The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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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.