Читать книгу: «History of Julius Caesar Vol. 2 of 2», страница 22
CHAPTER VI.
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 701
Expedition to the North of Gaul. Second Passage of the Rhine.
I. THE disturbed state of Gaul and the loss of fifteen cohorts at Tongres obliged Cæsar to augment his army; he raised two legions in the Cisalpine, and asked for a third from Pompey. Again at the head of ten legions, Cæsar, with his usual activity, hastened to repress the incipient insurrections. From the Scheldt to the Rhine, from the Seine to the Loire, most of the peoples were in arms. Those of Trèves had called the Suevi to their assistance.
Without waiting for the end of winter, Cæsar brought together four legions at Amiens, and, falling unexpectedly upon the peoples of Hainault, forced from them a speedy submission. Then he convoked in this latter town the general assembly of Gaul; but the peoples of Sens, Orleans, and Trèves did not repair to it. He then transferred the assembly to Paris, and afterwards marched upon Sens, where his appearance sufficed to pacify not only that country, but also that of Orleans. Having thus appeased in a short time the troubles of the north and centre of Gaul, he directed all his attention towards the countries situated between the Rhine and the Meuse, where Ambiorix continued to excite revolt. He was impatient to avenge upon him the defeat of Sabinus; but, to make more sure of overtaking him, he resolved first to make two expeditions, one into Brabant, the other into the country of Trèves, and in this manner to cut off that chieftain from all retreat, either on the side of the north, or on the side of the east, where the Germans were.
He advanced in person towards Brabant, which he soon reduced to obedience. During this time, Labienus gained, on the banks of the Ourthe, a great victory over the inhabitants of the country of Trèves. At the news of this defeat, the Germans, who had already crossed the Rhine, returned home. Cæsar rejoined Labienus on the territory of Trèves, and, determined to chastise the Suevi, he a second time crossed the Rhine, near Bonn, a little above the place where he had built a bridge two years before. After compelling the Suevi to take refuge in the interior of their territory, he returned to Gaul, caused a part of the bridge to be cut, and left a strong garrison on the left bank.
Pursuit of Ambiorix.
II. Having thus rendered all retreat impossible to Ambiorix, he advanced with his army towards the country of Liége by way of Zulpich and Eupen, across the forest of the Ardennes. Having arrived on the Meuse, he divided his troops into three corps, and sent all his baggage with the 14th legion, under the command of Cicero, into the fortress of Tongres, the scene of the disaster of Sabinus. Of these three corps, the first was sent towards the north, near the southern frontiers of Brabant; the second towards the west, between the Meuse and the Demer; and the third marched towards the Scheldt, under the command of Cæsar, whose intention was to gain the extremity of the forest of the Ardennes between Brussels and Antwerp, where Ambiorix was said to have taken refuge. When he quitted Tongres, he announced that he should return in seven days. But, unwilling to risk his troops on difficult ground, against men who, scattered, carried on a war of partisans, he sent messengers to invite the neighbouring peoples to go and ravage the country of Liége, and, at his call, all hurried to take part in the pillage. Among them 2,000 Sicambrian cavalry, attracted from beyond the Rhine, conceived the idea of falling upon Cicero’s camp in order to carry off the riches it contained. They arrived at the moment when a part of the garrison had gone to forage. It was with great difficulty, and with the loss of two cohorts, that the Romans repulsed this attack. The devastation of the country of Liége was completed, but Ambiorix escaped.
The defeat of Sabinus at Tongres thus cruelly avenged, Cæsar returned to Rheims, convoked there the assembly of Gaul, and caused judgment to be passed on the conspiracy of the peoples of Sens and Orleans. Acco, the head of the revolt, was condemned to death and executed, and Cæsar, after placing his legions in winter quarters in the countries watered by the Moselle, the Marne, and the Yonne, repaired to Italy.
C. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messala, Consuls.
III. At Rome, the legal working of the institutions was incessantly clogged by the ambitions of individuals. The year 700 had closed without the holding of the consular comitia. Sometimes the tribunes of the people, the only magistrates whose elections took place on a fixed day, opposed the holding of the comitia; sometimes the interreges themselves failed to obtain favourable auspices, or, in moments of trouble, dared not assemble the people.715 The boldness of the agitators of all parties explains this anarchy.
