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Cato proposes to deliver Cæsar to the Germans.

VIII. About the same time, the news arrived at Rome of the defeat of the Usipetes and Tencteri, of the passage of the Rhine, and of the descent in Britain; they excited a warm enthusiasm, and the Senate decreed twenty days of thanksgiving.⁶⁷⁹ The last expedition especially made a great impression on people’s minds; it was like the discovery of a new world; the national pride was flattered at learning that the legions had penetrated into an unknown country, from which immense advantages for the Republic were promised.⁶⁸⁰ Yet all were not dazzled by the military successes; some pretended that Cæsar had crossed, not the ocean, but a mere pool,⁶⁸¹ and Cato, persevering in his hatred, proposed to deliver him to the Germans. He accused him of having attacked them at the moment when they were sending deputies, and, by this violation of the law of nations, drawn upon Rome the anger of Heaven; “they must,” he said, “turn it upon the head of the perfidious general:” an impotent diatribe, which did not prevail against the public feeling!⁶⁸² Yet, as soon as Cæsar was informed of it, too sensitive, perhaps, to the insult, he wrote to the Senate a letter full of invectives and accusations against Cato. The latter at first repelled them calmly; then, taking advantage of the circumstance, he began to paint, in the darkest colours, Cæsar’s pretended designs. “It was,” he said, “neither the Germans nor the Gauls they had to fear, but this ambitious man, whose designs were apparent to everybody.” These words produced a strong impression on an auditory already prejudiced unfavourably. Nevertheless, the fear of the public opinion prevented any decision; for, according to Plutarch, “Cato made no impression outside the Senate; the people desired that Cæsar should be raised to the highest power, and the Senate, though it was of the same opinion as Cato, dared not to act, through fear of the people.”⁶⁸³

CHAPTER V.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 700

Second Descent in England.

I. THE expedition to England, in 699, may be said to have been only a reconnoitring visit, showing the necessity of more numerous forces and more considerable preparations to subjugate the warlike people of Great Britain. Accordingly, before starting for Italy, Cæsar gave orders to build on the coast, and especially at the mouth of the Seine, a great number of ships fitted for the transport of troops. In the month of June he left Italy, visited his stocks where the vessels were building, appointed Boulogne as the general rendezvous of his fleet, and, while it was assembling, marched rapidly, with four legions, towards the country of the Treviri, where the inhabitants, who had rebelled against his orders, were divided into two parties, having at their head, one Indutiomarus, and the other Cingetorix. He gave the power to the latter, who was favourable to the Romans. After having thus calmed the agitation of that country, Cæsar repaired at once to Boulogne, where he found 800 ships ready to put to sea; he embarked with five legions and 2,000 cavalry, and, without any resistance, landed, as in the year before, near Deal. A first successful combat, not far from Kingston, engaged him to continue his advance, when he received information that a tempest had just destroyed part of his fleet; he then returned to the coast, took the measures necessary for repairing this new disaster, caused all his ships to be drawn on land, and surrounded them with a retrenchment adjoining to the camp. He next marched towards the Thames. On his way he encountered the Britons, who, vanquished in two successive combats, had nevertheless more than once scattered trouble and disorder through the ranks of the legions, thanks to their chariots; these engines of war, mixed with the cavalry, spread terror and disconcerted the Roman tactics. Cæsar forced the passage of the Thames at Sunbury, went to attack the citadel of Cassivellaunus near St. Albans, and obtained possession of it. Several tribes, situated to the south of that river, made their submission. Then, dreading the approach of the equinox, and especially the troubles which might break out in Gaul during his absence, he returned to the continent.

Displacement of the Army. Disaster of Sabinus.

II. Immediately on his return, he placed his legions in winter quarters: Sabinus and Cotta at Tongres; Cicero at Charleroi; Labienus at Lavacherie, on the Ourthe; Fabius at Saint-Pol; Trebonius at Amiens; Crassus at Montdidier; Plancus at Champlieu; and, lastly, Roscius in the country of Séez. This displacement of the army, rendered necessary by the difficulty of provisioning it, separated by great distances the quarters from each other, though all, except that of Roscius, were comprised in a radius of 100 miles.

