Caesar: Life of a Colossus

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Caesar's prospects were good. He had won acclaim in the courts and served with distinction fighting in the East. Even the rumours about Nicomedes and his own scandalous womanising at least helped to make his name widely known, as did his distinctive style of dress. If his family was not amongst the inner circle of nobles in the Senate, the Julii Caesares had provided a number of magistrates in recent years. Some of these were from the other branch of the family, but this still meant that the name had been kept in the public eye. His mother's relations were doing very well, with two consulships in the last five years and another member holding the praetorship in 70 BC. With twenty posts as quaestor available each year this was the easiest elected magistracy to win. The enfranchisement of the Italians had brought many sons of wealthy local families to Rome in search of a career, but a member of an established Roman family and patrician had little to fear from such competition. Caesar was duly elected. It was an important moment, for Sulla's political reforms ensured that all quaestors were automatically enrolled in the Senate. Quaestors performed a range of financial and administrative tasks, but the majority served as deputy to a provincial governor, who was in turn either an ex-consul or ex-praetor. Caesar was sent in this way to Further Spain (Hispania Ulterior), the westernmost province of the Iberian Peninsula. la

  Before he left Rome some time in 69 BC, Caesar suffered two personal blows with the death of his aunt Julia, followed shortly afterwards by the death of his wife Cornelia. Aristocratic families held very public funerals for their members, using the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of their whole line, reminding voters of what they had done and hinting at the promise for the future. Actors dressed in the regalia of office and wearing the funeral masks of distinguished ancestors formed part of the procession, which went first to the Forum, where an oration would be delivered from the Rostra. Polybius tells us that

  ... who makes the oration over the man [or, in this case, woman] about to be buried, when he has finished speaking of him recounts the successes and exploits of the rest whose images are present, beginning from the most ancient. By this means, by this constant renewal of the good report of brave men, the celebrity of those who performed noble deeds is rendered immortal, while at the same time the fame of those who did good service to their country becomes known to the people and a heritage for future generations.20

  At Julia's funeral Caesar spoke from the Rostra about her distinguished ancestry, of the Julii's descent from the goddess Venus, and the royal connections of her mother's family. These were useful reminders to the watching crowd of his own lineage. More controversially he included in the procession symbols of Marius' victories, and perhaps even an actor to represent him. Sulla had banned the public honouring of his rival, but only a few of the watchers protested, and they were swiftly shouted down by the rest. Though Sulla had won the civil war, he had not won over many, even of Rome's elite, to accept all of his decisions, as had been indicated by the widespread popularity of the restoration of the tribunate. For a lot of Romans Marius remained a great hero, the man who had restored Rome's injured pride in Africa and then saved Italy from the Northern menace. Cicero, who roundly condemned Marius' role in the civil war, frequently and enthusiastically praised his victories over Jugurtha and the Cimbri in his speeches, knowing that his audience would warmly concur. Caesar's gesture was generally welcomed and this emphasis on his own close connection to the great hero was very good for his own popularity.21

  It was not uncommon for elderly women from the noble families to receive a grand public funeral. Caesar's decision to grant the same honour to Cornelia was highly unusual, and Plutarch says that he was the first Roman to do this for such a young woman. The gesture proved popular, as many people took it as a sign of the genuine sorrow of a kind-hearted man. Although the popular image of the Romans sees them as stern and phlegmatic, in truth they were often a deeply sentimental people. Funerals, like so much of an aristocrat's life, were conducted in public and had an impact on politics. No close male relative of Caesar had died during his young adulthood, and in one sense the funerals of his aunt and wife provided great opportunities for selfpublicising. Caesar seized the chance and exploited it to the best of his ability. This does not necessarily mean that his sorrow was not genuine, for sentiment and politics often co-existed happily at Rome. His marriage to Cornelia had been successful, perhaps also happy and loving. However, none of our sources suggest that it was the loss of his wife that sparked off his womanising and it is most probable that he had already had a number of affairs while married to her. We do not know if he paraded the symbols of her father Cinna, as he had so recently done with the latter's ally Marius. Marius had far greater emotional appeal to the wider population, so the connection with him was far more important for Caesar.

  Caesar left for Further Spain in the spring or early summer of 69 BC, quite probably travelling out with the governor he was to serve, Antistius Vetus. It was common for governors to select their own quaestor from those who had been elected. It is possible that this had happened in Caesar's case and that the two already had a connection. Certainly, they seem to have got on well, and Caesar would take Vetus' son as his own quaestor when sent to govern Further Spain after his praetorship seven years later. One of the quaestor's most important tasks was to oversee the accounts for the province, but he could be called upon to act as the governor's representative in a wide range of activities. Much of a governor's time was spent in touring the main towns of the region, listening to petitions, resolving problems and dispensing justice. Vetus sent Caesar to perform this function in some places. Caesar performed all his tasks well, and over twenty years later would remind the locals of his services to them. A quaestorship offered the chance to acquire clients amongst the notable men of a provincial population.

