in pieces +by the senators. + +13. IV. II. Further Plans of Gracchus + + + + +Notes for Chapter IV + +1. V. III. Senate, Equites, and Populares + +2. V. II. Metellus Subdues Crete + +3. [Literally "twenty German miles"; but the breadth of the island +does not seem in reality half so much.--Tr.] + +4. V. II. Renewal of the War + +5. Pompeius distributed among his soldiers and officers as +presents 384,000,000 sesterces (=16,000 talents, App. Mithr. +116); as the officers received 100,000,000 (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, +16) and each of the common soldiers 6000 sesterces (Plin., App.), +the army still numbered at its triumph about 40,000 men. + +6. V. II. Sieges of the Pontic Cities + +7. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +8. V. II. Syria under Tigranes + +9. V. II. Syria under Tigranes + +10. IV. I. The Jews + +11. V. II. Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta + +12. Thus the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of angels and spirits +and the resurrection of the dead. Most of the traditional points +of difference between Pharisees and Sadducees relate to subordinate +questions of ritual, jurisprudence, and the calendar. It is +a characteristic fact, that the victorious Pharisees have introduced +those days, on which they definitively obtained the superiority in +particular controversies or ejected heretical members from +the supreme consistory, into the list of the memorial and festival +days of the nation. + +13. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +14. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War, V. II. All the Armenian +Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +15. Pompeius spent the winter of 689-690 still in +the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea (Dio, xxxvii. 7). In 690 he first +reduced the last strongholds still offering resistance in +the kingdom of Pontus, and then moved slowly, regulating matters +everywhere, towards the south. That the organization of Syria +began in 690 is confirmed by the fact that the Syrian provincial +era begins with this year, and by Cicero's statement respecting +Commagene (Ad Q. fr. ii. 12, 2; comp. Dio, xxxvii. 7). During +the winter of 690-691 Pompeius seems to have had his headquarters in +Antioch (Joseph, xiv. 3, 1, 2, where the confusion has been +rectified by Niese in the Hermes, xi. p. 471). + +16. III. V. New Warlike Preparations in Rome + +17. III. IV. War Party and Peace Party in Carthage + +18. Orosius indeed (vi. 6) and Dio (xxxvii. 15), both of them +doubtless following Livy, make Pompeius get to Petra and occupy +the city or even reach the Red Sea; but that he, on the contrary, soon +after receiving the news of the death of Mithradates, which came to +him on his march towards Jerusalem, returned from Syria to Pontus, +is stated by Plutarch (Pomp. 41, 42) and is confirmed by Floras (i. +39) and Josephus (xiv. 3, 3, 4). If king Aretas figures in +the bulletins among those conquered by Pompeius, this is +sufficiently accounted for by his withdrawal from Jerusalem +at the instigation of Pompeius. + +19. V. II. Renewal of the War, V. IV. Variance between Mithradates +and Tigranes + +20. This view rests on the narrative of Plutarch (Pomp. 36) which +is supported by Strabo's (xvi. 744) description of the position of +the satrap of Elymais. It is an embellishment of the matter, when +in the lists of the countries and kings conquered by Pompeius Media +and its king Darius are enumerated (Diodorus, Fr, Vat. p. 140; +Appian, Mithr. 117); and from this there has been further concocted +the war of Pompeius with the Medes (Veil. ii. 40; Appian, Mithr. +106, 114) and then even his expedition to Ecbatana (Oros. vi. 5). +A confusion with the fabulous town of the same name on Carmel has +hardly taken place here; it is simply that intolerable +exaggeration--apparently originating in the grandiloquent and +designedly ambiguous bulletins of Pompeius--which has converted his +razzia against the Gaetulians (p. 94) into a march to the west +coast of Africa (Plut. Pomp. 38), his abortive expedition against +the Nabataeans into a conquest of the city of Petra, and his award +as to the boundaries of Armenia into a fixing of the boundary of +the Roman empire beyond Nisibis. + +21. The war which this Antiochus is alleged to have waged with +Pompeius (Appian, Mithr. 106, 117) is not very consistent with +the treaty which he concluded with Lucullus (Dio, xxxvi. 4), and his +undisturbed continuance in his sovereignty; presumably it has been +concocted simply from the circumstance, that Antiochus of Commagene +figured among the kings subdued by Pompeius. + +22. To this Cicero's reproach presumably points (De Off. iii. 12, +49): -piratas immunes habemus, socios vectigales-; in so far, +namely, as those pirate-colonies probably had the privilege of +immunity conferred on them by Pompeius, while, as is well known, +the provincial communities dependent on Rome were, as a rule, +liable to taxation. + +23. IV. VIII. Pontus + +24. V. IV. Battle at Nicopolis + +25. V. II. Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela + +26. V. IV. Pompeius Take the Supreme Command against Mithradates + +27. IV. VIII. Weak Counterpreparations of the Romans ff. + +28. V. II. Egypt not Annexed + +29. V. IV. Urban Communities + + + + +Notes for Chapter V + +1. V. III. Renewal of the Censorship + +2. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius + +3. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges + +4. IV. VII. The Sulpician Laws + +5. IV. X. Permanent and Special -Quaestiones- + +6. IV. VI. And Overpowered + +7. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts + +8. Any one who surveys the whole state of the political relations +of this period will need no special proofs to help him to see that +the ultimate object of the democratic machinations in 688 et seq. +was not the overthrow of the senate, but that of Pompeius. Yet +such proofs are not wanting. Sallust states that the Gabinio- +Manilian laws inflicted a mortal blow on the democracy (Cat. 39); +that the conspiracy of 688-689 and the Servilian rogation were +specially directed against Pompeius, is likewise attested (Sallust +Cat. 19; Val. Max. vi. 2, 4; Cic. de Lege Agr. ii. 17, 46). +Besides the attitude of Crassus towards the conspiracy alone shows +sufficiently that it was directed against Pompeius. + +9. V. V. Transpadanes + +10. Plutarch, Crass. 13; Cicero, de Lege agr. ii. 17, 44. To this +year (689) belongs Cicero's oration -de rege Alexandrino-, which +has been incorrectly assigned to the year 698. In it Cicero +refutes, as the fragments clearly show, the assertion of Crassus, +that Egypt had been rendered Roman property by the testament of +king Alexander. This question of law might and must have been +discussed in 689; but in 698 it had been deprived of its +significance through the Julian law of 695. In 698 moreover +the discussion related not to the question to whom Egypt belonged, but +to the restoration of the king driven out by a revolt, and in this +transaction which is well known to us Crassus played no part. +Lastly, Cicero after the conference of Luca was not at all in +a position seriously to oppose one of the triumvirs. + +11. V. IV. Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis + +12. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals, V. III. Renewal +of the Censorship + +13. The -Ambrani- (Suet. Caes. 9) are probably not the Ambrones +named along with the Cimbri (Plutarch, Mar. 19), but a slip of +the pen for -Arverni-. + +14. This cannot well be expressed more naively than is done in +the memorial ascribed to his brother (de pet. cons. i, 5; 13, 51, 53; +in 690); the brother himself would hardly have expressed his mind +publicly with so much frankness. In proof of this unprejudiced +persons will read not without interest the second oration against +Rullus, where the "first democratic consul," gulling the friendly +public in a very delectable fashion, unfolds to it the "true democracy." + +15. His epitaph still extant runs: -Cn. Calpurnius Cn. f. Piso +quaestor fro pr. ex s. c. proviniciam Hispaniam citeriorem optinuit-. + +16. V. V. Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy + +17. V. III. Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution + +18. IV. XII. Priestly Colleges + +19. IV. VII. Economic Crisis + +20. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +21. Such an apology is the -Catilina- of Sallust, which was +published by the author, a notorious Caesarian, after the year 708, +either under the monarchy of Caesar or more probably under +the triumvirate of his heirs; evidently as a treatise with a political +drift, which endeavours to bring into credit the democratic party-- +on which in fact the Roman monarchy was based--and to clear +Caesar's memory from the blackest stain that rested on it; and with +the collateral object of whitewashing as far as possible the uncle +of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (comp. e. g. c. 59 with Dio, +xxxvii. 39). The Jugurtha of the same author is in an exactly +similar way designed partly to expose the pitifulness of +the oligarchic government, partly to glorify the Coryphaeus of +the democracy, Gaius Marius. The circumstance that the adroit author +keeps the apologetic and inculpatory character of these writings of +his in the background, proves, not that they are not partisan +treatises, but that they are good ones. + +22. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome + + + + +Notes for Chapter VI + +1. V. IV. Aggregate Results + +2. The impression of the first address, which Pompeius made to +the burgesses after his return, is thus described by Cicero (ad Att. i. +14): -prima contio Pompei non iucunda miseris (the rabble), inanis +improbis (the democrats), beatis (the wealthy) non grata, bonis +(the aristocrats) non gravis; itaque frigebat-. + +3. IV. X. Regulating of the Qualifications for Office + +4. V. V. New Projects of the Conspirators + +5. V. VI. Pompeius without Influence + +6. IV. IX. Government of Cinna, IV. X. Punishments Inflicted +on Particular Communities + +7. IV. XII. Oriental Religions in Italy + +8. V. V. Transpadanes + +9. IV. X. Cisalpine Gaul Erected into a Province + +10. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + +11. IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in the Voting + +12. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + + + + +Notes for Chapter VII + +1. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered + +2. IV. IX. Spain + +3. V. I. Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection + +4. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul + +5. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +6. V. V. Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital + +7. V. I. Pompeius Puts and End to the Insurrection + +8. IV. II. Scipio Aemilianus + +9. There was found, for instance, at Vaison in the Vocontian +canton an inscription written in the Celtic language with +the ordinary Greek alphabet. It runs thus: --segouaros ouilloneos +tooutious namausatis eiorou beileisamisosin nemeiton--. The last +word means "holy." + +10. An immigration of Belgic Celts to Britain continuing for +a considerable time seems indicated by the names of English tribes on +both banks of the Thames borrowed from Belgic cantons; such as +the Atrebates, the Belgae, and even the Britanni themselves, which word +appears to have been transferred from the Brittones settled on +the Somme below Amiens first to an English canton and then to the whole +island. The English gold coinage was also derived from the Belgic +and originally identical with it. + +11. The first levy of the Belgic cantons exclusive of the Remi, +that is, of the country between the Seine and the Scheldt and +eastward as far as the vicinity of Rheims and Andernach, from 9000 +to 10,000 square miles, is reckoned at about 300,000 men; in +accordance with which, if we regard the proportion of the first +levy to the whole men capable of bearing arms specified for +the Bellovaci as holding good generally, the number of the Belgae +capable of bearing arms would amount to 500,000 and the whole +population accordingly to at least 2,000,000. The Helvetii with +the adjoining peoples numbered before their migration 336,000; if +we assume that they were at that time already dislodged from +the right bank of the Rhine, their territory may be estimated at nearly +1350 square miles. Whether the serfs are included in this, we can +the less determine, as we do not know the form which slavery +assumed amongst the Celts; what Caesar relates (i. 4) as to +the slaves, clients, and debtors of Orgetorix tells rather in favour +of, than against, their being included. + +That, moreover, every such attempt to make up by combinations for +the statistical basis, in which ancient history is especially +deficient, must be received with due caution, will be at once +apprehended by the intelligent reader, while he will not absolutely +reject it on that account. + +12. "In the interior of Transalpine Gaul on the Rhine," says +Scrofa in Varro, De R. R. i. 7, 8, "when I commanded there, I +traversed some districts, where neither the vine nor the olive nor +the fruit-tree appears, where they manure the fields with white +Pit-chalk, where they have neither rock--nor sea-salt, but make use +of the saline ashes of certain burnt wood instead of salt." This +description refers probably to the period before Caesar and to +the eastern districts of the old province, such as the country of +the Allobroges; subsequently Pliny (H. N. xvii. 6, 42 seq.) describes +at length the Gallo-Britannic manuring with marl. + +13. "The Gallic oxen especially are of good repute in Italy, for +field labour forsooth; whereas the Ligurian are good for nothing." +(Varro, De R. R. ii. 5, 9). Here, no doubt, Cisalpine Gaul is +referred to, but the cattle-husbandry there doubtless goes back to +the Celtic epoch. Plautus already mentions the "Gallic ponies" +(-Gallici canterii-, Aul. iii. 5. 21). "It is not every race that +is suited for the business of herdsmen; neither the Bastulians nor +the Turdulians" (both in Andalusia) "are fit for it; the Celts are +the best, especially as respects beasts for riding and burden +(-iumenta-)" (Varro, De R. R. ii. 10, 4). + +14. We are led to this conclusion by the designation of +the trading or "round" as contrasted with the "long" or war vessel, and +the similar contrast of the "oared ships" (--epikopoi veies--) and +the "merchantmen" (--olkades--, Dionys. iii. 44); and moreover by +the smallness of the crew in the trading vessels, which in the very +largest amounted to not more than 200 men (Rhein. Mus. N. F. xi. +625), while in the ordinary galley of three decks there were +employed 170 rowers (III. II. The Romans Build A Fleet). Comp. Movers, +Phoen. ii. 3, 167 seq. + +15. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +16. IV. V. Defeat of Longinus + +17. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +18. This remarkable word must have been in use as early as +the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po; for +Ennius is already acquainted with it, and it can only have reached +the Italians at so early a period from that quarter. It is not +merely Celtic, however, but also German, the root of our "Amt," as +indeed the retainer-system itself is common to the Celts and +the Germans. It would be of great historical importance to ascertain +whether the word--and so also the thing--came to the Celts from +the Germans, or to the Germans from the Celts. If, as is usually +supposed, the word is originally German and primarily signified +the servant standing in battle "against the back" (-and-= against, +-bak- = back) of his master, this is not wholly irreconcileable with +the singularly early occurrence of this word among the Celts. +According to all analogy the right to keep -ambacti-, that is, +--doouloi misthotoi--, cannot have belonged to the Celtic nobility +from the outset, but must only have developed itself gradually in +antagonism to the older monarchy and to the equality of the free +commons. If thus the system of -ambacti- among the Celts was not +an ancient and national, but a comparatively recent institution, it +is--looking to the relation which had subsisted for centuries +between the Celts and Germans, and which is to be explained farther +on--not merely possible but even probable that the Celts, in Italy +as in Gaul, employed Germans chiefly as those hired servants-at- +arms. The "Swiss guard" would therefore in that case be some +thousands of years older than people suppose. Should the term by +which the Romans, perhaps after the example of the Celts, designate +the Germans as a nation-the name -Germani---be really of Celtic +origin, this obviously accords very well with that hypothesis.--No +doubt these assumptions must necessarily give way, should the word +-ambactus- be explained in a satisfactory way from a Celtic root; +as in fact Zeuss (Gramm. p. 796), though doubtfully, traces it to +-ambi- = around and -aig- = -agere-, viz. one moving round or moved +round, and so attendants, servants. The circumstance that the word +occurs also as a Celtic proper name (Zeuss, p. 77), and is perhaps +preserved in the Cambrian -amaeth- = peasant, labourer (Zeuss, p. +156), cannot decide the point either way, + +19. From the Celtic words -guerg- = worker and -breth- = judgment. + +20. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +21. The position which such a federal general occupied with +reference to his troops, is shown by the accusation of high treason +raised against Vercingetorix (Caesar, B. G. vii. 20). + +22. IV. V. The Cimbri + +23. II. IV. The Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy + +24. V. VII. Art and Science + +25. Caesar's Suebi thus were probably the Chatti; but that +designation certainly belonged in Caesar's time, and even much +later, also to every other German stock which could be described as +a regularly wandering one. Accordingly if, as is not to be +doubted, the "king of the Suebi" in Mela (iii. i) and Pliny (H. N. +ii. 67, 170) was Ariovistus, it by no means therefore follows that +Ariovistus was a Chattan. The Marcomani cannot be demonstrated as +a distinct people before Marbod; it is very possible that the word +up to that point indicates nothing but what it etymologically +signifies--the land, or frontier, guard. When Caesar (i, 51) +mentions Marcomani among the peoples fighting in the army of +Ariovistus, he may in this instance have misunderstood a merely +appellative designation, just as he has decidedly done in +the case of the Suebi. + +26. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along +the Danube + +27. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along +the Danube + +28. IV. V. Teutones in the Province of Gaul + +29. The arrival of Ariovistus in Gaul has been placed, according +to Caesar, i. 36, in 683, and the battle of Admagetobriga (for such +was the name of the place now usually, in accordance with a false +inscription, called Magetobriga), according to Caesar i. 35 and +Cicero Ad. Att. i. 19, in 693. + +30. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There + +31. That we may not deem this course of things incredible, or even +impute to it deeper motives than ignorance and laziness in +statesmen, we shall do well to realize the frivolous tone in which +a distinguished senator like Cicero expresses himself in his +correspondence respecting these important Transalpine affairs. + +32. IV. V. Inroad of the Helvetii into Southern Gaul + +33. According to the uncorrected calendar. According to +the current rectification, which however here by no means rests on +sufficiently trustworthy data, this day corresponds to the 16th of +April of the Julian calendar. + +34. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite + +35. -Julia Equestris-, where the last surname is to be taken as in +other colonies of Caesar the surnames of sextanorum, decimanorum, +etc. It was Celtic or German horsemen of Caesar, who, of course +with the bestowal of the Roman or, at any rate, Latin franchise, +received land-allotments there. + +36. Goler (Caesars gall. Krieg, p. 45, etc.) thinks that he has +found the field of battle at Cernay not far from Muhlhausen, which, +on the whole, agrees with Napoleon's (Precis, p. 35) placing of +the battle-field in the district of Belfort. This hypothesis, although +not certain, suits the circumstances of the case; for the fact that +Caesar required seven days' march for the short space from Besancon +to that point, is explained by his own remark (i. 41) that he had +taken a circuit of fifty miles to avoid the mountain paths; and +the whole description of the pursuit continued as far as the Rhine, and +evidently not lasting for several days but ending on the very day +of the battle, decides--the authority of tradition being equally +balanced--in favour of the view that the battle was fought five, +not fifty, miles from the Rhine. The proposal of Rustow +(-Einleitung zu Caesars Comm-. p. 117) to transfer the field of +battle to the upper Saar rests on a misunderstanding. The corn +expected from the Sequani, Leuci, Lingones was not to come to +the Roman army in the course of their march against Ariovistus, but to +be delivered at Besancon before their departure, and taken by +the troops along with them; as is clearly apparent from the fact that +Caesar, while pointing his troops to those supplies, comforts them +at the same time with the hope of corn to be brought in on +the route. From Besancon Caesar commanded the region of Langres and +Epinal, and, as may be well conceived, preferred to levy his +requisitions there rather than in the exhausted districts from +which he came. + +37. This seems the simplest hypothesis regarding the origin of +these Germanic settlements. That Ariovistus settled those peoples +on the middle Rhine is probable, because they fight in his army +(Caes. i. 51) and do not appear earlier; that Caesar left them in +possession of their settlements is probable, because he in presence +of Ariovistus declared himself ready to tolerate the Germans +already settled in Gaul (Caes. i. 35, 43), and because we find them +afterwards in these abodes. Caesar does not mention the directions +given after the battle concerning these Germanic settlements, +because he keeps silence on principle regarding all the organic +arrangements made by him in Gaul. + +38. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite + +39. III. II. The Romans Build a Fleet + +40. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul + +41. V. VII. The Germans on the Lower Rhine + +42. The nature of the case as well as Caesar's express statement +proves that the passages of Caesar to Britain were made from ports +of the coast between Calais and Boulogne to the coast of Kent. +A more exact determination of the localities has often been +attempted, but without success. All that is recorded is, that on +the first voyage the infantry embarked at one port, the cavalry at +another distant from the former eight miles in an easterly +direction (iv. 22, 23, 28), and that the second voyage was made +from that one of those two ports which Caesar had found most +convenient, the (otherwise not further mentioned) Portus Itius, +distant from the British coast 30 (so according to the MSS. of +Caesar v. 2) or 40 miles (=320 stadia, according to Strabo iv. 5, +2, who doubtless drew his account from Caesar). From Caesar's +words (iv. 21) that he had chosen "the shortest crossing," we may +doubtless reasonably infer that he crossed not the Channel but +the Straits of Calais, but by no means that he crossed the latter by +the mathematically shortest line. It requires the implicit faith +of local topographers to proceed to the determination of +the locality with such data in hand--data of which the best in itself +becomes almost useless from the variation of the authorities as to +the number; but among the many possibilities most may perhaps be +said in favour of the view that the Itian port (which Strabo l. c. +is probably right in identifying with that from which the infantry +crossed in the first voyage) is to be sought near Ambleteuse to +the west of Cape Gris Nez, and the cavalry-harbour near Ecale (Wissant) +to the east of the same promontory, and that the landing took place +to the east of Dover near Walmer Castle. + +43. That Cotta, although not lieutenant-general of Sabinus, but +like him legate, was yet the younger and less esteemed general and +was probably directed in the event of a difference to yield, may be +inferred both from the earlier services of Sabinus and from +the fact that, where the two are named together (iv. 22, 38; v. 24, 26, +52; vi. 32; otherwise in vi. 37) Sabinus regularly takes +precedence, as also from the narrative of the catastrophe itself. +Besides we cannot possibly suppose that Caesar should have placed +over a camp two officers with equal authority, and have made no +arrangement at all for the case of a difference of opinion. +the five cohorts are not counted as part of a legion (comp. vi. 32, 33) +any more than the twelve cohorts at the Rhine bridge (vi. 29, comp. +32, 33), and appear to have consisted of detachments of other +portions of the army, which had been assigned to reinforce this +camp situated nearest to the Germans. + +44. V. VII. Subjugation of the Belgae + +45. IV. V. War with the Allobroges and Arverni + +46. V. VII. Cantonal Constitution + +47. This, it is true, was only possible, so long as offensive +weapons chiefly aimed at cutting and stabbing. In the modern mode +of warfare, as Napoleon has excellently explained, this system has +become inapplicable, because with our offensive weapons operating +from a distance the deployed position is more advantageous than +the concentrated. In Caesar's time the reverse was the case. + +48. This place has been sought on a rising ground which is still +named Gergoie, a league to the south of the Arvernian capital +Nemetum, the modern Clermont; and both the remains of rude +fortress-walls brought to light in excavations there, and +the tradition of the name which is traced in documents up to the tenth +century, leave no room for doubt as to the correctness of this +determination of the locality. Moreover it accords, as with +the other statements of Caesar, so especially with the fact that he +pretty clearly indicates Gergovia as the chief place of the Arverni +(vii. 4). We shall have accordingly to assume, that the Arvernians +after their defeat were compelled to transfer their settlement from +Gergovia to the neighbouring less strong Nemetum. + +49. The question so much discussed of late, whether Alesia is not +rather to be identified with Alaise (25 kilometres to the south of +Besancon, dep. Doubs), has been rightly answered in the negative by +all judicious inquirers. + +50. This is usually sought at Capdenac not far from Figeac; Goler +has recently declared himself in favour of Luzech to the west of +Cahors, a site which had been previously suggested. + +51. This indeed, as may readily be conceived, is not recorded by +Caesar himself, but an intelligible hint on this subject is given +by Sallust (Hist. i. 9 Kritz), although he too wrote as a partisan +of Caesar. Further proofs are furnished by the coins. + +52. Thus we read on a -semis- which a Vergobretus of the Lexovii +(Lisieux, dep. Calvados) caused to be struck, the following +inscription: -Cisiambos Cattos vercobreto; simissos (sic) publicos +Lixovio-. The often scarcely legible writing and the incredibly +wretched stamping of these coins are in excellent harmony with +their stammering Latin. + +53. V. VII. Caesar and Ariovistus + +54. V. VII. The Helvetii Sent Back to Their Original Abodes + +55. V. VII. Beginning of the Struggle + +56. IV. V. Taurisci + + + + +Notes for Chapter VIII + +1. This is the meaning of -cantorum convitio contiones celebrare- +(Cic. pro Sest. 55, 118). + +2. V. VI. Clodius + +3. IV. V. The Victory and the Parties + +4. Cato was not yet in Rome when Cicero spoke on 11th March 698 in +favour of Sestius (Pro Sest. 28, 60) and when the discussion took +place in the senate in consequence of the resolutions of Luca +respecting Caesar's legions (Plut. Caes. 21); it is not till +the discussions at the beginning of 699 that we find him once more +busy, and, as he travelled in winter (Plut. Cato Min. 38), he thus +returned to Rome in the end of 698. He cannot therefore, as has +been mistakenly inferred from Asconius (p. 35, 53), have defended +Milo in Feb. 698. + +5. -Me asinum germanum fuisse- (Ad Att. iv. 5, 3). + +6. This palinode is the still extant oration on the Provinces to +be assigned to the consuls of 699. It was delivered in the end of +May 698. The pieces contrasting with it are the orations for +Sestius and against Vatinius and that upon the opinion of +the Etruscan soothsayers, dating from the months of March and April, +in which the aristocratic regime is glorified to the best of his +ability and Caesar in particular is treated in a very cavalier +tone. It was but reasonable that Cicero should, as he himself +confesses (Ad Att. iv. 5, 1), be ashamed to transmit even to +intimate friends that attestation of his resumed allegiance. + +7. This is not stated by our authorities. But the view that +Caesar levied no soldiers at all from the Latin communities, that +is to say from by far the greater part of his province, is in +itself utterly incredible, and is directly refuted by the fact that +the opposition-party slightingly designates the force levied by +Caesar as "for the most part natives of the Transpadane colonies" +(Caes. B. C. iii. 87); for here the Latin colonies of Strabo +(Ascon. in Pison. p. 3; Sueton. Caes. 8) are evidently meant. +Yet there is no trace of Latin cohorts in Caesar's Gallic army; +on the contrary according to his express statements all the recruits +levied by him in Cisalpine Gaul were added to the legions or +distributed into legions. It is possible that Caesar combined +with the levy the bestowal of the franchise; but more probably he +adhered in this matter to the standpoint of his party, which did +not so much seek to procure for the Transpadanes the Roman +franchise as rather regarded it as already legally belonging to +them (iv. 457). Only thus could the report spread, that Caesar had +introduced of his own authority the Roman municipal constitution +among the Transpadane communities (Cic. Ad Att. v. 3, 2; Ad Fam. +viii. 1, 2). This hypothesis too explains why Hirtius designates +the Transpadane towns as "colonies of Roman burgesses" (B. G. viii. +24), and why Caesar treated the colony of Comum founded by him as +a burgess-colony (Sueton. Caes. 28; Strabo, v. 1, p. 213; Plutarch, +Caes. 29), while the moderate party of the aristocracy conceded to +it only the same rights as to the other Transpadane communities, +viz. Latin rights, and the ultras even declared the civic rights +conferred on the settlers as altogether null, and consequently did +not concede to the Comenses the privileges attached to the holding +of a Latin municipal magistracy (Cic. Ad Att. v. 11, 2; Appian, B. +C. ii. 26). Comp. Hermes, xvi. 30. + +8. V. VII. Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans + +9. The collection handed down to us is full of references to +the events of 699 and 700 and was doubtless published in the latter +year; the most recent event, which it mentions, is the prosecution +of Vatinius (Aug. 700). The statement of Hieronymus that Catullus +died in 697-698 requires therefore to be altered only by a few +years. From the circumstance that Vatinius "swears falsely by his +consulship," it has been erroneously inferred that the collection +did not appear till after the consulate of Vatinius (707); it +only follows from it that Vatinius, when the collection appeared, +might already reckon on becoming consul in a definite year, +for which he had every reason as early as 700; for his name +certainly stood on the list of candidates agreed on at Luca +(Cicero, Ad. Att. iv. 8 b. 2). + +10. The well-known poem of Catullus (numbered as xxix.) +was written in 699 or 700 after Caesar's Britannic expedition +and before the death of Julia: + +-Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, Nisi impudicus et vorax +et aleo, Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia Habebat ante et ultima +Britannia-? etc. + +Mamurra of Formiae, Caesar's favourite and for a time during +the Gallic wars an officer in his army, had, presumably a short time +before the composition of this poem, returned to the capital and +was in all likelihood then occupied with the building of his much- +talked-of marble palace furnished with lavish magnificence on +the Caelian hill. The Iberian booty mentioned in the poem must have +reference to Caesar's governorship of Further Spain, and Mamurra +must even then, as certainly afterwards in Gaul, have been found at +Caesar's headquarters; the Pontic booty presumably has reference to +the war of Pompeius against Mithradates, especially as according to +the hint of the poet it was not merely Caesar that enriched Mamurra. + +More innocent than this virulent invective, which was bitterly felt +by Caesar (Suet. Caes. 73), is another nearly contemporary poem of +the same author (xi.) to which we may here refer, because with its +pathetic introduction to an anything but pathetic commission it +very cleverly quizzes the general staff of the new regents--the +Gabiniuses, Antoniuses, and such like, suddenly advanced from +the lowest haunts to headquarters. Let it be remembered that it was +written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on +the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of +Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation. The poet, as if he too +expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives +to two of his clients their last instructions before departure: + +-Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli-, etc. + +11. V. VIII. Clodius + +12. In this year the January with 29 and the February with 23 days +were followed by the intercalary month with 28, and then by March. + +13. -Consul- signifies "colleague" (i. 318), and a consul who is +at the same time proconsul is at once an actual consul and +a consul's substitute. + +14. II. III. Military Tribunes with Consular Powers + + + + +Notes for Chapter IX + +1. iv. 434 + +2. Tigranes was still living in February 698 (Cic. pro Sest. 27, +59); on the other hand Artavasdes was already reigning before 700 +(Justin, xlii. 2, 4; Plut. Crass. 49). + +3. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects + +4. V. IV. Military Pacification of Syria + +5. V. VII. Repulse of the Helvetii, V. VII. Expeditions against +the Maritime Cantons + +6. V. VII. Cassivellaunus + +7. V. VII. The Carnutes ff. + +8. V. II. Renewal of the War + +9. V. IV. Difficulty with the Parthians + +10. IV. I. War against Aristonicus + +11. V. VII. Insurrection + +12. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans + +13. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System + +14. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans + +15. V. VIII. The Aristocracy Submits ff. + +16. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System + +17. V. VIII. The Senate under the Monarchy + +18. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers, V. III. Reappearance of Pompeius + +19. V. VII. Alpine Peoples + +20. V. IX. Dictatorship of Pompeius + +21. -Homo ingeniosissime nequam- (Vellei. ii. 48). + +22. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +23. IV. X. The Restoration + +24. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War + +25. To be distinguished from the consul having the same name of +704; the latter was a cousin, the consul of 705 a brother, of +the Marcus Marcellus who was consul in 703. + +26. V. IX. Debates ss to Caesar's Recall ff. + +27. II. II. Intercession + + + + +Notes for Chapter X + +1. V. V. Transpadanes + +2. V. V. Transpadanes + +3. A centurion of Caesar's tenth legion, taken prisoner, declared +to the commander-in-chief of the enemy that he was ready with ten +of his men to make head against the best cohort of the enemy (500 +men; Dell. Afric. 45). "In the ancient mode of fighting," to quote +the opinion of Napoleon I, "a battle consisted simply of duels; +what was only correct in the mouth of that centurion, would be mere +boasting in the mouth of the modern soldier." Vivid proofs of +the soldierly spirit that pervaded Caesar's army are furnished by +the Reports--appended to his Memoirs--respecting the African and +the second Spanish wars, of which the former appears to have had as its +author an officer of the second rank, while the latter is in every +respect a subaltern camp-journal. + +4. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +5. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +6. V. IV. The New Relations of the Romans in the East, V. IV. Galatia + +7. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects + +8. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There + +9. V. IX. Repulse of the Parthians + +10. V. IX. Counter-Arrangements of Caesar + +11. V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule + +12. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies +and the Jury-System + +13. This number was specified by Pompeius himself (Caesar, B.C. i. +6), and it agrees with the statement that he lost in Italy about 60 +cohorts or 30,000 men, and took 25,000 over to Greece (Caesar, B.C. +iii. 10). + +14. V. VII. With the Bellovaci + +15. The decree of the senate was passed on the 7th January; on +the 18th it had been already for several days known in Rome that Caesar +had crossed the boundary (Cic. ad Att. vii. 10; ix. 10, 4); +the messenger needed at the very least three days from Rome to Ravenna. +According to this the setting out of Caesar falls about the 12th +January, which according to the current reduction corresponds to +the Julian 24 Nov. 704. + +16. IV. IX. Pompeius + +17. IV. XI. Italian Revenues + +18. V. VII. Caesar in Spain + +19. V. VII. Venetian War ff. + +20. III. VI. Scipio Driven Back to the Coast + +21. V. X. Caesar Takes the Offensive + +22. V. VII. Illyria + +23. As according to formal law the "legal deliberative assembly" +undoubtedly, just like the "legal court," could only take place in +the city itself or within the precincts, the assembly representing +the senate in the African army called itself the "three hundred" +(Bell. Afric. 88, 90; Appian, ii. 95), not because it consisted of +300 members, but because this was the ancient normal number of +senators (i. 98). It is very likely that this assembly recruited +its ranks by equites of repute; but, when Plutarch makes the three +hundred to be Italian wholesale dealers (Cato Min. 59, 61), he +has misunderstood his authority (Bell. Afr. 90). Of a similar +kind must have been the arrangement as to the quasi-senate +already in Thessalonica. + +24. V. X. Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar + +25. V. X. The Pompeian Army + +26. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius + +27. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +28. According to the rectified calendar on the 5th Nov. 705. + +29. V. X. Result of the Campaign as a Whole + +30. The exact determination of the field of battle is difficult. +Appian (ii. 75) expressly places it between (New) Pharsalus (now +Fersala) and the Enipeus. Of the two streams, which alone are of +any importance in the question, and are undoubtedly the Apidanus +and Enipeus of the ancients--the Sofadhitiko and the Fersaliti--the +former has its sources in the mountains of Thaumaci (Dhomoko) and +the Dolopian heights, the latter in mount Othrys, and the Fersaliti +alone flows past Pharsalus; now as the Enipeus according to Strabo +(ix. p. 432) springs from mount Othrys and flows past Pharsalus, +the Fersaliti has been most justly pronounced by Leake (Northern +Greece, iv. 320) to be the Enipeus, and the hypothesis followed by +Goler that the Fersaliti is the Apidanus is untenable. With this +all the other statements of the ancients as to the two rivers +agree. Only we must doubtless assume with Leake, that the river of +Vlokho formed by the union of the Fersaliti and the Sofadhitiko and +going to the Peneius was called by the ancients Apidanus as well as +the Sofadhitiko; which, however, is the more natural, as while +the Sofadhitiko probably has, the Fersaliti has not, constantly water +(Leake, iv. 321). Old Pharsalus, from which the battle takes its +name, must therefore have been situated between Fersala and +the Fersaliti. Accordingly the battle was fought on the left bank of +the Fersaliti, and in such a way that the Pompeians, standing with +their faces towards Pharsalus, leaned their right wing on the river +(Caesar, B. C. iii. 83; Frontinus, Strat. ii. 3, 22). The camp of +the Pompeians, however, cannot have stood here, but only on +the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae, on the right bank of +the Enipeus, partly because they barred the route of Caesar to +Scotussa, partly because their line of retreat evidently went over +the mountains that were to be found above the camp towards Larisa; +if they had, according to Leake's hypothesis (iv. 482), encamped to +the east of Pharsalus on the left bank of the Enipeus, they could +never have got to the northward through this stream, which at this +very point has a deeply cut bed (Leake, iv. 469), and Pompeius must +have fled to Lamia instead of Larisa. Probably therefore +the Pompeians pitched their camp on the right bank of the Fersaliti, +and passed the river both in order to fight and in order, after +the battle, to regain their camp, whence they then moved up the slopes +of Crannon and Scotussa, which culminate above the latter place in +the heights of Cynoscephalae. This was not impossible. +the Enipeus is a narrow slow-flowing rivulet, which Leake found two +feet deep in November, and which in the hot season often lies quite +dry (Leake, i. 448, and iv. 472; comp. Lucan, vi. 373), and +the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further the armies +before the battle lay three miles and a half from each other +(Appian, B. C. ii. 65), so that the Pompeians could make all +preparations and also properly secure the communication with their +camp by bridges. Had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no +doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been +executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly +agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians which was +the most remote from the base of retreat felt this; but the retreat at +least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in +such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions. +Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river, +because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness +for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole +narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of +retreat favourable for these. + +31. III. VIII. Battle of Cynoscephalae + +32. With this is connected the well-known direction of Caesar to +his soldiers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen. +the infantry--which here in an altogether irregular way acted on +the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with +the sabres--were not to throw their -pila-, but to use them as hand- +spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves +better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp. 69, +71; Caes. 45; Appian, ii. 76, 78; Flor. ii. 12; Oros. vi. 15; +erroneously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to +this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to +run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that +they actually galloped off "holding their hands before their eyes" +(Plutarch), collapses of itself; for it has point only on +the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of +the young nobility of Rome, the "graceful dancers"; and this was +not the case (p. 224). At the most it may be, that the wit of +the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very +irrational but certainly comic turn. + +33. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +34. [I may here state once for all that in this and other +passages, where Dr. Mommsen appears incidentally to express views +of religion or philosophy with which I can scarcely be supposed to +agree, I have not thought it right--as is, I believe, sometimes +done in similar cases--to omit or modify any portion of what he has +written. The reader must judge for himself as to the truth or +value of such assertions as those given in the text.--Tr.] + +35. V. IX. Passive Resistance of Caesar + +36. V. X. The Armies at Pharsalus + +37. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius + +38. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +39. V. IV. Aggregate Results + +40. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled +by His Subjects + +41. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + +42. The loss of the lighthouse-island must have fallen out, where +there is now a chasm (B. A. 12), for the island was in fact at +first in Caesar's power (B. C. iii. 12; B. A. 8). The mole, must +have been constantly in the power of the enemy, for Caesar held +intercourse with the island only by ships. + +43. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs + +44. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs + +45. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +46. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +47. Much obscurity rests on the shape assumed by the states in +northwestern Africa during this period. After the Jugurthine war +Bocchus king of Mauretania ruled probably from the western sea +to the port of Saldae, in what is now Morocco and Algiers +(IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia); the princes of Tingis +(Tangiers)--probably from the outset different from the Mauretanian +sovereigns--who occur even earlier (Plut. Serf. 9), and to whom it may +be conjectured that Sallust's Leptasta (Hist. ii. 31 Kritz) and Cicero's +Mastanesosus (In Vat. 5, 12) belong, may have been independent +within certain limits or may have held from him as feudatories; +just as Syphax already ruled over many chieftains of tribes +(Appian, Pun. 10), and about this time in the neighbouring Numidia +Cirta was possessed, probably however under Juba's supremacy, +by the prince Massinissa (Appian, B. C. iv. 54). About 672 we find +in Bocchus' stead a king called Bocut or Bogud (iv. 92; Orosius, +v. 21, 14), the son of Bocchus. From 705 the kingdom appears divided +between king Bogud who possesses the western, and king Bocchus +who possesses the eastern half, and to this the later partition +of Mauretania into Bogud's kingdom or the state of Tingis and Bocchus' +kingdom or the state of Iol (Caesarea) refers (Plin. H. N. v. 2, 19; +comp. Bell. Afric. 23). + +48. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +49. V. V. Resumption of the Conspiracy + +50. V. X. Reorganization of the Coalition In Africa + +51. IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia + +52. The inscriptions of the region referred to preserve numerous +traces of this colonization. The name of the Sittii is there +unusually frequent; the African township Milev bears as Roman +the name -colonia Sarnensis-(C. I. L. viii. p. 1094) evidently from +the Nucerian river-god Sarnus (Sueton. Rhet. 4). + + + + +Notes for Chapter XI + +1. V. X. Insurrection in Alexandria + +2. The affair with Laberius, told in the well-known prologue, has +been quoted as an instance of Caesar's tyrannical caprices, but +those who have done so have thoroughly misunderstood the irony of +the situation as well as of the poet; to say nothing of +the -naivete- of lamenting as a martyr the poet who readily +pockets his honorarium. + +3. The triumph after the battle of Munda subsequently to be +mentioned probably had reference only to the Lusitanians who served +in great numbers in the conquered army. + +4. Any one who desires to compare the old and new hardships of +authors will find opportunity of doing so in the letter of Caecina +(Cicero, Aa. Fam. vi. 7). + +5. V. VI. Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar + +6. When this was written--in the year 1857--no one could foresee +how soon the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet +recorded in human annals would save the United States from this +fearful trial, and secure the future existence of an absolute +self-governing freedom not to be permanently kept in check by +any local Caesarism. + +7. V. IX. Preparation for Attacks on Caesar + +8. On the 26th January 710 Caesar is still called dictator IIII +(triumphal table); on the 18th February of this year he was already +-dictator perpetuus- (Cicero, Philip, ii. 34, 87). Comp. +Staatsrecht, ii. 3 716. + +9. IV. X. Executions + +10. The formulation of that dictatorship appears to have expressly +brought into prominence among other things the "improvement of +morals"; but Caesar did not hold on his own part an office of this +sort (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 705). + +11. Caesar bears the designation of -imperator- always without any +number indicative of iteration, and always in the first place after +his name (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 767, note 1). + +12. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +13. During the republican period the name Imperator, which denotes +the victorious general, was laid aside with the end of the campaign; +as a permanent title it first appears in the case of Caesar. + +14. That in Caesar's lifetime the -imperium- as well as +the supreme pontificate was rendered by a formal legislative act +hereditary for his agnate descendants--of his own body or through +the medium of adoption--was asserted by Caesar the Younger as his +legal title to rule. As our traditional accounts stand, +the existence of such a law or resolution of the senate must be +decidedly called in question; but doubtless it remains possible +that Caesar intended the issue of such a decree. (Comp, +Staatsrecht, ii. 3 787, 1106.) + +15. The widely-spread opinion, which sees in the imperial office +of Imperator nothing but the dignity of general of the empire +tenable for life, is not warranted either by the signification of +the word or by the view taken by the old authorities. -Imperium- +is the power of command, -Imperator- is the possessor of that +power; in these words as in the corresponding Greek terms --kratos--, +--autokrator-- so little is there implied a specific military +reference, that it is on the contrary the very characteristic of +the Roman official power, where it appears purely and completely, +to embrace in it war and process--that is, the military and +the civil power of command--as one inseparable whole. Dio says quite +correctly (liii. 17; comp, xliii. 44; lii. 41) that the name +Imperator was assumed by the emperors "to indicate their full power +instead of the title of king and dictator (--pros deilosin teis +autotelous sphon exousias, anti teis basileos tou te diktatoros +epikleiseos--); for these other older titles disappeared in name, +but in reality the title of Imperator gives the same prerogatives +(--to de dei ergon auton tei tou autokratoros proseigoria +bebaiountai--), for instance the right of levying soldiers, +imposing taxes, declaring war and concluding peace, exercising +the supreme authority over burgess and non-burgess in and out of +the city and punishing any one at any place capitally or otherwise, and +in general of assuming the prerogatives connected in the earliest +times with the supreme imperium." It could not well be said in +plainer terms, that Imperator is nothing at all but a synonym for +rex, just as imperare coincides with regere. + +16. When Augustus in constituting the principate resumed +the Caesarian imperium, this was done with the restriction that it +should be limited as to space and in a certain sense also as to +time; the proconsular power of the emperors, which was nothing but +just this imperium, was not to come into application as regards +Rome and Italy (Staatsrecht, ii. 8 854). On this element rests +the essential distinction between the Caesarian imperium and +the Augustan principate, just as on the other hand the real equality of +the two institutions rests on the imperfection with which even in +principle and still more in practice that limit was realized. + +17. II. I. Collegiate Arrangements + +18. On this question there may be difference of opinion, whereas +the hypothesis that it was Caesar's intention to rule the Romans as +Imperator, the non-Romans as Rex, must be simply dismissed. It is +based solely on the story that in the sitting of the senate in +which Caesar was assassinated a Sibylline utterance was brought +forward by one of the priests in charge of the oracles, Lucius +Cotta, to the effect that the Parthians could only be vanquished by +a "king," and in consequence of this the resolution was adopted to +commit to Caesar regal power over the Roman provinces. This story +was certainly in circulation immediately after Caesar's death. But +not only does it nowhere find any sort of even indirect +confirmation, but it is even expressly pronounced false by +the contemporary Cicero (De Div. ii. 54, 119) and reported by the later +historians, especially by Suetonius (79) and Dio (xliv. 15) merely +as a rumour which they are far from wishing to guarantee; and it is +under such circumstances no better accredited by the fact of +Plutarch (Caes. 60, 64; Brut. 10) and Appian (B. C. ii. 110) +repeating it after their wont, the former by way of anecdote, +the latter by way of causal explanation. But the story is not merely +unattested; it is also intrinsically impossible. Even leaving out +of account that Caesar had too much intellect and too much +political tact to decide important questions of state after +the oligarchic fashion by a stroke of the oracle-machinery, he could +never think of thus formally and legally splitting up the state +which he wished to reduce to a level. + +19. II. III. Union of the Plebeians + +20. II. I. The New Community + +21. IV. X. Abolition of the Censorial Supervision of the Senate + +22. According to the probable calculation formerly assumed (iv. +113), this would yield an average aggregate number of from 1000 +to 1200 senators. + +23. This certainly had reference merely to the elections for +the years 711 and 712 (Staatsrecht, ii. a 730); but the arrangement was +doubtless meant to become permanent. + +24. I. V. The Senate as State-Council, II. I. Senate + +25. V. X. Pacification of Alexandria + +26. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies +and the Jury-System + +27. I. V. The King + +28. Hence accordingly the cautious turns of expression on +the mention of these magistracies in Caesar's laws; -cum censor aliusve +quis magistratus Romae populi censum aget (L. Jul. mun. l. 144); +praetor isve quei Romae iure deicundo praerit (L. Rubr. often); +quaestor urbanus queive aerario praerit- (L. Jul. mun. l. 37 et al.). + +29. V. III. New Arrangement as to Jurymen + +30. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +31. -Plura enim multo-, says Cicero in his treatise De Oratore +(ii. 42, 178), primarily with reference to criminal trials, +-homines iudicant odio aut amore aut cupiditate aut iracundia aut +dolore aut laetitia aut spe aut timore aut errore aut aliqua +permotione mentis, quam veritate aut praescripto aut iuris norma +aliqua aut iudicii formula aut legibus-. On this accordingly are +founded the further instructions which he gives for advocates +entering, on their profession. + +32. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +33. V. VII. Macedonia ff. + +34. V. VII. The Gallic Plan of War + +35. V. III. Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius + +36. With the nomination of a part of the military tribunes by +the burgesses (III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia) Caesar-- +in this also a democrat--did not meddle. + +37. V. VII. The New Dacian Kingdom + +38. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform + +39. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform + +40. V. V. Total Defeat of the Democratic Party + +41. Varro attests the discontinuance of the Sicilian -decumae- +in a treatise published after Cicero's death (De R. R. 2 praef.) +where he names--as the corn--provinces whence Rome derives her +subsistence--only Africa and Sardinia, no longer Sicily. +The -Latinitas-, which Sicily obtained, must thus doubtless have +included this immunity (comp. Staatsrecht, iii. 684). + +42. V. X. Field of Caesar's Power + +43. III. XI. Italian Subjects + +44. V. VIII. Clodius + +45. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements + +46. In Sicily, the country of production, the -modius- was sold +within a few years at two and at twenty sesterces; from this we may +guess what must have been the fluctuations of price in Rome, which +subsisted on transmarine corn and was the seat of speculators. + +47. IV. XII. The Finances and Public Buildings + +48. It is a fact not without interest that a political writer of +later date but much judgment, the author of the letters addressed +in the name of Sallust to Caesar, advises the latter to transfer +the corn-distribution of the capital to the several -municipia-. +There is good sense in the admonition; as indeed similar ideas +obviously prevailed in the noble municipal provision for +orphans under Trajan. + +49. V. XI. The State-Hierarchy + +50. III. XII. The Management of the Land and Its Capital + +51. The following exposition in Cicero's treatise De officiis +(i. 42) is characteristic: -Iam de artificiis et quaestibus, qui +liberales habendi, qui sordidi sint, kaec fere accepimus. Primum +improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut +portitorum, ut feneratorum. Illiberales autem et sordidi quaestus +mercenariorum omnium, quorum operae, nonaries emuntur. Est autem +in illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. Sordidi etiam +putandi, qui mercantur a mercatoribus quod statim vendant, nihil +enim proficiant, nisi admodum mentiantur. Nec vero est quidquam +turpius vanitate. Opificesque omnes in sordida arte versantur; nec +enim quidquam ingenuum habere potest officina. Minimeque artes eae +probandae, quae ministrae sunt voluptatum, + +"Cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores," + +ut ait Terentius. Adde huc, si placet, unguentarios, saltatores, +totumque ludum talarium. Quibus autem artibus aut prudentia maior +inest, aut non mediocris utilitas quaeritur, ut medicina, ut +architectura, ut doctrina rerum honestarum, eae sunt iis, quorum +ordini conveniunt, honestae. Mercatura autem, si tenuis est, +sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans, +multaque sine vanitate impertiens, non est admodum vituperanda; +atque etiam, si satiata quaestu, vel contenta potius; ut saepe ex +alto in portum, ex ipso portu in agros se possessionesque +contulerit, videtur optimo iure posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum, +ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil +uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius-. According to +this the respectable man must, in strictness, be a landowner; +the trade of a merchant becomes him only so far as it is a means to +this ultimate end; science as a profession is suitable only for +the Greeks and for Romans not belonging to the ruling classes, who by +this means may purchase at all events a certain toleration of their +personal presence in genteel circles. It is a thoroughly developed +aristocracy of planters, with a strong infusion of mercantile +speculation and a slight shading of general culture. + +52. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration + +53. We have still (Macrobius, Hi, 13) the bill of fare of +the banquet which Mucius Lentulus Niger gave before 691 on entering on +his pontificate, and of which the pontifices--Caesar included--the +Vestal Virgins, and some other priests and ladies nearly related to +them partook. Before the dinner proper came sea-hedgehogs; fresh +oysters as many as the guests wished; large mussels; sphondyli; +fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel +pasties; black and white sea-acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides; +sea-nettles; becaficoes; roe-ribs; boar's-ribs; fowls dressed with +flour; becaficoes; purple shell-fish of two sorts. The dinner +itself consisted of sow's udder; boar's-head; fish-pasties; boar- +pasties; ducks; boiled teals; hares; roasted fowls; starch-pastry; +Pontic pastry. + +These are the college-banquets regarding which Varro (De R. R. iii. +2, 16) says that they forced up the prices of all delicacies. +Varro in one of his satires enumerates the following as the most +notable foreign delicacies: peacocks from Samos; grouse from +Phrygia; cranes from Melos; kids from Ambracia; tunny fishes from +Chalcedon; muraenas from the Straits of Gades; bleak-fishes +(? -aselli-) from Pessinus; oysters and scallops from Tarentum; +sturgeons (?) from Rhodes; -scarus--fishes (?) from Cilicia; nuts +from Thasos; dates from Egypt; acorns from Spain. + +54. IV. VII. Economic Crisis, IV. IX. Death of Cinna + +55. III. X. Greek National Party + +56. IV. XI. Capitalist Oligarchy + +57. III. XIII. Luxury + +58. IV. XII. Practical Use Made of Religion + +59. III. XIII. Cato's Family Life, iv. 186 f. + +60. IV. I. Achaean War + +61. IV. XII. Mixture of Peoples + +62. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +63. V. XI. Dolabella + +64. This is not stated by our authorities, but it necessarily +follows from the permission to deduct the interest paid by cash or +assignation (-si quid usurae nomine numeratum aut perscriptum +fuisset-; Sueton. Caes. 42), as paid contrary to law, from the capital. + +65. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes + +66. V. V. Preparations of the Anarchists in Etruria + +67. IV. VII. Economic Crisis + +68. The Egyptian royal laws (Diodorus, i. 79) and likewise +the legislation of Solon (Plutarch, Sol. 13, 15) forbade bonds in which +the loss of the personal liberty of the debtor was made the penalty +of non-payment; and at least the latter imposed on the debtor in +the event of bankruptcy no more than the cession of his whole assets. + +69. I. XI. Manumission + +70. II. III. Continued Distress + +71. At least the latter rule occurs in the old Egyptian royal laws +(Diodorus, i. 79). On the other hand the Solonian legislation +knows no restrictions on interest, but on the contrary expressly +allows interest to be fixed of any amount at pleasure. + +72. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +73. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +74. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus, IV. II. The Domain Question Viewed +in Itself, IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration + +75. IV. XII. Carneades at Rome, V. III. Continued Subsistence +of the Sullan Constitution + +76. IV. X. The Roman Municipal System + +77. Of both laws considerable fragments still exist. + +78. V. XI. Diminution of the Proletariate + +79. V. VII. Gaul Subdued + +80. As according to Caesar's ordinance annually sixteen +propraetors and two proconsuls divided the governorships among +them, and the latter remained two years in office (p. 344), we +might conclude that he intended to bring the number of provinces in +all up to twenty. Certainty is, however, the less attainable as to +this, seeing that Caesar perhaps designedly instituted fewer +offices than candidatures. + +81. This is the so-called "free embassy" (-libera legatio-), namely +an embassy without any proper public commission entrusted to it. + +82. V. II. Piracy + +83. V. XI. In The Administration of the Capital + +84. V. XI. Foreign Mercenaries + +85. V. IX. In the Governorships + +86. V. XI. Financial Reforms of Caesar + +87. V. I. Organizations of Sertorius + +88. V. XI. Robberies and Damage by War + +89. V. XI. The Roman Capitalists in the Provinces + +90. V. I. Transpadanes, V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule + +91. Narbo was called the colony of the Decimani, Baeterrae of +the Septimani, Forum Julii of the Octavani, Arelate of the Sextani, +Arausio of the Secundani. The ninth legion is wanting, because it +had disgraced its number by the mutiny of Placentia (p. 246). That +the colonists of these colonies belonged to the legions from which +they took their names, is not stated and is not credible; +the veterans themselves were, at least the great majority of them, +settled in Italy (p. 358). Cicero's complaint, that Caesar "had +confiscated whole provinces and districts at a blow" (De Off. ii. +7, 27; comp. Philipp. xiii. 15, 31, 32) relates beyond doubt, as +its close connection with the censure of the triumph over +the Massiliots proves, to the confiscations of land made on account of +these colonies in the Narbonese province and primarily to +the losses of territory imposed on Massilia. + +92. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts + +93. V. XI. Other Magistracies and Attributions + +94. We are not expressly informed from whom the Latin rights of +the non-colonized townships of this region and especially of +Nemausus proceeded. But as Caesar himself (B. C. i. 35) virtually +states that Nemausus up to 705 was a Massiliot village; as +according to Livy's account (Dio, xli. 25; Flor. ii. 13; Oros. vi. +15) this very portion of territory was taken from the Massiliots by +Caesar; and lastly as even on pre-Augustan coins and then in Strabo +the town appears as a community of Latin rights, Caesar alone can +have been the author of this bestowal of Latinity. As to Ruscino +(Roussillon near Perpignan) and other communities in Narbonese Gaul +which early attained a Latin urban constitution, we can only +conjecture that they received it contemporarily with Nemausus. + +95. V. VII. Indulgence toward Existing Arrangements + +96. II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League + +97. V. X. The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death + +98. That no community of full burgesses had more than limited +jurisdiction, is certain. But the fact, which is distinctly +apparent from the Caesarian municipal ordinance for Cisalpine Gaul, +is a surprising one--that the processes lying beyond municipal +competency from this province went not before its governor, but +before the Roman praetor; for in other cases the governor is in his +province quite as much representative of the praetor who +administers justice between burgesses as of the praetor who +administers justice between burgess and non-burgess, and is +thoroughly competent to determine all processes. Beyond doubt this +is a remnant of the arrangement before Sulla, under which in +the whole continental territory as far as the Alps the urban +magistrates alone were competent, and thus all the processes there, +where they exceeded municipal competency, necessarily came before +the praetors in Rome. In Narbo again, Gades, Carthage, Corinth, +the processes in such a case went certainly to the governor +concerned; as indeed even from practical considerations +the carrying of a suit to Rome could not well be thought of. + +99. It is difficult to see why the bestowal of the Roman franchise +on a province collectively, and the continuance of a provincial +administration for it, should be usually conceived as contrasts +excluding each other. Besides, Cisalpine Gaul notoriously obtained +the -civitas- by the Roscian decree of the people of the 11th March +705, while it remained a province as long as Caesar lived and was +only united with Italy after his death (Dio, xlviii. 12); +the governors also can be pointed out down to 711. The very fact that +the Caesarian municipal ordinance never designates the country as +Italy, but as Cisalpine Gaul, ought to have led to the right view. + +100. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War + +101. The continued subsistence of the municipal census-authorities +speaks for the view, that the local holding of the census had +already been established for Italy in consequence of the Social war +(Staatsrecht, ii. 8 368); but probably the carrying out of this +system was Caesar's work. + +102. II. VII. Intermediate Fuctionaries, III. III. Autonomy + +103. III. XI. Supervision of the Senate Over the Provinces +and Their Governors + +104. I. XI. Character of the Roman Law + +105. IV. XIII. Philology + +106. I. XI. Clients and Foreigners + +107. V. XI. Usury Laws + +108. V. V. Transpadanes + +109. I. XIV. Italian Measures ff. + +110. III. XII. Coins and Moneys + +111. Weights recently brought to light at Pompeii suggest +the hypothesis that at the commencement of the imperial period +alongside of the Roman pound the Attic mina (presumably in +the ratio of 3: 4) passed current as a second imperial weight +(Hermes, xvi. 311). + +112. The gold pieces, which Sulla (iv. 179) and contemporarily +Pompeius caused to be struck, both in small quantity, do not +invalidate this proposition; for they probably came to be taken +solely by weight just like the golden Phillippei which were in +circulation even down to Caesar's time. They are certainly +remarkable, because they anticipate the Caesarian imperial gold +just as Sulla's regency anticipated the new monarchy. + +113. IV. XI. Token-Money + +114. It appears, namely, that in earlier times the claims of +the state-creditors payable in silver could not be paid against their +will in gold according to its legal ratio to silver; whereas it +admits of no doubt, that from Caesar's time the gold piece had to +be taken as a valid tender for 100 silver sesterces. This was just +at that time the more important, as in consequence of the great +quantities of gold put into circulation by Caesar it stood for +a time in the currency of trade 25 per cent below the legal ratio. + +115. There is probably no inscription of the Imperial period, +which specifies sums of money otherwise than in Roman coin. + +116. Thus the Attic -drachma-, although sensibly heavier than +the -denarius-, was yet reckoned equal to it; the -tetradrachmon- of +Antioch, weighing on an average 15 grammes of silver, was made +equal to 3 Roman -denarii-, which only weigh about 12 grammes; +the -cistophorus- of Asia Minor was according to the value of silver +above 3, according to the legal tariff =2 1/2 -denarii-; the Rhodian +half -drachma- according to the value of silver=3/4, according to +the legal tariff = 5/8 of a -denarius-, and so on. + +117. III. III. Illyrian Piracy + +118. The identity of this edict drawn up perhaps by Marcus Flavius +(Macrob. Sat. i. 14, 2) and the alleged treatise of Caesar, De +Stellis, is shown by the joke of Cicero (Plutarch, Caes. 59) that +now the Lyre rises according to edict. + +We may add that it was known even before Caesar that the solar year +of 365 days 6 hours, which was the basis of the Egyptian calendar, +and which he made the basis of his, was somewhat too long. +the most exact calculation of the tropical year which the ancient world +was acquainted with, that of Hipparchus, put it at 365 d. 5 h. 52' +12"; the true length is 365 d. 5 h. 48' 48". + +119. Caesar stayed in Rome in April and Dec. 705, on each occasion +for a few days; from Sept. to Dec. 707; some four months in the autumn +of the year of fifteen months 708, and from Oct. 709 to March 710. + + + + +Notes for Chapter XII + +1. V. VIII. Clodius + +2. III. XIV. Cato's Encyclopedia + +3. These form, as is well known, the so-called seven liberal arts, +which, with this distinction between the three branches of +discipline earlier naturalized in Italy and the four subsequently +received, maintained their position throughout the middle ages. + +4. IV. XII. Latin Instruction + +5. Thus Varro (De R. R. i. 2) says: -ab aeditimo, ut dicere +didicimus a patribus nostris; ut corrigimur ab recenlibus +urbanis, ab aedituo-. + +6. The dedication of the poetical description of the earth which +passes under the name of Scymnus is remarkable in reference to +those relations. After the poet has declared his purpose of +preparing in the favourite Menandrian measure a sketch of geography +intelligible for scholars and easy to be learned by heart, he +dedicates--as Apollodorus dedicated his similar historical +compendium to Attalus Philadelphus king of Pergamus + + --athanaton aponemonta dexan Attalo + teis pragmateias epigraphein eileiphoti-- -- + +his manual to Nicomedes III king (663?-679) of Bithynia: + +--ego d' akouon, dioti ton non basileon +monos basilikein chreistoteita prosphereis +peiran epethumeis autos ep' emautou labein +kai paragenesthai kai ti basileus est' idein, +dio tei prothesei sumboulon exelexamein +... ton Apollena ton Didumei... +ou dei schedon malista kai pepeismenos +pros sein kata logon eika (koinein gar schedon +tois philomathousin anadedeichas) estian--. + +7. IV. XIII. Historical Composition + +8. V. XII. Greek Instruction + +9. Cicero testifies that the mime in his time had taken the place +of the Atellana (Ad Fam. ix. 16); with this accords the fact, that +the -mimi- and -mimae- first appear about the Sullan epoch (Ad Her. +i. 14, 24; ii. 13, 19; Atta Fr. 1 Ribbeck; Plin. H. N. vii. 43, +158; Plutarch, Sull. 2, 36). The designation -mimus-, however, is +sometimes inaccurately applied to the comedian generally. Thus +the -mimus- who appeared at the festival of Apollo in 542-543 (Festus +under -salva res est-; comp. Cicero, De Orat. ii. 59, 242) was +evidently nothing but an actor of the -palliata-, for there was at +this period no room in the development of the Roman theatre for +real mimes in the later sense. + +With the mimus of the classical Greek period--prose dialogues, +in which -genre- pictures, particularly of a rural kind, were +presented--the Roman mimus had no especial relation. + +10. With the possession of this sum, which constituted +the qualification for the first voting-class and subjected +the inheritance to the Voconian law, the boundary line was crossed +which separated the men of slender means (-tenuiores-) from +respectable people. Therefore the poor client of Catullus +(xxiii. 26) beseeches the gods to help him to this fortune. + +11. In the "Descensus ad Inferos" of Laberius all sorts of people +come forward, who have seen wonders and signs; to one there +appeared a husband with two wives, whereupon a neighbour is of +opinion that this is still worse than the vision, recently seen by +a soothsayer in a dream, of six aediles. Caesar forsooth desired-- +according to the talk of the time--to introduce polygamy in Rome +(Suetonius, Caes. 82) and he nominated in reality six aediles +instead of four. One sees from this that aberius understood +how to exercise the fool's privilege and Caesar how to permit +the fool's freedom. + +12. V. VIII. Attempts of the Regents to Check It + +13. V. XI. The Poor + +14. IV. XIII. Dramatic Arrangements + +15. He obtained from the state for every day on which he acted +1000 -denarii- (40 pounds) and besides this the pay for his +company. In later years he declined the honorarium for himself. + +16. Such an individual apparent exception as Panchaea the land of +incense (ii. 417) is to be explained from the circumstance that +this had passed from the romance of the Travels of Euhemerus +already perhaps into the poetry of Ennius, at any rate into +the poems of Lucius Manlius (iv. 242; Plin. H. N. x. a, 4) and thence +was well known to the public for which Lucretius wrote. + +17. III. XIV. Moral Effect of Tragedy + +18. This naively appears in the descriptions of war, in which +the seastorms that destroy armies, and the hosts of elephants that +trample down those who are on their own side--pictures, that is, +from the Punic wars--appear as if they belong to the immediate +present. Comp. ii. 41; v. 1226, 1303, 1339. + +19. "No doubt," says Cicero (Tusc. iii. 19, 45) in reference to +Ennius, "the glorious poet is despised by our reciters of +Euphorion." "I have safely arrived," he writes to Atticus (vii. 2 +init.), "as a most favourable north wind blew for us across from +Epirus. This spondaic line you may, if you choose, sell to one of +the new-fashioned poets as your own" (-ita belle nobis flavit ab +Epiro lenissumus Onchesmites. Hunc- --spondeiazonta-- -si cui voles +--ton neoteron-- pro tuo vendito-). + +20. V. VIII. Literature of the Opposition + +21. "For me when a boy," he somewhere says, "there sufficed +a single rough coat and a single under-garment, shoes without +stockings, a horse without a saddle; I had no daily warm bath, and +but seldom a river-bath." On account of his personal valour he +obtained in the Piratic war, where he commanded a division of +the fleet, the naval crown. + +22. V. X. The Pompeians in Spain + +23. There is hardly anything more childish than Varro's scheme of +all the philosophies, which in the first place summarily declares +all systems that do not propose the happiness of man as their +ultimate aim to be nonexistent, and then reckons the number of +philosophies conceivable under this supposition as two hundred and +eighty-eight. The vigorous man was unfortunately too much a scholar +to confess that he neither could nor would be a philosopher, +and accordingly as such throughout life he performed a blind dance- +not altogether becoming--between the Stoa, Pythagoreanism, and Diogenism. + +24. On one occasion he writes, "-Quintiforis Clodii foria ac +poemata ejus gargaridians dices; O fortuna, O fors fortuna-!" And +elsewhere, "-Cum Quintipor Clodius tot comoedias sine ulla fecerit +Musa, ego unum libellum non 'edolem' ut ait Ennius?-" This not +otherwise known Clodius must have been in all probability +a wretched imitator of Terence, as those words sarcastically laid +at his door "O fortuna, O fors fortuna!" are found occurring +in a Terentian comedy. + +The following description of himself by a poet in Varro's + --Onos Louras--, + + -Pacuvi discipulus dicor, porro is fuit Enni, + Ennius Musarum; Pompilius clueor- + +might aptly parody the introduction of Lucretius (p. 474), to whom +Varro as a declared enemy of the Epicurean system cannot have been +well disposed, and whom he never quotes. + +25. He himself once aptly says, that he had no special fondness +for antiquated words, but frequently used them, and that he was +very fond of poetical words, but did not use them. + +26. The following description is taken from the -Marcipor- +("Slave of Marcus"):-- + + -Repente noctis circiter meridie + Cum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus + Caeli chorean astricen ostenderet, + Nubes aquali, frigido velo leves + Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant, + Aquam vomentes inferam mortalibus. + Ventique frigido se ab axe eruperant, + Phrenetici septentrionum filii, + Secum ferentes tegulas, ramos, syrus. + At nos caduci, naufragi, ut ciconiae + Quarum bipennis fulminis plumas vapor + Perussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus-. + +In the --'Anthropopolis-- we find the lines: + + -Non fit thesauris, non auro pectu' solutum; + Non demunt animis curas ac relligiones + Persarum montes, non atria diviti' Crassi-. + +But the poet was successful also in a lighter vein. In the -Est +Modus Matulae- there stood the following elegant commendation of +wine:-- + + -Vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit. + Hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt, + Hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium. + Hoc continet coagulum convivia-. + +And in the --Kosmotonounei-- the wanderer returning home thus +concludes his address to the sailors: + + -Delis habenas animae leni, + Dum nos ventus flamine sudo + Suavem ad patriam perducit-. + +27. The sketches of Varro have so uncommon historical +and even poetical significance, and are yet, in consequence of +the fragmentary shape in which information regarding them has reached +us, known to so few and so irksome to study, that we may be allowed +to give in this place a resume of some of them with the few +restorations indispensable for making them readable. + +The satire Manius (Early Up!) describes the management of a rural +household. "Manius summons his people to rise with the sun, and in +person conducts them to the scene of their work. The youths make +their own bed, which labour renders soft to them, and supply +themselves with water-jar and lamp. Their drink is the clear fresh +spring, their fare bread, and onions as relish. Everything +prospers in house and field. The house is no work of art; but +an architect might learn symmetry from it. Care is taken of +the field, that it shall not be left disorderly and waste, or go to +ruin through slovenliness and neglect; in return the grateful Ceres +wards off damage from the produce, that the high-piled sheaves may +gladden the heart of the husbandman. Here hospitality still holds +good; every one who has but imbibed mother's milk is welcome. +the bread-pantry and wine-vat and the store of sausages on the rafters, +lock and key are at the service of the traveller, and piles of food +are set before him; contented sits the sated guest, looking neither +before nor behind, dozing by the hearth in the kitchen. +the warmest double-wool sheepskin is spread as a couch for him. + +"Here people still as good burgesses obey the righteous law, which +neither out of envy injures the innocent, nor out of favour pardons +the guilty. Here they speak no evil against their neighbours. +Here they trespass not with their feet on the sacred hearth, but +honour the gods with devotion and with sacrifices, throw for +the house-spirit his little bit of flesh into his appointed little +dish, and when the master of the household dies, accompany the bier +with the same prayer with which those of his father and of his +grandfather were borne forth." + +In another satire there appears a "Teacher of the Old" +(--Gerontodidaskalos--), of whom the degenerate age seems to stand +more urgently in need than of the teacher of youth, and he explains +how "once everything in Rome was chaste and pious," and now all +things are so entirely changed. "Do my eyes deceive me, or do I +see slaves in arms against their masters?--Formerly every one who +did not present himself for the levy, was sold on the part of +the state into slavery abroad; now the censor who allows cowardice and +everything to pass is called [by the aristocracy, III. XI. Separation +Of the Orders in the Theatre; IV. X. Shelving of the Censorship, V. III. +Renewal of the Censorship; V. VIII. Humiliations of the Republicans] +a great citizen, and earns praise because he does not seek +to make himself a name by annoying his fellow-citizens.-- +Formerly the Roman husbandman had his beard shaven once every week; +now the rural slave cannot have it fine enough.--Formerly one saw +on the estates a corn-granary, which held ten harvests, spacious +cellars for the wine-vats and corresponding wine-presses; now +the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid +with African cypress-wood.--Formerly the housewife turned +the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on +the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it +is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for +a pound of precious stones, and the wife her husband for a bushel of +pearls.--Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful; +now the wife surrenders herself to the first coachman that comes.-- +Formerly the blessing of children was woman's pride; now if her +husband desires for himseli children, she replies: Knowest thou not +what Ennius says? + + "'-Ter sub armis malim vitam cernere Quam semel modo parere--.--' + +"Formerly the wife was quite content, when the husband once or twice +in the year gave her a trip to the country in the uncushioned +waggon;" now, he could add (comp. Cicero, Pro Mil. 21, 55), "the +wife sulks if her husband goes to his country estate without her, +and the travelling lady is attended to the villa by the fashionable +host of Greek menials and the choir." --In a treatise of a graver +kind, "Catus or the Training of Children," Varro not only instructs +the friend who had asked him for advice on that point, regarding +the gods who were according to old usage to be sacrificed to for +the children's welfare, but, referring to the more judicious mode +of rearing children among the Persians and to his own strictly +spent youth, he warns against over-feeding and over-sleeping, +against sweet bread and fine fare--the whelps, the old man thinks, +are now fed more judiciously than the children--and likewise +against the enchantresses' charms and blessings, which in cases of +sickness so often take the place of the physician's counsel. He +advises to keep the girls at embroidery, that they may afterwards +understand how to judge properly of embroidered and textile work, +and not to allow them to put off the child's dress too early; he +warns against carrying boys to the gladiatorial games, in which +the heart is early hardened and cruelty learned.--In the "Man of Sixty +Years" Varro appears as a Roman Epimenides who had fallen asleep +when a boy of ten and waked up again after half a century. He is +astonished to find instead of his smooth-shorn boy's head an old +bald pate with an ugly snout and savage bristles like a hedgehog; +but he is still more astonished at the change in Rome. Lucrine +oysters, formerly a wedding dish, are now everyday fare; for which, +accordingly, the bankrupt glutton silently prepares the incendiary +torch. While formerly the father disposed of his boy, now +the disposal is transferred to the latter: he disposes, forsooth, of +his father by poison. The Comitium had become an exchange, +the criminal trial a mine of gold for the jurymen. No law is any +longer obeyed save only this one, that nothing is given for +nothing. All virtues have vanished; in their stead the awakened +man is saluted by impiety, perfidy, lewdness, as new denizens. +"Alas for thee, Marcus, with such a sleep and such an awakening!"-- +The sketch resembles the Catilinarian epoch, shortly after which +(about 697) the old man must have written it, and there lay a truth +in the bitter turn at the close; where Marcus, properly reproved +for his unseasonable accusations and antiquarian reminiscences, is-- +with a mock application of a primitive Roman custom--dragged as +a useless old man to the bridge and thrown into the Tiber. There was +certainly no longer room for such men in Rome. + +28. "The innocent," so ran a speech, "thou draggest forth, +trembling in every limb, and on the high margin of the river's bank +in the dawn of the morning" [thou causest them to be slaughtered]. +Several such phrases, that might be inserted without difficulty in +a commonplace novel, occur. + +29. V. XII. Poems in Prose + +30. V. XII. Catullus + +31. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome + +32. That the treatise on the Gallic war was published all at once, +has been long conjectured; the distinct proof that it was so, is +furnished by the mention of the equalization of the Boii and +the Haedui already in the first book (c. 28) whereas the Boii still +occur in the seventh (c. 10) as tributary subjects of the Haedui, +and evidently only obtained equal rights with their former masters +on account of their conduct and that of the Haedui in the war +against Vercingetorix. On the other hand any one who attentively +follows the history of the time will find in the expression as to +the Milonian crisis (vii. 6) a proof that the treatise was published +before the outbreak of the civil war; not because Pompeius is there +praised, but because Caesar there approves the exceptional laws of +702.(p. 146) This he might and could not but do, so long as he +sought to bring about a peaceful accommodation with Pompeius,( p. +175) but not after the rupture, when he reversed the condemnations +that took place on the basis of those laws injurious for him.(p. +316) Accordingly the publication of this treatise has been quite +rightly placed in 703. + +The tendency of the work we discern most distinctly in +the constant, often--most decidedly, doubtless, in the case of the +Aquitanian expedition (III. XI. The Censorship A Prop of the Nobility)-- +not successful, justification of every single act of war as +a defensive measure which the state of things had rendered inevitable. +That the adversaries of Caesar censured his attacks on the Celts +and Germans above all as unprovoked, is well known (Sueton. Caes. 24). + +33. V. XI. Amnesty + +34. V. XII. The New Roman Poetry + +35. V. XI. Caelius and Milo + +36. V. IX. Curio, V. X. Death of Curio + +37. IV. XIII. Sciences + +38. A remarkable example is the general exposition regarding +cattle in the treatise on Husbandry (ii. 1) with the nine times +nine subdivisions of the doctrine of cattle-rearing, with +the "incredible but true" fact that the mares at Olisipo (Lisbon) +become pregnant by the wind, and generally with its singular +mixture of philosophical, historical, and agricultural notices. + +39. Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who +makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after +Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius, +a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra +cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth. This +practice, which appears not merely in isolated instances but as +a main element of the philological literature of this age, presents +a very great resemblance to the mode in which till recently +comparative philology was prosecuted, before insight into +the organism of language put a stop to the occupation of the empirics. + +40. V. XII. Grammatical Science + +41. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period + +42. V. XI. Reform of the Calendar + +43. V. XII. Dramatic Spectacles + +44. Such "Greek entertainments" were very frequent not merely in +the Greek cities of Italy, especially in Naples (Cic. pro Arch. 5, +10; Plut. Brut. 21), but even now also in Rome (iv. 192; Cic. Ad +Fam. vii. 1, 3; Ad Att. xvi. 5, 1; Sueton. Caes. 39; Plut. Brut. +21). When the well-known epitaph of Licinia Eucharis fourteen +years of age, which probably belongs to the end of this period, +makes this "girl well instructed and taught in all arts by +the Muses themselves" shine as a dancer in the private exhibitions of +noble houses and appear first in public on the Greek stage (-modo +nobilium ludos decoravi choro, et Graeca in scaena prima populo +apparui-), this doubtless can only mean that she was the first girl +that appeared on the public Greek stage in Rome; as generally +indeed it was not till this epoch that women began to come forward +publicly in Rome (p. 469). + +These "Greek entertainments" in Rome seem not to have been properly +scenic, but rather to have belonged to the category of composite +exhibitions--primarily musical and declamatory--such as were not of +rare occurrence in subsequent times also in Greece (Welcker, +Griech. Trag., p. 1277). This view is supported by the prominence +of flute-playing in Polybius (xxx. 13) and of dancing in +the account of Suetonius regarding the armed dances from Asia Minor +performed at Caesar's games and in the epitaph of Eucharis; +the description also of the -citharoedus- (Ad Her. iv. 47, 60; comp. +Vitruv. v. 5, 7) must have been derived from such "Greek +entertainments." The combinations of these representations in Rome +with Greek athletic combats is significant (Polyb. l. c.; Liv. +xxxix. 22). Dramatic recitations were by no means excluded from +these mixed entertainments, since among the players whom Lucius +Anicius caused to appear in 587 in Rome, tragedians are expressly +mentioned; there was however no exhibition of plays in the strict +sense, but either whole dramas, or perhaps still more frequently +pieces taken from them, were declaimed or sung to the flute by +single artists. This must accordingly have been done also in Rome; +but to all appearance for the Roman public the main matter in these +Greek games was the music and dancing, and the text probably had +little more significance for them than the texts of the Italian +opera for the Londoners and Parisians of the present day. Those +composite entertainments with their confused medley were far better +suited for the Ionian public, and especially for exhibitions in +private houses, than proper scenic performances in the Greek +language; the view that the latter also took place in Rome cannot +be refuted, but can as little be proved. + +45. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period + + + +End of Notes for Volume V + + + +TABLE OF CALENDAR EQUIVALENTS + +A.U.C.* B.C. B.C. A.U.C. +--------------------------------------------------------------- +000 753 753 000 + 025 728 750 003 + 050 703 725 028 + 075 678 700 053 +100 653 675 078 + 125 628 650 103 + 150 603 625 128 + 175 578 600 153 +200 553 575 178 + 225 528 550 203 + 250 503 525 228 + 275 478 500 253 +300 453 475 278 + 325 428 450 303 + 350 303 425 328 + 375 378 400 353 +400 353 375 378 + 425 328 350 403 + 450 303 325 428 + 475 278 300 453 +500 253 275 478 + 525 228 250 503 + 550 203 225 528 + 575 178 200 553 +600 153 175 578 + 625 128 150 603 + 650 103 125 628 + 675 078 100 653 +700 053 075 678 + 725 028 050 703 + 750 003 025 728 + 753 000 000 753 + +*A. U. C.--Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome) + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10705 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46027fa --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10705 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10705) diff --git a/old/10705.txt b/old/10705.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9f9dbc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10705.txt @@ -0,0 +1,27685 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The History of Rome, Book V, by Theodor +Mommsen, Translated by William Purdie Dickson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The History of Rome, Book V + +Author: Theodor Mommsen + +Release Date: September 13, 2004 [eBook #10705] +Most recently updated March 16, 2005 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK V*** + + +E-text prepared by David Ceponis + + + +Note: A compilation of all five volumes of this work is also available + individually in the Project Gutenberg library. + See https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10706 + + The original German version of this work, Roemische Geschichte, + Fuenftes Buch: Die Begruendung der Militaermonarchie, is in the + Project Gutenberg E-Library as E-book #3064. + See https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3064 + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK V + +The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + +by + +THEODOR MOMMSEN + +Translated with the Sanction of the Author + +by + +William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D. +Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow + +A New Edition Revised throughout and Embodying Recent Additions + + + + + + +Preparer's Notes + +This work contains many literal citations of and references to words, +sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many languages, including +Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and Greek. This English +language Gutenberg edition, constrained within the scope of 7-bit +ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions: + +1) Words and phrases regarded as "foreign imports", italicized +in the original text published in 1903; but which in the intervening +century have become "naturalized" into English; words such as "de jure", +"en masse", etc. are not given any special typographic distinction. + +2) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do not +refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the source +manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single preceding, +and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-. + +3) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic equivalents, +are rendered with a preceding and a following double-dash; thus, --xxxx--. +Note that in some cases the root word itself is a compound form such as +xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx-- + +4) Simple non-ideographic references to vocalic sounds, single letters, +or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic references +are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x, or -xxx. + +5) The following refers particularly to the complex discussion +of alphabetic evolution in Ch. XIV: Measuring and Writing). Ideographic +references, meaning pointers to the form of representation itself rather +than to its content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-. "id:" stands for +"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a mental picture +based on the "xxxx" following the colon. "xxxx" may represent a single +symbol, a word, or an attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters. +E. g. --"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form +Followed by the form in lowercase. Such exotic parsing is necessary +to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol +may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages, +or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different +times. Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician +construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually +stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to another one +of lowercase. Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol +that in graphic form most closely resembles an ASCII uppercase "E", +but, in fact, is actually drawn more crudely. + +6) The numerous subheading references, of the form "XX. XX. Topic" +found in the appended section of endnotes are to be taken as "proximate" +rather than topical indicators. That is, the information contained +in the endnote indicates primarily the location in the main text +of the closest indexing "handle", a subheading, which may or may not +echo congruent subject matter. + +The reason for this is that in the translation from an original +paged manuscript to an unpaged "cyberscroll", page numbers are lost. +In this edition subheadings are the only remaining indexing "handles" +of sub-chapter scale. Unfortunately, in some stretches of text these +subheadings may be as sparse as merely one in three pages. Therefore, +it would seem to make best sense to save the reader time and temper +by adopting a shortest path method to indicate the desired reference. + +7) The attentive reader will notice occasional typographic or syntactic +anomalies and errors. In almost all cases this conscious and due to +an editorial decision for the first Gutenberg edition to transmit +transparently all but the most egregious flaws found in the source text +Scribner edition of 1903. Furthermore, a number of sentences may be +virtually unintelligible to the English reader due to the architecture +of relative clauses, prepositions, and verbs as carried over +from the original German. It is the preparer's ambition for a second +Gutenberg edition of the History of Rome to reconstruct and clarify +the most turgid specimens. + +8) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.; +that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be 753 B. C. +To the end of each volume is appended a table of conversion between +the two systems. + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK V: The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + + CHAPTER + + I. Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Sertorius + + II. Rule of the Sullan Restoration + + III. The Fall of the Oligarchy and the Rule of Pompeius + + IV. Pompeius and the East + + V. The Struggle of Parties during the Absence of Pompeius + + VI. Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders + + VII. The Subjugation of the West + + VIII. The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar + + IX. Death of Crassus--Rupture between the Joint Rulers + + X. Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus + + XI. The Old Republic and the New Monarchy + + XII. Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art + + + + +BOOK FIFTH + +The Establishment of the Military Monarchy + + + + +Wie er sich sieht so um und um, +Kehrt es ihm fast den Kopf herum, +Wie er wollt' Worte zu allem finden? +Wie er mocht' so viel Schwall verbinden? +Wie er mocht' immer muthig bleiben +So fort und weiter fort zu schreiben? + +Goethe. + + + + +Chapter I + +Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Sertorius + +The Opposition +Jurists +Aristocrats Friendly to Reform +Democrats + +When Sulla died in the year 676, the oligarchy which he had +restored ruled with absolute sway over the Roman state; but, +as it had been established by force, it still needed force +to maintain its ground against its numerous secret and open foes. +It was opposed not by any single party with objects clearly +expressed and under leaders distinctly acknowledged, but by a mass +of multifarious elements, ranging themselves doubtless +under the general name of the popular party, but in reality opposing +the Sullan organization of the commonwealth on very various grounds +and with very different designs. There were the men of positive +law who neither mingled in nor understood politics, but who detested +the arbitrary procedure of Sulla in dealing with the lives +and property of the burgesses. Even during Sulla's lifetime, +when all other opposition was silent, the strict jurists resisted +the regent; the Cornelian laws, for example, which deprived various +Italian communities of the Roman franchise, were treated +in judicial decisions as null and void; and in like manner the courts +held that, where a burgess had been made a prisoner of war and sold +into slavery during the revolution, his franchise was not forfeited. +There was, further, the remnant of the old liberal minority +in the senate, which in former times had laboured to effect +a compromise with the reform party and the Italians, and was now +in a similar spirit inclined to modify the rigidly oligarchic +constitution of Sulla by concessions to the Populares. +There were, moreover, the Populares strictly so called, +the honestly credulous narrow-minded radicals, who staked property +and life for the current watchwords of the party-programme, +only to discover with painful surprise after the victory +that they had been fighting not for a reality, but for a phrase. +Their special aim was to re-establish the tribunician power, which Sulla +had not abolished but had divested of its most essential prerogatives, +and which exercised over the multitude a charm all the more mysterious, +because the institution had no obvious practical use and was +in fact an empty phantom--the mere name of tribune of the people, +more than a thousand years later, revolutionized Rome. + +Transpadanes +Freedmen +Capitalists +Proletarians of the Capital +The Dispossessed +The Proscribed and Their Adherents + +There were, above all, the numerous and important classes +whom the Sullan restoration had left unsatisfied, or whose political +or private interests it had directly injured. Among those +who for such reasons belonged to the opposition ranked the dense +and prosperous population of the region between the Po and the Alps, +which naturally regarded the bestowal of Latin rights in 665(1) +as merely an instalment of the full Roman franchise, and so afforded +a ready soil for agitation. To this category belonged also +the freedmen, influential in numbers and wealth, and specially +dangerous through their aggregation in the capital, who could +not brook their having been reduced by the restoration to their +earlier, practically useless, suffrage. In the same position +stood, moreover, the great capitalists, who maintained a cautious +silence, but still as before preserved their tenacity of resentment +and their equal tenacity of power. The populace of the capital, +which recognized true freedom in free bread-corn, was likewise +discontented. Still deeper exasperation prevailed among +the burgess-bodies affected by the Sullan confiscations--whether +they like those of Pompeii, lived on their property curtailed +by the Sullan colonists, within the same ring-wall with the latter, +and at perpetual variance with them; or, like the Arretines +and Volaterrans, retained actual possession of their territory, +but had the Damocles' sword of confiscation suspended over them +by the Roman people; or, as was the case in Etruria especially, +were reduced to be beggars in their former abodes, or robbers +in the woods. Finally, the agitation extended to the whole family +connections and freedmen of those democratic chiefs who had lost +their lives in consequence of the restoration, or who were wandering +along the Mauretanian coasts, or sojourning at the court +and in the army of Mithradates, in all the misery of emigrant exile; +for, according to the strict family-associations that governed +the political feeling of this age, it was accounted a point of honour(2) +that those who were left behind should endeavour to procure for exiled +relatives the privilege of returning to their native land, and, +in the case of the dead, at least a removal of the stigma attaching +to their memory and to their children, and a restitution to the latter +of their paternal estate. More especially the immediate children +of the proscribed, whom the regent had reduced in point of law +to political Pariahs,(3) had thereby virtually received from the law +itself a summons to rise in rebellion against the existing +order of things. + +Men of Ruined Fortunes +Men of Ambition + +To all these sections of the opposition there was added the whole +body of men of ruined fortunes. All the rabble high and low, +whose means and substance had been spent in refined or in vulgar +debauchery; the aristocratic lords, who had no farther mark +of quality than their debts; the Sullan troopers whom the regent's +fiat could transform into landholders but not into husbandmen, +and who, after squandering the first inheritance of the proscribed, +were longing to succeed to a second--all these waited only +the unfolding of the banner which invited them to fight against +the existing order of things, whatever else might be inscribed on it. +From a like necessity all the aspiring men of talent, in search +of popularity, attached themselves to the opposition; not only +those to whom the strictly closed circle of the Optimates denied +admission or at least opportunities for rapid promotion, +and who therefore attempted to force their way into the phalanx +and to break through the laws of oligarchic exclusiveness and seniority +by means of popular favour, but also the more dangerous men, +whose ambition aimed at something higher than helping to determine +the destinies of the world within the sphere of collegiate intrigues. +On the advocates' platform in particular--the only field of legal +opposition left open by Sulla--even in the regent's lifetime +such aspirants waged lively war against the restoration with the weapons +of formal jurisprudence and combative oratory: for instance, +the adroit speaker Marcus Tullius Cicero (born 3rd January 648), +son of a landholder of Arpinum, speedily made himself a name +by the mingled caution and boldness of his opposition to the dictator. +Such efforts were not of much importance, if the opponent desired +nothing farther than by their means to procure for himself a curule +chair, and then to sit in it in contentment for the rest of his life. +No doubt, if this chair should not satisfy a popular man +and Gaius Gracchus should find a successor, a struggle for life +or death was inevitable; but for the present at least no name could +be mentioned, the bearer of which had proposed to himself +any such lofty aim. + +Power of the Opposition + +Such was the sort of opposition with which the oligarchic government +instituted by Sulla had to contend, when it had, earlier than +Sulla himself probably expected, been thrown by his death +on its own resources. The task was in itself far from easy, and it +was rendered more difficult by the other social and political evils +of this age--especially by the extraordinary double difficulty +of keeping the military chiefs in the provinces in subjection +to the supreme civil magistracy, and of dealing with the masses +of the Italian and extra-Italian populace accumulating in the capital, +and of the slaves living there to a great extent in de facto freedom, +without having troops at disposal. The senate was placed +as it were, in a fortress exposed and threatened on all sides, +and serious conflicts could not fail to ensue. But the means +of resistance organized by Sulla were considerable and lasting; +and although the majority of the nation was manifestly disinclined +to the government which Sulla had installed, and even animated +by hostile feelings towards it, that government might very well +maintain itself for a long time in its stronghold against +the distracted and confused mass of an opposition which was not agreed +either as to end or means, and, having no head, was broken up +into a hundred fragments. Only it was necessary that it should +be determined to maintain its position, and should bring +at least a spark of that energy, which had built the fortress, +to its defence; for in the case of a garrison which will not +defend itself, the greatest master of fortification constructs +his walls and moats in vain. + +Want of Leaders +Coterie-Systems + +The more everything ultimately depended on the personality +of the leading men on both sides, it was the more unfortunate +that both, strictly speaking, lacked leaders. The politics of +thisperiod were thoroughly under the sway of the coterie-system +in its worst form. This, indeed, was nothing new; close unions +of families and clubs were inseparable from an aristocratic +organizationof the state, and had for centuries prevailed in Rome. +But it was not till this epoch that they became all-powerful, +for it was only now (first in 690) that their influence was attested +rather than checked by legal measures of repression. + +All persons of quality, those of popular leanings no less than +the oligarchy proper, met in Hetaeriae; the mass of the burgesses +likewise, so far as they took any regular part in political events +at all, formed according to their voting-districts close unions +with an almost military organization, which found their natural +captains and agents in the presidents of the districts, "tribe- +distributors" (-divisores tribuum-). With these political clubs +everything was bought and sold; the vote of the elector especially, +but also the votes of the senator and the judge, the fists too +which produced the street riot, and the ringleaders who directed +it--the associations of the upper and of the lower ranks +were distinguished merely in the matter of tariff. The Hetaeria +decided the elections, the Hetaeria decreed the impeachments, +the Hetaeria conducted the defence; it secured the distinguished +advocate, and in case of need it contracted for an acquittal +with one of the speculators who pursued on a great scale lucrative +dealings in judges' votes. The Hetaeria commanded by its compact bands +the streets of the capital, and with the capital but too often the state. +All these things were done in accordance with a certain rule, +and, so to speak, publicly; the system of Hetaeriae was better organized +and managed than any branch of state administration; although there was, +as is usual among civilized swindlers, a tacit understanding +that there should be no direct mention of the nefarious proceedings, +nobody made a secret of them, and advocates of repute were not ashamed +to give open and intelligible hints of their relation to the Hetaeriae +of their clients. If an individual was to be found here or there +who kept aloof from such doings and yet did not forgo public life, +he was assuredly, like Marcus Cato, a political Don Quixote. +Parties and party-strife were superseded by the clubs and their rivalry; +government was superseded by intrigue. A more than equivocal +character, Publius Cethegus, formerly one of the most zealous +Marians, afterwards as a deserter received into favour by Sulla,(4) +acted a most influential part in the political doings +of this period--unrivalled as a cunning tale-bearer and mediator +between the sections of the senate, and as having a statesman's +acquaintance with the secrets of all cabals: at times the appointment +to the most important posts of command was decided by a word +from his mistress Praecia. Such a plight was only possible +where none of the men taking part in politics rose above mediocrity: +any man of more than ordinary talent would have swept away +this system of factions like cobwebs; but there was in reality +the saddest lack of men of political or military capacity. + +Phillipus +Metellus, Catulus, the Luculli + +Of the older generation the civil wars had left not a single man +of repute except the old shrewd and eloquent Lucius Philippus (consul +in 663), who, formerly of popular leanings,(5) thereafter leader +of the capitalist party against the senate,(6) and closely associated +with the Marians,(7) and lastly passing over to the victorious +oligarchy in sufficient time to earn thanks and commendation,(8) +had managed to escape between the parties. Among the men +of the following generation the most notable chiefs of the pure +aristocracy were Quintus Metellus Pius (consul in 674), Sulla's +comrade in dangers and victories; Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul +in the year of Sulla's death, 676, the son of the victor of Vercellae; +and two younger officers, the brothers Lucius and Marcus Lucullus, +of whom the former had fought with distinction under Sulla +in Asia, the latter in Italy; not to mention Optimates like Quintus +Hortensius (640-704), who had importance only as a pleader, +or men like Decimus Junius Brutus (consul in 677), Mamercus +Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (consul in 677), and other such nullities, +whose best quality was a euphonious aristocratic name. +But even those four men rose little above the average calibre +of the Optimates of this age. Catulus was like his father a man of +refined culture and an honest aristocrat, but of moderate talents +and, in particular, no soldier. Metellus was not merely estimable +in his personal character, but an able and experienced officer; +and it was not so much on account of his close relations as a kinsman +and colleague with the regent as because of his recognized ability +that he was sent in 675, after resigning the consulship, to Spain, +where the Lusitanians and the Roman emigrants under Quintus +Sertorius were bestirring themselves afresh. The two Luculli +were also capable officers--particularly the elder, who combined +very respectable military talents with thorough literary culture +and leanings to authorship, and appeared honourable also as a man. +But, as statesmen, even these better aristocrats were not much less +remiss and shortsighted than the average senators of the time. +In presence of an outward foe the more eminent among them, doubtless, +proved themselves useful and brave; but no one of them evinced +the desire or the skill to solve the problems of politics proper, +and to guide the vessel of the state through the stormy sea of intrigues +and factions as a true pilot. Their political wisdom was limited +to a sincere belief in the oligarchy as the sole means of salvation, +and to a cordial hatred and courageous execration of demagogism +as well as of every individual authority which sought to emancipate +itself. Their petty ambition was contented with little. +The stories told of Metellus in Spain--that he not only allowed +himself to be delighted with the far from harmonious lyre +of the Spanish occasional poets, but even wherever he went had himself +received like a god with libations of wine and odours of incense, +and at table had his head crowned by descending Victories amidst +theatrical thunder with the golden laurel of the conqueror-- +are no better attested than most historical anecdotes; but even +such gossip reflects the degenerate ambition of the generations +of Epigoni. Even the better men were content when they had gained +not power and influence, but the consulship and a triumph +and a place of honour in the senate; and at the very time +when with right ambition they would have just begun to be truly useful +to their country and their party, they retired from the political stage +to be lost in princely luxury. Men like Metellus and Lucius Lucullus +were, even as generals, not more attentive to the enlargement +of the Roman dominion by fresh conquests of kings and peoples than +to the enlargement of the endless game, poultry, and dessert lists +of Roman gastronomy by new delicacies from Africa and Asia Minor, +and they wasted the best part of their lives in more or less ingenious +idleness. The traditional aptitude and the individual self-denial, +on which all oligarchic government is based, were lost +in the decayed and artificially restored Roman aristocracy of this age; +in its judgment universally the spirit of clique was accounted +as patriotism, vanity as ambition, and narrow-mindedness as consistency. +Had the Sullan constitution passed into the guardianship of men +such as have sat in the Roman College of Cardinals or the Venetian +Council of Ten, we cannot tell whether the opposition would have been able +to shake it so soon; with such defenders every attack involved, +at all events, a serious peril. + +Pompeius + +Of the men, who were neither unconditional adherents nor open +opponents of the Sullan constitution, no one attracted more the eyes +of the multitude than the young Gnaeus Pompeius, who was at the time +of Sulla's death twenty-eight years of age (born 29th September 648). +The fact was a misfortune for the admired as well as +for the admirers; but it was natural. Sound in body and mind, +a capable athlete, who even when a superior officer vied with his +soldiers in leaping, running, and lifting, a vigorous and skilled +rider and fencer, a bold leader of volunteer bands, the youth had +become Imperator and triumphator at an age which excluded him +from every magistracy and from the senate, and had acquired +the first place next to Sulla in public opinion; nay, had obtained +from the indulgent regent himself--half in recognition, half in irony-- +the surname of the Great. Unhappily, his mental endowments by no means +corresponded with these unprecedented successes. He was neither +a bad nor an incapable man, but a man thoroughly ordinary, created +by nature to be a good sergeant, called by circumstances to be +a general and a statesman. An intelligent, brave and experienced, +thoroughly excellent soldier, he was still, even in his military +capacity, without trace of any higher gifts. It was characteristic +of him as a general, as well as in other respects, to set to work +with a caution bordering on timidity, and, if possible, to give +the decisive blow only when he had established an immense superiority +over his opponent. His culture was the average culture of the time; +although entirely a soldier, he did not neglect, when he went +to Rhodes, dutifully to admire, and to make presents to, +the rhetoricians there. His integrity was that of a rich man +who manages with discretion his considerable property inherited +and acquired. He did not disdain to make money in the usual senatorial +way, but he was too cold and too rich to incur special risks, +or draw down on himself conspicuous disgrace, on that account. +The vice so much in vogue among his contemporaries, rather than +any virtue of his own, procured for him the reputation--comparatively, +no doubt, well warranted--of integrity and disinterestedness. +His "honest countenance" became almost proverbial, and even after +his death he was esteemed as a worthy and moral man; he was in fact +a good neighbour, who did not join in the revolting schemes +by which the grandees of that age extended the bounds of their domains +through forced sales or measures still worse at the expense +of their humbler neighbours, and in domestic life he displayed +attachment to his wife and children: it redounds moreover to his +credit that he was the first to depart from the barbarous custom +of putting to death the captive kings and generals of the enemy, +after they had been exhibited in triumph. But this did not prevent +him from separating from his beloved wife at the command of his lord +and master Sulla, because she belonged to an outlawed family, +nor from ordering with great composure that men who had stood +by him and helped him in times of difficulty should be executed +before his eyes at the nod of the same master:(9) he was not cruel, +thoughhe was reproached with being so, but--what perhaps was worse-- +he was cold and, in good as in evil, unimpassioned. In the tumult +of battle he faced the enemy fearlessly; in civil life he was a shy +man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke +in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, +and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was-- +as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their +independence--a pliant tool in the hands of men who knew how +to manage him, especially of his freedmen and clients, by whom he had +no fear of being controlled. For nothing was he less qualified +than for a statesman. Uncertain as to his aims, unskilful in the choice +of his means, alike in little and great matters shortsighted +and helpless, he was wont to conceal his irresolution and indecision +under a solemn silence, and, when he thought to play a subtle +game, simply to deceive himself with the belief that he was +deceiving others. By his military position and his territorial +connections he acquired almost without any action of his own +a considerable party personally devoted to him, with which +the greatest things might have been accomplished; but Pompeius +was in every respect incapable of leading and keeping together a party, +and, if it still kept together, it did so--in like manner without +his action--through the sheer force of circumstances. In this, +as in other things, he reminds us of Marius; but Marius, with his +nature of boorish roughness and sensuous passion, was still less +intolerable than this most tiresome and most starched of all +artificial great men. His political position was utterly perverse. +He was a Sullan officer and under obligation to stand up for +the restored constitution, and yet again in opposition to Sulla +personally as well as to the whole senatorial government. The gens +of the Pompeii, which had only been named for some sixty years +in the consular lists, had by no means acquired full standing +in the eyes of the aristocracy; even the father of this Pompeius +had occupied a very invidious equivocal position towards +the senate,(10) and he himself had once been in the ranks +of the Cinnans(11)--recollections which were suppressed perhaps, +but not forgotten. The prominent position which Pompeius +acquired for himself under Sulla set him at inward variance +with the aristocracy, quite as much as it brought him into outward +connection with it. Weak-headed as he was, Pompeius was seized +with giddiness on the height of glory which he had climbed +with such dangerous rapidity and ease. Just as if he would himself +ridicule his dry prosaic nature by the parallel with the most +poetical of all heroic figures, he began to compare himself +with Alexander the Great, and to account himself a man of unique +standing, whom it did not beseem to be merely one of the five +hundred senators of Rome. In reality, no one was more fitted +to take his place as a member of an aristocratic government than +Pompeius. His dignified outward appearance, his solemn formality, +his personal bravery, his decorous private life, his want +of all initiative might have gained for him, had he been born +two hundred years earlier, an honourable place by the side +of Quintus Maximus and Publius Decius: this mediocrity, so characteristic +of the genuine Optimate and the genuine Roman, contributed not a little +to the elective affinity which subsisted at all times between Pompeius +and the mass of the burgesses and the senate. Even in his own age +he would have had a clearly defined and respectable position +had he contented himself with being the general of the senate, +for which he was from the outset destined. With this he was +not content, and so he fell into the fatal plight of wishing +to be something else than he could be. He was constantly aspiring +to a special position in the state, and, when it offered itself, +he could not make up his mind to occupy it; he was deeply indignant +when persons and laws did not bend unconditionally before him, +and yet he everywhere bore himself with no mere affectation +of modesty as one of many peers, and trembled at the mere thought +of undertaking anything unconstitutional. Thus constantly +at fundamental variance with, and yet at the same time the obedient +servant of, the oligarchy, constantly tormented by an ambition +which was frightened at its own aims, his much-agitated life +passed joylessly away in a perpetual inward contradiction. + +Crassus + +Marcus Crassus cannot, any more than Pompeius, be reckoned among +the unconditional adherents of the oligarchy. He is a personage +highly characteristic of this epoch. Like Pompeius, whose senior +he was by a few years, he belonged to the circle of the high Roman +aristocracy, had obtained the usual education befitting his rank, +and had like Pompeius fought with distinction under Sulla +in the Italian war. Far inferior to many of his peers in mental gifts, +literary culture, and military talent, he outstripped them +by his boundless activity, and by the perseverance with which he strove +to possess everything and to become all-important. Above all, +he threw himself into speculation. Purchases of estates during +the revolution formed the foundation of his wealth; but he disdained +no branch of gain; he carried on the business of building +in the capital on a great scale and with prudence; he entered +into partnership with his freedmen in the most varied undertakings; +he acted as banker both in and out of Rome, in person or by his agents; +he advanced money to his colleagues in the senate, and undertook-- +as it might happen--to execute works or to bribe the tribunals +on their account. He was far from nice in the matter +of making profit. On occasion of the Sullan proscriptions a forgery +in the lists had been proved against him, for which reason Sulla +made no more use of him thenceforward in the affairs of state: +he did not refuse to accept an inheritance, because the testamentary +document which contained his name was notoriously forged; he made +no objection, when his bailiffs by force or by fraud dislodged +the petty holders from lands which adjoined his own. He avoided open +collisions, however, with criminal justice, and lived himself +like a genuine moneyed man in homely and simple style. In this way +Crassus rose in the course of a few years from a man of ordinary +senatorial fortune to be the master of wealth which not long before +his death, after defraying enormous extraordinary expenses, still +amounted to 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds). He had +become the richest of Romans and thereby, at the same time, a great +political power. If, according to his expression, no one might +call himself rich who could not maintain an army from his revenues, +one who could do this was hardly any longer a mere citizen. +In reality the views of Crassus aimed at a higher object than +the possession of the best-filled money-chest in Rome. He grudged +no pains to extend his connections. He knew how to salute by name +every burgess of the capital. He refused to no suppliant +his assistance in court. Nature, indeed, had not done much +for him as an orator: his speaking was dry, his delivery monotonous, +he had difficulty of hearing; but his tenacity of purpose, +which no wearisomeness deterred and no enjoyment distracted, overcame +such obstacles. He never appeared unprepared, he never extemporized, +and so he became a pleader at all times in request and at all times +ready; to whom it was no derogation that a cause was rarely too bad +for him, and that he knew how to influence the judges not merely +by his oratory, but also by his connections and, on occasion, +by his gold. Half the senate was in debt to him; his habit of advancing +to "friends" money without interest revocable at pleasure rendered +a number of influential men dependent on him, and the more so that, +like a genuine man of business, he made no distinction among +the parties, maintained connections on all hands, and readily lent +to every one who was able to pay or otherwise useful. The most daring +party-leaders, who made their attacks recklessly in all directions, +were careful not to quarrel with Crassus; he was compared +to the bull of the herd, whom it was advisable for none to provoke. +That such a man, so disposed and so situated, could not strive +after humble aims is clear; and, in a very different way from Pompeius, +Crassus knew exactly like a banker the objects and the means +of political speculation. From the origin of Rome capital +was a political power there; the age was of such a sort, that everything +seemed accessible to gold as to iron. If in the time of revolution +a capitalist aristocracy might have thought of overthrowing +the oligarchy of the gentes, a man like Crassus might raise +his eyes higher than to the -fasces- and embroidered mantle +of the triumphators. For the moment he was a Sullan and adherent +of the senate; but he was too much of a financier to devote himself +to a definite political party, or to pursue aught else than his personal +advantage. Why should Crassus, the wealthiest and most intriguing +man in Rome, and no penurious miser but a speculator on the greatest +scale, not speculate also on the crown? Alone, perhaps, +he could not attain this object; but he had already carried out +various great transactions in partnership; it was not impossible +that for this also a suitable partner might present himself. +It is a trait characteristic of the time, that a mediocre orator +and officer, a politician who took his activity for energy +and his covetousness for ambition, one who at bottom had nothing +but a colossal fortune and the mercantile talent of forming +connections--that such a man, relying on the omnipotence of coteries +and intrigues, could deem himself on a level with the first generals +and statesmen of his day, and could contend with them +for the highest prize which allures political ambition. + +Leaders of the Democrats + +In the opposition proper, both among the liberal conservatives +and among the Populares, the storms of revolution had made fearful +havoc. Among the former, the only surviving man of note was Gaius +Cotta (630-c. 681), the friend and ally of Drusus, and as such +banished in 663,(12) and then by Sulla's victory brought back +to his native land;(13) he was a shrewd man and a capable advocate, +but not called, either by the weight of his party or by that of his +personal standing, to act more than a respectable secondary part. +In the democratic party, among the rising youth, Gaius Julius +Caesar, who was twenty-four years of age (born 12 July 652?(14)), +drew towards him the eyes of friend and foe. His relationship +with Marius and Cinna (his father's sister had been the wife of Marius, +he himself had married Cinna's daughter); the courageous refusal +of the youth who had scarce outgrown the age of boyhood to send +a divorce to his young wife Cornelia at the bidding of the dictator, +as Pompeius had in the like case done; his bold persistence +in the priesthood conferred upon him by Marius, but revoked by Sulla; +his wanderings during the proscription with which he was threatened, +and which was with difficulty averted by the intercession +of his relatives; his bravery in the conflicts before Mytilene +and in Cilicia, a bravery which no one had expected from the tenderly +reared and almost effeminately foppish boy; even the warnings +of Sulla regarding the "boy in the petticoat" in whom more than a Marius +lay concealed--all these were precisely so many recommendations +in the eyes of the democratic party. But Caesar could only be the object +of hopes for the future; and the men who from their age and their +public position would have been called now to seize the reins +of the party and the state, were all dead or in exile. + +Lepidus + +Thus the leadership of the democracy, in the absence of a man +with a true vocation for it, was to be had by any one who might please +to give himself forth as the champion of oppressed popular freedom; +and in this way it came to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, a Sullan, +who from motives more than ambiguous deserted to the camp +of the democracy. Once a zealous Optimate, and a large purchaser +at the auctions of the proscribed estates, he had, as governor of Sicily, +so scandalously plundered the province that he was threatened +with impeachment, and, to evade it, threw himself into opposition. +It was a gain of doubtful value. No doubt the opposition +thus acquired a well-known name, a man of quality, a vehement orator +in the Forum; but Lepidus was an insignificant and indiscreet +personage, who did not deserve to stand at the head either +in council or in the field. Nevertheless the opposition welcomed him, +and the new leader of the democrats succeeded not only in deterring +his accusers from prosecuting the attack on him which they had +begun, but also in carrying his election to the consulship +for 676; in which, we may add, he was helped not only by the treasures +exacted in Sicily, but also by the foolish endeavour of Pompeius +to show Sulla and the pure Sullans on this occasion what he could do. +Now that the opposition had, on the death of Sulla, found a head +once more in Lepidus, and now that this their leader had become +the supreme magistrate of the state, the speedy outbreak of a new +revolution in the capital might with certainty be foreseen. + +The Emigrants in Spain +Sertorius + +But even before the democrats moved in the capital, the democratic +emigrants had again bestirred themselves in Spain. The soul +of this movement was Quintus Sertorius. This excellent man, +a native of Nursia in the Sabine land, was from the first +of a tender and even soft organization--as his almost enthusiastic love +for his mother, Raia, shows--and at the same time of the most chivalrous +bravery, as was proved by the honourable scars which he brought +home from the Cimbrian, Spanish, and Italian wars. Although wholly +untrained as an orator, he excited the admiration of learned +advocates by the natural flow and the striking self-possession +of his address. His remarkable military and statesmanly talent +had found opportunity of shining by contrast, more particularly +in the revolutionary war which the democrats so wretchedly and stupidly +mismanaged; he was confessedly the only democratic officer +who knew how to prepare and to conduct war, and the only democratic +statesman who opposed the insensate and furious doings of his party +with statesmanlike energy. His Spanish soldiers called him the new +Hannibal, and not merely because he had, like that hero, lost +an eye in war. He in reality reminds us of the great Phoenician +by his equally cunning and courageous strategy, by his rare talent +of organizing war by means of war, by his adroitness in attracting +foreign nations to his interest and making them serviceable to his ends, +by his prudence in success and misfortune, by the quickness +of his ingenuity in turning to good account his victories +and averting the consequences of his defeats. It may be doubted +whether any Roman statesman of the earlier period, or of the present, +can be compared in point of versatile talent to Sertorius. +After Sulla's generals had compelled him to quit Spain,(15) +he had led a restless life of adventure along the Spanish and African +coasts, sometimes in league, sometimes at war, with the Cilician +pirates who haunted these seas, and with the chieftains +of the roving tribes of Libya. The victorious Roman restoration had +pursued him even thither: when he was besieging Tingis (Tangiers), +a corps under Pacciaecus from Roman Africa had come to the help +of the prince of the town; but Pacciaecus was totally defeated, +and Tingis was taken by Sertorius. On the report of such achievements +by the Roman refugee spreading abroad, the Lusitanians, who, +notwithstanding their pretended submission to the Roman supremacy, +practically maintained their independence, and annually fought +with the governors of Further Spain, sent envoys to Sertorius +in Africa, to invite him to join them, and to commit to him +the command of their militia. + +Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection +Metellus Sent to Spain + +Sertorius, who twenty years before had served under Titus Didius +in Spain and knew the resources of the land, resolved to comply +with the invitation, and, leaving behind a small detachment +on the Mauretanian coast, embarked for Spain (about 674). +The straits separating Spain and Africa were occupied by a Roman +squadron commanded by Cotta; to steal through it was impossible; +so Sertorius fought his way through and succeeded in reaching +the Lusitanians. There were not more than twenty Lusitanian +communities that placed themselves under his orders; and even +of "Romans" he mustered only 2600 men, a considerable part +of whom were deserters from the army of Pacciaecus or Africans +armed after the Roman style. Sertorius saw that everything depended on +his associating with the loose guerilla-bands a strong nucleus +of troops possessing Roman organization and discipline: for this end +he reinforced the band which he had brought with him by levying +4000 infantry and 700 cavalry, and with this one legion +and the swarms of Spanish volunteers advanced against the Romans. +The command in Further Spain was held by Lucius Fufidius, +who through his absolute devotion to Sulla--well tried amidst +the proscriptions--had risen from a subaltern to be propraetor; +he was totally defeated on the Baetis; 2000 Romans covered the field +of battle. Messengers in all haste summoned the governor +of the adjoining province of the Ebro, Marcus Domitius Calvinus, +to check the farther advance of the Sertorians; and there soon appeared +(675) also the experienced general Quintus Metellus, sent by Sulla +to relieve the incapable Fufidius in southern Spain. But they did +not succeed in mastering the revolt. In the Ebro province +not only was the army of Calvinus destroyed and he himself slain +by the lieutenant of Sertorius, the quaestor Lucius Hirtuleius, +but Lucius Manlius, the governor of Transalpine Gaul, who had crossed +the Pyrenees with three legions to the help of his colleague, +was totally defeated by the same brave leader. With difficulty +Manlius escaped with a few men to Ilerda (Lerida) and thence +to his province, losing on the march his whole baggage through +a sudden attack of the Aquitanian tribes. In Further Spain Metellus +penetrated into the Lusitanian territory; but Sertorius succeeded +during the siege of Longobriga (not far from the mouth +of the Tagus) in alluring a division under Aquinus into an ambush, +and thereby compelling Metellus himself to raise the siege +and to evacuate the Lusitanian territory. Sertorius followed him, +defeated on the Anas (Guadiana) the corps of Thorius, and inflicted +vast damage by guerilla warfare on the army of the commander-in- +chief himself. Metellus, a methodical and somewhat clumsy +tactician, was in despair as to this opponent, who obstinately +declined a decisive battle, but cut off his supplies +and communications and constantly hovered round him on all sides. + +Organizations of Sertorius + +These extraordinary successes obtained by Sertorius +in the two Spanish provinces were the more significant, +that they were not achieved merely by arms and were not of a mere +military nature. The emigrants as such were not formidable; +nor were isolated successes of the Lusitanians under this or that +foreign leader of much moment. But with the most decided political +and patriotic tact Sertorius acted, whenever he could do so, +not as condottiere of the Lusitanians in revolt against Rome, +but as Roman general and governor of Spain, in which capacity +he had in fact been sent thither by the former rulers. +He began(16) to form the heads of the emigration into a senate, +which was to increase to 300 members and to conduct affairs +and to nominate magistrates in Roman form. He regarded his army +as a Roman one, and filled the officers' posts, without exception, +with Romans. When facing the Spaniards, he was the governor, +who by virtue of his office levied troops and other support +from them; but he was a governor who, instead of exercising +the usual despotic sway, endeavoured to attach the provincials +to Rome and to himself personally. His chivalrous character +rendered it easy for him to enter into Spanish habits, +and excited in the Spanish nobility the most ardent enthusiasm +for the wonderful foreigner who had a spirit so kindred +with their own. According to the warlike custom of personal following +which subsisted in Spain as among the Celts and the Germans, +thousands of the noblest Spaniards swore to stand faithfully +by their Roman general unto death; and in them Sertorius found +more trustworthy comrades than in his countrymen and party-associates. +He did not disdain to turn to account the superstition of the ruder +Spanish tribes, and to have his plans of war brought to him as commands +of Diana by the white fawn of the goddess. Throughout he exercised +a just and gentle rule. His troops, at least so far as his eye +and his arm reached, had to maintain the strictest discipline. +Gentle as he generally was in punishing, he showed himself inexorable +when any outrage was perpetrated by his soldiers on friendly soil. +Nor was he inattentive to the permanent alleviation of the condition +of the provincials; he reduced the tribute, and directed the soldiers +to construct winter barracks for themselves, so that the oppressive +burden of quartering the troops was done away and thus a source +of unspeakable mischief and annoyance was stopped. For the children +of Spaniards of quality an academy was erected at Osca (Huesca), +in which they received the higher instruction usual in Rome, +learning to speak Latin and Greek, and to wear the toga--a remarkable +measure, which was by no means designed merely to take from the allies +in as gentle a form as possible the hostages that in Spain +were inevitable, but was above all an emanation from, and an advance +onthe great project of Gaius Gracchus and the democratic +party for gradually Romanizing the provinces. It was the first +attempt to accomplish their Romanization not by extirpating +the old inhabitants and filling their places with Italian emigrants, +but by Romanizing the provincials themselves. The Optimates +in Rome sneered at the wretched emigrant, the runaway from the Italian +army, the last of the robber-band of Carbo; the sorry taunt +recoiled upon its authors. The masses that had been brought into +the field against Sertorius were reckoned, including the Spanish +general levy, at 120,000 infantry, 2000 archers and slingers, +and 6000 cavalry. Against this enormous superiority of force Sertorius +had not only held his ground in a series of successful conflicts +and victories, but had also reduced the greater part of Spain +under his power. In the Further province Metellus found himself +confined to the districts immediately occupied by his troops; +hereall the tribes, who could, had taken the side of Sertorius. +In the Hither province, after the victories of Hirtuleius, +there no longer existed a Roman army. Emissaries of Sertorius +roamed through the whole territory of Gaul; there, too, +the tribes began to stir, and bands gathering together began +to make the Alpine passes insecure. Lastly the sea too belonged +quite as much to the insurgents as to the legitimate government, +since the allies of the former--the pirates--were almost as powerful +in the Spanish waters as the Roman ships of war. At the promontory +of Diana (now Denia, between Valencia and Alicante) Sertorius established +for the corsairs a fixed station, where they partly lay in wait +for such Roman ships as were conveying supplies to the Roman +maritime towns and the army, partly carried away or delivered goods +for the insurgents, and partly formed their medium of intercourse +with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving +to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration +tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time +when so much combustible matter was everywhere accumulated +in the Roman empire. + +Death of Sulla and Its Consequences + +Amidst this state of matters the sudden death of Sulla took place +(676). So long as the man lived, at whose voice a trained +and trustworthy army of veterans was ready any moment to rise, +the oligarchy might tolerate the almost (as it seemed) +definite abandonment of the Spanish provinces to the emigrants, +and the election of the leader of the opposition at home to be supreme +magistrate, at all events as transient misfortunes; and in their +shortsighted way, yet not wholly without reason, might cherish +confidence either that the opposition would not venture to proceed +to open conflict, or that, if it did venture, he who had twice +saved the oligarchy would set it up a third time. Now the state +of things was changed. The democratic Hotspurs in the capital, +long impatient of the endless delay and inflamed by the brilliant news +from Spain, urged that a blow should be struck; and Lepidus, +with whom the decision for the moment lay, entered into the proposal +with all the zeal of a renegade and with his own characteristic +frivolity. For a moment it seemed as if the torch which kindled +the funeral pile of the regent would also kindle civil war; +but the influence of Pompeius and the temper of the Sullan veterans +induced the opposition to let the obsequies of the regent +pass over in peace. + +Insurrection of Lepidus + +Yet all the more openly were arrangements thenceforth made +to introduce a fresh revolution. Daily the Forum resounded +with accusations against the "mock Romulus" and his executioners. +Even before the great potentate had closed his eyes, the overthrow +of the Sullan constitution, the re-establishment of the distributions +of grain, the reinstating of the tribunes of the people in their +former position, the recall of those who were banished contrary +to law, the restoration of the confiscated lands, were openly indicated +by Lepidus and his adherents as the objects at which they aimed. +Now communications were entered into with the proscribed; +Marcus Perpenna, governor of Sicily in the days of Cinna,(17) +arrived in the capital. The sons of those whom Sulla had declared +guilty of treason--on whom the laws of the restoration bore +with intolerable severity--and generally the more noted men of Marian +views were invited to give their accession. Not a few, such as +the young Lucius Cinna, joined the movement; others, however, +followed the example of Gaius Caesar, who had returned home from Asia +on receiving the accounts of the death of Sulla and of the plans +of Lepidus, but after becoming more accurately acquainted +with the character of the leader and of the movement prudently withdrew. +Carousing and recruiting went on in behalf of Lepidus +in the taverns and brothels of the capital. At length a conspiracy +against the new order of things was concocted among the Etruscan +malcontents.(18) + +All this took place under the eyes of the government The consul +Catulus as well as the more judicious Optimates urged an immediate +decisive interference and suppression of the revolt in the bud; +the indolent majority, however, could not make up their minds to begin +the struggle, but tried to deceive themselves as long as possible +by a system of compromises and concessions. Lepidus also on his +part at first entered into it. The suggestion, which proposed +a restoration of the prerogatives taken away from the tribunes +of the people, he as well as his colleague Catulus repelled. +On the other hand, the Gracchan distribution of grain +was to a limited extent re-established. According to it not all +(as according to the Sempronian law) but only a definite number-- +presumably 40,000--of the poorer burgesses appear to have received +the earlier largesses, as Gracchus had fixed them, of five -modii- +monthly at the price of 6 1/3 -asses- (3 pence)--a regulation +which occasioned to the treasury an annual net loss of at least +40,000 pounds.(19) The opposition, naturally as little satisfied +as it was decidedly emboldened by this partial concession, displayed +all the more rudeness and violence in the capital; and in Etruria, +the true centre of all insurrections of the Italian proletariate, +civil war already broke out, the dispossessed Faesulans resumed +possession of their lost estates by force of arms, and several +of the veterans settled there by Sulla perished in the tumult. +The senate on learning what had occurred resolved to send the two consuls +thither, in order to raise troops and suppress the insurrection.(20) +It was impossible to adopt a more irrational course. The senate, +in presence of the insurrection, evinced its pusillanimity +and its fears by the re-establishment of the corn-law; in order +to be relieved from a street-riot, it furnished the notorious +head of the insurrection with an army; and, when the two consuls +were bound by the most solemn oath which could be contrived not to turn +the arms entrusted to them against each other, it must have required +the superhuman obduracy of oligarchic consciences to think of erecting +such a bulwark against the impending insurrection. Of course Lepidus +armed in Etruria not for the senate, but for the insurrection-- +sarcastically declaring that the oath which he had taken bound him +only for the current year. The senate put the oracular machinery +in motion to induce him to return, and committed to him the conduct +of the impending consular elections; but Lepidus evaded compliance, +and, while messengers passed to and fro and the official year drew +to an end amidst proposals of accommodation, his force swelled to an army. +When at length, in the beginning of the following year (677), +the definite order of the senate was issued to Lepidus to return +without delay, the proconsul haughtily refused obedience, +and demanded in his turn the renewal of the former tribunician power, +the reinstatement of those who had been forcibly ejected +from their civic rights and their property, and, besides this, +his own re-election as consul for the current year or, in other words, +the -tyrannis- in legal form. + +Outbreak of the War +Lepidus Defeated +Death of Lepidus + +Thus war was declared. The senatorial party could reckon, in addition to +the Sullan veterans whose civil existence was threatened by Lepidus, +upon the army assembled by the proconsul Catulus; and so, in compliance +with the urgent warnings of the more sagacious, particularly of Philippus, +Catulus was entrusted by the senate with the defence of the capital +and the repelling of the main force of the democratic party stationed +in Etruria. At the same time Gnaeus Pompeius was despatched with another +corps to wrest from his former protege the valley of the Po, which was held +by Lepidus' lieutenant, Marcus Brutus. While Pompeius speedily +accomplished his commission and shut up the enemy's general closely +in Mutina, Lepidus appeared before the capital in order to conquer +it for the revolution as Marius had formerly done by storm. +The right bank of the Tiber fell wholly into his power, and he was able +even to cross the river. The decisive battle was fought +on the Campus Martius, close under the walls of the city. +But Catulus conquered; and Lepidus was compelled to retreat to Etruria, +while another division, under his son Scipio, threw itself +into the fortress of Alba. Thereupon the rising was substantially +atan end. Mutina surrendered to Pompeius; and Brutus was, +notwithstanding the safe-conduct promised to him, subsequently +put to death by order of that general. Alba too was, after a long siege, +reduced by famine, and the leader there was likewise executed. +Lepidus, pressed on two sides by Catulus and Pompeius, fought another +engagement on the coast of Etruria in order merely to procure +the means of retreat, and then embarked at the port of Cosa for Sardinia +from which point he hoped to cut off the supplies of the capital, +and to obtain communication with the Spanish insurgents. +But the governor of the island opposed to him a vigorous resistance; +and he himself died, not long after his landing, of consumption (677), +whereupon the war in Sardinia came to an end. A part of his soldiers +dispersed; with the flower of the insurrectionary army +and with a well-filled chest the late praetor, Marcus Perpenna, +proceeded to Liguria, and thence to Spain to join the Sertorians. + +Pompeius Extorts the Command in Spain + +The oligarchy was thus victorious over Lepidus; but it found itself +compelled by the dangerous turn of the Sertorian war to concessions, +which violated the letter as well as the spirit of the Sullan +constitution. It was absolutely necessary to send a strong +army and an able general to Spain; and Pompeius indicated, +very plainly, that he desired, or rather demanded, this commission. +The pretension was bold. It was already bad enough that they +had allowed this secret opponent again to attain an extraordinary +command in the pressure of the Lepidian revolution; but it was far +more hazardous, in disregard of all the rules instituted by Sulla +for the magisterial hierarchy, to invest a man who had hitherto +filled no civil office with one of the most important ordinary +provincial governorships, under circumstances in which the observance +of the legal term of a year was not to be thought of. +The oligarchy had thus, even apart from the respect due to their +general Metellus, good reason to oppose with all earnestness +this new attempt of the ambitious youth to perpetuate his exceptional +position. But this was not easy. In the first place, they had +not a single man fitted for the difficult post of general in Spain. +Neither of the consuls of the year showed any desire to measure +himself against Sertorius; and what Lucius Philippus said in a full +meeting of the senate had to be admitted as too true--that, among +all the senators of note, not one was able and willing to command +in a serious war. Yet they might, perhaps, have got over this, +and after the manner of oligarchs, when they had no capable candidate, +have filled the place with some sort of makeshift, if Pompeius had +merely desired the command and had not demanded it at the head +of an army. He had already lent a deaf ear to the injunctions +of Catulus that he should dismiss the army; it was at least doubtful +whether those of the senate would find a better reception, +and the consequences of a breach no one could calculate-- +the scale of aristocracy might very easily mount up, if the sword +of a well-known general were thrown into the opposite scale. +So the majority resolved on concession. Not from the people, +which constitutionally ought to have been consulted in a case +where a private man was to be invested with the supreme magisterial +power, but from the senate, Pompeius received proconsular authority +and the chief command in Hither Spain; and, forty days after he had +received it, crossed the Alps in the summer of 677. + +Pompeius in Gaul + +First of all the new general found employment in Gaul, +where no formal insurrection had broken out, but serious disturbances +of the peace had occurred at several places; in consequence +of which Pompeius deprived the cantons of the Volcae-Arecomici +and the Helvii of their independence, and placed them under Massilia. +He also laid out a new road over the Cottian Alps (Mont Genevre,(21)), +and so established a shorter communication between the valley +of the Po and Gaul. Amidst this work the best season of the year +passed away; it was not till late in autumn that Pompeius crossed +the Pyrenees. + +Appearance of Pompeius in Spain + +Sertorius had meanwhile not been idle. He had despatched +Hirtuleius into the Further province to keep Metellus in check, +and had himself endeavoured to follow up his complete victory +in the Hither province, and to prepare for the reception of Pompeius. +The isolated Celtiberian towns there, which still adhered to Rome, +were attacked and reduced one after another; at last, in the very +middle of winter, the strong Contrebia (south-east of Saragossa) +had fallen. In vain the hard-pressed towns had sent message +after message to Pompeius; he would not be induced by any entreaties +to depart from his wonted rut of slowly advancing. With the exception +of the maritime towns, which were defended by the Roman fleet, +and the districts of the Indigetes and Laletani in the north-east +corner of Spain, where Pompeius established himself after he had +at length crossed the Pyrenees, and made his raw troops bivouac +throughout the winter to inure them to hardships, the whole +of Hither Spain had at the end of 677 become by treaty or force +dependent on Sertorius, and the district on the upper and middle +Ebro thenceforth continued the main stay of his power. Even +the apprehension, which the fresh Roman force and the celebrated name +of the general excited in the army of the insurgents, had a salutary +effect on it. Marcus Perpenna, who hitherto as the equal +of Sertorius in rank had claimed an independent command over the force +which he had brought with him from Liguria, was, on the news +of the arrival of Pompeius in Spain, compelled by his soldiers +to place himself under the orders of his abler colleague. + +For the campaign of 678 Sertorius again employed the corps +of Hirtuleius against Metellus, while Perpenna with a strong army +took up his position along the lower course of the Ebro to prevent +Pompeius from crossing the river, if he should march, as was +to be expected, in a southerly direction with the view of effecting +a junction with Metellus, and along the coast for the sake +of procuring supplies for his troops. The corps of Gaius Herennius +was destined to the immediate support of Perpenna; farther inland +on the upper Ebro, Sertorius in person prosecuted meanwhile +the subjugation of several districts friendly to Rome, and held himself +at the same time ready to hasten according to circumstances +to the aid of Perpenna or Hirtuleius. It was still his intention +to avoid any pitched battle, and to annoy the enemy by petty +conflicts and cutting off supplies. + +Pompeius Defeated + +Pompeius, however, forced the passage of the Ebro against Perpenna +and took up a position on the river Pallantias, near Saguntum, +whence, as we have already said, the Sertorians maintained their +communications with Italy and the east. It was time that Sertorius +should appear in person, and throw the superiority of his numbers +and of his genius into the scale against the greater excellence +of the soldiers of his opponent. For a considerable time the struggle +was concentrated around the town of Lauro (on the Xucar, south +of Valencia), which had declared for Pompeius and was on that account +besieged by Sertorius. Pompeius exerted himself to the utmost +to relieve it; but, after several of his divisions had already been +assailed separately and cut to pieces, the great warrior found +himself--just when he thought that he had surrounded the Sertorians, +and when he had already invited the besieged to be spectators +of the capture of the besieging army--all of a sudden completely +outmanoeuvred; and in order that he might not be himself +surrounded, he had to look on from his camp at the capture +and reduction to ashes of the allied town and at the carrying off +of its inhabitants to Lusitania--an event which induced a number +of towns that had been wavering in middle and eastern Spain +to adhere anew to Sertorius. + +Victories of Metellus + +Meanwhile Metellus fought with better fortune. In a sharp +engagement at Italica (not far from Seville), which Hirtuleius had +imprudently risked, and in which both generals fought hand to hand +and Hirtuleius was wounded, Metellus defeated him and compelled him +to evacuate the Roman territory proper, and to throw himself +into Lusitania. This victory permitted Metellus to unite with Pompeius. +The two generals took up their winter-quarters in 678-79 +at the Pyrenees, and in the next campaign in 679 they resolved +to make a joint attack on the enemy in his position near Valentia. +But while Metellus was advancing, Pompeius offered battle beforehand +to the main army of the enemy, with a view to wipe out the stain +of Lauro and to gain the expected laurels, if possible, alone. +With joy Sertorius embraced the opportunity of fighting with Pompeius +before Metellus arrived. + +Battle on the Sucro + +The armies met on the river Sucro (Xucar): after a sharp conflict +Pompeius was beaten on the right wing, and was himself carried +from the field severely wounded. Afranius no doubt conquered +with the left and took the camp of the Sertorians, but during its pillage +he was suddenly assailed by Sertorius and compelled also to give way. +Had Sertorius been able to renew the battle on the following +day, the army of Pompeius would perhaps have been annihilated. +But meanwhile Metellus had come up, had overthrown the corps +of Perpenna ranged against him, and taken his camp: it was not +possible to resume the battle against the two armies united. The +successes of Metellus, the junction of the hostile forces, the +sudden stagnation after the victory, diffused terror among the +Sertorians; and, as not unfrequently happened with Spanish armies, +in consequence of this turn of things the greater portion +of the Sertorian soldiers dispersed. But the despondency passed away +as quickly as it had come; the white fawn, which represented +in the eyes of the multitude the military plans of the general, +was soon more popular than ever; in a short time Sertorius appeared +with a new army confronting the Romans in the level country +to the south of Saguntum (Murviedro), which firmly adhered to Rome, +while the Sertorian privateers impeded the Roman supplies by sea, +and scarcity was already making itself felt in the Roman camp. +Another battle took place in the plains of the river Turia +(Guadalaviar), and the struggle was long undecided. Pompeius +with the cavalry was defeated by Sertorius, and his brother-in-law +and quaestor, the brave Lucius Memmius, was slain; on the other hand +Metellus vanquished Perpenna, and victoriously repelled the attack +of the enemy's main army directed against him, receiving himself +a wound in the conflict. Once more the Sertorian army dispersed. +Valentia, which Gaius Herennius held for Sertorius, was taken +and razed to the ground. The Romans, probably for a moment, +cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist. +The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating +far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress +Clunia on the upper Douro. But while they vainly invested +this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities +assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even +before the expiry of the year stood once more as general +at the head of an army. + +Again the Roman generals had to take up their winter quarters +with the cheerless prospect of an inevitable renewal of their Sisyphean +war-toils. It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region +of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy +and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe; +Pompeius led his troops first into the territory of the Vascones(22) +(Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei +(about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul. + +Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +For five years the Sertorian war thus continued, and still +there seemed no prospect of its termination. The state suffered +from it beyond description. The flower of the Italian youth perished +amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns. The public treasury +was not only deprived of the Spanish revenues, but had annually +to send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies +very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how +to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman +civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received +a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case +ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness, +and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities. +Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless +hardships to endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided +with necessaries by the Roman fleet, and the situation of the faithful +communities in the interior was almost desperate. Gaul suffered +hardly less, partly from the requisitions for contingents +of infantry and cavalry, for grain and money, partly +from the oppressive burden of the winter-quarters, which rose +to an intolerable degree in consequence of the bad harvest of 680; +almost all the local treasuries were compelled to betake themselves +to the Roman bankers, and to burden themselves with a crushing load +of debt. Generals and soldiers carried on the war with reluctance. +The generals had encountered an opponent far superior in talent, +a tough and protracted resistance, a warfare of very serious perils +and of successes difficult to be attained and far from brilliant; +it was asserted that Pompeius was scheming to get himself recalled +from Spain and entrusted with a more desirable command somewhere +else. The soldiers, too, found little satisfaction in a campaign +in which not only was there nothing to be got save hard blows +and worthless booty, but their very pay was doled out to them +with extreme irregularity. Pompeius reported to the senate, at the end +of 679, that the pay was two years in arrear, and that the army +was threatening to break up. The Roman government might certainly +have obviated a considerable portion of these evils, if they could have +prevailed on themselves to carry on the Spanish war with less +remissness, to say nothing of better will. In the main, however, +it was neither their fault nor the fault of their generals +that a genius so superior as that of Sertorius was able to carry on +this petty warfare year after year, despite of all numerical +and military superiority, on ground so thoroughly favourable +to insurrectionary and piratical warfare. So little could its end +be foreseen, that the Sertorian insurrection seemed rather +as if it would become intermingled with other contemporary revolts +and thereby add to its dangerous character. Just at that time +the Romans were contending on every sea with piratical fleets, +in Italy with the revolted slaves, in Macedonia with the tribes +on the lower Danube; and in the east Mithradates, partly induced +by the successes of the Spanish insurrection, resolved once more +to try the fortune of arms. That Sertorius had formed connections +with the Italian and Macedonian enemies of Rome, cannot be distinctly +affirmed, although he certainly was in constant intercourse +with the Marians in Italy. With the pirates, on the other hand, +he had previously formed an avowed league, and with the Pontic king-- +with whom he had long maintained relations through the medium +of the Roman emigrants staying at his court--he now concluded +a formal treaty of alliance, in which Sertorius ceded to the king +the client-states of Asia Minor, but not the Roman province of Asia, +and promised, moreover, to send him an officer qualified to lead +his troops, and a number of soldiers, while the king, in turn, +bound himself to transmit to Sertorius forty ships and 3000 talents +(720,000 pounds). The wise politicians in the capital were already +recalling the time when Italy found itself threatened by Philip +from the east and by Hannibal from the west; they conceived +that the new Hannibal, just like his predecessor, after having +by himself subdued Spain, could easily arrive with the forces +of Spain in Italy sooner than Pompeius, in order that, +like the Phoenician formerly, he might summon the Etruscans +and Samnites to arms against Rome. + +Collapse of the Power of Sertorius + +But this comparison was more ingenious than accurate. Sertorius +was far from being strong enough to renew the gigantic enterprise +of Hannibal. He was lost if he left Spain, where all his successes +were bound up with the peculiarities of the country and the people; +and even there he was more and more compelled to renounce +the offensive. His admirable skill as a leader could not change +the nature of his troops. The Spanish militia retained its character, +untrustworthy as the wave or the wind; now collected in masses +to the number of 150,000, now melting away again to a mere handful. +The Roman emigrants, likewise, continued insubordinate, arrogant, +and stubborn. Those kinds of armed force which require that a corps +should keep together for a considerable time, such as cavalry +especially, were of course very inadequately represented +in his army. The war gradually swept off his ablest officers +and the flower of his veterans; and even the most trustworthy +communities, weary of being harassed by the Romans and maltreated +by the Sertorian officers, began to show signs of impatience +and wavering allegiance. It is remarkable that Sertorius, +in this respect also like Hannibal, never deceived himself +as to the hopelessness of his position; he allowed no opportunity +for bringing about a compromise to pass, and would have been ready +at any moment to lay down his staff of command on the assurance +of being allowed to live peacefully in his native land. +But political orthodoxy knows nothing of compromise and conciliation. +Sertorius might not recede or step aside; he was compelled inevitably +to move on along the path which he had once entered, however narrow +and giddy it might become. + +The representations which Pompeius addressed to Rome, and which +derived emphasis from the behaviour of Mithradates in the east, +were successful. He had the necessary supplies of money sent +to him by the senate and was reinforced by two fresh legions. +Thus the two generals went to work again in the spring of 680 +and once more crossed the Ebro. Eastern Spain was wrested +from the Sertorians in consequence of the battles on the Xucar +and Guadalaviar; the struggle thenceforth became concentrated +on the upper and middle Ebro around the chief strongholds +of the Sertorians--Calagurris, Osca, Ilerda. As Metellus had done +best in the earlier campaigns, so too on this occasion he gained +the most important successes. His old opponent Hirtuleius, who again +confronted him, was completely defeated and fell himself along with +his brother--an irreparable loss for the Sertorians. Sertorius, +whom the unfortunate news reached just as he was on the point +of assailing the enemy opposed to him, cut down the messenger, +that the tidings might not discourage his troops; but the news +could not be long concealed. One town after another surrendered, +Metellus occupied the Celtiberian towns of Segobriga (between Toledo +and Cuenca) and Bilbilis (near Calatayud). Pompeius besieged +Pallantia (Palencia above Valladolid), but Sertorius relieved it, +and compelled Pompeius to fall back upon Metellus; in front +of Calagurris (Calahorra, on the upper Ebro), into which Sertorius +had thrown himself, they both suffered severe losses. Nevertheless, +when they went into winter-quarters--Pompeius to Gaul, Metellus +to his own province--they were able to look back on considerable +results; a great portion of the insurgents had submitted or had +been subdued by arms. + +In a similar way the campaign of the following year (681) ran +its course; in this case it was especially Pompeius who slowly +but steadily restricted the field of the insurrection. + +Internal Dissension among the Sertorians + +The discomfiture sustained by the arms of the insurgents failed +not to react on the tone of feeling in their camp. The military +successes of Sertorius became like those of Hannibal, of necessity +less and less considerable; people began to call in question +his military talent: he was no longer, it was alleged, +what he had been; he spent the day in feasting or over his cups, +and squandered money as well as time. The number of the deserters, +and of communities falling away, increased. Soon projects formed +by the Roman emigrants against the life of the general were reported +to him; they sounded credible enough, especially as various officers +of the insurgent army, and Perpenna in particular, had submitted +with reluctance to the supremacy of Sertorius, and the Roman +governors had for long promised amnesty and a high reward to any +one who should kill him. Sertorius, on hearing such allegations, +withdrew the charge of guarding his person from the Roman soldiers +and entrusted it to select Spaniards. Against the suspected +themselves he proceeded with fearful but necessary severity, +and condemned various of the accused to death without resorting, +as in other cases, to the advice of his council; he was now +more dangerous--it was thereupon affirmed in the circles +of the malcontents--to his friends than to his foes. + +Assassination of Sertorius + +A second conspiracy was soon discovered, which had its seat +in his own staff; whoever was denounced had to take flight or die; +but all were not betrayed, and the remaining conspirators, +including especially Perpenna, found in the circumstances only +a new incentive to make haste. They were in the headquarters +at Osca. There, on the instigation of Perpenna, a brilliant victory +was reported to the general as having been achieved by his troops; +and at the festal banquet arranged by Perpenna to celebrate +this victory Sertorius accordingly appeared, attended, as was his wont, +by his Spanish retinue. Contrary to former custom in the Sertorian +headquarters, the feast soon became a revel; wild words passed +at table, and it seemed as if some of the guests sought opportunity +to begin an altercation. Sertorius threw himself back on his couch, +and seemed desirous not to hear the disturbance. Then a wine-cup +was dashed on the floor; Perpenna had given the concerted sign. +Marcus Antonius, Sertorius' neighbour at table, dealt the first +blow against him, and when Sertorius turned round and attempted +to rise, the assassin flung himself upon him and held him down +till the other guests at table, all of them implicated +in the conspiracy, threw themselves on the struggling pair, +and stabbed he defenceless general while his arms were pinioned (682). +With him died his faithful attendants. So ended one of the greatest +men, if not the very greatest man, that Rome had hitherto produced-- +a man who under more fortunate circumstances would perhaps +have become the regenerator of his country--by the treason +of the wretched band of emigrants whom he was condemned to lead against +his native land. History loves not the Coriolani; nor has she made +any exception even in the case of this the most magnanimous, +most gifted, most deserving to be regretted of them all. + +Perpenna Succeeds Sertorius + +The murderers thought to succeed to the heritage of the murdered. +After the death of Sertorius, Perpenna, as the highest among +the Roman officers of the Spanish army, laid claim to the chief +command. The army submitted, but with mistrust and reluctance. +However men had murmured against Sertorius in his lifetime, death +reinstated the hero in his rights, and vehement was the indignation +of the soldiers when, on the publication of his testament, the name +of Perpenna was read forth among the heirs. A part of the soldiers, +especially the Lusitanians, dispersed; the remainder had a presentiment +that with the death of Sertorius their spirit and their +fortune had departed. + +Pompeius Puts an End to the Insurrection + +Accordingly, at the first encounter with Pompeius, the wretchedly +led and despondent ranks of the insurgents were utterly broken, +and Perpenna, among other officers, was taken prisoner. The wretch +sought to purchase his life by delivering up the correspondence +of Sertorius, which would have compromised numerous men of standing +in Italy; but Pompeius ordered the papers to be burnt unread, +and handed him, as well as the other chiefs of the insurgents, +overto the executioner. The emigrants who had escaped dispersed; +and most of them went into the Mauretanian deserts or joined the pirates. +Soon afterwards the Plotian law, which was zealously supported +by the young Caesar in particular, opened up to a portion of them +the opportunity of returning home; but all those who had taken part +in the murder of Sertorius, with but a single exception, died +a violent death. Osca, and most of the towns which had still adhered +to Sertorius in Hither Spain, now voluntarily opened their gates +to Pompeius; Uxama (Osma), Clunia, and Calagurris alone had to be +reduced by force. The two provinces were regulated anew; +in the Further province, Metellus raised the annual tribute +of the most guilty communities; in the Hither, Pompeius dispensed +reward and punishment: Calagurris, for example, lost its independence +and was placed under Osca. A band of Sertorian soldiers, which had +collected in the Pyrenees, was induced by Pompeius to surrender, +and was settled by him to the north of the Pyrenees near Lugudunum +(St. Bertrand, in the department Haute-Garonne), as the community +of the "congregated" (-convenae-). The Roman emblems of victory +were erected at the summit of the pass of the Pyrenees; +at the close of 683, Metellus and Pompeius marched with their armies +through the streets of the capital, to present the thanks +of the nation to Father Jovis at the Capitol for the conquest +of the Spaniards. The good fortune of Sulla seemed still to be +with his creation after he had been laid in the grave, and to protect it +better than the incapable and negligent watchmen appointed to guard +it. The opposition in Italy had broken down from the incapacity +and precipitation of its leader, and that of the emigrants +from dissension within their own ranks. These defeats, +although far more the result of their own perverseness and discordance +than of the exertions of their opponents, were yet so many victories +for the oligarchy. The curule chairs were rendered once more secure. + + + + +Chapter II + +Rule of the Sullan Restoration + +External Relations + +When the suppression of the Cinnan revolution, which threatened +the very existence of the senate, rendered it possible for the restored +senatorial government to devote once more the requisite attention +to the internal and external security of the empire, there emerged +affairs enough, the settlement of which could not be postponed +without injuring the most important interests and allowing +present inconveniences to grow into future dangers. Apart from +the very serious complications in Spain, it was absolutely necessary +effectually to check the barbarians in Thrace and the regions +of the Danube, whom Sulla on his march through Macedonia had only +been able superficially to chastise,(1) and to regulate, by military +intervention, the disorderly state of things along the northern +frontier of the Greek peninsula; thoroughly to suppress +the bands of pirates infesting the seas everywhere, but especially +the eastern waters; and lastly to introduce better order +into the unsettled relations of Asia Minor. The peace which Sulla +had concluded in 670 with Mithradates, king of Pontus,(2) +and of which the treaty with Murena in 673(3) was essentially +a repetition, bore throughout the stamp of a provisional arrangement +to meet the exigencies of the moment; and the relations of the Romans +with Tigranes, king of Armenia, with whom they had de facto waged war, +remained wholly untouched in this peace. Tigranes had with right +regarded this as a tacit permission to bring the Roman possessions +in Asia under his power. If these were not to be abandoned, it +was necessary to come to terms amicably or by force with the new +great-king of Asia. + +In the preceding chapter we have described the movements +in Italy and Spain connected with the proceedings of the democracy, +and their subjugation by the senatorial government. In the present +chapter we shall review the external government, as the authorities +installed by Sulla conducted or failed to conduct it. + +Dalmato-Macedonian Expeditions + +We still recognize the vigorous hand of Sulla in the energetic measures +which, in the last period of his regency, the senate adopted almost +simultaneously against the Sertorians, the Dalmatians and Thracians, +and the Cilician pirates. + +The expedition to the Graeco-Illyrian peninsula was designed partly +to reduce to subjection or at least to tame the barbarous tribes +who ranged over the whole interior from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, +and of whom the Bessi (in the great Balkan) especially were, +as it was then said, notorious as robbers even among a race +of robbers; partly to destroy the corsairs in their haunts, +especially along the Dalmatian coast. As usual, the attack took +place simultaneously from Dalmatia and from Macedonia, in which +province an army of five legions was assembled for the purpose. +In Dalmatia the former praetor Gaius Cosconius held the command, +marched through the country in all directions, and took by storm +the fortress of Salona after a two years' siege. In Macedonia +the proconsul Appius Claudius (676-678) first attempted along +the Macedono-Thracian frontier to make himself master of the mountain +districts on the left bank of the Karasu. On both sides the war +was conducted with savage ferocity; the Thracians destroyed +the townships which they took and massacred their captives, +and the Romans returned like for like. But no results of importance +were attained; the toilsome marches and the constant conflicts +with the numerous and brave inhabitants of the mountains decimated +the army to no purpose; the general himself sickened and died. +His successor, Gaius Scribonius Curio (679-681), was induced +by various obstacles, and particularly by a not inconsiderable +military revolt, to desist from the difficult expedition +against the Thracians, and to turn himself instead to the northern +frontier of Macedonia, where he subdued the weaker Dardani (in Servia) +and reached as far as the Danube. The brave and able Marcus Lucullus +(682, 683) was the first who again advanced eastward, defeated the Bessi +in their mountains, took their capital Uscudama (Adrianople), +and compelled them to submit to the Roman supremacy. Sadalas king +of the Odrysians, and the Greek towns on the east coast to the north +and south of the Balkan chain--Istropolis, Tomi, Callatis, +Odessus (near Varna), Mesembria, and others--became dependent +on the Romans. Thrace, of which the Romans had hitherto held little +more than the Attalic possessions on the Chersonese, now became +a portion--though far from obedient--of the province of Macedonia. + +Piracy + +But the predatory raids of the Thracians and Dardani, confined +as they were to a small part of the empire, were far less injurious +to the state and to individuals than the evil of piracy, +which was continually spreading farther and acquiring +more solid organization. The commerce of the whole Mediterranean +was in its power. Italy could neither export its products nor import +grain from the provinces; in the former the people were starving, +in the latter the cultivation of the corn-fields ceased for want +of a vent for the produce. No consignment of money, no traveller +was longer safe: the public treasury suffered most serious losses; +a great many Romans of standing were captured by the corsairs, +and compelled to pay heavy sums for their ransom, if it was not even +the pleasure of the pirates to execute on individuals the sentence +of death, which in that case was seasoned with a savage humour. +The merchants, and even the divisions of Roman troops destined +for the east, began to postpone their voyages chiefly to the unfavourable +season of the year, and to be less afraid of the winter storms +than of the piratical vessels, which indeed even at this season +did not wholly disappear from the sea. But severely as the closing +of the sea was felt, it was more tolerable than the raids +made on the islands and coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. +Just as afterwards in the time of the Normans, piratical squadrons +ran up to the maritime towns, and either compelled them to buy +themselves off with large sums, or besieged and took them by storm. +When Samothrace, Clazomenae, Samos, Iassus were pillaged +by the pirates (670) under the eyes of Sulla after peace was concluded +with Mithradates, we may conceive how matters went where neither +a Roman army nor a Roman fleet was at hand. All the old rich temples +along the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor were plundered +one after another; from Samothrace alone a treasure of 1000 talents +(240,000 pounds) is said to have been carried off. Apollo, according +to a Roman poet of this period, was so impoverished by the pirates that, +when the swallow paid him a visit, he could no longer produce +to it out of all his treasures even a drachm of gold. More than four +hundred townships were enumerated as having been taken or laid +under contribution by the pirates, including cities like Cnidus, +Samos, Colophon; from not a few places on islands or the coast, +which were previously flourishing, the whole population migrated, +that they might not be carried off by the pirates. Even inland +districts were no longer safe from their attacks; there were instances +of their assailing townships distant one or two days' march +from the coast. The fearful debt, under which subsequently +all the communities of the Greek east succumbed, proceeded +in great part from these fatal times. + +Organization of Piracy + +Piracy had totally changed its character. The pirates +were no longer bold freebooters, who levied their tribute +from the large Italo-Oriental traffic in slaves and luxuries, +as it passed through the Cretan waters between Cyrene +and the Peloponnesus--in the language of the pirates the "golden sea"; +no longer even armed slave-catchers, who prosecuted "war, trade, +and piracy" equally side by side; they formed now a piratical state, +with a peculiar esprit de corps, with a solid and very respectable +organization, with a home of their own and the germs of a symmachy, +and doubtless also with definite political designs. The pirates +called themselves Cilicians; in fact their vessels were the rendezvous +of desperadoes and adventurers from all countries--discharged +mercenaries from the recruiting-grounds of Crete, burgesses +from the destroyed townships of Italy, Spain, and Asia, soldiers +and officers from the armies of Fimbria and Sertorius, in a word +the ruined men of all nations, the hunted refugees of all vanquished +parties, every one that was wretched and daring--and where was there not +misery and outrage in this unhappy age? It was no longer +a gang of robbers who had flocked together, but a compact soldier- +state, in which the freemasonry of exile and crime took the place +of nationality, and within which crime redeemed itself, as it so often +does in its own eyes, by displaying the most generous public spirit. +In an abandoned age, when cowardice and insubordination +had relaxed all the bonds of social order, the legitimate commonwealths +might have taken a pattern from this state--the mongrel offspring +of distress and violence--within which alone the inviolable +determination to stand side by side, the sense of comradeship, +respect for the pledged word and the self-chosen chiefs, valour +and adroitness seemed to have taken refuge. If the banner of this state +was inscribed with vengeance against the civil society which, +rightly or wrongly, had ejected its members, it might be a question +whether this device was much worse than those of the Italian oligarchy +and the Oriental sultanship which seemed in the fair way of dividing +the world between them. The corsairs at least felt themselves +on a level with any legitimate state; their robber-pride, +their robber-pomp, and their robber-humour are attested by many +a genuine pirate's tale of mad merriment and chivalrous bandittism: +they professed, and made it their boast, to live at righteous war +with all the world: what they gained in that warfare was designated +not as plunder, but as military spoil; and, while the captured corsair +was sure of the cross in every Roman seaport, they too claimed +the right of executing any of their captives. + +Its Military-Political Power + +Their military-political organization, especially since +the Mithradatic war, was compact. Their ships, for the most part +-myopiarones-, that is, small open swift-sailing barks, +with a smaller proportion of biremes and triremes, now regularly sailed +associated in squadrons and under admirals, whose barges were wont +to glitter in gold and purple. To a comrade in peril, +though he might be totally unknown, no pirate captain refused +the requested aid; an agreement concluded with any one of them +was absolutely recognized by the whole society, and any injury inflicted +on one was avenged by all. Their true home was the sea from the pillars +of Hercules to the Syrian and Egyptian waters; the refuges +which they needed for themselves and their floating houses +on the mainland were readily furnished to them by the Mauretanian +and Dalmatian coasts, by the island of Crete, and, above all, +by the southern coast of Asia Minor, which abounded in headlands +and lurking-places, commanded the chief thoroughfare of the maritime +commerce of that age, and was virtually without a master. +The league of Lycian cities there, and the Pamphylian communities, +were of little importance; the Roman station, which had existed +in Cilicia since 652, was far from adequate to command the extensive +coast; the Syrian dominion over Cilicia had always been +but nominal, and had recently been superseded by the Armenian, +the holder of which, as a true great-king, gave himself no concern +at all about the sea and readily abandoned it to the pillage +of the Cilicians. It was nothing wonderful, therefore, +that the corsairs flourished there as they had never done anywhere else. +Not only did they possess everywhere along the coast signal-places +and stations, but further inland--in the most remote recesses +of the impassable and mountainous interior of Lycia, Pamphylia, +and Cilicia--they had built their rock-castles, in which they concealed +their wives, children, and treasures during their own absence +at sea, and, doubtless, in times of danger found an asylum themselves. +Great numbers of such corsair-castles existed especially +in the Rough Cilicia, the forests of which at the same time furnished +the pirates with the most excellent timber for shipbuilding; and there, +accordingly, their principal dockyards and arsenals were situated. +It was not to be wondered at that this organized military state +gained a firm body of clients among the Greek maritime cities, +which were more or less left to themselves and managed their own +affairs: these cities entered into traffic with the pirates +as with a friendly power on the basis of definite treaties, +and did not comply with the summons of the Roman governors to furnish +vessels against them. The not inconsiderable town of Side +in Pamphylia, for instance, allowed the pirates to build ships +on its quays, and to sell the free men whom they had captured +in its market. + +Such a society of pirates was a political power; and as a political +power it gave itself out and was accepted from the time +when the Syrian king Tryphon first employed it as such and rested +his throne on its support.(4) We find the pirates as allies of king +Mithradates of Pontus as well as of the Roman democratic emigrants; +we find them giving battle to the fleets of Sulla in the eastern +and in the western waters; we find individual pirate princes ruling +over a series of considerable coast towns. We cannot tell how far +the internal political development of this floating state had +already advanced; but its arrangements undeniably contained +the germ of a sea-kingdom, which was already beginning to establish +itself, and out of which, under favourable circumstances, +a permanent state might have been developed. + +Nullity of the Roman Marine Police + +This state of matters clearly shows, as we have partly indicated +already,(5) how the Romans kept--or rather did not keep--order +on "their sea." The protectorate of Rome over the provinces +consisted essentially in military guardianship; the provincials +paid tax or tribute to the Romans for their defence by sea and land, +which was concentrated in Roman hands. But never, perhaps, +did a guardian more shamelessly defraud his ward than the Roman +oligarchy defrauded the subject communities. Instead of Rome equipping +a general fleet for the empire and centralizing her marine police, +the senate permitted the unity of her maritime superintendence-- +without which in this matter nothing could at all be done--to fall +into abeyance, and left it to each governor and each client state +to defend themselves against the pirates as each chose and was able. +Instead of Rome providing for the fleet, as she had bound herself +to do, exclusively with her own blood and treasure and with those +of the client states which had remained formally sovereign, +the senate allowed the Italian war-marine to fall into decay, +and learned to make shift with the vessels which the several +mercantile towns were required to furnish, or still more frequently +with the coast-guards everywhere organized--all the cost +and burden falling, in either case, on the subjects. The provincials +might deem themselves fortunate, if their Roman governor applied +the requisitions which he raised for the defence of the coast +in reality solely to that object, and did not intercept them +for himself; or if they were not, as very frequently happened, called +on to pay ransom for some Roman of rank captured by the buccaneers. +Measures undertaken perhaps with judgment, such as the occupation +of Cilicia in 652, were sure to be spoilt in the execution. +Any Roman of this period, who was not wholly carried away +by the current intoxicating idea of the national greatness, must have +wished that the ships' beaks might be torn down from the orator's +platform in the Forum, that at least he might not be constantly +reminded by them of the naval victories achieved in better times. + +Expedition to the South Coast of Asia Minor +Publius Servilius Isauricus +Zenicetes Vanquished +The Isaurians Subdued + +Nevertheless Sulla, who in the war against Mithradates had +the opportunity of acquiring an adequate conviction of the dangers +which the neglect of the fleet involved, took various steps +seriously to check the evil. It is true that the instructions +which he had left to the governors whom he appointed in Asia, +to equip in the maritime towns a fleet against the pirates, had borne +little fruit, for Murena preferred to begin war with Mithradates, +and Gnaeus Dolabella, the governor of Cilicia, proved wholly +incapable. Accordingly the senate resolved in 675 to send one +of the consuls to Cilicia; the lot fell on the capable Publius +Servilius. He defeated the piratical fleet in a bloody engagement, +and then applied himself to destroy those towns on the south coast +of Asia Minor which served them as anchorages and trading stations. +The fortresses of the powerful maritime prince Zenicetes--Olympus, +Corycus, Phaselis in eastern Lycia, Attalia in Pamphylia-- +were reduced, and the prince himself met his death in the flames +of his stronghold Olympus. A movement was next made against +the Isaurians, who in the north-west corner of the Rough Cilicia, +on the northern slope of Mount Taurus, inhabited a labyrinth +of steep mountain ridges, jagged rocks, and deeply-cut valleys, +covered with magnificent oak forests--a region which is even +at the present day filled with reminiscences of the old robber times. +To reduce these Isaurian fastnesses, the last and most secure retreats +ofthe freebooters, Servilius led the first Roman army over the Taurus, +and broke up the strongholds of the enemy, Oroanda, and above all +Isaura itself--the ideal of a robber-town, situated on the summit +of a scarcely accessible mountain-ridge, and completely overlooking +and commanding the wide plain of Iconium. The war, not ended +till 679, from which Publius Servilius acquired for himself +and his descendants the surname of Isauricus, was not without fruit; +a great number of pirates and piratical vessels fell in consequence +of it into the power of the Romans; Lycia, Pamphylia, West Cilicia +were severely devastated, the territories of the destroyed towns +were confiscated, and the province of Cilicia was enlarged by their +addition to it. But, in the nature of the case, piracy was far +from being suppressed by these measures; on the contrary, it simply +betook itself for the time to other regions, and particularly +to Crete, the oldest harbour for the corsairs of the Mediterranean.(6) +Nothing but repressive measures carried out on a large scale +and with unity of purpose--nothing, in fact, but the establishment +of a standing maritime police--could in such a case +afford thorough relief. + +Asiatic Relations +Tigranes and the New Great-Kingdom of Armenia + +The affairs of the mainland of Asia Minor were connected by various +relations with this maritime war. The variance which existed +between Rome and the kings of Pontus and Armenia did not abate, +but increased more and more. On the one hand Tigranes, +kingof Armenia, pursued his aggressive conquests in the most reckless +manner. The Parthians, whose state was at this period torn +by internal dissensions and enfeebled, were by constant hostilities +driven farther and farther back into the interior of Asia. +Of the countries between Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Iran, the kingdoms +of Corduene (northern Kurdistan), and Media Atropatene (Azerbijan), +were converted from Parthian into Armenian fiefs, and the kingdom +of Nineveh (Mosul), or Adiabene, was likewise compelled, at least +temporarily, to become a dependency of Armenia. In Mesopotamia, +too, particularly in and around Nisibis, the Armenian rule +was established; but the southern half, which was in great part desert, +seems not to have passed into the firm possession of the new great- +king, and Seleucia, on the Tigris, in particular, appears not to have +become subject to him. The kingdom of Edessa or Osrhoene +he handed over to a tribe of wandering Arabs, which he transplanted +from southern Mesopotamia and settled in this region, with the view +of commanding by its means the passage of the Euphrates +and the great route of traffic.(7) + +Cappadocia Armenian + +But Tigranes by no means confined his conquests to the eastern +bank of the Euphrates. Cappadocia especially was the object +of his attacks, and, defenceless as it was, suffered destructive +blows from its too potent neighbour. Tigranes wrested the eastern +province Melitene from Cappadocia, and united it with the opposite +Armenian province Sophene, by which means he obtained command +of the passage of the Euphrates with the great thoroughfare +of traffic between Asia Minor and Armenia. After the death of Sulla +the Armenians even advanced into Cappadocia proper, and carried off +to Armenia the inhabitants of the capital Mazaca (afterwards Caesarea) +and eleven other towns of Greek organization. + +Syria under Tigranes + +Nor could the kingdom of the Seleucids, already in full course +of dissolution, oppose greater resistance to the new great-king. +Here the south from the Egyptian frontier to Straton's Tower +(Caesarea) was under the rule of the Jewish prince Alexander Jannaeus, +who extended and strengthened his dominion step by step +in conflict with his Syrian, Egyptian, and Arabic neighbours +and with the imperial cities. The larger towns of Syria--Gaza, +Straton's Tower, Ptolemais, Beroea--attempted to maintain themselves +on their own footing, sometimes as free communities, sometimes +under so-called tyrants; the capital, Antioch, in particular, +was virtually independent. Damascus and the valleys of Lebanon +had submitted to the Nabataean prince, Aretas of Petra. Lastly, +in Cilicia the pirates or the Romans bore sway. And for this crown +breaking into a thousand fragments the Seleucid princes continued +perseveringly to quarrel with each other, as though it were their object +to make royalty a jest and an offence to all; nay more, +while this family, doomed like the house of Laius to perpetual discord, +had its own subjects all in revolt, it even raised claims to the throne +of Egypt vacant by the decease of king Alexander II without heirs. +Accordingly king Tigranes set to work there without ceremony. +Eastern Cilicia was easily subdued by him, and the citizens of Soli +and other towns were carried off, just like the Cappadocians, +to Armenia. In like manner the province of Upper Syria, +withthe exception of the bravely-defended town of Seleucia at the mouth +of the Orontes, and the greater part of Phoenicia were reduced +by force; Ptolemais was occupied by the Armenians about 680, +and the Jewish state was already seriously threatened by them. Antioch, +the old capital of the Seleucids, became one of the residences +of the great-king. Already from 671, the year following the peace +between Sulla and Mithradates, Tigranes is designated +in the Syrian annals as the sovereign of the country, and Cilicia +and Syria appear as an Armenian satrapy under Magadates, +the lieutenant of the great-king. The age of the kings of Nineveh, +ofthe Salmanezers and Sennacheribs, seemed to be renewed; again oriental +despotism pressed heavily on the trading population of the Syrian +coast, as it did formerly on Tyre and Sidon; again great states +of the interior threw themselves on the provinces along +the Mediterranean; again Asiatic hosts, said to number +half a million combatants, appeared on the Cilician and Syrian coasts. +As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews +to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new +kingdom--from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia-- +the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens +of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods +and chattels (under penalty of the confiscation of everything +that they left behind) in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities +proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness +of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates +on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new +grand sultan. The new "city of Tigranes," Tigrano-certa, founded +on the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and destined +as the capital of the territories newly acquired for Armenia, became +a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, +and the appendages of palace, garden, and park that were appropriate +to sultanism. In other respects, too, the new great-king proved +faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood +of the east the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns +on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed +himselfin public, appeared in the state and the costume of a successor +of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple caftan, the half-white +half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, +and the royal diadem--attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, +wherever he went or stood, by four "kings." + +Mithradates + +King Mithradates acted with greater moderation. He refrained +from aggressions in Asia Minor, and contented himself with-- +what no treaty forbade--placing his dominion along the Black Sea +ona firmer basis, and gradually bringing into more definite dependence +the regions which separated the Bosporan kingdom, now ruled +under his supremacy by his son Machares, from that of Pontus. +But he too applied every effort to render his fleet and army efficient, +and especially to arm and organize the latter after the Roman model; +in which the Roman emigrants, who sojourned in great numbers +at his court, rendered essential service. + +Demeanor of the Romans in the East +Egypt not Annexed + +The Romans had no desire to become further involved in Oriental +affairs than they were already. This appears with striking +clearness in the fact, that the opportunity, which at this time +presented itself, of peacefully bringing the kingdom of Egypt +under the immediate dominion of Rome was spurned by the senate. +The legitimate descendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come +to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus +Soter II Lathyrus--Alexander II, a son of Alexander I--was killed, +a few days after he had ascended the throne, on occasion of a tumult +in the capital (673). This Alexander had in his testament(8) appointed +the Roman community his heir. The genuineness of this document +was no doubt disputed; but the senate acknowledged it by assuming +in virtue of it the sums deposited in Tyre on account of the deceased king. +Nevertheless it allowed two notoriously illegitimate sons of king Lathyrus, +Ptolemaeus XI, who was styled the new Dionysos or the Flute-blower +(Auletes), and Ptolemaeus the Cyprian, to take practical possession +of Egypt and Cyprus respectively. They were not indeed expressly +recognized by the senate, but no distinct summons to surrender +their kingdoms was addressed to them. The reason why the senate allowed +this state of uncertainty to continue, and did not commit itself +to a definite renunciation of Egypt and Cyprus, was undoubtedly +the considerable rent which these kings, ruling as it were on sufferance, +regularly paid for the continuance of the uncertainty to the heads +of the Roman coteries. But the motive for waiving that attractive +acquisition altogether was different. Egypt, by its peculiar +position and its financial organization, placed in the hands +of any governor commanding it a pecuniary and naval power and generally +an independent authority, which were absolutely incompatible +with the suspicious and feeble government of the oligarchy: +in this point of view it was judicious to forgo the direct possession +of the country of the Nile. + +Non-Intervention in Asia Minor and Syria + +Less justifiable was the failure of the senate to interfere directly +in the affairs of Asia Minor and Syria. The Roman government did not +indeed recognize the Armenian conqueror as king of Cappadocia +and Syria; but it did nothing to drive him back, although the war, +which under pressure of necessity it began in 676 against the pirates +in Cilicia, naturally suggested its interference more especially +in Syria. In fact, by tolerating the loss of Cappadocia and Syria +without declaring war, the government abandoned not merely +those committed to its protection, but the most important +foundations of its own powerful position. It adopted +a hazardous course, when it sacrificed the outworks of its dominion +in the Greek settlements and kingdoms on the Euphrates +and Tigris; but, when it allowed the Asiatics to establish +themselves on the Mediterranean which was the political +basis of its empire, this was not a proof of love of peace, +but a confession that the oligarchy had been rendered by the Sullan +restoration more oligarchical doubtless, but neither wiser +nor more energetic, and it was for Rome's place as a power +in the world the beginning of the end. + +On the other side, too, there was no desire for war. Tigranes +had no reason to wish it, when Rome even without war abandoned +to him all its allies. Mithradates, who was no mere sultan and had +enjoyed opportunity enough, amidst good and bad fortune, of gaining +experience regarding friends and foes, knew very well that in a second +Roman war he would very probably stand quite as much alone +as in the first, and that he could follow no more prudent course +than to keep quiet and to strengthen his kingdom in the interior. +That he was in earnest with his peaceful declarations, he had +sufficiently proved in the conference with Murena.