Caesar: Life of a Colossus

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  In contrast to Pompey, people knew Crassus, who spent far more time in Rome and was very active in public life. One of the richest men in the Republic - his fortune probably second only to that of Pompey - Crassus was fond of saying that no man could call himself rich unless he was able to afford to raise his own army. In spite of his wealth, his lifestyle was remarkably frugal in an age of luxury and indulgence. Men like Lucullus and Cicero's great rival the orator Hortensius paraded their riches in their magnificent houses, villas and gardens, while dining in lavish style on exotic foods. They were famous for the efforts they devoted to construct saltwater ponds, in which they raised sea fish, often as much as pets as for food. Crassus did not waste his money on such whims, and instead devoted great effort to augmenting his already vast fortune. He had interests in many businesses, maintaining close links with the publicani and other companies active in the provinces. Most visibly he dealt in property, maintaining hundreds of skilled slaves to develop buildings and increase their value. They included a force trained as a fire brigade, something that did not at this time otherwise exist at Rome. Large parts of the city consisted of narrow streets separating tall, densely packed and often cheaply constructed insulae thrown up by landlords keen to profit as much as possible from rents. Fires started easily and spread rapidly, especially in the heat of the Italian summer. Crassus was able to buy up great swathes of Rome at a knock-down price by waiting for a conflagration to begin and then purchasing properties in the path of the fire. Once the deal was done, he called in his fire brigade to fight the flames, usually by demolishing buildings to create a fire-brake. Some of his new purchases were saved, while his slave artisans were ready to build afresh on the sites of the demolished structures. He seems to have dealt particularly in grander houses for the better off, although like other prominent Romans he may also have owned many blocks of slum flats. The means of acquiring much of his property displayed both determination and ruthlessness. At some point, probably in 73 BC, he was known to have been spending much time with a Vestal Virgin named Licinia. She was formally accused of unchastity, a crime that in the case of the Vestals was punished by being entombed alive. The case was dismissed when Crassus announced that he was intent on buying a house from Licinia, whose name suggests she might well have been a relative. So convinced was everyone of his enthusiasm for acquiring new properties that this was accepted as far more probable than the idea that they were having an affair. Licinia was acquitted, but Crassus is supposed to have kept hovering around her until she finally sold him the house.'

  Crassus was not just a property tycoon who owned great estates and silver mines as well as housing, and his fortune did not exist purely for its own sake, but to serve his political ambitions. As we have seen, it is probable that Caesar benefited from loans to fund his grand attempts to buy popular favour. Crassus loaned money readily to many men pursuing a public career. He rarely charged them interest, although he was relentless in collecting the loan as soon as the agreed date for its repayment had arrived. Instead he concentrated on accumulating political capital, doing favours for other men and so placing them in his debt. In these years a large proportion of the 600 or so senators, perhaps even the majority, either owed money to Crassus or had benefited from one of his interest-free loans in the past. Few of these men came from the greatest families, who usually had wealth enough of their own. Many, like Caesar, were ambitious men from the fringes of the inner circle of families, still more were minor senators who never held a magistracy, but were members of the Senate and could vote even if they were rarely called upon to speak. Amongst these men Crassus had great influence, from the generosity with which he permitted others to draw upon his wealth. He was equally willing to do favours in other ways if this placed other men in his debt. Crassus was exceptionally active in the courts, even in comparison with men like Cicero whose career relied primarily on his skills as an advocate. The latter claimed that Crassus had:

  with no more than a mediocre rhetorical training and even less natural talent, still by effort and industry, and particularly by judicious use on behalf of his clients of favours owed to him, he was for many years one of the leading advocates. His speeches were characterised by clear Latin, carefully chosen and arranged words, free of too much adornment, his ideas were clever, but his delivery and voice undistinguished, so that he said everything in the same style.6