As in the preceding years, Cæsar believed he might repair into Italy; but Gaul still chafed under the yoke of the foreigner, and, while the people of Orleans massacred Tasgetius, who had been given them for their king three years before, events of a more serious character were in preparation in the countries situate between the Rhine and the Meuse. The people of Liége, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus, revolt and attack, at Tongres, the camp occupied by Sabinus and Cotta with fifteen cohorts. Unable to take it by assault, they have recourse to stratagem: they spread abroad the report of the departure of Cæsar, and of the revolt of the whole of Gaul; they offer the two lieutenants to let them go, without obstacle, to rejoin the nearest winter quarters. Sabinus assembles a council of war, in which Cotta, an old experienced soldier, refused all arrangement with the enemy; but, as often happens in such meetings, the majority rallies to the least energetic opinion; the fifteen cohorts, trusting in the promise of the Gauls, abandon their impregnable position, and begin their march. On arriving at the defile of Lowaige, they are attacked and massacred by the barbarians, who had placed themselves in an ambuscade in the woods. Ambiorix, emboldened by this success, raises all the peoples on his way, and hastens, at Charleroi, to attack the camp of Cicero. The legion, though taken unexpectedly, defends itself bravely, but the Gauls have learnt from deserters the art of besieging fortresses in the Roman manner; they raise towers, construct covered galleries, and surround the camp with a countervallation. Meanwhile Cicero has found the means of informing Cæsar of his critical position. The latter was at Amiens; the morrow of the day on which he receives this news, he starts with two legions, and sends a Gaul to announce his approach. The assailants, informed on their part of Cæsar’s march, abandon the siege, and go to meet him. The two armies encounter near the little stream of the Haine, at fourteen kilomètres from Charleroi. Shut up in his retrenchments on Mont Sainte-Aldegonde, Cæsar counterfeits fear, in order to provoke the Gauls to attack him; and when they rush upon the ramparts to storm them, he sallies out through all the gates, puts the enemies to the rout, and strews the ground with their dead. The same day he rejoins Cicero, congratulates the soldiers on their courage, and his lieutenant for having been faithful to the Roman principle of never entering into negotiation with an enemy in arms. For the moment this victory defeated at one blow the aggressive attempts of the populations on the banks of the Rhine against Labienus, and those of the maritime peoples on the coasts of the Straits against Roscius; but soon new disturbances arose: the inhabitants of the state of Sens expelled Cavarinus, whom Cæsar had given them for king; and, a little later, Labienus was forced to combat the inhabitants of the country of Trèves, whom he defeated in an engagement in which Indutiomarus was slain. With the exception of the peoples of Burgundy and Champagne, all Gaul was in fermentation, which obliged Cæsar to pass the winter in it.

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher, Consuls.

III. During this time, the struggle of parties continued at Rome, and Pompey, charged with the supplying of provisions, having under his orders lieutenants and legions, posted himself at the gates of the town; his presence in Italy, a pledge of order and tranquillity, was accepted by all good citizens.⁶⁸⁴ His influence was, as Cæsar thought, to paralyse that of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had obtained the consulship. In fact, when on the preceding occasion Crassus and Pompey placed themselves on the ranks as candidates for the consulship, the opposite party, hopeless of defeating both, had sought the admission of at least one of their candidates. They tried again the manœuvre they had employed in 695, by which they succeeded in the nomination of Bibulus as the colleague of Cæsar. The attempt had failed; but, at the moment when the question of the election of consuls for the year 700 was agitated, the aristocratic party, having no longer to contend against persons of such eminence as Crassus and Pompey, obtained without difficulty the election of Ahenobarbus. This latter represented alone, in that high magistracy, the passions hostile to the triumvirs, since his colleague Appius Claudius Pulcher was still, at that epoch, favourable to Cæsar.

The authority of the consuls, whoever they might be, was powerless for remedying the demoralisation of the upper classes, which was revealed by numerous symptoms at Rome as well as in the provinces. Cicero himself, as the following event proves, treated legality with contempt when it interfered with his affections or political opinions.

Re-establishment of Ptolemy in Egypt.

IV. The Sibylline oracle, it will be remembered, had forbidden recourse to arms for the purpose of restoring Ptolemy, King of Egypt, to his states. In spite of this prohibition, Cicero, as early as the year 698, had engaged P. Lentulus, proconsul in Cilicia and in Cyprus, to re-establish him by force, and, to encourage this enterprise, he had suggested to him the prospect of impunity in success, without, however, concealing from him that, in case of reverse, the legal question, as well, as the religious question, would assume a threatening form.⁶⁸⁵ Lentulus had thought it prudent to abstain; but Gabinius, proconsul in Syria in the following year, had not shown the same degree of scruple. Bribed by the king, some said, but, as others said, having received orders from Pompey, he had left his son in Syria with a few troops, and had marched with his legions towards Egypt.