(9) He continued +to avoid everything which would compel the Roman government +to abandon its passive attitude. + +Apprehensions of Rome + +But as the first Mithradatic war had arisen without any of the partie +properly desiring it, so now there grew out of the opposition +of interests mutual suspicion, and out of this suspicion +mutual preparations for defence; and these, by their very gravity, +ultimately led to an open breach. That distrust of her own readiness +to fight and preparation for fighting, which had for long governed +the policy of Rome--a distrust, which the want of standing armies +and the far from exemplary character of the collegiate rule +render sufficiently intelligible--made it, as it were, an axiom +of her policy to pursue every war not merely to the vanquishing, +but to the annihilation of her opponent; in this point of view +the Romans were from the outset as little content with the peace +of Sulla, as they had formerly been with the terms which Scipio +Africanus had granted to the Carthaginians. The apprehension often +expressed that a second attack by the Pontic king was imminent, +was in some measure justified by the singular resemblance between +the present circumstances and those which existed twelve years before. +Once more a dangerous civil war coincided with serious armaments +of Mithradates; once more the Thracians overran Macedonia, +and piratical fleets covered the Mediterranean; emissaries were coming +and going--as formerly between Mithradates and the Italians-- +so now between the Roman emigrants in Spain and those at the court +of Sinope. As early as the beginning of 677 it was declared +in the senate that the king was only waiting for the opportunity +of falling upon Roman Asia during the Italian civil war; +the Roman armies in Asia and Cilicia were reinforced +to meet possible emergencies. + +Apprehensions of Mithradates +Bithynia Roman +Cyrene a Roman Province +Outbreak of the Mithradatic War + +Mithradates on his part followed with growing apprehension +the development of the Roman policy. He could not but feel +that a war between the Romans and Tigranes, however much +the feeble senate might dread it, was in the long run almost inevitable, +and that he would not be able to avoid taking part in it. His attempt +to obtain from the Roman senate the documentary record of the terms +of peace, which was still wanting, had fallen amidst the disturbances +attending the revolution of Lepidus and remained without result; +Mithradates found in this an indication of the impending renewal +of the conflict. The expedition against the pirates, which indirectly +concerned also the kings of the east whose allies they were, +seemed the preliminary to such a war. Still more suspicious +were the claims which Rome held in suspense over Egypt and Cyprus: +it is significant that the king of Pontus betrothed his two daughters +Mithradatis and Nyssa to the two Ptolemies, to whom the senate +continued to refuse recognition. The emigrants urged him +to strike: the position of Sertorius in Spain, as to which Mithradates +despatched envoys under convenient pretexts to the headquarters +of Pompeius to obtain information, and which was about this very time +really imposing, opened up to the king the prospect of fighting +not, as in the first Roman war, against both the Roman parties, +but in concert with the one against the other. A more favourable +moment could hardly be hoped for, and after all it was always +better to declare war than to let it be declared against him. +In 679 Nicomedes III Philopator king of Bithynia, died, and as +the last of his race--for a son borne by Nysa was, or was said +to be, illegitimate--left his kingdom by testament to the Romans, +who delayed not to take possession of this region bordering +on the Roman province and long ago filled with Roman officials +and merchants. At the same time Cyrene, which had been already +bequeathed to the Romans in 658,(10) was at length constituted +a province, and a Roman governor was sent thither (679). These +measures, in connection with the attacks carried out about +the same time against the pirates on the south coast of Asia Minor, +must have excited apprehensions in the king; the annexation of Bithynia +in particular made the Romans immediate neighbours of the Pontic +kingdom; and this, it may be presumed, turned the scale. The king +took the decisive step and declared war against the Romans +in the winter of 679-680. + +Preparations of Mithradates + +Gladly would Mithradates have avoided undertaking so arduous a work +singlehanded. His nearest and natural ally was the great-king +Tigranes; but that shortsighted man declined the proposal of his +father-in-law. So there remained only the insurgents and the pirates. +Mithradates was careful to place himself in communication +with both, by despatching strong squadrons to Spain and to Crete. +A formal treaty was concluded with Sertorius,(11) by which Rome +ceded to the king Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, and Cappadocia-- +all of them, it is true, acquisitions which needed to be ratified +on the field of battle. More important was the support +which the Spanish general gave to the king, by sending Roman officers +to lead his armies and fleets. The most active of the emigrants +inthe east, Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, were appointed by Sertorius +as his representatives at the court of Sinope. From the pirates +also came help; they flocked largely to the kingdom of Pontus, +and by their means especially the king seems to have succeeded +in forming a naval force imposing by the number as well as +by the quality of the ships. His main support still lay in his +own forces, with which the king hoped, before the Romans should arrive +in Asia, to make himself master of their possessions there; +especially as the financial distress produced in the province +of Asia by the Sullan war-tribute, the aversion of Bithynia towards +the new Roman government, and the elements of combustion left +behind by the desolating war recently brought to a close in Cilicia +and Pamphylia, opened up favourable prospects to a Pontic invasion. +There was no lack of stores; 2,000,000 -medimni- of grain lay +in the royal granaries. The fleet and the men were numerous and well +exercised, particularly the Bastarnian mercenaries, a select corps +which was a match even for Italian legionaries. On this occasion +also it was the king who took the offensive. A corps under Diophantus +advanced into Cappadocia, to occupy the fortresses there +and to close the way to the kingdom of Pontus against the Romans; +the leader sent by Sertorius, the propraetor Marcus Marius, +went in company with the Pontic officer Eumachus to Phrygia, with a view +to rouse the Roman province and the Taurus mountains to revolt; +the main army, above 100,000 men with 16,000 cavalry and 100 +scythe-chariots, led by Taxiles and Hermocrates under the personal +superintendence of the king, and the war-fleet of 400 sail +commanded by Aristonicus, moved along the north coast of Asia Minor +to occupy Paphlagonia and Bithynia. + +Roman Preparations + +On the Roman side there was selected for the conduct of the war +in the first rank the consul of 680, Lucius Lucullus, who as governor +of Asia and Cilicia was placed at the head of the four legions +stationed in Asia Minor and of a fifth brought by him from Italy, +and was directed to penetrate with this army, amounting to 30,000 +infantry and 1600 cavalry, through Phrygia into the kingdom +of Pontus. His colleague Marcus Cotta proceeded with the fleet +and another Roman corps to the Propontis, to cover Asia and Bithynia. +Lastly, a general arming of the coasts and particularly +of the Thracian coast more immediately threatened by the Pontic fleet, +was enjoined; and the task of clearing all the seas and coasts +from the pirates and their Pontic allies was, by extraordinary decree, +entrusted to a single magistrate, the choice falling on the praetor +Marcus Antonius, the son of the man who thirty years before had +first chastised the Cilician corsairs.(12) Moreover, the senate +placed at the disposal of Lucullus a sum of 72,000,000 sesterces +(700,000 pounds), in order to build a fleet; which, however, +Lucullus declined. From all this we see that the Roman government +recognized the root of the evil in the neglect of their marine, +and showed earnestness in the matter at least so far as +their decrees reached. + +Beginning of the War + +Thus the war began in 680 at all points. It was a misfortune +for Mithradates, that at the very moment of his declaring war +the Sertorian struggle reached its crisis, by which one of his +principal hopes was from the outset destroyed, and the Roman +government was enabled to apply its whole power to the maritime +and Asiatic contest. In Asia Minor on the other hand Mithradates +reaped the advantages of the offensive, and of the great distance +of the Romans from the immediate seat of war. A considerable +number of cities in Asia Minor opened their gates to the Sertorian +propraetor who was placed at the head of the Roman province, +and they massacred, as in 666, the Roman families settled among them: +the Pisidians, Isaurians, and Cilicians took up arms against Rome. +The Romans for the moment had no troops at the points threatened. +Individual energetic men attempted no doubt at their own hand +to check this mutiny of the provincials; thus on receiving accounts +of these events the young Gaius Caesar left Rhodes where he was staying +on account of his studies, and with a hastily-collected +band opposed himself to the insurgents; but not much could be +effected by such volunteer corps. Had not Deiotarus, the brave +tetrarch of the Tolistobogii--a Celtic tribe settled around +Pessinus--embraced the side of the Romans and fought with success +against the Pontic generals, Lucullus would have had to begin with +recapturing the interior of the Roman province from the enemy. +But even as it was, he lost in pacifying the province and driving +back the enemy precious time, for which the slight successes +achieved by his cavalry were far from affording compensation. +Still more unfavourable than in Phrygia was the aspect of things +for the Romans on the north coast of Asia Minor. Here the great +Pontic army and the fleet had completely mastered Bithynia, +and compelled the Roman consul Cotta to take shelter with his +far from numerous force and his ships within the walls +and port of Chalcedon, where Mithradates kept them blockaded. + +The Romans Defeated at Chalcedon + +This blockade, however, was so far a favourable event +for the Romans, as, if Cotta detained the Pontic army before Chalcedon +and Lucullus proceeded also thither, the whole Roman forces might unite +at Chalcedon and compel the decision of arms there rather than +in the distant and impassable region of Pontus. Lucullus did take +the route for Chalcedon; but Cotta, with the view of executing a great +feat at his own hand before the arrival of his colleague, ordered +his admiral Publius Rutilius Nudus to make a sally, which not only +ended in a bloody defeat of the Romans, but also enabled the Pontic +force to attack the harbour, to break the chain which closed it, +and to burn all the Roman vessels of war which were there, nearly +seventy in number. On the news of these misfortunes reaching +Lucullus at the river Sangarius, he accelerated his march +to the great discontent of his soldiers, in whose opinion Cotta +was of no moment, and who would far rather have plundered an undefended +country than have taught their comrades to conquer. His arrival +made up in part for the misfortunes sustained: the king raised +the siege of Chalcedon, but did not retreat to Pontus; he went +southward into the old Roman province, where he spread his army +along the Propontis and the Hellespont, occupied Lampsacus, +and began to besiege the large and wealthy town of Cyzicus. +He thus entangled himself more and more deeply in the blind alley +which he had chosen to enter, instead of--which alone promised success +for him--bringing the wide distances into play against the Romans. + +Mithradates Besieges Cyzicus + +In few places had the old Hellenic adroitness and aptitude +preserved themselves so pure as in Cyzicus; its citizens, although +they had suffered great loss of ships and men in the unfortunate +double battle of Chalcedon, made the most resolute resistance. +Cyzicus lay on an island directly opposite the mainland +and connected with it by a bridge. The besiegers possessed themselves +not only of the line of heights on the mainland terminating at the bridge +and of the suburb situated there, but also of the celebrated +Dindymene heights on the island itself; and alike on the mainland +and on the island the Greek engineers put forth all their art +to pave the way for an assault. But the breach which they at length +made was closed again during the night by the besieged, +and the exertions of the royal army remained as fruitless as did +the barbarous threat of the king to put to death the captured Cyzicenes +before the walls, if the citizens still refused to surrender. +The Cyzicenes continued the defence with courage and success; +they fell little short of capturing the king himself +in the course of the siege. + +Destruction of the Pontic Army + +Meanwhile Lucullus had possessed himself of a very strong position +in rear of the Pontic army, which, although not permitting him +directly to relieve the hard-pressed city, gave him the means +of cutting off all supplies by land from the enemy. Thus the enormous +army of Mithradates, estimated with the camp-followers at 300,000 +persons, was not in a position either to fight or to march, firmly +wedged in between the impregnable city and the immoveable Roman +army, and dependent for all its supplies solely on the sea, +which fortunately for the Pontic troops was exclusively commanded +by their fleet. But the bad season set in; a storm destroyed a great +part of the siege-works; the scarcity of provisions and above all +of fodder for the horses began to become intolerable. The beasts +of burden and the baggage were sent off under convoy of the greater +portion of the Pontic cavalry, with orders to steal away or break +through at any cost; but at the river Rhyndacus, to the east +of Cyzicus, Lucullus overtook them and cut to pieces the whole body. +Another division of cavalry under Metrophanes and Lucius Fannius +was obliged, after wandering long in the west of Asia Minor, +to return to the camp before Cyzicus. Famine and disease made +fearful ravages in the Pontic ranks. When spring came on (681), +the besieged redoubled their exertions and took the trenches +constructed on Dindymon: nothing remained for the king but to raise +the siege and with the aid of his fleet to save what he could. +He went in person with the fleet to the Hellespont, but suffered +considerable loss partly at its departure, partly through storms +on the voyage. The land army under Hermaeus and Marius likewise +set out thither, with the view of embarking at Lampsacus +under the protection of its walls. They left behind their baggage +as well as the sick and wounded, who were all put to death +by the exasperated Cyzicenes. Lucullus inflicted on them +very considerable loss by the way at the passage of the rivers +Aesepus and Granicus; but they attained their object. The Pontic ships +carried off the remains of the great army and the citizens of Lampsacus +themselves beyond the reach of the Romans. + +Maritime War +Mithradates Driven Back to Pontus + +The consistent and discreet conduct of the war by Lucullus +had not only repaired the errors of his colleague, but had also +destroyed without a pitched battle the flower of the enemy's army-- +it was said 200,000 soldiers. Had he still possessed the fleet +which was burnt in the harbour of Chalcedon, he would have annihilated +the whole army of his opponent. As it was, the work of destruction +continued incomplete; and while he was obliged to remain passive, +the Pontic fleet notwithstanding the disaster of Cyzicus took +its station in the Propontis, Perinthus and Byzantium were blockaded +by it on the European coast and Priapus pillaged on the Asiatic, +and the headquarters of the king were established in the Bithynian port +of Nicomedia. In fact a select squadron of fifty sail, +which carried 10,000 select troops including Marcus Marius +and the flower of the Roman emigrants, sailed forth even into the Aegean; +the report went that it was destined to effect a landing in Italy +and there rekindle the civil war. But the ships, which Lucullus +after the disaster off Chalcedon had demanded from the Asiatic +communities, began to appear, and a squadron ran forth in pursuit +of the enemy's fleet which had gone into the Aegean. Lucullus himself, + experienced as an admiral,(13) took the command. Thirteen quinqueremes +of the enemy on their voyage to Lemnos, under Isidorus, were assailed +and sunk off the Achaean harbour in the waters between the Trojan coast +and the island of Tenedos. At the small island of Neae, between Lemnos +and Scyros, at which little-frequented point the Pontic flotilla +of thirty-two sail lay drawn up on the shore, Lucullus found it, +immediately attacked the ships and the crews scattered over the island, +and possessed himself of the whole squadron. Here Marcus Marius +and the ablest of the Roman emigrants met their death, either in conflict +or subsequently by the axe of the executioner. The whole Aegean fleet +of the enemy was annihilated by Lucullus. The war in Bithynia +was meanwhile continued by Cotta and by the legates of Lucullus, +Voconius, Gaius Valerius Triarius, and Barba, with the land army +reinforced by fresh arrivals from Italy, and a squadron collected +in Asia. Barba captured in the interior Prusias on Olympus and Nicaea +while Triarius along the coast captured Apamea (formerly Myrlea) +and Prusias on the sea (formerly Cius). They then united for a joint +attack on Mithradates himself in Nicomedia; but the king without +even attempting battle escaped to his ships and sailed homeward, +and in this he was successful only because the Roman admiral Voconius, +who was entrusted with the blockade of the port of Nicomedia, +arrived too late. On the voyage the important Heraclea was indeed +betrayed to the king and occupied by him; but a storm in these waters +sank more than sixty of, his ships and dispersed the rest; the king +arrived almost alone at Sinope. The offensive on the part of Mithradates +ended in a complete defeat--not at all honourable, least of all +for the supreme leader--of the Pontic forces by land and sea. + +Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus + +Lucullus now in turn proceeded to the aggressive. Triarius +received the command of the fleet, with orders first of all +to blockade the Hellespont and lie in wait for the Pontic ships +returning from Crete and Spain; Cotta was charged with the siege +of Heraclea; the difficult task of providing supplies +was entrusted to the faithful and active princes of the Galatians +and to Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia; Lucullus himself advanced +in the autumn of 681 into the favoured land of Pontus, which had long +been untrodden by an enemy. Mithradates, now resolved to maintain +the strictest defensive, retired without giving battle from Sinope +to Amisus, and from Amisus to Cabira (afterwards Neocaesarea, +now Niksar) on the Lycus, a tributary of the Iris; he contented +himself with drawing the enemy after him farther and farther +into the interior, and obstructing their supplies and communications. +Lucullus rapidly followed; Sinope was passed by; the Halys, the old +boundary of the Roman dominion, was crossed and the considerable +towns of Amisus, Eupatoria (on the Iris), and Themiscyra (on +the Thermodon) were invested, till at length winter put an end +to the onward march, though not to the investments of the towns. +The soldiers of Lucullus murmured at the constant advance +which did not allow them to reap the fruits of their exertions, +and at the tedious and--amidst the severity of that season-- +burdensome blockades. But it was not the habit of Lucullus +to listen to such complaints: in the spring of 682 he immediately +advanced against Cabira, leaving behind two legions before Amisus +under Lucius Murena. The king had made fresh attempts during the winter +to induce the great-king of Armenia to take part in the struggle; +they remained like the former ones fruitless, or led only +to empty promises. Still less did the Parthians show any desire +to interfere in the forlorn cause. Nevertheless a considerable army, +chiefly raised by enlistments in Scythia, had again assembled +under Diophantus and Taxiles at Cabira. The Roman army, +which still numbered only three legions and was decidedly inferior +to the Pontic in cavalry, found itself compelled to avoid as far as +possible the plains, and arrived, not without toil and loss, +by difficult bypaths in the vicinity of Cabira, At this town +the two armies lay for a considerable period confronting each other. +The chief struggle was for supplies, which were on both sides scarce: +for this purpose Mithradates formed the flower of his cavalry +and a division of select infantry under Diophantus and Taxiles +into a flying corps, which was intended to scour the country between +the Lycus and the Halys and to seize the Roman convoys of provisions +coming from Cappadocia. But the lieutenant of Lucullus, Marcus +Fabius Hadrianus, who escorted such a train, not only completely +defeated the band which lay in wait for him in the defile where it +expected to surprise him, but after being reinforced from the camp +defeated also the army of Diophantus and Taxiles itself, so that it +totally broke up. It was an irreparable loss for the king, +when his cavalry, on which alone he relied, was thus overthrown. + +Victory of Cabira + +As soon as he received through the first fugitives that arrived +at Cabira from the field of battle--significantly enough, the beaten +generals themselves--the fatal news, earlier even than Lucullus +got tidings of the victory, he resolved on an immediate +farther retreat. But the resolution taken by the king spread +with the rapidity of lightning among those immediately around him; and, +when the soldiers saw the confidants of the king packing in all haste, +they too were seized with a panic. No one was willing to be +the hindmost in decamping; all, high and low, ran pell-mell +like startled deer; no authority, not even that of the king, +was longer heeded; and the king himself was carried away amidst +the wild tumult. Lucullus, perceiving the confusion, made his attack, +and the Pontic troops allowed themselves to be massacred almost +without offering resistance. Had the legions been able to maintain +discipline and to restrain their eagerness for spoil, hardly a man +would have escaped them, and the king himself would doubtless have +been taken. With difficulty Mithradates escaped along with a few +attendants through the mountains to Comana (not far from Tocat +and the source of the Iris); from which, however, a Roman corps +under Marcus Pompeius soon scared him off and pursued him, till, +attended by not more than 2000 cavalry, he crossed the frontier +of his kingdom at Talaura in Lesser Armenia. In the empire +of the great-king he found a refuge, but nothing more (end of 682). +Tigranes, it is true, ordered royal honours to be shown to his fugitive +father-in-law; but he did not even invite him to his court, +and detained him in the remote border-province to which he had come +in a sort of decorous captivity. + +Pontus Becomes Roman +Sieges of the Pontic Cities + +The Roman troops overran all Pontus and Lesser Armenia, and as +far as Trapezus the flat country submitted without resistance +to the conqueror. The commanders of the royal treasure-houses also +surrendered after more or less delay, and delivered up their stores +of money. The king ordered that the women of the royal harem--his +sisters, his numerous wives and concubines--as it was not possible +to secure their flight, should all be put to death by one of his +eunuchs at Pharnacea (Kerasunt). The towns alone offered +obstinate resistance. It is true that the few in the interior-- +Cabira, Amasia, Eupatoria--were soon in the power of the Romans; +but the larger maritime towns, Amisus and Sinope in Pontus, +Amastris in Paphlagonia, Tius and the Pontic Heraclea in Bithynia, +defended themselves with desperation, partly animated by attachment +to the king and to their free Hellenic constitution which he had +protected, partly overawed by the bands of corsairs whom the king +had called to his aid. Sinope and Heraclea even sent forth vessels +against the Romans; and the squadron of Sinope seized a Roman +flotilla which was bringing corn from the Tauric peninsula +for the army of Lucullus. Heraclea did not succumb till after +a two years' siege, when the Roman fleet had cut off the city +from intercourse with the Greek towns on the Tauric peninsula and treason +had broken out in the ranks of the garrison. When Amisus was reduced +to extremities, the garrison set fire to the town, and under cover +of the flames took to their ships. In Sinope, where the daring +pirate-captain Seleucus and the royal eunuch Bacchides conducted +the defence, the garrison plundered the houses before it withdrew, +and set on fire the ships which it could not take along with it; +it is said that, although the greater portion of the defenders +were enabled to embark, 8000 corsairs were there put to death +by Lucullus. These sieges of towns lasted for two whole years +and more after the battle of Cabira (682-684); Lucullus prosecuted +them in great part by means of his lieutenants, while he himself +regulated the affairs of the province of Asia, which demanded +and obtained a thorough reform. + +Remarkable, in an historical point of view, as was that obstinate +resistance of the Pontic mercantile towns to the victorious Romans, +it was of little immediate use; the cause of Mithradates was none +the less lost. The great-king had evidently, for the present +at least, no intention at all of restoring him to his kingdom. +The Roman emigrants in Asia had lost their best men by the destruction +of the Aegean fleet; of the survivors not a few, such as the active +leaders Lucius Magius and Lucius Fannius, had made their peace +with Lucullus; and with the death of Sertorius, who perished in the year +of the battle of Cabira, the last hope of the emigrants vanished. +Mithradates' own power was totally shattered, and one after another +his remaining supports gave way; his squadrons returning from Crete +and Spain, to the number of seventy sail, were attacked and destroyed +by Triarius at the island of Tenedos; even the governor +of the Bosporan kingdom, the king's own son Machares, deserted him, +and as independent prince of the Tauric Chersonese concluded +on his own behalf peace and friendship with the Romans (684). +The king himself, after a not too glorious resistance, was confined +in a remote Armenian mountain-stronghold, a fugitive from his kingdom +and almost a prisoner of his son-in-law. Although the bands +of corsairs might still hold out in Crete, and such as had escaped +from Amisus and Sinope might make their way along the hardly- +accessible east coast of the Black Sea to the Sanigae and Lazi, +the skilful conduct of the war by Lucullus and his judicious +moderation, which did not disdain to remedy the just grievances +of the provincials and to employ the repentant emigrants as officers +in his army, had at a moderate sacrifice delivered Asia Minor +from the enemy and annihilated the Pontic kingdom, so that it might +be converted from a Roman client-state into a Roman province. +A commission of the senate was expected, to settle in concert +with the commander-in-chief the new provincial organization. + +Beginning of the Armenian War + +But the relations with Armenia were not yet settled. +Thata declaration of war by the Romans against Tigranes +was in itself justified and even demanded, we have already shown. +Lucullus, who looked at the state of affairs from a nearer point of view +and with a higher spirit than the senatorial college in Rome, perceived +clearly the necessity of confining Armenia to the other side +of the Tigris and of re-establishing the lost dominion of Rome over +the Mediterranean. He showed himself in the conduct of Asiatic +affairs no unworthy successor of his instructor and friend Sulla. +A Philhellene above most Romans of his time, he was not insensible +to the obligation which Rome had come under when taking up +the heritage of Alexander--the obligation to be the shield and sword +of the Greeks in the east. Personal motives--the wish to earn laurels +also beyond the Euphrates, irritation at the fact that the great- +king in a letter to him had omitted the title of Imperator--may +doubtless have partly influenced Lucullus; but it is unjust +to assume paltry and selfish motives for actions, which motives +of duty quite suffice to explain. The Roman governing college +at any rate--timid, indolent, ill informed, and above all beset +by perpetual financial embarrassments--could never be expected, +without direct compulsion, to take the initiative in an expedition +so vast and costly. About the year 682 the legitimate representatives +of the Seleucid dynasty, Antiochus called the Asiatic and his brother, +moved by the favourable turn of the Pontic war, had gone to Rome +to procure a Roman intervention in Syria, and at the same +time a recognition of their hereditary claims on Egypt. +If the latter demand might not be granted, there could not, at any rate, +be found a more favourable moment or occasion for beginning the war +which had long been necessary against Tigranes. But the senate, +while it recognized the princes doubtless as the legitimate +kings of Syria, could not make up its mind to decree the armed +intervention. If the favourable opportunity was to be employed, +and Armenia was to be dealt with in earnest, Lucullus had to begin +the war, without any proper orders from the senate, at his own hand +and his own risk; he found himself, just like Sulla, placed under +the necessity of executing what he did in the most manifest +interest of the existing government, not with its sanction, +but in spite of it. His resolution was facilitated by the relations +of Rome towards Armenia, for long wavering in uncertainty between +peace and war, which screened in some measure the arbitrariness +of his proceedings, and failed not to suggest formal grounds for war. +The state of matters in Cappadocia and Syria afforded pretexts +enough; and already in the pursuit of the king of Pontus Roman +troops had violated the territory of the great-king. As, however, +the commission of Lucullus related to the conduct of the war +against Mithradates and he wished to connect what he did +with that commission, he preferred to send one of his officers, +Appius Claudius, to the great-king at Antioch to demand the surrender +of Mithradates, which in fact could not but lead to war. + +Difficulties to Be Encountered + +The resolution was a grave one, especially considering +the condition of the Roman army. It was indispensable during +the campaign in Armenia to keep the extensive territory of Pontus +strongly occupied, for otherwise the army stationed in Armenia +might lose its communications with home; and besides it might be +easily foreseen that Mithradates would attempt an inroad into his +former kingdom. The army, at the head of which Lucullus had ended +the Mithradatic war, amounting to about 30,000 men, was obviously +inadequate for this double task. Under ordinary circumstances +the general would have asked and obtained from his government +the despatch of a second army; but as Lucullus wished, +and was in some measure compelled, to take up the war over the head +of the government, he found himself necessitated to renounce +that plan and--although he himself incorporated the captured Thracian +mercenaries of the Pontic king with his troops--to carry the war +over the Euphrates with not more than two legions, or at most +15,000 men. This was in itself hazardous; but the smallness +of the number might be in some degree compensated by the tried valour +of the army consisting throughout of veterans. A far worse feature +was the temper of the soldiers, to which Lucullus, in his high +aristocratic fashion, had given far too little heed. Lucullus +was an able general, and--according to the aristocratic standard-- +an upright and kindly-disposed man, but very far from being +a favourite with his soldiers. He was unpopular, as a decided +adherent of the oligarchy; unpopular, because he had vigorously +checked the monstrous usury of the Roman capitalists in Asia Minor; +unpopular, on account of the toils and fatigues which he inflicted +on his troops; unpopular, because he demanded strict discipline +in his soldiers and prevented as far as possible the pillage +of the Greek towns by his men, but withal caused many a waggon +and many a camel to be laden with the treasures of the east for himself; +unpopular too on account of his manner, which was polished, +haughty, Hellenizing, not at all familiar, and inclining, wherever +it was possible, to ease and pleasure. There was no trace in him +of the charm which weaves a personal bond between the general +and the soldier. Moreover, a large portion of his ablest soldiers +had every reason to complain of the unmeasured prolongation of their +term of service. His two best legions were the same which Flaccus +and Fimbria had led in 668 to the east;(14) notwithstanding +that shortly after the battle of Cabira they had been promised their +discharge well earned by thirteen campaigns, Lucullus now led them +beyond the Euphrates to face a new incalculable war--it seemed +as though the victors of Cabira were to be treated worse than +the vanquished of Cannae.(15) It was in fact more than rash that, +with troops so weak and so much out of humour, a general should at his +own hand and, strictly speaking, at variance with the constitution, +undertake an expedition to a distant and unknown land, full of rapid +streams and snow-clad mountains--a land which from the very vastness +of its extent rendered any lightly-undertaken attack fraught +with danger. The conduct of Lucullus was therefore much +and not unreasonably censured in Rome; only, amidst the censure +the fact should not have been concealed, that the perversity +of the government was the prime occasion of this venturesome +project of the general, and, if it did not justify it, rendered +it at least excusable. + +Lucullus Crosses the Euphrates + +The mission of Appius Claudius was designed not only to furnish +a diplomatic pretext for the war, but also to induce the princes +and cities of Syria especially to take arms against the great-king: +in the spring of 685 the formal attack began. During the winter +the king of Cappadocia had silently provided vessels for transport; +with these the Euphrates was crossed at Melitene, and the further +march was directed by way of the Taurus-passes to the Tigris. +This too Lucullus crossed in the region of Amida (Diarbekr), +and advanced towards the road which connected the second capital +Tigranocerta,(16) recently founded on the south frontier of Armenia, +with the old metropolis Artaxata. At the former was stationed +the great-king, who had shortly before returned from Syria, +after having temporarily deferred the prosecution of his plans +of conquest on the Mediterranean on account of the embroilment +with the Romans. He was just projecting an inroad into Roman Asia +from Cilicia and Lycaonia, and was considering whether the Romans +would at once evacuate Asia or would previously give him battle, +possibly at Ephesus, when the news was brought to him of the advance +of Lucullus, which threatened to cut off his communications +with Artaxata. He ordered the messenger to be hanged, +but the disagreeable reality remained unaltered; so he left +the new capital and resorted to the interior of Armenia, in order +there to raise a force--which had not yet been done--against the Romans. +Meanwhile Mithrobarzanes with the troops actually at his disposal +and in concert with the neighbouring Bedouin tribes, who were called out +in all haste, was to give employment to the Romans. But the corps +of Mithrobarzanes was dispersed by the Roman vanguard, and the Arabs +by a detachment under Sextilius; Lucullus gained the road leading +from Tigranocerta to Artaxata, and, while on the right bank +of the Tigrisa Roman detachment pursued the great-king +retreating northwards, Lucullus himself crossed to the left +and marched forward to Tigranocerta. + +Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta + +The exhaustless showers of arrows which the garrison poured upon +the Roman army, and the setting fire to the besieging machines +by means of naphtha, initiated the Romans into the new dangers +of Iranian warfare; and the brave commandant Mancaeus maintained +the city, till at length the great royal army of relief had assembled +from all parts of the vast empire and the adjoining countries +that were open to Armenian recruiting officers, and had advanced +through the north-eastern passes to the relief of the capital. +The leader Taxiles, experienced in the wars of Mithradates, +advised Tigranes to avoid a battle, and to surround and starve out +the small Roman army by means of his cavalry. But when the king saw +the Roman general, who had determined to give battle without raising +the siege, move out with not much more than 10,000 men against a force +twenty times superior, and boldly cross the river which separated +the two armies; when he surveyed on the one side this little band, +"too many for an embassy, too few for an army," and on the other +side his own immense host, in which the peoples from the Black Sea +and the Caspian met with those of the Mediterranean and of +the Persian Gulf, in which the dreaded iron-clad lancers alone +were more numerous than the whole army of Lucullus, and in which +even infantry armed after the Roman fashion were not wanting; +he resolved promptly to accept the battle desired by the enemy. +But while the Armenians were still forming their array, the quick +eye of Lucullus perceived that they had neglected to occupy a height +which commanded the whole position of their cavalry. He hastened +to occupy it with two cohorts, while at the same time his weak +cavalry by a flank attack diverted the attention of the enemy +from this movement; and as soon as he had reached the height, he led +his little band against the rear of the enemy's cavalry. They were +totally broken and threw themselves on the not yet fully formed +infantry, which fled without even striking a blow. The bulletin +of the victor--that 100,000 Armenians and five Romans had fallen +and that the king, throwing away his turban and diadem, had galloped +off unrecognized with a few horsemen--is composed in the style +of his master Sulla. Nevertheless the victory achieved on the 6th +October 685 before Tigranocerta remains one of the most brilliant +stars in the glorious history of Roman warfare; and it was not less +momentous than brilliant. + +All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +All the provinces wrested from the Parthians or Syrians +to the south of the Tigris were by this means strategically lost +to the Armenians, and passed, for the most part, without delay +into the possession of the victor. The newly-built second capital +itselfset the example. The Greeks, who had been forced in large numbers +to settle there, rose against the garrison and opened to the Roman +army the gates of the city, which was abandoned to the pillage +of the soldiers. It had been created for the new great-kingdom, +and, like this, was effaced by the victor. From Cilicia and Syria +all the troops had already been withdrawn by the Armenian satrap +Magadates to reinforce the relieving army before Tigranocerta. +Lucullus advanced into Commagene, the most northern province +of Syria, and stormed Samosata, the capital; he did not reach Syria +proper, but envoys arrived from the dynasts and communities as far +as the Red Sea--from Hellenes, Syrians, Jews, Arabs--to do homage +to the Romans as their sovereigns. Even the prince of Corduene, +the province situated to the east of Tigranocerta, submitted; +while, on the other hand, Guras the brother of the great-king +maintained himself in Nisibis, and thereby in Mesopotamia. +Lucullus came forward throughout as the protector of the Hellenic +princes and municipalities: in Commagene he placed Antiochus, +a prince of the Seleucid house, on the throne; he recognized +Antiochus Asiaticus, who after the withdrawal of the Armenians had +returned to Antioch, as king of Syria; he sent the forced settlers +of Tigranocerta once more away to their homes. The immense stores +and treasures of the great-king--the grain amounted to 30,000,000 +-medimni-, the money in Tigranocerta alone to 8000 talents (nearly +2,000,000 pounds)--enabled Lucullus to defray the expenses of the war +without making any demand on the state-treasury, and to bestow +on each of his soldiers, besides the amplest maintenance, a present +of 800 -denarii- (33 pounds). + +Tigranes and Mithradates + +The great-king was deeply humbled. He was of a feeble character, +arrogant in prosperity, faint-hearted in adversity. Probably +an agreement would have been come to between him and Lucullus-- +an agreement which there was every reason that the great-king should +purchase by considerable sacrifices, and the Roman general should +grant under tolerable conditions--had not the old Mithradates been +in existence. The latter had taken no part in the conflicts around +Tigranocerta. Liberated after twenty months' captivity about +the middle of 684 in consequence of the variance that had occurred +between the great-king and the Romans, he had been despatched +with 10,000 Armenian cavalry to his former kingdom, to threaten +the communications of the enemy. Recalled even before he could +accomplish anything there, when the great-king summoned his whole +force to relieve the capital which he had built, Mithradates was met +on his arrival before Tigranocerta by the multitudes just fleeing +from the field of battle. To every one, from the great-king +down to the common soldier, all seemed lost. But if Tigranes +should now make peace, not only would Mithradates lose the last +chance of being reinstated in his kingdom, but his surrender would +be beyond doubt the first condition of peace; and certainly +Tigranes would not have acted otherwise towards him than Bocchus +had formerly acted towards Jugurtha. The king accordingly staked +his whole personal weight to prevent things from taking this turn, +and to induce the Armenian court to continue the war, in which +he had nothing to lose and everything to gain; and, fugitive +and dethroned as was Mithradates, his influence at this court +was not slight. He was still a stately and powerful man, who, +although already upwards of sixty years old, vaulted on horseback +in full armour, and in hand-to-hand conflict stood his ground +like the best. Years and vicissitudes seemed to have steeled his spirit: +while in earlier times he sent forth generals to lead his armies +and took no direct part in war himself, we find him henceforth +as an old man commanding in person and fighting in person on the field +of battle. To one who, during his fifty years of rule, had witnessed +so many unexampled changes of fortune, the cause of the great-king +appeared by no means lost through the defeat of Tigranocerta; +whereas the position of Lucullus was very difficult, and, if peace +should not now take place and the war should be judiciously continued, +even in a high degree precarious. + +Renewal of the War + +The veteran of varied experience, who stood towards the great-king +almost as a father, and was now able to exercise a personal +influence over him, overpowered by his energy that weak man, +and induced him not only to resolve on the continuance of the war, +but also to entrust Mithradates with its political and military +management. The war was now to be changed from a cabinet contest +into a national Asiatic struggle; the kings and peoples of Asia +were to unite for this purpose against the domineering and haughty +Occidentals. The greatest exertions were made to reconcile +the Parthians and Armenians with each other, and to induce them +to make common cause against Rome. At the suggestion of Mithradates, +Tigranes offered to give back to the Arsacid Phraates the God (who +had reigned since 684) the provinces conquered by the Armenians-- +Mesopotamia, Adiabene, the "great valleys"--and to enter into friendship +and alliance with him. But, after all that had previously taken place, +this offer could scarcely reckon on a favourable reception; +Phraates preferred to secure the boundary of the Euphrates +by a treaty not with the Armenians, but with the Romans, +and to look on, while the hated neighbour and the inconvenient +foreigner fought out their strife. Greater success attended +the application of Mithradates to the peoples of the east +than to the kings. It was not difficult to represent the war +as a national one of the east against the west, for such it was; +it might very well be made a religious war also, and the report +might be spread that the object aimed at by the army of Lucullus +was the temple of the Persian Nanaea or Anaitis in Elymais or the modern +Luristan, the most celebrated and the richest shrine in the whole +region of the Euphrates.(17) From far and near the Asiatics flocked +in crowds to the banner of the kings, who summoned them to protect +the east and its gods from the impious foreigners. But facts had +shown not only that the mere assemblage of enormous hosts +was of little avail, but that the troops really capable of marching +and fighting were by their very incorporation in such a mass rendered +useless and involved in the general ruin. Mithradates sought +above all to develop the arm which was at once weakest among +the Occidentals and strongest among the Asiatics, the cavalry; +in the army newly formed by him half of the force was mounted. +For the ranks of the infantry he carefully selected, out of the mass +of recruits called forth or volunteering, those fit for service, +and caused them to be drilled by his Pontic officers. The considerable +army, however, which soon assembled under the banner of the great- +king was destined not to measure its strength with the Roman +veterans on the first chance field of battle, but to confine itself +to defence and petty warfare. Mithradates had conducted +the last war in his empire on the system of constantly retreating +and avoiding battle; similar tactics were adopted on this occasion, +and Armenia proper was destined as the theatre of war--the hereditary +land of Tigranes, still wholly untouched by the enemy, and excellently +adapted for this sort of warfare both by its physical character +and by the patriotism of its inhabitants. + +Dissatisfaction with Lucullus in the Capital and in the Army + +The year 686 found Lucullus in a position of difficulty, +which daily assumed a more dangerous aspect. In spite of his brilliant +victories, people in Rome were not at all satisfied with him. +The senate felt the arbitrary nature of his conduct: the capitalist +party, sorely offended by him, set all means of intrigue +and corruption at work to effect his recall. Daily the Forum +echoed with just and unjust complaints regarding the foolhardy, +the covetous, the un-Roman, the traitorous general. The senate +so far yielded to the complaints regarding the union of such unlimited +power--two ordinary governorships and an important extraordinary +command--in the hands of such a man, as to assign the province +of Asia to one of the praetors, and the province of Cilicia +along with three newly-raised legions to the consul Quintus +Marcius Rex, and to restrict the general to the command +against Mithradates and Tigranes. + +These accusations springing up against the general in Rome +found a dangerous echo in the soldiers' quarters on the Iris +andon the Tigris; and the more so that several officers including +the general's own brother-in-law, Publius Clodius, worked upon +the soldiers with this view. The report beyond doubt designedly +circulated by these, that Lucullus now thought of combining +with the Pontic-Armenian war an expedition against the Parthians, +fed the exasperation of the troops. + +Lucullus Advances into Armenia + +But while the troublesome temper of the government and of the soldier +thus threatened the victorious general with recall and mutiny, +he himself continued like a desperate gambler to increase +his stake and his risk. He did not indeed march against the Parthians +but when Tigranes showed himself neither ready to make peace +nor disposed, as Lucullus wished, to risk a second pitched +battle, Lucullus resolved to advance from Tigranocerta, through +the difficult mountain-country along the eastern shore of the lake +of Van, into the valley of the eastern Euphrates (or the Arsanias, +now Myrad-Chai), and thence into that of the Araxes, where, +on the northern slope of Ararat, lay Artaxata the capital of Armenia +proper, with the hereditary castle and the harem of the king. +He hoped, by threatening the king's hereditary residence, +to compel him to fight either on the way or at any rate before +Artaxata. It was inevitably necessary to leave behind a division +at Tigranocerta; and, as the marching army could not possibly be +further reduced, no course was left but to weaken the position +in Pontus and to summon troops thence to Tigranocerta. The main +difficulty, however, was the shortness of the Armenian summer, +so inconvenient for military enterprises. On the tableland +of Armenia, which lies 5000 feet and more above the level of the sea, +the corn at Erzeroum only germinates in the beginning of June, +and the winter sets in with the harvest in September; Artaxata +had to be reached and the campaign had to be ended in four +months at the utmost. + +At midsummer, 686, Lucullus set out from Tigranocerta, +and, marching doubtless through the pass of Bitlis and farther +to the westward along the lake of Van--arrived on the plateau of Musch +and at the Euphrates. The march went on--amidst constant +and very troublesome skirmishing with the enemy's cavalry, +and especially with the mounted archers--slowly, but without material +hindrance; and the passage of the Euphrates, which was seriously +defended by the Armenian cavalry, was secured by a successful engagement; +the Armenian infantry showed itself, but the attempt to involve it +in the conflict did not succeed. Thus the army reached the tableland, +properly so called, of Armenia, and continued its march +into the unknown country. They had suffered no actual misfortune; +but the mere inevitable delaying of the march by the difficulties +of the ground and the horsemen of the enemy was itself a very serious +disadvantage. Long before they had reached Artaxata, winter set +in; and when the Italian soldiers saw snow and ice around them, +the bow of military discipline that had been far too tightly +stretched gave way. + +Lucullus Retreats to Mesopotamia +Capture of Nisibus + +A formal mutiny compelled the general to order a retreat, +which he effected with his usual skill. When he had safely reached +Mesopotamia where the season still permitted farther operations, +Lucullus crossed the Tigris, and threw himself with the mass of his +army on Nisibis, the last city that here remained to the Armenians. +The great-king, rendered wiser by the experience acquired before +Tigranocerta, left the city to itself: notwithstanding its brave +defence it was stormed in a dark, rainy night by the besiegers, +and the army of Lucullus found there booty not less rich and winter- +quarters not less comfortable than the year before in Tigranocerta. + +Conflicts in Pontus and at Tigranocerta + +But, meanwhile, the whole weight of the enemy's offensive fell +on the weak Roman divisions left behind in Pontus and in Armenia. +Tigranes compelled the Roman commander of the latter corps, Lucius +Fannius--the same who had formerly been the medium of communication +between Sertorius and Mithradates (18)--to throw himself +into a fortress, and kept him beleaguered there. Mithradates +advanced into Pontus with 4000 Armenian horsemen and 4000 of his own, +and as liberator and avenger summoned the nation to rise against +the common foe. All joined him; the scattered Roman soldiers +were everywhere seized and put to death: when Hadrianus, the Roman +commandant in Pontus,(19) led his troops against him, the former +mercenaries of the king and the numerous natives of Pontus +following the army as slaves made common cause with the enemy. +For two successive days the unequal conflict lasted; it was only +the circumstance that the king after receiving two wounds had +to be carried off from the field of battle, which gave the Roman +commander the opportunity of breaking off the virtually lost +battle, and throwing himself with the small remnant of his troops +into Cabira. Another of Lucullus' lieutenants who accidentally +came into this region, the resolute Triarius, again gathered round +him a body of troops and fought a successful engagement +with the king; but he was much too weak to expel him afresh +from Pontic soil, and had to acquiesce while the king took up +winter-quarters in Comana. + +Farther Retreat to Pontus + +So the spring of 687 came on. The reunion of the army in Nisibis, +the idleness of winter-quarters, the frequent absence of the general, +had meanwhile increased the insubordination of the troops; +not only did they vehemently demand to be led back, but it was already +tolerably evident that, if the general refused to lead them home, +they would break up of themselves. The supplies were scanty; +Fannius and Triarius, in their distress, sent the most urgent +entreaties to the general to furnish aid. With a heavy heart +Lucullus resolved to yield to necessity, to give up Nisibis +and Tigranocerta, and, renouncing all the brilliant hopes of his +Armenian expedition, to return to the right bank of the Euphrates. +Fannius was relieved; but in Pontus the help was too late. +Triarius, not strong enough to fight with Mithradates, had taken +up a strong position at Gaziura (Turksal on the Iris, to the west +of Tokat), while the baggage was left behind at Dadasa. +But when Mithradates laid siege to the latter place, the Roman soldiers, +apprehensive for their property, compelled their leader to leave +his secure position, and to give battle to the king between Gaziura +and Ziela (Zilleh) on the Scotian heights. + +Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela + +What Triarius had foreseen, occurred. In spite of the stoutest +resistance the wing which the king commanded in person broke +the Roman line and huddled the infantry together into a clayey ravine, +where it could make neither a forward nor a lateral movement +and was cut to pieces without pity. The king indeed was dangerously +wounded by a Roman centurion, who sacrificed his life for it; +but the defeat was not the less complete. The Roman camp was taken; +the flower of the infantry, and almost all the staff and subaltern +officers, strewed the ground; the dead were left lying unburied +on the field of battle, and, when Lucullus arrived on the right bank +of the Euphrates, he learned the defeat not from his own soldiers, +but through the reports of the natives. + +Mutiny of the Soldiers + +Along with this defeat came the outbreak of the military conspiracy. +At this very time news arrived from Rome that the people had resolved +to grant a discharge to the soldiers whose legal term of service had +expired, to wit, to the Fimbrians, and to entrust the chief command +in Pontus and Bithynia to one of the consuls of the current year: +the successor of Lucullus, the consul Manius Acilius Glabrio, +had already landed in Asia Minor. The disbanding of the bravest +and most turbulent legions and the recall of the commander-in-chief, +in connection with the impression produced by the defeat of Ziela, +dissolved all the bonds of authority in the army just when the general +had most urgent need of their aid. Near Talaura in Lesser Armenia +he confronted the Pontic troops, at whose head Tigranes' son-in-law, +Mithradates of Media, had already engaged the Romans successfully +in a cavalry conflict; the main force of the great-king was advancing +to the same point from Armenia. Lucullus sent to Quintus Marcius +the new governor of Cilicia, who had just arrived on the way +to his province with three legions in Lycaonia, to obtain help from him; +Marcius declared that his soldiers refused to march to Armenia. +He sent to Glabrio with the request that he would take up the supreme +command committed to him by the people; Glabrio showed still less +inclination to undertake this task, which had now become so difficult +and hazardous. Lucullus, compelled to retain the command, +with the view of not being obliged to fight at Talaura against +the Armenian and the Pontic armies conjoined, ordered a movement +against the advancing Armenians. + +Farther Retreat to Asia Minor + +The soldiers obeyed the order to march; but, when they reached +the point where the routes to Armenia and Cappadocia diverged, +the bulk of the army took the latter, and proceeded to the province +of Asia. There the Fimbrians demanded their immediate discharge; +and although they desisted from this at the urgent entreaty +of the commander-in-chief and the other corps, they yet persevered +in their purpose of disbanding if the winter should come on without +an enemy confronting them; which accordingly was the case. +Mithradates not only occupied once more almost his whole kingdom, +but his cavalry ranged over all Cappadocia and as far as Bithynia; +king Ariobarzanes sought help equally in vain from Quintus Marcius, +from Lucullus, and from Glabrio. It was a strange, almost +incredible issue for a war conducted in a manner so glorious. +If we look merely to military achievements, hardly any other Roman +general accomplished so much with so trifling means as Lucullus; +the talent and the fortune of Sulla seemed to have devolved on this +his disciple. That under the circumstances the Roman army should +have returned from Armenia to Asia Minor uninjured, is a military +miracle which, so far as we can judge, far excels the retreat +of Xenophon; and, although mainly doubtless to be explained +by the solidity of the Roman, and the inefficiency of the Oriental, +system of war, it at all events secures to the leader of this expedition +an honourable name in the foremost rank of men of military +capacity. If the name of Lucullus is not usually included among these, +it is to all appearance simply owing to the fact that no narrative +of his campaigns which is in a military point of view even tolerable +has come down to us, and to the circumstance that in everything +and particularly in war, nothing is taken into account +but the final result; and this, in reality, was equivalent +to a complete defeat. Through the last unfortunate turn of things, +and principally through the mutiny of the soldiers, all the results +of an eight years' war had been lost; in the winter of 687-688 +the Romans again stood exactly at the same spot +as in the winter of 679-680. + +War with the Pirates + +The maritime war against the pirates, which began at the same time +with the continental war and was all along most closely connected +with it, yielded no better results. It has been already mentioned +(20) that the senate in 680 adopted the judicious resolution +to entrust the task of clearing the seas from the corsairs +to a single admiral in supreme command, the praetor Marcus Antonius. +But at the very outset they had made an utter mistake in the choice +of the leader; or rather those, who had carried this measure +so appropriate in itself, had not taken into account that in the senate +all personal questions were decided by the influence of Cethegus(21) +and similar coterie-considerations. They had moreover +neglected to furnish the admiral of their choice with money +and ships in a manner befitting his comprehensive task, +so that with his enormous requisitions he was almost as burdensome +to the provincials whom he befriended as were the corsairs. + +Defeat of Antonius off Cydonia + +The results were corresponding. In the Campanian waters the fleet +of Antonius captured a number of piratical vessels. But an engagement +took place with the Cretans, who had entered into friendship +and alliance with the pirates and abruptly rejected his demand +that they should desist from such fellowship; and the chains, +with which the foresight of Antonius had provided his vessels +for the purpose of placing the captive buccaneers in irons, +served to fasten the quaestor and the other Roman prisoners +to the masts of the captured Roman ships, when the Cretan generals +Lasthenes and Panares steered back in triumph to Cydonia +from the naval combat in which they had engaged the Romans +off their island. Antonius, after having squandered immense sums +and accomplished not the slightest result by his inconsiderate mode +of warfare, died in 683 at Crete. The ill success of his expedition, +the costliness of building a fleet, and the repugnance of the oligarchy +to confer any powers of a more comprehensive kind on the magistrates, +led them, after the practical termination of this enterprise +by Antonius' death, to make no farther nomination of an admiral-in-chief, +and to revert to the old system of leaving each governor to look +after the suppression of piracy in his own province: the fleet equipped +by Lucullus for instance(22) was actively employed for this purpose +in the Aegean sea. + +Cretan War + +So far however as the Cretans were concerned, a disgrace +like that endured off Cydonia seemed even to the degenerate Romans +of this age as if it could be answered only by a declaration of war. +Yet the Cretan envoys, who in the year 684 appeared in Rome +with the request that the prisoners might be taken back and the old +alliance reestablished, had almost obtained a favourable decree +of the senate; what the whole corporation termed a disgrace, +the individual senator was ready to sell for a substantial price. +It was not till a formal resolution of the senate rendered the loans +of the Cretan envoys among the Roman bankers non-actionable-- +that is, not until the senate had incapacitated itself for undergoing +bribery--that a decree passed to the effect that the Cretan +communities, if they wished to avoid war, should hand over not only +the Roman deserters but the authors of the outrage perpetrated off +Cydonia--the leaders Lasthenes and Panares--to the Romans +for befitting punishment, should deliver up all ships and boats of four +or more oars, should furnish 400 hostages, and should pay a fine +of 4000 talents (975,000 pounds). When the envoys declared that they +were not empowered to enter into such terms, one of the consuls +of the next year was appointed to depart on the expiry of his official +term for Crete, in order either to receive there what was demanded +or to begin the war. + +Metellus Subdues Crete + +Accordingly in 685 the proconsul Quintus Metellus appeared +in the Cretan waters. The communities of the island, with the larger +towns Gortyna, Cnossus, Cydonia at their head, were resolved rather +to defend themselves in arms than to submit to those excessive +demands. The Cretans were a nefarious and degenerate people,(23) +with whose public and private existence piracy was as intimately +associated as robbery with the commonwealth of the Aetolians; +but they resembled the Aetolians in valour as in many other respects, +and accordingly these two were the only Greek communities +that waged a courageous and honourable struggle for independence. +At Cydonia, where Metellus landed his three legions, a Cretan army +of 24,000 men under Lasthenes and Panares was ready to receive him; +a battle took place in the open field, in which the victory +after a hard struggle remained with the Romans. Nevertheless +the towns bade defiance from behind their walls to the Roman general; +Metellus had to make up his mind to besiege them in succession. +First Cydonia, in which the remains of the beaten army had taken +refuge, was after a long siege surrendered by Panares in return +for the promise of a free departure for himself. Lasthenes, who had +escaped from the town, had to be besieged a second time in Cnossus; +and, when this fortress also was on the point of falling, +he destroyed its treasures and escaped once more to places which still +continued their defence, such as Lyctus, Eleuthera, and others. +Two years (686, 687) elapsed, before Metellus became master +of the whole island and the last spot of free Greek soil thereby +passed under the control of the dominant Romans; the Cretan communities, +as they were the first of all Greek commonwealths to develop +the free urban constitution and the dominion of the sea, were also +to be the last of all those Greek maritime states that formerly filled +the Mediterranean to succumb to the Roman continental power. + +The Pirates in the Mediterranean + +All the legal conditions were fulfilled for celebrating another +of the usual pompous triumphs; the gens of the Metelli could add +to its Macedonian, Numidian, Dalmatian, Balearic titles with equal +right the new title of Creticus, and Rome possessed another name +of pride. Nevertheless the power of the Romans in the Mediterranean +was never lower, that of the corsairs never higher, than in those +years. Well might the Cilicians and Cretans of the seas, who are +said to have numbered at this time 1000 ships, mock the Isauricus +and the Creticus, and their empty victories. With what effect +the pirates interfered in the Mithradatic war, and how the obstinate +resistance of the Pontic maritime towns derived its best resources +from the corsair-state, has been already related. But that state +transacted business on a hardly less grand scale on its own behoof. +Almost under the eyes of the fleet of Lucullus, the pirate Athenodorus +surprised in 685 the island of Delos, destroyed its far-famed +shrines and temples, and carried off the whole population +into slavery. The island Lipara near Sicily paid to the pirates +a fixed tribute annually, to remain exempt from like attacks. +Another pirate chief Heracleon destroyed in 682 the squadron +equipped in Sicily against him, and ventured with no more than four +open boats to sail into the harbour of Syracuse. Two years later +his colleague Pyrganion even landed at the same port, established +himself there and sent forth flying parties into the island, +till the Roman governor at last compelled him to re-embark. +People grew at length quite accustomed to the fact that all +the provinces equipped squadrons and raised coastguards, +or were at any rate taxed for both; and yet the pirates appeared +to plunder the provinces with as much regularity as the Roman governors. +But even the sacred soil of Italy was now no longer respected +by the shameless transgressors: from Croton they carried off with them +the temple-treasures of the Lacinian Hera; they landed in Brundisium, +Misenum, Caieta, in the Etruscan ports, even in Ostia itself; they +seized the most eminent Roman officers as captives, among others +the admiral of the Cilician army and two praetors with their whole +retinue, with the dreaded -fasces- themselves and all the insignia +of their dignity; they carried away from a villa at Misenum +the very sister of the Roman admiral-in-chief Antonius, who was sent +forth to annihilate the pirates; they destroyed in the port +of Ostia the Roman war fleet equipped against them and commanded +by a consul. The Latin husbandman, the traveller on the Appian highway, +the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae +were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single +moment; all traffic and all intercourse were suspended; +the most dreadful scarcity prevailed in Italy, and especially +in the capital, which subsisted on transmarine corn. The contemporary +world and history indulge freely in complaints of insupportable +distress; in this case the epithet may have been appropriate. + +Servile Disturbances + +We have already described how the senate restored by Sulla carried +out its guardianship of the frontier in Macedonia, its discipline +over the client kings of Asia Minor, and lastly its marine police; +the results were nowhere satisfactory. Nor did better success +attend the government in another and perhaps even more urgent +matter, the supervision of the provincial, and above all +of the Italian, proletariate. The gangrene of a slave-proletariate +Gnawed at the vitals of all the states of antiquity, and the more so, +the more vigorously they had risen and prospered; for the power +and riches of the state regularly led, under the existing +circumstances, to a disproportionate increase of the body +of slaves. Rome naturally suffered more severely from this cause +than any other state of antiquity. Even the government of the sixth +century had been under the necessity of sending troops against +the gangs of runaway herdsmen and rural slaves. The plantation-system, +spreading more and more among the Italian speculators +had infinitely increased the dangerous evil: in the time of +the Gracchan and Marian crises and in close connection with them +servile revolts had taken place at numerous points of the Roman +empire, and in Sicily had even grown into two bloody wars (619-622 +and 652-654;(24)). But the ten years of the rule of the restoration +after Sulla's death formed the golden age both for the buccaneers +at sea and for bands of a similar character on land, above all +in the Italian peninsula, which had hitherto been comparatively +well regulated. The land could hardly be said any longer to enjoy +peace. In the capital and the less populous districts of Italy +robberies were of everyday occurrence, murders were frequent. +A special decree of the people was issued--perhaps at this epoch-- +against kidnapping of foreign slaves and of free men; a special +summary action was about this time introduced against violent +deprivation of landed property. These crimes could not +but appear specially dangerous, because, while they were usually +perpetrated by the proletariate, the upper class were to a great +extent also concerned in them as moral originators and partakers +in the gain. The abduction of men and of estates was very frequently +suggested by the overseers of the large estates and carried out +by the gangs of slaves, frequently armed, that were collected there: +and many a man even of high respectability did not disdain what +one of his officious slave-overseers thus acquired for him +as Mephistopheles acquired for Faust the lime trees of Philemon. +The state of things is shown by the aggravated punishment for outrages +on property committed by armed bands, which was introduced +by one of the better Optimates, Marcus Lucullus, as presiding over +the administration of justice in the capital about the year 676,(25) +with the express object of inducing the proprietors of large bands +of slaves to exercise a more strict superintendence over them +and thereby avoid the penalty of seeing them judicially condemned. +Where pillage and murder were thus carried on by order +of the world of quality, it was natural for these masses of slaves +and proletarians to prosecute the same business on their own account; +a spark was sufficient to set fire to so inflammable materials, +and to convert the proletariate into an insurrectionary army. +An occasion was soon found. + +Outbreak of the Gladiatorial War in Italy +Spartacus + +The gladiatorial games, which now held the first rank +among the popular amusements in Italy, had led to the institution +of numerous establishments, more especially in and around Capua, +designed partly for the custody, partly for the training +of those slaves who were destined to kill or be killed for the amusement +of the sovereign multitude. These were naturally in great part +brave men captured in war, who had not forgotten that they had once +faced the Romans in the field. A number of these desperadoes broke out +of one of the Capuan gladiatorial schools (681), and sought refuge +on Mount Vesuvius. At their head were two Celts, who were designated +by their slave-names Crixus and Oenomaus, and the Thracian Spartacus. +The latter, perhaps a scion of the noble family of the Spartocids +which attained even to royal honours in its Thracian home +and in Panticapaeum, had served among the Thracian auxiliaries +in the Roman army, had deserted and gone as a brigand to the mountains, +and had been there recaptured and destined for the gladiatorial games. + +The Insurrection Takes Shape + +The inroads of this little band, numbering at first only seventy-four +persons, but rapidly swelling by concourse from the surrounding +country, soon became so troublesome to the inhabitants +of the rich region of Campania, that these, after having vainly +attempted themselves to repel them, sought help against them +from Rome. A division of 3000 men hurriedly collected appeared +under the leadership of Clodius Glaber, and occupied the approaches +to Vesuvius with the view of starving out the slaves. +But the brigands in spite of their small number and their +defective armament had the boldness to scramble down steep declivities +and to fall upon the Roman posts; and when the wretched militia saw +the little band of desperadoes unexpectedly assail them, they took +to their heels and fled on all sides. This first success procured +for the robbers arms and increased accessions to their ranks. +Although even now a great portion of them carried nothing +but pointed clubs, the new and stronger division of the militia-- +two legions under the praetor Publius Varinius--which advanced +from Rome into Campania, found them encamped almost like a regular army +in the plain. Varinius had a difficult position. His militia, +compelled to bivouac opposite the enemy, were severely weakened +by the damp autumn weather and the diseases which it engendered; +and, worse than the epidemics, cowardice and insubordination thinned +the ranks. At the very outset one of his divisions broke up entirely, +so that the fugitives did not fall back on the main corps, but went +straight home. Thereupon, when the order was given to advance +against the enemy's entrenchments and attack them, the greater +portion of the troops refused to comply with it. Nevertheless +Varinius set out with those who kept their ground against +the robber-band; but it was no longer to be found where he sought it. +It had broken up in the deepest silence and had turned to the south +towards Picentia (Vicenza near Amain), where Varinius overtook it +indeed, but could not prevent it from retiring over the Silarus +into the interior of Lucania, the chosen land of shepherds and robbers. +Varinius followed thither, and there at length the despised enemy +arrayed themselves for battle. All the circumstances +under which the combat took place were to the disadvantage +of the Romans: the soldiers, vehemently as they had demanded +battle a little before, fought ill; Varinius was completely +vanquished; his horse and the insignia of his official +dignity fell with the Roman camp itself into the enemy's hand. +The south-Italian slaves, especially the brave half-savage herdsmen, +flocked in crowds to the banner of the deliverers who had +so unexpectedly appeared; according to the most moderate estimates +the number of armed insurgents rose to 40,000 men. Campania, +just evacuated, was speedily reoccupied, and the Roman corps which was +left behind there under Gaius Thoranius, the quaestor of Varinius, +was broken and destroyed. In the whole south and south-west +of Italy the open country was in the hands of the victorious bandit- +chiefs; even considerable towns, such as Consentia in the Bruttian +country, Thurii and Metapontum in Lucania, Nola and Nuceria +in Campania, were stormed by them, and suffered all the atrocities +which victorious barbarians could inflict on defenceless civilized +men, and unshackled slaves on their former masters. That a conflict +like this should be altogether abnormal and more a massacre +than a war, was unhappily a matter of course: the masters +duly crucified every captured slave; the slaves naturally killed +their prisoners also, or with still more sarcastic retaliation +even compelled their Roman captives to slaughter each other +in gladiatorial sport; as was subsequently done with three hundred +of them at the obsequies of a robber-captain who had fallen in combat. + +Great Victories of Spartacus + +In Rome people were with reason apprehensive as to the destructive +conflagration which was daily spreading. It was resolved next year +(682) to send both consuls against the formidable leaders +of the gang. The praetor Quintus Arrius, a lieutenant of the consul +Lucius Gellius, actually succeeded in seizing and destroying +at Mount Garganus in Apulia the Celtic band, which under Crixus +had separated from the mass of the robber-army and was levying +contributions at its own hand. But Spartacus achieved +all the more brilliant victories in the Apennines and in northern Italy, +where first the consul Gnaeus Lentulus who had thought to surround +and capture the robbers, then his colleague Gellius and the so recently +victorious praetor Arrius, and lastly at Mutina the governor +of Cisalpine Gaul Gaius Cassius (consul 681) and the praetor Gnaeus +Manlius, one after another succumbed to his blows. The scarcely- +armed gangs of slaves were the terror of the legions; the series +of defeats recalled the first years of the Hannibalic war. + +Internal Dissension among the Insurgents + +What might have come of it, had the national kings +from the mountains of Auvergne or of the Balkan, and not runaway +gladiatorial slaves, been at the head of the victorious bands, +it is impossible to say; as it was, the movement remained +notwithstanding its brilliant victories a rising of robbers, +and succumbed less to the superior force of its opponents than +to internal discord and the want of definite plan. The unity +in confronting the common foe, which was so remarkably conspicuous +in the earlier servile wars of Sicily, was wanting in this Italian +war--a difference probably due to the fact that, while the Sicilian +slaves found a quasi-national point of union in the common +Syrohellenism, the Italian slaves were separated into the two +bodies of Helleno-Barbarians and Celto-Germans. The rupture +between the Celtic Crixus and the Thracian Spartacus--Oenomaus had +fallen in one of the earliest conflicts--and other similar quarrels +crippled them in turning to account the successes achieved, +and procured for the Romans several important victories. But the want +of a definite plan and aim produced far more injurious effects +on the enterprise than the insubordination of the Celto-Germans. +Spartacus doubtless--to judge by the little which we learn +regarding that remarkable man--stood in this respect above his party. +Along with his strategic ability he displayed no ordinary +talent for organization, as indeed from the very outset +the uprightness, with which he presided over his band and distributed +the spoil, had directed the eyes of the multitude to him quite +as much at least as his valour. To remedy the severely felt want +of cavalry and of arms, he tried with the help of the herds of horses +seized in Lower Italy to train and discipline a cavalry, and, so soon as +he got the port of Thurii into his hands, to procure from that quarter +iron and copper, doubtless through the medium of the pirates. +But in the main matters he was unable to induce the wild hordes +whom he led to pursue any fixed ulterior aims. Gladly would +he have checked the frantic orgies of cruelty, in which the robbers +indulged on the capture of towns, and which formed the chief reason +why no Italian city voluntarily made common cause with the insurgents; +but the obedience which the bandit-chief found in the conflic +ceased with the victory, and his representations and entreaties +were in vain. After the victories obtained in the Apennine +in 682 the slave army was free to move in any direction. +Spartacus himself is said to have intended to cross the Alps, +with a view to open to himself and his followers the means of return +to their Celtic or Thracian home: if the statement is well founded, +it shows how little the conqueror overrated his successes +and his power. When his men refused so speedily to turn their backs +on the riches of Italy, Spartacus took the route for Rome, and is said +to have meditated blockading the capital. The troops, however, +showed themselves also averse to this desperate but yet methodical +enterprise; they compelled their leader, when he was desirous +to be a general, to remain a mere captain of banditti and aimlessly +to wander about Italy in search of plunder. Rome might think herself +fortunate that the matter took this turn; but even as it was, +the perplexity was great. There was a want of trained soldiers +as of experienced generals; Quintus Metellus and Gnaeus Pompeius +were employed in Spain, Marcus Lucullus in Thrace, Lucius Lucullus +in Asia Minor; and none but raw militia and, at best, mediocre +officers were available. The extraordinary supreme command +in Italy was given to the praetor Marcus Crassus, who was not +a general of much reputation, but had fought with honour under Sulla +and had at least character; and an army of eight legions, imposing +if not by its quality, at any rate by its numbers, was placed +at his disposal. The new commander-in-chief began by treating +the first division, which again threw away its arms and fled before +the banditti, with all the severity of martial law, and causing every +tenth man in it to be executed; whereupon the legions in reality +grew somewhat more manly. Spartacus, vanquished in the next +engagement, retreated and sought to reach Rhegium through Lucania. + +Conflicts in the Bruttian Country + +Just at that time the pirates commanded not merely the Sicilian +waters, but even the port of Syracuse;(26) with the help of their +boats Spartacus proposed to throw a corps into Sicily, where the slaves +only waited an impulse to break out a third time. The march to Rhegium +was accomplished; but the corsairs, perhaps terrified by the coastguards +established in Sicily by the praetor Gaius Verres, perhaps also bribed +by the Romans, took from Spartacus the stipulated hire without performing +the service for which it was given. Crassus meanwhile had followed +the robber-army nearly as far as the mouth, of the Crathis, +and, like Scipio before Numantia, ordered his soldiers, +seeing that they did not fight as they ought, to construct +an entrenched wall of the length of thirty-five miles, +which shut off the Bruttian peninsula from the rest of Italy,(27) +intercepted the insurgent army on the return from Rhegium, +and cut off its supplies. But in a dark winter night Spartacus +broke through the lines of the enemy, and in the spring of 683(28) +was once more in Lucania. The laborious work had thus been in vain. +Crassus began to despair of accomplishing his task and demanded +that the senate should for his support recall to Italy the armies +stationed in Macedonia under Marcus Lucullus and in Hither Spain +under Gnaeus Pompeius. + +Disruption of the Rebels and Their Subjugation + +This extreme step however was not needed; the disunion and the arrogance +of the robber-bands sufficed again to frustrate their successes. +Once more the Celts and Germans broke off from the league of which +the Thracian was the head and soul, in order that, under leaders +of their own nation Gannicus and Castus, they might separately +fall victims to the sword of the Romans. Once, at the Lucanian +lake the opportune appearance of Spartacus saved them, +and thereupon they pitched their camp near to his; nevertheless +Crassus succeeded in giving employment to Spartacus by means +of the cavalry, and meanwhile surrounded the Celtic bands and compelled +them to a separate engagement, in which the whole body--numbering +it is said 12,300 combatants--fell fighting bravely all on the spot +and with their wounds in front. Spartacus then attempted to throw +himself with his division into the mountains round Petelia (near +Strongoli in Calabria), and signally defeated the Roman vanguard, +which followed his retreat But this victory proved more injurious +to the victor than to the vanquished. Intoxicated by success, +the robbers refused to retreat farther, and compelled their general +to lead them through Lucania towards Apulia to face the last decisive +struggle. Before the battle Spartacus stabbed his horse: +as in prosperity and adversity he had faithfully kept by his men, +he now by that act showed them that the issue for him and for all +was victory or death. In the battle also he fought with the courage +of a lion; two centurions fell by his hand; wounded and on his knees +he still wielded his spear against the advancing foes. +Thus the great robber-captain and with him the best of his comrades +died the death of free men and of honourable soldiers (683). +After the dearly-bought victory the troops who had achieved it, +and those of Pompeius that had meanwhile after conquering the Sertorians +arrived from Spain, instituted throughout Apulia and Lucania a manhunt, +such as there had never been before, to crush out the last sparks +of the mighty conflagration. Although in the southern districts, +where for instance the little town of Tempsa was seized in 683 +by a gang of robbers, and in Etruria, which was severely affected +by Sulla's evictions, there was by no means as yet a real public +tranquillity, peace was officially considered as re-established +in Italy. At least the disgracefully lost eagles were recovered-- +after the victory over the Celts alone five of them were brought +in; and along the road from Capua to Rome the six thousand crosses +bearing captured slaves testified to the re-establishment of order, +and to the renewed victory of acknowledged law over its living +property that had rebelled. + +The Government of the Restoration as a Whole + +Let us look back on the events which fill up the ten years +of the Sullan restoration. No one of the movements, external +or internal, which occurred during this period--neither the insurrection +of Lepidus, nor the enterprises of the Spanish emigrants, nor the wars +in Thrace and Macedonia and in Asia Minor, nor the risings +of the pirates and the slaves--constituted of itself a mighty danger +necessarily affecting the vital sinews of the nation; and yet +the state had in all these struggles well-nigh fought for its +very existence. The reason was that the tasks were everywhere +left unperformed, so long as they might still have been performed +with ease; the neglect of the simplest precautionary measures produced +the most dreadful mischiefs and misfortunes, and transformed +dependent classes and impotent kings into antagonists on a footing +of equality. The democracy and the servile insurrection +were doubtless subdued; but such as the victories were, the victor +was neither inwardly elevated nor outwardly strengthened by them. +It was no credit to Rome, that the two most celebrated generals +of the government party had during a struggle of eight years marked +by more defeats than victories failed to master the insurgent chief +Sertorius and his Spanish guerillas, and that it was only +the dagger of his friends that decided the Sertorian war in favour +of the legitimate government. As to the slaves, it was far less +an honour to have conquered them than a disgrace to have confronted +them in equal strife for years. Little more than a century had +elapsed since the Hannibalic war; it must have brought a blush +to the cheek of the honourable Roman, when he reflected +on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. +Then the Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans +of Hannibal; now the Italian militia were scattered like chaff before +the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain +acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, +but always with honour; now it was difficult to find among +all the officers of rank a leader of even ordinary efficiency. +Then the government preferred to take the last farmer from the plough +rather than forgo the acquisition of Spain and Greece; now they were +on the eve of again abandoning both regions long since acquired, +merely that they might be able to defend themselves against +the insurgent slaves at home. Spartacus too as well as Hannibal +had traversed Italy with an army from the Po to the Sicilian straits, +beaten both consuls, and threatened Rome with blockade; +the enterprise which had needed the greatest general of antiquity +to conduct it against the Rome of former days could be undertaken +against the Rome of the present by a daring captain of banditti. +Was there any wonder that no fresh life sprang out of such victories +over insurgents and robber-chiefs? + +The external wars, however, had produced a result still less +gratifying. It is true that the Thraco-Macedonian war had yielded +a result not directly unfavourable, although far from corresponding +to the considerable expenditure of men and money. In the wars +in Asia Minor and with the pirates on the other hand, the government +had exhibited utter failure. The former ended with the loss +of the whole conquests made in eight bloody campaigns, the latter +with the total driving of the Romans from "their own sea." Once Rome, +fully conscious of the irresistibleness of her power by land, +had transferred her superiority also to the other element; +now the mighty state was powerless at sea and, as it seemed, +on the point of also losing its dominion at least over the Asiatic +continent. The material benefits which a state exists to confer-- +security of frontier, undisturbed peaceful intercourse, legal protection, +and regulated administration--began all of them to vanish for the whole +of the nations united in the Roman state; the gods of blessing +seemed all to have mounted up to Olympus and to have left +the miserable earth at the mercy of the officially called or volunteer +plunderers and tormentors. Nor was this decay of the state felt +as a public misfortune merely perhaps by such as had political rights +and public spirit; the insurrection of the proletariate, +and the brigandage and piracy which remind us of the times +of the Neapolitan Ferdinands, carried the sense of this decay +into the remotest valley and the humblest hut of Italy, and made +every one who pursued trade and commerce, or who bought +even a bushel of wheat, feel it as a personal calamity. + +If inquiry was made as to the authors of this dreadful and unexampled +misery, it was not difficult to lay the blame of it with good +reason on many. The slaveholders whose heart was in their +money-bags, the insubordinate soldiers, the generals cowardly, +incapable, or foolhardy, the demagogues of the market-place mostly +pursuing a mistaken aim, bore their share of the blame; or, +to speak more truly, who was there that did not share in it? +It was instinctively felt that this misery, this disgrace, this disorder +were too colossal to be the work of any one man. As the greatness +of the Roman commonwealth was the work not of prominent individuals, +but rather of a soundly-organized burgess-body, so the decay +of this mighty structure was the result not of the destructive genius +of individuals, but of a general disorganization. The great majority +of the burgesses were good for nothing, and every rotten stone +in the building helped to bring about the ruin of the whole; the whole +nation suffered for what was the whole nation's fault. It was unjust +to hold the government, as the ultimate tangible organ of the state, +responsible for all its curable and incurable diseases; but it certainly +was true that the government contributed after a very grave fashion +to the general culpability. In the Asiatic war, for example, +where no individual of the ruling lords conspicuously failed, +and Lucullus, in a military point of view at least, behaved with ability +and even glory, it was all the more clear that the blame of failure lay +in the system and in the government as such--primarily, so far +as that war was concerned, in the remissness with which Cappadocia +and Syria were at first abandoned, and in the awkward position +of the able general with reference to a governing college incapable +of any energetic resolution. In maritime police likewise +the true idea which the senate had taken up as to a general hunting +out of the pirates was first spoilt by it in the execution +and then totally dropped, in order to revert to the old foolish system +of sending legions against the coursers of the sea. The expeditions +of Servilius and Marcius to Cilicia, and of Metellus to Crete, +were undertaken on this system; and in accordance with it Triarius +had the island of Delos surrounded by a wall for protection against +the pirates. Such attempts to secure the dominion of the seas remind +us of that Persian great-king, who ordered the sea to be scourged +with rods to make it subject to him. Doubtless therefore +the nation had good reason for laying the blame of its failure +primarily on the government of the restoration. A similar misrule +had indeed always come along with the re-establishment +of the oligarchy, after the fall of the Gracchi as after that +of Marius and Saturninus; yet never before had it shown such violence +and at the same time such laxity, never had it previously emerged +so corrupt and pernicious. But, when a government cannot govern, +it ceases to be legitimate, and whoever has the power has also +the right to overthrow it. It is, no doubt, unhappily true +that an incapable and flagitious government may for a long period trample +under foot the welfare and honour of the land, before the men are +found who are able and willing to wield against that government +the formidable weapons of its own forging, and to evoke out of +the moral revolt of the good and the distress of the many the revolution +which is in such a case legitimate. But if the game attempted +with the fortunes of nations may be a merry one and may be played +perhaps for a long time without molestation, it is a treacherous +game, which in its own time entraps the players; and no one then +blames the axe, if it is laid to the root of the tree that bears +such fruits. For the Roman oligarchy this time had now come. +The Pontic-Armenian war and the affair of the pirates became +the proximate causes of the overthrow of the Sullan constitution +and of the establishment of a revolutionary military dictatorship. + + + + +Chapter III + +The Fall of the Oligarchy and the Rule of Pompeius + +Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution + +The Sullan constitution still stood unshaken. The assault, +which Lepidus and Sertorius had ventured to make on it, +had been repulsed with little loss. The government had neglected, +it is true, to finish the half-completed building in the energetic +spirit of its author. It is characteristic of the government, +that it neither distributed the lands which Sulla had destined +for allotment but had not yet parcelled out, nor directly abandoned +the claim to them, but tolerated the former owners in provisional +possession without regulating their title, and indeed even allowed +various still undistributed tracts of Sullan domain-land to be +arbitrarily taken possession of by individuals according +to the old system of occupation, which was de jure and de facto +set aside by the Gracchan reforms.(1) Whatever in the Sullan enactments +was indifferent or inconvenient for the Optimates, was without scruple +ignored or cancelled; for instance, the sentences under which whole +communities were deprived of the right of citizenship, the prohibition +against conjoining the new farms, and several of the privileges +conferred by Sulla on particular communities--of course, without +giving back to the communities the sums paid for these exemptions. +But though these violations of the ordinances of Sulla by the government +itself contributed to shake the foundations of his structure, +the Sempronian laws were substantially abolished and remained so. + +Attacks of the Democracy +Corn-Laws +Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power + +There was no lack, indeed, of men who had in view the re-establishment +of the Gracchan constitution, or of projects to attain piecemeal +in the way of constitutional reform what Lepidus and Sertorius +had attempted by the path of revolution. The government +had already under the pressure of the agitation of Lepidus +immediately after the death of Sulla consented to a limited revival +of the largesses of grain (676); and it did, moreover, +what it could to satisfy the proletariate of the capital in regard +to this vital question. When, notwithstanding those distributions, +the high price of grain occasioned chiefly by piracy produced +so oppressive a dearth in Rome as to lead to a violent tumult +in the streets in 679, extraordinary purchases of Sicilian grain +on account of the government relieved for the time the most severe +distress; and a corn-law brought in by the consuls of 681 regulated +for the future the purchases of Sicilian grain and furnished +the government, although at the expense of the provincials, +with better means of obviating similar evils. But the less material +points of difference also--the restoration of the tribunician power +in its old compass, and the setting aside of the senatorial tribunals-- +ceased not to form subjects of popular agitation; and in their +case the government offered more decided resistance. The dispute +regarding the tribunician magistracy was opened as early as 678, +immediately after the defeat of Lepidus, by the tribune of the people +Lucius Sicinius, perhaps a descendant of the man of the same +name who had first filled this office more than four hundred years +before; but it failed before the resistance offered to it +by the active consul Gaius Curio. In 680 Lucius Quinctius resumed +the agitation, but was induced by the authority of the consul Lucius +Lucullus to desist from his purpose. The matter was taken up +in the following year with greater zeal by Gaius Licinius Macer, who-- +in a way characteristic of the period--carried his literary studies +into public life, and, just as he had read in the Annals, +counselled the burgesses to refuse the conscription. + +Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals + +Complaints also, only too well founded, prevailed respecting +the bad administration of justice by the senatorial jurymen. +The condemnation of a man of any influence could hardly be obtained. +Not only did colleague feel reasonable compassion for colleague, +those who had been or were likely to be accused for the poor sinner +under accusation at the moment; the sale also of the votes +of jurymen was hardly any longer exceptional. Several senators +had been judicially convicted of this crime: men pointed +with the finger at others equally guilty; the most respected Optimates, +such as Quintus Catulus, granted in an open sitting of the senate +that the complaints were quite well founded; individual specially +striking cases compelled the senate on several occasions, e. g. in 680, +to deliberate on measures to check the venality of juries, +but only of course till the first outcry had subsided and the matter +could be allowed to slip out of sight. The consequences +of this wretched administration of justice appeared especially +in a system of plundering and torturing the provincials, compared +with which even previous outrages seemed tolerable and moderate. +Stealing and robbing had been in some measure legitimized by custom; +the commission on extortions might be regarded as an institution +for taxing the senators returning from the provinces for the benefit +of their colleagues that remained at home. But when an esteemed +Siceliot, because he had not been ready to help the governor +in a crime, was by the latter condemned to death in his absence +and unheard; when even Roman burgesses, if they were not equites +or senators, were in the provinces no longer safe from the rods +and axes of the Roman magistrate, and the oldest acquisition +of the Roman democracy--security of life and person--began to be +trodden under foot by the ruling oligarchy; then even the public +in the Forum at Rome had an ear for the complaints regarding +its magistrates in the provinces, and regarding the unjust judges +who morally shared the responsibility of such misdeeds. The opposition +of course did not omit to assail its opponents in--what was almost +the only ground left to it--the tribunals. The young Gaius Caesar, +who also, so far as his age allowed, took zealous part +in the agitation for the re-establishment of the tribunician power, +brought to trial in 677 one of the most respected partisans +of Sulla the consular Gnaeus Dolabella, and in the following year +another Sullan officer Gaius Antonius; and Marcus Cicero in 684 +called to account Gaius Verres, one of the most wretched +of the creatures of Sulla, and one of the worst scourges +of the provincials. Again and again were the pictures +of that dark period of the proscriptions, the fearful sufferings +of the provincials, the disgraceful state of Roman criminal justice, +unfolded before the assembled multitude with all the pomp +of Italian rhetoric, and with all the bitterness of Italian sarcasm, +and the mighty dead as well as his living instruments were unrelentingly +exposed to their wrath and scorn. The re-establishment of the full +tribunician power, with the continuance of which the freedom, +might, and prosperity of the republic seemed bound up as by a charm +of primeval sacredness, the reintroduction of the "stern" equestrian +tribunals, the renewal of the censorship, which Sulla had set +aside, for the purifying of the supreme governing board +from its corrupt and pernicious elements, were daily demanded +with a loud voice by the orators of the popular party. + +Want of Results from the Democratic Agitation + +But with all this no progress was made. There was scandal +and outcry enough, but no real result was attained by this exposure +of the government according to and beyond its deserts. The material +power still lay, so long as there was no military interference, +in the hands of the burgesses of the capital; and the "people" +that thronged the streets of Rome and made magistrates and laws +in the Forum, was in fact nowise better than the governing senate. +The government no doubt had to come to terms with the multitude, +where its own immediate interest was at stake; this was the reason +for the renewal of the Sempronian corn-law. But it was not +to be imagined that this populace would have displayed earnestness +on behalf of an idea or even of a judicious reform. What Demosthenes +said of his Athenians was justly applied to the Romans +of this period--the people were very zealous for action, so long +as they stood round the platform and listened to proposals of reforms; +but when they went home, no one thought further of what he had +heard in the market-place. However those democratic agitators might +stir the fire, it was to no purpose, for the inflammable material +was wanting. The government knew this, and allowed no sort +of concession to be wrung from it on important questions +of principle; at the utmost it consented (about 682) to grant +amnesty to a portion of those who had become exiles with Lepidus. +Any concessions that did take place, came not so much from the pressure +of the democracy as from the attempts at mediation of the moderate +aristocracy. But of the two laws which the single still surviving +leader of this section Gaius Cotta carried in his consulate of 679, +that which concerned the tribunals was again set aside +in the very next year; and the second, which abolished the Sullan +enactment that those who had held the tribunate should be disqualified +for undertaking other magistracies, but allowed the other limitations +to continue, merely--like every half-measure--excited the displeasure +of both parties. + +The party of conservatives friendly to reform which lost +its most notable head by the early death of Cotta occurring soon +after (about 681) dwindled away more and more--crushed between +the extremes, which were becoming daily more marked. But of these +the party of the government, wretched and remiss as it was, +necessarily retained the advantage in presence of the equally +wretched and equally remiss opposition. + +Quarrel between the Government and Their General Pompeius + +But this state of matters so favourable to the government +was altered, when the differences became more distinctly developed +which subsisted between it and those of its partisans, whose hopes +aspired to higher objects than the seat of honour in the senate +and the aristocratic villa. In the first rank of these stood Gnaeus +Pompeius. He was doubtless a Sullan; but we have already shown(2) +how little he was at home among his own party, how his lineage, +his past history, his hopes separated him withal from the nobility +as whose protector and champion he was officially regarded. +The breach already apparent had been widened irreparably during +the Spanish campaigns of the general (677-683). With reluctance +and semi-compulsion the government had associated him as colleague +with their true representative Quintus Metellus; and in turn he accused +the senate, probably not without ground, of having by its careless +or malicious neglect of the Spanish armies brought about their +defeats and placed the fortunes of the expedition in jeopardy. +Now he returned as victor over his open and his secret foes, +at the head of an army inured to war and wholly devoted to him, +desiring assignments of land for his soldiers, a triumph +and the consulship for himself. The latter demands came into +collision with the law. Pompeius, although several times invested +in an extraordinary way with supreme official authority, had not yet +administered any ordinary magistracy, not even the quaestorship, +and was still not a member of the senate; and none but one +who had passed through the round of lesser ordinary magistracies +could become consul, none but one who had been invested +with the ordinary supreme power could triumph. The senate +was legally entitled, if he became a candidate for the consulship, +to bid him begin with the quaestorship; if he requested a triumph, +to remind him of the great Scipio, who under like circumstances +had renounced his triumph over conquered Spain. Nor was Pompeius +less dependent constitutionally on the good will of the senate +as respected the lands promised to his soldiers. But, although +the senate--as with its feebleness even in animosity +was very conceivable--should yield those points and concede +to the victorious general, in return for his executioner's service +against the democratic chiefs, the triumph, the consulate, +and the assignations of land, an honourable annihilation +in senatorial indolence among the long series of peaceful +senatorial Imperators was the most favourable lot which the oligarchy +was able to hold in readiness for the general of thirty-six. +That which his heart really longed for--the command +in the Mithradatic war--he could never expect to obtain +from the voluntary bestowal of the senate: in their own well-understood +interest the oligarchy could not permit him to add to his Africa +and European trophies those of a third continent; the laurels +which were to be plucked copiously and easily in the east were reserved +at all events for the pure aristocracy. But if the celebrated general +did not find his account in the ruling oligarchy, there remained-- +for neither was the time ripe, nor was the temperament of Pompeius +at all fitted, for a purely personal outspoken dynastic policy-- +no alternative save to make common cause with the democratic party. +No interest of his own bound him to the Sullan constitution; +he could pursue his personal objects quite as well, if not better, +with one more democratic. On the other hand he found all that he needed +in the democratic party. Its active and adroit leaders were ready +and able to relieve the resourceless and somewhat wooden hero +of the trouble of political leadership, and yet much too insignificant +to be able or even wishful to dispute with the celebrated general +the first place and especially the supreme military control. Even +Gaius Caesar, by far the most important of them, was simply a young +man whose daring exploits and fashionable debts far more than his +fiery democratic eloquence had gained him a name, and who could not +but feel himself greatly honoured when the world-renowned Imperator +allowed him to be his political adjutant. That popularity, +to which men like Pompeius, with pretensions greater than their +abilities, usually attach more value than they are willing +to confess to themselves, could not but fall in the highest measure +to the lot of the young general whose accession gave victory +to the almost forlorn cause of the democracy. The reward of victory +claimed by him for himself and his soldiers would then follow +of itself. In general it seemed, if the oligarchy were overthrown, +that amidst the total want of other considerable chiefs +of the opposition it would depend solely on Pompeius himself +to determine his future position. And of this much there could +hardly be a doubt, that the accession of the general of the army, +which had just returned victorious from Spain and still stood compact +and unbroken in Italy, to the party of opposition must have +as its consequence the fall of the existing order of things. +Government and opposition were equally powerless; so soon as +the latter no longer fought merely with the weapons of declamation, +but had the sword of a victorious general ready to back its demands, +the government would be in any case overcome, perhaps even +without a struggle. + +Coalition of the Military Chiefs and the Democracy + +Pompeius and the democrats thus found themselves urged +into coalition. Personal dislikings were probably not wanting +on either side: it was not possible that the victorious general +could love the street orators, nor could these hail with pleasure +as their chief the executioner of Carbo and Brutus; but political +necessity outweighed at least for the moment all moral scruples. + +The democrats and Pompeius, however, were not the sole parties +to the league. Marcus Crassus was in a similar situation +with Pompeius. Although a Sullan like the latter, his politics +were quite as in the case of Pompeius preeminently of a personal kind, +and by no means those of the ruling oligarchy; and he too was now +in Italy at the head of a large and victorious army, with which +he had just suppressed the rising of the slaves. He had to choose +whether he would ally himself with the oligarchy against the coalition, +or enter that coalition: he chose the latter, which was doubtless +the safer course. With his colossal wealth and his influence +on the clubs of the capital he was in any case a valuable +ally; but under the prevailing circumstances it was an incalculable +gain, when the only army, with which the senate could have met +the troops of Pompeius, joined the attacking force. The democrats +moreover, who were probably somewhat uneasy at their alliance +with that too powerful general, were not displeased to see +a counterpoise and perhaps a future rival associated with him +in the person of Marcus Crassus. + +Thus in the summer of 683 the first coalition took place between +the democracy on the one hand, and the two Sullan generals Gnaeus +Pompeius and Marcus Crassus on the other. The generals adopted +the party-programme of the democracy; and they were promised +immediately in return the consulship for the coming year, while +Pompeius was to have also a triumph and the desired allotments +of land for his soldiers, and Crassus as the conqueror of Spartacus +at least the honour of a solemn entrance into the capital. + +To the two Italian armies, the great capitalists, +and the democracy, which thus came forward in league for the overthrow +of the Sullan constitution, the senate had nothing to oppose save +perhaps the second Spanish army under Quintus Metellus Pius. +But Sulla had truly predicted that what he did would not be done +a second time; Metellus, by no means inclined to involve himself +in a civil war, had discharged his soldiers immediately after crossing +the Alps. So nothing was left for the oligarchy but to submit +to what was inevitable. The senate granted the dispensations +requisite for the consulship and triumph; Pompeius and Crassus +were, without opposition, elected consuls for 684, while their +armies, on pretext of awaiting their triumph, encamped before +the city. Pompeius thereupon, even before entering on office, +gave his public and formal adherence to the democratic programme +in an assembly of the people held by the tribune Marcus Lollius +Palicanus. The change of the constitution was thus +in principle decided. + +Re-establishing of the Tribunician Power + +They now went to work in all earnest to set aside the Sullan +institutions. First of all the tribunician magistracy regained +its earlier authority. Pompeius himself as consul introduced the law +which gave back to the tribunes of the people their time-honoured +prerogatives, and in particular the initiative of legislation-- +a singular gift indeed from the hand of a man who had done more than +any one living to wrest from the community its ancient privileges. + +New Arrangement as to Jurymen + +With respect to the position of jurymen, the regulation of Sulla, +that the roll of the senators was to serve as the list of jurymen, +was no doubt abolished; but this by no means led to a simple +restoration of the Gracchan equestrian courts. In future--so it +was enacted by the new Aurelian law--the colleges of jurymen +were to consist one-third of senators and two-thirds of men +of equestrian census, and of the latter the half must have rilled +the office of district-presidents, or so-called -tribuni aerarii-. +This last innovation was a farther concession made to the democrats, +inasmuch as according to it at least a third part of the criminal +jurymen were indirectly derived from the elections of the tribes. +The reason, again, why the senate was not totally excluded +from the courts is probably to be sought partly in the relations +of Crassus to the senate, partly in the accession of the senatorial +middle party to the coalition; with which is doubtless connected +the circumstance that this law was brought in by the praetor Lucius +Cotta, the brother of their lately deceased leader. + +Renewal of the Asiatic Revenue-Farming + +Not less important was the abolition of the arrangements +as to taxation established for Asia by Sulla,(3) which presumably +likewise fell to this year. The governor of Asia at that time, +Lucius Lucullus, was directed to reestablish the system of farming +the revenue introduced by Gaius Gracchus; and thus this important +source of money and power was restored to the great capitalists. + +Renewal of the Censorship + +Lastly, the censorship was revived. The elections for it, +which the new consuls fixed shortly after entering on their office, +fell, in evident mockery of the senate, on the two consuls of 682, +Gnaeus Lentulus Clodianus and Lucius Gellius, who had been removed +by the senate from their commands on account of their wretched +management of the war against Spartacus.(4) It may readily be conceived +that these men put in motion all the means which their important +and grave office placed at their command, for the purpose of doing +homage to the new-holders of power and of annoying the senate. +At least an eighth part of the senate, sixty-four senators, a number +hitherto unparalleled, were deleted from the roll, including Gaius +Antonius, formerly impeached without success by Gaius Caesar,(5) +and Publius Lentulus Sura, the consul of 683, and presumably also +not a few of the most obnoxious creatures of Sulla. + +The New Constitution + +Thus in 684 they had reverted in the main to the arrangements +that subsisted before the Sullan restoration. + +Again the multitude of the capital was fed from the state-chest, +in other words by the provinces;(6) again the tribunician authority +gave to every demagogue a legal license to overturn the arrangements +of the state; again the moneyed nobility, as farmers of the revenue +and possessed of the judicial control over the governors, raised their +heads alongside of the government as powerfully as ever; again the senate +trembled before the verdict of jurymen of the equestrian order and before +the censorial censure. The system of Sulla, which had based the monopoly +of power by the nobility on the political annihilation of the mercantile +aristocracy and of demagogism, was thus completely overthrown. +Leaving out of view some subordinate enactments, the abolition +of which was not overtaken till afterwards, such as the restoration +of the right of self-completion to the priestly colleges,(7) nothing +of the general ordinances of Sulla survived except, on the one hand, +the concessions which he himself found it necessary to make +to the opposition, such as the recognition of the Roman franchise +of all the Italians, and, on the other hand, enactments without +any marked partisan tendency, and with which therefore even judicious +democrats found no fault--such as, among others, the restriction +of the freedmen, the regulation of the functional spheres +of the magistrates, and the material alterations in criminal law. + +The coalition was more agreed regarding these questions +of principle than with respect to the personal questions which such +a political revolution raised. As might be expected, the democrats +were not content with the general recognition of their programme; +but they too now demanded a restoration in their sense--revival +of the commemoration of their dead, punishment of the murderers, +recall of the proscribed from exile, removal of the political +disqualification that lay on their children, restoration +of the estates confiscated by Sulla, indemnification at the expense +of the heirs and assistants of the dictator. These were certainly +the logical consequences which ensued from a pure victory +of the democracy; but the victory of the coalition of 683 was very far +from being such. The democracy gave to it their name and their +programme, but it was the officers who had joined the movement, +and above all Pompeius, that gave to it power and completion; and these +could never yield their consent to a reaction which would not only +have shaken the existing state of things to its foundations, +but would have ultimately turned against themselves--men still had +a lively recollection who the men were whose blood Pompeius had shed, +and how Crassus had laid the foundation of his enormous fortune. +It was natural therefore, but at the same time significant +of the weakness of the democracy, that the coalition of 683 took +not the slightest step towards procuring for the democrats revenge +or even rehabilitation. The supplementary collection of all +the purchase money still outstanding for confiscated estates +bought by auction, or even remitted to the purchasers by Sulla-- +for which the censor Lentulus provided in a special law-- +can hardly be regarded as an exception; for though not a few Sullans +were thereby severely affected in their personal interests, +yet the measure itself was essentially a confirmation +of the confiscations undertaken by Sulla. + +Impending Miliatry Dictatorship of Pompeius + +The work of Sulla was thus destroyed; but what the future order +of things was to be, was a question raised rather than decided by +that destruction. The coalition, kept together solely by the common +object of setting aside the work of restoration, dissolved +of itself, if not formally, at any rate in reality, when that object +was attained; while the question, to what quarter the preponderance +of power was in the first instance to fall, seemed approaching +an equally speedy and violent solution. The armies of Pompeius +and Crassus still lay before the gates of the city. The former had +indeed promised to disband his soldiers after his triumph (last day +of Dec. 683); but he had at first omitted to do so, in order to let +the revolution in the state be completed without hindrance +under the pressure which the Spanish army in front of the capital +exercised over the city and the senate--a course, which in like manner +applied to the army of Crassus. This reason now existed +no longer; but still the dissolution of the armies was postponed. +In the turn taken by matters it looked as if one of the two generals +allied with the democracy would seize the military dictatorship +and place oligarchs and democrats in the same chains. And this one +could only be Pompeius. From the first Crassus had played +a subordinate part in the coalition; he had been obliged to propose +himself, and owed even his election to the consulship mainly +to the proud intercession of Pompeius. Far the stronger, Pompeius +was evidently master of the situation; if he availed himself of it, +it seemed as if he could not but become what the instinct +of the multitude even now designated him--the absolute ruler +of the mightiest state in the civilized world. Already the whole mass +of the servile crowded around the future monarch. Already his weaker +opponents were seeking their last resource in a new coalition; +Crassus, full of old and recent jealousy towards the younger rival +who so thoroughly outstripped him, made approaches to the senate +and attempted by unprecedented largesses to attach to himself +the multitude of the capital--as if the oligarchy which Crassus himself +had helped to break down, and the ever ungrateful multitude, +would have been able to afford any protection whatever against +the veterans of the Spanish army. For a moment it seemed as if +the armies of Pompeius and Crassus would come to blows before +the gates of the capital. + +Retirement of Pompeius + +But the democrats averted this catastrophe by their sagacity +and their pliancy. For their party too, as well as for the senate +and Crassus, it was all-important that Pompeius should not seize +the dictatorship; but with a truer discernment of their own weakness +and of the character of their powerful opponent their leaders tried +the method of conciliation. Pompeius lacked no condition +for grasping at the crown except the first of all--proper kingly +courage. We have already described the man--with his effort to be +at once loyal republican and master of Rome, with his vacillation +and indecision, with his pliancy that concealed itself +under the boasting of independent resolution. This was the first +great trial to which destiny subjected him; and he failed to stand it. +The pretext under which Pompeius refused to dismiss the army was, +that he distrusted Crassus and therefore could not take the initiative +in disbanding the soldiers. The democrats induced Crassus to make +gracious advances in the matter, and to offer the hand of peace +to his colleague before the eyes of all; in public and in private they +besought the latter that to the double merit of having vanquished +the enemy and reconciled the parties he would add the third and yet +greater service of preserving internal peace to his country, +and banishing the fearful spectre of civil war with which +they were threatened. Whatever could tell on a vain, unskilful, +vacillating man--all the flattering arts of diplomacy, all the theatrical +apparatus of patriotic enthusiasm--was put in motion to obtain +the desired result; and--which was the main point--things had +by the well-timed compliance of Crassus assumed such a shape, +that Pompeius had no alternative but either to come forward openly +as tyrant of Rome or to retire. So he at length yielded and consented +to disband the troops. The command in the Mithradatic war, +which he doubtless hoped to obtain when he had allowed himself to be +chosen consul for 684, he could not now desire, since Lucullus +seemed to have practically ended that war with the campaign of 683. +He deemed it beneath his dignity to accept the consular province +assigned to him by the senate in accordance with the Sempronian +law, and Crassus in this followed his example. Accordingly +when Pompeius after discharging his soldiers resigned his consulship +on the last day of 684, he retired for the time wholly from public +affairs, and declared that he wished thenceforth to live a life +of quiet leisure as a simple citizen. He had taken up such a position +that he was obliged to grasp at the crown; and, seeing that he was +not willing to do so, no part was left to him but the empty one +of a candidate for a throne resigning his pretensions to it. + +Senate, Equites, and Populares + +The retirement of the man, to whom as things stood the first place +belonged, from the political stage reproduced in the first instance +nearly the same position of parties, which we found in the Gracchan +and Marian epochs. Sulla had merely strengthened the senatorial +government, not created it; so, after the bulwarks erected by Sulla +had fallen, the government nevertheless remained primarily +with the senate, although, no doubt, the constitution with which +it governed--in the main the restored Gracchan constitution-- +was pervaded by a spirit hostile to the oligarchy. The democracy +had effected the re-establishment of the Gracchan constitution; +but without a new Gracchus it was a body without a head, +and that neither Pompeius nor Crassus could be permanently such a head, +was in itself clear and had been made still clearer by the recent +events. So the democratic opposition, for want of a leader +who could have directly taken the helm, had to content itself +for the time being with hampering and annoying the government +at every step. Between the oligarchy, however, and the democracy +there rose into new consideration the capitalist party, +which in the recent crisis had made common cause with the latter, +but which the oligarchs now zealously endeavoured to draw over +to their side, so as to acquire in it a counterpoise to the democracy. +Thus courted on both sides the moneyed lords did not neglect to turn +their advantageous position to profit, and to have the only one +of their former privileges which they had not yet regained--the fourteen +benches reserved for the equestrian order in the theatre--now (687) +restored to them by decree of the people. On the whole, without +abruptly breaking with the democracy, they again drew closer +to the government. The very relations of the senate to Crassus +and his clients point in this direction; but a better understanding +between the senate and the moneyed aristocracy seems to have been +chiefly brought about by the fact, that in 686 the senate withdrew +from Lucius Lucullus the ablest of the senatorial officers, +at the instance of the capitalists whom he had sorely annoyed, +the dministration of the province of Asia so important +for their purposes.(8) + +The Events in the East, and Their Reaction on Rome + +But while the factions of the capital were indulging in their +wonted mutual quarrels, which they were never able to bring +to any proper decision, events in the east followed their fatal course, +as we have already described; and it was these events that brought +the dilatory course of the politics of the capital to a crisis. +The war both by land and by sea had there taken a most unfavourable +turn. In the beginning of 687 the Pontic army of the Romans +was destroyed, and their Armenian army was utterly breaking up +on its retreat; all their conquests were lost, the sea was exclusively +in the power of the pirates, and the price of grain in Italy +was thereby so raised that they were afraid of an actual famine. +No doubt, as we saw, the faults of the generals, especially +the utter incapacity of the admiral Marcus Antonius and the temerity +of the otherwise able Lucius Lucullus, were in part the occasion +of these calamities; no doubt also the democracy had by its +revolutionary agitations materially contributed to the breaking up +of the Armenian army. But of course the government was now held +cumulatively responsible for all the mischief which itself +and others had occasioned, and the indignant hungry multitude +desired only an opportunity to settle accounts with the senate. + +Reappearance of Pompeius + +It was a decisive crisis. The oligarchy, though degraded +and disarmed, was not yet overthrown, for the management of public +affairs was still in the hands of the senate; but it would fall, +if its opponents should appropriate to themselves that management, +and more especially the superintendence of military affairs; +and now this was possible. If proposals for another and better +management of the war by land and sea were now submitted to the comitia, +the senate was obviously--looking to the temper of the burgesses-- +not in a position to prevent their passing; and an interference +of the burgesses in these supreme questions of administration +was practically the deposition of the senate and the transference +of the conduct of the state to the leaders of opposition. Once more +the concatenation of events brought the decision into the hands +of Pompeius. For more than two years the famous general had lived +as a private citizen in the capital. His voice was seldom heard +in the senate-house or in the Forum; in the former he was unwelcome +and without decisive influence, in the latter he was afraid +of the stormy proceedings of the parties. But when he did show himself, +it was with the full retinue of his clients high and low, +and the very solemnity of his reserve imposed on the multitude. +If he, who was still surrounded with the full lustre of his extraordinary +successes, should now offer to go to the east, he would beyond +doubt be readily invested by the burgesses with all the plenitude +of military and political power which he might himself ask. +For the oligarchy, which saw in the political-military dictatorship +their certain ruin, and in Pompeius himself since the coalition +of 683 their most hated foe, this was an overwhelming blow; +but the democratic party also could have little comfort in the prospect. +However desirable the putting an end to the government of the senate +could not but be in itself, it was, if it took place in this way, +far less a victory for their party than a personal victory +for their over-powerful ally. In the latter there might easily arise +a far more dangerous opponent to the democratic party than the senate +had been. The danger fortunately avoided a few years before +by the disbanding of the Spanish army and the retirement of Pompeius +would recur in increased measure, if Pompeius should now be placed +at the head of the armies of the east. + +Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius + +On this occasion, however, Pompeius acted or at least allowed +others to act in his behalf. In 687 two projects of law +were introduced, one of which, besides decreeing the discharge-- +long since demanded by the democracy--of the soldiers of the Asiatic +army who had served their term, decreed the recall of its +commander-in-chief Lucius Lucullus and the supplying of his place +by one of the consuls of the current year, Gaius Piso or Manius +Glabrio; while the second revived and extended the plan proposed +seven years before by the senate itself for clearing the seas +from the pirates. A single general to be named by the senate +from the consulars was to be appointed, to hold by sea exclusive command +over the whole Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the coasts +of Pontus and Syria, and to exercise by land, concurrently +with the respective Roman governors, supreme command over the whole +coasts for fifty miles inland. The office was secured to him +for three years. He was surrounded by a staff, such as Rome +had never seen, of five-and-twenty lieutenants of senatorial rank, +all invested with praetorian insignia and praetorian powers, +and of two under-treasurers with quaestorian prerogatives, all of them +selected by the exclusive will of the general commanding-in-chief. +He was allowed to raise as many as 120,000 infantry, 5000 cavalry, +500 ships of war, and for this purpose to dispose absolutely +of the means of the provinces and client-states; moreover, the existing +vessels of war and a considerable number of troops were at once +handed over to him. The treasures of the state in the capital +and in the provinces as well as those of the dependent communities +were to be placed absolutely at his command, and in spite of the severe +financial distress a sum of; 1,400,000 pounds (144,000,000 sesterces) +was at once to be paid to him from the state-chest. + +Effect of the Projects of Law + +It is clear that by these projects of law, especially +by that which related to the expedition against the pirates, +the government of the senate was set aside. Doubtless the ordinary +supreme magistrates nominated by the burgesses were of themselves +the proper generals of the commonwealth, and the extraordinary +magistrates needed, at least according to strict law, confirmation +by the burgesses in order to act as generals; but in the appointment +to particular commands no influence constitutionally belonged +to the community, and it was only on the proposition of the senate, +or at any rate on that of a magistrate entitled in himself +to hold the office of general, that the comitia had hitherto +now and again interfered in this matter and conferred +such special functions. In this field, ever since there had existed +a Roman free state, the practically decisive voice pertained +to the senate, and this its prerogative had in the course of time +obtained full recognition. No doubt the democracy had already +assailed it; but even in the most doubtful of the cases which had +hitherto occurred--the transference of the African command +to Gaius Marius in 647(9)--it was only a magistrate constitutionally +entitled to hold the office of general that was entrusted +by the resolution of the burgesses with a definite expedition. + +But now the burgesses were to invest any private man at their +pleasure not merely with the extraordinary authority of the supreme +magistracy, but also with a sphere of office definitely settled +by them. That the senate had to choose this man from the ranks +of the consulars, was a mitigation only in form; for the selection +was left to it simply because there was really no choice, +and in presence of the vehemently excited multitude the senate +could entrust the chief command of the seas and coasts to no other +save Pompeius alone. But more dangerous still than this negation +in principle of the senatorial control was its practical abolition +by the institution of an office of almost unlimited military +and financial powers. While the office of general was formerly +restricted to a term of one year, to a definite province, +and to military and financial resources strictly measured out, +the new extraordinary office had from the outset a duration +of three years secured to it--which of course did not exclude +a farther prolongation; had the greater portion of all the provinces, +and even Italy itself which was formerly free from military +jurisdiction, subordinated to it; had the soldiers, ships, +treasures of the state placed almost without restriction +at its disposal. Even the primitive fundamental principle +in the state-law of the Roman republic, which we have just mentioned-- +that the highest military and civil authority could not be conferred +without the co-operation of the burgesses--was infringed in favour +of the new commander-in-chief. Inasmuch as the law conferred beforehand +on the twenty-five adjutants whom he was to nominate praetorian +rank and praetorian prerogatives,(10) the highest office +of republican Rome became subordinate to a newly created office, +for which it was left to the future to find the fitting name, +but which in reality even now involved in it the monarchy. +It was a total revolution in the existing order of things, +for which the foundation was laid in this project of law. + +Pompeius and the Gabinian Laws + +These measures of a man who had just given so striking proofs +of his vacillation and weakness surprise us by their decisive energy. +Nevertheless the fact that Pompeius acted on this occasion +more resolutely than during his consulate is very capable of explanation. +The point at issue was not that he should come forward at once +as monarch, but only that he should prepare the way for the monarchy +by a military exceptional measure, which, revolutionary +as it was in its nature, could still be accomplished under the forms +of the existing constitution, and which in the first instance +carried Pompeius so far on the way towards the old object +of his wishes, the command against Mithradates and Tigranes. +Important reasons of expediency also might be urged for the emancipation +of the military power from the senate. Pompeius could not +have forgotten that a plan designed on exactly similar +principles for the suppression of piracy had a few years before +failed through the mismanagement of the senate, and that the issue +of the Spanish war had been placed in extreme jeopardy by the neglect +of the armies on the part of the senate and its injudicious conduct +of the finances; he could not fail to see what were the feelings +with which the great majority of the aristocracy regarded +him as a renegade Sullan, and what fate was in store for him, +if he allowed himself to be sent as general of the government +with the usual powers to the east. It was natural therefore +that he should indicate a position independent of the senate +as the first condition of his undertaking the command, +and that the burgesses should readily agree to it. It is moreover +in a high degree probable that Pompeius was on this occasion urged +to more rapid action by those around him, who were, it may be presumed, +not a little indignant at his retirement two years before. The projects +of law regarding the recall of Lucullus and the expedition against +the pirates were introduced by the tribune of the people Aulus +Gabinius, a man ruined in finances and morals, but a dexterous +negotiator, a bold orator, and a brave soldier. Little as the assurance +of Pompeius, that he had no wish at all for the chief command +in the war with the pirates and only longed for domestic +repose, were meant in earnest, there was probably this much +of truth in them, that the bold and active client, who was +in confidential intercourse with Pompeius and his more immediate +circle and who completely saw through the situation and the men, +took the decision to a considerable extent out of the hands +of his shortsighted and resourceless patron. + +The Parties in Relation to the Gabinian Laws + +The democracy, discontented as its leaders might be in secret, +could not well come publicly forward against the project of law. +It would, to all appearance, have been in no case able to hinder +the carrying of the law; but it would by opposition have openly +broken with Pompeius and thereby compelled him either to make +approaches to the oligarchy or regardlessly to pursue his personal +policy in the face of both parties. No course was left +to the democrats but still even now to adhere to their alliance +with Pompeius, hollow as it was, and to embrace the present opportunity +of at least definitely overthrowing the senate and passing over +from opposition into government, leaving the ulterior issue +to the future and to the well-known weakness of Pompeius' character. +Accordingly their leaders--the praetor Lucius Quinctius, the same +who seven years before had exerted himself for the restoration +of the tribunician power,(11) and the former quaestor Gaius Caesar-- +supported the Gabinian proposals. + +The privileged classes were furious--not merely the nobility, +but also the mercantile aristocracy, which felt its exclusive +rights endangered by so thorough a state-revolution and once +more recognized its true patron in the senate. When the tribune +Gabinius after the introduction of his proposals appeared +in the senate-house, the fathers of the city were almost on the point +of strangling him with their own hands, without considering in their +zeal how extremely disadvantageous for them this method of arguing +must have ultimately proved. The tribune escaped to the Forum +and summoned the multitude to storm the senate-house, when just +at the right time the sitting terminated. The consul Piso, +the champion of the oligarchy, who accidentally fell into the hands +of the multitude, would have certainly become a victim to popular fury, +had not Gabinius come up and, in order that his certain success +might not be endangered by unseasonable acts of violence, liberated +the consul. Meanwhile the exasperation of the multitude remained +undiminished and constantly found fresh nourishment in the high +prices of grain and the numerous rumours more or less absurd +which were in circulation--such as that Lucius Lucullus had invested +the money entrusted to him for carrying on the war at interest in Rome, +or had attempted with its aid to make the praetor Quinctius withdraw +from the cause of the people; that the senate intended to prepare +for the "second Romulus," as they called Pompeius, the fate +of the first,(12) and other reports of a like character. + +The Vote + +Thereupon the day of voting arrived. The multitude stood densely +packed in the Forum; all the buildings, whence the rostra could +be seen, were covered up to the roofs with men. All the colleagues +of Gabinius had promised their veto to the senate; but in presence +of the surging masses all were silent except the single Lucius +Trebellius, who had sworn to himself and the senate rather +to die than yield. When the latter exercised his veto, +Gabinius immediately interrupted the voting on his projects of law +and proposed to the assembled people to deal with his +refractory colleague, as Octavius had formerly been dealt with +on the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus,(13) namely, to depose him +immediately from office. The vote was taken and the reading +out of the voting tablets began; when the first seventeen tribes, +which came to be read out, had declared for the proposal +and the next affirmative vote would give to it the majority, +Trebellius, forgetting his oath, pusillanimously withdrew his veto. +In vain the tribune Otho then endeavoured to procure that at least +the collegiate principle might be preserved, and two generals +elected instead of one; in vain the aged Quintus Catulus, +the most respected man in the senate, exerted his last energies +to secure that the lieutenant-generals should not be nominated +by the commander-in-chief, but chosen by the people. Otho could +not even procure a hearing amidst the noise of the multitude; +the well-calculated complaisance of Gabinius procured a hearing +for Catulus, and in respectful silence the multitude listened +to the old man's words; but they were none the less thrown away. +The proposals were not merely converted into law with all the clauses +unaltered, but the supplementary requests in detail made by Pompeius +were instantaneously and completely agreed to. + +Successes of Pompeius in the East + +With high-strung hopes men saw the two generals Pompeius and Glabrio +depart for their places of destination. The price of grain +had fallen immediately after the passing of the Gabinian laws +to the ordinary rates--an evidence of the hopes attached to the grand +expedition and its glorious leader. These hopes were, as we shall +have afterwards to relate, not merely fulfilled, but surpassed: +in three months the clearing of the seas was completed. +Since the Hannibalic war the Roman government had displayed +no such energy in external action; as compared with the lax +and incapable administration of the oligarchy, the democratic-- +military opposition had most brilliantly made good its title +to grasp and wield the reins of the state. The equally unpatriotic +and unskilful attempts of the consul Piso to put paltry obstacles +in the way of the arrangements of Pompeius for the suppression of piracy +in Narbonese Gaul only increased the exasperation of the burgesses +against the oligarchy and their enthusiasm for Pompeius; it was nothing +but the personal intervention of the latter, that prevented the assembly +of the people from summarily removing the consul from his office. + +Meanwhile the confusion on the Asiatic continent had become still +worse. Glabrio, who was to take up in the stead of Lucullus +the chief command against Mithradates and Tigranes, had remained +stationary in the west of Asia Minor and, while instigating +the soldiers by various proclamations against Lucullus, had not entered +on the supreme command, so that Lucullus was forced to retain it. +Against Mithradates, of course, nothing was done; the Pontic +cavalry plundered fearlessly and with impunity in Bithynia +and Cappadocia. Pompeius had been led by the piratical war to proceed +with his army to Asia Minor; nothing seemed more natural than +to invest him with the supreme command in the Pontic-Armenian war, +to which he himself had long aspired. But the democratic party did +not, as may be readily conceived, share the wishes of its general, +and carefully avoided taking the initiative in the matter. +It is very probable that it had induced Gabinius not to entrust +both the war with Mithradates and that with the pirates from the outset +to Pompeius, but to entrust the former to Glabrio; upon no account +could it now desire to increase and perpetuate the exceptional +position of the already too-powerful general. Pompeius himself +retained according to his custom a passive attitude; and perhaps +he would in reality have returned home after fulfilling the commission +which he had received, but for the occurrence of an incident +unexpected by all parties. + +The Manillian Law + +One Gaius Manilius, an utterly worthless and insignificant man +had when tribune of the people by his unskilful projects of legislation +lost favour both with the aristocracy and with the democracy. +In the hope of sheltering himself under the wing of the powerful +general, if he should procure for the latter what every one knew +that he eagerly desired but had not the boldness to ask, Manilius +proposed to the burgesses to recall the governors Glabrio +from Bithynia and Pontus and Marcius Rex from Cilicia, and to entrust +their offices as well as the conduct of the war in the east, +apparently without any fixed limit as to time and at any rate +with the freest authority to conclude peace and alliance, +to the proconsul of the seas and coasts in addition to his previous +office (beg. of 688). This occurrence very clearly showed how +disorganized was the machinery of the Roman constitution, +whenthe power of legislation was placed as respected the initiative +inthe hands of any demagogue however insignificant, and as respected +the final determination in the hands of the incapable multitude, +while it at the same time was extended to the most important questions +of administration. The Manilian proposal was acceptable to none of +the political parties; yet it scarcely anywhere encountered serious +resistance. The democratic leaders, for the same reasons which had +forced them to acquiesce in the Gabinian law, could not venture +earnestly to oppose the Manilian; they kept their displeasure +and their fears to themselves and spoke in public for the general +of the democracy. The moderate Optimates declared themselves +for the Manilian proposal, because after the Gabinian law resistance +in any case was vain, and far-seeing men already perceived +that the true policy for the senate was to make approaches +as far as possible to Pompeius and to draw him over to their side +on occasion of the breach which might be foreseen between him +and the democrats. Lastly the trimmers blessed the day +when they too seemed to have an opinion and could come forward +decidedly without losing favour with either of the parties-- +it is significant that Marcus Cicero first appeared as an orator +on the political platform in defence of the Manilian proposal. +The strict Optimates alone, with Quintus Catulus at their head, +showed at least their colours and spoke against the proposition. +Of course it was converted into law by a majority bordering on unanimity. +Pompeius thus obtained, in addition to his earlier extensive powers, +the administration of the most important provinces of Asia Minor-- +so that there scarcely remained a spot of land within the wide Roman +bounds that had not to obey him--and the conduct of a war as to which, +like the expedition of Alexander, men could tell where and when +it began, but not where and when it might end. Never since Rome +stood had such power been united in the hands of a single man. + +The Democratic-Military Revolution + +The Gabinio-Manilian proposals terminated the struggle between +the senate and the popular party, which the Sempronian laws had begun +sixty-seven years before. As the Sempronian laws first constituted +the revolutionary party into a political opposition, the Gabinio- +Manilian first converted it from an opposition into the government; +and as it had been a great moment when the first breach +in the existing constitution was made by disregarding the veto +of Octavius, it was a moment no less full of significance +when the last bulwark of the senatorial rule fell with the withdrawal +of Trebellius. This was felt on both sides and even the indolent +souls of the senators were convulsively roused by this death- +struggle; but yet the war as to the constitution terminated +in a very different and far more pitiful fashion than it had begun. +A youth in every sense noble had commenced the revolution; +it was concluded by pert intriguers and demagogues of the lowest type. +On the other hand, while the Optimates had begun the struggle +with a measured resistance and with a defence which earnestly held out +even at the forlorn posts, they ended with taking the initiative +in club-law, with grandiloquent weakness, and with pitiful perjury. +What had once appeared a daring dream, was now attained; the senate +had ceased to govern. But when the few old men who had seen +the first storms of revolution and heard the words of the Gracchi, +compared that time with the present they found that everything +had in the interval changed--countrymen and citizens, state-law +and military discipline, life and manners; and well might those +painfully smile, who compared the ideals of the Gracchan period +with their realization. Such reflections however belonged +to the past. For the present and perhaps also for the future the fall +of the aristocracy was an accomplished fact. The oligarchs resembled +an army utterly broken up, whose scattered bands might serve +to reinforce another body of troops, but could no longer themselves +keep the field or risk a combat on their own account. But as +the old struggle came to an end, a new one was simultaneously +beginning--the struggle between the two powers hitherto leagued +for the overthrow of the aristocratic constitution, the civil- +democratic opposition and the military power daily aspiring +to greater ascendency. The exceptional position of Pompeius +even under the Gabinian, and much more under the Manilian, +law was incompatible with a republican organization. He had been +as even then his opponents urged with good reason, appointed +by the Gabinian law not as admiral, but as regent of the empire; +not unjustly was he designated by a Greek familiar with eastern +affairs "king of kings." If he should hereafter, on returning +from the east once more victorious and with increased glory, +with well-filled chests, and with troops ready for battle and devoted +to his cause, stretch forth his hand to seize the crown--who would +then arrest his arm? Was the consular Quintus Catulus, forsooth, +to summon forth the senators against the first general of his time +and his experienced legions? or was the designated aedile Gaius Caesar +to call forth the civic multitude, whose eyes he had just feasted +on his three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators with their silver +equipments? Soon, exclaimed Catulus, it would be necessary once +more to flee to the rocks of the Capitol, in order to save liberty. +It was not the fault of the prophet, that the storm came not, +as he expected, from the east, but that on the contrary fate, +fulfilling his words more literally than he himself anticipated, +brought on the destroying tempest a few years later from Gaul. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Pompeius and the East + +Pompeius Suppresses Piracy + +We have already seen how wretched was the state of the affairs +of Rome by land and sea in the east, when at the commencement of 687 +Pompeius, with an almost unlimited plenitude of power, undertook +the conduct of the war against the pirates. He began by dividing +the immense field committed to him into thirteen districts +and assigning each of these districts to one of his lieutenants, +for the purpose of equipping ships and men there, of searching +the coasts, and of capturing piratical vessels or chasing them +into the meshes of a colleague. He himself went with the best part +of the ships of war that were available--among which on this occasion +also those of Rhodes were distinguished--early in the year to sea, +and swept in the first place the Sicilian, African, and Sardinian +waters, with a view especially to re-establish the supply of grain +from these provinces to Italy. His lieutenants meanwhile addressed +themselves to the clearing of the Spanish and Gallic coasts. +It was on this occasion that the consul Gaius Piso attempted +from Rome to prevent the levies which Marcus Pomponius, the legate +of Pompeius, instituted by virtue of the Gabinian law in the province +of Narbo--an imprudent proceeding, to check which, and at the same +time to keep the just indignation of the multitude against +the consul within legal bounds, Pompeius temporarily reappeared +in Rome.(1) When at the end of forty days the navigation had been +everywhere set free in the western basin of the Mediterranean, +Pompeius proceeded with sixty of his best vessels to the eastern +seas, and first of all to the original and main seat of piracy, +the Lycian and Cilician waters. On the news of the approach +of the Roman fleet the piratical barks everywhere disappeared +from the open sea; and not only so, but even the strong Lycian fortresses +of Anticragus and Cragus surrendered without offering serious +resistance. The well-calculated moderation of Pompeius helped +even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible +marine strongholds. His predecessors had ordered every captured +freebooter to be nailed to the cross; without hesitation he gave +quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found +in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence. +The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain +at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having +placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for +security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited +the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing +of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well +provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory. +Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up +the mountain-castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer +to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission. Soon +the great multitude desisted from the continuance of a hopeless war +in their strongholds and mountains, and consented to surrender. +Forty-nine days after Pompeius had appeared in the eastern seas, +Cilicia was subdued and the war at an end. + +The rapid suppression of piracy was a great relief, but not a grand +achievement; with the resources of the Roman state, which had been +called forth in lavish measure, the corsairs could as little cope +as the combined gangs of thieves in a great city can cope +with a well-organized police. It was a naive proceeding to celebrate +such a razzia as a victory. But when compared with the prolonged +continuance and the vast and daily increasing extent of the evil, +it was natural that the surprisingly rapid subjugation +of the dreaded pirates should make a most powerful impression +on the public; and the more so, that this was the first trial of rule +centralized in a single hand, and the parties were eagerly waiting +to see whether that hand would understand the art of ruling better +than the collegiate body had done. Nearly 400 ships and boats, +including 90 war vessels properly so called, were either taken +by Pompeius or surrendered to him; in all about 1300 piratical vessels +are said to have been destroyed; besides which the richly-filled +arsenals and magazines of the buccaneers were burnt. +Of the pirates about 10,000 perished; upwards of 20,000 fell alive +into the hands of the victor; while Publius Clodius the admiral +of the Roman army stationed in Cilicia, and a multitude of other +individuals carried off by the pirates, some of them long believed +at home to be dead, obtained once more their freedom through +Pompeius. In the summer of 687, three months after the beginning +of the campaign, commerce resumed its wonted course and instead +of the former famine abundance prevailed in Italy. + +Dissensions between Pompeius and Metellus as to Crete + +A disagreeable interlude in the island of Crete, however, +disturbed in some measure this pleasing success of the Roman arms. +There Quintus Metellus was stationed in the second year of his command, +and was employed in finishing the subjugation-already substantially +effected--of the island,(2) when Pompeius appeared in the eastern +waters. A collision was natural, for according to the Gabinian law +the command of Pompeius extended concurrently with that of Metellus +over the whole island, which stretched to a great length but was +nowhere more than ninety miles broad;(3) but Pompeius was considerate +enough not to assign it to any of his lieutenants. The still resisting +Cretan communities, however, who had seen their subdued countrymen +taken to task by Metellus with the most cruel severity and had learned +on the other hand the gentle terms which Pompeius was in the habit +of imposing on the townships which surrendered to him in the south +of Asia Minor, preferred to give in their joint surrender to Pompeius. +He accepted it in Pamphylia, where he was just at the moment, +from their envoys, and sent along with them his legate Lucius Octavius +to announce to Metellus the conclusion of the conventions +and to take over the towns. This proceeding was, no doubt, +not like that of a colleague; but formal right was wholly on the side +of Pompeius, and Metellus was most evidently in the wrong when, +utterly ignoring the convention of the cities with Pompeius, +he continued to treat them as hostile. In vain Octavius protested; +in vain, as he had himself come without troops, he summoned +from Achaia Lucius Sisenna, the lieutenant of Pompeius stationed there; +Metellus, not troubling himself about either Octavius or Sisenna, +besieged Eleutherna and took Lappa by storm, where Octavius in person +was taken prisoner and ignominiously dismissed, while the Cretans +who were taken with him were consigned to the executioner. +Accordingly formal conflicts took place between the troops of Sisenna, +at whose head Octavius placed himself after that leader's +death, and those of Metellus; even when the former had been +commanded to return to Achaia, Octavius continued the war +in concert with the Cretan Aristion, and Hierapytna, +where both made a stand, was only subdued by Metellus +after the most obstinate resistance. + +In reality the zealous Optimate Metellus had thus begun formal +civil war at his own hand against the generalissimo of the democracy. +It shows the indescribable disorganization in the Roman state, +that these incidents led to nothing farther than a bitter +correspondence between the two generals, who a couple of years +afterwards were sitting once more peacefully and even "amicably" +side by side in the senate. + +Pompeius Takes the Supreme Command against Mithradates + +Pompeius during these events remained in Cilicia; preparing +for the next year, as it seemed, a campaign against the Cretans +or rather against Metellus, in reality waiting for the signal +which should call him to interfere in the utterly confused affairs +of the mainland of Asia Minor. The portion of the Lucullan army +that was still left after the losses which it had suffered +and the departure of the Fimbrian legions remained inactive +on the upper Halys in the country of the Trocmi bordering +on the Pontic territory. Lucullus still held provisionally +the chief command, as his nominated successor Glabrio continued +to linger in the west of Asia Minor. The three legions +commanded by Quintus Marcius Rex lay equally inactive +in Cilicia. The Pontic territory was again wholly in the power +of king Mithradates, who made the individuals and communities +that had joined the Romans, such as the town of Eupatoria, +pay for their revolt with cruel severity. The kings of the east +did not proceed to any serious offensive movement against the Romans, +either because it formed no part of their plan, or--as was asserted-- +because the landing of Pompeius in Cilicia induced Mithradates +and Tigranes to desist from advancing farther. The Manilian law +realized the secretly-cherished hopes of Pompeius more rapidly +than he probably himself anticipated; Glabrio and Rex +were recalled and the governorships of Pontus-Bithynia and Cilicia +with the troops stationed there, as well as the management +of the Pontic-Armenian war along with authority to make war, peace, +and alliance with the dynasts of the east at his own discretion, +were transferred to Pompeius. Amidst the prospect of honours +and spoils so ample Pompeius was glad to forgo the chastising +of an ill-humoured Optimate who enviously guarded his scanty laurels; +he abandoned the expedition against Crete and the farther pursuit +of the corsairs, and destined his fleet also to support the attack +which he projected on the kings of Pontus and Armenia. Yet amidst +this land-war he by no means wholly lost sight of piracy, +which was perpetually raising its head afresh. Before he left Asia +(691) he caused the necessary ships to be fitted out there against +the corsairs; on his proposal in the following year a similar measure +was resolved on for Italy, and the sum needed for the purpose +was granted by the senate. They continued to protect the coasts +with guards of cavalry and small squadrons, and though +as the expeditions to be mentioned afterwards against Cyprus in 696 +and Egypt in 699 show, piracy was not thoroughly mastered, it yet +after the expedition of Pompeius amidst all the vicissitudes +and political crises of Rome could never again so raise its head +and so totally dislodge the Romans from the sea, as it had done +under the government of the mouldering oligarchy. + +War Preparations of Pompeius +Alliance with the Parthians +Variance between Mithradates and Tigranes + +The few months which still remained before the commencement +of the campaign in Asia Minor, were employed by the new commander- +in-chief with strenuous activity in diplomatic and military +preparations. Envoys were sent to Mithradates, rather to reconnoitre +than to attempt a serious mediation. There was a hope at the Pontic +court that Phraates king of the Parthians would be induced by the recent +considerable successes which the allies had achieved over Rome +to enter into the Pontic-Armenian alliance. To counteract this, Roman +envoys proceeded to the court of Ctesiphon; and the internal troubles, +which distracted the Armenian ruling house, came to their aid. +A son of the great-king Tigranes, bearing the same name +had rebelled against his father, either because he was unwilling +to wait for the death of the old man, or because his father's +suspicion, which had already cost several of his brothers their +lives, led him to discern his only chance of safety in open +insurrection. Vanquished by his father, he had taken refuge +with a number of Armenians of rank at the court of the Arsacid, +and intrigued against his father there. It was partly due +to his exertions, that Phraates preferred to take the reward +which was offered to him by both sides for his accession--the secured +possession of Mesopotamia--from the hand of the Romans, renewed +with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting +the boundary of the Euphrates,(4) and even consented to operate +in concert with the Romans against Armenia. But the younger Tigranes +occasioned still greater mischief than that which arose out of his +promoting the alliance between the Romans and the Parthians, +for his insurrection produced a variance between the kings +Tigranes and Mithradates themselves. The great-king cherished +in secret the suspicion that Mithradates might have had a hand +in the insurrection of his grandson--Cleopatra the mother +of the younger Tigranes was the daughter of Mithradates-- +and, though no open rupture took place, the good understanding +between the two monarchs was disturbed at the very moment +when it was most urgently needed. + +At the same time Pompeius prosecuted his warlike preparations +with energy. The Asiatic allied and client communities were warned +to furnish the stipulated contingents. Public notices summoned +the discharged veterans of the legions of Fimbria to return +to the standards as volunteers, and by great promises and the name +of Pompeius a considerable portion of them were induced in reality +to obey the call. The whole force united under the orders +of Pompeius may have amounted, exclusive of the auxiliaries, +to between 40,000 and 50,000 men.(5) + +Pompeius and Lucullus + +In the spring of 688 Pompeius proceeded to Galatia, to take +the chief command of the troops of Lucullus and to advance +with them into the Pontic territory, whither the Cilician legions +were directed to follow. At Danala, a place belonging to the Trocmi, +the two generals met; but the reconciliation, which mutual friends +had hoped to effect, was not accomplished. The preliminary +courtesies soon passed into bitter discussions, and these +into violent altercation: they parted in worse mood than they had met. +As Lucullus continued to make honorary gifts and to distribute +lands just as if he were still in office, Pompeius declared +all the acts performed by his predecessor subsequent to +his own arrival null and void. Formally he was in the right; +customary tactin the treatment of a meritorious and more than +sufficientlymortified opponent was not to be looked for from him. + +Invasion of Pontus +Retreat of Mithradates + +So soon as the season allowed, the Roman troops crossed +the frontier of Pontus. There they were opposed by king Mithradates +with 30,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. Left in the lurch by his +allies and attacked by Rome with reinforced power and energy, +he made an attempt to procure peace; but he would hear nothing +of the unconditional submission which Pompeius demanded--what worse +could the most unsuccessful campaign bring to him? That he might +not expose his army, mostly archers and horsemen, to the formidable +shock of the Roman infantry of the line, he slowly retired before +the enemy, and compelled the Romans to follow him in his various +cross-marches; making a stand at the same time, wherever there was +opportunity, with his superior cavalry against that of the enemy, +and occasioning no small hardship to the Romans by impeding +their supplies. At length Pompeius in his impatience desisted +from following the Pontic army, and, letting the king alone, +proceeded to subdue the land; he marched to the upper Euphrates, +crossed it, and entered the eastern provinces of the Pontic empire. +But Mithradates followed along the left bank of the Euphrates, +and when he had arrived in the Anaitic or Acilisenian province, +he intercepted the route of the Romans at the castle of Dasteira, +which was strong and well provided with water, and from which +with his light troops he commanded the plain. Pompeius, +still wanting the Cilician legions and not strong enough to maintain +himself in this position without them, had to retire over the Euphrates +and to seek protection from the cavalry and archers of the king +in the wooded ground of Pontic Armenia extensively intersected +by rocky ravines and deep valleys. It was not till the troops +from Cilicia arrived and rendered it possible to resume the offensive +with a superiority of force, that Pompeius again advanced, invested +the camp of the king with a chain of posts of almost eighteen miles +in length, and kept him formally blockaded there, while the Roman +detachments scoured the country far and wide. The distress in the Pontic +camp was great; the draught animals even had to be killed; at length +after remaining for forty-five days the king caused his sick +and wounded, whom he could not save and was unwilling to leave +in the hands of the enemy, to be put to death by his own troops, +and departed during the night with the utmost secrecy towards +the east. Cautiously Pompeius followed through the unknown land: +the march was now approaching the boundary which separated +the dominions of Mithradates and Tigranes. When the Roman general +perceived that Mithradates intended not to bring the contest +to a decision within his own territory, but to draw the enemy away +after him into the far distant regions of the east, he determined +not to permit this. + +Battle at Nicopolis + +The two armies lay close to each other. During the rest at noon +the Roman army set out without the enemy observing the movement, +made a circuit, and occupied the heights, which lay in front +and commanded a defile to be passed by the enemy, on the southern bank +of the river Lycus (Jeschil-Irmak) not far from the modern Enderes, +at the point where Nicopolis was afterwards built. The following +morning the Pontic troops broke up in their usual manner, +and, supposing that the enemy was as hitherto behind them, after, +accomplishing the day's march they pitched their camp +in the very valley whose encircling heights the Romans had occupied. +Suddenly in the silence of the night there sounded all around them +the dreaded battle-cry of the legions, and missiles from all sides +poured on the Asiatic host, in which soldiers and camp-followers, +chariots, horses, and camels jostled each other; and amidst +the dense throng, notwithstanding the darkness, not a missile +failed to take effect. When the Romans had expended their darts, +they charged down from the heights on the masses which had now become +visible by the light of the newly-risen moon, and which were +abandoned to them almost defenceless; those that did not fall +by the steel of the enemy were trodden down in the fearful pressure +under the hoofs and wheels. It was the last battle-field +on which the gray-haired king fought with the Romans. With three +attendants--two of his horsemen, and a concubine who was accustomed +to follow him in male attire and to fight bravely by his side-- +he made his escape thence to the fortress of Sinoria, whither +a portion of his trusty followers found their way to him. He divided +among them his treasures preserved there, 6000 talents of gold +(1,400,000 pounds); furnished them and himself with poison; +and hastened with the band that was left to him up the Euphrates +to unite with his ally, the great-king of Armenia. + +Tigranes Breaks with Mithradates +Mithradates Crosses the Phasis + +This hope likewise was vain; the alliance, on the faith of which +Mithradates took the route for Armenia, already by that time +existed no longer. During the conflicts between Mithradates +and Pompeius just narrated, the king of the Parthians, yielding +to the urgency of the Romans and above all of the exiled Armenian prince, +had invaded the kingdom of Tigranes by force of arms, and had +compelled him to withdraw into the inaccessible mountains. +The invading army began even the siege of the capital Artaxata; +but, on its becoming protracted, king Phraates took his departure +with the greater portion of his troops; whereupon Tigranes overpowered +the Parthian corps left behind and the Armenian emigrants led +by his son, and re-established his dominion throughout the kingdom +Naturally, however, the king was under such circumstances little +inclined to fight with the freshly-victorious Romans, and least +of all to sacrifice himself for Mithradates; whom he trusted less +than ever, since information had reached him that his rebellious son +intended to betake himself to his grandfather. So he entered into +negotiations with the Romans for a separate peace; but he did not wait +for the conclusion of the treaty to break off the alliance +which linked him to Mithradates. The latter, when he had arrived +at the frontier of Armenia, was doomed to learn that the great-king +Tigranes had set a price of 100 talents (24,000 pounds) +on his head, had arrested his envoys, and had delivered them +to the Romans. King Mithradates saw his kingdom in the hands +of the enemy, and his allies on the point of coming to an agreement +with them; it was not possible to continue the war; he might deem +himself fortunate, if he succeeded in effecting his escape along +the eastern and northern shores of the Black Sea, in perhaps +dislodging his son Machares--who had revolted and entered into +connection with the Romans(6)--once more from the Bosporan kingdom, +and in finding on the Maeotis a fresh soil for fresh projects. +So he turned northward. When the king in his flight had crossed +the Phasis, the ancient boundary of Asia Minor, Pompeius for the time +discontinued his pursuit; but instead of returning to the region +of the sources of the Euphrates, he turned aside into the region +of the Araxes to settle matters with Tigranes. + +Pompeius at Artaxata +Peace with Tigranes + +Almost without meeting resistance he arrived in the region +of Artaxata (not far from Erivan) and pitched his camp thirteen miles +from the city. There he was met by the son of the great-king, +who hoped after the fall of his father to receive the Armenian diadem +from the hand of the Romans, and therefore had endeavoured in every +way to prevent the conclusion of the treaty between his father +and the Romans. The great-king was only the more resolved to purchase +peace at any price. On horseback and without his purple robe, +but adorned with the royal diadem and the royal turban, he appeared +at the gate of the Roman camp and desired to be conducted +to the presence of the Roman general. After having given up +at the bidding of the lictors, as the regulations of the Roman camp +required, his horse and his sword, he threw himself in barbarian +fashion at the feet of the proconsul and in token of unconditional +surrender placed the diadem and tiara in his hands. Pompeius, +highly delighted at a victory which cost nothing, raised up +the humbled king of kings, invested him again with the insignia +of his dignity, and dictated the peace. Besides a payment of; +1,400,000 pounds (6000 talents) to the war-chest and a present +to the soldiers, out of which each of them received 50 -denarii- +(2 pounds 2 shillings), the king ceded all the conquests which +he had made, not merely his Phoenician, Syrian, Cilician, and Cappadocian +possessions, but also Sophene and Corduene on the right bank +of the Euphrates; he was again restricted to Armenia proper, +and his position of great-king was, of course, at an end. +In a single campaign Pompeius had totally subdued the two mighty kings +of Pontus and Armenia. At the beginning of 688 there was not a Roman +soldier beyond the frontier of the old Roman possessions; at its +close king Mithradates was wandering as an exile and without +an army in the ravines of the Caucasus, and king Tigranes sat +on the Armenian throne no longer as king of kings, but as a vassal +of Rome. The whole domain of Asia Minor to the west of the Euphrates +unconditionally obeyed the Romans; the victorious army took up +its winter-quarters to the east of that stream on Armenian soil, +in the country from the upper Euphrates to the river Kur, +from which the Italians then for the first time watered their horses. + +The Tribes of the Caucasus +Iberians +Albanians + +But the new field, on which the Romans here set foot, raised up +for them new conflicts. The brave peoples of the middle and eastern +Caucasus saw with indignation the remote Occidentals encamping +on their territory. There--in the fertile and well-watered tableland +of the modern Georgia--dwelt the Iberians, a brave, well-organized, +agricultural nation, whose clan-cantons under their patriarchs +cultivated the soil according to the system of common possession, +without any separate ownership of the individual cultivators. Army +and people were one; the people were headed partly by the ruler- +clans--out of which the eldest always presided over the whole +Iberian nation as king, and the next eldest as judge and leader +of the army--partly by special families of priests, on whom chiefly +devolved the duty of preserving a knowledge of the treaties +concluded with other peoples and of watching over their observance. +The mass of the non-freemen were regarded as serfs of the king. +Their eastern neighbours, the Albanians or Alans, who were settled +on the lower Kur as far as the Caspian Sea, were in a far lower +stage of culture. Chiefly a pastoral people they tended, on foot +or on horseback, their numerous herds in the luxuriant meadows +of the modern Shirvan; their few tilled fields were still cultivated +with the old wooden plough without iron share. Coined money +was unknown, and they did not count beyond a hundred. Each of their +tribes, twenty-six in all, had its own chief and spoke its distinct +dialect. Far superior in number to the Iberians, the Albanians +could not at all cope with them in bravery. The mode of fighting +was on the whole the same with both nations; they fought chiefly +with arrows and light javelins, which they frequently after the Indian +fashion discharged from their lurking-places in the woods +behind the trunks of trees, or hurled down from the tops of trees +on the foe; the Albanians had also numerous horsemen partly mailed +after the Medo-Armenian manner with heavy cuirasses and greaves. +Both nations lived on their lands and pastures in a complete +independence preserved from time immemorial. Nature itself +as it were, seems to have raised the Caucasus between Europe and Asia +as a rampart against the tide of national movements; there the arms +of Cyrus and of Alexander had formerly found their limit; +now the brave garrison of this partition-wall set themselves +to defend it also against the Romans. + +Albanians Conquered by Pompeius +Iberians Conquered + +Alarmed by the information that the Roman commander-in-chief +intended next spring to cross the mountains and to pursue +the Pontic king beyond the Caucasus--for Mithradates, they heard, +was passing the winter in Dioscurias (Iskuria between Suchum Kale +and Anaklia) on the Black Sea--the Albanians under their prince +Oroizes first crossed the Kur in the middle of the winter of 688-689 +and threw themselves on the army, which was divided for the sake +of its supplies into three larger corps under Quintus Metellus Celer, +Lucius Flaccus, and Pompeius in person. But Celer, on whom +the chief attack fell, made a brave stand, and Pompeius, after having +delivered himself from the division sent to attack him, pursued +the barbarians beaten at all points as far as the Kur. Artoces +the king of the Iberians kept quiet and promised peace and friendship; +but Pompeius, informed that he was secretly arming so as to fall +upon the Romans on their march in the passes of the Caucasus, +advanced in the spring of 689, before resuming the pursuit +of Mithradates, to the two fortresses just two miles distant +from each other, Harmozica (Horum Ziche or Armazi) and Seusamora +(Tsumar) which a little above the modern Tiflis command the two valleys +of the river Kur and its tributary the Aragua, and with these +the only passes leading from Armenia to Iberia. Artoces, surprised +by the enemy before he was aware of it, hastily burnt the bridge over +the Kur and retreated negotiating into the interior. Pompeius occupied +the fortresses and followed the Iberians to the other bank +of the Kur; by which he hoped to induce them to immediate submission. +But Artoces retired farther and farther into the interior, +and, when at length he halted on the river Pelorus, he did so +not to surrender but to fight. The Iberian archers however withstood +not for a moment the onset of the Roman legions, and, when Artoces +saw the Pelorus also crossed by the Romans, he submitted +at length to the conditions which the victor proposed, and sent +his children as hostages. + +Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis + +Pompeius now, agreeably to the plan which he had formerly projected, +marched through the Sarapana pass from the region of the Kur +to that of the Phasis and thence down that river to the Black Sea, +where on the Colchian coast the fleet under Servilius already +awaited him. But it was for an uncertain idea, and an aim almost +unsubstantial, that the army and fleet were thus brought +to the richly fabled shores of Colchis. The laborious march just +completed through unknown and mostly hostile nations was nothing +when compared with what still awaited them, and if they should +really succeed in conducting the force from the mouth of the Phasis +to the Crimea, through warlike and poor barbarian tribes, +on inhospitable and unknown waters, along a coast where +at certain places the mountains sink perpendicularly into the sea +and it would have been absolutely necessary to embark in the ships-- +if such a march should be successfully accomplished, which was perhaps +more difficult than the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal-- +what was gained by it even at the best, corresponding at all to its toils +and dangers? The war doubtless was not ended, so long as the old +king was still among the living; but who could guarantee that they +would really succeed in catching the royal game for the sake of which +this unparalleled chase was to be instituted? Was it not better +even at the risk of Mithradates once more throwing the torch +of war into Asia Minor, to desist from a pursuit which promised +so little gain and so many dangers? Doubtless numerous voices +in the army, and still more numerous voices in the capital, +urged the general to continue the pursuit incessantly and at any price; +but they were the voices partly of foolhardy Hotspurs, +partly of those perfidious friends, who would gladly at any price +have kept the too-powerful Imperator aloof from the capital +and entangled him amidst interminable undertakings in the east. +Pompeius was too experienced and too discreet an officer to stake +his fame and his army in obstinate adherence to so injudicious +an expedition; an insurrection of the Albanians in rear of the army +furnished the pretext for abandoning the further pursuit +of the king and arranging its return. The fleet received instructions +to cruise in the Black Sea, to protect the northern coast of Asia +Minor against any hostile invasion, and strictly to blockade +the Cimmerian Bosporus under the threat of death to any trader +who should break the blockade. Pompeius conducted the land troops +not without great hardships through the Colchian and Armenian territory +to the lower course of the Kur and onward, crossing the stream, +into the Albanian plain. + +Fresh Conflicts with the Albanians + +For several days the Roman army had to march in the glowing heat +through this almost waterless flat country, without encountering +the enemy; it was only on the left bank of the Abas (probably +the river elsewhere named Alazonius, now Alasan) that the force +of the Albanians under the leadership of Coses, brother of the king +Oroizes, was drawn up against the Romans; they are said to have +amounted, including the contingent which had arrived +from the inhabitants of the Transcaucasian steppes, to 60,000 infantry +and 12,000 cavalry. Yet they would hardly have risked the battle, +unless they had supposed that they had merely to fight with +the Roman cavalry; but the cavalry had only been placed in front, +and, on its retiring, the masses of Roman infantry showed themselves +from their concealment behind. After a short conflict the army +of the barbarians was driven into the woods, which Pompeius +gave orders to invest and set on fire. The Albanians thereupon +consented to make peace; and, following the example of the more +powerful peoples, all the tribes settled between the Kur and the Caspian +concluded a treaty with the Roman general. The Albanians, +Iberians, and generally the peoples settled to the south along, +and at the foot of, the Caucasus, thus entered at least for the moment +into a relation of dependence on Rome. When, on the other hand, +the peoples between the Phasis and the Maeotis--Colchians, Soani, +Heniochi, Zygi, Achaeans, even the remote Bastarnae--were inscribed +in the long list of the nations subdued by Pompeius, the notion +of subjugation was evidently employed in a manner very far from exact. +The Caucasus once more verified its significance in the history +of the world; the Roman conquest, like the Persian and the Hellenic, +found its limit there. + +Mithradates Goes to Panticapaeum + +Accordingly king Mithradates was left to himself and to destiny. +As formerly his ancestor, the founder of the Pontic state +had first entered his future kingdom as a fugitive from the executioners +of Antigonus and attended only by six horsemen, so had the grandson +now been compelled once more to cross the bounds of his kingdom +and to turn his back on his own and his fathers' conquests. +But for no one had the dice of fate turned up the highest gains +and the greatest losses more frequently and more capriciously +than for the old sultan of Sinope; and the fortunes of men +change rapidly and incalculably in the east. Well might +Mithradates now in the evening of his life accept each new +vicissitude with the thought that it too was only in its turn +paving the way for a fresh revolution, and that the only thing +constant was the perpetual change of fortune. Inasmuch as +the Roman rule was intolerable for the Orientals at the very core +of their nature, and Mithradates himself was in good and in evil +a true prince of the east, amidst the laxity of the rule exercised +by the Roman senate over the provinces, and amidst the dissensions +of the political parties in Rome fermenting and ripening into civil +war, Mithradates might, if he was fortunate enough to bide +his time, doubtless re-establish his dominion yet a third time. +For this very reason--because he hoped and planned while still +there was life in him--he remained dangerous to the Romans so long as +he lived, as an aged refugee no less than when he had marched forth +with his hundred thousands to wrest Hellas and Macedonia +from the Romans. The restless old man made his way in the year 689 +from Dioscurias amidst unspeakable hardships partly by land partly +by sea to the kingdom of Panticapaeum, where by his reputation +and his numerous retainers he drove his renegade son Machares +from the throne and compelled him to put himself to death. +From this point he attempted once more to negotiate with the Romans; +he besought that his paternal kingdom might be restored to him, +and declared himself ready to recognize the supremacy of Rome +and to pay tribute as a vassal. But Pompeius refused to grant +the king a position in which he would have begun the old game afresh, +and insisted on his personal submission. + +His Last Preparations against Rome + +Mithradates, however, had no thought of delivering himself into the hands +of the enemy, but was projecting new and still more extravagant plans. +Straining all the resources with which the treasures that he had saved +and the remnant of his states supplied him, he equipped a new army +of 36,000 men consisting partly of slaves which he armed and exercised +after the Roman fashion, and a war-fleet; according to rumour he designed +to march westward through Thrace, Macedonia, and Pannonia, to carry along +with him the Scythians in the Sarmatian steppes and the Celts on the Danube +as allies, and with this avalanche of peoples to throw himself +on Italy. This has been deemed a grand idea, and the plan of war +of the Pontic king has been compared with the military march +of Hannibal; but the same project, which in a gifted man is a stroke +of genius, becomes folly in one who is wrong-headed. This intended +invasion of Italy by the Orientals was simply ridiculous, +and nothing but a product of the impotent imagination of despair. +Through the prudent coolness of their leader the Romans +were prevented from Quixotically pursuing their Quixotic antagonist +and warding off in the distant Crimea an attack, which, if it +were not nipped of itself in the bud, would still have been +soon enough met at the foot of the Alps. + +Revolt against Mithradates + +In fact, while Pompeius, without troubling himself further +as to the threats of the impotent giant, was employed in organizing +the territory which he had gained, the destinies of the aged king +drew on to their fulfilment without Roman aid in the remote north. +His extravagant preparations had produced the most violent excitement +among the Bosporans, whose houses were torn down, and whose oxen +were taken from the plough and put to death, in order to procure +beams and sinews for constructing engines of war. The soldiers +too were disinclined to enter on the hopeless Italian expedition. +Mithradates had constantly been surrounded by suspicion +and treason; he had not the gift of calling forth affection +and fidelity among those around him. As in earlier years he had +compelled his distinguished general Archelaus to seek protection +in the Roman camp; as during the campaigns of Lucullus his most +trusted officers Diodes, Phoenix, and even the most notable of the Roman +emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star +grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered sultan was accessible +to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly +on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria +(on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard +of revolt; he proclaimed the freedom of the town and delivered +the sons of Mithradates that were in the fortress into the hands +of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns, +and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa), +and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion +and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable +eunuchs his most confidential adherents were nailed to the cross; +the king's own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son +who was his father's favourite and was probably destined by him +as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and headed +the insurgents. The servants whom Mithradates sent to arrest him, +and the troops despatched against him, passed over to his side; +the corps of Italian deserters, perhaps the most efficient among +the divisions of Mithradates' army, and for that very reason the least +inclined to share in the romantic--and for the deserters peculiarly +hazardous--expedition against Italy, declared itself en masse +for the prince; the other divisions of the army and the fleet followed +the example thus set. + +Death of Mithadates + +After the country and the army had abandoned the king, the capital +Panticapaeum at length opened its gates to the insurgents +and delivered over to them the old king enclosed in his palace. +From the high wall of his castle the latter besought his son at least +to grant him life and not imbrue his hands in his father's blood; +but the request came ill from the lips of a man whose own hands +were stained with the blood of his mother and with the recently-shed +blood of his innocent son Xiphares; and in heartless severity +and inhumanity Pharnaces even outstripped his father. Seeing therefore +he had now to die, the sultan resolved at least to die as he had +lived; his wives, his concubines and his daughters, including +the youthful brides of the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, had all to suffer +the bitterness of death and drain the poisoned cup, before he too +took it, and then, when the draught did not take effect quickly +enough, presented his neck for the fatal stroke to a Celtic +mercenary Betuitus. So died in 691 Mithradates Eupator, +in the sixty-eighth year of his life and the fifty-seventh of his reign, +twenty-six years after he had for the first time taken the field +against the Romans. The dead body, which king Pharnaces sent +as a voucher of his merits and of his loyalty to Pompeius, was by order +of the latter laid in the royal sepulchre of Sinope. + +The death of Mithradates was looked on by the Romans as equivalent +to a victory: the messengers who reported to the general +the catastrophe appeared crowned with laurel, as if they had a victory +to announce, in the Roman camp before Jericho. In him a great +enemy was borne to the tomb, a greater than had ever yet withstood +the Romans in the indolent east. Instinctively the multitude felt +this: as formerly Scipio had triumphed even more over Hannibal than +over Carthage, so the conquest of the numerous tribes of the east +and of the great-king himself was almost forgotten in the death +of Mithradates; and at the solemn entry of Pompeius nothing attracted +more the eyes of the multitude than the pictures, in which they saw +king Mithradates as a fugitive leading his horse by the rein +and thereafter sinking down in death between the dead bodies of his +daughters. Whatever judgment may be formed as to the idiosyncrasy +of the king, he is a figure of great significance--in the full +sense of the expression--for the history of the world. He was not +a personage of genius, probably not even of rich endowments; +but he possessed the very respectable gift of hating, +and out of this hatred he sustained an unequal conflict +against superior foes throughout half a century, without success +doubtless, but with honour. He became still more significant +through the position in which history had placed him +thanthrough his individual character. As the forerunner +of the national reaction of the Orientals against the Occidentals, +he opened the new conflict of the east against the west; +and the feeling remained with the vanquished as with the victors, +that his death was not so much the end as the beginning. + +Pompeius Proceeds to Syria + +Meanwhile Pompeius, after his warfare in 689 with the peoples +of the Caucasus, had returned to the kingdom of Pontus, +and there reduced the last castles still offering resistance; +these were razed in order to check the evils of brigandage, +and the castle wells were rendered unserviceable by rolling blocks +of rock into them. Thence he set out in the summer of 690 for Syria, +to regulate its affairs. + +State of Syria + +It is difficult to present a clear view of the state of disorganization +which then prevailed in the Syrian provinces. It is true +that in consequence of the attacks of Lucullus the Armenian governor +Magadates had evacuated these provinces in 685,(7) and that the Ptolemies, +gladly as they would have renewed the attempts of their predecessors +to attach the Syrian coast to their kingdom, were yet afraid to provoke +the Roman government by the occupation of Syria; the more so, +as that government had not yet regulated their more than doubtful +legal title even in the case of Egypt, and had been several times +solicited by the Syrian princes to recognize them as the legitimate heirs +of the extinct house of the Lagids. But, though the greater powers +all at the moment refrained from interference in the affairs +of Syria, the land suffered far more than it would have suffered amidst +a great war, through the endless and aimless feuds of the princes, +knights, and cities. + +Arabian Princes + +The actual masters in the Seleucid kingdom were at this time +the Bedouins, the Jews, and the Nabataeans. The inhospitable +sandy steppe destitute of springs and trees, which, stretching +from the Arabianpeninsula up to and beyond the Euphrates, reaches +towards the west as far as the Syrian mountain-chain and its narrow belt +of coast, toward the east as far as the rich lowlands of the Tigris +and lower Euphrates--this Asiatic Sahara--was the primitive home +of the sons of Ishmael; from the commencement of tradition we find +the "Bedawi," the "son of the desert," pitching his tents there +and pasturing his camels, or mounting his swift horse in pursuit +now of the foe of his tribe, now of the travelling merchant. Favoured +formerly by king Tigranes, who made use of them for his plans half +commercial half political,(8) and subsequently by the total absence +of any master in the Syrian land, these children of the desert +spread themselves over northern Syria. Wellnigh the leading part +in a political point of view was enacted by those tribes, +which had appropriated the first rudiments of a settled existence +from the vicinity of the civilized Syrians. The most noted +of these emirs were Abgarus, chief of the Arab tribe of the Mardani, +whom Tigranes had settled about Edessa and Carrhae in upper Mesopotamia;(9) +then to the west of the Euphrates Sampsiceramus, emir of the Arabs +of Hemesa (Homs) between Damascus and Antioch, and master +of the strong fortress Arethusa; Azizus the head of another horde +roaming in the same region; Alchaudonius, the prince of the Rhambaeans, +who had already put himself into communication with Lucullus; +and several others. + +Robber-Chiefs + +Alongside of these Bedouin princes there had everywhere appeared +bold cavaliers, who equalled or excelled the children of the desert +in the noble trade of waylaying. Such was Ptolemaeus son +of Mennaeus, perhaps the most powerful among these Syrian robber- +chiefs and one of the richest men of this period, who ruled over +the territory of the Ityraeans--the modern Druses--in the valleys +of the Libanus as well as on the coast and over the plain +of Massyas to the northward with the cities of Heliopolis (Baalbec) +and Chalcis, and maintained 8000 horsemen at his own expense; +such were Dionysius and Cinyras, the masters of the maritime cities +Tripolis (Tarablus) and Byblus (between Tarablus and Beyrout); +such was the Jew Silas in Lysias, a fortress not far from Apamea +on the Orontes. + +Jews + +In the south of Syria, on the other hand, the race of the Jews +seemed as though it would about this time consolidate itself +into a political power. Through the devout and bold defence +of the primitive Jewish national worship, which was imperilled +by the levelling Hellenism of the Syrian kings, the family +of the Hasmonaeans or the Makkabi had not only attained to their +hereditary principality and gradually to kingly honours;(10) +but these princely high-priests had also spread their conquests +to the north, east, and south. When the brave Jannaeus Alexander +died (675), the Jewish kingdom stretched towards the south over +the whole Philistian territory as far as the frontier of Egypt, towards +the south-east as far as that of the Nabataean kingdom of Petra, +from which Jannaeus had wrested considerable tracts on the right +bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, towards the north over Samaria +and Decapolis up to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already +making arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously +to repel the aggressions of the Ityraeans. The coast obeyed the Jews +from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the important +Gaza--Ascalon alone was still free; so that the territory +of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could now be enumerated +among the asylums of piracy. Now that the Armenian invasion, just +as it approached the borders of Judaea, was averted from that land +by the intervention of Lucullus,(11) the gifted rulers +of the Hasmonaean house would probably have carried their arms still +farther, had not the development of the power of that remarkable +conquering priestly state been nipped in the bud by internal divisions. + +Pharisees +Sadducees + +The spirit of religious independence, and the spirit of national +independence--the energetic union of which had called the Maccabee +state into life--speedily became once more dissociated and even +antagonistic. The Jewish orthodoxy or Pharisaism, as it was called, +was content with the free exercise of religion, as it had +been asserted in defiance of the Syrian rulers; its practical aim +was a community of Jews, composed of the orthodox in the lands +of all rulers, essentially irrespective of the secular government-- +a community which found its visible points of union in the tribute +for the temple at Jerusalem, which was obligatory on every +conscientious Jew, and in the schools of religion and spiritual +courts. Overagainst this orthodoxy, which turned away +from political life and became more and more stiffened into theological +formalism and painful ceremonial service, were arrayed +the defenders of the national independence, invigorated amidst +successful struggles against foreign rule, and advancing towards +the ideal of a restoration of the Jewish state, the representatives +of the old great families--the so-called Sadducees--partly +on dogmatic grounds, in so far as they acknowledged only the sacred +books themselves and conceded authority merely, not canonicity, +to the "bequests of the scribes," that is, to canonical tradition;(12) +partly and especially on political grounds, in so far as, instead +of a fatalistic waiting for the strong arm of the Lord of Zebaoth, +they taught that the salvation of the nation was to be expected +from the weapons of this world, and from the inward and outward +strengthening of the kingdom of David as re-established +in the glorious times of the Maccabees. Those partisans of orthodoxy +found their support in the priesthood and the multitude; they +contested with the Hasmonaeans the legitimacy of their high- +priesthood, and fought against the noxious heretics with all +the reckless implacability, with which the pious are often found +to contend for the possession of earthly goods. The state-party +on the other hand relied for support on intelligence brought into +contact with the influences of Hellenism, on the army, in which +numerous Pisidian and Cilician mercenaries served, and on the abler +kings, who here strove with the ecclesiastical power much as +a thousand years later the Hohenstaufen strove with the Papacy. +Jannaeus had kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; +under his two sons there arose (685 et seq.) a civil and fraternal war, +since the Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted +to obtain their objects under the nominal rule of his brother, +the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not merely +put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also foreign nations +opportunity to interfere and thereby obtain a commanding position +in southern Syria. + +Nabataeans + +This was the case first of all with the Nabataeans. This remarkable +nation has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, +the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramaean +branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramaean or, +according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian stock +must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient +settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of trade, +to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the Nabataeans +on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez and Aila, +and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their ports +the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those of India; +the great southern caravan-route, which ran from Gaza to the mouth +of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf, passed through the capital +of the Nabataeans--Petra--whose still magnificent rock-palaces +and rock-tombs furnish clearer evidence of the Nabataean civilization +than does an almost extinct tradition. The leaders of the Pharisees, +to whom after the manner of priests the victory of their faction +seemed not too dearly bought at the price of the independence +and integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king +of the Nabataeans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which +they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested +from him by Jannaeus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it was +said, 50,000 men into Judaea and, reinforced by the adherents +of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged in his capital. + +Syrian Cities + +Amidst the system of violence and feud which thus prevailed +from one end of Syria to another, the larger cities were of course +the principal sufferers, such as Antioch, Seleucia, Damascus, +whose citizens found themselves paralysed in their husbandry +as well as in their maritime and caravan trade. The citizens of Byblus +and Berytus (Beyrout) were unable to protect their fields +and their ships from the Ityraeans, who issuing from their mountain +and maritime strongholds rendered land and sea equally insecure. +Those of Damascus sought to ward off the attacks of the Ityraeans +and Ptolemaeus by handing themselves over to the more remote kings +of the Nabataeans or of the Jews. In Antioch Sampsiceramus and Azizus +mingled in the internal feuds of the citizens, and the Hellenic +great city had wellnigh become even now the seat of an Arab emir. +The state of things reminds us of the kingless times of the German +middle ages, when Nuremberg and Augsburg found their protection +not in the king's law and the king's courts, but in their own walls +alone; impatiently the merchant-citizens of Syria awaited the strong +arm, which should restore to them peace and security of intercourse. + +The Last Seleucids + +There was no want, however, of a legitimate king in Syria; +there were even two or three of them. A prince Antiochus +from the house of the Seleucids had been appointed by Lucullus +as ruler of the most northerly province in Syria, Commagene.(13) +Antiochus Asiaticus, whose claims on the Syrian throne had met +with recognition both from the senate and from Lucullus,(14) +had been received in Antioch after the retreat of the Armenians +and there acknowledged as king. A third Seleucid prince Philippus +had immediately confronted him there as a rival; and the great +population of Antioch, excitable and delighting in opposition +almost like that of Alexandria, as well as one or two +of the neighbouring Arab emirs had interfered in the family strife +which now seemed inseparable from the rule of the Seleucids. +Was there any wonder that legitimacy became ridiculous and loathsome +to its subjects, and that the so-called rightful kings +were of even somewhat less importance in the land than the petty +princes and robber-chiefs? + +Annexation of Syria + +To create order amidst this chaos did not require either brilliance +of conception or a mighty display of force, but it required a clear +insight into the interests of Rome and of her subjects, and vigour +and consistency in establishing and maintaining the institutions +recognized as necessary. The policy of the senate in support +of legitimacy had sufficiently degraded itself; the general, +whom the opposition had brought into power, was not to be guided +by dynastic considerations, but had only to see that the Syrian kingdom +should not be withdrawn from the clientship of Rome in future either +by the quarrels of pretenders or by the Covetousness of neighbours. +But to secure this end there was only one course; that the Roman +community should send a satrap to grasp with a vigorous hand +the reins of government, which had long since practically slipped +from the hands of the kings of the ruling house more even through +their own fault than through outward misfortunes. This course Pompeius +took. Antiochus the Asiatic, on requesting to be acknowledged +as the hereditary ruler of Syria, received the answer that Pompeius +would not give back the sovereignty to a king who knew neither how +to maintain nor how to govern his kingdom, even at the request +of his subjects, much less against their distinctly expressed wishes. +With this letter of the Roman proconsul the house of Seleucus +was ejected from the throne which it had occupied for two hundred +and fifty years. Antiochus soon after lost his life through +the artifice of the emir Sampsiceramus, as whose client he played +the ruler in Antioch; thenceforth there is no further mention of these +mock-kings and their pretensions. + +Military Pacification of Syria + +But, to establish the new Roman government and introduce +any tolerable order into the confusion of affairs, it was further +necessary to advance into Syria with a military force and to terrify +or subdue all the disturbers of the peace, who had sprung +up during the many years of anarchy, by means of the Roman legions. +Already during the campaigns in the kingdom of Pontus and on the Caucasus +Pompeius had turned his attention to the affairs of Syria +and directed detached commissioners and corps to interfere, +where there was need. Aulus Gabinius--the same who as tribune +of the people had sent Pompeius to the east--had in 689 marched +along the Tigris and then across Mesopotamia to Syria, to adjust +the complicated affairs of Judaea. In like manner the severely pressed +Damascus had already been occupied by Lollius and Metellus. Soon +afterwards another adjutant of Pompeius, Marcus Scaurus, arrived +in Judaea, to allay the feuds ever breaking out afresh there. +Lucius Afranius also, who during the expedition of Pompeius +to the Caucasus held the command of the Roman troops in Armenia, +had proceeded from Corduene (the northern Kurdistan) to upper +Mesopotamia, and, after he had successfully accomplished +the perilous march through the desert with the sympathizing help +of the Hellenes settled in Carrhae, brought the Arabs in Osrhoene +to submission. Towards the end of 690 Pompeius in person arrived +in Syria,(15) and remained there till the summer of the following +year, resolutely interfering and regulating matters for the present +and the future. He sought to restore the kingdom to its state +in the better times of the Seleucid rule; all usurped powers were set +aside, the robber-chiefs were summoned to give up their castles, +the Arab sheiks were again restricted to their desert domains, +the affairs of the several communities were definitely regulated. + +The Robber-Chiefs Chastised + +The legions stood ready to procure obedience to these stern orders, +and their interference proved especially necessary against +the audacious robber-chiefs. Silas the ruler of Lysias, Dionysius +the ruler of Tripolis, Cinyras the ruler of Byblus were taken prisoners +in their fortresses and executed, the mountain and maritime strongholds +of the Ityraeans were broken up, Ptolemaeus son of Mennaeus in Chalcis +was forced to purchase his freedom and his lordship with a ransom +of 1000 talents (240,000 pounds). Elsewhere the commands +of the new master met for the most part with unresisting obedience. + +Negotiations and Conflicts with the Jews + +The Jews alone hesitated. The mediators formerly sent by Pompeius, +Gabinius and Scaurus, had--both, as it was said, bribed +with considerable sums--in the dispute between the brothers +Hyrcanus and Aristobulus decided in favour of the latter, and had also +induced king Aretas to raise the siege of Jerusalem and to proceed +homeward, in doing which he sustained a defeat at the hands +of Aristobulus. But, when Pompeius arrived in Syria, he cancelled +the orders of his subordinates and directed the Jews to resume their +old constitution under high-priests, as the senate had recognized +it about 593,(16) and to renounce along with the hereditary +principality itself all the conquests made by the Hasmonaean +princes. It was the Pharisees, who had sent an embassy of two +hundred of their most respected men to the Roman general and procured +from him the overthrow of the kingdom; not to the advantage +of their own nation, but doubtless to that of the Romans, +who from the nature of the case could not but here revert +to the old rights of the Seleucids, and could not tolerate a conquering +power like that of Jannaeus within the limits of their empire. +Aristobulus was uncertain whether it was better patiently +to acquiesce in his inevitable doom or to meet his fate with arms +in hand; at one time he seemed on the point of submitting to Pompeius, +at another he seemed as though he would summon the national party +among the Jews to a struggle with the Romans. When at length, +with the legions already at the gates, he yielded to the enemy, +the more resolute or more fanatical portion of his army refused +to comply with the orders of a king who was not free. The capital +submitted; the steep temple-rock was defended by that fanatical band +for three months with an obstinacy ready to brave death, till at last +the besiegers effected an entrance while the besieged were resting +on the Sabbath, possessed themselves of the sanctuary, and handed over +the authors of that desperate resistance, so far as they had +not fallen under the sword of the Romans, to the axes of the lictors. +Thus ended the last resistance of the territories newly annexed +to the Roman state. + +The New Relations of the Romans in the East + +The work begun by Lucullus had been completed by Pompeius; +the hitherto formally independent states of Bithynia, Pontus, +and Syria were united with the Roman state; the exchange--which +had been recognized for more than a hundred years as necessary-- +of the feeble system of a protectorate for that of direct sovereignty +over the more important dependent territories,(17) had at length +been realized, as soon as the senate had been overthrown and the Gracchan +party had come to the helm. Rome had obtained in the east +new frontiers, new neighbours, new friendly and hostile relations. +There were now added to the indirect territories of Rome +the kingdom of Armenia and the principalities of the Caucasus, +and also the kingdom on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the small remnant +of the extensive conquests of Mithradates Eupator, now a client-state +of Rome under the government of his son and murderer Pharnaces; +the town of Phanagoria alone, whose commandant Castor had given +the signal for the revolt, was on that account recognized by the Romans +as free and independent. + +Conflicts with the Nabataeans + +No like successes could be boasted of against the Nabataeans. +King Aretas had indeed, yielding to the desire of the Romans, +evacuated Judaea; but Damascus was still in his hands, +and the Nabataean land had not yet been trodden by any Roman soldier. +To subdue that region or at least to show to their new neighbours +in Arabia that the Roman eagles were now dominant on the Orontes +and on the Jordan, and that the time had gone by when any one was free +to levy contributions in the Syrian lands as a domain without a master, +Pompeius began in 691 an expedition against Petra; but detained +by the revolt of the Jews, which broke out during this expedition, +he was not reluctant to leave to his successor Marcus Scaurus +the carrying out of the difficult enterprise against the Nabataean city +situated far off amidst the desert.