The history of Rome. Book V

by Theodor Mommsen

  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 In a military respect, no doubt, very considerable resources were now not merely withdrawn from his opponents, but rendered available for himself; even in the spring of 705 his army embraced, in consequence of the levies en masse instituted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 prudenc" 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 posit
ion 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.