  Plutarch also emphasised how careful Crassus was in preparing a speech before each appearance in court. Effort then, rather than natural flair, best characterised his advocacy, but it was still highly effective, and his willingness to take on cases that others had refused placed many men under obligation to him. Similarly, the readiness he showed to canvass on behalf of electoral candidates was another way of doing favours that might be returned at a future date. His enthusiasm to make new connections meant that at times he appeared fickle, acting on behalf of a man one day in court or the Forum and then siding with someone else opposed to him a little later. Crassus worked hard at politics, in contrast to Pompey who, when in Rome, rarely appeared in the Forum. Pompey's wealth and auctoritas were greater than those of anyone else, but he was seen as reluctant to use them, disliking crowds and rarely appearing as an advocate. Crassus was always visible, speaking for or supporting other men, and taking care to greet even the humbler men by name whenever he met them. He never won the affection of the crowd, but his influence ensured that he was treated with respect. Prosecutions of prominent men were a normal and frequent part of public life, but no one attacked Crassus in this way. Plutarch mentions one tribune of the plebs who was notorious for his fierce attacks on leading men. When asked why he had never targeted Crassus, he replied because `that one has straw on his horns', referring to an Italian practice of fixing straw to the horns of dangerous bulls as warning for people to keep their distance. This may have been a play on words, since the Latin word for hay has the same root as the word for moneylender.7

  Crassus clearly had grand plans for his censorship in 65 Bc. He announced plans to enrol as citizens many of the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar had already associated himself with the agitation for this in the region, and Crassus was keen to earn gratitude and future support from so many new voters. Other senators feared the influence that this would give him and his colleague Catulus was resolute in his refusal to accept the new citizens. Crassus also attempted to annex Egypt as a province and levy taxes - quite how is unclear, because such matters were not normally dealt with by censors. The country was in turmoil, plagued by dynastic disputes amongst the decadent Ptolemies and internal rebellion. Suetonius tells us that Caesar, buoyed by the popularity won during his aedileship, also attempted to persuade some popular tribunes to vote him an extraordinary command as governor of Egypt. It is possible that he and Crassus were working in concert in this matter. Equally they may both simply have seen the same opportunity for enriching themselves by taking charge of this famously wealthy region. In any case there was far too much opposition for either plan to be successful. Crassus and Catulus were so bitterly at loggerheads that both men agreed to resign as censors after only a few months in the magistracy. They had failed to undertake their main role, carrying out a new census of citizens and their property, and it would be decades before a new census was properly carried out. A key institution was failing to cope with the changed circumstances of public life.'

  CATO, CATILINE, AND THE COURTS

  In 64 BC Caesar for the first time served as a magistrate presiding over a trial. This was a common duty for aediles and former aediles, who were regularly called in to act as judges in the courts when there were too many cases for the praetors to deal with. In 64 BC there was an overflow of trials for the murder court (the quaestio de sicariis), prompted in part by the activities of one of the quaestors, Marcus Porcius Cato. The latter is said to have taken his duties far more seriously than most of the young men who held this first post on the cursus. Appointed to oversee the Treasury, Cato was not content to follow th
e usual practice and leave the day-to-day administration to the clerks permanently employed to perform this. Instead, he went into every aspect of business in detail, supposedly shocking the professional staff with his rigour and knowledge. The clerks resisted strongly, trying to use some of the other quaestors of the year to block him. Cato replied by sacking the most senior member of staff, and prosecuting another man on charges of fraud. During his year of office he also looked into several anomalies from the time of the dictatorship. Sulla had allowed favoured supporters to take `loans' from the Republic's funds. Cato chased these up and made sure that the money was now repaid. A group he singled out for particular attention were those who had taken the reward money of 12,000 denarii (equal to 48,000 sestertii) offered for killing the proscribed. These men were publicly named, and made to return this `blood money'. The quaestor's actions met with general approval, for the horror of the proscriptions was still fresh in people's minds. Realising the mood of the times, prosecutors rapidly came forward to charge all of these men with murder. It was questionable whether this was legal, since Sulla's proscription law had granted protection to those acting on his behalf against decreed enemies of the Republic. These trials questioned the basis and legitimacy of the dictatorship itself, in the same way that the widespread enthusiasm for the restoration of the status and powers of the tribunate had reflected a desire for things to return to the days before Sulla when there had been a `proper' Republic. The Romans were struggling to come to terms with the violence and turmoil of their recent past.'