Weary of intrigues and disorder, the public opinion looked for the end of it only from a new power, which wrests from Cicero this painful confession: “The Republic is without force; Pompey alone is powerful.”716 Already people even spoke of the dictatorship.717 Several men, according to Plutarch, ventured to say openly “that the power of a single person was the only remedy for the evils of the Republic, and that this remedy must be sought from the mildest physician, which clearly indicated Pompey.”718 Accordingly, the tribune Lucceius brought forward the formal motion to elect Pompey dictator. Cato rose energetically against this ill-timed motion. Several of Pompey’s friends considered it prudent to justify him by affirming that he never asked or desired the dictatorship. Cato’s reproaches had none the less produced their effect; and, to put an end to suspicions, Pompey permitted the consular comitia to be held.719 In fact, he had never the courage equal to his ambition, and “although he affected in his speeches,” says Plutarch, “to refuse absolute power, all his actions showed a desire to arrive at it.”720
The comitia opened in the month of Sextilis of the year 701; the consuls named were Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messala. The first had been placed under accusation, as we have seen above; but the pre-occupations of the moment had caused his trial to drag out in length; and it is unknown whether he was acquitted, or whether all judicial action had been paralysed on account of the absence of magistrates during the first months of the year 701. Moreover, Calvinus was protected by Pompey, and his colleague, Messala, was favoured by Cæsar, at the recommendation of Cicero.
Expedition of Crassus against the Parthians, and his Death.
IV. Crassus had left for Syria about eighteen months before, full of ambitious hopes, and flattering himself with the prospect of immense conquests. He intended not only to subjugate the Parthians, but even to renew the campaigns of Alexander, penetrate into Bactriana, and reach India; unfortunately, he was not equal to such a task. Forgetting the first rules of a general-in-chief, which consist in never despising his enemies, and in placing on his side all the chances of success, he had no care for the army he was going to combat, had made no inquiries either as to the roads, or as to the countries he had to cross, and neglected the alliances and succours which the peoples who were neighbours and enemies to the Parthians might have offered him.
He had started from Brundusium in spite of the bad season, had landed at Dyrrachium, not without the loss of several vessels; thence, following the direct military road which led from the coasts of the Adriatic to the Bosphorus,721 he had proceeded by land into Galatia, and had entered into Mesopotamia, after crossing the Euphrates.722
The Parthians, taken by surprise, offered no resistance, and the rich and flourishing Greek colonies on the Euphrates and Tigris, who detested the Parthian yoke, received Crassus as a liberator. The town of Nicephorium (Rakkah), situated near Ichnæ, on the Balissus, opened its gates to him; Zenodotium alone stood a siege. Instead of taking advantage of the concurrence of circumstances, and advancing promptly upon the Tigris, carrying the considerable town of Seleucia, Ctesiphon,723 the ordinary residence of the King of the Parthians, and even Babylon, he confined himself to plundering the province. Having left 7,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry in garrison in a few fortresses, he returned to Syria to take his winter quarters. There, without occupying himself with the next campaign, he only thought of committing exactions and of pillaging the temples of Hierapolis and Jerusalem.
At the commencement of 701, Crassus took the field again with seven legions, nearly 4,000 cavalry, and the same number of light-armed infantry,724 and re-entered Mesopotamia. He had for lieutenants his son Publius, celebrated for his courage, his elevated sentiments, and his conduct in Gaul; the brave Octavius, who afterwards perished rather than abandon his general; Vargunteius, Censorinus, and Petronius: for quæstor, C. Cassius Longinus, esteemed for his valour and prudence, and who was, ten years afterwards, one of the murderers of Cæsar. An Arab had become his auxiliary; it was the chief of the Osroenes, Bedouins of the desert, who had formerly served Pompey in his campaign against Mithridates; he was named Abgaros, or Abgar,725 and had been bribed by the King of the Parthians to betray Crassus.
