Presently came disturbing news of the war. Curio had invaded Africa, to fight the Optimates who controlled that province. He had been utterly defeated, and himself killed in the rout, though Pollio brought back the survivors of his army to Sicily. The lady Fulvia was now a widow. While Sicily was held for Caesar Rome would not starve, though already bread was scarce; but Pompeius, gathering a great army at Athens, had under his orders the only organized navy in the Mediterranean, and at any moment his troops might invade Sicily in overwhelming force.
This first Caesarian defeat reminded the little group of politicians on the Palatine that they were not yet masters of the world. Rome was theirs and all Italy, and newly conquered restless Gaul which was rather a liability than an asset. But the veteran army of Pompeius held Spain, that land of mountains and warriors which had been the grave of so many military reputations; and the rival government in Athens controlled the immense resources of the wealthy East. If Pompeius was given time enough he might organize a double attack on Italy from east and west. Rome began to be frightened.
At the end of April Caesar announced that he was leaving for Gaul. ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he consoled his nervous counsellors. ‘I shall make straight for Spain, over the Pyrenees. That won’t take long. It’s a good army I must conquer, but they lack a decent general. As soon as I am back here, victorious, I must get ready to leave for Greece; where there is a very good general against me, but he hasn’t an army. Poor old Pompeius! If he had sailed west from Brundisium I should really be worried. As things are he hasn’t a chance.’
‘Who will rule Italy while you and I are conquering Spain?’ asked the eldest of the Antonius brothers, with a sudden start of jealousy.
‘You and your brothers will stay behind to rule Italy, my dear Marcus. Oh, I know you are soldiers and nothing else. But while I am away I need good soldiers in Italy.’
Lepidus coughed and looked miserable. He often looked miserable when he heard Antonius and Caesar discussing their plans; Antonius was such a scoundrel, and so unfairly Caesar’s favourite.
‘Do you dislike the idea, Marcus Lepidus?’ Caesar continued with a sly grin. ‘No, don’t bother to explain. I grasp your objection perfectly, even before you have stated it. Of course it would be most unfitting that Aemilius Lepidus, patrician and pontiff and praetor, and forty years of age, should be under the orders of a youth who has never been more than quaestor and tribune. It wouldn’t do at all. Besides, we patricians are agreed, aren’t we, that Rome can only prosper under the government of a patrician. So this is what we’ll do. Marcus Antonius will command all the troops left in Italy. He must, because he knows how to do it and they will obey him. But Rome, the City herself, shall be put under the government of a praefect, as deputy of the Dictator. That’s quite legal, isn’t it? Of course the praefect will be the senior curule magistrate at present in the City. That’s it. Lepidus will be praefect of Rome, and the army that supports him will be commanded by Antonius. But it looks odd to give such a post to a praetor. Well get a law passed tomorrow, granting Lepidus consular ornaments. With twelve lictors behind your chair you could rule the earth, eh, Lepidus? And when I get back from Spain we’ll pass another law to give you a decent province. You will go there as proconsul, not as propraetor. There! Is everybody satisfied?’
Thus Lepidus could give thanks to the gods for his forty-first birthday in all the glory of consular ornaments. As far as he could find out, not one of his ancestors had attained the highest rank at such an early age. A little of the bloom was rubbed off this splendid promotion when he found out that he was only one of twelve ex-praetors who had been thus honoured by the Dictator. But he could not say that Caesar had broken his word. In any case, he was the only praefect of Rome.
The lady Clodia lolled in her boudoir, bored as usual.
‘Tell me, Catullus,’ she said, ‘who is that man dressed up as an ex-Consul who runs about the City telling us how to behave? He sent a lictor to order me to cancel my midnight sacrifice to Hecate, lest such a ceremony should degenerate into an orgy. I had planned it to begin as an orgy, of course. But I know enough to obey a lictor, and the party is cancelled. All the same, who gave him the right to order me about? And surely he has never been Consul?’