  Presiding over these trials was doubtless a welcome task for Caesar. His own experiences during the years of dictatorship gave him little sympathy for those who had taken part in and profited from the proscriptions. Politically it was also no bad thing to be involved again in a popular cause. Although a judge did not control the jury in his court, he could certainly favour one side in the case and Caesar seems to have been enthusiastic in the condemnation of men whose guilt was anyway attested by official Treasury records. Amongst the condemned was Lucius Luscius, one of Sulla's centurions who had acquired a massive fortune of 10 million sestertii during the proscriptions. Another was Catiline's uncle, Lucius Annius Bellienus, whose victims had included Quintus Lucretius Ofella, the man who had tried to stand for the consulship in defiance of Sulla's specific order. Catiline himself was also put on trial and was clearly guilty, though Cicero's later invective may well have been exaggerated. This claimed that he had paraded through the streets waving the head of his own brother-in-law, who had been a close relative of Marius. Nevertheless he was acquitted. Whether this was with the collusion of Caesar as the presiding magistrate is unclear, but Catiline was far more important and had more influential friends than others condemned in these trials. His connections may well have been enough to sway the jury, especially if backed by bribes or favours. Catiline may not have needed the assistance of Caesar, but the latter may well have felt it in his interest not to show too much enthusiasm for this particular case. The fact that the two were associated politically over the next years indicates that the trial did not result in any personal enmity, but how much can be read into this is harder to say. In spite of his association with Marius, Caesar does seem to have avoided acting as an avenger of personal wrongs during this affair. Suetonius notes that he pointedly refused to prosecute Cornelius Phagites, the officer who had arrested him during his flight from Sulla's anger (see p.59) and only released him on payment of a generous bribe. Cornelius had fulfilled his part of the bargain and Caesar, who stressed that he never neglected anyone who had aided him, may have felt that this was more important than the original arrest.10

  This was not the first prosecution Catiline had survived. His connections amongst the senior members of the Senate had already allowed him to survive a trial for mal-administration and corruption during his time as propraetor of Africa. Again he was probably guilty, but the presence of men like Catulus supporting him in court allowed him, like so many other governors, to escape punishment. In this case even his prosecutor was most obliging to the defence. Like Sulla and Caesar, Catiline came from an ancient patrician family that had dwindled over the centuries until it was on the margins of public life, struggling to compete with wealthier and more recently distinguished rivals. The civil war had helped him to restore his fortunes, as he became eventually an eager partisan of Sulla. In the following years scandal dogged his career as he was accused of seducing a Vestal Virgin, amongst other amorous exploits. He subsequently married Aurelia Orestilla - as far as is known no relation to Caesar's mother - who was wealthy but of dubious reputation. Sallust acidly commented that `no good person ever praised anything about her apart from her looks'. Wild rumours circulated that in his passion for her he had murdered his own teenage son because she did not care to live in the same house as this nearly adult heir. Catiline was seen as disreputable, as a womaniser whose friends, both male and female, tended to come from the wilder members of the aristocracy. Yet he also possessed great charm, and had the knack of commanding ferocious loyalty in his associates. The similarity to Caesar is striking, and it is tempting to see Catiline almost as what Caesar might have become. For all the scandals, Catiline's career up to this point had been broadly conventional, with the exception of the civil war years where the normal rules did not apply. There was an eagerness and desperation about his will to succeed that is again reminiscent of Caesar. Having been barred from standing for election to the consulship in 66 BC, he did not stand again in the next year, probably because he was still on trial in the provincial extortion court. Yet he again became a candidate at the end of 64 BC. Both Crassus and Caesar seem to have supported his campaign."

