The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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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.