(18) In reality Scaurus also +soon found himself compelled to return without having accomplished +his object. He had to content himself with making war +on the Nabataeans in the deserts on the left bank of the Jordan, +where he could lean for support on the Jews, but yet bore off only +very trifling successes. Ultimately the adroit Jewish minister +Antipater from Idumaea persuaded Aretas to purchase a guarantee +for all his possessions, Damascus included, from the Roman governor +for a sum of money; and this is the peace celebrated on the coins +of Scaurus, where king Aretas appears--leading his camel-- +as a suppliant offering the olive branch to the Roman. + +Difficulty with the Parthians + +Far more fraught with momentous effects than these new relations +of the Romans to the Armenians, Iberians, Bosporans, and Nabataeans +was the proximity into which through the occupation of Syria they +were brought with the Parthian state. Complaisant as had been +the demeanour of Roman diplomacy towards Phraates while the Pontic +and Armenian states still subsisted, willingly as both Lucullus +and Pompeius had then conceded to him the possession of the regions +beyond the Euphrates,(19) the new neighbour now sternly took up +his position by the side of the Arsacids; and Phraates, if the royal +art of forgetting his own faults allowed him, might well recall now +the warning words of Mithradates that the Parthian by his alliance +with the Occidentals against the kingdoms of kindred race paved +the way first for their destruction and then for his own. +Romans and Parthians in league had brought Armenia to ruin; +when it was overthrown, Rome true to her old policy now reversed +the parts and favoured the humbled foe at the expense +of the powerful ally. The singular preference, which the father +Tigranes experienced from Pompeius as contrasted with his son +the ally and son-in-law of the Parthian king, was already +part of this policy; it was a direct offence, when soon afterwards +by the orders of Pompeius the younger Tigranes and his family +were arrested and were not released even on Phraates interceding +with the friendly general for his daughter and his son-in-law. +But Pompeius paused not here. The province of Corduene, +to which both Phraates and Tigranes laid claim, was at the command +of Pompeius occupied by Roman troops for the latter, and the Parthians +who were found in possession were driven beyond the frontier +and pursued even as far as Arbela in Adiabene, without the government +of Ctesiphon having even been previously heard (689). +Far the most suspicious circumstance however was, that the Romans +seemed not at all inclined to respect the boundary of the Euphrates +fixed by treaty. On several occasions Roman divisions +destined from Armenia for Syria marched across Mesopotamia; +the Arab emir Abgarus of Osrhoene was received under singularly +favourable conditions into Roman protection; nay, Oruros, situated +in Upper Mesopotamia somewhere between Nisibis and the Tigris 220 +miles eastward from the Commagenian passage of the Euphrates, +was designated as the eastern limit of the Roman dominion-- +presumably their indirect dominion, inasmuch as the larger +and more fertile northern half of Mesopotamia had been assigned +by the Romans in like manner with Corduene to the Armenian empire. +The boundary between Romans and Parthians thus became the great +Syro-Mesopotamian desert instead of the Euphrates; and this too +seemed only provisional. To the Parthian envoys, who came to insist +on the maintenance of the agreements--which certainly, as it would +seem, were only concluded orally--respecting the Euphrates +boundary, Pompeius gave the ambiguous reply that the territory +of Rome extended as far as her rights. The remarkable intercourse +between the Roman commander-in-chief and the Parthian satraps +of the region of Media and even of the distant province Elymais +(between Susiana, Media, and Persia, in the modern Luristan) seemed +a commentary on this speech.(20) The viceroys of this latter +mountainous, warlike, and remote land had always exerted themselves +to acquire a position independent of the great-king; it was +the more offensive and menacing to the Parthian government, +when Pompeius accepted the proffered homage of this dynast. +Not less significant was the fact that the title of "king of kings," +which had been hitherto conceded to the Parthian king by the Romans +in official intercourse, was now all at once exchanged by them +for the simple title of king. This was even more a threat than +a violation of etiquette. Since Rome had entered on the heritage +of the Seleucids, it seemed almost as if the Romans had a mind to revert +at a convenient moment to those old times, when all Iran and Turan +were ruled from Antioch, and there was as yet no Parthian empire +but merely a Parthian satrapy. The court of Ctesiphon would thus +have had reason enough for going to war with Rome; it seemed +the prelude to its doing so, when in 690 it declared war on Armenia +on account of the question of the frontier. But Phraates had not +the courage to come to an open rupture with the Romans at a time +when the dreaded general with his strong army was on the borders +of the Parthian empire. When Pompeius sent commissioners to settle +amicably the dispute between Parthia and Armenia, Phraates yielded +to the Roman mediation forced upon him and acquiesced in their +award, which assigned to the Armenians Corduene and northern +Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards his daughter with her son and her +husband adorned the triumph of the Roman general. Even the Parthians +trembled before the superior power of Rome; and, if they had not, +like the inhabitants of Pontus and Armenia, succumbed to the Roman +arms, the reason seemed only to be that they had not ventured +to stand the conflict. + +Organization of the Provinces + +There still devolved on the general the duty of regulating +the internal relations of the newly-acquired provinces and of removing +as far as possible the traces of a thirteen years' desolating war. +The work of organization begun in Asia Minor by Lucullus +and the commission associated with him, and in Crete by Metellus, +received its final conclusion from Pompeius. The former province +of Asia, which embraced Mysia, Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria, was converted +from a frontier province into a central one. The newly-erected +provinces were, that of Bithynia and Pontus, which was formed +out of the whole former kingdom of Nicomedes and the western half +of the former Pontic state as far as and beyond the Halys; +that of Cilicia, which indeed was older, but was now for the first +time enlarged and organized in a manner befitting its name, +and comprehended also Pamphylia and Isauria; that of Syria, +and that of Crete. Much was no doubt wanting to render that mass +of countries capable of being regarded as the territorial possession +of Rome in the modern sense of the term. The form and order +of the government remained substantially as they were; only the Roman +community came in place of the former monarchs. Those Asiatic provinces +consisted as formerly of a motley mixture of domanial possessions, +urban territories de facto or de jure autonomous, lordships pertaining +to princes and priests, and kingdoms, all of which were as regards +internal administration more or less left to themselves, +and in other respects were dependent, sometimes in milder sometimes +in stricter forms, on the Roman government and its proconsuls +very much as formerly on the great-king and his satraps. + +Feudatory Kings +Cappadocia +Commagene +Galatia + +The first place, in rank at least, among the dependent dynasts +was held by the king of Cappadocia, whose territory Lucullus had +already enlarged by investing him with the province of Melitene +(about Malatia) as far as the Euphrates, and to whom Pompeius +farther granted on the western frontier some districts taken off +Cilicia from Castabala as far as Derbe near Iconium, and on the eastern +frontier the province of Sophene situated on the left bank +of the Euphrates opposite Melitene and at first destined +for the Armenian prince Tigranes; so that the most important passage +of the Euphrates thus came wholly into the power of the Cappadocian +prince. The small province of Commagene between Syria +and Cappadocia with its capital Samosata (Samsat) remained a dependent +kingdom in the hands of the already-named Seleucid Antiochus;(21) +to him too were assigned the important fortress of Seleucia (near +Biradjik) commanding the more southern passage of the Euphrates, +and the adjoining tracts on the left bank of that river; and thus +care was taken that the two chief passages of the Euphrates +with a corresponding territory on the eastern bank were left in the hands +of two dynasts wholly dependent on Rome. Alongside of the kings +of Cappadocia and Commagene, and in real power far superior to them, +the new king Deiotarus ruled in Asia Minor. One of the tetrarchs +of the Celtic stock of the Tolistobogii settled round Pessinus, +and summoned by Lucullus and Pompeius to render military service +with the other small Roman clients, Deiotarus had in these campaigns +so brilliantly proved his trustworthiness and his energy as contrasted +with all the indolent Orientals that the Roman generals conferred +upon him, in addition to his Galatian heritage and his possessions +in the rich country between Amisus and the mouth of the Halys, +the eastern half of the former Pontic empire with the maritime towns +of Pharnacia and Trapezus and the Pontic Armenia as far as +the frontier of Colchis and the Greater Armenia, to form the kingdom +of Lesser Armenia. Soon afterwards he increased his already +considerable territory by the country of the Celtic Trocmi, +whose tetrarch he dispossessed. Thus the petty feudatory became +one of the most powerful dynasts of Asia Minor, to whom might +be entrusted the guardianship of an important part of the frontier +of the empire. + +Princes and Chiefs + +Vassals of lesser importance were, the other numerous Galatian +tetrarchs, one of whom, Bogodiatarus prince of the Trocmi, +was on account of his tried valour in the Mithradatic war presented +by Pompeius with the formerly Pontic frontier-town of Mithradatium; +Attalus prince of Paphlagonia, who traced back his lineage +to the old ruling house of the Pylaemenids; Aristarchus and other petty +lords in the Colchian territory; Tarcondimotus who ruled in eastern +Cilicia in the mountain-valleys of the Amanus; Ptolemaeus son +of Mennaeus who continued to rule in Chalcis on the Libanus; Aretas +king of the Nabataeans as lord of Damascus; lastly, the Arabic +emirs in the countries on either side of the Euphrates, Abgarus +in Osrhoene, whom the Romans endeavoured in every way to draw over +to their interest with the view of using him as an advanced post +against the Parthians, Sampsiceramus in Hemesa, Alchaudonius +the Rhambaean, and another emir in Bostra. + +Priestly Princes + +To these fell to be added the spiritual lords who in the east +frequently ruled over land and people like secular dynasts, +and whose authority firmly established in that native home +of fanaticism the Romans prudently refrained from disturbing, +as they refrained from even robbing the temples of their treasures: +the high-priest of the Goddess Mother in Pessinus; the two high-priests +of the goddess Ma in the Cappadocian Comana (on the upper Sarus) +and in the Pontic city of the same name (Gumenek near Tocat), +both lords who were in their countries inferior only to the king +in power, and each of whom even at a much later period possessed +extensive estates with special jurisdiction and about six thousand +temple-slaves--Archelaus, son of the general of that name +who passed over from Mithradates to the Romans, was invested +by Pompeius with the Pontic high-priesthood--the high-priest +of the Venasian Zeus in the Cappadocian district of Morimene, +whose revenues amounted annually to 3600 pounds (15 talents); +the "archpriest and lord" of that territory in Cilicia Trachea, +where Teucer the son of Ajax had founded a temple to Zeus, over which +his descendants presided by virtue of hereditary right; the "arch-priest +and lord of the people" of the Jews, to whom Pompeius, after having +razed the walls of the capital and the royal treasuries and strongholds +in the land, gave back the presidency of the nation with a serious +admonition to keep the peace and no longer to aim at conquests. + +Urban Communities + +Alongside of these secular and spiritual potentates stood the urban +communities. These were partly associated into larger unions +which rejoiced in a comparative independence, such as in particular +the league of the twenty-three Lycian cities, which was well organized +and constantly, for instance, kept aloof from participation +in the disorders of piracy; whereas the numerous detached communities, +even if they had self-government secured by charter, +were in practice wholly dependent on the Roman governors. + +Elevation of Urban Life in Asia + +The Romans failed not to see that with the task of representing +Hellenism and protecting and extending the domain of Alexander +in the east there devolved on them the primary duty of elevating +the urban system; for, while cities are everywhere the pillars +of civilization, the antagonism between Orientals and Occidentals +was especially and most sharply embodied in the contrast between +the Oriental, military-despotic, feudal hierarchy and the Helleno- +Italic urban commonwealth prosecuting trade and commerce. Lucullus +and Pompeius, however little they in other respects aimed at +the reduction of things to one level in the east, and however much +the latter was disposed in questions of detail to censure and alter +the arrangements of his predecessor, were yet completely agreed +in the principle of promoting as far as they could an urban life in Asia +Minor and Syria. Cyzicus, on whose vigorous resistance the first +violence of the last war had spent itself, received from Lucullus +a considerable extension of its domain. The Pontic Heraclea, +energetically as it had resisted the Romans, yet recovered +its territory and its harbours; and the barbarous fury of Cotta against +the unhappy city met with the sharpest censure in the senate. +Lucullus had deeply and sincerely regretted that fate had refused +him the happiness of rescuing Sinope and Amisus from devastation +by the Pontic soldiery and his own: he did at least what he could +to restore them, extended considerably their territories, peopled them +afresh--partly with the old inhabitants, who at his invitation +returned in troops to their beloved homes, partly with new settlers +of Hellenic descent--and provided for the reconstruction +of the buildings destroyed. Pompeius acted in the same spirit +and on a greater scale. Already after the subjugation of the pirates +he had, instead of following the example of his predecessors +and crucifying his prisoners, whose number exceeded 20,000, settled +them partly in the desolated cities of the Plain Cilicia, +such as Mallus, Adana, Epiphaneia, and especially in Soli, +which thenceforth bore the name of Pompeius' city (Pompeiupolis), +partly at Dyme in Achaia, and even at Tarentum. This colonizing +by means of pirates met with manifold censure,(22) as it seemed +in some measure to set a premium on crime; in reality it was, +politically and morally, well justified, for, as things then stood, +piracy was something different from robbery and the prisoners +might fairly be treated according to martial law. + +New Towns Established + +But Pompeius made it his business above all to promote urban life +in the new Roman provinces. We have already observed how poorly +provided with towns the Pontic empire was:(23) most districts +of Cappadocia even a century after this had no towns, but merely +mountain fortresses as a refuge for the agricultural population +in war; the whole east of Asia Minor, apart from the sparse Greek +colonies on the coasts, must have been at this time in a similar +plight. The number of towns newly established by Pompeius in these +provinces is, including the Cilician settlements, stated at thirty- +nine, several of which attained great prosperity. The most notable +of these townships in the former kingdom of Pontus were Nicopolis, +the "city of victory," founded on the spot where Mithradates +sustained the last decisive defeat(24)--the fairest memorial +of a general rich in similar trophies; Megalopolis, named from Pompeius' +surname, on the frontier of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, +the subsequent Sebasteia (now Siwas); Ziela, where the Romans fought +the unfortunate battle,(25) a township which had arisen round +the temple of Anaitis there and hitherto had belonged to its high- +priest, and to which Pompeius now gave the form and privileges +of a city; Diopolis, formerly Cabira, afterwards Neocaesarea (Niksar), +likewise one of the battle-fields of the late war; Magnopolis +or Pompeiupolis, the restored Eupatoria at the confluence of the Lycus +and the Iris, originally built by Mithradates, but again destroyed +by him on account of the defection of the city to the Romans;(26) +Neapolis, formerly Phazemon, between Amasia and the Halys. Most +of the towns thus established were formed not by bringing +colonists from a distance, but by the suppression of villages +and the collection of their inhabitants within the new ring-wall; +only in Nicopolis Pompeius settled the invalids and veterans of his army, +who preferred to establish a home for themselves there at once +rather than afterwards in Italy. But at other places also +there arose on the suggestion of the regent new centres of Hellenic +civilization. In Paphlagonia a third Pompeiupolis marked the spot +where the army of Mithradates in 666 achieved the great victory +over the Bithynians.(27) In Cappadocia, which perhaps had suffered +more than any other province by the war, the royal residence Mazaca +(afterwards Caesarea, now Kaisarieh) and seven other townships +were re-established by Pompeius and received urban institutions. +In Cilicia and Coelesyria there were enumerated twenty towns laid +out by Pompeius. In the districts ceded by the Jews, Gadara +in the Decapolis rose from its ruins at the command of Pompeius, +and the city of Seleucis was founded. By far the greatest portion +of the domain-land at his disposal on the Asiatic continent must have +been applied by Pompeius for his new settlements; whereas in Crete, +about which Pompeius troubled himself little or not at all, +the Roman domanial possessions seem to have continued tolerably extensive. + +Pompeius was no less intent on regulating and elevating the existing +communities than on founding new townships. The abuses and usurpations +which prevailed were done away with as far as lay in his power; +detailed ordinances drawn up carefully for the different provinces +regulated the particulars of the municipal system. A number +of the most considerable cities had fresh privileges conferred on them. +Autonomy was bestowed on Antioch on the Orontes, the most important +city of Roman Asia and but little inferior to the Egyptian Alexandria +and to the Bagdad of antiquity, the city of Seleucia in the Parthian +empire; as also on the neighbour of Antioch, the Pierian Seleucia, +which was thus rewarded for its courageous resistance to Tigranes; +on Gaza and generally on all the towns liberated from the Jewish rule; +on Mytilene in the west of Asia Minor; and on Phanagoria +on the Black Sea. + +Aggregate Results + +Thus was completed the structure of the Roman state in Asia, +which with its feudatory kings and vassals, its priests made +into princes, and its series of free and half-free cities puts +us vividly in mind of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. +It was no miraculous work, either as respects the difficulties +overcome or as respects the consummation attained; nor was it made +so by all the high-sounding words, which the Roman world of quality +lavished in favour of Lucullus and the artless multitude in praise +of Pompeius. Pompeius in particular consented to be praised, +and praised himself, in such a fashion that people might +almost have reckoned him still more weak-minded than he really was. +If the Mytilenaeans erected a statue to him as their deliverer +and founder, as the man who had as well by land as by sea terminated +the wars with which the world was filled, such a homage might +not seem too extravagant for the vanquisher of the pirates +and of the empires of the east. But the Romans this time surpassed +the Greeks. The triumphal inscriptions of Pompeius himself enumerated +12 millions of people as subjugated and 1538 cities and strongholds +as conquered--it seemed as if quantity was to make up for quality-- +and made the circle of his victories extend from the Maeotic Sea +to the Caspian and from the latter to the Red Sea, when his eyes had +never seen any one of the three; nay farther, if he did not exactly +say so, he at any late induced the public to suppose that the annexation +of Syria, which in truth was no heroic deed, had added +the whole east as far as Bactria and India to the Roman empire-- +so dim was the mist of distance, amidst which according to his +statements the boundary-line of his eastern conquests was lost. +The democratic servility, which has at all times rivalled +that of courts, readily entered into these insipid extravagances. +It was not satisfied by the pompous triumphal procession, which moved +through the streets of Rome on the 28th and 29th Sept. 693-- +the forty-sixth birthday of Pompeius the Great--adorned, to say nothing +of jewels of all sorts, by the crown insignia of Mithradates +and by the children of the three mightiest kings of Asia, Mithradates, +Tigranes, and Phraates; it rewarded its general, who had conquered +twenty-two kings, with regal honours and bestowed on him the golden +chaplet and the insignia of the magistracy for life. The coins struck +in his honour exhibit the globe itself placed amidst the triple +laurels brought home from the three continents, and surmounted +by the golden chaplet conferred by the burgesses on the man +who had triumphed over Africa, Spain, and Asia. It need excite +no surprise, if in presence of such childish acts of homage voices +were heard of an opposite import. Among the Roman world of quality +it was currently affirmed that the true merit of having subdued +the east belonged to Lucullus, and that Pompeius had only gone thither +to supplant Lucullus and to wreathe around his own brow the laurels +which another hand had plucked. Both statements were totally +erroneous: it was not Pompeius but Glabrio that was sent to Asia +to relieve Lucullus, and, bravely as Lucullus had fought, it was +a fact that, when Pompeius took the supreme command, the Romans +had forfeited all their earlier successes and had not a foot's breadth +of Pontic soil in their possession. More pointed and effective +was the ridicule of the inhabitants of the capital, who failed not +to nickname the mighty conqueror of the globe after the great powers +which he had conquered, and saluted him now as "conqueror of Salem," +now as "emir" (-Arabarches-), now as the Roman Sampsiceramus. + +Lucullus and Pompeius as Administrators + +The unprejudiced judge will not agree either with those exaggerations +or with these disparagements. Lucullus and Pompeius, in subduing +and regulating Asia, showed themselves to be, not heroes +and state-creators, but sagacious and energetic army-leaders +and governors. As general Lucullus displayed no common talents +and a self-confidence bordering on rashness, while Pompeius displayed +military judgment and a rare self-restraint; for hardly +has any general with such forces and a position so wholly free +ever acted so cautiously as Pompeius in the east. The most brilliant +undertakings, as it were, offered themselves to him on all sides; +he was free to start for the Cimmerian Bosporus and for the Red +Sea; he had opportunity of declaring war against the Parthians; +the revolted provinces of Egypt invited him to dethrone king +Ptolemaeus who was not recognized by the Romans, and to carry +out the testament of Alexander; but Pompeius marched neither +to Panticapaeum nor to Petra, neither to Ctesiphon nor to Alexandria; +throughout he gathered only those fruits which of themselves fell +to his hand. In like manner he fought all his battles by sea +and land with a crushing superiority of force. Had this moderation +proceeded from the strict observance of the instructions given +to him, as Pompeius was wont to profess, or even from a perception +that the conquests of Rome must somewhere find a limit and that +fresh accessions of territory were not advantageous to the state, +it would deserve a higher praise than history confers on the most +talented officer; but constituted as Pompeius was, his self- +restraint was beyond doubt solely the result of his peculiar want +of decision and of initiative--defects, indeed, which were in his +case far more useful to the state than the opposite excellences +of his predecessor. Certainly very grave errors were perpetrated +both by Lucullus and by Pompeius. Lucullus reaped their fruits himself, +when his imprudent conduct wrested from him all the results +of his victories; Pompeius left it to his successors to bear +the consequences of his false policy towards the Parthians. He might +either have made war on the Parthians, if he had had the courage +to do so, or have maintained peace with them and recognized, +as he had promised, the Euphrates as boundary; he was too timid +for the former course, too vain for the latter, and so he resorted +to the silly perfidy of rendering the good neighbourhood, +which the court of Ctesiphon desired and on its part practised, +impossible through the most unbounded aggressions, and yet allowing +the enemy to choose of themselves the time for rupture and retaliation. +As administrator of Asia Lucullus acquired a more than princely +wealth; and Pompeius also received as reward for its organization +large sums in cash and still more considerable promissory notes +from the king of Cappadocia, from the rich city of Antioch, +and from other lords and communities. But such exactions had become +almost a customary tax; and both generals showed themselves at any rate +to be not altogether venal in questions of greater importance, +and, if possible, got themselves paid by the party whose interests +coincided with those of Rome. Looking to the state of the times, +this does not prevent us from characterizing the administration +of both as comparatively commendable and conducted primarily +in the interest of Rome, secondarily in that of the provincials. + +The conversion of the clients into subjects, the better regulation +of the eastern frontier, the establishment of a single and strong +government, were full of blessing for the rulers as well as +for the ruled. The financial gain acquired by Rome was immense; +the new property tax, which with the exception of some specially +exempted communities all those princes, priests, and cities had to pay +to Rome, raised the Roman state-revenues almost by a half above their +former amount. Asia indeed suffered severely. Pompeius brought +in money and jewels an amount of 2,000,000 pounds (200,000,000 +sesterces) into the state-chest and distributed 3,900,000 pounds +(16,000 talents) among his officers and soldiers; if we add to this +the considerable sums brought home by Lucullus, the non-official +exactions of the Roman army, and the amount of the damage done +by the war, the financial exhaustion of the land may be readily +conceived. The Roman taxation of Asia was perhaps in itself +not worse than that of its earlier rulers, but it formed a heavier +burden on the land, in so far as the taxes thenceforth went +out of the country and only the lesser portion of the proceeds +was again expended in Asia; and at any rate it was, in the old +as well as the newly-acquired provinces, based on a systematic plundering +of the provinces for the benefit of Rome. But the responsibility +for this rests far less on the generals personally than on the parties +at home, whom these had to consider; Lucullus had even exerted himself +energetically to set limits to the usurious dealings of the Roman +capitalists in Asia, and this essentially contributed to bring +about his fall. How much both men earnestly sought to revive +the prosperity of the reduced provinces, is shown by their action +in cases where no considerations of party policy tied their hands, +and especially in their care for the cities of Asia Minor. Although +for centuries afterwards many an Asiatic village lying in ruins +recalled the times of the great war, Sinope might well begin a new +era with the date of its re-establishment by Lucullus, and almost +all the more considerable inland towns of the Pontic kingdom might +gratefully honour Pompeius as their founder. The organization +of Roman Asia by Lucullus and Pompeius may with all its undeniable +defects be described as on the whole judicious and praiseworthy; +serious as were the evils that might still adhere to it, +it could not but be welcome to the sorely tormented Asiatics +for the very reason that it came attended by the inward +and outward peace, the absence of which had been so long +and so painfully felt. + +The East after the Departure of Pompeius + +Peace continued substantially in the east, till the idea--merely +indicated by Pompeius with his characteristic timidity--of joining +the regions eastward of the Euphrates to the Roman empire was taken +up again energetically but unsuccessfully by the new triumvirate +of Roman regents, and soon thereafter the civil war drew the eastern +provinces as well as all the rest into its fatal vortex. +In the interval the governors of Cilicia had to fight constantly +with the mountain-tribes of the Amanus and those of Syria with the hordes +of the desert, and in the latter war against the Bedouins especially +many Roman troops were destroyed; but these movements had no farther +significance. More remarkable was the obstinate resistance, +which the tough Jewish nation opposed to the conquerors. Alexander, +son of the deposed king Aristobulus, and Aristobulus himself +who after some time succeeded in escaping from captivity, +excited during the governorship of Aulus Gabinius (697-700) +three different revolts against the new rulers, to each of which +the government of the high-priest Hyrcanus installed by Rome impotently +succumbed. It was not political conviction, but the invincible repugnance +of the Oriental towards the unnatural yoke, which compelled them +to kick against the pricks; as indeed the last and most dangerous +of these revolts, for which the withdrawal of the Syrian army +of occupation in consequence of the Egyptian crisis furnished +the immediate impulse, began with the murder of the Romans +settled in Palestine. It was not without difficulty +that the able governor succeeded in rescuing the few Romans, +who had escaped this fate and found a temporary refuge +on Mount Gerizim, from the insurgents who kept them blockaded there, +and in overpowering the revolt after several severely contested +battles and tedious sieges. In consequence of this the monarchy +of the high-priests was abolished and the Jewish land was broken up +as Macedonia had formerly been, into five independent districts +administered by governing colleges with an Optimate organization; +Samaria and other townships razed by the Jews were re-established, +to form a counterpoise to Jerusalem; and lastly a heavier tribute +was imposed on the Jews than on the other Syrian subjects of Rome. + +The Kingdom of Egypt + +It still remains that we should glance at the kingdom of Egypt +along with the last dependency that remained to it of the extensive +acquisitions of the Lagids, the fair island of Cyprus. +Egypt was now the only state of the Hellenic east that was still +at least nominally independent; just as formerly, when the Persians +established themselves along the eastern half of the Mediterranean, +Egypt was their last conquest, so now the mighty conquerors +from the west long delayed the annexation of that opulent +and peculiar country. The reason lay, as was already indicated, +neitherin any fear of the resistance of Egypt nor in the want +of a fitting occasion. Egypt was just about as powerless as Syria, +and had already in 673 fallen in all due form of law to the Roman +community.(28) The control exercised over the court of Alexandria +by the royal guard--which appointed and deposed ministers +and occasionally kings, took for itself what it pleased, and, +if it was refused a rise of pay, besieged the king in his palace-- +was by no means liked in the country or rather in the capital (for +the country with its population of agricultural slaves was hardly taken +into account); and at least a party there wished for the annexation +of Egypt by Rome, and even took steps to procure it But the less +the kings of Egypt could think of contending in arms against Rome, +the more energetically Egyptian gold set itself to resist the Roman +plans of union; and in consequence of the peculiar despotico- +communistic centralization of the Egyptian finances the revenues +of the court of Alexandria were still nearly equal to the public +income of Rome even after its augmentation by Pompeius. +The suspicious jealousy of the oligarchy, which was chary of allowing +any individual either to conquer or to administer Egypt, operated +in the same direction. So the de facto rulers of Egypt and Cyprus +were enabled by bribing the leading men in the senate not merely +to respite their tottering crowns, but even to fortify them afresh +and to purchase from the senate the confirmation of their royal title. +But with this they had not yet obtained their object. +Formal state-law required a decree of the Roman burgesses; +until this was issued, the Ptolemies were dependent on the caprice +of every democratic holder of power, and they had thus to commence +the warfare of bribery also against the other Roman party, +which as the more powerful stipulated for far higher prices. + +Cyprus Annexed + +The result in the two cases was different. The annexation +of Cyprus was decreed in 696 by the people, that is, by the leaders +of the democracy, the support given to piracy by the Cypriots +being alleged as the official reason why that course should +now be adopted. Marcus Cato, entrusted by his opponents +with the execution of this measure, came to the island without an army; +but he had no need of one. The king took poison; the inhabitants +submitted without offering resistance to their inevitable fate, +and were placed under the governor of Cilicia. The ample treasure +of nearly 7000 talents (1,700,000 pounds), which the equally +covetous and miserly king could not prevail on himself to apply +for the bribes requisite to save his crown, fell along with the latter +to the Romans, and filled after a desirable fashion the empty vaults +of their treasury. + +Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized but Expelled by His Subjects + +On the other hand the brother who reigned in Egypt succeeded +in purchasing his recognition by decree of the people from the new +masters of Rome in 695; the purchase-money is said to have amounted +to 6000 talents (1,460,000 pounds). The citizens indeed, long +exasperated against their good flute-player and bad ruler, +and now reduced to extremities by the definitive loss of Cyprus +and the pressure of the taxes which were raised to an intolerable +degree in consequence of the transactions with the Romans (696), +chased him on that account out of the country. When the king thereupon +applied, as if on account of his eviction from the estate which he +had purchased, to those who sold it, these were reasonable enough +to see that it was their duty as honest men of business to get back +his kingdom for Ptolemaeus; only the parties could not agree +as to the person to whom the important charge of occupying Egypt +by force along with the perquisites thence to be expected should +be assigned. It was only when the triumvirate was confirmed anew +at the conference of Luca, that this affair was also arranged, +after Ptolemaeus had agreed to a further payment of 10,000 talents +(2,400,000 pounds); the governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, +now obtained orders from those in power to take the necessary steps +immediately for bringing back the king. The citizens of Alexandria +had meanwhile placed the crown on the head of Berenice the eldest +daughter of the ejected king, and given to her a husband +in the person of one of the spiritual princes of Roman Asia, +Archelaus the high-priest of Comana,(29) who possessed ambition enough +to hazard his secure and respectable position in the hope of mounting +the throne of the Lagids. His attempts to gain the Roman regents +to his interests remained without success; but he did not recoil +before the idea of being obliged to maintain his new kingdom +with arms in hand even against the Romans. + +And Brought Back by Gabinius +A Roman Garrison Remains in Alexandria + +Gabinius, without ostensible powers to undertake war against Egypt +but directed to do so by the regents, made a pretext out of +the alleged furtherance of piracy by the Egyptians and the building +of a fleet by Archelaus, and started without delay for the Egyptian +frontier (699). The march through the sandy desert between Gaza +and Pelusium, in which so many invasions previously directed +against Egypt had broken down, was on this occasion successfully +accomplished--a result especially due to the quick and skilful +leader of the cavalry Marcus Antonius. The frontier fortress +of Pelusium also was surrendered without resistance by the Jewish +garrison stationed there. In front of this city the Romans met +the Egyptians, defeated them--on which occasion Antonius again +distinguished himself--and arrived, as the first Roman army, +at the Nile. Here the fleet and army of the Egyptians were drawn up +for the last decisive struggle; but the Romans once more conquered, +and Archelaus himself with many of his followers perished +in the combat. Immediately after this battle the capital surrendered, +and therewith all resistance was at an end. The unhappy land +was handed over to its legitimate oppressor; the hanging and beheading, +with which, but for the intervention of the chivalrous Antonius, +Ptolemaeus would have already in Pelusium begun to celebrate +the restoration of the legitimate government, now took its course +unhindered, and first of all the innocent daughter was sent +by her father to the scaffold. The payment of the reward agreed +upon with the regents broke down through the absolute impossibility +of exacting from the exhausted land the enormous sums required, +although they took from the poor people the last penny; but care +was taken that the country should at least be kept quiet +by the garrison of Roman infantry and Celtic and German cavalry +left in the capital, which took the place of the native praetorians +and otherwise emulated them not unsuccessfully. The previous hegemony +of Rome over Egypt was thus converted into a direct military +occupation, and the nominal continuance of the native monarchy +was not so much a privilege granted to the land as a double +burden imposed on it. + + + + +Chapter V + +The Struggle of Parties During the Absence of Pompeius. + +The Defeated Aristocracy + +With the passing of the Gabinian law the parties in the capital +changed positions. From the time that the elected general +of the democracy held in his hand the sword, his party, +or what was reckoned such, had the preponderance in the capital. +The nobility doubtless still stood in compact array, and still +as before there issued from the comitial machinery none but consuls, +who according to the expression of the democrats were already +designated to the consulate in their cradles; to command the elections +andbreak down the influence of the old families over them was beyond +the power even of the holders of power. But unfortunately the consulate, +at the very moment when they had got the length of virtually excluding +the "new men" from it, began itself to grow pale before the newly- +risen star of the exceptional military power. The aristocracy felt +this, though they did not exactly confess it; they gave themselves +up as lost. Except Quintus Catulus, who with honourable firmness +persevered at his far from pleasant post as champion of a vanquished +party down to his death (694), no Optimate could be named +from the highest ranks of the nobility, who would have sustained +the interests of the aristocracy with courage and steadfastness. +Their very men of most talent and fame, such as Quintus Metellus +Pius and Lucius Lucullus, practically abdicated and retired, +so far as they could at all do so with propriety, to their villas, +in order to forget as much as possible the Forum and the senate-house +amidst their gardens and libraries, their aviaries and fish-ponds. +Still more, of course, was this the case with the younger generation +of the aristocracy, which was either wholly absorbed in luxury +and literature or turning towards the rising sun. + +Cato + +There was among the younger men a single exception; it was +Marcus Porcius Cato (born in 659), a man of the best intentions +and of rare devotedness, and yet one of the most Quixotic +and one of the most cheerless phenomena in this age so abounding +in political caricatures. Honourable and steadfast, earnest in purpose +and in action, full of attachment to his country and to its hereditary +constitution, but dull in intellect and sensuously as well as +morally destitute of passion, he might certainly have made +a tolerable state-accountant. But unfortunately he fell early +under the power of formalism, and swayed partly by the phrases +of the Stoa, which in their abstract baldness and spiritless +isolation were current among the genteel world of that day, partly +by the example of his great-grandfather whom he deemed it his especial +task to reproduce, he began to walk about in the sinful capital +as a model burgess and mirror of virtue, to scold at the times +like the old Cato, to travel on foot instead of riding, to take +no interest, to decline badges of distinction as a soldier, +and to introduce the restoration of the good old days by going after +the precedent of king Romulus without a shirt. A strange caricature +of his ancestor--the gray-haired farmer whom hatred and anger made +an orator, who wielded in masterly style the plough as well as +the sword, who with his narrow, but original and sound common sense +ordinarily hit the nail on the head--was this young unimpassioned +pedant from whose lips dropped scholastic wisdom and who was +everywhere seen sitting book in hand, this philosopher +who understood neither the art of war nor any other art whatever, +this cloud-walker in the realm of abstract morals. Yet he attained +to moral and thereby even to political importance. In an utterly +wretched and cowardly age his courage and his negative virtues told +powerfully on the multitude; he even formed a school, and there were +individuals--it is true they were but few--who in their turn +copied and caricatured afresh the living pattern of a philosopher. +On the same cause depended also his political influence. +As he was the only conservative of note who possessed if not talent +and insight, at any rate integrity and courage, and was always ready +to throw himself into the breach whether it was necessary to do so +or not, he soon became the recognized champion of the Optimate party, +although neither his age nor his rank nor his intellect entitled +him to be so. Where the perseverance of a single resolute man +could decide, he no doubt sometimes achieved a success, +and in questions of detail, more particularly of a financial character, +he often judiciously interfered, as indeed he was absent +from no meeting of the senate; his quaestorship in fact formed +an epoch, and as long as he lived he checked the details of the public +budget, regarding which he maintained of course a constant warfare +with the farmers of the taxes. For the rest, he lacked simply +every ingredient of a statesman. He was incapable of even +comprehending a political aim and of surveying political relations; +his whole tactics consisted in setting his face against every one +who deviated or seemed to him to deviate from the traditionary +moral and political catechism of the aristocracy, and thus +of course he worked as often into the hands of his opponents +as into those of his own party. The Don Quixote of the aristocracy, +he proved by his character and his actions that at this time, +while there was certainly still an aristocracy in existence, +the aristocratic policy was nothing more than a chimera. + +Democratic Attacks + +To continue the conflict with this aristocracy brought little +honour. Of course the attacks of the democracy on the vanquished +foe did not on that account cease. The pack of the Populares threw +themselves on the broken ranks of the nobility like the sutlers +on a conquered camp, and the surface at least of politics +was by this agitation ruffled into high waves of foam. The multitude +entered into the matter the more readily, as Gaius Caesar especially +kept them in good humour by the extravagant magnificence of his games +(689)--in which all the equipments, even the cages of the wild +beasts, appeared of massive silver--and generally by a liberality +which was all the more princely that it was based solely +on the contraction of debt. The attacks on the nobility +were of the most varied kind. The abuses of aristocratic rule afforded +copious materials; magistrates and advocates who were liberal or assumed +a liberal hue, like Gaius Cornelius, Aulus Gabinius, Marcus Cicero, +continued systematically to unveil the most offensive and scandalous +aspects of the Optimate doings and to propose laws against them. +The senate was directed to give access to foreign envoys on set days, +with the view of preventing the usual postponement of audiences. +Loans raised by foreign ambassadors in Rome were declared non-actionable, +as this was the only means of seriously checking the corruptions +which formed the order of the day in the senate (687). The right +of the senate to give dispensation in particular cases from the laws +was restricted (687); as was also the abuse whereby every Roman of rank, +who had private business to attend to in the provinces, got himself +invested by the senate with the character of a Roman envoy thither +(691). They heightened the penalties against the purchase +of votes and electioneering intrigues (687, 691); which latter +were especially increased in a scandalous fashion by the attempts +of the individuals ejected from the senate(1) to get back +to it through re-election. + +What had hitherto been simply understood as matter of course +was now expressly laid down as a law, that the praetors were bound +to administer justice in conformity with the rules set forth by them, +after the Roman fashion, at their entering on office (687). + +Transpadanes +Freedmen + +But, above all, efforts were made to complete the democratic +restoration and to realize the leading ideas of the Gracchan period +in a form suitable to the times. The election of the priests +by the comitia, which Gnaeus Domitius had introduced(2) and Sulla +had again done away,(3) was established by a law of the tribune +of the people Titus Labienus in 691. The democrats were fond +of pointing out how much was still wanting towards the restoration +of the Sempronian corn-laws in their full extent, and at the same +time passed over in silence the fact that under the altered +circumstances--with the straitened condition of the public finances +and the great increase in the number of fully-privileged Roman +citizens--that restoration was absolutely impracticable. +In the country between the Po and the Alps they zealously fostered +the agitation for political equality with the Italians. +As early as 686 Gaius Caesar travelled from place to place there +for this purpose; in 689 Marcus Crassus as censor made arrangements +to enrol the inhabitants directly in the burgess-roll--which was only +frustrated by the resistance of his colleague; in the following +censorships this attempt seems regularly to have been repeated. +As formerly Gracchus and Flaccus had been the patrons of the Latins, +so the present leaders of the democracy gave themselves forth +as protectors of the Transpadanes, and Gaius Piso (consul in 687) +had bitterly to regret that he had ventured to outrage +one of these clients of Caesar and Crassus. On the other hand +the same leaders appeared by no means disposed to advocate +the political equalization of the freedmen; the tribune of the people +Gaius Manilius, who in a thinly attended assembly had procured +the renewal (31 Dec. 687) of the Sulpician law as to the suffrage +of freedmen,(4) was immediately disavowed by the leading men +of the democracy, and with their consent the law was cancelled +by the senate on the very day after its passing. In the same spirit +all the strangers, who possessed neither Roman nor Latin burgess- +rights, were ejected from the capital by decree of the people +in 689. It is obvious that the intrinsic inconsistency +of the Gracchan policy--in abetting at once the effort of the excluded +to obtain admission into the circle of the privileged, and the effort +of the privileged to maintain their distinctive rights--had passed +over to their successors; while Caesar and his friends on the one hand +held forth to the Transpadanes the prospect of the franchise, +they on the other hand gave their assent to the continuance +of the disabilities of the freedmen, and to the barbarous setting aside +of the rivalry which the industry and trading skill of the Hellenes +and Orientals maintained with the Italians in Italy itself. + +Process against Rabirius + +The mode in which the democracy dealt with the ancient criminal +jurisdiction of the comitia was characteristic. It had not been +properly abolished by Sulla, but practically the jury-commissions +on high treason and murder had superseded it,(5) and no rational +man could think of seriously re-establishing the old procedure +which long before Sulla had been thoroughly unpractical. +But as the idea of the sovereignty of the people appeared to require +a recognition at least in principle of the penal jurisdiction +of the burgesses, the tribune of the people Titus Labienus in 691 +brought the old man, who thirty-eight years before had slain or was +alleged to have slain the tribune of the people Lucius Saturninus,(6) +before the same high court of criminal jurisdiction, by virtue of which, +if the annals reported truly, king Tullus had procured the acquittal +of the Horatius who had killed his sister. The accused was one +Gaius Rabirius, who, if he had not killed Saturninus, +had at least paraded with his cut-off head at the tables +of men of rank, and who moreover was notorious among the Apulian +landholders for his kidnapping and his bloody deeds. The object, +if not of the accuser himself, at any rate of the more sagacious men +who backed him, was not at all to make this pitiful wretch +die the death of the cross; they were not unwilling to acquiesce, +when first the form of the impeachment was materially modified +by the senate, and then the assembly of the people called to pronounce +sentence on the guilty was dissolved under some sort of pretext +by the opposite party--so that the whole procedure was set aside. +At all events by this process the two palladia of Roman freedom, +the right of the citizens to appeal and the inviolability of the tribunes +of the people, were once more established as practical rights, +and the legal basis on which the democracy rested was adjusted afresh. + +Personal Attacks + +The democratic reaction manifested still greater vehemence +in all personal questions, wherever it could and dared. +Prudence indeed enjoined it not to urge the restoration of the estates +confiscated by Sulla to their former owners, that it might not quarrel +with its own allies and at the same time fall into a conflict +with material interests, for which a policy with a set purpose +is rarelya match; the recall of the emigrants was too closely connected +with this question of property not to appear quite as unadvisable. +On the other hand great exertions were made to restore to the children +of the proscribed the political rights withdrawn from them (691), +and the heads of the senatorial party were incessantly subjected +to personal attacks. Thus Gaius Memmius set on foot a process aimed +at Marcus Lucullus in 688. Thus they allowed his more famous +brother to wait for three years before the gates of the capital +for his well-deserved triumph (688-691). Quintus Rex and the conqueror +of Crete Quintus Metellus were similarly insulted. + +It produced a still greater sensation, when the young leader +of the democracy Gaius Caesar in 691 not merely presumed to compete +with the two most distinguished men of the nobility, Quintus Catulus +and Publius Servilius the victor of Isaura, in the candidature +for the supreme pontificate, but even carried the day +among the burgesses. The heirs of Sulla, especially his son Faustus, +found themselves constantly threatened with an action for the refunding +of the public moneys which, it was alleged, had been embezzled +by the regent. They talked even of resuming the democratic +impeachments suspended in 664 on the basis of the Varian law.(7) +The individuals who had taken part in the Sullan executions were, +as may readily be conceived, judicially prosecuted with the utmost +zeal. When the quaestor Marcus Cato, in his pedantic integrity, +himself made a beginning by demanding back from them the rewards +which they had received for murder as property illegally alienated +from the state (689), it can excite no surprise that in the following +year (690) Gaius Caesar, as president of the commission +regarding murder, summarily treated the clause in the Sullan +ordinance, which declared that a proscribed person might be +killed with impunity, as null and void, and caused the most +noted of Sulla's executioners, Lucius Catilina, Lucius Bellienus, +Lucius Luscius to be brought before his jurymen and, partially, +to be condemned. + +Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +Lastly, they did not hesitate now to name once more in public +the long-proscribed names of the heroes and martyrs of the democracy, +and to celebrate their memory. We have already mentioned how +Saturninus was rehabilitated by the process directed against +his murderer. But a different sound withal had the name of Gaius +Marius, at the mention of which all hearts once had throbbed; +and it happened that the man, to whom Italy owed her deliverance +from the northern barbarians, was at the same time the uncle +of the present leader of the democracy. Loudly had the multitude +rejoiced, when in 686 Gaius Caesar ventured in spite of +the prohibitions publicly to show the honoured features of the hero +in the Forum at the interment of the widow of Marius. But when, +three years afterwards (689), the emblems of victory, which Marius +had caused to be erected in the Capitol and Sulla had ordered to be +thrown down, one morning unexpectedly glittered afresh in gold +and marble at the old spot, the veterans from the African and Cimbrian +wars crowded, with tears in their eyes, around the statue of their +beloved general; and in presence of the rejoicing masses the senate +did not venture to seize the trophies which the same bold hand had +renewed in defiance of the laws. + +Worthlessness of the Democratic Successes + +But all these doings and disputes, however much noise they made, +were, politically considered, of but very subordinate importance. +The oligarchy was vanquished; the democracy had attained the helm. +That underlings of various grades should hasten to inflict +an additional kick on the prostrate foe; that the democrats also +should have their basis in law and their worship of principles; +that their doctrinaires should not rest till the whole privileges +of the community were in all particulars restored, and should +in that respect occasionally make themselves ridiculous, +as legitimists are wont to do--all this was just as much +to be expected as it was matter of indifference. Taken as a whole, +the agitation was aimless; and we discern in it the perplexity +of its authors to find an object for their activity, for it +turned almost wholly on things already essentially settled +or on subordinate matters. + +Impending Collision between the Democrats and Pompeius + +It could not be otherwise. In the struggle with the aristocracy +the democrats had remained victors; but they had not conquered +alone, and the fiery trial still awaited them--the reckoning +not with their former foe, but with their too powerful ally, +to whom in the struggle with the aristocracy they were substantially +indebted for victory, and to whose hands they had now entrusted +an unexampled military and political power, because they dared +not refuse it to him. The general of the east and of the seas +was still employed in appointing and deposing kings. How long time +he would take for that work, or when he would declare the business +of the war to be ended, no one could tell but himself; +since like everything else the time of his return to Italy, +or in other words the day of decision, was left in his own hands. +The parties in Rome meanwhile sat and waited. The Optimates indeed +looked forward to the arrival of the dreaded general with comparative +calmness; by the rupture between Pompeius and the democracy, which they +saw to be approaching, they could not lose, but could only gain. +The democrats on the contrary waited with painful anxiety, +and sought, during the interval still allowed to them +by the absence of Pompeius, to lay a countermine against +the impending explosion. + +Schemes for Appointing a Democratic Military Dictatorship + +In this policy they again coincided with Crassus, +to whom no course was left for encountering his envied and hated rival +but that of allying himself afresh, and more closely than before, +with the democracy. Already in the first coalition a special +approximation had taken place between Caesar and Crassus +as the two weaker parties; a common interest and a common danger +tightened yet more the bond which joined the richest +and the most insolvent of Romans in closest alliance. +While in public the democrats described the absent general +as the head and pride of their party and seemed to direct +all their arrows against the aristocracy, preparations +were secretly made against Pompeius; and these attempts +of the democracy to escape from the impending military dictatorship +have historically a far higher significance than the noisy agitation, +for the most part employed only as a mask, against the nobility. +It is true that they were carried on amidst a darkness, upon which +our tradition allows only some stray gleams of light to fall; +for not the present alone, but the succeeding age also +had its reasons for throwing a veil over the matter. But in general +both the course and the object of these efforts are completely clear. +The military power could only be effectually checkmated by another +military power. The design of the democrats was to possess +themselves of the reins of government after the example of Marius +and Cinna, then to entrust one of their leaders either with the conquest +of Egypt or with the governorship of Spain or some similar +ordinary or extraordinary office, and thus to find in him +and his military force a counterpoise to Pompeius and his army. +For this they required a revolution, which was directed immediately +against the nominal government, but in reality against Pompeius +as the designated monarch;(8) and, to effect this revolution, +there was from the passing of the Gabinio-Manilian laws down to +the return of Pompeius (688-692) perpetual conspiracy in Rome. +The capital was in anxious suspense; the depressed temper +of the capitalists, the suspensions of payment, the frequent bankruptcies +were heralds of the fermenting revolution, which seemed as though it must +at the same time produce a totally new position of parties. +The project of the democracy, which pointed beyond the senate +at Pompeius, suggested an approximation between that general +and the senate. But the democracy in attempting to oppose +to the dictatorship of Pompeius that of a man more agreeable to it, +recognized, strictly speaking, on its part also the military government, +and in reality drove out Satan by Beelzebub; the question of principles +became in its hands a question of persons. + +League of the Democrats and the Anarchists + +The first step towards the revolution projected by the leaders +of the democracy was thus to be the overthrow of the existing +government by means of an insurrection primarily instigated +in Rome by democratic conspirators. The moral condition of the lowest +as of the highest ranks of society in the capital presented +the materials for this purpose in lamentable abundance. We need not +here repeat what was the character of the free and the servile +proletariate of the capital. The significant saying was already +heard, that only the poor man was qualified to represent the poor; +the idea was thus suggested, that the mass of the poor might +constitute itself an independent power as well as the oligarchy +of the rich, and instead of allowing itself to be tyrannized over, +might perhaps in its own turn play the tyrant. But even in the circles +of the young men of rank similar ideas found an echo. +The fashionable life of the capital shattered not merely the fortunes +of men, but also their vigour of body and mind. That elegant world +of fragrant ringlets, of fashionable mustachios and ruffles--merry +as were its doings in the dance and with the harp, and early +and late at the wine-cup--yet concealed in its bosom an alarming abyss +of moral and economic ruin, of well or ill concealed despair, +and frantic or knavish resolves. These circles sighed without +disguise for a return of the time of Cinna with its proscriptions +and confiscations and its annihilation of account-books for debt; +there were people enough, including not a few of no mean descent +and unusual abilities, who only waited the signal to fall +like a gang of robbers on civil society and to recruit by pillage +the fortune which they had squandered. Where a band gathers, +leaders are not wanting; and in this case the men were soon found +who were fitted to be captains of banditti. + +Catalina + +The late praetor Lucius Catilina, and the quaestor Gnaeus Piso, +were distinguished among their fellows not merely by their genteel +birth and their superior rank. They had broken down the bridge +completely behind them, and impressed their accomplices by their +dissoluteness quite as much as by their talents. Catilina especially +was one of the most wicked men in that wicked age. His villanies +belong to the records of crime, not to history; but his very outward +appearance--the pale countenance, the wild glance, the gait by turns +sluggish and hurried--betrayed his dismal past. He possessed in a high +degree the qualities which are required in the leader of such a band-- +the faculty of enjoying all pleasures and of bearing all privations, +courage, military talent, knowledge of men, the energy of a felon, +and that horrible mastery of vice, which knows how to bring the weak +to fall and how to train the fallen to crime. + +To form out of such elements a conspiracy for the overthrow +of the existing order of things could not be difficult to men +who possessed money and political influence. Catilina, Piso, +and their fellows entered readily into any plan which gave the prospect +of proscriptions and cancelling of debtor-books; the former had +moreover special hostility to the aristocracy, because it had opposed +the candidature of that infamous and dangerous man for the consulship. +As he had formerly in the character of an executioner +of Sulla hunted the proscribed at the head of a band of Celts +and had killed among others his own aged father-in-law +with his own hand, he now readily consented to promise similar services +to the opposite party. A secret league was formed. The number +of individuals received into it is said to have exceeded 400; it +included associates in all the districts and urban communities +of Italy; besides which, as a matter of course, numerous recruits +would flock unbidden from the ranks of the dissolute youth +to an insurrection, which inscribed on its banner the seasonable +programme of wiping out debts. + +Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy + +In December 688--so we are told--the leaders of the league thought +that they had found the fitting occasion for striking a blow. +The two consuls chosen for 689, Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius +Autronius Paetus, had recently been judicially convicted +of electoral bribery, and therefore had according to legal rule +forfeited their expectancy of the highest office. Both thereupon +joined the league. The conspirators resolved to procure +the consulship for them by force, and thereby to put themselves +in possession of the supreme power in the state. On the day +when the new consuls should enter on their office--the 1st Jan. 689-- +the senate-house was to be assailed by armed men, the new consuls +and the victims otherwise designated were to be put to death, and Sulla +and Paetus were to be proclaimed as consuls after the cancelling +of the judicial sentence which excluded them. Crassus was then +to be invested with the dictatorship and Caesar with the mastership +of the horse, doubtless with a view to raise an imposing military +force, while Pompeius was employed afar off at the Caucasus. +Captains and common soldiers were hired and instructed; Catilina +waited on the appointed day in the neighbourhood of the senate- +house for the concerted signal, which was to be given him by Caesar +on a hint from Crassus. But he waited in vain; Crassus was absent +from the decisive sitting of the senate, and for this time +the projected insurrection failed. A similar still more comprehensive +plan of murder was then concerted for the 5th Feb.; but this too +was frustrated, because Catilina gave the signal too early, +before the bandits who were bespoken had all arrived. Thereupon +the secret was divulged. The government did not venture openly +to proceed against the conspiracy, but it assigned a guard +to the consuls who were primarily threatened, and it opposed to the band +of the conspirators a band paid by the government. To remove Piso, +the proposal was made that he should be sent as quaestor +with praetorian powers to Hither Spain; to which Crassus consented, +in the hope of securing through him the resources of that important +province for the insurrection. Proposals going farther +were prevented by the tribunes. + +So runs the account that has come down to us, which evidently gives +the version current in the government circles, and the credibility +of which in detail must, in the absence of any means of checking +it, be left an open question. As to the main matter--the participation +of Caesar and Crassus--the testimony of their political opponents +certainly cannot be regarded as sufficient evidence of it. But their +notorious action at this epoch corresponds with striking exactness +to the secret action which this report ascribes to them. The attempt +of Crassus, who in this year was censor, officially to enrol +the Transpadanes in the burgess-list(9) was of itself directly +a revolutionary enterprise. It is still more remarkable, +that Crassus on the same occasion made preparations to enrol +Egypt and Cyprus in the list of Roman domains,(10) and that Caesar +about the same time (689 or 690) got a proposal submitted +by some tribunes to the burgesses to send him to Egypt, +in order to reinstate king Ptolemaeus whom the Alexandrians +had expelled. These machinations suspiciously coincide +with the charges raised by their antagonists. Certainty cannot be +attained on the point; but there is a great probability that Crassus +and Caesar had projected a plan to possess themselves of the military +dictatorship during the absence of Pompeius; that Egypt was selected +as the basis of this democratic military power; and that, in fine, +the insurrectionary attempt of 689 had been contrived to realize +these projects, and Catilina and Piso had thus been tools in the hands +of Crassus and Caesar. + +Resumption of the Conspiracy + +For a moment the conspiracy came to a standstill. The elections +for 690 took place without Crassus and Caesar renewing their +attempt to get possession of the consulate; which may have been +partly owing to the fact that a relative of the leader +of the democracy, Lucius Caesar, a weak man who was not unfrequently +employed by his kinsman as a tool, was on this occasion a candidate +for the consulship. But the reports from Asia urged them to make +haste. The affairs of Asia Minor and Armenia were already +completely arranged. However clearly democratic strategists showed +that the Mithradatic war could only be regarded as terminated +by the capture of the king, and that it was therefore necessary +to undertake the pursuit round the Black Sea, and above all things +to keep aloof from Syria(11)--Pompeius, not concerning himself +about such talk, had set out in the spring of 690 from Armenia +and marched towards Syria. If Egypt was really selected +as the headquarters of the democracy, there was no time to be lost; +otherwise Pompeius might easily arrive in Egypt sooner than Caesar. +The conspiracy of 688, far from being broken up by the lax +and timid measures of repression, was again astir when the consular +elections for 691 approached. The persons were, it may be +presumed, substantially the same, and the plan was but little +altered. The leaders of the movement again kept in the background. +On this occasion they had set up as candidates for the consulship +Catilina himself and Gaius Antonius, the younger son of the orator +and a brother of the general who had an ill repute from Crete. +They were sure of Catilina; Antonius, originally a Sullan +like Catilina and like the latter brought to trial on that account +some years before by the democratic party and ejected +from the senate(12)--otherwise an indolent, insignificant man, +in no respect called to be a leader, and utterly bankrupt-- +willingly lent himself as a tool to the democrats for the prize +of the consulship and the advantages attached to it. Through these +consuls the heads of the conspiracy intended to seize the government, +to arrest the children of Pompeius, who remained behind in the capital, +as hostages, and to take up arms in Italy and the provinces +against Pompeius. On the first news of the blow struck in the capital, +the governor Gnaeus Piso was to raise the banner of insurrection +in Hither Spain. Communication could not be held with him by way +of the sea, since Pompeius commanded the seas. For this purpose +they reckoned on the Transpadanes the old clients of the democracy-- +among whom there was great agitation, and who would of course have +at once received the franchise--and, further, on different Celtic +tribes.(13) The threads of this combination reached as far as +Mauretania. One of the conspirators, the Roman speculator Publius +Sittius from Nuceria, compelled by financial embarrassments +to keep aloof from Italy, had armed a troop of desperadoes there +and in Spain, and with these wandered about as a leader of free-lances +in western Africa, where he had old commercial connections. + +Consular Elections +Cicero Elected instead of Catalina + +The party put forth all its energies for the struggle +of the election. Crassus and Caesar staked their money--whether their +own or borrowed--and their connections to procure the consulship +for Catilina and Antonius; the comrades of Catilina strained every +nerve to bring to the helm the man who promised them the magistracies +and priesthoods, the palaces and country-estates of their opponents, +and above all deliverance from their debts, and who, they knew, +would keep his word. The aristocracy was in great perplexity, +chiefly because it was not able even to start counter-candidates. +That such a candidate risked his head, was obvious; and the times +were past when the post of danger allured the burgess--now even +ambition was hushed in presence of fear. Accordingly the nobility +contented themselves with making a feeble attempt to check +electioneering intrigues by issuing a new law respecting +the purchase of votes--which, however, was thwarted by the veto +of a tribune of the people--and with turning over their votes +to a candidate who, although not acceptable to them, was at least +inoffensive. This was Marcus Cicero, notoriously a political +trimmer,(14) accustomed to flirt at times with the democrats, +at times with Pompeius, at times from a somewhat greater distance +with the aristocracy, and to lend his services as an advocate to every +influential man under impeachment without distinction of person +or party (he numbered even Catilina among his clients); belonging +properly to no party or--which was much the same--to the party +of material interests, which was dominant in the courts +and was pleased with the eloquent pleader and the courtly and witty +companion. He had connections enough in the capital and the country +towns to have a chance alongside of the candidates proposed +by the democracy; and as the nobility, although with reluctance, +and the Pompeians voted for him, he was elected by a great +majority. The two candidates of the democracy obtained almost +the same number of votes; but a few more fell to Antonius, whose family +was of more consideration than that of his fellow-candidate. +This accident frustrated the election of Catilina and saved Rome +from a second Cinna. A little before this Piso had--it was said +at the instigation of his political and personal enemy Pompeius-- +been put to death in Spain by his native escort.(15) With the consul +Antonius alone nothing could be done; Cicero broke the loose bond +which attached him to the conspiracy, even before they entered +on their offices, inasmuch as he renounced his legal privilege +of having the consular provinces determined by lot, and handed over +to his deeply-embarrassed colleague the lucrative governorship +of Macedonia. The essential preliminary conditions of this project +also had therefore miscarried. + +New Projects of the Conspirators + +Meanwhile the development of Oriental affairs grew daily +more perilous for the democracy. The settlement of Syria rapidly +advanced; already invitations had been addressed to Pompeius +from Egypt to march thither and occupy the country for Rome; +they could not but be afraid that they would next hear of Pompeius +in person having taken possession of the valley of the Nile. +It was by this very apprehension probably that the attempt of Caesar +to get himself sent by the people to Egypt for the purpose of aiding +the king against his rebellious subjects(16) was called forth; +it failed, apparently, through the disinclination of great and small +to undertake anything whatever against the interest of Pompeius. +His return home, and the probable catastrophe which it involved, +were always drawing the nearer; often as the string of the bow +had been broken, it was necessary that there should be a fresh +attempt to bend it. The city was in sullen ferment; frequent +conferences of the heads of the movement indicated that some +step was again contemplated. + +The Servilian Agrarian Law + +What they wished became manifest when the new tribunes +of the people entered on their office (10 Dec. 690), and one of them, +Publius Servilius Rullus, immediately proposed an agrarian law, +which was designed to procure for the leaders of the democrats +a position similar to that which Pompeius occupied in consequence +of 2the Gabinio-Manilian proposals. The nominal object +was the founding of colonies in Italy. The ground for these, however, +was not to be gained by dispossession; on the contrary all existing +private rights were guaranteed, and even the illegal occupations +of the most recent times(17) were converted into full property. +The leased Campanian domain alone was to be parcelled out +and colonized; in other cases the government was to acquire +the land destined for assignation by ordinary purchase. To procure +the sums necessary for this purpose, the remaining Italian, +and more especially all the extra-Italian, domain-land was successively +to be brought to sale; which was understood to include the former +royal hunting domains in Macedonia, the Thracian Chersonese, +Bithynia, Pontus, Cyrene, and also the territories of the cities +acquired in full property by right of war in Spain, Africa, Sicily, +Hellas, and Cilicia. Everything was likewise to be sold +which the state had acquired in moveable and immoveable property +since the year 666, and of which it had not previously disposed; +this was aimed chiefly at Egypt and Cyprus. For the same purpose +all subject communities, with the exception of the towns with Latin +rights and the other free cities, were burdened with very high +rates of taxes and tithes. Lastly there was likewise destined +for those purchases the produce of the new provincial revenues, +to be reckoned from 692, and the proceeds of the whole booty +not yet legally applied; which regulations had reference +to the new sources of taxation opened up by Pompeius in the east +and to the public moneys that might be found in the hands of Pompeius +and the heirs of Sulla. For the execution of this measure decemvirs +with a special jurisdiction and special -imperium- were to be nominated, +who were to remain five years in office and to surround themselves +with 200 subalterns from the equestrian order; but in the election +of the decemvirs only those candidates who should personally +announce themselves were to be taken into account, and, +as in the elections of priests,(18) only seventeen tribes to be fixed +by lot out of the thirty-five were to make the election. It needed +no great acuteness to discern that in this decemviral college it +was intended to create a power after the model of that of Pompeius, +only with somewhat less of a military and more of a democratic hue. +The jurisdiction was especially needed for the sake of deciding +the Egyptian question, the military power for the sake of arming +against Pompeius; the clause, which forbade the choice of an absent +person, excluded Pompeius; and the diminution of the tribes entitled +to vote as well as the manipulation of the balloting were designed +to facilitate the management of the election in accordance +with the views of the democracy. + +But this attempt totally missed its aim. The multitude, finding +it more agreeable to have their corn measured out to them +under the shade of Roman porticoes from the public magazines +than to cultivate it for themselves in the sweat of their brow, +received even the proposal in itself with complete indifference. +They soon came also to feel that Pompeius would never acquiesce +in such a resolution offensive to him in every respect, and that matters +could not stand well with a party which in its painful alarm +condescended to offers so extravagant. Under such circumstances +it was not difficult for the government to frustrate the proposal; +the new consul Cicero perceived the opportunity of exhibiting +here too his talent for giving a finishing stroke to the beaten party; +even before the tribunes who stood ready exercised their veto, +the author himself withdrew his proposal (1 Jan. 691). +The democracy had gained nothing but the unpleasant lesson, +that the great multitude out of love or fear still continued +to adhere to Pompeius, and that every proposal was certain +to fail which the public perceived to be directed against him. + +Preparations of the Anarchists in Etruria + +Wearied by all this vain agitation and scheming without result, +Catilina determined to push the matter to a decision and make +an end of it once for all. He took his measures in the course +of the summer to open the civil war. Faesulae (Fiesole), +a very strong town situated in Etruria--which swarmed with +the impoverished and conspirators--and fifteen years before the centre +of the rising of Lepidus, was again selected as the headquarters +of the insurrection. Thither were despatched the consignments +of money, for which especially the ladies of quality in the capital +implicated in the conspiracy furnished the means; there arms +and soldiers were collected; and there an old Sullan captain, Gaius +Manlius, as brave and as free from scruples of conscience +as was ever any soldier of fortune, took temporarily the chief command. +Similar though less extensive warlike preparations were made +at other points of Italy. The Transpadanes were so excited +that they seemed only waiting for the signal to strike. In the Bruttian +country, on the east coast of Italy, in Capua--wherever great +bodies of slaves were accumulated--a second slave insurrection +like that of Spartacus seemed on the eve of arising. Even in the capital +there was something brewing; those who saw the haughty bearing +with which the summoned debtors appeared before the urban praetor, +could not but remember the scenes which had preceded the murder +of Asellio.(19) The capitalists were in unutterable anxiety; +it seemed needful to enforce the prohibition of the export +of gold and silver, and to set a watch over the principal ports. +The plan of the conspirators was--on occasion of the consular +election for 692, for which Catilina had again announced himself-- +summarily to put to death the consul conducting the election +as well as the inconvenient rival candidates, and to carry +the election of Catilina at any price; in case of necessity, even +to bring armed bands from Faesulae and the other rallying points +against the capital, and with their help to crush resistance. + +Election of Catalina as Consul again Frustrated + +Cicero, who was always quickly and completely informed by his +agents male and female of the transactions of the conspirators, +on the day fixed for the election (20 Oct.) denounced the conspiracy +in the full senate and in presence of its principal leaders. +Catilina did not condescend to deny it; he answered haughtily that, +if the election for consul should fall on him, the great headless +party would certainly no longer want a leader against the small +party led by wretched heads. But as palpable evidences of the plot +were not before them, nothing farther was to be got from the timid +senate, except that it gave its previous sanction in the usual way +to the exceptional measures which the magistrates might deem +suitable (21 Oct.). Thus the election battle approached-- +on this occasion more a battle than an election; for Cicero too +had formed for himself an armed bodyguard out of the younger men, +more especially of the mercantile order; and it was his armed force +that covered and dominated the Campus Martius on the 28th October, +the day to which the election had been postponed by the senate. +The conspirators were not successful either in killing the consul +conducting the election, or in deciding the elections according +to their mind. + +Outbreak of the Insurrection in Etruria +Repressive Measures of the Government + +But meanwhile the civil war had begun. On the 27th Oct. Gaius +Manlius had planted at Faesulae the eagle round which the army +of the insurrection was to flock--it was one of the Marian eagles +from the Cimbrian war--and he had summoned the robbers +from the mountains as well as the country people to join him. +His proclamations, following the old traditions of the popular +party, demanded liberation from the oppressive load of debt +and a modification of the procedure in insolvency, which, if the amount +of the debt actually exceeded the estate, certainly still involved +in law the forfeiture of the debtor's freedom. It seemed as though +the rabble of the capital, in coming forward as if it were +the legitimate successor of the old plebeian farmers and fighting +its battles under the glorious eagles of the Cimbrian war, wished +to cast a stain not only on the present but on the past of Rome. +This rising, however, remained isolated; at the other places +of rendezvous the conspiracy did not go beyond the collection of arms +and the institution of secret conferences, as resolute leaders +were everywhere wanting. This was fortunate for the government; +for, although the impending civil war had been for a considerable time +openly announced, its own irresolution and the clumsiness +of the rusty machinery of administration had not allowed it to make +any military preparations whatever. It was only now that the general +levy was called out, and superior officers were ordered to the several +regions of Italy that each might suppress the insurrection +in his own district; while at the same time the gladiatorial slaves +were ejected from the capital, and patrols were ordered on account +of the apprehension of incendiarism. + +The Conspirators in Rome + +Catilina was in a painful position. According to his design +there should have been a simultaneous rising in the capital +and in Etruria on occasion of the consular elections; the failure +of the former and the outbreak of the latter movement endangered +his person as well as the whole success of his undertaking. +Now that his partisans at Faesulae had once risen in arms against +the government, he could no longer remain in the capital; and yet +not only did everything depend on his inducing the conspirators +of the capital now at least to strike quickly, but this had to be +done even before he left Rome--for he knew his helpmates too well +to rely on them for that matter. The more considerable +of the conspirators--Publius Lentulus Sura consul in 683, afterwards +expelled from the senate and now, in order to get back into +the senate, praetor for the second time, and the two former praetors +Publius Autronius and Lucius Cassius--were incapable men; Lentulus +an ordinary aristocrat of big words and great pretensions, but slow +in conception and irresolute in action; Autronius distinguished +for nothing but his powerful screaming voice; while as to Lucius +Cassius no one comprehended how a man so corpulent and so simple +had fallen among the conspirators. But Catilina could not venture +to place his abler partisans, such as the young senator Gaius +Cethegus and the equites Lucius Statilius and Publius Gabinius +Capito, at the head of the movement; for even among the conspirators +the traditional hierarchy of rank held its ground, and the very +anarchists thought that they should be unable to carry the day +unless a consular or at least a praetorian were at their head. +Therefore, however urgently the army of the insurrection might +long for its general, and however perilous it was for the latter +to remain longer at the seat of government after the outbreak +of the revolt, Catilina nevertheless resolved still to remain +for a time in Rome. Accustomed to impose on his cowardly opponents +by his audacious insolence, he showed himself publicly in the Forum +and in the senate-house and replied to the threats which were +there addressed to him, that they should beware of pushing him +to extremities; that, if they should set the house on fire, he would +be compelled to extinguish the conflagration in ruins. In reality +neither private persons nor officials ventured to lay hands +on the dangerous man; it was almost a matter of indifference +when a young nobleman brought him to trial on account of violence, +for long before the process could come to an end, the question could not +but be decided elsewhere. But the projects of Catilina failed; +chiefly because the agents of the government had made their way +into the circle of the conspirators and kept it accurately informed +of every detail of the plot. When, for instance, the conspirators +appeared before the strong Praeneste (1 Nov.), which they had hoped +to surprise by a -coup de main-, they found the inhabitants warned +and armed; and in a similar way everything miscarried. Catilina +with all his temerity now found it advisable to fix his departure +for one of the ensuing days; but previously on his urgent exhortation, +at a last conference of the conspirators in the night between +the 6th and 7th Nov. it was resolved to assassinate the consul Cicero, +who was the principal director of the countermine, before the departure +of their leader, and, in order to obviate any treachery, +to carry the resolve at once into execution. Early on the morning +of the 7th Nov., accordingly, the selected murderers knocked +at the house of the consul; but they found the guard reinforced +and themselves repulsed--on this occasion too the spies +of the government had outdone the conspirators. + +Catalina Proceed to Etruria + +On the following day (8 Nov.) Cicero convoked the senate. +Even now Catilina ventured to appear and to attempt a defence against +the indignant attacks of the consul, who unveiled before his face +the events of the last few days; but men no longer listened to him, +and in the neighbourhood of the place where he sat the benches became +empty. He left the sitting, and proceeded, as he would doubtless +have done even apart from this incident, in accordance +with the agreement, to Etruria. Here he proclaimed himself consul, +and assumed an attitude of waiting, in order to put his troops +in motion against the capital on the first announcement +of the outbreak of the insurrection there. The government declared +the two leaders Catilina and Manlius, as well as those of their +comrades who should not have laid down their arms by a certain day, +to be outlaws, and called out new levies; but at the head +of the army destined against Catilina was placed the consul Gaius +Antonius, who was notoriously implicated in the conspiracy, +and with whose character it was wholly a matter of accident whether +he would lead his troops against Catilina or over to his side. +They seemed to have directly laid their plans towards converting +this Antonius into a second Lepidus. As little were steps taken +against the leaders of the conspiracy who had remained behind +in the capital, although every one pointed the finger at them +and the insurrection in the capital was far from being abandoned +by the conspirators--on the contrary the plan of it had been settled +by Catilina himself before his departure from Rome. A tribune +was to give the signal by calling an assembly of the people; +in the following night Cethegus was to despatch the consul Cicero; +Gabinius and Statilius were to set the city simultaneously +on fire at twelve places; and a communication was to be established +as speedily as possible with the army of Catilina, which should +have meanwhile advanced. Had the urgent representations of Cethegus +borne fruit and had Lentulus, who after Catilina's departure +was placed at the head of the conspirators, resolved on rapidly +striking a blow, the conspiracy might even now have been successful. +But the conspirators were just as incapable and as cowardly as their +opponents; weeks elapsed and the matter came to no decisive issue. + +Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital + +At length the countermine brought about a decision. Lentulus +in his tedious fashion, which sought to cover negligence in regard +to what was immediate and necessary by the projection of large +and distant plans, had entered into relations with the deputies +of a Celtic canton, the Allobroges, now present in Rome; had attempted +to implicate these--the representatives of a thoroughly disorganized +commonwealth and themselves deeply involved in debt--in the conspiracy; +and had given them on their departure messages and letters to his +confidants. The Allobroges left Rome, but were arrested in the night +between 2nd and 3rd Dec. close to the gates by the Roman authorities, +and their papers were taken from them. It was obvious +that the Allobrogian deputies had lent themselves as spies +to the Roman government, and had carried on the negotiations only +with a view to convey into the hands of the latter the desired proofs +implicating the ringleaders of the conspiracy. On the following +morning orders were issued with the utmost secrecy by Cicero +for the arrest of the most dangerous leaders of the plot, +and executed in regard to Lentulus, Cethegus, Gabinius, +and Statilius, while some others escaped from seizure by flight. +The guilt of those arrested as well as of the fugitives +was completely evident. Immediately after the arrest the letters seized, +the seals and handwriting of which the prisoners could not avoid +acknowledging, were laid before the senate, and the captives +and witnesses were heard; further confirmatory facts, deposits of arms +in the houses of the conspirators, threatening expressions +which they had employed, were presently forthcoming; the actual +subsistence of the conspiracy was fully and validly established, +and the most important documents were immediately on the suggestion +of Cicero published as news-sheets. + +The indignation against the anarchist conspiracy was general. +Gladly would the oligarchic party have made use of the revelations +to settle accounts with the democracy generally and Caesar +in particular, but it was far too thoroughly broken to be able +to accomplish this, and to prepare for him the fate which it had +formerly prepared for the two Gracchi and Saturninus; +in this respect the matter went no farther than good will. +The multitude of the capital was especially shocked by the incendiary +schemes of the conspirators. The merchants and the whole party +of material interests naturally perceived in this war of the debtors +against the creditors a struggle for their very existence; in tumultuous +excitement their youth crowded, with swords in their hands, round +the senate-house and brandished them against the open and secret +partisans of Catilina. In fact, the conspiracy was for the moment +paralyzed; though its ultimate authors perhaps were still at liberty, +the whole staff entrusted with its execution were either captured +or had fled; the band assembled at Faesulae could not possibly +accomplish much, unless supported by an insurrection in the capital. + +Discussions in the Senate as to the Execution of Those Arrested + +In a tolerably well-ordered commonwealth the matter would now +have been politically at an end, and the military and the tribunals +would have undertaken the rest. But in Rome matters had come +to such a pitch, that the government was not even in a position +to keep a couple of noblemen of note in safe custody. The slaves +and freedmen of Lentulus and of the others arrested were stirring; +plans, it was alleged, were contrived to liberate them by force +from the private houses in which they were detained; there was no lack-- +thanks to the anarchist doings of recent years--of ringleaders +in Rome who contracted at a certain rate for riots and deeds +of violence; Catilina, in fine, was informed of what had occurred, +and was near enough to attempt a coup de main with his bands. +How much of these rumours was true, we cannot tell; but there was ground +for apprehension, because, agreeably to the constitution, neither troops +nor even a respectable police force were at the command of the government +in the capital, and it was in reality left at the mercy of every gang +of banditti. The idea was suggested of precluding all possible +attempts at liberation by the immediate execution of the prisoners. +Constitutionally, this was not possible. According to the ancient +and sacred right of appeal, a sentence of death could only be +pronounced against the Roman burgess by the whole body of burgesses, +and not by any other authority; and, as the courts formed by the body +of burgesses had themselves become antiquated, a capital sentence +was no longer pronounced at all. Cicero would gladly have rejected +the hazardous suggestion; indifferent as in itself the legal +question might be to the advocate, he knew well how very useful +it is to an advocate to be called liberal, and he showed +little desire to separate himself for ever from the democratic party +by shedding this blood. But those around him, and particularly +his genteel wife, urged him to crown his services to his country +by this bold step; the consul like all cowards anxiously endeavouring +to avoid the appearance of cowardice, and yet trembling +before the formidable responsibility, in his distress +convoked the senate, and left it to that body to decide +as to the life or death of the four prisoners. This indeed +had no meaning; for as the senate was constitutionally even less +entitled to act than the consul, all the responsibility still +devolved rightfully on the latter: but when was cowardice ever +consistent? Caesar made every exertion to save the prisoners, +and his speech, full of covert threats as to the future inevitable +vengeance of the democracy, made the deepest impression. Although +all the consulars and the great majority of the senate had already +declared for the execution, most of them, with Cicero at their +head, seemed now once more inclined to keep within the limits +of the law. But when Cato in pettifogging fashion brought +the champions of the milder view into suspicion of being accomplices +of the plot, and pointed to the preparations for liberating +the prisoners by a street-riot, he succeeded in throwing the waverers +into a fresh alarm, and in securing a majority for the immediate +execution of the transgressors. + +Execution of the Catalinarians + +The execution of the decree naturally devolved on the consul, +who had called it forth. Late on the evening of the 5th of December +the prisoners were brought from their previous quarters, and conducted +across the market-place still densely crowded by men to the prison +in which criminals condemned to death were wont to be kept. +It was a subterranean vault, twelve feet deep, at the foot +of the Capitol, which formerly had served as a well-house. +The consul himself conducted Lentulus, and praetors the others, +all attended by strong guards; but the attempt at rescue, +which had been expected, did not take place. No one knew whether +the prisoners were being conveyed to a secure place of custody +or to the scene of execution. At the door of the prison they +were handed over to the -tresviri- who conducted the executions, +and were strangled in the subterranean vault by torchlight. The consul +had waited before the door till the executions were accomplished, +and then with his loud well-known voice proclaimed over the Forum +to the multitude waiting in silence, "They are dead." Till far +on in the night the crowds moved through the streets and exultingly +saluted the consul, to whom they believed that they owed +the security of their houses and their property. The senate ordered +public festivals of gratitude, and the first men of the nobility, +Marcus Cato and Quintus Catulus, saluted the author of the sentence +of death with the name--now heard for the first time--of a "father +of his fatherland." + +But it was a dreadful deed, and all the more dreadful that it +appeared to a whole people great and praiseworthy. Never perhaps +has a commonwealth more lamentably declared itself bankrupt, +than did Rome through this resolution--adopted in cold blood +by the majority of the government and approved by public opinion-- +to put to death in all haste a few political prisoners, who were +no doubt culpable according to the laws, but had not forfeited life; +because, forsooth, the security of the prisons was not to be +trusted, and there was no sufficient police. It was the humorous +trait seldom wanting to a historical tragedy, that this act +of the most brutal tyranny had to be carried out by the most unstable +and timid of all Roman statesmen, and that the "first democratic +consul" was selected to destroy the palladium of the ancient +freedom of the Roman commonwealth, the right of -provocatio-. + +Suppression of the Etruscan Insurrection + +After the conspiracy had been thus stifled in the capital +even before it came to an outbreak, there remained the task of putting +an end to the insurrection in Etruria. The army amounting to about +2000 men, which Catilina found on his arrival, had increased nearly +fivefold by the numerous recruits who flocked in, and already +formed two tolerably full legions, in which however only about +a fourth part of the men were sufficiently armed. Catilina had +thrown himself with his force into the mountains and avoided +a battle with the troops of Antonius, with the view of completing +the organization of his bands and awaiting the outbreak +of the insurrection in Rome. But the news of its failure broke up +the army of the insurgents; the mass of the less compromised thereupon +returned home. The remnant of resolute, or rather desperate, +men that were left made an attempt to cut their way through +the Apennine passes into Gaul; but when the little band arrived +at the foot of the mountains near Pistoria (Pistoja), it found itself +here caught between two armies. In front of it was the corps +of Quintus Metellus, which had come up from Ravenna and Ariminum +to occupy the northern slope of the Apennines; behind it was the army +of Antonius, who had at length yielded to the urgency of his officers +and agreed to a winter campaign. Catilina was wedged in +on both sides, and his supplies came to an end; nothing was left +but to throw himself on the nearest foe, which was Antonius. +In a narrow valley enclosed by rocky mountains the conflict took place +between the insurgents and the troops of Antonius, which the latter, +in order not to be under the necessity of at least personally +performing execution on his former allies, had under a pretext +entrusted for this day to a brave officer who had grown gray +under arms, Marcus Petreius. The superior strength of the government +army was of little account, owing to the nature of the field +of battle. Both Catilina and Petreius placed their most trusty men +in the foremost ranks; quarter was neither given nor received. +The conflict lasted long, and many brave men fell on both sides; +Catilina, who before the beginning of the battle had sent back +his horse and those of all his officers, showed on this day +that nature had destined him for no ordinary things, and that he knew +at once how to command as a general and how to fight as a soldier. +At length Petreius with his guard broke the centre of the enemy, +and, after having overthrown this, attacked the two wings from within. +This decided the victory. The corpses of the Catilinarians--there +were counted 3000 of them--covered, as it were in rank and file, +the ground where they had fought; the officers and the general +himself had, when all was lost, thrown themselves headlong +on the enemy and thus sought and found death (beginning of 692). +Antonius was on account of this victory stamped by the senate +with the title of Imperator, and new thanksgiving-festivals showed +that the government and the governed were beginning to become +accustomed to civil war. + +Attitude of Crassus and Caesar toward the Anarchists + +The anarchist plot had thus been suppressed in the capital as in Italy +with bloody violence; people were still reminded of it merely +by the criminal processes which in the Etruscan country towns +and in the capital thinned the ranks of those affiliated to the beaten +party, and by the large accessions to the robber-bands of Italy-- +one of which, for instance, formed out of the remains of the armies +of Spartacus and Catilina, was destroyed by a military force in 694 +in the territory of Thurii. But it is important to keep in view +that the blow fell by no means merely on the anarchists proper, +who had conspired to set the capital on fire and had fought +at Pistoria, but on the whole democratic party. That this party, +and in particular Crassus and Caesar, had a hand in the game +on the present occasion as well as in the plot of 688, +may be regarded--not in a juristic, but in a historical, point of view-- +as an ascertained fact. The circumstance, indeed, that Catulus +and the other heads of the senatorial party accused the leader +of the democrats of complicity in the anarchist plot, +and that the latter as senator spoke and voted against the brutal +judicial murder contemplated by the oligarchy, could only be urged +by partisan sophistry as any valid proof of his participation +in the plans of Catilina. But a series of other facts is of more weight. +According to express and irrefragable testimonies it was especially +Crassus and Caesar that supported the candidature of Catilina +for the consulship. When Caesar in 690 brought the executioners +of Sulla before the commission for murder(20) he allowed the rest +to be condemned, but the most guilty and infamous of all, Catilina, +to be acquitted. In the revelations of the 3rd of December, +it is true, Cicero did not include among the names of the conspirators +of whom he had information those of the two influential men; +but it is notorious that the informers denounced not merely those +against whom subsequently investigation was directed, but "many innocent" +persons besides, whom the consul Cicero thought proper to erase +from the list; and in later years, when he had no reason to disguise +the truth, he expressly named Caesar among the accomplices. An indirect +but very intelligible inculpation is implied also in the circumstance, +that of the four persons arrested on the 3rd of December the two least +dangerous, Statilius and Gabinius, were handed over to be guarded +by the senators Caesar and Crassus; it was manifestly intended that these +should either, if they allowed them to escape, be compromised in the view +of public opinion as accessories, or, if they really detained them, +be compromised in the view of their fellow-conspirators as renegades. + +The following scene which occurred in the senate shows +significantlyhow matters stood. Immediately after the arrest +of Lentulus and his comrades, a messenger despatched by the conspirators +in the capital to Catilina was seized by the agents of the government, +and, after having been assured of impunity, was induced +to make a comprehensive confession in a full meeting of the senate. +But when he came to the critical portions of his confession +and in particular named Crassus as having commissioned him, +he was interrupted by the senators, and on the suggestion +of Cicero it was resolved to cancel the whole statement without +farther inquiry, but to imprison its author notwithstanding +the amnesty assured to him, until such time as he should have +not merely retracted the statement, but should have also confessed +who had instigated him to give such false testimony! Here it is +abundantly clear, not merely that that man had a very accurate +knowledge of the state of matters who, when summoned to make +an attack upon Crassus, replied that he had no desire to provoke +the bull of the herd, but also that the majority of the senate +with Cicero at their head were agreed in not permitting the revelations +to go beyond a certain limit. The public was not so nice; the young men, +who had taken up arms to ward off the incendiaries, were exasperated +against no one so much as against Caesar, on the 5th of December, +when he left the senate, they pointed their swords at his breast +and even now he narrowly escaped with his life on the same spot +where the fatal blow fell on him seventeen years afterwards; +he did not again for a considerable time enter the senate-house. +Any one who impartially considers the course of the conspiracy +will not be able to resist the suspicion that during all this time +Catilina was backed by more powerful men, who--relying on the want +of a legally complete chain of evidence and on the lukewarmness +and cowardice of the majority of the senate, which was but half- +initiated and greedily caught at any pretext for inaction--knew how +to hinder any serious interference with the conspiracy on the part +of the authorities, to procure free departure for the chief +of the insurgents, and even so to manage the declaration of war +and the sending of troops against the insurrection that it was almost +equivalent to the sending of an auxiliary army. While the course +of the events themselves thus testifies that the threads +of the Catilinarian plot reached far higher than Lentulus and Catilina, +it deserves also to be noticed, that at a much later period, +when Caesar had got to the head of the state, he was in the closest +alliance with the only Catilinarian still surviving, Publius Sittius +the leader of the Mauretanian free bands, and that he modified +the law of debt quite in the sense that the proclamations +of Manlius demanded. + +All these pieces of evidence speak clearly enough; but, even were +it not so, the desperate position of the democracy in presence +of the military power--which since the Gabinio-Manilian laws assumed +by its side an attitude more threatening than ever--renders it +almost a certainty that, as usually happens in such cases, +it sought a last resource in secret plots and in alliance +with anarchy. The circumstances were very similar to those +of the Cinnan times. While in the east Pompeius occupied a position +nearly such as Sulla then did, Crassus and Caesar sought to raise +over against him a power in Italy like that which Marius and Cinna +had possessed, with the view of employing it if possible better +than they had done. The way to this result lay once more through +terrorism and anarchy, and to pave that way Catilina was certainly +the fitting man. Naturally the more reputable leaders +of the democracy kept themselves as far as possible in the background, +and left to their unclean associates the execution of the unclean +work, the political results of which they hoped afterwards +to appropriate. Still more naturally, when the enterprise had failed, +the partners of higher position applied every effort to conceal +their participation in it. And at a later period, when the former +conspirator had himself become the target of political plots, +the veil was for that very reason drawn only the more closely +over those darker years in the life of the great man, and even +special apologies for him were written with that very object.(21) + +Total Destruction of the Democratic Party + +For five years Pompeius stood at the head of his armies and fleets +in the east; for five years the democracy at home conspired +to overthrow him. The result was discouraging. With unspeakable +exertions they had not merely attained nothing, but had suffered +morally as well as materially enormous loss. Even the coalition +of 683 could not but be for democrats of pure water a scandal, +although the democracy at that time only coalesced with two +distinguished men of the opposite party and bound these +to its programme. + +But now the democratic party had made common cause with a band +of murderers and bankrupts, who were almost all likewise deserters +from the camp of the aristocracy; and had at least for the time +being accepted their programme, that is to say, the terrorism +of Cinna. The party of material interests, one of the chief elements +of the coalition of 683, was thereby estranged from the democracy, +and driven into the arms of the Optimates in the first instance, +or of any power at all which would and could give protection against +anarchy. Even the multitude of the capital, who, although having +no objection to a street-riot, found it inconvenient to have +their houses set on fire over their heads, became in some measure +alarmed. It is remarkable that in this very year (691) the full +re-establishment of the Sempronian corn-largesses took place, +and was effected by the senate on the proposal of Cato. The league +of the democratic leaders with anarchy had obviously created a breach +between the former and the burgesses of the city; and the oligarchy +sought, not without at least momentary success, to enlarge +this chasm and to draw over the masses to their side. Lastly, +Gnaeus Pompeius had been partly warned, partly exasperated, +by all these cabals; after all that had occurred, and after the democracy +had itself virtually torn asunder the ties which connected it +with Pompeius, it could no longer with propriety make the request-- +which in 684 had had a certain amount of reason on its side-- +that he should not himself destroy with the sword the democratic power +which he had raised, and which had raised him. + +Thus the democracy was disgraced and weakened; but above all it had +become ridiculous through the merciless exposure of its perplexity +and weakness. Where the humiliation of the overthrown government +and similar matters of little moment were concerned, it was great +and potent; but every one of its attempts to attain a real +political success had proved a downright failure. Its relation +to Pompeius was as false as pitiful. While it was loading him +with panegyrics and demonstrations of homage, it was concocting +against him one intrigue after another; and one after another, +like soap-bubbles, they burst of themselves. The general of the east +and of the seas, far from standing on his defence against them, +appeared not even to observe all the busy agitation, and to obtain +his victories over the democracy as Herakles gained his over +the Pygmies, without being himself aware of it. The attempt to kindle +civil war had miserably failed; if the anarchist section +had at least displayed some energy, the pure democracy, while knowing +doubtless how to hire conspirators, had not known how to lead +them or to save them or to die with them. Even the old languid +oligarchy, strengthened by the masses passing over to it +from the ranks of the democracy and above all by the--in this affair +unmistakeable--identity of its interests and those of Pompeius, +had been enabled to suppress this attempt at revolution and thereby +to achieve yet a last victory over the democracy. Meanwhile king +Mithradates was dead, Asia Minor and Syria were regulated, +and the return of Pompeius to Italy might be every moment expected. +The decision was not far off; but was there in fact still room +to speak of a decision between the general who returned more famous +and mightier than ever, and the democracy humbled beyond parallel +and utterly powerless? Crassus prepared to embark his family +and his gold and to seek an asylum somewhere in the east; +and even so elastic and so energetic a nature as that of Caesar seemed +on the point of giving up the game as lost. In this year (691) +occurred his candidature for the place of -pontifex maximus-;(22) +when he left his dwelling on the morning of the election, +he declared that, if he should fail in this also, he would +never again cross the threshold of his house. + + + + +Chapter VI + +Retirement of Pompeius and Coalition of the Pretenders + +Pompeius in the East + +When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed +to his charge, again turned his eyes homeward, he found for the second +time the diadem at his feet. For long the development of the Roman +commonwealth had been tending towards such a catastrophe; +it was evident to every unbiassed observer, and had been remarked +a thousand times, that, if the rule of the aristocracy +should be brought to an end, monarchy was inevitable. The senate +had now been overthrown at once by the civic liberal opposition +and by the power of the soldiery; the only question remaining +was to settle the persons, names, and forms for the new order of things; +and these were already clearly enough indicated in the partly democratic, +partly military elements of the revolution. The events of the last +five years had set, as it were, the final seal on this impending +transformation of the commonwealth. In the newly-erected +Asiatic provinces, which gave regal honours to their organizer +as the successor of Alexander the Great, and already received +his favoured freedmen like princes, Pompeius had laid the foundations +of his dominion, and found at once the treasures, the army, and the halo +of glory which the future prince of the Roman state required. +The anarchist conspiracy, moreover, in the capital, and the civil +war connected with it, had made it palpably clear to every one +who studied political or even merely material interests, +that a government without authority and without military power, +such as that of the senate, exposed the state to the equally ludicrous +and formidable tyranny of political sharpers, and that a change +of constitution, which should connect the military power more closely +with the government, was an indispensable necessity if social order +was to be maintained. So the ruler had arisen in the east, +the throne had been erected in Italy; to all appearance the year 692 +was the last of the republic, the first of monarchy. + +The Opponents of the Future Monarchy + +This goal, it is true, was not to be reached without a struggle. +The constitution, which had endured for five hundred years, +and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen +to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil +to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate +to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate +and convulse civil society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius +in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set +aside. It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all +these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power, +and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus and Marcus Cato united +in opposition to him with Marcus Crassus, Gaius Caesar, and Titus +Labienus. But the inevitable and undoubtedly serious struggle +could not well be undertaken under circumstances more favourable. +It was in a high degree probable that, under the fresh impression +of the Catilinarian revolt, a rule which promised order +and security, although at the price of freedom, would receive +the submission of the whole middle party--embracing especially +the merchants who concerned themselves only about their material +interests, but including also a great part of the aristocracy, +which, disorganized in itself and politically hopeless, had to rest +content with securing for itself riches, rank, and influence +by a timely compromise with the prince; perhaps even a portion +of the democracy, so sorely smitten by the recent blows, might submit +to hope for the realization of a portion of its demands +from a military chief raised to power by itself. But, whatever might be +the position of party-relations, of what importance, in the first +instance at least, were the parties in Italy at all in presence +of Pompeius and his victorious army? Twenty years previously Sulla, +after having concluded a temporary peace with Mithradates, +had with his five legions been able to carry a restoration +runningcounter to the natural development of things in the face +of the whole liberal party, which had been arming en masse for years, +from the moderate aristocrats and the liberal mercantile class down +to the anarchists. The task of Pompeius was far less difficult. +He returned, after having fully and conscientiously performed +his different functions by sea and land. He might expect to encounter +no other serious opposition save that of the various extreme +parties, each of which by itself could do nothing, and which even +when leagued together were no more than a coalition of factions +still vehemently hostile to each other and inwardly at thorough +variance. Completely unarmed, they were without a military force +and without a head, without organization in Italy, without support +in the provinces, above all, without a general; there was in their +ranks hardly a soldier of note--to say nothing of an officer--who +could have ventured to call forth the burgesses to a conflict +with Pompeius. The circumstance might further be taken into account, +that the volcano of revolution, which had been now incessantly +blazing for seventy years and feeding on its own flame, was visibly +burning out and verging of itself to extinction. It was very doubtful +whether the attempt to arm the Italians for party interests +would now succeed, as it had succeeded with Cinna and Carbo. +If Pompeius exerted himself, how could he fail to effect +a revolution of the state, which was chalked out by a certain +necessity of nature in the organic development +of the Roman commonwealth? + +Mission of Nepos to Rome + +Pompeius had seized the right moment, when he undertook his mission +to the east; he seemed desirous to go forward. In the autumn +of 691, Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived from the camp of Pompeius +in the capital, and came forward as a candidate for the tribuneship, +with the express design of employing that position to procure +for Pompeius the consulship for the year 693 and more immediately, +by special decree of the people, the conduct of the war against +Catilina. The excitement in Rome was great. It was not +to be doubted that Nepos was acting under the direct or indirect +commission of Pompeius; the desire of Pompeius to appear in Italy +as general at the head of his Asiatic legions, and to administer +simultaneously the supreme military and the supreme civil power +there, was conceived to be a farther step on the way to the throne, +and the mission of Nepos a semi-official proclamation of the monarchy. + +Pompeius in Relation to the Parties + +Everything turned on the attitude which the two great political parties +should assume towards these overtures; their future position +and the future of the nation depended on this. But the reception +which Nepos met with was itself in its turn determined +by the then existing relation of the parties to Pompeius, which was +of a very peculiar kind. Pompeius had gone to the east as general +of the democracy. He had reason enough to be discontented +with Caesar and his adherents, but no open rupture had taken place. +It is probable that Pompeius, who was at a great distance and occupied +with other things, and who besides was wholly destitute of the gift +of calculating his political bearings, by no means saw through, +at least at that time, the extent and mutual connection +of the democratic intrigues contrived against him; perhaps even +in his haughty and shortsighted manner he had a certain pride +in ignoring these underground proceedings. Then there came the fact, +which with a character of the type of Pompeius had much weight, +that the democracy never lost sight of outward respect for the great man, +and even now (691) unsolicited (as he preferred it so) had granted +to him by a special decree of the people unprecedented honours +and decorations.(1) But, even if all this had not been the case, +it lay in Pompeius' own well-understood interest to continue +his adherence, at least outwardly, to the popular party; democracy +and monarchy stand so closely related that Pompeius, in aspiring +to the crown, could scarcely do otherwise than call himself, as hitherto, +the champion of popular rights. While personal and political +reasons, therefore, co-operated to keep Pompeius and the leaders +of the democracy, despite of all that had taken place, in their +previous connection, nothing was done on the opposite side to fill +up the chasm which separated him since his desertion to the camp +of the democracy from his Sullan partisans. His personal quarrel +with Metellus and Lucullus transferred itself to their extensive +and influential coteries. A paltry opposition of the senate-- +but, to a character of so paltry a mould, all the more exasperating +by reason of its very paltriness--had attended him through his whole +career as a general. He felt it keenly, that the senate had not taken +the smallest step to honour the extraordinary man according to +his desert, that is, by extraordinary means. Lastly, it is not +to be forgotten, that the aristocracy was just then intoxicated +by its recent victory and the democracy deeply humbled, +and that the aristocracy was led by the pedantically stiff +and half-witless Cato, and the democracy by the supple master +of intrigue, Caesar. + +Rupture between Pompeius and the Aristocracy + +Such was the state of parties amidst which the emissary sent +by Pompeius appeared. The aristocracy not only regarded the proposals +which he announced in favour of Pompeius as a declaration of war +against the existing constitution, but treated them openly as such, +and took not the slightest pains to conceal their alarm and their +indignation. With the express design of combating these proposals, +Marcus Cato had himself elected as tribune of the people +along with Nepos, and abruptly repelled the repeated attempts of Pompeius +to approach him personally. Nepos naturally after this found himself +under no inducement to spare the aristocracy, but attached himself +the more readily to the democrats, when these, pliant as ever, +submitted to what was inevitable and chose freely to concede +the office of general in Italy as well as the consulate +rather than let the concession be wrung from them by force of arms. +The cordial understanding soon showed itself. Nepos publicly accepted +(Dec. 691) the democratic view of the executions recently decreed +by the majority of the senate, as unconstitutional judicial murders; +and that his lord and master looked on them in no other light, +was shown by his significant silence respecting the voluminous +vindication of them which Cicero had sent to him. On the other +hand, the first act with which Caesar began his praetorship +was to call Quintus Catulus to account for the moneys alleged +to have been embezzled by him at the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, +and to transfer the completion of the temple to Pompeius. This was +a masterstroke. Catulus had already been building at the temple +for fifteen years, and seemed very much disposed to die as he had lived +superintendent of the Capitoline buildings; an attack on this abuse +of a public commission--an abuse covered only by the reputation +of the noble commissioner--was in reality entirely justified +and in a high degree popular. But when the prospect was simultaneously +opened up to Pompeius of being allowed to delete the name of Catulus +and engrave his own on this proudest spot of the first city +of the globe, there was offered to him the very thing which most +of all delighted him and did no harm to the democracy--abundant +but empty honour; while at the same time the aristocracy, which could +not possibly allow its best man to fall, was brought into the most +disagreeable collision with Pompeius. + +Meanwhile Nepos had brought his proposals concerning Pompeius +before the burgesses. On the day of voting Cato and his friend +and colleague, Quintus Minucius, interposed their veto. When Nepos +did not regard this and continued the reading out, a formal conflict +took place; Cato and Minucius threw themselves on their colleague +and forced him to stop; an armed band liberated him, and drove +the aristocratic section from the Forum; but Cato and Minucius +returned, now supported likewise by armed bands, and ultimately +maintained the field of battle for the government. Encouraged +by this victory of their bands over those of their antagonist, +the senate suspended the tribune Nepos as well as the praetor Caesar, +who had vigorously supported him in the bringing in of the law, +from their offices; their deposition, which was proposed in the senate, +was prevented by Cato, more, doubtless, because it was +unconstitutional than because it was injudicious. Caesar did +not regard the decree, and continued his official functions till +the senate used violence against him. As soon as this was known, +the multitude appeared before his house and placed itself at his +disposal; it was to depend solely on him whether the struggle +in the streets should begin, or whether at least the proposals made +by Metellus should now be resumed and the military command in Italy +desired by Pompeius should be procured for him; but this was not +in Caesar's interest, and so he induced the crowds to disperse, +whereupon the senate recalled the penalty decreed against him. +Nepos himself had, immediately after his suspension, left +the city and embarked for Asia, in order to report to Pompeius +the result of his mission. + +Retirement of Pompeius + +Pompeius had every reason to be content with the turn which things +had taken. The way to the throne now lay necessarily through civil +war; and he owed it to Cato's incorrigible perversity that he could +begin this war with good reason. After the illegal condemnation +of the adherents of Catilina, after the unparalleled acts of violence +against the tribune of the people Metellus, Pompeius might wage war +at once as defender of the two palladia of Roman public freedom-- +the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunate +of the people--against the aristocracy, and as champion of the party +of order against the Catilinarian band. It seemed almost impossible +that Pompeius should neglect this opportunity and with his eyes +open put himself a second time into the painful position, in which +the dismissal of his army in 684 had placed him, and from which +only the Gabinian law had released him. But near as seemed +the opportunity of placing the white chaplet around his brow, +and much as his own soul longed after it, when the question of action +presented itself, his heart and his hand once more failed him. +This man, altogether ordinary in every respect excepting only +his pretensions, would doubtless gladly have placed himself beyond +the law, if only he could have done so without forsaking legal ground. +His very lingering in Asia betrayed a misgiving of this sort. +He might, had he wished, have very well arrived in January 692 +with his fleet and army at the port of Brundisium, and have received +Nepos there. His tarrying the whole winter of 691-692 in Asia had +proximately the injurious consequence, that the aristocracy, +which of course accelerated the campaign against Catilina as it best +could, had meanwhile got rid of his bands, and had thus set aside +the most feasible pretext for keeping together the Asiatic legions +in Italy. For a man of the type of Pompeius, who for want of faith +in himself and in his star timidly clung in public life to formal +right, and with whom the pretext was nearly of as much importance +as the motive, this circumstance was of serious weight. He probably +said to himself, moreover, that, even if he dismissed his army, +he did not let it wholly out of his hand, and could in case +of need still raise a force ready for battle sooner at any rate +than any other party-chief; that the democracy was waiting +in submissive attitude for his signal, and that he could deal +with the refractory senate even without soldiers; and such further +considerations as suggested themselves, in which there was exactly +enough of truth to make them appear plausible to one who wished +to deceive himself. Once more the very peculiar temperament +of Pompeius naturally turned the scale. He was one of those men +who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination; +in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark +respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional +everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which +more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every +man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often +been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined +to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily +when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. +It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez hesitate +at the last moment before the breach of faith and break down; +and to this too Pompeius succumbed. + +In the autumn of 692 Pompeius embarked for Italy. While in the capital +all was being prepared for receiving the new monarch, news came +that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up +his legions and with a small escort had entered on his journey +to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown +without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did +for Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every +favour and every gift in vain. + +Pompeius without Influence + +The parties breathed freely. For the second time Pompeius had +abdicated; his already-vanquished competitors might once more begin +the race--in which doubtless the strangest thing was, that Pompeius +was again a rival runner. In January 693 he came to Rome. +His position was an awkward one and vacillated with so much uncertainty +between the parties, that people gave him the nickname of Gnaeus +Cicero. He had in fact lost favour with all. The anarchists saw +in him an adversary, the democrats an inconvenient friend, Marcus +Crassus a rival, the wealthy class an untrustworthy protector, +the aristocracy a declared foe.(2) He was still indeed the most +powerful man in the state; his military adherents scattered through +all Italy, his influence in the provinces, particularly those +of the east, his military fame, his enormous riches gave him a weight +such as no other possessed; but instead of the enthusiastic +reception on which he had counted, the reception which he met +with was more than cool, and still cooler was the treatment given +to the demands which he presented. He requested for himself, +as he had already caused to be announced by Nepos, a second consulship; +demanding also, of course, a confirmation of the arrangements made +by him in the east and a fulfilment of the promise which he had +given to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. Against these +demands a systematic opposition arose in the senate, the chief +elements of which were furnished by the personal exasperation +of Lucullus and Metellus Creticus, the old resentment of Crassus, +and the conscientious folly of Cato. The desired second consulship +was at once and bluntly refused. The very first request +which the returning general addressed to the senate, that the election +of the consuls for 693 might be put off till after his entry +into the capital, had been rejected; much less was there any likelihood +of obtaining from the senate the necessary dispensation from the law +of Sulla as to re-election.(3) As to the arrangements which +he had made in the eastern provinces, Pompeius naturally asked +their confirmation as a whole; Lucullus carried a proposal +thatevery ordinance should be separately discussed and voted upon, +which opened the door for endless annoyances and a multitude of defeats +in detail. The promise of a grant of land to the soldiers +of the Asiatic army was ratified indeed in general by the senate, +but was at the same time extended to the Cretan legions of Metellus; +and--what was worse--it was not executed, because the public chest +was empty and the senate was not disposed to meddle with the domains +for this purpose. Pompeius, in despair of mastering the persistent +and spiteful opposition of the senate, turned to the burgesses. +But he understood still less how to conduct his movements +on this field. The democratic leaders, although they did not +openly oppose him, had no cause at all to make his interests their own, +and so kept aloof. Pompeius' own instruments--such as the consuls +elected by his influence and partly by his money, Marcus Pupius Piso +for 693 and Lucius Afranius for 694--showed themselves unskilful +and useless. When at length the assignation of land for the veterans +of Pompeius was submitted to the burgesses by the tribune +of the people Lucius Flavius in the form of a general agrarian law, +the proposal, not supported by the democrats, openly combated +by the aristocrats, was left in a minority (beg. of 694). The exalted +general now sued almost humbly for the favour of the masses, +for it was on his instigation that the Italian tolls were abolished +by a law introduced by the praetor Metellus Nepos (694). But he played +the demagogue without skill and without success; his reputation +suffered from it, and he did not obtain what he desired. He had +completely run himself into a noose. One of his opponents summed +up his political position at that time by saying that he had +endeavoured "to conserve by silence his embroidered triumphal +mantle." In fact nothing was left for him but to fret. + +Rise of Caesar + +Then a new combination offered itself. The leader +of the democratic party had actively employed in his own interest +the political calm which had immediately followed on the retirement +of the previous holder of power. When Pompeius returned from Asia, +Caesar had been little more than what Catilina was--the chief +of a political party which had dwindled almost into a club +of conspirators, and a bankrupt. But since that event he had, +after administering the praetorship (692), been invested +with the governorship of Further Spain, and thereby had found means +partly to rid himself of his debts, partly to lay the foundation +for his military repute. His old friend and ally Crassus had been +induced by the hope of finding the support against Pompeius, +which he had lost in Piso,(4) once more in Caesar, to relieve him +even before his departure to the province from the most oppressive +portion of his load of debt. He himself had energetically employed +his brief sojourn there. Returning from Spain in the year 694 +with filled chests and as Imperator with well-founded claims +to a triumph, he came forward for the following year as a candidate +for the consulship; for the sake of which, as the senate refused +him permission to announce himself as a candidate for the consular +election in absence, he without hesitation abandoned the honour +of the triumph. For years the democracy had striven to raise +one of its partisans to the possession of the supreme magistracy, +that by way of this bridge it might attain a military power of its own. +It had long been clear to discerning men of all shades that the strife +of parties could not be settled by civil conflict, but only +by military power; but the course of the coalition between +the democracy and the powerful military chiefs, through which the rule +of the senate had been terminated, showed with inexorable clearness +that every such alliance ultimately issued in a subordination +of the civil under the military elements, and that the popular party, +if it would really rule, must not ally itself with generals +properly foreign and even hostile to it, but must make generals +of its own leaders themselves. The attempts made with this view +to carry the election of Catilina as consul, and to gain a military +support in Spain or Egypt, had failed; now a possibility presented +itself of procuring for their most important man the consulship +and the consular province in the usual constitutional way, +and of rendering themselves independent of their dubious and dangerous +ally Pompeius by the establishment, if we may so speak, of a home +power in their own democratic household. + +Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar + +But the more the democracy could not but desire to open up +for itself this path, which offered not so much the most favourable +as the only prospect of real successes, the more certainly it +might reckon on the resolute resistance of its political opponents. +Everything depended on whom it found opposed to it in this matter. +The aristocracy isolated was not formidable; but it had just been +rendered evident in the Catilinarian affair that it could certainly +still exert some influence, where it was more or less openly +supported by the men of material interests and by the adherents +of Pompeius. It had several times frustrated Catilina's candidature +for the consulship, and that it would attempt the like against +Caesar was sufficiently certain. But, even though Caesar should +perhaps be chosen in spite of it, his election alone did not suffice. +He needed at least some years of undisturbed working out of Italy, +in order to gain a firm military position; and the nobility +assuredly would leave no means untried to thwart his plans +during this time of preparation. The idea naturally occurred, +whether the aristocracy might not be again successfully isolated +as in 683-684, and an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might +not be established between the democrats with their ally Crassus +on the one side and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. +For Pompeius such a coalition was certainly a political suicide. +His weight hitherto in the state rested on the fact, that he was +the only party-leader who at the same time disposed of legions-- +which, though now dissolved, were still in a certain sense +at his disposal. The plan of the democracy was directed +to the very object of depriving him of this preponderance, +and of placing by his side in their own chief a military rival. +Never could he consent to this, and least of all personally help +to a post of supreme command a man like Caesar, who already +as a mere political agitator had given him trouble enough +and had just furnished the most brilliant proofs also of military +capacity in Spain. But on the other hand, in consequence +of the cavilling opposition of the senate and the indifference +of the multitude to Pompeius and Pompeius' wishes, his position, +particularly with reference to his old soldiers, had become so painful +and so humiliating, that people might well expect from his character +to gain him for such a coalition at the price of releasing him +from that disagreeable situation. And as to the so-called +equestrian party, it was to be found on whatever side the power lay; +and as a matter of course it would not let itself be long waited for, +if it saw Pompeius and the democracy combining anew in earnest. +It happened moreover, that on account of Cato's severity-- +otherwise very laudable--towards the lessees of the taxes, +the great capitalists were just at this time once more +at vehement variance with the senate. + +Change in the Position of Caesar + +So the second coalition was concluded in the summer of 694. +Caesar was assured of the consulship for the following year +and a governorship in due course; to Pompeius was promised +the ratification of his arrangements made in the east, +and an assignation of lands for the soldiers of the Asiatic army; +to the equites Caesar likewise promised to procure for them +by means of the burgesses what the senate had refused; Crassus +in fine--the inevitable--was allowed at least to join the league, +although without obtaining definite promises for an accession +which he could not refuse. It was exactly the same elements, +and indeed the same persons, who concluded the league with one another +in the autumn of 683 and in the summer of 694; but how entirely different +was the position of the parties then and now! Then the democracy +was nothing but a political party, while its allies were victorious +generals at the head of their armies; now the leader of the democracy +was himself an Imperator crowned with victory and full +of magnificent military schemes, while his allies were retired +generals without any army. Then the democracy conquered +in questions of principle, and in return for that victory conceded +the highest offices of state to its two confederates; now it had +become more practical and grasped the supreme civil and military +power for itself, while concessions were made to its allies only +in subordinate points and, significantly enough, not even the old +demand of Pompeius for a second consulship was attended to. Then +the democracy sacrificed itself to its allies; now these had +to entrust themselves to it. All the circumstances were completely +changed, most of all, however, the character of the democracy +itself. No doubt it had, ever since it existed at all, +contained at its very core a monarchic element; but the ideal +of a constitution, which floated in more or less clear outline before +its best intellects, was always that of a civil commonwealth, +a Periclean organization of the state, in which the power +of the prince rested on the fact that he represented the burgesses +in the noblest and most accomplished manner, and the most accomplished +and noblest part of the burgesses recognized him as the man in whom +they thoroughly confided. Caesar too set out with such views; +but they were simply ideals, which might have some influence +on realities, but could not be directly realized. Neither the simple +civil power, as Gaius Gracchus possessed it, nor the arming +of the democratic party, such as Cinna though in a very inadequate +fashion had attempted, was able to maintain a permanent superiority +in the Roman commonwealth; the military machine fighting not for a party +but for a general, the rude force of the condottieri--after having +first appeared on the stage in the service of the restoration--soon +showed itself absolutely superior to all political parties. Caesar +could not but acquire a conviction of this amidst the practical +workings of party, and accordingly he matured the momentous +resolution of making this military machine itself serviceable +to his ideals, and of erecting such a commonwealth, as he had +in his view, by the power of condottieri. With this design +he concluded in 683 the league with the generals of the opposite party, +which, notwithstanding that they had accepted the democratic programme, +yet brought the democracy and Caesar himself to the brink +of destruction. With the same design he himself came forward eleven +years afterwards as a condottiere. It was done in both cases +with a certain naivete--with good faith in the possibility +of his being able to found a free commonwealth, if not by the swords +of others, at any rate by his own. We perceive without difficulty +that this faith was fallacious, and that no one takes an evil spirit +into his service without becoming himself enslaved to it; +but the greatest men are not those who err the least. +If we still after so many centuries bow in reverence before what +Caesar willed and did, it is not because he desired and gained +a crown (to do which is, abstractly, as little of a great thing +as the crown itself) but because his mighty ideal--of a free commonwealth +under one ruler--never forsook him, and preserved him even when monarch +from sinking into vulgar royalty. + +Caesar Consul + +The election of Caesar as consul for 695 was carried without +difficulty by the united parties. The aristocracy had to rest +content with giving to him--by means of a bribery, for which +the whole order of lords contributed the funds, and which excited +surprise even in that period of deepest corruption--a colleague +in the person of Marcus Bibulus, whose narrow-minded obstinacy +was regarded in their circles as conservative energy, +and whose good intentions at least were not at fault if the genteel +lords did not get a fit return for their patriotic expenditure. + +Caesar's Agrarian Law + +As consul Caesar first submitted to discussion the requests of his +confederates, among which the assignation of land to the veterans +of the Asiatic army was by far the most important. The agrarian +law projected for this purpose by Caesar adhered in general +to the principles set forth in the project of law, which was introduced +in the previous year at the suggestion of Pompeius but not carried.(5) +There was destined for distribution only the Italian domain-land, +that is to say, substantially, the territory of Capua, and, if this +should not suffice, other Italian estates were to be purchased +out of the revenue of the new eastern provinces at the taxable value +recorded in the censorial rolls; all existing rights of property +and heritable possession thus remained unaffected. The individual +allotments were small. The receivers of land were to be poor +burgesses, fathers of at least three children; the dangerous +principle, that the rendering of military service gave a claim +to landed estate, was not laid down, but, as was reasonable and had +been done at all times, the old soldiers as well as the temporary +lessees to be ejected were simply recommended to the special +consideration of the land-distributors. The execution of the measure +was entrusted to a commission of twenty men, into which Caesar +distinctly declared that he did not wish to be himself elected. + +Opposition of the Aristocracy + +The opposition had a difficult task in resisting this proposal. +It could not rationally be denied, that the state-finances ought +after the erection of the provinces of Pontus and Syria to be +in a position to dispense with the moneys from the Campanian leases; +that it was unwarrantable to withhold one of the finest districts +of Italy, and one peculiarly fitted for small holdings, +from private enterprise; and, lastly, that it was as unjust as it +was ridiculous, after the extension of the franchise to all Italy, +still to withhold municipal rights from the township of Capua. +The whole proposal bore the stamp of moderation, honesty, and solidity, +with which a democratic party-character was very dexterously +combined; for in substance it amounted to the re-establishment +of the Capuan colony founded in the time of Marius and again +done away by Sulla.(6) In form too Caesar observed all possible +consideration. He laid the project of the agrarian law, as well +as the proposal to ratify collectively the ordinances issued +by Pompeius in the east, and the petition of the farmers of the taxes +for remission of a third of the sums payable by them, in the first +instance before the senate for approval, and declared himself +ready to entertain and discuss proposals for alterations. +The corporation had now opportunity of convincing itself how foolishly +it had acted in driving Pompeius and the equites into the arms +of the adversary by refusing these requests. Perhaps it was +the secret sense of this, that drove the high-born lords to the most +vehement opposition, which contrasted ill with the calm demeanour +of Caesar. The agrarian law was rejected by them nakedly and even +without discussion. The decree as to the arrangements of Pompeius +in Asia found quite as little favour in their eyes. Cato attempted, +in accordance with the disreputable custom of Roman parliamentary +debate, to kill the proposal regarding the farmers of the taxes +by speaking, that is, to prolong his speech up to the legal hour +for closing the sitting; when Caesar threatened to have the stubborn +man arrested, this proposal too was at length rejected. + +Proposals before the Burgesses + +Of course all the proposals were now brought before the burgesses. +Without deviating far from the truth, Caesar could tell +the multitude that the senate had scornfully rejected most rational +and most necessary proposals submitted to it in the most respectful +form, simply because they came from the democratic consul. +When he added that the aristocrats had contrived a plot to procure +the rejection of the proposals, and summoned the burgesses, +and more especially Pompeius himself and his old soldiers, to stand +by him against fraud and force, this too was by no means a mere invention. +The aristocracy, with the obstinate weak creature Bibulus +and the unbending dogmatical fool Cato at their head, in reality +intended to push the matter to open violence. Pompeius, instigated +by Caesar to proclaim his position with reference to the pending +question, declared bluntly, as was not his wont on other occasions, +that if any one should venture to draw the sword, he too would +grasp his, and in that case would not leave the shield at home; +Crassus expressed himself to the same effect The old soldiers +of Pompeius were directed to appear on the day of the vote-- +which in fact primarily concerned them--in great numbers, +and with arms under their dress, at the place of voting. + +The nobility however left no means untried to frustrate the proposals +of Caesar. On each day when Caesar appeared before the people, +his colleague Bibulus instituted the well-known political observations +of the weather which interrupted all public business;(7) Caesar +did not trouble himself about the skies, but continued to prosecute +his terrestrial occupation. The tribunician veto was interposed; +Caesar contented himself with disregarding it. Bibulus and Cato +sprang to the rostra, harangued the multitude, and instigated +the usual riot; Caesar ordered that they should be led away +by lictors from the Forum, and took care that otherwise no harm +should befall them--it was for his interest that the political +comedy should remain such as it was. + +The Agrarian Law Carried +Passive Resistance of the Aristocracy + +Notwithstanding all the chicanery and all the blustering +of the nobility, the agrarian law, the confirmation of the Asiatic +arrangements, and the remission to the lessees of taxes +were adopted by the burgesses; and the commission of twenty was elected +with Pompeius and Crassus at its head, and installed in office. +With all their exertions the aristocracy had gained nothing, +save that their blind and spiteful antagonism had drawn the bonds +of the coalition still tighter, and their energy, which they were soon +to need for matters more important, had exhausted itself +on these affairs that were at bottom indifferent. They congratulated +each other on the heroic courage which they had displayed; +the declaration of Bibulus that he would rather die than yield, +the peroration which Cato still continued to deliver when in the hands +of the lictors, were great patriotic feats; otherwise they resigned +themselves to their fate. The consul Bibulus shut himself up +for the remainder of the year in his house, while he at the same time +intimated by public placard that he had the pious intention +of watching the signs of the sky on all the days appropriate +for public assemblies during that year. His colleagues once more +admired the great man who, as Ennius had said of the old Fabius, +"saved the state by wise delay," and they followed his example; +most of them, Cato included, no longer appeared in the senate, +but within their four walls helped their consul to fret over +the fact that the history of the world went on in spite of political +astronomy. To the public this passive attitude of the consul +as well as of the aristocracy in general appeared, as it fairly might, +a political abdication; and the coalition were naturally very well +content that they were left to take their farther steps almost +undisturbed. + +Caesar Governor of the Two Gauls + +The most important of these steps was the regulating of the future +position of Caesar. Constitutionally it devolved on the senate +to fix the functions of the second consular year of office before +the election of the consuls took place; accordingly it had, in prospect +of the election of Caesar, selected with that view for 696 two +provinces in which the governor should find no other employment +than the construction of roads and other such works of utility. +Of course the matter could not so remain; it was determined among +the confederates, that Caesar should obtain by decree of the people +an extraordinary command formed on the model of the Gabinio-Manilian +laws. Caesar however had publicly declared that he would introduce +no proposal in his own favour; the tribune of the people Publius +Vatinius therefore undertook to submit the proposal to the burgesses, +who naturally gave their unconditional assent. By this means +Caesar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and the supreme +command of the three legions which were stationed there +and were already experienced in border warfare under Lucius Afranius, +along with the same rank of propraetor for his adjutants +which those of Pompeius had enjoyed; this office was secured to him +for five years--a longer period than had ever before been assigned +to any general whose appointment was limited to a definite time +at all. The Transpadanes, who for years had in hope of the franchise +been the clients of the democratic party in Rome and of Caesar +in particular,(8) formed the main portion of his province. +His jurisdiction extended south as far as the Arnus and the Rubico, +and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently there was added to Caesar's +official district the province of Narbo with the one legion +stationed there--a resolution adopted by the senate on the proposal +of Pompeius, that it might at least not see this command +also pass to Caesar by extraordinary decree of the burgesses. +What was wished was thus attained. As no troops could constitutionally +be stationed in Italy proper,(9) the commander of the legions +of northern Italy and Gaul dominated at the same time Italy and Rome +for the next five years; and he who was master for five years +was master for life. The consulship of Caesar had attained its object. +As a matter of course, the new holders of power did not neglect +withal to keep the multitude in good humour by games and amusements +of all sorts, and they embraced every opportunity of filling their +exchequer; in the case of the king of Egypt, for instance, +the decree of the people, which recognized him as legitimate ruler,(10) +was sold to him by the coalition at a high price, and in like manner +other dynasts and communities acquired charters and privileges +on this occasion. + +Measures Adopted by the Allies for Their Security + +The permanence of the arrangements made seemed also sufficiently +secured. The consulship was, at least for the next year, entrusted +to safe hands. The public believed at first, that it was destined +for Pompeius and Crassus themselves; the holders of power however +preferred to procure the election of two subordinate but trustworth +men of their party--Aulus Gabinius, the best among Pompeius' adjutants, +and Lucius Piso, who was less important but was Caesar's father-in-law-- +as consuls for 696. Pompeius personally undertook to watch over Italy, +where at the head of the commission of twenty he prosecuted the execution +of the agrarian law and furnished nearly 20,000 burgesses, +in great part old soldiers from his army, with land in the territory +of Capua. Caesar's north-Italian legions served to back him +against the opposition in the capital. There existed no prospect, +immediately at least, of a rupture among the holders of power themselves. +The laws issued by Caesar as consul, in the maintenance of which +Pompeius was at least as much interested as Caesar, formed +a guarantee for the continuance of the breach between Pompeius +and the aristocracy--whose heads, and Cato in particular, +continued to treat these laws as null--and thereby a guarantee +for the subsistence of the coalition. Moreover, the personal bonds +of connection between its chiefs were drawn closer. Caesar had +honestly and faithfully kept his word to his confederates +without curtailing or cheating them of what he had promised, +and in particular had fought to secure the agrarian law proposed +in the interest of Pompeius, just as if the case had been his own, +with dexterity and energy; Pompeius was not insensible to upright +dealing and good faith, and was kindly disposed towards the man +who had helped him to get quit at a blow of the sorry part +of a suppliant which he had been playing for three years. Frequent +and familiar intercourse with a man of the irresistible amiableness +of Caesar did what was farther requisite to convert the alliance +of interests into an alliance of friendship. The result +and the pledge of this friendship--at the same time, doubtless, +a public announcement which could hardly be misunderstood +of the newly established conjoint rule--was the marriage of Pompeius +with Caesar's only daughter, three-and-twenty years of age. +Julia, who had inherited the charm of her father, lived +in the happiest domestic relations with her husband, who was +nearly twice as old; and the burgesses longing for rest +and order after so many troubles and crises, saw in this nuptial +alliance the guarantee of a peaceful and prosperous future. + +Situation of the Aristocracy + +The more firmly and closely the alliance was thus cemented +between Pompeius and Caesar, the more hopeless grew the cause +of the aristocracy. They felt the sword suspended over their head +and knew Caesar sufficiently to have no doubt that he would, +if necessary, use it without hesitation. "On all sides," wrote +one of them, "we are checkmated; we have already through fear of death +or of banishment despaired of 'freedom'; every one sighs, +no one ventures to speak." More the confederates could not desire. +But though the majority of the aristocracy was in this desirable +frame of mind, there was, of course, no lack of Hotspurs among +this party. Hardly had Caesar laid down the consulship, when some +of the most violent aristocrats, Lucius Domitius and Gaius Memmius, +proposed in a full senate the annulling of the Julian laws. +This indeed was simply a piece of folly, which redounded only +to the benefit of the coalition; for, when Caesar now himself +insisted that the senate should investigate the validity of the laws +assailed, the latter could not but formally recognize their +legality. But, as may readily be conceived, the holders of power +found in this a new call to make an example of some of the most +notable and noisiest of their opponents, and thereby to assure +themselves that the remainder would adhere to that fitting policy +of sighing and silence. At first there had been a hope +that the clause of the agrarian law, which as usual required +all the senators to take an oath to the new law on pain of forfeiting +their political rights, would induce its most vehement opponents +to banish themselves, after the example of Metellus Numidicus,(11) +by refusing the oath. But these did not show themselves +so complaisant; even the rigid Cato submitted to the oath, +and his Sanchos followed him. A second, far from honourable, +attempt to threaten the heads of the aristocracy with criminal +impeachments on account of an alleged plot for the murder of Pompeius, +and so to drive them into exile, was frustrated by the incapacity +of the instruments; the informer, one Vettius, exaggerated +and contradicted himself so grossly, and the tribune Vatinius, +who directed the foul scheme, showed his complicity with that Vettius +so clearly, that it was found advisable to strangle the latter +in prison and to let the whole matter drop. On this occasion however +they had obtained sufficient evidence of the total disorganization +of the aristocracy and the boundless alarm of the genteel lords: +even a man like Lucius Lucullus had thrown himself in person +at Caesar's feet and publicly declared that he found himself compelled +by reason of his great age to withdraw from public life. + +Cato and Cicero Removed + +Ultimately therefore they were content with a few isolated victims. +It was of primary importance to remove Cato, who made no secret +of his conviction as to the nullity of all the Julian laws, +and who was a man to act as he thought. Such a man Marcus Cicero +was certainly not, and they did not give themselves the trouble +to fear him. But the democratic party, which played the leading part +in the coalition, could not possibly after its victory leave +unpunished the judicial murder of the 5th December 691, which it +had so loudly and so justly censured. Had they wished to bring +to account the real authors of the fatal decree, they ought +to have seized not on the pusillanimous consul, but on the section +of the strict aristocracy which had urged the timorous man +to that execution. But in formal law it was certainly not the advisers +of the consul, but the consul himself, that was responsible for it, +and it was above all the gentler course to call the consul alone +to account and to leave the senatorial college wholly out of the case; +for which reason in the grounds of the proposal directed against +Cicero the decree of the senate, in virtue of which he ordered +the execution, was directly described as supposititious. Even against +Cicero the holders of power would gladly have avoided steps +that attracted attention; but he could not prevail on himself either +to give to those in power the guarantees which they required, +or to banish himself from Rome under one of the feasible pretexts +on several occasions offered to him, or even to keep silence. +With the utmost desire to avoid any offence and the most sincere alarm, +he yet had not self-control enough to be prudent; the word had +to come out, when a petulant witticism stung him, or when his self- +conceit almost rendered crazy by the praise of so many noble lords +gave vent to the well-cadenced periods of the plebeian advocate. + +Clodius + +The execution of the measures resolved on against Cato and Cicero +was committed to the loose and dissolute, but clever and pre- +eminently audacious Publius Clodius, who had lived for years +in the bitterest enmity with Cicero, and, with the view of satisfying +that enmity and playing a part as demagogue, had got himself converted +under the consulship of Caesar by a hasty adoption from a patrician +into a plebeian, and then chosen as tribune of the people +for the year 696. To support Clodius, the proconsul Caesar remained +in the immediate vicinity of the capital till the blow was struck +against the two victims. Agreeably to the instructions +which he had received, Clodius proposed to the burgesses to entrust +Cato with the regulation of the complicated municipal affairs +of the Byzantines and with the annexation of the kingdom of Cyprus, +which as well as Egypt had fallen to the Romans by the testament +of Alexander II, but had not like Egypt bought off the Roman +annexation, and the king of which, moreover, had formerly given +personal offence to Clodius. As to Cicero, Clodius brought in +a project of law which characterized the execution of a burgess +without trial and sentence as a crime to be punished with banishment. +Cato was thus removed by an honourable mission, while Cicero +was visited at least with the gentlest possible punishment and, +besides, was not designated by name in the proposal. But they did not +refuse themselves the pleasure, on the one hand, of punishing +a man notoriously timid and belonging to the class of political +weathercocks for the conservative energy which he displayed, +and, on the other hand, of investing the bitter opponent +of all interferences of the burgesses in administration +and of all extraordinary commands with such a command conferred +by decree of the burgesses themselves; and with similar humour +the proposal respecting Cato was based on the ground of the abnormal +virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified +to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation +of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement. +Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful +deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar +in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance. +It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate, +with the view of protesting in some way against the mockery +and censure of their decree in the matter of Catilina, publicly +put on mourning, and that Cicero himself, now when it was too late, +fell on his knees and besought mercy from Pompeius; he had to banish +himself even before the passing of the law which debarred him +from his native land (April 696). Cato likewise did not venture +to provoke sharper measures by declining the commission +which he had received, but accepted itand embarked for the east.(12) +What was most immediately necessary was done; Caesar too +might leave Italy to devote himself to more serious tasks. + + + + +Chapter VII + +The Subjugation of the West + +The Romanizing of the West + +When the course of history turns from the miserable monotony +of the political selfishness, which fought its battles +in the senate-house and in the streets of the capital, to matters +of greater importance than the question whether the first monarch +of Rome should be called Gnaeus, Gaius, or Marcus, we may well +be allowed--on the threshold of an event, the effects of which still +at the present day influence the destinies of the world--to look round us +for a moment, and to indicate the point of view under which the conquest +of what is now France by the Romans, and their first contact +with the inhabitants of Germany and of Great Britain, are to be +apprehended in their bearing on the general history of the world. + +By virtue of the law, that a people which has grown into a state +absorbs its neighbours who are in political nonage, and a civilized +people absorbs its neighbours who are in intellectual nonage-- +by virtue of this law, which is as universally valid and as much +a law of nature as the law of gravity--the Italian nation (the only +one in antiquity which was able to combine a superior political +development and a superior civilization, though it presented +the latter only in an imperfect and external manner) was entitled +to reduce to subjection the Greek states of the east which were ripe +for destruction, and to dispossess the peoples of lower grades +of culture in the west--Libyans, Iberians, Celts, Germans--by means +of its settlers; just as England with equal right has in Asia reduced +to subjection a civilization of rival standing but politically +impotent, and in America and Australia has marked and ennobled, +and still continues to mark and ennoble, extensive barbarian +countries with the impress of its nationality. The Roman aristocracy +had accomplished the preliminary condition required for this task-- +the union of Italy; the task itself it never solved, but always +regarded the extra-Italian conquests either as simply a necessary +evil, or as a fiscal possession virtually beyond the pale +of the state. It is the imperishable glory of the Roman democracy +or monarchy--for the two coincide--to have correctly apprehended +and vigorously realized this its highest destination. What +the irresistible force of circumstances had paved the way for, +through the senate establishing against its will the foundations +of the future Roman dominion in the west as in the east; what thereafter +the Roman emigration to the provinces--which came as a public +calamity, no doubt, but also in the western regions at any rate +as a pioneer of a higher culture--pursued as matter of instinct; +the creator of the Roman democracy, Gaius Gracchus, grasped +and began to carry out with statesmanlike clearness and decision. +The two fundamental ideas of the new policy--to reunite +the territories under the power of Rome, so far as they were Hellenic, +and to colonize them, so far as they were not Hellenic--had already +in the Gracchan age been practically recognized by the annexation +of the kingdom of Attalus and by the Transalpine conquests of Flaccus: +but the prevailing reaction once more arrested their application. +The Roman state remained a chaotic mass of countries without thorough +occupation and without proper limits. Spain and the Graeco-Asiatic +possessions were separated from the mother country by wide +territories, of which barely the borders along the coast +were subject to the Romans; on the north coast of Africa the domains +of Carthage and Cyrene alone were occupied like oases; large tracts +even of the subject territory, especially in Spain, were but nominally +subject to the Romans. Absolutely nothing was done on the part +of the government towards concentrating and rounding off +their dominion, and the decay of the fleet seemed at length +to dissolve the last bond of connection between the distant +possessions. The democracy no doubt attempted, so soon as it +again raised its head, to shape its external policy in the spirit +of Gracchus--Marius in particular cherished such ideas--but as it +did not for any length of time attain the helm, its projects +were left unfulfilled. It was not till the democracy practically took +in hand the government on the overthrow of the Sullan constitution +in 684, that a revolution in this respect occurred. First of all +their sovereignty on the Mediterranean was restored--the most +vital question for a state like that of Rome. Towards the east, +moreover, the boundary of the Euphrates was secured by the annexation +of the provinces of Pontus and Syria. But there still remained beyond +the Alps the task of at once rounding off the Roman territory towards +the north and west, and of gaining a fresh virgin soil there +for Hellenic civilization and for the yet unbroken vigour +of the Italic race. + +Historical Significance of the Conquests of Caesar + +This task Gaius Caesar undertook. It is more than an error, +it is an outrage upon the sacred spirit dominant in history, +to regard Gaul solely as the parade ground on which Caesar +exercised himself and his legions for the impending civil war. +Though the subjugation of the west was for Caesar so far a means +to an end that he laid the foundations of his later height of power +in the Transalpine wars, it is the especial privilege of a statesman +of genius that his means themselves are ends in their turn. Caesar +needed no doubt for his party aims a military power, but he did not +conquer Gaul as a partisan. There was a direct political necessity +for Rome to meet the perpetually threatened invasion of the Germans +thus early beyond the Alps, and to construct a rampart there +which should secure the peace of the Roman world. But even this +important object was not the highest and ultimate reason for which Gaul +was conquered by Caesar. When the old home had become too +narrow for the Roman burgesses and they were in danger of decay, +the senate's policy of Italian conquest saved them from ruin. +Now the Italian home had become in its turn too narrow; once more +the state languished under the same social evils repeating themselves +in similar fashion only on a greater scale. It was a brilliant +idea, a grand hope, which led Caesar over the Alps--the idea +and the confident expectation that he should gain there for his +fellow-burgesses a new boundless home, and regenerate the state +a second time by placing it on a broader basis. + +Caesar in Spain + +The campaign which Caesar undertook in 693 in Further Spain, may +be in some sense included among the enterprises which aimed at +the subjugation of the west. Long as Spain had obeyed the Romans, +its western shore had remained substantially independent of them +even after the expedition of Decimus Brutus against the Callaeci(1), +and they had not even set foot on the northern coast; while +the predatory raids, to which the subject provinces found +themselves continually exposed from those quarters, did no small +injury to the civilization and Romanizing of Spain. Against these +the expedition of Caesar along the west coast was directed. +He crossed the chain of the Herminian mountains (Sierra de Estrella) +bounding the Tagus on the north; after having conquered their +inhabitants and transplanted them in part to the plain, he reduced +the country on both sides of the Douro and arrived at the northwest +point of the peninsula, where with the aid of a flotilla brought +up from Gades he occupied Brigantium (Corunna). By this means +the peoples adjoining the Atlantic Ocean, Lusitanians and Callaecians, +were forced to acknowledge the Roman supremacy, while the conqueror +was at the same time careful to render the position of the subjects +generally more tolerable by reducing the tribute to be paid to Rome +and regulating the financial affairs of the communities. + +But, although in this military and administrative debut of the great +general and statesman the same talents and the same leading ideas are +discernible which he afterwards evinced on a greater stage, his agency +in the Iberian peninsula was much too transient to have any deep effect; +the more especially as, owing to its physical and national peculiarities, +nothing but action steadily continued for a considerable time could +exert any durable influence there. + +Gaul + +A more important part in the Romanic development of the west +was reserved by destiny for the country which stretches between +the Pyrenees and the Rhine, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, +and which since the Augustan age has been especially designated +by the name of the land of the Celts--Gallia--although strictly +speaking the land of the Celts was partly narrower, partly much +more extensive, and the country so called never formed a national +unity, and did not form a political unity before Augustus. +For this very reason it is not easy to present a clear picture +of the very heterogeneous state of things which Caesar encountered +on his arrival there in 696. + +The Roman Province +Wars and Revolts There + +In the region on the Mediterranean, which, embracing approximately +Languedoc on the west of the Rhone, on the east Dauphine and Provence, +had been for sixty years a Roman province, the Roman arms had seldom +been at rest since the Cimbrian invasion which had swept over it. +In 664 Gaius Caelius had fought with the Salyes about Aquae Sextiae, +and in 674 Gaius Flaccus,(2) on his march to Spain, with other +Celtic nations. When in the Sertorian war the governor Lucius Manlius, +compelled to hasten to the aid of his colleagues beyond the Pyrenees, +returned defeated from Ilerda (Lerida) and on his way home +was vanquished a second time by the western neighbours +of the Roman province, the Aquitani (about 676;(3)), this seems +to have provoked a general rising of the provincials between +the Pyrenees and the Rhone, perhaps even of those between the Rhone +and Alps. Pompeius had to make his way with the sword through +the insurgent Gaul to Spain,(4) and by way of penalty for their +rebellion gave the territories of the Volcae-Arecomici +and the Helvii (dep. Gard and Ardeche) over to the Massiliots; +the governor Manius Fonteius (678-680) carried out these arrangements +and restored tranquillity in the province by subduing the Vocontii +(dep. Drome), protecting Massilia from the insurgents, +and liberating the Roman capital Narbo which they invested. +Despair, however, and the financial embarrassment which the participation +in the sufferings of the Spanish war(5) and generally the official +and non-official exactions of the Romans brought upon the Gallic +provinces, did not allow them to be tranquil; and in particular +the canton of the Allobroges, the most remote from Narbo, +was in a perpetual ferment, which was attested by the "pacification" +that Gaius Piso undertook there in 688 as well as by the behaviour +of the Allobrogian embassy in Rome on occasion of the anarchist plot +in 691,(6) and which soon afterwards (693) broke into open revolt +Catugnatus the leader of the Allobroges in this war of despair, +who had at first fought not unsuccessfully, was conquered at Solonium +after a glorious resistance by the governor Gaius Pomptinus. + +Bounds +Relations to Rome + +Notwithstanding all these conflicts the bounds of the Roman +territory were not materially advanced; Lugudunum Convenarum, +where Pompeius had settled the remnant of the Sertorian army,(7) +Tolosa, Vienna and Genava were still the most remote Roman townships +towards the west and north. But at the same time the importance +of these Gallic possessions for the mother country was continually +on the increase. The glorious climate, akin to that of Italy, +the favourable nature of the soil, the large and rich region lying +behind so advantageous for commerce with its mercantile routes +reaching as far as Britain, the easy intercourse by land and sea +with the mother country, rapidly gave to southern Gaul an economic +importance for Italy, which much older possessions, such as those +in Spain, had not acquired in the course of centuries; and as +the Romans who had suffered political shipwreck at this period sought +an asylum especially in Massilia, and there found once more Italian +culture and Italian luxury, voluntary emigrants from Italy also +were attracted more and more to the Rhone and the Garonne. +"The province of Gaul," it was said in a sketch drawn ten years +before Caesar's arrival, "is full of merchants; it swarms with Roman +burgesses. No native of Gaul transacts a piece of business without +the intervention of a Roman; every penny, that passes from one hand +to another in Gaul, goes through the account books of the Roman +burgesses." From the same description it appears that in addition +to the colonists of Narbo there were Romans cultivating land +and rearing cattle, resident in great numbers in Gaul; as to which, +however, it must not be overlooked that most of the provincial land +possessed by Romans, just like the greater part of the English +possessions in the earliest times in America, was in the hands +of the high nobility living in Italy, and those farmers and graziers +consisted for the most part of their stewards--slaves or freedmen. + +Incipient Romanizing + +It is easy to understand how under such circumstances civilization +and Romanizing rapidly spread among the natives. These Celts +were not fond of agriculture; but their new masters compelled them +to exchange the sword for the plough, and it is very credible +that the embittered resistance of the Allobroges was provoked in part +by some such injunctions. In earlier times Hellenism had also +to a certain degree dominated those regions; the elements +of a higher culture, the stimulus to the cultivation of the vine +and the olive,(8) to the use of writing(9) and to the coining of money, +came to them from Massilia. The Hellenic culture was in this case +far from being set aside by the Romans; Massilia gained through +them more influence than it lost; and even in the Roman period +Greek physicians and rhetoricians were publicly employed +in the Gallic cantons. But, as may readily be conceived, Hellenism +in southern Gaul acquired through the agency of the Romans the same +character as in Italy; the distinctively Hellenic civilization +gave place to the Latino-Greek mixed culture, which soon made +proselytes here in great numbers. The "Gauls in the breeches," +as the inhabitants of southern Gaul were called by way of contrast +to the "Gauls in the toga" of northern Italy, were not indeed +like the latter already completely Romanized, but they were even now +very perceptibly distinguished from the "longhaired Gauls" +of the northern regions still unsubdued. The semiculture becoming +naturalized among them furnished, doubtless, materials enough +for ridicule of their barbarous Latin, and people did not fail +to suggest to any one suspected of Celtic descent his "relationship +with the breeches"; but this bad Latin was yet sufficient +to enable even the remote Allobroges to transact business +with the Roman authorities, and even to give testimony in the Roman +courts without an interpreter. + +While the Celtic and Ligurian population of these regions +was thus in the course of losing its nationality, and was languishing +and pining withal under a political and economic oppression, +the intolerable nature of which is sufficiently attested by their +hopeless insurrections, the decline of the native population here +went hand in hand with the naturalizing of the same higher culture +which we find at this period in Italy. Aquae Sextiae and still +more Narbo were considerable townships, which might probably be +named by the side of Beneventum and Capua; and Massilia, the best +organized, most free, most capable of self-defence, and most +powerful of all the Greek cities dependent on Rome, under its +rigorous aristocratic government to which the Roman conservatives +probably pointed as the model of a good urban constitution, +in possession of an important territory which had been considerably +enlarged by the Romans and of an extensive trade, stood by the side +of those Latin towns as Rhegium and Neapolis stood in Italy +by the side of Beneventum and Capua. + +Free Gaul + +Matters wore a different aspect, when one crossed the Roman frontier. +The great Celtic nation, which in the southern districts already +began to be crushed by the Italian immigration, still moved +to the north of the Cevennes in its time-hallowed freedom. +It is not the first time that we meet it: the Italians had already +fought with the offsets and advanced posts of this vast stock +on the Tiber and on the Po, in the mountains of Castile and Carinthia, +and even in the heart of Asia Minor; but it was here that the main stock +was first assailed at its very core by their attacks. The Celtic race +had on its settlement in central Europe diffused itself chiefly +over the rich river-valleys and the pleasant hill-country +of the present France, including the western districts of Germany +and Switzerland, and from thence had occupied at least the southern +part of England, perhaps even at this time all Great Britain +and Ireland;(10) it formed here more than anywhere else a broad, +geographically compact, mass of peoples. In spite of +the differences in language and manners which naturally +were to be found within this wide territory, a close mutual intercourse, +an innate sense of fellowship, seems to have knit together +the tribes from the Rhone and Garonne to the Rhine and the Thames; +whereas, although these doubtless were in a certain measure locally +connected with the Celts in Spain and in the modern Austria, +the mighty mountain barriers of the Pyrenees and the Alps +on the one hand, and the encroachments of the Romans and the Germans +which also operated here on the other, interrupted the intercourse +and the intrinsic connection of the cognate peoples far otherwise +than the narrow arm of the sea interrupted the relations +of the continental and the British Celts. Unhappily we are not +permitted to trace stage by stage the history of the internal development +of this remarkable people in these its chief seats; we must be content +with presenting at least some outline of its historical culture +and political condition, as it here meets us in the time of Caesar. + +Population +Agriculture and the Rearing of Cattle + +Gaul was, according to the reports of the ancients, comparatively +well peopled. Certain statements lead us to infer that in the Belgic +districts there were some 200 persons to the square mile-- +a proportion such as nearly holds at present for Wales +and for Livonia--in the Helvetic canton about 245;(11) it is probable +that in the districts which were more cultivated than the Belgic +and less mountainous than the Helvetian, as among the Bituriges, +Arverni, Haedui, the number rose still higher. Agriculture +was no doubt practised in Gaul--for even the contemporaries of Caesar +were surprised in the region of the Rhine by the custom of manuring +with marl,(12) and the primitive Celtic custom of preparing beer +(-cervesia-) from barley is likewise an evidence of the early +and wide diffusion of the culture of grain--but it was not held +in estimation. Even in the more civilized south it was reckoned not +becoming for the free Celts to handle the plough. In far higher +estimation among the Celts stood pastoral husbandry, for which +the Roman landholders of this epoch very gladly availed themselves +both of the Celtic breed of cattle, and of the brave Celtic slaves +skilled in riding and familiar with the rearing of animals.(13) +Particularly in the northern Celtic districts pastoral husbandry +was thoroughly predominant. Brittany was in Caesar's time +a country poor in corn. In the north-east dense forests, attaching +themselves to the heart of the Ardennes, stretched almost without +interruption from the German Ocean to the Rhine; and on the plains +of Flanders and Lorraine, now so fertile, the Menapian and Treverian +herdsman then fed his half-wild swine in the impenetrable oak-forest. +Just as in the valley of the Po the Romans made the production +of wool and the culture of corn supersede the Celtic feeding +of pigs on acorns, so the rearing of sheep and the agriculture +in the plains of the Scheldt and the Maas are traceable +to their influence. In Britain even the threshing of corn +was not yet usual; and in its more northern districts agriculture +was not practised, and the rearing of cattle was the only known mode +of turning the soil to account. The culture of the olive and vine, +which yielded rich produce to the Massiliots, was not yet prosecuted +beyond the Cevennes in the time of Caesar. + +Urban Life + +The Gauls were from the first disposed to settle in groups; +there were open villages everywhere, and the Helvetic canton +alone numbered in 696 four hundred of these, besides a multitude +of single homesteads. But there were not wanting also walled towns, +whose walls of alternate layers surprised the Romans both by their +suitableness and by the elegant interweaving of timber and stones +in their construction; while, it is true, even in the towns +of the Allobroges the buildings were erected solely of wood. +Of such towns the Helvetii had twelve and the Suessiones an equal number; +whereas at all events in the more northern districts, such as among +the Nervii, while there were doubtless also towns, the population +during war sought protection in the morasses and forests rather +than behind their walls, and beyond the Thames the primitive +defence of the wooden barricade altogether took the place +of towns and was in war the only place of refuge for men and herds. + +Intercourse + +In close association with the comparatively considerable +development of urban life stands the activity of intercourse +by land and by water. Everywhere there were roads and bridges. +The river-navigation, which streams like the Rhone, Garonne, Loire, +and Seine, of themselves invited, was considerable and lucrative. +But far more remarkable was the maritime navigation of the Celts. +Not only were the Celts, to all appearance, the nation that first +regularly navigated the Atlantic ocean, but we find that the art +of building and of managing vessels had attained among them +a remarkable development. The navigation of the peoples +of the Mediterranean had, as may readily be conceived from the nature +of the waters traversed by them, for a comparatively long period +adhered to the oar; the war-vessels of the Phoenicians, Hellenes, +and Romans were at all times oared galleys, in which the sail +was applied only as an occasional aid to the oar; the trading vessels +alone were in the epoch of developed ancient civilization "sailers" +properly so called.(14) On the other hand the Gauls doubtless +employed in the Channel in Caesar's time, as for long afterwards, +a species of portable leathern skiffs, which seem to have been +in the main common oared boats, but on the west coast of Gaul +the Santones, the Pictones, and above all the Veneti sailed in large +though clumsily built ships, which were not impelled by oars +but were provided with leathern sails and iron anchor-chains; +and they employed these not only for their traffic with Britain, +but also in naval combat. Here therefore we not only meet +for the first time with navigation in the open ocean, but we find +that here the sailing vessel first fully took the place +of the oared boat--an improvement, it is true, which the declining +activity of the old world did not know how to turn to account, +and the immeasurable results of which our own epoch of renewed culture +is employed in gradually reaping. + +Commerce +Manufactures + +With this regular maritime intercourse between the British +and Gallic coasts, the very close political connection between +the inhabitants on both sides of the Channel is as easily explained +as the flourishing of transmarine commerce and of fisheries. +It was the Celts of Brittany in particular, that brought the tin +of the mines of Cornwall from England and carried it by the river +and land routes of Gaul to Narbo and Massilia. The statement, +that in Caesar's time certain tribes at the mouth of the Rhine subsisted +on fish and birds' eggs, may probably refer to the circumstance +that marine fishing and the collection of the eggs of sea-birds +were prosecuted there on an extensive scale. When we put together +and endeavour to fill up the isolated and scanty statements which have +reached us regarding the Celtic commerce and intercourse, we come +to see why the tolls of the river and maritime ports play a great +part in the budgets of certain cantons, such as those of the Haedui +and the Veneti, and why the chief god of the nation was regarded +by them as the protector of the roads and of commerce, and at +the same time as the inventor of manufactures. Accordingly the Celtic +industry cannot have been wholly undeveloped; indeed the singular +dexterity of the Celts, and their peculiar skill in imitating +any model and executing any instructions, are noticed by Caesar. +In most branches, however, their handicraft does not appear +to have risen above the ordinary level; the manufacture of linen +and woollen stuffs, that subsequently flourished in central +and northern Gaul, was demonstrably called into existence only +by the Romans. The elaboration of metals forms an exception, +and so far as we know the only one. The copper implements +not unfrequently of excellent workmanship and even now malleable, +which are brought to light in the tombs of Gaul, and the carefully +adjusted Arvernian gold coins, are still at the present day +striking witnesses of the skill of the Celtic workers in copper +and gold; and with this the reports of the ancients well accord, +that the Romans learned the art of tinning from the Bituriges +and that of silvering from the Alesini--inventions, the first of which +was naturally suggested by the traffic' in tin, and both of which +were probably made in the period of Celtic freedom. + +Mining + +Hand in hand with dexterity in the elaboration of the metals went +the art of procuring them, which had attained, more especially in +the iron mines on the Loire, such a degree of professional skill +that the miners played an important part in the sieges. The opinion +prevalent among the Romans of this period, that Gaul was one +of the richest gold countries in the world, is no doubt refuted +by the well-known nature of the soil and by the character +of the articles found in the Celtic tombs, in which gold appears +but sparingly and with far less frequency than in the similar +repositories of the true native regions of gold; this conception +no doubt had its origin merely from the descriptions which Greek +travellers and Roman soldiers, doubtless not without strong +exaggeration, gave to their countrymen of the magnificence +of the Arvernian kings,(15) and of the treasures of the Tolosan +temples.(16) But their stories were not pure fictions. It may +well be believed that in and near the rivers which flow +from the Alps and the Pyrenees gold-washing and searches for gold, +which are unprofitable at the present value of labour, were worked +with profit and on a considerable scale in ruder times and with a system +of slavery; besides, the commercial relations of Gaul may, +as is not unfrequently the case with half-civilized peoples, +have favoured the accumulation of a dead stock of the precious metals. + +Art and Science + +The low state of the arts of design is remarkable, +and is the more striking by the side of this mechanical skill +in handling the metals. The fondness for parti-coloured and brilliant +ornaments shows the want of a proper taste, which is sadly confirmed +by the Gallic coins with their representations sometimes exceedingly +simple, sometimes odd, but always childish in design, and almost +without exception rude beyond parallel in their execution. +It is perhaps unexampled that a coinage practised for centuries +with a certain technical skill should have essentially limited itself +to always imitating two or three Greek dies, and always +with increasing deformity. On the other hand the art of poetry +was highly valued by the Celts, and intimately blended +with the religious and even with the political institutions +of the nation; we find religious poetry, as well as that of the court +and of the mendicant, flourishing.