Artabazus, King of Armenia, visited the proconsul at the head of 6,000 cavalry, promising him 10,000 more, and 30,000 foot, if he consented to attack the Parthians through Armenia, where the mountainous character of the country rendered their numerous and formidable cavalry useless. Crassus rejected this proposal, alleging the necessity of proceeding into Mesopotamia to the garrisons he had left there in the preceding year. These, in fact, were already blockaded by the Parthians, and soldiers who had escaped brought information of the immense preparations Orodes was making to resist him. A second time, then, he crossed the Euphrates, not far from Biradjik, the place of the passage of Alexander the Great.726 There he had his choice of two roads to reach Seleucia: either to descend the left bank of the Euphrates to the point where it approaches the Tigris,727 or to cross the desert. The first, proposed by Cassius, although the longest, procured him the immense advantage of having his right wing constantly supported by the Euphrates, on which boats could have carried his provisions. The second offered, it is true, a shorter passage; but in following it, the army was exposed to want of water and provisions, and to more laborious marches. The perfidious counsels of Abgar led him to prefer the latter. “There was not,” said the Arab, “a moment to lose, to prevent the Parthians from carrying away their treasures, and placing them in safety among the Hyrcanians and Scythians.” Crassus possessed some of the qualities which make a good general; he had given proofs of it in the war of the allies, as well as in that against Spartacus, but his faculties were paralysed by his covetousness. Glory ought to be the only thought of the soldier.
During this time, Orodes, King of the Parthians, had divided his forces into two armies: one, of which he took the command in person, went to ravage Armenia, in order to prevent Artabazus from joining the Romans; the other was entrusted to the vizier Surena, a man of merit, to whom Orodes owed his crown. Without undervaluing his intelligence, we are unwilling to believe, with some writers, that Surena invented new military tactics to oppose those of the Romans, and that that was the reason why, renouncing the employment of infantry, he made use only of cavalry. If he placed all his confidence in that arm, it was because the Parthians, in conformity with the nature of their country, generally fought only on horseback, and among them, as Dio Cassius says, infantry was of no value.728 Surena’s talent consisted in the employment of the craft so familiar to the Asiatics, in order to surround Crassus with snares and traitors, and to draw him into the plains, where the advantage was all on the side of cavalry.
The army of the Parthians was thus composed solely of cavalry, some barbed with iron, as well as their horses,729 and armed with long and heavy lances; others furnished with powerful bows and arrows, which, while they carried much farther than those of the Romans, perforated defensive armour.
After quitting the town of Carrhæ, the Roman army advanced towards the south, across the desert. The sand and heat made the march painful, while the enemy remained always invisible. At length, when they arrived on the banks, of a small river, the Balissus (Belick), which flows into the Euphrates, they perceived a few Parthian horsemen. Abgar, sent against them with a vanguard to reconnoitre, did not return. The traitor had betrayed Crassus to Surena. The proconsul, impatient and uneasy, then crosses the Balissus with his whole army, and, without allowing it to repose, pushes forward his cavalry, and obliges the infantry to follow it.
A few soldiers soon arrive to inform Crassus that they are all who have been able to escape from an ambuscade into which his vanguard has fallen, and that the whole Parthian army is on its march to encounter him. At this intelligence, he, who believed that the enemy would not dare to wait him, becomes confused, and hastily forms his troops in array of battle on a long front, for fear of being surrounded. The cavalry is on the wings; the Osroenes form a last line. The Parthians first throw forward their light cavalry, which makes whirls in the plain, raising clouds of dust, and causing the air to ring with their savage cries and the noise of their drums,730 and then retire as if in flight.731 Crassus sends forward against them his light infantry; but, surrounded and overwhelmed with the more powerful missiles of the Parthians, it is obliged to take refuge behind the legions.