After having, on his way, plundered Judæa, and sent prisoner to Rome its king Aristobulus, he crossed the desert, and arrived before Pelusium. A certain Archelaus, who was looked upon as a good general, and had served under Mithridates, was detained in Syria. Gabinius, informed that Queen Berenice wished to place him at the head of her army, and that she offered a large sum of money for his ransom, immediately set him at liberty, showing thereby as much avidity for riches as contempt for the Egyptians. He defeated them in several battles, slew Archelaus, and entered Alexandria, where he re-established Ptolemy on the throne, and the latter, it is said, gave him 10,000 talents.⁶⁸⁶ In this expedition, Mark Antony, who was soon to be Cæsar’s quæstor, commanded the cavalry; he distinguished himself by his intrepidity and by his military talent.⁶⁸⁷ This was the commencement of his fortune.

Gabinius, if we believe Dio Cassius, took good care not to send an account of his conduct, but it was not long in becoming known, and he was compelled to return to Rome, where serious accusations awaited him. Unfortunately for him, when the period of his trial came on, Pompey, his protector, was no longer consul.

Gabinius had to undergo in succession two accusations: he was acquitted of the first, on the double head of sacrilege and high treason, because he paid heavy bribes to his judges.⁶⁸⁸ As to the second accusation, relating to acts of extortion, he experienced more difficulties. Pompey, who had been obliged to absent himself, in order to provide for the provisioning with which he was charged, hastened to the gates of Rome, which his office of proconsul did not allow him to enter, convoked an assembly of the people outside the Pomœrium, employed all his authority, and even read letters from Cæsar, in favour of the accused. Still more, he begged Cicero to undertake his defence, and Cicero accepted the task, forgetting the invectives with which he had overwhelmed Gabinius before the Senate. All these efforts failed: it was necessary to yield to the rage of the public opinion, skilfully excited by the enemies of Gabinius; and the latter, condemned, went into exile, where he remained until Cæsar’s dictatorship.⁶⁸⁹

Corruption of the Elections.

V. We are astonished to see personages such as Pompey and Cæsar protecting men who seem to have borne such bad character as Gabinius; but, to judge with impartiality the men of that period, we must not forget, in the first place, that there were very few without blemish, and, further, that the political parties never hesitated in throwing upon their adversaries the most odious calumnies. Gabinius, belonging to the popular faction, and the partisan of Pompey, had incurred the hatred of the aristocracy and of the farmers of the revenues. The nobles never pardoned him for being the author of the law which had entrusted to Pompey the command of the expedition against the pirates, and for having shown, during his proconsulship in Syria, want of deference in regard to the Senate. So that assembly refused, in 698, to order thanksgivings for his victories.⁶⁹⁰ The farmers of the revenues bore ill-will towards him on account of his decrees against usury,⁶⁹¹ and his solicitude for the interests of his province.⁶⁹² This proconsul, who is represented as an adventurer pillaging those under his administration, appears to have governed Judæa with justice, and to have restored with skill, on his return from Egypt, the order which had been disturbed during his absence. His military capacity cannot be called in doubt. In speaking of him, the historian Josephus closes with these words his account of the battle against the Nabathæi: “This great captain, after so many exploits, returned to Rome, and Crassus succeeded him in the government of Syria.”⁶⁹³ Nevertheless, it is very probable that Gabinius was not more scrupulous than the other proconsuls in matter of probity; for, if corruption then displayed itself with impudence in the provinces, it was perhaps still more shameless in Rome. The following is a striking example. Two candidates for the consulship, Domitius Calvinus and Memmius Gemellus, united their clients and resources of all kinds to obtain the first magistracy. In their desire to procure the support of Ahenobarbus and Claudius Pulcher, the consuls in office, they engaged by writing to secure for them, on their quitting office, the provinces they desired, and that by a double fraud: they promised first to bring three augurs to affirm the existence of a supposititious curiate law, and then to find two consulars who would declare that they had assisted at the regulation relative to the distribution of the provinces; in case of non-performance, there was stipulated, for the profit of the consuls, 400,000 sestertii.⁶⁹⁴ This shameless traffic and others of the same kind, in which were compromised Æmilius Scaurus and Valerius Messala, had caused the interest of money to be doubled.⁶⁹⁵ The bargain would probably have been carried out, if, in consequence of a quarrel between the two consuls, Memmius had not denounced the convention in full Senate, and produced the contract. The scandal was enormous, but it remained unpunished as regarded the consuls.

