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Cæsar harangues his Troops.

III. Whilst at Rome all was confusion, and Pompey, nominal chief of his party, underwent its various exigencies and impulses, Cæsar, master of himself and free in his resolutions, waited quietly at Ravenna until the thoughtless impetuosity of his enemies should break itself against his firmness and the justice of his cause. The tribunes of the people, Mark Antony and Q. Cassius, accompanied by Curio and M. Cœlius, hasten to him.⁹¹⁹ At the news of the events in Rome, he sends couriers to the other side of the Alps, in order to unite his army; but, without waiting for it, he assembles the 13th legion, the only one which had crossed the Alps; he reminds his soldiers in a few words of the ancient insults and the recent injustices of which he is the victim.

“The people had authorised him, although absent, to solicit a new consulship, and, as soon as he thought that he ought to avail himself of this favour, it was opposed. He has been asked, for the interest of his country, to deprive himself of two legions, and, after he has made the sacrifice, it is against him they are employed. The decrees of the Senate and the people, legally rendered, have been disregarded, and other decrees have been sanctioned; notwithstanding the opposition of the tribunes. The right of intercession, which Sylla himself had respected, has been set at naught, and it is under the garb of slaves that the representatives of the Roman people come to seek a refuge in his camp. All his proposals of conciliation have been rejected. What has been refused to him has been granted to Pompey, who, prompted by envious malignity, has broken the ties of an old friendship. Lastly, what pretext is there for declaring the country in danger, and calling the Roman people to arms? Are they in presence of a popular revolt, or a violence of the tribunes, as in the time of the Gracchi, or an invasion of the barbarians, as in the time of Marius? Besides, no law has been promulgated, no motion has been submitted for the sanction of the people; all which has been done without the sanction of the people is unlawful.⁹²⁰ Let the soldiers, then, defend the general under whom, for nine years, they have served the Republic with so much success, gained so many battles, subdued the whole of Gaul, overcome the Germans and the Britons; for his enemies are theirs, and his elevation, as well as his glory, is their work.”

Unanimous acclamations respond to this speech of Cæsar. The soldiers of the 13th legion declare that they are ready to make the greatest sacrifices; they will revenge their general and the tribunes of the people for all these outrages; as a proof of his devotion, each centurion offers to entertain a horseman at his expense; each soldier, to serve gratuitously, the richer ones providing for the poorer ones; and during the whole civil war, Suetonius affirms, not one of them failed in this engagement.⁹²¹ Such was the devotedness of the army; Labienus alone, whom Cæsar loved especially, whom he had loaded with favours, deserted the cause of the conqueror of Gaul, and passed over to Pompey.⁹²² Cicero and his party thought that this deserter would bring a great addition to their strength. But Labienus,⁹²³ though an able general under Cæsar, was only an indifferent one in the opposite camp. Desertions have never made any man great.

Cæsar is driven to Civil War.

IV. The moment for action had arrived. Cæsar was reduced to the alternative of maintaining himself at the head of his army, in spite of the Senate, or surrendering himself to his enemies, who would have reserved for him the fate of the accomplices of Catiline, who had been condemned to death, if he were not, like the Gracchi, Saturninus, and so many others, killed in a popular tumult. Here the question naturally offers itself: Ought not Cæsar, who had so often faced death on the battle-fields, have gone to Rome to face it under another form, and to have renounced his command, rather than engage in a struggle which must throw the Republic into all the horrors of a civil war? Yes, if by his abnegation he could save Rome from anarchy, corruption, and tyranny. No, if this abnegation would endanger what he had most at heart, the regeneration of the Republic. Cæsar, like men of his temper, cared little for life, and still less for power for the sake of power; but, as chief of the popular party, he felt a great cause rise behind him; it urged him forward, and obliged him to conquer in despite of legality, the imprecations of his adversaries, and the uncertain judgment of posterity. Roman society, in a state of dissolution, asked for a master; oppressed Italy, for a representative of its rights; the world, bowed under the yoke, for a saviour. Ought he, by deserting his mission, disappoint so many legitimate hopes, so many noble aspirations? What! Cæsar, who owed all his dignities to the people, and confining himself within his right, should he have retired before Pompey, who, having become the docile tool of a factious minority of the Senate, was trampling right and justice under foot; before Pompey, who, according to the admission of Cicero himself, would have been, after victory, a cruel and vindictive despot, and would have allowed the world to be plundered for the benefit of a few families, incapable, moreover, of arresting the decay of the Republic, and founding an order of things sufficiently firm to retard the invasion of barbarians for many centuries! He would have retreated before a party which reckoned it a crime to repair the evils caused by the violence of Sylla, and the severity of Pompey, by recalling the exiles;⁹²⁴ to give rights to the peoples of Italy; to distribute lands among the poor and the veterans; and, by an equitable administration, to ensure the prosperity of the provinces! It would have been madness. The question had not the mean proportions of a quarrel between two generals who contended for power: it was the decisive conflict between two hostile causes, between the privileged classes and the people; it was the continuation of the formidable struggle between Marius and Sylla!⁹²⁵

