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Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome

Page 35

by Victor Davis Hanson


  suggests that many centurions were men of consequence. Some were

  rewarded by Caesar with enough wealth to become equestrians, such

  as Scaeva, who held an outpost at Dyrrachium against massive odds

  in 48 BC. The prominence of centurions in the Commentaries adds to

  the impression that they came from a politically significant class that

  Caesar wished to cultivate.22

  The Rubicon and Beyond

  Crossing the Rubicon was a sign of Caesar’s political failure. It was a

  gamble; hence his famous comment, “the die is cast.” It would have

  been far better to return peacefully, moving smoothly into a second

  consulship and then a new provincial command, both of which would

  have secured him against prosecution. Such a victory would also have

  been far more satisfying, forcing his rivals to acknowledge his deserved

  preeminence. Caesar’s eventual victory should not blind us to the fact

  that in most respects, the odds were against him. Pompey and his allies

  were not ready to defend Italy. This was in part because no one would

  expect a war to begin in January, long before the normal campaigning

  season, but also because they always expected Caesar to back down. Yet

  they managed to withdraw with considerable troops to Greece. Once

  220 Goldsworthy

  there, Pompey was able to call on the resources of the eastern prov-

  inces to mass and train a great army.

  Caesar overran Italy quickly but did not have the ships to pursue

  Pompey. Inactivity would only allow his enemies to grow stronger,

  and so he led his army to Spain. Pompey had controlled the Spanish

  provinces since his second consulship in 55 BC, governing them through

  deputies and remaining near Rome himself. Caesar won another quick

  victory, outmaneuvering Pompey’s generals. He could not afford to suf-

  fer a serious defeat. Since the war was fought to protect his career and

  position, a serious reverse would have utterly discredited him. His op-

  ponents were far more able to absorb such losses and blows to prestige.

  Caesar had to keep attacking and had to keep winning, and even after

  these early successes his enemies possessed much greater resources.

  Pompey waited for Caesar to attack him in Greece. The same strat-

  egy was employed by Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, and by Mark Antony

  in 31 BC. There was much to recommend it, as each of these possessed a

  stronger fleet than their opponents. Yet in every case they were beaten

  and the risk-taking attacker prevailed. Keeping the initiative was clearly

  a major asset in civil as well as foreign wars. The 48 BC campaign was

  close and could easily have ended in disaster for Caesar. Despite his

  soldiers’ formidable powers of endurance, Caesar failed at Dyrrachium

  and was forced to retreat. Pompey then decided that the Caesarean

  army was sufficiently weakened to be defeated, and so risked battle at

  Pharsalus. This was not unreasonable, since he was under considerable

  pressure from the distinguished senators with his army, who accused

  him of prolonging the war needlessly. Caesar’s failure to attract promi-

  nent supporters ensured that his leadership was never challenged by

  subordinates. Waiting to starve the enemy into submission, however,

  was a difficult strategy to maintain in a civil war. Caesar accepted the

  offer of battle and proved himself the better tactician, winning an over-

  whelming victory.

  The civil war did not end. Pompey fled to Egypt and was killed.

  Caesar pursued him and became embroiled in that kingdom’s own civil

  war. He placed Cleopatra on the throne and then stayed for some time,

  personal reasons mingling with political ones. The time permitted sur-

  viving Pompeians to muster again in North Africa. They were defeated

  The General as State 221

  in 46 BC. Another force, led by Pompey’s son, had to be confronted

  and beaten in Spain in 45 BC. Caesar had not intended to seize supreme

  power by force. Once he had done so he had to fight to keep power, and

  also had to decide how to use it. It is important to remember just how

  short a time Caesar spent in Rome as dictator. After his murder another

  spate of civil wars erupted, fought first between his defenders and his

  assassins. Both sides produced floods of propaganda concerning what

  Caesar was planning to do. The truth is now impossible to recover with

  any certainty.

  Caesar’s immediate plans involved fighting major wars against the

  Dacians and then the Parthians. These offered the “clean” glory of

  defeating foreign enemies of the republic rather than fellow Romans.

  Caesar nominated magistrates for the next three years, which suggests

  that he planned to be away for at least this time. The Parthians were

  formidable opponents who had defeated and killed Crassus in 53 BC

  and would later severely maul Antony’s invasion force. Whether or not

  Caesar would have fared better is hard to say. It is uncertain whether he

  planned conquest and occupation or simply a grand punitive expedi-

  tion to gain public vengeance for Crassus.