Memmius, formerly Cæsar’s enemy, had recently joined his party; nevertheless, the latter, incensed at his impudence, blamed his conduct, and abandoned him; Memmius was exiled.⁶⁹⁶ As to Domitius, he was, it is true, accused of solicitation, and the Senate intended absolutely to close the consulship against him by deciding that the consular comitia should not be held until after judgment had been given on his trial.

All these facts bear witness to the decay of society, for the moral degradation of the individuals must infallibly bring with it the abasement of the institutions.

Death of Cæsar’s Daughter.

VI. Towards the month of August of the year 700, Cæsar lost his mother Aurelia, and, a few days afterwards, his daughter Julia. The latter, whose health had been declining since the troubles of the preceding year, had become pregnant; she died in giving birth to a son, which did not survive. Cæsar was painfully affected by this misfortune,⁶⁹⁷ of which he received the news during his expedition to Britain.⁶⁹⁸ Pompey was desirous of burying his wife in his estate of Alba; but the populace opposed it, carried the body to the Campus Martius, and insisted on its being buried there. By that rare privilege reserved to illustrious men, the people sought, according to Plutarch, to honour rather the daughter of Cæsar than the wife of Pompey.⁶⁹⁹ This death broke one of the ties which united the two most important men of the Republic. To create new ties, Cæsar proposed his niece Octavia in marriage to Pompey, whose daughter he offered to espouse, although she was already married to Faustus Sylla.⁷⁰⁰

Cæsar’s Buildings at Rome.

VII. At the same period, the proconsul of Gaul was, with the produce of his booty, rebuilding at Rome a magnificent edifice, the old basilica of the Forum, which was extended as far as to the Temple of Liberty. “It will be the most beautiful thing in the world,” says Cicero; “there will be in the Campus Martius seven electoral enclosures and galleries of marble which will be surrounded with great porticoes of a thousand paces. Near it will be a public villa.” Paulus was charged with the execution of the works; Cicero and Oppius considered that 60,000,000 sestertii was a small sum for such an undertaking.⁷⁰¹ According to Pliny, the mere purchase of the site in the Forum cost Cæsar the sum of 100,000,000 sestertii.⁷⁰² This building, interrupted by events, was only finished after the African war.⁷⁰³

His Relations with Cicero.

VIII. While Cæsar was gaining, by these works destined for the public, the general admiration, he neglected none of those attentions which were of a nature to ensure him the alliance of men of importance. Cicero, as we have seen, was already reconciled with him, and Cæsar had done all in his power to gain his attachment still further. He flattered his self-love, listened to all his recommendations,⁷⁰⁴ treating with great friendship Quintus Cicero, whom he had made one of his lieutenants; he went so far as to place at the disposal of the great orator his credit and fortune,⁷⁰⁵ and accordingly Cicero was in continual correspondence with him. He composed, as we have seen, poems in his honour, and he wrote to Quintus “that he placed above everything the friendship of such a man, whose affection he prized as much as that of his brother and children.”⁷⁰⁶ Elsewhere he said: “The memorable and truly divine behaviour of Cæsar towards me and towards my brother has imposed upon me the duty of seconding him in all his designs.”⁷⁰⁷ And he had kept his word. It was at Cæsar’s request that Cicero had consented to resume his old friendly relations with Crassus,⁷⁰⁸ and to defend Gabinius and Rabirius. This last, compromised in the affairs of Egypt, was accused of having received great sums of money from King Ptolemy; but Cicero proved that he was poor, and reduced to live upon Cæsar’s generosity, and, in the course of the trial, he expressed himself as follows: —

“Will you, judges, know the truth? If the generosity of C. Cæsar, extreme towards everybody, had not, in regard to Rabirius, passed all belief, we should have ceased long ago to see him in the Forum. Cæsar singly performs towards Postumus the duty of his numerous friends; and the services which these rendered to his prosperity, Cæsar lavishes them upon his adversity. Postumus is no longer more than the shadow of a Roman knight; if he preserves this title, it is by the protection, by the devotedness of a single friend. This phantom of his old rank, which Cæsar alone has preserved for him and assists him in sustaining, is the only wealth that we can now take from him. And this is a reason why we ought the more to maintain him in it in his distress. It cannot be the effect of a mean merit, to inspire, absent and in misfortune, so much interest in such a man, who, in so lofty a fortune, does not disdain to cast down his looks on the affairs of others. In that pre-occupation with the great things which he is doing or has done, we should not be astonished if we saw him forget his friends, and, if he forgot them, he would easily obtain forgiveness.