On a sudden, the Osroenes whom Abgar had not carried with him attack the Romans in the rear,732 and at the same time appear, glittering in the sun, the long lines of the cuirassed horsemen. Crassus then forms his army in a square. Each face is composed of twelve cohorts, and the rest is in reserve. The cavalry and light infantry, divided into two corps, flank two opposite sides of the square.733 Publius and Cassius command, one the right, the other the left. Crassus takes his place in the centre.734 The heavy cavalry, lance in rest, charge the great Roman square, and attempt to break it; but the thick and close ranks of the legions oppose an invincible resistance. The Parthians fall back a certain distance and call up their numerous archers, then, all together, they return in line, and throw upon the deep masses of the Romans a shower of missiles of which none fail of their aim. The legionaries, if they remain in their position, have the disadvantage of their pila and slings, which carry but a short distance, and, if they advance to use their swords, they lose that cohesion which forms their strength. Without moving, and defending themselves with difficulty, they see their numbers diminish without being discouraged; they hope that the enemy will soon have exhausted his munitions. But the ranks of the Parthians succeed each other; as quickly as the first have used all their arrows, they go to fetch others near a long line of camels which carry their provisions. The combat has lasted several hours; and the Parthians continue to extend their circle, and threaten to surround entirely the great Roman square.
In this critical position, Crassus can only have recourse to his cavalry. The side hardest pressed by the enemy is that commanded by Publius; his father orders him to make a desperate effort to disengage the army.
This noble and intrepid young man immediately takes 1,300 cavalry, among whom were the 1,000 Gauls sent by Cæsar, 500 archers, and eight cohorts of infantry. Two young men of his own age follow him – Censorinus and Megabacchus; the first a senator and talented orator, the second equally distinguished. As soon as they are in motion, the Parthians, according to their custom, fly, shooting their arrows at the same time, in the manner of the Scythians. Publius takes this flight for a rout, and allows himself to be drawn too far away. When he has long advanced far out of sight of the body of the army, the fugitives halt, wheel round, are joined by numerous reserves, and surround the Roman troop. These defend themselves heroically, but the Gauls, unprovided with defensive armour, resist with difficulty the cavalry barbed with iron. Meanwhile the son of Crassus has been rejoined by his foot, who combat valiantly; he orders them to advance, but they show him their hands nailed to their bucklers, and their feet fixed to the ground, by the arrows. Publius then makes a last appeal to his brave Gaulish cavalry, who, in their devotedness to him, meet death far from their country, in the service of a foreign cause. They dash with impetuosity against the wall of iron which rises before them, they overthrow some of the cavalry under the weight of their own armour, snatch their lances from others, or leap to the ground to stab their horses in the belly; but valour must yield to numbers. Publius, wounded, tries to retreat, and draws up the wreck of his troops on ground the slope of which is disadvantageous to him. He attempts in vain to make a retrenchment with bucklers; his cavalry being placed in form of an amphitheatre, the last ranks are as much exposed as the first to the arrows of the Parthians. Two Greeks offer to save him by leading him to Ichnæ, a town not far off; the young hero replies that he will not abandon his soldiers; he remains to die with them. Of 6,000 men, 500 only are made prisoners, the others are killed fighting. Publius and his two friends, Censorinus and Megabacchus, slay each other.
During this time, Crassus, relieved by his son’s offensive movement, had taken position on a height, and waited in expectation of his victorious return. But soon messengers come to inform him that, without prompt succour, his son is lost. He hesitates a moment between the hope of saving him and the fear of endangering the rest of his army. At last he decides on marching. Hardly has he put the troops in motion, when he sees the Parthians approaching to meet him, uttering shouts of victory, and carrying the head of his son on the end of a pike. In this circumstance, Crassus recovers an instant that energy familiar to the Roman character, and, passing along the ranks, “Soldiers,” he exclaims, “this loss concerns me alone. As long as you live, all the fortune and all the glory of Rome endure and remain invincible. Be not discouraged by my misfortune, and let your compassion for me be changed into rage against your enemies.” These last accents of a presumptuous chief produced little effect upon an army already disheartened. It fought with resignation, no longer feeling that ardour which gives the hope of victory. Taken in flank by the numerous archers, attacked in front by the heavy cuirassed cavalry, the Romans struggled till evening, remaining always on the defensive, and seeing the circle in which they were enclosed incessantly contracting around them. Fortunately, the Parthians, incapable of holding a position during the night, never encamped on the field of battle; they withdrew.