‘Well, no, he has not yet been Consul. His father was Consul, and so was his elder brother. He is Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. With that name he cannot avoid being Consul one day, unless Jove first strikes him down with a thunderbolt. He’s a respectable patrician, and faithful to his wife; but by some accident he got mixed up with Caesar’s gang of toughs. Since he’s the only honest man in that menagerie they chose him for praefect of Rome. He’s quite harmless.’
‘So he’s Caesar’s praefect? That’s why he has lictors? I see. But why did Caesar choose him? Has he ever done anything?’
‘Not exactly done anything. He’s head of the Aemilii Lepidi.’
‘Catullus, you are making this up! Don’t tell lies in front of my sparrow; it’s a bad example for the bird. As though there were such a thing as a respectable Caesarian! I’ll tell you what he is. He’s an old wax figure, left over from some funeral. That’s just the kind of joke Caesar would enjoy.’
3. Lepidus Imperator
48–47 BC
The army lay strongly encamped, on high ground beside a plentiful spring. The palisade was firm, and the sentinels alert. But Marcus Lepidus the proconsul, commanding this well-found force of two veteran legions, did not feel secure.
The responsibility of supreme command weighed on his spirit. As a youth he had seen three campaigns in the Dalmatian hills; but in those days he had been a military tribune, whose duty was to lead one cohort or two, and to do with them exactly what he had been told to do. He and the other young officers could gossip at the back of headquarters, grumbling at the general’s caution and expounding what they would have done in his place; they always had plenty of time to explain their plans, and to push about little pellets of bread to show the right tactical move. Now he was twenty years older, just past his forty-second birthday; and of course he could not make up his mind so quickly as in the old days. Messengers came running in from the outlying picket, bellowing at the top of their lungs that the foe was at hand; and everyone expected the proconsul to rap out orders to his whole force, 6,000 regular foot and as many auxiliaries, as though they were a handy squad in the middle of an empty parade ground. Other generals did it, in fact it was normally assumed that any Roman of good birth could command an army without previous training; but at the start it was undeniably difficult. Perhaps with practice it would become easier. After all, Marcus Antonius had done brilliantly as cavalry commander under Gabinius in Egypt; and look what an oaf he was!
Lepidus peered out from his well-warmed hut at the autumntints of the Spanish mountains. In the distance he could make out the horizontal line of the walls of Corduba; it was too far off to be seen in detail, but he knew that those walls were strongly manned, and the gates barred. A little to the left, about a mile nearer, he could see the dark square smear of a regular Roman camp; and there also the bristling palisade would be manned and the heavy wooden gates barred. There was no getting away from it. Though today he had halted early, so that his men could dig in by daylight, tomorrow, no matter how he dallied on the march, he must arrive in the middle of a war.
It was a war between disciplined Roman troops, which made it much worse; for in such warfare the commander must give out a stream of tactical orders. He had already discovered that the hopeless, fanatical raids of Iberian insurgents called for no particular action from a proconsul in command of two legions. The barbarians would rush down out of their ambush, more intent on picking up weapons and food from the baggage-train than on killing armed legionaries; scouts would give the alarm and the cohorts would deploy from column of route to meet the charge. If the proconsul sat his horse beside the Eagle of the leading legion, where messengers could find him easily, the centurions would do the rest. During this very march
his men had inflicted two sharp little defeats on overbold bands of insurgents. It had been easy to give the command to pursue, and then to halt, which had been the only orders needed. But tomorrow he would have to decide whether to attack with his right, his left, or his centre; whether to send the cavalry charging at the outset or to keep them fresh for the pursuit; what numbers of his men to place in reserve, and when the reserve should come into action. He had read all the Greek books on tactics he could get hold of, and they agreed that battles were won by these decisions; but then they also said that a general ought to recognize the key points in the enemy position, and concentrate on the weakest spot in the hostile line. How did one recognize these things? The steep Iberian ridges looked impregnable all along their smooth faces, and a body of troops in the distance was just a brown line against the grass; how did you see whether the line was nine deep, or ninety? In such practical matters the books were no help at all.