(17) Natural science and philosophy +also found, although subject to the forms and fetters of the theology +of the country, a certain amount of attention among the Celts; +and Hellenic humanism met with a ready reception wherever +and in whatever shape it approached them. The knowledge of writing +was general at least among the priests. For the most part in free Gaul +the Greek writing was made use of in Caesar's time, as was done +among others by the Helvetii; but in its most southern districts +even then, in consequence of intercourse with the Romanized Celts, +the Latin attained predominance--we meet with it, for instance, +on the Arvernian coins of this period. + +Political Organization +Cantonal Constitution + +The political development of the Celtic nation also presents +very remarkable phenomena. The constitution of the state was based +in this case, as everywhere, on the clan-canton, with its prince, +its council of the elders, and its community of freemen capable +of bearing arms; but the peculiarity in this case was that it never +got beyond this cantonal constitution. Among the Greeks and Romans +the canton was very early superseded by the ring-wall as the basis +of political unity; where two cantons found themselves together +within the same walls, they amalgamated into one commonwealth; +where a body of burgesses assigned to a portion of their fellow- +burgesses a new ring-wall, there regularly arose in this way a new +state connected with the mother community only by ties of piety +and, at most, of clientship. Among the Celts on the other hand +the "burgess-body" continued at all times to be the clan; prince +and council presided over the canton and not over any town, +and the general diet of the canton formed the authority of last resort +in the state. The town had, as in the east, merely mercantile +and strategic, not political importance; for which reason the Gallic +townships, even when walled and very considerable such as Vienna +and Genava, were in the view of the Greeks and Romans nothing +but villages. In the time of Caesar the original clan-constitution +still subsisted substantially unaltered among the insular Celts +and in the northern cantons of the mainland; the general assembly held +the supreme authority; the prince was in essential questions bound +by its decrees; the common council was numerous--it numbered +in certain clans six hundred members--but does not appear +to have had more importance than the senate under the Roman kings. +In the more stirring southern portion of the land, again, +one or two generations before Caesar--the children of the last kings +were still living in his time--there had occurred, at least +among the larger clans, the Arverni, Haedui, Sequani, Helvetii, +a revolution which set aside the royal dominion and gave the power +into the hands of the nobility. + +Development of Knighthood +Breaking Up of the Old Cantonal Constitution + +It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban +commonwealths among the Celts just noticed, that the opposite pole +of political development, knighthood, so thoroughly preponderates +in the Celtic clan-constitution. The Celtic aristocracy was to all +appearance a high nobility, for the most part perhaps the members +of the royal or formerly royal families; as indeed it is remarkable +that the heads of the opposite parties in the same clan +very frequently belong to the same house. These great families +combined in their hands financial, warlike, and political ascendency. +They monopolized the leases of the profitable rights of the state. +They compelled the free commons, who were oppressed by the burden +of taxation, to borrow from them, and to surrender their freedom +first de facto as debtors, then de jure as bondmen. They developed +the system of retainers, that is, the privilege of the nobility +to surround themselves with a number of hired mounted servants-- +the -ambacti- as they were called (18)--and thereby to form a state +within the state; and, resting on the support of these troops +of their own, they defied the legal authorities and the common levy +and practically broke up the commonwealth. If in a clan, +which numbered about 80,000 men capable of arms, a single noble +could appear at the diet with 10,000 retainers, not reckoning +the bondmen and the debtors, it is clear that such an one +was more an independent dynast than a burgess of his clan. Moreover, +the leading families of the different clans were closely connected +and through intermarriages and special treaties formed virtually +a compact league, in presence of which the single clan was powerless. +Therefore the communities were no longer able to maintain +the public peace, and the law of the strong arm reigned throughout. +The dependent found protection only from his master, whom duty +and interest compelled to redress the injury inflicted on his client; +the state had no longer the power to protect those who were free, +and consequently these gave themselves over in numbers to some +powerful man as clients. + +Abolition of the Monarchy + +The common assembly lost its political importance; and even +the power of the prince, which should have checked the encroachments +of the nobility, succumbed to it among the Celts as well as in Latium. +In place of the king came the "judgment-worker" or -Vergobretus-,(19) +who was like the Roman consul nominated only for a year. +So far as the canton still held together at all, it was led +by the common council, in which naturally the heads of the aristocracy +usurped the government. Of course under such circumstances +there was agitation in the several clans much in the same way +as there had been agitation in Latium for centuries after the expulsion +of the kings: while the nobility of the different communities combined +to form a separate alliance hostile to the power of the community, +the multitude ceased not to desire the restoration of the monarchy; +and not unfrequently a prominent nobleman attempted, as Spurius +Cassius had done in Rome, with the support of the mass of those +belonging to the canton to break down the power of his peers, +and to reinstate the crown in its rights for his own special benefit. + +Efforts towards National Unity + +While the individual cantons were thus irremediably declining, +the sense of unity was at the same time powerfully stirring +in the nation and seeking in various ways to take shape and hold. +That combination of the whole Celtic nobility in contradistinction +to the individual canton-unions, while disturbing the existing order +of things, awakened and fostered the conception of the collective +unity of the nation. The attacks directed against the nation +from without, and the continued diminution of its territory in war +with its neighbours, operated in the same direction. Like the Hellenes +in their wars with the Persians, and the Italians in their wars +with the Celts, the Transalpine Gauls seem to have become conscious +of the existence and the power of their national unity in the wars +against Rome. Amidst the dissensions of rival clans and all their +feudal quarrelling there might still be heard the voices of those +who were ready to purchase the independence of the nation +at the cost of the independence of the several cantons, and even +at that of the seignorial rights of the knights. The thorough +popularity of the opposition to a foreign yoke was shown by the wars +of Caesar, with reference to whom the Celtic patriot party occupied +a position entirely similar to that of the German patriots +towards Napoleon; its extent and organization are attested, +among other things, by the telegraphic rapidity with which news +was communicated from one point to another. + +Religious Union of the Nation +Druids + +The universality and the strength of the Celtic national feeling +would be inexplicable but for the circumstance that, amidst +the greatest political disruption, the Celtic nation had for long +been centralized in respect of religion and even of theology. +The Celtic priesthood or, to use the native name, the corporation +of the Druids, certainly embraced the British islands and all Gaul, +and perhaps also other Celtic countries, in a common religious- +national bond. It possessed a special head elected by the priests +themselves; special schools, in which its very comprehensive +tradition was transmitted; special privileges, particularly +exemption from taxation and military service, which every clan +respected; annual councils, which were held near Chartres +at the "centre of the Celtic earth"; and above all, a believing people, +who in painful piety and blind obedience to their priests seem +to have been nowise inferior to the Irish of modern times. It may +readily be conceived that such a priesthood attempted to usurp, +as it partially did usurp, the secular government; where the annual +monarchy subsisted, it conducted the elections in the event +of an interregnum; it successfully laid claim to the right of excluding +individuals and whole communities from religious, and consequently +also from civil, society; it was careful to draw to itself the most +important civil causes, especially processes as to boundaries +and inheritance; on the ground, apparently, of its right to exclude +from the community, and perhaps also of the national custom +that criminals should be by preference taken for the usual +human sacrifices, it developed an extensive priestly criminal +jurisdiction, which was co-ordinate with that of the kings +and vergobrets; it even claimed the right of deciding on war and peace. +The Gauls were not far removed from an ecclesiastical state +with its pope and councils, its immunities, interdicts, +and spiritual courts; only this ecclesiastical state did not, +like that of recent times, stand aloof from the nations, +but was on the contrary pre-eminently national. + +Want of Political Centralization +The Canton-Leagues + +But while the sense of mutual relationship was thus vividly +awakened among the Celtic tribes, the nation was still precluded +from attaining a basis of political centralization such as Italy +found in the Roman burgesses, and the Hellenes and Germans +in the Macedonian and Frank kings. The Celtic priesthood and likewise +the nobility--although both in a certain sense represented and combined +the nation--were yet, on the one hand, incapable of uniting it +in consequence of their particular class-interests, and, on the other +hand, sufficiently powerful to allow no king and no canton to accomplish +the work of union. Attempts at this work were not wanting; +they followed, as the cantonal constitution suggested, +the system of hegemony. A powerful canton induced a weaker +to become subordinate, on such a footing that the leading canton +acted for the other as well as for itself in its external relations +and stipulated for it in state-treaties, while the dependent canton +bound itself to render military service and sometimes also to pay +a tribute. In this way a series of separate leagues arose; +but there was no leading canton for all Gaul--no tie, however +loose, combining the nation as a whole. + +The Belgic League +The Maritime Cantons +The Leagues of Central Gaul + +It has been already mentioned(20) that the Romans +at the commencement of their Transalpine conquests found in the north +a Britanno-Belgic league under the leadership of the Suessiones, +and in central and southern Gaul the confederation of the Arverni, +with which latter the Haedui, although having a weaker body +of clients, carried on a rivalry. In Caesar's time we find the Belgae +in north-eastern Gaul between the Seine and the Rhine still forming +such an association, which, however, apparently no longer extends +to Britain; by their side there appears, in the modern Normandy +and Brittany, the league of the Aremorican or the maritime cantons: +in central or proper Gaul two parties as formerly contended +for the hegemony, the one headed by the Haedui, the other by the Sequani +after the Arvernians weakened by the wars with Rome had retired. +These different confederacies subsisted independently side by side; +the leading states of central Gaul appear never to have extended +their clientship to the north-east nor, seriously, perhaps even +to the north-west of Gaul. + +Character of Those Leagues + +The impulse of the nation towards freedom found doubtless a certain +gratification in these cantonal unions; but they were in every +respect unsatisfactory. The union was of the loosest kind, constantly +fluctuating between alliance and hegemony; the representation +of the whole body in peace by the federal diets, in war +by the general,(21) was in the highest degree feeble. The Belgian +confederacy alone seems to have been bound together somewhat +more firmly; the national enthusiasm, from which the successful +repulse of the Cimbri proceeded,(22) may have proved beneficial +to it. The rivalries for the hegemony made a breach in every +league, which time did not close but widened, because the victory +of one competitor still left his opponent in possession +of political existence, and it always remained open to him, +even though he had submitted to clientship, subsequently to renew +the struggle. The rivalry among the more powerful cantons not only +set these at variance, but spread into every dependent clan, +into every village, often indeed into every house, for each individual +chose his side according to his personal relations. As Hellas +exhausted its strength not so much in the struggle of Athens against +Sparta as in the internal strife of the Athenian and Lacedaemonian +factions in every dependent community, and even in Athens itself, +so the rivalry of the Arverni and Haedui with its repetitions +on a smaller and smaller scale destroyed the Celtic people. + +The Celtic Military System +Cavalry + +The military capability of the nation felt the reflex influence +of these political and social relations. The cavalry was throughout +the predominant arm; alongside of which among the Belgae, and still +more in the British islands, the old national war-chariots appear +in remarkable perfection. These equally numerous and efficient +bands of combatants on horseback and in chariots were formed +from the nobility and its vassals; for the nobles had a genuine knightly +delight in dogs and horses, and were at much expense to procure +noble horses of foreign breed. It is characteristic of the spirit +and the mode of fighting of these nobles that, when the levy +was called out, whoever could keep his seat on horseback, +even the gray-haired old man, took the field, and that, when on the point +of beginning a combat with an enemy of whom they made little account, +they swore man by man that they would keep aloof from house +and homestead, unless their band should charge at least twice through +the enemy's line. Among the hired warriors the free-lance spirit +prevailed with all its demoralized and stolid indifference towards +their own life and that of others. This is apparent from the stories-- +however anecdotic their colouring--of the Celtic custom of tilting +by way of sport and now and then fighting for life or death +at a banquet, and of the usage (which prevailed among the Celts, +and outdid even the Roman gladiatorial games) of selling themselves +to be killed for a set sum of money or a number of casks of wine, +and voluntarily accepting the fatal blow stretched on their shield +before the eyes of the whole multitude. + +Infantry + +By the side of these mounted warriors the infantry fell +into the background. In the main it essentially resembled the bands +of Celts, with whom the Romans had fought in Italy and Spain. +The large shield was, as then, the principal weapon of defence; +among the offensive arms, on the other hand, the long thrusting +lance now played the chief part in room of the sword. Where several +cantons waged war in league, they naturally encamped and fought clan +against clan; there is no trace of their giving to the levy of each +canton military organization and forming smaller and more regular +tactical subdivisions. A long train of waggons still dragged +the baggage of the Celtic army; instead of an entrenched camp, such as +the Romans pitched every night, the poor substitute of a barricade +of waggons still sufficed. In the case of certain cantons, +such as the Nervii, the efficiency of their infantry is noticed +as exceptional; it is remarkable that these had no cavalry, +and perhaps were not even a Celtic but an immigrant German tribe. +But in general the Celtic infantry of this period appears +as an unwarlike and unwieldy levy en masse; most of all +in the more southern provinces, where along with barbarism valour +had also disappeared. The Celt, says Caesar, ventures not to face +the German in battle. The Roman general passed a censure +still more severe than this judgment on the Celtic infantry, +seeing that, after having become acquainted with them +in his first campaign, he never again employed them +in connection with Roman infantry. + +Stage of Development of the Celtic Civilization + +If we survey the whole condition of the Celts as Caesar found it +in the Transalpine regions, there is an unmistakeable advance +in civilization, as compared with the stage of culture at which +the Celts came before us a century and a half previously in the valley +of the Po. Then the militia, excellent of its kind, thoroughly +preponderated in their armies;(23) now the cavalry occupies +the first place. Then the Celts dwelt in open villages; now well- +constructed walls surrounded their townships. The objects too +found in the tombs of Lombardy are, especially as respects articles +of copper and glass, far inferior to those of northern Gaul. +Perhaps the most trustworthy measure of the increase of culture +is the sense of a common relationship in the nation; so little +of it comes to light in the Celtic battles fought on the soil of what +is now Lombardy, while it strikingly appears in the struggles +against Caesar. To all appearance the Celtic nation, when Caesar +encountered it, had already reached the maximum of the culture +allotted to it, and was even now on the decline. The civilization +of the Transalpine Celts in Caesar's time presents, even for us +who are but very imperfectly informed regarding it, several aspects +that are estimable, and yet more that are interesting; in some +respects it is more akin to the modern than to the Hellenic-Roman +culture, with its sailing vessels, its knighthood, its ecclesiastical +constitution, above all with its attempts, however imperfect, +to build the state not on the city, but on the tribe and in a higher +degree on the nation. But just because we here meet the Celtic nation +at the culminating point of its development, its lesser degree +of moral endowment or, which is the same thing, its lesser +capacity of culture, comes more distinctly into view. +It was unable to produce from its own resources either a national +art or a national state; it attained at the utmost a national theology +and a peculiar type of nobility. The original simple valour +was no more; the military courage based on higher morality and judicious +organization, which comes in the train of increased civilization, +had only made its appearance in a very stunted form among +the knights. Barbarism in the strict sense was doubtless outlived; +the times had gone by, when in Gaul the fat haunch was assigned +to the bravest of the guests, but each of his fellow-guests who thought +himself offended thereby was at liberty to challenge the receiver +on that score to combat, and when the most faithful retainers +of a deceased chief were burnt along with him. But human sacrifices +still continued, and the maxim of law, that torture was inadmissible +in the case of the free man but allowable in that of the free +woman as well as of slaves, throws a far from pleasing light +on the position which the female sex held among the Celts +even in their period of culture. The Celts had lost the advantages +which specially belong to the primitive epoch of nations, but had not +acquired those which civilization brings with it when it intimately +and thoroughly pervades a people. + +External Relations +Celts and Iberians + +Such was the internal condition of the Celtic nation. It remains +that we set forth their external relations with their neighbours, +and describe the part which they sustained at this moment in the mighty +rival race and rival struggle of the nations, in which it is +everywhere still more difficult to maintain than to acquire. +Along the Pyrenees the relations of the peoples had for long been +peaceably settled, and the times had long gone by when the Celts +there pressed hard on, and to some extent supplanted, the Iberian, +that is, the Basque, original population. The valleys of the Pyrenees +as well as the mountains of Bearn and Gascony, and also the coast- +steppes to the south of the Garonne, were at the time of Caesar +in the undisputed possession of the Aquitani, a great number +of small tribes of Iberian descent, coming little into contact +with each other and still less with the outer world; in this quarter +only the mouth of the Garonne with the important port of Burdigala +(Bordeaux) was in the hands of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges-Vivisci. + +Celts and Romans +Advance of Roman Trade and Commerce into Free Gaul + +Of far greater importance was the contact of the Celtic nation +with the Roman people, and with the Germans. We need not here repeat-- +what has been related already--how the Romans in their slow advance +had gradually pressed back the Celts, had at last occupied the belt +of coast between the Alps and the Pyrenees, and had thereby totally +cut them off from Italy, Spain and the Mediterranean Sea--a catastrophe, +for which the way had already been prepared centuries before +by the laying out of the Hellenic stronghold at the mouth +of the Rhone. But we must here recall the fact that it was not merely +the superiority of the Roman arms which pressed hard on the Celts, +but quite as much that of Roman culture, which likewise reaped +the ultimate benefit of the respectable beginnings of Hellenic +civilization in Gaul. Here too, as so often happens, trade +and commerce paved the way for conquest. The Celt after northern +fashion was fond of fiery drinks; the fact that like the Scythian +he drank the generous wine unmingled and to intoxication, +excited the surprise and the disgust of the temperate southern; +but the trader has no objection to deal with such customers. +Soon the trade with Gaul became a mine of gold for the Italian merchant; +it was nothing unusual there for a jar of wine to be exchanged +for a slave. Other articles of luxury, such as Italian horses, +found advantageous sale in Gaul. There were instances even already +of Roman burgesses acquiring landed property beyond the Roman +frontier, and turning it to profit after the Italian fashion; +there is mention, for example, of Roman estates in the canton +of the Segusiavi (near Lyons) as early as about 673. Beyond doubt it +was a consequence of this that, as already mentioned(24) in free Gaul +itself, e. g. among the Arverni, the Roman language was not unknown +even before the conquest; although this knowledge was presumably +still restricted to few, and even the men of rank in the allied +canton of the Haedui had to be conversed with through interpreters. +Just as the traffickers in fire-water and the squatters led the way +in the occupation of North America, so these Roman wine-traders +and landlords paved the way for, and beckoned onward, the future +conqueror of Gaul. How vividly this was felt even on the opposite +side, is shown by the prohibition which one of the most energetic +tribes of Gaul, the canton of the Nervii, like some German peoples, +issued against trafficking with the Romans. + +Celts and Germans + +Still more violent even than the pressure of the Romans +from the Mediterranean was that of the Germans downward from the Baltic +and the North Sea--a fresh stock from the great cradle of peoples +in the east, which made room for itself by the side of its elder +brethren with youthful vigour, although also with youthful +rudeness. Though the tribes of this stock dwelling nearest +to the Rhine--the Usipetes, Tencteri, Sugambri, Ubii--had begun to be +in some degree civilized, and had at least ceased voluntarily +to change their abodes, all accounts yet agree that farther inland +agriculture was of little importance, and the several tribes +had hardly yet attained fixed abodes. It is significant +in this respect that their western neighbours at this time hardly knew +how to name any one of the peoples of the interior of Germany +by its cantonal name; these were only known to them under the general +appellations of the Suebi, that is, the roving people or nomads, +and the Marcomani, that is, the land-guard(25)--names which were +hardly cantonal names in Caesar's time, although they appeared +as such to the Romans and subsequently became in various cases +names of cantons. + +The Right Bank of the Rhine Lost to the Celts + +The most violent onset of this great nation fell upon the Celts. +The struggles, in which the Germans probably engaged with the Celts +for the possession of the regions to the east of the Rhine, are +wholly withdrawn from our view. We are only able to perceive, +that about the end of the seventh century of Rome all the land +as far as the Rhine was already lost to the Celts; that the Boii, +who were probably once settled in Bavaria and Bohemia,(26) were homeless +wanderers; and that even the Black Forest formerly possessed +by the Helvetii,(27) if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes +dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border- +land, and was presumably even then, what it was afterwards called, +the Helvetian desert The barbarous strategy of the Germans--which +secured them from hostile attacks by laying waste the neighbourhood +for miles--seems to have been applied here on the greatest scale. + +German Tribes on the Left Bank of the Rhine + +But the Germans had not remained stationary at the Rhine. +The march of the Cimbrian and Teutonic host, composed, as respects +its flower, of German tribes, which had swept with such force fifty +years before over Pannonia, Gaul, Italy, and Spain, seemed to have +been nothing but a grand reconnaissance. Already different German +tribes had formed permanent settlements to the west of the Rhine, +especially of its lower course; having intruded as conquerors, +these settlers continued to demand hostages and to levy annual +tribute from the Gallic inhabitants in their neighbourhood, +as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci, +who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde(28) had grown +into a considerable canton, and a number of other tribes afterwards +comprehended under the name of the Tungri on the Maas in the region +of Liege; even the Treveri (about Treves) and the Nervii +(in Hainault), two of the largest and most powerful peoples +of this region, are directly designated by respectable authorities +as Germans. The complete credibility of these accounts must certainly +remain doubtful, since, as Tacitus remarks in reference to the two +peoples last mentioned, it was subsequently, at least in these regions, +reckoned an honour to be descended of German blood and not to belong +to the little-esteemed Celtic nation; yet the population +in the region of the Scheldt, Maas, and Moselle seems certainly +to have become, in one way or another, largely mingled with German +elements, or at any rate to have come under German influences. +The German settlements themselves were perhaps small; +they were not unimportant, for amidst the chaotic obscurity, +through which we see the stream of peoples on the right bank +of the Rhine ebbing and flowing about this period, we can well perceive +that larger German hordes were preparing to cross the Rhine in the track +of these advanced posts. Threatened on two sides by foreign domination +and torn by internal dissension, it was scarcely to be expected +that the unhappy Celtic nation would now rally and save itself +by its own vigour. Dismemberment, and decay in virtue of dismemberment, +had hitherto been its history; how should a nation, which could +name no day like those of Marathon and Salamis, of Aricia and the Raudine +plain--a nation which, even in its time of vigour, had made +no attempt to destroy Massilia by a united effort--now when evening +had come, defend itself against so formidable foes? + +The Roman Policy with Reference to the German Invasion + +The less the Celts, left to themselves, were a match for the Germans, +the more reason had the Romans carefully to watch over the complications +in which the two nations might be involved. Although the movements +thence arising had not up to the present time directly affected +them, they and their most important interests were yet concerned +in the issue of those movements. As may readily be conceived, +the internal demeanour of the Celtic nation had become speedily +and permanently influenced by its outward relations. As in Greece +the Lacedaemonian party combined with Persia against the Athenians, +so the Romans from their first appearance beyond the Alps had found +a support against the Arverni, who were then the ruling power among +the southern Celts, in their rivals for the hegemony, the Haedui: +and with the aid of these new "brothers of the Roman nation" they had +not merely reduced to subjection the Allobroges and a great portion +of the indirect territory of the Arverni, but had also, in the Gaul +that remained free, occasioned by their influence the transference +of the hegemony from the Arverni to these Haedui. But while the Greeks +were threatened with danger to their nationality only from one side, +the Celts found themselves hard pressed simultaneously by two +national foes; and it was natural that they should seek from the one +protection against the other, and that, if the one Celtic party +attached itself to the Romans, their opponents should +on the contrary form alliance with the Germans. This course +was most natural for the Belgae, who were brought by neighbourhood +and manifold intermixture into closer relation to the Germans who had +crossed the Rhine, and moreover, with their less-developed culture, +probably felt themselves at least as much akin to the Suebian +of alien race as to their cultivated Allobrogian or Helvetic +countryman. But the southern Celts also, among whom now +as already mentioned, the considerable canton of the Sequani +(about Besangon) stood at the head of the party hostile to the Romans, +had every reason at this very time to call in the Germans against +the Romans who immediately threatened them; the remiss government +of the senate and the signs of the revolution preparing in Rome, +which had not remained unknown to the Celts, made this very moment +seem suitable for ridding themselves of the Roman influence +and primarily for humbling the Roman clients, the Haedui. A rupture +had taken place between the two cantons respecting the tolls +on the Saone, which separated the territory of the Haedui +from that of the Sequani, and about the year 683 the German prince +Ariovistus with some 15,000 armed men had crossed the Rhine +as condottiere of the Sequani. + +Ariovistus on the Middle Rhine + +The war was prolonged for some years with varying success; +on the whole the results were unfavourable to the Haedui. Their leader +Eporedorix at length called out their whole clients, and marched +forth with an enormous superiority of force against the Germans. +These obstinately refused battle, and kept themselves under cover +of morasses and forests. It was not till the clans, weary +of waiting, began to break up and disperse, that the Germans appeared +in the open field, and then Ariovistus compelled a battle +at Admagetobriga, in which the flower of the cavalry of the Haedui +were left on the field. The Haedui, forced by this defeat +to conclude peace on the terms which the victor proposed, were obliged +to renounce the hegemony, and to consent with their whole adherents +to become clients of the Sequani; they had to bind themselves +to pay tribute to the Sequani or rather to Ariovistus, and to furnish +the children of their principal nobles as hostages; and lastly +they had to swear that they would never demand back these hostages +nor invoke the intervention of the Romans. + +Inaction of the Romans + +This peace was concluded apparently about 693.(29) Honour +and advantage enjoined the Romans to come forward in opposition to it; +the noble Haeduan Divitiacus, the head of the Roman party in his clan, +and for that reason now banished by his countrymen, went in person +to Rome to solicit their intervention. A still more serious +warning was the insurrection of the Allobroges in 693(30)-- +the neighbours of the Sequani--which was beyond doubt connected +with these events. In reality orders were issued to the Gallic +governors to assist the Haedui; they talked of sending consuls +and consular armies over the Alps; but the senate, to whose decision +these affairs primarily fell, at length here also crowned great +words with little deeds. The insurrection of the Allobroges +was suppressed by arms, but nothing was done for the Haedui; +on the contrary, Ariovistus was even enrolled in 695 in the list +of kings friendly with the Romans.(31) + +Foundation of a German Empire in Gaul + +The German warrior-prince naturally took this as a renunciation +by the Romans of the Celtic land which they had not occupied; +he accordingly took up his abode there, and began to establish +a German principality on Gallic soil. It was his intention that +the numerous bands which he had brought with him, and the still +more numerous bands that afterwards followed at his call from home-- +it was reckoned that up to 696 some 120,000 Germans had crossed +the Rhine--this whole mighty immigration of the German nation, +which poured through the once opened sluices like a stream over +the beautiful west, should become settled there and form a basis +on which he might build his dominion over Gaul. The extent +of the German settlements which he called into existence +on the left bank of the Rhine cannot be determined; beyond doubt +it was great, and his projects were far greater still. The Celts +were treated by him as a wholly subjugated nation, and no distinction +was made between the several cantons. Even the Sequani, as whose hired +commander-in-chief he had crossed the Rhine, were obliged, as if they +were vanquished enemies, to cede to him for his people a third +of their territory--presumably upper Alsace afterwards inhabited +by the Triboci--where Ariovistus permanently settled with his followers; +nay, as if this were not enough, a second third was afterwards +demanded of them for the Harudes who arrived subsequently. +Ariovistus seemed as if he wished to take up in Gaul the part +of Philip of Macedonia, and to play the master over the Celts +who were friendly to the Germans no less than over those +who adhered to the Romans. + +The Germans on the Lower Rhine +The Germans on the Upper Rhine +Spread of the Helvetian Invasion to the Interior of Gaul + +The appearance of the energetic German prince in so dangerous +proximity, which could not but in itself excite the most serious +apprehension in the Romans, appeared still more threatening, +inasmuch as it stood by no means alone. The Usipetes and Tencteri +settled on the right bank of the Rhine, weary of the incessant +devastation of their territory by the overbearing Suebian tribes, +had, the year before Caesar arrived in Gaul (695), set out +from their previous abodes to seek others at the mouth of the Rhine. +They had already taken away from the Menapii there the portion +of their territory situated on the right bank, and it might be +foreseen that they would make the attempt to establish themselves +also on the left. Suebian bands, moreover, assembled between +Cologne and Mayence, and threatened to appear as uninvited guests +in the opposite Celtic canton of the Treveri. Lastly, +the territory of the most easterly clan of the Celts, the warlike +and numerous Helvetii, was visited with growing frequency +by the Germans, so that the Helvetii, who perhaps even apart from this +were suffering from over-population through the reflux of their +settlers from the territory which they had lost to the north +of the Rhine, and besides were liable to be completely isolated +from their kinsmen by the settlement of Ariovistus in the territory +of the Sequani, conceived the desperate resolution of voluntarily +evacuating the territory hitherto in their possession to the Germans, +and acquiring larger and more fertile abodes to the west +of the Jura, along with, if possible, the hegemony in the interior +of Gaul--a plan which some of their districts had already formed +and attempted to execute during the Cimbrian invasion.(32) +the Rauraci whose territory (Basle and southern Alsace) was similarly +threatened, the remains, moreover, of the Boii who had already +at an earlier period been compelled by the Germans to forsake their +homes and were now unsettled wanderers, and other smaller tribes, +made common cause with the Helvetii. As early as 693 their flying +parties came over the Jura and even as far as the Roman province; +their departure itself could not be much longer delayed; inevitably +German settlers would then advance into the important region +between the lakes of Constance and Geneva forsaken by its defenders. +From the sources of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean the German tribes +were in motion; the whole line of the Rhine was threatened by them; +it was a moment like that when the Alamanni and the Franks +threw themselves on the falling empire of the Caesars; +and even now there seemed on the eve of being carried into effect +against the Celts that very movement which was successful +five hundred years afterwards against the Romans. + +Caesar Proceeds to Gaul +Caesar's Army + +Under these circumstances the new governor Gaius Caesar arrived +in the spring of 696 in Narbonese Gaul, which had been added by decree +of the senate to his original province embracing Cisalpine Gaul +along with Istria and Dalmatia. His office, which was committed +to him first for five years (to the end of 700), then in 699 +for five more (to the end of 705), gave him the right to nominate +ten lieutenants of propraetorian rank, and (at least according to +his own interpretation) to fill up his legions, or even to form +new ones at his discretion out of the burgess-population--who were +especially numerous in Cisalpine Gaul--of the territory under his +sway. The army, which he received in the two provinces, consisted, +as regards infantry of the line, of four legions trained and inured +to war, the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, or at the utmost +24,000 men, to which fell to be added, as usual, the contingents +of the subjects. The cavalry and light-armed troops, moreover, +were represented by horsemen from Spain, and by Numidian, Cretan, +and Balearic archers and slingers. The staff of Caesar--the elite +of the democracy of the capital--contained, along with not a few +useless young men of rank, some able officers, such as Publius +Crassus the younger son of the old political ally of Caesar, +and Titus Labienus, who followed the chief of the democracy +as a faithful adjutant from the Forum to the battle-field. +Caesar had not received definite instructions; to one +who was discerning and courageous these were implied +in the circumstances with which he had to deal. Here too +the negligence of the senate had to be retrieved, and first of all +the stream of migration of the German peoples had to be checked. + +Repulse of the Helvetii + +Just at this time the Helvetic invasion, which was closely +interwoven with the German and had been in preparation for years, +began. That they might not make a grant of their abandoned huts +to the Germans and might render their own return impossible, +the Helvetii had burnt their towns and villages; and their long +trains of waggons, laden with women, children, and the best part +of their moveables, arrived from all sides at the Leman lake near +Genava (Geneva), where they and their comrades had fixed their +rendezvous for the 28th of March(33) of this year. According +to their own reckoning the whole body consisted of 368,000 persons, +of whom about a fourth part were able to bear arms. As the mountain +chain of the Jura, stretching from the Rhine to the Rhone, almost +completely closed in the Helvetic country towards the west, +and its narrow defiles were as ill adapted for the passage +of such a caravan as they were well adapted for defence, the leaders +had resolved to go round in a southerly direction, and to open up +for themselves a way to the west at the point, where the Rhone +has broken through the mountain-chain between the south-western +and highest part of the Jura and the Savoy mountains, near +the modern Fort de l'Ecluse. But on the right bank here the rocks +and precipices come so close to the river that there remained only +a narrow path which could easily be blocked up, and the Sequani, +to whom this bank belonged, could with ease intercept the route +of the Helvetii. They preferred therefore to pass over, above the point +where the Rhone breaks through, to the left Allobrogian bank, +with the view of regaining the right bank further down the stream +where the Rhone enters the plain, and then marching on towards +the level west of Gaul; there the fertile canton of the Santones +(Saintonge, the valley of the Charente) on the Atlantic Ocean +was selected by the wanderers for their new abode. This march led, +where it touched the left bank of the Rhone, through Roman territory; +and Caesar, otherwise not disposed to acquiesce in the establishment +of the Helvetii in western Gaul, was firmly resolved not to permit +their passage. But of his four legions three were stationed far +off at Aquileia; although he called out in haste the militia +of the Transalpine province, it seemed scarcely possible with so small +a force to hinder the innumerable Celtic host from crossing +the Rhone, between its exit from the Leman lake at Geneva +and the point of its breaking through the mountains, over a distance +of more than fourteen miles. Caesar, however, by negotiations +with the Helvetii, who would gladly have effected by peaceable means +the crossing of the river and the march through the Allobrogian +territory, gained a respite of fifteen days, which was employed +in breaking down the bridge over the Rhone at Genava, and barring +the southern bank of the Rhone against the enemy by an entrenchment +nearly nineteen miles long: it was the first application +of the system--afterwards carried out on so immense a scale +by the Romans--of guarding the frontier of the empire in a military point +of view by a chain of forts placed in connection with each other +by ramparts and ditches. The attempts of the Helvetii to gain +the other bank at different places in boats or by means of fords +were successfully frustrated by the Romans in these lines, +and the Helvetii were compelled to desist from the passage of the Rhone. + +The Helvetii Move towards Gaul + +On the other hand, the party in Gaul hostile to the Romans, +which hoped to obtain a powerful reinforcement in the Helvetii, +more especially the Haeduan Dumnorix brother of Divitiacus, +and at the head of the national party in his canton as the latter +wasat the head of the Romans, procured for them a passage +through the passes of the Jura and the territory of the Sequani. +The Romans had no legal title to forbid this; but other and higher +interestswereat stake for them in the Helvetic expedition than +the question of the formal integrity of the Roman territory-- interests +which could only be guarded, if Caesar, instead of confining himself, +as all the governors of the senate and even Marius(34) had done, +to the modest task of watching the frontier, should cross what had hitherto +been the frontier at the head of a considerable army. Caesar was general +not of the senate, but of the state; he showed no hesitation. +He had immediately proceeded from Genava in person to Italy, +and with characteristic speed brought up the three legions +cantoned there as well as two newly-formed legions of recruits. + +The Helvetian War + +These troops he united with the corps stationed at Genava, +and crossed the Rhone with his whole force. His unexpected appearance +in the territory of the Haedui naturally at once restored the Roman +party there to power, which was not unimportant as regarded +supplies. He found the Helvetii employed in crossing the Saone, +and moving from the territory of the Sequani into that +of the Haedui; those of them that were still on the left bank +of the Saone, especially the corps of the Tigorini, were caught +and destroyed by the Romans rapidly advancing. The bulk +of the expedition, however, had already crossed to the right bank +of the river; Caesar followed them and in twenty-four hours effected +the passage, which the unwieldy host of the Helvetii had not been able +to accomplish in twenty days. The Helvetii, prevented by this passage +of the river on the part of the Roman army from continuing +their march westward, turned in a northerly direction, doubtless +under the supposition that Caesar would not venture to follow them +far into the interior of Gaul, and with the intention, if he should +desist from following them, of turning again toward their proper +destination. For fifteen days the Roman army marched behind +that of the enemy at a distance of about four miles, clinging +to its rear, and hoping for an advantageous opportunity of assailing +the Helvetic host under conditions favourable to victory, +and destroying it. But this moment came not: unwieldy as was the march +of the Helvetic caravan, the leaders knew how to guard against +a surprise, and appeared to be copiously provided with supplies +as well as most accurately informed by their spies of every event +in the Roman camp. On the other hand the Romans began to suffer +from want of necessaries, especially when the Helvetii removed +from the Saone and the means of river-transport ceased. The non-arrival +of the supplies promised by the Haedui, from which this embarrassment +primarily arose, excited the more suspicion, as both armies +were still moving about in their territory. Moreover the considerable +Roman cavalry, numbering almost 4000 horse, proved utterly +untrustworthy--which doubtless admitted of explanation, +for they consisted almost wholly of Celtic horsemen, especially +of the mounted retainers of the Haedui, under the command of Dumnorix +the well-known enemy of the Romans, and Caesar himself had taken +them over still more as hostages than as soldiers. There was good +reason to believe that a defeat which they suffered at the hands +of the far weaker Helvetic cavalry was occasioned by themselves, +and that the enemy was informed by them of all occurrences +in the Roman camp. The position of Caesar grew critical; it was +becoming disagreeably evident, how much the Celtic patriot party +could effect even with the Haedui in spite of their official +alliance with Rome, and of the distinctive interests of this canton +inclining it towards the Romans; what was to be the issue, if they +ventured deeper and deeper into a country full of excitement, +and if they removed daily farther from their means of communication? +The armies were just marching past Bibracte (Autun), the capital +of the Haedui, at a moderate distance; Caesar resolved to seize +this important place by force before he continued his march +into the interior; and it is very possible, that he intended to desist +altogether from farther pursuit and to establish himself +in Bibracte. But when he ceased from the pursuit and turned +against Bibracte, the Helvetii thought that the Romans were making +preparations for flight, and now attacked in their turn. + +Battle at Bibracte + +Caesar desired nothing better. The two armies posted themselves +on two parallel chains of hills; the Celts began the engagement, +broke up the Roman cavalry which had advanced into the plain, +and rushed on against the Roman legions posted on the slope of the hill, +but were there obliged to give way before Caesar's veterans. +When the Romans thereupon, following up their advantage, descended +in their turn to the plain, the Celts again advanced against them, +and a reserved Celtic corps took them at the same time in flank. +The reserve of the Roman attacking column was pushed forward +against the latter; it forced it away from the main body towards +the baggage and the barricade of waggons, where it was destroyed. +The bulk of the Helvetic host was at length brought to give way, +and compelled to beat a retreat in an easterly direction--the opposite +of that towards which their expedition led them. This day had +frustrated the scheme of the Helvetii to establish for themselves +new settlements on the Atlantic Ocean, and handed them over +to the pleasure of the victor; but it had been a hot day also +for the conquerors. Caesar, who had reason for not altogether trusting +his staff of officers, had at the very outset sent away +all the officers' horses, so as to make the necessity of holding +their ground thoroughly clear to his troops; in fact the battle, +had the Romans lost it, would have probably brought about +the annihilation of the Roman army. The Roman troops +were too much exhausted to pursue the conquered with vigour; +but in consequence of the proclamation of Caesar that he would +treat all who should support the Helvetii as like the Helvetii +themselves enemies of the Romans, all support was refused +to the beaten army whithersoever it went-- in the first instance, +in the canton of the Lingones (about Langres)--and, deprived +of all supplies and of their baggage and burdened by the mass +of camp-followers incapable of fighting, they were under the necessity +of submitting to the Roman general. + +The Helvetii Sent back to Their Original Abode + +The lot of the vanquished was a comparatively mild one. +The Haedui were directed to concede settlements in their territory +to the homeless Boii; and this settlement of the conquered foe +in the midst of the most powerful Celtic cantons rendered almost +the services of a Roman colony. The survivors of the Helvetii +and Rauraci, something more than a third of the men that had marched +forth, were naturally sent back to their former territory. +It was incorporated with the Roman province, but the inhabitants +were admitted to alliance with Rome under favourable conditions, +in order to defend, under Roman supremacy, the frontier along +the upper Rhine against the Germans. Only the south-western point +of the Helvetic canton was directly taken into the possession +of the Romans, and there subsequently, on the charming shore +of the Leman lake, the old Celtic town Noviodunum (now Nyon) +was converted into a Roman frontier-fortress, +the "Julian equestrian colony."(35) + +Caesar and Ariovistus +Negotiations + +Thus the threatening invasion of the Germans on the upper Rhine +was obviated, and, at the same time, the party hostile to the Romans +among the Celts was humbled. On the middle Rhine also, +where the Germans had already crossed years ago, and where the power +of Ariovistus which vied with that of Rome in Gaul was daily +spreading, there was need of similar action, and the occasion +for a rupture was easily found. In comparison with the yoke threatened +or already imposed on them by Ariovistus, the Roman supremacy probably +now appeared to the greater part of the Celts in this quarter +the lesser evil; the minority, who retained their hatred +of the Romans, had at least to keep silence. A diet of the Celtic +tribes of central Gaul, held under Roman influence, requested +the Roman general in name of the Celtic nation for aid against +the Germans. Caesar consented. At his suggestion the Haedui stopped +the payment of the tribute stipulated to be paid to Ariovistus, +and demanded back the hostages furnished; and when Ariovistus +on account of this breach of treaty attacked the clients of Rome, +Caesar took occasion thereby to enter into direct negotiation +with him and specially to demand, in addition to the return +of the hostages and a promise to keep peace with the Haedui, +that Ariovistus should bind himself to allure no more Germans +over the Rhine. The German general replied to the Roman, in the full +consciousness of equality of rights, that northern Gaul had become +subject to him by right of war as fairly as southern Gaul +to the Romans; and that, as he did not hinder the Romans from taking +tribute from the Allobroges, so they should not prevent him +from taxing his subjects. In later secret overtures it appeared +that the prince was well aware of the circumstances of the Romans; +he mentioned the invitations which had been addressed to him from Rome +to put Caesar out of the way, and offered, if Caesar would leave +to him northern Gaul, to assist him in turn to obtain the sovereignty +of Italy--as the party-quarrels of the Celtic nation had opened up +an entrance for him into Gaul, he seemed to expect from the party- +quarrels of the Italian nation the consolidation of his rule there. +For centuries no such language of power completely on a footing +of equality and bluntly and carelessly expressing its independence had +been held in presence of the Romans, as was now heard from the king +of the German host; he summarily refused to come, when the Roman +general suggested that he should appear personally before him +according to the usual practice with client-princes. + +Ariovistus Attacked +And Beaten + +It was the more necessary not to delay; Caesar immediately set out +against Ariovistus. A panic seized his troops, especially his officers +when they were to measure their strength with the flower +of the German troops that for fourteen years had not come +under shelter of a roof: it seemed as if the deep decay of Roman moral +and military discipline would assert itself and provoke desertion +and mutiny even in Caesar's camp. But the general, while declaring +that in case of need he would march with the tenth legion alone +against the enemy, knew not merely how to influence these +by such an appeal to honour, but also how to bind the other regiments +to their eagles by warlike emulation, and to inspire the troops +with something of his own energy. Without leaving them time +for reflection, he led them onward in rapid marches, and fortunately +anticipated Ariovistus in the occupation of Vesontio (Besancon), +the capital of the Sequani. A personal conference between the two +generals, which took place at the request of Ariovistus, seemed +as if solely meant to cover an attempt against the person of Caesar; +arms alone could decide between the two oppressors of Gaul. The war +came temporarily to a stand. In lower Alsace somewhere in the region +of Muhlhausen, five miles from the Rhine,(36) the two armies +lay at a little distance from each other, till Ariovistus +with his very superior force succeeded in marching past the Roman camp, +placing himself in its rear, and cutting off the Romans +from their base and their supplies. Caesar attempted to free himself +from his painful situation by a battle; but Ariovistus did not accept it. +Nothing remained for the Roman general but, in spite of +his inferior strength, to imitate the movement of the Germans, +and to recover his communications by making two legions march past +the enemy and take up a position beyond the camp of the Germans, +while four legions remained behind in the former camp. Ariovistus, +when he saw the Romans divided, attempted an assault on their lesser +camp; but the Romans repulsed it. Under the impression made +by this success, the whole Roman army was brought forward +to the attack; and the Germans also placed themselves in battle array, +in a long line, each tribe for itself, the cars of the army +with the baggage and women being placed behind them to render flight +more difficult. The right wing of the Romans, led by Caesar himself, +threw itself rapidly on the enemy, and drove them before it; +the right wing of the Germans was in like manner successful. +The balance still stood equal; but the tactics of the reserve, +which had decided so many other conflicts with barbarians, decided +the conflict with the Germans also in favour of the Romans; +their third line, which Publius Crassus seasonably sent to render help, +restored the battle on the left wing and thereby decided +the victory. The pursuit was continued to the Rhine; only a few, +including the king, succeeded in escaping to the other bank (696). + +German Settlements on the Left Bank of the Rhine + +Thus brilliantly the Roman rule announced its advent to the mighty +stream, which the Italian soldiers here saw for the first time; +by a single fortunate battle the line of the Rhine was won. +The fate of the German settlements on the left bank of the Rhine +lay in the hands of Caesar; the victor could destroy them, +but he did not do so. The neighbouring Celtic cantons--the Sequani, +Leuci, Mediomatrici--were neither capable of self-defence +nor trustworthy; the transplanted Germans promised to become +not merely brave guardians of the frontier but also better subjects +of Rome, for their nationality severed them from the Celts, +and their own interest in the preservation of their newly-won +settlements severed them from their countrymen across the Rhine, +so that in their isolated position they could not avoid adhering +to the central power. Caesar here, as everywhere, preferred +conquered foes to doubtful friends; he left the Germans settled +by Ariovistus along the left bank of the Rhine--the Triboci +about Strassburg, the Nemetes about Spires, the Vangiones +about Worms--in possession of their new abodes, and entrusted them +with the guarding of the Rhine-frontier against their countrymen.(37) +The Suebi, who threatened the territory of the Treveri on the middle +Rhine, on receiving news of the defeat of Ariovistus, again retreated +into the interior of Germany; on which occasion they sustained +considerable loss by the way at the hands of the adjoining tribes. + +The Rhine Boundary + +The consequences of this one campaign were immense; they were felt +for many centuries after. The Rhine had become the boundary +of the Roman empire against the Germans. In Gaul, which was no longer +able to govern itself, the Romans had hitherto ruled on the south +coast, while lately the Germans had attempted to establish themselves +farther up. The recent events had decided that Gaul was to succumb +not merely in part but wholly to the Roman supremacy, +and that the natural boundary presented by the mighty river was also +to become the political boundary. The senate in its better times +had not rested, till the dominion of Rome had reached the natural +bounds of Italy--the Alps and the Mediterranean--and its adjacent +islands. The enlarged empire also needed a similar military +rounding off; but the present government left the matter +to accident, and sought at most to see, not that the frontiers +were capable of defence, but that they should not need to be defended +directly by itself. People felt that now another spirit +and another arm began to guide the destinies of Rome. + +Subjugation of Gaul +Belgic Expedition + +The foundations of the future edifice were laid; but in order +to finish the building and completely to secure the recognition +of the Roman rule by the Gauls, and that of the Rhine-frontier by +the Germans, very much still remained to be done. All central Gaul +indeed from the Roman frontier as far up as Chartres and Treves +submitted without objection to the new ruler; and on the upper +and middle Rhine also no attack was for the present to be apprehended +from the Germans. But the northern provinces--as well +the Aremorican cantons in Brittany and Normandy as the more powerful +confederation of the Belgae--were not affected by the blows +directed against central Gaul, and found no occasion to submit +to the conqueror of Ariovistus. Moreover, as was already remarked, +very close relations subsisted between the Belgae and the Germans +over the Rhine, and at the mouth of the Rhine also Germanic tribes +made themselves ready to cross the stream. In consequence of this +Caesar set out with his army, now increased to eight legions, +in the spring of 697 against the Belgic cantons. Mindful of the brave +and successful resistance which fifty years before they had +with united strength presented to the Cimbri on the borders of their +land,(38) and stimulated by the patriots who had fled to them +in numbers from central Gaul, the confederacy of the Belgae sent +their whole first levy--300,000 armed men under the leadership of Galba +the king of the Suessiones--to their southern frontier to receive +Caesar there. A single canton alone, that of the powerful Remi +(about Rheims) discerned in this invasion of the foreigners +an opportunity to shake off the rule which their neighbours +the Suessiones exercised over them, and prepared to take up +in the north the part which the Haedui had played in central Gaul. +The Roman and the Belgic armies arrived in their territory almost +at the same time. + +Conflicts on the Aisne +Submission of the Western Cantons + +Caesar did not venture to give battle to the brave enemy six times +as strong; to the north of the Aisne, not far from the modern +Pontavert between Rheims and Laon, he pitched his camp on a plateau +rendered almost unassailable on all sides partly by the river +and by morasses, partly by fosses and redoubts, and contented himself +with thwarting by defensive measures the attempts of the Belgae +to cross the Aisne and thereby to cut him off from his communications. +When he counted on the likelihood that the coalition would speedily +collapse under its own weight, he had reckoned rightly. King Galba +was an honest man, held in universal respect; but he was not equal +to the management of an army of 300,000 men on hostile soil. +No progress was made, and provisions began to fail; discontent +and dissension began to insinuate themselves into the camp +of the confederates. The Bellovaci in particular, equal to +the Suessiones in power, and already dissatisfied that the supreme +command of the confederate army had not fallen to them, could no longer +be detained after news had arrived that the Haedui as allies +of the Romans were making preparations to enter the Bellovacic territory. +They determined to break up and go home; though for honour's sake +all the cantons at the same time bound themselves to hasten +with their united strength to the help of the one first attacked, +the miserable dispersion of the confederacy was but miserably palliated +by such impracticable stipulations. It was a catastrophe +which vividly reminds us of that which occurred almost +on the same spot in 1792; and, just as with the campaign in Champagne, +the defeat was all the more severe that it took place without a battle. +The bad leadership of the retreating army allowed the Roman general +to pursue it as if it were beaten, and to destroy a portion +of the contingents that had remained to the last. But the consequences +of the victory were not confined to this. As Caesar advanced +into the western cantons of the Belgae, one after another +gave themselves up as lost almost without resistance; the powerful +Suessiones (about Soissons), as well as their rivals, the Bellovaci +(about Beauvais) and the Ambiani (about Amiens). The towns opened +their gates when they saw the strange besieging machines, +the towers rolling up to their walls; those who would not submit +to the foreign masters sought a refuge beyond the sea in Britain. + +The Conflict with the Nervii + +But in the eastern cantons the national feeling was more +energetically roused. The Viromandui (about Arras), the Atrebates +(about St. Quentin), the German Aduatuci (about Namur), but above +all the Nervii (in Hainault) with their not inconsiderable body +of clients, little inferior in number to the Suessiones and Bellovaci, +far superior to them in valour and vigorous patriotic spirit, +concluded a second and closer league, and assembled their forces +on the upper Sambre. Celtic spies informed them most accurately +of the movements of the Roman army; their own local knowledge, +and the high tree-barricades which were formed everywhere in these +districts to obstruct the bands of mounted robbers who often +visited them, allowed the allies to conceal their own operations +for the most part from the view of the Romans. When these arrived +on the Sambre not far from Bavay, and the legions were occupied +in pitching their camp on the crest of the left bank, while +the cavalry and light infantry were exploring the opposite heights, +the latter were all at once assailed by the whole mass of the enemy's +forces and driven down the hill into the river. In a moment +the enemy had crossed this also, and stormed the heights of the left +bank with a determination that braved death. Scarcely was there +time left for the entrenching legionaries to exchange the mattock +for the sword; the soldiers, many without helmets, had to fight +just as they stood, without line of battle, without plan, without +proper command; for, owing to the suddenness of the attack +and the intersection of the ground by tall hedges, the several +divisions had wholly lost their communications. Instead of a battle +there arose a number of unconnected conflicts. Labienus with the left +wing overthrew the Atrebates and pursued them even across +the river. The Roman central division forced the Viromandui down +the declivity. But the right wing, where the general himself +was present, was outflanked by the far more numerous Nervii +the more easily, as the central division carried away by its +own success had evacuated the ground alongside of it, and even +the half-ready camp was occupied by the Nervii; the two legions, +each separately rolled together into a dense mass and assailed +in front and on both flanks, deprived of most of their officers +and their best soldiers, appeared on the point of being broken and cut +to pieces. The Roman camp-followers and the allied troops were already +fleeing in all directions; of the Celtic cavalry whole divisions, +like the contingent of the Treveri, galloped off at full speed, +that from the battle-field itself they might announce at home +the welcome news of the defeat which had been sustained. Everything +was at stake. The general himself seized his shield and fought +among the foremost; his example, his call even now inspiring enthusiasm, +induced the wavering ranks to rally. They had already in some +measure extricated themselves and had at least restored the connection +between the two legions of this wing, when help came up-- +partly down from the crest of the bank, where in the interval +the Roman rearguard with the baggage had arrived, partly +from the other bank of the river, where Labienus had meanwhile penetrated +to the enemy's camp and taken possession of it, and now, perceiving +at length the danger that menaced the right wing, despatched +the victorious tenth legion to the aid of his general. The Nervii, +separated from their confederates and simultaneously assailed +on all sides, now showed, when fortune turned, the same heroic courage +as when they believed themselves victors; still over the pile +of corpses of their fallen comrades they fought to the last man. +According to their own statement, of their six hundred senators +only three survived this day. + +Subjugation of the Belgae + +After this annihilating defeat the Nervii, Atrebates, and Viromandui +could not but recognize the Roman supremacy. The Aduatuci, who arrived +too late to take part in the fight on the Sambre, attempted still to hold +their ground in the strongest of their towns (on the mount Falhize +near the Maas not far from Huy), but they too soon submitted. A nocturnal +attack on the Roman camp in front of the town, which they ventured +after the surrender, miscarried; and the perfidy was avenged +by the Romans with fearful severity. The clients of the Aduatuci, +consisting of the Eburones between the Maas and Rhine and other +small adjoining tribes, were declared independent by the Romans, +while the Aduatuci taken prisoners were sold under the hammer en masse +for the benefit of the Roman treasury. It seemed as if the fate +which had befallen the Cimbri still pursued even this last +Cimbrian fragment. Caesar contented himself with imposing +on the other subdued tribes a general disarmament and furnishing +of hostages. The Remi became naturally the leading canton +in Belgic, like the Haedui in central Gaul; even in the latter +several clans at enmity with the Haedui preferred to rank +among the clients of the Remi. Only the remote maritime +cantons of the Morini (Artois) and the Menapii (Flanders and Brabant), +and the country between the Scheldt and the Rhine inhabited in great +part by Germans, remained still for the present exempt from Roman +invasion and in possession of their hereditary freedom. + +Expeditions against the Maritime Cantons +Venetian War + +The turn of the Aremorican cantons came. In the autumn of 697 +Publius Crassus was sent thither with a Roman corps; he induced +the Veneti--who as masters of the ports of the modern Morbihan +and of a respectable fleet occupied the first place among all +the Celtic cantons in navigation and commerce--and generally +the coast-districts between the Loire and Seine, to submit +to the Romans and give them hostages. But they soon repented. +When in the following winter (697-698) Roman officers +came to these legions to levy requisitions of grain there, +they were detained by the Veneti as counter-hostages. The example +thus set was quickly followed not only by the Aremorican cantons, +but also by the maritime cantons of the Belgae that still remained +free; where, as in some cantons of Normandy, the common council +refused to join the insurrection, the multitude put them to death +and attached itself with redoubled zeal to the national cause. +The whole coast from the mouth of the Loire to that of the Rhine +rose against Rome; the most resolute patriots from all the Celtic +cantons hastened thither to co-operate in the great work of liberation; +they already calculated on the rising of the whole Belgic confederacy, +on aid from Britain, on the arrival of Germans from beyond the Rhine. + +Caesar sent Labienus with all the cavalry to the Rhine, with a view +to hold in check the agitation in the Belgic province, and in case +of need to prevent the Germans from crossing the river; another +of his lieutenants, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, went with three legions +to Normandy, where the main body of the insurgents assembled. +But the powerful and intelligent Veneti were the true centre +of the insurrection; the chief attack by land and sea was directed +against them. Caesar's lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, brought up +the fleet formed partly of the ships of the subject Celtic cantons, +partly of a number of Roman galleys hastily built on the Loire +and manned with rowers from the Narbonese province; Caesar himself +advanced with the flower of his infantry into the territory of the Veneti. +But these were prepared beforehand, and had with equal skill +and resolution availed themselves of the favourable circumstances +which the nature of the ground in Brittany and the possession +of a considerable naval power presented. The country was much +intersected and poorly furnished with grain, the towns +were situated for the most part on cliffs and tongues of land, +and were accessible from the mainland only by shallows which it was +difficult to cross; the provision of supplies and the conducting +of sieges were equally difficult for the army attacking by land, +while the Celts by means of their vessels could furnish the towns +easily with everything needful, and in the event of the worst could +accomplish their evacuation. The legions expended their time +and strength in the sieges of the Venetian townships, only to see +the substantial fruits of victory ultimately carried off in the vessels +of the enemy. + +Naval Battle between the Romans and the Veneti +Submission of the Maritime Cantons + +Accordingly when the Roman fleet, long detained by storms +at the mouth of the Loire, arrived at length on the coast of Brittany, +it was left to decide the struggle by a naval battle. The Celts, +conscious of their superiority on this element, brought forth their +fleet against that of the Romans commanded by Brutus. Not only +did it number 220 sail, far more than the Romans had been able +to bring up, but their high-decked strong sailing-vessels with flat +bottoms were also far better adapted for the high-running waves +of the Atlantic Ocean than the low, lightly-built oared galleys +of the Romans with their sharp keels. Neither the missiles +nor the boarding-bridges of the Romans could reach the high deck +of the enemy's vessels, and the iron beaks recoiled powerless +from the strong oaken planks. But the Roman mariners cut the ropes, +by which the yards were fastened to the masts, by means of sickles +fastened to long poles; the yards and sails fell down, and, as they +did not know how to repair the damage speedily, the ship was thus +rendered a wreck just as it is at the present day by the falling +of the masts, and the Roman boats easily succeeded by a joint attack +in mastering the maimed vessel of the enemy. When the Gauls +perceived this manoeuvre, they attempted to move from the coast +on which they had taken up the combat with the Romans, and to gain +the high seas, whither the Roman galleys could not follow them; +but unhappily for them there suddenly set in a dead calm, +and the immense fleet, towards the equipment of which the maritime +cantons had applied all their energies, was almost wholly destroyed +by the Romans. Thus was this naval battle--so far as historical +knowledge reaches, the earliest fought on the Atlantic Ocean-- +just like the engagement at Mylae two hundred years before,(39) +notwithstanding the most unfavourable circumstances, decided in favour +of the Romans by a lucky invention suggested by necessity. +The consequence of the victory achieved by Brutus was the surrender +of the Veneti and of all Brittany. More with a view to impress +the Celtic nation, after so manifold evidences of clemency towards +the vanquished, by an example of fearful severity now against those +whose resistance had been obstinate, than with the view of punishing +the breach of treaty and the arrest of the Roman officers, Caesar +caused the whole common council to be executed and the people +of the Venetian canton to the last man to be sold into slavery. +By this dreadful fate, as well as by their intelligence +and their patriotism, the Veneti have more than any other Celtic clan +acquired a title to the sympathy of posterity. + +Sabinus meanwhile opposed to the levy of the coast-states assembled +on the Channel the same tactics by which Caesar had in the previous +year conquered the Belgic general levy on the Aisne; he stood +on the defensive till impatience and want invaded the ranks of the enemy, +and then managed by deceiving them as to the temper and strength +of his troops, and above all by means of their own impatience, +to allure them to an imprudent assault upon the Roman camp, in which +they were defeated; whereupon the militia dispersed and the country +as far as the Seine submitted. + +Expeditins against the Morini and Menapii + +The Morini and Menapii alone persevered in withholding their +recognition of the Roman supremacy. To compel them to this, Caesar +appeared on their borders; but, rendered wiser by the experiences +of their countrymen, they avoided accepting battle on the borders +of their land, and retired into the forests which then stretched +almost without interruption from the Ardennes towards the German +Ocean. The Romans attempted to make a road through the forest +with the axe, ranging the felled trees on each side as a barricade +against the enemy's attacks; but even Caesar, daring as he was, +found it advisable after some days of most laborious marching, +especially as it was verging towards winter, to order a retreat, +although but a small portion of the Morini had submitted and the powerful +Menapii had not been reached at all. In the following year (699) +while Caesar himself was employed in Britain the greater part +of the army was sent afresh against these tribes; but this expedition +also remained in the main unsuccessful. Nevertheless the result +of the last campaigns was the almost complete reduction of Gaul +under the dominion of the Romans. While central Gaul had submitted +to it without resistance, during the campaign of 697 the Belgic, +and during that of the following year the maritime, cantons +had been compelled by force of arms to acknowledge the Roman rule. +The lofty hopes, with which the Celtic patriots had begun +the last campaign, had nowhere been fulfilled. Neither Germans +nor Britons had come to their aid; and in Belgica the presence +of Labienus had sufficed to prevent the renewal of the conflicts +of the previous year. + +Establishment of Communications with Italy by the Valais + +While Caesar was thus forming the Roman domain in the west by force +of arms into a compact whole, he did not neglect to open up +for the newly-conquered country--which was destined in fact to fill up +the wide gap in that domain between Italy and Spain-communications both +with the Italian home and with the Spanish provinces. The communication +between Gaul and Italy had certainly been materially facilitated +by the military road laid out by Pompeius in 677 over Mont Genevre;(40) +but since the whole of Gaul had been subdued by the Romans, there was +need of a route crossing the ridge of the Alps from the valley of the Po, +not in a westerly but in a northerly direction, and furnishing a shorter +communication between Italy and central Gaul. The way which leads over +the Great St. Bernard into the Valais and along the lake of Geneva +had long served the merchant for this purpose; to get this road +into his power, Caesar as early as the autumn of 697 caused Octodurum +(Martigny) to be occupied by Servius Galba, and the inhabitants +of the Valais to be reduced to subjection--a result which was, +of course, merely postponed, not prevented, by the brave resistance +of these mountain-peoples. + +And with Spain + +To gain communication with Spain, moreover, Publius Crassus +was sent in the following year (698) to Aquitania with instructions +to compel the Iberian tribes dwelling there to acknowledge the Roman +rule. The task was not without difficulty; the Iberians held +together more compactly than the Celts and knew better than these +how to learn from their enemies. The tribes beyond the Pyrenees, +especially the valiant Cantabri, sent a contingent to their +threatened countrymen; with this there came experienced officers +trained under the leadership of Sertorius in the Roman fashion, +who introduced as far as possible the principles of the Roman art +of war, and especially of encampment, among the Aquitanian levy +already respectable from its numbers and its valour. +But the excellent officer who led the Romans knew how to surmount +all difficulties, and after some hardly-contested but successful +battles he induced the peoples from the Garonne to the vicinity +of the Pyrenees to submit to the new masters. + +Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans +The Usipetes and Tencteri + +One of the objects which Caesar had proposed to himself-- +the subjugation of Gaul--had been in substance, with exceptions +scarcely worth mentioning, attained so far as it could be attained +at all by the sword. But the other half of the work undertaken +by Caesar was still far from being satisfactorily accomplished, +and the Germans had by no means as yet been everywhere compelled +to recognize the Rhine as their limit. Even now, in the winter +of 698-699, a fresh crossing of the boundary had taken place +on the lower course of the river, whither the Romans had not yet +penetrated. The German tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri +whose attempts to cross the Rhine in the territory of the Menapii +have been already mentioned,(41) had at length, eluding the vigilance +of their opponents by a feigned retreat, crossed in the vessels +belonging to the Menapii--an enormous host, which is said, +including women and children, to have amounted to 430,000 persons. +They still lay, apparently, in the region of Nimeguen and Cleves; +but it was said that, following the invitations of the Celtic +patriot party, they intended to advance into the interior of Gaul; +and the rumour was confirmed by the fact that bands of their +horsemen already roamed as far as the borders of the Treveri. +But when Caesar with his legions arrived opposite to them, the sorely- +harassed emigrants seemed not desirous of fresh conflicts, +but very ready to accept land from the Romans and to till it in peace +under their supremacy. While negotiations as to this were going on, +a suspicion arose in the mind of the Roman general that the Germans +only sought to gain time till the bands of horsemen sent out +by them had returned. Whether this suspicion was well founded or not, +we cannot tell; but confirmed in it by an attack, which in spite +of the de facto suspension of arms a troop of the enemy made +on his vanguard, and exasperated by the severe loss thereby sustained, +Caesar believed himself entitled to disregard every consideration +of international law. When on the second morning the princes +and elders of the Germans appeared in the Roman camp to apologize +for the attack made without their knowledge, they were arrested, +and the multitude anticipating no assault and deprived of their leaders +were suddenly fallen upon by the Roman army. It was rather a manhunt +than a battle; those that did not fall under the swords of the Romans +were drowned in the Rhine; almost none but the divisions detached +at the time of the attack escaped the massacre and succeeded +in recrossing the Rhine, where the Sugambri gave them an asylu +in their territory, apparently on the Lippe. The behaviour of Caesar +towards these German immigrants met with severe and just censure +in the senate; but, however little it can be excused, the German +encroachments were emphatically checked by the terror +which it occasioned. + +Caesar on the Right Bank of the Rhine + +Caesar however found it advisable to take yet a further step +and to lead the legions over the Rhine. He was not without connections +beyond the river. the Germans at the stage of culture +which they had then reached, lacked as yet any national coherence; +in political distraction they--though from other causes--fell nothing +short of the Celts. The Ubii (on the Sieg and Lahn), the most +civilized among the German tribes, had recently been made subject +and tributary by a powerful Suebian canton of the interior, and had +as early as 697 through their envoys entreated Caesar to free them +like the Gauls from the Suebian rule. It was not Caesar's design +seriously to respond to this suggestion, which would have involved +him in endless enterprises; but it seemed advisable, with the view +of preventing the appearance of the Germanic arms on the south +of the Rhine, at least to show the Roman arms beyond it. The protection +which the fugitive Usipetes and Tencteri had found among the Sugambri +afforded a suitable occasion. In the region, apparently between +Coblentz and Andernach, Caesar erected a bridge of piles over the Rhine +and led his legions across from the Treverian to the Ubian territory. +Some smaller cantons gave in their submission; but the Sugambri, +against whom the expedition was primarily directed, withdrew, +on the approach of the Roman army, with those under their protection +into the interior. In like manner the powerful Suebian canton +which oppressed the Ubii--presumably the same which subsequently +appears under the name of the Chatti--caused the districts immediately +adjoining the Ubian territory to be evacuated and the non-combatant +portion of the people to be placed in safety, while all the men +capable of arms were directed to assemble at the centre of the canton. +The Roman general had neither occasion nor desire to accept +this challenge; his object--partly to reconnoitre, partly to produce +an impressive effect if possible upon the Germans, or at least +on the Celts and his countrymen at home, by an expedition +over the Rhine--was substantially attained; after remaining +eighteen days on the right bank of the Rhine he again arrived +in Gaul and broke down the Rhine bridge behind him (699). + +Expeditions to Britain + +There remained the insular Celts. From the close connection +between them and the Celts of the continent, especially +the maritime cantons, it may readily be conceived that they had +at least sympathized with the national resistance, and that if they +did not grant armed assistance to the patriots, they gave at any rate +an honourable asylum in their sea-protected isle to every one +who was no longer safe in his native land. This certainly involved +a danger, if not for the present, at any rate for the future; it +seemed judicious--if not to undertake the conquest of the island +itself--at any rate to conduct there also defensive operations +by offensive means, and to show the islanders by a landing +on the coast that the arm of the Romans reached even across the Channel. +The first Roman officer who entered Brittany, Publius Crassus +had already (697) crossed thence to the "tin-islands" at the south-west +point of England (Stilly islands); in the summer of 699 Caesar +himself with only two legions crossed the Channel at its narrowest +part.(42) He found the coast covered with masses of the enemy's +troops and sailed onward with his vessels; but the British war- +chariots moved on quite as fast by land as the Roman galleys +by sea, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that the Roman +soldiers succeeded in gaining the shore in the face of the enemy, +partly by wading, partly in boats, under the protection +of the ships of war, which swept the beach with missiles thrown +from machines and by the hand. In the first alarm the nearest villages +submitted; but the islanders soon perceived how weak the enemy was, +and how he did not venture to move far from the shore. The natives +disappeared into the interior and returned only to threaten +the camp; and the fleet, which had been left in the open roads, +suffered very considerable damage from the first tempest +that burst upon it. The Romans had to reckon themselves fortunate +in repelling the attacks of the barbarians till they had bestowed +the necessary repairs on the ships, and in regaining with these +the Gallic coast before the bad season of the year came on. + +Caesar himself was so dissatisfied with the results of this expedition +undertaken inconsiderately and with inadequate means, that he immediately +(in the winter of 699-700) ordered a transport fleet of 800 sail +to be fitted out, and in the spring of 700 sailed a second time +for the Kentish coast, on this occasion with five legions +and 2000 cavalry. The forces of the Britons, assembled +this time also on the shore, retired before the mighty armada +without risking a battle; Caesar immediately set out on his march +into the interior, and after some successful conflicts crossed +the river Stour; but he was obliged to halt very much against his will, +because the fleet in the open roads had been again half destroyed +by the storms of the Channel. Before they got the ships drawn +up upon the beach and the extensive arrangements made +for their repair, precious time was lost, which the Celts wisely +turned to account. + +Cassivellaunus + +The brave and cautious prince Cassivellaunus, who ruled in what +is now Middlesex and the surrounding district--formerly the terror +of the Celts to the south of the Thames, but now the protector +and champion of the whole nation--had headed the defence of the land. +He soon saw that nothing at all could be done with the Celtic +infantry against the Roman, and that the mass of the general levy-- +which it was difficult to feed and difficult to control--was only +a hindrance to the defence; he therefore dismissed it and retained +only the war-chariots, of which he collected 4000, and in which +the warriors, accustomed to leap down from their chariots and fight +on foot, could be employed in a twofold manner like the burgess- +cavalry of the earliest Rome. When Caesar was once more able +to continue his march, he met with no interruption to it; +but the British war-chariots moved always in front and alongside +of the Roman army, induced the evacuation of the country +(which from the absence of towns proved no great difficulty), +prevented the sending out of detachments, and threatened +the communications. The Thames was crossed--apparently +between Kingston and Brentford above London--by the Romans; +they moved forward, but made no real progress; the general achieved +no victory, the soldiers made no booty, and the only actual result, +the submission of the Trinobante in the modern Essex, was less +the effect of a dread of the Romans than of the deep hostility +between this canton and Cassivellaunus. The danger increased +with every onward step, and the attack, which the princes of Kent +by the orders of Cassivellaunus made on the Roman naval camp, +although it was repulsed, was an urgent warning to turn back. +The taking by storm of a great British tree-barricade, +in which a multitude of cattle fell into the hands of the Romans, +furnished a passable conclusion to the aimless advance and a tolerable +pretext for returning. Cassivellaunus was sagacious enough +not to drive the dangerous enemy to extremities, and promised, +as Caesar desired him, to abstain from disturbing the Trinobantes, +to pay tribute and to furnish hostages; nothing was said +of delivering up arms or leaving behind a Roman garrison, +and even those promises were, it may be presumed, so far as +they concerned the future, neither given nor received in earnest. +After receiving the hostages Caesar returned to the naval camp +and thence to Gaul. If he, as it would certainly seem, +had hoped on this occasion to conquer Britain, the scheme +was totally thwarted partly by the wise defensive system +of Cassivellaunus, partly and chiefly by the unserviceableness +of the Italian oared fleet in the waters of the North Sea; +for it is certain that the stipulated tribute was never paid. +But the immediate object--of rousing the islanders out of their haughty +security and inducing them in their own interest no longer to allow +their island to be a rendezvous for continental emigrants-- +seems certainly to have been attained; at least no complaints +are afterwards heard as to the bestowal of such protection. + +The Conspiracy of the Patriots + +The work of repelling the Germanic invasion and of subduing +the continental Celts was completed. But it is often easier +to subdue a free nation than to keep a subdued one in subjection. +The rivalry for the hegemony, by which more even than by the attacks +of Rome the Celtic nation had been ruined, was in some measure set +aside by the conquest, inasmuch as the conqueror took the hegemony +to himself. Separate interests were silent; under the common +oppression at any rate they felt themselves again as one people; +and the infinite value of that which they had with indifference +gambled away when they possessed it--freedom and nationality-- +was now, when it was too late, fully appreciated by their infinite +longing. But was it, then, too late? With indignant shame they +confessed to themselves that a nation, which numbered at least +a million of men capable of arms, a nation of ancient and well- +founded warlike renown, had allowed the yoke to be imposed upon it +by, at the most, 50,000 Romans. The submission of the confederacy +of central Gaul without having struck even a blow; the submission +of the Belgic confederacy without having done more than merely +shown a wish to strike; the heroic fall on the other hand +of the Nervii and the Veneti, the sagacious and successful resistance +of the Morini, and of the Britons under Cassivellaunus-- +all that in each case had been done or neglected, had failed +or had succeeded--spurred the minds of the patriots to new attempts, +if possible, more united and more successful. Especially +among the Celtic nobility there prevailed an excitement, which seemed +every moment as if it must break out into a general insurrection. +Even before the second expedition to Britain in the spring of 700 Caesar +had found it necessary to go in person to the Treveri, who, +since they had compromised themselves in the Nervian conflict in 697, +had no longer appeared at the general diets and had formed more than +suspicious connections with the Germans beyond the Rhine. At that +time Caesar had contented himself with carrying the men of most +note among the patriot party, particularly Indutiomarus, along +with him to Britain in the ranks of the Treverian cavalry-contingent; +he did his utmost to overlook the conspiracy, that he might not +by strict measures ripen it into insurrection. But when the Haeduan +Dumnorix, who likewise was present in the army destined for Britain, +nominally as a cavalry officer, but really as a hostage, +peremptorily refused to embark and rode home instead, Caesar could +not do otherwise than have him pursued as a deserter; he was accordingly +overtaken by the division sent after him and, when he stood +on his defence, was cut down (700). That the most esteemed knight +of the most powerful and still the least dependent of the Celtic cantons +should have been put to death by the Romans, was a thunder-clap +for the whole Celtic nobility; every one who was conscious +of similar sentiments--and they formed the great majority-- +saw in that catastrophe the picture of what was in store for himself. + +Insurrection + +If patriotism and despair had induced the heads of the Celtic +nobility to conspire, fear and self-defence now drove the conspirators +to strike. In the winter of 700-701, with the exception of a legion +stationed in Brittany and a second in the very unsettled canton +of the Carnutes (near Chartres), the whole Roman army numbering six +legions was encamped in the Belgic territory. The scantiness +of the supplies of grain had induced Caesar to station his troops +farther apart than he was otherwise wont to do--in six different +camps constructed in the cantons of the Bellovaci, Ambiani, Morini, +Nervii, Remi, and Eburones. The fixed camp placed farthest towards +the east in the territory of the Eburones, probably not far +from the later Aduatuca (the modern Tongern), the strongest of all, +consisting of a legion under one of the most respected of Caesar's +leaders of division, Quintus Titurius Sabinus, besides different +detachments led by the brave Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta(43) and amounting +together to the strength of half a legion, found itself all of a sudden +surrounded by the general levy of the Eburones under the kings Ambiorix +and Catuvolcus. The attack came so unexpectedly, that the very men +absent from the camp could not be recalled and were cut off +by the enemy; otherwise the immediate danger was not great, +as there was no lack of provisions, and the assault, which the Eburones +attempted, recoiled powerless from the Roman intrenchments. +But king Ambiorix informed the Roman commander that all the Roman camps +in Gaul were similarly assailed on the same day, and that the Romans +would undoubtedly be lost if the several corps did not quickly set out +and effect a junction; that Sabinus had the more reason to make haste, +as the Germans too from beyond the Rhine were already advancing +against him; that he himself out of friendship for the Romans +would promise them a free retreat as far as the nearest +Roman camp, only two days' march distant. Some things +in these statements seemed no fiction; that the little canton +of the Eburones specially favoured by the Romans(44) should have +undertaken the attack of its own accord was in reality incredible, +and, owing to the difficulty of effecting a communication with the other +far-distant camps, the danger of being attacked by the whole +mass of the insurgents and destroyed in detail was by no means +to be esteemed slight; nevertheless it could not admit of the smallest +doubt that both honour and prudence required them to reject +the capitulation offered by the enemy and to maintain the post +entrusted to them. Yet, although in the council of war numerous +voices and especially the weighty voice of Lucius Aurunculeius +Cotta supported this view, the commandant determined to accept +the proposal of Ambiorix. The Roman troops accordingly marched +off next morning; but when they had arrived at a narrow valley about +two miles from the camp they found themselves surrounded +by the Eburones and every outlet blocked. They attempted to open +a way for themselves by force of arms; but the Eburones would not enter +into any close combat, and contented themselves with discharging +their missiles from their unassailable positions into the dense +mass of the Romans. Bewildered, as if seeking deliverance +from treachery at the hands of the traitor, Sabinus requested +a conference with Ambiorix; it was granted, and he and the officers +accompanying him were first disarmed and then slain. After the fall +of the commander the Eburones threw themselves from all sides +at once on the exhausted and despairing Romans, and broke their +ranks; most of them, including Cotta who had already been wounded, +met their death in this attack; a small portion, who had succeeded +in regaining the abandoned camp, flung themselves on their own +swords during the following night. The whole corps was annihilated. + +Cicero Attacked + +This success, such as the insurgents themselves had hardly ventured +to hope for, increased the ferment among the Celtic patriots +so greatly that the Romans were no longer sure of a single district +with the exception of the Haedui and Remi, and the insurrection +broke out at the most diverse points. First of all the Eburones +followed up their victory. Reinforced by the levy of the Aduatuci, +who gladly embraced the opportunity of requiting the injury done +to them by Caesar, and of the powerful and still unsubdued Menapii, +they appeared in the territory of the Nervii, who immediately +joined them, and the whole host thus swelled to 60,000 moved +forward to confront the Roman camp formed in the Nervian canton. +Quintus Cicero, who commanded there, had with his weak corps +a difficult position, especially as the besiegers, learning from the foe, +constructed ramparts and trenches, -testudines- and moveable towers +after the Roman fashion, and showered fire-balls and burning +spears over the straw-covered huts of the camp. The only hope +of the besieged rested on Caesar, who lay not so very far off +with three legions in his winter encampment in the region of Amiens. +But--a significant proof of the feeling that prevailed in Gaul- +for a considerable time not the slightest hint reached the general +either of the disaster of Sabinus or of the perilous +situation of Cicero. + +Caesar Proceeds to His Relief +The Insurrection Checked + +At length a Celtic horseman from Cicero's camp succeeded +in stealing through the enemy to Caesar. On receiving the startling +news Caesar immediately set out, although only with two weak +legions, together numbering about 7000, and 400 horsemen; +nevertheless the announcement that Caesar was advancing sufficed +to induce the insurgents to raise the siege. It was time; +not one tenth of the men in Cicero's camp remained unwounded. +Caesar, against whom the insurgent army had turned, deceived the enemy, +in the way which he had already on several occasions successfully +applied, as to his strength; under the most unfavourable +circumstances they ventured an assault upon the Roman camp +and in doing so suffered a defeat. It is singular, but characteristic +of the Celtic nation, that in consequence of this one lost battle, +or perhaps rather in consequence of Caesar's appearance in person +on the scene of conflict, the insurrection, which had commenced +so victoriously and extended so widely, suddenly and pitiably broke +off the war. The Nervii, Menapii, Aduatuci, Eburones, returned +to their homes. The forces of the maritime cantons, who had made +preparations for assailing the legion in Brittany, did the same. +The Treveri, through whose leader Indutiomarus the Eburones, +the clients of the powerful neighbouring canton, had been chiefly +induced to that so successful attack, had taken arms on the news +of the disaster of Aduatuca and advanced into the territory +of the Remi with the view of attacking the legion cantoned there +under the command of Labienus; they too desisted for the present +from continuing the struggle. Caesar not unwillingly postponed +farther measures against the revolted districts till the spring, +in order not to expose his troops which had suffered much to the whole +severity of the Gallic winter, and with the view of only reappearing +in the field when the fifteen cohorts destroyed should have +been replaced in an imposing manner by the levy of thirty new +cohorts which he had ordered. The insurrection meanwhile pursued +its course, although there was for the moment a suspension of arms. +Its chief seats in central Gaul were, partly the districts +of the Carnutes and the neighbouring Senones (about Sens), the latter +of whom drove the king appointed by Caesar out of their country; +partly the region of the Treveri, who invited the whole Celtic +emigrants and the Germans beyond the Rhine to take part +in the impending national war, and called out their whole force, +with a view to advance in the spring a second time into the territory +of the Remi, to capture the corps of Labienus, and to seek +a communication with the insurgents on the Seine and Loire. +The deputies of these three cantons remained absent from the diet +convoked by Caesar in central Gaul, and thereby declared war just +as openly as a part of the Belgic cantons had done by the attacks +on the camps of Sabinus and Cicero. + +And Suppressed + +The winter was drawing to a close when Caesar set out +with his army, which meanwhile had been considerably reinforced, +against the insurgents. The attempts of the Treveri to concentrate +the revolt had not succeeded; the agitated districts were kept in check +by the marching in of Roman troops, and those in open rebellion +were attacked in detail. First the Nervii were routed by Caesar +in person. The Senones and Carnutes met the same fate. The Menapii, +the only canton which had never submitted to the Romans, +were compelled by a grand attack simultaneously directed against them +from three sides to renounce their long-preserved freedom. +Labienus meanwhile was preparing the same fate for the Treveri. +Their first attack had been paralyzed, partly by the refusal +of the adjoining German tribes to furnish them with mercenaries, +partly by the fact that Indutiomarus, the soul of the whole movement +had fallen in a skirmish with the cavalry of Labienus. But they did +not on this account abandon their projects. With their whole levy +they appeared in front of Labienus and waited for the German bands +that were to follow, for their recruiting agents found a better +reception than they had met with from the dwellers on the Rhine, +among the warlike tribes of the interior of Germany, especially, +as it would appear, among the Chatti. But when Labienus seemed +as if he wished to avoid these and to march off in all haste, the Treveri +attacked the Romans even before the Germans arrived and in a most +unfavourable spot, and were completely defeated. Nothing remained +for the Germans who came up too late but to return, nothing for +the Treverian canton but to submit; its government reverted to the head +of the Roman party Cingetorix, the son-in-law of Indutiomarus. +After these expeditions of Caesar against the Menapii and of Labienus +against the Treveri the whole Roman army was again united +in the territory of the latter. With the view of rendering +the Germans disinclined to come back, Caesar once more crossed +the Rhine, in order if possible to strike an emphatic blow against +the troublesome neighbours; but, as the Chatti, faithful to their +tried tactics, assembled not on their western boundary, +but far in the interior, apparently at the Harz mountains, +for the defence of the land, he immediately turned back and contented +himself with leaving behind a garrison at the passage of the Rhine. + +Retaliatory Expedition against the Eburones + +Accounts had thus been settled with all the tribes that took part +in the rising; the Eburones alone were passed over but not forgotten. +Since Caesar had met with the disaster of Aduatuca, he had worn +mourning and had sworn that he would only lay it aside +when he should have avenged his soldiers, who had not fallen +in honourable war, but had been treacherously murdered. +Helpless and passive the Eburones sat in their huts and looked on +as the neighbouring cantons one after another submitted to the Romans, +till the Roman cavalry from the Treverian territory advanced +through the Ardennes into their land. So little were they prepared +for the attack, that the cavalry had almost seized the king +Ambiorix in his house; with great difficulty, while his attendants +sacrificed themselves on his behalf, he escaped into the neighbouring +thicket. Ten Roman legions soon followed the cavalry. +At the same time a summons was issued to the surrounding tribes +to hunt the outlawed Eburones and pillage their land in concert +with the Roman soldiers; not a few complied with the call, including +even an audacious band of Sugambrian horsemen from the other side +of the Rhine, who for that matter treated the Romans no better than +the Eburones, and had almost by a daring coup de main surprised +the Roman camp at Aduatuca. The fate of the Eburones was dreadful. +However they might hide themselves in forests and morasses, +there were more hunters than game. Many put themselves to death +like the gray-haired prince Catuvolcus; only a few saved life +and liberty, but among these few was the man whom the Romans sought +above all to seize, the prince Ambiorix; with but four horsemen +he escaped over the Rhine. This execution against the canton +which had transgressed above all the rest was followed in the other +districts by processes of high treason against individuals. The season +for clemency was past. At the bidding of the Roman proconsul +the eminent Carnutic knight Acco was beheaded by Roman lictors +(701) and the rule of the -fasces- was thus formally inaugurated. +Opposition was silent; tranquillity everywhere prevailed. Caesar +went as he was wont towards the end of the year (701) over the Alps, +that through the winter he might observe more closely +the daily-increasing complications in the capital. + +Second Insurrection + +The sagacious calculator had on this occasion miscalculated. +The fire was smothered, but not extinguished. The stroke, +under which the head of Acco fell, was felt by the whole Celtic nobility. +At this very moment the position of affairs presented better prospects +than ever. The insurrection of the last winter had evidently failed +only through Caesar himself appearing on the scene of action; +now he was at a distance, detained on the Po by the imminence +of civil war, and the Gallic army, which was collected on the upper Seine, +was far separated from its dreaded leader. If a general insurrection +now broke out in central Gaul, the Roman army might be surrounded, +and the almost undefended old Roman province be overrun before Caesar +reappeared beyond the Alps, even if the Italian complications +did not altogether prevent him from further concerning himself about Gaul. + +The Carnutes +The Arverni + +Conspirators from all the cantons of central Gaul assembled; +the Carnutes, as most directly affected by the execution of Acco, +offered to take the lead. On a set day in the winter of 701-702 +the Carnutic knights Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus gave at Cenabum +(Orleans) the signal for the rising, and put to death in a body +the Romans who happened to be there. The most vehement agitation +seized the length and breadth of the great Celtic land; the patriots +everywhere bestirred themselves. But nothing stirred the nation +so deeply as the insurrection of the Arverni. The government +of this community, which had formerly under its kings been the first +in southern Gaul, and had still after the fall of its principality +occasioned by the unfortunate wars against Rome(45) continued to be +one of the wealthiest, most civilized, and most powerful in all Gaul, +had hitherto inviolably adhered to Rome. Even now the patriot party +in the governing common council was in the minority; an attempt +to induce it to join the insurrection was in vain. The attacks +of the patriots were therefore directed against the common council +and the existing constitution itself; and the more so, that the change +of constitution which among the Arverni had substituted the common +council for the prince(46) had taken place after the victories +of the Romans and probably under their influence. + +Vercingetorix + +The leader of the Arvernian patriots Vercingetorix, one of those +nobles whom we meet with among the Celts, of almost regal repute +in and beyond his canton, and a stately, brave, sagacious man +to boot, left the capital and summoned the country people, +who were as hostile to the ruling oligarchy as to the Romans, at once +to re-establish the Arvernian monarchy and to go to war with Rome. +The multitude quickly joined him; the restoration of the throne +of Luerius and Betuitus was at the same time the declaration +of a national war against Rome. The centre of unity, +from the want of which all previous attempts of the nation +to shake off the foreign yoke had failed, was now found +in the new self-nominated king of the Arverni. Vercingetorix +became for the Celts of the continent what Cassivellaunus +was for the insular Celts; the feeling strongly pervaded the masses +that he, if any one, was the man to save the nation. + +Spread of the Insurrection +Appearance of Caesar + +The west from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Seine +was rapidly infected by the insurrection, and Vercingetorix +was recognized by all the cantons there as commander-in-chief; +where the common council made any difficulty, the multitude compelled +it to join the movement; only a few cantons, such as that +of the Bituriges, required compulsion to join it, and these perhaps +only for appearance' sake. The insurrection found a less favourable +soil in the regions to the east of the upper Loire. Everything +here depended on the Haedui; and these wavered. The patriotic +party was very strong in this canton; but the old antagonism +to the leading of the Arverni counterbalanced their influence-- +to the most serious detriment of the insurrection, as the accession +of the eastern cantons, particularly of the Sequani and Helvetii, +was conditional on the accession of the Haedui, and generally +in this part of Gaul the decision rested with them. While the insurgents +were thus labouring partly to induce the cantons that still +hesitated, especially the Haedui, to join them, partly to get +possession of Narbo--one of their leaders, the daring Lucterius, +had already appeared on the Tarn within the limits of the old +province--the Roman commander-in-chief suddenly presented himself +in the depth of winter, unexpected alike by friend and foe, +on this side of the Alps. He quickly made the necessary preparations +to cover the old province, and not only so, but sent also a corps +over the snow-covered Cevennes into the Arvernian territory; +but he could not remain here, where the accession of the Haedui +to the Gallic alliance might any moment cut him off from his army +encamped about Sens and Langres. With all secrecy he went to Vienna, +and thence, attended by only a few horsemen, through the territory +of the Haedui to his troops. The hopes, which had induced +the conspirators to declare themselves, vanished; peace continued +in Italy, and Caesar stood once more at the head of his army. + +The Gallic Plan of War + +But what were they to do? It was folly under such circumstances +to let the matter come to the decision of arms; for these had already +decidedly irrevocably. They might as well attempt to shake +the Alps by throwing stones at them as to shake the legions by means +of the Celtic bands, whether these might be congregated in huge +masses or sacrificed in detail canton after canton. Vercingetorix +despaired of defeating the Romans. He adopted a system of warfare +similar to that by which Cassivellaunus had saved the insular +Celts. The Roman infantry was not to be vanquished; but Caesar's +cavalry consisted almost exclusively of the contingent +of the Celtic nobility, and was practically dissolved by the general +revolt. It was possible for the insurrection, which was in fact +essentially composed of the Celtic nobility, to develop such +a superiority in this arm, that it could lay waste the land far +and wide, burn down towns and villages, destroy the magazines, +and endanger the supplies and the communications of the enemy, +without his being able seriously to hinder it. Vercingetorix +accordingly directed all his efforts to the increase of his cavalry, +and of the infantry-archers who were according to the mode of fighting +of that time regularly associated with it. He did not send the immense +and self-obstructing masses of the militia of the line to their homes, +but he did not allow them to face the enemy, and attempted +to impart to them gradually some capacity of intrenching, marching, +and manoeuvring, and some perception that the soldier is not destined +merely for hand-to-hand combat. Learning from the enemy, he adopted +in particular the Roman system of encampment, on which depended +the whole secret of the tactical superiority of the Romans; +for in consequence of it every Roman corps combined all the advantages +of the garrison of a fortress with all the advantages of an offensive +army.(47) It is true that a system completely adapted to Britain +which had few towns and to its rude, resolute, and on the whole +united inhabitants was not absolutely transferable to the rich +regions on the Loire and their indolent inhabitants on the eve +of utter political dissolution. Vercingetorix at least accomplished +this much, that they did not attempt as hitherto to hold every +town with the result of holding none; they agreed to destroy +the townships not capable of defence before attack reached them, +but to defend with all their might the strong fortresses. At the same +time the Arvernian king did what he could to bind to the cause of their +country the cowardly and backward by stern severity, the hesitating +by entreaties and representations, the covetous by gold, the decided +opponents by force, and to compel or allure the rabble high or low +to some manifestation of patriotism. + +Beginning of the Struggle + +Even before the winter was at an end, he threw himself on the Boii +settled by Caesar in the territory of the Haedui, with the view +of annihilating these, almost the sole trustworthy allies of Rome, +before Caesar came up. The news of this attack induced Caesar, +leaving behind the baggage and two legions in the winter quarters +of Agedincum (Sens), to march immediately and earlier than he would +doubtless otherwise have done, against the insurgents. He remedied +the sorely-felt want of cavalry and light infantry in some measure +by gradually bringing up German mercenaries, who instead of using +their own small and weak ponies were furnished with Italian +and Spanish horses partly bought, partly procured by requisition +of the officers. Caesar, after having by the way caused Cenabum, +the capital of the Carnutes, which had given the signal for the revolt, +to be pillaged and laid in ashes, moved over the Loire +into the country of the Bituriges. He thereby induced Vercingetorix +to abandon the siege of the town of the Boii, and to resort likewise +to the Bituriges. Here the new mode of warfare was first to be +tried. By order of Vercingetorix more than twenty townships +of the Bituriges perished in the flames on one day; the general +decreed a similar self-devastation as to the neighbour cantons, +so far as they could be reached by the Roman foraging parties. + +Caesar before Arvaricum + +According to his intention, Avaricum (Bourges), the rich +and strong capital of the Bituriges, was to meet the same fate; +but the majority of the war-council yielded to the suppliant entreaties +of the Biturigian authorities, and resolved rather to defend that city +with all their energy. Thus the war was concentrated in the first +instance around Avaricum, Vercingetorix placed his infantry amidst +the morasses adjoining the town in a position so unapproachable, +that even without being covered by the cavalry they needed not +to fear the attack of the legions. The Celtic cavalry covered +all the roads and obstructed the communication. The town was strongly +garrisoned, and the connection between it and the army before +the walls was kept open. Caesar's position was very awkward. +The attempt to induce the Celtic infantry to fight was unsuccessful; +it stirred not from its unassailable lines. Bravely as his soldiers +in front of the town trenched and fought, the besieged vied +with them in ingenuity and courage, and they had almost succeeded +in setting fire to the siege apparatus of their opponents. +The task withal of supplying an army of nearly 60,000 men +with provisions in a country devastated far and wide and scoured +by far superior bodies of cavalry became daily more difficult. +The slender stores of the Boii were soon used up; the supply promised +by the Haedui failed to appear; the corn was already consumed, +and the soldier was placed exclusively on flesh-rations. +But the moment was approaching when the town, with whatever contempt +of death the garrison fought, could be held no longer. Still it was +not impossible to withdraw the troops secretly by night and destroy +the town, before the enemy occupied it. Vercingetorix made +arrangements for this purpose, but the cry of distress raised +at the moment of evacuation by the women and children left behind +attracted the attention of the Romans; the departure miscarried. + +Avaricum Conquered +Caesar Divides His Army + +On the following gloomy and rainy day the Romans scaled the walls, +and, exasperated by the obstinate defence, spared neither age +nor sex in the conquered town. The ample stores, which the Celts had +accumulated in it, were welcome to the starved soldiers of Caesar. +With the capture of Avaricum (spring of 702), a first success +had been achieved over the insurrection, and according to former +experience Caesar might well expect that it would now dissolve, +and that it would only be requisite to deal with the cantons +individually. After he had therefore shown himself with his +whole army in the canton of the Haedui and had by this imposing +demonstration compelled the patriot party in a ferment there +to keep quiet at least for the moment, he divided his army and sent +Labienus back to Agedincum, that in combination with the troops +left there he might at the head of four legions suppress +in the first instance the movement in the territory of the Carnutes +and Senones, who on this occasion once more took the lead; +while he himself with the six remaining legions turned to the south +and prepared to carry the war into the Arvernian mountains, the proper +territory of Vercingetorix. + +Labienus before Lutetia + +Labienus moved from Agedincum up the left bank of the Seine with +a view to possess himself of Lutetia (Paris), the town of the Parisii +situated on an island in the Seine, and from this well-secured +position in the heart of the insurgent country to reduce it again +to subjection. But behind Melodunum (Melun), he found his route +barred by the whole army of the insurgents, which had here taken +up a position between unassailable morasses under the leadership +of the aged Camulogenus. Labienus retreated a certain distance, +crossed the Seine at Melodunum, and moved up its right bank +unhindered towards Lutetia; Camulogenus caused this town to be +burnt and the bridges leading to the left bank to be broken down, +and took up a position over against Labienus, in which the latter +could neither bring him to battle nor effect a passage +under the eyes of the hostile army. + +Caesar before Gergovia +Fruitless Blockade + +The Roman main army in its turn advanced along the Allier down +into the canton of the Arverni. Vercingetorix attempted to prevent +it from crossing to the left bank of the Allier, but Caesar +overreached him and after some days stood before the Arvernian +capital Gergovia.(48) Vercingetorix, however, doubtless even while +he was confronting Caesar on the Allier, had caused sufficient +stores to be collected in Gergovia and a fixed camp provided +with strong stone ramparts to be constructed for his troops in front +of the walls of the town, which was situated on the summit of a pretty +steep hill; and, as he had a sufficient start, he arrived before +Caesar at Gergovia and awaited the attack in the fortified camp +under the wall of the fortress. Caesar with his comparatively +weak army could neither regularly besiege the place nor even +sufficiently blockade it; he pitched his camp below the rising +ground occupied by Vercingetorix, and was compelled to preserve +an attitude as inactive as his opponent. It was almost a victory +for the insurgents, that Caesar's career of advance from triumph +to triumph had been suddenly checked on the Seine as on the Allier. +In fact the consequences of this check for Caesar were almost +equivalent to those of a defeat. + +The Haedui Waver + +The Haedui, who had hitherto continued vacillating, now made +preparations in earnest to join the patriotic party; the body +of men, whom Caesar had ordered to Gergovia, had on the march been +induced by its officers to declare for the insurgents; at the same +time they had begun in the canton itself to plunder and kill +the Romans settled there. Caesar, who had gone with two-thirds +of the blockading army to meet that corps of the Haedui which was being +brought up to Gergovia, had by his sudden appearance recalled it +to nominal obedience; but it was more than ever a hollow and fragile +relation, the continuance of which had been almost too dearly +purchased by the great peril of the two legions left behind +in front of Gergovia. For Vercingetorix, rapidly and resolutely +availing himself of Caesar's departure, had during his absence +made an attack on them, which had wellnigh ended in their +being overpowered, and the Roman camp being taken by storm. +Caesar's unrivalled celerity alone averted a second catastrophe +like that of Aduatuca. Though the Haedui made once more fair +promises, it might be foreseen that, if the blockade should still +be prolonged without result, they would openly range themselves +on the side of the insurgents and would thereby compel Caesar to raise +it; for their accession would interrupt the communication between +him and Labienus, and expose the latter especially in his isolation +to the greatest peril. Caesar was resolved not to let matters come +to this pass, but, however painful and even dangerous it was +to retire from Gergovia without having accomplished his object, +nevertheless, if it must be done, rather to set out immediately +and by marching into the canton of the Haedui to prevent +at any cost their formal desertion. + +Caesar Defeated before Gergovia + +Before entering however on this retreat, which was far +from agreeable to his quick and confident temperament, he made +yet a last attempt to free himself from his painful perplexity +by a brilliant success. While the bulk of the garrison of Gergovia +was occupied in intrenching the side on which the assault +was expected, the Roman general watched his opportunity to surprise +another access less conveniently situated but at the moment +left bare. In reality the Roman storming columns scaled the camp-wall, +and occupied the nearest quarters of the camp; but the whole garrison +was already alarmed, and owing to the small distances Caesar found +it not advisable to risk the second assault on the city-wall. +He gave the signal for retreat; but the foremost legions, carried +away by the impetuosity of victory, heard not or did not wish to hear, +and pushed forward without halting, up to the city-wall, some even +into the city. But masses more and more dense threw themselves +in front of the intruders; the foremost fell, the columns stopped; +in vain centurions and legionaries fought with the most devoted +and heroic courage; the assailants were chased with very considerable +loss out of the town and down the hill, where the troops stationed +by Caesar in the plain received them and prevented greater +mischief. The expected capture of Gergovia had been converted +into a defeat, and the considerable loss in killed and wounded-- +there were counted 700 soldiers that had fallen, including 46 +centurions--was the least part of the misfortune suffered. + +Renewed Insurrection +Rising of the Haedui +Rising of the Belgae + +The imposing position of Caesar in Gaul depended essentially +on the halo of victory that surrounded him; and this began to grow pale. +The conflicts around Avaricum, Caesar's vain attempts to compel +the enemy to fight, the resolute defence of the city and its almost +accidental capture by storm bore a stamp different from that +of the earlier Celtic wars, and had strengthened rather than impaired +the confidence of the Celts in themselves and their leader. +Moreover, the new system of warfare--the making head against the enemy +in intrenched camps under the protection of fortresses--had completely +approved itself at Lutetia as well as at Gergovia. Lastly, +this defeat, the first which Caesar in person had suffered +from the Celts crowned their success, and it accordingly gave +as it were the signal for a second outbreak of the insurrection. +The Haedui now broke formally with Caesar and entered into union +with Vercingetorix. Their contingent, which was still with Caesar's +army, not only deserted from it, but also took occasion to carry +off the depots of the army of Caesar at Noviodunum on the Loire, +whereby the chests and magazines, a number of remount-horses, +and all the hostages furnished to Caesar, fell into the hands +of the insurgents. It was of at least equal importance, +that on this news the Belgae, who had hitherto kept aloof +from the whole movement, began to bestir themselves. The powerful +canton of the Bellovaci rose with the view of attacking +in the rear the corps of Labienus, while it confronted +at Lutetia the levy of the surrounding cantons of central Gaul. +Everywhere else too men were taking to arms; the strength +of patriotic enthusiasm carried along with it even the most +decided and most favoured partisans of Rome, such as Commius +king of the Atrebates, who on account of his faithful services had +received from the Romans important privileges for his community +and the hegemony over the Morini. The threads of the insurrection +ramified even into the old Roman province: they cherished the hope, +perhaps not without ground, of inducing the Allobroges themselves +to take arms against the Romans. With the single exception +of the Remi and of the districts--dependent immediately on the Remi-- +of the Suessiones, Leuci, and Lingones, whose peculiar isolation +was not affected even amidst this general enthusiasm, the whole Celtic +nation from the Pyrenees to the Rhine was now in reality, +for the first and for the last time, in arms for its freedom +and nationality; whereas, singularly enough, the whole German +communities, who in the former struggles had held the foremost +rank, kept aloof. In fact, the Treveri, and as it would seem +the Menapii also, were prevented by their feuds with the Germans +from taking an active part in the national war. + +Caesar's Plan of War +Caesar Unites with Labienus + +It was a grave and decisive moment, when after the retreat +from Gergovia and the loss of Noviodunum a council of war was held +in Caesar's headquarters regarding the measures now to be adopted. +Various voices expressed themselves in favour of a retreat over +the Cevennes into the old Roman province, which now lay open +on all sides to the insurrection and certainly was in urgent need +of the legions that had been sent from Rome primarily for its +protection. But Caesar rejected this timid strategy suggested +not by the position of affairs, but by government-instructions +and fear of responsibility. He contented himself with calling +the general levy of the Romans settled in the province to arms, +and having the frontiers guarded by that levy to the best of its +ability. On the other hand he himself set out in the opposite +direction and advanced by forced marches to Agedincum, to which +he ordered Labienus to retreat in all haste. The Celts naturally +endeavoured to prevent the junction of the two Roman armies. +Labienus might by crossing the Marne and marching down the right bank +of the Seine have reached Agedincum, where he had left his reserve +and his baggage; but he preferred not to allow the Celts +again to behold the retreat of Roman troops. He therefore +instead of crossing the Marne crossed the Seine under the eyes +of the deluded enemy, and on its left bank fought a battle +with the hostile forces, in which he conquered, and among many others +the Celtic general himself, the old Camulogenus, was left on the field. +Nor were the insurgents more successful in detaining Caesar +on the Loire; Caesar gave them no time to assemble larger masses there, +and without difficulty dispersed the militia of the Haedui, +which alone he found at that point + +Position of the Insurgents at Alesia + +Thus the junction of the two divisions of the army was happily +accomplished. The insurgents meanwhile had consulted as to the farthe +conduct of the war at Bibracte (Autun) the capital of the Haeduil +the soul of these consultations was again Vercingetorix, +to whom the nation was enthusiastically attached after the victory +of Gergovia. Particular interests were not, it is true, +even now silent; the Haedui still in this death-struggle of the nation +asserted their claims to the hegemony, and made a proposal +in the national assembly to substitute a leader of their own +for Vercingetorix. But the national representatives had not merely +declined this and confirmed Vercingetorix in the supreme command, +but had also adopted his plan of war without alteration. It was +substantially the same as that on which he had operated at Avaricum +and at Gergovia. As the base of the new position there was +selected the strong city of the Mandubii, Alesia (Alise Sainte +Reine near Semur in the department Cote d'Or)(49) and another +entrenched camp was constructed under its walls. Immense stores +were here accumulated, and the army was ordered thither +from Gergovia, having its cavalry raised by resolution of the national +assembly to 15,000 horse. Caesar with the whole strength +of his army after it was reunited at Agedincum took the direction +of Besancon, with the view of now approaching the alarmed province +and protecting it from an invasion, for in fact bands of insurgents +had already shown themselves in the territory of the Helvii +on the south slope of the Cevennes. Alesia lay almost on his way; +the cavalry of the Celts, the only arm with which Vercingetorix +chose to operate, attacked him on the route, but to the surprise +of all was worsted by the new German squadrons of Caesar +and the Roman infantry drawn up in support of them. + +Caesar in Front of Alesia +Siege of Alesia + +Vercingetorix hastened the more to shut himself up in Alesia; +and if Caesar was not disposed altogether to renounce the offensive, +no course was left to him but for the third time in this campaign +to proceed by way of attack with a far weaker force against an army +encamped under a well-garrisoned and well-provisioned fortress +and supplied with immense masses of cavalry. But, while the Celts +had hitherto been opposed by only a part of the Roman legions, +the whole forces of Caesar were united in the lines round Alesia, +and Vercingetorix did not succeed, as he had succeeded at Avaricum +and Gergovia, in placing his infantry under the protection of the walls +of the fortress and keeping his external communications open +for his own benefit by his cavalry, while he interrupted those +of the enemy. The Celtic cavalry, already discouraged by that defeat +inflicted on them by their lightly esteemed opponents, was beaten +by Caesar's German horse in every encounter. The line +of circumvallation of the besiegers extending about nine miles +invested the whole town, including the camp attached to it. +Vercingetorix had been prepared for a struggle under the walls, +but not for being besieged in Alesia; in that point of view +the accumulated stores, considerable as they were, were yet +far from sufficient for his army--which was said to amount to 80,000 +infantry and 15,000 cavalry--and for the numerous inhabitants +of the town. Vercingetorix could not but perceive that his plan +of warfare had on this occasion turned to his own destruction, +and that he was lost unless the whole nation hastened up to the rescue +of its blockaded general. The existing provisions were still, +when the Roman circumvallation was closed, sufficient for a month +and perhaps something more; at the last moment, when there was still +free passage at least for horsemen, Vercingetorix dismissed +his whole cavalry, and sent at the same time to the heads +of the nation instructions to call out all their forces and lead them +to the relief of Alesia. He himself, resolved to bear in person +the responsibility for the plan of war which he had projected +and which had miscarried, remained in the fortress, to share in good +or evil the fate of his followers. But Caesar made up his mind +at once to besiege and to be besieged. He prepared his line +of circumvallation for defence also on its outer side, and furnished +himself with provisions for a longer period. The days passed; +they had no longer a boll of grain in the fortress, and they +were obliged to drive out the unhappy inhabitants of the town +to perish miserably between the entrenchments of the Celts +and of the Romans, pitilessly rejected by both. + +Attempt at Relief +Conflicts before Alesia + +At the last hour there appeared behind Caesar's lines +the interminable array of the Celto-Belgic relieving array, said +to amount to 250,000 infantry and 8000 cavalry, from the Channel +to the Cevennes the insurgent cantons had strained every nerve +to rescue the flower of their patriots and the general of their +choice--the Bellovaci alone had answered that they were doubtless +disposed to fight against the Romans, but not beyond their own bounds. +The first assault, which the besieged of Alesia and the relieving +troops without made on the Roman double line, was repulsed; +but, when after a day's rest it was repeated, the Celts +succeeded--at a spot where the line of circumvallation ran over +the slope of a hill and could be assailed from the height above-- +in filling up the trenches and hurling the defenders down +from the rampart. Then Labienus, sent thither by Caesar, collected +the nearest cohorts and threw himself with four legions on the foe. +Under the eyes of the general, who himself appeared at the most +dangerous moment, the assailants were driven back in a desperate +hand-to-hand conflict, and the squadrons of cavalry that came +with Caesar taking the fugitives in rear completed the defeat. + +Alesia Capitulates + +It was more than a great victory; the fate of Alesia, and indeed +of the Celtic nation, was thereby irrevocably decided. The Celtic +army, utterly disheartened, dispersed at once from the battle-field +and went home. Vercingetorix might perhaps have even now taken +to flight, or at least have saved himself by the last means open +to a free man; he did not do so, but declared in a council of war that, +since he had not succeeded in breaking off the alien yoke, +he was ready to give himself up as a victim and to avert as far as +possible destruction from the nation by bringing it on his own +head. This was done. The Celtic officers delivered their general-- +the solemn choice of the whole nation--over to the energy of their +country for such punishment as might be thought fit. Mounted +on his steed and in full armour the king of the Arverni appeared +before the Roman proconsul and rode round his tribunal; +then he surrendered his horse and arms, and sat down in silence +on the steps at Caesar's feet (702). + +Vercingetorix Executed + +Five years afterwards he was led in triumph through the streets +of the Italian capital, and, while his conqueror was offering solemn +thanks to the gods on the summit of the Capitol, Vercingetorix +was beheaded at its foot as guilty of high treason against the Roman +nation. As after a day of gloom the sun may perhaps break through +the clouds at its setting, so destiny may bestow on nations +in their decline yet a last great man. Thus Hannibal stands +at the close of the Phoenician history, and Vercingetorix +at the close of the Celtic. They were not able to save the nations +to which they belonged from a foreign yoke, but they spared them +the last remaining disgrace--an inglorious fall. Vercingetorix, +just like the Carthaginian, was obliged to contend not merely +against the public foe, but also and above all against that anti-national +opposition of wounded egotists and startled cowards, which regularly +accompanies a degenerate civilization; for him too a place +in history is secured, not by his battles and sieges, +but by the fact that he was able to furnish in his own person +a centre and rallying-point to a nation distracted and ruined +by the rivalry of individual interests. And yet there can hardly +be a more marked contrast than between the sober townsman +of the Phoenician mercantile city, whose plans were directed towards +one great object with unchanging energy throughout fifty years, +and the bold prince of the Celtic land, whose mighty deeds and high- +minded self-sacrifice fall within the compass of one brief summer. +The whole ancient world presents no more genuine knight, whether +as regards his essential character or his outward appearance. +But man ought not to be a mere knight, and least of all the statesman. +It was the knight, not the hero, who disdained to escape from Alesia, +when for the nation more depended on him than on a hundred thousand +ordinary brave men. It was the knight, not the hero, who gave +himself up as a sacrifice, when the only thing gained +by that sacrifice was that the nation publicly dishonoured itself +and with equal cowardice and absurdity employed its last breath +in proclaiming that its great historical death-struggle was a crime +against its oppressor. How very different was the conduct +of Hannibal in similar positions! It is impossible to part +from the noble king of the Arverni without a feeling of historical +and human sympathy; but it is a significant trait of the Celtic nation, +that its greatest man was after all merely a knight. + +The Last Conflicts +With the Bituriges and Carnutes + +The fall of Alesia and the capitulation of the army enclosed +in it were fearful blows for the Celtic insurrection; but blows +quite as heavy had befallen the nation and yet the conflict +had been renewed. The loss of Vercingetorix, however, was irreparable. +With him unity had come to the nation; with him it seemed also +to have departed. We do not find that the insurgents made any attempt +to continue their joint defence and to appoint another generalissimo; +the league of patriots fell to pieces of itself, and every clan +was left to fight or come to terms with the Romans as it pleased. +Naturally the desire after rest everywhere prevailed. +Caesar too had an interest in bringing the war quickly to an end. +Of the ten years of his governorship seven had elapsed, and the last +was called in question by his political opponents in the capital; +he could only reckon with some degree of certainty on two more summers, +and, while his interest as well as his honour required +that he should hand over the newly-acquired regions to his successor +in a condition of tolerable peace and tranquillity, there was +in truth but scanty time to bring about such a state of things. +To exercise mercy was in this case still more a necessity +for the victor than for the vanquished; and he might thank his stars +that the internal dissensions and the easy temperament of the Celts +met him in this respect half way. Where--as in the two most eminent +cantons of central Gaul, those of the Haedui and Arverni--there +existed a strong party well disposed to Rome, the cantons obtained +immediately after the fall of Alesia a complete restoration +of their former relations with Rome, and even their captives, 20,000 +in number, were released without ransom, while those of the other +clans passed into the hard bondage of the victorious legionaries. +The greater portion of the Gallic districts submitted like the Haedui +and Arverni to their fate, and allowed their inevitable +punishment to be inflicted without farther resistance. +But not a few clung in foolish frivolity or sullen despair +to the lost cause, till the Roman troops of execution appeared +within their borders. Such expeditions were in the winter of 702-703 +undertaken against the Bituriges and the Carnutes. + +With the Bellovaci + +More serious resistance was offered by the Bellovaci, +who in the previous year had kept aloof from the relief of Alesia; +they seem to have wished to show that their absence on that decisive day +at least did not proceed from want of courage or of love for freedom. +The Atrebates, Ambiani, Caletes, and other Belgic cantons took part +in this struggle; the brave king of the Atrebates Commius, +whose accession to the insurrection the Romans had least of all forgiven, +and against whom recently Labienus had even directed an atrocious +attempt at assassination, brought to the Bellovaci 500 German +horse, whose value the campaign of the previous year had shown. +The resolute and talented Bellovacian Correus, to whom the chief +conduct of the war had fallen, waged warfare as Vercingetorix +had waged it, and with no small success. Although Caesar had gradually +brought up the greater part of his army, he could neither bring +the infantry of the Bellovaci to a battle, nor even prevent it +from taking up other positions which afforded better protection +against his augmented forces; while the Roman horse, especially +the Celtic contingents, suffered most severe losses in various combats +at the hands of the enemy's cavalry, especially of the German cavalry +of Commius. But after Correus had met his death in a skirmish +with the Roman foragers, the resistance here too was broken; +the victor proposed tolerable conditions, to which the Bellovaci +along with their confederates submitted. The Treveri were reduced +to obedience by Labienus, and incidentally the territory +of the outlawed Eburones was once more traversed and laid waste. +Thus the last resistance of the Belgic confederacy was broken. + +On the Loire + +The maritime cantons still made an attempt to defend themselves +against the Roman domination in concert with their neighbours +on the Loire. Insurgent bands from the Andian, Carnutic, and other +surrounding cantons assembled on the lower Loire and besieged +in Lemonum (Poitiers) the prince of the Pictones who was friendly +to the Romans. But here too a considerable Roman force soon appeared +against them; the insurgents abandoned the siege, and retreated +with the view of placing the Loire between themselves and the enemy, +but were overtaken on the march and defeated; whereupon +the Carnutes and the other revolted cantons, including even +the maritime ones, sent in their submission. + +And in Uxellodunum + +The resistance was at an end; save that an isolated leader of free +bands still here and there upheld the national banner. The bold +Drappes and the brave comrade in arms of Vercingetorix Lucterius, +after the breaking up of the army united on the Loire, gathered +together the most resolute men, and with these threw themselves +into the strong mountain-town of Uxellodunum on the Lot,(50) +which amidst severe and fatal conflicts they succeeded in sufficiently +provisioning. In spite of the loss of their leaders, of whom +Drappes had been taken prisoner, and Lucterius had been cut off +from the town, the garrison resisted to the uttermost; it was not +till Caesar appeared in person, and under his orders the spring +from which the besieged derived their water was diverted by means +of subterranean drains, that the fortress, the last stronghold +of the Celtic nation, fell. To distinguish the last champions +of the cause of freedom, Caesar ordered that the whole garrison should +have their hands cut off and should then be dismissed, each one +to his home. Caesar, who felt it all-important to put an end at least +to open resistance throughout Gaul, allowed king Commius, who still +held out in the region of Arras and maintained desultory warfare +with the Roman troops there down to the winter of 703-704, to make +his peace, and even acquiesced when the irritated and justly +distrustful man haughtily refused to appear in person in the Roman +camp. It is very probable that Caesar in a similar way allowed +himself to be satisfied with a merely nominal submission, perhaps +even with a de facto armistice, in the less accessible districts +of the north-west and north-east of Gaul.(51) + +Gaul Subdued + +Thus was Gaul--or, in other words, the land west of the Rhine +and north of the Pyrenees--rendered subject after only eight years +of conflict (696-703) to the Romans. Hardly a year after the full +pacification of the land, at the beginning of 705, the Roman troops +had to be withdrawn over the Alps in consequence of the civil war, +which had now at length broken out in Italy, and there remained +nothing but at the most some weak divisions of recruits in Gaul. +Nevertheless the Celts did not again rise against the foreign yoke; +and, while in all the old provinces of the empire there was +fighting against Caesar, the newly-acquired country alone remained +continuously obedient to its conqueror. Even the Germans +did not during those decisive years repeat their attempts to conquer +new settlements on the left bank of the Rhine. As little did +there occur in Gaul any national insurrection or German invasion +during the crises that followed, although these offered the most +favourable opportunities. If disturbances broke out anywhere, +such as the rising of the Bellovaci against the Romans in 708, +these movements were so isolated and so unconnected with +the complications in Italy, that they were suppressed without material +difficulty by the Roman governors. Certainly this state of peace +was most probably, just as was the peace of Spain for centuries, +purchased by provisionally allowing the regions that were most +remote and most strongly pervaded by national feeling--Brittany, +the districts on the Scheldt, the region of the Pyrenees-- +to withdraw themselves de facto in a more or less definite manner +from the Roman allegiance. Nevertheless the building of Caesar-- +however scanty the time which he found for it amidst other +and at the moment still more urgent labours, however unfinished +and but provisionally rounded off he may have left it--in substance +stood the test of this fiery trial, as respected both the repelling +of the Germans and the subjugation of the Celts. + +Organization +Roman Taxation + +As to administration in chief, the territories newly acquired +by the governor of Narbonese Gaul remained for the time being united +with the province of Narbo; it was not till Caesar gave up +this office (710) that two new governorships--Gaul proper +and Belgica--were formed out of the territory which he conquered. +That the individual cantons lost their political independence, +was implied in the very nature of conquest. They became throughout +tributary to the Roman community. Their system of tribute however was, +of course, not that by means of which the nobles and financial +aristocracy turned Asia to profitable account; but, as was +the case in Spain, a tribute fixed once for all was imposed on each +individual community, and the levying of it was left to itself. +In this way forty million sesterces (400,000 pounds) flowed annually +from Gaul into the chests of the Roman government; which, no doubt, +undertook in return the cost of defending the frontier of the +Rhine. Moreover, the masses of gold accumulated in the temples +of the gods and the treasuries of the grandees found their way, +as a matter of course, to Rome; when Caesar offered his Gallic gold +throughout the Roman empire and brought such masses of it at once +into the money market that gold as compared with silver fell about +25 per cent, we may guess what sums Gaul lost through the war. + +Indulgences towards Existing Arrangements + +The former cantonal constitutions with their hereditary kings, +or their presiding feudal-oligarchies, continued in the main +to subsist after the conquest, and even the system of clientship, +which made certain cantons dependent on others more powerful, +was not abolished, although no doubt with the loss of political +independence its edge was taken off. The sole object of Caesar +was, while making use of the existing dynastic, feudalist, +and hegemonic divisions, to arrange matters in the interest of Rome, +and to bring everywhere into power the men favourably disposed +to the foreign rule. Caesar spared no pains to form a Roman party +in Gaul; extensive rewards in money and specially in confiscated +estates were bestowed on his adherents, and places in the common +council and the first offices of state in their cantons +were procured for them by Caesar's influence. Those cantons +in which a sufficiently strong and trustworthy Roman party existed, +such as those of the Remi, the Lingones, the Haedui, were favoured +by the bestowal of a freer communal constitution--the right +of alliance, as it was called--and by preferences in the regulation +of the matter of hegemony. The national worship and its priests +seem to have been spared by Caesar from the outset as far as possible; +no trace is found in his case of measures such as were adopted +in later times by the Roman rulers against the Druidical system, +and with this is probably connected the fact that his Gallic wars, +so far as we see, do not at all bear the character of religious +warfare after the fashion which formed so prominent a feature +of the Britannic wars subsequently. + +Introduction of the Romanizing of the Country + +While Caesar thus showed to the conquered nation every allowable +consideration and spared their national, political, and religious +institutions as far as was at all compatible with their subjection +to Rome, he did so, not as renouncing the fundamental idea of his +conquest, the Romanization of Gaul, but with a view to realize it +in the most indulgent way. He did not content himself with letting +the same circumstances, which had already in great part Romanized +the south province, produce their effect likewise in the north; +but, like a genuine statesman, he sought to stimulate the natural +course of development and, moreover, to shorten as far as possible +the always painful period of transition. To say nothing +of the admission of a number of Celts of rank into Roman citizenship +and even of several perhaps into the Roman senate, it was probably +Caesar who introduced, although with certain restrictions, +the Latin instead of the native tongue as the official language +within the several cantons in Gaul, and who introduced the Roman +instead of the national monetary system on the footing of reserving +the coinage of gold and of denarii to the Roman authorities, while +the smaller money was to be coined by the several cantons, but only +for circulation within the cantonal bounds, and this too in accordance +with the Roman standard. We may smile at the Latin jargon, +which the dwellers by the Loire and the Seine henceforth employed +in accordance with orders;(52) but these barbarisms were pregnant +with a greater future than the correct Latin of the capital. +Perhaps too, if the cantonal constitution in Gaul afterwards appears +more closely approximated to the Italian urban constitution, +and the chief places of the canton as well as the common councils +attain a more marked prominence in it than was probably the case +in the original Celtic organization, the change may be referred +to Caesar. No one probably felt more than the political heir +of Gaius Gracchus and of Marius, how desirable in a military +as well as in a political point of view it would have been to establish +a series of Transalpine colonies as bases of support for the new rule +and starting-points of the new civilization. If nevertheless +he confined himself to the settlement of his Celtic or German horsemen +in Noviodunum(53) and to that of the Boii in the canton +of the Haedui (54)--which latter settlement already rendered quite +the services of a Roman colony in the war with Vercingetorix(55)-- +the reason was merely that his farther plans did not permit him +to put the plough instead of the sword into the hands of his legions. +What he did in later years for the old Roman province +in this respect, will be explained in its own place; it is probable +that the want of time alone prevented him from extending +the same system to the regions which he had recently subdued. + +The Catastrophe of the Celtic Nation +Traits Common to the Celts and Irish + +All was over with the Celtic nation. Its political dissolution +had been completed by Caesar; its national dissolution was begun +and in course of regular progress. This was no accidental destruction, +such as destiny sometimes prepares even for peoples capable +of development, but a self-incurred and in some measure historically +necessary catastrophe. The very course of the last war proves this, +whether we view it as a whole or in detail. When the establishment +of the foreign rule was in contemplation, only single districts-- +mostly, moreover, German or half-German--offered energetic +resistance. When the foreign rule was actually established, +the attempts to shake it off were either undertaken altogether +without judgment, or they were to an undue extent the work +of certain prominent nobles, and were therefore immediately +and entirely brought to an end with the death or capture of an +Indutiomarus, Camulogenus, Vercingetorix, or Correus. The sieges +and guerilla warfare, in which elsewhere the whole moral depth +of national struggles displays itself, were throughout this Celtic +struggle of a peculiarly pitiable character. Every page of Celtic +history confirms the severe saying of one of the few Romans who had +the judgment not to despise the so-called barbarians--that the Celts +boldly challenge danger while future, but lose their courage +before its presence. In the mighty vortex of the world's history, +which inexorably crushes all peoples that are not as hard +and as flexible as steel, such a nation could not permanently maintain +itself; with reason the Celts of the continent suffered the same +fate at the hands of the Romans, as their kinsmen in Ireland suffer +down to our own day at the hands of the Saxons--the fate +of becoming merged as a leaven of future development in a politically +superior nationality. On the eve of parting from this remarkable +nation we may be allowed to call attention to the fact, +that in the accounts of the ancients as to the Celts on the Loire +and Seine we find almost every one of the characteristic traits +which we are accustomed to recognize as marking the Irish. +Every feature reappears: the laziness in the culture of the fields; +the delight in tippling and brawling; the ostentation--we may recall +that sword of Caesar hung up in the sacred grove of the Arverni +after the victory of Gergovia, which its alleged former owner viewed +with a smile at the consecrated spot and ordered the sacred property +to be carefully spared; the language full of comparisons and hyperboles, +of allusions and quaint turns; the droll humour--an excellent +example of which was the rule, that if any one interrupted a person +speaking in public, a substantial and very visible hole should be +cut, as a measure of police, in the coat of the disturber +of the peace; the hearty delight in singing and reciting the deeds +of past ages, and the most decided gifts of rhetoric and poetry; +the curiosity--no trader was allowed to pass, before he had told +in the open street what he knew, or did not know, in the shape of news-- +and the extravagant credulity which acted on such accounts, +for which reason in the better regulated cantons travellers +were prohibited on pain of severe punishment from communicating +unauthenticated reports to others than the public magistrates; +the childlike piety, which sees in the priest a father and asks +for his counsel in all things; the unsurpassed fervour of national +feeling, and the closeness with which those who are fellow-countrymen +cling together almost like one family in opposition to strangers; +the inclination to rise in revolt under the first chance-leader +that presents himself and to form bands, but at the same time +the utter incapacity to preserve a self-reliant courage equally remote +from presumption and from pusillanimity, to perceive the right time +for waiting and for striking a blow, to attain or even barely +to tolerate any organization, any sort of fixed military or political +discipline. It is, and remains, at all times and all places +the same indolent and poetical, irresolute and fervid, inquisitive, +credulous, amiable, clever, but--in a political point of view-- +thoroughly useless nation; and therefore its fate has been always +and everywhere the same. + +The Beginnings of Romanic Development + +But the fact that this great people was ruined by the Transalpine wars +of Caesar, was not the most important result of that grand enterprise; +far more momentous than the negative was the positive result. +It hardly admits of a doubt that, if the rule of the senate +had prolonged its semblance of life for some generations +longer, the migration of peoples, as it is called, would have +occurred four hundred years sooner than it did, and would have +occurred at a time when the Italian civilization had not become +naturalized either in Gaul, or on the Danube, or in Africa and +Spain. Inasmuch as the great general and statesman of Rome +with sure glance perceived in the German tribes the rival antagonists +of the Romano-Greek world; inasmuch as with firm hand he established +the new system of aggressive defence down even to its details, +and taught men to protect the frontiers of the empire by rivers +or artificial ramparts, to colonize the nearest barbarian tribes along +the frontier with the view of warding off the more remote, +and to recruit the Roman army by enlistment from the enemy's country; +he gained for the Hellenico-Italian culture the interval necessary +to civilize the west just as it had already civilized the east. +Ordinary men see the fruits of their action; the seed sown by men +of genius germinates slowly. Centuries elapsed before men understood +that Alexander had not merely erected an ephemeral kingdom +in the east, but had carried Hellenism to Asia; centuries again +elapsed before men understood that Caesar had not merely conquered +a new province for the Romans, but had laid the foundation +for the Romanizing of the regions of the west. It was only a late +posterity that perceived the meaning of those expeditions +to England and Germany, so inconsiderate in a military point of view, +and so barren of immediate result. An immense circle of peoples, +whose existence and condition hitherto were known barely through +the reports--mingling some truth with much fiction--of the mariner +and the trader, was disclosed by this means to the Greek and Roman +world. "Daily," it is said in a Roman writing of May 698, +"the letters and messages from Gaul are announcing names of peoples, +cantons, and regions hitherto unknown to us." This enlargement +of the historical horizon by the expeditions of Caesar beyond +the Alps was as significant an event in the world's history +as the exploring of America by European bands. To the narrow circle +of the Mediterranean states were added the peoples of central +and northern Europe, the dwellers on the Baltic and North seas; +to the old world was added a new one, which thenceforth was influenced +by the old and influenced it in turn. What the Gothic Theodoric +afterwards succeeded in, came very near to being already carried +out by Ariovistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would have +hardly stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano-Greek than +to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting +the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern +history; that Western Europe is Romanic, and Germanic Europe +classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us +a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; +that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa +attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own +garden--all this is the work of Caesar; and, while the creation +of his great predecessor in the east has been almost wholly reduced +to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar +has outlasted those thousands of years which have changed religion +and polity for the human race and even shifted for it the centre +of civilization itself, and it stands erect for what we may +designate as eternity. + +The Countries on the Danube + +To complete the sketch of the relations of Rome to the peoples +of the north at this period, it remains that we cast a glance +at the countries which stretch to the north of the Italian and Greek +peninsulas, from the sources of the Rhine to the Black Sea. +It is true that the torch of history does not illumine the mighty stir +and turmoil of peoples which probably prevailed at that time there, +and the solitary gleams of light that fall on this region are, +like a faint glimmer amidst deep darkness, more fitted to bewilder +than to enlighten. But it is the duty of the historian to indicate +also the gaps in the record of the history of nations; he may not +deem it beneath him to mention, by the side of Caesar's magnificent +system of defence, the paltry arrangements by which the generals +of the senate professed to protect on this side +the frontier of the empire. + +Alpine Peoples + +North-eastern Italy was still as before(56) left exposed +to the attacks of the Alpine tribes. The strong Roman army +encamped at Aquileia in 695, and the triumph of the governor +of Cisalpine Gaul Lucius Afranius, lead us to infer, that about +this time an expedition to the Alps took place, and it may have been +in consequence of this that we find the Romans soon afterwards +in closer connection with a king of the Noricans. But that even +subsequently Italy was not at all secure on this side, is shown +by the sudden assault of the Alpine barbarians on the flourishing town +of Tergeste in 702, when the Transalpine insurrection had compelled +Caesar to divest upper Italy wholly of troops. + +Illyria + +The turbulent peoples also, who had possession of the district +along the Illyrian coast, gave their Roman masters constant +employment. The Dalmatians, even at an earlier period the most +considerable people of this region, enlarged their power so much +by admitting their neighbours into their union, that the number +of their townships rose from twenty to eighty. When they refused +to give up once more the town of Promona (not far from the river +Kerka), which they had wrested from the Liburnians, Caesar +after the battle of Pharsalia gave orders to march against them; +but the Romans were in the first instance worsted, and in consequence +of this Dalmatia became for some time a rendezvous of the party +hostile to Caesar, and the inhabitants in concert with the Pompeians +and with the pirates offered an energetic resistance +to the generals of Caesar both by land and by water. + +Macedonia + +Lastly Macedonia along with Epirus and Hellas lay in greater +desolation and decay than almost any other part of the Roman +empire. Dyrrhachium, Thessalonica, and Byzantium had still some +trade and commerce; Athens attracted travellers and students +by its name and its philosophical school; but on the whole there lay +over the formerly populous little towns of Hellas, and her seaports +once swarming with men, the calm of the grave. But if the Greeks +stirred not, the inhabitants of the hardly accessible Macedonian +mountains on the other hand continued after the old fashion their +predatory raids and feuds; for instance about 697-698 Agraeans +and Dolopians overran the Aetolian towns, and in 700 the Pirustae +dwelling in the valleys of the Drin overran southern Illyria. +The neighbouring peoples did likewise. The Dardani on the northern +frontier as well as the Thracians in the east had no doubt been +humbled by the Romans in the eight years' conflicts from 676 +to 683; the most powerful of the Thracian princes, Cotys, the ruler +of the old Odrysian kingdom, was thenceforth numbered among the client +kings of Rome. Nevertheless the pacified land had still as before +to suffer invasions from the north and east. The governor Gaius +Antonius was severely handled both by the Dardani and by the tribes +settled in the modern Dobrudscha, who, with the help of the dreaded +Bastarnae brought up from the left bank of the Danube, inflicted +on him an important defeat (692-693) at Istropolis (Istere, not far +from Kustendji). Gaius Octavius fought with better fortune +against the Bessi and Thracians (694). Marcus Piso again (697-698) +as general-in-chief wretchedly mismanaged matters; which was +no wonder, seeing that for money he gave friends and foes whatever +they wished. The Thracian Dentheletae (on the Strymon) under his +governorship plundered Macedonia far and wide, and even stationed +their posts on the great Roman military road leading from Dyrrhachium +to Thessalonica; the people in Thessalonica made up their minds +to stand a siege from them, while the strong Roman army in the province +seemed to be present only as an onlooker when the inhabitants +of the mountains and neighbouring peoples levied contributions +from the peaceful subjects of Rome. + +The New Dacian Kingdom + +Such attacks could not indeed endanger the power of Rome, and a fresh +disgrace had long ago ceased to occasion concern. But just about +this period a people began to acquire political consolidation +beyond the Danube in the wide Dacian steppes--a people which seemed +destined to play a different part in history from that of the Bessi +and the Dentheletae. Among the Getae or Dacians in primeval times +there had been associated with the king of the people a holy man +called Zalmoxis, who, after having explored the ways and wonders +of the gods in distant travel in foreign lands, and having thoroughly +studied in particular the wisdom of the Egyptian priests +and of the Greek Pythagoreans, had returned to his native country +to endhis life as a pious hermit in a cavern of the "holy mountain." +He remained accessible only to the king and his servants, and gave +forth to the king and through him to the people his oracles +with reference to every important undertaking. He was regarded +by his countrymen at first as priest of the supreme god and ultimately +as himself a god, just as it is said of Moses and Aaron that the Lord +had made Aaron the prophet and Moses the god of the prophet. +This had become a permanent institution; there was regularly associated +with the king of the Getae such a god, from whose mouth everything +which the king ordered proceeded or appeared to proceed. +This peculiar constitution, in which the theocratic idea had become +subservient to the apparently absolute power of the king, probably +gave to the kings of the Getae some such position with respect +to their subjects as the caliphs had with respect to the Arabs; +and one result of it was the marvellous religious-political reform +of the nation, which was carried out about this time by the king +of the Getae, Burebistas, and the god Dekaeneos. The people, +which had morally and politically fallen into utter decay through +unexampled drunkenness, was as it were metamorphosed by the new +gospel of temperance and valour; with his bands under the influence, +so to speak, of puritanic discipline and enthusiasm king Burebistas +founded within a few years a mighty kingdom, which extended along +both banks of the Danube and reached southward far into Thrace, +Illyria, and Noricum. No direct contact with the Romans had yet +taken place, and no one could tell what might come out of +this singular state, which reminds us of the early times of Islam; +but this much it needed no prophetic gift to foretell, that proconsuls +like Antonius and Piso were not called to contend with gods. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +The Joint Rule of Pompeius and Caesar + +Pompeius and Caesar in Juxtaposition + +Among the democratic chiefs, who from the time of the consulate +of Caesar were recognized officially, so to speak, as the joint +rulers of the commonwealth, as the governing "triumvirs," Pompeius +according to public opinion occupied decidedly the first place. +It was he who was called by the Optimates the "private dictator"; +it was before him that Cicero prostrated himself in vain; +against him were directed the sharpest sarcasms in the wall-placards +of Bibulus, and the most envenomed arrows of the talk in the saloons +of the opposition. This was only to be expected. According to +the facts before the public Pompeius was indisputably the first general +of his time; Caesar was a dexterous party-leader and party-orator, +of undeniable talents, but as notoriously of unwarlike and indeed +of effeminate temperament. Such opinions had been long current; +it could not be expected of the rabble of quality that it should +trouble itself about the real state of things and abandon +once established platitudes because of obscure feats of heroism +on the Tagus. Caesar evidently played in the league the mere part +of the adjutant who executed for his chief the work which Flavius, +Afranius, and other less capable instruments had attempted +and not performed. Even his governorship seemed not to alter +this state of things. Afranius had but recently occupied +a very similar position, without thereby acquiring any special +importance; several provinces at once had been of late years +repeatedly placed under one governor, and often far more +than four legions had been united in one hand; as matters +were again quiet beyond the Alps and prince Ariovistus +was recognized by the Romans as a friend and neighbour, +there was no prospect of conducting a war of any moment there. +It was natural to compare the position which Pompeius had obtained +by the Gabinio-Manilian law with that which Caesar had obtained +by the Vatinian; but the comparison did not turn out to Caesar's +advantage. Pompeius ruled over nearly the whole Roman empire; +Caesar over two provinces. Pompeius had the soldiers +and the treasures of the state almost absolutely at his disposal; +Caesar had only the sums assigned to him and an army of 24,000 men. +It was left to Pompeius himself to fix the point of time +for his retirement; Caesar's command was secured to him +for a long period no doubt, but yet only for a limited term. +Pompeius, in fine, had been entrusted with the most important +undertakings by sea and land; Caesar was sent to the north, +to watch over the capital from upper Italy and to take care +that Pompeius should rule it undisturbed. + +Pompeius and the Capital +Anarchy + +But when Pompeius was appointed by the coalition to be ruler +of the capital, he undertook a task far exceeding his powers. +Pompeius understood nothing further of ruling than may be summed up +in the word of command. The waves of agitation in the capital +were swelled at once by past and by future revolutions; the problem +of ruling this city--which in every respect might be compared +to the Paris of the nineteenth century--without an armed force +was infinitely difficult, and for that stiff and stately +pattern-soldier altogether insoluble. Very soon matters reached +such a pitch that friends and foes, both equally inconvenient to him, +could, so far as he was concerned, do what they pleased; +after Caesar's departure from Rome the coalition ruled doubtless +still the destinies of the world, but not the streets of the capital. +The senate too, to whom there still belonged a sort of nominal +government, allowed things in the capital to follow their +natural course; partly because the section of this body controlled +by the coalition lacked the instructions of the regents, partly because +the angry opposition kept aloof out of indifference or pessimism, +but chiefly because the whole aristocratic corporation began +to feel at any rate, if not to comprehend, its utter impotence. +For the moment therefore there was nowhere at Rome any power +of resistance in any sort of government, nowhere a real authority. +Men were living in an interregnum between the ruin of the aristocratic, +and the rise of the military, rule; and, if the Roman commonwealth +has presented all the different political functions and organizations +more purely and normally than any other in ancient or modern times, +it has also exhibited political disorganization-anarchy-- +with an unenviable clearness. It is a strange coincidence +that in the same years, in which Caesar was creating beyond the Alps +a workto last for ever, there was enacted in Rome one of the most +extravagant political farces that was ever produced upon the stage +of the world's history. The new regent of the commonwealth +did not rule, but shut himself up in his house and sulked in silence. +The former half-deposed government likewise did not rule, but sighed, +sometimes in private amidst the confidential circles of the villas, +sometimes in chorus in the senate-house. The portion of the burgesses +which had still at heart freedom and order was disgusted +with the reign of confusion, but utterly without leaders +and counsel it maintained a passive attitude-not merely avoiding +all political activity, but keeping aloof, as far as possible, +from the political Sodom itself. + +The Anarchists + +On the other hand the rabble of every sort never had better days, +never found a merrier arena. The number of little great men +was legion. Demagogism became quite a trade, which accordingly +did not lack its professional insignia--the threadbare mantle, +the shaggy beard, the long streaming hair, the deep bass voice; +and not seldom it was a trade with golden soil. For the standing +declamations the tried gargles of the theatrical staff +were an article in much request;(1) Greeks and Jews, freedmen +and slaves, were the most regular attenders and the loudest criers +in the public assemblies; frequently, even when it came to a vote, +only a minority of those voting consisted of burgesses constitutionally +entitled to do so. "Next time," it is said in a letter of this period, +"we may expect our lackeys to outvote the emancipation-tax." +The real powers of the day were the compact and armed bands, +the battalions of anarchy raised by adventurers of rank +out of gladiatorial slaves and blackguards. Their possessors +had from the outset been mostly numbered among the popular party; +but since the departure of Caesar, who alone understood how to impress +the democracy, and alone knew how to manage it, all discipline +had departed from them and every partisan practised politics +at his own hand. Even now, no doubt, these men fought with most pleasure +under the banner of freedom; but, strictly speaking, they were neither +of democratic nor of anti-democratic views; they inscribed on the-- +in itself indispensable--banner, as it happened, now the name +of the people, anon that of the senate or that of a party-chief; +Clodius for instance fought or professed to fight in succession +for the ruling democracy, for the senate, and for Crassus. The leaders +of these bands kept to their colours only so far as they inexorably +persecuted their personal enemies--as in the case of Clodius +against Cicero and Milo against Clodius--while their partisan +position served them merely as a handle in these personal feuds. +We might as well seek to set a charivari to music as to write the history +of this political witches' revel; nor is it of any moment +to enumerate all the deeds of murder, besiegings of houses, +acts of incendiarism and other scenes of violence within a great capital, +and to reckon up how often the gamut was traversed from hissing +and shouting to spitting on and trampling down opponents, +and thence to throwing stones and drawing swords. + +Clodius + +The principal performer in this theatre of political rascality +was that Publius Clodius, of whose services, as already mentioned,(2) +the regents availed themselves against Cato and Cicero. +Left to himself, this influential, talented, energetic and-- +in his trade--really exemplary partisan pursued during his tribunate, +of the people (696) an ultra-democratic policy, gave the citizens +corn gratis, restricted the right of the censors to stigmatize +immoral burgesses, prohibited the magistrates from obstructing +the course of the comitial machinery by religious formalities, +set asidethe limitswhich had shortly before (690), for the purpose +of checking the system of bands, been imposed on the right +of association of the lower classes, and reestablished the "street-clubs" +(-collegia compitalicia-) at that time abolished, which were nothing +else than a formal organization--subdivided according to the streets, +and with an almost military arrangement--of the whole free +or slave proletariate of the capital. If in addition the further law, +which Clodius had likewise already projected and purposed to introduce +when praetor in 702, should give to freedmen and to slaves living +in de facto possession of freedom the same political rights +with the freeborn, the author of all these brave improvements +of the constitution might declare his work complete, and as +a second Numa of freedom and equality might invite the sweet rabble +of the capital to see him celebrate high mass in honour of the arrival +of the democratic millennium in the temple of Liberty which he had +erected on the site of one of his burnings at the Palatine. +Of course these exertions in behalf of freedom did not exclude +a traffic in decrees of the burgesses; like Caesar himself, Caesar's ape +kept governorships and other posts great and small on sale +for the benefit of his fellow-citizens, and sold the sovereign rights +of the state for the benefit of subject kings and cities. + +Quarrel of Pompeius with Clodius + +At all these things Pompeius looked on without stirring. +If he did not perceive how seriously he thus compromised himself, +his opponent perceived it. Clodius had the hardihood to engage +in a dispute with the regent of Rome on a question of little moment, +as to the sending back of a captive Armenian prince; and the variance +soon became a formal feud, in which the utter helplessness +of Pompeius was displayed. The head of the state knew not how to meet +the partisan otherwise than with his own weapons, only wielded +with far less dexterity. If he had been tricked by Clodius respecting +the Armenian prince, he offended him in turn by releasing Cicero, +who was preeminently obnoxious to Clodius, from the exile +into which Clodius had sent him; and he attained his object +so thoroughly, that he converted his opponent into an implacable foe. +If Clodius made the streets insecure with his bands, the victorious +general likewise set slaves and pugilists to work; in the frays +which ensued the general naturally was worsted by the demagogue +and defeated in the street, and Gaius Cato was kept almost constantly +under siege in his garden by Clodius and his comrades. It is not +the least remarkable feature in this remarkable spectacle, +that the regent and the rogue amidst their quarrel vied in courting +the favour of the fallen government; Pompeius, partly to please +the senate, permitted Cicero's recall, Clodius on the other hand +declared the Julian laws null and void, and called on Marcus Bibulus +publicly to testify to their having been unconstitutionally passed. + +Naturally no positive result could issue from this imbroglio +of dark passions; its most distinctive character was just +its utterly ludicrous want of object. Even a man of Caesar's genius +had to learn by experience that democratic agitation was completely +worn out, and that even the way to the throne no longer lay +through demagogism. It was nothing more than a historical makeshift, +if now, in the interregnum between republic and monarchy, +some whimsical fellow dressed himself out with the prophet's mantle +and staff which Caesar had himself laid aside, and the great ideals +of Gaius Gracchus came once more upon the stage distorted into a parody; +the so-called party from which this democratic agitation +proceeded was so little such in reality, that afterwards it had +not even a part falling to it in the decisive struggle. It cannot +even be asserted that by means of this anarchical state of things +the desire after a strong government based on military power +had been vividly kindled in the minds of those who were indifferent +to politics. Even apart from the fact that such neutral burgesses +were chiefly to be sought outside of Rome, and thus were not +directly affected by the rioting in the capital, those minds +which could be at all influenced by such motives had been already +by their former experiences, and especially by the Catilinarian +conspiracy, thoroughly converted to the principle of authority; +but those that were really alarmed were affected far more emphatically +by a dread of the gigantic crisis inseparable from an overthrow +of the constitution, than by dread of the mere continuance of the-- +at bottom withal very superficial--anarchy in the capital. +The only result of it which historically deserves notice +was the painful position in which Pompeius was placed by the attacks +of the Clodians, and which had a material share in determining +his farther steps. + +Pompeius in Relation to the Gallic Victories of Caesar + +Little as Pompeius liked and understood taking the initiative, +he was yet on this occasion compelled by the change of his position +towards both Clodius and Caesar to depart from his previous inaction. +The irksome and disgraceful situation to which Clodius +had reduced him, could not but at length arouse even his sluggish +nature to hatred and anger. But far more important was the change +which took place in his relation to Caesar. While, of the two +confederate regents, Pompeius had utterly failed in the functions +which he had undertaken, Caesar had the skill to turn his official +position to an account which left all calculations and all fears +far behind. Without much inquiry as to permission, Caesar +had doubled his army by levies in his southern province inhabited +in great measure by Roman burgesses; had with this army crossed +the Alps instead of keeping watch over Rome from Northern Italy; +had crushed in the bud a new Cimbrian invasion, and within two years +(696, 697) had carried the Roman arms to the Rhine and the Channel. +In presence of such facts even the aristocratic tactics of ignoring +and disparaging were baffled. He who had often been scoffed +at as effeminate was now the idol of the army, the celebrated victory- +crowned hero, whose fresh laurels outshone the faded laurels +of Pompeius, and to whom even the senate as early as 697 accorded +the demonstrations of honour usual after successful campaigns +in richer measure than had ever fallen to the share of Pompeius. +Pompeius stood towards his former adjutant precisely +as after the Gabinio-Manilian laws the latter had stood towards him. +Caesar was now the hero of the day and the master of the most powerful +Roman army; Pompeius was an ex-general who had once been famous. +It is true that no collision had yet occurred between father-in-law +and son-in-law, and the relation was externally undisturbed; +but every political alliance is inwardly broken up, when the relative +proportions of the power of the parties are materially altered. +While the quarrel with Clodius was merely annoying, the change +in the position of Caesar involved a very serious danger for Pompeius; +just as Caesar and his confederates had formerly sought a military +support against him, he found himself now compelled to seek a military +support against Caesar, and, laying aside his haughty privacy, +to come forward as a candidate for some extraordinary magistracy, +which would enable him to hold his place by the side of the governor +of the two Gauls with equal and, if possible, with superior power. +His tactics, like his position, were exactly those of Caesar +during the Mithradatic war. To balance the military power +of a superior but still remote adversary by the obtaining +of a similar command, Pompeius required in the first instance +the official machinery of government. A year and a half ago +this had been absolutely at his disposal. The regents then ruled +the state both by the comitia, which absolutely obeyed them +as the masters of the street, and by the senate, which was +energetically overawed by Caesar; as representative of the coalition +in Rome and as its acknowledged head, Pompeius would have doubtless +obtained from the senate and from the burgesses any decree +which he wished, even if it were against Caesar's interest. +But by the awkward quarrel with Clodius, Pompeius had lost the command +of the streets, and could not expect to carry a proposal in his favour +in the popular assembly. Things were not quite so unfavourable for him +in the senate; but even there it was doubtful whether Pompeius +after that long and fatal inaction still held the reins of the majority +firmly enough in hand to procure such a decree as he needed. + +The Republican Opposition among the Public + +The position of the senate also, or rather of the nobility +generally, had meanwhile undergone a change. From the very fact +of its complete abasement it drew fresh energy. In the coalition +of 694 various things had come to light, which were by no means +as yet ripe for it. The banishment of Cato and Cicero-- +which public opinion, however much the regents kept themselves +in the background and even professed to lament it, referred +with unerring tact to its real authors--and the marriage-relationship +formed between Caesar and Pompeius suggested to men's minds +with disagreeable clearness monarchical decrees of banishment +and family alliances. The larger public too, which stood +more aloof from political events, observed the foundations +of the future monarchy coming more and more distinctly into view. +From the moment when the public perceived that Caesar's object +was not a modification of the republican constitution, +but that the question at stake was the existence or non-existence +of the republic, many of the best men, who had hitherto reckoned +themselves of the popular party and honoured in Caesar its head, +must infallibly have passed over to the opposite side. It was +no longer in the saloons and the country houses of the governing +nobilityalone that men talked of the "three dynasts," of the "three- +headed monster." The dense crowds of people listened to the consular +orations of Caesar without a sound of acclamation or approval; +not a hand stirred to applaud when the democratic consul entered +the theatre. But they hissed when one of the tools of the regents +showed himself in public, and even staid men applauded when an actor +utteredan anti-monarchic sentence or an allusion against Pompeius. +Nay, when Cicero was to be banished, a great number of burgesses-- +it is said twenty thousand--mostly of the middle classes, put on mourning +after the example of the senate. "Nothing is now more popular," +it is said in a letter of this period, "than hatred +of the popular party." + +Attempts of the Regents to Check It + +The regents dropped hints, that through such opposition the equites +might easily lose their new special places in the theatre, +and the commons their bread-corn; people were therefore somewhat +more guarded perhaps in the expression of their displeasure, +but the feeling remained the same. The lever of material interests +was applied with better success. Caesar's gold flowed in streams. +Men of seeming riches whose finances were in disorder, influential +ladies who were in pecuniary embarrassment, insolvent young nobles, +merchants and bankers in difficulties, either went in person +to Gaul with the view of drawing from the fountain-head, or applied +to Caesar's agents in the capital; and rarely was any man +outwardly respectable--Caesar avoided dealings with vagabonds +who were utterly lost--rejected in either quarter. To this fell +to be added the enormous buildings which Caesar caused to be executed +on his account in the capital--and by which a countless number of men +of all ranks from the consular down to the common porter found +opportunity of profiting--as well as the immense sums expended +for public amusements. Pompeius did the same on a more limited scale; +to him the capital was indebted for the first theatre of stone, +and he celebrated its dedication with a magnificence never seen before. +Of course such distributions reconciled a number of men +who were inclined towards opposition, more especially in the capital, +to the new order of things up to a certain extent; but the marrow +of the opposition was not to be reached by this system of corruption. +Every day more and more clearly showed how deeply the existing +constitution had struck root among the people, and how little, +in particular, the circles more aloof from direct party-agitation, +especially the country towns, were inclined towards monarchy +or even simply ready to let it take its course. + +Increasing Importance of the Senate + +If Rome had had a representative constitution, the discontent +of the burgesses would have found its natural expression +in the elections, and have increased by so expressing itself; +under the existing circumstances nothing was left for those +true to the constitution but to place themselves under the senate, +which, degraded as it was, still appeared the representative +and champion of the legitimate republic. Thus it happened +that the senate, now when it had been overthrown, suddenly found +at its disposal an army far more considerable and far more +earnestly faithful, than when in its power and splendour +it overthrew the Gracchi and under the protection of Sulla's +sword restored the state. The aristocracy felt this; it began +to bestir itself afresh. Just at this time Marcus Cicero, +after having bound himself to join the obsequious party +in the senate and not only to offer no opposition, but to work +with all his might for the regents, had obtained from them +permission to return. Although Pompeius in this matter only made +an incidental concession to the oligarchy, and intended first +of all to play a trick on Clodius, and secondly to acquire +in the fluent consular a tool rendered pliant by sufficient blows, +the opportunity afforded by the return of Cicero was embraced +for republican demonstrations, just as his banishment had been +a demonstration against the senate. With all possible solemnity, +protected moreover against the Clodians by the band of Titus Annius +Milo, the two consuls, following out a resolution of the senate, +submitted a proposal to the burgesses to permit the return +of the consular Cicero, and the senate called on all burgesses +true to the constitution not to be absent from the vote. +An unusual number of worthy men, especially from the country towns, +actually assembled in Rome on the day of voting (4 Aug. 697). +The journey of the consular from Brundisium to the capital +gave occasion to a series of similar, but not less brilliant +manifestations of public feeling. The new alliance between the senate +and the burgesses faithful to the constitution was on this occasion +as it were publicly proclaimed, and a sort of review of the latter +was held, the singularly favourable result of which contributed +not a little to revive the sunken courage of the aristocracy. + +Helplessness of Pompeius + +The helplessness of Pompeius in presence of these daring +demonstrations, as well as the undignified and almost ridiculous +position into which he had fallen with reference to Clodius, deprived +him and the coalition of their credit; and the section of the senate +which adhered to the regents, demoralized by the singular inaptitude +of Pompeius and helplessly left to itself, could not prevent +the republican-aristocratic party from regaining completely +the ascendency in the corporation. The game of this party +really at that time (697) was still by no means desperate +for a courageous and dexterous player. It had now--what it had +not possessed for a century past--a firm support in the people; +if it trusted the people and itself, it might attain its object +in the shortest and most honourable way. Why not attack the regents +openly and avowedly? Why should not a resolute and eminent man +at the head of the senate cancel the extraordinary powers +as unconstitutional, and summon all the republicans of Italy to arms +against the tyrants and their following? It was possible perhaps +in this way once more to restore the rule of the senate. Certainly +the republicans would thus play a bold game; but perhaps in this case, +as often, the most courageous resolution might have been +at the same time the most prudent. Only, it is true, the indolent +aristocracy of this period was scarcely capable of so simple +and bold a resolution. There was however another way perhaps +more sure, at any rate better adapted to the character and nature +of these constitutionalists; they might labour to set the two regents +at variance and through this variance to attain ultimately +to the helm themselves. The relations between the two men ruling +the state had become altered and relaxed, now that Caesar had acquired +a standing of preponderant power by the side of Pompeius +and had compelled the latter to canvass for a new position of command; +it was probable that, if he obtained it, there would arise in one way +or other a rupture and struggle between them. If Pompeius remained +unsupported in this, his defeat was scarcely doubtful, +and the constitutional party would in that event find themselves +after the close of the conflict under the rule of one master +instead of two. But if the nobility employed against Caesar +the same means by which the latter had won his previous victories, +and entered into alliance with the weaker competitor, victory +would probably, with a general like Pompeius, and with an army +such as that of the constitutionalists, fall to the coalition; +and to settle matters with Pompeius after the victory could not-- +judging from the proofs of political incapacity which he had +already given-appear a specially difficult task. + +Attempts of Pompeius to Obtain a Command through the Senate +Administration of the Supplies of Corn + +Things had taken such a turn as naturally to suggest an understanding +between Pompeius and the republican party. Whether such +an approximation was to take place, and what shape the mutual +relations of the two regents and of the aristocracy, which had become +utterly enigmatical, were next to assume, fell necessarily +to be decided, when in the autumn of 697 Pompeius came to the senate +with the proposal to entrust him with extraordinary official power. +He based his proposal once more on that by which he had +eleven years before laid the foundations of his power, +the price of bread in the capital, which had just then--as previously +to the Gabinian law--reached an oppressive height. Whether +it had been forced up by special machinations, such as Clodius imputed +sometimes to Pompeius, sometimes to Cicero, and these in their turn +charged on Clodius, cannot be determined; the continuance of piracy, +the emptiness of the public chest, and the negligent and disorderly +supervision of the supplies of corn by the government were already +quite sufficient of themselves, even without political forestalling, +to produce scarcities of bread in a great city dependent +almost solely on transmarine supplies. The plan of Pompeius +was to get the senate to commit to him the superintendence +of the matters relating to corn throughout the whole Roman empire, +and, with a view to this ultimate object, to entrust him +on the one hand with the unlimited disposal of the Roman state- +treasure, and on the other hand with an army and fleet, as well as +a command which not only stretched over the whole Roman empire, +but was superior in each province to that of the governor--in short +he designed to institute an improved edition of the Gabinian law, +to which the conduct of the Egyptian war just then pending(3) +would therefore quite as naturally have been annexed as the conduct +of the Mithradatic war to the razzia against the pirates. +However much the opposition to the new dynasts had gained ground +in recent years, the majority of the senate was still, when this matter +came to be discussed in Sept. 697, under the constraint of the terror +excited by Caesar. It obsequiously accepted the project in principle, +and that on the proposition of Marcus Cicero, who was expected to give, +and gave, in this case the first proof of the pliableness +learned by him in exile. But in the settlement of the details +very material portions were abated from the original plan, +which the tribune of the people Gaius Messius submitted. +Pompeius obtained neither free control over the treasury, +nor legions and ships of his own, nor even an authority superior +to that of the governors; but they contented themselves +with granting to him, for the purpose of his organizing +due supplies for the capital, considerable sums, fifteen adjutants, +and in allaffairs elating to the supply of grain full proconsular +power throughout the Roman dominions for the next five years, +and with having this decree confirmed by the burgesses. +There were many different reasons which led to this alteration, +almost equivalent to a rejection, of the original plan: a regard +to Caesar, with reference to whom the most timid could not but have +the greatest scruples in investing his colleague not merely with equal +but with superior authority in Gaul itself; the concealed opposition +of Pompeius' hereditary enemy and reluctant ally Crassus, +to whom Pompeius himself attributed or professed to attribute primarily +the failure of his plan; the antipathy of the republican opposition +in the senate to any decree which really or nominally enlarged +the authority of the regents; lastly and mainly, the incapacity +of Pompeius himself, who even after having been compelled to act +could not prevail on himself to acknowledge his own action, but chose +always to bring forward his real design as it were in incognito +by means of his friends, while he himself in his well-known modesty +declared his willingness to be content with even less. No wonder +that they took him at his word, and gave him the less. + +Egyptian Expedition + +Pompeius was nevertheless glad to have found at any rate +a serious employment, and above all a fitting pretext for leaving +the capital. He succeeded, moreover, in providing it with ampler +and cheaper supplies, although not without the provinces severely +feeling the reflex effect. But he had missed his real object; +the proconsular title, which he had a right to bear in all the provinces, +remained an empty name, so long as he had not troops of his own +at his disposal. Accordingly he soon afterwards got a second +proposition made to the senate, that it should confer on him +the charge of conducting back the expelled king of Egypt, if necessary +by force of arms, to his home. But the more that his urgent need +of the senate became evident, the senators received his wishes +with a less pliant and less respectful spirit. It was immediately +discovered in the Sibylline oracles that it was impious to send +a Roman army to Egypt; whereupon the pious senate almost +unanimously resolved to abstain from armed intervention. Pompeius +was already so humbled, that he would have accepted the mission +even without an army; but in his incorrigible dissimulation he left +this also to be declared merely by his friends, and spoke and voted +for the despatch of another senator. Of course the senate rejected +a proposal which wantonly risked a life so precious to his country; +and the ultimate issue of the endless discussions was the resolution +not to interfere in Egypt at all (Jan. 698). + +Attempt at an Aristocratic Restoration +Attack on Caesar's Laws + +These repeated repulses which Pompeius met with in the senate and, +what was worse, had to acquiesce in without retaliation, +were naturally regarded--come from what side they would--by the public +at large as so many victories of the republicans and defeats +of the regents generally; the tide of republican opposition +was accordingly always on the increase. Already the elections for 698 +had gone but partially according to the minds of the dynasts; Caesar's +candidates for the praetorship, Publius Vatinius and Gaius Alfius, +had failed, while two decided adherents of the fallen government, +Gnaeus Lentulus Marcellinus and Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, +had been elected, the former as consul, the latter as praetor. +But for 699 there even appeared as candidate for the consulship +Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose election it was difficult to prevent +owing to his influence in the capital and his colossal wealth, and who, +it was sufficiently well known, would not be content with a concealed +opposition. The comitia thus rebelled; and the senate chimed in. +It solemnly deliberated over an opinion, which Etruscan soothsayers +of acknowledged wisdom had furnished respecting certain signs +and wonders at its special request. The celestial revelation announced +that through the dissension of the upper classes the whole power +over the army and treasure threatened to pass to one ruler, +and the state to incur loss of freedom--it seemed that the gods +pointed primarily at the proposal of Gaius Messius. The republicans +soon descended from heaven to earth. The law as to the domain of Capua +and the other laws issued by Caesar as consul had been constantly +described by them as null and void, and an opinion had been expressed +in the senate as early as Dec. 697 that it was necessary to cancel +them on account of their informalities. On the 6th April 698 +the consular Cicero proposed in a full senate to put the consideration +of the Campanian land distribution in the order of the day +for the 15th May. It was the formal declaration of war; +and it was the more significant, that it came from the mouth +of one of those men who only show their colours when they think +that they can do so with safety. Evidently the aristocracy held +that the moment had come for beginning the struggle not with Pompeius +against Caesar, but against the -tyrannis- generally. What would +further follow might easily be seen. Domitius made no secret +that he intended as consul to propose to the burgesses +the immediate recall of Caesar from Gaul. An aristocratic restoration +was at work; and with the attack on the colony of Capua the nobility +threw down the gauntlet to the regents. + +Conference of the Regents at Luca + +Caesar, although receiving from day to day detailed accounts +of the events in the capital and, whenever military considerations +allowed, watching their progress from as near a point of his +southern province as possible, had not hitherto, visibly at least +interfered in them. But now war had been declared against him +as well as his colleague, in fact against him especially; +he was compelled to act, and he acted quickly. He happened +to be in the very neighbourhood; the aristocracy had not even +found it advisable to delay the rupture, till he should have again +crossed the Alps. In the beginning of April 698 Crassus +left the capital, to concert the necessary measures with his +more powerful colleague; he found Caesar in Ravenna. Thence +both proceeded to Luca, and there they were joined by Pompeius, +who had departed from Rome soon after Crassus (11 April), +ostensibly for the purpose of procuring supplies of grain +from Sardinia and Africa. The most noted adherents of the regents, +such as Metellus Nepos the proconsul of Hither Spain, Appius Claudius +the propraetor of Sardinia, and many others, followed them; +a hundred and twenty lictors, and upwards of two hundred senators +were counted at this conference, where already the new monarchical +senate was represented in contradistinction to the republican. +In every respect the decisive voice lay with Caesar. He used it +to re-establish and consolidate the existing joint rule +on a new basis of more equal distribution of power of most importance +in a military point of view, next to that of the two Gauls, +were assigned to his two colleagues--that of the two Spains +to Pompeius, that of Syria to Crassus; and these offices +were to be secured to them by decree of the people for five years +(700-704), and to be suitably provided for in a military +and financial point of view. On the other hand Caesar stipulated +for the prolongation of his command, which expired with the year 700, +to the close of 705, as well as for the prerogative of increasing +his legions to ten and of charging the pay for the troops +arbitrarily levied by him on the state-chest. Pompeius and Crassus +were moreover promised a second consulship for the next year (699) +before they departed for their governorships, while Caesar kept it +open to himself to administer the supreme magistracy a second time +after the termination of his governorship in 706, when the ten years' +interval legally requisite between two consulships should have +in his case elapsed. The military support, which Pompeius +and Crassus required for regulating the affairs of the capital +all the more that the legions of Caesar originally destined +for this purpose could not now be withdrawn from Transalpine Gaul, +was to be found in new legions, which they were to raise for the Spanish +and Syrian armies and were not to despatch from Italy to their several +destinations until it should seem to themselves convenient +to do so. The main questions were thus settled; subordinate matters, +such as the settlement of the tactics to be followed against +the opposition in the capital, the regulation of the candidatures +for the ensuing years, and the like, did not long detain them. +The great master of mediation composed the personal differences +which stood in the way of an agreement with his wonted ease, +and compelled the most refractory elements to act in concert. +An understanding befitting colleagues was reestablished, +externally at least, between Pompeius and Crassus. Even Publius Clodius +was induced to keep himself and his pack quiet, and to give +no farther annoyance to Pompeius--not the least marvellous feat +of the mighty magician. + +Designs of Caesar in This Arrangement + +That this whole settlement of the pending questions proceeded, +not from a compromise among independent and rival regents meeting +on equal terms, but solely from the good will of Caesar, is evident +from the circumstances. Pompeius appeared at Luca in the painful +position of a powerless refugee, who comes to ask aid from his opponent. +Whether Caesar chose to dismiss him and to declare the coalition +dissolved, or to receive him and to let the league continue +just as it stood--Pompeius was in either view politically +annihilated. If he did not in this case break with Caesar, he became +the powerless client of his confederate. If on the other hand +he did break with Caesar and, which was not very probable, +effected even now a coalition with the aristocracy, this alliance +between opponents, concluded under pressure of necessity +and at the last moment, was so little formidable that it was hardly +for the sake of averting it that Caesar agreed to those concessions. +A serious rivalry on the part of Crassus with Caesar was utterly +impossible. It is difficult to say what motives induced Caesar +to surrender without necessity his superior position, +and now voluntarily to concede--what he had refused to his rival +even on the conclusion of the league of 694, and what the latter +had since, with the evident design of being armed against Caesar, +vainly striven in different ways to attain without, nay against, +Caesar's will--the second consulate and military power. Certainly +it was not Pompeius alone that was placed at the head of an army, +but also his old enemy and Caesar's ally throughout many years, Crassus; +and undoubtedly Crassus obtained his respectable military position +merely as a counterpoise to the new power of Pompeius. Nevertheless +Caesar was a great loser, when his rival exchanged his former +powerlessness for an important command. It is possible +that Caesar did not yet feel himself sufficiently master of his soldiers +to lead them with confidence to a warfare against the formal +authorities of the land, and was therefore anxious not to be forced +to civil war now by being recalled from Gaul; but whether civil war +should come or not, depended at the moment far more on the aristocracy +of the capital than on Pompeius, and this would have been +at most a reason for Caesar not breaking openly with Pompeius, +so that the opposition might not be emboldened by this breach, +but not a reason for conceding to him what he did concede. +Purely personal motives may have contributed to the result; +it may be that Caesar recollected how he had once stood in a position +of similar powerlessness in presence of Pompeius, and had been saved +from destruction only by his--pusillanimous, it is true, rather than +magnanimous--retirement; it is probable that Caesar hesitated +to breakthe heart of his beloved daughter who was sincerely attached +to her husband--in his soul there was room for much besides the statesman. +But the decisive reason was doubtless the consideration of Gaul. +Caesar--differing from his biographers--regarded the subjugation +of Gaul not as an incidental enterprise useful to him +for the gaining of the crown, but as one on which depended +the external security and the internal reorganization, in a word +the future, of his country. That he might be enabled to complete +this conquest undisturbed and might not be obliged to take in hand +just at once the extrication of Italian affairs, he unhesitatingly +gave up his superiority over his rivals and granted to Pompeius +sufficient power to settle matters with the senate and its adherents. +This was a grave political blunder, if Caesar had no other object +than to become as quickly as possible king of Rome; but the ambition +of that rare man was not confined to the vulgar aim of a crown. +He had the boldness to prosecute side by side, and to complete, +two labours equally vast--the arranging of the internal affairs +of Italy, and the acquisition and securing of a new and fresh soil +for Italian civilization. These tasks of course interfered +with each other; his Gallic conquests hindered much more than helped +him on his way to the throne. It was fraught to him with bitter fruit +that, instead of settling the Italian revolution in 698, +he postponed it to 706. But as a statesman as well as a general +Caesar was a peculiarly daring player, who, confiding in himself +and despising his opponents, gave them always great +and sometimes extravagant odds. + +The Aristocracy Submits + +It was now therefore the turn of the aristocracy to make good +their high gage, and to wage war as boldly as they had boldly +declared it. But there is no more pitiable spectacle +than when cowardly men have the misfortune to take a bold resolution. +They had simply exercised no foresight at all. It seemed to have +occurred to nobody that Caesar would possibly stand on his defence, +or that Pompeius and Crassus would combine with him afresh +and more closely than ever. This seems incredible; but it becomes +intelligible, when we glance at the persons who then led +the constitutional opposition in the senate. Cato was still absent;(4) +the most influential man in the senate at this time was Marcus Bibulus, +the hero of passive resistance, the most obstinate and most stupid +of all consulars. They had taken up arms only to lay them down, +so soon as the adversary merely put his hand to the sheath; +the bare news of the conferences in Luca sufficed to suppress +all thought of a serious opposition and to bring the mass +of the timid--that is, the immense majority of the senate-- +back to their duty as subjects, which in an unhappy hour +they had abandoned. There was no further talk of the appointed +discussion to try the validity of the Julian laws; the legions raised +by Caesar on his own behalf were charged by decree of the senate +on the public chest; the attempts on occasion of regulating +the next consular provinces to take away both Gauls or one of them +by decree from Caesar were rejected by the majority (end of May 698). +Thus the corporation did public penance. In secret the individual lords, +one after another, thoroughly frightened at their own temerity, +came to make their peace and vow unconditional obedience-- +none more quickly than Marcus Cicero, who repented too late +of his perfidy, and in respect of the most recent period of his life +clothed himself with titles of honour which were altogether +more appropriate than flattering.(5) Of course the regents agreed +to be pacified; they refused nobody pardon, for there was nobody +who was worth the trouble of making him an exception. That we may +see how suddenly the tone in aristocratic circles changed +after the resolutions of Luca became known, it is worth while +to compare the pamphlets given forth by Cicero shortly before +with the palinode which he caused to be issued to evince publicly +his repentance and his good intentions.(6) + +Settlement of the New Monarchical Rule + +The regents could thus arrange Italian affairs at their pleasure +and more thoroughly than before. Italy and the capital +obtained practically a garrison although not assembled in arms, +and one of the regents as commandant. Of the troops levied for Syria +and Spain by Crassus and Pompeius, those destined for the east no doubt +took their departure; but Pompeius caused the two Spanish provinces +to be administered by his lieutenants with the garrison hitherto +stationed there, while he dismissed the officers and soldiers +of the legions which were newly raised--nominally for despatch +to Spain--on furlough, and remained himself with them in Italy. + +Doubtless the tacit resistance of public opinion increased, +the more clearly and generally men perceived that the regents +were working to put an end to the old constitution and with as much +gentleness as possible to accommodate the existing condition +of the government and administration to the forms of the monarchy; +but they submitted, because they were obliged to submit. +First of all all the more important affairs, and particularly +all that related to military matters and external relations, +were disposed of without consulting the senate upon them, +sometimes by decree of the people, sometimes by the mere good +pleasure of the rulers. The arrangements agreed on at Luca respecting +the military command of Gaul were submitted directly to the burgesses +by Crassus and Pompeius, those relating to Spain and Syria by the tribune +of the people Gaius Trebonius, and in other instances the more important +governorships were frequently filled up by decree of the people. +That the regents did not need the consent of the authorities +to increase their troops at pleasure, Caesar had already sufficiently +shown: as little did they hesitate mutually to borrow troops; +Caesar for instance received such collegiate support from Pompeius +for the Gallic, and Crassus from Caesar for the Parthian, war. +The Transpadanes, who possessed according to the existing constitution +only Latin rights, were treated by Caesar during his administration +practically as full burgesses of Rome.(7) While formerly +the organization of newly-acquired territories had been managed +by a senatorial commission, Caesar organized his extensive Gallic +conquests altogether according to his own judgment, and founded, +for instance, without having received any farther full powers +burgess-colonies, particularly Novum-Comum (Como) with five thousand +colonists. Piso conducted the Thracian, Gabinius the Egyptian, +Crassus the Parthian war, without consulting the senate, +and without even reporting, as was usual, to that body; +in like manner triumphs and other marks of honour were accorded +and carried out, without the senate being asked about them. +Obviously this did not arise from a mere neglect of forms, which would +be the less intelligible, seeing that in the great majority of cases +no opposition from the senate was to be expected. On the contrary, +it was a well-calculated design to dislodge the senate from the domain +of military arrangements and of higher politics, and to restrict +its share of administration to financial questions and internal +affairs; and even opponents plainly discerned this and protested, +so far as they could, against this conduct of the regents by means +of senatorial decrees and criminal actions. While the regents +thus in the main set aside the senate, they still made some use +of the less dangerous popular assemblies--care was taken that in these +the lords of the street should put no farther difficulty in the way +of the lords of the state; in many cases however they dispensed +even with this empty shadow, and employed without disguise +autocratic forms. + +The Senate under the Monarchy +Cicero and the Majority + +The humbled senate had to submit to its position +whether it would or not. The leader of the compliant majority +continued to be Marcus Cicero. He was useful on account +of his lawyer's talent of finding reasons, or at any rate words, +for everything; and there was a genuine Caesarian irony +in employing the man, by means of whom mainly the aristocracy +had conducted their demonstrations against the regents, +as the mouthpiece of servility. Accordingly they pardoned him +for his brief desire to kick against the pricks, not however +without having previously assured themselves of his submissiveness +in every way. His brother had been obliged to take the position +of an officer in the Gallic army to answer in some measure +as a hostage for him; Pompeius had compelled Cicero himself +to accept a lieutenant-generalship under him, which furnished +a handle for politely banishing him at any moment. Clodius +had doubtless been instructed to leave him meanwhile at peace, +but Caesar as little threw off Clodius on account of Cicero +as he threw off Cicero on account of Clodius; and the great saviour +of his country and the no less great hero of liberty entered +into an antechamber-rivalry in the headquarters of Samarobriva, +for the befitting illustration of which there lacked, unfortunately, +a Roman Aristophanes. But not only was the same rod kept in suspense +over Cicero's head, which had once already descended on him +so severely; golden fetters were also laid upon him. Amidst +the serious embarrassment of his finances the loans of Caesar +free of interest, and the joint overseership of those buildings +which occasioned the circulation of enormous sums in the capital, +were in a high degree welcome to him; and many an immortal oration +for the senate was nipped in the bud by the thought of Caesar's agent, +who might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting. +Consequently he vowed "in future to ask no more after right and honour, +but to strive for the favour of the regents," and "to be as flexible +as an ear-lap." They used him accordingly as--what he was good for-- +an advocate; in which capacity it was on various occasions +his lot to be obliged to defend his very bitterest foes +at a higher bidding, and that especially in the senate, +where he almost regularly served as the organ of the dynasts +and submitted the proposals "to which others probably consented, +but not he himself"; indeed, as recognized leader of the majority +of the compliant, he obtained even a certain political importance. +They dealt with the other members of the governing corporation +accessible to fear, flattery, or gold in the same way as they had dealt +with Cicero, and succeeded in keeping it on the whole in subjection. + +Cato and the Minority + +Certainly there remained a section of their opponents, who at least +kept to their colours and were neither to be terrified nor to be won. +The regents had become convinced that exceptional measures, +such as those against Cato and Cicero, did their cause +more harm than good, and that it was a lesser evil to tolerate +an inconvenient republican opposition than to convert their opponents +into martyrs for the republic Therefore they allowed Cato to return +(end of 698) and thenceforward in the senate and in the Forum, +often at the peril of his life, to offer a continued opposition +to the regents, which was doubtless worthy of honour, but unhappily +was at the same time ridiculous. They allowed him on occasion +of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more +to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate +a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over +to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct +toward those barbarians.