This combat, fought at fifteen or twenty leagues to the south of Carrhæ, was disastrous. Nevertheless, all was not lost, if the general-in-chief preserved his energy and presence of mind; but, disheartened and plunged in deep grief, he stood immovable, aside from the rest, incapable of giving any order. Octavius and Cassius called together the tribunes and centurions, and decided on retreat; yet it was necessary to abandon 4,000 wounded, who could not be carried away, and even conceal their departure from them, lest their cries might awaken the attention of the enemy. The retreat is executed at first in complete silence; suddenly the miserable victims perceive that they are made a sacrifice, their groans give warning to the Persians, and excite a frightful tumult among the Romans: some return to load the wounded on the baggage horses, others form in battle to repulse the enemy: 300 of the cavalry escape, reach Carrhæ, and cross the Euphrates over the bridge which Crassus had built. Meanwhile the Parthians, occupied in massacring the 4,000 wounded and the stragglers, pursue only faintly the remains of the Roman army, which, protected by a sally of the garrison of Carrhæ, succeed in shutting themselves up within its walls.
Either through discouragement, or through want of provisions, the Romans made no stay in this town, but abandoned it, to seek refuge in Armenia. Crassus, followed by a small number of troops, trusting again in a native who was deceiving him, saw his flight retarded by the circuitous way he was made to take uselessly. At daybreak the Parthians appeared. Octavius had reached, with 5,000 men, one of the spurs of the mountains of Armenia, and would have been able to place himself in safety in the fortress of Sinnaka, at a distance of only a day’s march; he prefers descending into the plain to the succour of his general, whom he brings back with him to the heights. If they continue the combat till evening, all will not be lost; but Surena has again recourse to stratagem: he sends seductive offers, and proposes an interview. Crassus refuses it; he is resolved on fighting. Unfortunately, the soldiers, who hitherto had obeyed imprudent orders, this time refuse to obey the only order which could save them. Crassus is forced to agree to the interview. At the moment he is on his way to it, an accidental quarrel, or rather one raised by the treachery of the Parthians, arises between the escorts of the two nations. Octavius thrusts his sword through the body of a Parthian esquire; a battle follows, and all the Roman escort is massacred. Crassus is slain, and his head carried to Orodes. Of 40,000 legionaries, one quarter alone survived. The cavalry of C. Cassius, which had separated from the army on their departure from Carrhæ, and a few other fugitives, succeeded in reaching Syria, in covering Antioch, and even subsequently in expelling successfully the Parthians from the Roman province.
Consequences of the Death of Crassus.
V. The death of Crassus had two serious consequences: the first was to raise still higher the merit of the conqueror of Gaul, by showing what became of the most numerous and best-disciplined armies under the command of a presumptuous and unskilful chief; the second, to take away from the scene a man whose influence was a check upon the ambition of two individuals destined to become rivals. With Crassus, Pompey would not have been the instrument of a party; without Pompey, the Senate would not have dared to declare against Cæsar.
The balance thus broken, Pompey sought a new point of support. His alliance with Cæsar had alone given him the concurrence of the popular party. Now that this alliance was weakened, he would naturally seek to be reconciled to the aristocracy, flatter its passions, and serve its rancours. In the first moments, he provoked disorder rather than repressed it.
Three competitors disputed the consulship for 702, T. Annius Milo, P. Plautius Hypsæus, and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Scipio.735 They rivalled each other in intrigue and corruption.736 Pompey, especially since he had been reconciled to P. Clodius, treated Milo as an enemy, and, according to his habitual tactics, pretended to believe that he harboured designs against his life. Although he retarded the comitia, he favoured P. Hypsæus and Q. Scipio, who solicited the consulship, and Clodius, who, the same year, was a candidate for the prætorship. Milo had a great number of partisans; his largesses to the people and his spectacles seemed likely to ensure his election; and Pompey, in the way of whose views he stood, did all he could to prevent the Senate from naming an interrex to hold the comitia. He desired this important office for himself; but, obliged to give way before the resistance of Cato, he confined himself to preventing any election, and the year ended again without the nomination of consuls.