There are imperious circumstances which condemn public men either to abnegation or to perseverance. To cling to power when one is no longer able to do good, and when, as a representative of the past, one has, as it were, no partisans but among those who live upon abuses, is a deplorable obstinacy; to abandon it when one is the representative of a new era, and the hope of a better future, is a cowardly act and a crime.

Cæsar crosses the Rubicon.

V. Cæsar has taken his resolution. He began the conquest of Gaul with four legions; he is going to commence that of the world with one only. He must first of all, by a surprise, take possession of Ariminum (Rimini), the first important fortress of Italy on the side of Cisalpine Gaul. For this purpose, he sends before him a detachment composed of trusty soldiers and centurions, commanded by Q. Hortensius; he places a part of his cavalry in échelon on the road.⁹²⁶ When evening arrives, pretending an indisposition, he leaves his officers, who were at table, enters a chariot with a few friends, and joins his vanguard. When he arrives at the Rubicon, a stream which formed the limit of his government, and which the laws forbad him to cross, he halts for a moment as though struck with terror; he communicates his apprehensions to Asinius Pollio and those who surround him. A comet has appeared in the sky;⁹²⁷ he foresees the misfortunes which are on the point of befalling Italy, and recollects the dream which the night before had oppressed his mind: he had dreamt that he violated his mother. Was not his country, in fact, his mother; and, notwithstanding the justness of his cause and the greatness of his designs, was not his enterprise an outrage upon her? But the augurs, those flattering interpreters of the future, affirm that this dream promises him the empire of the world; this woman whom he has seen extended on the ground is no other than the earth, the common mother of all mortals.⁹²⁸ Then suddenly an apparition, it is said, strikes the eyes of Cæsar: it is a man of tall stature, blowing martial airs on a trumpet, and calling him to the other bank. All hesitation ceases; he hurries onward and crosses the Rubicon, exclaiming, “The die is cast! Let us go where I am called by the prodigies of the gods and the iniquity of my enemies.”⁹²⁹ Soon he arrived at Ariminum, of which he takes possession without striking a blow. The civil war has commenced!

“The true author of war,” says Montesquieu, “is not he who declares it, but he who renders it necessary.” It is not granted to man, notwithstanding his genius and power, to raise at will the popular waves; yet, when, elected by the public voice, he appears in the midst of the storm which endangers the vessel of the state, then he alone can direct its course and bring it to the harbour. Cæsar was not, therefore, the instigator of this profound perturbation of Roman society: he had become the indispensable pilot. Had it been otherwise, when he disappeared all would have returned to order; on the contrary, his death gave up the whole universe to all the horrors of war. Europe, Asia, Africa, were the theatre of sanguinary struggles between the past and the future, and the Roman world did not find peace until the heir of his name had made his cause triumph. But it was no longer possible for Augustus to renew the work of Cæsar; fourteen years of civil war had exhausted the strength of the nation and used up the characters; the men imbued with the great principles of the past were dead; the survivors had alternately served all parties; to succeed, Augustus himself had made peace with the murderers of his adoptive father; the convictions were extinct, and the world, longing for rest, no longer contained the elements which would have permitted Cæsar, as was his intention, to re-establish the Republic in its ancient splendour and its ancient forms, but on new principles.

NAPOLEON.

The Tuileries, March 20, 1866.

APPENDIX A.
CONCORDANCE OF DATESOF THEANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR WITH THE JULIAN STYLE,FOR THE YEARS OF ROME 691-709

Bases on which the Tables of Concordance are Founded.

BEFORE the Julian reform, the Roman year comprised 355 days, divided into twelve months, namely: Januarius, 29 days; Februarius, 28; Martius, 31; Aprilis, 29; Maius, 31; Junius, 29; Quintilis, 31; Sextilis, 29; September, 29; October, 31; November, 29; December, 29.