(8) They were patient when Marcus Favonius, +Cato's Sancho, after the senate had adopted the resolution +to charge the legions of Caesar on the state-chest, sprang to the door +of the senate-house and proclaimed to the streets the danger +of the country; when the same person in his scurrilous fashion +called the white bandage, which Pompeius wore round his weak leg, +a displaced diadem; when the consular Lentulus Marcellinus, +on being applauded, called out to the assembly to make diligent use +of this privilege of expressing their opinion now while they were +still allowed to do so; when the tribune of the people +Gaius Ateius Capito consigned Crassus on his departure for Syria, +with all the formalities of the theology of the day, publicly +to the evil spirits. These were, on the whole, vain demonstrations +of an irritated minority; yet the little party from which they issued +was so far of importance, that it on the one hand fostered and gave +the watchword to the republican opposition fermenting in secret, +and on the other hand now and then dragged the majority of the senate, +which ithal cherished at bottom quite the same sentiments with reference +to the regents, into an isolated decree directed against them. +For even the majority felt the need of giving vent, at least +sometimes and in subordinate matters to their suppressed indignation, +and especially--after the manner of those who are servile +with reluctance--of exhibiting their resentment towards the great foes +in rage against the small. Wherever it was possible, a gentle blow +was administered to the instruments of the regents; thus Gabinius +was refused the thanksgiving-festival that he asked (698); +thus Piso was recalled from his province; thus mourning was put on +by the senate, when the tribune of the people Gaius Cato hindered +the elections for 699 as long as the consul Marcellinus belonging +to the constitutional party was in office. Even Cicero, however humbly +he always bowed before the regents, issued an equally envenomed +and insipid pamphlet against Caesar's father-in-law. But both these +feeble signs of opposition by the majority of the senate +and the ineffectual resistance of the minority show only +the more clearly, that the government had now passed from the senate +to the regents as it formerly passed from the burgesses to the senate; +and that the senate was already not much more than a monarchical +council of state employed also to absorb the anti-monarchical +elements. "No man," the adherents of the fallen government complained, +"is of the slightest account except the three; the regents +are all-powerful, and they take care that no one shall remain +in doubt about it; the whole senate is virtually transformed +and obeys the dictators; our generation will not live to see +a change of things." They were living in fact no longer +under the republic, but under monarchy. + +Continued Oppositon at the Elections + +But if the guidance of the state was at the absolute disposal +of the regents, there remained still a political domain separated +in some measure from the government proper, which it was more easy +to defend and more difficult to conquer; the field of the ordinary +elections of magistrates, and that of the jury-courts. That the latter +do not fall directly under politics, but everywhere, and above all +in Rome, come partly under the control of the spirit dominating +state-affairs, is of itself clear. The elections of magistrates +certainly belonged by right to the government proper of the state; +but, as at this period the state was administered substantially +by extraordinary magistrates or by men wholly without title, +and even the supreme ordinary magistrates, if they belonged +to the anti-monarchical party, were not able in any tangible way +to influence the state-machinery, the ordinary magistrates sank +more and more into mere puppets--as, in fact, even those of them +who were most disposed to opposition described themselves frankly +and with entire justice as powerless ciphers--and their elections +therefore sank into mere demonstrations. Thus, after the opposition +had already been wholly dislodged from the proper field of battle, +hostilities might nevertheless be continued in the field of elections +and of processes. The regents spared no pains to remain victors +also in this field. As to the elections, they had already +at Luca settled between themselves the lists of candidates +for the next years, and they left no means untried to carry +the candidates agreed upon there. They expended their gold primarily +for the purpose of influencing the elections. A great number +of soldiers were dismissed annually on furlough from the armies +of Caesar and Pompeius to take part in the voting at Rome. +Caesar was wont himself to guide, and watch over, the election movements +from as near a point as possible of Upper Italy. Yet the object +was but very imperfectly attained. For 699 no doubt Pompeius +and Crassus were elected consuls, agreeably to the convention of Luca, +and Lucius Domitius, the only candidate of the opposition who persevered +was set aside; but this had been effected only by open violence, +on which occasion Cato was wounded and other extremely scandalous +incidents occurred. In the next consular elections for 700, +in spite of all the exertions of the regents, Domitius was +actually elected, and Cato likewise now prevailed in the candidature +for the praetorship, in which to the scandal of the whole burgesses +Caesar's client Vatinius had during the previous year beaten him +off the field. At the elections for 701 the opposition succeeded +in so indisputably convicting the candidates of the regents, +along with others, of the most shameful electioneering intrigues +that the regents, on whom the scandal recoiled, could not do otherwise +than abandon them. These repeated and severe defeats of the dynasts +on the battle-field of the elections may be traceable in part +to the unmanageableness of the rusty machinery, to the incalculable +accidents of the polling, to the opposition at heart of the middle +classes, to the various private considerations that interfere +in such cases and often strangely clash with those of party; +but the main cause lies elsewhere. The elections were at this time +essentially in the power of the different clubs into which the aristocracy +had grouped themselves; the system of bribery was organized by them +on the most extensive scale and with the utmost method. +The same aristocracy therefore, which was represented in the senate, +ruled also the elections; but while in the senate it yielded +with a grudge, it worked and voted here--in secret and secure +from all reckoning--absolutely against the regents. That the influence +of the nobility in this field was by no means broken by the strict +penal law against the electioneering intrigues of the clubs, +which Crassus when consul in 699 caused to be confirmed by the burgesses, +is self-evident, and is shown by the elections of the succeeding years. + +And in the Courts + +The jury-courts occasioned equally great difficulty to the regents. +As they were then composed, while the senatorial nobility was here +also influential, the decisive voice lay chiefly with the middle class. +The fixing of a high-rated census for jurymen by a law proposed +by Pompeius in 699 is a remarkable proof that the opposition +to the regents had its chief seat in the middle class properly +so called, and that the great capitalists showed themselves here, +as everywhere, more compliant than the latter. Nevertheless +the republican party was not yet deprived of all hold in the courts, +and it was never weary of directing political impeachments, +not indeed against the regents themselves, but against +their prominent instruments. This warfare of prosecutions +was waged the more keenly, that according to usage the duty of accusation +belonged to the senatorial youth, and, as may readily be conceived, +there was more of republican passion, fresh talent, and bold delight +in attack to be found among these youths than among the older members +of their order. Certainly the courts were not free; if the regents +were in earnest, the courts ventured as little as the senate +to refuse obedience. None of their antagonists were prosecuted +by the opposition with such hatred--so furious that it almost +passed into a proverb--as Vatinius, by far the most audacious +and unscrupulous of the closer adherents of Caesar; but his master +gave the command, and he was acquitted in all the processes +raised against him. But impeachments by men who knew how to wield +the sword of dialectics and the lash of sarcasm as did +Gaius Licinius Calvus and Gaius Asinius Pollio, did not miss +their mark even when they failed; nor were isolated successes wanting. +They were mostly, no doubt, obtained over subordinate individuals, +but even one of the most high-placed and most hated adherents +of the dynasts, the consular Gabinius, was overthrown in this way. +Certainly in his case the implacable hatred of the aristocracy, +which as little forgave him for the law regarding the conducting +of the war with the pirates as for his disparaging treatment +of the senate during his Syrian governorship, was combined +with the rage of the great capitalists, against whom he had when governor +of Syria ventured to defend the interests of the provincials, +and even with the resentment of Crassus, with whom he had stood +on ceremony in handing over to him the province. His only protection +against all these foes was Pompeius, and the latter had every reason +to defend his ablest, boldest, and most faithful adjutant at any price; +but here, as everywhere, he knew not how to use his power +and to defend his clients, as Caesar defended his; in the end +of 700 the jurymen found Gabinius guilty of extortions +and sent him into banishment. + +On the whole, therefore, in the sphere of the popular elections +and of the jury-courts it was the regents that fared worst. +The factors which ruled in these were less tangible, and therefore +more difficult to be terrified or corrupted than the direct organs +of government and administration. The holders of power encountered +here, especially in the popular elections, the tough energy +of a close oligarchy--grouped in coteries--which is by no means +finally disposed of when its rule is overthrown, and which is +the more difficult to vanquish the more covert its action. +They encountered here too, especially in the jury-courts, +the repugnance of the middle classes towards the new monarchical rule, +which with all the perplexities springing out of it they were +as little able to remove. They suffered in both quarters a series +of defeats. The election-victories of the opposition had, +it is true, merely the value of demonstrations, since the regents +possessed and employed the means of practically annulling any magistrate +whom they disliked; but the criminal trials in which the opposition +carried condemnations deprived them, in a way keenly felt, +of useful auxiliaries. As things stood, the regents could neither +set aside nor adequately control the popular elections +and the jury-courts, and the opposition, however much it felt itself +straitened even here, maintained to a certain extent the field of battle. + +Literature of the Opposition + +It proved, however, yet a more difficult task to encounter +the opposition in a field, to which it turned with the greater zeal +the more it was dislodged from direct political action. This was +literature. Even the judicial opposition was at the same time +a literary one, and indeed pre-eminently so, for the orations +were regularly published and served as political pamphlets. +The arrows of poetry hit their mark still more rapidly and sharply. +The lively youth of the high aristocracy, and still more energetically +perhaps the cultivated middle class in the Italian country towns, +waged the war of pamphlets and epigrams with zeal and success. +There fought side by side on this field the genteel senator's son +Gaius Licinius Calvus (672-706) who was as much feared +in the character of an orator and pamphleteer as of a versatile poet, +and the municipals of Cremona and Verona Marcus Furius Bibaculus +(652-691) and Quintus Valerius Catullus (667-c. 700) whose elegant +and pungent epigrams flew swiftly like arrows through Italy +and were sure to hit their mark. An oppositional tone prevails +throughout the literature of these years. It is full of indignant +sarcasm against the "great Caesar," "the unique general," +against the affectionate father-in-law and son-in-law, +who ruin the whole globe in order to give their dissolute favourites +opportunity to parade the spoils of the long-haired Celts +through the streets of Rome, to furnish royal banquets with the booty +of the farthest isles of the west, and as rivals showering gold +to supplant honest youths at home in the favour of their mistresses. +There is in the poems of Catullus(9) and the other fragments +of the literature of this period something of that fervour of personal +and political hatred, of that republican agony overflowing +in riotous humour or in stern despair, which are more prominently +and powerfully apparent in Aristophanes and Demosthenes. + +The most sagacious of the three rulers at least saw well +that it was as impossible to despise this opposition as to suppress +it by word of command. So far as he could, Caesar tried +rather personally to gain over the more notable authors. +Cicero himself had to thank his literary reputation in good part +for the respectful treatment which he especially experienced +from Caesar; but the governor of Gaul did not disdain to conclude +a special peace even with Catullus himself through the intervention +of his father who had become personally known to him in Verona; +and the young poet, who had just heaped upon the powerful general +the bitterest and most personal sarcasms, was treated by him +with the most flattering distinction. In fact Caesar was gifted enough +to follow his literary opponents on their own domain and to publish-- +as an indirect way of repelling manifold attacks--a detailed report +on the Gallic wars, which set forth before the public, with happily +assumed naivete, the necessity and constitutional propriety +of his military operations. But it is freedom alone that is absolutely +and exclusively poetical and creative; it and it alone is able +even in its most wretched caricature, even with its latest breath, +to inspire fresh enthusiasm. All the sound elements of literature +were and remained anti-monarchical; and, if Caesar himself +could venture on this domain without proving a failure, the reason +was merely that even now he still cherished at heart the magnificent +dream of a free commonwealth, although he was unable to transfer it +either to his adversaries or to his adherents. Practical politics +was not more absolutely controlled by the regents than literature +by the republicans.(10) + +New Exceptional Measures Resolved on + +It became necessary to take serious steps against this opposition, +which was powerless indeed, but was always becoming more troublesome +and audacious. The condemnation of Gabinius, apparently, +turned the scale (end of 700). The regents agreed to introduce +a dictatorship, though only a temporary one, and by means of this +to carry new coercive measures especially respecting the elections +and the jury-courts. Pompeius, as the regent on whom primarily devolved +the government of Rome and Italy, was charged with the execution +of this resolve; which accordingly bore the impress of the awkwardness +in resolution and action that characterized him, and of his singular +incapacity of speaking out frankly, even where he would and could +command. Already at the close of 700 the demand for a dictatorship +was brought forward in the senate in the form of hints, +and that not by Pompeius himself. There served as its ostensible ground +the continuance of the system of clubs and bands in the capital, +which by acts of bribery and violence certainly exercised +the most pernicious pressure on the elections as well as +on the jury-courts and kept it in a perpetual state of disturbance; +we must allow that this rendered it easy for the regents to justify +their exceptional measures. But, as may well be conceived, +even the servile majority shrank from granting what the future dictator +himself seemed to shrink from openly asking. When the unparalleled +agitation regarding the elections for the consulship of 701 +led to the most scandalous scenes, so that the elections +were postponed a full year beyond the fixed time and only took place +after a seven months' interregnum in July 701, Pompeius found +in this state of things the desired occasion for indicating +now distinctly to the senate that the dictatorship was the only means +of cutting, if not of loosing the knot; but the decisive +word of command was not even yet spoken. Perhaps it would have +still remained for long unuttered, had not the most audacious +partisan of the republican opposition Titus Annius Milo +stepped into the field at the consular elections for 702 +as a candidate in opposition to the candidates of the regents, +Quintus Metellus Scipio and Publius Plautius Hypsaeus, both men +closely connected with Pompeius personally and thoroughly devoted to him. + +Milo +Killing of Clodius + +Milo, endowed with physical courage, with a certain talent for intrigue +and for contracting debt, and above all with an ample amount +of native assurance which had been carefully cultivated, +had made himself a name among the political adventurers +of the time, and was the greatest bully in his trade next to Clodius, +and naturally therefore through rivalry at the most deadly feud +with the latter. As this Achilles of the streets had been acquired +by the regents and with their permission was again playing the ultra- +democrat, the Hector of the streets became as a matter of course +an aristocrat! And the republican opposition, which now would have +concluded an alliance with Catilina in person, had he presented +himself to them, readily acknowledged Milo as their legitimate +champion in all riots. In fact the few successes, which they +carried off in this field of battle, were the work of Milo +and of his well-trained band of gladiators. So Cato and his friends +in return supported the candidature of Milo for the consulship; +even Cicero could not avoid recommending one who had been his enemy's +enemy and his own protector during many years; and as Milo himself +spared neither money nor violence to carry his election, +it seemed secured. For the regents it would have been not only +a new and keenly-felt defeat, but also a real danger; for it was +to be foreseen that the bold partisan would not allow himself +as consul to be reduced to insignificance so easily as Domitius +and other men of the respectable opposition. It happened that Achilles +and Hector accidentally encountered each other not far from the capital +on the Appian Way, and a fray arose between their respective bands, +in which Clodius himself received a sword-cut on the shoulder +and was compelled to take refuge in a neighbouring house. +This had occurred without orders from Milo; but, as the matter +had gone so far and as the storm had now to be encountered at any rate, +the whole crime seemed to Milo more desirable and even less dangerous +than the half; he ordered his men to drag Clodius forth +from his lurking place and to put him to death (13 Jan. 702). + +Anarchy in Rome + +The street leaders of the regents' party--the tribunes of the people +Titus Munatius Plancus, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, and Gaius +Sallustius Crispus--saw in this occurrence a fitting opportunity +to thwart in the interest of their masters the candidature of Milo +and carry the dictatorship of Pompeius. The dregs of the populace, +especially the freedmen and slaves, had lost in Clodius +their patron and future deliverer;(11) the requisite excitement +was thus easily aroused. After the bloody corpse had been exposed +for show at the orators' platform in the Forum and the speeches +appropriate to the occasion had been made, the riot broke forth. +The seat of the perfidious aristocracy was destined as a funeral pile +for the great liberator; the mob carried the body to the senate-house, +and set the building on fire. Thereafter the multitude proceeded +to the front of Milo's house and kept it under siege, till his band +drove off the assailants by discharges of arrows. They passed +on to the house of Pompeius and of his consular candidates, +of whom the former was saluted as dictator and the latter as consuls, +and thence to the house of the interrex Marcus Lepidus, on whom +devolved the conduct of the consular elections. When the latter, +as in duty bound, refused to make arrangements for the elections +immediately, as the clamorous multitude demanded, he was kept +during five days under siege in his dwelling house. + +Dictatorship of Pompeius + +But the instigators of these scandalous scenes had overacted +their part. Certainly their lord and master was resolved to employ +this favourable episode in order not merely to set aside Milo, +but also to seize the dictatorship; he wished, however, to receive it +not from a mob of bludgeon-men, but from the senate. Pompeius brought +up troops to put down the anarchy which prevailed in the capital, +and which had in reality become intolerable to everybody; +at the same time he now enjoined what he had hitherto requested, +and the senate complied. It was merely an empty subterfuge, +that on the proposal of Cato and Bibulus the proconsul Pompeius, +retaining his former offices, was nominated as "consul without +colleague" instead of dictator on the 25th of the intercalary +month(12) (702)--a subterfuge, which admitted an appellation labouring +under a double incongruity(13) for the mere purpose of avoiding +one which expressed the simple fact, and which vividly reminds us +of the sagacious resolution of the waning patriciate to concede +to the plebeians not the consulship, but only the consular power.(14) + +Changes of in the Arrangement of Magistracies and the Jury-System + +Thus in legal possession of full power, Pompeius set to work +and proceeded with energy against the republican party which was +powerful in the clubs and the jury-courts. The existing enactments +as to elections were repeated and enforced by a special law; +and by another against electioneering intrigues, which obtained +retrospective force for all offences of this sort committed +since 684, the penalties hitherto imposed were augmented. +Still more important was the enactment, that the governorships, +which were by far the more important and especially by far +the more lucrative half of official life, should be conferred +on the consuls and praetors not immediately on their retirement +from the consulate or praetorship, but only after the expiry +of other five years; an arrangement which of course could only +come into effect after four years, and therefore made the filling up +of the governorships for the next few years substantially dependent +on decrees of senate which were to be issued for the regulation +of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section +ruling the senate at the moment. The jury-commissions were left +in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea, +and--what was perhaps still more important--the liberty of speech +in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates +and the time of speaking apportioned to each were restricted +by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which had prevailed of adducing, +in addition to the witnesses as to facts, witnesses to character +or -laudatores-, as they were called, in favour of the accused +was prohibited. The obsequious senate further decreed on the suggestion +of Pompeius that the country had been placed in peril by the quarrel +on the Appian Way; accordingly a special commission was appointed +by an exceptional law for all crimes connected with it, +the members of which were directly nominated by Pompeius. +An attempt was also made to give once more a serious importance +to the office of the censors, and by that agency to purge +the deeply disordered burgess-body of the worst rabble. + +All these measures were adopted under the pressure of the sword. +In consequence of the declaration of the senate that the country +was in danger, Pompeius called the men capable of service +throughout Italy to arms and made them swear allegiance +for all contingencies; an adequate and trustworthy corps +was temporarily stationed at the Capitol; at every stirring +of opposition Pompeius threatened armed intervention, and during +the proceedings at the trial respecting the murder of Clodius +stationed contrary to all precedent, a guard over the place +of trial itself. + +Humiliation of the Republicans + +The scheme for the revival of the censorship failed, because +among the servile majority of the senate no one possessed +sufficient moral courage and authority even to become a candidate +for such an office. On the other hand Milo was condemned +by the jurymen (8 April 702) and Cato's candidature for the consulship +of 703was frustrated. The opposition of speeches and pamphlets +received through the new judicial ordinance a blow from which +it never recovered; the dreaded forensic eloquence was thereby +driven from the field of politics, and thenceforth felt +the restraints of monarchy. Opposition of course had not disappeared +either from the minds of the great majority of the nation +or even wholly from public life--to effect that end the popular elections, +the jury-courts, and literature must have been not merely restricted, +but annihilated. Indeed, in these very transactions themselves, +Pompeius by his unskilfulness and perversity helped the republicans +to gain even under his dictatorship several triumphs which +he severely felt. The special measures, which the rulers took +to strengthen their power, were of course officially characterized +as enactments made in the interest of public tranquillity and order, +and every burgess, who did not desire anarchy, was described +as substantially concurring in them. But Pompeius pushed +this transparent fiction so far, that instead of putting +safe instruments into the special commission for the investigation +of the last tumult, he chose the most respectable men of all parties, +including even Cato, and applied his influence over the court essentially +to maintain order, and to render it impossible for his adherents +as well as for his opponents to indulge in the scenes of disturbance +customary in the courts of this period. This neutrality of the regent +was discernible in the judgments of the special court. The jurymen +did not venture to acquit Milo himself; but most of the subordinate +persons accused belonging to the party of the republican opposition +were acquitted, while condemnation inexorably befell those +who in the last riot had taken part for Clodius, or in other words +for the regents, including not a few of Caesar's and of Pompeius' own +most intimate friends--even Hypsaeus his candidate for the consulship, +and the tribunes of the people Plancus and Rufus, who had directed +the -emeute- in his interest. That Pompeius did not prevent +their condemnation for the sake of appearing impartial, was one specimen +of his folly; and a second was, that he withal in matters +quite indifferent violated his own laws to favour his friends-- +appearing for example as a witness to character in the trial of Plancus, +and in fact protecting from condemnation several accused persons +specially connected with him, such as Metellus Scipio. As usual, +he wished here also to accomplish opposite things; in attempting +to satisfy the duties at once of the impartial regent +and of the party-chief, he fulfilled neither the one nor the other, +and was regarded by public opinion with justice as a despotic regent, +and by his adherents with equal justice as a leader who either +could not or would not protect his followers. + +But, although the republicans were still stirring and were even refreshed +by an isolated success here and there, chiefly through the blunders +of Pompeius, the object which the regents had proposed +to themselves in that dictatorship was on the whole attained, +the reins were drawn tighter, the republican party was humbled, +and the new monarchy was strengthened. The public began +to reconcile themselves to the latter. When Pompeius not long after +recovered from a serious illness, his restoration was celebrated +throughout Italy with the accompanying demonstrations of joy +which are usual on such occasions in monarchies. The regents +showed themselves satisfied; as early as the 1st of August 702 +Pompeius resigned his dictatorship, and shared the consulship +with his client Metellus Scipio. + + + + +Chapter IX + +Death of Crassus--Rupture between the Joint Rulers + +Crassus Goes to Syria + +Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads +of the "three-headed monster," without any proper title +to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance +between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak +more accurately, his weight fell into the scale of Caesar +against Pompeius. This part is not a too reputable one; +but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour +from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open +to be dealt with. What was offered to him was not much; +but, when more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought +to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin +at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless, +amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference +at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with the view +of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius +after concessions so extensive, Caesar gave to his old confederate +Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war +the same position to which Caesar had attained by the Celtic war +in Gaul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects +proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become +at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense +with every newly-won million, or to the ambition which had been +long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast +and now glowed in it with restless fire. He arrived in Syria as early +as the beginning of 700; he had not even waited for the expiry +of his consulship to depart. Full of impatient ardour he seemed desirous +to redeem every minute with the view of making up for what he had lost, +of gathering in the treasures of the east in addition to those +of the west, of achieving the power and glory of a general +as rapidly as Caesar, and with as little trouble as Pompeius. + +Expedition against Parthia Resolved on + +He found the Parthian war already commenced. The faithless conduct +of Pompeius towards the Parthians has been already mentioned;(1) +he had not respected the stipulated frontier of the Euphrates +and had wrested several provinces from the Parthian empire +for the benefit of Armenia, which was now a client state of Rome. +King Phraates had submitted to this treatment; but after he had been +murdered by his two sons Mithradates and Orodes, the new king +Mithradates immediately declared war on the king of Armenia, Artavasdes, +son of the recently deceased Tigranes (about 698).(2) This was +at the same time a declaration of war against Rome; therefore +as soon as the revolt of the Jews was suppressed, Gabinius, +the able and spirited governor of Syria, led the legions +over the Euphrates. Meanwhile, however, a revolution had occurred +in the Parthian empire; the grandees of the kingdom, with the young, +bold, and talented grand vizier at their head, had overthrown +king Mithradates and placed his brother Orodes on the throne. +Mithradates therefore made common cause with the Romans +and resorted to the camp of Gabinius. Everything promised +the best results to the enterprise of the Roman governor, +when he unexpectedly received orders to conduct the king of Egypt +back by force of arms to Alexandria.(3) He was obliged to obey; +but, in the expectation of soon coming back, he induced the dethroned +Parthian prince who solicited aid from him to commence the war +in the meanwhile at his own hand. Mithradates did so; and Seleucia +and Babylon declared for him; but the vizier captured Seleucia +by assault, having been in person the first to mount the battlements, +and in Babylon Mithradates himself was forced by famine to surrender, +whereupon he was by his brother's orders put to death. +His death was a palpable loss to the Romans; but it by no means +put an end to the ferment in the Parthian empire, and the Armenian war +continued. Gabinius, after ending the Egyptian campaign, +was just on the eve of turning to account the still favourable +opportunity and resuming the interrupted Parthian war, when Crassus +arrived in Syria and along with the command took up also the plans +of his predecessor. Full of high-flown hopes he estimated +the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance +in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke +confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already +in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms of Bactria and India. + +Plan of the Campaign + +The new Alexander, however, was in no haste. Before he carried +into effect these great plans, he found leisure for very tedious +and very lucrative collateral transactions. The temples of Derceto +at Hierapolis Bambyce and of Jehovah at Jerusalem and other rich shrines +of the Syrian province, were by order of Crassus despoiled +of their treasures; and contingents or, still better, sums of money +instead were levied from all the subjects. The military operations +of the first summer were limited to an extensive reconnaissance +in Mesopotamia; the Euphrates was crossed, the Parthian satrap +was defeated at Ichnae (on the Belik to the north of Rakkah), +and the neighbouring towns, including the considerable one of Nicephorium +(Rakkah), were occupied, after which the Romans having left garrisons +behind in them returned to Syria. They had hitherto been in doubt +whether it was more advisable to march to Parthia by the circuitous route +of Armenia or by the direct route through the Mesopotamian desert. +The first route, leading through mountainous regions under the control +of trustworthy allies, commended itself by its greater safety; +king Artavasdes came in person to the Roman headquarters +to advocate this plan of the campaign. But that reconnaissance +decided in favour of the march through Mesopotamia. The numerous +and flourishing Greek and half-Greek towns in the regions +along the Euphrates and Tigris, above all the great city +of Seleucia, were altogether averse to the Parthian rule; +all the Greek townships with which the Romans came into contact had now, +like the citizens of Carrhae at an earlier time,(4) practically shown +how ready they were to shake off the intolerable foreign yoke +and to receive the Romans as deliverers, almost as countrymen. +The Arab prince Abgarus, who commanded the desert of Edessa and Carrhae +and thereby the usual route from the Euphrates to the Tigris, +had arrived in the camp of the Romans to assure them in person +of his devotedness. The Parthians had appeared to be wholly unprepared. + +The Euphrates Crossed + +Accordingly (701) the Euphrates was crossed (near Biradjik). +To reach the Tigris from this point they had the choice +of two routes; either the army might move downward along the Euphrates +to the latitude of Seleucia where the Euphrates and Tigris +are only a few miles distant from each other; or they might +immediately after crossing take the shortest line to the Tigris +right across the great Mesopotamian desert. The former route +led directly to the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, which lay opposite +Seleucia on the other bank of the Tigris; several weighty voices +were raised in favour of this route in the Roman council of war; +in particular the quaestor Gaius Cassius pointed to the difficulties +of the march in the desert, and to the suspicious reports arriving +from the Roman garrisons on the left bank of the Euphrates +as to the Parthian warlike preparations. But in opposition to this +the Arab prince Abgarus announced that the Parthians were employed +in evacuating their western provinces. They had already packed up +their treasures and put themselves in motion to flee to the Hyrcanians +and Scythians; only through a forced march by the shortest route +was it at all possible still to reach them; but by such a march +the Romans would probably succeed in overtaking and cutting up at least +the rear-guard of the great army under Sillaces and the vizier, +and obtaining enormous spoil. These reports of the friendly Bedouins +decided the direction of the march; the Roman army, consisting +of seven legions, 4000 cavalry, and 4000 slingers and archers, +turned off from the Euphrates and away into the inhospitable plains +of northern Mesopotamia. + +The March in the Desert + +Far and wide not an enemy showed himself; only hunger and thirst, +and the endless sandy desert, seemed to keep watch at the gates +of the east. At length, after many days of toilsome marching, not far +from the first river which the Roman army had to cross, +the Balissus (Belik), the first horsemen of the enemy were descried. +Abgarus with his Arabs was sent out to reconnoitre; the Parthian +squadrons retired up to and over the river and vanished +in the distance, pursued by Abgarus and his followers. With impatience +the Romans waited for his return and for more exact information. +The general hoped here at length to come upon the constantly +retreating foe; his young and brave son Publius, who had fought +with the greatest distinction in Gaul under Caesar,(5) and had been sent +by the latter at the head of a Celtic squadron of horse to take part +in the Parthian war, was inflamed with a vehement desire +for the fight. When no tidings came, they resolved to advance +at a venture; the signal for starting was given, the Balissus +was crossed, the army after a brief insufficient rest at noon +was led on without delay at a rapid pace. Then suddenly the kettledrums +of the Parthians sounded all around; on every side their silken +gold-embroidered banners were seen waving, and their iron helmets +and coats of mail glittering in the blaze of the hot noonday sun; +and by the side of the vizier stood prince Abgarus with his Bedouins. + +Roman and Parthian Systems of Warfare + +The Romans saw too late the net into which they had allowed themselves +to be ensnared. With sure glance the vizier had thoroughly seen +both the danger and the means of meeting it. Nothing could +be accomplished against the Roman infantry of the line +with Oriental infantry; so he had rid himself of it, and by +sending a mass, which was useless in the main field of battle, +under the personal leadership of king Orodes to Armenia, +he had prevented king Artavasdes from allowing the promised +10,000 heavy cavalry to join the army of Crassus, who now painfully +felt the want of them. On the other hand the vizier met the Roman +tactics, unsurpassed of their kind, with a system entirely different. +His army consisted exclusively of cavalry; the line was formed of the +heavy horsemen armed with long thrusting-lances, and protected, man +and horse, by a coat of mail of metallic plates or a leathern doublet +and by similar greaves; the mass of the troops consisted of mounted +archers. As compared with these, the Romans were thoroughly inferior +in the corresponding arms both as to number and excellence. Their +infantry of the line, excellent as they were in close combat, whether +at a short distance with the heavy javelin or in hand-to-hand combat +with the sword, could not compel an army consisting merely of cavalry +to come to an engagement with them; and they found, even when they +did come to a hand-to-hand conflict, an equal if not superior +adversary in the iron-clad hosts of lancers. As compared with an +army like this Parthian one, the Roman army was at a disadvantage +strategically, because the cavalry commanded the communications; +and at a disadvantage tactically, because every weapon of close +combat must succumb to that which is wielded from a distance, +unless the struggle becomes an individual one, man against man. +The concentrated position, on which the whole Roman method of war +was based, increased the danger in presence of such an attack; +the closer the ranks of the Roman column, the more irresistible +certainly was its onset, but the less also could the missiles +fail to hit their mark. Under ordinary circumstances, +where towns have to be defended and difficulties of the ground +have to be considered, such tactics operating merely with cavalry +against infantry could never be completely carried out; +but in the Mesopotamian desert, where the army, almost like a ship +on the high seas, neither encountered an obstacle nor met +with a basis for strategic dispositions during many days' march, +this mode of warfare was irresistible for the very reason +that circumstances allowed it to be developed there in all its purity +and therefore in all its power. There everything combined to put +the foreign infantry at a disadvantage against the native cavalry. +Where the heavy-laden Roman foot-soldier dragged himself toilsomely +through the sand or the steppe, and perished from hunger or still more +from thirst amid the pathless route marked only by water-springs +that were far apart and difficult to find, the Parthian horseman, +accustomed from childhood to sit on his fleet steed or camel, +nay almost to spend his life in the saddle, easily traversed +the desert whose hardships he had long learned how to lighten +or in case of need to endure. There no rain fell to mitigate +the intolerable heat, and to slacken the bowstrings and leathern thongs +of the enemy's archers and slingers; there amidst the deep sand +at many places ordinary ditches and ramparts could hardly be formed +for the camp. Imagination can scarcely conceive a situation +in which all the military advantages were more on the one side, +and all the disadvantages more thoroughly on the other. + +To the question, under what circumstances this new style +of tactics, the first national system that on its own proper ground +showed itself superior to the Roman, arose among the Parthians, +we unfortunately can only reply by conjectures. The lancers +and mounted archers were of great antiquity in the east, and already +formed the flower of the armies of Cyrus and Darius; but hitherto +these arms had been employed only as secondary, and essentially +to cover the thoroughly useless Oriental infantry. The Parthian armies +also by no means differed in this respect from the other Oriental ones; +armies are mentioned, five-sixths of which consisted of infantry. +In the campaign of Crassus, on the other hand, the cavalry +for the first time came forward independently, and this arm +obtained quite a new application and quite a different value. +The irresistible superiority of the Roman infantry in close combat +seems to have led the adversaries of Rome in very different parts +of the world independently of each other--at the same time +and with similar success--to meet it with cavalry and distant weapons. +What as completely successful with Cassivellaunus in Britain(6) +and partially successful with Vercingetorix in Gaul(7)-- +what was to a certain degree attempted even by Mithradates Eupator(8)-- +the vizier of Orodes carried out only on a larger scale +and more completely. And in doing so he had special advantages: +for he found in the heavy cavalry the means of forming a line; the bow +which was national in the east and was handled with masterly skill +in the Persian provinces gave him an effective weapon for distant combat; +and lastly the peculiarities of the country and the people +enabled him freely to realize his brilliant idea. Here, where +the Roman weapons of close combat and the Roman system of concentration +yielded for the first time before the weapons of more distant warfare +and the system of deploying, was initiated that military revolution +which only reached its completion with the introduction of firearms. + +Battle near Carrhae + +Under such circumstances the first battle between the Romans +and Parthians was fought amidst the sandy desert thirty miles +to the south of Carrhae (Harran) where there was a Roman garrison, +and at a somewhat less distance to the north of Ichnae. The Roman +archers were sent forward, but retired immediately before the enormous +numerical superiority and the far greater elasticity and range +of the Parthian bows. The legions, which, in spite of the advice +of the more sagacious officers that they should be deployed +as much as possible against the enemy, had been drawn up +in a dense square of twelve cohorts on each side, were soon outflanked +and overwhelmed with the formidable arrows, which under such circumstances +hit their man even without special aim, and against which the soldiers +had no means of retaliation. The hope that the enemy might expend +his missiles vanished with a glance at the endless range of camels +laden with arrows. The Parthians were still extending their line. +That the outflanking might not end in surrounding, Publius Crassus +advanced to the attack with a select corps of cavalry, archers, +and infantry of the line. The enemy in fact abandoned the attempt +to close the circle, and retreated, hotly pursued by the impetuous +leader of the Romans. But, when the corps of Publius had totally lost +sight of the main army, the heavy cavalry made a stand against it, +and the Parthian host hastening up from all sides closed in +like a net round it. Publius, who saw his troops falling thickly +and vainly around him under the arrows of the mounted archers, +threw himself in desperation with his Celtic cavalry unprotected +by any coats of mail on the iron-clad lancers of the enemy; +but the death-despising valour of his Celts, who seized the lances +with their hands or sprang from their horses to stab the enemy, +performed its marvels in vain. The remains of the corps, +including their leader wounded in the sword-arm, were driven +to a slight eminence, where they only served for an easier mark +to the enemy's archers. Mesopotamian Greeks, who were accurately +acquainted with the country, adjured Crassus to ride off with them +and make an attempt to escape; but he refused to separate his fate +from that of the brave men whom his too-daring courage +had led to death, and he caused himself to be stabbed by the hand +of his shield-bearer. Following his example, most of the still +surviving officers put themselves to death. Of the whole division, +about 6000 strong, not more than 500 were taken prisoners; +no one was able to escape. Meanwhile the attack on the main army +had slackened, and the Romans were but too glad to rest. +When at length the absence of any tidings from the corps +sent out startled them out of the deceitful calm, and they drew near +to the scene of the battle for the purpose of learning its fate, +the head of the son was displayed on a pole before his father's eyes; +and the terrible onslaught began once more against the main army +with the same fury and the same hopeless uniformity. They could +neither break the ranks of the lancers nor reach the archers; +night alone put an end to the slaughter. Had the Parthians bivouacked +on the battle-field, hardly a man of the Roman army would have escaped. +But not trained to fight otherwise than on horseback, and therefore +afraid of a surprise, they were wont never to encamp close to the enemy; +jeeringly they shouted to the Romans that they would give the general +a night to bewail his son, and galloped off to return next morning +and despatch the game that lay bleeding on the ground. + +Retreat to Carrhae + +Of course the Romans did not wait for the morning. The lieutenant- +generals Cassius and Octavius--Crassus himself had completely +lost his judgment--ordered the men still capable of marching +to set out immediately and with the utmost silence (while the whole-- +said to amount to 4000--of the wounded and stragglers were left), +with the view of seeking protection within the walls of Carrhae. +The fact that the Parthians, when they returned on the following day, +applied themselves first of all to seek out and massacre +the scattered Romans left behind, and the further fact that the garrison +and inhabitants of Carrhae, early informed of the disaster by fugitives, +had marched forth in all haste to meet the beaten army, saved the remnants +of it from what seemed inevitable destruction. + +Departure from Carrhae +Surprise at Sinnaca + +The squadrons of Parthian horsemen could not think of undertaking +a siege of Carrhae. But the Romans soon voluntarily departed, +whether compelled by want of provisions, or in consequence +of the desponding precipitation of their commander-in-chief, +whom the soldiers had vainly attempted to remove from the command +and to replace by Cassius. They moved in the direction of the Armenian +mountains; marching by night and resting by day Octavius with a band +of 5000 men reached the fortress of Sinnaca, which was only +a day's march distant from the heights that would give shelter, +and liberated even at the peril of his own life the commander-in-chief, +whom the guide had led astray and given up to the enemy. +Then the vizier rode in front of the Roman camp to offer, +in the name of his king, peace and friendship to the Romans, +and to propose a personal conference between the two generals. +The Roman army, demoralized as it was, adjured and indeed compelled +its leader to accept the offer. The vizier received the consular +and his staff with the usual honours, and offered anew to conclude +a compact of friendship; only, with just bitterness recalling the fate +of the agreements concluded with Lucullus and Pompeius respecting +the Euphrates boundary,(9) he demanded that it should be immediately +reduced to writing. A richly adorned horse was produced; +it was a present from the king to the Roman commander-in-chief; +the servants of the vizier crowded round Crassus, zealous to mount him +on the steed. It seemed to the Roman officers as if there was a design +to seize the person of the commander-in-chief; Octavius, unarmed +as he was, pulled the sword of one of the Parthians from its sheath +and stabbed the groom. In the tumult which thereupon arose, +the Roman officers were all put to death; the gray-haired commander- +in-chief also, like his grand-uncle,(10) was unwilling to serve +as a living trophy to the enemy, and sought and found death. +The multitude left behind in the camp without a leader were partly +taken prisoners, partly dispersed. What the day of Carrhae had begun, +the day of Sinnaca completed (June 9, 701); the two took their place +side by side with the days of the Allia, of Cannae, and of Arausio. +The army of the Euphrates was no more. Only the squadron +of Gaius Cassius, which had been broken off from the main army +on the retreat from Carrhae, and some other scattered bands +and isolated fugitives succeeded in escaping from the Parthians +and Bedouins and separately finding their way back to Syria. +Of above 40,000 Roman legionaries, who had crossed the Euphrates, +not a fourth part returned; the half had perished; nearly 10,000 +Roman prisoners were settled by the victors in the extreme east +of their kingdom--in the oasis of Merv--as bondsmen compelled +after the Parthian fashion to render military service. +For the first time since the eagles had headed the legions, +they had become in the same year trophies of victory in the hands +of foreign nations, almost contemporaneously of a German tribe +in the west(11) and of the Parthians in the east. As to the impression +which the defeat of the Romans produced in the east, unfortunately +no adequate information has reached us; but it must have been deep +and lasting. King Orodes was just celebrating the marriage of his son +Pacorus with the sister of his new ally, Artavasdes the king of Armenia, +when the announcement of the victory of his vizier arrived, +and along with it, according to Oriental usage, the cut-off head +of Crassus. The tables were already removed; one of the wandering +companies of actors from Asia Minor, numbers of which at that time +existed and carried Hellenic poetry and the Hellenic drama +far into the east, was just performing before the assembled court +the -Bacchae- of Euripides. The actor playing the part of Agave, +who in her Dionysiac frenzy has torn in pieces her son and returns +from Cithaeron carrying his head on the thyrsus, exchanged this +for the bloody head of Crassus, and to the infinite delight of his +audience of half-Hellenized barbarians began afresh the well-known song: + + --pheromin ex oreos + elika neotomon epi melathra + makarian theiran--. + +It was, since the times of the Achaemenids, the first serious victory +which the Orientals had achieved over the west; and there was +a deep significance in the fact that, by way of celebrating +this victory, the fairest product of the western world-- +Greek tragedy--parodied itself through its degenerate representatives +in that hideous burlesque. The civic spirit of Rome and the genius +of Hellas began simultaneously to accommodate themselves +to the chains of sultanism. + +Consequences of the Defeat + +The disaster, terrible in itself, seemed also as though +it was to be dreadful in its consequences, and to shake the foundations +of the Roman power in the east. It was among the least of its results +that the Parthians now had absolute sway beyond the Euphrates; +that Armenia, after having fallen away from the Roman alliance +even before the disaster of Crassus, was reduced by it +into entire dependence on Parthia; that the faithful citizens +of Carrhae were bitterly punished for their adherence to the Occidentals +by the new master appointed over them by the Parthians, +one of the treacherous guides of the Romans, named Andromachus. +The Parthians now prepared in all earnest to cross the Euphrates +in their turn, and, in union with the Armenians and Arabs, to dislodge +the Romans from Syria. The Jews and various other Occidentals +awaited emancipation from the Roman rule there, no less impatiently +than the Hellenes beyond the Euphrates awaited relief +from the Parthian; in Rome civil war was at the door; an attack +at this particular place and time was a grave peril. But fortunately +for Rome the leaders on each side had changed. Sultan Orodes +was too much indebted to the heroic prince, who had first placed +the crown on his head and then cleared the land from the enemy, +not to get rid of him as soon as possible by the executioner. +His place as commander-in-chief of the invading army destined for Syria +was filled by a prince, the king's son Pacorus, with whom on account +of his youth and inexperience the prince Osaces had to be associated +as military adviser. On the other side the interim command +in Syria in room of Crassus was taken up by the prudent and resolute +quaestor Gaius Cassius. + +Repulse of the Parthians + +The Parthians were, just like Crassus formerly, in no haste to attack, +but during the years 701 and 702 sent only weak flying bands, +who were easily repulsed, across the Euphrates; so that Cassius +obtained time to reorganize the army in some measure, and with the help +of the faithful adherent of the Romans, Herodes Antipater, +to reduce to obedience the Jews, whom resentment at the spoliation +of the temple perpetrated by Crassus had already driven to arms. +The Roman government would thus have had full time to send +fresh troops for the defence of the threatened frontier; +but this was left undone amidst the convulsions of the incipient +revolution, and, when at length in 703 the great Parthian invading army +appeared on the Euphrates, Cassius had still nothing to oppose to it +but the two weak legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus. +Of course with these he could neither prevent the crossing +nor defend the province. Syria was overrun by the Parthians, +and all Western Asia trembled. But the Parthians did not understand +the besieging of towns. They not only retreated from Antioch, +into which Cassius had thrown himself with his troops, without having +accomplished their object, but they were on their retreat +along the Orontes allured into an ambush by Cassius' cavalry +and there severely handled by the Roman infantry; prince Osaces +was himself among the slain. Friend and foe thus perceived +that the Parthian army under an ordinary general and on ordinary ground +was not capable of much more than any other Oriental army. +However, the attack was not abandoned. Still during the winter +of 703-704 Pacorus lay encamped in Cyrrhestica on this side +of the Euphrates; and the new governor of Syria, Marcus Bibulus, +as wretched a general as he was an incapable statesman, +knew no better course of action than to shut himself up +in his fortresses. It was generally expected that the war +would break out in 704 with renewed fury. But instead +of turning his arms against the Romans, Pacorus turned against +his own father, and accordingly even entered into an understanding +with the Roman governor. Thus the stain was not wiped +from the shield of Roman honour, nor was the reputation of Rome +restored in the east; but the Parthian invasion of Western Asia +was over, and the Euphrates boundary was, for the time being +at least, retained. + +Impression Produced in Rome by the Defeat of Carrhae + +In Rome meanwhile the periodical volcano of revolution was whirling +upward its clouds of stupefying smoke. The Romans began to have +no longer a soldier or a denarius to be employed against the public foe-- +no longer a thought for the destinies of the nations. It is +one of the most dreadful signs of the times, that the huge national +disaster of Carrhae and Sinnaca gave the politicians of that time +far less to think and speak of than that wretched tumult +on the Appian road, in which, a couple of months after Crassus, +Clodius the partisan-leader perished; but it is easily conceivable +and almost excusable. The breach between the two regents, long felt +as inevitable and often announced as near, was now assuming +such a shape that it could not be arrested. Like the boat +of the ancient Greek mariners' tale, the vessel of the Roman community +now found itself as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other; +expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom it was bearing, +tortured by nameless anguish, into the eddying surge that rose +higher and higher were benumbed; and, while every slightest movement +there attracted a thousand, eyes, no one ventured to give a glance +to the right or the left. + +The Good Understanding between the Regents Relaxed + +After Caesar had, at the conference of Luca in April 698, +agreed to considerable concessions as regarded Pompeius, +and the regents had thus placed themselves substantially on a level, +their relation was not without the outward conditions of durability, +so far as a division of the monarchical power--in itself indivisible-- +could be lasting at all. It was a different question +whether the regents, at least for the present, were determined +to keep together and mutually to acknowledge without reserve their title +to rank as equals. That this was the case with Caesar, in so far +as he had acquired the interval necessary for the conquest of Gaul +at the price of equalization with Pompeius, has been already set forth. +But Pompeius was hardly ever, even provisionally, in earnest +with the collegiate scheme. His was one of those petty +and mean natures, towards which it is dangerous to practise magnanimity; +to his paltry spirit it appeared certainly a dictate of prudence +to supplant at the first opportunity his reluctantly acknowledged rival, +and his mean soul thirsted after a possibility of retaliating on Caesar +for the humiliation which he had suffered through Caesar's indulgence. +But while it is probable that Pompeius in accordance with his dull +and sluggish nature never properly consented to let Caesar +hold a position of equality by his side, yet the design +of breaking up the alliance doubtless came only by degrees +to be distinctly entertained by him. At any rate the public, +which usually saw better through the views and intentions +of Pompeius than he did himself, could not be mistaken +in thinking that at least with the death of the beautiful Julia-- +who died in the bloom of womanhood in the autumn of 700 and was +soon followed by her only child to the tomb--the personal relation +between her father and her husband was broken up. Caesar attempted +to re-establish the ties of affinity which fate had severed; +he asked for himself the hand of the only daughter of Pompeius, +and offered Octavia, his sister's grand-daughter, who was now +his nearest relative, in marriage to his fellow-regent; but Pompeius +left his daughter to her existing husband Faustus Sulla the son +of the regent, and he himself married the daughter of Quintus Metellus +Scipio. The personal breach had unmistakeably begun, and it was +Pompeius who drew back his hand. It was expected that a political +breach would at once follow; but in this people were mistaken; +in public affairs a collegiate understanding continued for a time +to subsist. The reason was, that Caesar did not wish publicly +to dissolve the relation before the subjugation of Gaul +was accomplished, and Pompeius did not wish to dissolve it +before the governing authorities and Italy should be wholly reduced +under his power by his investiture with the dictatorship. +It is singular, but yet readily admits of explanation, that the regents +under these circumstances supported each other; Pompeius +after the disaster of Aduatuca in the winter of 700 handed over +one of his Italian legions that were dismissed on furlough +by way of loan to Caesar; on the other hand Caesar granted his consent +and his moral support to Pompeius in the repressive measures +which the latter took against the stubborn republican opposition. + +Dictatorship of Pompeius +Covert Attacks by Pompeius on Caesar + +It was only after Pompeius had in this way procured for himself +at the beginning of 702 the undivided consulship and an influence +in the capital thoroughly outweighing that of Caesar, +and after all the men capable of arms in Italy had tendered +their military oath to himself personally and in his name, +that he formed the resolution to break as soon as possible +formally with Caesar; and the design became distinctly enough apparent. +That the judicial prosecution which took place after the tumult +on the Appian Way lighted with unsparing severity precisely +on the old democratic partisans of Caesar,(12) might perhaps pass +as a mere awkwardness. That the new law against electioneering intrigues, +which had retrospective effect as far as 684, included also the dubious +proceedings at Caesar's candidature for the consulship,(13) +might likewise be nothing more, although not a few Caesarians thought +that they perceived in it a definite design. But people +could no longer shut their eyes, however willing they might be +to do so, when Pompeius did not select for his colleague +in the consulship his former father-in-law Caesar, as was fitting +in the circumstances of the case and was in many quarters demanded, +but associated with himself a puppet wholly dependent on him +in his new father-in-law Scipio;(14) and still less, when Pompeius +at the same time got the governorship of the two Spains continued +to him for five years more, that is to 709, and a considerable +fixed sum appropriated from the state-chest for the payment of his troops, +not only without stipulating for a like prolongation of command +and a like grant of money to Caesar, but even while labouring +ulteriorly to effect the recall of Caesar before the term +formerly agreed on through the new regulations which were issued +at the same time regarding the holding of the governorships. +These encroachments were unmistakeably calculated to undermine +Caesar's position and eventually to overthrow him. The moment +could not be more favourable. Caesar had conceded so much to Pompeius +at Luca, only because Crassus and his Syrian army would necessarily, +in the event of any rupture with Pompeius, be thrown into Caesar's scale; +for upon Crassus--who since the times of Sulla had been +at the deepest enmity with Pompeius and almost as long politically +and personally allied with Caesar, and who from his peculiar character +at all events, if he could not himself be king of Rome, would have been +content with being the new king's banker--Caesar could always reckon, +and could have no apprehension at all of seeing Crassus confronting him +as an ally of his enemies. The catastrophe of June 701, +by which army and general in Syria perished, was therefore +a terribly severe blow also for Caesar. A few months later +the national insurrection blazed up more violently than ever in Gaul, +just when it had seemed completely subdued, and for the first time +Caesar here encountered an equal opponent in the Arvernian king +Vercingetorix. Once more fate had been working for Pompeius; +Crassus was dead, all Gaul was in revolt, Pompeius was practically +dictator of Rome and master of the senate. What might have happened, +if he had now, instead of remotely intriguing against Caesar, +summarily compelled the burgesses or the senate to recall Caesar +at once from Gaul! But Pompeius never understood how to take advantage +of fortune. He heralded the breach clearly enough; already in 702 +his acts left no doubt about it, and in the spring of 703 he openly +expressed his purpose of breaking with Caesar; but he did not +break with him, and allowed the months to slip away unemployed. + +The Old Party Names and the Pretenders + +But however Pompeius might delay, the crisis was incessantly urged +on by the mere force of circumstances. + +The impending war was not a struggle possibly between republic +and monarchy--for that had been virtually decided years before-- +but a struggle between Pompeius and Caesar for the possession +of the crown of Rome. But neither of the pretenders found his account +in uttering the plain truth; he would have thereby driven +all that very respectable portion of the burgesses, which desired +the continuance of the republic and believed in its possibility, +directly into the camp of his opponent. The old battle-cries raised +by Gracchus and Drusus, Cinna and Sulla, used up and meaningless +as they were, remained still good enough for watchwords +in the struggle of the two generals contending for the sole rule; +and, though for the moment both Pompeius and Caesar ranked themselves +officially with the so-called popular party, it could not be +for a moment doubtful that Caesar would inscribe on his banner +the people and democratic progress, Pompeius the aristocracy +and the legitimate constitution. + +The Democracy and Caesar + +Caesar had no choice. He was from the outset and very earnestly +a democrat; the monarchy as he understood it differed more outwardly +than in reality from the Gracchan government of the people; +and he was too magnanimous and too profound a statesman to conceal +his colours and to fight under any other escutcheon than his own. +The immediate advantage no doubt, which this battle-cry brought to him, +was trifling; it was confined mainly to the circumstance +that he was thereby relieved from the inconvenience of directly naming +the kingly office, and so alarming the mass of the lukewarm +and his own adherents by that detested word. The democratic banner +hardly yielded farther positive gain, since the ideals of Gracchus +had been rendered infamous and ridiculous by Clodius; +for where was there now--laying aside perhaps the Transpadanes-- +any class of any sort of importance, which would have been induced +by the battle-cries of the democracy to take part in the struggle? + +The Aristocracy and Pompeius + +This state of things would have decided the part of Pompeius +in the impending struggle, even if apart from this it had not been +self-evident that he could only enter into it as the general +of the legitimate republic. Nature had destined him, if ever any one, +to be a member of an aristocracy; and nothing but very accidental +and very selfish motives had carried him over as a deserter +from the aristocratic to the democratic camp. That he should now +revert to his Sullan traditions, was not merely befitting in the case, +but in every respect of essential advantage. Effete as was +the democratic cry, the conservative cry could not but have +the more potent effect, if it proceeded from the right man. +Perhaps the majority, at any rate the flower of the burgesses, +belonged to the constitutional party; and as respected its numerical +and moral strength might well be called to interfere powerfully, +perhaps decisively, in the impending struggle of the pretenders. +It wanted nothing but a leader. Marcus Cato, its present head, +did the duty, as he understood it, of its leader amidst daily peril +to his life and perhaps without hope of success; his fidelity to duty +deserves respect, but to be the last at a forlorn post is commendable +in the soldier, not in the general. He had not the skill +either to organize or to bring into action at the proper time +the powerful reserve, which had sprung up as it were spontaneously +in Italy for the party of the overthrown government; and he had +for good reasons never made any pretension to the military leadership, +on which everything ultimately depended. If instead of this man, +who knew not how to act either as party-chief or as general, +a man of the political and military mark of Pompeius should raise +the banner of the existing constitution, the municipals of Italy +would necessarily flock towards it in crowds, that under it +they might help to fight, if not indeed for the kingship of Pompeius, +at any rate against the kingship of Caesar. + +To this was added another consideration at least as important. +It was characteristic of Pompeius, even when he had formed a resolve, +not to be able to find his way to its execution. While he knew +perhaps how to conduct war but certainly not how to declare it, +the Catonian party, although assuredly unable to conduct it, +was very able and above all very ready to supply grounds for the war +against the monarchy on the point of being founded. According to +the intention of Pompeius, while he kept himself aloof, and in his +peculiar way, now talked as though he would immediately depart +for his Spanish provinces, now made preparations as though he would +set out to take over the command on the Euphrates, the legitimate +governing board, namely the senate, were to break with Caesar, +to declare war against him, and to entrust the conduct of it to Pompeius, +who then, yielding to the general desire, was to come forward +as the protector of the constitution against demagogico- +monarchical plots, as an upright man and champion of the existing +order of things against the profligates and anarchists, +as the duly-installed general of the senate against the Imperator +of the street, and so once more to save his country. Thus Pompeius +gained by the alliance with the conservatives both a second army +in addition to his personal adherents, and a suitable war-manifesto-- +advantages which certainly were purchased at the high price +of coalescing with those who were in principle opposed to him. +Of the countless evils involved in this coalition, there was developed +in the meantime only one--but that already a very grave one-- +that Pompeius surrendered the power of commencing hostilities +against Caesar when and how he pleased, and in this decisive point +made himself dependent on all the accidents and caprices +of an aristocratic corporation. + +The Republicans + +Thus the republican opposition, after having been for years +obliged to rest content with the part of a mere spectator +and having hardly ventured to whisper, was now brought back once more +to the political stage by the impending rupture between the regents. +It consisted primarily of the circle which rallied round Cato-- +those republicans who were resolved to venture on the struggle +for the republic and against the monarchy under all circumstances, +and the sooner the better. The pitiful issue of the attempt +made in 698(15) had taught them that they by themselves alone +were not in a position either to conduct war or even to call it forth; +it was known to every one that even in the senate, while the whole +corporation with a few isolated exceptions was averse to monarchy, +the majority would still only restore the oligarchic government +if it might be restored without danger--in which case, doubtless, +it had a good while to wait. In presence of the regents on the one hand, +and on the other hand of this indolent majority, which desired peace +above all things and at any price, and was averse to any decided action +and most of all to a decided rupture with one or other of the regents, +the only possible course for the Catonian party to obtain a restoration +of the old rule lay in a coalition with the less dangerous +of the rulers. If Pompeius acknowledged the oligarchic constitution +and offered to fight for it against Caesar, the republican opposition +might and must recognize him as its general, and in alliance +with him compel the timid majority to a declaration of war. +That Pompeius was not quite in earnest with his fidelity +to the constitution, could indeed escape nobody; but, undecided +as he was in everything, he had by no means arrived like Caesar +at a clear and firm conviction that it must be the first business +of the new monarch to sweep off thoroughly and conclusively +the oligarchic lumber. At any rate the war would train +a really republican army and really republican generals; +and, after the victory over Caesar, they might proceed +with more favourable prospects to set aside not merely +oneof the monarchs, but the monarchy itself, which was in the course +of formation. Desperate as was the cause of the oligarchy, the offer +of Pompeius to become its ally was the most favourable arrangement +possible for it. + +Their League with Pompeius + +The conclusion of the alliance between Pompeius and the Catonian party +was effected with comparative rapidity. Already during the dictatorship +of Pompeius a remarkable approximation had taken place between them. +The whole behaviour of Pompeius in the Milonian crisis, +his abrupt repulse of the mob that offered him the dictatorship, +his distinct declaration that he would accept this office +only from the senate, his unrelenting severity against disturbers +of the peace of every sort and especially against the ultra-democrats, +the surprising complaisance with which he treated Cato +and those who shared his views, appeared as much calculated to gain +the men of order as they were offensive to the democrat Caesar. +On the other hand Cato and his followers, instead of combating +with their wonted sternness the proposal to confer the dictatorship +on Pompeius, had made it with immaterial alterations of form +their own; Pompeius had received the undivided consulship +primarily from the hands of Bibulus and Cato. While the Catonian party +and Pompeius had thus at least a tacit understanding as early +as the beginning of 702, the alliance might be held as formally +concluded, when at the consular elections for 703 there was elected +not Cato himself indeed, but--along with an insignificant man +belonging to the majority of the senate--one of the most decided +adherents of Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Marcellus was +no furious zealot and still less a genius, but a steadfast +and strict aristocrat, just the right man to declare war +if war was to be begun with Caesar. As the case stood, +this election, so surprising after the repressive measures +adopted immediately before against the republican opposition, +can hardly have occurred otherwise than with the consent, +or at least under the tacit permission, of the regent of Rome +for the time being. Slowly and clumsily, as was his wont, +but steadily Pompeius moved onward to the rupture. + +Passive Resistance of Caesar + +It was not the intention of Caesar on the other hand to fall out +at this moment with Pompeius. He could not indeed desire seriously +and permanently to share the ruling power with any colleague, +least of all with one of so secondary a sort as was Pompeius; +and beyond doubt he had long resolved after terminating the conquest +of Gaul to take the sole power for himself, and in case of need to extort +it by force of arms. But a man like Caesar, in whom the officer +was thoroughly subordinate to the statesman, could not fail +to perceive that the regulation of the political organism +by force of arms does in its consequences deeply and often permanently +disorganize it; and therefore he could not but seek to solve +the difficulty, if at all possible, by peaceful means or at least +without open civil war. But even if civil war was not to be avoided, +he could not desire to be driven to it at a time, when in Gaul +the rising of Vercingetorix imperilled afresh all that had been obtained +and occupied him without interruption from the winter of 701-702 +to the winter of 702-703, and when Pompeius and the constitutional party +opposed to him on principle were dominant in Italy. Accordingly +he sought to preserve the relation with Pompeius and thereby +the peace unbroken, and to attain, if at all possible, +by peaceful means to the consulship for 706 already assured +to him at Luca. If he should then after a conclusive settlement +of Celtic affairs be placed in a regular manner at the head +of the state, he, who was still more decidedly superior +to Pompeius as a statesman than as a general, might well reckon +on outmanoeuvring the latter in the senate-house and in the Forum +without special difficulty. Perhaps it was possible to find out +for his awkward, vacillating, and arrogant rival some sort +of honourable and influential position, in which the latter might be +content to sink into a nullity; the repeated attempts of Caesar +to keep himself related by marriage to Pompeius, may have been +designed to pave the way for such a solution and to bring about +a final settlement of the old quarrel through the succession +of offspring inheriting the blood of both competitors. The republican +opposition would then remain without a leader and therefore +probably quiet, and peace would be preserved. If this should not +be successful, and if there should be, as was certainly possible, +a necessity for ultimately resorting to the decision of arms, +Caesar would then as consul in Rome dispose of the compliant majority +of the senate; and he could impede or perhaps frustrate the coalition +of the Pompeians and the republicans, and conduct the war +far more suitably and more advantageously, than if he now as proconsul +of Gaul gave orders to march against the senate and its general. +Certainly the success of this plan depended on Pompeius being good- +natured enough to let Caesar still obtain the consulship for 706 +assured to him at Luca; but, even if it failed, it would be always +of advantage for Caesar to have given practical and repeated +evidence of the most yielding disposition. On the one hand time +would thus be gained for attaining his object meanwhile in Gaul; +on the other hand his opponents would be left with the odium +of initiating the rupture and consequently the civil war-- +which was of the utmost moment for Caesar with reference to the majority +of the senate and the party of material interests, and more especially +with reference to his own soldiers. + +On these views he acted. He armed certainly; the number of his legion +was raised through new levies in the winter of 702-703 to eleven, +including that borrowed from Pompeius. But at the same time +he expressly and openly approved of Pompeius' conduct during +the dictatorship and the restoration of order in the capital +which he had effected, rejected the warnings of officious friends +as calumnies, reckoned every day by which he succeeded +in postponing the catastrophe a gain, overlooked whatever +could be overlooked and bore whatever could be borne-- +immoveably adhering only to the one decisive demand that, +when his governorship of Gaul came to an end with 705, +the second consulship, admissible by republican state-law +and promised to him according to agreement by his colleague, +should be granted to him for the year 706. + +Preparation for Attacks on Caesar + +This very demand became the battle-field of the diplomatic war +which now began. If Caesar were compelled either to resign +his office of governor before the last day of December 705, +or to postpone the assumption of the magistracy in the capital +beyond the 1st January 706, so that he should remain for a time +between the governorship and the consulate without office, +and consequently liable to criminal impeachment--which according +to Roman law was only allowable against one who was not in office-- +the public had good reason to prophesy for him in this case +the fate of Milo, because Cato had for long been ready to impeach him +and Pompeius was a more than doubtful protector. + +Attempt to Keep Caesar Out of the Consulship + +Now, to attain that object, Caesar's opponents had a very simple means. +According to the existing ordinance as to elections, every candidate +for the consulship was obliged to announce himself personally +to the presiding magistrate, and to cause his name to be inscribed +on the official list of candidates before the election, +that is half a year before entering on office. It had probably +been regarded in the conferences at Luca as a matter of course +that Caesar would be released from this obligation, which was +purely formal and was very often dispensed with; but the decree +to that effect had not yet been issued, and, as Pompeius was now +in possession of the decretive machinery, Caesar depended in this respect +on the good will of his rival. Pompeius incomprehensibly abandoned +of his own accord this completely secure position; with his consen +and during his dictatorship (702) the personal appearance +of Caesar was dispensed with by a tribunician law. When however +soon afterwards the new election-ordinance(16) was issued, +the obligation of candidates personally to enrol themselves +was repeated in general terms, and no sort of exception was added +in favour of those released from it by earlier resolutions +of the people; according to strict form the privilege granted in favour +of Caesar was cancelled by the later general law. Caesar complained, +and the clause was subsequently appended but not confirmed +by special decree of the people, so that this enactment inserted +by mere interpolation in the already promulgated law could only be +looked on de jure as a nullity. Where Pompeius, therefore, +might have simply kept by the law, he had preferred first +to make a spontaneous concession, then to recall it, +and lastly to cloak this recall in a manner most disloyal. + +Attempt to Shorten Caesar's Governorship + +While in this way the shortening of Caesar's governorship +was only aimed at indirectly, the regulations issued at the same time +as to the governorships sought the same object directly. +The ten years for which the governorship had been secured to Caesar, +in the last instance through the law proposed by Pompeius himself +in concert with Crassus, ran according to the usual mode of reckoning +from 1 March 695 to the last day of February 705. As, however, +according to the earlier practice, the proconsul or propraetor +had the right of entering on his provincial magistracy immediately +after the termination of his consulship or praetorship, the successor +of Caesar was to be nominated, not from the urban magistrates of 704, +but from those of 705, and could not therefore enter before 1st Jan. 706. +So far Caesar had still during the last ten months of the year 705 +a right to the command, not on the ground of the Pompeio-Licinian law, +but on the ground of the old rule that a command with a set term +still continued after the expiry of the term up to the arrival +of the successor. But now, since the new regulation of 702 +called to the governorships not the consuls and praetors +going out, but those who had gone out five years ago or more, +and thus prescribed an interval between the civil magistracy +and the command instead of the previous immediate sequence, +there was no longer any difficulty in straightway filling up +from another quarter every legally vacant governorship, and so, +in the case in question, bringing about for the Gallic provinces +the change of command on the 1st March 705, instead of the 1st Jan. 706. +The pitiful dissimulation and procrastinating artifice of Pompeius +are after a remarkable manner mixed up, in these arrangements, +with the wily formalism and the constitutional erudition +of the republican party. Years before these weapons of state-law +could be employed, they had them duly prepared, and put themselves +in a condition on the one hand to compel Caesar to the resignation +of his command from the day when the term secured to him by Pompeius' +own law expired, that is from the 1st March 705, by sending successors +to him, and on the other hand to be able to treat as null and void +the votes tendered for him at the elections for 706. Caesar, +not in a position to hinder these moves in the game, kept silence +and left things to their own course. + +Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +Gradually therefore the slow course of constitutional procedure +developed itself. According to custom the senate had to deliberate +on the governorships of the year 705, so far as they went +to former consuls, at the beginning of 703, so far as they went +to former praetors, at the beginning of 704; that earlier deliberation +gave the first occasion to discuss the nomination of new governors +for the two Gauls in the senate, and thereby the first occasion +for open collision between the constitutional party pushed forward +by Pompeius and the senatorial supporters of Caesar. The consul +Marcus Marcellus introduced a proposal to give the two provinces +hitherto administered by the proconsul Gaius Caesar +from the 1st March 705 to the two consulars who were to be provided +with governorships for that year. The long-repressed indignation +burst forth in a torrent through the sluice once opened; +everything that the Catonians were meditating against Caesar +was brought forward in these discussions. For them it was +a settled point, that the right granted by exceptional law +to the proconsul Caesar of announcing his candidature for the consulship +in absence had been again cancelled by a subsequent decree of the people, +and that the reservation inserted in the latter was invalid. +The senate should in their opinion cause this magistrate, +now that the subjugation of Gaul was ended, to discharge immediately +the soldiers who had served out their time. The cases in which +Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies +in Upper Italy were described by them as unconstitutional and null; +in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected +senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place +had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim +to Roman citizenship,(17) should receive the punishment +of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses. + +The supporters of Caesar at this time--among whom Gaius Vibius Pansa, +who was the son of a man proscribed by Sulla but yet had entered +on a political career, formerly an officer in Caesar's army +and in this year tribune of the people, was the most notable-- +affirmed in the senate that both the state of things in Gaul +and equity demanded not only that Caesar should not be recalled +before the time, but that he should be allowed to retain the command +along with the consulship; and they pointed beyond doubt to the facts, +that a few years previously Pompeius had just in the same way +combined the Spanish governorships with the consulate, +that even at the present time, besides the important office +of superintending the supply of food to the capital, he held +the supreme command in Italy in addition to the Spanish, +and that in fact the whole men capable of arms had been sworn in by him +and had not yet been released from their oath. + +The process began to take shape, but its course was not on that account +more rapid. The majority of the senate, seeing the breach approaching, +allowed no sitting capable of issuing a decree to take place for months; +and other months in their turn were lost over the solemn procrastination +of Pompeius. At length the latter broke the silence and ranged himself, +in a reserved and vacillating fashion as usual but yet plainly enough, +on the side of the constitutional party against his former ally. +He summarily and abruptly rejected the demand of the Caesarians +that their master should be allowed to conjoin the consulship +and the proconsulship; this demand, he added with blunt coarseness, +seemed to him no better than if a son should offer to flog +his father. He approved in principle the proposal of Marcellus, +in so far as he too declared that he would not allow Caesar +directly to attach the consulship to the pro-consulship. +He hinted, however, although without making any binding declaration +on the point, that they would perhaps grant to Caesar admission +to the elections for 706 without requiring his personal announcement, +as well as the continuance of his governorship at the utmost +to the 13th Nov. 705. But in the meantime the incorrigible +procrastinator consented to the postponement of the nomination +of successors to the last day of Feb. 704, which was asked +by the representatives of Caesar, probably on the ground of a clause +of the Pompeio-Licinian law forbidding any discussion in the senate +as to the nomination of successors before the beginning of Caesar's +last year of office. + +In this sense accordingly the decrees of the senate were issued +(29 Sept. 703). The filling up of the Gallic governorships +was placed in the order of the day for the 1st March 704; but even now +it was attempted to break up the army of Caesar--just as had formerly +been done by decree of the people with the army of Lucullus(18)-- +by inducing his veterans to apply to the senate for their discharge. +Caesar's supporters effected, indeed, as far as they constitutionally +could, the cancelling of these decrees by their tribunician veto; +but Pompeius very distinctly declared that the magistrates were bound +unconditionally to obey the senate, and that intercessions and similar +antiquated formalities would produce no change. The oligarchical party, +whose organ Pompeius now made himself, betrayed not obscurely the design, +in the event of a victory, of revising the constitution in their sense +and removing everything which had even the semblance of popular freedom; +as indeed, doubtless for this reason, it omitted to avail itself +of the comitia at all in its attacks directed against Caesar. +The coalition between Pompeius and the constitutional party +was thus formally declared; sentence too was already evidently passed +on Caesar, and the term of its promulgation was simply postponed. +The elections for the following year proved thoroughly adverse to him. + +Counter-Arrangements of Caesar + +During these party manoeuvres of his antagonists preparatory to war, +Caesar had succeeded in getting rid of the Gallic insurrection +and restoring the state of peace in the whole subject territory. +As early as the summer of 703, under the convenient pretext +of defending the frontier(19) but evidently in token of the fact +that the legions in Gaul were now beginning to be no longer +needed there, he moved one of them to North Italy. He could not avoid +perceiving now at any rate, if not earlier, that he would not +be spared the necessity of drawing the sword against his fellow- +citizens; nevertheless, as it was highly desirable to leave the legions +still for a time in the barely pacified Gaul, he sought even yet +to procrastinate, and, well acquainted with the extreme +love of peace in the majority of the senate, did not abandon +the hope of still restraining them from the declaration of war +in spite of the pressure exercised over them by Pompeius. +He did not even hesitate to make great sacrifices, if only he might +avoid for the present open variance with the supreme governing board. +When the senate (in the spring of 704) at the suggestion of Pompeius +requested both him and Caesar to furnish each a legion +for the impending Parthian war(20) and when agreeably to this resolution +Pompeius demanded back from Caesar the legion lent to him +some years before, so as to send it to Syria, Caesar complied with +the double demand, because neither the opportuneness of this decree +of the senate nor the justice of the demand of Pompeius +could in themselves be disputed, and the keeping within the bounds +of the law and of formal loyalty was of more consequence to Caesar +than a few thousand soldiers. The two legions came without delay +and placed themselves at the disposal of the government, but instead +of sending them to the Euphrates, the latter kept them at Capua +in readiness for Pompeius; and the public had once more the opportunity +of comparing the manifest endeavours of Caesar to avoid a rupture +with the perfidious preparation for war by his opponents. + +Curio + +For the discussions with the senate Caesar had succeeded +in purchasing not only one of the two consuls of the year, +Lucius Aemilius Paullus, but above all the tribune of the people +Gaius Curio, probably the most eminent among the many profligate men +of parts in this epoch;(21) unsurpassed in refined elegance, in fluent +and clever oratory, in dexterity of intrigue, and in that energy +which in the case of vigorous but vicious characters bestirs itself +only the more powerfully amid the pauses of idleness; but also +unsurpassed in his dissolute life, in his talent for borrowing-- +his debts were estimated at 60,000,000 sesterces (600,000 pounds)-- +and in his moral and political want of principle. He had previously +offered himself to be bought by Caesar and had been rejected; +the talent, which he thenceforward displayed in his attacks on Caesar, +induced the latter subsequently to buy him up--the price was high, +but the commodity was worth the money. + +Debates as to the Recall of Caesar and Pompeius + +Curio had in the first months of his tribunate of the people +played the independent republican, and had as such thundered +both against Caesar and against Pompeius. He availed himself +with rare skill of the apparently impartial position which +this gave him, when in March 704 the proposal as to the filling up +of the Gallic governorships for the next year came up afresh +for discussion in the senate; he completely approved the decree, +but asked that it should be at the same time extended to Pompeius +and his extraordinary commands. His arguments--that a constitutional +state of things could only be brought about by the removal +of all exceptional positions, that Pompeius as merely entrusted +by the senate with the proconsulship could still less than Caesar +refuse obedience to it, that the one-sided removal of one +of the two generals would only increase the danger to the constitution-- +carried complete conviction to superficial politicians and to the public +at large; and the declaration of Curio, that he intended to prevent +any onesided proceedings against Caesar by the veto constitutionally +belonging to him, met with much approval in and out of the senate. +Caesar declared his consent at once to Curio's proposal +and offered to resign his governorship and command at any moment +on the summons of the senate, provided Pompeius would do the same; +he might safely do so, for Pompeius without his Italo-Spanish command +was no longer formidable. Pompeius again for that very reason +could not avoid refusing; his reply--that Caesar must first resign, +and that he meant speedily to follow the example thus set-- +was the less satisfactory, that he did not even specify +a definite term for his retirement. Again the decision was delayed +for months; Pompeius and the Catonians, perceiving the dubious humour +of the majority of the senate, did not venture to bring Curio's +proposal to a vote. Caesar employed the summer in establishing +the state of peace in the regions which he had conquered, in holding +a great review of his troops on the Scheldt, and in making +a triumphal march through the province of North Italy, which was +entirely devoted to him; autumn found him in Ravenna, the southern +frontier-town of his province. + +Caesar and Pompeius Both Recalled + +The vote which could no longer be delayed on Curio's proposal +at length took place, and exhibited the defeat of the party +of Pompeius and Cato in all its extent. By 370 votes against 20 +the senate resolved that the proconsuls of Spain and Gaul +should both be called upon to resign their offices; and with boundless +joy the good burgesses of Rome heard the glad news of the saving +achievement of Curio. Pompeius was thus recalled by the senate +no less than Caesar, and while Caesar was ready to comply with +the command, Pompeius positively refused obedience. The presiding +consul Gaius Marcellus, cousin of Marcus Marcellus and like the latter +belonging to the Catonian party, addressed a severe lecture +to the servile majority; and it was, no doubt, vexatious +to be thus beaten in their own camp and beaten by means of a phalanx +of poltroons. But where was victory to come from under a leader, +who, instead of shortly and distinctly dictating his orders +to the senators, resorted in his old days a second time +to the instructions of a professor of rhetoric, that with eloquence +polished up afresh he might encounter the youthful vigour +and brilliant talents of Curio? + +Declaration of War + +The coalition, defeated in the senate, was in the most painful position. +The Catonian section had undertaken to push matters to a rupture +and to carry the senate along with them, and now saw their vessel +stranded after a most vexatious manner on the sandbanks of the indolent +majority. Their leaders had to listen in their conferences +to the bitterest reproaches from Pompeius; he pointed out +emphatically and with entire justice the dangers of the seeming peace; +and, though it depended on himself alone to cut the knot +by rapid action, his allies knew very well that they could never expect +this from him, and that it was for them, as they had promised, +to bring matters to a crisis. After the champions of the constitution +and of senatorial government had already declared the constitutional +rights of the burgesses and of the tribunes of the people +to be meaningless formalities,(22) they now found themselves +driven by necessity to treat the constitutional decision; of the senate +itself in a similar manner and, as the legitimate government +would not let itself be saved with its own consent, to save it +against its will. This was neither new nor accidental; Sulla(23) +and Lucullus(24) had been obliged to carry every energetic +resolution conceived by them in the true interest of the government +with a high hand irrespective of it, just as Cato and his friends +now proposed to do; the machinery of the constitution was in fact +utterly effete, and the senate was now--as the comitia had been +for centuries--nothing but a worn-out wheel slipping constantly +out of its track. + +It was rumoured (Oct. 704) that Caesar had moved four legions +from Transalpine into Cisalpine Gaul and stationed them at Placentia. +This transference of troops was of itself within the prerogative +of the governor; Curio moreover palpably showed in the senate +the utter groundlessness of the rumour; and they by a majority +rejected the proposal of the consul Gaius Marcellus to give +Pompeius on the strength of it orders to march against Caesar. +Yet the said consul, in concert with the two consuls elected for 705 +who likewise belonged to the Catonian party, proceeded to Pompeius, +and these three men by virtue of their own plenitude of power +requested the general to put himself at the head of the two legions +stationed at Capua, and to call the Italian militia to arms +at his discretion. A more informal authorization for the commencement +of a civil war can hardly be conceived; but people had no longer time +to attend to such secondary matters; Pompeius accepted it. +The military preparations, the levies began; in order personally +to forward them, Pompeius left the capital in December 704. + +The Ultimatum of Caesar + +Caesar had completely attained the object of devolving +the initiative of civil war on his opponents. He had, while himself +keeping on legal ground, compelled Pompeius to declare war, +and to declare it not as representative of the legitimate authority, +but as general of an openly revolutionary minority of the senate +which overawed the majority. This result was not to be reckoned +of slight importance, although the instinct of the masses could not +and did not deceive itself for a moment as to the fact that the war +concerned other things than questions of formal law. Now, when war +was declared, it was Caesar's interest to strike a blow as soon +as possible. The preparations of his opponents were just beginning +and even the capital was not occupied. In ten or twelve days +an army three times as strong as the troops of Caesar +that were in Upper Italy could be collected at Rome; but still +it was not impossible to surprise the city undefended, or even perhaps +by a rapid winter campaign to seize all Italy, and to shut off +the best resources of his opponents before they could make them available. +The sagacious and energetic Curio, who after resigning his tribunate +(10 Dec. 704) had immediately gone to Caesar at Ravenna, +vividly represented the state of things to his master; +and it hardly needed such a representation to convince Caesar +that longer delay now could only be injurious. But, as he with the view +of not giving his antagonists occasion to complain had hitherto +brought no troops to Ravenna itself, he could for the present do nothing +but despatch orders to his whole force to set out with all haste; +and he had to wait till at least the one legion stationed in Upper Italy +reached Ravenna. Meanwhile he sent an ultimatum to Rome, +which, if useful for nothing else, by its extreme submissiveness +still farther compromised his opponents in public opinion, +and perhaps even, as he seemed himself to hesitate, induced them +to prosecute more remissly their preparations against him. +In this ultimatum Caesar dropped all the counter-demands +which he formerly made on Pompeius, and offered on his own part +both to resign the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, and to dismiss +eight of the ten legions belonging to him, at the term fixed +by the senate; he declared himself content, if the senate would leave him +either the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with one, +or that of Cisalpine Gaul alone with two, legions, not, forsooth, +up to his investiture with the consulship, but till after the close +of the consular elections for 706. He thus consented to those proposals +of accommodation, with which at the beginning of the discussions +the senatorial party and even Pompeius himself had declared +that they would be satisfied, and showed himself ready to remain +in a private position from his election to the consulate down to +his entering on office. Whether Caesar was in earnest with these +astonishing concessions and had confidence that he should be able +to carry through his game against Pompeius even after granting +so much, or whether he reckoned that those on the other side +had already gone too far to find in these proposals of compromise +more than a proof that Caesar regarded his cause itself as lost, +can no longer be with certainty determined. The probability is, +that Caesar committed the fault of playing a too bold game, far worse +rather than the fault of promising something which he was not minded +to perform; and that, if strangely enough his proposals had been +accepted, he would have made good his word. + +Last Debate in the Senate + +Curio undertook once more to represent his master in the lion's den. +In three days he made the journey from Ravenna to Rome. +When the new consuls Lucius Lentulus and Gaius Marcellus the younger(25) +assembled the senate for the first time on 1 Jan. 705, he delivered +in a full meeting the letter addressed by the general to the senate. +The tribunes of the people, Marcus Antonius well known +in the chronicle of scandal of the city as the intimate friend +of Curio and his accomplice in all his follies, but at the same time +known from the Egyptian and Gallic campaigns as a brilliant cavalry +officer, and Quintus Cassius, Pompeius' former quaestor,--the two, +who were now in Curio's stead managing the cause of Caesar in Rome-- +insisted on the immediate reading of the despatch. The grave +and clear words in which Caesar set forth the imminence of civil war, +the general wish for peace, the arrogance of Pompeius, and his own +yielding disposition, with all the irresistible force of truth; +the proposals for a compromise, of a moderation which doubtless +surprised his own partisans; the distinct declaration that this was +the last time that he should offer his hand for peace-- +made the deepest impression. In spite of the dread inspired +by the numerous soldiers of Pompeius who flocked into the capital, +the sentiment of the majority was not doubtful; the consuls could not +venture to let it find expression. Respecting the proposal renewed +by Caesar that both generals might be enjoined to resign their commands +simultaneously, respecting all the projects of accommodation +suggested by his letter, and respecting the proposal made +by Marcus Coelius Rufus and Marcus Calidius that Pompeius +should be urged immediately to depart for Spain, the consuls refused-- +as they in the capacity of presiding officers were entitled to do-- +to let a vote take place. Even the proposal of one of their +most decided partisans who was simply not so blind to the military +position of affairs as his party, Marcus Marcellus--to defer +the determination till the Italian levy en masse could be under arms +and could protect the senate--was not allowed to be brought to a vote. +Pompeius caused it to be declared through his usual organ, +Quintus Scipio, that he was resolved to take up the cause of the senate +now or never, and that he would let it drop if they longer delayed. +The consul Lentulus said in plain terms that even the decree +of the senate was no longer of consequence, and that, if it +should persevere in its servility, he would act of himself +and with his powerful friends take the farther steps necessary. +Thus overawed, the majority decreed what was commanded-- +that Caesar should at a definite and not distant day give up +Transalpine Gaul to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, and Cisalpine Gaul +to Marcus Servilius Nonianus, and should dismiss his army, +failing which he should be esteemed a traitor. When the tribunes +of Caesar's party made use of their right of veto against this resolution, +not only were they, as they at least asserted, threatened +in the senate-house itself by the swords of Pompeian soldiers, +and forced, in order to save their lives, to flee in slaves' +clothing from the capital; but the now sufficiently overawed senate +treated their formally quite constitutional interference +as an attempt at revolution, declared the country in danger, +and in the usual forms called the whole burgesses to take up arms, +and all magistrates faithful to the constitution to place themselves +at the head of the armed (7 Jan. 705). + +Caesar Marches into Italy + +Now it was enough. When Caesar was informed by the tribunes +who had fled to his camp entreating protection as to the reception +which his proposals had met with in the capital, he called together +the soldiers of the thirteenth legion, which had meanwhile arrived +from its cantonments near Tergeste (Trieste) at Ravenna, +and unfolded before them the state of things. It was not merely +the man of genius versed in the knowledge and skilled in the control +of men's hearts, whose brilliant eloquence shone forth and glowed +in this agitating crisis of his own and the world's destiny; +nor merely the generous commander-in-chief and the victorious general, +addressing soldiers, who had been called by himself to arms +and for eight years had followed his banners with daily-increasing +enthusiasm. There spoke, above all, the energetic and consistent +statesman, who had now for nine-and-twenty years defended +the cause of freedom in good and evil times; who had braved for it +the daggers of assassins and the executioners of the aristocracy, +the swords of the Germans and the waves of the unknown ocean, +without ever yielding or wavering; who had torn to pieces +the Sullan constitution, had overthrown the rule of the senate, +and had furnished the defenceless and unarmed democracy with protection +and with arms by means of the struggle beyond the Alps. And he spoke, +not to the Clodian public whose republican enthusiasm had been +long burnt down to ashes and dross, but to the young men from the towns +and villages of Northern Italy, who still felt freshly and purely +the mighty influence of the thought of civic freedom; who were still +capable of fighting and of dying for ideals; who had themselves +received for their country in a revolutionary way from Caesar +the burgess-rights which the government refused to them; +whom Caesar's fall would leave once more at the mercy of the -fasces-, +and who already possessed practical proofs(26) of the inexorable use +which the oligarchy proposed to make of these against the Transpadanes. +Such were the listeners before whom such an orator set forth the facts-- +the thanks for the conquest of Gaul which the nobility were preparing +for the general and his army; the contemptuous setting aside +of the comitia; the overawing of the senate; the sacred duty +of protecting with armed hand the tribunate of the people wrested +five hundred years ago by their fathers arms in hand from the nobility, +and of keeping the ancient oath which these had taken for themselves +as for their children's children that they would man by man stand firm +even to death for the tribunes of the people.(27) And then, when he-- +the leader and general of the popular party--summoned the soldiers +of the people, now that conciliatory means had been exhausted +and concession had reached its utmost limits, to follow him in the last, +the inevitable, the decisive struggle against the equally hated +and despised, equally perfidious and incapable, and in fact ludicrously +incorrigible aristocracy--there was not an officer or a soldier +who could hold back. The order was given for departure; at the head +of his vanguard Caesar crossed the narrow brook which separated +his province from Italy, and which the constitution forbade +the proconsul of Gaul to pass. When after nine years' absence +he trod once more the soil of his native land, he trod at the same time +the path of revolution. "The die was cast." + + + + +Chapter X + +Brundisium, Ilerda, Pharsalus, and Thapsus + +The Resources on Either Side + +Arms were thus to decide which of the two men who had hitherto +jointly ruled Rome was now to be its first sole ruler. Let us see +what were the comparative resources at the disposal of Caesar +and Pompeius for the waging of the impending war. + +Caesar's Absolute Power within His Party + +Caesar's power rested primarily on the wholly unlimited authority +which he enjoyed within his party. If the ideas of democracy +and of monarchy met together in it, this was not the result +of a coalition which had been accidentally entered into and might be +accidentally dissolved; on the contrary it was involved +in the very essence of a democracy without a representative constitution, +that democracy and monarchy should find in Caesar at once their highest +and ultimate expression. In political as in military matters +throughout the first and the final decision lay with Caesar. +However high the honour in which he held any serviceable instrument, +it remained an instrument still; Caesar stood, in his own party +without confederates, surrounded only by military-political +adjutants, who as a rule had risen from the army and as soldiers +were trained never to ask the reason and purpose of any thing, +but unconditionally to obey. On this account especially, +at the decisive moment when the civil war began, of all the officers +and soldiers of Caesar one alone refused him obedience; +and the circumstance that that one was precisely the foremost +of them all, serves simply to confirm this view of the relation +of Caesar to his adherents. + +Labienus + +Titus Labienus had shared with Caesar all the troubles of the dark times +of Catilina(1) as well as all the lustre of the Gallic career of victory, +had regularly held independent command, and frequently led half the army; +as he was the oldest, ablest, and most faithful of Caesar's adjutants, +he was beyond question also highest in position and highest in honour. +As late as in 704 Caesar had entrusted to him the supreme command +in Cisalpine Gaul, in order partly to put this confidential post +into safe hands, partly to forward the views of Labienus in his canvass +for the consulship. But from this very position Labienus entered +into communication with the opposite party, resorted at the beginning +of hostilities in 705 to the headquarters of Pompeius instead of those +of Caesar, and fought through the whole civil strife with unparalleled +bitterness against his old friend and master in war. We are not +sufficiently informed either as to the character of Labienus +or as to the special circumstances of his changing sides; +but in the main his case certainly presents nothing but a further proof +of the fact, that a military chief can reckon far more surely +on his captains than on his marshals. To all appearance Labienus +was one of those persons who combine with military efficiency +utter incapacity as statesmen, and who in consequence, if they +unhappily choose or are compelled to take part in politics, are exposed +to those strange paroxysms of giddiness, of which the history +of Napoleon's marshals supplies so many tragi-comic examples. +He may probably have held himself entitled to rank alongside of Caesar +as the second chief of the democracy; and the rejection of this claim +of his may have sent him over to the camp of his opponents. +His case rendered for the first time apparent the whole gravity +of the evil, that Caesar's treatment of his officers as adjutants +without independence admitted of the rise of no men fitted to undertake +a separate command in his camp, while at the same time he stood +urgently in need of such men amidst the diffusion--which might easily +be foreseen--of the impending struggle through all the provinces +of the wide empire. But this disadvantage was far outweighed +by that unity in the supreme leadership, which was the primary condition +of all success, and a condition only to be preserved at such a cost. + +Caesar's Army + +This unity of leadership acquired its full power through the efficiency +of its instruments. Here the army comes, first of all, into view. +It still numbered nine legions of infantry or at the most +50,000 men, all of whom however had faced the enemy and two-thirds +had served in all the campaigns against the Celts. The cavalry +consisted of German and Noric mercenaries, whose usefulness +and trustworthiness had been proved in the war against Vercingetorix. +The eight years' warfare, full of varied vicissitudes, +against the Celtic nation--which was brave, although in a military +point of view decidedly inferior to the Italian--had given Caesar +the opportunity of organizing his army as he alone knew +how to organize it. The whole efficiency of the soldier +presupposes physical vigour; in Caesar's levies more regard was had +to the strength and activity of the recruits than to their means +or their morals. But the serviceableness of an army, like that +of any other machine, depends above all on the ease and quickness +of its movements; the soldiers of Caesar attained a perfection +rarely reached and probably never surpassed in their readiness +for immediate departure at any time, and in the rapidity +of their marching. Courage, of course, was valued above everything; +Caesar practised with unrivalled mastery the art of stimulating +martial emulation and the esprit de corps, so that the pre-eminence +accorded to particular soldiers and divisions appeared even to those +who were postponed as the necessary hierarchy of valour. +He weaned his men from fear by not unfrequently--where it could be done +without serious danger--keeping his soldiers in ignorance +of an approaching conflict, and allowing them to encounter +the enemy unexpectedly. But obedience was on a parity with valour. +The soldier was required to do what he was bidden, without asking +the reason or the object; many an aimless fatigue was imposed on him +solely as a training in the difficult art of blind obedience. +The discipline was strict but not harassing; it was exercised +with unrelenting vigour when the soldier was in presence of the enemy; +at other times, especially after victory, the reins were relaxed, +and if an otherwise efficient soldier was then pleased to indulge +in perfumery or to deck himself with elegant arms and the like, +or even if he allowed himself to be guilty of outrages +or irregularities of a very questionable kind, provided only +his military duties were not immediately affected, the foolery +and the crime were allowed to pass, and the general lent a deaf ear +to the complaints of the provincials on such points. Mutiny +on the other hand was never pardoned, either in the instigators, +or even in the guilty corps itself. + +But the true soldier ought to be not merely capable, brave, +and obedient, he ought to be all this willingly and spontaneously; +and it is the privilege of gifted natures alone to induce the animated +machine which they govern to a joyful service by means of example +and of hope, and especially by the consciousness of being turned +to befitting use. As the officer, who would demand valour +from his troops, must himself have looked danger in the face with them, +Caesar had even when general found opportunity of drawing his sword +and had then used it like the best; in activity, moreover, +and fatigue he was constantly far more exacting from himself +than from his soldiers. Caesar took care that victory, which primarily +no doubt brings gain to the general, should be associated also +with personal hopes in the minds of the soldiers. We have already +mentioned that he knew how to render his soldiers enthusiastic +for the cause of the democracy, so far as the times which had become +prosaic still admitted of enthusiasm, and that the political equalization +of the Transpadane country--the native land of most of his soldiers-- +with Italy proper was set forth as one of the objects of the struggle.(2) +Of course material recompenses were at the same time not wanting-- +as well special rewards for distinguished feats of arms as general +rewards for every efficient soldier; the officers had their portions, +the soldiers received presents, and the most lavish gifts were placed +in prospect for the triumph. + +Above all things Caesar as a true commander understood +how to awaken in every single component element, large or small, +of the mighty machine the consciousness of its befitting application. +The ordinary man is destined for service, and he has no objection +to be an instrument, if he feels that a master guides him. Everywhere +and at all times the eagle eye of the general rested on the whole army, +rewarding and punishing with impartial justice, and directing +the action of each towards the course conducive to the good of all: +so that there was no experimenting or trifling with the sweat and blood +of the humblest, but for that very reason, where it was necessary, +unconditional devotion even to death was required. Without allowing +each individual to see into the whole springs of action, +Caesar yet allowed each to catch such glimpses of the political +and military connection of things as to secure that he should +be recognized--and it may be idealized--by the soldiers +as a statesman and a general. He treated his soldiers throughout, +not as his equals, but as men who are entitled to demand and were able +to endure the truth, and who had to put faith in the promises +and the assurances of their general, without thinking of deception +or listening to rumours; as comrades through long years in warfare +and victory, among whom there was hardly any one that was not known +to him by name and that in the course of so many campaigns +had not formed more or less of a personal relation to the general; +as good companions, with whom he talked and dealt confidentially +and with the cheerful elasticity peculiar to him; as clients, +to requite whose services, and to avenge whose wrongs and death, +constituted in his view a sacred duty. Perhaps there never was an army +which was so perfectly what an army ought to be--a machine able +for its ends and willing for its ends, in the hand of a master, +who transfers to it his own elasticity. Caesar's soldiers were, +and felt themselves, a match for a tenfold superior force; +in connection with which it should not be overlooked, that under +the Roman tactics--calculated altogether for hand-to-hand conflict +and especially for combat with the sword--the practised Roman soldier +was superior to the novice in a far higher degree than is now the case +under the circumstances of modern times.(3) But still more +than by the superiority of valour the adversaries of Caesar +felt themselves humbled by the unchangeable and touching fidelity +with which his soldiers clung to their general. It is perhaps +without a parallel in history, that when the general summoned +his soldiers to follow him into the civil war, with the single exception +already mentioned of Labienus, no Roman officer and no Roman soldier +deserted him. The hopes of his opponents as to an extensive +desertion were thwarted as ignominiously as the former attempts +to break up his army like that of Lucullus.(4) Labienus himself +appeared in the camp of Pompeius with a band doubtless of Celtic +and German horsemen but without a single legionary. Indeed +the soldiers, as if they would show that the war was quite as much +their matter as that of their general, settled among themselves +that they would give credit for the pay, which Caesar had promised +to double for them at the outbreak of the civil war, to their commander +up to its termination, and would meanwhile support their poorer comrades +from the general means; besides, every subaltern officer +equipped and paid a trooper out of his own purse. + +Field of Caesar's Power +Upper Italy + +While Caesar thus had the one thing which was needful-- +unlimited political and military authority and a trustworthy army +ready for the fight--his power extended, comparatively speaking, +over only a very limited space. It was based essentially +on the province of Upper Italy. This region was not merely +the most populous of all the districts of Italy, but also devoted +to the cause of the democracy as its own. The feeling +which prevailed there is shown by the conduct of a division of recruits +from Opitergium (Oderzo in the delegation of Treviso), which not long +after the outbreak of the war in the Illyrian waters, surrounded +on a wretched raft by the war-vessels of the enemy, allowed themselves +to be shot at during the whole day down to sunset without surrendering, +and, such of them as had escaped the missiles, put themselves to death +with their own hands during the following night. It is easy to conceive +what might be expected of such a population. As they had already +granted to Caesar the means of more than doubling his original army, +so after the outbreak of the civil war recruits presented themselves +in great numbers for the ample levies that were immediately instituted. + +Italy + +In Italy proper, on the other hand, the influence of Caesar was not +even remotely to be compared to that of his opponents. Although +he had the skill by dexterous manoeuvres to put the Catonian party +in the wrong, and had sufficiently commended the rectitude +of his cause to all who wished for a pretext with a good conscience +either to remain neutral, like the majority of the senate, +or to embrace his side, like his soldiers and the Transpadanes, +the mass of the burgesses naturally did not allow themselves to be misled +by these things and, when the commandant of Gaul put his legions +in motion against Rome, they beheld--despite all formal explanations +as to law--in Cato and Pompeius the defenders of the legitimate republic, +in Caesar the democratic usurper. People in general moreover +expected from the nephew of Marius, the son-in-law of Cinna, +the ally of Catilina, a repetition of the Marian and Cinnan horrors, +a realization of the saturnalia of anarchy projected by Catilina; +and though Caesar certainly gained allies through this expectation-- +so that the political refugees immediately put themselves in a body +at his disposal, the ruined men saw in him their deliverer, +and the lowest ranks of the rabble in the capital and country towns +were thrown into a ferment on the news of his advance,--these belonged +to the class of friends who are more dangerous than foes. + +Provinces + +In the provinces and the dependent states Caesar had +even less influence than in Italy. Transalpine Gaul indeed as far as +the Rhine and the Channel obeyed him, and the colonists of Narbo +as well as the Roman burgesses elsewhere settled in Gaul +were devoted to him; but in the Narbonese province itself +the constitutional party had numerous adherents, and now even +the newly-conquered regions were far more a burden than a benefit +to Caesar in the impending civil war; in fact, for good reasons +he made no use of the Celtic infantry at all in that war, +and but sparing use of the cavalry. In the other provinces +and the neighbouring half or wholly independent states +Caesar had indeed attempted to procure for himself support, +had lavished rich presents on the princes, caused great buildings +to be executed in various towns, and granted to them in case of need +financial and military assistance; but on the whole, of course, +not much had been gained by this means, and the relations +with the German and Celtic princes in the regions of the Rhine +and the Danube,--particularly the connection with the Noric king Voccio, +so important for the recruiting of cavalry,--were probably +the only relations of this sort which were of any moment for him. + +The Coalition + +While Caesar thus entered the struggle only as commandant of Gaul, +without other essential resources than efficient adjutants, +a faithful army, and a devoted province, Pompeius began it +as de facto supreme head of the Roman commonwealth, and in full +possession of all the resources that stood at the disposal +of the legitimate government of the great Roman empire. But while +his position was in a political and military point of view +far more considerable, it was also on the other hand far less definite +and firm. The unity of leadership, which resulted of itself +and by necessity from the position of Caesar, was inconsistent +with the nature of a coalition; and although Pompeius, too much +of a soldier to deceive himself as to its being indispensable, +attempted to force it on the coalition and got himself nominated +by the senate as sole and absolute generalissimo by land and sea, +yet the senate itself could not be set aside nor hindered +from a preponderating influence on the political, and an occasional +and therefore doubly injurious interference with the military, +superintendence. The recollection of the twenty years' war +waged on both sides with envenomed weapons between Pompeius +and the constitutional party; the feeling which vividly prevailed +on both sides, and which they with difficulty concealed, +that the first consequence of the victory when achieved would be +a rupture between the victors; the contempt which they entertained +for each other and with only too good grounds in either case; +the inconvenient number of respectable and influential men in the ranks +of the aristocracy and the intellectual and moral inferiority +of almost all who took part in the matter--altogether produced +among the opponents of Caesar a reluctant and refractory co-operation, +which formed the saddest contrast to the harmonious and compact action +on the other side. + +Field of Power of the Coalition +Juba of Numidia + +While all the disadvantages incident to the coalition of powers +naturally hostile were thus felt in an unusual measure by Caesar's +antagonists, this coalition was certainly still a very considerable power. +It had exclusive command of the sea; all ports, all ships of war, +all the materials for equipping a fleet were at its disposal. +The two Spains--as it were the home of the power of Pompeius +just as the two Gauls were the home of that of Caesar-- +were faithful adherents to their master and in the hands of able +and trustworthy administrators. In the other provinces also, +of course with the exception of the two Gauls, the posts +of the governors and commanders had during recent years been filled up +with safe men under the influence of Pompeius and the minority +of the senate. The client-states throughout and with great decision +took part against Caesar and in favour of Pompeius. The most important +princes and cities had been brought into the closest personal relations +with Pompeius in virtue of the different sections of his manifold +activity. In the war against the Marians, for instance, he had been +the companion in arms of the kings of Numidia and Mauretania and had +reestablished the kingdom of the former;(5) in the Mithradatic war, +in addition to a number of other minor principalities spiritual +and temporal, he had re-established the kingdoms of Bosporus, Armenia, +and Cappadocia, and created that of Deiotarus in Galatia;(6) +it was primarily at his instigation that the Egyptian war was undertaken, +and it was by his adjutant that the rule of the Lagids +had been confirmed afresh.(7) Even the city of Massilia +in Caesar's own province, while indebted to the latter +doubtless for various favours, was indebted to Pompeius +at the time of the Sertorian war for a very considerable extension +of territory;(8) and, besides, the ruling oligarchy there stood +in natural alliance--strengthened by various mutual relations-- +with the oligarchy in Rome. But these personal and relative +considerations as well as the glory of the victor in three continents, +which in these more remote parts of the empire far outshone +that of the conqueror of Gaul, did perhaps less harm to Caesar +in those quarters than the views and designs--which had not remained +there unknown--of the heir of Gaius Gracchus as to the necessity +of uniting the dependent states and the usefulness of provincial +colonizations. No one of the dependent dynasts found himself +more imminently threatened by this peril than Juba king +of Numidia. Not only had he years before, in the lifetime +of his father Hiempsal, fallen into a vehement personal quarrel +with Caesar, but recently the same Curio, who now occupied almost +the first place among Caesar's adjutants, had proposed to the Roman +burgesses the annexation of the Numidian kingdom. Lastly, if matters +should go so far as to lead the independent neighbouring states +to interfere in the Roman civil war, the only state really powerful, +that of the Parthians, was practically already allied +with the aristocratic party by the connection entered into +between Pacorus and Bibulus,(9) while Caesar was far too much a Roman +to league himself for party-interests with the conquerors +of his friend Crassus. + +Italy against Caesar + +As to Italy the great majority of the burgesses were, as has been +already mentioned, averse to Caesar--more especially, of course, +the whole aristocracy with their very considerable following, +but also in a not much less degree the great capitalists, +who could not hope in the event of a thorough reform of the commonwealth +to preserve their partisan jury-courts and their monopoly of extortion. +Of equally anti-democratic sentiments were the small capitalists, +the landholders and generally all classes that had anything to lose; +but in these ranks of life the cares of the next rent-term and of sowing +and reaping outweighed, as a rule, every other consideration. + +The Pompeian Army + +The army at the disposal of Pompeius consisted chiefly +of the Spanish troops, seven legions inured to war and in every respect +trustworthy; to which fell to be added the divisions of troops-- +weak indeed, and very much scattered--which were to be found +in Syria, Asia, Macedonia, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere. In Italy +there were under arms at the outset only the two legions +recently given off by Caesar, whose effective strength did not amount +to more than 7000 men, and whose trustworthiness was more than doubtful, +because--levied in Cisalpine Gaul and old comrades in arms +of Caesar--they were in a high degree displeased at the unbecoming +intrigue by which they had been made to change camps,(10) +and recalled with longing their general who had magnanimously +paid to them beforehand at their departure the presents +which were promised to every soldier for the triumph. +But, apart from the circumstance that the Spanish troops might arrive +in Italy with the spring either by the land route through Gaul +or by sea, the men of the three legions still remaining +from the levies of 699,(11) as well as the Italian levy sworn +to allegiance in 702,(12) could be recalled from their furlough. +Including these, the number of troops standing at the disposal +of Pompeius on the whole, without reckoning the seven legions in Spain +and those scattered in other provinces, amounted in Italy alone +to ten legions(13) or about 60,000 men, so that it was no exaggeration +at all, when Pompeius asserted that he had only to stamp +with his foot to cover the ground with armed men. It is true +that it required some interval--though but short--to render +these soldiers available; but the arrangements for this purpose +as well as for the carrying out of the new levies ordered by the senate +in consequence of the outbreak of the civil war were already +everywhere in progress. Immediately after the decisive decree +of the senate (7 Jan. 705), in the very depth of winter +the most eminent men of the aristocracy set out to the different +districts, to hasten the calling up of recruits and the preparation +of arms. The want of cavalry was much felt, as for this arm +they had been accustomed to rely wholly on the provinces and especially +on the Celtic contingents; to make at least a beginning, +three hundred gladiators belonging to Caesar were taken +from the fencing-schools of Capua and mounted--a step which however +met with so general disapproval, that Pompeius again broke up +this troop and levied in room of it 300 horsemen from the mounted +slave-herdmen of Apulia. + +The state-treasury was at a low ebb as usual; they busied themselves +in supplementing the inadequate amount of cash out of the local +treasuries and even from the temple-treasures of the -municipia-. + +Caesar Takes the Offensive + +Under these circumstances the war opened at the beginning +of January 705. Of troops capable of marching Caesar had not +more than a legion--5000 infantry and 300 cavalry--at Ravenna, +which was by the highway some 240 miles distant from Rome; Pompeius +had two weak legions--7000 infantry and a small squadron of cavalry-- +under the orders of Appius Claudius at Luceria, from which, +likewise by the highway, the distance was just about as great +to the capital. The other troops of Caesar, leaving out of account +the raw divisions of recruits still in course of formation, +were stationed, one half on the Saone and Loire, the other half +in Belgica, while Pompeius' Italian reserves were already arriving +from all sides at their rendezvous; long before even the first +of the Transalpine divisions of Caesar could arrive in Italy, +a far superior army could not but be ready to receive it there. +It seemed folly, with a band of the strength of that of Catilina +and for the moment without any effective reserve, to assume +the aggressive against a superior and hourly-increasing army +under an able general; but it was a folly in the spirit of Hannibal. +If the beginning of the struggle were postponed till spring, +the Spanish troops of Pompeius would assume the offensive +in Transalpine, and his Italian troops in Cisalpine, Gaul, +and Pompeius, a match for Caesar in tactics and superior to him +in experience, was a formidable antagonist in such a campaign +running its regular course. Now perhaps, accustomed as he was +to operate slowly and surely with superior masses, he might +be disconcerted by a wholly improvised attack; and that which +could not greatly discompose Caesar's thirteenth legion +after the severe trial of the Gallic surprise and the January campaign +in the land of the Bellovaci,(14)--the suddenness of the war and the toil +of a winter campaign--could not but disorganize the Pompeian corps +consisting of old soldiers of Caesar or of ill-trained recruits, +and still only in the course of formation. + +Caesar's Advance + +Accordingly Caesar advanced into Italy.(15) Two highways led +at that time from the Romagna to the south; the Aemilio-Cassian +which led from Bononia over the Apennines to Arretium and Rome, +and the Popillio-Flaminian, which led from Ravenna along the coast +of the Adriatic to Fanum and was there divided, one branch running +westward through the Furlo pass to Rome, another southward +to Ancona and thence onward to Apulia. On the former Marcus Antonius +advanced as far as Arretium, on the second Caesar himself +pushed forward. Resistance was nowhere encountered; the recruiting +officers of quality had no military skill, their bands of recruits +were no soldiers, the inhabitants of the country towns were only anxious +not to be involved in a siege. When Curio with 1500 men +approached Iguvium, where a couple of thousand Umbrian recruits +had assembled under the praetor Quintus Minucius Thermus, +general and soldiers took to flight at the bare tidings of his approach; +and similar results on a small scale everywhere ensued. + +Rome Evacuated + +Caesar had to choose whether he would march against Rome, from which +his cavalry at Arretium were already only about 130 miles distant, +or against the legions encamped at Luceria. He chose the latter plan. +The consternation of the opposite party was boundless. +Pompeius received the news of Caesar's advance at Rome; he seemed +at first disposed to defend the capital, but, when the tidings +arrived of Caesar's entrance into the Picenian territory +and of his first successes there, he abandoned Rome and ordered +its evacuation. A panic, augmented by the false report that Caesar's +cavalry had appeared before the gates, came over the world of quality. +The senators, who had been informed that every one who should +remain behind in the capital would be treated as an accomplice +of the rebel Caesar, flocked in crowds out at the gates. +The consuls themselves had so totally lost their senses, that they +did not even secure the treasure; when Pompeius called upon them +to fetch it, for which there was sufficient time, they returned +the reply that they would deem it safer, if he should first +occupy Picenum. All was perplexity; consequently a great council of war +was held in Teanum Sidicinum (23 Jan.), at which Pompeius, Labienus, +and both consuls were present. First of all proposals of accommodation +from Caesar were again submitted; even now he declared himself +ready at once to dismiss his army, to hand over his provinces +to the successors nominated, and to become a candidate +in the regular way for the consulship, provided that Pompeius +were to depart for Spain, and Italy were to be disarmed. +The answer was, that if Caesar would immediately return to his province, +they would bind themselves to procure the disarming of Italy +and the departure of Pompeius by a decree of the senate +to be passed in due form in the capital; perhaps this reply +was intended not as a bare artifice to deceive, but as an acceptance +of the proposal of compromise; it was, however, in reality the opposite. +The personal conference which Caesar desired with Pompeius +the latter declined, and could not but decline, that he might not +by the semblance of a new coalition with Caesar provoke still more +the distrust already felt by the constitutional party. Concerning +the management of the war it was agreed in Teanum, that Pompeius +should take the command of the troops stationed at Luceria, +on which notwithstanding their untrustworthiness all hope depended; +that he should advance with these into his own and Labienus' +native country, Picenum; that he should personally call +the general levy there to arms, as he had done some thirty-five +years ago,(16) and should attempt at the head of the faithful +Picentine cohorts and the veterans formerly under Caesar +to set a limit to the advance of the enemy. + +Conflicts in Picenum + +Everything depended on whether Picenum would hold out +until Pompeius should come up to its defence. Already Caesar +with his reunited army had penetrated into it along the coast road +by way of Ancona. Here too the preparations were in full course; +in the very northernmost Picenian town Auximum a considerable band +of recruits was collected under Publius Attius Varus; but at the entreaty +of the municipality Varus evacuated the town even before Caesar +appeared, and a handful of Caesar's soldiers which overtook the troop +not far from Auximum totally dispersed it after a brief conflict-- +the first in this war. In like manner soon afterwards +Gaius Lucilius Hirrus with 3000 men evacuated Camerinum, +and Publius Lentulus Spinther with 5000 Asculum. The men, +thoroughly devoted to Pompeius, willingly for the most part abandoned +their houses and farms, and followed their leaders over the frontier; +but the district itself was already lost, when the officer +sent by Pompeius for the temporary conduct of the defence, +Lucius Vibullius Rufus--no genteel senator, but a soldier +experienced in war--arrived there; he had to content himself +with taking the six or seven thousand recruits who were saved +away from the incapable recruiting officers, and conducting them +for the time to the nearest rendezvous. + +Corfinium Besieged +And Captured + +This was Corfinium, the place of meeting for the levies in the Albensian, +Marsian and Paelignian territories; the body of recruits here assembled, +of nearly 15,000 men, was the contingent of the most warlike +and trustworthy regions of Italy, and the flower of the army +in course of formation for the constitutional party. When Vibullius +arrived here, Caesar was still several days' march behind; +there was nothing to prevent him from immediately starting agreeably +to Pompeius' instructions and conducting the saved Picenian recruits +along with those assembled at Corfinium to join the main army in Apulia. +But the commandant in Corfinium was the designated successor to Caesar +in the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, Lucius Domitius, +one of the most narrow-minded and stubborn of the Roman aristocracy; +and he not only refused to comply with the orders of Pompeius, +but also prevented Vibullius from departing at least with the men +from Picenum for Apulia. So firmly was he persuaded that Pompeius +only delayed from obstinacy and must necessarily come up to his relief, +that he scarcely made any serious preparations for a siege +and did not even gather into Corfinium the bands of recruits +placed in the surrounding towns. Pompeius however did not appear, +and for good reasons; for, while he might perhaps apply +his two untrustworthy legions as a reserved support for the Picenian +general levy, he could not with them alone offer battle to Caesar. +Instead of him after a few days Caesar came (14 Feb.). His troops +had been joined in Picenum by the twelfth, and before Corfinium +by the eighth, legion from beyond the Alps, and, besides these, +three new legions had been formed partly from the Pompeian men +that were taken prisoners or presented themselves voluntarily, +partly from the recruits that were at once levied everywhere; +so that Caesar before Corfinium was already at the head +of an army of 40,000 men, half of whom had seen service. So long as + Domitius hoped for the arrival of Pompeius, he caused the town +to be defended; when the letters of Pompeius had at length undeceived him, +he resolved, not forsooth to persevere at the forlorn post-- +by which he would have rendered the greatest service to his party-- +nor even to capitulate, but, while the common soldiers +were informed that relief was close at hand, to make his own escape +along with his officers of quality during the next night. +Yet he had not the judgment to carry into effect even this pretty scheme. +The confusion of his behaviour betrayed him. A part of the men +began to mutiny; the Marsian recruits, who held such an infamy +on the part of their general to be impossible, wished to fight +against the mutineers; but they too were obliged reluctantly +to believe the truth of the accusation, whereupon the whole garrison +arrested their staff and handed it, themselves, and the town +over to Caesar (20 Feb.). The corps in Alba, 3000 strong, +and 1500 recruits assembled in Tarracina thereupon laid down +their arms, as soon as Caesar's patrols of horsemen appeared; +a third division in Sulmo of 3500 men had been previously +compelled to surrender. + +Pompeius Goes to Brundisium +Embarkation for Greece + +Pompeius had given up Italy as lost, so soon as Caesar +had occupied Picenum; only he wished to delay his embarkation +as long as possible, with the view of saving so much of his force +as could still be saved. Accordingly he had slowly put himself +in motion for the nearest seaport Brundisium. Thither came +the two legions of Luceria and such recruits as Pompeius +had been able hastily to collect in the deserted Apulia, +as well as the troops raised by the consuls and other commissioners +in Campania and conducted in all haste to Brundisium; +thither too resorted a number of political fugitives, +including the most respected of the senators accompanied +by their families. The embarkation began; but the vessels at hand +did not suffice to transport all at once the whole multitude, +which still amounted to 25,000 persons. No course remained +but to divide the army. The larger half went first (4 March); +with the smaller division of some 10,000 men Pompeius +awaited at Brundisium the return of the fleet; for, however desirable +the possession of Brundisium might be for an eventual attempt +to reoccupy Italy, they did not presume to hold the place +permanently against Caesar. Meanwhile Caesar arrived +before Brundisium; the siege began. Caesar attempted first of all +to close the mouth of the harbour by moles and floating bridges, +with a view to exclude the returning fleet; but Pompeius +caused the trading vessels lying in the harbour to be armed, +and managed to prevent the complete closing of the harbour +until the fleet appeared and the troops--whom Pompeius +with great dexterity, in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers +and the hostile feeling of the inhabitants, withdrew from the town +to the last man unharmed--were carried off beyond Caesar's reach +to Greece (17 March). The further pursuit, like the siege itself, +failed for want of a fleet. + +In a campaign of two months, without a single serious engagement, +Caesar had so broken up an army of ten legions, that less than +the half of it had with great difficulty escaped in a confused flight +across the sea, and the whole Italian peninsula, including the capital +with the state-chest and all the stores accumulated there, +had fallen into the power of the victor. Not without reason +did the beaten party bewail the terrible rapidity, sagacity, +and energy of the "monster." + +Military and Financial Results of the Seizure of Italy + +But it may be questioned whether Caesar gained or lost more +by the conquest of Italy. In a military respect, no doubt, +very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn +from his opponents, but rendered available for himself; +even in the spring of 705 his army embraced, in consequence +of the levies en masse instituted everywhere, a considerable +number of legions of recruits in addition to the nine old ones +But on the other hand it now became necessary not merely +to leave behind a considerable garrison in Italy, but also +to take measures against the closing of the transmarine traffic +contemplated by his opponents who commanded the sea, and against +the famine with which the capital was consequently threatened; +whereby Caesar's already sufficiently complicated military task +was complicated further still. Financially it was certainly +of importance, that Caesar had the good fortune to obtain +possession of the stock of money in the capital; but the principal +sources of income and particularly the revenues from the east +were withal in the hands of the enemy, and, in consequence +of the greatly increased demands for the army and the new obligation +to provide for the starving population of the capital, +the considerable sums which were found quickly melted away. +Caesar soon found himself compelled to appeal to private credit, +and, as it seemed that he could not possibly gain any long respite +by this means, extensive confiscations were generally anticipated +as the only remaining expedient. + +Its Political Results +Fear of Anarchy + +More serious difficulties still were created by the political relations +amidst which Caesar found himself placed on the conquest of Italy. +The apprehension of an anarchical revolution was universal +among the propertied classes. Friends and foes saw in Caesar +a second Catilina; Pompeius believed or affected to believe +that Caesar had been driven to civil war merely by the impossibility +of paying his debts. This was certainly absurd; but in fact Caesar's +antecedents were anything but reassuring, and still less reassuring +was the aspect of the retinue that now surrounded him. +Individuals of the most broken reputation, notorious personages +like Quintus Hortensius, Gaius Curio, Marcus Antonius,-- +the latter the stepson of the Catilinarian Lentulus who was executed +by the orders of Cicero--were the most prominent actors in it; +the highest posts of trust were bestowed on men who had long ceased +even to reckon up their debts; people saw men who held office +under Caesar not merely keeping dancing-girls--which was done +by others also--but appearing publicly in company with them. +Was there any wonder, that even grave and politically impartial men +expected amnesty for all exiled criminals, cancelling +of creditors' claims, comprehensive mandates of confiscation, +proscription, and murder, nay, even a plundering of Rome +by the Gallic soldiery? + +Dispelled by Caesar + +But in this respect the "monster" deceived the expectations +of his foes as well as of his friends. As soon even as Caesar occupied +the first Italian town, Ariminum, he prohibited all common soldiers +from appearing armed within the walls; the country towns +were protected from all injury throughout and without distinction, +whether they had given him a friendly or hostile reception. +When the mutinous garrison surrendered Corfinium late in the evening, +he in the face of every military consideration postponed +the occupation of the town till the following morning, solely +that he might not abandon the burgesses to the nocturnal invasion +of his exasperated soldiers. Of the prisoners the common soldiers, +as presumably indifferent to politics, were incorporated +with his own army, while the officers were not merely spared, +but also freely released without distinction of person and without +the exaction of any promises whatever; and all which they claimed +as private property was frankly given up to them, without even +investigating with any strictness the warrant for their claims. +Lucius Domitius himself was thus treated, and even Labienus had the money +and baggage which he had left behind sent after him to the enemy's camp. +In the most painful financial embarrassment the immense estates +of his opponents whether present or absent were not assailed; indeed +Caesar preferred to borrow from friends, rather than that he should +stir up the possessors of property against him even by exacting +the formally admissible, but practically antiquated, land tax.(17) +The victor regarded only the half, and that not the more difficult half, +of his task as solved with the victory; he saw the security +for its duration, according to his own expression, only +in the unconditional pardon of the vanquished, and had accordingly +during the whole march from Ravenna to Brundisium incessantly +renewed his efforts to bring about a personal conference +with Pompeius and a tolerable accommodation. + +Threats of the Emigrants +The Mass of Quiet People Gained for Caesar + +But, if the aristocracy had previously refused to listen +to any reconciliation, the unexpected emigration of a kind +so disgraceful had raised their wrath to madness, and the wild vengeance +breathed by the beaten contrasted strangely with the placability +of the victor. The communications regularly coming from the camp +of the emigrants to their friends left behind in Italy +were full of projects for confiscations and proscriptions, +of plans for purifying the senate and the state, compared with which +the restoration of Sulla was child's play, and which even +the moderate men of their own party heard with horror. +The frantic passion of impotence, the wise moderation of power, +produced their effect. The whole mass, in whose eyes material interests +were superior to political, threw itself into the arms of Caesar. +The country towns idolized "the uprightness, the moderation, +the prudence" of the victor; and even opponents conceded +that these demonstrations of respect were meant in earnest. +The great capitalists, farmers of the taxes, and jurymen, +showed no special desire, after the severe shipwreck +which had befallen the constitutional party in Italy, +to entrust themselves farther to the same pilots; capital came +once more to the light, and "the rich lords resorted again to their +daily task of writing their rent-rolls." Even the great majority +of the senate, at least numerically speaking--for certainly but few +of the nobler and more influential members of the senate +were included in it--had notwithstanding the orders of Pompeius +and of the consuls remained behind in Italy, and a portion of them +even in the capital itself; and they acquiesced in Caesar's rule. +The moderation of Caesar, well calculated even in its very semblance +of excess, attained its object: the trembling anxiety of the propertied +classes as to the impending anarchy was in some measure allayed. +This was doubtless an incalculable gain for the future; +the prevention of anarchy, and of the scarcely less dangerous alarm +of anarchy, was the indispensable preliminary condition +to the future reorganization of the commonwealth. + +Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar +The Republican Party in Italy + +But at the moment this moderation was more dangerous for Caesar +than the renewal of the Cinnan and Catilinarian fury would have been; +it did not convert enemies into friends, and it converted +friends into enemies. Caesar's Catilinarian adherents +were indignant that murder and pillage remained in abeyance; +these audacious and desperate personages, some of whom +were men of talent, might be expected to prove cross and untractable. +The republicans of all shades, on the other hand, were neither +converted nor propitiated by the leniency of the conqueror. +According to the creed of the Catonian party, duty towards +what they called their fatherland absolved them from every +other consideration; even one who owed freedom and life to Caesar +remained entitled and in duty bound to take up arms or at least +to engage in plots against him. The less decided sections +of the constitutional party were no doubt found willing to accept peace +and protection from the new monarch; nevertheless they ceased not +to curse the monarchy and the monarch at heart. The more clearly +the change of the constitution became manifest, the more distinctly +the great majority of the burgesses--both in the capital with its +keener susceptibility of political excitement, and among +the more energetic population of the country and country towns-- +awoke to a consciousness of their republican sentiments; so far +the friends of the constitution in Rome reported with truth +to their brethren of kindred views in exile, that at home all classes +and all persons were friendly to Pompeius. The discontented temper +of all these circles was further increased by the moral pressure, +which the more decided and more notable men who shared such views +exercised from their very position as emigrants over the multitude +of the humbler and more lukewarm. The conscience of the honourable man +smote him in regard to his remaining in Italy; the half-aristocrat +fancied that he was ranked among the plebeians, if he did not go +into exile with the Domitii and the Metelli, and even if he took his seat +in the Caesarian senate of nobodies. The victor's special clemency +gave to this silent opposition increased political importance; +seeing that Caesar abstained from terrorism, it seemed as if +his secret opponents could display their disinclination +to his rule without much danger. + +Passive Resistance of the Senate to Caesar + +Very soon he experienced remarkable treatment in this respect +at the hands of the senate. Caesar had begun the struggle +to liberate the overawed senate from its oppressors. This was done; +consequently he wished to obtain from the senate approval +of what had been done, and full powers for the continuance of the war. +for this purpose, when Caesar appeared before the capital (end of March) +the tribunes of the people belonging to his party convoked for him +the senate (1 April). The meeting was tolerably numerous, +but the more notable of the very senators that remained in Italy +were absent, including even the former leader of the servile majority +Marcus Cicero and Caesar's own father-in-law Lucius Piso; +and, what was worse, those who did appear were not inclined +to enter into Caesar's proposals. When Caesar spoke of full power +to continue the war, one of the only two consulars present, +Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a very timid man who desired nothing +but a quiet death in his bed, was of opinion that Caesar would deserve +well of his country if he should abandon the thought of carrying +the war to Greece and Spain. When Caesar thereupon requested the senate +at least to be the medium of transmitting his peace proposals +to Pompeius, they were not indeed opposed to that course in itself, +but the threats of the emigrants against the neutrals had so terrified +the latter, that no one was found to undertake the message of peace. +Through the disinclination of the aristocracy to help the erection +of the monarch's throne, and through the same inertness +of the dignified corporation, by means of which Caesar +had shortly before frustrated the legal nomination of Pompeius +as generalissimo in the civil war, he too was now thwarted when making +a like request. Other impediments, moreover, occurred. Caesar desired, +with the view of regulating in some sort of way his position, +to be named as dictator; but his wish was not complied with, +because such a magistrate could only be constitutionally appointed +by one of the consuls, and the attempt of Caesar to buy +the consul Lentulus--of which owing to the disordered condition +of his finances there was a good prospect--nevertheless proved +a failure. The tribune of the people Lucius Metellus, moreover, +lodged a protest against all the steps of the proconsul, and made signs +as though he would protect with his person the public chest, +when Caesar's men came to empty it. Caesar could not avoid +in this case ordering that the inviolable person should be pushed aside +as gently as possible; otherwise, he kept by his purpose of abstaining +from all violent steps. He declared to the senate, just as +the constitutional party had done shortly before, that he had +certainly desired to regulate things in a legal way and with the help +of the supreme authority; but, since this help was refused, +he could dispense with it. + +Provisional Arrangement of the Affairs of the Capital +The Provinces + +Without further concerning himself about the senate and the formalities +of state law, he handed over the temporary administration +of the capital to the praetor Marcus Aemilius Lepidus as city-prefect, +and made the requisite arrangements for the administration +of the provinces that obeyed him and the continuance of the war. +Even amidst the din of the gigantic struggle, and with all +the alluring sound of Caesar's lavish promises, it still made +a deep impression on the multitude of the capital, when they saw +in their free Rome the monarch for the first time wielding +a monarch's power and breaking open the doors of the treasury +by his soldiers. But the times had gone by, when the impressions +and feelings of the multitude determined the course of events; +it was with the legions that the decision lay, and a few +painful feelings more or less were of no farther moment. + +Pompeians in Spain + +Caesar hastened to resume the war. He owed his successes +hitherto to the offensive, and he intended still to maintain it. +The position of his antagonist was singular. After the original plan +of carrying on the campaign simultaneously in the two Gauls +by offensive operations from the bases of Italy and Spain had been +frustrated by Caesar's aggressive, Pompeius had intended to go to Spain. +There he had a very strong position. The army amounted +to seven legions; a large number of Pompeius' veterans served in it, +and several years of conflicts in the Lusitanian mountains +had hardened soldiers and officers. Among its captains Marcus Varro +indeed was simply a celebrated scholar and a faithful partisan; +but Lucius Afranius had fought with distinction in the east +and in the Alps, and Marcus Petreius, the conqueror of Catilina, +was an officer as dauntless as he was able. While in the Further +province Caesar had still various adherents from the time +of his governorship there,(18) the more important province +of the Ebrowas attached by all the ties of veneration and gratitude +to the celebrated general, who twenty years before had held the command +in it during the Sertorian war, and after the termination of that war +had organized it anew. Pompeius could evidently after the Italian +disaster do nothing better than proceed to Spain with the saved remnant +of his army, and then at the head of his whole force advance +to meet Caesar. But unfortunately he had, in the hope of being able +still to save the troops that were in Corfinium, tarried in Apuli +so long that he was compelled to choose the nearer Brundisium +as his place of embarkation instead of the Campanian ports. +Why, master as he was of the sea and Sicily, he did not +subsequently revert to his original plan, cannot be determined; +whether it was that perhaps the aristocracy after their short-sighted +and distrustful fashion showed no desire to entrust themselves +to the Spanish troops and the Spanish population, it is enough +to say that Pompeius remained in the east, and Caesar had the option +of directing his first attack either against the army which was +being organized in Greece under Pompeius' own command, or against +that which was ready for battle under his lieutenants in Spain. +He had decided in favour of the latter course, and, as soon as +the Italian campaign ended, had taken measures to collect +on the lower Rhone nine of his best legions, as also 6000 cavalry-- +partly men individually picked out by Caesar in the Celtic cantons, +partly German mercenaries--and a number of Iberian and Ligurian archers. + +Massilia against Caesar + +But at this point his opponents also had been active. Lucius Domitius, +who was nominated by the senate in Caesar's stead as governor +of Transalpine Gaul, had proceeded from Corfinium--as soon as +Caesar had released him--along with his attendants and with Pompeius' +confidant Lucius Vibullius Rufus to Massilia, and actually induced +that city to declare for Pompeius and even to refuse a passage +to Caesar's troops. Of the Spanish troops the two least trustworthy +legions were left behind under the command of Varro in the Further +province; while the five best, reinforced by 40,000 Spanish infantry-- +partly Celtiberian infantry of the line, partly Lusitanian +and other light troops--and by 5000 Spanish cavalry, under Afranius +and Petreius, had, in accordance with the orders of Pompeius +transmitted by Vibullius, set out to close the Pyrenees +against the enemy. + + +Caesar Occupies the Pyrenees +Position at Ilerda + +Meanwhile Caesar himself arrived in Gaul and, as the commencement +of the siege of Massilia still detained him in person, +he immediately despatched the greater part of his troops assembled +on the Rhone--six legions and the cavalry--along the great road +leading by way of Narbo (Narbonne) to Rhode (Rosas) with the view +of anticipating the enemy at the Pyrenees. The movement was successful; +when Afranius and Petreius arrived at the passes, they found them +already occupied by the Caesarians and the line of the Pyrenees lost. +They then took up a position at Ilerda (Lerida) between the Pyrenees +and the Ebro. This town lies twenty miles to the north +of the Ebro on the right bank of one of its tributaries, +the Sicoris (Segre), which was crossed by only a single solid bridge +immediately at Ilerda. To the south of Ilerda the mountains +which adjoin the left bank of the Ebro approach pretty close to the town; +to the northward there stretches on both sides of the Sicoris +a level country which is commanded by the hill on which the town +is built. For an army, which had to submit to a siege, it was +an excellent position; but the defence of Spain, after the occupation +of the line of the Pyrenees had been neglected, could only be undertaken +in earnest behind the Ebro, and, as no secure communication +was established between Ilerda and the Ebro, and no bridge +existed over the latter stream, the retreat from the temporary +to the true defensive position was not sufficiently secured. +The Caesarians established themselves above Ilerda, in the delta +which the river Sicoris forms with the Cinga (Cinca), +which unites with it below Ilerda; but the attack only began +in earnest after Caesar had arrived in the camp (23 June). +Under the walls of the town the struggle was maintained with equal +exasperation and equal valour on both sides, and with frequent +alternations of success; but the Caesarians did not attain their object-- +which was, to establish themselves between the Pompeian camp +and the town and thereby to possess themselves of the stone bridge-- +and they consequently remained dependent for their communication +with Gaul solely on two bridges which they had hastily constructed +over the Sicoris, and that indeed, as the river at Ilerda itself +was too considerable to be bridged over, about eighteen +or twenty miles farther up. + +Caesar Cut Off + +When the floods came on with the melting of the snow, +these temporary bridges were swept away; and, as they had no vessels +for the passage of the highly swollen rivers and under such circumstance +the restoration of the bridges could not for the present be thought of, +the Caesarian army was confined to the narrow space between the Cinca +and the Sicoris, while the left bank of the Sicoris and with it the road, +by which the army communicated with Gaul and Italy, were exposed +almost undefended to the Pompeians, who passed the river partly +by the town-bridge, partly by swimming after the Lusitanian fashion +on skins. It was the season shortly before harvest; the old produce +was almost used up, the new was not yet gathered, and the narrow stripe +of land between the two streams was soon exhausted. In the camp +actual famine prevailed--the -modius- of wheat cost 50 -denarii- +(1 pound 16 shillings)--and dangerous diseases broke out; whereas +on the left bank there were accumulated provisions and varied supplies, +as well as troops of all sorts--reinforcements from Gaul of cavalry +and archers, officers and soldiers from furlough, foraging parties +returning--in all a mass of 6000 men, whom the Pompeians attacked +with superior force and drove with great loss to the mountains, +while the Caesarians on the right bank were obliged to remain +passive spectators of the unequal conflict. The communications +of the army were in the hands of the Pompeians; in Italy the accounts +from Spain suddenly ceased, and the suspicious rumours, +which began to circulate there, were not so very remote from the truth. +Had the Pompeians followed up their advantage with some energy, +they could not have failed either to reduce under their power +or at least to drive back towards Gaul the mass scarcely capable +of resistance which was crowded together on the left bank +of the Sicoris, and to occupy this bank so completely that not a man +could cross the river without their knowledge. But both points +were neglected; those bands were doubtless pushed aside with loss +but neither destroyed nor completely beaten back, and the prevention +of the crossing of the river was left substantially to the river itself, + + +Caesar Re-establishes the Communications + +Thereupon Caesar formed his plan. He ordered portable boats +of a light wooden frame and osier work lined with leather, +after the model of those used in the Channel among the Britons +and subsequently by the Saxons, to be prepared in the camp +and transported in waggons to the point where the bridges had stood. +On these frail barks the other bank was reached and, as it was found +unoccupied, the bridge was re-established without much difficulty; +the road in connection with it was thereupon quickly cleared, +and the eagerly-expected supplies were conveyed to the camp. +Caesar's happy idea thus rescued the army from the immense peril +in which it was placed. Then the cavalry of Caesar which in efficiency +far surpassed that of the enemy began at once to scour the country +on the left bank of the Sicoris; the most considerable +Spanish communities between the Pyrenees and the Ebro--Osca, Tarraco, +Dertosa, and others--nay, even several to the south of the Ebro, +passed over to Caesar's side. + +Retreat of the Pompeians from Ilerda + +The supplies of the Pompeians were now rendered scarce +through the foraging parties of Caesar and the defection +of the neighbouring communities; they resolved at length to retire +behind the line of the Ebro, and set themselves in all haste to form +a bridge of boats over the Ebro below the mouth of the Sicoris. +Caesar sought to cut off the retreat of his opponents over the Ebro +and to detain them in Ilerda; but so long as the enemy remained +in possession of the bridge at Ilerda and he had control of neither ford +nor bridge there, he could not distribute his army over both banks +of the river and could not invest Ilerda. His soldiers therefore +worked day and night to lower the depth of the river by means of canals +drawing off the water, so that the infantry could wade through it. +But the preparations of the Pompeians to pass the Ebro were sooner +finished than the arrangements of the Caesarians for investing Ilerda; +when the former after finishing the bridge of boats began their march +towards the Ebro along the left bank of the Sicoris, the canals +of the Caesarians seemed to the general not yet far enough advanced +to make the ford available for the infantry; he ordered +only his cavalry to pass the stream and, by clinging to the rear +of the enemy, at least to detain and harass them. + +Caesar Follows + +But when Caesar's legions saw in the gray morning the enemy's columns +which had been retiring since midnight, they discerned +with the sure instinct of experienced veterans the strategic importance +of this retreat, which would compel them to follow their antagonists +into distant and impracticable regions filled by hostile troops; +at their own request the general ventured to lead the infantry +also into the river, and although the water reached up +to the shoulders of the men, it was crossed without accident. +It was high time. If the narrow plain, which separated the town +of Ilerda from the mountains enclosing the Ebro were once traversed +and the army of the Pompeians entered the mountains, their retreat +to the Ebro could no longer be prevented. Already they had, +notwithstanding the constant attacks of the enemy's cavalry +which greatly delayed their march, approached within five miles +of the mountains, when they, having been on the march since midnight +and unspeakably exhausted, abandoned their original plan of traversing +the whole plain on the same day, and pitched their camp. +Here the infantry of Caesar overtook them and encamped opposite to them +in the evening and during the night, as the nocturnal march +which the Pompeians had at first contemplated was abandoned from fear +of the night-attacks of the cavalry. On the following day also +both armies remained immoveable, occupied only +in reconnoitering the country. + + +The Route to the Ebro Closed + +Early in the morning of the third day Caesar's infantry set out, +that by a movement through the pathless mountains alongside of the road +they might turn the position of the enemy and bar their route +to the Ebro. The object of the strange march, which seemed at first +to turn back towards the camp before Ilerda, was not at once +perceived by the Pompeian officers. When they discerned it, +they sacrificed camp and baggage and advanced by a forced march +along the highway, to gain the crest of the ridge before the Caesarians. +But it was already too late; when they came up, the compact masses +of the enemy were already posted on the highway itself. +a desperate attempt of the Pompeians to discover other routes +to the Ebro over the steep mountains was frustrated by Caesar's cavalry, +which surrounded and cut to pieces the Lusitanian troops sent forth +for that purpose. Had a battle taken place between the Pompeian army-- +which had the enemy's cavalry in its rear and their infantry in front, +and was utterly demoralized--and the Caesarians, the issue +was scarcely doubtful, and the opportunity for fighting +several times presented itself; but Caesar made no use of it, +and, not without difficulty, restrained the impatient eagerness +for the combat in his soldiers sure of victory. The Pompeian army +was at any rate strategically lost; Caesar avoided weakening his army +and still further envenoming the bitter feud by useless bloodshed. +On the very day after he had succeeded in cutting off the Pompeians +from the Ebro, the soldiers of the two armies had begun to fraternize +and to negotiate respecting surrender; indeed the terms +asked by the Pompeians, especially as to the sparing of their officers, +had been already conceded by Caesar, when Petreius with his escort +consisting of slaves and Spaniards came upon the negotiators +and caused the Caesarians, on whom he could lay hands, +to be put to death. Caesar nevertheless sent the Pompeians +who had come to his camp back unharmed, and persevered in seeking +a peaceful solution. Ilerda, where the Pompeians had still +a garrison and considerable magazines, became now the point +which they sought to reach; but with the hostile army in front +and the Sicoris between them and the fortress, they marched +without coming nearer to their object. Their cavalry became gradually +so afraid that the infantry had to take them into the centre and legions +had to be set as the rearguard; the procuring of water and forage +became more and more difficult; they had already to kill the beasts +of burden, because they could no longer feed them. At length +the wandering army found itself formally inclosed, with the Sicoris +in its rear and the enemy's force in front, which drew rampart +and trench around it. It attempted to cross the river, but Caesar's +German horsemen and light infantry anticipated it in the occupation +of the opposite bank. + +Capitulation of the Pompeians + +No bravery and no fidelity could longer avert the inevitable +capitulation (2 Aug. 705). Caesar granted to officers and soldiers +their life and liberty, and the possession of the property +which they still retained as well as the restoration of what had been +already taken from them, the full value of which he undertook +personally to make good to his soldiers; and not only so, +but while he had compulsorily enrolled in his army the recruits +captured in Italy, he honoured these old legionaries of Pompeius +by the promise that no one should be compelled against his will +to enter Caesar's army. He required only that each should give up +his arms and repair to his home. Accordingly the soldiers +who were natives of Spain, about a third of the army, were disbanded +at once, while the Italian soldiers were discharged on the borders +of Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. + +Further Spain Submits + +Hither Spain on the breaking up of this army fell of itself +into the power of the victor. In Further Spain, where Marcus Varro +held the chief command for Pompeius, it seemed to him, when he learned +the disaster of Ilerda, most advisable that he should throw himself +into the insular town of Gades and should carry thither for safety +the considerable sums which he had collected by confiscating +the treasures of the temples and the property of prominent Caesarians, +the not inconsiderable fleet which he had raised, and the two legions +entrusted to him. But on the mere rumour of Caesar's arrival +the most notable towns of the province which had been for long +attached to Caesar declared for the latter and drove away +the Pompeian garrisons or induced them to a similar revolt; +such was the case with Corduba, Carmo, and Gades itself. +One of the legions also set out of its own accord for Hispalis, +and passed over along with this town to Caesar's side. When at length +even Italica closed its gates against Varro, the latter +resolved to capitulate. + +Siege of Massilia + +About the same time Massilia also submitted. With rare energy +the Massiliots had not merely sustained a siege, but had also kept +the sea against Caesar; it was their native element, and they might hope +to obtain vigorous support on it from Pompeius, who in fact +had the exclusive command of it. But Caesar's lieutenant, the able +Decimus Brutus, the same who had achieved the first naval victory +in the Atlantic over the Veneti,(19) managed rapidly to equip a fleet; +and in spite of the brave resistance of the enemy's crews-- +consisting partly of Albioecian mercenaries of the Massiliots, +partly of slave-herdsmen of Domitius--he vanquished by means of his brave +marines selected from the legions the stronger Massiliot fleet, +and sank or captured the greater part of their ships. When therefore +a small Pompeian squadron under Lucius Nasidius arrived +from the east by way of Sicily and Sardinia in the port of Massilia, +the Massiliots once more renewed their naval armament and sailed forth +along with the ships of Nasidius against Brutus. The engagement +which took place off Tauroeis (La Ciotat to the east of Marseilles) +might probably have had a different result, if the vessels of Nasidius +had fought with the same desperate courage which the Massiliots +displayed on that day; but the flight of the Nasidians +decided the victory in favour of Brutus, and the remains +of the Pompeian fleet fled to Spain. The besieged were completely +driven from the sea. On the landward side, where Gaius Trebonius +conducted the siege, the most resolute resistance was still continued; +but in spite of the frequent sallies of the Albioecian mercenaries +and the skilful expenditure of the immense stores of projectiles +accumulated in the city, the works of the besiegers were at length +advanced up to the walls and one of the towers fell. The Massiliots +declared that they would give up the defence, but desired +to conclude the capitulation with Caesar himself, and entreated +the Roman commander to suspend the siege operations till +Caesar's arrival. Trebonius had express orders from Caesar +to spare the town as far as possible; he granted the armistice desired. +But when the Massiliots made use of it for an artful sally, +in which they completely burnt the one-half of the almost unguarded +Roman works, the struggle of the siege began anew and with increased +exasperation. The vigorous commander of the Romans repaired +with surprising rapidity the destroyed towers and the mound; +soon the Massiliots were once more completely invested. + +Massilia Capitulates + +When Caesar on his return from the conquest of Spain arrived +before their city, he found it reduced to extremities +partly by the enemy's attacks, partly by famine and pestilence, +and ready for the second time--on this occasion in right earnest-- +to surrender on any terms. Domitius alone, remembering the indulgence +of the victor which he had shamefully misused, embarked in a boat +and stole through the Roman fleet, to seek a third battle-field +for his implacable resentment. Caesar's soldiers had sworn +to put to the sword the whole male population of the perfidious city, +and vehemently demanded from the general the signal for plunder. +But Caesar, mindful here also of his great task of establishing +Helleno-Italic civilization in the west, was not to be coerced +into furnishing a sequel to the destruction of Corinth. +Massilia--the most remote from the mother-country of all those cities, +once so numerous, free, and powerful, that belonged to the old Ionic +mariner-nation, and almost the last in which the Hellenic seafaring life +had preserved itself fresh and pure, as in fact it was the last +Greek city that fought at sea--Massilia had to surrender its magazines +of arms and naval stores to the victor, and lost a portion +of its territory and of its privileges; but it retained its freedom +and its nationality and continued, though with diminished proportions +in a material point of view, to be still as before intellectually +the centre of Hellenic culture in that distant Celtic country +which at this very time was attaining a new historical significance. + + +Expeditions of Caesar to the Corn-Provinces + +While thus in the western provinces the war after various critical +vicissitudes was thoroughly decided at length in favour of Caesar, +Spain and Massilia were subdued, and the chief army of the enemy +was captured to the last man, the decision of arms had also taken place +on the second arena of warfare, on which Caesar had found it necessary +immediately after the conquest of Italy to assume the offensive + + +Sardinia Occupied +Sicily Occupied + +We have already mentioned that the Pompeians intended +to reduce Italy to starvation. They had the means of doing so +in their hands. They had thorough command of the sea and laboured +with great zeal everywhere--in Gades, Utica, Messana, above all +in the east--to increase their fleet. They held moreover +all the provinces, from which the capital drew its means of subsistence: +Sardinia and Corsica through Marcus Cotta, Sicily through Marcus Cato, +Africa through the self-nominated commander-in-chief Titus Attius Varus +and their ally Juba king of Numidia It was indispensably needful +for Caesar to thwart these plans of the enemy and to wrest from them +the corn-provinces. Quintus Valerius was sent with a legion to Sardinia +and compelled the Pompeian governor to evacuate the island. +The more important enterprise of taking Sicily and Africa from the enemy +was entrusted to the young Gaius Curio with the assistance +of the able Gaius Caninius Rebilus, who possessed experience in war. +Sicily was occupied by him without a blow; Cato, without a proper army +and not a man of the sword, evacuated the island, after having +in his straightforward manner previously warned the Siceliots +not to compromise themselves uselessly by an ineffectual resistance. + +Landing of Curio in Africa + +Curio left behind half of his troops to protect this island +so important for the capital, and embarked with the other half-- +two legions and 500 horsemen--for Africa. Here he might expect +to encounter more serious resistance; besides the considerable +and in its own fashion efficient army of Juba, the governor Varus +had formed two legions from the Romans settled in Africa +and also fitted out a small squadron of ten sail. With the aid +of his superior fleet, however, Curio effected without difficulty +a landing between Hadrumetum, where the one legion of the enemy +lay along with their ships of war, and Utica, in front of which town +lay the second legion under Varus himself. Curio turned against +the latter, and pitched his camp not far from Utica, just where +a century and a half before the elder Scipio had taken up +his first winter-camp in Africa.(20) Caesar, compelled to keep together +his best troops for the Spanish war, had been obliged to make up +the Sicilo-African army for the most part out of the legions taken over +from the enemy, more especially the war-prisoners of Corfinium; +the officers of the Pompeian army in Africa, some of whom had served +in the very legions that were conquered at Corfinium, +now left no means untried to bring back their old soldiers who were +now fighting against them to their first allegiance. But Caesar +had not erred in the choice of his lieutenant. Curio knew as well +how to direct the movements of the army and of the fleet, +as how to acquire personal influence over the soldiers; +the supplies were abundant, the conflicts without exception successful. + +Curio Conquers at Utica + +When Varus, presuming that the troops of Curio wanted opportunity +to pass over to his side, resolved to give battle chiefly for the sake +of affording them this opportunity, the result did not justify +his expectations. Animated by the fiery appeal of their youthful leader +the cavalry of Curio put to flight the horsemen of the enemy +and in presence of the two armies cut down also the light infantry +which had accompanied the horsemen; and emboldened by this success +and by Curio's personal example, his legions advanced through +the difficult ravine separating the two lines to the attack, +for which the Pompeians however did not wait, but disgracefully +fled back to their camp and evacuated even this in the ensuing night. +The victory was so complete that Curio at once took steps +to besiege Utica. When news arrived, however, that king Juba +was advancing with all his forces to its relief, Curio resolved, +just as Scipio had done on the arrival of Syphax, to raise the siege +and to return to Scipio's former camp till reinforcements +should arrive from Sicily. Soon afterwards came a second report, +that king Juba had been induced by the attacks of neighbouring princes +to turn back with his main force and was sending to the aid +of the besieged merely a moderate corps under Saburra. +Curio, who from his lively temperament had only with great reluctance +made up his mind to rest, now set out again at once to fight with Saburra +before he could enter into communication with the garrison of Utica. + +Curio Defeated by Juba on the Bagradas +Death of Curio + +His cavalry, which had gone forward in the evening, actually succeeded +in surprising the corps of Saburra on the Bagradas during the night +and inflicting much damage upon it; and on the news of this victory +Curio hastened the march of the infantry, in order by their means +to complete the defeat Soon they perceived on the last slopes +of the heights that sank towards the Bagradas the corps of Saburra, +which was skirmishing with the Roman horsemen; the legions +coming up helped to drive it completely down into the plain. +But here the combat changed its aspect. Saburra was not, +as they supposed, destitute of support; on the contrary he was +not much more than five miles distant from the Numidian main force. +Already the flower of the Numidian infantry and 2000 Gallic +and Spanish horsemen had arrived on the field of battle +to support Saburra, and the king in person with the bulk of the army +and sixteen elephants was approaching. After the nocturnal march +and the hot conflict there were at the moment not more than 200 +of the Roman cavalry together, and these as well as the infantry, +extremely exhausted by fatigue and fighting, were all surrounded, +in the wide plain into which they had allowed themselves to be allured, +by the continually increasing hosts of the enemy. Vainly Curio +endeavoured to engage in close combat; the Libyan horsemen retreated, +as they were wont, so soon as a Roman division advanced, +only to pursue it when it turned. In vain he attempted +to regain the heights; they were occupied and foreclosed +by the enemy's horse. All was lost. The infantry was cut down +to the last man. Of the cavalry a few succeeded in cutting +their way through; Curio too might have probably saved himself, +but he could not bear to appear alone before his master +without the army entrusted to him, and died sword in hand. +Even the force which was collected in the camp before Utica, +and that which guarded the fleet--which might so easily +have escaped to Sicily--surrendered under the impression made +by the fearfully rapid catastrophe on the following day +to Varus (Aug. or Sept. 705). + +So ended the expedition arranged by Caesar to Sicily and Africa. +It attained its object so far, since by the occupation of Sicily +in connection with that of Sardinia at least the most urgent wants +of the capital were relieved; the miscarriage of the conquest of Africa-- +from which the victorious party drew no farther substantial gain-- +and the loss of two untrustworthy legions might be got over. +But the early death of Curio was an irreparable loss for Caesar, +and indeed for Rome. Not without reason had Caesar entrusted +the most important independent command to this young man, although +he had no military experience and was notorious for his dissolute life; +there was a spark of Caesar's own spirit in the fiery youth. +He resembled Caesar, inasmuch as he too had drained the cup of pleasure +to the dregs; inasmuch as he did not become a statesman +because he was an officer, but on the contrary it was his political +action that placed the sword in his hands; inasmuch as +his eloquence was not that of rounded periods, but the eloquence +of deeply-felt thought; inasmuch as his mode of warfare was based +on rapid action with slight means; inasmuch as his character +was marked by levity and often by frivolity, by pleasant frankness +and thorough life in the moment. If, as his general says of him, +youthful fire and high courage carried him into incautious acts, +and if he too proudly accepted death that he might not submit +to be pardoned for a pardonable fault, traits of similar imprudence +and similar pride are not wanting in Caesar's history also. +We may regret that this exuberant nature was not permitted to work off +its follies and to preserve itself for the following generation +so miserably poor in talents, and so rapidly falling a prey +to the dreadful rule of mediocrities. + +Pompeius' Plan of Campaign for 705 + +How far these events of the war in 705 interfered with Pompeius' +general plan for the campaign, and particularly what part, in that plan +was assigned after the loss of Italy to the important military corps +in the west, can only be determined by conjecture. That Pompeius +had the intention of coming by way of Africa and Mauretania +to the aid of his army fighting in Spain, was simply a romantic, +and beyond doubt altogether groundless, rumour circulating +in the camp of Ilerda. It is much more likely that he still kept +by his earlier plan of attacking Caesar from both sides in Transalpine +and Cisalpine Gaul(21) even after the loss of Italy, and meditated +a combined attack at once from Spain and Macedonia. It may be presumed +that the Spanish army was meant to remain on the defensive +at the Pyrenees till the Macedonian army in the course of organization +was likewise ready to march; whereupon both would then have started +simultaneously and effected a junction according to circumstances +either on the Rhone or on the Po, while the fleet, it may be conjectured, +would have attempted at the same time to reconquer Italy proper. +On this supposition apparently Caesar had first prepared himself +to meet an attack on Italy. One of the ablest of his officers, +the tribune of the people Marcus Antonius, commanded there +with propraetorian powers. The southeastern ports--Sipus, +Brundisium, Tarentum--where an attempt at landing was first +to be expected, had received a garrison of three legions. Besides +this Quintus Hortensius, the degenerate son of the well-known orator, +collected a fleet in the Tyrrhene Sea, and Publius Dolabella +a second fleet in the Adriatic, which were to be employed +partly to support the defence, partly to transport the intended +expedition to Greece. In the event of Pompeius attempting +to penetrate by land into Italy, Marcus Licinius Crassus, +the eldest son of the old colleague of Caesar, was to conduct +the defence of Cisalpine Gaul, Gaius the younger brother +of Marcus Antonius that of Illyricum. + +Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +But the expected attack was long in coming. It was not +till the height of summer that the conflict began in Illyria. +There Caesar's lieutenant Gaius Antonius with his two legions +lay in the island of Curicta (Veglia in the gulf of Quarnero), +and Caesar's admiral Publius Dolabella with forty ships +lay in the narrow arm of the sea between this island and the mainland. +The admirals of Pompeius in the Adriatic, Marcus Octavius with the Greek, +Lucius Scribonius Libo with the Illyrian division of the fleet, +attacked the squadron of Dolabella, destroyed all his ships, +and cut off Antonius on his island. To rescue him, a corps under Basilus +and Sallustius came from Italy and the squadron of Hortensius +from the Tyrrhene Sea; but neither the former nor the latter were able +to effect anything in presence of the far superior fleet of the enemy. +The legions of Antonius had to be abandoned to their fate. +Provisions came to an end, the troops became troublesome and mutinous; +with the exception of a few divisions, which succeeded in reaching +the mainland on rafts, the corps, still fifteen cohorts strong, laid down +their arms and were conveyed in the vessels of Libo to Macedonia +to be there incorporated with the Pompeian army, while Octavius was left +to complete the subjugation of the Illyrian coast now denuded of troops. +The Dalmatae, now far the most powerful tribe in these regions,(22) +the important insular town of Issa (Lissa), and other townships, +embraced the party of Pompeius; but the adherents of Caesar +maintained themselves in Salonae (Spalato) and Lissus (Alessio), +and in the former town not merely sustained with courage a siege, +but when they were reduced to extremities, made a sally with such effect +that Octavius raised the siege and sailed off to Dyrrhachium +to pass the winter there. + +Result of the Campaign as a Whole + +The success achieved in Illyricum by the Pompeian fleet, +although of itself not inconsiderable, had yet but little influence +on the issue of the campaign as a whole; and it appears miserably small, +when we consider that the performances of the land and naval' forces +under the supreme command of Pompeius during the whole eventful year 705 +were confined to this single feat of arms, and that from the east, +where the general, the senate, the second great army, the principal fleet, +the immense military and still more extensive financial resources +of the antagonists of Caesar were united, no intervention at all +took place where it was needed in that all-decisive struggle in the west. +The scattered condition of the forces in the eastern half of the empire, +the method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, +his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition +may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity +of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean +without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence +the course of affairs--nothing for Spain, next to nothing +for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, +Africa, or, if not to reoccupy Italy, at least to obstruct its supplies-- +this makes demands on our ideas of the confusion and perversity +prevailing in the Pompeian camp, which we can only with difficulty meet. + +The aggregate result of this campaign was corresponding. +Caesar's double aggressive movement, against Spain and against Sicily +and Africa, was successful, in the former case completely, +in the latter at least partially; while Pompeius' plan +of starving Italy was thwarted in the main by the taking away +of Sicily, and his general plan of campaign was frustrated completely +by the destruction of the Spanish army; and in Italy only +a very small portion of Caesar's defensive arrangements +had come to be applied. Notwithstanding the painfully-felt losses +in Africa and Illyria, Caesar came forth from this first year +of the war in the most decided and most decisive manner as victor. + +Organizations in Macedonia +The Emigrants + +If, however, nothing material was done from the east to obstruct Caesar +in the subjugation of the west, efforts at least were made towards +securing political and military consolidation there during the respite +so ignominiously obtained. The great rendezvous of the opponents +of Caesar was Macedonia. Thither Pompeius himself and the mass +of the emigrants from Brundisium resorted; thither came +the other refugees from the west: Marcus Cato from Sicily, +Lucius Domitius from Massilia but more especially a number +of the best officers and soldiers of the broken-up army of Spain, +with its generals Afranius and Varro at their head. In Italy +emigration gradually became among the aristocrats a question +not of honour merely but almost of fashion, and it obtained +a fresh impulse through the unfavourable accounts which arrived +regarding Caesar's position before Ilerda; not a few of the more +lukewarm partisans and the political trimmers went over by degrees, +and even Marcus Cicero at last persuaded himself that he did not +adequately discharge his duty as a citizen by writing a dissertatio +on concord. The senate of emigrants at Thessalonica, where the official +Rome pitched its interim abode, numbered nearly 200 members +including many venerable old men and almost all the consulars. +But emigrants indeed they were. This Roman Coblentz displayed +a pitiful spectacle in the high pretensions and paltry performances +of the genteel world of Rome, their unseasonable reminiscences +and still more unseasonable recriminations, their political +perversities and financial embarrassments. It was a matter +of comparatively slight moment that, while the old structure +was falling to pieces, they were with the most painstaking gravity +watching over every old ornamental scroll and every speck of rust +in the constitution; after all it was simply ridiculous, +when the genteel lords had scruples of conscience as to calling +their deliberative assembly beyond the sacred soil of the city +the senate, and cautiously gave it the title of the "three hundred";(23) +or when they instituted tedious investigations in state law +as to whether and how a curiate law could be legitimately enacted +elsewhere than within the ring-wall of Rome. + +The Lukewarm + +Far worse traits were the indifference of the lukewarm +and the narrow-minded stubbornness of the ultras. The former +could not be brought to act or even to keep silence. If they were asked +to exert themselves in some definite way for the common good, +with the inconsistency characteristic of weak people they regarded +any such suggestion as a malicious attempt to compromise them +still further, and either did not do what they were ordered at all +or did it with half heart. At the same time of course, +with their affectation of knowing better when it was too late +and their over-wise impracticabilities, they proved a perpetual clog +to those who were acting; their daily work consisted in criticizing, +ridiculing, and bemoaning every occurrence great and small, +and in unnerving and discouraging the multitude by their own +sluggishness and hopelessness. + +The Ultras + +While these displayed the utter prostration of weakness, the ultras +on the other hand exhibited in full display its exaggerated action. +With them there was no attempt to conceal that the preliminary +to any negotiation for peace was the bringing over of Caesar's head; +every one of the attempts towards peace, which Caesar repeatedly made +even now, was tossed aside without being examined, or employed +only to cover insidious attempts on the lives of the commissioners +of their opponent. That the declared partisans of Caesar +had jointly and severally forfeited life and property, was a matter +of course; but it fared little better with those more or less neutral. +Lucius Domitius, the hero of Corfinium, gravely proposed +in the council of war that those senators who had fought in the army +of Pompeius should come to a vote on all who had either remained neutral +or had emigrated but not entered the army, and should according +to their own pleasure individually acquit them or punish them +by fine or even by the forfeiture of life and property. +Another of these ultras formally lodged with Pompeius a charge +of corruption and treason against Lucius Afranius for his defective +defence of Spain. Among these deep-dyed republicans their +political theory assumed almost the character of a confession +of religious faith; they accordingly hated their own more lukewarm +partisans and Pompeius with his personal adherents, if possible, +still more than their open opponents, and that with all the dull +obstinacy of hatred which is wont to characterize orthodox theologians; +and they were mainly to blame for the numberless and bitter +separate quarrels which distracted the emigrant army and emigrant senate. +But they did not confine themselves to words. Marcus Bibulus, +Titus Labienus, and others of this coterie carried out their theory +in practice, and caused such officers or soldiers of Caesar's army +as fell into their hands to be executed en masse; which, +as may well be conceived, did not tend to make Caesar's troops +fight with less energy. If the counterrevolution in favour +of the friends of the constitution, for which all the elements +were in existence,(24) did not break out in Italy during +Caesar's absence, the reason, according to the assurance +of discerning opponents of Caesar, lay chiefly in the general dread +of the unbridled fury of the republican ultras after the restoration +should have taken place. The better men in the Pompeian camp +were in despair over this frantic behaviour. Pompeius, himself +a brave soldier, spared the prisoners as far as he might and could; +but he was too pusillanimous and in too awkward a position to prevent +or even to punish all atrocities of this sort, as it became him +as commander-in-chief to do. Marcus Cato, the only man who at least +carried moral consistency into the struggle, attempted with more energy +to check such proceedings; he induced the emigrant senate +to prohibit by a special decree the pillage of subject towns +and the putting to death of a burgess otherwise than in battle. +The able Marcus Marcellus had similar views. No one, indeed, +knew better than Cato and Marcellus that the extreme party +would carry out their saving deeds, if necessary, in defiance +of all decrees of the senate. But if even now, when they had still +to regard considerations of prudence, the rage of the ultras +could not be tamed, people might prepare themselves after the victory +for a reign of terror from which Marius and Sulla themselves +would have turned away with horror; and we can understand why Cato, +according to his own confession, was more afraid of the victory +than of the defeat of his own party. + +The Preparations for War + +The management of the military preparations in the Macedonian camp +was in the hands of Pompeius the commander-in-chief. His position, +always troublesome and galling, had become still worse through +the unfortunate events of 705. In the eyes of his partisans he was +mainly to blame for this result. This judgment was in various respects +not just. A considerable part of the misfortunes endured +was to be laid to the account of the perversity and insubordination +of the lieutenant-generals, especially of the consul Lentulus +and Lucius Domitius; from the moment when Pompeius took the head +of the army, he had led it with skill and courage, and had saved +at least very considerable forces from the shipwreck; that he was +not a match for Caesar's altogether superior genius, which was now +recognized by all, could not be fairly made matter of reproach to him. +But the result alone decided men's judgment. Trusting to the general +Pompeius, the constitutional party had broken with Caesar; the pernicious +consequences of this breach recoiled upon the general Pompeius; +and, though owing to the notorious military incapacity +of all the other chiefs no attempt was made to change the supreme +command yet confidence at any rate in the commander-in-chief +was paralyzed. To these painful consequences of the defeats endured +were added the injurious influences of the emigration. +Among the refugees who arrived there were certainly a number +of efficient soldiers and capable officers, especially those +belonging to the former Spanish army; but the number of those +who came to serve and fight was just as small as that of the generals +of quality who called themselves proconsuls and imperators +with as good title as Pompeius, and of the genteel lords +who took part in active military service more or less reluctantly, +was alarmingly great. Through these the mode of life in the capital +was introduced into the camp, not at all to the advantage of the army; +the tents of such grandees were graceful bowers, the ground +elegantly covered with fresh turf, the walls clothed with ivy; +silver plate stood on the table, and the wine-cup often circulated +there even in broad daylight. Those fashionable warriors formed +a singular contrast with Caesar's daredevils, who ate coarse bread +from which the former recoiled, and who, when that failed, devoured +even roots and swore that they would rather chew the bark of trees +than desist from the enemy. While, moreover, the action +of Pompeius was hampered by the necessity of having regard +to the authority of a collegiate board personally disinclined to him, +this embarrassment was singularly increased when the senate of emigrants +took up its abode almost in his very headquarters and all the venom +of the emigrants now found vent in these senatorial sittings. +Lastly there was nowhere any man of mark, who could have thrown +his own weight into the scale against all these preposterous doings. +Pompeius himself was intellectually far too secondary for that purpose, +and far too hesitating, awkward, and reserved. Marcus Cato +would have had at least the requisite moral authority, and would not +have lacked the good will to support Pompeius with it; but Pompeius, +instead of calling him to his assistance, out of distrustful +jealousy kept him in the background, and preferred for instance +to commit the highly important chief command of the fleet +to the in every respect incapable Marcus Bibulus rather than to Cato. + + +The Legions of Pompeius + +While Pompeius thus treated the political aspect of his position +with his characteristic perversity, and did his best to make +what was already bad in itself still worse, he devoted himself +on the other hand with commendable zeal to his duty of giving military +organization to the considerable but scattered forces of his party. +The flower of his force was composed of the troops brought with him +from Italy, out of which with the supplementary aid of the Illyrian +prisoners of war and the Romans domiciled in Greece five legions +in all were formed. Three others came from the east--the two Syrian +legions formed from the remains of the army of Crassus, and one made up +out of the two weak legions hitherto stationed in Cilicia. +Nothing stood in the way of the withdrawal of these corps of occupation: +because on the one hand the Pompeians had an understanding +with the Parthians, and might even have had an alliance with them +if Pompeius had not indignantly refused to pay them the price +which they demanded for it--the cession of the Syrian province +added by himself to the empire; and on the other hand +Caesar's plan of despatching two legions to Syria, and inducing +the Jews once more to take up arms by means of the prince Aristobulus +kept a prisoner in Rome, was frustrated partly by other causes, +partly by the death of Aristobulus. New legions were moreover raised-- +one from the veteran soldiers settled in Crete and Macedonia, +two from the Romans of Asia Minor. To all these fell to be added +2000 volunteers, who were derived from the remains of the Spanish +select corps and other similar sources; and, lastly, the contingents +of the subjects. Pompeius like Caesar had disdained to make +requisitions of infantry from them; only the Epirot, Aetolian, +and Thracian militia were called out to guard the coast, and moreover +3000 archers from Greece and Asia Minor and 1200 slingers +were taken up as light troops. + +His Cavalry + +The cavalry on the other hand--with the exception of a noble guard, +more respectable than militarily important, formed from the young +aristocracy of Rome, and of the Apulian slave-herdsmen whom Pompeius +had mounted (25)--consisted exclusively of the contingents +of the subjects and clients of Rome. The flower of it consisted +of the Celts, partly from the garrison of Alexandria,(26) +partly the contingents of king Deiotarus who in spite of his great age +had appeared in person at the head of his troops, and of the other +Galatian dynasts. With them were associated the excellent Thracian +horsemen, who were partly brought up by their princes Sadala +and Rhascuporis, partly enlisted by Pompeius in the Macedonian province; +the Cappadocian cavalry; the mounted archers sent by Antiochus +king of Commagene; the contingents of the Armenians from the west side +of the Euphrates under Taxiles, and from the other side under Megabates, +and the Numidian bands sent by king Juba--the whole body amounted +to 7000 horsemen. + +Fleet + +Lastly the fleet of Pompeius was very considerable. It was formed +partly of the Roman transports brought from Brundisium +or subsequently built, partly of the war vessels of the king of Egypt, +of the Colchian princes, of the Cilician dynast Tarcondimotus, +of the cities of Tyre, Rhodes, Athens, Corcyra, and generally +of all the Asiatic and Greek maritime states; and it numbered nearly +500 sail, of which the Roman vessels formed a fifth. Immense magazines +of corn and military stores were accumulated in Dyrrhachium. +The war-chest was well filled, for the Pompeians found themselves +in possession of the principal sources of the public revenue +and turned to their own account the moneyed resources of the client- +princes, of the senators of distinction, of the farmers of the taxes, +and generally of the whole Roman and non-Roman population +within their reach. Every appliance that the reputation +of the legitimate government and the much-renowned protectorship +of Pompeius over kings and peoples could move in Africa, Egypt, +Macedonia, Greece, Western Asia and Syria, had been put in motion +for the protection of the Roman republic; the report which circulated +in Italy that Pompeius was arming the Getae, Colchians, +and Armenians against Rome, and the designation of "king of kings" +given to Pompeius in the camp, could hardly be called exaggerations. +On the whole he had command over an army of 7000 cavalry +and eleven legions, of which it is true, but five at the most +could be described as accustomed to war, and over a fleet of 500 sail. +The temper of the soldiers, for whose provisioning and pay Pompeius +manifested adequate care, and to whom in the event of victory the most +abundant rewards were promised, was throughout good, in several-- +and these precisely the most efficient--divisions even excellent +but a great part of the army consisted of newly-raised troops, +the formation and training of which, however zealously it was prosecuted, +necessarily required time. The force altogether was imposing, +but at the same time of a somewhat motley character. + +Junction of the Pompeians on the Coast of Epirus + +According to the design of the commander-in-chief the army and fleet +were to be in substance completely united by the winter of 705-706 +along the coast and in the waters of Epirus. The admiral Bibulus +had already arrived with no ships at his new headquarters, Corcyra. +On the other hand the land-army, the headquarters of which had been +during the summer at Berrhoea on the Haliacmon, had not yet come up; +the mass of it was moving slowly along the great highway +from Thessalonica towards the west coast to the future headquarters +Dyrrhachium; the two legions, which Metellus Scipio was bringing up +from Syria, remained at Pergamus in Asia for winter quarters +and were expected in Europe only towards spring. They were taking time +in fact for their movements. For the moment the ports of Epirus +were guarded, over and above the fleet, merely by their own +civic defences and the levies of the adjoining districts. + +Caesar against Pompeius + +It thus remained possible for Caesar, notwithstanding the intervention +of the Spanish war, to assume the offensive also in Macedonia; +and he at least was not slow to act. He had long ago ordered +the collection of vessels of war and transports in Brundisium, +and after the capitulation of the Spanish army and the fall +of Massilia had directed the greater portion of the select troops +employed there to proceed to that destination. The unparalleled +exertions no doubt, which were thus required by Caesar +from his soldiers, thinned the ranks more than their conflicts had done +and the mutiny of one of the four oldest legions, the ninth +on its march through Placentia was a dangerous indication +of the temper prevailing in the army; but Caesar's presence of mind +and personal authority gained the mastery, and from this quarter +nothing impeded the embarkation. But the want of ships, through which +the pursuit of Pompeius had failed in March 705, threatened also +to frustrate this expedition. The war-vessels, which Caesar +had given orders to build in the Gallic, Sicilian, and Italian ports, +were not yet ready or at any rate not on the spot; his squadron +in the Adriatic had been in the previous year destroyed at Curicta;(27) +he found at Brundisium not more than twelve ships of war +and scarcely transports enough to convey over at once the third part +of his army--of twelve legions and 10,000 cavalry--destined for Greece. +The considerable fleet of the enemy exclusively commanded +the Adriatic and especially all the harbours of the mainland +and islands on its eastern coast. Under such circumstances +the question presents itself, why Caesar did not instead +of the maritime route choose the land route through Illyria, +which relieved him from all the perils threatened by the fleet +and besides was shorter for his troops, who mostly came from Gaul, +than the route by Brundisium. It is true that the regions +of Illyria were rugged and poor beyond description; but they +were traversed by other armies not long afterwards, and this obstacle +can hardly have appeared insurmountable to the conqueror of Gaul. +Perhaps he apprehended that during the troublesome march +through Illyria Pompeius might convey his whole force over the Adriatic, +whereby their parts might come at once to be changed--with Caesar +in Macedonia, and Pompeius in Italy; although such a rapid change +was scarcely to be expected from his slow-moving antagonist. +Perhaps Caesar had decided for the maritime route on the supposition +that his fleet would meanwhile be brought into a condition +to command respect, and, when after his return from Spain +he became aware of the true state of things in the Adriatic, +it might be too late to change the plan of campaign. Perhaps-- +and, in accordance with Caesar's quick temperament always urging him +to decision, we may even say in all probability--he found himself +irresistibly tempted by the circumstance that the Epirot coast +was still at the moment unoccupied but would certainly be covered +in a few days by the enemy, to thwart once more by a bold stroke +the whole plan of his antagonist. + +Caesar Lands in Epirus +First Successes + +However this may be, on the 4th Jan. 706(28) Caesar set sail +with six legions greatly thinned by toil and sickness and 600 horsemen +from Brundisium for the coast of Epirus. It was a counterpart +to the foolhardy Britannic expedition; but at least the first throw +was fortunate. The coast was reached in the middle of the Acroceraunian +(Chimara) cliffs, at the little-frequented roadstead of Paleassa +(Paljassa). The transports were seen both from the harbour of Oricum +(creek of Avlona) where a Pompeian squadron of eighteen sail was lying, +and from the headquarters of the hostile fleet at Corcyra; +but in the one quarter they deemed themselves too weak, +in the other they were not ready to sail, so that the first freight +was landed without hindrance. While the vessels at once returned +to bring over the second, Caesar on that same evening scaled +the Acroceraunian mountains. His first successes were as great +as the surprise of his enemies. The Epirot militia nowhere +offered resistance; the important seaport towns of Oricum +and Apollonia along with a number of smaller townships were taken, +and Dyrrhachium, selected by the Pompeians as their chief arsenal +and filled with stores of all sorts, but only feebly garrisoned, +was in the utmost danger. + +Caesar Cut Off from Italy + +But the further course of the campaign did not correspond +to this brilliant beginning. Bibulus subsequently made up in some measure +for the negligence, of which he had allowed himself to be guilty, +by redoubling his exertions. He not only captured nearly thirty +of the transports returning home, and caused them with every living +thing on board to be burnt, but he also established along +the whole district of coast occupied by Caesar, from the island Sason +(Saseno) as far as the ports of Corcyra, a most careful watch, +however troublesome it was rendered by the inclement season +of the year and the necessity of bringing everything necessary +for the guard-ships, even wood and water, from Corcyra; in fact +his successor Libo--for he himself soon succumbed to the unwonted +fatigues--even blockaded for a time the port of Brundisium, +till the want of water again dislodged him from the little island +in front of it on which he had established himself. It was +not possible for Caesar's officers to convey the second portion +of the army over to their general. As little did he himself +succeed in the capture of Dyrrhachium. Pompeius learned through +one of Caesar's peace envoys as to his preparations for the voyage +to the Epirot coast, and, thereupon accelerating his march, +threw himself just at the right time into that important arsenal. +The situation of Caesar was critical. Although he extended his range +in Epirus as far as with his slight strength was at all possible, +the subsistence of his army remained difficult and precarious, +while the enemy, in possession of the magazines of Dyrrhachium +and masters of the sea, had abundance of everything. With his army +presumably little above 20,000 strong he could not offer battle +to that of Pompeius at least twice as numerous, but had to deem himself +fortunate that Pompeius went methodically to work and, instead +of immediately forcing a battle, took up his winter quarters +between Dyrrhachium and Apollonia on the right bank of the Apsus, +facing Caesar on the left, in order that after the arrival +of the legions from Pergamus in the spring he might annihilate +the enemy with an irresistibly superior force. Thus months passed. +If the arrival of the better season, which brought to the enemy +a strong additional force and the free use of his fleet, found Caesar +still in the same position, he was to all appearance lost, +with his weak band wedged in among the rocks of Epirus between +the immense fleet and the three times superior land army of the enemy; +and already the winter was drawing to a close. His sole hope +still depended on the transport fleet; that it should steal +or fight its way through the blockade was hardly to be hoped for; +but after the first voluntary foolhardiness this second venture +was enjoined by necessity. How desperate his situation appeared +to Caesar himself, is shown by his resolution--when the fleet +still came not--to sail alone in a fisherman's boat across the Adriatic +to Brundisium in order to fetch it; which, in reality, was only abandoned +because no mariner was found to undertake the daring voyage. + +Antonius Proceed to Epirus + +But his appearance in person was not needed to induce +the faithful officer who commanded in Italy, Marcus Antonius, +to make this last effort for the saving of his master. Once more +the transport fleet, with four legions and 800 horsemen on board +sailed from the harbour of Brundisium, and fortunately a strong +south wind carried it past Libo's galleys. But the same wind, +which thus saved the fleet, rendered it impossible for it to land +as it was directed on the coast of Apollonia, and compelled it +to sail past the camps of Caesar and Pompeius and to steer +to the north of Dyrrhachium towards Lissus, which town +fortunately still adhered to Caesar.