The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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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very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn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.