Chapter 16
The opposition of Cato and the extreme optimates to Caesar was not irrational, even if it was shortsighted. They saw that for an aristocratic republic to provide its leaders with the liberty (libertas) to compete for honors, there had to be a rough parity of resources among them. They also realized the need to abide by laws and customs that prevented any one leader from acquiring such great advantages that the rest could not compete meaningfully with him.
Pompey had aroused the fear and resentment of the same men. From the very beginning of his opportunistic career, he would not abide by the rules designed to restrain him. Then, when he had finally made clear that he was not willing to go so far as he had made his optimate foes fear, they were determined to cut him down to size. They wanted to demonstrate that he would not be allowed to win the aristocratic competition for honors by violating its rules.
Many sensed that Caesar was even more of a threat because he was smart, unconventional, and bold almost to the point of recklessness. He always tried to make the odds as favorable as possible, but at crucial moments he was not afraid to roll the dice. What could one make of a man who would give up a coveted triumph to meet a technicality in the election laws? He was unpredictable. Indeed, there was no telling what a man who incurred extravagant debts and was once called “every woman’s husband and every man’s wife” would do.
Certainly, his long-running affair with Cato’s half-sister Servilia would not have endeared Caesar to the upright Cato. Rumors of affairs with numerous noble Roman wives must also have raised mistrust among many important men. It is no wonder that Caesar was convinced that Cato and a clique of powerful optimate nobles were personally trying to keep him from obtaining his full measure of dignitas. Refusing to give in and suffer the shame of being bested by them, Caesar trumped them at every turn. He failed, however, to appreciate the magnitude of the fear and envious dislike (invidia) that he was building up against himself.
Having surprised Cato and his other optimate enemies by foregoing a triumph to run for the consulship in 60 b.c.e., Caesar used every strategy, including bribery, to win. Caesar’s optimate enemies, even the incorruptible Cato, decided to raise their own bribery fund to ensure the election of Cato’s son-in-law M. Calpurnius Bibulus. Countering them, Caesar secured the aid of Crassus and Pompey. Just as Caesar, they, too, had been thwarted and injured by optimate enemies in the senate. In view of their long and intense rivalry, they probably remained independent of each other at first. They both, however, were happy to help a candidate who promised to be a consul favorable toward each of them. A friend of Pompey even cooperated with Caesar by supplying bribes and running for the other consular position. Thus supported, Caesar had little trouble winning election. Second place, however, went to Bibulus, and that posed problems.
Caesar partners with Pompey and Crassus, 60 to 58 b.c.e.
Caesar and his allies needed to strengthen their hand as much as possible after the election of Bibulus. Probably it was only then that Caesar persuaded Pompey and Crassus to cooperate together in creating the strong coalition that modern writers often call the First Triumvirate. Actually, it is inaccurate to refer to their coalition as a triumvirate. In Roman terms, a triumvirate denoted a legally constituted board of three men with some clearly defined authority. The later triumvirate of Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, which is often called the Second Triumvirate, was such a board (p. 374). The informal coalition of Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar was never an official board. The three private dynasts swore that each would seek only those ends not objectionable to the other two. Their personal motivations were fairly clear: Pompey wanted land for his veterans and ratification of his acta in the East; Crassus desired a reduction of the Asian tax contracts in the interest of his equestrian friends; Caesar sought command of a province and an army along with the wealth and loyal veterans that they would provide.
At the start, Caesar was clearly less powerful than either Pompey or Crassus. He, however, had a certain long-term advantage. Pompey and Crassus could never completely forget their rivalry. Therefore, Caesar could maneuver between them. He soon strengthened his position by marrying his daughter, Julia, to Pompey and taking to wife Calpurnia, the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. Piso, along with Pompey’s friend Aulus Gabinius (pp. 262–3), was elected consul for 58 b.c.e. Eventually, with the help of Pompey, Crassus, and others, Caesar obtained passage of legislation that enabled him over time to amass enough political, military, and financial power to surpass everyone.
Caesar’s legislation as consul, 59 b.c.e.
Caesar’s first task, however, was to make good on his promise to obtain legislation that would fill the needs of Pompey and Crassus. At the start of his term, Caesar was studiously polite both to the optimate-controlled senate and to his optimate colleague, Bibulus. He consulted them on all matters, accepted their suggestions and amendments, and proposed only moderate bills. When even his mildest bills were endlessly debated and obstructed in the senate, he soon resorted to more direct methods. He even had Cato, the leader of the opposition, arrested. Upon reflection, however, he apparently decided not to turn the righteous Cato into a martyr and had him set free.
Caesar then presented his land bill for the settlement of Pompey’s veterans to the Centuriate Assembly. Bibulus, as the other consul, promptly vetoed it and declared all of the other days on which the assemblies could meet during the year to be feast days. He thereby cut off the last constitutional path of action for the three dynasts.
Disregarding this legal obstacle, Caesar presented his land bill to the assembly a second time. Three tribunes interposed vetoes. The crowd’s murmur rose to an angry roar. Dramatically, Caesar halted the voting and asked Pompey what other action he was prepared to take. Pompey placed his hand on his hip and declared that he would not hesitate to draw his sword. Bibulus pushed his way forward, but before he could say a word, the angry mob broke his fasces. Then, someone dumped a basket of feces over his head. The assembly passed the bill, and Caesar declared it carried.1
The humiliated Bibulus retired from public life. He spent the rest of his term shut up in his home. Some wag acutely observed that, from then on, the names of the two consuls were no longer Bibulus and Caesar, but Julius and Caesar. Now unopposed, Caesar carried out the rest of his legislative program with speed and efficiency. The whole package is often referred to as the Julian laws. One of them provided for the distribution of Campanian public lands among 20,000 needy citizens. The only requirement was that each should have at least three children. There was a law that ratified en bloc all of Pompey’s settlements in the East. Another bill remitted one-third of the payments that the tax collectors of Asia, Crassus’ friends, had contracted to give the treasury.