(29) When it sailed +past the harbour of Dyrrhachium, the Rhodian galleys started +in pursuit, and hardly had the ships of Antonius entered +the port of Lissus when the enemy's squadron appeared before it. +But just at this moment the wind suddenly veered, and drove +the pursuing galleys back into the open sea and partly +on the rocky coast. Through the most marvellous good fortune +the landing of the second freight had also been successful. + +Junction of Caesar's Army + +Antonius and Caesar were no doubt still some four days' march +from each other, separated by Dyrrhachium and the whole army +of the enemy; but Antonius happily effected the perilous march +round about Dyrrhachium through the passes of the Graba Balkan, +and was received by Caesar, who had gone to meet him, on the right bank +of the Apsus. Pompeius, after having vainly attempted to prevent +the junction of the two armies of the enemy and to force the corps +of Antonius to fight by itself, took up a new position at Asparagium +on the river Genusus (Skumbi), which flows parallel to the Apsus +between the latter and the town of Dyrrhachium, and here remained +once more immoveable. Caesar felt himself now strong enough +to give battle; but Pompeius declined it. On the other hand Caesar +succeeded in deceiving his adversary and throwing himself unawares +with his better marching troops, just as at Ilerda, between +the enemy's camp and the fortress of Dyrrhachium on which it rested +as a basis. The chain of the Graba Balkan, which stretching +in a direction from east to west ends on the Adriatic +in the narrow tongue of land at Dyrrhachium, sends off--fourteen miles +to the east of Dyrrhachium--in a south-westerly direction a lateral +branch which likewise turns in the form of a crescent towards the sea, +and the main chain and lateral branch of the mountains enclose +between themselves a small plain extending round a cliff on the seashore. + +Pompeius now took up his camp, and, although Caesar's army kept +the land route to Dyrrhachium closed against him, he yet with the aid +of his fleet remained constantly in communication with the town +and was amply and easily provided from it with everything needful; +while among the Caesarians, notwithstanding strong detachments +to the country lying behind, and notwithstanding all the exertions +of the general to bring about an organized system of conveyance +and thereby a regular supply, there was more than scarcity, and flesh, +barley, nay even roots had very frequently to take the place +of the wheat to which they were accustomed. + +Caesar Invests the Camp of Pompeius + +As his phlegmatic opponent persevered in his inaction, Caesar +undertook to occupy the circle of heights which enclosed the plain +on the shore held by Pompeius, with the view of being able at least +to arrest the movements of the superior cavalry of the enemy +and to operate with more freedom against Dyrrhachium, and if possible +to compel his opponent either to battle or to embarkation. Nearly +the half of Caesar's troops was detached to the interior; +it seemed almost Quixotic to propose with the rest virtually +to besiege an army perhaps twice as strong, concentrated in position, +and resting on the sea and the fleet. Yet Caesar's veterans by infinite +exertions invested the Pompeian camp with a chain of posts +sixteen miles long, and afterwards added, just as before Alesia, +to this inner line a second outer one, to protect themselves +against attacks from Dyrrhachium and against attempts to turn +their position which could so easily be executed with the aid +of the fleet. Pompeius attacked more than once portions +of these entrenchments with a view to break if possible the enemy's line, +but he did not attempt to prevent the investment by a battle; +he preferred to construct in his turn a number of entrenchments +around his camp, and to connect them with one another by lines. +Both sides exerted themselves to push forward their trenches +as far as possible, and the earthworks advanced but slowly amidst +constant conflicts. At the same time skirmishing went on +on the opposite side of Caesar's camp with the garrison of Dyrrhachium; +Caesar hoped to get the fortress into his power by means +of an understanding with some of its inmates, but was prevented +by the enemy's fleet. There was incessant fighting at very different +points--on one of the hottest days at six places simultaneously-- +and, as a rule, the tried valour of the Caesarians had the advantage +in these skirmishes; once, for instance, a single cohort +maintained itself in its entrenchments against four legions +for several hours, till support came up. No prominent success +was attained on either side; yet the effects of the investment came +by degrees to be oppressively felt by the Pompeians. The stopping +of the rivulets flowing from the heights into the plain compelled them +to be content with scanty and bad well-water. Still more severely felt +was the want of fodder for the beasts of burden and the horses, +which the fleet was unable adequately to remedy; numbers of them died, +and it was of but little avail that the horses were conveyed by the fleet +to Dyrrhachium, because there also they did not find sufficient fodder. + +Caesar's Lines Broken +Caesar Once More Defeated + +Pompeius could not much longer delay to free himself +from his disagreeable position by a blow struck against the enemy. +He was informed by Celtic deserters that the enemy had neglected +to secure the beach between his two chains of entrenchments +600 feet distant from each other by a cross-wall, and on this +he formed his plan. While he caused the inner line of Caesar's +entrenchments to be attacked by the legions from the camp, +and the outer line by the light troops placed in vessels +and landed beyond the enemy's entrenchments, a third division +landed in the space left between the two lines and attacked +in the rear their already sufficiently occupied defenders. +The entrenchment next to the sea was taken, and the garrison fled +in wild confusion; with difficulty the commander of the next trench +Marcus Antonius succeeded in maintaining it and in setting +a limit for the moment to the advance of the Pompeians; but; +apart from the considerable loss, the outermost entrenchment +along the sea remained in the hands of the Pompeians and the lin +was broken through. Caesar the more eagerly seized the opportunity, +which soon after presented itself, of attacking a Pompeian legion, +which had incautiously become isolated, with the bulk +of his infantry. But the attacked offered valiant resistance, +and, as the ground on which the fight took place had been several times +employed for the encampment of larger and lesser divisions +and was intersected in various directions by mounds and ditches, +Caesar's right wing along with the cavalry entirely missed its way; +instead of supporting the left in attacking the Pompeian legion, +it got into a narrow trench that led from one of the old camps +towards the river. So Pompeius, who came up in all haste +with five legions to the aid of his troops, found the two wings +of the enemy separated from each other, and one of them +in an utterly forlorn position. When the Caesarians saw him advance, +a panic seized them; the whole plunged into disorderly flight; +and, if the matter ended with the loss of 1000 of the best soldiers +and Caesar's army did not sustain a complete defeat, this was due +simply to the circumstance that Pompeius also could not freely +develop his force on the broken ground, and to the further fact that, +fearing a stratagem, he at first held back his troops. + +Consequences of Caesar's Defeats + +But, even as it was, these days were fraught with mischief. +Not only had Caesar endured the most serious losses and forfeited +at a blow his entrenchments, the result of four months of gigantic +labour; he was by the recent engagements thrown back again exactly +to the point from which he had set out. From the sea he was +more completely driven than ever, since Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus +had by a bold attack partly burnt, partly carried off, Caesar's +few ships of war lying in the port of Oricum, and had soon afterwards +also set fire to the transport fleet that was left behind in Lissus; +all possibility of bringing up fresh reinforcements to Caesar +by sea from Brundisium was thus lost. The numerous Pompeian cavalry, +now released from their confinement, poured themselves over +the adjacent country and threatened to render the provisioning +of Caesar's army, which had always been difficult, utterly impossible. +Caesar's daring enterprise of carrying on offensive operations +without ships against an enemy in command of the sea and resting +on his fleet had totally failed. On what had hitherto been +the theatre of war he found himself in presence of an impregnable +defensive position, and unable to strike a serious blow either +against Dyrrhachium or against the hostile army; on the other hand +it depended now solely on Pompeius whether he should proceed +to attack under the most favourable circumstances an antagonist +already in grave danger as to his means of subsistence. The war +had arrived at a crisis. Hitherto Pompeius had, to all appearance, +played the game of war without special plan, and only adjusted +his defence according to the exigencies of each attack; and this was +not to be censured, for the protraction of the war gave him opportunity +of making his recruits capable of fighting, of bringing up his reserves, +and of bringing more fully into play the superiority of his fleet +in the Adriatic. Caesar was beaten not merely in tactics +but also in strategy. This defeat had not, it is true, +that effect which Pompeius not without reason expected; the eminent +soldierly energy of Caesar's veterans did not allow matters +to come to an immediate and total breaking up of the army +by hunger and mutiny. But yet it seemed as if it depended solely +on his opponent by judiciously following up his victory +to reap its full fruits. + +War Prospects of Pompeius +Scipio and Calvinus + +It was for Pompeius to assume the aggressive; and he was resolved +to do so. Three different ways of rendering his victory fruitful +presented themselves to him. The first and simplest was not to desist +from assailing the vanquished army, and, if it departed, +to pursue it. Secondly, Pompeius might leave Caesar himself +and his best troops in Greece, and might cross in person, as he had +long been making preparations for doing, with the main army to Italy, +where the feeling was decidedly antimonarchical and the forces +of Caesar, after the despatch of the best troops and their brave +and trustworthy commandant to the Greek army, would not be +of very much moment. Lastly, the victor might turn inland, +effect a junction with the legions of Metellus Scipio, and attempt +to capture the troops of Caesar stationed in the interior. +The latter forsooth had, immediately after the arrival of the second +freight from Italy, on the one hand despatched strong detachments +to Aetolia and Thessaly to procure means of subsistence for his army, +and on the other had ordered a corps of two legions under Gnaeus +Domitius Calvinus to advance on the Egnatian highway towards Macedonia, +with the view of intercepting and if possible defeating in detail +the corps of Scipio advancing on the same road from Thessalonica. +Calvinus and Scipio had already approached within a few miles +of each other, when Scipio suddenly turned southward and, rapidly +crossing the Haliacmon (Inje Karasu) and leaving his baggage there +under Marcus Favonius, penetrated into Thessaly, in order to attack +with superior force Caesar's legion of recruits employed +in the reduction of the country under Lucius Cassius Longinus. +But Longinus retired over the mountains towards Ambracia to join +the detachment under Gnaeus Calvisius Sabinus sent by Caesar +to Aetolia, and Scipio could only cause him to be pursued +by his Thracian cavalry, for Calvinus threatened his reserve +left behind under Favonius on the Haliacmon with the same fate +which he had himself destined for Longinus. So Calvinus and Scipio +met again on the Haliacmon, and encamped there for a considerable time +opposite to each other. + +Caesar's Retreat from Dyrrachium to Thessaly + +Pompeius might choose among these plans; no choice was left to Caesar. +After that unfortunate engagement he entered on his retreat to Apollonia. +Pompeius followed. The march from Dyrrhachium to Apollonia +along a difficult road crossed by several rivers was no easy task +for a defeated army pursued by the enemy; but the dexterous leadership +of their general and the indestructible marching energy of the soldiers +compelled Pompeius after four days' pursuit to suspend it as useless. +He had now to decide between the Italian expedition and the march +into the interior. However advisable and attractive the former +might seem, and though various voices were raised in its favour, +he preferred not to abandon the corps of Scipio, the more especially +as he hoped by this march to get the corps of Calvinus into his hands. +Calvinus lay at the moment on the Egnatian road at Heraclea Lyncestis, +between Pompeius and Scipio, and, after Caesar had retreated +to Apollonia, farther distant from the latter than from the great army +of Pompeius; without knowledge, moreover, of the events at Dyrrhachium +and of his hazardous position, since after the successes achieved +at Dyrrhachium the whole country inclined to Pompeius and the messengers +of Caesar were everywhere seized. It was not till the enemy's +main force had approached within a few hours of him that Calvinus +learned from the accounts of the enemy's advanced posts themselves +the state of things. A quick departure in a southerly direction +towards Thessaly withdrew him at the last moment from imminent +destruction; Pompeius had to content himself with having +liberated Scipio from his position of peril. Caesar had meanwhile +arrived unmolested at Apollonia. Immediately after the disaster +of Dyrrhachium he had resolved if possible to transfer the struggle +from the coast away into the interior, with the view of getting beyond +the reach of the enemy's fleet--the ultimate cause of the failure +of his previous exertions. The march to Apollonia had only been intended +to place his wounded in safety and to pay his soldiers there, +where his depots were stationed; as soon as this was done, +he set out for Thessaly, leaving behind garrisons in Apollonia, +Oricum, and Lissus. The corps of Calvinus had also put itself +in motion towards Thessaly; and Caesar could effect a junction +with the reinforcements coming up from Italy, this time by the land-route +through Illyria--two legions under Quintus Cornificius--still more easily +in Thessaly than in Epirus. Ascending by difficult paths in the valley +of the Aous and crossing the mountain-chain which separates Epirus +from Thessaly, he arrived at the Peneius; Calvinus was likewise +directed thither, and the junction of the two armies was thus accomplished +by the shortest route and that which was least exposed to the enemy. +It took place at Aeginium not far from the source of the Peneius. +The first Thessalian town before which the now united army appeared, +Gomphi, closed its gates against it; it was quickly stormed and given up +to pillage, and the other towns of Thessaly terrified by this example +submitted, so soon as Caesar's legions merely appeared before the walls. +Amidst these marches and conflicts, and with the help of the supplies-- +albeit not too ample--which the region on the Peneius afforded, +the traces and recollections of the calamitous days through which +they had passed gradually vanished. + +The victories of Dyrrhachium had thus borne not much immediate fruit +for the victors. Pompeius with his unwieldy army and his numerous +cavalry had not been able to follow his versatile enemy +into the mountains; Caesar like Calvinus had escaped from pursuit, +and the two stood united and in full security in Thessaly. +Perhaps it would have been the best course, if Pompeius had now +without delay embarked with his main force for Italy, where success +was scarcely doubtful. But in the meantime only a division +of the fleet departed for Sicily and Italy. In the camp of the coalition +the contest with Caesar was looked on as so completely decided +by the battles of Dyrrhachium that it only remained to reap the fruits +of victory, in other words, to seek out and capture the defeated army. +Their former over-cautious reserve was succeeded by an arrogance +still less justified by the circumstances; they gave no heed +to the facts, that they had, strictly speaking, failed in the pursuit, +that they had to hold themselves in readiness to encounter +a completely refreshed and reorganized army in Thessaly, +and that there was no small risk in moving away from the sea, +renouncing the support of the fleet, and following their antagonist +to the battlefield chosen by himself. They were simply resolved +at any price to fight with Caesar, and therefore to get at him +as soon as possible and by the most convenient way. Cato took up +the command in Dyrrhachium, where a garrison was left behind +of eighteen cohorts, and in Corcyra, where 300 ships of war were left; +Pompeius and Scipio proceeded--the former, apparently, following +the Egnatian way as far as Pella and then striking into the great road +to the south, the latter from the Haliacmon through the passes +of Olympus--to the lower Peneius and met at Larisa. + +The Armies at Pharsalus + +Caesar lay to the south of Larisa in the plain--which extends +between the hill-country of Cynoscephalae and the chain of Othrys +and is intersected by a tributary of the Peneius, the Enipeus-- +on the left bank of the latter stream near the town of Pharsalus; +Pompeius pitched his camp opposite to him on the right bank +of the Enipeus along the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae.(30) +The entire army of Pompeius was assembled; Caesar on the other hand +still expected the corps of nearly two legions formerly detached +to Aetolia and Thessaly, now stationed under Quintus Fufius Calenus +in Greece, and the two legions of Cornificius which were sent +after him by the land-route from Italy and had already arrived +in Illyria. The army of Pompeius, numbering eleven legions +or 47,000 men and 7000 horse, was more than double that of Caesar +in infantry, and seven times as numerous in cavalry; fatigue +and conflicts had so decimated Caesar's troops, that his eight legions +did not number more than 22,000 men under arms, consequently +not nearly the half of their normal amount. The victorious army +of Pompeius provided with a countless cavalry and good magazines had +provisions in abundance, while the troops of Caesar had difficulty +in keeping themselves alive and only hoped for better supplies +from the corn-harvest not far distant. The Pompeian soldiers, +who had learned in the last campaign to know war and trust their leader, +were in the best of humour. All military reasons on the side +of Pompeius favoured the view, that the decisive battle should not be +long delayed, seeing that they now confronted Caesar in Thessaly; +and the emigrant impatience of the many genteel officers and others +accompanying the army doubtless had more weight than even such reasons +in the council of war. Since the events of Dyrrhachium +these lords regarded the triumph of their party as an ascertained fact; +already there was eager strife as to the filling up of Caesar's +supreme pontificate, and instructions were sent to Rome +to hire houses at the Forum for the next elections. When Pompeius +hesitated on his part to cross the rivulet which separated +the two armies, and which Caesar with his much weaker army +did not venture to pass, this excited great indignation; Pompeius, +it was alleged, only delayed the battle in order to rule somewhat longer +over so many consulars and praetorians and to perpetuate his part +of Agamemnon. Pompeius yielded; and Caesar, who under the impression +that matters would not come to a battle, had just projected +a mode of turning the enemy's army and for that purpose was on the point +of setting out towards Scotussa, likewise arrayed his legions for battle, +when he saw the Pompeians preparing to offer it to him on his bank. + +The Battle + +Thus the battle of Pharsalus was fought on the 9th August 706, +almost on the same field where a hundred and fifty years before +the Romans had laid the foundation of their dominion in the east.(31) +Pompeius rested his right wing on the Enipeus; Caesar opposite +to him rested his left on the broken ground stretching in front +of the Enipeus; the two other wings were stationed out in the plain, +covered in each case by the cavalry and the light troops. +The intention of Pompeius was to keep his infantry on the defensive, +but with his cavalry to scatter the weak band of horsemen which, +mixed after the German fashion with light infantry, confronted him, +and then to take Caesar's right wing in rear. His infantry +courageously sustained the first charge of that of the enemy, +and the engagement there came to a stand. Labienus likewise dispersed +the enemy's cavalry after a brave but short resistance, +and deployed his force to the left with the view of turning +the infantry. But Caesar, foreseeing the defeat of his cavalry, +had stationed behind it on the threatened flank of his right wing +some 2000 of his best legionaries. As the enemy's horsemen, +driving those of Caesar before them, galloped along and around the line, +they suddenly came upon this select corps advancing intrepidly +against them and, rapidly thrown into confusion by the unexpected +and unusual infantry attack,(32) they galloped at full speed +from the field of battle. The victorious legionaries cut to pieces +the enemy's archers now unprotected, then rushed at the left wing +of the enemy, and began now on their part to turn it. At the same time +Caesar's third division hitherto reserved advanced along +the whole line to the attack. The unexpected defeat of the best arm +of the Pompeian army, as it raised the courage of their opponents, +broke that of the army and above all that of the general. When Pompeius, +who from the outset did not trust his infantry, saw the horsemen +gallop off, he rode back at once from the field of battle to the camp, +without even awaiting the issue of the general attack ordered by Caesar. +His legions began to waver and soon to retire over the brook +into the camp, which was not accomplished without severe loss. + +Its Issue +Flight of Pompeius + +The day was thus lost and many an able soldier had fallen, +but the army was still substantially intact, and the situation +of Pompeius was far less perilous than that of Caesar after the defeat +of Dyrrhachium. But while Caesar in the vicissitudes of his destiny +had learned that fortune loves to withdraw herself at certain moments +even from her favourites in order to be once more won back +through their perseverance, Pompeius knew fortune hitherto +only as the constant goddess, and despaired of himself and of her +when she withdrew from him; and, while in Caesar's grander nature +despair only developed yet mightier energies, the inferior soul +of Pompeius under similar pressure sank into the infinite abyss +of despondency. As once in the war with Sertorius he had been +on the point of abandoning the office entrusted to him in presence +of his superior opponent and of departing,(33) so now, when he saw +the legions retire over the stream, he threw from him the fatal +general's scarf, and rode off by the nearest route to the sea, +to find means of embarking there. His army discouraged and leaderless-- +for Scipio, although recognized by Pompeius as colleague in supreme +command, was yet general-in-chief only in name--hoped to find protection +behind the camp-walls; but Caesar allowed it no rest; the obstinate +resistance of the Roman and Thracian guard of the camp was speedily +overcome, and the mass was compelled to withdraw in disorder +to the heights of Crannon and Scotussa, at the foot of which +the camp was pitched. It attempted by moving forward along these hills +to regain Larisa; but the troops of Caesar, heeding neither +booty nor fatigue and advancing by better paths in the plain, +intercepted the route of the fugitives; in fact, when late +in the evening the Pompeians suspended their march, their pursuers +were able even to draw an entrenched line which precluded +the fugitives from access to the only rivulet to be found +in the neighbourhood. So ended the day of Pharsalus. The enemy's army +was not only defeated, but annihilated; 15,000 of the enemy +lay dead or wounded on the field of battle, while the Caesarians missed +only 200 men; the body which remained together, amounting still +to nearly 20,000 men, laid down their arms on the morning after +the battle only isolated troops, including, it is true, the officers +of most note, sought a refuge in the mountains; of the eleven eagles +of the enemy nine were handed over to Caesar. Caesar, +who on the very day of the battle had reminded the soldiers +that they should not forget the fellow-citizen in the foe, +did not treat the captives as did Bibulus and Labienus; +nevertheless he too found it necessary now to exercise some severity. +The common soldiers were incorporated in the army, fines +or confiscations of property were inflicted on the men of better rank; +the senators and equites of note who were taken, with few exceptions, +suffered death. The time for clemency was past; the longer +the civil war lasted, the more remorseless and implacable it became. + +The Political Effects of the Battle of Pharsalus +The East Submits + +Some time elapsed, before the consequences of the 9th of August 706 +could be fully discerned. What admitted of least doubt, +was the passing over to the side of Caesar of all those +who had attached themselves to the party vanquished at Pharsalus +merely as to the more powerful; the defeat was so thoroughly +decisive, that the victor was joined by all who were not willing +or were not obliged to fight for a lost cause. All the kings, +peoples, and cities, which had hitherto been the clients of Pompeius, +now recalled their naval and military contingents and declined +to receive the refugees of the beaten party; such as Egypt, Cyrene, +the communities of Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia and Asia Minor, Rhodes, +Athens, and generally the whole east. In fact Pharnaces +king of the Bosporus pushed his officiousness so far, that on the news +of the Pharsalian battle he took possession not only of the town +of Phanagoria which several years before had been declared free +by Pompeius, and of the dominions of the Colchian princes confirmed +by him, but even of the kingdom of Little Armenia which Pompeius +had conferred on king Deiotarus. Almost the sole exceptions +to this general submission were the little town of Megara +which allowed itself to be besieged and stormed by the Caesarians, +and Juba king of Numidia, who had for long expected, and after the victory +over Curio expected only with all the greater certainty, that his kingdom +would be annexed by Caesar, and was thus obliged for better or for worse +to abide by the defeated party. + +The Aristocracy after the Battle of Pharsalus + +In the same way as the client communities submitted to the victor +of Pharsalus, the tail of the constitutional party--all who had +joined it with half a heart or had even, like Marcus Cicero +and his congeners, merely danced around the aristocracy like the witches +around the Brocken--approached to make their peace with the new monarch, +a peace accordingly which his contemptuous indulgence readily +and courteously granted to the petitioners. But the flower +of the defeated party made no compromise. All was over +with the aristocracy; but the aristocrats could never become converted +to monarchy. The highest revelations of humanity are perishable; +the religion once true may become a lie,(34) the polity once fraught +with blessing may become a curse; but even the gospel that is past +still finds confessors, and if such a faith cannot remove mountains +like faith in the living truth, it yet remains true to itself +down to its very end, and does not depart from the realm of the living +till it has dragged its last priests and its last partisans +along with it, and a new generation, freed from those shadows of the past +and the perishing, rules over a world that has renewed its youth. +So it was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic +rule had now sunk, it had once been a great political system; +the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal +had been vanquished, continued to glow--although somewhat dimmed +and dull--in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed, +and rendered a cordial understanding between the men of the old regime +and the new monarch impossible. A large portion of the constitutional +party submitted at least outwardly, and recognized the monarchy +so far as to accept pardon from Caesar and to retire as much as possible +into private life; which, however, ordinarily was not done +without the mental reservation of thereby preserving themselves +for a future change of things. This course was chiefly followed +by the partisans of lesser note; but the able Marcus Marcellus, +the same who had brought about the rupture with Caesar,(35) +was to be found among these judicious persons and voluntarily +banished himself to Lesbos. In the majority, however, of the genuine +aristocracy passion was more powerful than cool reflection; +along with which, no doubt, self-deceptions as to success +being still possible and apprehensions of the inevitable +vengeance of the victor variously co-operated. + +Cato + +No one probably formed a judgment as to the situation of affairs +with so painful a clearness, and so free from fear or hope +on his own account, as Marcus Cato. Completely convinced +that after the days of Ilerda and Pharsalus the monarchy was inevitable, +and morally firm enough to confess to himself this bitter truth +and to act in accordance with it, he hesitated for a moment whether +the constitutional party ought at all to continue a war, which would +necessarily require sacrifices for a lost cause on the part of many +who did not know why they offered them. And when he resolved +to fight against the monarchy not for victory, but for a speedier +and more honourable fall, he yet sought as far as possible to draw +no one into this war, who chose to survive the fall of the republic +and to be reconciled to monarchy. He conceived that, so long +as the republic had been merely threatened, it was a right and a duty +to compel the lukewarm and bad citizen to take part in the struggle; +but that now it was senseless and cruel to compel the individual +to share the ruin of the lost republic. Not only did he himself +discharge every one who desired to return to Italy; but when the wildest +of the wild partisans, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger, insisted +on the execution of these people and of Cicero in particular: +it was Cato alone who by his moral authority prevented it. + +Pompeius + +Pompeius also had no desire for peace. Had he been a man +who deserved to hold the position which he occupied, we might suppose +him to have perceived that he who aspires to a crown cannot return +to the beaten track of ordinary existence, and that there is +accordingly no place left on earth for one who has failed. +But Pompeius was hardly too noble-minded to ask a favour, +which the victor would have been perhaps magnanimous enough +not to refuse to him; on the contrary, he was probably too mean +to do so. Whether it was that he could not make up his mind +to trust himself to Caesar, or that in his usual vague +and undecided way, after the first immediate impression of the disaster +of Pharsalus had vanished, be began again to cherish hope, Pompeius +was resolved to continue the struggle against Caesar and to seek +for himself yet another battle-field after that of Pharsalus. + +Military Effects of the Battle +The Leaders Scattered + +Thus, however much Caesar had striven by prudence and moderation +to appease the fury of his opponents and to lessen their number, +the struggle nevertheless went on without alteration. But the leading +men had almost all taken part in the fight at Pharsalus; +and, although they all escaped with the exception of Lucius Domitius +Ahenobarbus, who was killed in the flight, they were yet scattered +in all directions, so that they were unable to concert a common plan +for the continuance of the campaign. Most of them found their way, +partly through the desolate mountains of Macedonia and Illyria, +partly by the aid of the fleet, to Corcyra, where Marcus Cato +commanded the reserve left behind. Here a sort of council +of war took place under the presidency of Cato, at which Metellus Scipio, +Titus Labienus, Lucius Afranius, Gnaeus Pompeius the younger +and others were present; but the absence of the commander-in-chief +and the painful uncertainty as to his fate, as well as the internal +dissensions of the party, prevented the adoption of any common +resolution, and ultimately each took the course which seemed to him +the most suitable for himself or for the common cause. It was in fact +in a high degree difficult to say among the many straws +to which they might possibly cling which was the one +that would keep longest above water. + +Macedonia and Greece +Italy +The East +Egypt +Spain +Africa + +Macedonia and Greece were lost by the battle of Pharsalus. +It is true that Cato, who had immediately on the news of the defeat +evacuated Dyrrhachium, still held Corcyra, and Rutilius Lupus +the Peloponnesus, during a time for the constitutional party. +For a moment it seemed also as if the Pompeians would make a stand +at Patrae in the Peloponnesus; but the accounts of the advance +of Calenus sufficed to frighten them from that quarter. As little +was there any attempt to maintain Corcyra. On the Italian +and Sicilian coasts the Pompeian squadrons despatched thither +after the victories of Dyrrhachium(36) had achieved not unimportant +successes against the ports of Brundisium, Messana and Vibo, +and at Messana especially had burnt the whole fleet in course +of being fitted out for Caesar; but the ships that were thus active, +mostly from Asia Minor and Syria, were recalled by their communities +in consequence of the Pharsalian battle, so that the expedition +came to an end of itself. In Asia Minor and Syria there were +at the moment no troops of either party, with the exception +of the Bosporan army of Pharnaces which had taken possession, +ostensibly on Caesar's account, of different regions belonging +to his opponents. In Egypt there was still indeed a considerable +Roman army, formed of the troops left behind there by Gabinius(37) +and thereafter recruited from Italian vagrants and Syrian +or Cilician banditti; but it was self-evident and was soon +officially confirmed by the recall of the Egyptian vessels, +that the court of Alexandria by no means had the intention +of holding firmly by the defeated party or of even placing +its force of troops at their disposal. Somewhat more favourable +prospects presented themselves to the vanquished in the west. +In Spain Pompeian sympathies were so strong among the population, +that the Caesarians had on that account to give up the attack +which they contemplated from this quarter against Africa, +and an insurrection seemed inevitable, so soon as a leader of note +should appear in the peninsula. In Africa moreover the coalition, +or rather Juba king of Numidia, who was the true regent there, +had been arming unmolested since the autumn of 705. While the whole +east was consequently lost to the coalition by the battle +of Pharsalus, it might on the other hand continue the war +after an honourable manner probably in Spain, and certainly in Africa; +for to claim the aid of the king of Numidia, who had for a long time +been subject to the Roman community, against revolutionary fellow- +burgesses was for Romans a painful humiliation doubtless, but by no means +an act of treason. Those again who in this conflict of despair +had no further regard for right or honour, might declare themselves +beyond the pale of the law, and commence hostilities as robbers; +or might enter into alliance with independent neighbouring states, +and introduce the public foe into the intestine strife; or, lastly, +might profess monarchy with the lips and prosecute the restoration +of the legitimate republic with the dagger of the assassin. + +Hostilities of Robbers and Pirates + +That the vanquished should withdraw and renounce the new monarchy, +was at least the natural and so far the truest expression of their +desperate position. The mountains and above all the sea had been +in those times ever since the memory of man the asylum not only +of all crime, but also of intolerable misery and of oppressed right; +it was natural for Pompeians and republicans to wage a defiant war +against the monarchy of Caesar, which had ejected them, +in the mountains and on the seas, and especially natural for them +to take up piracy on a greater scale, with more compact organization, +and with more definite aims. Even after the recall of the squadrons +that had come from the east they still possessed a very considerable +fleet of their own, while Caesar was as yet virtually without +vessels of war; and their connection with the Dalmatae who had risen +in their own interest against Caesar,(38) and their control +over the most important seas and seaports, presented the most +advantageous prospects for a naval war, especially on a small scale. +As formerly Sulla's hunting out of the democrats had ended +in the Sertorian insurrection, which was a conflict first waged +by pirates and then by robbers and ultimately became a very serious war, +so possibly, if there was in the Catonian aristocracy or among +the adherents of Pompeius as much spirit and fire as in the Marian +democracy, and if there was found among them a true sea-king, +a commonwealth independent of the monarchy of Caesar and perhaps a match +for it might arise on the still unconquered sea. + +Parthian Alliance + +Far more serious disapproval in every respect is due to the idea +of dragging an independent neighbouring state into the Roman civil war +and of bringing about by its means a counter-revolution; +law and conscience condemn the deserter more severely than the robber, +and a victorious band of robbers finds its way back to a free +and well-ordered commonwealth more easily than the emigrants who are +conducted back by the public foe. Besides it was scarcely probable +that the beaten party would be able to effect a restoration in this way. +The only state, from which they could attempt to seek support, +was that of the Parthians; and as to this it was at least doubtful +whether it would make their cause its own, and very improbable +that it would fight out that cause against Caesar. + +The time for republican conspiracies had not yet come. + +Caesar Pursues Pompeius to Egypt + +While the remnant of the defeated party thus allowed themselves +to be helplessly driven about by fate, and even those +who had determined to continue the struggle knew not how or where +to do so, Caesar, quickly as ever resolving and quickly acting, +laid everything aside to pursue Pompeius--the only one of his opponents +whom he respected as an officer, and the one whose personal capture +would have probably paralyzed a half, and that perhaps +the more dangerous half, of his opponents. With a few men +he crossed the Hellespont--his single bark encountered in it a fleet +of the enemy destined for the Black Sea, and took the whole crews, +struck as with stupefaction by the news of the battle of Pharsalus, +prisoners--and as soon as the most necessary preparations were made, +hastened in pursuit of Pompeius to the east. The latter had gone +from the Pharsalian battlefield to Lesbos, whence he brought away +his wife and his second son Sextus, and had sailed onward round +Asia Minor to Cilicia and thence to Cyprus. He might have joined +his partisans at Corcyra or Africa; but repugnance toward his +aristocratic allies and the thought of the reception which awaited him +there after the day of Pharsalus and above all after his disgraceful +flight, appear to have induced him to take his own course +and rather to resort to the protection of the Parthian king +than to that of Cato. While he was employed in collecting money +and slaves from the Roman revenue-farmers and merchants in Cyprus, +and in arming a band of 2000 slaves, he received news that Antioch +had declared for Caesar and that the route to the Parthians +was no longer open. So he altered his plan and sailed to Egypt, +where a number of his old soldiers served in the army and the situation +and rich resources of the country allowed him time and opportunity +to reorganize the war. + +In Egypt, after the death of Ptolemaeus Auletes (May 703) +his children, Cleopatra about sixteen years of age and Ptolemaeus Dionysus +about ten, had ascended the throne according to their father's will +jointly, and as consorts; but soon the brother or rather his guardian +Pothinus had driven the sister from the kingdom and compelled her +to seek a refuge in Syria, whence she made preparations +to get back to her paternal kingdom. Ptolemaeus and Pothinus +lay with the whole Egyptian army at Pelusium for the sake +of protecting the eastern frontier against her, just when Pompeius +cast anchor at the Casian promontory and sent a request to the king +to allow him to land. The Egyptian court, long informed of the disaster +at Pharsalus, was on the point of refusing to receive Pompeius; +but the king's tutor Theodotus pointed out that, in that case +Pompeius would probably employ his connections in the Egyptian army +to instigate rebellion; and that it would be safer, and also preferable +with regard to Caesar, if they embraced the opportunity of making away +with Pompeius. Political reasonings of this sort did not readily fail +of their effect among the statesmen of the Hellenic world. + +Death of Pompeius + +Achillas the general of the royal troops and some of the former soldiers +of Pompeius went off in a boat to his vessel; and invited him +to come to the king and, as the water was shallow, to enter their barge. +As he was stepping ashore, the military tribune Lucius Septimius +stabbed him from behind, under the eyes of his wife and son +who were compelled to be spectators of the murder from the deck +of their vessel, without being able to rescue or revenge +(28 Sept. 706). On the same day, on which thirteen years before +he had entered the capital in triumph over Mithradates,(39) +the man, who for a generation had been called the Great and for years +had ruled Rome, died on the desert sands of the inhospitable +Casian shore by the hand of one of his old soldiers. A good officer +but otherwise of mediocre gifts of intellect and of heart, +fate had with superhuman constancy for thirty years allowed him +to solve all brilliant and toilless tasks; had permitted him to pluck +all laurels planted and fostered by others; had brought him +face to face with all the conditions requisite for obtaining +the supreme power--only in order to exhibit in his person an example +of spurious greatness, to which history knows no parallel. +Of all pitiful parts there is none more pitiful than that of passing +for more than one really is; and it is the fate of monarchy +that this misfortune inevitably clings to it, for barely once +in a thousand years does there arise among the people a man +who is a king not merely in name, but in reality. If this disproportion +between semblance and reality has never perhaps been so abruptly marked +as in Pompeius, the fact may well excite grave reflection that it was +precisely he who in a certain sense opened the series of Roman monarchs. + +Arrival of Caesar + +When Caesar following the track of Pompeius arrived in the roadstead +of Alexandria, all was already over. With deep agitation +he turned away when the murderer brought to his ship the head of the man, +who had been his son-in-law and for long years his colleague +in rule, and to get whom alive into his power he had come to Egypt. +The dagger of the rash assassin precluded an answer to the question, +how Caesar would have dealt with the captive Pompeius; but, while +the humane sympathy, which still found a place in the great soul +of Caesar side by side with ambition, enjoined that he should +spare his former friend, his interest also required that he should +annihilate Pompeius otherwise than by the executioner. +Pompeius had been for twenty years the acknowledged ruler +of Rome; a dominion so deeply rooted does not perish +with the ruler's death. The death of Pompeius did not break up +the Pompeians, but gave to them instead of an aged, incapable, +and worn-out chief in his sons Gnaeus and Sextus two leaders, +both of whom were young and active and the second was a man +of decided capacity. To the newly-founded hereditary monarchy +hereditary pretendership attached itself at once like a parasite, +and it was very doubtful whether by this change of persons Caesar +did not lose more than he gained. + +Caesar Regulates Egypt + +Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to do, +and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he would +immediately set sail and apply himself to the subjugation of Africa, +and to the huge task of organization which awaited him after the victory. +But Caesar faithful to his custom--wherever he found himself +in the wide empire--of finally regulating matters at once and in person, +and firmly convinced that no resistance was to be expected +either from the Roman garrison or from the court, being, moreover, +in urgent pecuniary embarrassment, landed in Alexandria +with the two amalgamated legions accompanying him to the number +of 3200 men and 800 Celtic and German cavalry, took up his quarters +in the royal palace, and proceeded to collect the necessary sums of money +and to regulate the Egyptian succession, without allowing himself +to be disturbed by the saucy remark of Pothinus that Caesar +should not for such petty matters neglect his own so important affairs. +In his dealing with the Egyptians he was just and even indulgent. +Although the aid which they had given to Pompeius justified +the imposing of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared +from this; and, while the arrears of the sum stipulated for in 695(40) +and since then only about half paid were remitted, there was required +merely a final payment of 10,000,000 -denarii- (400,000 pounds). +The belligerent brother and sister were enjoined immediately +to suspend hostilities, and were invited to have their dispute +investigated and decided before the arbiter. They submitted; +the royal boy was already in the palace and Cleopatra also presented +herself there. Caesar adjudged the kingdom of Egypt, agreeably +to the testament of Auletes, to the intermarried brother and sister +Cleopatra and Ptolemaeus Dionysus, and further gave unasked +the kingdom of Cyprus--cancelling the earlier act of annexation(41)-- +as the appanageof the second-born of Egypt to the younger children +of Auletes, Arsinoe and Ptolemaeus the younger. + +Insurrection in Alexandria + +But a storm was secretly preparing. Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city +as well as Rome, hardly inferior to the Italian capital in the number +of its inhabitants, far superior to it in stirring commercial spirit, +in skill of handicraft, in taste for science and art: in the citizens +there was a lively sense of their own national importance, +and, if there was no political sentiment, there was at any rate +a turbulent spirit, which induced them to indulge in their +street riots as regularly and as heartily as the Parisians +of the present day: one may conceive their feelings, when they saw +the Roman general ruling in the palace of the Lagids and their kings +accepting the award of his tribunal. Pothinus and the boy-king, +both as may be conceived very dissatisfied at once with the peremptory +requisition of old debts and with the intervention in the throne- +dispute which could only issue, as it did, in favour of Cleopatra, +sent--in order to pacify the Roman demands--the treasures +of the temples and the gold plate of the king with intentional +ostentation to be melted at the mint; with increasing +indignation the Egyptians--who were pious even to superstition, +and who rejoiced in the world-renowned magnificence of their court +as if it were a possession of their own--beheld the bare walls +of their temples and the wooden cups on the table of their king. +The Roman army of occupation also, which had been essentially +denationalized by its long abode in Egypt and the many intermarriages +between the soldiers and Egyptian women, and which moreover +numbered a multitude of the old soldiers of Pompeius and runaway +Italian criminals and slaves in its ranks, was indignant at Caesar, +by whose orders it had been obliged to suspend its action +on the Syrian frontier, and at his handful of haughty legionaries. +The tumult even at the landing, when the multitude saw the Roman axes +carried into the old palace, and the numerous cases in which +his soldiers were assassinated in the city, had taught Caesar +the immense danger in which he was placed with his small force +in presence of that exasperated multitude. But it was difficult +to return on account of the north-west winds prevailing at this season +of the year, and the attempt at embarkation might easily become +a signal for the outbreak of the insurrection; besides, it was not +the nature of Caesar to take his departure without having accomplished +his work. He accordingly ordered up at once reinforcements +from Asia, and meanwhile, till these arrived, made a show +of the utmost self-possession. Never was there greater gaiety +in his camp than during this rest at Alexandria; and while +the beautiful and clever Cleopatra was not sparing of her charms +in general and least of all towards her judge, Caesar also appeared +among all his victories to value most those won over beautiful women. +It was a merry prelude to graver scenes. Under the leadership +of Achillas and, as was afterwards proved, by the secret orders +of the king and his guardian, the Roman army of occupation +stationed in Egypt appeared unexpectedly in Alexandria; and as soon as +the citizens saw that it had come to attack Caesar, they made +common cause with the soldiers. + +Caesar in Alexandria + +With a presence of mind, which in some measure justifies +his earlier foolhardiness, Caesar hastily collected his scattered men; +seized the persons of the king and his ministers; entrenched himself +in the royal residence and the adjoining theatre; and gave orders, +as there was no time to place in safety the war-fleet stationed +in the principal harbour immediately in front of the theatre, +that it should be set on fire and that Pharos, the island +with the light-tower commanding the harbour, should be occupied +by means of boats. Thus at least a restricted position for defence +was secured, and the way was kept open to procure supplies +and reinforcements. At the same time orders were issued +to the commandant of Asia Minor as well as to the nearest +subject countries, the Syrians and Nabataeans, the Cretans +and the Rhodians, to send troops and ships in all haste to Egypt. +The insurrection at the head of which the princess Arsinoe +and her confidant the eunuch Ganymedes had placed themselves, +meanwhilehad free course in all Egypt and in the greater part +of the capital. In the streets of the latter there was daily fighting, +but without success either on the part of Caesar in gaining freer scope +and breaking through to the fresh water lake of Marea which lay behind +the town, where he could have provided himself with water and forage, +or on the part of the Alexandrians in acquiring superiority +over the besieged and depriving them of all drinking water; for, +when the Nile canals in Caesar's part of the town had been spoiled +by the introduction of salt water, drinkable water was unexpectedly found +in wells dug on the beach. + +As Caesar was not to be overcome from the landward side, +the exertions of the besiegers were directed to destroy his fleet +and cut him off from the sea by which supplies reached him. +The island with the lighthouse and the mole by which this was connected +with the mainland divided the harbour into a western and an eastern half, +which were in communication with each other through two arched openings +in the mole. Caesar commanded the island and the east harbour, +while the mole and the west harbour were in possession +of the citizens; and, as the Alexandrian fleet was burnt, +his vessels sailed in and out without hindrance. The Alexandrians, +after having vainly attempted to introduce fire-ships from the western +into the eastern harbour, equipped with the remnant of their arsenal +a small squadron and with this blocked up the way of Caesar's vessels, +when these were towing in a fleet of transports with a legion +that had arrived from Asia Minor; but the excellent Rhodian mariners +of Caesar mastered the enemy. Not long afterwards, however, +the citizens captured the lighthouse- island,(42) and from that point +totally closed the narrow and rocky mouth of the east harbour +for larger ships; so that Caesar's fleet was compelled +to take its station in the open roads before the east harbour, +and his communication with the sea hung only on a weak thread. +Caesar's fleet, attacked in that roadstead repeatedly +by the superior naval force of the enemy, could neither shun +the unequal strife, since the loss of the lighthouse-island +closed the inner harbour against it, nor yet withdraw, for the loss +of the roadstead would have debarred Caesar wholly from the sea. +Though the brave legionaries, supported by the dexterity +of the Rhodian sailors, had always hitherto decided these conflicts +in favour of the Romans, the Alexandrians renewed and augmented +their naval armaments with unwearied perseverance; the besieged +had to fight as often as it pleased the besiegers, and if the former +should be on a single occasion vanquished, Caesar would be +totally hemmed in and probably lost. + +It was absolutely necessary to make an attempt to recover +the lighthouse island. The double attack, which was made by boats +from the side of the harbour and by the war-vessels from the seaboard, +in reality brought not only the island but also the lower part +of the mole into Caesar's power; it was only at the second arch- +opening of the mole that Caesar ordered the attack to be stopped, +and the mole to be there closed towards the city by a transverse wall. +But while a violent conflict arose here around the entrenchers, +the Roman troops left the lower part of the mole adjoining +the island bare of defenders; a division of Egyptians landed there +unexpectedly, attacked in the rear the Roman soldiers and sailors +crowded together on the mole at the transverse wall, and drove +the whole mass in wild confusion into the sea. A part +were taken on board by the Roman ships; the most were drowned. +Some 400 soldiers and a still greater number of men belonging +to the fleet were sacrificed on this day; the general himself, +who had shared the fate of his men, had been obliged to seek refuge, +in his ship, and when this sank from having been overloaded with men, +he had to save himself by swimming to another. But, severe as was +the loss suffered, it was amply compensated by the recovery +of the lighthouse-island, which along with the mole as far as +the first arch-opening remained in the hands of Caesar. + +Relieving Army from Asia Minor + +At length the longed-for relief arrived. Mithradates of Pergamus, +an able warrior of the school of Mithradates Eupator, whose natural son +he claimed to be, brought up by land from Syria a motley army-- +the Ityraeans of the prince of the Libanus,(43) the Bedouins +of Jamblichus, son of Sampsiceramus,(44) the Jews under the minister +Antipater, and the contingents generally of the petty chiefs +and communities of Cilicia and Syria. From Pelusium, which Mithradates +had the fortune to occupy on the day of his arrival, he took +the great road towards Memphis with the view of avoiding +the intersected ground of the Delta and crossing the Nile +before its division; during which movement his troops received +manifold support from the Jewish peasants who were settled +in peculiar numbers in this part of Egypt. The Egyptians, +with the young king Ptolemaeus now at their head, whom Caesar +had released to his people in the vain hope of allaying the insurrection +by his means, despatched an army to the Nile, to detain Mithradates +on its farther bank. This army fell in with the enemy +even beyond Memphis at the so-called Jews'-camp, between Onion +and Heliopolis; nevertheless Mithradates, trained in the Roman fashion +of manoeuvring and encamping, amidst successful conflicts gained +the opposite bank at Memphis. Caesar, on the other hand, as soon as +he obtained news of the arrival of the relieving army, conveyed a part +of his troops in ships to the end of the lake of Marea to the west +of Alexandria, and marched round this lake and down the Nile +to meet Mithradates advancing up the river. + +Battle at the Nile + +The junction took place without the enemy attempting to hinder it. +Caesar then marched into the Delta, whither the king had retreated, +overthrew, notwithstanding the deeply cut canal in their front, +the Egyptian vanguard at the first onset, and immediately stormed +the Egyptian camp itself. It lay at the foot of a rising ground +between the Nile--from which only a narrow path separated it-- +and marshes difficult of access. Caesar caused the camp to be assailed +simultaneously from the front and from the flank on the path +along the Nile; and during this assault ordered a third detachment +to ascend unseen the heights behind the camp. The victory was complete +the camp was taken, and those of the Egyptians who did not fal +beneath the sword of the enemy were drowned in the attempt to escape +to the fleet on the Nile. With one of the boats, which sank +overladen with men, the young king also disappeared in the waters +of his native stream. + +Pacificatin of Alexandria + +Immediately after the battle Caesar advanced at the head +of his cavalry from the land-side straight into the portion +of the capital occupied by the Egyptians. In mourning attire, +with the images of their gods in their hands, the enemy received him +and sued for peace; and his troops, when they saw him return as victor +from the side opposite to that by which he had set forth, welcomed him +with boundless joy. The fate of the town, which had ventured +to thwart the plans of the master of the world and had brought him +within a hair's-breadth of destruction, lay in Caesar's hands; +but he was too much of a ruler to be sensitive, and dealt with +the Alexandrians as with the Massiliots. Caesar--pointing +to their city severely devastated and deprived of its granaries, +of its world-renowned library, and of other important public buildings +on occasion of the burning of the fleet--exhorted the inhabitants +in future earnestly to cultivate the arts of peace alone, and to heal +the wounds which they had inflicted on themselves; for the rest, +he contented himself with granting to the Jews settled in Alexandria +the same rights which the Greek population of the city enjoyed, +and with placing in Alexandria, instead of the previous Roman army +of occupation which nominally at least obeyed the kings of Egypt, +a formal Roman garrison--two of the legions besieged there, +and a third which afterwards arrived from Syria--under a commander +nominated by himself. For this position of trust a man +was purposely selected, whose birth made it impossible for him +to abuse it--Rufio, an able soldier, but the son of a freedman. +Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemaeus obtained the sovereignty +of Egypt under the supremacy of Rome; the princess Arsinoe +was carried off to Italy, that she might not serve once more as a pretext +for insurrections to the Egyptians, who were after the Oriental fashion +quite as much devoted to their dynasty as they were indifferent +towards the individual dynasts; Cyprus became again a part +of the Roman province of Cilicia. + +Course of Things during Caesar's Absence in Alexandria + +This Alexandrian insurrection, insignificant as it was in itself +and slight as was its intrinsic connection with the events +of importance in the world's history which took place at the same time +in the Roman state, had nevertheless so far a momentous influence +on them that it compelled the man, who was all in all and without whom +nothing could be despatched and nothing could be solved, +to leave his proper tasks in abeyance from October 706 up to March 707 +in order to fight along with Jews and Bedouins against a city rabble. +The consequences of personal rule began to make themselves felt. +They had the monarchy; but the wildest confusion prevailed everywhere, +and the monarch was absent. The Caesarians were for the moment, +just like the Pompeians, without superintendence; the ability +of the individual officers and, above all, accident +decided matters everywhere. + +Insubordination of Pharnaces + +In Asia Minor there was, at the time of Caesar's departure for Egypt, +no enemy. But Caesar's lieutenant there, the able Gnaeus Domitius +Calvinus, had received orders to take away again from king Pharnaces +what he had without instructions wrested from the allies of Pompeius; +and, as Pharnaces, an obstinate and arrogant despot like his father, +perseveringly refused to evacuate Lesser Armenia, no course remained +but to march against him. Calvinus had been obliged to despatch +to Egypt two out of the three legions left behind with him and formed +out of the Pharsalian prisoners of war; he filled up the gap +by one legion hastily gathered from the Romans domiciled in Pontus +and two legions of Deiotarus exercised after the Roman manner, +and advanced into Lesser Armenia. But the Bosporan army, +tried in numerous conflicts with the dwellers on the Black Sea, +showed itself more efficient than his own. + +Calvinus Defeated at Nicopolis +Victory of Caesar at Ziela + +In an engagement at Nicopolis the Pontic levy of Calvinus +was cut to pieces and the Galatian legions ran off; only the one old +legion of the Romans fought its way through with moderate loss. +Instead of conquering Lesser Armenia, Calvinus could not even prevent +Pharnaces from repossessing himself of his Pontic "hereditary states," +and pouring forth the whole vials of his horrible sultanic caprices +on their inhabitants, especially the unhappy Amisenes +(winter of 706-707). When Caesar in person arrived in Asia Minor +and intimated to him that the service which Pharnaces had rendered +to him personally by having granted no help to Pompeius could not be +taken into account against the injury inflicted on the empire, +and that before any negotiation he must evacuate the province of Pontus +and send back the property which he had pillaged, he declared himself +doubtless ready to submit; nevertheless, well knowing how good reason +Caesar had for hastening to the west, he made no serious preparations +for the evacuation. He did not know that Caesar finished +whatever he took in hand. Without negotiating further, +Caesar took with him the one legion which he brought from Alexandria +and the troops of Calvinus and Deiotarus, and advanced against +the camp of Pharnaces at Ziela. When the Bosporans saw him approach, +they boldly crossed the deep mountain-ravine which covered their front, +and charged the Romans up the hill. Caesar's soldiers +were still occupied in pitching their camp, and the ranks wavered +for a moment; but the veterans accustomed to war rapidly rallied +and set the example for a general attack and for a complete victory +(2 Aug. 707). In five days the campaign was ended--an invaluable piece +of good fortune at this time, when every hour was precious. + +Regulation of Asia Minor + +Caesar entrusted the pursuit of the king, who had gone home by way +of Sinope to Pharnaces' illegitimate brother, the brave Mithradates +of Pergamus, who as a reward for the services rendered by him in Egypt +received the crown of the Bosporan kingdom in room of Pharnaces. +In other respects the affairs of Syria and Asia Minor were peacefully +settled; Caesar's own allies were richly rewarded, those of Pompeius +were in general dismissed with fines or reprimands. Deiotarus alone, +the most powerful of the clients of Pompeius, was again confined +to his narrow hereditary domain, the canton of the Tolistobogii. +In his stead Ariobarzanes king of Cappadocia was invested with +Lesser Armenia, and the tetrarchy of the Trocmi usurped by Deiotarus +was conferred on the new king of the Bosporus, who was descended +by the maternal side from one of the Galatian princely houses +as by the paternal from that of Pontus. + +War by Land and Sea in Illyria +Defeat of Gabinius +Naval Victory at Tauris + +In Illyria also, while Caesar was in Egypt, incidents of a very grave +nature had occurred. The Dalmatian coast had been for centuries +a sore blemish on the Roman rule, and its inhabitants had been +at open feud with Caesar since the conflicts around Dyrrhachium; +while the interior also since the time of the Thessalian war, +swarmed with dispersed Pompeians. Quintus Cornificius +had however, with the legions that followed him from Italy, +kept both the natives and the refugees in check and had +at the same time sufficiently met the difficult task of provisioning +the troops in these rugged districts. Even when the able +Marcus Octavius, the victor of Curicta,(45) appeared with a part +of the Pompeian fleet in these waters to wage war there against Caesar +by sea and land, Cornificius not only knew how to maintain himself, +resting for support on the ships and the harbour of the Iadestini +(Zara), but in his turn also sustained several successful engagements +at sea with the fleet of his antagonist. But when the new governor +of Illyria, the Aulus Gabinius recalled by Caesar from exile,(46) +arrived by the landward route in Illyria in the winter of 706-707 +with fifteen cohorts and 3000 horse, the system of warfare +changed. Instead of confining himself like his predecessor +to war on a small scale, the bold active man undertook at once, +in spite of the inclement season, an expedition with his whole force +to the mountains. But the unfavourable weather, the difficulty +of providing supplies, and the brave resistance of the Dalmatians, +swept away the army; Gabinius had to commence his retreat, +was attacked in the course of it and disgracefully defeated +by the Dalmatians, and with the feeble remains of his fine army +had difficulty in reaching Salonae, where he soon afterwards died. +Most of the Illyrian coast towns thereupon surrendered to the fleet +of Octavius; those that adhered to Caesar, such as Salonae +and Epidaurus (Ragusa vecchia), were so hard pressed by the fleet +at sea and by the barbarians on land, that the surrender +and capitulation of the remains of the army enclosed in Salonae +seemed not far distant. Then the commandant of the depot at Brundisium, +the energetic Publius Vatinius, in the absence of ships of war caused +common boats to be provided with beaks and manned with the soldiers +dismissed from the hospitals, and with this extemporized +war-fleet gave battle to the far superior fleet of Octavius +at the island of Tauris (Torcola between Lesina and Curzola)-- +a battle in which, as in so many cases, the bravery of the leader +and of the marines compensated for the deficiencies of the vessels, +and the Caesarians achieved a brilliant victory. Marcus Octavius +left these waters and proceeded to Africa (spring of 707); +the Dalmatians no doubt continued their resistance for years +with great obstinacy, but it was nothing beyond a local mountain-warfare. +When Caesar returned from Egypt, his resolute adjutant had already got rid +of the danger that was imminent in Illyria. + +Reorganization of the Coalition in Africa + +All the more serious was the position of things in Africa, +where the constitutional party had from the outset of the civil war +ruled absolutely and had continually augmented their power. +Down to the battle of Pharsalus king Juba had, properly speaking, +borne rule there; he had vanquished Curio, and his flying horsemen +and his numberless archers were the main strength of the army; +the Pompeian governor Varus played by his side so subordinate +a part that he even had to deliver those soldiers of Curio, +who had surrendered to him, over to the king, and had to look on +while they were executed or carried away into the interior of Numidia. +After the battle of Pharsalus a change took place. With the exception +of Pompeius himself, no man of note among the defeated party +thought of flight to the Parthians. As little did they attempt to hold +the sea with their united resources; the warfare waged by Marcus Octavius +in the Illyrian waters was isolated, and was without permanent success. +The great majority of the republicans as of the Pompeians +betook themselves to Africa, where alone an honourable +and constitutional warfare might still be waged against the usurper. +There the fragments of the army scattered at Pharsalus, the troops +that had garrisoned Dyrrhachium, Corcyra, and the Peloponnesus, +the remains of the Illyrian fleet, gradually congregated; +there the second commander-in-chief Metellus Scipio, +the two sons of Pompeius, Gnaeus and Sextus, the political leader +of the republicans Marcus Cato, the able officers Labienus, +Afranius, Petreius, Octavius and others met. If the resources +of the emigrants had diminished, their fanaticism had, if possible, +even increased. Not only did they continue to murder their prisoners +and even the officers of Caesar under flag of truce, but king Juba, +in whom the exasperation of the partisan mingled with the fury +of the half-barbarous African, laid down the maxim that in every +community suspected of sympathizing with the enemy the burgesses +ought to be extirpated and the town burnt down, and even practically +carried out this theory against some townships, such as the unfortunate +Vaga near Hadrumetum. In fact it was solely owing to the energetic +intervention of Cato that the capital of the province itself +the flourishing Utica--which, just like Carthage formerly, +had been long regarded with a jealous eye by the Numidian kings-- +did not experience the same treatment from Juba, and that measures +of precaution merely were taken against its citizens, +who certainly were not unjustly accused of leaning towards Caesar. + +As neither Caesar himself nor any of his lieutenants undertook +the smallest movement against Africa, the coalition had full time +to acquire political and military reorganization there. First of all, +it was necessary to fill up anew the place of commander-in-chief +vacant by the death of Pompeius. King Juba was not disinclined +still to maintain the position which he had held in Africa +up to the battle of Pharsalus; indeed he bore himself no longer +as a client of the Romans but as an equal ally or even as a protector, +and took it upon him, for example, to coin Roman silver money +with his name and device; nay, he even raised a claim to be the sole +wearer of purple in the camp, and suggested to the Roman commanders +that they should lay aside their purple mantle of office. +Further Metellus Scipio demanded the supreme command for himself, +because Pompeius had recognized him in the Thessalian campaign +as on a footing of equality, more from the consideration that he was +his son-in-law than on military grounds. The like demand was raised +by Varus as the governor--self-nominated, it is true--of Africa, +seeing that the war was to be waged in his province. Lastly the army +desired for its leader the propraetor Marcus Cato. Obviously +it was right. Cato was the only man who possessed the requisite +devotedness, energy, and authority for the difficult office; +if he was no military man, it was infinitely better to appoint +as commander-in-chief a non-military man who understood how to listen +to reason and make his subordinates act, than an officer of untried +capacity like Varus, or even one of tried incapacity like Metellus +Scipio. But the decision fell at length on this same Scipio, +and it was Cato himself who mainly determined that decision. +He did so, not because he felt himself unequal to such a task, +or because his vanity found its account rather in declining +than in accepting; still less because he loved or respected Scipio, +with whom he on the contrary was personally at variance, +and who with his notorious inefficiency had attained a certain importance +merely in virtue of his position as father-in-law to Pompeius; +but simply and solely because his obstinate legal formalism chose +rather to let the republic go to ruin in due course of law +than to save it in an irregular way. When after the battle of Pharsalus +he met with Marcus Cicero at Corcyra, he had offered to hand over +the command in Corcyra to the latter--who was still from the time +of his Cilician administration invested with the rank of general-- +as the officer of higher standing according to the letter of the law, +and by this readiness had driven the unfortunate advocate, +who now cursed a thousand times his laurels from the Arnanus, +almost to despair; but he had at the same time astonished all men +of any tolerable discernment. The same principles were applied now, +when something more was at stake; Cato weighed the question +to whom the place of commander-in-chief belonged, as if the matter +had reference to a field at Tusculum, and adjudged it to Scipio. +By this sentence his own candidature and that of Varus were set aside. +But he it was also, and he alone, who confronted with energy +the claims of king Juba, and made him feel that the Roman nobility +came to him not suppliant, as to the great-prince of the Parthians, +with a view to ask aid at the hands of a protector, but as entitled +to command and require aid from a subject. In the present state +of the Roman forces in Africa, Juba could not avoid lowering +his claims to some extent; although he still carried the point +with the weak Scipio, that the pay of his troops should be charged +on the Roman treasury and the cession of the province of Africa +should be assured to him in the event of victory. + +By the side of the new general-in-chief the senate of the "three hundred" +again emerged. It established its seat in Utica, and replenished +its thinned ranks by the admission of the most esteemed +and the wealthiest men of the equestrian order. + +The warlike preparations were pushed forward, chiefly through +the zeal of Cato, with the greatest energy, and every man capable +of arms, even the freedman and Libyan, was enrolled in the legions; +by which course so many hands were withdrawn from agriculture +that a great part of the fields remained uncultivated, but an imposing +result was certainly attained. The heavy infantry numbered fourteen +legions, of which two were already raised by Varus, eight others +were formed partly from the refugees, partly from the conscripts +in the province, and four were legions of king Juba armed +in the Roman manner. The heavy cavalry, consisting of the Celts +and Germans who arrived with Labienus and sundry others incorporated +in their ranks, was, apart from Juba's squadron of cavalry equipped +in the Roman style, 1600 strong. The light troops consisted +of innumerable masses of Numidians riding without bridle or rein +and armed merely with javelins, of a number of mounted bowmen, +and a large host of archers on foot. To these fell to be added Juba's +120 elephants, and the fleet of 55 sail commanded by Publius Varus +and Marcus Octavius. The urgent want of money was in some measure +remedied by a self-taxation on the part of the senate, which was +the more productive as the richest African capitalists had been +induced to enter it. Corn and other supplies were accumulated +in immense quantities in the fortresses capable of defence; +at the same time the stores were as far as possible removed +from the open townships. The absence of Caesar, the troublesome temper +of his legions, the ferment in Spain and Italy gradually raised +men's spirits, and the recollection of the Pharsalian defeat +began to give way to fresh hopes of victory. + +The time lost by Caesar in Egypt nowhere revenged itself +more severely than here. Had he proceeded to Africa immediately +after the death of Pompeius, he would have found there a weak, +disorganized, and frightened army and utter anarchy among the leaders; +whereas there was now in Africa, owing more especially to Cato's energy, +an army equal in number to that defeated at Pharsalus, under leaders +of note, and under a regulated superintendence. + +Movements in Spain + +A peculiar evil star seemed altogether to preside over this African +expedition of Caesar. He had, even before his embarkation for Egypt, +arranged in Spain and Italy various measures preliminary and preparatory +to the African war; but out of all there had sprung nothing but mischief. +From Spain, according to Caesar's arrangement, the governor +of the southern province Quintus Cassius Longinus was to cross +with four legions to Africa, to be joined there by Bogud +king of West Mauretania,(47) and to advance with him towards +Numidia and Africa. But that army destined for Africa +included in it a number of native Spaniards and two whole legions +formerly Pompeian; Pompeian sympathies prevailed in the army +as in the province, and the unskilful and tyrannical behaviour +of the Caesarian governor was not fitted to allay them. A formal revolt +took place; troops and towns took part for or against the governor; +already those who had risen against the lieutenant of Caesar +were on the point of openly displaying the banner of Pompeius; +already had Pompeius' elder son Gnaeus embarked from Africa for Spain +to take advantage of this favourable turn, when the disavowal +of the governor by the most respectable Caesarians themselves +and the interference of the commander of the northern province +suppressed just in right time the insurrection. Gnaeus Pompeius, +who had lost time on the way with a vain attempt to establish himself +in Mauretania, came too late; Gaius Trebonius, whom Caesar +after his return from the east sent to Spain to relieve Cassius +(autumn of 707), met everywhere with absolute obedience. But of course +amidst these blunders nothing was done from Spain to disturb +the organization of the republicans in Africa; indeed in consequence +of the complications with Longinus, Bogud king of West Mauretania, +who was on Caesar's side and might at least have put some obstacles +in the way of king Juba, had been called away with his troops to Spain. + +Military Revolt in Campania + +Still more critical were the occurrences among the troops +whom Caesar had caused to be collected in southern Italy, in order +to his embarkation with them for Africa. They were for the most part +the old legions, which had founded Caesar's throne in Gaul, Spain, +and Thessaly. The spirit of these troops had not been improved +by victories, and had been utterly disorganized by long repose +in Lower Italy. The almost superhuman demands which the general +made on them, and the effects of which were only too clearly apparent +in their fearfully thinned ranks, left behind even in these men of iron +a leaven of secret rancour which required only time and quiet +to set their minds in a ferment. The only man who had influence +over them, had been absent and almost unheard-of for a year; +while the officers placed over them were far more afraid of the soldiers +than the soldiers of them, and overlooked in the conquerors +of the world every outrage against those that gave them quarters, +and every breach of discipline. When the orders to embark for Sicily +arrived, and the soldier was to exchange the luxurious ease of Campania +for a third campaign certainly not inferior to those of Spain +and Thessaly in point of hardship, the reins, which had been +too long relaxed and were too suddenly tightened, snapt asunder. +The legions refused to obey till the promised presents +were paid to them, scornfully repulsed the officers sent by Caesar, +and even threw stones at them. An attempt to extinguish the incipient +revolt by increasing the sums promised not only had no success, +but the soldiers set out in masses to extort the fulfilment +of the promises from the general in the capital. Several officers, +who attempted to restrain the mutinous bands on the way, were slain. +It was a formidable danger. Caesar ordered the few soldiers +who were in the city to occupy the gates, with the view of warding off +the justly apprehended pillage at least at the first onset, +and suddenly appeared among the furious bands demanding to know +what they wanted. They exclaimed: "discharge." In a moment +the request was granted. Respecting the presents, Caesar added, +which he had promised to his soldiers at his triumph, as well as +respecting the lands which he had not promised to them +but had destined for them, they might apply to him on the day +when he and the other soldiers should triumph; in the triumph itself +they could not of course participate, as having been previously +discharged. The masses were not prepared for things taking this turn; +convinced that Caesar could not do without them for the African campaign, +they had demanded their discharge only in order that, if it were refused, +they might annex their own conditions to their service. Half unsettled +in their belief as to their own indispensableness; too awkward +to return to their object, and to bring the negotiation +which had missed its course back to the right channel; ashamed, as men, +by the fidelity with which the Imperator kept his word even to soldiers +who had forgotten their allegiance, and by his generosity +which even now granted far more than he had ever promised; +deeply affected, as soldiers, when the general presented to them +the prospect of their being necessarily mere civilian spectators +of the triumph of their comrades, and when he called them no longer +"comrades" but "burgesses,"--by this very form of address, +which from his mouth sounded so strangely, destroying as it were +with one blow the whole pride of their past soldierly career; +and, besides all this, under the spell of the man whose presence +had an irresistible power--the soldiers stood for a while mute +and lingering, till from all sides a cry arose that the general +would once more receive them into favour and again permit them +to be called Caesar's soldiers. Caesar, after having allowed himself +to be sufficiently entreated, granted the permission; but the ringleaders +in this mutiny had a third cut off from their triumphal presents. +History knows no greater psychological masterpiece, and none +that was more completely successful. + +Caesar Proceeds to Africa +Conflict at Ruspina + +This mutiny operated injuriously on the African campaign, +at least in so far as it considerably delayed the commencement of it. +When Caesar arrived at the port of Lilybaeum destined for the embarkation +the ten legions intended for Africa werefar from being +fully assembled there, and it was the experienced troops +that were farthest behind. Hardly however had six legions, +of which five were newly formed, arrived there and the necessary +war-vessels and transports come forward, when Caesar put to sea with them +(25 Dec. 707 of the uncorrected, about 8 Oct. of the Julian, calendar). +The enemy's fleet, which on account of the prevailing equinoctial gales +was drawn up on the beach at the island Aegimurus in front of the bay +of Carthage, did not oppose the passage; but, the same storms scattered +the fleet of Caesar in all directions, and, when he availed himself +of the opportunity of landing not far from Hadrumetum (Susa), +he could not disembark more than some 3000 men, mostly recruits, +and 150 horsemen. His attempt to capture Hadrumetum strongly occupied +by the enemy miscarried; but Caesar possessed himself of the two seaports +not far distant from each other, Ruspina (Monastir near Susa) +and Little Leptis. Here he entrenched himself; but his position +was so insecure, that he kept his cavalry in the ships and the ships +ready for sea and provided with a supply of water, in order to re-embark +at any moment if he should be attacked by a superior force. +This however was not necessary, for just at the right time the ships +that had been driven out of their course arrived (3 Jan. 708). +On the very following day Caesar, whose army in consequence +of the arrangements made by the Pompeians suffered from want of corn, +undertook with three legions an expedition into the interior +of the country, but was attacked on the march not far from Ruspina +by the corps which Labienus had brought up to dislodge Caesar +from the coast. As Labienus had exclusively cavalry and archers, +and Caesar almost nothing but infantry of the line, the legions +were quickly surrounded and exposed to the missiles of the enemy, +without being able to retaliate or to attack with success. No doubt +the deploying of the entire line relieved once more the flanks, +and spirited charges saved the honour of their arms; but a retreat +was unavoidable, and had Ruspina not been so near, the Moorish javelin +would perhaps have accomplished the same result here +as the Parthian bow at Carrhae. + +Caesar's Position at Ruspina + +Caesar, whom this day had fully convinced of the difficulty +of the impending war, would not again expose his soldiers untried +and discouraged by the new mode of fighting to any such attack, +but awaited the arrival of his veteran legions. The interval +was employed in providing some sort of compensation against +the crushing superiority of the enemy in the weapons of distant warfare. +The incorporation of the suitable men from the fleet as light horsemen +or archers in the land-army could not be of much avail. The diversions +which Caesar suggested were somewhat more effectual. He succeeded +in bringing into arms against Juba the Gaetulian pastoral tribes +wandering on the southern slope of the great Atlas towards the Sahara; +for the blows of the Marian and Sullan period had reached even to them, +and their indignation against Pompeius, who had at that time made them +subordinate to the Numidian kings,(48) rendered them from the outset +favourably inclined to the heir of the mighty Marius of whose Jugurthine +campaign they had still a lively recollection. The Mauretanian kings, +Bogud in Tingis and Bocchus in Iol, were Juba's natural rivals +and to a certain extent long since in alliance with Caesar. +Further, there still roamed in the border-region between the kingdoms +of Juba and Bocchus the last of the Catilinarians, that Publius Sittius +of Nuceria,(49) who eighteen years before had become converted +from a bankrupt Italian merchant into a Mauretanian leader +of free bands, and since that time had procured for himself +a name and a body of retainers amidst the Libyan quarrels. +Bocchus and Sittius united fell on the Numidian land, and occupied +the important town of Cirta; and their attack, as well as +that of the Gaetulians, compelled king Juba to send a portion +of his troops to his southern and western frontiers. + +Caesar's situation, however, continued sufficiently unpleasant. +His army was crowded together within a space of six square miles; +though the fleet conveyed corn, the want of forage was as much felt +by Caesar's cavalry as by those of Pompeius before Dyrrhachium. +The light troops of the enemy remained notwithstanding all the exertions +of Caesar so immeasurably superior to his, that it seemed almost +impossible to carry offensive operations into the interior +even with veterans. If Scipio retired and abandoned the coast towns, +he might perhaps achieve a victory like those which the vizier of Orodes +had won over Crassus and Juba over Curio, and he could at least +endlessly protract the war. The simplest consideration suggested +this plan of campaign; even Cato, although far from a strategist, +counselled its adoption, and offered at the same time to cross +with a corps to Italy and to call the republicans there to arms-- +which, amidst the utter confusion in that quarter, might very well +meet with success. But Cato could only advise, not command; Scipio +the commander-in-chief decided that the war should be carried on +in the region of the coast. This was a blunder, not merely inasmuch as +they thereby dropped a plan of war promising a sure result, but also +inasmuch as the region to which they transferred the war was in dangerous +agitation, and a good part of the army which they opposed to Caesar +was likewise in a troublesome temper. The fearfully strict levy, +the carrying off of the supplies, the devastating of the smaller +townships, the feeling in general that they were being sacrificed +for a cause which from the outset was foreign to them +and was already lost, had exasperated the native population against +the Roman republicans fighting out their last struggle of despair +on African soil; and the terrorist proceedings of the latter against +all communities that were but suspected of indifference,(50) +had raised this exasperation to the most fearful hatred. +The African towns declared, wherever they could venture to do so, +for Caesar; among the Gaetulians and the Libyans, who served in numbers +among the light troops and even in the legions, desertion was spreading. +But Scipio with all the obstinacy characteristic of folly persevered +in his plan, marched with all his force from Utica to appear +before the towns of Ruspina and Little Leptis occupied by Caesar, +furnished Hadrumetum to the north and Thapsus to the south +(on the promontory Ras Dimas) with strong garrisons, and in concert +with Juba, who likewise appeared before Ruspina with all his troops +not required by the defence of the frontier, offered battle repeatedly +to the enemy. But Caesar was resolved to wait for his veteran legions. +As these one after another arrived and appeared on the scene +of strife, Scipio and Juba lost the desire to risk a pitched battle, +and Caesar had no means of compelling them to fight owing +to their extraordinary superiority in light cavalry. Nearly two months +passed away in marches and skirmishes in the neighbourhood +of Ruspina and Thapsus, which chiefly had relation to the finding out +of the concealed store-pits (silos) common in the country, +and to the extension of posts. Caesar, compelled by the enemy's +horsemen to keep as much as possible to the heights or even to cover +his flanks by entrenched lines, yet accustomed his soldiers +gradually during this laborious and apparently endless warfare +to the foreign mode of fighting. Friend and foe hardly recognized +the rapid general in the cautious master of fence who trained his men +carefully and not unfrequently in person; and they became almost puzzled +by the masterly skill which displayed itself as conspicuously +in delay as in promptitude of action. + +Battle at Thapsus + +At last Caesar, after being joined by his last reinforcements, +made a lateral movement towards Thapsus. Scipio had, as we have said, +strongly garrisoned this town, and thereby committed the blunder +of presenting to his opponent an object of attack easy to be seized; +to this first error he soon added the second still less excusable +blunder of now for the rescue of Thapsus giving the battle, +which Caesar had wished and Scipio had hitherto rightly refused, +on ground which placed the decision in the hands of the infantry +of the line. Immediately along the shore, opposite to Caesar's camp, +the legions of Scipio and Juba appeared, the fore ranks ready +for fighting, the hinder ranks occupied in forming an entrenched camp; +at the same time the garrison of Thapsus prepared for a sally. +Caesar's camp-guard sufficed to repulse the latter. His legions, +accustomed to war, already forming a correct estimate of the enemy +from the want of precision in their mode of array and their +ill-closed ranks, compelled--while yet the entrenching was going forward +on that side, and before even the general gave the signal-- +a trumpeter to sound for the attack, and advanced along the whole line +headed by Caesar himself, who, when he saw his men advance +without waiting for his orders, galloped forward to lead them +against the enemy. The right wing, in advance of the other divisions, +frightened the line of elephants opposed to it--this was +the last great battle in which these animals were employed-- +by throwing bullets and arrows, so that they wheeled round +on their own ranks. The covering force was cut down, the left wing +of the enemy was broken, and the whole line was overthrown. +The defeat was the more destructive, as the new camp of the beaten army +was not yet ready, and the old one was at a considerable distance; +both were successively captured almost without resistance. The mass +of the defeated army threw away their arms and sued for quarter; +but Caesar's soldiers were no longer the same who had readily refrained +from battle before Ilerda and honourably spared the defenceless +at Pharsalus. The habit of civil war and the rancour left behind +by the mutiny asserted their power in a terrible manner +on the battlefield of Thapsus. If the hydra with which they fought +always put forth new energies, if the army was hurried from Italy +to Spain, from Spain to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Africa, and if +the repose ever more eagerly longed for never came, the soldier sought, +and not wholly without cause, the reason of this state of things +in the unseasonable clemency of Caesar. He had sworn to retrieve +the general's neglect, and remained deaf to the entreaties +of his disarmed fellow-citizens as well as to the commands of Caesar +and the superior officers. The fifty thousand corpses that covered +the battle-field of Thapsus, among whom were several Caesarian officers +known as secret opponents of the new monarchy, and therefore +cut down on this occasion by their own men, showed how the soldier +procures for himself repose. The victorious army on the other hand +numbered no more than fifty dead (6 April 708). + +Cato in Utica +His Death + +There was as little a continuance of the struggle in Africa +after the battle of Thapsus, as there had been a year and a half before +in the east after the defeat of Pharsalus. Cato as commandant +of Utica convoked the senate, set forth how the means of defence stood, +and submitted it to the decision of those assembled whether +they would yield or defend themselves to the last man-- +only adjuring them to resolve and to act not each one for himself, +but all in unison. The more courageous view found several supporters; +it was proposed to manumit on behalf of the state the slaves +capable of arms, which however Cato rejected as an illegal encroachment +on private property, and suggested in its stead a patriotic appeal +to the slave-owners. But soon this fit of resolution in an assembly +consisting in great part of African merchants passed off, and they agreed +to capitulate. Thereupon when Faustus Sulla, son of the regent, +and Lucius Afranius arrived in Utica with a strong division +of cavalry from the field of battle, Cato still made an attempt +to hold the town through them; but he indignantly rejected their demand +to let them first of all put to death the untrustworthy citizens of Utica +en masse, and chose to let the last stronghold of the republicans fall +into the hands of the monarch without resistance rather than to profane +the last moments of the republic by such a massacre. After he had-- +partly by his authority, partly by liberal largesses--checked so far +as he could the fury of the soldiery against the unfortunate Uticans; +after he had with touching solicitude furnished to those who preferred +not to trust themselves to Caesar's mercy the means for flight, +and to those who wished to remain the opportunity of capitulating +under the most tolerable conditions, so far as his ability reached; +and after having thoroughly satisfied himself that he could render +to no one any farther aid, he held himself released from his command, +retired to his bedchamber, and plunged his sword into his breast. + +The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death + +Of the other fugitive leaders only a few escaped. The cavalry +that fled from Thapsus encountered the bands of Sittius, +and were cut down or captured by them; their leaders Afranius and Faustus +were delivered up to Caesar, and, when the latter did not order +their immediate execution, they were slain in a tumult by his veterans. +The commander-in-chief Metellus Scipio with the fleet of the defeated +party fell into the power of the cruisers of Sittius and, +when they were about to lay hands on him, stabbed himself. King Juba, +not unprepared for such an issue, had in that case resolved to die +in a way which seemed to him befitting a king, and had caused +an enormous funeral pile to be prepared in the market-place +of his city Zama, which was intended to consume along with his body +all his treasures and the dead bodies of the whole citizens of Zama. +But the inhabitants of the town showed no desire to let themselves +be employed by way of decoration for the funeral rites +of the African Sardanapalus; and they closed the gates against +the king when fleeing from the battle-field he appeared, accompanied +by Marcus Petreius, before their city. The king--one of those natures +that become savage amidst a life of dazzling and insolent enjoyment, +and prepare for themselves even out of death an intoxicating feast-- +resorted with his companion to one of his country houses, +caused a copious banquet to be served up, and at the close +of the feast challenged Petreius to fight him to death in single combat. +It was the conqueror of Catilina that received his death at the hand +of the king; the latter thereupon caused himself to be stabbed +by one of his slaves. The few men of eminence that escaped, +such as Labienus and Sextus Pompeius, followed the elder brother +of the latter to Spain and sought, like Sertorius formerly, +a last refuge of robbers and pirates in the waters and the mountains +of that still half-independent land. + +Regulation of Africa + +Without resistance Caesar regulated the affairs of Africa. +As Curio had already proposed, the kingdom of Massinissa was broken up. +The most eastern portion or region of Sitifis was united with the kingdom +of Bocchus king of East Mauretania,(51) and the faithful king Bogud +of Tingis was rewarded with considerable gifts. Cirta (Constantine) +and the surrounding district, hitherto possessed under the supremacy +of Juba by the prince Massinissa and his son Arabion, were conferred +on the condottiere Publius Sittius that he might settle +his half-Roman bands there;(52) but at the same time this district, +as well as by far the largest and most fertile portion +of the late Numidian kingdom, were united as "New Africa" +with the older province of Africa, and the defence of the country +along the coast against the roving tribes of the desert, +which the republic had entrusted to a client-king, was imposed +by the new ruler on the empire itself. + +The Victory of Monarchy + +The struggle, which Pompeius and the republicans had undertaken +against the monarchy of Caesar, thus terminated, after having lasted +for four years, in the complete victory of the new monarch. +No doubt the monarchy was not established for the first time +on the battle-fields of Pharsalus and Thapsus; it might already +be dated from the moment when Pompeius and Caesar in league +had established their joint rule and overthrown the previous +aristocratic constitution. Yet it was only those baptisms of blood +of the ninth August 706 and the sixth April 708 that set aside +the conjoint rule so opposed to the nature of absolute dominion, +and conferred fixed status and formal recognition on the new monarchy. +Risings of pretenders and republican conspiracies might ensue and provoke +new commotions, perhaps even new revolutions and restorations; +but the continuity of the free republic that had been uninterrupted +for five hundred years was broken through, and monarchy was established +throughout the range of the wide Roman empire by the legitimacy +of accomplished fact. + +The End of the Republic + +The constitutional struggle was at an end; and that it was so, +was proclaimed by Marcus Cato when he fell on his sword at Utica. +For many years he had been the foremost man in the struggle +of the legitimate republic against its oppressors; he had continued it, +long after he had ceased to cherish any hope of victory. +But now the struggle itself had become impossible; the republic +which Marcus Brutus had founded was dead and never to be revived; +what were the republicans now to do on the earth? The treasure +was carried off, the sentinels were thereby relieved; who could +blame them if they departed? There was more nobility, and above all +more judgment, in the death of Cato than there had been in his life. +Cato was anything but a great man; but with all that short-sightedness, +that perversity, that dry prolixity, and those spurious phrases +which have stamped him, for his own and for all time, +as the ideal of unreflecting republicanism and the favourite of all +who make it their hobby, he was yet the only man who honourably +and courageously championed in the last struggle the great system +doomed to destruction. Just because the shrewdest lie feels itself +inwardly annihilated before the simple truth, and because +all the dignity and glory of human nature ultimately depend +not on shrewdness but on honesty, Cato has played a greater part +in history than many men far superior to him in intellect. +It only heightens the deep and tragic significance of his death +that he was himself a fool; in truth it is just because Don Quixote +is a fool that he is a tragic figure. It is an affecting fact, +that on that world-stage, on which so many great and wise men +had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue. +He too died not in vain. It was a fearfully striking protest +of the republic against the monarchy, that the last republican went +as the first monarch came--a protest which tore asunder like gossamer +all that so-called constitutional character with which Caesar +invested his monarchy, and exposed in all its hypocritical falsehood +the shibboleth of the reconciliation of all parties, under the aegis +of which despotism grew up. The unrelenting warfare which the ghost +of the legitimate republic waged for centuries, from Cassius +and Brutus down to Thrasea and Tacitus, nay, even far later, +against the Caesarian monarchy--a warfare of plots and of literature-- +was the legacy which the dying Cato bequeathed to his enemies. +This republican opposition derived from Cato its whole attitude-- +stately, transcendental in its rhetoric, pretentiously rigid, +hopeless, and faithful to death; and accordingly it began +even immediately after his death to revere as a saint the man +who in his lifetime was not unfrequently its laughing-stock +and its scandal. But the greatest of these marks of respect +was the involuntary homage which Caesar rendered to him, when he made +an exception to the contemptuous clemency with which he was wont +to treat his opponents, Pompeians as well as republicans, +in the case of Cato alone, and pursued him even beyond the grave +with that energetic hatred which practical statesmen are wont to feel +towards antagonists opposing them from a region of ideas +which they regard as equally dangerous and impracticable. + + + + +Chapter XI + +The Old Republic and the New Monarchy + +Character of Caesar + +The new monarch of Rome, the first ruler over the whole domain +of Romano-Hellenic civilization, Gaius Julius Caesar, was in his +fifty-sixth year (born 12 July 652?) when the battle at Thapsus, +the last link in a long chain of momentous victories, placed +the decision as to the future of the world in his hands. Few men +have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Caesar-- +the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced +by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the path +that he marked out for it until its sun went down. Sprung from one +of the oldest noble families of Latium--which traced back its lineage +to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact +to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations--he spent the years +of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch +were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as +the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, +had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, +had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself +initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles +pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as +into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. +But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even +these dissipated and flighty courses; Caesar retained both +his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and of heart unimpaired. +In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, +and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity +of his journeys, which usually for the sake of gaining time +were performed by night--a thorough contrast to the procession-like +slowness with which Pompeius moved from one place to another-- +was the astonishment of his contemporaries and not the least +among the causes of his success. The mind was like the body. +His remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in the precision +and practicability of all his arrangements, even where he gave orders +without having seen with his own eyes. His memory was matchless, +and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously +with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, +and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, +he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia +(his father having died early); to his wives and above all +to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, +which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. +With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high +and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity, +with each after his kind. As he himself never abandoned +any of his partisans after the pusillanimous and unfeeling manner +of Pompeius, but adhered to his friends--and that not merely +from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, +several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, +even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. + +If in a nature so harmoniously organized any one aspect of it +may be singled out as characteristic, it is this--that he stood aloof +from all ideology and everything fanciful. As a matter of course, +Caesar was a man of passion, for without passion there is no genius; +but his passion was never stronger than he could control. +He had had his season of youth, and song, love, and wine had taken +lively possession of his spirit; but with him they did not penetrate +to the inmost core of his nature. Literature occupied him long +and earnestly; but, while Alexander could not sleep for thinking +of the Homeric Achilles, Caesar in his sleepless hours mused +on the inflections of the Latin nouns and verbs. He made verses, +as everybody then did, but they were weak; on the other hand +he was interested in subjects of astronomy and natural science. +While wine was and continued to be with Alexander the destroyer of care, +the temperate Roman, after the revels of his youth were over, +avoided it entirely. Around him, as around all those +whom the full lustre of woman's love has dazzled in youth, +fainter gleams of it continued imperishably to linger; +even in later years he had love-adventures and successes with women, +and he retained a certain foppishness in his outward appearance, +or, to speak more correctly, the pleasing consciousness +of his own manly beauty. He carefully covered the baldness, +which he keenly felt, with the laurel chaplet that he wore in public +in his later years, and he would doubtless have surrendered +some of his victories, if he could thereby have brought back +his youthful locks. But, however much even when monarch +he enjoyed the society of women, he only amused himself +with them, and allowed them no manner of influence over him; +even his much-censured relation to queen Cleopatra was only contrived +to mask a weak point in his political position.(1) Caesar was thoroughly +a realist and a man of sense; and whatever he undertook +and achieved was pervaded and guided by the cool sobriety +which constitutes the most marked peculiarity of his genius. +To this he owed the power of living energetically in the present, +undisturbed either by recollection or by expectation; to this +he owed the capacity of acting at any moment with collected vigour, +and of applying his whole genius even to the smallest +and most incidental enterprise; to this he owed the many-sided power +with which he grasped and mastered whatever understanding can comprehend +and will can compel; to this he owed the self-possessed ease +with which he arranged his periods as well as projected his campaigns; +to this he owed the "marvellous serenity" which remained +steadily with him through good and evil days; to this he owed +the complete independence, which admitted of no control by favourite +or by mistress, or even by friend. It resulted, moreover, +from this clearness of judgment that Caesar never formed to himself +illusions regarding the power of fate and the ability of man; +in his case the friendly veil was lifted up, which conceals from man +the inadequacy of his working. Prudently as he laid his plans +and considered all possibilities, the feeling was never absent +from his breast that in all things fortune, that is to say accident, +must bestow success; and with this may be connected the circumstance +that he so often played a desperate game with destiny, and in particular +again and again hazarded his person with daring indifference. +As indeed occasionally men of predominant sagacity betake themselves +to a pure game of hazard, so there was in Caesar's rationalism a point +at which it came in some measure into contact with mysticism. + +Caesar as a Statesman + +Gifts such as these could not fail to produce a statesman. +From early youth, accordingly, Caesar was a statesman in the deepest +sense of the term, and his aim was the highest which man is allowed +to propose to himself--the political, military, intellectual, +and moral regeneration of his own deeply decayed nation, +and of the still more deeply decayed Hellenic nation intimately akin +to his own. The hard school of thirty years' experience changed +his views as to the means by which this aim was to be reached; his aim +itself remained the same in the times of his hopeless humiliation +and of his unlimited plenitude of power, in the times when as demagogue +and conspirator he stole towards it by paths of darkness, +and in those when, as joint possessor of the supreme power +and then as monarch, he worked at his task in the full light of day +before the eyes of the world. All the measures of a permanent kind +that proceeded from him at the most various times assume their +appropriate places in the great building-plan. We cannot +therefore properly speak of isolated achievements of Caesar; +he did nothing isolated. With justice men commend Caesar the orator +for his masculine eloquence, which, scorning all the arts +of the advocate, like a clear flame at once enlightened and warmed. +With justice men admire in Caesar the author the inimitable simplicity +of the composition, the unique purity and beauty of the language. +With justice the greatest masters of war of all times have praised +Caesar the general, who, in a singular degree disregarding routine +and tradition, knew always how to find out the mode of warfare +by which in the given case the enemy was conquered, and which +was thus in the given case the right one; who with the certainty +of divination found the proper means for every end; who after defeat +stood ready for battle like William of Orange, and ended the campaign +invariably with victory; who managed that element of warfare, +the treatment of which serves to distinguish military genius +from the mere ordinary ability of an officer--the rapid movement +of masses--with unsurpassed perfection, and found the guarantee +of victory not in the massiveness of his forces but in the celerity +of their movements, not in long preparation but in rapid +and daring action even with inadequate means. But all these were +with Caesar mere secondary matters; he was no doubt a great orator, +author, and general, but he became each of these merely because +he was a consummate statesman. The soldier more especially +played in him altogether an accessory part, and it is +one of the principal peculiarities by which he is distinguished +from Alexander, Hannibal, and Napoleon, that he began his political +activity not as an officer, but as a demagogue. According +to his original plan he had purposed to reach his object, like Pericles +and Gaius Gracchus, without force of arms, and throughout eighteen years +he had as leader of the popular party moved exclusively amid +political plans and intrigues--until, reluctantly convinced +of the necessity for a military support, he, when already forty years +of age, put himself at the head of an army. It was natural +that he should even afterwards remain still more statesman +than general--just like Cromwell, who also transformed himself +from a leader of opposition into a military chief and democratic king, +and who in general, little as the prince of Puritans seems to resemble +the dissolute Roman, is yet in his development as well as +in the objects which he aimed at and the results which he achieved +of all statesmen perhaps the most akin to Caesar. Even in his mode +of warfare this improvised generalship may still be recognized; +the enterprises of Napoleon against Egypt and against England +do not more clearly exhibit the artillery-lieutenant who had risen +by service to command than the similar enterprises of Caesar exhibit +the demagogue metamorphosed into a general. A regularly trained +officer would hardly have been prepared, through political +considerations of a not altogether stringent nature, to set aside +the best-founded military scruples in the way in which Caesar did +on several occasions, most strikingly in the case of his landing +in Epirus. Several of his acts are therefore censurable +from a military point of view; but what the general loses, +the statesman gains. The task of the statesman is universal +in its nature like Caesar's genius; if he undertook things +the most varied and most remote one from another, they had all +without exception a bearing on the one great object to which +with infinite fidelity and consistency he devoted himself; +and of the manifold aspects and directions of his great activity +he never preferred one to another. Although a master of the art of war, +he yet from statesmanly considerations did his utmost to avert +civil strife and, when it nevertheless began, to earn laurels +stained as little as possible by blood. Although the founder +of a military monarchy, he yet, with an energy unexampled in history, +allowed no hierarchy of marshals or government of praetorians +to come into existence. If he had a preference for any one form +of services rendered to the state, it was for the sciences and arts +of peace rather than for those of war. + +The most remarkable peculiarity of his action as a statesman +was its perfect harmony. In reality all the conditions +for this most difficult of all human functions were united in Caesar. +A thorough realist, he never allowed the images of the past +or venerable tradition to disturb him; for him nothing was of value +in politics but the living present and the law of reason, just as +in his character of grammarian he set aside historical and antiquarian +research and recognized nothing but on the one hand the living +-usus loquendi- and on the other hand the rule of symmetry. +A born ruler, he governed the minds of men as the wind drives the clouds, +and compelled the most heterogeneous natures to place themselves +at his service--the plain citizen and the rough subaltern, the genteel +matrons of Rome and the fair princesses of Egypt and Mauretania, +the brilliant cavalry-officer and the calculating banker. +His talent for organization was marvellous; no statesman has ever +compelled alliances, no general has ever collected an army +out of unyielding and refractory elements with such decision, +and kept them together with such firmness, as Caesar displayed +in constraining and upholding his coalitions and his legions; +never did regent judge his instruments and assign each to the place +appropriate for him with so acute an eye. + +He was monarch; but he never played the king. Even when absolute +lord of Rome, he retained the deportment of the party-leader; +perfectly pliant and smooth, easy and charming in conversation, +complaisant towards every one, it seemed as if he wished to be +nothing but the first among his peers. Caesar entirely avoided +the blunder into which so many men otherwise on an equality with him +have fallen, of carrying into politics the military tone of command; +however much occasion his disagreeable relations with the senate +gave for it, he never resorted to outrages such as was that +of the eighteenth Brumaire. Caesar was monarch; but he was never +seized with the giddiness of the tyrant. He is perhaps the only one +among the mighty ones of the earth, who in great matters and little +never acted according to inclination or caprice, but always +without exception according to his duty as ruler, and who, +when he looked back on his life, found doubtless erroneous calculations +to deplore, but no false step of passion to regret. There is nothing +in the history of Caesar's life, which even on a small scale(2) +can be compared with those poetico-sensual ebullitions--such as +the murder of Kleitos or the burning of Persepolis--which the history +of his great predecessor in the east records. He is, in fine, +perhaps the only one of those mighty ones, who has preserved +to the end of his career the statesman's tact of discriminating between +the possible and the impossible, and has not broken down in the task +which for greatly gifted natures is the most difficult of all-- +the task of recognizing, when on the pinnacle of success, +its natural limits. What was possible he performed, and never left +the possible good undone for the sake of the impossible better, +never disdained at least to mitigate by palliatives evils +that were incurable. But where he recognized that fate had spoken, +he always obeyed. Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at Moscow, +turned back because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant +at destiny for bestowing even on its favourites merely limited successes; +Caesar turned back voluntarily on the Thames and on the Rhine; +and thought of carrying into effect even at the Danube and the Euphrates +not unbounded plans of world-conquest, but merely well-considered +frontier-regulations. + +Such was this unique man, whom it seems so easy and yet is so infinitely +difficult to describe. His whole nature is transparent clearness; +and tradition preserves more copious and more vivid information +about him than about any of his peers in the ancient world. +Of such a personage our conceptions may well vary in point +of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, strictly speaking, +different; to every not utterly perverted inquirer the grand figure +has exhibited the same essential features, and yet no one +has succeeded in reproducing it to the life. The secret lies +in its perfection. In his character as a man as well as in his place +in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts +of existence meet and balance each other. Of mighty creative power +and yet at the same time of the most penetrating judgment; +no longer a youth and not yet an old man; of the highest energy of will +and the highest capacity of execution; filled with republican ideals +and at the same time born to be a king; a Roman in the deepest essence +of his nature, and yet called to reconcile and combine in himself +as well as in the outer world the Roman and the Hellenic +types of culture--Caesar was the entire and perfect man. +Accordingly we miss in him more than in any other historical personage +what are called characteristic features, which are in reality +nothing else than deviations from the natural course of human development. +What in Caesar passes for such at the first superficial glance is, +when more closely observed, seen to be the peculiarity +not of the individual, but of the epoch of culture or of the nation; +his youthful adventures, for instance, were common to him +with all his more gifted contemporaries of like position, +his unpoetical but strongly logical temperament was the temperament +of Romans in general. It formed part also of Caesar's full humanity +that he was in the highest degree influenced by the conditions +of time and place; for there is no abstract humanity-- +the living man cannot but occupy a place in a given nationality +and in a definite line of culture. Caesar was a perfect man +just because he more than any other placed himself amidst +the currents of his time, and because he more than any other possessed +the essential peculiarity of the Roman nation--practical aptitude +as a citizen--in perfection: for his Hellenism in fact was only +the Hellenism which had been long intimately blended with the Italian +nationality. But in this very circumstance lies the difficulty, +we may perhaps say the impossibility, of depicting Caesar to the life. +As the artist can paint everything save only consummate beauty, +so the historian, when once in a thousand years he encounters +the perfect, can only be silent regarding it. For normality admits +doubtless of being expressed, but it gives us only the negative notion +of the absence of defect; the secret of nature, whereby +in her most finished manifestations normality and individuality +are combined, is beyond expression. Nothing is left for us +but to deem those fortunate who beheld this perfection, and to gain +some faint conception of it from the reflected lustre which rests +imperishably on the works that were the creation of this great nature. +These also, it is true, bear the stamp of the time. The Roman hero +himself stood by the side of his youthful Greek predecessor +not merely as an equal, but as a superior; but the world had meanwhile +become old and its youthful lustre had faded. The action of Caesar +was no longer, like that of Alexander, a joyous marching onward +towards a goal indefinitely remote; he built on, and out of, ruins, +and was content to establish himself as tolerably and as securely +as possible within the ample but yet definite bounds once assigned +to him. With reason therefore the delicate poetic tact +of the nations has not troubled itself about the unpoetical Roman, +and on the other hand has invested the son of Philip with all +the golden lustre of poetry, with all the rainbow hues of legend. +But with equal reason the political life of the nations has during +thousands of years again and again reverted to the lines +which Caesar drew; and the fact, that the peoples to whom the world +belongs still at the present day designate the highest of their monarchs +by his name, conveys a warning deeply significant and, unhappily, +fraught with shame. + +Setting Aside of the Old Parties + +If the old, in every respect vicious, state of things was to be +successfully got rid of and the commonwealth was to be renovated, +it was necessary first of all that the country should be +practically tranquillized and that the ground should be cleared +from the rubbish with which since the recent catastrophe it was +everywhere strewed. In this work Caesar set out from the principle +of the reconciliation of the hitherto subsisting parties or, +to put it more correctly--for, where the antagonistic principles +are irreconcilable, we cannot speak of real reconciliation-- +from the principle that the arena, on which the nobility and the populace +had hitherto contended with each other, was to be abandoned +by both parties, and that both were to meet together on the ground +of the new monarchical constitution. First of all therefore +all the older quarrels of the republican past were regarded as done away +for ever and irrevocably. While Caesar gave orders that the statues +of Sulla which had been thrown down by the mob of the capital +on the news of the battle of Pharsalus should be re-erected, and thus +recognized the fact that it became history alone to sit in judgment +on that great man, he at the same time cancelled the last remaining +effects of Sulla's exceptional laws, recalled from exile those +who had been banished in the times of the Cinnan and Sertorian troubles, +and restored to the children of those outlawed by Sulla +their forfeited privilege of eligibility to office. In like manner +all those were restored, who in the preliminary stage of the recent +catastrophe had lost their seat in the senate or their civil existence +through sentence of the censors or political process, especially +through the impeachments raised on the basis of the exceptional laws +of 702. Those alone who had put to death the proscribed +for money remained, as was reasonable, still under attainder; +and Milo, the most daring condottiere of the senatorial party, +was excluded from the general pardon. + +Discontent of the Democrats + +Far more difficult than the settlement of these questions +which already belonged substantially to the past was the treatment +of the parties confronting each other at the moment--on the one hand +Caesar's own democratic adherents, on the other hand the overthrown +aristocracy. That the former should be, if possible, still less +satisfied than the latter with Caesar's conduct after the victory +and with his summons to abandon the old standing-ground of party, +was to be expected. Caesar himself desired doubtless on the whole +the same issue which Gaius Gracchus had contemplated; but the designs +of the Caesarians were no longer those of the Gracchans. +The Roman popular party had been driven onward in gradual progression +from reform to revolution, from revolution to anarchy, from anarchy +to a war against property; they celebrated among themselve +the memory of the reign of terror and now adorned the tomb +of Catilina, as formerly that of the Gracchi, with flowers +and garlands; they had placed themselves under Caesar's banner, +because they expected him to do for them what Catilina +had not been able to accomplish. But as it speedily became plain +that Caesar was very far from intending to be the testamentary +executor of Catilina, and that the utmost which debtors might expect +from him was some alleviations of payment and modifications +of procedure, indignation found loud vent in the inquiry. +For whom then had the popular party conquered, if not for the people? +And the rabble of this description, high and low, out of pure chagrin +at the miscarriage of their politico-economic Saturnalia began first +to coquet with the Pompeians, and then even during Caesar's absence +of nearly two years from Italy (Jan. 706-autumn 707) to instigate there +a second civil war within the first. + +Caelius and Milo + +The praetor Marcus Caelius Rufus, a good aristocrat and bad payer +of debts, of some talent and much culture, as a vehement +and fluent orator hitherto in the senate and in the Forum +one of the most zealous champions for Caesar, proposed to the people-- +without being instructed from any higher quarter to do so-- +a law which granted to debtors a respite of six years free of interest, +and then, when he was opposed in this step, proposed a second law +which even cancelled all claims arising out of loans and current +house rents; whereupon the Caesarian senate deposed him from his office. +It was just on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus, and the balance +in the great contest seemed to incline to the side of the Pompeians; +Rufus entered into communication with the old senatorian +band-leader Milo, and the two contrived a counter-revolution, +which inscribed on its banner partly the republican constitution, +partly the cancelling of creditors' claims and the manumission of slaves. +Milo left his place of exile Massilia, and called the Pompeians +and the slave-herdsmen to arms in the region of Thurii; Rufus made +arrangements to seize the town of Capua by armed slaves. +But the latter plan was detected before its execution and frustrated +by the Capuan militia; Quintus Pedius, who advanced with a legion +into the territory of Thurii, scattered the band making havoc there; +and the fall of the two leaders put an end to the scandal (706). + +Dolabella + +Nevertheless there was found in the following year (707) a second fool, +the tribune of the people, Publius Dolabella, who, equally insolvent +but far from being equally gifted with his predecessor, +introduced afresh his law as to creditors' claims and house rents, +and with his colleague Lucius Trebellius began on that point once more-- +it was the last time--the demagogic war; there were serious frays +between the armed bands on both sides and various street-riots, +till the commandant of Italy Marcus Antonius ordered the military +to interfere, and soon afterwards Caesar's return from the east +completely put an end to the preposterous proceedings. +Caesar attributed to these brainless attempts to revive the projects +of Catilina so little importance, that he tolerated Dolabella in Italy +and indeed after some time even received him again into favour. +Against a rabble of this sort, which had nothing to do with +any political question at all, but solely with a war against property-- +as against gangs of banditti--the mere existence of a strong government +is sufficient; and Caesar was too great and too considerate +to busy himself with the apprehensions which the Italian alarmists +felt regarding these communists of that day, and thereby unduly +to procure a false popularity for his monarchy. + +Measures against Pompeians and Republicans + +While Caesar thus might leave, and actually left, the late democratic +party to the process of decomposition which had already in its case +advanced almost to the utmost limit, he had on the other hand, +with reference to the former aristocratic party possessing +a far greater vitality, not to bring about its dissolution-- +which time alone could accomplish--but to pave the way for +and initiate it by a proper combination of repression and conciliation. +Among minor measures, Caesar, even from a natural sense of propriety, +avoided exasperating the fallen party by empty sarcasm; +he did not triumph over his conquered fellow-burgesses;(3) +he mentioned Pompeius often and always with respect, and caused +his statue overthrown by the people to be re-erected at the senate- +house, when the latter was restored, in its earlier distinguished place. +To political prosecutions after the victory Caesar assigned +the narrowest possible limits. No investigation was instituted +into the various communications which the constitutional party +had held even with nominal Caesarians; Caesar threw the piles of papers +found in the enemy's headquarters at Pharsalus and Thapsus +into the fire unread, and spared himself and the country from political +processes against individuals suspected of high treason. Further, +all the common soldiers who had followed their Roman or provincial +officers into the contest against Caesar came off with impunity. +The sole exception made was in the case of those Roman burgesses, +who had taken service in the army of the Numidian king Juba; +their property was confiscated by way of penalty for their treason. +Even to the officers of the conquered party Caesar had granted +unlimited pardon up to the close of the Spanish campaign of 705; +but he became convinced that in this he had gone too far, +and that the removal at least of the leaders among them was inevitable. +The rule by which he was thenceforth guided was, that every one +who after the capitulation of Ilerda had served as an officer +in the enemy's army or had sat in the opposition-senate, if he survived +the close of the struggle, forfeited his property and his political +rights, and was banished from Italy for life; if he did not survive +the close of the struggle, his property at least fell to the state; +but any one of these, who had formerly accepted pardon from Caesar +and was once more found in the ranks of the enemy, thereby +forfeited his life. These rules were however materially modified +in the execution. The sentence of death was actually executed +only against a very few of the numerous backsliders. In the confiscation +of the property of the fallen not only were the debts attaching +to the several portions of the estate as well as the claims +of the widows for their dowries paid off, as was reasonable. +But a portion of the paternal estate was left also to the children +of the deceased. Lastly not a few of those, who in consequence +of those rules were liable to banishment and confiscation of property, +were at once pardoned entirely or got off with fines, like the African +capitalists who were impressed as members of the senate of Utica. +And even the others almost without exception got their freedom +and property restored to them, if they could only prevail +on themselves to petition Caesar to that effect; on several +who declined to do so, such as the consular Marcus Marcellus, +pardon was even conferred unasked, and ultimately in 710 +a general amnesty was issued for all who were still unrecalled. + +Amnesty + +The republican opposition submitted to be pardoned; +but it was not reconciled. Discontent with the new order of things +and exasperation against the unwonted ruler were general. +For open political resistance there was indeed no farther opportunity-- +it was hardly worth taking into account, that some oppositional +tribunes on occasion of the question of title acquired for themselves +the republican crown of martyrdom by a demonstrative intervention +against those who had called Caesar king--but republicanism +found expression all the more decidedly as an opposition of sentiment, +and in secret agitation and plotting. Not a hand stirred +when the Imperator appeared in public. There was abundance +of wall-placards and sarcastic verses full of bitter and telling +popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian +ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest +applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme +of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public +all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free. +Caesar indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field; +he himself and his abler confidants replied to the Cato-literature +with Anticatones, and the republican and Caesarian scribes +fought round the dead hero of Utica like the Trojans and Hellenes +round the dead body of Patroclus; but as a matter of course +in this conflict--where the public thoroughly republican in its feelings +was judge--the Caesarians had the worst of it. No course remained +but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known +and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius +Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty +in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, +while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected +to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more +annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded +was utterly arbitrary.(4) The underground machinations +of the overthrown parties against the new monarchy will be more fitly +set forth in another connection. Here it is sufficient to say +that risings of pretenders as well as of republicans were incessantly +brewing throughout the Roman empire; that the flames of civil war kindled +now by the Pompeians, now by the republicans, again burst forth brightly +at various places; and that in the capital there was perpetual +conspiracy against the life of the monarch. But Caesar +could not be induced by these plots even to surround himself +permanently with a body-guard, and usually contented himself +with making known the detected conspiracies by public placards. + +Bearing of Caesar towards the Parties + +However much Caesar was wont to treat all things relating +to his personal safety with daring indifference, he could not possibly +conceal from himself the very serious danger with which this mass +of malcontents threatened not merely himself but also his creations. +If nevertheless, disregarding all the warning and urgency +of his friends, he without deluding himself as to the implacability +of the very opponents to whom he showed mercy, persevered +with marvellous composure and energy in the course of pardoning +by far the greater number of them, he did so neither +from the chivalrous magnanimity of a proud, nor from the sentimental +clemency of an effeminate, nature, but from the correct statesmanly +consideration that vanquished parties are disposed of +more rapidly and with less public injury by their absorption +within the state than by any attempt to extirpate them by proscription +or to eject them from the commonwealth by banishment. Caesar could not +for his high objects dispense with the constitutional party itself, +which in fact embraced not the aristocracy merely but all the elements +of a free and national spirit among the Italian burgesses; +for his schemes, which contemplated the renovation of the antiquated +state, he needed the whole mass of talent, culture, hereditary, +and self-acquired distinction, which this party embraced; +and in this sense he may well have named the pardoning of his opponents +the finest reward of victory. Accordingly the most prominent chiefs +of the defeated parties were indeed removed, but full pardon +was not withheld from the men of the second and third rank +and especially of the younger generation; they were not, however, +allowed to sulk in passive opposition, but were by more or less +gentle pressure induced to take an active part in the new administration, +and to accept honours and offices from it. As with Henry the Fourth +and William of Orange, so with Caesar his greatest difficulties began +only after the victory. Every revolutionary conqueror learns +by experience that, if after vanquishing his opponents he would +not remain like Cinna and Sulla a mere party-chief, but would +like Caesar, Henry the Fourth, and William of Orange substitute +the welfare of the commonwealth for the necessarily one-sided programme +of his own party, for the moment all parties, his own as well as +the vanquished, unite against the new chief; and the more so, +the more great and pure his idea of his new vocation. The friends +of the constitution and the Pompeians, though doing homage +with the lips to Caesar, bore yet in heart a grudge either +at monarchy or at least at the dynasty; the degenerate democracy +was in open rebellion against Caesar from the moment of its perceiving +that Caesar's objects were by no means its own; even the personal +adherents of Caesar murmured, when they found that their chief was +establishing instead of a state of condottieri a monarchy equal +and just towards all, and that the portions of gain accruing to them +were to be diminished by the accession of the vanquished. +This settlement of the commonwealth was acceptable to no party, +and had to be imposed on his associates no less than on his opponents. +Caesar's own position was now in a certain sense more imperilled +than before the victory; but what he lost, the state gained. +By annihilating the parties and not simply sparing the partisans +but allowing every man of talent or even merely of good descent +to attain to office irrespective of his political past, he gained +for his great building all the working power extant in the state; +and not only so, but the voluntary or compulsory participation of men +of all parties in the same work led the nation also over imperceptibly +to the newly prepared ground. The fact that this reconciliation +of the parties was for the moment only externaland that they were +for the present much less agreed in adherence to the new state of things +than in hatred against Caesar, did not mislead him; he knew well +that antagonisms lose their keenness when brought into such outward union, +and that only in this way can the statesman anticipate the work of time, +which alone is able finally to heal such a strife by laying +the old generation in the grave. Still less did he inquire who hated him +or meditated his assassination. Like every genuine statesman he served +not the people for reward--not even for the reward of their love-- +but sacrificed the favour of his contemporaries for the blessing +of posterity, and above all for the permission to save +and renew his nation. + +Caesar's Work + +In attempting to give a detailed account of the mode in which +the transition was effected from the old to the new state of things, +we must first of all recollect that Caesar came not to begin, +but to complete. The plan of a new polity suited to the times, +long ago projected by Gaius Gracchus, had been maintained +by his adherents and successors with more or less of spirit and success, +but without wavering. Caesar, from the outset and as it were +by hereditary right the head of the popular party, had for thirty years +borne aloft its banner without ever changing or even so much +as concealing his colours; he remained democrat even when monarch. +as he accepted without limitation, apart of course from the preposterous +projects of Catilina and Clodius, the heritage of his party; +as he displayed the bitterest, even personal, hatred to the aristocracy +and the genuine aristocrats; and as he retained unchanged +the essential ideas of Roman democracy, viz. alleviation of the burdens +of debtors, transmarine colonization, gradual equalization +of the differences of rights among the classes belonging +to the state, emancipation of the executive power from the senate: +his monarchy was so little at variance with democracy, +that democracy on the contrary only attained its completion +and fulfilment by means of that monarchy. For this monarchy +was not the Oriental despotism of divine right, but a monarchy such as +Gaius Gracchus wished to found, such as Pericles and Cromwell founded-- +the representation of the nation by the man in whom it puts +supreme and unlimited confidence. The ideas, which lay +at the foundation of Caesar's work, were so far not strictly new; +but to him belongs their realization, which after all is everywhere +the main matter; and to him pertains the grandeur of execution, +which would probably have surprised the brilliant projector himself +if he could have seen it, and which has impressed, and will +always impress, every one to whom it has been presented in the living +reality or in the mirror of history--to whatever historical epoch +or whatever shade of politics he may belong--according +to the measure of his ability to comprehend human and historical +greatness, with deep and ever-deepening emotion and admiration. + +At this point however it is proper expressly once for all to claim +what the historian everywhere tacitly presumes, and to protest +against the custom--common to simplicity and perfidy--of using +historical praise and historical censure, dissociated +from the given circumstances, as phrases of general application, +and in the present case of construing the judgment as to Caesar +into a judgment as to what is called Caesarism. It is true +that the history of past centuries ought to be the instructress +of the present; but not in the vulgar sense, as if one could simply +by turning over the leaves discover the conjunctures of the present +in the records of the past, and collect from these the symptoms +for a political diagnosis and the specifics for a prescription; +it is instructive only so far as the observation of older forms +of culture reveals the organic conditions of civilization generally-- +the fundamental forces everywhere alike, and the manner of their +combination everywhere different--and leads and encourages men, +not to unreflecting imitation, but to independent reproduction. +In this sense the history of Caesar and of Roman Imperialism, +with all the unsurpassed greatness of the master-worker, +with all the historical necessity of the work, is in truth +a sharper censure of modern autocracy than could be written +by the hand of man. According to the same law of nature in virtue +of which the smallest organism infinitely surpasses the most artistic +machine, every constitution however defective which gives play +to the free self-determination of a majority of citizens infinitely +surpasses the most brilliant and humane absolutism; for the former +is capable of development and therefore living, the latter is what it is +and therefore dead. This law of nature has verified itself +in the Roman absolute military monarchy and verified itself +all the more completely, that, under the impulse of its creator's genius +and in the absence of all material complications from without, +that monarchy developed itself more purely and freely +than any similar state. From Caesar's time, as the sequel will show +and Gibbon has shown long ago, the Roman system had only an external +coherence and received only a mechanical extension, while internally +it became even with him utterly withered and dead. If in the early +stages of the autocracy and above all in Caesar's own soul(5) +the hopeful dream of a combination of free popular development +and absolute rule was still cherished, the government of the highly- +gifted emperors of the Julian house soon taught men in a terrible form +how far it was possible to hold fire and water in the same vessel. +Caesar's work was necessary and salutary, not because it was +or could be fraught with blessing in itself, but because-- +with the national organization of antiquity, which was based on slavery +and was utterly a stranger to republican-constitutional representation, +and in presence of the legitimate urban constitution which in the course +of five hundred years had ripened into oligarchic absolutism-- +absolute military monarchy was the copestone logically necessary +and the least of evils. When once the slave-holding aristocracy +in Virginia and the Carolinas shall have carried matters as far as +their congeners in the Sullan Rome, Caesarism will there too +be legitimized at the bar of the spirit of history;(6) +where it appears under other conditions of development, it is at once +a caricature and a usurpation. But history will not submit +to curtail the true Caesar of his due honour, because her verdict +may in the presence of bad Caesars lead simplicity astray +and may give to roguery occasion for lying and fraud. She too +is a Bible, and if she cannot any more than the Bible hinder the fool +from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting her, she too will +be able to bear with, and to requite, them both. + +Dictatorship + +The position of the new supreme head of the state appears formally, +at least in the first instance, as a dictatorship. Caesar took +it up at first after his return from Spain in 705, but laid it down +again after a few days, and waged the decisive campaign of 706 +simply as consul--this was the office his tenure of which was +the primary occasion for the outbreak of the civil war.(7) +but in the autumn of this year after the battle of Pharsalus +he reverted to the dictatorship and had it repeatedly entrusted to him, +at first for an undefined period, but from the 1st January 709 +as an annual office, and then in January or February 710(8) +for the duration of his life, so that he in the end expressly dropped +the earlier reservation as to his laying down the office and gave +formal expression to its tenure for life in the new title of -dictator +perpetuus-. This dictatorship, both in its first ephemeral +and in its second enduring tenure, was not that of the old constitution, +but--what was coincident with this merely in the name--the supreme +exceptional office as arranged by Sulla;(9) an office, +the functions of which were fixed, not by the constitutional ordinances +regarding the supreme single magistracy, but by special decree +of the people, to such an effect that the holder received, +in the commission to project laws and to regulate the commonwealth, +an official prerogative de jure unlimited which superseded +the republican partition of powers. Those were merely applications +of this general prerogative to the particular case, when the holder +of power was further entrusted by separate acts with the right +of deciding on war and peace without consulting the senate +and the people, with the independent disposal of armies and finances, +and with the nomination of the provincial governors. Caesar could +accordingly de jure assign to himself even such prerogatives +as lay outside of the proper functions of the magistracy and even +outside of the province of state-powers at all;(10) and it appears +almost as a concession on his part, that he abstained from nominating +the magistrates instead of the Comitia and limited himself to claiming +a binding right of proposal for a proportion of the praetors +and of the lower magistrates; and that he moreover had himself +empowered by special decree of the people for the creation of patricians, +which was not at all allowable according to use and wont. + +Other Magistracies and Attributions + +For other magistracies in the proper sense there remained alongside +of this dictatorship no room; Caesar did not take up the censorship +as such,(11) but he doubtless exercised censorial rights-- +particularly the important right of nominating senators--after +a comprehensive fashion. + +He held the consulship frequently alongside of the dictatorship, +once even without colleague; but he by no means attached it permanently +to his person, and he gave no effect to the calls addressed to him +to undertake it for five or even for ten years in succession. + +Caesar had no need to have the superintendence of worship +now committed to him, since he was already -pontifex maximus-.(12) +as a matter of course the membership of the college of augurs +was conferred on him, and generally an abundance of old and new +honorary rights, such as the title of a "father of the fatherland," +the designation of the month of his birth by the name which it +still bears of Julius, and other manifestations of the incipient +courtly tone which ultimately ran into utter deification. +Two only of the arrangements deserve to be singled out: +namely that Caesar was placed on the same footing with the tribunes +of the people as regards their special personal inviolability, +and that the appellation of Imperator was permanently attached +to his person and borne by him as a title alongside of +his other official designations. + +Men of judgment will not require any proof, either that Caesar +intended to engraft on the commonwealth his supreme power, +and this not merely for a few years or even as a personal office +for an indefinite period somewhat like Sulla's regency, +but as an essential and permanent organ; or that he selected +for the new institution an appropriate and simple designation; +for, if it is a political blunder to create names without substantial +meaning, it is scarcely a less error to set up the substance +of plenary power without a name. Only it is not easy to determine +what definitive formal shape Caesar had in view; partly because +in this period of transition the ephemeral and the permanent buildings +are not clearly discriminated from each other, partly because +the devotion of his clients which already anticipated the nod +of their master loaded him with a multitude--offensive doubtless +to himself--of decrees of confidence and laws conferring honours. +Least of all could the new monarchy attach itself to the consulship, +just on account of the collegiate character that could not well +be separated from this office; Caesar also evidently laboured +to degrade this hitherto supreme magistracy into an empty title, +and subsequently, when he undertook it, he did not hold it +through the whole year, but before the year expired gave it away +to personages of secondary rank. The dictatorship came practically +into prominence most frequently and most definitely, but probably +only because Caesar wished to use it in the significance which it had +of old in the constitutional machinery--as an extraordinary presidency +for surmounting extraordinary crises. On the other hand it was +far from recommending itself as an expression for the new monarchy, +for the magistracy was inherently clothed with an exceptional +and unpopular character, and it could hardly be expected +of the representative of the democracy that he should choose +for its permanent organization that form, which the most gifted champion +of the opposing party had created for his own ends. + +The new name of Imperator, on the other hand, appears in every respect +by far more appropriate for the formal expression of the monarchy; +just because it is in this application(13) new, and no definite +outward occasion for its introduction is apparent. The new wine +might not be put into old bottles; here is a new name for the new thing, +and that name most pregnantly sums up what the democratic party +had already expressed in the Gabinian law, only with less precision, +as the function of its chief--the concentration and perpetuation +of official power (-imperium-) in the hands of a popular chief +independent of the senate. We find on Caesar's coins, +especially those of the last period, alongside of the dictatorship +the title of Imperator prevailing, and in Caesar's law +as to political crimes the monarch seems to have been designated +by this name. Accordingly the following times, though not immediately, +connected the monarchy with the name of Imperator. To lend +to this new office at once a democratic and religious sanction, +Caesar probably intended to associate with it once for all +on the one hand the tribunician power, on the other +the supreme pontificate. + +That the new organization was not meant to be restricted merely +to the lifetime of its founder, is beyond doubt; but he did not succeed +in settling the especially difficult question of the succession, +and it must remain an undecided point whether he had it in view +to institute some sort of form for the election of a successor, +such as had subsisted in the case of the original kingly office, +or whether he wished to introduce for the supreme office +not merely the tenure for life but also the hereditary character, +as his adopted son subsequently maintained.(14) It is not improbable +that he had the intention of combining in some measure the two systems, +and of arranging the succession, similarly to the course +followed by Cromwell and by Napoleon, in such a way that the ruler +should be succeeded in rule by his son, but, if he had no son, +or the son should not seem fitted for the succession, the ruler should +of his free choice nominate his successor in the form of adoption. + +In point of state law the new office of Imperator was based +on the position which the consuls or proconsuls occupied +outside of the -pomerium-, so that primarily the military command, +but, along with this, the supreme judicial and consequently +also the administrative power, were included in it.(15) +But the authority of the Imperator was qualitatively superior +to the consular-proconsular, in so far as the former was not limited +as respected time or space, but was held for life and operative also +in the capital;(16) as the Imperator could not, while the consul could, +be checked by colleagues of equal power; and as all the restrictions +placed in course of time on the original supreme official power-- +especially the obligation to give place to the -provocatio- +and to respect the advice of the senate--did not apply +to the Imperator. + +Re-establishment of the Regal Office + +In a word, this new office of Imperator was nothing else +than the primitive regal office re-established; for it was +those very restrictions--as respected the temporal and local +limitation of power, the collegiate arrangement, and the cooperation +of the senate or the community that was necessary for certain cases-- +which distinguished the consul from the king.(17) There is hardly +a trait of the new monarchy which was not found in the old: +the union of the supreme military, judicial, and administrative authority +in the hands of the prince; a religious presidency over the commonwealth; +the right of issuing ordinances with binding power; the reduction +of the senate to a council of state; the revival of the patriciate +and of the praefecture of the city. But still more striking +than these analogies is the internal similarity of the monarchy +of Servius Tullius and the monarchy of Caesar; if those +old kings of Rome with all their plenitude of power had yet +been rulers of a free community and themselves the protectors +of the commons against the nobility, Caesar too had not come +to destroy liberty but to fulfil it, and primarily to break +the intolerable yoke of the aristocracy. Nor need it surprise us +that Caesar, anything but a political antiquary, went back +five hundred years to find the model for his new state; for, +seeing that the highest office of the Roman commonwealth had remained +at all times a kingship restricted by a number of special laws, +the idea of the regal office itself had by no means become obsolete. +At very various periods and from very different sides-- +in the decemviral power, in the Sullan regency, and in Caesar's +own dictatorship--there had been during the republic a practical +recurrence to it; indeed by a certain logical necessity, +whenever an exceptional power seemed requisite there emerged, +in contradistinction to the usual limited -imperium-, +the unlimited -imperium- which was simply nothing else +than the regal power. + +Lastly, outward considerations also recommended this recurrence +to the former kingly position. Mankind have infinite difficulty +in reaching new creations, and therefore cherish the once developed forms +as sacred heirlooms. Accordingly Caesar very judiciously +connected himself with Servius Tullius, in the same way +as subsequently Charlemagne connected himself with Caesar, +and Napoleon attempted at least to connect himself with Charlemagne. +He did so, not in a circuitous way and secretly, but, as well as +his successors, in the most open manner possible; it was indeed +the very object of this connection to find a clear, national, +and popular form of expression for the new state. From ancient times +there stood on the Capitol the statues of those seven kings, +whom the conventional history of Rome was wont to bring on the stage; +Caesar ordered his own to be erected beside them as the eighth. +He appeared publicly in the costume of the old kings of Alba. +In his new law as to political crimes the principal variation +from that of Sulla was, that there was placed alongside +of the collective community, and on a level with it, the Imperator +as the living and personal expression of the people. In the formula +used for political oaths there was added to the Jovis and the Penates +of the Roman people the Genius of the Imperator. The outward badge +of monarchy was, according to the view univerally diffused in antiquity, +the image of the monarch on the coins; from the year 710 +the head of Caesar appears on those of the Roman state. + +There could accordingly be no complaint at least on the score +that Caesar left the public in the dark as to his view of his position; +as distinctly and as formally as possible he came forward +not merely as monarch, but as very king of Rome. It is possible even, +although not exactly probable, and at any rate of subordinate +importance, that he had it in view to designate his official power +not with the new name of Imperator, but directly with the old one +of King.(18) Even in his lifetime many of his enemies as of his friends +were of opinion that he intended to have himself expressly nominated +king of Rome; several indeed of his most vehement adherents +suggested to him in different ways and at different times +that he should assume the crown; most strikingly of all, +Marcus Antonius, when he as consul offered the diadem to Caesar +before all the people (15 Feb. 710). But Caesar rejected +these proposals without exception at once. If he at the same time +took steps against those who made use of these incidents to stir +republican opposition, it by no means follows from this that he was not +in earnest with his rejection. The assumption that these invitations +took place at his bidding, with the view of preparing the multitude +for the unwonted spectacle of the Roman diadem, utterly misapprehends +the mighty power of the sentimental opposition with which +Caesar had to reckon, and which could not be rendered more compliant, +but on the contrary necessarily gained a broader basis, +through such a public recognition of its warrant on the part +of Caesar himself. It may have been the uncalled-for zeal of vehement +adherents alone that occasioned these incidents; it may be also, +that Caesar merely permitted or even suggested the scene with Antonius, +in order to put an end in as marked a manner as possible +to the inconvenient gossip by a declinature which took place +before the eyes of the burgesses and was inserted by his command +even in the calendar of the state and could not, in fact, +be well revoked. The probability is that Caesar, who appreciated alike +the value of a convenient formal designation and the antipathies +of the multitude which fasten more on the names than on the essence +of things, was resolved to avoid the name of king as tainted +with an ancient curse and as more familiar to the Romans of his time +when applied to the despots of the east than to their own Numa +and Servius, and to appropriate the substance of the regal office +under the title of Imperator. + +The New Court +The New Patrician Nobility + +But, whatever may have been the definitive title present to his thoughts +the sovereign ruler was there, and accordingly the court +established itself at once with all its due accompaniments of pomp, +insipidity, and emptiness. Caesar appeared in public not in the robe +of the consuls which was bordered with purple stripes, +but in the robe wholly of purple which was reckoned in antiquity +as the proper regal attire, and received, seated on his golden chair +and without rising from it, the solemn procession of the senate. +The festivals in his honour commemorative of birthday, of victories, +and of vows, filled the calendar. When Caesar came to the capital, +his principal servants marched forth in troops to great distances +so as to meet and escort him. To be near to him began to be +of such importance, that the rents rose in the quarter of the city +where he dwelt. Personal interviews with him were rendered +so difficult by the multitude of individuals soliciting audience, +that Caesar found himself compelled in many cases to communicate +even with his intimate friends in writing, and that persons +even of the highest rank had to wait for hours in the antechamber. +People felt, more clearly than was agreeable to Caesar himself, +that they no longer approached a fellow-citizen. There arose +a monarchical aristocracy, which was in a remarkable manner at once +new and old, and which had sprung out of the idea of casting +into the shade the aristocracy of the oligarchy by that of royalty, +the nobility by the patriciate. The patrician body still subsisted, +although without essential privileges as an order, in the character +of a close aristocratic guild;(19) but as it could receive +no new -gentes-(20) it had dwindled away more and more in the course +of centuries, and in the time of Caesar there were not more than +fifteen or sixteen patrician -gentes- still in existence. +Caesar, himself sprung from one of them, got the right +of creating new patrician -gentes- conferred on the Imperator +by decree of the people, and so established, in contrast +to the republican nobility, the new aristocracy of the patriciate, +which most happily combined all the requisites of a monarchical +aristocracy--the charm of antiquity, entire dependence +on the government, and total insignificance. On all sides +the new sovereignty revealed itself. + +Under a monarch thus practically unlimited there could hardly +be scope for a constitution at all--still less for a continuance +of the hitherto existing commonwealth based on the legal co-operation +of the burgesses, the senate, and the several magistrates. Caesar fully +and definitely reverted to the tradition of the regal period; +the burgess-assembly remained--what it had already been, in that period-- +by the side of and with the king the supreme and ultimate expression +of the will of the sovereign people; the senate was brought back +to its original destination of giving advice to the ruler +when he requested it; and lastly the ruler concentrated in his person +anew the whole magisterial authority, so that there existed no other +independent state-official by his side any more than by the side +of the kings of the earliest times. + +Legislation +Edicts + +For legislation the democratic monarch adhered to the primitive maxim +of Roman state-law, that the community of the people in concert +with the king convoking them had alone the power of organically +regulating the commonwealth; and he had his constitutive enactments +regularly sanctioned by decree of the people. The free energy +and the authority half-moral, half-political, which the yea or nay +of those old warrior-assemblies had carried with it, could not indeed +be again instilled into the so-called comitia of this period; +the co-operation of the burgesses in legislation, which in the old +constitution had been extremely limited but real and living, +was in the new practically an unsubstantial shadow. There was therefore +no need of special restrictive measures against the comitia; +many years' experience had shown that every government-- +the oligarchy as well as the monarch--easily kept on good terms +with this formal sovereign. These Caesarian comitia were an important +element in the Caesarian system and indirectly of practical significance, +only in so far as they served to retain in principle the sovereignty +of the people and to constitute an energetic protest against sultanism. + +But at the same time--as is not only obvious of itself, but is also +distinctly attested--the other maxim also of the oldest state-law +was revived by Caesar himself, and not merely for the first time +by his successors; viz. that what the supreme, or rather sole, +magistrate commands is unconditionally valid so long as he remains +in office, and that, while legislation no doubt belongs only to the king +and the burgesses in concert, the royal edict is equivalent to law +at least till the demission of its author. + +The Senate as the State-Council of the Monarch + +While the democratic king thus conceded to the community of the people +at least a formal share in the sovereignty, it was by no means +his intention to divide his authority with what had hitherto been +the governing body, the college of senators. The senate of Caesar +was to be--in a quite different way from the later senate of Augustus-- +nothing but a supreme council of state, which he made use +of for advising with him beforehand as to laws, and for the issuing +of the more important administrative ordinances through it, +or at least under its name--for cases in fact occurred where decrees +of senate were issued, of which none of the senators recited +as present at their preparation had any cognizance. There were +no material difficulties of form in reducing the senate to it +original deliberative position, which it had overstepped more de facto +than de jure; but in this case it was necessary to protect himself +from practical resistance, for the Roman senate was as much +the headquarters of the opposition to Caesar as the Attic Areopagus +was of the opposition to Pericles. Chiefly for this reason +the number of senators, which had hitherto amounted at most +to six hundred in its normal condition(21) and had been greatly reduced +by the recent crises, was raised by extraordinary supplement +to nine hundred; and at the same time, to keep it at least +up to this mark, the number of quaestors to be nominated annually, +that is of members annually admitted to the senate, was raised +from twenty to forty.(22) The extraordinary filling up of the senate +was undertaken by the monarch alone. In the case of the ordinary +additions he secured to himself a permanent influence through +the circumstance, that the electoral colleges were bound by law(23) +to give their votes to the first twenty candidates for the quaestorship +who were provided with letters of recommendation from the monarch; +besides, the crown was at liberty to confer the honorary rights +attaching to the quaestorship or to any office superior to it, +and consequently a seat in the senate in particular, by way of exception +even on individuals not qualified. The selection of the extraordinary +members who were added naturally fell in the main on adherents +of the new order of things, and introduced, along with -equites- +of respectable standing, various dubious and plebeian personages +into the proud corporation--former senators who had been erased +from the roll by the censor or in consequence of a judicial sentence, +foreigners from Spain and Gaul who had to some extent to learn +their Latin in the senate, men lately subaltern officers +who had not previously received even the equestrian ring, +sons of freedmen or of such as followed dishonourable trades, +and other elements of a like kind. The exclusive circles +of the nobility, to whom this change in the personal composition +of the senate naturally gave the bitterest offence, saw in it +an intentional depreciation of the very institution itself. +Caesar was not capable of such a self-destructive policy; +he was as determined not to let himself be governed by his council +as he was convinced of the necessity of the institute in itself. +They might more correctly have discerned in this proceeding the intention +of the monarch to take away from the senate its former character +of an exclusive representation of the oligarchic aristocracy, +and to make it once more--what it had been in the regal period-- +a state-council representing all classes of persons belonging +to the state through their most intelligent elements, and not necessarily +excluding the man of humble birth or even the foreigner; just as those +earliest kings introduced non-burgesses,(24) Caesar introduced +non-Italians into his senate. + +Personal Government by Caesar + +While the rule of the nobility was thus set aside and its existence +undermined, and while the senate in its new form was merely a tool +of the monarch, autocracy was at the same time most strictly +carried out in the administration and government of the state, +and the whole executive was concentrated in the hands of the monarch. +First of all, the Imperator naturally decided in person every question +of any moment. Caesar was able to carry personal government +to an extent which we puny men can hardly conceive, and which +is not to be explained solely from the unparalleled rapidity +and decision of his working, but has moreover its ground +in a more general cause. When we see Caesar, Sulla, Gaius Gracchus, +and Roman statesmen in general displaying throughout an activity +which transcends our notions of human powers of working, the reason lies, +not in any change that human nature has undergone since that time, +but in the change which has taken place since then in the organization +of the household. The Roman house was a machine, in which even +the mental powers of the slaves and freedmen yielded their produce +to the master; a master, who knew how to govern these, worked as it were +with countless minds. It was the beau ideal of bureaucratic +centralization; which our counting-house system strives indeed +zealously to imitate, but remains as far behind its prototype +as the modern power of capital is inferior to the ancient system +of slavery. Caesar knew how to profit by this advantage; +wherever any post demanded special confidence, we see him filling it up +on principle--so far as other considerations at all permit-- +with his slaves freedmen, or clients of humble birth. His works +as a whole show what an organizing genius like his could accomplish +with such an instrument; but to the question, how in detail +these marvellous feats were achieved, we have no adequate answer. +Bureaucracy resembles a manufactory also in this respect, +that the work done does not appear as that of the individual +who has worked at it, but as that of the manufactory which stamps it. +This much only is quite clear, that Caesar, in his work had no helper +at all who exerted a personal influence over it or was even so much as +initiated into the whole plan; he was not only the sole master, +but he worked also without skilled associates, +merely with common labourers. + +In Matters of Finance + +With respect to details as a matter of course in strictly political +affairs Caesar avoided, so far as was at all possible, +any delegation of his functions. Where it was inevitable, +as especially when during his frequent absence from Rome he had need +of a higher organ there, the person destined for this purpose was, +significantly enough, not the legal deputy of the monarch, +the prefect of the city, but a confidant without officially-recognized +jurisdiction, usually Caesar's banker, the cunning and pliant +Phoenician merchant Lucius Cornelius Balbus from Gades. +In administration Caesar was above all careful to resume the keys +of the state-chest--which the senate had appropriated to itself +after the fall of the regal power, and by means of which +it had possessed itself of the government--and to entrust them +only to those servants who with their persons were absolutely +and exclusively devoted to him. In respect of ownership indeed +the private means of the monarch remained, of course, strictly +separate from the property of the state; but Caesar took in hand +the administration of the whole financial and monetary system +of the state, and conducted it entirely in the way in which +he and the Roman grandees generally were wont to manage +the administration of their own means and substance. For the future +the levying of the provincial revenues and in the main also +the management of the coinage were entrusted to the slaves and freedmen +of the Imperator and men of the senatorial order were excluded from it-- +a momentous step out of which grew in course of time the important class +of procurators and the "imperial household." + +In the Governorships + +Of the governorships on the other hand, which, after they had handed +their financial business over to the new imperial tax-receivers, +were still more than they had formerly been essentially military commands, +that of Egypt alone was transferred to the monarch's own retainers. +The country of the Nile, in a peculiar manner geographically isolated +and politically centralized, was better fitted than any other district +to break off permanently under an able leader from the central power, +as the attempts which had repeatedly been made by hard-pressed Italian +party-chiefs to establish themselves there during the recent crisis +sufficiently proved. Probably it was just this consideration +thatinduced Caesar not to declare the land formally a province, +but to leave the harmless Lagids there; and certainly for this reason +the legions stationed in Egypt were not entrusted to a man +belonging to the senate or, in other words, to the former government, +but this command was, just like the posts of tax-receivers, +treated as a menial office.(25) In general however the consideration +had weight with Caesar, that the soldiers of Rome should not, +like those of Oriental kings, be commanded by lackeys. It remained +the rule to entrust the more important governorships to those +who had been consuls, the less important to those who had been praetors; +and once more, instead of the five years' interval prescribed +by the law of 702,(26) the commencement of the governorship probably +was in the ancient fashion annexed directly to the close of the official +functions in the city. On the other hand the distribution +of the provinces among the qualified candidates, which had hitherto +been arranged sometimes by decree of the people or senate, +sometimes by concert among the magistrates or by lot, passed over +to the monarch. And, as the consuls were frequently induced +to abdicate before the end of the year and to make room for after- +elected consuls (-consules suffecti-); as, moreover, the number +of praetors annually nominated was raised from eight to sixteen, +and the nomination of half of them was entrusted to the Imperator +in the same way as that of the half of the quaestors; and, lastly, +as there was reserved to the Imperator the right of nominating, +if not titular consuls, at any rate titular praetors and titular +quaestors: Caesar secured a sufficient number of candidates +acceptable to him for filling up the governorships. Their recall +remained of course left to the discretion of the regent as well as +their nomination; as a rule it was assumed that the consular governor +should not remain more than two years, nor the praetorian +more than one year, in the province. + +In the Administration of the Capital + +Lastly, so far as concerns the administration of the city which was +his capital and residence, the Imperator evidently intended for a time +to entrust this also to magistrates similarly nominated by him. +He revived the old city-lieutenancy of the regal period;(27) +on different occasions he committed during his absence the administration +of the capital to one or more such lieutenants nominated by him +without consulting the people and for an indefinite period, +who united in themselves the functions of all the administrative +magistrates and possessed even the right of coining money +with their own name, although of course not with their own effigy +In 707 and in the first nine months of 709 there were, moreover, +neither praetors nor curule aediles nor quaestors; the consuls too +were nominated in the former year only towards its close, +and in the latter Caesar was even consul without a colleague. +This looks altogether like an attempt to revive completely +the old regal authority within the city of Rome, as far as the limits +enjoined by the democratic past of the new monarch; in other words, +of magistrates additional to the king himself, to allow only +the prefect of the city during the king's absence and the tribunes +and plebeian aediles appointed for protecting popular freedom +to continue in existence, and to abolish the consulship, the censorship, +the praetorship, the curule aedileship and the quaestorship.(28) +But Caesar subsequently departed from this; he neither accepted +the royal title himself, nor did he cancel those venerable names +interwoven with the glorious history of the republic. The consuls, +praetors, aediles, tribunes, and quaestors retained substantially +their previous formal powers; nevertheless their position +was totally altered. It was the political idea lying +at the foundation of the republic that the Roman empire was identified +with the city of Rome, and in consistency with it the municipal +magistrates of the capital were treated throughout as magistrates +of the empire. In the monarchy of Caesar that view and this consequence +of it fell into abeyance; the magistrates of Rome formed thenceforth +only the first among the many municipalities of the empire, +and the consulship in particular became a purely titular post, +which preserved a certain practical importance only in virtue +of the reversion of a higher governorship annexed to it. The fate, +which the Roman community had been wont to prepare for the vanquished, +now by means of Caesar befell itself; its sovereignty over +the Roman empire was converted into a limited communal freedom +within the Roman state. That at the same time the number +of the praetors and quaestors was doubled, has been already mentioned; +the same course was followed with the plebeian aediles, to whom +two new "corn-aediles" (-aediles Ceriales-) were added to superintend +the supplies of the capital. The appointment to those offices remained +with the community, and was subject to no restriction as respected +the consuls and perhaps also the tribunes of the people +and plebeian aediles; we have already adverted to the fact, +that the Imperator reserved a right of proposal binding on the electors +as regards the half of the praetors, curule aediles, and quaestors +to be annually nominated. In general the ancient and hallowed +palladia of popular freedom were not touched; which, of course, +did not prevent the individual refractory tribune of the people +from being seriously interfered with and, in fact, deposed and erased +from the roll of senators. + +As the Imperator was thus, for the more general and more important +questions, his own minister; as he controlled the finances +by his servants, and the army by his adjutants; and as the old republican +state-magistracies were again converted into municipal magistracies +of the city of Rome; the autocracy was sufficiently established. + +The State-Hierarchy + +In the spiritual hierarchy on the other hand Caesar, although he issued +a detailed law respecting this portion of the state-economy, +made no material alteration, except that he connected with the person +of the regent the supreme pontificate and perhaps also the membership +of the higher priestly colleges generally; and, partly +in connection with this, one new stall was created in each +of the three supreme colleges, and three new stalls in the fourth college +of the banquet-masters. If the Roman state-hierarchy had hitherto +served as a support to the ruling oligarchy, it might render +precisely the same service to the new monarchy. The conservative +religious policy of the senate was transferred to the new kings of Rome; +when the strictly conservative Varro published about this time +his "Antiquities of Divine Things," the great fundamental +repository of Roman state-theology, he was allowed to dedicate it +to the -Pontifex Maximus- Caesar. The faint lustre which the worship +of Jovis was still able to impart shone round the newly-established +throne; and the old national faith became in its last stages +the instrument of a Caesarian papacy, which, however, +was from the outset but hollow and feeble. + +Regal Jurisdiction + +In judicial matters, first of all, the old regal jurisdiction +was re-established. As the king had originally been judge in criminal +and civil causes, without being legally bound in the former +to respect an appeal to the prerogative of mercy in the people, +or in the latter to commit the decision of the question in dispute +to jurymen; so Caesar claimed the right of bringing capital causes +as well as private processes for sole and final decision to his own bar, +and disposing of them in the event of his presence personally, +in the event of his absence by the city-lieutenant. In fact, +we find him, quite after the manner of the ancient kings, now sitting +in judgment publicly in the Forum of the capital on Roman burgesses +accused of high treason, now holding a judicial inquiry, in his house +regarding the client princes accused of the like crime; +so that the only privilege, which the Roman burgesses had as compared +with the other subjects of the king, seems to have consisted +in the publicity of the judicial procedure. But this resuscitated +supreme jurisdiction of the kings, although Caesar discharged its duties +with impartiality and care, could only from the nature of the case +find practical application in exceptional cases. + +Retention of the Previous Administration of Justice + +For the usual procedure in criminal and civil causes the former +republican mode of administering justice was substantially retained. +Criminal causes were still disposed of as formerly before the different +jury-commissions competent to deal with the several crimes, +civil causes partly before the court of inheritance or, +as it was commonly called, of the -centumviri-, partly before +the single -iudices-; the superintendence of judicial proceedings +was as formerly conducted in the capital chiefly by the praetors, +in the provinces by the governors. Political crimes too continued +even under the monarchy to be referred to a jury-commission; +the new ordinance, which Caesar issued respecting them, specified +the acts legally punishable with precision and in a liberal spirit +which excluded all prosecution of opinions, and it fixed +as the penalty not death, but banishment. As respects the selection +of the jurymen, whom the senatorial party desired to see chosen +exclusively from the senate and the strict Gracchans exclusively +from the equestrian order, Caesar, faithful to the principle +of reconciling the parties, left the matter on the footing +of the compromise-law of Cotta,(29) but with the modification-- +for which the way was probably prepared by the law of Pompeius +of 699(30)-that the -tribuni aerarii- who came from the lower ranks +of the people were set aside; so that there was established a rating +for jurymen of at least 400,000 sesterces (4000 pounds), and senators +and equites now divided the functions of jurymen which had so long +been an apple of discord between them. + +Appeal to the Monarch + +The relations of the regal and the republican jurisdiction were +on the whole co-ordinate, so that any cause might be initiated as well +before the king's bar as before the competent republican tribunal, +the latter of course in the event of collision giving way; +if on the other hand the one or the other tribunal had pronounced +sentence, the cause was thereby finally disposed of. To overturn +a verdict pronounced by the jurymen duly called to act in a civil +or in a criminal cause even the new ruler was not entitled, +except where special incidents, such as corruption or violence, +already according to the law of the republic gave occasion +for cancelling the jurymen's sentence. On the other hand +the principle that, as concerned any decree emanating merely +from magistrates, the person aggrieved by it was entitled to appeal +to the superior of the decreeing authority, probably obtained +even now the great extension, out of which the subsequent imperial +appellate jurisdiction arose; perhaps all the magistrates +administering law, at least the governors of all the provinces, +were regarded so far as subordinates of the ruler, that appeal +to him might be lodged from any of their decrees. + +Decay of the Judicial System + +Certainly these innovations, the most important of which-- +the general extension given to appeal--cannot even be reckoned +absolutely an improvement, by no means healed thoroughly the evils +from which the Roman administration of justice was suffering. +Criminal procedure cannot be sound in any slave-state, inasmuch as +the task of proceeding against slaves lies, if not de jure, +at least de facto in the hands of the master. The Roman master, +as may readily be conceived, punished throughout the crime of his serf, +not as a crime, but only so far as it rendered the slave useless +or disagreeable to him; slave criminals were merely drafted off +somewhat like oxen addicted to goring, and, as the latter +were sold to the butcher, so were the former sold to the fencing-booth. +But even the criminal procedure against free men, which had been +from the outset and always in great part continued to be +a political process, had amidst the disorder of the last generations +become transformed from a grave legal proceeding into a faction- +fight to be fought out by means of favour, money, and violence. +The blame rested jointly on all that took part in it, on the magistrates, +the jury, the parties, even the public who were spectators; +but the most incurable wounds were inflicted on justice by the doings +of the advocates. In proportion as the parasitic plant +of Roman forensic eloquence flourished, all positive ideas of right +became broken up; and the distinction, so difficult of apprehension +by the public, between opinion and evidence was in reality +expelled from the Roman criminal practice. "A plain simple defendant," +says a Roman advocate of much experience at this period, "may be accused +of any crime at pleasure which he has or has not committed, and will be +certainly condemned." Numerous pleadings in criminal causes +have been preserved to us from this epoch; there is hardly one of them +which makes even a serious attempt to fix the crime in question +and to put into proper shape the proof or counterproof.(31) +That the contemporary civil procedure was likewise in various respects +unsound, we need hardly mention; it too suffered from the effects +of the party politics mixed up with all things, as for instance +in the process of Publius Quinctius (671-673), where the most +contradictory decisions were given according as Cinna or Sulla +had the ascendency in Rome; and the advocates, frequently non-jurists, +produced here also intentionally and unintentionally abundance +of confusion. But it was implied in the nature of the case, +that party mixed itself up with such matters only by way of exception, +and that here the quibbles of advocates could not so rapidly or so deeply +break up the ideas of right; accordingly the civil pleadings +which we possess from this epoch, while not according +to our stricter ideas effective compositions for their purpose, +are yet of a far less libellous and far more juristic character +than the contemporary speeches in criminal causes. If Caesar permitted +the curb imposed on the eloquence of advocates by Pompeius(32) +to remain, or even rendered it more severe, there was at least +nothing lost by this; and much was gained, when better selected +and better superintended magistrates and jurymen were nominated +and the palpable corruption and intimidation of the courts +came to an end. But the sacred sense of right and the reverence +for the law, which it is difficult to destroy in the minds +of the multitude, it is still more difficult to reproduce. +Though the legislator did away with various abuses, he could not heal +the root of the evil; and it might be doubted whether time, +which cures everything curable, would in this case bring relief. + +Decay of the Roman Military System + +The Roman military system of this period was nearly in the same condition +as the Carthaginian at the time of Hannibal. The governing classes +furnished only the officers; the subjects, plebeians and provincials, +formed the army. The general was, financially and militarily, +almost independent of the central government, and, whether +in fortune or misfortune, substantially left to himself +and to the resources of his province. Civic and even national spirit +had vanished from the army, and the esprit de corps was alone +left as a bond of inward union. The army had ceased to be +an instrument of the commonwealth; in a political point of view +it had no will of its own, but it was doubtless able to adopt +that of the master who wielded it; in a military point of view +it sank under the ordinary miserable leaders into a disorganized +useless rabble, but under a right general it attained a military +perfection which the burgess-army could never reach. The class +of officers especially had deeply degenerated. The higher ranks, +senators and equites, grew more and more unused to arms. +While formerly there had been a zealous competition for the posts +of staff officers, now every man of equestrian rank, who chose to serve, +was sure of a military tribuneship, and several of these posts +had even to be filled with men of humbler rank; and any man +of quality at all who still served sought at least to finish +his term of service in Sicily or some other province where +he was sure not to face the enemy. Officers of ordinary bravery +and efficiency were stared at as prodigies; as to Pompeius especially, +his contemporaries practised a military idolatry which in every +respect compromised them. The staff, as a rule, gave the signal +for desertion and for mutiny; in spite of the culpable indulgence +of the commanders proposals for the cashiering of officers of rank +were daily occurrences. We still possess the picture-- +drawn not without irony by Caesar's own hand--of the state of matters +at his own headquarters when orders were given to march +against Ariovistus, of the cursing and weeping, and preparing +of testaments, and presenting even of requests for furlough. +In the soldiery not a trace of the better classes could any longer +be discovered. Legally the general obligation to bear arms +still subsisted; but the levy, if resorted to alongside of enlisting, +took place in the most irregular manner; numerous persons +liable to serve were wholly passed over, while those once levied +were retained thirty years and longer beneath the eagles. +The Roman burgess-cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted +noble guard, whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses +only played a part in the festivals of the capital; the so-called +burgess-infantry was a troop of mercenaries swept together +from the lowest ranks of the burgess-population; the subjects furnished +the cavalry and the light troops exclusively, and came to be +more and more extensively employed also in the infantry. The posts +of centurions in the legions, on which in the mode of warfare +of that time the efficiency of the divisions essentially depended, +and to which according to the national military constitution the soldier +served his way upward with the pike, were now not merely regularly +conferred according to favour, but were not unfrequently sold +to the highest bidder. In consequence of the bad financial management +of the government and the venality and fraud of the great majority +of the magistrates, the payment of the soldiers was extremely +defective and irregular. + +The necessary consequence of this was, that in the ordinary +course of things the Roman armies pillaged the provincials, +mutinied against their officers, and ran off in presence of the enemy; +instances occurred where considerable armies, such as the Macedonian army +of Piso in 697,(33) were without any proper defeat utterly ruined, +simply by this misconduct. Capable leaders on the other hand, +such as Pompeius, Caesar, Gabinius, formed doubtless out of the existing +materials able and effective, and to some extent exemplary, +armies; but these armies belonged far more to their general +than to the commonwealth. The still more complete decay +of the Roman marine--which, moreover, had remained an object +of antipathy to the Romans and had never been fully nationalized-- +scarcely requires to be mentioned. Here too, on all sides, +everything that could be ruined at all had been reduced to ruin +under the oligarchic government. + +Its Reorganization by Caesar + +The reorganization of the Roman military system by Caesar +was substantially limited to the tightening and strengthening +of the reins of discipline, which had been relaxed under the negligent +and incapable supervision previously subsisting. The Roman military +system seemed to him neither to need, nor to be capable of, +radical reform; he accepted the elements of the army, just as Hannibal +had accepted them. The enactment of his municipal ordinance that, +in order to the holding of a municipal magistracy or sitting +in the municipal council before the thirtieth year, three years' service +on horseback--that is, as officer--or six years' service on foot +should be required, proves indeed that he wished to attract +the better classes to the army; but it proves with equal clearness +that amidst the ever-increasing prevalence of an unwarlike spirit +in the nation he himself held it no longer possible to associate +the holding of an honorary office with the fulfilment of the time +of service unconditionally as hitherto. This very circumstance +serves to explain why Caesar made no attempt to re-establish +the Roman burgess-cavalry. The levy was better arranged, +the time of service was regulated and abridged; otherwise matters +remained on the footing that the infantry of the line were raised +chiefly from the lower orders of the Roman burgesses, the cavalry +and the light infantry from the subjects. That nothing was done +for the reorganization of the fleet, is surprising. + +Foreign Mercenaries +Adjutants of the Legion + +It was an innovation--hazardous beyond doubt even in the view +of its author--to which the untrustworthy character of the cavalry +furnished by the subjects compelled him,(34) that Caesar +for the first time deviated from the old Roman system of never fighting +with mercenaries, and incorporated in the cavalry hired foreigners, +especially Germans. Another innovation was the appointment of adjutants +of the legion (-legati legionis-). Hitherto the military tribunes, +nominated partly by the burgesses, partly by the governor concerned, +had led the legions in such a way that six of them were placed +over each legion, and the command alternated among these; +a single commandant of the legion was appointed by the general +only as a temporary and extraordinary measure. In subsequent times +on the other hand those colonels or adjutants of legions appear +as a permanent and organic institution, and as nominated no longer +by the governor whom they obey, but by the supreme command in Rome; +both changes seem referable to Caesar's arrangements connected +with the Gabinian law.