In a gust of bad temper, he made up his mind that if he must fight a battle tomorrow he would form his two legions in a single line. He himself, with the praetorians of the bodyguard, would take post midway between the Eagles; then they would all charge the foe at a smart double. The auxiliaries might make themselves useful wherever they thought best. Either his men would run away; and then he would die gloriously, refusing to flee; or the enemy would run away, and he would be hailed as an intrepid commander. Or perhaps neither side would run. They might fight until everyone was dead. That was nonsense. His mind was wandering.
When you considered the matter carefully, such a blind charge was just what Caesar had led at Pharsalus; and Caesar was acknowledged to be the greatest general in the world. At present Caesar was in Egypt, plundering the temples of that devout land. But at his wonderful defeat of Pompeius, which everyone discussed with such awe, he had done nothing but put his men in line and then wield his own sword very bravely in the front rank. After a suitable delay, in which both sides could prove their courage, the Pompeians had run away. That was all there was to it.
It was a comfort to know that Pompeius Maximus was dead at last, and the Caesarians victorious throughout the world. The Optimates might be rallying in Africa, but they could never make head against the combined resources of Europe and Asia. But why had Caesar given command of a wing at Pharsalus to that young ruffian, Marcus Antonius? Surely, even if the rascal could fight when he was sober, such a public display of confidence in him was unbecoming to a Dictator. The chief point in Caesar’s favour was that he had no heirs, neither sons nor nephews. (There was a niece, but she had married a nobody.) His position might be greater than had ever been granted to another Roman, but his pre-eminence must end with his life. He was at least ten years older than Marcus Aemilius Lepidus; in ten years, or fifteen at the outside, there would once again be room at the top for ordinary Romans who had followed the ordinary career, from quaestor to aedile to praetor, with the Consulship as the crown of a well-spent life. But if Caesar was going to make Marcus Antonius his second in command Antonius might become his heir, and Antonius was ten years younger than Lepidus. That would never do. The idea was absurd. Not one of the Antonius brothers was even respectable. His mind was wandering again.
Now about this battle tomorrow … would his men fight willingly against fellow-soldiers with whom they had no quarrel, fellow-soldiers who were also fellow-Caesarians? Probably not. But then the enemy also would be half-hearted. As a matter of fact, he still did not know which of the two armies lying on the skyline would be the enemy. The position was complicated.
Last spring Lepidus had laid down his governorship of Rome, to come out, with twelve lictors and consular ornaments, as proconsul in the province of Hither Spain. That province, garrisoned by two legions, was thoroughly Caesarian and loyal. But to the south-west lay the province of Further Spain, and that was in a mess. To begin with the tribes had been pacified by Pompeius, and their chieftains were still Pompeian in sympathy, then Caesar had rashly named as propraetor one of the most unsavoury thugs in the Popular faction, Quintus Cassius Longinus. This Cassius plundered his subjects until they rose against him; in Spain that was always happening, and the Roman garrison was prepared to cope with it. But in this case Cassius had been so extortionate that even his own troops were sickened by his avarice; the insurgents had been joined by part of the Roman garrison, and Marcellus the quaestor, the personal friend whom Cassius had chosen to keep his accounts for him, had set himself at the head of the rebel army. Marcellus held Corduba for Caesar, the Populars, and the liberties of Spain; Cassius held the neighbouring mountain for Caesar, the Populars, and Cassius Longinus. And in all this confusion Marcus Lepidus had been ordered by the Senate to bring peace to Further Spain!
So here he was, with his two legions, a short day’s march from the warring armies. Since Cassius and Marcellus would not combine against him, tomorrow he would be the ally of one and the foe of the other; but he could not guess which would be the enemy. He wished he had Junia in his hut to advise him.
Instead he peered into the hut to ask his secretary whether any news had come in. The secretary was a young Asiatic Greek named Eunomus, a freedman. He had been born free, and educated as a citizen of Miletus; until his family met with misfortune and he was sold to pay his father’s arrears of taxation. Except for the slave-dealer, his sole owner had been Lepidus, who had soon freed him. It was possible for a Roman to make friends with a free-born youth who had endured such unmerited disaster. But of course bondage, even for a day, left an indelible stain on the character, Eunomus would never again think with the independent manliness proper to a citizen.