“I have recognised in Cæsar very eminent and wonderful qualities; but his other virtues are, as on a vast theatre, exposed to the gaze of nations. To choose with skill the place for a camp, to marshal an army, to take fortresses, break through enemies’ lines, face the rigour of winter and those frosts which we support with difficulty in the bosom of our towns and houses, to pursue the enemy in that same season when the wild beasts hide in the depth of their retreats, and where everywhere the law of nations gives a truce to combats: these are great things; who denies it? but they have for their motive the most magnificent of recompenses, the hope of living for ever in men’s memory. Such efforts cause us no surprise in the man who aspires to immortality.

“But this is the glory which I admire in Cæsar, a glory which is neither celebrated by the verses of poets nor by the monuments of history, but which is weighed in the balance of the sage: a Roman knight, his old friend, attached, devoted, affectioned to his person, had been ruined, not by his excesses, not by shameful extravagance and the losses brought on by indulgence of the passions, but by a speculation which had for its object to augment his patrimony: Cæsar has arrested him in his descent; he has not suffered him to fall, he has held out his hand to him, has sustained him with his wealth, with his credit, and he still sustains him at the present time; he holds back his friend on the edge of the precipice, and the calm of his mind is no more disturbed by the brightness of his own name, than his eyes are dazzled by the blaze of his glory. May the actions of which I have spoken be as great in our esteem as they are in reality! Let people think what they will of my opinion in this respect; but when I see, in the bosom of such a power and of such a prodigious fortune, this generosity towards others, this unforgetfulness of friendship, I prefer them to all the other virtues. And you, judges, far from this character of goodness, so new and so rare among considerable and illustrious men, being disdained or repulsed by you, you should wrap it up in your favour, and seek to encourage it; you should do this the more, since this moment seems to have been chosen for attacking Cæsar’s consideration, although, in this respect, we could do nothing but he supports it with constancy or repairs it without difficulty. But if he hears that one of his best friends has been struck in his honour, it will be with the deepest pain, and to him an irreparable misfortune.”⁷⁰⁹

In another circumstance, Cicero explained as follows the reason of his attachment for the conqueror of Gaul: “Should I refuse my praises to Cæsar, when I know that the people, and, after its example, the Senate, from which my heart has never been severed, have shown their esteem for him by loud and multiplied testimonies? Then, without doubt, it must be confessed that the general interest has no influence on my sentiments, and that individuals alone are the objects of my hatred or of my friendship! What then? Should I see my vessel float with full sails towards a port which, without being the same which I preferred formerly, is neither less sure nor less tranquil, and, at the risk of my life, wrestle against the tempest rather than trust myself to the skill of the pilot who promises to save me? No, there is no inconstancy in following the movements which storms impress on the vessel of the state. For me, I have learned, I have recognized, I have read a truth, and the writers of our nation, as well as those of other peoples, have consecrated it in their works by the example of the wisest and most illustrious of men; it is, that we ought not to persist irrevocably in our opinions, but that we ought to accept the sentiments which are required by the situation of the state, the diversity of conjunctures, and the interests of peace.”⁷¹⁰

In his Oration against Piso, he exclaims: “It would be impossible for me, in contemplation of the great things which Cæsar has done, and which he is doing every day, not to be his friend. Since he has the command of your armies, it is no longer the rampart of the Alps which I seek to oppose to the invasion of the Gauls; it is no longer by means of the barrier of the Rhine, with all its gurges, that I seek to arrest the fierce Germanic nations. Cæsar has done so much that, if the mountains should be levelled, and the rivers dried, our Italy, deprived of her natural fortifications, would find, in the result of his victories and exploits, a safe defence.”⁷¹¹

The warm expansion of such sentiments must have touched Cæsar, and inspired him with confidence; therefore he earnestly engaged Cicero not to quit Rome.⁷¹²

The influence of Cæsar continued to increase, as the letters and orations of Cicero sufficiently testify. If it was required to raise citizens such as C. Messius, M. Orfius, M. Curtius, C. Trebatius,⁷¹³ to elevated positions, or to excite the interest of the judges in favour of an accused, as in the trials of Balbus, Rabirius, and Gabinius, it was always the same support which was invoked.⁷¹⁴