Every other year, an intercalation of 22 or 23 days alternately was to be added after the 23rd day of February.

The mean year being thus too long by one day, 24 days were to be subtracted in the last eight years of a period of 24 years. We shall not here have to take this correction into consideration.

The intercalation appears to have been regularly followed from A.U.C. 691 (that of Cicero’s consulship) until 702, when it was of 23 days. In the middle of the troubles, the intercalation was omitted in the years 704, 706, and 708.

Towards the end of the year 708, Cæsar remedied the disorder by placing extraordinarily between November and December 67 days, and by introducing a new mode of intercalation.

The year 708 is the last of the confusion.

The year 709 is the first of the Julian style.

Historical Data which the Concordance must Satisfy

Cicero relates that at the beginning of his consulship the planet Jupiter lighted the whole sky. (De Divin., I. 11.) Cicero entered on office on the Calends of January in the year of Rome 691; that is, on the 14th of December, 64 B.C. Jupiter had reached opposition eleven days before, on the 3rd of December.⁹³⁰

In the year 691, on the 5th of the Ides of November, Cicero, in his Second Oration against Catiline, 10, asks how the effeminate companions of Catiline will support the frosts of the Appenine, especially in these nights already long (his præsertim jam noctibus).⁹³¹ We are, in fact, on the 15th of October, 63 B.C. Later, in his Oration for Sextius, speaking of the defeat of Catiline at the beginning of January, 692 (the middle of December, 63 B.C.), Cicero asserts that the result is due to Sextius, without whose activity the winter would have been allowed to intervene (datus illo in bello esset hiemi locus).

In the year 696 of Rome (58 B.C.), the Helvetii appoint their rendezvous at Geneva for a day fixed: “is dies erat a.d.v. Kal-Aprilis.” (Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, I. 6.) This date corresponds with the Julian 24th of March, the day on which the spring equinox fell. The Helvetii had taken this natural period; Cæsar has referred it to the Roman calendar.⁹³²

In the year 700 of Rome (54 B.C.), Cæsar, after his second campaign in Britain, re-embarks his troops “quod æquinoctium suberat.” (De Bello Gallico, V. 23.) He informs Cicero of it on the 6th of the Calends of October, the Julian 21st of September. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, IV. 17.) The equinox fell on the 26th of September.⁹³³

In the year 702, on the 13th of the Calends of February (that is, on the 30th of December, 53 B.C.), Clodius is slain by Milo. (Cicero, Orat. pro Milone, 10.) Pompey is created consul for the third time on the 5th of the Calends of March, in the intercalary month. (Asconius.)

In the year 703, Cicero writes to Atticus (V. 13): “I have arrived at Ephesus on the 11th of the Calends of Sextilis (12th of July, 51 B.C.), 560 days after the battle of Bovillæ;” an exact computation, if we count the day of the murder of Clodius, and reckon 23 days for the intercalation of 702.⁹³⁴

In the year 704 the intercalation is omitted. Cæsar’s partisans demanded it in vain. (Dio Cassius, XL. 61, 62.)

In 705, Cicero, who hesitates in joining Pompey, writes to Atticus: “a.d. xvii Kal. Junii: Nunc quidem æquinoctium nos moratur, quod valde perturbatum erat.” It was the 16th of April; the equinox was passed 21 days before, and the atmospheric disturbances might still last. Or was it anything else than an excuse on the part of Cicero?

Cæsar embarks at Brundusium on the eve of the Nones of January, 706. (De Bello Civili, III. 6.) It is the 28th of November, 49 B.C. “Gravis autumnus in Apulio circumque Brundusium … omnem exercitum valetudine tentaverat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 2, 6.) – “Bibulus gravissima hieme in navibus excubabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 8.) – “Jamque hiems appropinquabat.” (De Bello Civili, III. 9.)

After his arrival at Rome towards the end of the year 707, Cæsar started again for the African war. It was only on his return towards the middle of the year 708, that he could devote himself to the re-organisation of the Republic and the reform of the calendar. According to Dio Cassius (XLIII. 26), “as the days of the year did not concord well together, Cæsar introduced the present manner of reckoning, by intercalating 67 days necessary to restore the concordance. Some authors have pretended that he intercalated more; but this is the truth.”⁹³⁵

What concordance was it that required to be established thus? The 67 days necessary were exactly what required to be added that, in the secular year of Rome 700, the Julian month of March should coincide with the ancient Roman month of March. The month of March of the year 700 of Rome is the true starting-point of the Julian style.