The secretary sat in a corner of the stuffy hut, a portable writing-desk on his knee. At his right stood the official table and chair of the general in command. When messengers came in and saluted the empty chair Eunomus could reach across and pick up the dispatches they laid down; that avoided the social awkwardness of asking a Roman soldier to hand over a letter to a Greek freedman.
The handsome youth looked up with a flash of white teeth. ‘Good fortune follows us, my lord,’ he said cheerfully. ‘A messenger has just arrived from Trebonius. He left him near the Pyrenees. He ought to be entering Spain already.’
‘Why should I rejoice that Trebonius is near? I hardly know the man. He’s a typical Caesarian rakehell, not the kind of citizen I met often in Rome. They say he did well at the siege of Massilia, though in fact he couldn’t take the town until Caesar came back to help him. I don’t want another general to share my command. Does he bring an army with him? Why is he coming, anyway?’
‘Oh no, my lord, he brings no army. He has been appointed next year’s proconsul of Further Spain, and he left Rome a little earlier than usual, to be sure of getting here in good time.’
‘Ah, that’s why his coming is good news. I understand. Did you send the messenger on to Cassius?’
‘Of course, my lord. The news concerns him, and he should be informed.’
It amused the Greek to leave out the essence of any item of news. Lepidus knew his foibles, and when he had followed the working of his subtle mind he felt a glow of satisfaction. He could see it all. The two Caesarian politicians on the hills over there had drifted into the beginning of an armed conflict, because both were obstinate and would not admit themselves in the wrong. Cassius could not be driven from his province by his own quaestor; Marcellus could not ask forgiveness of the superior who had bullied him into revolt. Now Cassius might retire gracefully. His successor was hastening to the province; perhaps a little before his time, but there was nothing very odd in that. Most important of all, if Cassius handed over his charge without making difficulties he might return to Rome with all his baggage, including the plunder he had exacted from the wretched provincials. His honour would be saved, and his money too. On the other hand, if he refused to go peacefully he must now declare war on the whole Caesarian party.
At first Lepidus felt nothing but relief. He would not be compelled to lead his army into battle. Then came a
sensation of disappointment. He had brought two legions over all these mountains just to march them back again, without a sword drawn. Surely he ought to do something? After careful thought he discovered there was something he should do.
Eunomus had seen at first glance the way out of the impasse; Lepidus had seen it almost as quickly. But would Cassius see it without prompting? The proconsul of Hither Spain would deserve well of his country if he pointed out to his erring colleague the path of duty. It might be a risky business, but that was all to the good. If he could not win fame as a mighty warrior he would be remembered as a sage counsellor.
‘Messenger,’ he called, ‘warn the officer of the day that tomorrow I shall require a small mounted escort. Better make them Roman troops if he can find enough legionaries who know how to ride. I shall want a herald, too. Choose a smart man who knows the drill about flags of truce. I shall be calling on Romans, not on barbarians, and the ceremonial must be worthy of a proconsul. The party should be ready an hour after sunrise tomorrow.’
He glanced in triumph at his secretary. ‘How’s that, my boy?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Pretty quick off the mark, eh? If I stop a dangerous war merely by a couple of private interviews I ought to get the public thanks of the Senate, and perhaps something more substantial from Caesar.’
‘Yes, my lord. It is excellently planned. But, if you will permit a criticism while we are alone, please don’t send orders to a military tribune by the mouth of a common legionary. These soldiers have their own etiquette, and they are absurdly touchy.’
‘You do right to tell me, Eunomus, and I am grateful. It’s so easy to forget the senseless complications of military life. Every legionary is a citizen, and the military tribunes also are citizens. To be a citizen of Rome is to hold the highest rank in the world, apart from the few curule magistrates with the right to inspect omens, such as myself. In the City no citizen is better than another, and any citizen can bear a message to his equal. That’s more fitting, more honourable, and more in accordance with the customs of our ancestors, than all this saluting and standing to attention that they have in the army.’
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