  We are told that Caesar was first subject to an epileptic fit while serving in Spain, although it is not clear whether this was in 69 BC or during his own spell as governor in 61-60 BC. Another incident probably dated to the quaestorship, although Plutarch sets it later, and occurred when he was visiting Gades (modern Cadiz) to hold court. Caesar is supposed to have seen a statue of Alexander the Great in the Temple of Hercules and been visibly distressed, because he had done so little at an age when the Macedonian king had conquered half the world. More disturbing still was a dream in which he raped his mother Aurelia. Understandably dismayed by this, Caesar consulted a soothsayer whose interpretation was that `he was destined to rule the world, since the mother whom he had ravished represented Mother Earth, the parent of all'. Suetonius claims that this explanation prompted him to leave the province early, so eager was he to return to Rome and resume his career. If this is true, then it is likely that he acted with the approval of Vetus, since there never seems to have been any criticism or suggestion that he abandoned his post. His review of the provincial accounts may well have already been complete and so his primary duty fulfilled. On the whole he had done his job well, but the activities of a quaestor rarely held much fascination to the electorate back in Rome."

  MONUMENTS AND GLADIATORS : CAESAR AS AEDILE

  On his way back to Italy Caesar paused in Transpadane Gaul, the area of the Po Valley. This was part of the province of Cisalpine Gaul, the only province that formed part of the Italian Peninsula. It was populated by a mixture of descendants of Roman and Italian colonists and the Gallic tribes, the leading families of which were by now culturally very Roman. The grants of citizenship that came in the aftermath of the Social War had stopped at the line of the Po, and communities to the north possessed only Latin status. This was deeply resented, especially by the rich and powerful who had most to gain from full citizenship. Caesar encouraged these sentiments, for the future votes of wealthy new citizens would have been well worth having. The suggestion that his agitation was so strong as to push the Transpadanes to the brink of rebellion, and that this was only prevented by the chance presence of legions nearby, seems extremely improbable. It is most likely a later in
vention based upon the assumption that Caesar was always aiming at revolution. The man who had refused to join either Lepidus or Sertorius seems unlikely to have wanted to start a rebellion on his own. At this stage in his career, there was simply no need to take such a risk .21

  On arrival back in Rome, one of Caesar's first actions was to remarry. His new bride was Pompeia, grandchild on her mother's side of Sulla and on her father's side of the latter's consular colleague in 88 BC, Quintus Pompeius. Therefore, for all the parading of the connection with Marius and his support for legislation aimed at dismantling Sulla's regime, it would be far too simplistic to see Caesar as fixedly pro-Marian or anti-Sullan. Roman politics rarely, if ever, divided so starkly, even when civil war raged. When senators married it was almost invariably with a view to the useful associations they would gain as a result of the union. Not enough is known about Pompeia's relatives to understand precisely how Caesar thought the marriage would help to foster his career - the web of inter-connections between aristocratic families was complex in the extreme. Unlike his marriage to Cornelia, this one would not have been through the confarreatio ceremony. A good deal is known about the rituals associated with conventional marriages at Rome, although we do not know whether all of these were followed at Caesar's wedding in 67 BC. As with most aspects of private and public life at Rome, there were sacrificial offerings and taking of omens. Brides were traditionally supposed to wear orange slippers and a home-woven dress, fastened with a girdle tied in a complex `Herculean' knot for the groom to undo on the wedding night. If Pompeia followed the usual conventions she would have had her hair bound into six plaits and covered with the bright orange veil (flammeum) - a reminder of Cornelia who would have had to wear such a covering whenever she left the house if Caesar had actually been made Flamen Dialis. In a torch-lit procession, she would then be escorted from her family home to the groom's house, where the latter would be waiting. On arrival the door posts of the house would be decorated with wooden fillets, and anointed with oil or animal fat. The bride was then carried over the threshold, a gesture that was believed to go back to the rape of the Sabine women, when the first Romans had only been able to find wives by kidnapping the daughters of a neighbouring community. The first Roman brides had therefore entered their new homes unwillingly. This ritual - though without a general consciousness of its supposed origin - has survived into the modern world, but Roman practice differed in that it was the bride's attendants rather than the groom who actually carried her.