  In contrast to Catiline, Marcus Porcius Cato seems at first sight to have been Caesar's opposite in every respect. He was the great-grandson of Cato the Elder, a `new man' elevated to the Senate for distinguished service in the Second Punic War, who had gone on to be both consul and censor. His ancestor had always contrasted himself with the effete aristocrats of the established families, disdaining their love of Greek language and culture, and living a simple life guided by the stern principles of duty. He was the first to write a prose history of Rome in Latin, pointedly refusing to name individual magistrates since he wished to celebrate the deeds of the Roman people and not commemorate the achievements of the nobility. It was an interesting illustration of the way senatorial families marketed themselves that the great-grandson could make himself famous and highly respected through emulating the manners and lifestyle of his famous ancestor. Cato combined his personification of traditional Roman values - which may or may not actually have reflected any historical reality in an earlier generation, but were nevertheless widely admired if not emulated - with a particularly rigorous adherence to the Stoic philosophy. This doctrine emphasised the pursuit of virtue above all else, but in his case was taken to an almost obsessional extreme. Cato was never touched by scandal or accused of luxurious living. In contrast to Caesar's fastidiousness and unconventional fashions, Cato cared little about his appearance. It was common for him to walk the streets of Rome barefoot, while he is even supposed to have conducted official business as a magistrate wearing a toga, but without the normal tunic beneath. On journeys he never rode a horse, preferring to walk, and was supposedly easily able to keep up with mounted companions. Again in contrast to Caesar, Plutarch noted that Cato had never had sex with a woman until he slept with his bride. In this case his self-control was not matched by his spouse, whom he later divorced for infidelity. Nor was it to be found in his half-sister Servilia, who for so long was Caesar's lover.12

  In behaviour Caesar and Cato often seem poles apart, but in some ways they were both striving for much the same ends. Ambitious politicians needed to be noticed so that they could stand out from the crowd of other men all seeking the same offices. Here Cato had an advantage, for his family connections were better than Caesar's. When a man won a magistracy, he had to outshine all the other men who were holding the same
post. Ability counted, but it was important to attract attention to one's deeds. In his quaestorship Cato made sure that everyone knew that he was doing things differently, bringing to the job not simply talent but his particular brand of rigid virtue. Pursuing those who had killed during the proscriptions and profited from them was a popular move, drawing attention and winning approval. In opposite ways - Caesar through his neatness and trend-setting, Cato through his apparent careless scruffiness - these two advertised themselves as distinct from their peers. The same was true of the former's taste for luxury and lavish spending on games as well as the latter's thrift. Cato and Caesar were both recognised early on as men who already had won wide recognition and fame and who were likely to go far. Though so opposite in style, they were playing the same game.

  OLD CRIMES AND NEW PLOTS

  At the end of 64 BC the elections were once again fiercely contested. Caesar was not involved as a candidate, for he would not be eligible to stand for the praetorship until the following year, but he was certainly present to support the campaigns of others. This was an important way of earning support for the future, and it was always a welcome thing to place the incoming magistrates in your debt. The race for the consulship was especially tight. Catiline was finally able to stand for this office, and he was associated with the almost equally disreputable, but far less gifted Caius Antonius. The other notable candidate was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous orator. Cicero was a `new man', relying on his own talent for success. He had won fame through his appearances as a legal advocate, especially in celebrated cases where, for instance, he had opposed one of Sulla's minions in 80 BC, and prosecuted a notoriously corrupt, but wealthy and well-connected governor in 70 B. Like Caesar he had supported the Manilian Law to give Pompey the eastern command, and continually associated himself with the supporters of the popular hero. He and Pompey had briefly served together under the command of Pompeius Strabo during the Social War as, ironically, had Catiline. Cicero also presented himself as the champion of the equestrian order and had been careful to stage good entertainments during his time as aedile. Yet playing the popularis in this way did not endear him to the leading aristocrats in the Senate, the `good men' (boni) as they liked to call themselves, and no `new man' had reached the consulship for a generation. In the event there was enough suspicion of Catiline to make the orator seem a better choice. Cicero won comfortably, while Antonius scraped into second place.13