The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61
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.