  The bridegroom was waiting with a torch and a vessel full of water, symbolising his willingness to provide her with the essentials of life. There rarely appears to have been a particularly long ceremony to formalise the marriage. The traditional formual was simplicity itself, with the bride declaring `Where you are Caius, I will be Caia' (Ubi to Caius, ego Caia), the masculine and feminine forms of a common name symbolising the joining of the couple. There was a symbolic bridal bed laid out and ornately decorated in the reception hall of the house, although the couple would obviously not actually occupy this but retire to a proper bedroom in due course. (Some Greeks believed that a Roman groom had all the lights extinguished so that the room was in complete darkness before he joined his wife in the proper marriage bed. This was supposed to be a mark of respect for an honourable woman, so that she would never seem like a prostitute, only wanted for sexual pleasure. This may well have been no more than a story told about the quaint Romans by the Greeks.) On the next morning the new wife for the first time sacrificed to the household gods (the lares and penates) of her new home. She and her husband would also entertain guests to a special feast.24

  Pompeia was only distantly related to Pompey the Great and there was little love lost between the two branches of the family, so Caesar's marriage gave him no close link to Rome's greatest and most popular living general. For the first two years after his consulship Pompey seemed content, even though his performance in the Senate was lacklustre. By 67 BC he was clearly missing the adulation that his victories had brought him and began to manoeuvre for a new command. The spectacular nature of his career so far ensured that this could not simply be a standard consular province, but needed to be far grander. Piracy continued to plague the Mediterranean and a tribune called Aulus Gabinius proposed a bill creating an extraordinary command to deal with the problem once and for all. This was not entirely unprecedented, since the Senate had sent one of the consuls of 74 BC, Marcus Antonius - the father of Caesar's subordinate Mark Antony - with a roving brief to combat pirates. However, he had achieved little, suffering a serious defeat in 72 sic and dying soon afterwards. The situation had deteriorated even further, threatening the supply of foreign grain on which Rome depended. If its intention was nothing new, the details of Gabinius' law were extremely radical, granting the new commander control of vast numbers of ships and troops, as well as imperium that stretched throughout the Mediterranean and for a distance of 50 miles in from the shore. His power was at the very least equal to that of all the governors whose provinces included land in this area, and it may possibly have been superior. While Gabinius made no explicit mention of Pompey in his initial proposal, it was clear to all that he was the obvious and really the only choice. Many leading senators opposed the measure, declaring that it was a mistake in a free Republic to give so much power to any one man. As usual the forces of inertia within the Senate ensured that many preferred letting a serious problem continue rather than allowing someone else the credit for solving it.25

  Caesar is said to have been the only senator to speak in favour of the bill, doubtless being summoned by Gabinius to speak from the Rostra as the tribune tried to persuade the crowd in the Forum to support his bill. When the order was given for the people to reconvene as the Assembly of the tribes, they enthusiastically passed it. It seems unlikely that no other senator supported the law, but Caesar may well have been one of its more vocal supporters. As in the past he was keen to associate himself with popular causes, while his own experiences with pirates gave him a personal knowledge of the threat they posed. When the law was passed the price of grain at Rome is supposed to have dropped immediately to a more normal level as the market expressed its confidence in Pompey. Many prominent senators proved ready to assist him in his task, so that the twenty-four legates or senior subordinates granted to him by the law were a very distinguished group. This in itself does suggest that Caesar's support for Gabinius was probably not unique. The faith in Pompey proved entirely justified as he set his organisational genius to the problem. Dividing the Mediterranean into sectors, the seas west of Italy were swept free of pirates in a matter of weeks. It took only slightly longer to defeat the raiders infesting the eastern half of the Mediterranean. One reason for the speed of this success was Pompey's willingness to accept the surrender of the pirates and their families, settling them on good farmland and often in new communities where they could support themselves without recourse to violence. Once again Pompey was the adored hero of the Republic, although the pettiness in his character surfaced as he tried to deny the proconsular governor of Crete credit for defeating the pirates on that island. His success merely whetted his appetite for further glory26

  In 66 Bc another tribune, Caius Manilius, brought a bill before the Popular Assembly, making use of the powers that Pompey and Crassus had restored to this magistracy. Since 74 BC the command in the on-going conflict with Mithridates had been held by Lucius Licinius Lucullus - a post, which as already noted, he is supposed to have secured through the assistance of the courtesan Praecia (seep. 83). Lucullus was one of Sulla's men, probably the only senator to stay with him when he first marched on Rome in 88 BC. He was a bold and skilful general, but his strategic and tactical gifts were not matched by comparable skill as a leader. During his campaigns, Lucullus had achieved victory after victory over Mithridates and his ally King Tigranes of Armenia. Yet he had never won the love of his officers and soldiers in the way that commanders like Marius, Sulla and Pompey were able to do. Even more
dangerously, he closely regulated the activities of Roman businessmen and the publicani tax collectors in Asia. This was bitterly resented by these influential groups who had grown accustomed to exploiting the locals under governors who demanded no more than a cut of the profits. Lucullus had been anxious to avoid alienating the provincials for fear that they might then come to see Mithridates as a potential liberator from Roman oppression. Yet for many wealthy businessmen profits came before such concerns, and from 69 BC onwards Lucullus' command was steadily reduced as regions were taken from him and given to other governors. His strength eroded, much of the ground he had won earlier in the war was lost and final victory began to seem ever more distant. Under such circumstances the idea of sending Pompey out to take charge and settle the business once and for all was very attractive. Caesar once again spoke in favour of the bill, which was easily passed. Pompey replaced Lucullus, again giving the impression of arriving at the last minute to take the credit for a war that had already been virtually