(35) The reason for the introduction +of this important intervening step in the military hierarchy +must be sought partly in the necessity for a more energetic +centralization of the command, partly in the felt want of capable +superior officers, partly and chiefly in the design of providing +a counterpoise to the governor by associating with him one or more +colonels nominated by the Imperator. + +The New Commandership-in-Chief + +The most essential change in the military system consisted +in the institution of a permanent military head in the person +of the Imperator, who, superseding the previous unmilitary +and in every respect incapable governing corporation, united +in his hands the whole control of the army, and thus converted it +from a direction which for the most part was merely nominal +into a real and energetic supreme command. We are not properly informed +as to the position which this supreme command occupied towards +the special commands hitherto omnipotent in their respective spheres. +Probably the analogy of the relation subsisting between the praetor +and the consul or the consul and the dictator served generally +as a basis, so that, while the governor in his own right retained +the supreme military authority in his province, the Imperator +was entitled at any moment to take it away from him and assume it +for himself or his delegates, and, while the authority of the governor +was confined to the province, that of the Imperator, like the regal +and the earlier consular authority, extended over the whole empire. +Moreover it is extremely probable that now the nomination +of the officers, both the military tribunes and the centurions, +so far as it had hitherto belonged to the governor,(36) as well as +the nomination of the new adjutants of the legion, passed directly +into the hands of the Imperator; and in like manner even now +the arrangement of the levies, the bestowal of leave of absence, +and the more important criminal cases, may have been submitted +to the judgment of the commander-in-chief. With this limitation +of the powers of the governors and with the regulated control +of the Imperator, there was no great room to apprehend +in future either that the armies might be utterly disorganized +or that they might be converted into retainers personally devoted +to their respective officers. + +Caesar's Military Plans +Defence of the Frontier + +But, however decidedly and urgently the circumstances pointed +to military monarchy, and however distinctly Caesar took the supreme +command exclusively for himself, he was nevertheless not at all +inclined to establish his authority by means of, and on, the army. +No doubt he deemed a standing army necessary for his state, +but only because from its geographical position it required +a comprehensive regulation of the frontiers and permanent frontier +garrisons. Partly at earlier periods, partly during the recent +civil war, he had worked at the tranquillizing of Spain, +and had established strong positions for the defence of the frontier +in Africa along the great desert, and in the north-west of the empire +along the line of the Rhine. He occupied himself with similar plans +for the regions on the Euphrates and on the Danube. Above all +he designed an expedition against the Parthians, to avenge the day +of Carrhae; he had destined three years for this war, and was resolved +to settle accounts with these dangerous enemies once for all +and not less cautiously than thoroughly. In like manner +he had projected the scheme of attacking Burebistas king of the Getae, +who was greatly extending his power on both sides of the Danube,(37) +and of protecting Italy in the north-east by border-districts +similar to those which he had created for it in Gaul. On the other hand +there is no evidence at all that Caesar contemplated like Alexander +a career of victory extending indefinitely far; it is said indeed +that he had intended to march from Parthia to the Caspian +and from this to the Black Sea and then along its northern shores +to the Danube, to annex to the empire all Scythia and Germany as far as +the Northern Ocean--which according to the notions of that time was not +so very distant from the Mediterranean--and to return home through Gaul; +but no authority at all deserving of credit vouches for the existence +of these fabulous projects. In the case of a state which, like the Roman +state of Caesar, already included a mass of barbaric elements difficult +to be controlled, and had still for centuries to come more than enough +to do with their assimilation, such conquests, even granting their +military practicability, would have been nothing but blunders +far more brilliant and far worse than the Indian expedition +of Alexander. Judging both from Caesar's conduct in Britain +and Germany and from the conduct of those who became the heirs +of his political ideas, it is in a high degree probable that Caesar +with Scipio Aemilianus called on the gods not to increase the empire, +but to preserve it, and that his schemes of conquest restricted +themselves to a settlement of the frontier--measured, it is true, +by his own great scale--which should secure the line of the Euphrates, +and, instead of the fluctuating and militarily useless boundary +of the empire on the north-east, should establish and render defensible +the line of the Danube. + +Attempts of Caesar to Avert Military Despotism + +But, if it remains a mere probability that Caesar ought not +to be designated a world-conqueror in the same sense as Alexander +and Napoleon, it is quite certain that his design was not to rest +his new monarchy primarily on the support of the army nor generally +to place the military authority above the civil, but to incorporate +it with, and as far as possible subordinate it to, the civil +commonwealth. The invaluable pillars of a military state, +those old and far-famed Gallic legions, were honourably dissolved +just on account of the incompatibility of their esprit de corps +with a civil commonwealth, and their glorious names were only perpetuated +in newly-founded urban communities. The soldiers presented +by Caesar with allotments of land on their discharge were not, +like those of Sulla, settled together--as it were militarily-- +in colonies of their own, but, especially when they settled in Italy, +were isolated as much as possible and scattered throughout the peninsula; +it was only in the case of the portions of the Campanian land +that remained for disposal, that an aggregation of the old soldiers +of Caesar could not be avoided. Caesar sought to solve +the difficult task of keeping the soldiers of a standing army +within the spheres of civil life, partly by retaining the former +arrangement which prescribed merely certain years of service, +and not a service strictly constant, that is, uninterrupted +by any discharge; partly by the already-mentioned shortening of the term +of service, which occasioned a speedier change in the personal +composition of the army; partly by the regular settlement +of the soldiers who had served out their time as agricultural colonists; +partly and principally by keeping the army aloof from Italy +and generally from the proper seats of the civil and political life +of the nation, and directing the soldier to the points, +where according to the opinion of the great king he was alone, +in his place--to the frontier stations, that he might ward off +the extraneous foe. + +Absence of Corps of Guards + +The true criterion also of the military state--the development of, +and the privileged position assigned to, the corps of guards-- +is not to be met with in the case of Caesar. Although as respects +the army on active service the institution of a special bodyguard +for the general had been already long in existence,(38) in Caesar's +system this fell completely into the background; his praetorian +cohort seems to have essentially consisted merely of orderly +officers or non-military attendants, and never to have been +in the proper sense a select corps, consequently never an object +of jealousy to the troops of the line. While Caesar even as general +practically dropped the bodyguard, he still, less as king tolerated +a guard round his person. Although constantly beset by lurking +assassins and well aware of it, he yet rejected the proposal +of the senate to institute a select guard; dismissed, +as soon as things grew in some measure quiet, the Spanish escort +which he had made use of at first in the capital; and contented himself +with the retinue of lictors sanctioned by traditional usage +for the Roman supreme magistrates. + +Impracticableness of Ideal + +However much of the idea of his party and of his youth-- +to found a Periclean government in Rome not by virtue of the sword, +but by virtue of the confidence of the nation--Caesar had been obliged +to abandon in the struggle with realities, he retained even now +the fundamental idea--of not founding a military monarchy-- +with an energy to which history scarcely supplies a parallel. +Certainly this too was an impracticable ideal--it was the sole illusion, +in regard to which the earnest longing of that vigorous mind +was more powerful than its clear judgment. A government, such as Caesar +had in view, was not merely of necessity in its nature highly personal, +and so liable to perish with the death of its author just as + the kindred creations of Pericles and Cromwell with the death +of their founders; but, amidst the deeply disorganized state +of the nation, it was not at all credible that the eighth king of Rome +would succeed even for his lifetime in ruling, as his seven predecessors +had ruled, his fellow-burgesses merely by virtue of law and justice, +and as little probable that he would succeed in incorporating +the standing army--after it had during the last civil war +learned its power and unlearned its reverence--once more +as a subservient element in civil society. To any one who calmly +considered to what extent reverence for the law had disappeared +from the lowest as from the highest ranks of society, the former hope +must have seemed almost a dream; and, if with the Marian reform +of the military system the soldier generally had ceased +to be a citizen,(39) the Campanian mutiny and the battle-field +of Thapsus showed with painful clearness the nature of the support +which the army now lent to the law. Even the great democrat +could only with difficulty and imperfectly hold in check the powers +which he had unchained; thousands of swords still at his signal +flew from the scabbard, but they were no longer equally ready +upon that signal to return to the sheath. Fate is mightier than genius. +Caesar desired to become the restorer of the civil commonwealth, +and became the founder of the military monarchy which he abhorred; +he overthrew the regime of aristocrats and bankers in the state, +only to put a military regime in their place, and the commonwealth +continued as before to be tyrannized and worked for profit +by a privileged minority. And yet it is a privilege of the highest +natures thus creatively to err. The brilliant attempts of great men +to realize the ideal, though they do not reach their aim, +form the best treasure of the nations. It was owing to the work +of Caesar that the Roman military state did not become a police-state +till after the lapse of several centuries, and that the Roman Imperators, +however little they otherwise resembled the great founder +of their sovereignty, yet employed the soldier in the main +not against the citizen but against the public foe, and esteemed +both nation and army too highly to set the latter as constable +over the former. + +Financial Administration + +The regulation of financial matters occasioned comparatively +little difficulty in consequence of the solid foundations +which the immense magnitude of the empire and the exclusion +of the system of credit supplied. If the state had hitherto found itself +in constant financial embarrassment, the fault was far from chargeable +on the inadequacy of the state revenues; on the contrary these had +of late years immensely increased. To the earlier aggregate income, +which is estimated at 200,000,000 sesterces (2,000,000 pounds), +there were added 85,000,000 sesterces (850,000 pounds) +by the erection of the provinces of Bithynia-Pontus and Syria; +which increase, along with the other newly opened up or augmented +sources of income, especially from the constantly increasing produce +of the taxes on luxuries, far outweighed the loss of the Campanian rents. +Besides, immense sums had been brought from extraordinary sources +into the exchequer through Lucullus, Metellus, Pompeius, Cato, +and others. The cause of the financial embarrassments rather la +partly in the increase of the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure, +partly in the disorder of management. Under the former head, +the distribution of corn to the multitude of the capital claimed +almost exorbitant sums; through the extension given to it +by Cato in 691(40) the yearly expenditure for that purpose amounted +to 30,000,000 sesterces (300,000 pounds) and after the abolition +in 696 of the compensation hitherto paid, it swallowed up even +a fifth of the state revenues. The military budget also had risen, +since the garrisons of Cilicia, Syria, and Gaul had been added +to those of Spain, Macedonia, and the other provinces. +Among the extraordinary items of expenditure must be named +in the first place the great cost of fitting out fleets, on which, +for example, five years after the great razzia of 687, 34,000,000 +sesterces (340,000 pounds) were expended at once. Add to this +the very considerable sums which were consumed in wars and warlike +preparations; such as 18,000,000 sesterces (180,000 pounds) +paid at once to Piso merely for the outfit of the Macedonian army, +24,000,000 sesterces (240,000 pounds) even annually to Pompeius +for the maintenance and pay of the Spanish army, and similar sums +to Caesar for the Gallic legions. But considerable as were +these demands made on the Roman exchequer, it would still have +beenable probably to meet them, had not its administration once +so exemplary been affected by the universal laxity and dishonesty +of this age; the payments of the treasury were often suspended +merely because of the neglect to call up its outstanding claims. +The magistrates placed over it, two of the quaestors--young men +annually changed--contented themselves at the best with inaction; +among the official staff of clerks and others, formerly so justly held +in high esteem for its integrity, the worst abuses now prevailed, +more especially since such posts had come to be bought and sold. + +Financial Reforms of Caesar +Leasing of the Direct Taxes Abolished + +As soon however as the threads of Roman state-finance were concentrated +no longer as hitherto in the senate, but in the cabinet of Caesar, +new life, stricter order, and more compact connection at once pervaded +all the wheels and springs of that great machine. the two institutions, +which originated with Gaius Gracchus and ate like a gangrene +into the Roman financial system--the leasing of the direct taxes, +and the distributions of grain--were partly abolished, +partly remodelled. Caesar wished not, like his predecessor, +to hold the nobility in check by the banker-aristocracy +and the populace of the capital, but to set them aside and to deliver +the commonwealth from all parasites whether of high or lower rank; +and therefore he went in these two important questions +not with Gaius Gracchus, but with the oligarch Sulla. The leasing system +was allowed to continue for the indirect taxes, in the case of which +it was very old and--under the maxim of Roman financial administration, +which was retained inviolable also by Caesar, that the levying +of the taxes should at any cost be kept simple and readily manageable-- +absolutely could not be dispensed with. But the direct taxes +were thenceforth universally either treated, like the African +and Sardinian deliveries of corn and oil, as contributions +in kind to be directly supplied to the state, or converted, +like the revenues of Asia Minor, into fixed money payments, +in which case the collection of the several sums payable +was entrusted to the tax-districts themselves. + +Reform of the Distribution of Corn + +The corn-distributions in the capital had hitherto been looked on +as a profitable prerogative of the community which ruled and, +because it ruled, had to be fed by its subjects. This infamous +principle was set aside by Caesar; but it could not be overlooked +that a multitude of wholly destitute burgesses had been protected +solely by these largesses of food from starvation. In this aspect +Caesar retained them. While according to the Sempronian ordinance +renewed by Cato every Roman burgess settled in Rome had legally +a claim to bread-corn without payment, this list of recipients, +which had at last risen to the number of 320,000, was reduced +by the exclusion of all individuals having means or otherwise +provided for to 150,000, and this number was fixed once for all +as the maximum number of recipients of free corn; at the same time +an annual revision of the list was ordered, so that the places vacated +by removal or death might be again filled up with the most needful +among the applicants. By this conversion of the political privilege +into a provision for the poor, a principle remarkable in a moral +as well as in a historical point of view came for the first time +into living operation. Civil society but slowly and gradually +works its way to a perception of the interdependence of interests; +in earlier antiquity the state doubtless protected its members +from the public enemy and the murderer, but it was not bound to protect +the totally helpless fellow-citizen from the worse enemy, want, +by affording the needful means of subsistence. It was the Attic +civilization which first developed, in the Solonian and post-Solonian +legislation, the principle that it is the duty of the community +to provide for its invalids and indeed for its poor generally +and it was Caesar that first developed what in the restricted compass +of Attic life had remained a municipal matter into an organic +institution of state, and transformed an arrangement, +which was a burden and a disgrace for the commonwealth, +into the first of those institutions--in modern times as countless +as they are beneficial--where the infinite depth of human compassion +contends with the infinite depth of human misery. + +The Budget of Income + +In addition to these fundamental reforms a thorough revision +of the income and expenditure took place. The ordinary sources +of income were everywhere regulated and fixed. Exemption from taxation +was conferred on not a few communities and even on whole districts, +whether indirectly by the bestowal of the Roman or Latin franchise, +or directly by special privilege; it was obtained e. g. by all +the Sicilian communities(41) in the former, by the town of Ilion +in the latter way. Still greater was the number of those whose +proportion of tribute was lowered; the communities in Further Spain, +for instance, already after Caesar's governorship had on his suggestion +a reduction of tribute granted to them by the senate, and now +the most oppressed province of Asia had not only the levying of its +direct taxes facilitated, but also a third of them wholly remitted. +The newly-added taxes, such as those of the communities subdued +in Illyria and above all of the Gallic communities--which latter +together paid annually 40,000,000 sesterces (400,000 pounds)-- +were fixed throughout on a low scale. It is true on the other hand +that various towns such as Little Leptis in Africa, Sulci in Sardinia, +and several Spanish communities, had their tribute raised by way +of penalty for their conduct during the last war. The very lucrative +Italian harbour-tolls abolished in the recent times of anarchy +were re-established all the more readily, that this tax fell +essentially on luxuries imported from the east. To these new +or revived sources of ordinary income were added the sums +which accrued by extraordinary means, especially in consequence +of the civil war, to the victor--the booty collected in Gaul; +the stock of cash in the capital; the treasures taken from the Italian +and Spanish temples; the sums raised in the shape of forced loan, +compulsory present, or fine, from the dependent communities +and dynasts, and the pecuniary penalties imposed in a similar way +by judicial sentence, or simply by sending an order to pay, +on individual wealthy Romans; and above all things the proceeds +from the estate of defeated opponents. How productive these sources +of income were, we may learn from the fact, that the fine +of the African capitalists who sat in the opposition-senate alone +amounted to 100,000,000 sesterces (1,000,000 pounds) and the price paid +by the purchasers of the property of Pompeius to 70,000,000 sesterces +(700,000 pounds). This course was necessary, because the power +of the beaten nobility rested in great measure on their colossal wealth +and could only be effectually broken by imposing on them the defrayment +of the costs of the war. But the odium of the confiscations +was in some measure mitigated by the fact that Caesar directed +their proceeds solely to the benefit of the state, +and, instead of overlooking after the manner of Sulla any act of fraud +in his favourites, exacted the purchase-money with rigour +even from his most faithful adherents, e. g. from Marcus Antonius. + +The Budget of Expenditure + +In the expenditure a diminution was in the first place obtained +by the considerable restriction of the largesses of grain. +The distribution of corn to the poor of the capital which was retained, +as well as the kindred supply of oil newly introduced by Caesar +for the Roman baths, were at least in great part charged once for all +on the contributions in kind from Sardinia and especially from Africa, +and were thereby wholly or for the most part kept separate +from the exchequer. On the other hand the regular expenditure +for the military system was increased partly by the augmentation +of the standing army, partly by the raising of the pay of the legionary +from 480 sesterces (5 pounds) to 900 (9 pounds) annually. +Both steps were in fact indispensable. There was a total want +of any real defence for the frontiers, and an indispensable preliminary +to it was a considerable increase of the army. The doubling +of the pay was doubtless employed by Caesar to attach his soldiers +firmly to him,(42) but was not introduced as a permanent innovation +on that account. The former pay of 1 1/3 sesterces (3 1/4 pence) +per day had been fixed in very ancient times, when money had +an altogether different value from that which it had in the Rome +of Caesar's day; it could only have been retained down to a period +when the common day-labourer in the capital earned by the labour +of his hands daily on an average 3 sesterces (7 1/2 pence), +because in those times the soldier entered the army not for the sake +of the pay, but chiefly for the sake of the--in great measure illicit-- +perquisites of military service. The first condition in order +to a serious reform in the military system, and to the getting rid +of those irregular gains of the soldier which formed a burden +mostly on the provincials, was an increase suitable to the times +in the regular pay; and the fixing of it at 2 1/2 sesterces (6 1/2 pence) +may be regarded as an equitable step, while the great burden +thereby imposed on the treasury was a necessary, and in its consequences +a beneficial, course. + +Of the amount of the extraordinary expenses which Caesar +had to undertake or voluntarily undertook, it is difficult +to form a conception. The wars themselves consumed enormous sums; +and sums perhaps not less were required to fulfil the promises +which Caesar had been obliged to make during the civil war. +It was a bad example and one unhappily not lost sight of in the sequel, +that every common soldier received for his participation in the civil war +20,000 sesterces (200 pounds), every burgess of the multitude +in the capital for his non-participation in it 300 sesterces +(3 pounds) as an addition to his aliment; but Caesar, after having once +under the pressure of circumstances pledged his word, was too much +of a king to abate from it. Besides, Caesar answered innumerable +demands of honourable liberality, and put into circulation +immense sums for building more especially, which had been +shamefully neglected during the financial distress of the last times +of the republic--the cost of his buildings executed partly during +the Gallic campaigns, partly afterwards, in the capital was reckoned +at 160,000,000 sesterces (1,600,000 pounds). The general result +of the financial administration of Caesar is expressed in the fact that, +while by sagacious and energetic reforms and by a right combination +of economy and liberality he amply and fully met all equitable claims, +nevertheless already in March 710 there lay in the public treasury +700,000,000 and in his own 100,000,000 sesterces (together +8,000,000 pounds)--a sum which exceeded by tenfold the amount of cash +in the treasury in the most flourishing times of the republic.(43) + +Social Condition of the Nation + +But the task of breaking up the old parties and furnishing +the new commonwealth with an appropriate constitution, +an efficient army, and well-ordered finances, difficult as it was, +was not the most difficult part of Caesar's work. If the Italian nation +was really to be regenerated, it required a reorganization +which should transform all parts of the great empire--Rome, Italy, +and the provinces. Let us endeavour here also to delineate +the old state of things, as well as the beginnings of a new +and more tolerable time. + +The Capital + +The good stock of the Latin nation had long since wholly disappeared +from Rome. It is implied in the very nature of the case, +that a capital loses its municipal and even its national stamp +more quickly than any subordinate community. There the upper classes +speedily withdraw from urban public life, in order to find +their home rather in the state as a whole than in a single city; +there are inevitably concentrated the foreign settlers, the fluctuating +population of travellers for pleasure or business, the mass +of the indolent, lazy, criminal, financially and morally bankrupt, +and for that very reason cosmopolitan, rabble. All this preeminently +applied to Rome. The opulent Roman frequently regarded his town-house +merely as a lodging. When the urban municipal offices were converted +into imperial magistracies; when the civic assembly became the assembly +of burgesses of the empire; and when smaller self-governing tribal +or other associations were not tolerated within the capital: +all proper communal life ceased for Rome. From the whole compass +of the widespread empire people flocked to Rome, for speculation, +for debauchery, for intrigue, for training in crime, +or even for the purpose of hiding there from the eye of the law. + +The Populace There + +These evils arose in some measure necessarily from the very nature +of a capital; others more accidental and perhaps still more grave +were associated with them. There has never perhaps existed a great city +so thoroughly destitute of the means of support as Rome; importation +on the one hand, and domestic manufacture by slaves on the other, +rendered any free industry from the outset impossible there. +The injurious consequences of the radical evil pervading the politics +of antiquity in general--the slave-system--were more conspicuous +in the capital than anywhere else. Nowhere were such masses +of slaves accumulated as in the city palaces of the great families +or of wealthy upstarts. Nowhere were the nations of the three +continents mingled as in the slave-population of the capital-- +Syrians, Phrygians and other half-Hellenes with Libyans and Moors, +Getae, and Iberians with the daily-increasing influx of Celts +and Germans. The demoralization inseparable from the absence +of freedom, and the terrible inconsistency between formal +and moral right, were far more glaringly apparent in the case +of the half or wholly cultivated--as it were genteel--city-slave than, +in that of the rural serf who tilled the field in chains +like the fettered ox. Still worse than the masses of slaves were those +who had been de jure or simply de facto released from slavery-- +a mixture of mendicant rabble and very rich parvenus, no longer slaves +and not yet fully burgesses, economically and even legally dependent +on their master and yet with the pretensions of free men; +and these freedmen made their way above all towards the capital, +where gain of various sorts was to be had and the retail traffic +as well as the minor handicrafts were almost wholly in their hands. +Their influence on the elections is expressly attested; +and that they took a leading part in the street riots, is very evident +from the ordinary signal by means of which these were virtually +proclaimed by the demagogues--the closing of the shops +and places of sale. + +Relations of the Oligarchy to the Populace + +Moreover, the government not only did nothing to counteract +this corruption of the population of the capital, but even encouraged it +for the benefit of their selfish policy. The judicious rule of law, +which prohibited individuals condemned for a capital offence +from dwelling in the capita, was not carried into effect +by the negligent police. The police-supervision--so urgently required-- +of association on the part of the rabble was at first neglected, +and afterwards(44) even declared punishable as a restriction inconsistent +with the freedom of the people. The popular festivals had been allowed +so to increase that the seven ordinary ones alone--the Roman, +the Plebeian, those of the Mother of the Gods, of Ceres, of Apollo, +of Flora(45) and of Victoria--lasted altogether sixty-two days; +and to these were added the gladiatorial games and numerous other +extraordinary amusements. The duty of providing grain at low prices-- +which was unavoidably necessary with such a proletariate living wholly +from hand to mouth--was treated with the most unscrupulous frivolity, +and the fluctuations in the price of bread-corn were of a fabulous +and incalculable description.(46) Lastly, the distribution of grain +formed an official invitation to the whole burgess-proletariate +who were destitute of food and indisposed for work to take up +their abode in the capital. + +Anarchy of the Capital + +The seed sown was bad, and the harvest corresponded. The system +of clubs and bands in the sphere of politics, the worship of Isis +and similar pious extravagances in that of religion, had their root +in this state of things. People were constantly in prospect +of a dearth, and not unfrequently in utter famine. Nowhere was a man +less secure of his life than in the capital; murder professionally +prosecuted by banditti was the single trade peculiar to it; +the alluring of the victim to Rome was the preliminary +to his assassination; no one ventured into the country +in the vicinity of the capital without an armed retinue. +Its outward condition corresponded to this inward disorganization, +and seemed a keen satire on the aristocratic government. +Nothing was done for the regulation of the stream of the Tiber; +excepting that they caused the only bridge, with which they still +made shift,(47) to be constructed of stone at least as far as +the Tiber-island. As little was anything done toward the levelling +of the city of the Seven Hills, except where perhaps the accumulation +of rubbish had effected some improvement. The streets ascended +and descended narrow and angular, and were wretchedly kept; the footpaths +were small and ill paved. The ordinary houses were built of bricks +negligently and to a giddy height, mostly by speculative builders +on account of the small proprietors; by which means the former +became vastly rich, and the latter were reduced to beggary. +Like isolated islands amidst this sea of wretched buildings +were seen the splendid palaces of the rich, which curtailed the space +for the smaller houses just as their owners curtailed the burgess- +rights of smaller men in the state, and beside whose marble pillars +and Greek statues the decaying temples, with their images of the gods +still in great part carved of wood, made a melancholy figure. +A police-supervision of streets, of river-banks, of fires, or of building +was almost unheard of; if the government troubled itself at all +about the inundations, conflagrations, and falls of houses +which were of yearly occurrence, it was only to ask from the state- +theologians their report and advice regarding the true import +of such signs and wonders. If we try to conceive to ourselves +a London with the slave-population of New Orleans, with the police +of Constantinople, with the non-industrial character of the modern Rome, +and agitated by politics after the fashion of the Paris in 1848, +we shall acquire an approximate idea of the republican glory, +the departure of which Cicero and his associates in their +sulky letters deplore. + +Caesar's Treatment of Matters in the Capital + +Caesar did not deplore, but he sought to help so far as help +was possible. Rome remained, of course, what it was-- +a cosmopolitan city. Not only would the attempt to give to it +once more a specifically Italian character have been impracticable; +it would not have suited Caesar's plan. Just as Alexander found +for his Graeco-Oriental empire an appropriate capital in the Hellenic, +Jewish, Egyptian, and above all cosmopolitan, Alexandria, +so the capital of the new Romano-Hellenic universal empire, +situated at the meeting-point of the east and the west, was to be +not an Italian community, but the denationalized capital +of many nations. For this reason Caesar tolerated the worship +of the newly-settled Egyptian gods alongside of Father Jovis, and granted +even to the Jews the free exercise of their strangely foreign ritual +in the very capital of the empire. However offensive was the motley +mixture of the parasitic--especially the Helleno-Oriental-- +population in Rome, he nowhere opposed its extension; it is significant, +that at his popular festivals for the capital he caused dramas +to be performed not merely in Latin and Greek, but also in other +languages, presumably in Phoenician, Hebrew, Syrian, Spanish. + +Diminution of the Proletariate + +But, if Caesar accepted with the full consciousness of what he was doing +the fundamental character of the capital such as he found it, +he yet worked energetically at the improvement of the lamentable +and disgraceful state of things prevailing there. Unhappily +the primary evils were the least capable of being eradicated. +Caesar could not abolish slavery with its train of national calamities; +it must remain an open question, whether he would in the course of time +have attempted at least to limit the slave-population in the capital, +as he undertook to do so in another field. As little could Caesar +conjure into existence a free industry in the capital; +yet the great building-operations remedied in some measure +the want of means of support there, and opened up to the proletariate +a source of small but honourable gain. On the other hand Caesar +laboured energetically to diminish the mass of the free proletariate. +The constant influx of persons brought by the corn-largesses +to Rome was, if not wholly stopped,(48) at least very materially +restricted by the conversion of these largesses into a provision +for the poor limited to a fixed number. The ranks of the existing +proletariate were thinned on the one hand by the tribunals +which were instructed to proceed with unrelenting rigour +against the rabble, on the other hand by a comprehensive transmarine +colonization; of the 80,000 colonists whom Caesar sent beyond the seas +in the few years of his government, a very great portion +must have been taken from the lower ranks of the population +of the capital; most of the Corinthian settlers indeed were freedmen. +When in deviation from the previous order of things, which precluded +the freedmen from any urban honorary office, Caesar opened to them +in his colonies the doors of the senate-house, this was doubtless done +in order to gain those of them who were in better positions to favour +the cause of emigration. This emigration, however, must have been +more than a mere temporary arrangement; Caesar, convinced like every +other man of sense that the only true remedy for the misery +of the proletariate consisted in a well-regulated system of colonization, +and placed by the condition of the empire in a position to realize it +to an almost unlimited extent, must have had the design +of permanently continuing the process, and so opening up a constant means +of abating an evil which was constantly reproducing itself. +Measures were further taken to set bounds to the serious fluctuations +in the price of the most important means of subsistence in the markets +of the capital. The newly-organized and liberally-administered +finances of the state furnished the means for this purpose, +and two newly-nominated magistrates, the corn-aediles(49) were charged +with the special supervision of the contractors and of the market +of the capital. + +The Club System Restricted + +The club system was checked, more effectually than was possible +through prohibitive laws, by the change of the constitution; +inasmuch as with the republic and the republican elections and tribunals +the corruption and violence of the electioneering and judicial +-collegia---and generally the political Saturnalia of the -canaille--- +came to an end of themselves. Moreover the combinations called +into existence by the Clodian law were broken up, and the whole system +of association was placed under the superintendence of the governing +authorities. With the exception of the ancient guilds and associations, +of the religious unions of the Jews, and of other specially excepted +categories, for which a simple intimation to the senate seems +to have sufficed, the permission to constitute a permanent society +with fixed times of assembling and standing deposits was made dependent +on a concession to be granted by the senate, and, as a rule, +doubtless only after the consent of the monarch had been obtained. + +Street Police + +To this was added a stricter administration of criminal justice +and an energetic police. The laws, especially as regards the crime +of violence, were rendered more stringent; and the irrational enactment +of the republican law, that the convicted criminal was entitled +to withdraw himself from a part of the penalty which he had incurred +by self-banishment, was with reason set aside. The detailed regulations, +which Caesar issued regarding the police of the capital, +are in great part still preserved; and all who choose may convince +themselves that the Imperator did not disdain to insist +on the house-proprietors putting the streets into repair +and paving the footpath in its whole breadth with hewn stones, +and to issue appropriate enactments regarding the carrying of litters +and the driving of waggons, which from the nature of the streets +were only allowed to move freely through the capital in the evening +and by night. The supervision of the local police remained as hitherto +chiefly with the four aediles, who were instructed now at least, +if not earlier, each to superintend a distinctly marked-off +police district within the capital. + +Buildings of the Capital + +Lastly, building in the capital, and the provision +connected therewith of institutions for the public benefit, +received from Caesar--who combined in himself the love for building +of a Roman and of an organizer--a sudden stimulus, which not merely +put to shame the mismanagement of the recent anarchic times, +but also left all that the Roman aristocracy had done in their best days +as far behind as the genius of Caesar surpassed the honest endeavours +of the Marcii and Aemilii. It was not merely by the extent +of the buildings in themselves and the magnitude of the sums +expended on them that Caesar excelled his predecessors; +but a genuine statesmanly perception of what was for the public good +distinguishes what Caesar did for the public institutions of Rome +from all similar services. He did not build, like his successors, +temples and other splendid structures, but he relieved the marketplace +of Rome--in which the burgess-assemblies, the seats of the chief courts, +the exchange, and the daily business-traffic as well as +the daily idleness, still were crowded together--at least +from the assemblies and the courts by constructing for the former +a new -comitium-, the Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius, +and for the latter a separate place of judicature, the Forum Julium +between the Capitol and Palatine. Of a kindred spirit is the arrangement +originating with him, by which there were supplied to the baths +of the capital annually three million pounds of oil, mostly from Africa, +and they were thereby enabled to furnish to the bathers gratuitously +the oil required for the anointing of the body--a measure +of cleanliness and sanitary policy which, according +to the ancient dietetics based substantially on bathing and anointing, +was highly judicious. + +But these noble arrangements were only the first steps towards +a complete remodelling of Rome. Projects were already formed +for a new senate-house, for a new magnificent bazaar, for a theatre +to rival that of Pompeius, for a public Latin and Greek library +after the model of that recently destroyed at Alexandria-- +the first institution of the sort in Rome--lastly for a temple of Mars, +which was to surpass all that had hitherto existed in riches and glory. +Still more brilliant was the idea, first, of constructing a canal +through the Pomptine marshes and drawing off their waters +to Tarracina, and secondly, of altering the lower course of the Tiber +and of leading it from the present Ponte Molle, not through +between the Campus Vaticanus and the Campus Martius, but rather +round the Campus Vaticanus and the Janiculum to Ostia, +where the miserable roadstead was to give place to an adequate +artificial harbour. By this gigantic plan on the one hand +the most dangerous enemy of the capital, the malaria of the neighbourhood +would be banished; on the other hand the extremely limited facilities +for building in the capital would be at once enlarged by substituting +the Campus Vaticanus thereby transferred to the left bank of the Tiber +for the Campus Martius, and allowing the latter spacious field +to be applied for public and private edifices; while the capital +would at the same time obtain a safe seaport, the want of which +was so painfully felt. It seemed as if the Imperator would remove +mountains and rivers, and venture to contend with nature herself. + +Much however as the city of Rome gained by the new order of things +in commodiousness and magnificence, its political supremacy was, +as we have already said, lost to it irrecoverably through +that very change. The idea that the Roman state should coincide +with the city of Rome had indeed in the course of time become +more and more unnatural and preposterous; but the maxim had been +so intimately blended with the essence of the Roman republic, +that it could not perish before the republic itself. It was only +in the new state of Caesar that it was, with the exception perhaps +of some legal fictions, completely set aside, and the community +of the capital was placed legally on a level with all other +municipalities; indeed Caesar--here as everywhere endeavouring not merely +to regulate the thing, but also to call it officially by the right name-- +issued his Italian municipal ordinance, beyond doubt purposely, +at once for the capital and for the other urban communities. We may add +that Rome, just because it was incapable of a living communal character +as a capital, was even essentially inferior to the other municipalities +of the imperial period. The republican Rome was a den of robbers, +but it was at the same time the state; the Rome of the monarchy, +although it began to embellish itself with all the glories +of the three continents and to glitter in gold and marble, +was yet nothing in the state but a royal residence in connection +with a poor-house, or in other words a necessary evil. + +Italy +Italian Agriculture + +While in the capital the only object aimed at was to get rid +of palpable evils by police ordinances on the greatest scale, +it was a far more difficult task to remedy the deep disorganization +of Italian economics. Its radical misfortunes were those which +we previously noticed in detail--the disappearance of the agricultural, +and the unnatural increase of the mercantile, population-- +with which an endless train of other evils was associated. +The reader will not fail to remember what was the state +of Italian agriculture. In spite of the most earnest attempts +to check the annihilation of the small holdings, farm-husbandry +was scarcely any longer the predominant species of economy +during this epoch in any region of Italy proper, with the exception +perhaps of the valleys of the Apennines and Abruzzi. As to +the management of estates, no material difference is perceptible +between the Catonian system formerly set forth(50) and that +described to us by Varro, except that the latter shows the traces +for better and for worse of the progress of city-life on a great scale +in Rome. "Formerly," says Varro, "the barn on the estate was larger +than the manor-house; now it is wont to be the reverse." In the domains +of Tusculum and Tibur, on the shores of Tarracina and Baiae-- +where the old Latin and Italian farmers had sown and reaped-- +there now rose in barren splendour the villas of the Roman nobles, +some of which covered the space of a moderate-sized town with their +appurtenances of garden-grounds and aqueducts, fresh and salt water ponds +for the preservation and breeding of river and marine fishes, +nurseries of snails and slugs, game-preserves for keeping hares, +rabbits, stags, roes, and wild boars, and aviaries in which even cranes +and peacocks were kept. But the luxury of a great city enriches also +many an industrious hand, and supports more poor than philanthropy +with its expenditure of alms. Those aviaries and fish-ponds +of the grandees were of course, as a rule, a very costly indulgence. +But this system was carried to such an extent and prosecuted +with so much keenness, that e. g. the stock of a pigeon-house +was valued at 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds); a methodical system +of fattening had sprung up, and the manure got from the aviaries +became of importance in agriculture; a single bird-dealer +was able to furnish at once 5000 fieldfares--for they knew how +to rear these also--at three denarii (2 shillings) each, and a single +possessor of a fish-pond 2000 -muraenae-; and the fishes left behind +by Lucius Lucullus brought 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds). +As may readily be conceived, under such circumstances any one +who followed this occupation industriously and intelligently +might obtain very large profits with a comparatively small outlay +of capital. A small bee-breeder of this period sold from his thyme- +garden not larger than an acre in the neighbourhood of Falerii +honey to an average annual amount of at least 10,000 sesterces +(100 pounds). The rivalry of the growers of fruit was carried so far, +that in elegant villas the fruit-chamber lined with marble +was not unfrequently fitted up at the same time as a dining-room, +and sometimes fine fruit acquired by purchase was exhibited there +as of home growth. At this period the cherry from Asia Minor +and other foreign fruit-trees were first planted in the gardens of Italy. +The vegetable gardens, the beds of roses and violets in Latium +and Campania, yielded rich produce, and the "market for dainties" +(-forum cupedinis-) by the side of the Via Sacra, where fruits, +honey, and chaplets were wont to be exposed for sale, +played an important part in the life of the capital. Generally +the management of estates, worked as they were on the planter-system, +had reached in an economic point of view a height scarcely +to be surpassed. The valley of Rieti, the region round the Fucine lake, +the districts on the Liris and Volturnus, and indeed Central Italy +in general, were as respects husbandry in the most flourishing condition; +even certain branches of industry, which were suitable accompaniments +of the management of an estate by means of slaves, were taken up +by intelligent landlords, and, where the circumstances were favourable, +inns, weaving factories, and especially brickworks were constructed +on the estate. The Italian producers of wine and oil in particular +not only supplied the Italian markets, but carried on also +in both articles a considerable business of transmarine exportation. +A homely professional treatise of this period compares Italy +to a great fruit-garden; and the pictures which a contemporary poet +gives of his beautiful native land, where the well-watered meadow, +the luxuriant corn-field, the pleasant vine-covered hill are fringed +by the dark line of the olive-trees--where the "ornament" of the land, +smiling in varied charms, cherishes the loveliest gardens +in its bosom and is itself wreathed round by food-producing trees-- +these descriptions, evidently faithful pictures of the landscape +daily presented to the eye of the poet, transplant us +into the most flourishing districts of Tuscany and Terra di Lavoro. +The pastoral husbandry, it is true, which for reasons formerly explained +was always spreading farther especially in the south and south-east +of Italy, was in every respect a retrograde movement; but it too +participated to a certain degree in the general progress of agriculture; +much was done for the improvement of the breeds, e. g. asses for breeding +brought 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds), 100,000 (1000 pounds), +and even 400,000 (4000 pounds). The solid Italian husbandry +obtained at this period, when the general development of intelligence +and abundance of capital rendered it fruitful, far more brilliant results +than ever the old system of small cultivators could have given; +and was carried even already beyond the bounds of Italy, +for the Italian agriculturist turned to account large tracts +in the provinces by rearing cattle and even cultivating corn. + +Money-Dealing + +In order to show what dimensions money-dealing assumed by the side +of this estate-husbandry unnaturally prospering over the ruin +of the small farmers, how the Italian merchants vying with the Jews +poured themselves into all the provinces and client-states +of the empire, and how all capital ultimately flowed to Rome, +it will be sufficient, after what has been already said, to point +to the single fact that in the money-market of the capital the regular +rate of interest at this time was six per cent, and consequently +money there was cheaper by a half than it was on an average +elsewhere in antiquity. + +Social Disproportion + +In consequence of this economic system based both in its agrarian +and mercantile aspects on masses of capital and on speculation, +there arose a most fearful disproportion in the distribution +of wealth. The often-used and often-abused phrase of a commonwealth +composed of millionaires and beggars applies perhaps nowhere +so completely as to the Rome of the last age of the republic; +and nowhere perhaps has the essential maxim of the slave-state-- +that the rich man who lives by the exertions of his slaves +is necessarily respectable, and the poor man who lives by the labour +of his hands is necessarily vulgar--been recognized with so terrible +a precision as the undoubted principle underlying all public +and private intercourse.(51) A real middle class in our sense +of the term there was not, as indeed no such class can exist +in any fully-developed slave-state; what appears as if it were +a good middle class and is so in a certain measure, is composed +of those rich men of business and landholders who are so uncultivated +or so highly cultivated as to content themselves within the sphere +of their activity and to keep aloof from public life. Of the men +of business--a class, among whom the numerous freedmen and other +upstarts, as a rule, were seized with the giddy fancy of playing +the man of quality--there were not very many who showed so much judgment. +A model of this sort was the Titus Pomponius Atticus frequently mentioned +in the accounts of this period. He acquired an immense fortune +partly from the great estate-farming which he prosecuted in Italy +and Epirus, partly from his money-transactions which ramified throughout +Italy, Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor; but at the same time +he continued to be throughout the simple man of business, +did not allow himself to be seduced into soliciting office +or even into monetary transactions with the state, +and, equally remote from the avaricious niggardliness and from the prodigal +and burdensome luxury of his time--his table, for instance, +was maintained at a daily cost of 100 sesterces (1 pound)-- +contented himself with an easy existence appropriating to itself +the charms of a country and a city life, the pleasures of intercourse +with the best society of Rome and Greece, and all the enjoyments +of literature and art. + +More numerous and more solid were the Italian landholders +of the old type. Contemporary literature preserves in the description +of Sextus Roscius, who was murdered amidst the proscriptions of 673, +the picture of such a rural nobleman (-pater familias rusticanus-); +his wealth, estimated at 6,000,000 sesterces (60,000 pounds), +is mainly invested in his thirteen landed estates; he attends +to the management of it in person systematically and with enthusiasm; +he comes seldom or never to the capital, and, when he does appear there, +by his clownish manners he contrasts not less with the polished senator +than the innumerable hosts of his uncouth rural slaves +with the elegant train of domestic slaves in the capital. +Far more than the circles of the nobility with their cosmopolitan +culture and the mercantile class at home everywhere and nowhere, +these landlords and the "country towns" to which they essentially +gave tone (-municipia rusticana-) preserved as well the discipline +and manners as the pure and noble language of their fathers. +The order of landlords was regarded as the flower of the nation; +the speculator, who has made his fortune and wishes to appear among +the notables of the land, buys an estate and seeks, if not to become +himself the squire, at any rate to rear his son with that view. +We meet the traces of this class of landlords, wherever a national +movement appears in politics, and wherever literature puts forth +any fresh growth; from it the patriotic opposition to the new monarchy +drew its best strength; to it belonged Varro, Lucretius, Catullus; +and nowhere perhaps does the comparative freshness of this landlord-life +come more characteristically to light than in the graceful Arpinate +introduction to the second book of Cicero's treatise De Legibus-- +a green oasis amidst the fearful desert of that equally empty +and voluminous writer. + +The Poor + +But the cultivated class of merchants and the vigorous order +of landlords were far overgrown by the two classes that gave +tone to society--the mass of beggars, and the world of quality proper. +We have no statistical figures to indicate precisely the relative +proportions of poverty and riches for this epoch; yet we may +here perhaps again recall the expression which a Roman statesman +employed some fifty years before(52)--that the number of families +of firmly-established riches among the Roman burgesses did not +amount to 2000. The burgess-body had since then become different; +but clear indications attest that the disproportion between +poor and rich had remained at least as great. The increasing +impoverishment of the multitude shows itself only too plainly +in their crowding to the corn-largesses and to enlistment in the army; +the corresponding increase of riches is attested expressly +by an author of this generation, when, speaking of the circumstances +of the Marian period, he describes an estate of 2,000,000 sesterces +(20,000 pounds) as "riches according to the circumstances +of that day"; and the statements which we find as to the property +of individuals lead to the same conclusion. The very rich +Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus promised to twenty thousand soldiers +four -iugera- of land each, out of his own property; the estate +of Pompeius amounted to 70,000,000 sesterces (700,000 pounds); +that of Aesopus the actor to 20,000,000 (200,000 pounds); Marcus Crassus, +the richest of the rich, possessed at the outset of his career, +7,000,000 (70,000 pounds), at its close, after lavishing enormous +sums on the people, 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds). +The effect of such poverty and such riches was on both sides +an economic and moral disorganization outwardly different, but at bottom +of the same character. If the common man was saved from starvation +only by support from the resources of the state, it was the necessary +consequence of this mendicant misery--although it also reciprocally +appears as a cause of it--that he addicted himself to the beggar's +laziness and to the beggar's good cheer. The Roman plebeian +was fonder of gazing in the theatre than of working; the taverns +and brothels were so frequented, that the demagogues found their +special account in gaining the possessors of such establishments +over to their interests. The gladiatorial games--which revealed, +at the same time that they fostered, the worst demoralization +of the ancient world--had become so flourishing that a lucrative business +was done in the sale of the programmes for them; and it was at this time +that the horrible innovation was adopted by which the decision +as to the life or death of the vanquished became dependent, +not on the law of duel or on the pleasure of the victor, +but onthe caprice of the onlooking public, and according to its signal +the victor either spared or transfixed his prostrate antagonist. +The trade of fighting had so risen or freedom had so fallen in value, +that the intrepidity and the emulation, which were lacking +on the battle fields of this age, were universal in the armies +of the arena and, where the law of the duel required, every gladiator +allowed himself to be stabbed mutely and without shrinking; that in fact +free men not unfrequently sold themselves to the contractors for board +and wages as gladiatorial slaves. The plebeians of the fifth century +had also suffered want and famine, but they had not sold their freedom; +and still less would the jurisconsults of that period have lent +themselves to pronounce the equally immoral and illegal contract +of such a gladiatorial slave "to let himself be chained, scourged, +burnt or killed without opposition, if the laws of the institution +should so require" by means of unbecoming juristic subtleties +as a contract lawful and actionable. + +Extravagance + +In the world of quality such things did not occur, but at bottom +it was hardly different, and least of all better. In doing nothing +the aristocrat boldly competed with the proletarian; if the latter +lounged on the pavement, the former lay in bed till far on +in the day. Extravagance prevailed here as unbounded as it was +devoid of taste. It was lavished on politics and on the theatre, +of course to the corruption of both; the consular office was purchased +at an incredible price--in the summer of 700 the first voting-division +alone was paid 10,000,000 sesterces (100,000 pounds)-- +and all the pleasure of the man of culture in the drama was spoilt +by the insane luxury of decoration. Rents in Rome appear to have been +on an average four times as high as in the country-towns; +a house there was once sold for 15,000,000 sesterces (150,000 pounds). +The house of Marcus Lepidus (consul in 676) which was at the time +of the death of Sulla the finest in Rome, did not rank a generation +afterwards even as the hundredth on the list of Roman palaces. +We have already mentioned the extravagance practised in the matter +of country-houses; we find that 4,000,000 sesterces (40,000 pounds) +were paid for such a house, which was valued chiefly for its fishpond; +and the thoroughly fashionable grandee now needed at least two villas-- +one in the Sabine or Alban mountains near the capital, and a second +in the vicinity of the Campanian baths--and in addition if possible +a garden immediately outside of the gates of Rome. Still more irrational +than these villa-palaces were the palatial sepulchres, several of which +still existing at the present day attest what a lofty pile of masonry +the rich Roman needed in order that he might die as became his rank. +Fanciers of horses and dogs too were not wanting; 24,000 sesterces +(240 pounds) was no uncommon price for a showy horse. They indulged +in furniture of fine wood--a table of African cypress-wood +cost 1,000,000 sesterces (10,000 pounds); in dresses of purple stuffs +or transparent gauzes accompanied by an elegant adjustment of their folds +before the mirror--the orator Hortensius is said to have brought +an action of damages against a colleague because he ruffled his dress +in a crowd; in precious stones and pearls, which first at this period +took the place of the far more beautiful and more artistic +ornaments of gold--it was already utter barbarism, when at the triumph +of Pompeius over Mithradates the image of the victor appeared +wrought wholly of pearls, and when the sofas and the shelves +in the dining-hall were silver-mounted and even the kitchen-utensils +were made of silver. In a similar spirit the collectors of this period +took out the artistic medallions from the old silver cups, +to set them anew in vessels of gold. Nor was there any lack +of luxury also in travelling. "When the governor travelled," +Cicero tells us as to one of the Sicilian governors, "which of course +he did not in winter, but only at the beginning of spring-- +not the spring of the calendar but the beginning of the season of roses-- +he had himself conveyed, as was the custom with the kings of Bithynia, +in a litter with eight bearers, sitting on a cushion of Maltese gauze +stuffed with rose-leaves, with one garland on his head, and a second +twined round his neck, applying to his nose a little smelling bag +of fine linen, with minute meshes, filled with roses; and thus +he had himself carried even to his bed chamber." + +Table Luxury + +But no sort of luxury flourished so much as the coarsest of all-- +the luxury of the table. The whole villa arrangements and the whole +villa life had ultimate reference to dining; not only had they +different dining-rooms for winter and summer, but dinner was served +in the picture-gallery, in the fruit-chamber, in the aviary, +or on a platform erected in the deer-park, around which, +when the bespoken "Orpheus" appeared in theatrical costume +and blew his flourish, the duly-trained roes and wild boars congregated. +Such was the care bestowed on decoration; but amidst all this +the reality was by no means forgotten. Not only was the cook +a graduate in gastronomy, but the master himself often acted +as the instructor of his cooks. The roast had been long ago +thrown into the shade by marine fishes and oysters; now the Italian +river-fishes were utterly banished from good tables, and Italian +delicacies and Italian wines were looked on as almost vulgar. +Now even at the popular festivals there were distributed, +besides the Italian Falerian, three sorts of foreign wine--Sicilian, +Lesbian, Chian, while a generation before it had been sufficient +even at great banquets to send round Greek wine once; in the cellar +of the orator Hortensius there was found a stock of 10,000 jars +(at 33 quarts) of foreign wine. It was no wonder that the Italian +wine-growers began to complain of the competition of the wines +from the Greek islands. No naturalist could ransack land and sea +more zealously for new animals and plants, than the epicures of that day +ransacked them for new culinary dainties.(53) The circumstance +of the guest taking an emetic after a banquet, to avoid the consequences +of the varied fare set before him, no longer created surprise. +Debauchery of every sort became so systematic and aggravated +that it found its professors, who earned a livelihood by serving +as instructors of the youth of quality in the theory +and practice of vice. + +Debt + +It will not be necessary to dwell longer on this confused picture, +so monotonous in its variety; and the less so, that the Romans +were far from original in this respect, and confined themselves +to exhibiting a copy of the Helleno-Asiatic luxury still more +exaggerated and stupid than their model. Plutos naturally devours +his children as well as Kronos; the competition for all these +mostly worthless objects of fashionable longing so forced up prices, +that those who swam with the stream found the most colossal estate +melt away in a short time, and even those, who only for credit's sake +joined in what was most necessary, saw their inherited +and firmly- established wealth rapidly undermined. The canvass +for the consulship, for instance, was the usual highway to ruin +for houses of distinction; and nearly the same description applies +to the games, the great buildings, and all those other pleasant, +doubtless, but expensive pursuits. The princely wealth of that period +is only surpassed by its still more princely liabilities; +Caesar owed about 692, after deducting his assets, 25,000,000 sesterces +(250,000 pounds); Marcus Antonius, at the age of twenty-four +6,000,000 sesterces (60,000 pounds), fourteen years afterwards +40,000,000 (400,000 pounds); Curio owed 60,000,000 (600,000 pounds); +Milo 70,000,000 (700,000 pounds). That those extravagant habits +of the Roman world of quality rested throughout on credit, +is shown by the fact that the monthly interest in Rome was once +suddenly raised from four to eight per cent, through the borrowing +of the different competitors for the consulship. Insolvency, +instead of leading in due time to a meeting of creditors +or at any rate to a liquidation which might at least place matters +once more on a clear footing, was ordinarily prolonged +by the debtor as much as possible; instead of selling his property +and especially his landed estates, he continued to borrow +and to present the semblance of riches, till the crash only became +the worse and the winding-up yielded a result like that of Milo, +in which the creditors obtained somewhat above four per cent +of the sums for which they ranked. Amidst this startlingly rapid +transition from riches to bankruptcy and this systematic swindling, +nobody of course gained so much as the cool banker, who knew how to give +and refuse credit. The relations of debtor and creditor thus returned +almost to the same point at which they had stood in the worst times +of the social crises of the fifth century; the nominal landowners +held virtually by sufferance of their creditors; the debtors were either +in servile subjection to their creditors, so that the humbler of them +appeared like freedmen in the creditor's train and those of higher rank +spoke and voted even in the senate at the nod of their creditor-lord; +or they were on the point of declaring war on property itself, +and either of intimidating their creditors by threats or getting rid +of them by conspiracy and civil war. On these relations was based +the power of Crassus; out of them arose the insurrections--whose motto +was "a clear sheet"-of Cinna(54) and still more definitely of Catilina, +of Coelius, of Dolabella entirely resembling the battles between those +who had and those who had not, which a century before agitated +the Hellenic world.(55) That amidst so rotten an economic condition +every financial or political crisis should occasion the most dreadful +confusion, was to be expected from the nature of the case; we need +hardly mention that the usual phenomena--the disappearance of capital, +the sudden depreciation of landed estates, innumerable bankruptcies, +and an almost universal insolvency--made their appearance now +during the civil war, just as they had done during the Social +and Mithradatic wars.(56) + +Immortality + +Under such circumstances, as a matter of course, morality +and family life were treated as antiquated things among all ranks +of society. To be poor was not merely the sorest disgrace +and the worst crime, but the only disgrace and the only crime: +for money the statesman sold the state, and the burgess sold his freedom; +the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had +for money; for money the lady of quality surrendered her person +as well as the common courtesan; falsifying of documents and perjuries +had become so common that in a popular poet of this age an oath +is called "the plaster for debts." Men had forgotten what honesty was; +a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, +but as a personal foe. The criminal statistics of all times +and countries will hardly furnish a parallel to the dreadful picture +of crimes--so varied, so horrible, and so unnatural--which the trial +of Aulus Cluentius unrolls before us in the bosom of one of the most +respected families of an Italian country town. + +Friendship + +But while at the bottom of the national life the slime was thus +constantly accumulating more and more deleteriously and deeply, +so much the more smooth and glittering was the surface, +overlaid with the varnish of polished manners and universal friendship. +All the world interchanged visits; so that in the houses of quality +it was necessary to admit the persons presenting themselves every morning +for the levee in a certain order fixed by the master or occasionally +by the attendant in waiting, and to give audience only +to the more notable one by one, while the rest were more summarily admitted +partly in groups, partly en masse at the close--a distinction +which Gaius Gracchus, in this too paving the way for the new monarchy, +is said to have introduced. The interchange of letters of courtesy +was carried to as great an extent as the visits of courtesy; +"friendly" letters flew over land and sea between persons who had +neither personal relations nor business with each other, whereas proper +and formal business-letters scarcely occur except where the letter +is addressed to a corporation. In like manner invitations to dinner, +the customary new year's presents, the domestic festivals, were divested +of their proper character and converted almost into public ceremonials; +even death itself did not release the Roman from these attentions +to his countless "neighbours," but in order to die with due respectability +he had to provide each of them at any rate with a keepsake. Just as + in certain circles of our mercantile world, the genuine intimacy +of family ties and family friendships had so totally vanished +from the Rome of that day that the whole intercourse of business +and acquaintance could be garnished with forms and flourishes +which had lost all meaning, and thus by degrees the reality +came to be superseded by that spectral shadow of "friendship," +which holds by no means the least place among the various evil spirits +brooding over the proscriptions and civil wars of this age. + +Women + +An equally characteristic feature in the brilliant decay of this period +was the emancipation of women. In an economic point of view +the women had long since made themselves independent;(57) +in the present epoch we even meet with solicitors acting specially +for women, who officiously lend their aid to solitary rich ladies +in the management of their property and their lawsuits, +make an impression on them by their knowledge of business and law, +and thereby procure for themselves ampler perquisites and legacies +than other loungers on the exchange. But it was not merely +from the economic guardianship of father or husband that women +felt themselves emancipated. Love-intrigues of all sorts were constantly +in progress. The ballet-dancers (-mimae-) were quite a match +for those of the present day in the variety of their pursuits +and the skill with which they followed them out; their primadonnas, +Cytheris and the like, pollute even the pages of history. +But their, as it were, licensed trade was very materially injured +by the free art of the ladies of aristocratic circles. Liaisons +in the first houses had become so frequent, that only a scandal +altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; +a judicial interference seemed now almost ridiculous. +An unparalleled scandal, such as Publius Clodius produced in 693 +at the women's festival in the house of the Pontifex Maximus, +although a thousand times worse than the occurrences which fifty years +before had led to a series of capital sentences,(58) passed +almost without investigation and wholly without punishment. +The watering-place season--in April, when political business +was suspended and the world of quality congregated in Baiae and Puteoli-- +derived its chief charm from the relations licit and illicit which, +along with music and song and elegant breakfasts on board or on shore, +enlivened the gondola voyages. There the ladies held absolute sway; +but they were by no means content with this domain which rightfully +belonged to them; they also acted as politicians, appeared in party +conferences, and took part with their money and their intrigues +in the wild coterie-doings of the time. Any one who beheld +these female statesmen performing on the stage of Scipio +and Cato and saw at their side the young fop--as with smooth chin, +delicate voice, and mincing gait, with headdress and neckerchiefs, +frilled robe, and women's sandals he copied the loose courtesan-- +might well have a horror of the unnatural world, in which the sexes +seemed as though they wished to change parts. What ideas as to divorce +prevailed in the circles of the aristocracy may be discerned +in the conduct of their best and most moral hero Marcus Cato, +who did not hesitate to separate from his wife at the request +of a friend desirous to marry her, and as little scrupled +on the death of this friend to marry the same wife a second time. +Celibacy and childlessness became more and more common, especially +among the upper classes. While among these marriage had for long +been regarded as a burden which people took upon them at the best +in the public interest,(59) we now encounter even in Cato and those +who shared Cato's sentiments the maxim to which Polybius +a century before traced the decay of Hellas,(60) that it is the duty +of a citizen to keep great wealth together and therefore not to beget +too many children. Where were the times, when the designation +"children-producer" (-proletarius-) had been a term of honour +for the Roman? + +Depopulation of Italy + +In consequence of such a social condition the Latin stock in Italy +underwent an alarming diminution, and its fair provinces were overspread +partly by parasitic immigrants, partly by sheer desolation. +A considerable portion of the population of Italy flocked +to foreign lands. Already the aggregate amount of talent +and of working power, which the supply of Italian magistrates +and Italian garrisons for the whole domain of the Mediterranean +demanded, transcended the resources of the peninsula, especially +as the elements thus sent abroad were in great part lost for ever +to the nation. For the more that the Roman community grew +into an empire embracing many nations, the more the governing aristocracy +lost the habit of looking on Italy as their exclusive home; +while of the men levied or enlisted for service a considerable portion +perished in the many wars, especially in the bloody civil war, +and another portion became wholly estranged from their native country +by the long period of service, which sometimes lasted for a generation. +In like manner with the public service, speculation kept +a portion of the landholders and almost the whole body +of merchants all their lives or at any rate for a long time +out of the country, and the demoralising itinerant life of trading +in particular estranged the latter altogether from civic existence +in the mother country and from the various conditions of family life. +As a compensation for these, Italy obtained on the one hand +the proletariate of slaves and freedmen, on the other hand +the craftsmen and traders flocking thither from Asia Minor, Syria, +and Egypt, who flourished chiefly in the capital and still more +in the seaport towns of Ostia, Puteoli, and Brundisium.(61) +In the largest and most important part of Italy however, +even such a substitution of impure elements for pure; +but the population was visibly on the decline. Especially +was this true of the pastoral districts such as Apulia, the chosen land +of cattle-breeding, which is called by contemporaries the most deserted +part of Italy, and of the region around Rome, where the Campagna +was annually becoming more desolate under the constant reciprocal +action of the retrograde agriculture and the increasing malaria. +Labici, Gabii, Bovillae, once cheerful little country towns, +were so decayed, that it was difficult to find representatives of them +for the ceremony of the Latin festival. Tusculum, although still +one of the most esteemed communities of Latium, consisted almost solely +of some genteel families who lived in the capital but retained +their native Tusculan franchise, and was far inferior in the number +of burgesses entitled to vote even to small communities +in the interior of Italy. The stock of men capable of arms +in this district, on which Rome's ability to defend herself +had once mainly depended, had so totally vanished, that people read +with astonishment and perhaps with horror the accounts of the annals-- +sounding fabulous in comparison with things as they stood-- +respecting the Aequian and Volscian wars. Matters were not so bad +everywhere, especially in the other portions of Central Italy +and in Campania; nevertheless, as Varro complains, "the once populous +cities of Italy," in general "stood desolate." + +Italy under the Oligarchy + +It is a dreadful picture--this picture of Italy under the rule +of the oligarchy. There was nothing to bridge over or soften +the fatal contrast between the world of the beggars and the world +of the rich. The more clearly and painfully this contrast +was felt on both sides--the giddier the height to which riches rose, +the deeper the abyss of poverty yawned--the more frequently, +amidst that changeful world of speculation and playing at hazard, +were individuals tossed from the bottom to the top and again +from the top to the bottom. The wider the chasm by which the two worlds +were externally divided, the more completely they coincided +in the like annihilation of family life--which is yet the germ +and core of all nationality--in the like laziness and luxury, +the like unsubstantial economy, the like unmanly dependence, +the like corruption differing only in its tariff, the like criminal +demoralization, the like longing to begin the war with property. +Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, +and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly +with awful silence. It is a terrible picture, but not one peculiar +to Italy; wherever the government of capitalists in a slave-state +has fully developed itself, it has desolated God's fair world +in the same way as rivers glisten in different colours, but a common +sewer everywhere looks like itself, so the Italy of the Ciceronian epoch +resembles substantially the Hellas of Polybius and still more decidedly +the Carthage of Hannibal's time, where in exactly similar fashion +the all-powerful rule of capital ruined the middle class, raised trade +and estate-farming to the highest prosperity, and ultimately led to a-- +hypocritically whitewashed--moral and political corruption of the nation. +All the arrant sins that capital has been guilty of against nation +and civilization in the modern world, remain as far inferior +to the abominations of the ancient capitalist-states as the free man, +be he ever so poor, remains superior to the slave; and not until +the dragon-seed of North America ripens, will the world have again +similar fruits to reap. + +Reforms of Caesar + +These evils, under which the national economy of Italy +lay prostrate, were in their deepest essence irremediable, +and so much of them as still admitted of remedy depended essentially +for its amendment on the people and on time; for the wisest government +is as little able as the more skilful physician to give freshness +to the corrupt juices of the organism, or to do more in the case +of the deeper-rooted evils than to prevent those accidents +which obstruct the remedial power of nature in its working. +The peaceful energy of the new rule even of itself furnished +such a preventive, for by its means some of the worst excrescences +were done away, such as the artificial pampering of the proletariate, +the impunity of crimes, the purchase of offices, and various others. +But the government could do something more than simply abstain +from harm. Caesar was not one of those over-wise people who refuse +to embank the sea, because forsooth no dike can defy some sudden influx +of the tide. It is better, if a nation and its economy follow +spontaneously the path prescribed by nature; but, seeing that they +had got out of this path, Caesar applied all his energies to bring back +by special intervention the nation to its home and family life, +and to reform the national economy by law and decree. + +Measures against Absentees from Italy +Measures for the Elevation of the Family + +With a view to check the continued absence of the Italians from Italy +and to induce the world of quality and the merchants to establish +their homes in their native land, not only was the term of service +for the soldiers shortened, but men of senatorial rank were +altogether prohibited from taking up their abode out of Italy +except when on public business, while the other Italians +of marriageable age (from the twentieth to the fortieth year) +were enjoined not to be absent from Italy for more than three +consecutive years. In the same spirit Caesar had already, +in his first consulship on founding the colony of Capua kept specially +in view fathers who had several children;(62) and now as Imperator +he proposed extraordinary rewards for the fathers of numerous families, +while he at the same time as supreme judge of the nation +treated divorce and adultery with a rigour according +to Roman ideas unparalleled. + +Laws Respecting Luxury + +Nor did he even think it beneath his dignity to issue a detailed law +as to luxury--which, among other points, cut down extravagance +in building at least in one of its most irrational forms, +that of sepulchral monuments; restricted the use of purple robes +and pearls to certain times, ages, and classes, and totally prohibited +it in grown-up men; fixed a maximum for the expenditure of the table; +and directly forbade a number of luxurious dishes. Such ordinances +doubtless were not new; but it was a new thing that the "master +of morals" seriously insisted on their observance, superintended +the provision-markets by means of paid overseers, and ordered +that the tables of men of rank should be examined by his officers +and the forbidden dishes on them should be confiscated. It is true +that by such theoretical and practical instructions in moderation +as the new monarchical police gave to the fashionable world, +hardly more could be accomplished than the compelling luxury to retire +somewhat more into concealment; but, if hypocrisy is the homage +which vice pays to virtue, under the circumstances of the times +even a semblance of propriety established by police measures +was a step towards improvement not to be despised. + +The Debt Crisis + +The measures of Caesar for the better regulation of Italian monetary +and agricultural relations were of a graver character and promised +greater results. The first question here related to temporary enactments +respecting the scarcity of money and the debt-crisis generally. +The law called forth by the outcry as to locked-up capital--that no one +should have on hand more than 60,000 sesterces (600 pounds) in gold +and silver cash--was probably only issued to allay the indignation +of the blind public against the usurers; the form of publication, +which proceeded on the fiction that this was merely the renewed +enforcing of an earlier law that had fallen into oblivion, +shows that Caesar was ashamed of this enactment, and it can hardly +have passed into actual application. A far more serious question +was the treatment of the pending claims for debt, the complete remission +of which was vehemently demanded from Caesar by the party which called +itself by his name. We have already mentioned, that he did not yield +to this demand;(63) but two important concessions were made +to the debtors, and that as early as 705. First, the interest +in arrear was struck off,(64) and that which was paid was deducted +from the capital. Secondly, the creditor was compelled to accept +the moveable and immoveable property of the debtor in lieu of payment +at the estimated value which his effects had before the civil war +and the general depreciation which it had occasioned. The latter +enactment was not unreasonable; if the creditor was to be looked on +de facto as the owner of the property of his debtor to the amount +of the sum due to him, it was doubtless proper that he should bear +his share in the general depreciation of the property. On the other hand +the cancelling of the payments of interest made or outstanding-- +which practically amounted to this, that the creditors lost, +besides the interest itself, on an average 25 per cent of what +they were entitled to claim as capital at the time of the issuing +of the law--was in fact nothing else than a partial concession +of that cancelling of creditors' claims springing out of loans, +for which the democrats had clamoured so vehemently; and, however bad +may have been the conduct of the usurers, it is not possible thereby +to justify the retrospective abolition of all claims for interest +without distinction. In order at least to understand this agitation +we must recollect how the democratic party stood towards +the question of interest. The legal prohibition against +taking interest, which the old plebeian opposition had extorted +in 412,(65) had no doubt been practically disregarded by the nobility +which controlled the civil procedure by means of the praetorship, +but had still remained since that period formally valid; +and the democrats of the seventh century, who regarded themselves +throughout as the continuers of that old agitation as to privilege +and social position,(66) had maintained the illegality of payment +of interest at any time, and even already practically enforced +that principle, at least temporarily, in the confusion of the Marian +period.(67) It is not credible that Caesar shared the crude views +of his party on the interest question; the fact, that, in his account +of the matter of liquidation he mentions the enactment +as to the surrender of the property of the debtor in lieu of payment +but is silent as to the cancelling of the interest, is perhaps +a tacit self-reproach. But he was, like every party-leader, +dependent on his party and could not directly repudiate +the traditional maxims of the democracy in the question of interest; +the more especially when he had to decide this question, +not as the all-powerful conqueror of Pharsalus, but even before +his departure for Epirus. But, while he permitted perhaps rather than +originated this violation of legal order and of property, it is certainly +his merit that that monstrous demand for the annulling of all claims +arising from loans was rejected; and it may perhaps be looked on +as a saving of his honour, that the debtors were far more indignant +at the--according to their view extremely unsatisfactory--concession +given to them than the injured creditors, and made under Caelius +and Dolabella those foolish and (as already mentioned) speedily frustrated +attempts to extort by riot and civil war what Caesar refused to them. + +New Ordinance as to Bankruptcy + +But Caesar did not confine himself to helping the debtor +for the moment; he did what as legislator he could, permanently +to keep down the fearful omnipotence of capital. First of all +the great legal maxim was proclaimed, that freedom is not a possession +commensurable with property, but an eternal right of man, +of which the state is entitled judicially to deprive the criminal alone, +not the debtor. It was Caesar, who, perhaps stimulated in this case +also by the more humane Egyptian and Greek legislation, especially +that of Solon,(68) introduced this principle--diametrically opposed +to the maxims of the earlier ordinances as to bankruptcy-- +into the common law, where it has since retained its place undisputed. +According to Roman law the debtor unable to pay became the serf +of his creditor.(69) The Poetelian law no doubt had allowed a debtor, +who had become unable to pay only through temporary embarrassments, +not through genuine insolvency, to save his personal freedom +by the cession of his property;(70) nevertheless for the really insolvent +that principle of law, though doubtless modified in secondary points, +had been in substance retained unaltered for five hundred years; +a direct recourse to the debtor's estate only occurred exceptionally, +when the debtor had died or had forfeited his burgess-rights +or could not be found. It was Caesar who first gave an insolvent +the right--on which our modern bankruptcy regulations are based-- +of formally ceding his estate to his creditors, whether it might suffice +to satisfy them or not, so as to save at all events his personal freedom +although with diminished honorary and political rights, and to begin +a new financial existence, in which he could only be sued +on account of claims proceeding from the earlier period and not protected +in the liquidation, if he could pay them without renewed financial ruin. + +Usury Laws + +While thus the great democrat had the imperishable honour of emancipating +personal freedom in principle from capital, he attempted moreover +to impose a police limit on the excessive power of capital by usury-laws. +He did not affect to disown the democratic antipathy to stipulations +for interest. For Italian money-dealing there was fixed a maximum amount +of the loans at interest to be allowed in the case of the individual +capitalist, which appears to have been proportioned to the Italian +landed estate belonging to each, and perhaps amounted to half its value. +Transgressions of this enactment were, after the fashion of the procedure +prescribed in the republican usury-laws, treated as criminal offence +and sent before a special jury-commission. If these regulations +were successfully carried into effect, every Italian man of business +would be compelled to become at the same time an Italian landholder, +and the class of capitalists subsisting merely on their interest +would disappear wholly from Italy. Indirectly too the no less injurious +category of insolvent landowners who practically managed their estates +merely for their creditors was by this means materially curtailed, +inasmuch as the creditors, if they desired to continue their lending +business, were compelled to buy for themselves. From this very fact +besides it is plain that Caesar wished by no means simply to renew +that naive prohibition of interest by the old popular party, +but on the contrary to allow the taking of interest within certain limits. +It is very probable however that he did not confine himself +to that injunction--which applied merely to Italy--of a maximum amount +of sums to be lent, but also, especially with respect to the provinces, +prescribed maximum rates for interest itself. The enactments-- +that it was illegal to take higher interest than 1 per cent per month, +or to take interest on arrears of interest, or in fine to make +a judicial claim for arrears of interest to a greater amount +than a sum equal to the capital--were, probably also after +the Graeco-Egyptian model,(71) first introduced in the Roman empire +by Lucius Lucullus for Asia Minor and retained there by his +better successors; soon afterwards they were transferred +to other provinces by edicts of the governors, and ultimately at least +part of them was provided with the force of law in all provinces +by a decree of the Roman senate of 704. The fact that these Lucullan +enactments afterwards appear in all their compass as imperial law +and have thus become the basis of the Roman and indeed of modern +legislation as to interest, may also perhaps be traced back +to an ordinance of Caesar. + +Elevation of Agriculture + +Hand in hand with these efforts to guard against the ascendency +of capital went the endeavours to bring back agriculture to the path +which was most advantageous for the commonwealth. For this purpose +the improvement of the administration of justice and of police +was very essential. While hitherto nobody in Italy had been sure +of his life and of his moveable or immoveable property, while Roman +condottieri for instance, at the intervals when their gangs +were not helping to manage the politics of the capital, +applied themselves to robbery in the forests of Etruria or rounded off +the country estates of their paymasters by fresh acquisitions, +this sort of club-law was now at an end; and in particular +the agricultural population of all classes must have felt +the beneficial effects of the change. The plans of Caesar +for great works also, which were not at all limited to the capital, +were intended to tell in this respect; the construction, +for instance, of a convenient high-road from Rome through +the passesof the Apennines to the Adriatic was designed to stimulate +the internal traffic of Italy, and the lowering the level +of the Fucine lake to benefit the Marsian farmers. But Caesar +also sought by more direct measures to influence the state +of Italian husbandry. The Italian graziers were required +to take at least a third of their herdsmen from freeborn adults, +whereby brigandage was checked and at the same time a source of gain +was opened to the free proletariate. + +Distribution of Land + +In the agrarian question Caesar, who already in his first consulship +had been in a position to regulate it,(72) more judicious +than Tiberius Gracchus, did not seek to restore the farmer-system +at any price, even at that of a revolution--concealed under +juristic clauses--directed against property; by him on the contrary, +as by every other genuine statesman, the security of that +which is property or is at any rate regarded by the public +as property was esteemed as the first and most inviolable +of all political maxims, and it was only within the limits assigned +by this maxim that he sought to accomplish the elevation of the Italian +small holdings, which also appeared to him as a vital question +for the nation. Even as it was, there was much still left for him +in this respect to do. Every private right, whether it was called +property or entitled heritable possession, whether traceable to Gracchus +or to Sulla, was unconditionally respected by him. On the other hand, +Caesar, after he had in his strictly economical fashion-- +which tolerated no waste and no negligence even on a small scale-- +instituted a general revision of the Italian titles to possession +by the revived commission of Twenty,(73) destined the whole +actual domain land of Italy (including a considerable portion +of the real estates that were in the hands of spiritual guilds +but legally belonged to the state) for distribution in the Gracchan +fashion, so far, of course, as it was fitted for agriculture; +the Apulian summer and the Samnite winter pastures belonging +to the state continued to be domain; and it was at least the design +of the Imperator, if these domains should not suffice, to procure +the additional land requisite by the purchase of Italian estates +from the public funds. In the selection of the new farmers provision +was naturally made first of all for the veteran soldiers, +and as far as possible the burden, which the levy imposed +on the mother country, was converted into a benefit by the fact +that Caesar gave the proletarian, who was levied from it as a recruit, +back to it as a farmer; it is remarkable also that the desolate +Latin communities, such as Veii and Capena, seem to have been +preferentially provided with new colonists. The regulation +of Caesar that the new owners should not be entitled to alienate +the lands received by them till after twenty years, was a happy medium +between the full bestowal of the right of alienation, which would have +brought the larger portion of the distributed land speedily +back into the hands of the great capitalists, and the permanent +restrictions on freedom of dealing in land which Tiberius Gracchus(74) +and Sulla (75) had enacted, both equally in vain. + +Elevation of the Municipal System + +Lastly while the government thus energetically applied itself +to remove the diseased, and to strengthen the sound, elements +of the Italian national life, the newly-regulated municipal system-- +which had but recently developed itself out of the crisis +of the Social war in and alongside of the state-economy(76)--was intended +to communicate to the new absolute monarchy the communal life +which was compatible with it, and to impart to the sluggish circulation +of the noblest elements of public life once more a quickened action. +The leading principles in the two municipal ordinances issued in 705 +for Cisalpine Gaul and in 709 for Italy,(77) the latter of which remained +the fundamental law for all succeeding times, are apparently, first, +the strict purifying of the urban corporations from all immoral elements, +while yet no trace of political police occurs; secondly, the utmost +restriction of centralization and the utmost freedom of movement +in the communities, to which there was even now reserved the election +of magistrates and an--although limited--civil and criminal jurisdiction. +The general police enactments, such as the restrictions on the right +of association,(78) came, it is true, into operation also here. + +Such were the ordinances, by which Caesar attempted to reform +the Italian national economy. It is easy both to show their +insufficiency, seeing that they allowed a multitude of evils +still to exist, and to prove that they operated in various respects +injuriously by imposing restrictions, some of which were +very severely felt, on freedom of dealing. It is still easier +to show that the evils of the Italian national economy generally +were incurable. But in spite of this the practical statesman +will admire the work as well as the master-workman. It was already +no small achievement that, where a man like Sulla, despairing +of remedy, had contented himself with a mere formal reorganization, +the evil was seized in its proper seat and grappled with there; +and we may well conclude that Caesar with his reforms came as near +to the measure of what was possible as it was given to a statesman +and a Roman to come. He could not and did not expect from them +the regeneration of Italy; but he sought on the contrary to attain +this in a very different way, for the right apprehension +of which it is necessary first of all to review the condition +of the provinces as Caesar found them. + +Provinces + +The provinces, which Caesar found in existence, were fourteen in number: +seven European--the Further and the Hither Spain, Transalpine Gaul, +Italian Gaul with Illyricum, Macedonia with Greece, Sicily, +Sardinia with Corsica; five Asiatic--Asia, Bithynia and Pontus, +Cilicia with Cyprus, Syria, Crete; and two African--Cyrene and Africa. +To these Caesar added three new ones by the erection of the two new +governorships of Lugdunese Gaul and Belgica(79) and by constituting +Illyricum a province by itself.(80) + +Provincial Administration of the Oligarchy + +In the administration of these provinces oligarchic misrule +had reached a point which, notwithstanding various noteworthy +performances in this line, no second government has ever attained +at least in the west, and which according to our ideas it seems +no longer possible to surpass. Certainly the responsibility for this +rests not on the Romans alone. Almost everywhere before their day +the Greek, Phoenician, or Asiatic rule had already driven out +of the nations the higher spirit and the sense of right and of liberty +belonging to better times. It was doubtless bad, that every +accused provincial was bound, when asked, to appear personally +in Rome to answer for himself; that the Roman governor interfered +at pleasure in the administration of justice and the management +of the dependent communities, pronounced capital sentences, and cancelled +transactions of the municipal council; and that in case of war +he treated the militia as he chose and often infamously, as e. g. +when Cotta at the siege of the Pontic Heraclea assigned to the militia +all the posts of danger, to spare his Italians, and on the siege +not going according to his wish, ordered the heads of his engineers +to be laid at his feet. It was doubtless bad, that no rule +of morality or of criminal law bound either the Roman administrators +or their retinue, and that violent outrages, rapes, and murders +with or without form of law were of daily occurrence in the provinces. +But these things were at least nothing new; almost everywhere +men had long been accustomed to be treated like slaves, +and it signified little in the long run whether a Carthaginian overseer, +a Syrian satrap, or a Roman proconsul acted as the local tyrant. +Their material well-being, almost the only thing for which +the provincials still cared, was far less disturbed by those occurrences, +which although numerous in proportion to the many tyrants yet affected +merely isolated individuals, than by the financial exactions pressing +heavily on all, which had never previously been prosecuted +with such energy. + +The Romans now gave in this domain fearful proof of their old master +of money-matters. We have already endeavoured to describe +the Roman system of provincial oppression in its modest +and rational foundations as well as in its growth and corruption +as a matter of course, the latter went on increasing. The ordinary taxes +became far more oppressive from the inequality of their distribution +and from the preposterous system of levying them than from their +high amount. As to the burden of quartering troops, Roman statesmen +themselves expressed the opinion that a town suffered nearly +to the same extent when a Roman army took up winter quarters +in it as when an enemy took it by storm. While the taxation +in its original character had been an indemnification for the burden +of military defence undertaken by Rome, and the community +paying tribute had thus a right to remain exempt from ordinary service, +garrison-service was now--as is attested e. g. in the case +of Sardinia--for the most part imposed on the provincials, +and even in the ordinary armies, besides other duties, the whole +heavy burden of the cavalry-service was devolved on them. +The extraordinary contributions demanded--such as, the deliveries +of grain for little or no compensation to benefit the proletariate +of the capital; the frequent and costly naval armaments and coast- +defences in order to check piracy; the task of supplying works of art, +wild beasts, or other demands of the insane Roman luxury in the theatre +and the chase; the military requisitions in case of war-- +were just as frequent as they were oppressive and incalculable. +A single instance may show how far things were carried. +During the three years' administration of Sicily by Gaius Verres +the number of farmers in Leontini fell from 84 to 32, in Motuca +from 187 to 86, in Herbita from 252 to 120, in Agyrium from 250 to 80; +so that in four of the most fertile districts of Sicily 59 per cent +of the landholders preferred to let their fields lie fallow +than to cultivate them under such government. And these landholders were, +as their small number itself shows and as is expressly stated, by no means +small farmers, but respectable planters and in great part Roman burgesses! + +In the Client-States + +In the client-states the forms of taxation were somewhat different, +but the burdens themselves were if possible still worse, +since in addition to the exactions of the Romans there came +those of the native courts. In Cappadocia and Egypt the farmer +as well as the king was bankrupt; the former was unable to satisfy +the tax-collector, the latter was unable to satisfy his Roman creditor. +Add to these the exactions, properly so called, not merely +of the governor himself, but also of his "friends," each of whom fancied +that he had as it were a draft on the governor and a title accordingly +to come back from the province a made man. The Roman oligarchy +in this respect completely resembled a gang of robbers, +and followed out the plundering of the provincials in a professional +and business-like manner; capable members of the gang set to work +not too nicely, for they had in fact to share the spoil +with the advocates and the jurymen, and the more they stole, +they did so the more securely. The notion of honour in theft too +was already developed; the big robber looked down on the little, +and the latter on the mere thief, with contempt; any one, who had been +once for a wonder condemned, boasted of the high figure of the sums +which he was proved to have exacted. Such was the behaviour +in the provinces of the successors of those men, who had been +accustomed to bring home nothing from their administration but the thanks +of the subjects and the approbation of their fellow-citizens. + +The Roman Capitalists in the Provinces + +But still worse, if possible, and still less subject to any control +was the havoc committed by the Italian men of business among +the unhappy provincials. The most lucrative portions of the landed +property and the whole commercial and monetary business +in the provinces were concentrated in their hands. The estates +in the transmarine regions, which belonged to Italian grandees, +were exposed to all the misery of management by stewards, and never +saw their owners; excepting possibly the hunting-parks, which occur +as early as this time in Transalpine Gaul with an area amounting +to nearly twenty square miles. Usury flourished as it had never +flourished before. The small landowners in Illyricum, Asia, and Egypt +managed their estates even in Varro's time in great part practically +as the debtor-slaves of their Roman or non-Roman creditors, +just as the plebeians in former days for their patrician lords. +Cases occurred of capital being lent even to urban communities +at four per cent per month. It was no unusual thing for an energetic +and influential man of business to get either the title +of envoy(81) given to him by the senate or that of officer +by the governor, and, if possible, to have men put at his service +for the better prosecution of his affairs; a case is narrated +on credible authority, where one of these honourable martial bankers +on account of a claim against the town of Salamis in Cyprus +kept its municipal council blockaded in the town-house, +until five of the members had died of hunger. + +Robberies and Damage by War + +To these two modes of oppression, each of which by itself +was intolerable and which were always becoming better arranged to work +into each other's hands, were added the general calamities, for which +the Roman government was also in great part, at least indirectly, +responsible. In the various wars a large amount of capital +was dragged away from the country and a larger amount destroyed +sometimes by the barbarians, sometimes by the Roman armies. +Owing to the worthlessness of the Roman land and maritime police, +brigands and pirates swarmed every where. In Sardinia and the interior +of Asia Minor brigandage was endemic; in Africa and Further Spain +it became necessary to fortify all buildings constructed +outside of the city-enclosures with walls and towers. The fearful evil +of piracy has been already described in another connection.(82) +The panaceas of the prohibitive system, with which the Roman governor +was wont to interpose when scarcity of money or dearth occurred, +as under such circumstances they could not fail to do-- +the prohibition of the export of gold or grain from the province-- +did not mend the matter. The communal affairs were almost everywhere +embarrassed, in addition to the general distress, by local disorders +and frauds of the public officials. + +The Conditions of the Provinces Generally + +Where such grievances afflicted communities and individuals +not temporarily but for generations with an inevitable, steady, +and yearly-increasing oppression, the best regulated public +or private economy could not but succumb to them, and the most +unspeakable misery could not but extend over all the nations +from the Tagus to the Euphrates. "All the communities," it is said +in a treatise published as early as 684, "are ruined"; the same truth +is specially attested as regards Spain and Narbonese Gaul, +the very provinces which, comparatively speaking, were still +in the most tolerable economic position. In Asia Minor even towns +like Samos and Halicarnassus stood almost empty; legal slavery +seemed here a haven of rest compared with the torments to which +the free provincial succumbed, and even the patient Asiatic had become, +according to the descriptions of Roman statesmen themselves, +weary of life. Any one who desires to fathom the depths to which man +can sink in the criminal infliction, and in the no less criminal +endurance, of all conceivable injustice, may gather together +from the criminal records of this period the wrongs which Roman grandees +could perpetrate and Greeks, Syrians, and Phoenicians could suffer. +Even the statesmen of Rome herself publicly and frankly conceded +that the Roman name was unutterably odious through all Greece +and Asia; and, when the burgesses of the Pontic Heraclea on one occasion +put to death the whole of the Roman tax-collectors, the only matter +for regret was that such things did not occur oftener. + +Caesar and the Provinces + +The Optimates scoffed at the new master who went in person +to inspect his "farms" one after the other; in reality the condition +of the several provinces demanded all the earnestness and all the wisdom +of one of those rare men, who redeem the name of king from being regarded +by the nations as merely a conspicuous example of human insufficiency. +The wounds inflicted had to be healed by time; Caesar took care +that they might be so healed, and that there should be +no fresh inflictions. + +The Caesarian Magistrates + +The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. +The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces +essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; +those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, +who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained +a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects +than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships +were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls +and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated +eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces +among the competitors depended solely on him,(83) they were +in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also +of the governors were practically restricted. The superintendence +of the administration of justice and the administrative control +of the communities remained in their hands; but their command +was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants +associated with the governor,(84) and the raising of the taxes +was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially +to imperial officials,(85) so that the governor was thenceforward +surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent +on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military +hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. +While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if +they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, +the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak +against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless +control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer +for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. +The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar +had already in his first consulate made more stringent, +was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces +with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; +and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge +in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves +and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time +were wont to atone. + +Regulation of Burdens + +The extraordinary public burdens were reduced to the right proportion +and the actual necessity; the ordinary burdens were materially lessened. +We have already mentioned the comprehensive regulation of taxation;(86) +the extension of the exemptions from tribute, the general lowering +of the direct taxes, the limitation of the system of -decumae- to Africa +and Sardinia, the complete setting aside of middlemen in the collection +of the direct taxes, were most beneficial reforms for the provincials. +That Caesar after the example of one of his greatest democratic +predecessors, Sertorius,(87) wished to free the subjects from the burden +of quartering troops and to insist on the soldiers erecting +for themselves permanent encampments resembling towns, cannot indeed +be proved; but he was, at least after he had exchanged the part +of pretender for that of king, not the man to abandon the subject +to the soldier; and it was in keeping with his spirit, when the heirs +of his policy created such military camps, and then converted them +into towns which formed rallying-points for Italian civilization +amidst the barbarian frontier districts. + +Influence on the Capitalist System + +It was a task far more difficult than the checking of official +irregularities, to deliver the provincials from the oppressive +ascendency of Roman capital. Its power could not be directly broken +without applying means which were still more dangerous than the evil; +the government could for the time being abolish only isolated abuses-- +as when Caesar for instance prohibited the employment of the title +of state-envoy for financial purposes--and meet manifest acts of violence +and palpable usury by a sharp application of the general penal laws +and of the laws as to usury, which extended also to the provinces;(88) +but a more radical cure of the evil was only to be expected +from the reviving prosperity of the provincials under a better +administration. Temporary enactments, to relieve the insolvency +of particular provinces, had been issued on several occasions +in recent times. Caesar himself had in 694 when governor +of Further Spain assigned to the creditors two thirds +of the income of their debtors in order to pay themselves +from that source. Lucius Lucullus likewise when governor of Asia Minor +had directly cancelled a portion of the arrears of interest +which had swelled beyond measure, and had for the remaining portion +assigned to the creditors a fourth part of the produce of the lands +of their debtors, as well as a suitable proportion of the profits +accruing to them from house-rents or slave-labour. We are not expressly +informed that Caesar after the civil war instituted similar +general liquidations of debt in the provinces; yet from what +has just been remarked and from what was done in the case of Italy,(89) +it can hardly be doubted that Caesar likewise directed his efforts +towards this object, or at least that it formed part of his plan. + +While thus the Imperator, as far as lay within human power, +relieved the provincials from the oppressions of the magistrates +and capitalists of Rome, it might at the same time be with certaint +expected from the government to which he imparted fresh vigour, +that it would scare off the wild border-peoples and disperse +the freebooters by land and sea, as the rising sun chases away +the mist. However the old wounds might still smart, with Caesar +there appeared for the sorely-tortured subjects the dawn +of a more tolerable epoch, the first intelligent and humane government +that had appeared for centuries, and a policy of peace which rested +not on cowardice but on strength. Well might the subjects above all +mourn along with the best Romans by the bier of the great liberator. + +The Beginning of the Helleno-Italic State + +But this abolition of existing abuses was not the main matter +in Caesar's provincial reform. In the Roman republic, according +to the view of the aristocracy and democracy alike, the provinces +had been nothing but--what they were frequently called--country-estates +of the Roman people, and they were employed and worked out as such. +This view had now passed away. The provinces as such were gradually +to disappear, in order to prepare for the renovated Helleno-Italic nation +a new and more spacious home, of whose several component parts no one +existed merely for the sake of another but all for each and each for all; +the new existence in the renovated home, the fresher, broader, grander +national life, was of itself to overbear the sorrows and wrongs +of the nation for which there was no help in the old Italy. These ideas, +as is well known, were not new. The emigration from Italy +to the provinces that had been regularly going on for centuries +had long since, though unconsciously on the part of the emigrants +themselves, paved the way for such an extension of Italy. The first +who in a systematic way guided the Italians to settle beyond the bounds +of Italy was Gaius Gracchus, the creator of the Roman democratic monarchy, +the author of the Transalpine conquests, the founder of the colonies +of Carthage and Narbo. Then the second statesman of genius +produced by the Roman democracy, Quintus Sertorius, began to introduce +the barbarous Occidentals to Latin civilization; he gave to the Spanish +youth of rank the Roman dress, and urged them to speak Latin +and to acquire the higher Italian culture at the training institute +founded by him in Osca. When Caesar entered on the government, +a large Italian population--though, in great part, lacking stability +and concentration--already existed in all the provinces and client- +states. To say nothing of the formally Italian towns in Spain +and southern Gaul, we need only recall the numerous troops of burgesses +raised by Sertorius and Pompeius in Spain, by Caesar in Gaul, +by Juba in Numidia, by the constitutional party in Africa, Macedonia, +Greece, Asia Minor, and Crete; the Latin lyre--ill-tuned doubtless-- +on which the town-poets of Corduba as early as the Sertorian war +sang the praises of the Roman generals; and the translations +of Greek poetry valued on account of their very elegance of language, +which the earliest extra-Italian poet of note, the Transalpine +Publius Terentius Varro of the Aude, published +shortly after Caesar's death. + +On the other hand the interpenetration of the Latin and Hellenic +character was, we might say, as old as Rome. On occasion +of the union of Italy the conquering Latin nation had assimilated +to itself all the other conquered nationalities, excepting only +the Greek, which was received just as it stood without any attempt +at external amalgamation. Wherever the Roman legionary went, +the Greek schoolmaster, no less a conqueror in his own way, followed; +at an early date we find famous teachers of the Greek language +settled on the Guadalquivir, and Greek was as well taught as Latin +in the institute of Osca. The higher Roman culture itself +was in fact nothing else than the proclamation of the great gospel +of Hellenic manners and art in the Italian idiom; against the modest +pretension of the civilizing conquerors to proclaim it first of all +in their own language to the barbarians of the west the Hellene +at least could not loudly protest. Already the Greek every where-- +and, most decidedly, just where the national feeling was purest +and strongest, on the frontiers threatened by barbaric denationalization, +e. g. in Massilia, on the north coast of the Black Sea, +and on the Euphrates and Tigris--descried the protector and avenger +of Hellenism in Rome; and in fact the foundation of towns by Pompeius +in the far east resumed after an interruption of centuries +the beneficent work of Alexander. + +The idea of an Italo-Hellenic empire with two languages +and a single nationality was not new--otherwise it would have been +nothing but a blunder; but the development of it from floating projects +to a firmly-grasped conception, from scattered initial efforts +to the laying of a concentrated foundation, was the work of the third +and greatest of the democratic statesmen of Rome. + +The Ruling Nations +The Jews + +The first and most essential condition for the political +and national levelling of the empire was the preservation and extension +of the two nations destined to joint dominion, along with the absorption +as rapidly as possible of the barbarian races, or those termed barbarian +existing by their side. In a certain sense we might no doubt name +along with Romans and Greeks a third nationality, which vied with them +in ubiquity in the world of that day, and was destined to play +no insignificant part in the new state of Caesar. We speak of the Jews. +This remarkable people, yielding and yet tenacious, was in the ancient +as in the modern world everywhere and nowhere at home, and everywhere +and nowhere powerful. The successors of David and Solomon were of hardly +more significance for the Jews of that age than Jerusalem for those +of the present day; the nation found doubtless for its religious +and intellectual unity a visible rallying-point in the petty kingdom +of Jerusalem, but the nation itself consisted not merely of the subjects +of the Hasmonaeans, but of the innumerable bodies of Jews +scattered through the whole Parthian and the whole Roman empire. +Within the cities of Alexandria especially and of Cyrene the Jews +formed special communities administratively and even locally distinct, +not unlike the "Jews' quarters" of our towns, but with a freer position +and superintended by a "master of the people" as superior judge +and administrator. How numerous even in Rome the Jewish population +was already before Caesar's time, and how closely at the same time +the Jews even then kept together as fellow-countrymen, is shown +by the remark of an author of this period, that it was dangerous +for a governor to offend the Jews, in his province, because he might +then certainly reckon on being hissed after his return by the populace +of the capital. Even at this time the predominant business of the Jews +was trade; the Jewish trader moved everywhere with the conquering Roman +merchant then, in the same way as he afterwards accompanied the Genoese +and the Venetian, and capital flowed in on all hands to the Jewish, +by the side of the Roman, merchants. At this period too we encounter +the peculiar antipathy of the Occidentals towards this so thoroughly +Oriental race and their foreign opinions and customs. This Judaism, +although not the most pleasing feature in the nowhere pleasing picture +of the mixture of nations which then prevailed, was nevertheless +a historical element developing itself in the natural course of things, +which the statesman could neither ignore nor combat, and which Caesar +on the contrary, just like his predecessor Alexander, with correct +discernment of the circumstances, fostered as far as possible. +While Alexander, by laying the foundation of Alexandrian Judaism, +did not much less for the nation than its own David by planning +the temple of Jerusalem, Caesar also advanced the interests of the Jews +in Alexandria and in Rome by special favours and privileges, +and protected in particular their peculiar worship against the Roman +as well as against the Greek local priests. The two great men +of course did not contemplate placing the Jewish nationality +on an equal footing with the Hellenic or Italo-Hellenic. +But the Jew who has not like the Occidental received the Pandora's gift +of political organization, and stands substantially in a relation +of indifference to the state; who moreover is as reluctant +to give up the essence of his national idiosyncrasy, as he is ready +to clothe it with any nationality at pleasure and to adapt himself +up to a certain degree to foreign habits--the Jew was for this +very reason as it were made for a state, which was to be built +on the ruins of a hundred living polities and to be endowed +with a somewhat abstract and, from the outset, toned-down nationality. +Even in the ancient world Judaism was an effective leaven +of cosmopolitanism and of national decomposition, and to that extent +a specially privileged member in the Caesarian state, the polity +of which was strictly speaking nothing but a citizenship of the world, +and the nationality of which was at bottom nothing but humanity. + +Hellenism + +But the Latin and Hellenic nationalities continued to be +exclusively the positive elements of the new citizenship. +The distinctively Italian state of the republic was thus at an end; +but the rumour that Caesar was ruining Italy and Rome on purpose +to transfer the centre of the empire to the Greek east and to make +Ilion or Alexandria its capital, was nothing but a piece of talk-- +very easy to be accounted for, but also very silly--of the angry +nobility. On the contrary in Caesar's organizations the Latin +nationality always retained the preponderance; as is indicated +in the very fact that he issued all his enactments in Latin, +although those destined for the Greek-speaking countries were +at the same time issued in Greek. In general he arranged the relations +of the two great nations in his monarchy just as his republican +predecessors had arranged them in the united Italy; the Hellenic +nationality was protected where it existed, the Italian was extended +as far as circumstances permitted, and the inheritance +of the races to be absorbed was destined for it. This was necessary, +because an entire equalizing of the Greek and Latin elements +in the state would in all probability have in a very short time +occasioned that catastrophe which Byzantinism brought about +several centuries later; for the Greek element was superior +to the Roman not merely in all intellectual aspects, but also +in the measure of its predominance, and it had within Italy itself +in the hosts of Hellenes and half-Hellenes who migrated compulsorily +or voluntarily to Italy an endless number of apostles apparently +insignificant, but whose influence could not be estimated +too highly. To mention only the most conspicuous phenomenon +in this respect, the rule of Greek lackeys over the Roman monarchs +is as old as the monarchy. The first in the equally long and repulsive +list of these personages is the confidential servant of Pompeius, +Theophanes of Mytilene, who by his power over his weak master +contributed probably more than any one else to the outbreak of the war +between Pompeius and Caesar. Not wholly without reason he was +after his death treated with divine honours by his countrymen; +he commenced, forsooth, the -valet de chambre- government +of the imperial period, which in a certain measure was just +a dominion of the Hellenes over the Romans. The government +had accordingly every reason not to encourage by its fostering action +the spread of Hellenism at least in the west. If Sicily was not simply +relieved of the pressure of the -decumae- but had its communities +invested with Latin rights, which was presumably meant to be followed +in due time by full equalization with Italy, it can only have been +Caesar's design that this glorious island, which was at that time +desolate and had as to management passed for the greater part +into Italian hands, but which nature has destined to be not so much +a neighbouring land to Italy as rather the finest of its provinces, +should become altogether merged in Italy. But otherwise +the Greek element, wherever it existed, was preserved and protected. +However political crises might suggest to the Imperator the demolition +of the strong pillars of Hellenism in the west and in Egypt, Massilia +and Alexandria were neither destroyed nor denationalized. + +Latinizing + +On the other hand the Roman element was promoted by the government +through colonization and Latinizing with all vigour and at the most +various points of the empire. The principle, which originated +no doubt from a bad combination of formal law and brute force, +but was inevitably necessary in order to freedom in dealing +with the nations destined to destruction--that all the soil +in the provinces not ceded by special act of the government +to communities or private persons was the property of the state, +and the holder of it for the time being had merely an heritable +possession on sufferance and revocable at any time--was retained +also by Caesar and raised by him from a democratic party-theory +to a fundamental principle of monarchical law. + +Cisalpine Gaul + +Gaul, of course, fell to be primarily dealt with in the extension +of Roman nationality. Cisalpine Gaul obtained throughout-- +what a great part of the inhabitants had long enjoyed-- +political equalization with the leading country by the admission +of the Transpadane communities into the Roman burgess-union, +which had for long been assumed by the democracy as accomplished,(90) +and was now (705) finally accomplished by Caesar. Practically +this province had already completely Latinized itself during +the forty years which had elapsed since the bestowal of Latin rights. +The exclusives might ridicule the broad and gurgling accent +of the Celtic Latin, and miss "an undefined something of the grace +of the capital" in the Insubrian or Venetian, who as Caesar's legionary +had conquered for himself with his sword a place in the Roman Forum +and even in the Roman senate-house. Nevertheless Cisalpine Gaul +with its dense chiefly agricultural population was even before +Caesar's time in reality an Italian country, and remained +for centuries the true asylum of Italian manners and Italian culture; +indeed the teachers of Latin literature found nowhere else +out of the capital so much encouragement and approbation. + +The Province of Narbo + +While Cisalpine Gaul was thus substantially merged in Italy, +the place which it had hitherto occupied was taken by the Transalpine +province, which had been converted by the conquests of Caesar +from a frontier into an inland province, and which by its vicinity +as well as by its climate was fitted beyond all other regions +to become in due course of time likewise an Italian land. +Thither principally, according to the old aim of the transmarine +settlements of the Roman democracy, was the stream of Italian +emigration directed. There the ancient colony of Narbo was reinforced +by new settlers, and four new burgess-colonies were instituted +at Baeterrae (Beziers) not far from Narbo, at Arelate (Aries) +and Arausio (Orange) on the Rhone, and at the new seaport Forum Julii +(Frejus); while the names assigned to them at the same time preserved +the memory of the brave legions which had annexed northern Gaul +to the empire.(91) The townships not furnished with colonists appear, +at least for the most part, to have been led on toward Romanization +in the same way as Transpadane Gaul in former times(92) by the bestowal +of Latin urban rights; in particular Nemausus (Nimes), as the chief place +of the territory taken from the Massiliots in consequence of their revolt +against Caesar,(93)was converted from a Massiliot village into a Latin +urban community, and endowed with a considerable territory and even +with the right of coinage.(94) While Cisalpine Gaul thus advanced +from the preparatory stage to full equality with Italy, the Narbonese +province advanced at the same time into that preparatory stage; +just as previously in Cisalpine Gaul, the most considerable +communities there had the full franchise, the rest Latin rights. + +Northern Gaul + +In the other non-Greek and non-Latin regions of the empire, +which were still more remote from the influence of Italy and the process +of assimilation, Caesar confined himself to the establishment +of several centres for Italian civilization such as Narbo had hitherto +been in Gaul, in order by their means to pave the way for a future +complete equalization. Such initial steps can be pointed out +in all the provinces of the empire, with the exception of the poorest +and least important of all, Sardinia. How Caesar proceeded +in Northern Gaul, we have already set forth;(95) the Latin language +there obtained throughout official recognition, though not yet +employed for all branches of public intercourse, and the colony +of Noviodunum (Nyon) arose on the Leman lake as the most northerly town +with an Italian constitution. + +Spain + +In Spain, which was presumably at that time the most densely peopled +country of the Roman empire, not merely were Caesarian colonists +settled in the important Helleno-Iberian seaport town of Emporiae +by the side of the old population; but, as recently-discovered +records have shown, a number of colonists probably taken +predominantly from the proletariate of the capital were provided for +in the town of Urso (Osuna), not far from Seville in the heart +of Andalusia, and perhaps also in several other townships +of this province. The ancient and wealthy mercantile city of Gades, +whose municipal system Caesar even when praetor had remodelled +suitably to the times, now obtained from the Imperator the full rights +of the Italian -municipia-(705) and became--what Tusculum had been +in Italy(96)--the first extra-Italian community not founded by Rome +which was admitted into the Roman burgess-union. Some years +afterwards (709) similar rights were conferred also on some other +Spanish communities, and Latin rights presumably on still more. + +Carthage + +In Africa the project, which Gaius Gracchus had not been allowed +to bring to an issue, was now carried out, and on the spot +where the city of the hereditary foes of Rome had stood, 3000 Italian +colonists and a great number of the tenants on lease and sufferance +resident in the Carthaginian territory were settled; and the new +"Venus-colony," the Roman Carthage, throve with amazing rapidity +under the incomparably favourable circumstances of the locality. +Utica, hitherto the capital and first commercial town in the province, +had already been in some measure compensated beforehand, +apparently by the bestowal of Latin rights, for the revival +of its superior rival. In the Numidian territory newly annexed +to the empire the important Cirta and the other communities assigned +to the Roman condottiere Publius Sittius for himself and his troops(97) +obtained the legal position of Roman military colonies. +The stately provincial towns indeed, which the insane fury of Juba +and of the desperate remnant of the constitutional party had converted +into ruins, did not revive so rapidly as they had been reduced to ashes, +and many a ruinous site recalled long afterwards this fatal period; +but the two new Julian colonies, Carthage and Cirta, became +and continued to be the centres of Africano-Roman civilization. + +Corinth +The East + +In the desolate land of Greece, Caesar, besides other plans +such as the institution of a Roman colony in Buthrotum (opposite Corfu), +busied himself above all with the restoration of Corinth. Not only +was a considerable burgess-colony conducted thither, but a plan +was projected for cutting through the isthmus, so as to avoid +the dangerous circumnavigation of the Peloponnesus and to make +the whole traffic between Italy and Asia pass through the Corintho- +Saronic gulf. Lastly even in the remote Hellenic east the monarch +called into existence Italian settlements; on the Black Sea, +for instance, at Heraclea and Sinope, which towns the Italian +colonists shared, as in the case of Emporiae, with the old inhabitants; +on the Syrian coast, in the important port of Berytus, +which like Sinope obtained an Italian constitution; and even in Egypt, +where a Roman station was established on the lighthouse-island +commanding the harbour of Alexandria. + +Extension of the Italian Municipal Constitution to the Provinces + +Through these ordinances the Italian municipal freedom was carried +into the provinces in a manner far more comprehensive than had been +previously the case. The communities of full burgesses--that is, +all the towns of the Cisalpine province and the burgess-colonies +and burgess-municipia--scattered in Transalpine Gaul and elsewhere-- +were on an equal footing with the Italian, in so far as they administered +their own affairs, and even exercised a certainly limited jurisdiction; +while on the other hand the more important processes came before +the Roman authorities competent to deal with them--as a rule the governor +of the province.(98) The formally autonomous Latin and the other +emancipated communities-thus including all those of Sicily +and of Narbonese Gaul, so far as they were not burgess-communities, +and a considerable number also in the other provinces--had not merely +free administration, but probably unlimited jurisdiction; so that +the governor was only entitled to interfere there by virtue of his-- +certainly very arbitrary--administrative control. No doubt even earlier +there had been communities of full burgesses within the provinces +of governors, such as Aquileia, and Narbo, and whole governors' +provinces, such as Cisalpine Gaul, had consisted of communities +with Italian constitution; but it was, if not in law, at least +in a political point of view a singularly important innovation, +that there was now a province which as well as Italy was peopled +solely by Roman burgesses,(99) and that others promised to become such. + +Italy and the Provinces Reduced to One Level + +With this disappeared the first great practical distinction +that separated Italy from the provinces; and the second--that ordinarily +no troops were stationed in Italy, while they were stationed +in the provinces--was likewise in the course of disappearing; +troops were now stationed only where there was a frontier to be defended, +and the commandants of the provinces in which this was not the case, +such as Narbo and Sicily, were officers only in name. The formal +contrast between Italy and the provinces, which had at all times +depended on other distinctions,(100) continued certainly +even now to subsist, for Italy was the sphere of civil jurisdiction +and of consuls and praetors, while the provinces were districts +under the jurisdiction of martial law and subject to proconsuls +and propraetors; but the procedure according to civil and according +to martial law had for long been practically coincident, +and the different titles of the magistrates signified little +after the one Imperator was over all. + +In all these various municipal foundations and ordinances-- +which are traceable at least in plan, if not perhaps all in execution, +to Caesar--a definite system is apparent. Italy was converted +from the mistress of the subject peoples into the mother +of the renovated Italo-Hellenic nation. The Cisalpine province +completely equalized with the mother-country was a promise +and a guarantee that, in the monarchy of Caesar just as + in the healthier times of the republic, every Latinized +district might expect to be placed on an equal footing +by the side of its elder sisters and of the mother herself. +On the threshold of full national and political equalization +with Italy stood the adjoining lands, the Greek Sicily +and the south of Gaul, which was rapidly becoming Latinized. +In a more remote stage of preparation stood the other provinces +of the empire, in which, just as hitherto in southern Gaul Narbo +had been a Roman colony, the great maritime cities--Emporiae, Gades, +Carthage, Corinth, Heraclea in Pontus, Sinope, Berytus, Alexandria-- +now became Italian or Helleno-Italian communities, the centres +of an Italian civilization even in the Greek east, the fundamental +pillars of the future national and political levelling of the empire. +The rule of the urban community of Rome over the shores +of the Mediterranean was at an end; in its stead came the new +Mediterranean state, and its first act was to atone for the two +greatest outrages which that urban community had perpetrated +on civilization. While the destruction of the two greatest marts +of commerce in the Roman dominions marked the turning-point at which +the protectorate of the Roman community degenerated into political +tyrannizing over, and financial exaction from, the subject lands, +the prompt and brilliant restoration of Carthage and Corinth marked +the foundation of the new great commonwealth which was to train up +all the regions on the Mediterranean to national and political +equality, to union in a genuine state. Well might Caesar bestow +on the city of Corinth in addition to its far-famed ancient name +the new one of "Honour to Julius" (-Lavs Jvli-). + +Organization of the New Empire + +While thus the new united empire was furnished with a national character, +which doubtless necessarily lacked individuality and was rather +an inanimate product of art than a fresh growth of nature, +it further had need of unity in those institutions which express +the general life of nations--in constitution and administration, +in religion and jurisprudence, in money, measures, and weights; +as to which, of course, local diversities of the most varied character +were quite compatible with essential union. In all these departments +we can only speak of the initial steps, for the thorough formation +of the monarchy of Caesar into an unity was the work of the future, +and all that he did was to lay the foundation for the building +of centuries. But of the lines, which the great man drew in these +departments, several can still be recognized; and it is more pleasing +to follow him here, than in the task of building from the ruins +of the nationalities. + +Census of the Empire + +As to constitution and administration, we have already noticed +elsewhere the most important elements of the new unity-- +the transition of the sovereignty from the municipal council of Rome +to the sole master of the Mediterranean monarchy; the conversion +of that municipal council into a supreme imperial council representing +Italy and the provinces; above all, the transference--now commenced-- +of the Roman, and generally of the Italian, municipal organization +to the provincial communities. This latter course--the bestowal +of Latin, and thereafter of Roman, rights on the communities +ripe for full admission to the united state--gradually of itself +brought about uniform communal arrangements. In one respect alone +this process could not be waited for. The new empire needed +immediately an institution which should place before the government +at a glance the principal bases of administration--the proportions +of population and property in the different communities-- +in other words an improved census. First the census of Italy +was reformed. According to Caesar's ordinance(101)--which probably, +indeed, only carried out the arrangements which were, at least +as to principle, adopted in consequence of the Social war-- +in future, when a census took place in the Roman community, +there were to be simultaneously registered by the highest authority +in each Italian community the name of every municipal burgess +and that of his father or manumitter, his district, his age, +and his property; and these lists were to be furnished to the Roman +censor early enough to enable him to complete in proper time +the general list of Roman burgesses and of Roman property. +That it was Caesar's intention to introduce similar institutions +also in the provinces is attested partly by the measurement +and survey of the whole empire ordered by him, partly by the nature +of the arrangement itself; for it in fact furnished the general +instrument appropriate for procuring, as well in the Italian +as in the non-Italian communities of the state, the information +requisite for the central administration. Evidently here too +it was Caesar's intention to revert to the traditions +of the earlier republican times, and to reintroduce the census +of the empire, which the earlier republic had effected-- +essentially in the same way as Caesar effected the Italian-- +by analogous extension of the institution of the urban censorship +with its set terms and other essential rules to all the subject +communities of Italy and Sicily.(102) This had been +one of the first institutions which the torpid aristocracy allowed +to drop, and in this way deprived the supreme administrative authority +of any view of the resources in men and taxation at its disposal +and consequently of all possibility of an effective control.(103) +The indications still extant, and the very connection of things, +show irrefragably that Caesar made preparations to renew +the general census that had been obsolete for centuries. + +Religion of the Empire + +We need scarcely say that in religion and in jurisprudence +no thorough levelling could be thought of; yet with all toleration +towards local faiths and municipal statutes the new state needed +a common worship corresponding to the Italo-Hellenic nationality +and a general code of law superior to the municipal statutes. +It needed them; for de facto both were already in existence. +In the field of religion men had for centuries been busied +in fusing together the Italian and Hellenic worships partly +by external adoption, partly by internal adjustment of their respective +conceptions of the gods; and owing to the pliant formless character +of the Italian gods, there had been no great difficulty in resolving +Jupiter into Zeus, Venus into Aphrodite, and so every essential idea +of the Latin faith into its Hellenic counterpart. The Italo-Hellenic +religion stood forth in its outlines ready-made; how much +in this very department men were conscious of having gone beyond +the specifically Roman point of view and advanced towards +an Italo-Hellenic quasi-nationality, is shown by the distinction made +in the already-mentioned theology of Varro between the "common" gods, +that is, those acknowledged by Romans and Greeks, and the special gods +of the Roman community. + +Law of the Empire + +So far as concerns the field of criminal and police law, +where the government more directly interferes and the necessities +of the case are substantially met by a judicious legislation, +there was no difficulty in attaining, in the way of legislative action, +that degree of material uniformity which certainly was in this department +needful for the unity of the empire. In the civil law again, +where the initiative belongs to commercial intercourse and merely +the formal shape to the legislator, the code for the united empire, +which the legislator certainly could not have created, had been already +long since developed in a natural way by commercial intercourse itself. +The Roman urban law was still indeed legally based on the embodiment +of the Latin national law contained in the Twelve Tables. +Later laws had doubtless introduced various improvements +of detail suited to the times, among which the most important +was probably the abolition of the old inconvenient mode +of commencing a process through standing forms of declaration +by the parties(104) and the substitution of an instruction drawn up +in writing by the presiding magistrate for the single juryman +(formula): but in the main the popular legislation had only piled upon +that venerable foundation an endless chaos of special laws +long since in great part antiquated and forgotten, which can +only be compared to the English statute-law. The attempts to impart +to them scientific shape and system had certainly rendered +the tortuous paths of the old civil law accessible, and thrown light +upon them;(105) but no Roman Blackstone could remedy the fundamental +defect, that an urban code composed four hundred years ago +with its equally diffuse and confused supplements was now to serve +as the law of a great state. + +The New Urban Law or the Edict + +Commercial intercourse provided for itself a more thorough remedy. +The lively intercourse between Romans and non-Romans had long ago +developed in Rome an international private law (-ius gentium-;(106)), +that is to say, a body of maxims especially relating to commercial +matters, according to which Roman judges pronounced judgment, +when a cause could not be decided either according to their own +or any other national code and they were compelled--setting aside +the peculiarities of Roman, Hellenic, Phoenician and other law-- +to revert to the common views of right underlying all dealings. +The formation of the newer law attached itself to this basis. +In the first place as a standard for the legal dealings +of Roman burgesses with each other, it de facto substituted +for the old urban law, which had become practically useless, +a new code based in substance on a compromise between the national law +of the Twelve Tables and the international law or so-called +law of nations. The former was essentially adhered to, +though of course with modifications suited to the times, +in the law of marriage, family, and inheritance; whereas +in all regulations which concerned dealings with property, +and consequently in reference to ownership and contracts, +the international law was the standard; in these matters indeed +various important arrangements were borrowed even from local +provincial law, such as the legislation as to usury,(107) +and the institution of -hypotheca-. Through whom, when, +and how this comprehensive innovation came into existence, +whether at once or gradually, whether through one or several authors, +are questions to which we cannot furnish a satisfactory answer. +We know only that this reform, as was natural, proceeded +in the first instance from the urban court; that it first took +formal shape in the instructions annually issued by the -praetor +urbanus-, when entering on office, for the guidance of the parties +in reference to the most important maxims of law to be observed +in the judicial year then beginning (-edictum annuum- or -perpetuum +praetoris urbani de iuris dictione-); and that, although various +preparatory steps towards it may have been taken in earlier times, +it certainly only attained its completion in this epoch. The new code +was theoretic and abstract, inasmuch as the Roman view of law +had therein divested itself of such of its national peculiarities +as it had become aware of; but it was at the same time practical +and positive, inasmuch as it by no means faded away into the dim +twilight of general equity or even into the pure nothingness +of the so-called law of nature, but was applied by definite +functionaries for definite concrete cases according to fixed rules, +and was not merely capable of, but had already essentially received, +a legal embodiment in the urban edict. This code moreover corresponded +in matter to the wants of the time, in so far as it furnished +the more convenient forms required by the increase of intercourse +for legal procedure, for acquisition of property, and for conclusion +of contracts. Lastly, it had already in the main become subsidiary law +throughout the compass of the Roman empire, inasmuch as-- +while the manifold local statutes were retained for those legal relations +which were not directly commercial, as well as for local transactions +between members of the same legal district--dealings relating +to property between subjects of the empire belonging to different +legal districts were regulated throughout after the model +of the urban edict, though not applicable de jure to these cases, +both in Italy and in the provinces. The law of the urban edict +had thus essentially the same position in that age which the Roman law +has occupied in our political development; this also is, so far as +such opposites can be combined, at once abstract and positive; +this also recommended itself by its (compared with the earlier +legal code) flexible forms of intercourse, and took its place by the side +of the local statutes as universal subsidiary law. But the Roman +legal development had an essential advantage over ours in this, +that the denationalized legislation appeared not, as with us, +prematurely and by artificial birth, but at the right time +and agreeably to nature. + +Caesar's Project of Codification + +Such was the state of the law as Caesar found it. If he projected +the plan for a new code, it is not difficult to say what were +his intentions. This code could only comprehend the law of Roman +burgesses, and could be a general code for the empire merely so far as +a code of the ruling nation suitable to the times could not +but of itself become general subsidiary law throughout the compass +of the empire. In criminal law, if the plan embraced this at all, +there was needed only a revision and adjustment of the Sullan +ordinances. In civil law, for a state whose nationality +was properly humanity, the necessary and only possible formal shape +was to invest that urban edict, which had already spontaneously grown +out of lawful commerce, with the security and precision of statute-law. +The first step towards this had been taken by the Cornelian law +of 687, when it enjoined the judge to keep to the maxims set forth +at the beginning of his magistracy and not arbitrarily +to administer other law (108)--a regulation, which may well +be compared with the law of the Twelve Tables, and which became +almost as significant for the fixing of the later urban law +as that collection for the fixing of the earlier. But although +after the Cornelian decree of the people the edict was no longer +subordinate to the judge, but the judge was by law subject to the edict; +and though the new code had practically dispossessed the old urban law +in judicial usage as in legal instruction--every urban judge +was still free at his entrance on office absolutely and arbitrarily +to alter the edict, and the law of the Twelve Tables with its additions +still always outweighed formally the urban edict, so that +in each individual case of collision the antiquated rule had to be +set aside by arbitrary interference of the magistrates, +and therefore, strictly speaking, by violation of formal law. +The subsidiary application of the urban edict in the court +of the -praetor peregrinus- at Rome and in the different provincial +judicatures was entirely subject to the arbitrary pleasure +of the individual presiding magistrates. It was evidently necessary +to set aside definitely the old urban law, so far as it had not +been transferred to the newer, and in the case of the latter +to set suitable limits to its arbitrary alteration by each individual +urban judge, possibly also to regulate its subsidiary application +by the side of the local statutes. This was Caesars design, +when he projected the plan for his code; for it could not have been +otherwise. The plan was not executed; and thus that troublesome +state of transition in Roman jurisprudence was perpetuated +till this necessary reform was accomplished six centuries afterwards, +and then but imperfectly, by one of the successors of Caesar, +the Emperor Justinian. + +Lastly, in money, measures, and weights the substantial equalization +of the Latin and Hellenic systems had long been in progress. +It was very ancient so far as concerned the definitions of weight +and the measures of capacity and of length indispensable for trade +and commerce,(109) and in the monetary system little more recent +than the introduction of the silver coinage.(110) But these older +equations were not sufficient, because in the Hellenic world itself +the most varied metrical and monetary systems subsisted side by side; +it was necessary, and formed part doubtless of Caesar's plan, +now to introduce everywhere in the new united empire, so far as +this had not been done already, Roman money, Roman measures, +and Roman weights in such a manner that they alone should be reckoned +by in official intercourse, and that the non-Roman systems +should be restricted to local currency or placed in a--once for all +regulated--ratio to the Roman.(111) The action of Caesar, +however, can only be pointed out in two of the most important +of these departments, the monetary system and the calendar. + +Gold Coin as Imperial Currency + +The Roman monetary system was based on the two precious metals +circulating side by side and in a fixed relation to each other, +gold being given and taken according to weight,(112) silver +in the form of coin; but practically in consequence of the extensive +transmarine intercourse the gold far preponderated over the silver. +Whether the acceptance of Roman silver money was not even +at an earlier period obligatory throughout the empire, is uncertain; +at any rate uncoined gold essentially supplied the place of imperial +money throughout the Roman territory, the more so as the Romans +had prohibited the coining of gold in all the provinces and client- +states, and the -denarius- had, in addition to Italy, de jure +or de facto naturalized itself in Cisalpine Gaul, in Sicily, +in Spain and various other places, especially in the west.(113) + but the imperial coinage begins with Caesar. Exactly like Alexander, +he marked the foundation of the new monarchy embracing the civilized +world by the fact that the only metal forming an universal medium +obtained the first place in the coinage. The greatness of the scale +on which the new Caesarian gold piece (20 shillings 7 pence +according to the present value of the metal) was immediately coined, +is shown by the fact that in a single treasure buried seven years +after Caesar's death 80,000 of these pieces were found together. +It is true that financial speculations may have exercised +a collateral influence in this respect.(114) as to the silver money, +the exclusive rule of the Roman -denarius- in all the west, +for which the foundation had previously been laid, was finally +established by Caesar, when he definitively closed the only +Occidental mint that still competed in silver currency with the Roman, +that of Massilia. The coining of silver or copper small money +was still permitted to a number of Occidental communities; +three-quarter -denarii- were struck by some Latin communities +of southern Gaul, half -denarii- by several cantons in northern Gaul, +copper small coins in various instances even after Caesar's time +by communes of the west; but this small money was throughout coined +after the Roman standard, and its acceptance moreover was probably +obligatory only in local dealings. Caesar does not seem any more +than the earlier government to have contemplated the regulation +with a view to unity of the monetary system of the east, +where great masses of coarse silver money--much of which too easily +admitted of being debased or worn away--and to some extent even, +as in Egypt, a copper coinage akin to our paper money +were in circulation, and the Syrian commercial cities would have felt +very severely the want of their previous national coinage corresponding +to the Mesopotamian currency. We find here subsequently +the arrangement that the -denarius- has everywhere legal currency +and is the only medium of official reckoning,(115) while the local coins +have legal currency within their limited range but according +to a tariff unfavourable for them as compared with the -denarius-.(116) +This was probably not introduced all at once, and in part perhaps +may have preceded Caesar; but it was at any rate the essential +complement of the Caesarian arrangement as to the imperial coinage, +whose new gold piece found its immediate model in the almost equally +heavy coin of Alexander and was doubtless calculated especially +for circulation in the east. + +Reform of the Calendar + +Of a kindred nature was the reform of the calendar. +The republican calendar, which strangely enough was still +the old decemviral calendar--an imperfect adoption of the -octaeteris- +that preceded Meton (117)--had by a combination of wretched mathematics +and wretched administration come to anticipate the true time +by 67 whole days, so that e. g. the festival of Flora was celebrated +on the 11th July instead of the 28th April. Caesar finally removed +this evil, and with the help of the Greek mathematician Sosigenes +introduced the Italian farmer's year regulated according to the Egyptian +calendar of Eudoxus, as well as a rational system of intercalation, +into religious and official use; while at the same time +the beginning of the year on the 1st March of the old calendar +was abolished, and the date of the 1st January--fixed at first +as the official term for changing the supreme magistrates and, +in consequence of this, long since prevailing in civil life-- +was assumed also as the calendar-period for commencing the year. +Both changes came into effect on the 1st January 709, and along +with them the use of the Julian calendar so named after its author, +which long after the fall of the monarchy of Caesar remained +the regulative standard of the civilized world and in the main +is so still. By way of explanation there was added in a detailed edict +a star-calendar derived from the Egyptian astronomical observations +and transferred--not indeed very skilfully--to Italy, which fixed +the rising and setting of the stars named according to days +of the calendar.(118) In this domain also the Roman and Greek worlds +were thus placed on a par. + +Caesar and His Works + +Such were the foundations of the Mediterranean monarchy of Caesar. +For the second time in Rome the social question had reached +a crisis, at which the antagonisms not only appeared to be, +but actually were, in the form of their exhibition, insoluble and, +in the form of their expression, irreconcilable. On the former +occasion Rome had been saved by the fact that Italy was merged +in Rome and Rome in Italy, and in the new enlarged and altered home +those old antagonisms were not reconciled, but fell into abeyance. +Now Rome was once more saved by the fact that the countries +of the Mediterranean were merged in it or became prepared for merging; +the war between the Italian poor and rich, which in the old Italy +could only end with the destruction of the nation, had no longer +a battle-field or a meaning in the Italy of three continents. +The Latin colonies closed the gap which threatened to swallow up +the Roman community in the fifth century; the deeper chasm +of the seventh century was filled by the Transalpine and transmarine +colonizations of Gaius Gracchus and Caesar. For Rome alone history +not merely performed miracles, but also repeated its miracles, +and twice cured the internal crisis, which in the state itself +was incurable, by regenerating the state. There was doubtless +much corruption in this regeneration; as the union of Italy +was accomplished over the ruins of the Samnite and Etruscan nations, +so the Mediterranean monarchy built itself on the ruins of countless +states and tribes once living and vigorous; but it was a corruption +out of which sprang a fresh growth, part of which remains green +at the present day. What was pulled down for the sake of the new +building, was merely the secondary nationalities which had long since +been marked out for destruction by the levelling hand of civilization. +Caesar, wherever he came forward as a destroyer, only carried out +the pronounced verdict of historical development; but he protected +the germs of culture, where and as he found them, in his own land +as well as among the sister nation of the Hellenes. He saved +and renewed the Roman type; and not only did he spare the Greek type, +but with the same self-relying genius with which he accomplished +the renewed foundation of Rome he undertook also the regeneration +of the Hellenes, and resumed the interrupted work of the great Alexander, +whose image, we may well believe, never was absent from Caesar's soul. +He solved these two great tasks not merely side by side, +but the one by means of the other. The two great essentials +of humanity--general and individual development, or state and culture-- +once in embryo united in those old Graeco-Italians feeding their flocks +in primeval simplicity far from the coasts and islands +of the Mediterranean, had become dissevered when these were parted +into Italians and Hellenes, and had thenceforth remained apart +for many centuries. Now the descendant of the Trojan prince +and the Latin king's daughter created out of a state without +distinctive culture and a cosmopolitan civilization a new whole, +in which state and culture again met together at the acme +of human existence in the rich fulness of blessed maturity +and worthily filled the sphere appropriate to such an union. + +The outlines have thus been set forth, which Caesar drew for this work, +according to which he laboured himself, and according to which posterity-- +for many centuries confined to the paths which this great man marked out-- +endeavoured to prosecute the work, if not with the intellect +and energy, yet on the whole in accordance with the intentions, +of the illustrious master. Little was finished; much even +was merely begun. Whether the plan was complete, those who venture +to vie in thought with such a man may decide; we observe no material +defect in what lies before us--every single stone of the building +enough to make a man immortal, and yet all combining to form +one harmonious whole. Caesar ruled as king of Rome for five years +and a half, not half as long as Alexander; in the intervals +of seven great campaigns, which allowed him to stay not more +than fifteen months altogether(119) in the capital of his empire, +he regulated the destinies of the world for the present +and the future, from the establishment of the boundary-line +between civilization and barbarism down to the removal of the pools +of rain in the streets of the capital, and yet retained time +and composure enough attentively to follow the prize-pieces in the theatre +and to confer the chaplet on the victor with improvised verses. +The rapidity and self-precision with which the plan was executed +prove that it had been long meditated thoroughly and all its parts +settled in detail; but, even thus, they remain not much less wonderful than +the plan itself. The outlines were laid down and thereby the new state +was defined for all coming time; the boundless future alone could complete +the structure. So far Caesar might say, that his aim was attained; +and this was probably the meaning of the words which were sometimes +heard to fall from him--that he had "lived enough." But precisely because +the building was an endless one, the master as long as he lived restlessly +added stone to stone, with always the same dexterity and always the same +elasticity busy at his work, without ever overturning or postponing, +just as if there were for him merely a to-day and no to-morrow. +Thus he worked and created as never did any mortal before or after him; +and as a worker and creator he still, after wellnigh two thousand years, +lives in the memory of the nations--the first, and withal unique, +Imperator Caesar. + + + + +Chapter XII + +Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art + +State Religion + +In the development of religion and philosophy no new element +appeared during this epoch. The Romano-Hellenic state-religion +and the Stoic state-philosophy inseparably combined with it +were for every government--oligarchy, democracy or monarchy--not merely +a convenient instrument, but quite indispensable for the very reason +that it was just as impossible to construct the state wholly without +religious elements as to discover any new state-religion fitted +to take the place of the old. So the besom of revolution swept doubtless +at times very roughly through the cobwebs of the augural bird-lore;(1) +nevertheless the rotten machine creaking at every joint +survived the earthquake which swallowed up the republic itself, +and preserved its insipidity and its arrogance without diminution +for transference to the new monarchy. As a matter of course, +it fell more and more into disfavour with all those who preserved +their freedom of judgment. Towards the state-religion indeed +public opinion maintained an attitude essentially indifferent; +it was on all sides recognized as an institution of political convenience, +and no one specially troubled himself about it with the exception +of political and antiquarian literati. But towards its philosophical +sister there gradually sprang up among the unprejudiced public +that hostility, which the empty and yet perfidious hypocrisy of set phrases +never fails in the long run to awaken. That a presentiment of its own +worthlessness began to dawn on the Stoa itself, is shown by its attempt +artificially to infuse into itself some fresh spirit in the way +of syncretism. Antiochus of Ascalon (flourishing about 675), who professed +to have patched together the Stoic and Platonic-Aristotelian systems +into one organic unity, in reality so far succeeded that his misshapen +doctrine became the fashionable philosophy of the conservatives +of his time and was conscientiously studied by the genteel dilettanti +and literati of Rome. Every one who displayed any intellectual vigour, +opposed the Stoa or ignored it. It was principally antipathy +towards the boastful and tiresome Roman Pharisees, coupled doubtless +with the increasing disposition to take refuge from practical life +in indolent apathy or empty irony, that occasioned during this epoch +the extension of the system of Epicurus to a larger circle +and the naturalization of the Cynic philosophy of Diogenes in Rome. +However stale and poor in thought the former might be, a philosophy, +which did not seek the way to wisdom through an alteration +of traditional terms but contented itself with those in existence, +and throughout recognized only the perceptions of sense as true, +was always better than the terminological jingle and the hollow +conceptions of the Stoic wisdom; and the Cynic philosophy +was of all the philosophical systems of the times in so far +by much the best, as its system was confined to the having +no system at all and sneering at all systems and all systematizers. +In both fields war was waged against the Stoa with zeal and success; +for serious men, the Epicurean Lucretius preached with the full accents +of heartfelt conviction and of holy zeal against the Stoical faith +in the gods and providence and the Stoical doctrine of the immortality +of the soul; for the great public ready to laugh, the Cynic Varro +hit the mark still more sharply with the flying darts of his extensively- +read satires. While thus the ablest men of the older generation +made war on the Stoa, the younger generation again, such as Catullus, +stood in no inward relation to it at all, and passed a far sharper +censure on it by completely ignoring it. + +The Oriental Religions + +But, if in the present instance a faith no longer believed in +was maintained out of political convenience, they amply made up +for this in other respects. Unbelief and superstition, different hues +of the same historical phenomenon, went in the Roman world +of that day hand in hand, and there was no lack of individuals +who in themselves combined both--who denied the gods with Epicurus, +and yet prayed and sacrificed before every shrine. Of course only +the gods that came from the east were still in vogue, and, as the men +continued to flock from the Greek lands to Italy, so the gods +of the east migrated in ever-increasing numbers to the west. +The importance of the Phrygian cultus at that time in Rome is shown +both by the polemical tone of the older men such as Varro and Lucretius, +and by the poetical glorification of it in the fashionable Catullus, +which concludes with the characteristic request that the goddess +may deign to turn the heads of others only, and not that +of the poet himself. + +Worship of Mithra + +A fresh addition was the Persian worship, which is said +to have first reached the Occidental through the medium of the pirates +who met on the Mediterranean from the east and from the west; +the oldest seat of this cultus in the west is stated to have been +Mount Olympus in Lycia. That in the adoption of Oriental worships +in the west such higher speculative and moral elements as they contained +were generally allowed to drop, is strikingly evinced by the fact +that Ahuramazda, the supreme god of the pure doctrine of Zarathustra, +remained virtually unknown in the west, and adoration there +was especially directed to that god who had occupied the first place +in the old Persian national religion and had been transferred +by Zarathustra to the second--the sun-god Mithra. + +Worship of Isis + +But the brighter and gentler celestial forms of the Persian religion +did not so rapidly gain a footing in Rome as the wearisome mystical host +of the grotesque divinities of Egypt--Isis the mother of nature +with her whole train, the constantly dying and constantly reviving +Osiris, the gloomy Sarapis, the taciturn and grave Harpocrates, +the dog-headed Anubis. In the year when Clodius emancipated +the clubs and conventicles (696), and doubtless in consequence +of this very emancipation of the populace, that host even prepared +to make its entry into the old stronghold of the Roman Jupiter +in the Capitol, and it was with difficulty that the invasion +was prevented and the inevitable temples were banished +at least to the suburbs of Rome. No worship was equally popular +among the lower orders of the population in the capital: when the senate +ordered the temples of Isis constructed within the ring-wall +to be pulled down, no labourer ventured to lay the first hand on them, +and the consul Lucius Paullus was himself obliged to apply +the first stroke of the axe(704); a wager might be laid, +that the more loose any woman was, the more piously she worshipped Isis. +That the casting of lots, the interpretation of dreams, and similar +liberal arts supported their professors, was a matter of course. +The casting of horoscopes was already a scientific pursuit; +Lucius Tarutius of Firmum, a respectable and in his own way learned man, +a friend of Varro and Cicero, with all gravity cast the nativity +of kings Romulus and Numa and of the city of Rome itself, +and for the edification of the credulous on either side confirmed +by means of his Chaldaean and Egyptian wisdom the accounts +of the Roman annals. + +The New Pythagoreanism +Nigidius Figulus + +But by far the most remarkable phenomenon in this domain +was the first attempt to mingle crude faith with speculative thought, +the first appearance of those tendencies, which we are accustomed +to describe as Neo-Platonic, in the Roman world. Their oldest apostle +there was Publius Nigidius Figulus, a Roman of rank belonging +to the strictest section of the aristocracy, who filled +the praetorship in 696 and died in 709 as a political exile +beyond the bounds of Italy. With astonishing copiousness of learning +and still more astonishing strength of faith he created +out of the most dissimilar elements a philosophico-religious structure, +the singular outline of which he probably developed still more +in his oral discourses than in his theological and physical writings. +In philosophy, seeking deliverance from the skeletons of the current +systems and abstractions, he recurred to the neglected fountain +of the pre-Socratic philosophy, to whose ancient sages thought +had still presented itself with sensuous vividness. The researches +of physical science--which, suitably treated, afford even now +so excellent a handle for mystic delusion and pious sleight of hand, +and in antiquity with its more defective insight into physical laws +lent themselves still more easily to such objects--played in this case, +as may readily be conceived, a considerable part. His theology +was based essentially on that strange medley, in which Greeks +of a kindred spirit had intermingled Orphic and other very old +or very new indigenous wisdom with Persian, Chaldaean, +and Egyptian secret doctrines, and with which Figulus incorporated +the quasi-results of the Tuscan investigation into nothingness +and of the indigenous lore touching the flight of birds, +so as to produce further harmonious confusion. The whole system obtained +its consecration--political, religious, and national--from the name +of Pythagoras, the ultra-conservative statesman whose supreme principle +was "to promote order and to check disorder," the miracle-worker +and necromancer, the primeval sage who was a native of Italy, +who was interwoven even with the legendary history of Rome, +and whose statue was to be seen in the Roman Forum. As birth +and death are kindred with each other, so--it seemed--Pythagoras +was to stand not merely by the cradle of the republic as friend +of the wise Numa and colleague of the sagacious mother Egeria, +but also by its grave as the last protector of the sacred bird-lore. +But the new system was not merely marvellous, it also worked marvels; +Nigidius announced to the father of the subsequent emperor Augustus, +on the very day when the latter was born, the future greatness +of his son; nay the prophets conjured up spirits for the credulous, +and, what was of more moment, they pointed out to them the places +where their lost money lay. The new-and-old wisdom, such as it was, +made a profound impression on its contemporaries; men of the highest rank, +of the greatest learning, of the most solid ability, belonging +to very different parties--the consul of 705, Appius Claudius, +the learned Marcus Varro, the brave officer Publius Vatinius-- +took part in the citation of spirits, and it even appears +that a police interference was necessary against the proceedings +of these societies. These last attempts to save the Roman theology, +like the kindred efforts of Cato in the field of politics, produce at once +a comical and a melancholy impression; we may smile at the creed +and its propagators, but still it is a grave matter when even able men +begin to addict themselves to absurdity. + +Training of Youth +Sciences of General Culture at This Period + +The training of youth followed, as may naturally be supposed, +the course of bilingual humane culture chalked out in the previous epoch, +and the general culture also of the Roman world conformed +more and more to the forms established for that purpose by the Greeks. +Even the bodily exercises advanced from ball-playing, running, +and fencing to the more artistically-developed Greek gymnastic contests; +though there were not yet any public institutions for gymnastics, +in the principal country-houses the palaestra was already to be found +by the side of the bath-rooms. The manner in which the cycle +of general culture had changed in the Roman world during the course +of a century, is shown by a comparison of the encyclopaedia of Cato(2) +with the similar treatise of Varro "concerning the school-sciences." +As constituent elements of non-professional culture, there appear in Cato +the art of oratory, the sciences of agriculture, of law, of war, +and of medicine; in Varro--according to probable conjecture--grammar, +logic or dialectics, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, +music, medicine, and architecture. Consequently in the course +of the seventh century the sciences of war, jurisprudence, +and agriculture had been converted from general into professional +studies. On the other hand in Varro the Hellenic training of youth +appears already in all its completeness: by the side of the course +of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, which had been introduced +at an earlier period into Italy, we now find the course which had +longer remained distinctively Hellenic, of geometry, arithmetic, +astronomy, and music.(3) That astronomy more especially, +which ministered, in the nomenclature of the stars, to the thoughtless +erudite dilettantism of the age and, in its relations to astrology, +to the prevailing religious delusions, was regularly and zealously +studied by the youth in Italy, can be proved also otherwise; +the astronomical didactic poems of Aratus, among all the works +of Alexandrian literature, found earliest admittance into the instruction +of Roman youth. To this Hellenic course there was added the study +of medicine, which was retained from the older Roman instruction, +and lastly that of architecture--indispensable to the genteel Roman +of this period, who instead of cultivatingthe ground built +houses and villas. + +Greek Instruction +Alexandrinism + +In comparison with the previous epoch the Greek as well as +the Latin training improved in extent and in scholastic strictness +quite as much as it declined in purity and in refinement. +The increasing eagerness after Greek lore gave to instruction +of itself an erudite character. To explain Homer or Euripides +was after all no art; teachers and scholars found their account better +in handling the Alexandrian poems, which, besides, were in their spirit +far more congenial to the Roman world of that day than the genuine Greek +national poetry, and which, if they were not quite so venerable +as the Iliad, possessed at any rate an age sufficiently respectable +to pass as classics with schoolmasters. The love-poems of Euphorion, +the "Causes" of Callimachus and his "Ibis," the comically obscure +"Alexandra" of Lycophron contained in rich abundance rare vocables +(-glossae-) suitable for being extracted and interpreted, +sentences laboriously involved and difficult of analysis, +prolix digressions full of mystic combinations of antiquated myths, +and generally a store of cumbersome erudition of all sorts. +Instruction needed exercises more and more difficult; these productions, +in great part model efforts of schoolmasters, were excellently +adapted to be lessons for model scholars. Thus the Alexandrian poems +took a permanent place in Italian scholastic instruction, +especially as trial-themes, and certainly promoted knowledge, +although at the expense of taste and of discretion. The same unhealthy +appetite for culture moreover impelled the Roman youths to derive +their Hellenism as much as possible from the fountain-head. The courses +of the Greek masters in Rome sufficed only for a first start; +every one who wished to be able to converse heard lectures +on Greek philosophy at Athens, and on Greek rhetoric at Rhodes, +and made a literary and artistic tour through Asia Minor, +where most of the old art-treasures of the Hellenes were still +to be found on the spot, and the cultivation of the fine arts +had been continued, although after a mechanical fashion; +whereas Alexandria, more distant and more celebrated as the seat +of the exact sciences, was far more rarely the point whither young men +desirous of culture directed their travels. + +Latin Instruction + +The advance in Latin instruction was similar to that of Greek. +This in part resulted from the mere reflex influence of the Greek, +from which it in fact essentially borrowed its methods +and its stimulants. Moreover, the relations of politics, the impulse +to mount the orators' platform in the Forum which was imparted +by the democratic doings to an ever-widening circle, contributed +not a little to the diffusion and enhancement of oratorical exercises; +"wherever one casts his eyes," says Cicero, "every place is full +of rhetoricians." Besides, the writings of the sixth century, +the farther they receded into the past, began to be more decidedly +regarded as classical texts of the golden age of Latin literature, +and thereby gave a greater preponderance to the instruction +which was essentially concentrated upon them. Lastly the immigration +and spreading of barbarian elements from many quarters +and the incipient Latinizing of extensive Celtic and Spanish districts, +naturally gave to Latin grammar and Latin instruction a higher importance +than they could have had, so long as Latium only spoke Latin; +the teacher of Latin literature had from the outset a different +position in Comum and Narbo than he had in Praeneste and Ardea. +Taken as a whole, culture was more on the wane than on the advance. +The ruin of the Italian country towns, the extensive intrusion of foreign +elements, the political, economic, and moral deterioration of the nation, +above all, the distracting civil wars inflicted more injury +on the language than all the schoolmasters of the world could repair. +The closer contact with the Hellenic culture of the present, +the more decided influence of the talkative Athenian wisdom +and of the rhetoric of Rhodes and Asia Minor, supplied +to the Roman youth just the very elements that were most pernicious +in Hellenism. The propagandist mission which Latium undertook +among the Celts, Iberians, and Libyans--proud as the task was-- +could not but have the like consequences for the Latin language +as the Hellenizing of the east had had for the Hellenic. +The fact that the Roman public of this period applauded +the well arranged and rhythmically balanced periods of the orator, +and any offence in language or metre cost the actor dear, doubtless +shows that the insight into the mother tongue which was the reflection +of scholastic training was becoming the common possession of an ever- +widening circle. But at the same time contemporaries capable +of judging complain that the Hellenic culture in Italy about 690 +was at a far lower level than it had been a generation before; +that opportunities of hearing pure and good Latin were but rare, +and these chiefly from the mouth of elderly cultivated ladies; +that the tradition of genuine culture, the good old Latin mother wit, +the Lucilian polish, the cultivated circle of readers +of the Scipionic age were gradually disappearing. The circumstance +that the term -urbanitas-, and the idea of a polished national culture +which it expressed, arose during this period, proves, not that +it was prevalent, but that it was on the wane, and that people +were keenly alive to the absence of this -urbanitas- in the language +and the habits of the Latinized barbarians or barbarized Latins. +Where we still meet with the urbane tone of conversation, as in Varro's +Satires and Cicero's Letters, it is an echo of the old fashion +which was not yet so obsolete in Reate and Arpinum as in Rome. + +Germs of State Training-Schools + +Thus the previous culture of youth remained substantially unchanged, +except that--not so much from its own deterioration as +from the general decline of the nation--it was productive of less good +and more evil than in the preceding epoch. Caesar initiated +a revolution also in this department. While the Roman senate +had first combated and then at the most had simply tolerated culture, +the government of the new Italo-Hellenic empire, whose essence +in fact was -humanitas-, could not but adopt measures to stimulate it +after the Hellenic fashion. If Caesar conferred the Roman franchise +on all teachers of the liberal sciences and all the physicians +of the capital, we may discover in this step a paving of the way +in some degree for those institutions in which subsequently +the higher bilingual culture of the youth of the empire +was provided for on the part of the state, and which form +the most significant expression of the new state of -humanitas-; +and if Caesar had further resolved on the establishment +of a public Greek and Latin library in the capital and had already +nominated the most learned Roman of the age, Marcus Varro, +as principal librarian, this implied unmistakeably the design +of connecting the cosmopolitan monarchy with cosmopolitan literature. + +Language +The Vulgarism of Asia Minor + +The development of the language during this period turned +on the distinction between the classical Latin of cultivated society +and the vulgar language of common life. The former itself +was a product of the distinctively Italian culture; even in the Scipionic +circle "pure Latin" had become the cue, and the mother tongue was spoken, +no longer in entire naivete, but in conscious contradistinction +to the language of the great multitude. This epoch opens +with a remarkable reaction against the classicism which had hitherto +exclusively prevailed in the higher language of conversation +and accordingly also in literature--a reaction which had +inwardly and outwardly a close connection with the reaction +of a similar nature in the language of Greece. Just about this time +the rhetor and romance-writer Hegesias of Magnesia and the numerous +rhetors and literati of Asia Minor who attached themselves to him +began to rebel against the orthodox Atticism. They demanded +full recognition for the language of life, without distinction, +whether the word or the phrase originated in Attica or in Caria +and Phrygia; they themselves spoke and wrote not for the taste +of learned cliques, but for that of the great public. There could not +be much objection to the principle; only, it is true, the result +could not be better than was the public of Asia Minor of that day, +which had totally lost the taste for chasteness and purity +of production, and longed only after the showy and brilliant. +To say nothing of the spurious forms of art that sprang +out of this tendency--especially the romance and the history assuming +the form of romance--the very style of these Asiatics was, +as may readily be conceived, abrupt and without modulation and finish, +minced and effeminate, full of tinsel and bombast, thoroughly vulgar +and affected; "any one who knows Hegesias," says Cicero, +"knows what silliness is." + +Roman Vulgarism +Hortensius +Reaction +The Rhodian School + +Yet this new style found its way also into the Latin world. +When the Hellenic fashionable rhetoric, after having at the close +of the previous epoch obtruded into the Latin instruction of youth,(4) +took at the beginning of the present period the final step and mounted +the Roman orators' platform in the person of Quintus Hortensius +(640-704), the most celebrated pleader of the Sullan age, +it adhered closely even in the Latin idiom to the bad Greek taste +of the time; and the Roman public, no longer having the pure +and chaste culture of the Scipionic age, naturally applauded +with zeal the innovator who knew how to give to vulgarism +the semblance of an artistic performance. This was of great importance. +As in Greece the battles of language were always waged at first +in the schools of the rhetoricians, so in Rome the forensic oration +to a certain extent even more than literature set the standard of style, +and accordingly there was combined, as it were of right, +with the leadership of the bar the prerogative of giving the tone +to the fashionable mode of speaking and writing. The Asiatic vulgarism +of Hortensius thus dislodged classicism from the Roman platform +and partly also from literature. But the fashion soon changed +once more in Greece and in Rome. In the former it was the Rhodian school +of rhetoricians, which, without reverting to all the chaste severity +of the Attic style, attempted to strike out a middle course between it +and the modern fashion: if the Rhodian masters were not too particular +as to the internal correctness of their thinking and speaking, +they at least insisted on purity of language and style, on the careful +selection of words and phrases, and the giving thorough effect +to the modulation of sentences. + +Ciceronianism + +In Italy it was Marcus Tullius Cicero (648-711) who, after having +in his early youth gone along with the Hortensian manner, +was brought by hearing the Rhodian masters and by his own +more matured taste to better paths, and thenceforth addicted himself +to strict purity of language and the thorough periodic arrangement +and modulation of his discourse. The models of language, which, +in this respect he followed, he found especially in those circles +of the higher Roman society which had suffered but little or not at all +from vulgarism; and, as was already said, there were still such, +although they were beginning to disappear. The earlier Latin +and the good Greek literature, however considerable was the influence +of the latter more especially on the rhythm of his oratory, +were in this matter only of secondary moment: this purifying +of the language was by no means a reaction of the language of books +against that of conversation, but a reaction of the language +of the really cultivated against the jargon of spurious +and partial culture. Caesar, in the department of language +also the greatest master of his time, expressed the fundamental idea +of Roman classicism, when he enjoined that in speech and writing +every foreign word should be avoided, as rocks are avoided +by the mariner; the poetical and the obsolete word of the older +literature was rejected as well as the rustic phrase or that borrowed +from the language of common life, and more especially the Greek words +and phrases which, as the letters of this period show, +had to a very great extent found their way into conversational language. +Nevertheless this scholastic and artificial classicism +of the Ciceronian period stood to the Scipionic as repentance +to innocence, or the French of the classicists under Napoleon +to the model French of Moliere and Boileau; while the former classicism +had sprung out of the full freshness of life, the latter as it were +caught just in right time the last breath of a race perishing +beyond recovery. Such as it was, it rapidly diffused itself. +With the leadership of the bar the dictatorship of language and taste +passed from Hortensius to Cicero, and the varied and copious +authorship of the latter gave to this classicism--what it had +hitherto lacked--extensive prose texts. Thus Cicero became +the creator of the modern classical Latin prose, and Roman classicism +attached itself throughout and altogether to Cicero as a stylist; +it was to the stylist Cicero, not to the author, still less +to the statesman, that the panegyrics--extravagant yet not made up +wholly of verbiage--applied, with which the most gifted representatives +of classicism, such as Caesar and Catullus, loaded him. + +The New Roman Poetry + +They soon went farther. What Cicero did in prose, was carried out +in poetry towards the end of the epoch by the new Roman school +of poets, which modelled itself on the Greek fashionable poetry, +and in which the man of most considerable talent was Catullus. +Here too the higher language of conversation dislodged the archaic +reminiscences which hitherto to a large extent prevailed +in this domain, and as Latin prose submitted to the Attic rhythm, +so Latin poetry submitted gradually to the strict or rather painful +metrical laws of the Alexandrines; e. g. from the time of Catullus, +it is no longer allowable at once to begin a verse and to close +a sentence begun in the verse preceding with a monosyllabic word +or a dissyllabic one not specially weighty. + +Grammatical Science + +At length science stepped in, fixed the law of language, +and developed its rule, which was no longer determined on the basis +of experience, but made the claim to determine experience. +The endings of declension, which hitherto had in part been variable, +were now to be once for all fixed; e. g. of the genitive and dative +forms hitherto current side by side in the so-called fourth declension +(-senatuis- and -senatus-, -senatui-, and -senatu-) Caesar recognized +exclusively as valid the contracted forms (-us and -u). +In orthography various changes were made, to bring the written +more fully into correspondence with the spoken language; +thus the -u in the middle of words like -maxumus- was replaced +after Caesar's precedent by -i; and of the two letters +which had become superfluous, -k and -q, the removal of the first +was effected, and that of the second was at least proposed. +The language was, if not yet stereotyped, in the course of becoming so; +it was not yet indeed unthinkingly dominated by rule, but it had already +become conscious of it. That this action in the department +of Latin grammar derived generally its spirit and method +from the Greek, and not only so, but that the Latin language was also +directly rectified in accordance with Greek precedent, is shown, +for example, by the treatment of the final -s, which till +towards the close of this epoch had at pleasure passed sometimes +as a consonant, sometimes not as one, but was treated by the new- +fashioned poets throughout, as in Greek, as a consonantal +termination. This regulation of language is the proper domain +of Roman classicism; in the most various ways, and for that very reason +all the more significantly, the rule is inculcated and the offence +against it rebuked by the coryphaei of classicism, by Cicero, +by Caesar, even in the poems of Catullus; whereas the older generation +expresses itself with natural keenness of feeling respecting +the revolution which had affected the field of language +as remorselessly as the field of politics.