  As dictator, Caesar was head of the republic. Since he had come to

  power by force, it was important to maintain control of the army. At

  some point, probably just before or during the civil war, Caesar had

  doubled the basic rate of pay for a legionary soldier. No doubt higher

  ranks received proportional increases. Veterans were discharged and

  given farms. As far as possible this was done without inflicting serious

  hardship on existing communities. Around the time he celebrated his

  triumphs, there was a protest by disgruntled soldiers. This was dealt

  with extremely severely, and several men were executed. As dictator,

  Caesar continued to be generous but firm with his soldiers. Officers of

  all ranks received lavish rewards. Caesar enrolled large numbers of new

  senators, including equestrian officers, some Gauls, and a few former

  centurions.23

  Many individuals from the army benefited from Caesar’s dictator-

  ship. The army itself was not granted particular privileges, nor was it

  placed in direct control of any new aspects of life. Caesar had come

  to power through civil war but, as in Gaul, hoped to create a regime

  222 Goldsworthy

  that survived by consent as much as by force. In the last months of

  his life he dismissed his Spanish bodyguard. Presumably he felt that

  if his regime was to survive three years of his absence on campaign,

  then he needed to show confidence while he was in Rome. Sulla had

  resigned the dictatorship he had taken by force, but Caesar described

  this as the act of a “political illiterate.”24 Caesar believed he should hold

  on to power. He misunderstood the attachment of others to tradition,

  and was murdered.

  Limits of Force

  Caesar was a commander of genius. Like Alexander or Napoleon, he

  was not a great military reformer and took over a fighting force already

  improved by others. All of these men honed their armies to a fine edge,

  inspired them, and led them with a flair and imagination that produced

  spectacular success. Also like Napoleon,
Caesar exploited his military

  success to seize supreme power within the state. Unlike the French em-

  peror he did not so profoundly shape the entire state around himself.

  Caesar effectively controlled elections and was himself a higher author-

  ity above the magistrates chosen. Yet these still served, the Senate and

  Popular Assemblies continued to meet and vote, and the courts func-

  tioned much as they had before the dictatorship. The conspirators felt

  that almost the sole thing needed for the republic to function as normal

  was the removal of Caesar himself.

  The dictator fel to internal rather than foreign enemies, unlike Na-

  poleon. Military success was not enough to al ow Caesar to create a

  stable regime; that task would be left to Augustus. He too would seize

  supreme power through military force. It took decades to create his new

  regime and to turn the brutal triumvir who had clawed his way to the

  top so violently into the beloved “father of his country.” Augustus took

  care to keep the army loyal to himself alone. For over two centuries,

  the republican tradition of the senatorial class holding military and civil

  power continued. At any time, only a handful of senators were capable

  of supplanting the emperor. There were civil wars in AD 68–69 and 193–

  97, but otherwise there was far greater stability than in the last decades

  of the republic. Augustus and his successors were military dictators, but

  The General as State 223

  at the cost of political independence they gave the Roman world in-

  ternal stability. Senators enjoyed prestigious careers and could stil win

  glory, but simply did so as representatives of the emperor. This and so

  much more would change in the third century.

  Caesar became dictator through force of arms. His exceptionally

  long and spectacularly successful command in Gaul had turned his

  army into a ferociously efficient fighting force and created an intensely

  personal bond between soldiers and commander. Without this he could

  not have seized and held on to power. Yet his victory in the civil war was

  not inevitable. Pompey had huge resources at his disposal and had long

  been acknowledged as Rome’s greatest general. The precariousness

  of reputation— auctoritas, for the Romans—is shown by the ease with

  which Caesar’s new achievements rivaled and then surpassed Pompey’s

  past successes in the popular imagination. Few politicians would doubt

  the need to stay in the headlines, or that respect for achievements can

  rapidly fade or be pushed aside by newer stories. If anything, the pace

  of the modern world and the modern media have sped up the process.

  (For some, there may be the comfort that their mistakes and scandals

  can also be forgotten faster.)

  Much has changed, and few modern leaders, at least in the West,

  could match Caesar’s battlefield achievements. That does not mean

  that even in our societies, military glory (even if we would not use the

  word) cannot be transferred to political advantage. Yet it remains, as

  always, a precarious thing. Military failure, whether perceived or real,

  can be damaging. Leaders like Napoleon and Caesar who base their

  rise on military glory need to keep refreshing this glory with more

  victories if their popularity and their grip on power are not to fade.

  Caesar was a military dictator, but his behavior was moderate. One of

  the more depressing lessons from this period of history is that it was

  the far more ruthless Augustus who was able to hold on to power for

  more than forty years and ended up dying in his bed.

  Further Reading

  The primary sources for Caesar’s career and campaigns must begin with his own Com-

  mentarii on the conflicts in Gaul and the civil war. The additional books (book eight of

  224 Goldsworthy

  the Gallic Wars and the Alexandrian War, The African War, and The Spanish War, completing the Civil Wars) provide a slightly different perspective on his behavior. Cicero’s

  extensive writings provide a great deal of material on Caesar and attitudes toward

  his behavior. The biographies of Plutarch and Suetonius contain much material not

  mentioned elsewhere, and both Dio and Appian supplement these works. All of these

  sources must be used with some caution, since Caesar was a highly controversial figure

  during and after his lifetime.