APPENDIX B.
CONCORDANCE OF ROMAN AND MODERN HOURS,

For the Year of Rome 699 (55 B.C.) and for the Latitude of Paris

The dates are referred to the Julian style.

The Roman hours are reckoned from sunset and sunrise.

The modern hours are given in true solar time.

The Roman hours are given at the head of the columns, in Roman numerals. The modern hours are in ordinary numerals. Two examples will explain the use of the Table.

Division of the Night on the 16th of August.– To obtain it, we seek the date in the indicating column on the left, entitled Nights. We conclude from the line opposite: at 7h. 11m., sunset, beginning of the first hour and of the first watch; at 9h. 36m., end of the first watch and beginning of the second; at 12h. 0m. it is midnight, the second watch ends, the third begins; at 2h. 24m., end of the third watch, beginning of the fourth; at 4h. 49m. the sun rises, and the fourth watch ends.

Division of the Day on the 16th of August.– We seek the date in the indicating column to the right, entitled Days. We conclude from the line opposite: at 4h, 49m., sunrise, beginning of the first hour; the third hour ends at 8h. 25m.; the sixth, hour at noon; the ninth at 3h. 35m.; at 7h. 11m, the sun sets.

At the summer solstice, each watch embraces two of our hours; in the winter solstice, it embraces four.

APPENDIX C.
NOTE ON THE ANCIENT COINS COLLECTED IN THE EXCAVATIONS AT ALISE

THE result of the excavations made round Alise-Sainte-Reine would be sufficient to establish the identity of that locality with the Alesia of Cæsar; but the abundance of proofs can do no injury to the argument, and there is one the value of which cannot be disputed: we mean that furnished by the ancient coins found in the fosses of Camp D. (See Plate 23.) Lost in a combat, and falling into a fosse full of water, they thus escaped discovery in the immediate search made usually on a battle-field.

To establish the date of an event which has occasioned the burial of certain coins, we must first show that these coins have been struck at a period anterior to that event. Thus the coins lost at Alesia must naturally belong to a period anterior to the siege of that town.

The coins collected are in number 619; they may be divided into two distinct groups: some bear the impression of the Roman Mint, others are of the Gaulish Mint.

This being understood, let us examine separately the age of the two groups. M. le Comte de Salis and M. de Saulcy have kindly undertaken the classification.

All the Roman coins, without exception, have been struck by order and under the direction of the monetary magistrates, appointed by the government of the Republic: they belong to the republican period, and appertain to the class of coins called consular. Thanks to the labours of men like Morell, Borghesi, Cavedoni, Cohen, Mommsen, and, above all, the Comte de Salis, the age of the coins of this class is now pretty clearly determined. On the date of their emission, in general, it would be, so to say, impossible to commit an error of several years. The series of denarii and quinarii offers us the names of eighty-two magistrates, and the club, the symbol of an eighty-third; four of these denarii present neither name nor symbol; it is the same case with an as in copper, of the type of Janus with the prow of a ship, which has probably borne no other legend but the word ROMA. The most recent of these coins belong to the year 700 of Rome, or 54 B.C. The year in which the siege of Alesia took place was 702. This fact alone would serve, if needed, to demonstrate that Alise and Alesia are the same place.

The examination of the coins of Gaulish fabrication is equally important. They belong to twenty-four civitates, or different tribes. Military contingents, assembled from all parts of the Gaulish territory, have therefore taken part in the war in which these coins were lost and scattered in the soil. But the decisive fact is, that in this number we find 103 which are incontestably of Arvernan origin; one of them bears, distinctly inscribed, the name of Vercingetorix. Of 487 Gaulish coins, 103 belong to the Arverni.

We may add that, among the latter, 61 bear the name of Epasnactus, who became, after the capitulation of Alesia, a faithful ally of the Romans, and the chief of Arvernia. (De Bello Gallico, VIII. 44.) Now the coins of Epasnactus have been long well known; they may be subdivided into two classes: some, anterior to the submission of that personage, present pure Gaulish types; others, of later date, offer only Romanised types, if we may use the expression. In the fosses of Camp D have been found only coins of Epasnactus of the primitive type. The battle in which these coins were lost by the Arverni before Alise was, therefore, anterior to the year 51 B.C., the year of the submission of Epasnactus.