(5) But while the new +classicism--that is to say, the standard Latin governed by rule +and as far as possible placed on a parity with the standard Greek-- +which arose out of a conscious reaction against the vulgarism +intruding into higher society and even into literature, +acquired literary fixity and systematic shape, the latter by no means +evacuated the field. Not only do we find it naively employed +in the works of secondary personages who have drifted into the ranks +of authors merely by accident, as in the account of Caesar's second +Spanish war, but we shall meet it also with an impress more or less +distinct in literature proper, in the mime, in the semi-romance, +in the aesthetic writings of Varro; and it is a significant +circumstance, that it maintains itself precisely in the most national +departments of literature, and that truly conservative men, +like Varro, take it into protection. Classicism was based +on the death of the Italian language as monarchy on the decline +of the Italian nation; it was completely consistent that the men, +in whom the republic was still living, should continue to give +to the living language its rights, and for the sake of its comparative +vitality and nationality should tolerate its aesthetic defects. +Thus then the linguistic opinions and tendencies of this epoch +are everywhere divergent; by the side of the old-fashioned poetry +of Lucretius appears the thoroughly modern poetry of Catullus, +by the side of Cicero's well-modulated period stands the sentence +of Varro intentionally disdaining all subdivision. In this field +likewise is mirrored the distraction of the age. + +Literary Effort +Greek Literati in Rome + +In the literature of this period we are first of all struck +by the outward increase, as compared with the former epoch, +of literary effort in Rome. It was long since the literary activity +of the Greeks flourished no more in the free atmosphere +of civic independence, but only in the scientific institutions +of the larger cities and especially of the courts. Left to depend +on the favour and protection of the great, and dislodged +from the former seats of the Muses(6) by the extinction +of the dynasties of Pergamus (621), Cyrene (658), Bithynia (679), +and Syria (690) and by the waning splendour of the court +of the Lagids--moreover, since the death of Alexander the Great, +necessarily cosmopolitan and at least quite as much strangers +among the Egyptians and Syrians as among the Latins-- +the Hellenic literati began more and more to turn their eyes +towards Rome. Among the host of Greek attendants with which +the Roman of quality at this time surrounded himself, the philosopher, +the poet, and the memoir-writer played conspicuous parts +by the side of the cook, the boy-favourite, and the jester. +We meet already literati of note in such positions; the Epicurean +Philodemus, for instance, was installed as domestic philosopher +with Lucius Piso consul in 696, and occasionally edified the initiated +with his clever epigrams on the coarse-grained Epicureanism +of his patron. From all sides the most notable representatives +of Greek art and science migrated in daily-increasing numbers to Rome +where literary gains were now more abundant than anywhere else. +Among those thus mentioned as settled in Rome we find the physician +Asclepiades whom king Mithradates vainly endeavoured to draw away from it +into his service; the universalist in learning, Alexander of Miletus, +termed Polyhistor; the poet Parthenius from Nicaea in Bithynia; +Posidonius of Apamea in Syria equally celebrated as a traveller, +teacher, and author, who at a great age migrated in 703 from Rhodes +to Rome; and various others. A house like that of Lucius Lucullus +was a seat of Hellenic culture and a rendezvous for Hellenic literati +almost like the Alexandrian Museum; Roman resources and Hellenic +connoisseurship had gathered in these halls of wealth and science +an incomparable collection of statues and paintings of earlier +and contemporary masters, as well as a library as carefully selected +as it was magnificently fitted up, and every person of culture +and especially every Greek was welcome there--the master of the house +himself was often seen walking up and down the beautiful colonnade +in philological or philosophical conversation with one of his +learned guests. No doubt these Greeks brought along with their +rich treasures of culture their preposterousness and servility +to Italy; one of these learned wanderers for instance, the author +of the "Art of Flattery," Aristodemus of Nysa (about 700) +recommended himself to his masters by demonstrating that Homer +was a native of Rome! + +Extent of the Literary Pursuits of the Romans + +In the same measure as the pursuits of the Greek literati prospered +in Rome, literary activity and literary interest increased among +the Romans themselves. Even Greek composition, which the stricter +taste of the Scipionic age had totally set aside, now revived. +The Greek language was now universally current, and a Greek treatise +found a quite different public from a Latin one; therefore Romans +of rank, such as Lucius Lucullus, Marcus Cicero, Titus Atticus, +Quintus Scaevola (tribune of the people in 700), like the kings +of Armenia and Mauretania, published occasionally Greek prose +and even Greek verses. Such Greek authorship however by native Romans +remained a secondary matter and almost an amusement; the literary +as well as the political parties of Italy all coincided in adhering +to their Italian nationality, only more or less pervaded +by Hellenism. Nor could there be any complaint at least as to want +of activity in the field of Latin authorship. There was a flood +of books and pamphlets of all sorts, and above all of poems, in Rome. +Poets swarmed there, as they did only in Tarsus or Alexandria; +poetical publications had become the standing juvenile sin +of livelier natures, and even then the writer was reckoned fortunate +whose youthful poems compassionate oblivion withdrew from criticism. +Any one who understood the art, wrote without difficulty +at a sitting his five hundred hexameters in which no schoolmaster +found anything to censure, but no reader discovered anything to praise. +The female world also took a lively part in these literary pursuits; +the ladies did not confine themselves to dancing and music, +but by their spirit and wit ruled conversation and talked excellently +on Greek and Latin literature; and, when poetry laid siege +to a maiden's heart, the beleaguered fortress not seldom surrendered +likewise in graceful verses. Rhythms became more and more +the fashionable plaything of the big children of both sexes; +poetical epistles, joint poetical exercises and competitions +among good friends, were of common occurrence, and towards the end +of this epoch institutions were already opened in the capital, +at which unfledged Latin poets might learn verse-making for money. +In consequence of the large consumption of books the machinery +for the manufacture of copies was substantially perfected, +and publication was effected with comparative rapidity and cheapness; +bookselling became a respectable and lucrative trade, and the bookseller's +shop a usual meeting-place of men of culture. Reading had become +a fashion, nay a mania; at table, where coarser pastimes had not +already intruded, reading was regularly introduced, and any one +who meditated a journey seldom forgot to pack up a travelling library. +The superior officer was seen in the camp-tent with the obscene +Greek romance, the statesman in the senate with the philosophical +treatise, in his hands. Matters accordingly stood in the Roman state +as they have stood and will stand in every state where the citizens +read "from the threshold to the closet." The Parthian vizier +was not far wrong, when he pointed out to the citizens of Seleucia +the romances found in the camp of Crassus and asked them whether +they still regarded the readers of such books as formidable opponents. + +The Classicists and the Moderns + +The literary tendency of this age was varied and could not be otherwise, +for the age itself was divided between the old and the new modes. +The same tendencies which came into conflict on the field of politics, +the national-Italian tendency of the conservatives, the Helleno-Italian +or, if the term be preferred, cosmopolitan tendency of the new monarchy, +fought their battles also on the field of literature. The former +attached itself to the older Latin literature, which in the theatre, +in the school, and in erudite research assumed more and more +the character of classical. With less taste and stronger party +tendencies than the Scipionic epoch showed, Ennius, Pacuvius, +and especially Plautus were now exalted to the skies. The leaves +of the Sibyl rose in price, the fewer they became; the relatively +greater nationality and relatively greater productiveness of the poets +of the sixth century were never more vividly felt than in this epoch +of thoroughly developed Epigonism, which in literature as decidedly +as in politics looked up to the century of the Hannibalic warriors +as to the golden age that had now unhappily passed away beyond recall. +No doubt there was in this admiration of the old classics no small portion +of the same hollowness and hypocrisy which are characteristic +of the conservatism of this age in general; and here too +there was no want of trimmers. Cicero for instance, although in prose +one of the chief representatives of the modern tendency, +revered nevertheless the older national poetry nearly with the same +antiquarian respect which he paid to the aristocratic constitution +and the augural discipline; "patriotism requires," we find him saying, +"that we should rather read a notoriously wretched translation +of Sophocles than the original." While thus the modern literary tendency +cognate to the democratic monarchy numbered secret adherents enough even +among the orthodox admirers of Ennius, there were not wanting already +bolder judges, who treated the native literature as disrespectfully +as the senatorial politics. Not only did they resume the strict +criticism of the Scipionic epoch and set store by Terence only in order +to condemn Ennius and still more the Ennianists, but the younger +and bolder men went much farther and ventured already--though only as yet +in heretical revolt against literary orthodoxy--to call Plautus +a rude jester and Lucilius a bad verse-smith. This modern tendency +attached itself not to the native authorship, but rather +to the more recent Greek literature or the so-called Alexandrinism. + +The Greek Alexandrinism + +We cannot avoid saying at least so much respecting +this remarkable winter-garden of Hellenic language and art, +as is requisite for the understanding of the Roman literature +of this and the later epochs. The Alexandrian literature was based +on the decline of the pure Hellenic idiom, which from the time +of Alexander the Great was superseded in daily life by an inferior +jargon deriving its origin from the contact of the Macedonian dialect +with various Greek and barbarian tribes; or, to speak more accurately, +the Alexandrian literature sprang out of the ruin of the Hellenic nation +generally, which had to perish, and did perish, in its national +individuality in order to establish the universal monarchy of Alexander +and the empire of Hellenism. Had Alexander's universal empire continued +to subsist, the former national and popular literature would have been +succeeded by a cosmopolitan literature Hellenic merely in name, +essentially denationalized and called into life in a certain measure +by royal patronage, but at all events ruling the world; +but, as the state of Alexander was unhinged by his death, +the germs of the literature corresponding to it rapidly perished. +Nevertheless the Greek nation with all that it had possessed-- +with its nationality, its language, its art--belonged to the past. +It was only in a comparatively narrow circle not of men of culture-- +for such, strictly speaking, no longer existed--but of men of erudition +that the Greek literature was still cherished even when dead; +that the rich inheritance which it had left was inventoried +with melancholy pleasure or arid refinement of research; and that, +possibly, the living sense of sympathy or the dead erudition +was elevated into a semblance of productiveness. This posthumous +productiveness constitutes the so-called Alexandrinism. +It is essentially similar to that literature of scholars, which, +keeping aloof from the living Romanic nationalities and their vulgar +idioms, grew up during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries +among a cosmopolitan circle of erudite philologues--as an artificial +aftergrowth of the departed antiquity; the contrast between +the classical and the vulgar Greek of the period of the Diadochi +is doubtless less strongly marked, but is not, properly speaking, +different from that between the Latin of Manutius +and the Italian of Macchiavelli. + +The Roman Alexandrinism + +Italy had hitherto been in the main disinclined towards Alexandrinism. +Its season of comparative brilliance was the period shortly before +and after the first Punic war; yet Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius +and generally the whole body of the national Roman authors +down to Varro and Lucretius in all branches of poetical production, +not excepting even the didactic poem, attached themselves, +not to their Greek contemporaries or very recent predecessors, +but without exception to Homer, Euripides, Menander and the other masters +of the living and national Greek literature. Roman literature +was never fresh and national; but, as long as there was a Roman people, +its authors instinctively sought for living and national models, +and copied, if not always to the best purpose or the best authors, +at least such as were original. The Greek literature originating +after Aexander found its first Roman imitators--for the slight +initial attempts from the Marian age(7) can scarcely be taken +into account--among the contemporaries of Cicero and Caesar; +and now the Roman Alexandrinism spread with singular rapidity. +In part this arose from external causes. The increased contact +with the Greeks, especially the frequent journeys of the Romans +into the Hellenic provinces and the assemblage of Greek literati +in Rome, naturally procured a public even among the Italians +for the Greek literature of the day, for the epic and elegiac poetry, +epigrams, and Milesian tales current at that time in Greece. Moreover, +as we have already stated(8) the Alexandrian poetry had its established +place in the instruction of the Italian youth; and thus reacted +on Latin literature all the more, since the latter continued to be +essentially dependent at all times on the Hellenic school-training. +We find in this respect even a direct connection of the new Roman +with the new Greek literature; the already-mentioned Parthenius, +one of the better known Alexandrian elegists, opened, apparently +about 700, a school for literature and poetry in Rome, and the excerpts +are still extant in which he supplied one of his pupils of rank +with materials for Latin elegies of an erotic and mythological +nature according to the well-known Alexandrian receipt. +But it was by no means simply such accidental occasions which called +into existence the Roman Alexandrinism; it was on the contrary +a product--perhaps not pleasing, but thoroughly inevitable-- +of the political and national development of Rome. On the one hand, +as Hellas resolved itself into Hellenism, so now Latium +resolved itself into Romanism; the national development of Italy +outgrew itself, and was merged in Caesar's Mediterranean empire, +just as the Hellenic development in the eastern empire of Alexander. +On the other hand, as the new empire rested on the fact +that the mighty streams of Greek and Latin nationality, after having +flowed in parallel channels for many centuries, now at length coalesced, +the Italian literature had not merely as hitherto to seek +its groundwork generally in the Greek, but had also to put itself +on a level with the Greek literature of the present, or in other words +with Alexandrinism. With the scholastic Latin, with the closed number +of classics, with the exclusive circle of classic-reading -urbani-, +the national Latin literature was dead and at an end; there arose +instead of it a thoroughly degenerate, artificially fostered, +imperial literature, which did not rest on any definite nationality, +but proclaimed in two languages the universal gospel of humanity, +and was dependent in point of spirit throughout and consciously +on the old Hellenic, in point of language partly on this, +partly on the old Roman popular, literature. This was no improvement. +The Mediterranean monarchy of Caesar was doubtless a grand and-- +what is more--a necessary creation; but it had been called +into life by an arbitrary superior will, and therefore +there was nothing to be found in it of the fresh popular life, +of the overflowing national vigour, which are characteristic of younger, +more limited, and more natural commonwealths, and which the Italian +state of the sixth century had still been able to exhibit. +The ruin of the Italian nationality, accomplished in the creation +of Caesar, nipped the promise of literature. Every one who has +any sense of the close affinity between art and nationality +will always turn back from Cicero and Horace to Cato and Lucretius; +and nothing but the schoolmaster's view of history and of literature-- +which has acquired, it is true, in this department the sanction +of prescription--could have called the epoch of art beginning +with the new monarchy pre-eminently the golden age. But while +the Romano-Hellenic Alexandrinism of the age of Caesar and Augustus +must be deemed inferior to the older, however imperfect, national +literature, it is on the other hand as decidedly superior +to the Alexandrinism of the age of the Diadochi as Caesar's enduring +structure to the ephemeral creation of Alexander. We shall have +afterwards to show that the Augustan literature, compared with +the kindred literature of the period of the Diadochi, was far less +a literature of philologues and far more an imperial literature +than the latter, and therefore had a far more permanent +and far more general influence in the upper circles of society +than the Greek Alexandrinism ever had. + +Dramatic Literature +Tragedy and Comedy Disappear + +Nowhere was the prospect more lamentable than in dramatic literature. +Tragedy and comedy had already before the present epoch +become inwardly extinct in the Roman national literature. +New pieces were no longer performed. That the public still +in the Sullan age expected to see such, appears from the reproductions-- +belonging to this epoch--of Plautine comedies with the titles +and names of the persons altered, with reference to which +the managers well added that it was better to see a good old piece +than a bad new one. From this the step was not great to that entire +surrender of the stage to the dead poets, which we find +in the Ciceronian age, and to which Alexandrinism made no opposition. +Its productiveness in this department was worse than none. +Real dramatic composition the Alexandrian literature never knew; +nothing but the spurious drama, which was written primarily for reading +and not for exhibition, could be introduced by it into Italy, and soon +accordingly these dramatic iambics began to be quite as prevalent +in Rome as in Alexandria, and the writing of tragedy in particular +began to figure among the regular diseases of adolescence. +We may form a pretty accurate idea of the quality of these productions +from the fact that Quintus Cicero, in order homoeopathically +to beguile the weariness of winter quarters in Gaul, +composed four tragedies in sixteen days. + +The Mime +Laberius + +In the "picture of life" or mime alone the last still vigorous +product of the national literature, the Atellan farce, +became engrafted with the ethological offshoots of Greek comedy, +which Alexandrinism cultivated with greater poetical vigour +and better success than any other branch of poetry. The mime originated +out of the dances in character to the flute, which had long been usual, +and which were performed sometimes on other occasions, e. g. +for the entertainment of the guests during dinner, but more especially +in the pit of the theatre during the intervals between the acts. +It was not difficult to form out of these dances--in which the aid +of speech had doubtless long since been occasionally employed-- +by means of the introduction of a more organized plot and a regular +dialogue little comedies, which were yet essentially distinguished +from the earlier comedy and even from the farce by the facts, +that the dance and the lasciviousness inseparable from such dancing +continued in this case to play a chief part, and that the mime, +as belonging properly not to the boards but to the pit, threw aside +all ideal scenic effects, such as masks for the face and theatrical +buskins, and--what was specially important--admitted of the female +characters being represented by women. This new mime, which first +seems to have come on the stage of the capital about 672, +soon swallowed up the national harlequinade, with which it indeed +in the most essential respects coincided, and was employed +as the usual interlude and especially as afterpiece along with +the other dramatic performances.(9) The plot was of course +still more indifferent, loose, and absurd than in the harlequinade; +if it was only sufficiently chequered, the public did not ask +why it laughed, and did not remonstrate with the poet, who instead +of untying the knot cut it to pieces. The subjects were chiefly +of an amorous nature, mostly of the licentious sort; for example, +poet and public without exception took part against the husband, +and poetical justice consisted in the derision of good morals. +The artistic charm depended wholly, as in the Atellana, +on the portraiture of the manners of common and low life; +in which rural pictures are laid aside for those of the life +and doings of the capital, and the sweet rabble of Rome-- +just as in the similar Greek pieces the rabble of Alexandria-- +is summoned to applaud its own likeness. Many subjects +are taken from the life of tradesmen; there appear the-- +here also inevitable--"Fuller," then the "Ropemaker," the "Dyer," +the "Salt-man," the "Female Weavers," the "Rascal"; other pieces +give sketches of character, as the "Forgetful," the "Braggart," +the "Man of 100,000 sesterces";(10) or pictures of other lands, +the "Etruscan Woman," the "Gauls," the "Cretan," "Alexandria"; +or descriptions of popular festivals, as the "Compitalia," +the "Saturnalia," "Anna Perenna," the "Hot Baths"; or parodies +of mythology, as the "Voyage to the Underworld," the "Arvernian Lake." +Apt nicknames and short commonplaces which were easily retained +and applied were welcome; but every piece of nonsense +was of itself privileged; in this preposterous world Bacchus +is applied to for water and the fountain-nymph for wine. +Isolated examples even of the political allusions formerly +so strictly prohibited in the Roman theatre are found in these mimes.(11) +As regards metrical form, these poets gave themselves, as they tell us, +"but moderate trouble with the versification"; the language abounded, +even in the pieces prepared for publication, with vulgar expressions +and low newly-coined words. The mime was, it is plain, +in substance nothing but the former farce; with this exception, +that the character-masks and the standing scenery of Atella +as well as the rustic impress are dropped, and in their room +the life of the capital in its boundless liberty and licence +is brought on the stage. Most pieces of this sort were doubtless +of a very fugitive nature and made no pretension to a place +in literature; but the mimes of Laberius, full of pungent +delineation of character and in point of language and metre +exhibiting the hand of a master, maintained their ground in it; +and even the historian must regret that we are no longer permitted +to compare the drama of the republican death-struggle in Rome +with its great Attic counterpart. + +Dramatic Spectacles + +With the worthlessness of dramatic literature the increase +of scenic spectacles and of scenic pomp went hand in hand. +Dramatic representations obtained their regular place in the public life +not only of the capital but also of the country towns; the former +also now at length acquired by means of Pompeius a permanent theatre +(699;(12)), and the Campanian custom of stretching canvas +over the theatre for the protection of the actors and spectators +during the performance, which in ancient times always took place +in the open air, now likewise found admission to Rome (676). +As at that time in Greece it was not the--more than pale-Pleiad +of the Alexandrian dramatists, but the classic drama, above all +the tragedies of Euripides, which amidst the amplest development +of scenic resources kept the stage, so in Rome at the time of Cicero +the tragedies of Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, and the comedies +of Plautus were those chiefly produced. While the latter had been +in the previous period supplanted by the more tasteful but in point +of comic vigour far inferior Terence, Roscius and Varro, +or in other words the theatre and philology, co-operated to procure +for him a resurrection similar to that which Shakespeare experienced +at the hands of Garrick and Johnson; but even Plautus had to suffer +from the degenerate susceptibility and the impatient haste +of an audience spoilt by the short and slovenly farces, so that +the managers found themselves compelled to excuse the length +of the Plautine comedies and even perhaps to make omissions +and alterations. The more limited the stock of plays, the more +the activity of the managing and executive staff as well as +the interest of the public was directed to the scenic representation +of the pieces. There was hardly any more lucrative trade in Rome +than that of the actor and the dancing-girl of the first rank. +The princely estate of the tragic actor Aesopus has been +already mentioned;(13) his still more celebrated contemporary +Roscius(14) estimated his annual income at 600,000 sesterces +(6000 pounds)(15) and Dionysia the dancer estimated hers +at 200,000 sesterces (2000 pounds). At the same time +immense sums were expended on decorations and costume; +now and then trains of six hundred mules in harness crossed +the stage, and the Trojan theatrical army was employed +to present to the public a tableau of the nations vanquished +by Pompeius in Asia. The music which accompanied the delivery +of the inserted choruses likewise obtained a greater +and more independent importance; as the wind sways the waves, +says Varro, so the skilful flute-player sways the minds of the listeners +with every modulation of melody. It accustomed itself to the use +of quicker time, and thereby compelled the player to more lively action. +Musical and dramatic connoisseurship was developed; the -habitue- +recognized every tune by the first note, and knew the texts +by heart; every fault in the music or recitation was severely +censured by the audience. The state of the Roman stage in the time +of Cicero vividly reminds us of the modern French theatre. +As the Roman mime corresponds to the loose tableaux of the pieces +of the day, nothing being too good and nothing too bad for either +the one or the other, so we find in both the same traditionally +classic tragedy and comedy, which the man of culture is in duty bound +to admire or at least to applaud. The multitude is satisfied, +when it meets its own reflection in the farce, and admires +the decorative pomp and receives the general impression of an ideal world +in the drama; the man of higher culture concerns himself at the theatre +not with the piece, but only with its artistic representation. +Moreover the Roman histrionic art oscillated in its different spheres, +just like the French, between the cottage and the drawing-room. +It was nothing unusual for the Roman dancing-girls to throw off +at the finale the upper robe and to give a dance in undress +for the benefit of the public; but on the other hand in the eyes +of the Roman Talma the supreme law of his art was, not the truth +of nature, but symmetry. + +Metrical Annals + +In recitative poetry metrical annals after the model of those +of Ennius seem not to have been wanting; but they were perhaps +sufficiently criticised by that graceful vow of his mistress +of which Catullus sings--that the worst of the bad heroic poems +should be presented as a sacrifice to holy Venus, if she would only +bring back her lover from his vile political poetry to her arms. + +Lucretius + +Indeed in the whole field of recitative poetry at this epoch +the older national-Roman tendency is represented only by a single work +of note, which, however, is altogether one of the most important +poetical products of Roman literature. It is the didactic poem +of Titus Lucretius Carus (655-699) "Concerning the Nature of Things," +whose author, belonging to the best circles of Roman society, +but taking no part in public life whether from weakness of health +or from disinclination, died in the prime of manhood shortly before +the outbreak of the civil war. As a poet he attached himself +decidedly to Ennius and thereby to the classical Greek literature. +Indignantly he turns away from the "hollow Hellenism" of his time, +and professes himself with his whole soul and heart to be the scholar +of the "chaste Greeks," as indeed even the sacred earnestness +of Thucydides has found no unworthy echo in one of the best-known +sections of this Roman poem. As Ennius draws his wisdom +from Epicharmus and Euhemerus, so Lucretius borrows the form +of his representation from Empedocles, "the most glorious +treasure of the richly gifted Sicilian isle"; and, as to the matter, +gathers "all the golden words together from the rolls of Epicurus," +"who outshines other wise men as the sun obscures the stars." +Like Ennius, Lucretius disdains the mythological lore with which +poetry was overloaded by Alexandrinism, and requires nothing +from his reader but a knowledge of the legends generally current.(16) +In spite of the modern purism which rejected foreign words from poetry, +Lucretius prefers to use, as Ennius had done, a significant Greek word +in place of a feeble and obscure Latin one. The old Roman alliteration, +the want of due correspondence between the pauses of the verse and those +of the sentence, and generally the older modes of expression +and composition, are still frequently found in Lucretius' rhythms, +and although he handles the verse more melodiously than Ennius, +his hexameters move not, as those of the modern poetical school, +with a lively grace like the rippling brook, but with a stately slowness +like the stream of liquid gold. Philosophically and practically +also Lucretius leans throughout on Ennius, the only indigenous poet +whom his poem celebrates. The confession of faith of the singer +of Rudiae(17)-- + + -Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum, + Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus-:-- + +describes completely the religious standpoint of Lucretius, +and not unjustly for that reason he himself terms his poem +as it were the continuation of Ennius:-- + + -Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno + Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam, + Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret-. + +Once more--and for the last time--the poem of Lucretius is resonant +with the whole poetic pride and the whole poetic earnestness +of the sixth century, in which, amidst the images of the formidable +Carthaginian and the glorious Scipiad, the imagination of the poet +is more at home than in his own degenerate age.(18) To him too +his own song "gracefully welling up out of rich feeling" sounds, +as compared with the common poems, "like the brief song of the swan +compared with the cry of the crane";--with him too the heart swells, +listening to the melodies of its own invention, with the hope +of illustrious honours--just as Ennius forbids the men to whom +he "gave from the depth of the heart a foretaste of fiery song," +to mourn at his, the immortal singer's, tomb. + +It is a remarkable fatality, that this man of extraordinary talents, +far superior in originality of poetic endowments to most +if not to all his contemporaries, fell upon an age in which +he felt himself strange and forlorn, and in consequence of this +made the most singular mistake in the selection of a subject. The system +of Epicurus, which converts the universe into a great vortex of atoms +and undertakes to explain the origin and end of the world as well as +all the problems of nature and of life in a purely mechanical way, +was doubtless somewhat less silly than the conversion of myths +into history which was attempted by Euhemerus and after him by Ennius; +but it was not an ingenious or a fresh system, and the task +of poetically unfolding this mechanical view of the world +was of such a nature that never probably did poet expend life +and art on a more ungrateful theme. The philosophic reader censures +in the Lucretian didactic poem the omission of the finer points +of the system, the superficiality especially with which controversies +are presented, the defective division, the frequent repetitions, +with quite as good reason as the poetical reader frets +at the mathematics put into rhythm which makes a great part +of the poem absolutely unreadable. In spite of these incredible defects, +before which every man of mediocre talent must inevitably have succumbed, +this poet might justly boast of having carried off from the poetic +wilderness a new chaplet such as the Muses had not yet bestowed on any; +and it was by no means merely the occasional similitudes, +and the other inserted descriptions of mighty natural phenomena +and yet mightier passions, which acquired for the poet this chaplet. +The genius which marks the view of life as well as the poetry +of Lucretius depends on his unbelief, which came forward +and was entitled to come forward with the full victorious power +of truth, and therefore with the full vigour of poetry, in opposition +to the prevailing hypocrisy or superstition. + + -Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret + In terris oppressa gravi sub religione, + Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat + Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, + Primum Graius homo mortalis tendere contra + Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra. + Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra + Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi + Atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque-. + +The poet accordingly was zealous to overthrow the gods, +as Brutus had overthrown the kings, and "to release nature +from her stern lords." But it was not against the long ago enfeebled +throne of Jovis that these flaming words were hurled; just like Ennius, +Lucretius fights practically above all things against the wild +foreign faiths and superstitions of, the multitude, the worship +of the Great Mother for instance and the childish lightning-lore +of the Etruscans. Horror and antipathy towards that terrible world +in general, in which and for which the poet wrote, suggested his poem. +It was composed in that hopeless time when the rule of the oligarchy +had been overthrown and that of Caesar had not yet been established, +in the sultry years during which the outbreak of the civil war +was awaited with long and painful suspense. If we seem to perceive +in its unequal and restless utterance that the poet daily +expected to see the wild tumult of revolution break forth +over himself and his work, we must not with reference to his view +of men and things forget amidst what men, and in prospect +of what things, that view had its origin. In the Hellas of the epoch +before Alexander it was a current saying, and one profoundly felt +by all the best men, that the best thing of all was not to be born, +and the next best to die. Of all views of the world possible +to a tender and poetically organized mind in the kindred Caesarian age +this was the noblest and the most ennobling, that it is a benefit +for man to be released from a belief in the immortality of the soul +and thereby from the evil dread of death and of the gods +which malignantly steals over men like terror creeping over children +in a dark room; that, as the sleep of the night is more refreshing +than the trouble of the day, so death, eternal repose +from all hope and fear, is better than life, as indeed the gods +of the poet themselves are nothing, and have nothing, but an eternal +blessed rest; that the pains of hell torment man, not after life, +but during its course, in the wild and unruly passions +of his throbbing heart; that the task of man is to attune his soul +to equanimity, to esteem the purple no higher than the warm dress +worn at home, rather to remain in the ranks of those that obey +than to press into the confused crowd of candidates for the office +of ruler, rather to lie on the grass beside the brook than to take part +under the golden ceiling of the rich in emptying his countless dishes. +This philosophico-practical tendency is the true ideal essence +of the Lucretian poem and is only overlaid, not choked, +by all the dreariness of its physical demonstrations. Essentially +on this rests its comparative wisdom and truth. The man who +with a reverence for his great predecessors and a vehement zeal, +to which this century elsewhere knew no parallel, preached such doctrine +and embellished it with the charm of art, may be termed at once +a good citizen and a great poet. The didactic poem concerning +the Nature of Things, however much in it may challenge censure, +has remained one of the most brilliant stars in the poorly illuminated +expanse of Roman literature; and with reason the greatest of German +philologues chose the task of making the Lucretian poem +once more readable as his last and most masterly work. + +The Hellenic Fashionable Poetry + +Lucretius, although his poetical vigour as well as his art was admired +by his cultivated contemporaries, yet remained--of late growth +as he was--a master without scholars. In the Hellenic fashionable +poetry on the other hand there was no lack at least of scholars, +who exerted themselves to emulate the Alexandrian masters. +With true tact the more gifted of the Alexandrian poets +avoided larger works and the pure forms of poetry--the drama, +the epos, the lyric; the most pleasing and successful performances +consisted with them, just as with the new Latin poets, in "short- +winded" tasks, and especially in such as belonged to the domains +bordering on the pure forms of art, more especially to the wide field +intervening between narrative and song. Multifarious didactic +poems were written. Small half-heroic, half-erotic epics +were great favourites, and especially an erudite sort of love-elegy +peculiar to this autumnal summer of Greek poetry and characteristic +of the philological source whence it sprang, in which the poet +more or less arbitrarily interwove the description of his own feelings, +predominantly sensuous, with epic shreds from the cycle of Greek legend. +Festal lays were diligently and artfully manufactured; in general, +owing to the want of spontaneous poetical invention, the occasional poem +preponderated and especially the epigram, of which the Alexandrians +produced excellent specimens. The poverty of materials and the want +of freshness in language and rhythm, which inevitably cleave +to every literature not national, men sought as much as possible +to conceal under odd themes, far-fetched phrases, rare words, +and artificial versification, and generally under the whole apparatus +of philologico-antiquarian erudition and technical dexterity. +Such was the gospel which was preached to the Roman boys of this period, +and they came in crowds to hear and to practise it; already (about 700) +the love-poems of Euphorion and similar Alexandrian poetry formed +the ordinary reading and the ordinary pieces for declamation +of the cultivated youth.(19) The literary revolution took place; +but it yielded in the first instance with rare exceptions only premature +or unripe fruits. The number of the "new-fashioned poets" was legion, +but poetry was rare and Apollo was compelled, as always when so many +throng towards Parnassus, to make very short work. The long poems never +were worth anything, the short ones seldom. Even in this literary age +the poetry of the day had become a public nuisance; it sometimes +happened that one's friend would send home to him by way of mockery +as a festal present a pile of trashy verses fresh from the bookseller's +shop, whose value was at once betrayed by the elegant binding +and the smooth paper. A real public, in the sense in which national +literature has a public, was wanting to the Roman Alexandrians +as well as to the Hellenic; it was thoroughly the poetry of a clique +or rather cliques, whose members clung closely together, +abused intruders, read and criticised among themselves the new poems, +sometimes also quite after the Alexandrian fashion celebrated +the successful productions in fresh verses, and variously sought +to secure for themselves by clique-praises a spurious and ephemeral +renown. A notable teacher of Latin literature, himself poetically +active in this new direction, Valerius Cato appears to have exercised +a sort of scholastic patronage over the most distinguished men +of this circle and to have pronounced final decision on the relative +value of the poems. As compared with their Greek models, +these Roman poets evince throughout a want of freedom, +sometimes a schoolboy dependence; most of their products +must have been simply the austere fruits of a school poetry +still occupied in learning and by no means yet dismissed as mature. +Inasmuch as in language and in measure they adhered to the Greek patterns +far more closely than ever the national Latin poetry had done, +a greater correctness and consistency in language and metre +were certainly attained; but it was at the expense of the flexibility +and fulness of the national idiom. As respects the subject-matter, +under the influence partly of effeminate models, partly +of an immoral age, amatory themes acquired a surprising preponderance +little conducive to poetry; but the favourite metrical compendia +of the Greeks were also in various cases translated, such as +the astronomical treatise of Aratus by Cicero, and, either at the end +of this or more probably at the commencement of the following period, +the geographical manual of Eratosthenes by Publius Varro of the Aude +and the physico-medicinal manual of Nicander by Aemilius Macer. +It is neither to be wondered at nor regretted that of this countless +host of poets but few names have been preserved to us; +and even these are mostly mentioned merely as curiosities +or as once upon a time great; such as the orator Quintus Hortensius +with his "five hundred thousand lines" of tiresome obscenity, +and the somewhat more frequently mentioned Laevius, whose -Erotopaegnia- +attracted a certain interest only by their complicated measures +and affected phraseology. Even the small epic Smyrna by Gaius +Helvius Cinna (d. 710?), much as it was praised by the clique, +bears both in its subject--the incestuous love of a daughter +for her father--and in the nine years' toil bestowed on it the worst +characteristics of the time. + +Catullus + +Those poets alone of this school constitute an original +and pleasing exception, who knew how to combine with its neatness +and its versatility of form the national elements of worth still existing +in the republican life, especially in that of the country-towns. +To say nothing here of Laberius and Varro, this description +applies especially to the three poets already mentioned above(20) +of the republican opposition, Marcus Furius Libaculus (652-691), +Gaius Licinius Calvus (672-706) and Quintus Valerius Catullus +(667-c. 700). Of the two former, whose writings have perished, +we can indeed only conjecture this; respecting the poems of Catullus +we can still form a judgment. He too depends in subject and form +on the Alexandrians. We find in his collection translations of pieces +of Callimachus, and these not altogether the very good, +but the very difficult. Among the original pieces, we meet +with elaborately-turned fashionable poems, such as the over-artificial +Galliambics in praise of the Phrygian Mother; and even the poem, +otherwise so beautiful, of the marriage of Thetis has been +artistically spoiled by the truly Alexandrian insertion +of the complaint of Ariadne in the principal poem. But by the side +of these school-pieces we meet with the melodious lament +of the genuine elegy, the festal poem in the full pomp of individual +and almost dramatic execution, above all, the freshest miniature painting +of cultivated social life, the pleasant and very unreserved +amatory adventures of which half the charm consists in prattling +and poetizing about the mysteries of love, the delightful life +of youth with full cups and empty purses, the pleasures +of travel and of poetry, the Roman and still more frequently +the Veronese anecdote of the town, and the humorous jest +amidst the familiar circle of friends. But not only does Apollo +touch the lyre of the poet, he wields also the bow; the winged dart +of sarcasm spares neither the tedious verse-maker nor the provincial +who corrupts the language, but it hits none more frequently +and more sharply than the potentates by whom the liberty of the people +is endangered. The short-lined and merry metres, often enlivened +by a graceful refrain, are of finished art and yet free +from the repulsive smoothness of the manufactory. These poems lead us +alternately to the valleys of the Nile and the Po; but the poet +is incomparably more at home in the latter. His poems are based +on Alexandrian art doubtless, but at the same time on the self- +consciousness of a burgess and a burgess in fact of a rural town, +on the contrast of Verona with Rome, on the contrast of the homely +municipal with the high-born lords of the senate who usually +maltreat their humble friends--as that contrast was probably felt +more vividly than anywhere else in Catullus' home, the flourishing +and comparatively vigorous Cisalpine Gaul. The most beautiful +of his poems reflect the sweet pictures of the Lago di Garda, +and hardly at this time could any man of the capital have written +a poem like the deeply pathetic one on his brother's death, +or the excellent genuinely homely festal hymn for the marriage of Manlius +and Aurunculeia. Catullus, although dependent on the Alexandrian masters +and standing in the midst of the fashionable and clique poetry +of that age, was yet not merely a good scholar among many mediocre +and bad ones, but himself as much superior to his masters +as the burgess of a free Italian community was superior +to the cosmopolitan Hellenic man of letters. Eminent creative vigour +indeed and high poetic intentions we may not look for in him; +he is a richly gifted and graceful but not a great poet, and his poems +are, as he himself calls them, nothing but "pleasantries +and trifles." Yet when we find not merely his contemporaries +electrified by these fugitive songs, but the art-critics +of the Augustan age also characterizing him along with Lucretius +as the most important poet of this epoch, his contemporaries +as well as their successors were completely right. The Latin nation +has produced no second poet in whom the artistic substance +and the artistic form appear in so symmetrical perfection +as in Catullus; and in this sense the collection of the poems of Catullus +is certainly the most perfect which Latin poetry as a whole can show. + +Poems in Prose +Romances + +Lastly, poetry in a prose form begins in this epoch. The law +of genuine naive as well as conscious art, which had hitherto remained +unchangeable--that the poetical subject-matter and the metrical setting +should go together--gave way before the intermixture and disturbance +of all kinds and forms of art, which is one of the most significant +features of this period. As to romances indeed nothing farther +is to be noticed, than that the most famous historian of this epoch, +Sisenna, did not esteem himself too good to translate into Latin +the much-read Milesian tales of Aristides--licentious fashionable novels +of the most stupid sort. + +Varro's Aesthetic Writings + +A more original and more pleasing phenomenon in this debateable +border-land between poetry and prose was the aesthetic writings +of Varro, who was not merely the most important representative +of Latin philologico-historical research, but one of the most fertile +and most interesting authors in belles-lettres. Descended +from a plebeian gens which had its home in the Sabine land +but had belonged for the last two hundred years to the Roman senate, +strictly reared in antique discipline and decorum,(21) and already +at the beginning of this epoch a man of maturity, Marcus Terentius Varro +of Reate (638-727) belonged in politics, as a matter of course, +to the institutional party, and bore an honourable and energetic +part in its doings and sufferings. He supported it, partly +in literature--as when he combated the first coalition, +the "three-headed monster," in pamphlets; partly in more serious +warfare, where we found him in the army of Pompeius as commandant +of Further Spain.(22) When the cause of the republic was lost, +Varro was destined by his conqueror to be librarian of the library +which was to be formed in the capital. The troubles +of the following period drew the old man once more into their vortex, +and it was not till seventeen years after Caesar's death, +in the eighty-ninth year of his well-occupied life, that death +called him away. + +Varros' Models + +The aesthetic writings, which have made him a name, +were brief essays, some in simple prose and of graver contents, +others humorous sketches the prose groundwork of which was inlaid +with various poetical effusions. The former were the "philosophico- +historical dissertations" (-logistorici-), the latter the Menippean +Satires. In neither case did he follow Latin models, +and the -Satura- of Varro in particular was by no means based +on that of Lucilius. In fact the Roman -Satura- in general +was not properly a fixed species of art, but only indicated negatively +the fact that the "multifarious poem" was not to be included +under any of the recognized forms of art; and accordingly the -Satura- +poetry assumed in the hands of every gifted poet a different and peculiar +character. It was rather in the pre-Alexandrian Greek philosophy +that Varro found the models for his more severe as well as +for his lighter aesthetic works; for the graver dissertations, +in the dialogues of Heraclides of Heraclea on the Black Sea +(d. about 450), for the satires, in the writings of Menippus of Gadara +in Syria (flourishing about 475). The choice was significant. +Heraclides, stimulated as an author by Plato's philosophic +dialogues, had amidst the brilliance of their form totally +lost sight of the scientific contents and made the poetico-fabulistic +dress the main matter; he was an agreeable and largely-read author, +but far from a philosopher. Menippus was quite as little +a philosopher, but the most genuine literary representative +of that philosophy whose wisdom consisted in denying philosophy +and ridiculing philosophers the cynical wisdom of Diogenes; +a comic teacher of serious wisdom, he proved by examples +and merry sayings that except an upright life everything is vain +in earth and heaven, and nothing more vain than the disputes +of so-called sages. These were the true models for Varro, +a man full of old Roman indignation at the pitiful times and full +of old Roman humour, by no means destitute withal of plastic talent +but as to everything which presented the appearance not of palpable fact +but of idea or even of system, utterly stupid, and perhaps +the most unphilosophical among the unphilosophical Romans.(23) +But Varro was no slavish pupil. The impulse and in general +the form he derived from Heraclides and Menippus; but his was a nature +too individual and too decidedly Roman not to keep his imitative +creations essentially independent and national. + +Varro's Philosophico-Historical Essays + +For his grave dissertations, in which a moral maxim +or other subject of general interest is handled, he disdained, +in his framework to approximate to the Milesian tales, as Heraclides +had done, and so to serve up to the reader even childish little stories +like those of Abaris and of the maiden reawakened to life +after being seven days dead. But seldom he borrowed the dress +from the nobler myths of the Greeks, as in the essay "Orestes +or concerning Madness"; history ordinarily afforded him a worthier +frame for his subjects, more especially the contemporary history +of his country, so that these essays became, as they were called +-laudationes- of esteemed Romans, above all of the Coryphaei +of the constitutional party. Thus the dissertation "concerning Peace" +was at the same time a memorial of Metellus Pius, the last +in the brilliant series of successful generals of the senate; +that "concerning the Worship of the Gods" was at the same time +destined to preserve the memory of the highly-respected +Optimate and Pontifex Gaius Curio; the essay "on Fate" was connected +with Marius, that "on the Writing of History" with Sisenna +the first historian of this epoch, that "on the Beginnings +of the Roman Stage" with the princely giver of scenic spectacles +Scaurus, that "on Numbers" with the highly-cultured +Roman banker Atticus. The two philosophico-historical essays +"Laelius or concerning Friendship," "Cato or concerning Old Age," +which Cicero wrote probably after the model of those of Varro, +may give us some approximate idea of Varro's half-didactic, +half-narrative, treatment of these subjects. + +Varros' Menippean Satires + +The Menippean satire was handled by Varro with equal originality +of form and contents; the bold mixture of prose and verse is foreign +to the Greek original, and the whole intellectual contents +are pervaded by Roman idiosyncrasy--one might say, by a savour +of the Sabine soil. These satires like the philosophico-historical +essays handle some moral or other theme adapted to the larger public, +as is shown by the several titles---Columnae Herculis-, --peri doxeis--; +--Euren ei Lopas to Poma, peri gegameikoton--, -Est Modus +Matulae-, --peri metheis--; -Papiapapae-, --peri egkomios--. +The plastic dress, which in this case might not be wanting, +is of course but seldom borrowed from the history of his native country, +as in the satire -Serranus-, --peri archairesion--. The Cynic- +world of Diogenes on the other hand plays, as might be expected, +a great part; we meet with the --Kounistor--, the --Kounorreiton--, +the 'Ippokouon, the --'Oudrokouon--, the --Kounodidaskalikon-- +and others of a like kind. Mythology is also laid under contribution +for comic purposes; we find a -Prometheus Liber-, an -Ajax +Stramenticius-, a -Hercules Socraticus-, a -Sesqueulixes- +who had spent not merely ten but fifteen years in wanderings. +The outline of the dramatic or romantic framework is still discoverable +from the fragments in some pieces, such as the -Prometheus Liber-, +the -Sexagessis-, -Manius-; it appears that Varro frequently, +perhaps regularly, narrated the tale as his own experience; +e. g. in the -Manius- the dramatis personae go to Varro and discourse +to him "because he was known to them as a maker of books." +as to the poetical value of this dress we are no longer allowed +to form any certain judgment; there still occur in our fragments +several very charming sketches full of wit and liveliness-- +thus in the -Prometheus Liber- the hero after the loosing +of his chains opens a manufactory of men, in which Goldshoe the rich +(-Chrysosandalos-) bespeaks for himself a maiden, of milk and finest wax, +such as the Milesian bees gather from various flowers, a maiden +without bones and sinews, without skin or hair, pure and polished, slim, +smooth, tender, charming. The life-breath of this poetry is polemics-- +not so much the political warfare of party, such as Lucilius +and Catullus practised, but the general moral antagonism of the stern +elderly man to the unbridled and perverse youth, of the scholar +living in the midst of his classics to the loose and slovenly, +or at any rate in point of tendency reprobate, modern poetry,(24) +of the good burgess of the ancient type to the new Rome in which +the Forum, to use Varro's language, was a pigsty and Numa, if he turned +his eyes towards his city, would see no longer a trace of his wise +regulations. In the constitutional struggle Varro did what seemed to him +the duty of a citizen; but his heart was not in such party-doings-- +"why," he complains on one occasion, "do ye call me +from my pure life into the filth of your senate-house?" He belonged +to the good old time, when the talk savoured of onions and garlic, +but the heart was sound. His polemic against the hereditary foes +of the genuine Roman spirit, the Greek philosophers, was only +a single aspect of this old-fashioned opposition to the spirit +of the new times; but it resulted both from the nature of the Cynical +philosophy and from the temperament of Varro, that the Menippean lash +was very specially plied round the cars of the philosophers +and put them accordingly into proportional alarm--it was not +without palpitation that the philosophic scribes of the time +transmitted to the "severe man" their newly-issued treatises. +Philosophizing is truly no art. With the tenth part of the trouble +with which a master rears his slave to be a professional baker, +he trains himself to be a philosopher; no doubt, when the baker +and the philosopher both come under the hammer, the artist of pastry +goes off a hundred times dearer than the sage. Singular people, +these philosophers! One enjoins that corpses be buried in honey-- +it is a fortunate circumstance that his desire is not complied with, +otherwise where would any honey-wine be left? Another thinks +that men grow out of the earth like cresses. A third has invented +a world-borer (--Kosmotorounei--) by which the earth will some +day be destroyed. + + -Postremo, nemo aegrotus quicquam somniat + Tam infandum, quod non aliquis dicat philosophus-. + +It is ludicrous to observe how a Long-beard--by which is meant +an etymologizing Stoic--cautiously weighs every word in goldsmith's +scales; but there is nothing that surpasses the genuine +philosophers' quarrel--a Stoic boxing-match far excels any encounter +of athletes. In the satire -Marcopolis-, --peri archeis--, +when Marcus created for himself a Cloud-Cuckoo-Home after his own heart, +matters fared, just as in the Attic comedy, well with the peasant, +but ill with the philosopher; the -Celer- -- -di'-enos- -leimmatos-logos--, +son of Antipater the Stoic, beats in the skull of his opponent-- +evidently the philosophic -Dilemma---with the mattock. + +With this morally polemic tendency and this talent for embodying it +in caustic and picturesque expression, which, as the dress of dialogue +given to the books on Husbandry written in his eightieth year shows, +never forsook him down to extreme old age, Varro most happily +combined an incomparable knowledge of the national manners +and language, which is embodied in the philological writings +of his old age after the manner of a commonplace-book, but displays +itself in his Satires in all its direct fulness and freshness. +Varro was in the best and fullest sense of the term a local antiquarian, +who from the personal observation of many years knew his nation +in its former idiosyncrasy and seclusion as well as in its modern state +of transition and dispersion, and had supplemented and deepened +his direct knowledge of the national manners and national language +by the most comprehensive research in historical and literary archives. +His partial deficiency in rational judgment and learning-- +in our sense of the words--was compensated for by his clear +intuition and the poetry which lived within him. He sought +neither after antiquarian notices nor after rare antiquated +or poetical words;(25) but he was himself an old and old-fashioned man +and almost a rustic, the classics of his nation were his favourite +and long-familiar companions; how could it fail that many details +of the manners of his forefathers, which he loved above all +and especially knew, should be narrated in his writings, and that +his discourse should abound with proverbial Greek and Latin phrases, +with good old words preserved in the Sabine conversational language, +with reminiscences of Ennius, Lucilius, and above all of Plautus? +We should not judge as to the prose style of these aesthetic +writings of Varro's earlier period by the standard of his work +on Language written in his old age and probably published +in an unfinished state, in which certainly the clauses +of the sentence are arranged on the thread of the relative +like thrushes on a string; but we have already observed that Varro +rejected on principle the effort after a chaste style and Attic periods, +and his aesthetic essays, while destitute of the mean bombast +and the spurious tinsel of vulgarism, were yet written after an unclassic +and even slovenly fashion, in sentences rather directly joined +on to each other than regularly subdivided. The poetical pieces +inserted on the other hand show not merely that their author +knew how to mould the most varied measures with as much mastery +as any of the fashionable poets, but that he had a right +to include himself among those to whom a god has granted the gift +of "banishing cares from the heart by song and sacred poesy."(26) +the sketches of Varro no more created a school than the didactic poem +of Lucretius; to the more general causes which prevented this +there falls to be added their thoroughly individual stamp, +which was inseparable from the greater age, from the rusticity, +and even from the peculiar erudition of their author. But the grace +and humour of the Menippean satires above all, which seem to have been +in number and importance far superior to Varro's graver works, +captivated his contemporaries as well as those in after times +who had any relish for originality and national spirit; and even we, +who are no longer permitted to read them, may still from the fragments +preserved discern in some measure that the writer "knew how to laugh +and how to jest in moderation." And as the last breath +of the good spirit of the old burgess-times ere it departed, +as the latest fresh growth which the national Latin poetry put forth, +the Satires of Varro deserved that the poet in his poetical testament +should commend these his Menippean children to every one +"who had at heart the prosperity of Rome and of Latium"; +and they accordingly retain an honourable place in the literature +as in the history of the Italian people.(27) + +Historical Composition +Sisenna + +The critical writing of history, after the manner in which +the Attic authors wrote the national history in their classic period +and in which Polybius wrote the history of the world, was never +properly developed in Rome. Even in the field most adapted for it-- +the representation of contemporary and of recently past events-- +there was nothing, on the whole, but more or less inadequate attempts; +in the epoch especially from Sulla to Caesar the not very important +contributions, which the previous epoch had to show in this field-- +the labours of Antipater and Asellius--were barely even equalled. +The only work of note belonging to this field, which arose +in the present epoch, was the history of the Social and Civil Wars +by Lucius Cornelius Sisenna (praetor in 676). Those who had read it +testify that it far excelled in liveliness and readableness +the old dry chronicles, but was written withal in a style +thoroughly impure and even degenerating into puerility; as indeed +the few remaining fragments exhibit a paltry painting of horrible +details,(28) and a number of words newly coined or derived +from the language of conversation. When it is added that the author's +model and, so to speak, the only Greek historian familiar to him +was Clitarchus, the author of a biography of Alexander the Great +oscillating between history and fiction in the manner of the semi- +romance which bears the name of Curtius, we shall not hesitate +to recognize in Sisenna's celebrated historical work, not a product +of genuine historical criticism and art, but the first Roman essay +in that hybrid mixture of history and romance so much a favourite +with the Greeks, which desires to make the groundwork of facts +life-like and interesting by means of fictitious details and thereby +makes it insipid and untrue; and it will no longer excite surprise +that we meet with the same Sisenna also as translator of Greek +fashionable romances.(29) + +Annals of the City + +That the prospect should be still more lamentable in the field +of the general annals of the city and even of the world, was implied +in the nature of the case. The increasing activity of antiquarian +research induced the expectation that the current narrative +would be rectified from documents and other trustworthy sources; +but this hope was not fulfilled. The more and the deeper men +investigated, the more clearly it became apparent what a task it was +to write a critical history of Rome. The difficulties even, +which opposed themselves to investigation and narration, were immense; +but the most dangerous obstacles were not those of a literary kind. +The conventional early history of Rome, as it had now been narrated +and believed for at least ten generations; was most intimately mixed up +with the civil life of the nation; and yet in any thorough +and honest inquiry not only had details to be modified here and there, +but the whole building had to be overturned as much as +the Franconian primitive history of king Pharamund or the British +of king Arthur. An inquirer of conservative views, such as was Varro +for instance, could have no wish to put his hand to such a work; +and if a daring freethinker had undertaken it, an outcry +would have been raised by all good citizens against this worst +of all revolutionaries, who was preparing to deprive the constitutional +party even of their past Thus philological and antiquarian research +deterred from the writing of history rather than conduced towards it. +Varro and the more sagacious men in general evidently gave up +the task of annals as hopeless; at the most they arranged, +as did Titus Pomponius Atticus, the official and gentile lists +in unpretending tabular shape--a work by which the synchronistic +Graeco-Roman chronology was finally brought into the shape in which +it was conventionally fixed for posterity. But the manufacture +of city-chronicles of course did not suspend its activity; +it continued to supply its contributions both in prose and verse +to the great library written by ennui for ennui, while the makers +of the books, in part already freedmen, did not trouble themselves +at all about research properly so called. Such of these writings +as are mentioned to us--not one of them is preserved--seem to have been +not only of a wholly secondary character, but in great part +even pervaded by interested falsification. It is true +that the chronicle of Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius (about 676?) +was written in an old-fashioned but good style, and studied at least +a commendable brevity in the representation of the fabulous period. +Gaius Licinius Macer (d. as late praetor in 688), father of the poet +Calvus,(30) and a zealous democrat, laid claim more than +any other chronicler to documentary research and criticism, +but his -libri lintei- and other matters peculiar to him are +in the highest degree suspicious, and an interpolation +of the whole annals in the interest of democratic tendencies-- +an interpolation of a very extensive kind, and which has passed over +in part to the later annalists--is probably traceable to him. + +Valerius Antias + +Lastly, Valerius Antias excelled all his predecessors in prolixity +as well as in puerile story-telling. The falsification of numbers +was here systematically carried out down even to contemporary history, +and the primitive history of Rome was elaborated once more +from one form of insipidity to another; for instance the narrative +of the way in which the wise Numa according to the instructions +of the nymph Egeria caught the gods Faunus and Picus; with wine, +and the beautiful conversation thereupon held by the same Numa +with the god Jupiter, cannot be too urgently recommended +to all worshippers of the so-called legendary history of Rome +in order that, if possible, they may believe these things--of course, +in substance. It would have been a marvel if the Greek novel-writers +of this period had allowed such materials, made as if for their use, +to escape them. In fact there were not wanting Greek literati, +who worked up the Roman history into romances; such a composition, +for instance, was the Five Books "Concerning Rome" of the Alexander +Polyhistor already mentioned among the Greek literati living in Rome,(31) +a preposterous mixture of vapid historical tradition and trivial, +principally erotic, fiction. He, it may be presumed, +took the first steps towards filling up the five hundred years, +which were wanting to bring the destruction of Troy and the origin +of Rome into the chronological connection required by the fables +on either side, with one of those lists of kings without achievements +which are unhappily familiar to the Egyptian and Greek chroniclers; +for, to all appearance, it was he that launched into the world +the kings Aventinus and Tiberinus and the Alban gens of the Silvii, +whom the following times accordingly did not neglect to furnish +in detail with name, period of reigning, and, for the sake of greater +definiteness, also a portrait. + +Thus from various sides the historical romance of the Greeks +finds its way into Roman historiography; and it is more than probable +that not the least portion of what we are accustomed nowadays +to call tradition of the Roman primitive times proceeds from sources +of the stamp of Amadis of Gaul and the chivalrous romances +of Fouque--an edifying consideration, at least for those who have +a relish for the humour of history and who know how to appreciate +the comical aspect of the piety still cherished in certain circles +of the nineteenth century for king Numa. + +Universal History +Nepos + +A novelty in the Roman literature of this period is the appearance +of universal history or, to speak more correctly, of Roman +and Greek history conjoined, alongside of the native annals. +Cornelius Nepos from Ticinum (c. 650-c. 725) first supplied +an universal chronicle (published before 700) and a general collection +of biographies--arranged according to certain categories--of Romans +and Greeks distinguished in politics or literature or of men +at any rate who exercised influence on the Roman or Greek history. +These works are of a kindred nature with the universal histories +which the Greeks had for a considerable time been composing; +and these very Greek world-chronicles, such as that of Kastor son-in-law +of the Galatian king Deiotarus, concluded in 698, now began to include +in their range the Roman history which previously they had neglected. +These works certainly attempted, just like Polybius, to substitute +the history of the Mediterranean world for the more local one; +but that which in Polybius was the result of a grand and clear +conception and deep historical feeling was in these chronicles +rather the product of the practical exigencies of school +and self-instruction. These general chronicles, text-books +for scholastic instruction or manuals for reference, and the whole +literature therewith connected which subsequently became very copious +in the Latin language also, can hardly be reckoned as belonging +to artistic historical composition; and Nepos himself in particular +was a pure compiler distinguished neither by spirit nor even merely +by symmetrical plan. + +The historiography of this period is certainly remarkable +and in a high degree characteristic, but it is as far from pleasing +as the age itself. The interpenetration of Greek and Latin literature +is in no field so clearly apparent as in that of history; +here the respective literatures become earliest equalized in matter +and form, and the conception of Helleno-Italic history as an unity, +in which Polybius was so far in advance of his age, was now learned +even by Greek and Roman boys at school. But while the Mediterranean +state had found a historian before it had become conscious +of its own existence, now, when that consciousness had been attained, +there did not arise either among the Greeks or among the Romans +any man who was able to give to it adequate expression. +"There is no such thing," says Cicero, "as Roman historical +composition"; and, so far as we can judge, this is no more than +the simple truth. The man of research turns away from writing history, +the writer of history turns away from research; historical literature +oscillates between the schoolbook and the romance. All the species +of pure art--epos, drama, lyric poetry, history--are worthless +in this worthless world; but in no species is the intellectual decay +of the Ciceronian age reflected with so terrible a clearness +as in its historiography. + +Literature Subsidiary to History +Caesar's Report + +The minor historical literature of this period displays +on the other hand, amidst many insignificant and forgotten productions, +one treatise of the first rank--the Memoirs of Caesar, or rather +the Military Report of the democratic general to the people +from whom he had received his commission. The finished section, +and that which alone was published by the author himself, describing +the Celtic campaigns down to 702, is evidently designed to justify +as well as possible before the public the formally unconstitutional +enterprise of Caesar in conquering a great country and constantly +increasing his army for that object without instructions +from the competent authority; it was written and given forth in 703, +when the storm broke out against Caesar in Rome and he was summoned +to dismiss his army and answer for his conduct.(32) The author +of this vindication writes, as he himself says, entirely as an officer +and carefully avoids extending his military report to the hazardous +departments of political organization and administration. +His incidental and partisan treatise cast in the form of a military +report is itself a piece of history like the bulletins of Napoleon, +but it is not, and was not intended to be, a historical work +in the true sense of the word; the objective form which the narrative +assumes is that of the magistrate, not that of the historian. +But in this modest character the work is masterly and finished, +more than any other in all Roman literature. The narrative +is always terse and never scanty, always simple and never careless, +always of transparent vividness and never strained or affected. +The language is completely pure from archaisms and from vulgarisms-- +the type of the modern -urbanitas-. In the Books concerning +the Civil War we seem to feel that the author had desired to avoid war +and could not avoid it, and perhaps also that in Caesar's soul, +as in every other, the period of hope was a purer and fresher one +than that of fulfilment; but over the treatise on the Gallic war +there is diffused a bright serenity, a simple charm, which are +no less unique in literature than Caesar is in history. + +Correspondence + +Of a kindred nature were the letters interchanged between the statesmen +and literati of this period, which were carefully collected +and published in the following epoch; such as the correspondence +of Caesar himself, of Cicero, Calvus and others. They can still less +be numbered among strictly literary performances; but this literature +of correspondence was a rich store-house for historical +as for all other research, and the most faithful mirror of an epoch +in which so much of the worth of past times and so much spirit, +cleverness, and talent were evaporated and dissipated in trifling. + +News-Sheet + +A journalist literature in the modern sense was never formed in Rome; +literary warfare continued to be confined to the writing +of pamphlets and, along with this, to the custom generally diffused +at that time of annotating the notices destined for the public +in places of resort with the pencil or the pen. On the other hand +subordinate persons were employed to note down the events +of the day and news of the city for the absent men of quality; +and Caesar as early as his first consulship took fitting measures +for the immediate publication of an extract from the transactions +of the senate. From the private journals of those Roman penny-a-liners +and these official current reports there arose a sort of news-sheet +for the capital (-acta diurna-), in which the resume of the business +discussed before the people and in the senate, and births, deaths, +and such like were recorded. This became a not unimportant +source for history, but remained without proper political +as without literary significance. + +Speeches +Decline of Political Oratory + +To subsidiary historical literature belongs of right also +the composition of orations. The speech, whether written down or not, +is in its nature ephemeral and does not belong to literature; +but it may, like the report and the letter, and indeed still +more readily than these, come to be included, through the significance +of the moment and the power of the mind from which it springs, +among the permanent treasures of the national literature. +Thus in Rome the records of orations of a political tenor delivered +before the burgesses or the jurymen had for long played a great part +in public life; and not only so, but the speeches of Gaius Gracchus +in particular were justly reckoned among the classical Roman writings. +But in this epoch a singular change occurred on all hands. +The composition of political speeches was on the decline like political +speaking itself. The political speech in Rome, as generally +in the ancient polities, reached its culminating point in the discussions +before the burgesses; here the orator was not fettered, as in the senate, +by collegiate considerations and burdensome forms, nor, +as in the judicial addresses, by the interests--in themselves foreign +to politics--of the accusation and defence; here alone his heart +swelled proudly before the whole great and mighty Roman people +hanging on his lips. But all this was now gone. Not as though +there was any lack of orators or of the publishing of speeches +delivered before the burgesses; on the contrary political +authorship only now waxed copious, and it began to become +a standing complaint at table that the host incommoded his guests +by reading before them his latest orations. Publius Clodius +had his speeches to the people issued as pamphlets, +just like Gaius Gracchus; but two men may do the same thing +without producing the same effect. The more important leaders +even of the opposition, especially Caesar himself, did not often address +the burgesses, and no longer published the speeches which they delivered; +indeed they partly sought for their political fugitive writings +another form than the traditional one of -contiones-, in which respect +more especially the writings praising and censuring Cato(33) +are remarkable. This is easily explained. Gaius Gracchus +had addressed the burgesses; now men addressed the populace; +and as the audience, so was the speech. No wonder that the reputable +political author shunned a dress which implied that he had directed +his words to the crowd assembled in the market-place of the capital. + +Rise of A Literature of Pleadings +Cicero + +While the composition of orations thus declined from its former +literary and political value in the same way as all branches +of literature which were the natural growth of the national life, +there began at the same time a singular, non-political, literature +of pleadings. Hitherto the Romans had known nothing of the idea +that the address of an advocate as such was destined not only +for the judges and the parties, but also for the literary edification +of contemporaries and posterity; no advocate had written down +and published his pleadings, unless they were possibly at the same time +political orations and in so far were fitted to be circulated +as party writings, and this had not occurred very frequently. +Even Quintus Hortensius (640-704), the most celebrated Roman advocate +in the first years of this period, published but few speeches +and these apparently only such as were wholly or half political. +It was his successor in the leadership of the Roman bar, +Marcus Tullius Cicero (648-711) who was from the outset quite as much +author as forensic orator; he published his pleadings regularly, +even when they were not at all or but remotely connected +with politics. This was a token, not of progress, but of an unnatural +and degenerate state of things. Even in Athens the appearance +of non-political pleadings among the forms of literature was a sign +of debility; and it was doubly so in Rome, which did not, +like Athens, by a sort of necessity produce this malformation +from the exaggerated pursuit of rhetoric, but borrowed it +from abroad arbitrarily and in antagonism to the better traditions +of the nation. Yet this new species of literature came rapidly +into vogue, partly because it had various points of contact +and coincidence with the earlier authorship of political orations, +partly because the unpoetic, dogmatical, rhetorizing temperament +of the Romans offered a favourable soil for the new seed, as indeed +at the present day the speeches of advocates and even a sort +of literature of law-proceedings are of some importance in Italy. + +His Character + +Thus oratorical authorship emancipated from politics +was naturalized in the Roman literary world by Cicero. +We have already had occasion several times to mention +this many-sided man. As a statesman without insight, idea, +or purpose, he figured successively as democrat, as aristocrat, +and as a tool of the monarchs, and was never more than +a short-sighted egotist. Where he exhibited the semblance of action, +the questions to which his action applied had, as a rule, +just reached their solution; thus he came forward in the trial +of Verres against the senatorial courts when they were already +set aside; thus he was silent at the discussion on the Gabinian, +and acted as a champion of the Manilian, law; thus he thundered +against Catilina when his departure was already settled, +and so forth. He was valiant in opposition to sham attacks, +and he knocked down many walls of pasteboard with a loud din; +no serious matter was ever, either in good or evil, decided by him, +and the execution of the Catilinarians in particular was far more +due to his acquiescence than to his instigation. In a literary +point of view we have already noticed that he was the creator +of the modern Latin prose;(34) his importance rests on his mastery +of style, and it is only as a stylist that he shows confidence +in himself. In the character of an author, on the other hand, +he stands quite as low as in that of a statesman. He essayed +the most varied tasks, sang the great deeds of Marius +and his own petty achievements in endless hexameters, +beat Demosthenes off the field with his speeches, and Plato +with his philosophic dialogues; and time alone was wanting for him +to vanquish also Thucydides. He was in fact so thoroughly a dabbler, +that it was pretty much a matter of indifference to what work +he applied his hand. By nature a journalist in the worst +sense of that term--abounding, as he himself says, in words, +poor beyond all conception in ideas--there was no department +in which he could not with the help of a few books have rapidly got up +by translation or compilation a readable essay. His correspondence +mirrors most faithfully his character. People are in the habit +of calling it interesting and clever; and it is so, as long as +it reflects the urban or villa life of the world of quality; +but where the writer is thrown on his own resources, as in exile, +in Cilicia, and after the battle of Pharsalus, it is stale +and emptyas was ever the soul of a feuilletonist banished from his +familiar circles. It is scarcely needful to add that such a statesman +and such a -litterateur- could not, as a man, exhibit aught else +than a thinly varnished superficiality and heart-lessness. +Must we still describe the orator? The great author is also a great man; +and in the great orator more especially conviction or passion +flows forth with a clearer and more impetuous stream from the depths +of the breast than in the scantily-gifted many who merely count +and are nothing. Cicero had no conviction and no passion; +he was nothing but an advocate, and not a good one. He understood +how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote, +to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality +of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading +by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort; +his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the free +gracefulness and the sure point of the most excellent compositions +of this sort, for instance the Memoirs of Beaumarchais, yet form +easy and agreeable reading. But while the very advantages +just indicated will appear to the serious judge as advantages +of very dubious value, the absolute want of political discernment +in the orations on constitutional questions and of juristic deduction +in the forensic addresses, the egotism forgetful of its duty +and constantly losing sight of the cause while thinking +of the advocate, the dreadful barrenness of thought in the Ciceronian +orations must revolt every reader of feeling and judgment. + +Ciceronianism + +If there is anything wonderful in the case, it is in truth +not the orations, but the admiration which they excited. As to Cicero +every unbiassed person will soon make up his mind: Ciceronianism +is a problem, which in fact cannot be properly solved, but can only +be resolved into that greater mystery of human nature--language +and the effect of language on the mind. Inasmuch as the noble Latin +language, just before it perished as a national idiom, was once more +as it were comprehensively grasped by that dexterous stylist +and deposited in his copious writings, something of the power +which language exercises, and of the piety which it awakens, +was transferred to the unworthy vessel. The Romans possessed +no great Latin prose-writer; for Caesar was, like Napoleon, +only incidentally an author. Was it to be wondered at that, +in the absence of such an one, they should at least honour the genius +of the language in the great stylist? And that, like Cicero himself, +Cicero's readers also should accustom themselves to ask not what, +but how he had written? Custom and the schoolmaster then completed +what the power of language had begun. + +Opposition to Ciceronianism +Calvus and His Associates + +Cicero's contemporaries however were, as may readily be conceived, +far less involved in this strange idolatry than many of their successors. +The Ciceronian manner ruled no doubt throughout a generation +the Roman advocate-world, just as the far worse manner of Hortensius +had done; but the most considerable men, such as Caesar, +kept themselves always aloof from it, and among the younger +generation there arose in all men of fresh and living talent +the most decided opposition to that hybrid and feeble rhetoric. +They found Cicero's language deficient in precision and chasteness, +his jests deficient in liveliness, his arrangement deficient +in clearness and articulate division, and above all his whole eloquence +wanting in the fire which makes the orator. Instead of the Rhodian +eclectics men began to recur to the genuine Attic orators +especially to Lysias and Demosthenes, and sought to naturalize +a more vigorous and masculine eloquence in Rome. Representatives +of this tendency were, the solemn but stiff Marcus Junius Brutus +(669-712); the two political partisans Marcus Caelius Rufus +(672-706;(35)) and Gaius Scribonius Curio (d. 705(36);)-- +both as orators full of spirit and life; Calvus well known +also as a poet (672-706), the literary coryphaeus of this younger +group of orators; and the earnest and conscientious Gaius Asinius Pollio +(678-757). Undeniably there was more taste and more spirit +in this younger oratorical literature than in the Hortensian +and Ciceronian put together; but we are not able to judge how far, +amidst the storms of the revolution which rapidly swept away the whole +of this richly-gifted group with the single exception of Pollio, +those better germs attained development. The time allotted to them +was but too brief. The new monarchy began by making war on freedom +of speech, and soon wholly suppressed the political oration. +Thenceforth the subordinate species of the pure advocate-pleading +was doubtless still retained in literature; but the higher art +and literature of oratory, which thoroughly depend on political +excitement, perished with the latter of necessity and for ever. + +The Artificial Dialogue Applied to the Professional Sciences +Cicero's Dialogues + +Lastly there sprang up in the aesthetic literature of this period +the artistic treatment of subjects of professional science +in the form of the stylistic dialogue, which had been very extensively +in use among the Greeks and had been already employed also +in isolated cases among the Romans.(37) Cicero especially made +various attempts at presenting rhetorical and philosophical subjects +in this form and making the professional manual a suitable book +for reading. His chief writings are the -De Oratore- (written in 699), +to which the history of Roman eloquence (the dialogue -Brutus-, +written in 708) and other minor rhetorical essays were added +by way of supplement; and the treatise -De Republica- (written in 700), +with which the treatise -De Legibus- (written in 702?) after the model +of Plato is brought into connection. They are no great works +of art, but undoubtedly they are the works in which the excellences +of the author are most, and his defects least, conspicuous. +The rhetorical writings are far from coming up to the didactic +chasteness of form and precision of thought of the Rhetoric +dedicated to Herennius, but they contain instead a store +of practical forensic experience and forensic anecdotes of all sorts +easily and tastefully set forth, and in fact solve the problem +of combining didactic instruction with amusement. The treatise +-De Republica- carries out, in a singular mongrel compound of history +and philosophy, the leading idea that the existing constitution +of Rome is substantially the ideal state-organization sought for +by the philosophers; an idea indeed just as unphilosophical +as unhistorical, and besides not even peculiar to the author, +but which, as may readily be conceived, became and remained popular. +The scientific groundwork of these rhetorical and political +writings of Cicero belongs of course entirely to the Greeks, +and many of the details also, such as the grand concluding effect +in the treatise -De Republica- the Dream of Scipio, are directly +borrowed from them; yet they possess comparative originality, +inasmuch as the elaboration shows throughout Roman local colouring, +and the proud consciousness of political life, which the Roman +was certainly entitled to feel as compared with the Greeks, +makes the author even confront his Greek instructors with a certain +independence. The form of Cicero's dialogue is doubtless neither +the genuine interrogative dialectics of the best Greek artificial +dialogue nor the genuine conversational tone of Diderot or Lessing; +but the great groups of advocates gathering around Crassus +and Antonius and of the older and younger statesmen of the Scipionic +circle furnish a lively and effective framework, fitting channels +for the introduction of historical references and anecdotes, +and convenient resting-points for the scientific discussion. +The style is quite as elaborate and polished as in the best-written +orations, and so far more pleasing than these, since the author +does not often in this field make a vain attempt at pathos. + +While these rhetorical and political writings of Cicero +with a philosophic colouring are not devoid of merit, the compiler +on the other hand completely failed, when in the involuntary leisure +of the last years of his life (709-710) he applied himself +to philosophy proper, and with equal peevishness and precipitation +composed in a couple of months a philosophical library. The receipt +was very simple. In rude imitation of the popular writings +of Aristotle, in which the form of dialogue was employed +chiefly for the setting forth and criticising of the different +older systems, Cicero stitched together the Epicurean, Stoic, +and Syncretist writings handling the same problem, as they came +or were given to his hand, into a so-called dialogue. And all +that he did on his own part was, to supply an introduction prefixed +to the new book from the ample collection of prefaces for future works +which he had beside him; to impart a certain popular character, +inasmuch as he interwove Roman examples and references, and sometimes +digressed to subjects irrelevant but more familiar to the writer +and the reader, such as the treatment of the deportment +of the orator in the -De Officiis-; and to exhibit that sort +of bungling, which a man of letters, who has not attained to philosophic +thinking or even to philosophic knowledge and who works rapidly +and boldly, shows in the reproduction of dialectic trains of thought. +In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly +come into existence--"They are copies," wrote the author himself +to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble, +for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance." +Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks +classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study +in literary matters a becoming silence. + +Professional Sciences. +Latin Philology +Varro + +Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life, +that of Latin philology. The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian +research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo, +was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale. +There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores +of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries +of Figulus and the great work of Varro -De Lingua Latina-; +monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as +Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms, +on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue; +scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus; +works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations +into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies +of Plautus, and into their genuineness. Latin archaeology, +which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart +from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities +of Things Human and Divine," which was and for all times remained +the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687 +and 709). The first portion, "Of Things Human," described the primeval +age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences +of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions +at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine," the state- +theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts, +of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial +and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily +unfolded. Moreover, besides a number of monographs-- +e. g. on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes +descended from Troy, on the tribes--there was added, as a larger +and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life +of the Roman People"--a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners, +which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance, +and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic, +and the most recent period. These labours of Varro were based +on an empiric knowledge of the Roman world and its adjacent Hellenic +domain more various and greater in its kind than any other Roman +either before or after him possessed--a knowledge to which living +observation and the study of literature alike contributed. +The eulogy of his contemporaries was well deserved, that Varro +had enabled his countrymen--strangers in their own world--to know +their position in their native land, and had taught the Romans +who and where they were. But criticism and system will be sought for +in vain. His Greek information seems to have come from somewhat +confused sources, and there are traces that even in the Roman field +the writer was not free from the influence of the historical +romance of his time. The matter is doubtless inserted +in a convenient and symmetrical framework, but not classified +or treated methodically; and with all his efforts to bring tradition +and personal observation into harmony, the scientific labours of Varro +are not to be acquitted of a certain implicit faith in tradition +or of an unpractical scholasticism.(38) The connection with Greek +philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than +of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies +on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other +philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often +into downright absurdity.(39) In its empiric confidence +and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method +the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology, +and just like the latter, finds its centre in the study +of the older drama. We have already observed that the monarchical +literature developed the rules of language in contradistinction +to this linguistic empiricism.(40) It is in a high degree significant +that there stands at the head of the modern grammarians no less a man +than Caesar himself, who in his treatise on Analogy (given forth +between 696 and 704) first undertook to bring free language +under the power of law. + +The Other Professional Sciences + +Alongside of this extraordinary stir in the field of philology +The small amount of activity in the other sciences is surprising. +What appeared of importance in philosophy--such as Lucretius' +representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress +of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero-- +produced its effect and found its audience not through its +philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely +through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean +writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise +on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus +concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific +nor formal value. + +Even the professional sciences were but feebly cultivated. Varro's +Books on Husbandry written in the form of dialogue are no doubt +more methodical than those of his predecessors Cato and Saserna-- +on which accordingly he drops many a side glance of censure-- +but have on the whole proceeded more from the study than, like those +earlier works, from living experience. Of the juristic labours of Varro +and of Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul in 703) hardly aught more +can be said, than that they contributed to the dialectic +and philosophical embellishment of Roman jurisprudence. And there is +nothing farther here to be mentioned, except perhaps the three +books of Gaius Matius on cooking, pickling, and making preserves-- +so far as we know, the earliest Roman cookery-book, and, as the work +of a man of rank, certainly a phenomenon deserving of notice. +That mathematics and physics were stimulated by the increased +Hellenistic and utilitarian tendencies of the monarchy, is apparent +from their growing importance in the instruction of youth (41) +and from various practical applications; under which, besides +the reform of the calendar,(42) may perhaps be included the appearance +of wall-maps at this period, the technical improvements +in shipbuilding and in musical instruments, designs and buildings +like the aviary specified by Varro, the bridge of piles over the Rhine +executed by the engineers of Caesar, and even two semicircular +stages of boards arranged for being pushed together, and employed +first separately as two theatres and then jointly as an amphitheatre. +The public exhibition of foreign natural curiosities at the popular +festivals was not unusual; and the descriptions of remarkable animals, +which Caesar has embodied in the reports of his campaigns, +show that, had an Aristotle appeared, he would have again +found his patron-prince. But such literary performances +as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated +with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, +i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings +concerning animals, winds, and generative organs. After Greek +physical research generally had swerved from the Aristotelian effort +to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more +passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external +and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward +as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening +and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze; +and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied +with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom, +that the investigation of nature either seeks after things +which nobody can know, or after such things as nobody needs to know. + +Art +Architecture + +If, in fine, we cast a glance at art, we discover here +the same unpleasing phenomena which pervade the whole mental life +of this period. Building on the part of the state was virtually +brought to a total stand amidst the scarcity of money that marked +the last age of the republic. We have already spoken of the luxury +in building of the Roman grandees; the architects learned in consequence +of this to be lavish of marble--the coloured sorts such as +the yellow Numidian (Giallo antico) and others came into vogue +at this time, and the marble-quarries of Luna (Carrara) +were now employed for the first time--and began to inlay the floors +of the rooms with mosaic work, to panel the walls with slabs of marble, +or to paint the compartments in imitation of marble--the first steps +towards the subsequent fresco-painting. But art was not a gainer +by this lavish magnificence. + +Arts of Design + +In the arts of design connoisseurship and collecting were always +on the increase. It was a mere affectation of Catonian simplicity, +when an advocate spoke before the jurymen of the works of art +"of a certain Praxiteles"; every one travelled and inspected, +and the trade of the art-ciceroni, or, as they were then called, +the -exegetae-, was none of the worst. Ancient works of art +were formally hunted after--statues and pictures less, it is true, +than, in accordance with the rude character of Roman luxury, +artistically wrought furniture and ornaments of all sorts for the room +and the table. As early as that age the old Greek tombs of Capua +and Corinth were ransacked for the sake of the bronze and earthenware +vessels which had been placed in the tomb along with the dead. +for a small statuette of bronze 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds) +were paid, and 200,000 (2000 pounds) for a pair of costly carpets; +a well-wrought bronze cooking machine came to cost more than +an estate. In this barbaric hunting after art the rich amateur was, +as might be expected, frequently cheated by those who supplied him; +but the economic ruin of Asia Minor in particular so exceedingly rich +in artistic products brought many really ancient and rare ornaments +and works of art into the market, and from Athens, Syracuse, +Cyzicus, Pergamus, Chios, Samos, and other ancient seats of art, +everything that was for sale and very much that was not migrated +to the palaces and villas of the Roman grandees. We have +already mentioned what treasures of art were to be found within +the house of Lucullus, who indeed was accused, perhaps not unjustly, +of having gratified his interest in the fine arts at the expense +of his duties as a general. The amateurs of art crowded thither +as they crowd at present to the Villa Borghese, and complained +even then of such treasures being confined to the palaces +and country-houses of the men of quality, where they could be seen +only with difficulty and after special permission from the possessor. +The public buildings on the other hand were far from filled +in like proportion with famous works of Greek masters, +and in many cases there still stood in the temples of the capital +nothing but the old images of the gods carved in wood. +As to the exercise of art there is virtually nothing to report; +there is hardly mentioned by name from this period any Roman sculptor +or painter except a certain Arellius, whose pictures rapidly went off +not on account of their artistic value, but because the cunning reprobate +furnished, in his pictures of the goddesses faithful portraits +of his mistresses for the time being. + +Dancing and Music + +The importance of music and dancing increased in public +as in domestic life. We have already set forth how theatrical music +and the dancing-piece attained to an independent standing +in the development of the stage at this period;(43) we may add +that now in Rome itself representations were very frequently given +by Greek musicians, dancers, and declaimers on the public stage-- +such as were usual in Asia Minor and generally in the whole Hellenic +and Hellenizing world.(44) To these fell to be added the musicians +and dancing-girls who exhibited their arts to order at table +and elsewhere, and the special choirs of stringed and wind instruments +and singers which were no longer rare in noble houses. But that even +the world of quality itself played and sang with diligence, is shown +by the very adoption of music into the cycle of the generally +recognized subjects of instruction;(45) as to dancing, it was, +to say nothing of women, made matter of reproach even against +consulars that they exhibited themselves in dancing performances +amidst a small circle. + +Incipient Influence of the Monarchy + +Towards the end of this period, however, there appears +with the commencement of the monarchy the beginning of a better time +also in art. We have already mentioned the mighty stimulus +which building in the capital received, and building throughout +the empire was destined to receive, through Caesar. Even in the cutting +of the dies of the coins there appears about 700 a remarkable change; +the stamping, hitherto for the most part rude and negligent, +is thenceforward managed with more delicacy and care. + +Conclusion + +We have reached the end of the Roman republic. We have seen +it rule for five hundred years in Italy and in the countries +on the Mediterranean; we have seen it brought to ruin in politics +and morals, religion and literature, not through outward violence +but through inward decay, and thereby making room for the new monarchy +of Caesar. There was in the world, as Caesar found it, much +of the noble heritage of past centuries and an infinite abundance of pomp +and glory, but little spirit, still less taste, and least of all +true delight in life. It was indeed an old world; and even +the richly-gifted patriotism of Caesar could not make it young again. +The dawn does not return till after the night has fully set in +and run its course. But yet with him there came to the sorely harassed +peoples on the Mediterranean a tolerable evening after the sultry noon; +and when at length after a long historical night the new day dawned +once more for the peoples, and fresh nations in free self-movement +commenced their race towards new and higher goals, there were found +among them not a few, in which the seed sown by Caesar had sprung up, +and which owed, as they still owe, to him their national individuality. + + + + +Notes for Chapter I + +1. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts, 527 + +2. It is a significant trait, that a distinguished teacher of +literature, the freedman Staberius Eros, allowed the children of +the proscribed to attend his course gratuitously. + +3. IV. X. Proscription-Lists + +4. IV. IX. Pompeius + +5. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration + +6. IV. IV. Livius Drusus + +7. IV. IX. Government of Cinna + +8. IV. IX. Pompeius + +9. IV. IX. Sertorius Embarks + +10. IV. VII. Strabo, IV. IX. Dubious Attitude of Strabo + +11. IV. IX. Carbo Assailed on Three Sides of Etruria + +12. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation + +13. IV. X. Reorganization of the Senate + +14. It is usual to set down the year 654 as that of Caesar's +birth, because according to Suetonius (Caes. 88), Plutarch (Caes. +69), and Appian (B. C. ii. 149) he was at his death (15 March 710) +in his 56th year; with which also the statement that he was 18 +years old at the time of the Sullan proscription (672; Veil. ii. +41) nearly accords. But this view is utterly inconsistent with +the facts that Caesar filled the aedileship in 689, the praetorship in +692, and the consulship in 695, and that these offices could, +according to the -leges annales-, be held at the very earliest in +the 37th-38th, 40th-41st, and 43rd-44th years of a man's life +respectively. We cannot conceive why Caesar should have filled all +the curule offices two years before the legal time, and still less +why there should be no mention anywhere of his having done so. +These facts rather suggest the conjecture that, as his birthday +fell undoubtedly on July 12, he was born not in 654, but in 652; so +that in 672 he was in his 20th-21st year, and he died not in his +56th year, but at the age of 57 years 8 months. In favour of this +latter view we may moreover adduce the circumstance, which has been +strangely brought forward in opposition to it, that Caesar "-paene +puer-" was appointed by Marius and Cinna as Flamen of Jupiter +(Veil. ii. 43); for Marius died in January 668, when Caesar was, +according to the usual view, 13 years 6 months old, and therefore +not "almost," as Velleius says, but actually still a boy, and most +probably for this very reason not at all capable of holding such +a priesthood. If, again, he was born in July 652, he was at +the death of Marius in his sixteenth year; and with this the expression +in Velleius agrees, as well as the general rule that civil +positions were not assumed before the expiry of the age of boyhood. +Further, with this latter view alone accords the fact that +the -denarii- struck by Caesar about the outbreak of the civil war are +marked with the number LII, probably the year of his life; for +when it began, Caesar's age was according to this view somewhat +over 52 years. Nor is it so rash as it appears to us who are +accustomed to regular and official lists of births, to charge our +authorities with an error in this respect. Those four statements +may very well be all traceable to a common source; nor can they at +all lay claim to any very high credibility, seeing that for +the earlier period before the commencement of the -acta diurna- +the statements as to the natal years of even the best known and most +prominent Romans, e. g. as to that of Pompeius, vary in the most +surprising manner. (Comp. Staatsrecht, I. 8 p. 570.) + +In the Life of Caesar by Napoleon III (B. 2, ch. 1) it is objected +to this view, first, that the -lex annalis- would point for +Caesar's birth-year not to 652, but to 651; secondly and +especially, that other cases are known where it was not attended +to. But the first assertion rests on a mistake; for, as +the example of Cicero shows, the -lex annalis- required only that at +the entering on office the 43rd year should be begun, not that it +should be completed. None of the alleged exceptions to the rule, +moreover, are pertinent. When Tacitus (Ann. xi. 22) says that +formerly in conferring magistracies no regard was had to age, and +that the consulate and dictatorship were entrusted to quite young +men, he has in view, of course, as all commentators acknowledge, +the earlier period before the issuing of the -leges annales---the +consulship of M. Valerius Corvus at twenty-three, and similar +cases. The assertion that Lucullus received the supreme magistracy +before the legal age is erroneous; it is only stated (Cicero, Acad. +pr. i. 1) that on the ground of an exceptional clause not more +particularly known to us, in reward for some sort of act performed +by him, he had a dispensation from the legal two years' interval +between the aedileship and praetorship--in reality he was aedile in +675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of +Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to +Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de +Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him +from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with +Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief +crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and +after his coalition with Crassus also of a powerful party, we can +readily conceive. But it would be in the highest degree +surprising, if the same thing should have been done with Caesar on +his candidature for the minor magistracies, when he was of little +more importance than other political beginners; and it would be, if +possible, more surprising still, that, while there is mention of +that--in itself readily understood--exception, there should be no +notice of this more than strange deviation, however naturally such +notices would have suggested themselves, especially with reference +to Octavianus consul at 21 (comp., e. g., Appian, iii. 88). When +from these irrelevant examples the inference is drawn, "that +the law was little observed in Rome, where distinguished men were +concerned," anything more erroneous than this sentence was never +uttered regarding Rome and the Romans. The greatness of the Roman +commonwealth, and not less that of its great generals and +statesmen, depends above all things on the fact that the law held +good in their case also. + +15. IV. IX. Spain + +16. At least the outline of these organizations must be assigned +to the years 674, 675, 676, although the execution of them +doubtless belonged, in great part, only to the subsequent years. + +17 IV. IX. The Provinces + +18. The following narrative rests substantially on the account of +Licinianus, which, fragmentary as it is at this very point, still +gives important information as to the insurrection of Lepidus. + +19. Under the year 676 Licinianus states (p. 23, Pertz; p. 42, +Bonn); [Lepidus?] -[le]gem frumentari[am] nullo resistente +l[argi]tus est, ut annon[ae] quinque modi popu[lo da]rentur-. +According to this account, therefore, the law of the consuls of 681 +Marcus Terentius Lucullus and Gaius Cassius Varus, which Cicero +mentions (in Verr. iii. 70, 136; v. 21, 52), and to which also +Sallust refers (Hist. iii. 61, 19 Dietsch), did not first reestablish +the five -modii-, but only secured the largesses of grain by +regulating the purchases of Sicilian corn, and perhaps made +various alterations of detail. That the Sempronian law +(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus) +allowed every burgess domiciled in Rome to share in the largesses +of grain, is certain. But the later distribution of grain was not +so extensive as this, for, seeing that the monthly corn of +the Roman burgesses amounted to little more than 33,000 -medimni- = +198,000 -modii- (Cic. Verr. iii. 30, 72), only some 40,000 +burgesses at that time received grain, whereas the number of +burgesses domiciled in the capital was certainly far more +considerable. This arrangement probably proceeded from +the Octavian law, which introduced instead of the extravagant +Sempronian amount "a moderate largess, tolerable for the state and +necessary for the common people" (Cic. de Off. ii. 21, 72, Brut. +62, 222); and to all appearance it is this very law that is +the -lex frumentaria- mentioned by Licinianus. That Lepidus should have +entered into such a proposal of compromise, accords with his attitude +as regards the restoration of the tribunate. It is likewise in +keeping with the circumstances that the democracy should find itself +not at all satisfied by the regulation, brought about in this way, +of the distribution of grain (Sallust, l. c.). The amount of loss +is calculated on the basis of the grain being worth at least double +(IV. III. Alterations on the Constitution By Gaius Gracchus); +when piracy or other causes drove up the price of grain, +a far more considerable loss must have resulted. + +20. From the fragments of the account of Licinianus (p. 44, Bonn) +it is plain that the decree of the senate, -uti Lepidus et Catulus +decretis exercitibus maturrime proficiscerentur- (Sallust, Hist. i. +44 Dietsch), is to be understood not of a despatch of the consuls +before the expiry of their consulship to their proconsular +provinces, for which there would have been no reason, but of their +being sent to Etruria against the revolted Faesulans, just as in +the Catilinarian war the consul Gaius Antonius was despatched to +the same quarter. The statement of Philippus in Sallust (Hist. i. +48, 4) that Lepidus -ob seditionem provinciam cum exercitu adeptus +est-, is entirely in harmony with this view; for the extraordinary +consular command in Etruria was just as much a -provincia- as +the ordinary proconsular command in Narbonese Gaul. + +21. III. IV. Hannibal's Passage of the Alps + +22. In the recently found fragments of Sallust, which appear to +belong to the campaign of 679, the following words relate to this +incident: -Romanus [exer]citus (of Pompeius) frumenti gra[tia +r]emotus in Vascones i... [it]emque Sertorius mon... e, cuius +multum in[terer]it, ne ei perinde Asiae [iter et Italiae +intercluderetur]. + + + + +Notes for Chapter II + +1. IV. VIII. New Difficulties + +2. IV. VIII. Preliminaries of Delium, IV. VIII. Peace at Dardanus + +3. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +4. IV. I. Cilicia + +5. IV. I. Piracy + +6. IV. I. Crete + +7. The foundation of the kingdom of Edessa is placed by native +chronicles in 620 (IV. I. The Parthian Empire), but it was not till +some time after its rise that it passed into the hands of the Arabic +dynasty bearing the names of Abgarus and Mannus, which we afterwards +find there. This dynasty is obviously connected with the settlement +of many Arabs by Tigranes the Great in the region of Edessa, +Callirrhoe, Carrhae (Plin. H. N. v. 20, 85; ax, 86; vi. 28, 142); +respecting which Plutarch also (Luc. 21) states that Tigranes, +changing the habits of the tent-Arabs, settled them nearer to his +kingdom in order by their means to possess himself of the trade. +We may presumably take this to mean that the Bedouins, who were +accustomed to open routes for traffic through their territory and +to levy on these routes fixed transit-dues (Strabo, xvi. 748), were +to serve the great-king as a sort of toll-supervisors, and to levy +tolls for him and themselves at the passage of the Euphrates. +These "Osrhoenian Arabs" (-Orei Arabes-), as Pliny calls them, +must also be the Arabs on Mount Amanus, whom Afranius subdued +(Plut. Pomp. 39). + +8. The disputed question, whether this alleged or real testament +proceeded from Alexander I (d. 666) or Alexander II (d. 673), is +usually decided in favour of the former alternative. But +the reasons are inadequate; for Cicero (de L. Agr. i. 4, 12; 15, 38; +16, 41) does not say that Egypt fell to Rome in 666, but that it +did so in or after this year; and while the circumstance that +Alexander I died abroad, and Alexander II in Alexandria, has led +some to infer that the treasures mentioned in the testament in +question as lying in Tyre must have belonged to the former, they +have overlooked that Alexander II was killed nineteen days after +his arrival in Egypt (Letronne, Inscr, de I'Egypte, ii. 20), when +his treasure might still very well be in Tyre. On the other hand +the circumstance that the second Alexander was the last genuine +Lagid is decisive, for in the similar acquisitions of Pergamus, +Cyrene, and Bithynia it was always by the last scion of +the legitimate ruling family that Rome was appointed heir. The ancient +constitutional law, as it applied at least to the Roman client- +states, seems to have given to the reigning prince the right of +ultimate disposal of his kingdom not absolutely, but only in +the absence of -agnati- entitled to succeed. Comp. Gutschmid's remark +in the German translation of S. Sharpe's History of Egypt, ii. 17. + +Whether the testament was genuine or spurious, cannot be ascertained, +and is of no great moment; there are no special reasons for +assuming a forgery. + +9. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +10. IV. VIII. Cyrene Roman + +11. V. I. Collapse of the Power of Sertorius + +12. IV. IV. The Provinces + +13. IV. VIII. Lucullus and the Fleet on the Asiatic Coast + +14. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia + +15. III. V. Attitude of the Romans, III. VI. The African Expedition +of Scipio + +16. That Tigranocerta was situated in the region of Mardln some +two days' march to the west of Nisibis, has been proved by +the investigation instituted on the spot by Sachau ("-Ueber die Lage +von Tigranokerta-," Abh. der Berliner Akademie, 1880), although +the more exact fixing of the locality proposed by Sachau is not beyond +doubt. On the other hand, his attempt to clear up the campaign of +Lucullus encounters the difficulty that, on the route assumed in +it, a crossing of the Tigris is in reality out of the question. + +17. Cicero (De Imp. Pomp. 9, 23) hardly means any other than one +of the rich temples of the province Elymais, whither the predatory +expeditions of the Syrian and Parthian kings were regularly +directed (Strabo, xvi. 744; Polyb, xxxi. 11. 1 Maccab. 6, etc.), +and probably this as the best known; on no account can +the allusion be to the temple of Comana or any shrine at all in +the kingdom of Pontus. + +18. V. II. Preparations of Mithradates, 328, 334 + +19. V. II. Invasion of Pontus by Lucullus + +20. V. II. Roman Preparations + +21. V. I. Want of Leaders + +22. V. II. Maritime War + +23. IV. I. Crete + +24. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War, IV. IV. Revolts of the Slaves + +25. These enactments gave rise to the conception of robbery +as a separate crime, while the older law comprehended robbery +under theft. + +26. V. II. The Pirates in the Mediterranean + +27. As the line was thirty-five miles long (Sallust, Hist, iv, 19, +Dietsch; Plutarch, Crass. 10), it probably passed not from +Squillace to Pizzo, but more to the north, somewhere near +Castrovillari and Cassano, over the peninsula which is here in +a straight line about twenty-seven miles broad. + +28. That Crassus was invested with the supreme command in 682, +follows from the setting aside of the consuls (Plutarch, Crass. +10); that the winter of 682-683 was spent by the two armies at +the Bruttian wall, follows from the "snowy night" (Plut. l. c). + + + + +Notes for Chapter III + +1. IV. X. Assignations to the Soldiers + +2. V. I. Pompeius + +3. IV. X. Abolition of the Gracchan Institutions + +4. V. II. The Insurrection Takes Shape + +5. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals + +6. V. I. Insurrection of Lepidus + +7. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges + +8. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers + +9. IV. IV. Marius Commander-in-Chief + +10. The extraordinary magisterial power (-pro consule-, -pro +praetore-, -pro quaestore-) might according to Roman state-law +originate in three ways. Either it arose out of the principle +which held good for the non-urban magistracy, that the office +continued up to the appointed legal term, but the official +authority up to the arrival of the successor, which was the oldest, +simplest, and most frequent case. Or it arose in the way of +the appropriate organs--especially the comitia, and in later times also +perhaps the senate--nominating a chief magistrate not contemplated +in the constitution, who was otherwise on a parity with +the ordinary magistrate, but in token of the extraordinary nature of +his office designated himself merely "instead of a praetor" or "of +a consul." To this class belong also the magistrates nominated in +the ordinary way as quaestors, and then extraordinarily furnished +with praetorian or even consular official authority (-quaestores +pro praetore- or -pro consule-); in which quality, for example, +Publius Lentulus Marcellinus went in 679 to Cyrene (Sallust, Hist. +ii. 39 Dietsch), Gnaeus Piso in 689 to Hither Spain (Sallust, Cat. +19), and Cato in 696 to Cyprus (Vell. ii. 45). Or, lastly, +the extraordinary magisterial authority was based on the right of +delegation vested in the supreme magistrate. If he left the bounds +of his province or otherwise was hindered from administering his +office, he was entitled to nominate one of those about him as his +substitute, who was then called -legatus pro praetore-(Sallust, +lug. 36, 37, 38), or, if the choice fell on the quaestor, -quaestor +pro praetore- (Sallust, Iug. 103). In like manner he was entitled, +if he had no quaestor, to cause the quaestorial duties to be +discharged by one of his train, who was then called -legatus pro +quaestore-, a name which is to be met with, perhaps for the first +time, on the Macedonian tetradrachms of Sura, lieutenant of +the governor of Macedonia, 665-667. But it was contrary to the nature +of delegation and therefore according to the older state-law +inadmissible, that the supreme magistrate should, without having +met with any hindrance in the discharge of his functions, +immediately upon his entering on office invest one or more of +his subordinates with supreme official authority; and so far +the -legati pro praetore-of the proconsul Pompeius were an innovation, +and already similar in kind to those who played so great a part in +the times of the Empire. + +11. V. III. Attempts to Restore the Tribunician Power + +12. According to the legend king Romulus was torn in pieces +by the senators. + +13. IV. II. Further Plans of Gracchus + + + + +Notes for Chapter IV + +1. V. III. Senate, Equites, and Populares + +2. V. II. Metellus Subdues Crete + +3. [Literally "twenty German miles"; but the breadth of the island +does not seem in reality half so much.--Tr.] + +4. V. II. Renewal of the War + +5. Pompeius distributed among his soldiers and officers as +presents 384,000,000 sesterces (=16,000 talents, App. Mithr. +116); as the officers received 100,000,000 (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, +16) and each of the common soldiers 6000 sesterces (Plin., App.), +the army still numbered at its triumph about 40,000 men. + +6. V. II. Sieges of the Pontic Cities + +7. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +8. V. II. Syria under Tigranes + +9. V. II. Syria under Tigranes + +10. IV. I. The Jews + +11. V. II. Siege and Battle of Tigranocerta + +12. Thus the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of angels and spirits +and the resurrection of the dead. Most of the traditional points +of difference between Pharisees and Sadducees relate to subordinate +questions of ritual, jurisprudence, and the calendar. It is +a characteristic fact, that the victorious Pharisees have introduced +those days, on which they definitively obtained the superiority in +particular controversies or ejected heretical members from +the supreme consistory, into the list of the memorial and festival +days of the nation. + +13. V. II. All the Armenian Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +14. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War, V. II. All the Armenian +Conquests Pass into the Hands of the Romans + +15. Pompeius spent the winter of 689-690 still in +the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea (Dio, xxxvii. 7). In 690 he first +reduced the last strongholds still offering resistance in +the kingdom of Pontus, and then moved slowly, regulating matters +everywhere, towards the south. That the organization of Syria +began in 690 is confirmed by the fact that the Syrian provincial +era begins with this year, and by Cicero's statement respecting +Commagene (Ad Q. fr. ii. 12, 2; comp. Dio, xxxvii. 7). During +the winter of 690-691 Pompeius seems to have had his headquarters in +Antioch (Joseph, xiv. 3, 1, 2, where the confusion has been +rectified by Niese in the Hermes, xi. p. 471). + +16. III. V. New Warlike Preparations in Rome + +17. III. IV. War Party and Peace Party in Carthage + +18. Orosius indeed (vi. 6) and Dio (xxxvii. 15), both of them +doubtless following Livy, make Pompeius get to Petra and occupy +the city or even reach the Red Sea; but that he, on the contrary, soon +after receiving the news of the death of Mithradates, which came to +him on his march towards Jerusalem, returned from Syria to Pontus, +is stated by Plutarch (Pomp. 41, 42) and is confirmed by Floras (i. +39) and Josephus (xiv. 3, 3, 4). If king Aretas figures in +the bulletins among those conquered by Pompeius, this is +sufficiently accounted for by his withdrawal from Jerusalem +at the instigation of Pompeius. + +19. V. II. Renewal of the War, V. IV. Variance between Mithradates +and Tigranes + +20. This view rests on the narrative of Plutarch (Pomp. 36) which +is supported by Strabo's (xvi. 744) description of the position of +the satrap of Elymais. It is an embellishment of the matter, when +in the lists of the countries and kings conquered by Pompeius Media +and its king Darius are enumerated (Diodorus, Fr, Vat. p. 140; +Appian, Mithr. 117); and from this there has been further concocted +the war of Pompeius with the Medes (Veil. ii. 40; Appian, Mithr. +106, 114) and then even his expedition to Ecbatana (Oros. vi. 5). +A confusion with the fabulous town of the same name on Carmel has +hardly taken place here; it is simply that intolerable +exaggeration--apparently originating in the grandiloquent and +designedly ambiguous bulletins of Pompeius--which has converted his +razzia against the Gaetulians (p. 94) into a march to the west +coast of Africa (Plut. Pomp. 38), his abortive expedition against +the Nabataeans into a conquest of the city of Petra, and his award +as to the boundaries of Armenia into a fixing of the boundary of +the Roman empire beyond Nisibis. + +21. The war which this Antiochus is alleged to have waged with +Pompeius (Appian, Mithr. 106, 117) is not very consistent with +the treaty which he concluded with Lucullus (Dio, xxxvi. 4), and his +undisturbed continuance in his sovereignty; presumably it has been +concocted simply from the circumstance, that Antiochus of Commagene +figured among the kings subdued by Pompeius. + +22. To this Cicero's reproach presumably points (De Off. iii. 12, +49): -piratas immunes habemus, socios vectigales-; in so far, +namely, as those pirate-colonies probably had the privilege of +immunity conferred on them by Pompeius, while, as is well known, +the provincial communities dependent on Rome were, as a rule, +liable to taxation. + +23. IV. VIII. Pontus + +24. V. IV. Battle at Nicopolis + +25. V. II. Defeat of the Romans in Pontus at Ziela + +26. V. IV. Pompeius Take the Supreme Command against Mithradates + +27. IV. VIII. Weak Counterpreparations of the Romans ff. + +28. V. II. Egypt not Annexed + +29. V. IV. Urban Communities + + + + +Notes for Chapter V + +1. V. III. Renewal of the Censorship + +2. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius + +3. IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges + +4. IV. VII. The Sulpician Laws + +5. IV. X. Permanent and Special -Quaestiones- + +6. IV. VI. And Overpowered + +7. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts + +8. Any one who surveys the whole state of the political relations +of this period will need no special proofs to help him to see that +the ultimate object of the democratic machinations in 688 et seq. +was not the overthrow of the senate, but that of Pompeius. Yet +such proofs are not wanting. Sallust states that the Gabinio- +Manilian laws inflicted a mortal blow on the democracy (Cat. 39); +that the conspiracy of 688-689 and the Servilian rogation were +specially directed against Pompeius, is likewise attested (Sallust +Cat. 19; Val. Max. vi. 2, 4; Cic. de Lege Agr. ii. 17, 46). +Besides the attitude of Crassus towards the conspiracy alone shows +sufficiently that it was directed against Pompeius. + +9. V. V. Transpadanes + +10. Plutarch, Crass. 13; Cicero, de Lege agr. ii. 17, 44. To this +year (689) belongs Cicero's oration -de rege Alexandrino-, which +has been incorrectly assigned to the year 698. In it Cicero +refutes, as the fragments clearly show, the assertion of Crassus, +that Egypt had been rendered Roman property by the testament of +king Alexander. This question of law might and must have been +discussed in 689; but in 698 it had been deprived of its +significance through the Julian law of 695. In 698 moreover +the discussion related not to the question to whom Egypt belonged, but +to the restoration of the king driven out by a revolt, and in this +transaction which is well known to us Crassus played no part. +Lastly, Cicero after the conference of Luca was not at all in +a position seriously to oppose one of the triumvirs. + +11. V. IV. Pompeius Proceeds to Colchis + +12. V. III. Attacks on the Senatorial Tribunals, V. III. Renewal +of the Censorship + +13. The -Ambrani- (Suet. Caes. 9) are probably not the Ambrones +named along with the Cimbri (Plutarch, Mar. 19), but a slip of +the pen for -Arverni-. + +14. This cannot well be expressed more naively than is done in +the memorial ascribed to his brother (de pet. cons. i, 5; 13, 51, 53; +in 690); the brother himself would hardly have expressed his mind +publicly with so much frankness. In proof of this unprejudiced +persons will read not without interest the second oration against +Rullus, where the "first democratic consul," gulling the friendly +public in a very delectable fashion, unfolds to it the "true democracy." + +15. His epitaph still extant runs: -Cn. Calpurnius Cn. f. Piso +quaestor fro pr. ex s. c. proviniciam Hispaniam citeriorem optinuit-. + +16. V. V. Failure of the First Plans of Conspiracy + +17. V. III. Continued Subsistence of the Sullan Constitution + +18. IV. XII. Priestly Colleges + +19. IV. VII. Economic Crisis + +20. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +21. Such an apology is the -Catilina- of Sallust, which was +published by the author, a notorious Caesarian, after the year 708, +either under the monarchy of Caesar or more probably under +the triumvirate of his heirs; evidently as a treatise with a political +drift, which endeavours to bring into credit the democratic party-- +on which in fact the Roman monarchy was based--and to clear +Caesar's memory from the blackest stain that rested on it; and with +the collateral object of whitewashing as far as possible the uncle +of the triumvir Marcus Antonius (comp. e. g. c. 59 with Dio, +xxxvii. 39). The Jugurtha of the same author is in an exactly +similar way designed partly to expose the pitifulness of +the oligarchic government, partly to glorify the Coryphaeus of +the democracy, Gaius Marius. The circumstance that the adroit author +keeps the apologetic and inculpatory character of these writings of +his in the background, proves, not that they are not partisan +treatises, but that they are good ones. + +22. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome + + + + +Notes for Chapter VI + +1. V. IV. Aggregate Results + +2. The impression of the first address, which Pompeius made to +the burgesses after his return, is thus described by Cicero (ad Att. i. +14): -prima contio Pompei non iucunda miseris (the rabble), inanis +improbis (the democrats), beatis (the wealthy) non grata, bonis +(the aristocrats) non gravis; itaque frigebat-. + +3. IV. X. Regulating of the Qualifications for Office + +4. V. V. New Projects of the Conspirators + +5. V. VI. Pompeius without Influence + +6. IV. IX. Government of Cinna, IV. X. Punishments Inflicted +on Particular Communities + +7. IV. XII. Oriental Religions in Italy + +8. V. V. Transpadanes + +9. IV. X. Cisalpine Gaul Erected into a Province + +10. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + +11. IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in the Voting + +12. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + + + + +Notes for Chapter VII + +1. IV. I. The Callaeci Conquered + +2. IV. IX. Spain + +3. V. I. Renewed Outbreak of the Spanish Insurrection + +4. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul + +5. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +6. V. V. Conviction and Arrest of the Conspirators in the Capital + +7. V. I. Pompeius Puts and End to the Insurrection + +8. IV. II. Scipio Aemilianus + +9. There was found, for instance, at Vaison in the Vocontian +canton an inscription written in the Celtic language with +the ordinary Greek alphabet. It runs thus: --segouaros ouilloneos +tooutious namausatis eiorou beileisamisosin nemeiton--. The last +word means "holy." + +10. An immigration of Belgic Celts to Britain continuing for +a considerable time seems indicated by the names of English tribes on +both banks of the Thames borrowed from Belgic cantons; such as +the Atrebates, the Belgae, and even the Britanni themselves, which word +appears to have been transferred from the Brittones settled on +the Somme below Amiens first to an English canton and then to the whole +island. The English gold coinage was also derived from the Belgic +and originally identical with it. + +11. The first levy of the Belgic cantons exclusive of the Remi, +that is, of the country between the Seine and the Scheldt and +eastward as far as the vicinity of Rheims and Andernach, from 9000 +to 10,000 square miles, is reckoned at about 300,000 men; in +accordance with which, if we regard the proportion of the first +levy to the whole men capable of bearing arms specified for +the Bellovaci as holding good generally, the number of the Belgae +capable of bearing arms would amount to 500,000 and the whole +population accordingly to at least 2,000,000. The Helvetii with +the adjoining peoples numbered before their migration 336,000; if +we assume that they were at that time already dislodged from +the right bank of the Rhine, their territory may be estimated at nearly +1350 square miles. Whether the serfs are included in this, we can +the less determine, as we do not know the form which slavery +assumed amongst the Celts; what Caesar relates (i. 4) as to +the slaves, clients, and debtors of Orgetorix tells rather in favour +of, than against, their being included. + +That, moreover, every such attempt to make up by combinations for +the statistical basis, in which ancient history is especially +deficient, must be received with due caution, will be at once +apprehended by the intelligent reader, while he will not absolutely +reject it on that account. + +12. "In the interior of Transalpine Gaul on the Rhine," says +Scrofa in Varro, De R. R. i. 7, 8, "when I commanded there, I +traversed some districts, where neither the vine nor the olive nor +the fruit-tree appears, where they manure the fields with white +Pit-chalk, where they have neither rock--nor sea-salt, but make use +of the saline ashes of certain burnt wood instead of salt." This +description refers probably to the period before Caesar and to +the eastern districts of the old province, such as the country of +the Allobroges; subsequently Pliny (H. N. xvii. 6, 42 seq.) describes +at length the Gallo-Britannic manuring with marl. + +13. "The Gallic oxen especially are of good repute in Italy, for +field labour forsooth; whereas the Ligurian are good for nothing." +(Varro, De R. R. ii. 5, 9). Here, no doubt, Cisalpine Gaul is +referred to, but the cattle-husbandry there doubtless goes back to +the Celtic epoch. Plautus already mentions the "Gallic ponies" +(-Gallici canterii-, Aul. iii. 5. 21). "It is not every race that +is suited for the business of herdsmen; neither the Bastulians nor +the Turdulians" (both in Andalusia) "are fit for it; the Celts are +the best, especially as respects beasts for riding and burden +(-iumenta-)" (Varro, De R. R. ii. 10, 4). + +14. We are led to this conclusion by the designation of +the trading or "round" as contrasted with the "long" or war vessel, and +the similar contrast of the "oared ships" (--epikopoi veies--) and +the "merchantmen" (--olkades--, Dionys. iii. 44); and moreover by +the smallness of the crew in the trading vessels, which in the very +largest amounted to not more than 200 men (Rhein. Mus. N. F. xi. +625), while in the ordinary galley of three decks there were +employed 170 rowers (III. II. The Romans Build A Fleet). Comp. Movers, +Phoen. ii. 3, 167 seq. + +15. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +16. IV. V. Defeat of Longinus + +17. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +18. This remarkable word must have been in use as early as +the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po; for +Ennius is already acquainted with it, and it can only have reached +the Italians at so early a period from that quarter. It is not +merely Celtic, however, but also German, the root of our "Amt," as +indeed the retainer-system itself is common to the Celts and +the Germans. It would be of great historical importance to ascertain +whether the word--and so also the thing--came to the Celts from +the Germans, or to the Germans from the Celts. If, as is usually +supposed, the word is originally German and primarily signified +the servant standing in battle "against the back" (-and-= against, +-bak- = back) of his master, this is not wholly irreconcileable with +the singularly early occurrence of this word among the Celts. +According to all analogy the right to keep -ambacti-, that is, +--doouloi misthotoi--, cannot have belonged to the Celtic nobility +from the outset, but must only have developed itself gradually in +antagonism to the older monarchy and to the equality of the free +commons. If thus the system of -ambacti- among the Celts was not +an ancient and national, but a comparatively recent institution, it +is--looking to the relation which had subsisted for centuries +between the Celts and Germans, and which is to be explained farther +on--not merely possible but even probable that the Celts, in Italy +as in Gaul, employed Germans chiefly as those hired servants-at- +arms. The "Swiss guard" would therefore in that case be some +thousands of years older than people suppose. Should the term by +which the Romans, perhaps after the example of the Celts, designate +the Germans as a nation-the name -Germani---be really of Celtic +origin, this obviously accords very well with that hypothesis.--No +doubt these assumptions must necessarily give way, should the word +-ambactus- be explained in a satisfactory way from a Celtic root; +as in fact Zeuss (Gramm. p. 796), though doubtfully, traces it to +-ambi- = around and -aig- = -agere-, viz. one moving round or moved +round, and so attendants, servants. The circumstance that the word +occurs also as a Celtic proper name (Zeuss, p. 77), and is perhaps +preserved in the Cambrian -amaeth- = peasant, labourer (Zeuss, p. +156), cannot decide the point either way, + +19. From the Celtic words -guerg- = worker and -breth- = judgment. + +20. IV. V. Transalpine Relations of Rome + +21. The position which such a federal general occupied with +reference to his troops, is shown by the accusation of high treason +raised against Vercingetorix (Caesar, B. G. vii. 20). + +22. IV. V. The Cimbri + +23. II. IV. The Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy + +24. V. VII. Art and Science + +25. Caesar's Suebi thus were probably the Chatti; but that +designation certainly belonged in Caesar's time, and even much +later, also to every other German stock which could be described as +a regularly wandering one. Accordingly if, as is not to be +doubted, the "king of the Suebi" in Mela (iii. i) and Pliny (H. N. +ii. 67, 170) was Ariovistus, it by no means therefore follows that +Ariovistus was a Chattan. The Marcomani cannot be demonstrated as +a distinct people before Marbod; it is very possible that the word +up to that point indicates nothing but what it etymologically +signifies--the land, or frontier, guard. When Caesar (i, 51) +mentions Marcomani among the peoples fighting in the army of +Ariovistus, he may in this instance have misunderstood a merely +appellative designation, just as he has decidedly done in +the case of the Suebi. + +26. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along +the Danube + +27. IV. V. The Tribes at the Sources of the Rhine and Along +the Danube + +28. IV. V. Teutones in the Province of Gaul + +29. The arrival of Ariovistus in Gaul has been placed, according +to Caesar, i. 36, in 683, and the battle of Admagetobriga (for such +was the name of the place now usually, in accordance with a false +inscription, called Magetobriga), according to Caesar i. 35 and +Cicero Ad. Att. i. 19, in 693. + +30. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There + +31. That we may not deem this course of things incredible, or even +impute to it deeper motives than ignorance and laziness in +statesmen, we shall do well to realize the frivolous tone in which +a distinguished senator like Cicero expresses himself in his +correspondence respecting these important Transalpine affairs. + +32. IV. V. Inroad of the Helvetii into Southern Gaul + +33. According to the uncorrected calendar. According to +the current rectification, which however here by no means rests on +sufficiently trustworthy data, this day corresponds to the 16th of +April of the Julian calendar. + +34. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite + +35. -Julia Equestris-, where the last surname is to be taken as in +other colonies of Caesar the surnames of sextanorum, decimanorum, +etc. It was Celtic or German horsemen of Caesar, who, of course +with the bestowal of the Roman or, at any rate, Latin franchise, +received land-allotments there. + +36. Goler (Caesars gall. Krieg, p. 45, etc.) thinks that he has +found the field of battle at Cernay not far from Muhlhausen, which, +on the whole, agrees with Napoleon's (Precis, p. 35) placing of +the battle-field in the district of Belfort. This hypothesis, although +not certain, suits the circumstances of the case; for the fact that +Caesar required seven days' march for the short space from Besancon +to that point, is explained by his own remark (i. 41) that he had +taken a circuit of fifty miles to avoid the mountain paths; and +the whole description of the pursuit continued as far as the Rhine, and +evidently not lasting for several days but ending on the very day +of the battle, decides--the authority of tradition being equally +balanced--in favour of the view that the battle was fought five, +not fifty, miles from the Rhine. The proposal of Rustow +(-Einleitung zu Caesars Comm-. p. 117) to transfer the field of +battle to the upper Saar rests on a misunderstanding. The corn +expected from the Sequani, Leuci, Lingones was not to come to +the Roman army in the course of their march against Ariovistus, but to +be delivered at Besancon before their departure, and taken by +the troops along with them; as is clearly apparent from the fact that +Caesar, while pointing his troops to those supplies, comforts them +at the same time with the hope of corn to be brought in on +the route. From Besancon Caesar commanded the region of Langres and +Epinal, and, as may be well conceived, preferred to levy his +requisitions there rather than in the exhausted districts from +which he came. + +37. This seems the simplest hypothesis regarding the origin of +these Germanic settlements. That Ariovistus settled those peoples +on the middle Rhine is probable, because they fight in his army +(Caes. i. 51) and do not appear earlier; that Caesar left them in +possession of their settlements is probable, because he in presence +of Ariovistus declared himself ready to tolerate the Germans +already settled in Gaul (Caes. i. 35, 43), and because we find them +afterwards in these abodes. Caesar does not mention the directions +given after the battle concerning these Germanic settlements, +because he keeps silence on principle regarding all the organic +arrangements made by him in Gaul. + +38. IV. V. The Cimbri, Teutones, and Helvetii Unite + +39. III. II. The Romans Build a Fleet + +40. V. I. Pompeius in Gaul + +41. V. VII. The Germans on the Lower Rhine + +42. The nature of the case as well as Caesar's express statement +proves that the passages of Caesar to Britain were made from ports +of the coast between Calais and Boulogne to the coast of Kent. +A more exact determination of the localities has often been +attempted, but without success. All that is recorded is, that on +the first voyage the infantry embarked at one port, the cavalry at +another distant from the former eight miles in an easterly +direction (iv. 22, 23, 28), and that the second voyage was made +from that one of those two ports which Caesar had found most +convenient, the (otherwise not further mentioned) Portus Itius, +distant from the British coast 30 (so according to the MSS. of +Caesar v. 2) or 40 miles (=320 stadia, according to Strabo iv. 5, +2, who doubtless drew his account from Caesar). From Caesar's +words (iv. 21) that he had chosen "the shortest crossing," we may +doubtless reasonably infer that he crossed not the Channel but +the Straits of Calais, but by no means that he crossed the latter by +the mathematically shortest line. It requires the implicit faith +of local topographers to proceed to the determination of +the locality with such data in hand--data of which the best in itself +becomes almost useless from the variation of the authorities as to +the number; but among the many possibilities most may perhaps be +said in favour of the view that the Itian port (which Strabo l. c. +is probably right in identifying with that from which the infantry +crossed in the first voyage) is to be sought near Ambleteuse to +the west of Cape Gris Nez, and the cavalry-harbour near Ecale (Wissant) +to the east of the same promontory, and that the landing took place +to the east of Dover near Walmer Castle. + +43. That Cotta, although not lieutenant-general of Sabinus, but +like him legate, was yet the younger and less esteemed general and +was probably directed in the event of a difference to yield, may be +inferred both from the earlier services of Sabinus and from +the fact that, where the two are named together (iv. 22, 38; v. 24, 26, +52; vi. 32; otherwise in vi. 37) Sabinus regularly takes +precedence, as also from the narrative of the catastrophe itself. +Besides we cannot possibly suppose that Caesar should have placed +over a camp two officers with equal authority, and have made no +arrangement at all for the case of a difference of opinion. +the five cohorts are not counted as part of a legion (comp. vi. 32, 33) +any more than the twelve cohorts at the Rhine bridge (vi. 29, comp. +32, 33), and appear to have consisted of detachments of other +portions of the army, which had been assigned to reinforce this +camp situated nearest to the Germans. + +44. V. VII. Subjugation of the Belgae + +45. IV. V. War with the Allobroges and Arverni + +46. V. VII. Cantonal Constitution + +47. This, it is true, was only possible, so long as offensive +weapons chiefly aimed at cutting and stabbing. In the modern mode +of warfare, as Napoleon has excellently explained, this system has +become inapplicable, because with our offensive weapons operating +from a distance the deployed position is more advantageous than +the concentrated. In Caesar's time the reverse was the case. + +48. This place has been sought on a rising ground which is still +named Gergoie, a league to the south of the Arvernian capital +Nemetum, the modern Clermont; and both the remains of rude +fortress-walls brought to light in excavations there, and +the tradition of the name which is traced in documents up to the tenth +century, leave no room for doubt as to the correctness of this +determination of the locality. Moreover it accords, as with +the other statements of Caesar, so especially with the fact that he +pretty clearly indicates Gergovia as the chief place of the Arverni +(vii. 4). We shall have accordingly to assume, that the Arvernians +after their defeat were compelled to transfer their settlement from +Gergovia to the neighbouring less strong Nemetum. + +49. The question so much discussed of late, whether Alesia is not +rather to be identified with Alaise (25 kilometres to the south of +Besancon, dep. Doubs), has been rightly answered in the negative by +all judicious inquirers. + +50. This is usually sought at Capdenac not far from Figeac; Goler +has recently declared himself in favour of Luzech to the west of +Cahors, a site which had been previously suggested. + +51. This indeed, as may readily be conceived, is not recorded by +Caesar himself, but an intelligible hint on this subject is given +by Sallust (Hist. i. 9 Kritz), although he too wrote as a partisan +of Caesar. Further proofs are furnished by the coins. + +52. Thus we read on a -semis- which a Vergobretus of the Lexovii +(Lisieux, dep. Calvados) caused to be struck, the following +inscription: -Cisiambos Cattos vercobreto; simissos (sic) publicos +Lixovio-. The often scarcely legible writing and the incredibly +wretched stamping of these coins are in excellent harmony with +their stammering Latin. + +53. V. VII. Caesar and Ariovistus + +54. V. VII. The Helvetii Sent Back to Their Original Abodes + +55. V. VII. Beginning of the Struggle + +56. IV. V. Taurisci + + + + +Notes for Chapter VIII + +1. This is the meaning of -cantorum convitio contiones celebrare- +(Cic. pro Sest. 55, 118). + +2. V. VI. Clodius + +3. IV. V. The Victory and the Parties + +4. Cato was not yet in Rome when Cicero spoke on 11th March 698 in +favour of Sestius (Pro Sest. 28, 60) and when the discussion took +place in the senate in consequence of the resolutions of Luca +respecting Caesar's legions (Plut. Caes. 21); it is not till +the discussions at the beginning of 699 that we find him once more +busy, and, as he travelled in winter (Plut. Cato Min. 38), he thus +returned to Rome in the end of 698. He cannot therefore, as has +been mistakenly inferred from Asconius (p. 35, 53), have defended +Milo in Feb. 698. + +5. -Me asinum germanum fuisse- (Ad Att. iv. 5, 3). + +6. This palinode is the still extant oration on the Provinces to +be assigned to the consuls of 699. It was delivered in the end of +May 698. The pieces contrasting with it are the orations for +Sestius and against Vatinius and that upon the opinion of +the Etruscan soothsayers, dating from the months of March and April, +in which the aristocratic regime is glorified to the best of his +ability and Caesar in particular is treated in a very cavalier +tone. It was but reasonable that Cicero should, as he himself +confesses (Ad Att. iv. 5, 1), be ashamed to transmit even to +intimate friends that attestation of his resumed allegiance. + +7. This is not stated by our authorities. But the view that +Caesar levied no soldiers at all from the Latin communities, that +is to say from by far the greater part of his province, is in +itself utterly incredible, and is directly refuted by the fact that +the opposition-party slightingly designates the force levied by +Caesar as "for the most part natives of the Transpadane colonies" +(Caes. B. C. iii. 87); for here the Latin colonies of Strabo +(Ascon. in Pison. p. 3; Sueton. Caes. 8) are evidently meant. +Yet there is no trace of Latin cohorts in Caesar's Gallic army; +on the contrary according to his express statements all the recruits +levied by him in Cisalpine Gaul were added to the legions or +distributed into legions. It is possible that Caesar combined +with the levy the bestowal of the franchise; but more probably he +adhered in this matter to the standpoint of his party, which did +not so much seek to procure for the Transpadanes the Roman +franchise as rather regarded it as already legally belonging to +them (iv. 457). Only thus could the report spread, that Caesar had +introduced of his own authority the Roman municipal constitution +among the Transpadane communities (Cic. Ad Att. v. 3, 2; Ad Fam. +viii. 1, 2). This hypothesis too explains why Hirtius designates +the Transpadane towns as "colonies of Roman burgesses" (B. G. viii. +24), and why Caesar treated the colony of Comum founded by him as +a burgess-colony (Sueton. Caes. 28; Strabo, v. 1, p. 213; Plutarch, +Caes. 29), while the moderate party of the aristocracy conceded to +it only the same rights as to the other Transpadane communities, +viz. Latin rights, and the ultras even declared the civic rights +conferred on the settlers as altogether null, and consequently did +not concede to the Comenses the privileges attached to the holding +of a Latin municipal magistracy (Cic. Ad Att. v. 11, 2; Appian, B. +C. ii. 26). Comp. Hermes, xvi. 30. + +8. V. VII. Fresh Violations of the Rhine-Boundary by the Germans + +9. The collection handed down to us is full of references to +the events of 699 and 700 and was doubtless published in the latter +year; the most recent event, which it mentions, is the prosecution +of Vatinius (Aug. 700). The statement of Hieronymus that Catullus +died in 697-698 requires therefore to be altered only by a few +years. From the circumstance that Vatinius "swears falsely by his +consulship," it has been erroneously inferred that the collection +did not appear till after the consulate of Vatinius (707); it +only follows from it that Vatinius, when the collection appeared, +might already reckon on becoming consul in a definite year, +for which he had every reason as early as 700; for his name +certainly stood on the list of candidates agreed on at Luca +(Cicero, Ad. Att. iv. 8 b. 2). + +10. The well-known poem of Catullus (numbered as xxix.) +was written in 699 or 700 after Caesar's Britannic expedition +and before the death of Julia: + +-Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati, Nisi impudicus et vorax +et aleo, Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia Habebat ante et ultima +Britannia-? etc. + +Mamurra of Formiae, Caesar's favourite and for a time during +the Gallic wars an officer in his army, had, presumably a short time +before the composition of this poem, returned to the capital and +was in all likelihood then occupied with the building of his much- +talked-of marble palace furnished with lavish magnificence on +the Caelian hill. The Iberian booty mentioned in the poem must have +reference to Caesar's governorship of Further Spain, and Mamurra +must even then, as certainly afterwards in Gaul, have been found at +Caesar's headquarters; the Pontic booty presumably has reference to +the war of Pompeius against Mithradates, especially as according to +the hint of the poet it was not merely Caesar that enriched Mamurra. + +More innocent than this virulent invective, which was bitterly felt +by Caesar (Suet. Caes. 73), is another nearly contemporary poem of +the same author (xi.) to which we may here refer, because with its +pathetic introduction to an anything but pathetic commission it +very cleverly quizzes the general staff of the new regents--the +Gabiniuses, Antoniuses, and such like, suddenly advanced from +the lowest haunts to headquarters. Let it be remembered that it was +written at a time when Caesar was fighting on the Rhine and on +the Thames, and when the expeditions of Crassus to Parthia and of +Gabinius to Egypt were in preparation. The poet, as if he too +expected one of the vacant posts from one of the regents, gives +to two of his clients their last instructions before departure: + +-Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli-, etc. + +11. V. VIII. Clodius + +12. In this year the January with 29 and the February with 23 days +were followed by the intercalary month with 28, and then by March. + +13. -Consul- signifies "colleague" (i. 318), and a consul who is +at the same time proconsul is at once an actual consul and +a consul's substitute. + +14. II. III. Military Tribunes with Consular Powers + + + + +Notes for Chapter IX + +1. iv. 434 + +2. Tigranes was still living in February 698 (Cic. pro Sest. 27, +59); on the other hand Artavasdes was already reigning before 700 +(Justin, xlii. 2, 4; Plut. Crass. 49). + +3. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects + +4. V. IV. Military Pacification of Syria + +5. V. VII. Repulse of the Helvetii, V. VII. Expeditions against +the Maritime Cantons + +6. V. VII. Cassivellaunus + +7. V. VII. The Carnutes ff. + +8. V. II. Renewal of the War + +9. V. IV. Difficulty with the Parthians + +10. IV. I. War against Aristonicus + +11. V. VII. Insurrection + +12. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans + +13. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System + +14. V. VIII. Humiliation of the Republicans + +15. V. VIII. The Aristocracy Submits ff. + +16. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistrates and the Jury-System + +17. V. VIII. The Senate under the Monarchy + +18. V. II. Mutiny of the Soldiers, V. III. Reappearance of Pompeius + +19. V. VII. Alpine Peoples + +20. V. IX. Dictatorship of Pompeius + +21. -Homo ingeniosissime nequam- (Vellei. ii. 48). + +22. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +23. IV. X. The Restoration + +24. V. II. Beginning of the Armenian War + +25. To be distinguished from the consul having the same name of +704; the latter was a cousin, the consul of 705 a brother, of +the Marcus Marcellus who was consul in 703. + +26. V. IX. Debates ss to Caesar's Recall ff. + +27. II. II. Intercession + + + + +Notes for Chapter X + +1. V. V. Transpadanes + +2. V. V. Transpadanes + +3. A centurion of Caesar's tenth legion, taken prisoner, declared +to the commander-in-chief of the enemy that he was ready with ten +of his men to make head against the best cohort of the enemy (500 +men; Dell. Afric. 45). "In the ancient mode of fighting," to quote +the opinion of Napoleon I, "a battle consisted simply of duels; +what was only correct in the mouth of that centurion, would be mere +boasting in the mouth of the modern soldier." Vivid proofs of +the soldierly spirit that pervaded Caesar's army are furnished by +the Reports--appended to his Memoirs--respecting the African and +the second Spanish wars, of which the former appears to have had as its +author an officer of the second rank, while the latter is in every +respect a subaltern camp-journal. + +4. V. IX. Debates as to Caesar's Recall + +5. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +6. V. IV. The New Relations of the Romans in the East, V. IV. Galatia + +7. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled by His Subjects + +8. V. VII. Wars and Revolts There + +9. V. IX. Repulse of the Parthians + +10. V. IX. Counter-Arrangements of Caesar + +11. V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule + +12. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies +and the Jury-System + +13. This number was specified by Pompeius himself (Caesar, B.C. i. +6), and it agrees with the statement that he lost in Italy about 60 +cohorts or 30,000 men, and took 25,000 over to Greece (Caesar, B.C. +iii. 10). + +14. V. VII. With the Bellovaci + +15. The decree of the senate was passed on the 7th January; on +the 18th it had been already for several days known in Rome that Caesar +had crossed the boundary (Cic. ad Att. vii. 10; ix. 10, 4); +the messenger needed at the very least three days from Rome to Ravenna. +According to this the setting out of Caesar falls about the 12th +January, which according to the current reduction corresponds to +the Julian 24 Nov. 704. + +16. IV. IX. Pompeius + +17. IV. XI. Italian Revenues + +18. V. VII. Caesar in Spain + +19. V. VII. Venetian War ff. + +20. III. VI. Scipio Driven Back to the Coast + +21. V. X. Caesar Takes the Offensive + +22. V. VII. Illyria + +23. As according to formal law the "legal deliberative assembly" +undoubtedly, just like the "legal court," could only take place in +the city itself or within the precincts, the assembly representing +the senate in the African army called itself the "three hundred" +(Bell. Afric. 88, 90; Appian, ii. 95), not because it consisted of +300 members, but because this was the ancient normal number of +senators (i. 98). It is very likely that this assembly recruited +its ranks by equites of repute; but, when Plutarch makes the three +hundred to be Italian wholesale dealers (Cato Min. 59, 61), he +has misunderstood his authority (Bell. Afr. 90). Of a similar +kind must have been the arrangement as to the quasi-senate +already in Thessalonica. + +24. V. X. Indignation of the Anarchist Party against Caesar + +25. V. X. The Pompeian Army + +26. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius + +27. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +28. According to the rectified calendar on the 5th Nov. 705. + +29. V. X. Result of the Campaign as a Whole + +30. The exact determination of the field of battle is difficult. +Appian (ii. 75) expressly places it between (New) Pharsalus (now +Fersala) and the Enipeus. Of the two streams, which alone are of +any importance in the question, and are undoubtedly the Apidanus +and Enipeus of the ancients--the Sofadhitiko and the Fersaliti--the +former has its sources in the mountains of Thaumaci (Dhomoko) and +the Dolopian heights, the latter in mount Othrys, and the Fersaliti +alone flows past Pharsalus; now as the Enipeus according to Strabo +(ix. p. 432) springs from mount Othrys and flows past Pharsalus, +the Fersaliti has been most justly pronounced by Leake (Northern +Greece, iv. 320) to be the Enipeus, and the hypothesis followed by +Goler that the Fersaliti is the Apidanus is untenable. With this +all the other statements of the ancients as to the two rivers +agree. Only we must doubtless assume with Leake, that the river of +Vlokho formed by the union of the Fersaliti and the Sofadhitiko and +going to the Peneius was called by the ancients Apidanus as well as +the Sofadhitiko; which, however, is the more natural, as while +the Sofadhitiko probably has, the Fersaliti has not, constantly water +(Leake, iv. 321). Old Pharsalus, from which the battle takes its +name, must therefore have been situated between Fersala and +the Fersaliti. Accordingly the battle was fought on the left bank of +the Fersaliti, and in such a way that the Pompeians, standing with +their faces towards Pharsalus, leaned their right wing on the river +(Caesar, B. C. iii. 83; Frontinus, Strat. ii. 3, 22). The camp of +the Pompeians, however, cannot have stood here, but only on +the slope of the heights of Cynoscephalae, on the right bank of +the Enipeus, partly because they barred the route of Caesar to +Scotussa, partly because their line of retreat evidently went over +the mountains that were to be found above the camp towards Larisa; +if they had, according to Leake's hypothesis (iv. 482), encamped to +the east of Pharsalus on the left bank of the Enipeus, they could +never have got to the northward through this stream, which at this +very point has a deeply cut bed (Leake, iv. 469), and Pompeius must +have fled to Lamia instead of Larisa. Probably therefore +the Pompeians pitched their camp on the right bank of the Fersaliti, +and passed the river both in order to fight and in order, after +the battle, to regain their camp, whence they then moved up the slopes +of Crannon and Scotussa, which culminate above the latter place in +the heights of Cynoscephalae. This was not impossible. +the Enipeus is a narrow slow-flowing rivulet, which Leake found two +feet deep in November, and which in the hot season often lies quite +dry (Leake, i. 448, and iv. 472; comp. Lucan, vi. 373), and +the battle was fought in the height of summer. Further the armies +before the battle lay three miles and a half from each other +(Appian, B. C. ii. 65), so that the Pompeians could make all +preparations and also properly secure the communication with their +camp by bridges. Had the battle terminated in a complete rout, no +doubt the retreat to and over the river could not have been +executed, and doubtless for this reason Pompeius only reluctantly +agreed to fight here. The left wing of the Pompeians which was +the most remote from the base of retreat felt this; but the retreat at +least of their centre and their right wing was not accomplished in +such haste as to be impracticable under the given conditions. +Caesar and his copyists are silent as to the crossing of the river, +because this would place in too clear a light the eagerness +for battle of the Pompeians apparent otherwise from the whole +narrative, and they are also silent as to the conditions of +retreat favourable for these. + +31. III. VIII. Battle of Cynoscephalae + +32. With this is connected the well-known direction of Caesar to +his soldiers to strike at the faces of the enemy's horsemen. +the infantry--which here in an altogether irregular way acted on +the offensive against cavalry, who were not to be reached with +the sabres--were not to throw their -pila-, but to use them as hand- +spears against the cavalry and, in order to defend themselves +better against these, to thrust at their faces (Plutarch, Pomp. 69, +71; Caes. 45; Appian, ii. 76, 78; Flor. ii. 12; Oros. vi. 15; +erroneously Frontinus, iv. 7, 32). The anecdotical turn given to +this instruction, that the Pompeian horsemen were to be brought to +run away by the fear of receiving scars in their faces, and that +they actually galloped off "holding their hands before their eyes" +(Plutarch), collapses of itself; for it has point only on +the supposition that the Pompeian cavalry had consisted principally of +the young nobility of Rome, the "graceful dancers"; and this was +not the case (p. 224). At the most it may be, that the wit of +the camp gave to that simple and judicious military order this very +irrational but certainly comic turn. + +33. V. I. Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War + +34. [I may here state once for all that in this and other +passages, where Dr. Mommsen appears incidentally to express views +of religion or philosophy with which I can scarcely be supposed to +agree, I have not thought it right--as is, I believe, sometimes +done in similar cases--to omit or modify any portion of what he has +written. The reader must judge for himself as to the truth or +value of such assertions as those given in the text.--Tr.] + +35. V. IX. Passive Resistance of Caesar + +36. V. X. The Armies at Pharsalus + +37. V. IV. And Brought Back by Gabinius + +38. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +39. V. IV. Aggregate Results + +40. V. IV. Ptolemaeus in Egypt Recognized, but Expelled +by His Subjects + +41. V. IV. Cyprus Annexed + +42. The loss of the lighthouse-island must have fallen out, where +there is now a chasm (B. A. 12), for the island was in fact at +first in Caesar's power (B. C. iii. 12; B. A. 8). The mole, must +have been constantly in the power of the enemy, for Caesar held +intercourse with the island only by ships. + +43. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs + +44. V. IV. Robber-Chiefs + +45. V. X. Caesar's Fleet and Army in Illyricum Destroyed + +46. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +47. Much obscurity rests on the shape assumed by the states in +northwestern Africa during this period. After the Jugurthine war +Bocchus king of Mauretania ruled probably from the western sea +to the port of Saldae, in what is now Morocco and Algiers +(IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia); the princes of Tingis +(Tangiers)--probably from the outset different from the Mauretanian +sovereigns--who occur even earlier (Plut. Serf. 9), and to whom it may +be conjectured that Sallust's Leptasta (Hist. ii. 31 Kritz) and Cicero's +Mastanesosus (In Vat. 5, 12) belong, may have been independent +within certain limits or may have held from him as feudatories; +just as Syphax already ruled over many chieftains of tribes +(Appian, Pun. 10), and about this time in the neighbouring Numidia +Cirta was possessed, probably however under Juba's supremacy, +by the prince Massinissa (Appian, B. C. iv. 54). About 672 we find +in Bocchus' stead a king called Bocut or Bogud (iv. 92; Orosius, +v. 21, 14), the son of Bocchus. From 705 the kingdom appears divided +between king Bogud who possesses the western, and king Bocchus +who possesses the eastern half, and to this the later partition +of Mauretania into Bogud's kingdom or the state of Tingis and Bocchus' +kingdom or the state of Iol (Caesarea) refers (Plin. H. N. v. 2, 19; +comp. Bell. Afric. 23). + +48. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates + +49. V. V. Resumption of the Conspiracy + +50. V. X. Reorganization of the Coalition In Africa + +51. IV. IV. Reorganization of Numidia + +52. The inscriptions of the region referred to preserve numerous +traces of this colonization. The name of the Sittii is there +unusually frequent; the African township Milev bears as Roman +the name -colonia Sarnensis-(C. I. L. viii. p. 1094) evidently from +the Nucerian river-god Sarnus (Sueton. Rhet. 4). + + + + +Notes for Chapter XI + +1. V. X. Insurrection in Alexandria + +2. The affair with Laberius, told in the well-known prologue, has +been quoted as an instance of Caesar's tyrannical caprices, but +those who have done so have thoroughly misunderstood the irony of +the situation as well as of the poet; to say nothing of +the -naivete- of lamenting as a martyr the poet who readily +pockets his honorarium. + +3. The triumph after the battle of Munda subsequently to be +mentioned probably had reference only to the Lusitanians who served +in great numbers in the conquered army. + +4. Any one who desires to compare the old and new hardships of +authors will find opportunity of doing so in the letter of Caecina +(Cicero, Aa. Fam. vi. 7). + +5. V. VI. Second Coalition of Pompeius, Crassus, and Caesar + +6. When this was written--in the year 1857--no one could foresee +how soon the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet +recorded in human annals would save the United States from this +fearful trial, and secure the future existence of an absolute +self-governing freedom not to be permanently kept in check by +any local Caesarism. + +7. V. IX. Preparation for Attacks on Caesar + +8. On the 26th January 710 Caesar is still called dictator IIII +(triumphal table); on the 18th February of this year he was already +-dictator perpetuus- (Cicero, Philip, ii. 34, 87). Comp. +Staatsrecht, ii. 3 716. + +9. IV. X. Executions + +10. The formulation of that dictatorship appears to have expressly +brought into prominence among other things the "improvement of +morals"; but Caesar did not hold on his own part an office of this +sort (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 705). + +11. Caesar bears the designation of -imperator- always without any +number indicative of iteration, and always in the first place after +his name (Staatsrecht, ii. 3 767, note 1). + +12. V. V. Rehabilitation of Saturninus and Marius + +13. During the republican period the name Imperator, which denotes +the victorious general, was laid aside with the end of the campaign; +as a permanent title it first appears in the case of Caesar. + +14. That in Caesar's lifetime the -imperium- as well as +the supreme pontificate was rendered by a formal legislative act +hereditary for his agnate descendants--of his own body or through +the medium of adoption--was asserted by Caesar the Younger as his +legal title to rule. As our traditional accounts stand, +the existence of such a law or resolution of the senate must be +decidedly called in question; but doubtless it remains possible +that Caesar intended the issue of such a decree. (Comp, +Staatsrecht, ii. 3 787, 1106.) + +15. The widely-spread opinion, which sees in the imperial office +of Imperator nothing but the dignity of general of the empire +tenable for life, is not warranted either by the signification of +the word or by the view taken by the old authorities. -Imperium- +is the power of command, -Imperator- is the possessor of that +power; in these words as in the corresponding Greek terms --kratos--, +--autokrator-- so little is there implied a specific military +reference, that it is on the contrary the very characteristic of +the Roman official power, where it appears purely and completely, +to embrace in it war and process--that is, the military and +the civil power of command--as one inseparable whole. Dio says quite +correctly (liii. 17; comp, xliii. 44; lii. 41) that the name +Imperator was assumed by the emperors "to indicate their full power +instead of the title of king and dictator (--pros deilosin teis +autotelous sphon exousias, anti teis basileos tou te diktatoros +epikleiseos--); for these other older titles disappeared in name, +but in reality the title of Imperator gives the same prerogatives +(--to de dei ergon auton tei tou autokratoros proseigoria +bebaiountai--), for instance the right of levying soldiers, +imposing taxes, declaring war and concluding peace, exercising +the supreme authority over burgess and non-burgess in and out of +the city and punishing any one at any place capitally or otherwise, and +in general of assuming the prerogatives connected in the earliest +times with the supreme imperium." It could not well be said in +plainer terms, that Imperator is nothing at all but a synonym for +rex, just as imperare coincides with regere. + +16. When Augustus in constituting the principate resumed +the Caesarian imperium, this was done with the restriction that it +should be limited as to space and in a certain sense also as to +time; the proconsular power of the emperors, which was nothing but +just this imperium, was not to come into application as regards +Rome and Italy (Staatsrecht, ii. 8 854). On this element rests +the essential distinction between the Caesarian imperium and +the Augustan principate, just as on the other hand the real equality of +the two institutions rests on the imperfection with which even in +principle and still more in practice that limit was realized. + +17. II. I. Collegiate Arrangements + +18. On this question there may be difference of opinion, whereas +the hypothesis that it was Caesar's intention to rule the Romans as +Imperator, the non-Romans as Rex, must be simply dismissed. It is +based solely on the story that in the sitting of the senate in +which Caesar was assassinated a Sibylline utterance was brought +forward by one of the priests in charge of the oracles, Lucius +Cotta, to the effect that the Parthians could only be vanquished by +a "king," and in consequence of this the resolution was adopted to +commit to Caesar regal power over the Roman provinces. This story +was certainly in circulation immediately after Caesar's death. But +not only does it nowhere find any sort of even indirect +confirmation, but it is even expressly pronounced false by +the contemporary Cicero (De Div. ii. 54, 119) and reported by the later +historians, especially by Suetonius (79) and Dio (xliv. 15) merely +as a rumour which they are far from wishing to guarantee; and it is +under such circumstances no better accredited by the fact of +Plutarch (Caes. 60, 64; Brut. 10) and Appian (B. C. ii. 110) +repeating it after their wont, the former by way of anecdote, +the latter by way of causal explanation. But the story is not merely +unattested; it is also intrinsically impossible. Even leaving out +of account that Caesar had too much intellect and too much +political tact to decide important questions of state after +the oligarchic fashion by a stroke of the oracle-machinery, he could +never think of thus formally and legally splitting up the state +which he wished to reduce to a level. + +19. II. III. Union of the Plebeians + +20. II. I. The New Community + +21. IV. X. Abolition of the Censorial Supervision of the Senate + +22. According to the probable calculation formerly assumed (iv. +113), this would yield an average aggregate number of from 1000 +to 1200 senators. + +23. This certainly had reference merely to the elections for +the years 711 and 712 (Staatsrecht, ii. a 730); but the arrangement was +doubtless meant to become permanent. + +24. I. V. The Senate as State-Council, II. I. Senate + +25. V. X. Pacification of Alexandria + +26. V. VIII. Changes in the Arrangement of Magistracies +and the Jury-System + +27. I. V. The King + +28. Hence accordingly the cautious turns of expression on +the mention of these magistracies in Caesar's laws; -cum censor aliusve +quis magistratus Romae populi censum aget (L. Jul. mun. l. 144); +praetor isve quei Romae iure deicundo praerit (L. Rubr. often); +quaestor urbanus queive aerario praerit- (L. Jul. mun. l. 37 et al.). + +29. V. III. New Arrangement as to Jurymen + +30. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +31. -Plura enim multo-, says Cicero in his treatise De Oratore +(ii. 42, 178), primarily with reference to criminal trials, +-homines iudicant odio aut amore aut cupiditate aut iracundia aut +dolore aut laetitia aut spe aut timore aut errore aut aliqua +permotione mentis, quam veritate aut praescripto aut iuris norma +aliqua aut iudicii formula aut legibus-. On this accordingly are +founded the further instructions which he gives for advocates +entering, on their profession. + +32. V. VIII. And in the Courts + +33. V. VII. Macedonia ff. + +34. V. VII. The Gallic Plan of War + +35. V. III. Overthrow of the Senatorial Rule, and New Power of Pompeius + +36. With the nomination of a part of the military tribunes by +the burgesses (III. XI. Election of Officers in the Comitia) Caesar-- +in this also a democrat--did not meddle. + +37. V. VII. The New Dacian Kingdom + +38. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform + +39. IV. VI. Political Significance of the Marian Military Reform + +40. V. V. Total Defeat of the Democratic Party + +41. Varro attests the discontinuance of the Sicilian -decumae- +in a treatise published after Cicero's death (De R. R. 2 praef.) +where he names--as the corn--provinces whence Rome derives her +subsistence--only Africa and Sardinia, no longer Sicily. +The -Latinitas-, which Sicily obtained, must thus doubtless have +included this immunity (comp. Staatsrecht, iii. 684). + +42. V. X. Field of Caesar's Power + +43. III. XI. Italian Subjects + +44. V. VIII. Clodius + +45. III. XIII. Increase of Amusements + +46. In Sicily, the country of production, the -modius- was sold +within a few years at two and at twenty sesterces; from this we may +guess what must have been the fluctuations of price in Rome, which +subsisted on transmarine corn and was the seat of speculators. + +47. IV. XII. The Finances and Public Buildings + +48. It is a fact not without interest that a political writer of +later date but much judgment, the author of the letters addressed +in the name of Sallust to Caesar, advises the latter to transfer +the corn-distribution of the capital to the several -municipia-. +There is good sense in the admonition; as indeed similar ideas +obviously prevailed in the noble municipal provision for +orphans under Trajan. + +49. V. XI. The State-Hierarchy + +50. III. XII. The Management of the Land and Its Capital + +51. The following exposition in Cicero's treatise De officiis +(i. 42) is characteristic: -Iam de artificiis et quaestibus, qui +liberales habendi, qui sordidi sint, kaec fere accepimus. Primum +improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut +portitorum, ut feneratorum. Illiberales autem et sordidi quaestus +mercenariorum omnium, quorum operae, nonaries emuntur. Est autem +in illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis. Sordidi etiam +putandi, qui mercantur a mercatoribus quod statim vendant, nihil +enim proficiant, nisi admodum mentiantur. Nec vero est quidquam +turpius vanitate. Opificesque omnes in sordida arte versantur; nec +enim quidquam ingenuum habere potest officina. Minimeque artes eae +probandae, quae ministrae sunt voluptatum, + +"Cetarii, lanii, coqui, fartores, piscatores," + +ut ait Terentius. Adde huc, si placet, unguentarios, saltatores, +totumque ludum talarium. Quibus autem artibus aut prudentia maior +inest, aut non mediocris utilitas quaeritur, ut medicina, ut +architectura, ut doctrina rerum honestarum, eae sunt iis, quorum +ordini conveniunt, honestae. Mercatura autem, si tenuis est, +sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans, +multaque sine vanitate impertiens, non est admodum vituperanda; +atque etiam, si satiata quaestu, vel contenta potius; ut saepe ex +alto in portum, ex ipso portu in agros se possessionesque +contulerit, videtur optimo iure posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum, +ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil +uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius-. According to +this the respectable man must, in strictness, be a landowner; +the trade of a merchant becomes him only so far as it is a means to +this ultimate end; science as a profession is suitable only for +the Greeks and for Romans not belonging to the ruling classes, who by +this means may purchase at all events a certain toleration of their +personal presence in genteel circles. It is a thoroughly developed +aristocracy of planters, with a strong infusion of mercantile +speculation and a slight shading of general culture. + +52. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration + +53. We have still (Macrobius, Hi, 13) the bill of fare of +the banquet which Mucius Lentulus Niger gave before 691 on entering on +his pontificate, and of which the pontifices--Caesar included--the +Vestal Virgins, and some other priests and ladies nearly related to +them partook. Before the dinner proper came sea-hedgehogs; fresh +oysters as many as the guests wished; large mussels; sphondyli; +fieldfares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel +pasties; black and white sea-acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides; +sea-nettles; becaficoes; roe-ribs; boar's-ribs; fowls dressed with +flour; becaficoes; purple shell-fish of two sorts. The dinner +itself consisted of sow's udder; boar's-head; fish-pasties; boar- +pasties; ducks; boiled teals; hares; roasted fowls; starch-pastry; +Pontic pastry. + +These are the college-banquets regarding which Varro (De R. R. iii. +2, 16) says that they forced up the prices of all delicacies. +Varro in one of his satires enumerates the following as the most +notable foreign delicacies: peacocks from Samos; grouse from +Phrygia; cranes from Melos; kids from Ambracia; tunny fishes from +Chalcedon; muraenas from the Straits of Gades; bleak-fishes +(? -aselli-) from Pessinus; oysters and scallops from Tarentum; +sturgeons (?) from Rhodes; -scarus--fishes (?) from Cilicia; nuts +from Thasos; dates from Egypt; acorns from Spain. + +54. IV. VII. Economic Crisis, IV. IX. Death of Cinna + +55. III. X. Greek National Party + +56. IV. XI. Capitalist Oligarchy + +57. III. XIII. Luxury + +58. IV. XII. Practical Use Made of Religion + +59. III. XIII. Cato's Family Life, iv. 186 f. + +60. IV. I. Achaean War + +61. IV. XII. Mixture of Peoples + +62. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +63. V. XI. Dolabella + +64. This is not stated by our authorities, but it necessarily +follows from the permission to deduct the interest paid by cash or +assignation (-si quid usurae nomine numeratum aut perscriptum +fuisset-; Sueton. Caes. 42), as paid contrary to law, from the capital. + +65. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes + +66. V. V. Preparations of the Anarchists in Etruria + +67. IV. VII. Economic Crisis + +68. The Egyptian royal laws (Diodorus, i. 79) and likewise +the legislation of Solon (Plutarch, Sol. 13, 15) forbade bonds in which +the loss of the personal liberty of the debtor was made the penalty +of non-payment; and at least the latter imposed on the debtor in +the event of bankruptcy no more than the cession of his whole assets. + +69. I. XI. Manumission + +70. II. III. Continued Distress + +71. At least the latter rule occurs in the old Egyptian royal laws +(Diodorus, i. 79). On the other hand the Solonian legislation +knows no restrictions on interest, but on the contrary expressly +allows interest to be fixed of any amount at pleasure. + +72. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +73. V. VI. Caesar's Agrarian Law + +74. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus, IV. II. The Domain Question Viewed +in Itself, IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration + +75. IV. XII. Carneades at Rome, V. III. Continued Subsistence +of the Sullan Constitution + +76. IV. X. The Roman Municipal System + +77. Of both laws considerable fragments still exist. + +78. V. XI. Diminution of the Proletariate + +79. V. VII. Gaul Subdued + +80. As according to Caesar's ordinance annually sixteen +propraetors and two proconsuls divided the governorships among +them, and the latter remained two years in office (p. 344), we +might conclude that he intended to bring the number of provinces in +all up to twenty. Certainty is, however, the less attainable as to +this, seeing that Caesar perhaps designedly instituted fewer +offices than candidatures. + +81. This is the so-called "free embassy" (-libera legatio-), namely +an embassy without any proper public commission entrusted to it. + +82. V. II. Piracy + +83. V. XI. In The Administration of the Capital + +84. V. XI. Foreign Mercenaries + +85. V. IX. In the Governorships + +86. V. XI. Financial Reforms of Caesar + +87. V. I. Organizations of Sertorius + +88. V. XI. Robberies and Damage by War + +89. V. XI. The Roman Capitalists in the Provinces + +90. V. I. Transpadanes, V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule + +91. Narbo was called the colony of the Decimani, Baeterrae of +the Septimani, Forum Julii of the Octavani, Arelate of the Sextani, +Arausio of the Secundani. The ninth legion is wanting, because it +had disgraced its number by the mutiny of Placentia (p. 246). That +the colonists of these colonies belonged to the legions from which +they took their names, is not stated and is not credible; +the veterans themselves were, at least the great majority of them, +settled in Italy (p. 358). Cicero's complaint, that Caesar "had +confiscated whole provinces and districts at a blow" (De Off. ii. +7, 27; comp. Philipp. xiii. 15, 31, 32) relates beyond doubt, as +its close connection with the censure of the triumph over +the Massiliots proves, to the confiscations of land made on account of +these colonies in the Narbonese province and primarily to +the losses of territory imposed on Massilia. + +92. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts + +93. V. XI. Other Magistracies and Attributions + +94. We are not expressly informed from whom the Latin rights of +the non-colonized townships of this region and especially of +Nemausus proceeded. But as Caesar himself (B. C. i. 35) virtually +states that Nemausus up to 705 was a Massiliot village; as +according to Livy's account (Dio, xli. 25; Flor. ii. 13; Oros. vi. +15) this very portion of territory was taken from the Massiliots by +Caesar; and lastly as even on pre-Augustan coins and then in Strabo +the town appears as a community of Latin rights, Caesar alone can +have been the author of this bestowal of Latinity. As to Ruscino +(Roussillon near Perpignan) and other communities in Narbonese Gaul +which early attained a Latin urban constitution, we can only +conjecture that they received it contemporarily with Nemausus. + +95. V. VII. Indulgence toward Existing Arrangements + +96. II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League + +97. V. X. The Leaders of the Republicans Put to Death + +98. That no community of full burgesses had more than limited +jurisdiction, is certain. But the fact, which is distinctly +apparent from the Caesarian municipal ordinance for Cisalpine Gaul, +is a surprising one--that the processes lying beyond municipal +competency from this province went not before its governor, but +before the Roman praetor; for in other cases the governor is in his +province quite as much representative of the praetor who +administers justice between burgesses as of the praetor who +administers justice between burgess and non-burgess, and is +thoroughly competent to determine all processes. Beyond doubt this +is a remnant of the arrangement before Sulla, under which in +the whole continental territory as far as the Alps the urban +magistrates alone were competent, and thus all the processes there, +where they exceeded municipal competency, necessarily came before +the praetors in Rome. In Narbo again, Gades, Carthage, Corinth, +the processes in such a case went certainly to the governor +concerned; as indeed even from practical considerations +the carrying of a suit to Rome could not well be thought of. + +99. It is difficult to see why the bestowal of the Roman franchise +on a province collectively, and the continuance of a provincial +administration for it, should be usually conceived as contrasts +excluding each other. Besides, Cisalpine Gaul notoriously obtained +the -civitas- by the Roscian decree of the people of the 11th March +705, while it remained a province as long as Caesar lived and was +only united with Italy after his death (Dio, xlviii. 12); +the governors also can be pointed out down to 711. The very fact that +the Caesarian municipal ordinance never designates the country as +Italy, but as Cisalpine Gaul, ought to have led to the right view. + +100. IV. II. The First Sicilian Slave War + +101. The continued subsistence of the municipal census-authorities +speaks for the view, that the local holding of the census had +already been established for Italy in consequence of the Social war +(Staatsrecht, ii. 8 368); but probably the carrying out of this +system was Caesar's work. + +102. II. VII. Intermediate Fuctionaries, III. III. Autonomy + +103. III. XI. Supervision of the Senate Over the Provinces +and Their Governors + +104. I. XI. Character of the Roman Law + +105. IV. XIII. Philology + +106. I. XI. Clients and Foreigners + +107. V. XI. Usury Laws + +108. V. V. Transpadanes + +109. I. XIV. Italian Measures ff. + +110. III. XII. Coins and Moneys + +111. Weights recently brought to light at Pompeii suggest +the hypothesis that at the commencement of the imperial period +alongside of the Roman pound the Attic mina (presumably in +the ratio of 3: 4) passed current as a second imperial weight +(Hermes, xvi. 311). + +112. The gold pieces, which Sulla (iv. 179) and contemporarily +Pompeius caused to be struck, both in small quantity, do not +invalidate this proposition; for they probably came to be taken +solely by weight just like the golden Phillippei which were in +circulation even down to Caesar's time. They are certainly +remarkable, because they anticipate the Caesarian imperial gold +just as Sulla's regency anticipated the new monarchy. + +113. IV. XI. Token-Money + +114. It appears, namely, that in earlier times the claims of +the state-creditors payable in silver could not be paid against their +will in gold according to its legal ratio to silver; whereas it +admits of no doubt, that from Caesar's time the gold piece had to +be taken as a valid tender for 100 silver sesterces. This was just +at that time the more important, as in consequence of the great +quantities of gold put into circulation by Caesar it stood for +a time in the currency of trade 25 per cent below the legal ratio. + +115. There is probably no inscription of the Imperial period, +which specifies sums of money otherwise than in Roman coin. + +116. Thus the Attic -drachma-, although sensibly heavier than +the -denarius-, was yet reckoned equal to it; the -tetradrachmon- of +Antioch, weighing on an average 15 grammes of silver, was made +equal to 3 Roman -denarii-, which only weigh about 12 grammes; +the -cistophorus- of Asia Minor was according to the value of silver +above 3, according to the legal tariff =2 1/2 -denarii-; the Rhodian +half -drachma- according to the value of silver=3/4, according to +the legal tariff = 5/8 of a -denarius-, and so on. + +117. III. III. Illyrian Piracy + +118. The identity of this edict drawn up perhaps by Marcus Flavius +(Macrob. Sat. i. 14, 2) and the alleged treatise of Caesar, De +Stellis, is shown by the joke of Cicero (Plutarch, Caes. 59) that +now the Lyre rises according to edict. + +We may add that it was known even before Caesar that the solar year +of 365 days 6 hours, which was the basis of the Egyptian calendar, +and which he made the basis of his, was somewhat too long. +the most exact calculation of the tropical year which the ancient world +was acquainted with, that of Hipparchus, put it at 365 d. 5 h. 52' +12"; the true length is 365 d. 5 h. 48' 48". + +119. Caesar stayed in Rome in April and Dec. 705, on each occasion +for a few days; from Sept. to Dec. 707; some four months in the autumn +of the year of fifteen months 708, and from Oct. 709 to March 710. + + + + +Notes for Chapter XII + +1. V. VIII. Clodius + +2. III. XIV. Cato's Encyclopedia + +3. These form, as is well known, the so-called seven liberal arts, +which, with this distinction between the three branches of +discipline earlier naturalized in Italy and the four subsequently +received, maintained their position throughout the middle ages. + +4. IV. XII. Latin Instruction + +5. Thus Varro (De R. R. i. 2) says: -ab aeditimo, ut dicere +didicimus a patribus nostris; ut corrigimur ab recenlibus +urbanis, ab aedituo-. + +6. The dedication of the poetical description of the earth which +passes under the name of Scymnus is remarkable in reference to +those relations. After the poet has declared his purpose of +preparing in the favourite Menandrian measure a sketch of geography +intelligible for scholars and easy to be learned by heart, he +dedicates--as Apollodorus dedicated his similar historical +compendium to Attalus Philadelphus king of Pergamus + + --athanaton aponemonta dexan Attalo + teis pragmateias epigraphein eileiphoti-- -- + +his manual to Nicomedes III king (663?-679) of Bithynia: + +--ego d' akouon, dioti ton non basileon +monos basilikein chreistoteita prosphereis +peiran epethumeis autos ep' emautou labein +kai paragenesthai kai ti basileus est' idein, +dio tei prothesei sumboulon exelexamein +... ton Apollena ton Didumei... +ou dei schedon malista kai pepeismenos +pros sein kata logon eika (koinein gar schedon +tois philomathousin anadedeichas) estian--. + +7. IV. XIII. Historical Composition + +8. V. XII. Greek Instruction + +9. Cicero testifies that the mime in his time had taken the place +of the Atellana (Ad Fam. ix. 16); with this accords the fact, that +the -mimi- and -mimae- first appear about the Sullan epoch (Ad Her. +i. 14, 24; ii. 13, 19; Atta Fr. 1 Ribbeck; Plin. H. N. vii. 43, +158; Plutarch, Sull. 2, 36). The designation -mimus-, however, is +sometimes inaccurately applied to the comedian generally. Thus +the -mimus- who appeared at the festival of Apollo in 542-543 (Festus +under -salva res est-; comp. Cicero, De Orat. ii. 59, 242) was +evidently nothing but an actor of the -palliata-, for there was at +this period no room in the development of the Roman theatre for +real mimes in the later sense. + +With the mimus of the classical Greek period--prose dialogues, +in which -genre- pictures, particularly of a rural kind, were +presented--the Roman mimus had no especial relation. + +10. With the possession of this sum, which constituted +the qualification for the first voting-class and subjected +the inheritance to the Voconian law, the boundary line was crossed +which separated the men of slender means (-tenuiores-) from +respectable people. Therefore the poor client of Catullus +(xxiii. 26) beseeches the gods to help him to this fortune. + +11. In the "Descensus ad Inferos" of Laberius all sorts of people +come forward, who have seen wonders and signs; to one there +appeared a husband with two wives, whereupon a neighbour is of +opinion that this is still worse than the vision, recently seen by +a soothsayer in a dream, of six aediles. Caesar forsooth desired-- +according to the talk of the time--to introduce polygamy in Rome +(Suetonius, Caes. 82) and he nominated in reality six aediles +instead of four. One sees from this that aberius understood +how to exercise the fool's privilege and Caesar how to permit +the fool's freedom. + +12. V. VIII. Attempts of the Regents to Check It + +13. V. XI. The Poor + +14. IV. XIII. Dramatic Arrangements + +15. He obtained from the state for every day on which he acted +1000 -denarii- (40 pounds) and besides this the pay for his +company. In later years he declined the honorarium for himself. + +16. Such an individual apparent exception as Panchaea the land of +incense (ii. 417) is to be explained from the circumstance that +this had passed from the romance of the Travels of Euhemerus +already perhaps into the poetry of Ennius, at any rate into +the poems of Lucius Manlius (iv. 242; Plin. H. N. x. a, 4) and thence +was well known to the public for which Lucretius wrote. + +17. III. XIV. Moral Effect of Tragedy + +18. This naively appears in the descriptions of war, in which +the seastorms that destroy armies, and the hosts of elephants that +trample down those who are on their own side--pictures, that is, +from the Punic wars--appear as if they belong to the immediate +present. Comp. ii. 41; v. 1226, 1303, 1339. + +19. "No doubt," says Cicero (Tusc. iii. 19, 45) in reference to +Ennius, "the glorious poet is despised by our reciters of +Euphorion." "I have safely arrived," he writes to Atticus (vii. 2 +init.), "as a most favourable north wind blew for us across from +Epirus. This spondaic line you may, if you choose, sell to one of +the new-fashioned poets as your own" (-ita belle nobis flavit ab +Epiro lenissumus Onchesmites. Hunc- --spondeiazonta-- -si cui voles +--ton neoteron-- pro tuo vendito-). + +20. V. VIII. Literature of the Opposition + +21. "For me when a boy," he somewhere says, "there sufficed +a single rough coat and a single under-garment, shoes without +stockings, a horse without a saddle; I had no daily warm bath, and +but seldom a river-bath." On account of his personal valour he +obtained in the Piratic war, where he commanded a division of +the fleet, the naval crown. + +22. V. X. The Pompeians in Spain + +23. There is hardly anything more childish than Varro's scheme of +all the philosophies, which in the first place summarily declares +all systems that do not propose the happiness of man as their +ultimate aim to be nonexistent, and then reckons the number of +philosophies conceivable under this supposition as two hundred and +eighty-eight. The vigorous man was unfortunately too much a scholar +to confess that he neither could nor would be a philosopher, +and accordingly as such throughout life he performed a blind dance- +not altogether becoming--between the Stoa, Pythagoreanism, and Diogenism. + +24. On one occasion he writes, "-Quintiforis Clodii foria ac +poemata ejus gargaridians dices; O fortuna, O fors fortuna-!" And +elsewhere, "-Cum Quintipor Clodius tot comoedias sine ulla fecerit +Musa, ego unum libellum non 'edolem' ut ait Ennius?-" This not +otherwise known Clodius must have been in all probability +a wretched imitator of Terence, as those words sarcastically laid +at his door "O fortuna, O fors fortuna!" are found occurring +in a Terentian comedy. + +The following description of himself by a poet in Varro's + --Onos Louras--, + + -Pacuvi discipulus dicor, porro is fuit Enni, + Ennius Musarum; Pompilius clueor- + +might aptly parody the introduction of Lucretius (p. 474), to whom +Varro as a declared enemy of the Epicurean system cannot have been +well disposed, and whom he never quotes. + +25. He himself once aptly says, that he had no special fondness +for antiquated words, but frequently used them, and that he was +very fond of poetical words, but did not use them. + +26. The following description is taken from the -Marcipor- +("Slave of Marcus"):-- + + -Repente noctis circiter meridie + Cum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus + Caeli chorean astricen ostenderet, + Nubes aquali, frigido velo leves + Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant, + Aquam vomentes inferam mortalibus. + Ventique frigido se ab axe eruperant, + Phrenetici septentrionum filii, + Secum ferentes tegulas, ramos, syrus. + At nos caduci, naufragi, ut ciconiae + Quarum bipennis fulminis plumas vapor + Perussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus-. + +In the --'Anthropopolis-- we find the lines: + + -Non fit thesauris, non auro pectu' solutum; + Non demunt animis curas ac relligiones + Persarum montes, non atria diviti' Crassi-. + +But the poet was successful also in a lighter vein. In the -Est +Modus Matulae- there stood the following elegant commendation of +wine:-- + + -Vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit. + Hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt, + Hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium. + Hoc continet coagulum convivia-. + +And in the --Kosmotonounei-- the wanderer returning home thus +concludes his address to the sailors: + + -Delis habenas animae leni, + Dum nos ventus flamine sudo + Suavem ad patriam perducit-. + +27. The sketches of Varro have so uncommon historical +and even poetical significance, and are yet, in consequence of +the fragmentary shape in which information regarding them has reached +us, known to so few and so irksome to study, that we may be allowed +to give in this place a resume of some of them with the few +restorations indispensable for making them readable. + +The satire Manius (Early Up!) describes the management of a rural +household. "Manius summons his people to rise with the sun, and in +person conducts them to the scene of their work. The youths make +their own bed, which labour renders soft to them, and supply +themselves with water-jar and lamp. Their drink is the clear fresh +spring, their fare bread, and onions as relish. Everything +prospers in house and field. The house is no work of art; but +an architect might learn symmetry from it. Care is taken of +the field, that it shall not be left disorderly and waste, or go to +ruin through slovenliness and neglect; in return the grateful Ceres +wards off damage from the produce, that the high-piled sheaves may +gladden the heart of the husbandman. Here hospitality still holds +good; every one who has but imbibed mother's milk is welcome. +the bread-pantry and wine-vat and the store of sausages on the rafters, +lock and key are at the service of the traveller, and piles of food +are set before him; contented sits the sated guest, looking neither +before nor behind, dozing by the hearth in the kitchen. +the warmest double-wool sheepskin is spread as a couch for him. + +"Here people still as good burgesses obey the righteous law, which +neither out of envy injures the innocent, nor out of favour pardons +the guilty. Here they speak no evil against their neighbours. +Here they trespass not with their feet on the sacred hearth, but +honour the gods with devotion and with sacrifices, throw for +the house-spirit his little bit of flesh into his appointed little +dish, and when the master of the household dies, accompany the bier +with the same prayer with which those of his father and of his +grandfather were borne forth." + +In another satire there appears a "Teacher of the Old" +(--Gerontodidaskalos--), of whom the degenerate age seems to stand +more urgently in need than of the teacher of youth, and he explains +how "once everything in Rome was chaste and pious," and now all +things are so entirely changed. "Do my eyes deceive me, or do I +see slaves in arms against their masters?--Formerly every one who +did not present himself for the levy, was sold on the part of +the state into slavery abroad; now the censor who allows cowardice and +everything to pass is called [by the aristocracy, III. XI. Separation +Of the Orders in the Theatre; IV. X. Shelving of the Censorship, V. III. +Renewal of the Censorship; V. VIII. Humiliations of the Republicans] +a great citizen, and earns praise because he does not seek +to make himself a name by annoying his fellow-citizens.-- +Formerly the Roman husbandman had his beard shaven once every week; +now the rural slave cannot have it fine enough.--Formerly one saw +on the estates a corn-granary, which held ten harvests, spacious +cellars for the wine-vats and corresponding wine-presses; now +the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid +with African cypress-wood.--Formerly the housewife turned +the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on +the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it +is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for +a pound of precious stones, and the wife her husband for a bushel of +pearls.--Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful; +now the wife surrenders herself to the first coachman that comes.-- +Formerly the blessing of children was woman's pride; now if her +husband desires for himseli children, she replies: Knowest thou not +what Ennius says? + + "'-Ter sub armis malim vitam cernere Quam semel modo parere--.--' + +"Formerly the wife was quite content, when the husband once or twice +in the year gave her a trip to the country in the uncushioned +waggon;" now, he could add (comp. Cicero, Pro Mil. 21, 55), "the +wife sulks if her husband goes to his country estate without her, +and the travelling lady is attended to the villa by the fashionable +host of Greek menials and the choir." --In a treatise of a graver +kind, "Catus or the Training of Children," Varro not only instructs +the friend who had asked him for advice on that point, regarding +the gods who were according to old usage to be sacrificed to for +the children's welfare, but, referring to the more judicious mode +of rearing children among the Persians and to his own strictly +spent youth, he warns against over-feeding and over-sleeping, +against sweet bread and fine fare--the whelps, the old man thinks, +are now fed more judiciously than the children--and likewise +against the enchantresses' charms and blessings, which in cases of +sickness so often take the place of the physician's counsel. He +advises to keep the girls at embroidery, that they may afterwards +understand how to judge properly of embroidered and textile work, +and not to allow them to put off the child's dress too early; he +warns against carrying boys to the gladiatorial games, in which +the heart is early hardened and cruelty learned.--In the "Man of Sixty +Years" Varro appears as a Roman Epimenides who had fallen asleep +when a boy of ten and waked up again after half a century. He is +astonished to find instead of his smooth-shorn boy's head an old +bald pate with an ugly snout and savage bristles like a hedgehog; +but he is still more astonished at the change in Rome. Lucrine +oysters, formerly a wedding dish, are now everyday fare; for which, +accordingly, the bankrupt glutton silently prepares the incendiary +torch. While formerly the father disposed of his boy, now +the disposal is transferred to the latter: he disposes, forsooth, of +his father by poison. The Comitium had become an exchange, +the criminal trial a mine of gold for the jurymen. No law is any +longer obeyed save only this one, that nothing is given for +nothing. All virtues have vanished; in their stead the awakened +man is saluted by impiety, perfidy, lewdness, as new denizens. +"Alas for thee, Marcus, with such a sleep and such an awakening!"-- +The sketch resembles the Catilinarian epoch, shortly after which +(about 697) the old man must have written it, and there lay a truth +in the bitter turn at the close; where Marcus, properly reproved +for his unseasonable accusations and antiquarian reminiscences, is-- +with a mock application of a primitive Roman custom--dragged as +a useless old man to the bridge and thrown into the Tiber. There was +certainly no longer room for such men in Rome. + +28. "The innocent," so ran a speech, "thou draggest forth, +trembling in every limb, and on the high margin of the river's bank +in the dawn of the morning" [thou causest them to be slaughtered]. +Several such phrases, that might be inserted without difficulty in +a commonplace novel, occur. + +29. V. XII. Poems in Prose + +30. V. XII. Catullus + +31. V. XII. Greek Literati in Rome + +32. That the treatise on the Gallic war was published all at once, +has been long conjectured; the distinct proof that it was so, is +furnished by the mention of the equalization of the Boii and +the Haedui already in the first book (c. 28) whereas the Boii still +occur in the seventh (c. 10) as tributary subjects of the Haedui, +and evidently only obtained equal rights with their former masters +on account of their conduct and that of the Haedui in the war +against Vercingetorix. On the other hand any one who attentively +follows the history of the time will find in the expression as to +the Milonian crisis (vii. 6) a proof that the treatise was published +before the outbreak of the civil war; not because Pompeius is there +praised, but because Caesar there approves the exceptional laws of +702.(p. 146) This he might and could not but do, so long as he +sought to bring about a peaceful accommodation with Pompeius,( p. +175) but not after the rupture, when he reversed the condemnations +that took place on the basis of those laws injurious for him.(p. +316) Accordingly the publication of this treatise has been quite +rightly placed in 703. + +The tendency of the work we discern most distinctly in +the constant, often--most decidedly, doubtless, in the case of the +Aquitanian expedition (III. XI. The Censorship A Prop of the Nobility)-- +not successful, justification of every single act of war as +a defensive measure which the state of things had rendered inevitable. +That the adversaries of Caesar censured his attacks on the Celts +and Germans above all as unprovoked, is well known (Sueton. Caes. 24). + +33. V. XI. Amnesty + +34. V. XII. The New Roman Poetry + +35. V. XI. Caelius and Milo + +36. V. IX. Curio, V. X. Death of Curio + +37. IV. XIII. Sciences + +38. A remarkable example is the general exposition regarding +cattle in the treatise on Husbandry (ii. 1) with the nine times +nine subdivisions of the doctrine of cattle-rearing, with +the "incredible but true" fact that the mares at Olisipo (Lisbon) +become pregnant by the wind, and generally with its singular +mixture of philosophical, historical, and agricultural notices. + +39. Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who +makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after +Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius, +a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra +cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth. This +practice, which appears not merely in isolated instances but as +a main element of the philological literature of this age, presents +a very great resemblance to the mode in which till recently +comparative philology was prosecuted, before insight into +the organism of language put a stop to the occupation of the empirics. + +40. V. XII. Grammatical Science + +41. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period + +42. V. XI. Reform of the Calendar + +43. V. XII. Dramatic Spectacles + +44. Such "Greek entertainments" were very frequent not merely in +the Greek cities of Italy, especially in Naples (Cic. pro Arch. 5, +10; Plut. Brut. 21), but even now also in Rome (iv. 192; Cic. Ad +Fam. vii. 1, 3; Ad Att. xvi. 5, 1; Sueton. Caes. 39; Plut. Brut. +21). When the well-known epitaph of Licinia Eucharis fourteen +years of age, which probably belongs to the end of this period, +makes this "girl well instructed and taught in all arts by +the Muses themselves" shine as a dancer in the private exhibitions of +noble houses and appear first in public on the Greek stage (-modo +nobilium ludos decoravi choro, et Graeca in scaena prima populo +apparui-), this doubtless can only mean that she was the first girl +that appeared on the public Greek stage in Rome; as generally +indeed it was not till this epoch that women began to come forward +publicly in Rome (p. 469). + +These "Greek entertainments" in Rome seem not to have been properly +scenic, but rather to have belonged to the category of composite +exhibitions--primarily musical and declamatory--such as were not of +rare occurrence in subsequent times also in Greece (Welcker, +Griech. Trag., p. 1277). This view is supported by the prominence +of flute-playing in Polybius (xxx. 13) and of dancing in +the account of Suetonius regarding the armed dances from Asia Minor +performed at Caesar's games and in the epitaph of Eucharis; +the description also of the -citharoedus- (Ad Her. iv. 47, 60; comp. +Vitruv. v. 5, 7) must have been derived from such "Greek +entertainments." The combinations of these representations in Rome +with Greek athletic combats is significant (Polyb. l. c.; Liv. +xxxix. 22). Dramatic recitations were by no means excluded from +these mixed entertainments, since among the players whom Lucius +Anicius caused to appear in 587 in Rome, tragedians are expressly +mentioned; there was however no exhibition of plays in the strict +sense, but either whole dramas, or perhaps still more frequently +pieces taken from them, were declaimed or sung to the flute by +single artists. This must accordingly have been done also in Rome; +but to all appearance for the Roman public the main matter in these +Greek games was the music and dancing, and the text probably had +little more significance for them than the texts of the Italian +opera for the Londoners and Parisians of the present day. Those +composite entertainments with their confused medley were far better +suited for the Ionian public, and especially for exhibitions in +private houses, than proper scenic performances in the Greek +language; the view that the latter also took place in Rome cannot +be refuted, but can as little be proved. + +45. V. XI. Sciences of General Culture at This Period + + + +End of Notes for Volume V + + + +TABLE OF CALENDAR EQUIVALENTS + +A.U.C.* B.C. B.C. A.U.C. +--------------------------------------------------------------- +000 753 753 000 + 025 728 750 003 + 050 703 725 028 + 075 678 700 053 +100 653 675 078 + 125 628 650 103 + 150 603 625 128 + 175 578 600 153 +200 553 575 178 + 225 528 550 203 + 250 503 525 228 + 275 478 500 253 +300 453 475 278 + 325 428 450 303 + 350 303 425 328 + 375 378 400 353 +400 353 375 378 + 425 328 350 403 + 450 303 325 428 + 475 278 300 453 +500 253 275 478 + 525 228 250 503 + 550 203 225 528 + 575 178 200 553 +600 153 175 578 + 625 128 150 603 + 650 103 125 628 + 675 078 100 653 +700 053 075 678 + 725 028 050 703 + 750 003 025 728 + 753 000 000 753 + +*A. U. C.--Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK V*** + + +******* This file should be named 10705.txt or 10705.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10705 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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