  The modern literature on Caesar is extensive. Good starting points are offered by

  Mattias Gelzer, Caesar, trans. Peter Needham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

  Press, 1968), Christian Meier, Caesar, trans D. McLintock (New York: Basic Books,

  1996), and Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: The Life of a Colossus (New Haven, CT: Yale

  University Press, 2006). Almost a century after its publication, T. Rice Holmes’s Caesar’s

  Conquest of Gaul, 2nd ed. (1911), continues to provide one of the most thorough discus-

  sions of the Gallic wars.

  Lawrence J. F. Keppie’s The Making of the Roman Army (London: Batsford; Totowa,

  NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984) is one of the best and most accessible surveys of its

  development in this period. Also of interest are Emilio Gabba, The Roman Republic, the

  Army and the Allies, trans. P. J. Cuff (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-

  nia Press, 1976), Jacques Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome de 107 à 50 avant nôtre ère

  (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1967), and Richard Edwin Smith, Service in the Post-Marian Roman

  Army (Manchester, UK: University of Manchester Press, 1958). Nathan S. Rosenstein,

  Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Re-

  public (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), is useful on the

  behavior expected of a Roman commander in battle, and there is further discussion of

  this in Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon

  Press, 1996), 116–70. The collection of papers in Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War

  Commentaries as Political Instruments, ed. Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell (London:

  Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 1998), includes a number of useful discus-

  sions of Caesar’s presentation of his campaigns in the Commentarii.

  notes

  1 Suetonius Caesar 30.4.

  2 Pliny Natural History 7.92.

  3 Cicero Letters to Atticus 7.11.

  4 Plutarch Sulla 38.

  5 For a discussion of Caesar’s early career, see Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: The Life

  of a Colossus (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 65–66, 148–50, 185; Christian

  Meier, Caesar, trans. David McLintock (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 99–189; and Mat-

  tias Gelzer, Caesar, trans. Peter Needham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

  1968), 21–24, 28–29, 61–63.

  6 Sallust Catiline 54.4.

  7 Peter Wiseman, “The Publication of the De Bello Gallico,” in Julius Caesar as Artful

  Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments, ed. Kathryn Welch and Anton

  Powell, 1–9 (London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 1998).

  The General as State 225

  8 For the importance of rivers, see David Braund, “River Frontiers in the Environ-

  mental Psychology of the Roman World,” in The Roman Army in the Eas
t, ed. David

  Kennedy, JRA Supplementary Series 18 (1996): 43–47.

  9 Caesar Gallic War 4.38.

  10 Plutarch Cato the Younger 51; Suetonius Julius Caesar 24.3; with Gelzer, Caesar, 130–

  32, and Meier, Caesar,282–84.

  11 On Caesar’s diplomacy, see the discussion in Goldsworthy, Caesar, 315–17.

  12 See, e.g., the career and eventual execution of the chieftain Acco, Caesar Gallic

  War 6.4, 44.

  13 Dio 40.41.1, 3.

  14 Caesar Gallic War 8.49.

  15 For rumors, see, e.g., Caelius’s report to Cicero, in Cicero Letters to His Friends

  8.1.4.

  16 On the army in this period, see F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War under the Repub-

  lic, Martin Classical Lectures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940); Peter

  A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, 225 bc–ad 14 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Peter

  Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981); Emilio

  Gabba, The Roman Republic, the Army and the Allies, trans. P. J. Cuff (Berkeley and Los

  Angeles: University of California Press, 1976); Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Ro-

  man Army (London: Batsford; Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984); Jacques Har-

  mand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome de 107 à 50 avant nôtre ère (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1967); and

  Richard Edwin Smith, Service in the Post-Marian Roman Army (Manchester, UK: Univer-

  sity of Manchester Press, 1958).

  17 On discipline, see Suetonius Caesar 65, 67; Plutarch Caesar 17; on the importance

  of the general as a witness to behavior, see Adrian K. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at

  War, 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 162–63.

  18 See, e.g., the case of Cicero’s client Trebatius, in Cicero Letters to His Friends 7.5, let-

  ters to Trebatius, Letters to His Friends 7.6–19; Cicero Letters to His Brother Quintus 2.15a, 3

  for quotation; see also Gelzer, Caesar, 138–39; on plunder, see Catullus 29.

  19 Suetonius Caesar 24.

  20 On promotions of centurions for gallantry, see Gallic War 6.40; Suetonius Caesar

  65.1; on centurions’ command style and heavy casualties, see Goldsworthy, The Roman

  Army at War, 257–58, see Caesar Gallic War 7.51, Civil War 3.99; on the competition to show conspicuous valor and win promotion or reward, see Gallic Wars 5.44, 7.47, 50;

  Civil War 3.91.

  21 The eagle bearer of the Tenth: Caesar Gallic War 4.25; the Sambre: see Caesar

 

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