Caesar also obtained passage of legislation favorable to himself. One law, proposed by a friendly tribune, granted him immediate proconsular imperium for five years over the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum and command of three legions stationed at Aquileia. Caesar began at once to recruit some soldiers and staff and held them in readiness outside the city. His opponents were powerless: no senator dared oppose any of Caesar’s measures, for fear of incurring his wrath. Those who still attended meetings summoned by Caesar were considerate and polite. When Metellus Celer, governor-to-be of Transalpine Gaul, suddenly died, the senate, on Pompey’s motion, assigned it to Caesar.
One of Caesar’s early laws ordered the publication of the Proceedings of the Senate (Acta Senatus or Commentarii Senatus). Publishing the proceedings of the senate made its actions more transparent in general. It also exposed to the public the specific doings of Caesar’s senatorial enemies. Caesar’s most statesmanlike law in 59 b.c.e. was the lex Julia de Repetundis. It stringently regulated the administration of the provinces to control extortion and abuses of power in several ways: governors were forbidden, under pain of heavy penalty, to accept presents. They could not sell or withhold justice and had to put their official edicts on deposit—two copies in the provinces and one at Rome. Finally, they could not pass beyond the limits of their provinces without authorization. If adequately enforced, this excellent law would have protected the people of the provinces from oppression and promoted their well-being and prosperity. Still, it, too, had a partisan purpose. It would make it more difficult for Caesar’s enemies to abuse the provinces in an attempt to obtain power and resources against him and would make the danger of prosecution greater if they did.
Getting rid of Cicero through Clodius, 58 b.c.e.
Before leaving for Gaul, Caesar wanted to make sure that his opponents in the senate would not venture to attack him by annulling the Julian laws of 59 b.c.e. Cicero, who had publicly excoriated Caesar and his partners, was a man who might successfully lead such an attack. In an effort to prevent Cicero from freely speaking his mind, Caesar offered him a remunerative position on the Land Commission. That offer being rejected, Caesar then invited Cicero to accompany him to Gaul as his legate. Cicero turned down this and other offers. Finally, Caesar decided to leave Cicero to the devices of Publius Clodius, Cicero’s sworn enemy after the Bona Dea affair (pp. 270–1). Early in 59 b.c.e., Caesar, as pontifex maximus, and Pompey, as an augur, had presided over Clodius’ adoption into a plebeian family. In that way, Clodius could become a tribune for 58. He could then be used to frighten Cicero into silence if necessary.
One of the first laws that Clodius carried as tribune abolished the use of bogus portents for the obstruction of legislation. Another of his laws provided for the distribution of free grain to the needy. Most notorious is the law that forbade offering fire and water to any person who had put Roman citizens to death without trial or appeal to the people. Being denied fire and water meant exile. The law was retroactive and clearly aimed at Cicero who had ordered the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators in 63. He had thought that the Senatus Consultum Ultimum the senate had given him would protect him from any prosecution for his actions. Now, he was stunned to find himself facing exile. He and his friends vainly pleaded with the consuls, Piso, Caesar’s father-in-law, and Gabinius, Pompey’s friend. They had once promised him protection, but Clodius had bought them off with political favors. Even Pompey, according to Plutarch, slipped out of his house when Cicero came to ask for help. His pleas denied, Cicero had no choice but to leave Italy. He was forbidden to live within 400 miles of Rome.
Clodius next disposed of Cato by a law assigning him to govern the distant island of Cyprus. Clodius dryly observed that Cato was the only man in Rome honest enough to administer the royal treasures inherited with that new province. Cato, not willing to break a duly constituted law, stoically complied. The removal of Caesar’s two ablest opponents left Caesar’s Julian laws safe from attack.
Gaul and the foundation of Caesar’s might, 58 to 56 b.c.e.
Caesar now hurried north and took command of the legion stationed in Transalpine Gaul. It is often called either the Province or Narbonese Gaul. The eastern part is now Provence, in southeastern France. Caesar hoped to use his governorship of Transalpine Gaul to pursue great wars and conquests. They would earn him undying glory, a large following of loyal veterans, and huge financial resources from booty. At this time, Transalpine Gaul was ideally located for fulfilling these hopes. It bordered the rich and populous lands of the free Gallic tribes in Gallia Comata, “Long-Haired Gaul.” The political situation both within and around their territory was in an unsettled state. That could give ample pretexts for the neighboring Roman commander to intervene “to protect the vital interests of Rome.” Much of what is known of the war comes from Caesar’s own compelling narrative On the Gallic War (De Bello Gallico), a masterpiece of propaganda and self-glorification (pp. 340–1). Thus, he tried to equal or surpass Pompey’s military glory in the popular imagination.
The situation in Gallia Comata
According to Caesar, Gallia Comata was divided into three parts by the Aquitanians in the south, various Celtic tribes in the center, and the Belgians in the north, all with different languages, customs, and institutions. Primarily agricultural people, the vast majority lived in villages and small towns. There were some mining and manufacturing centers on major rivers and trade routes, and a few hilltop fortresses like Bibracte, Gergovia, and Alesia in the interior. The Gauls, as a whole, were politically weak and unstable. Their largest political unit was the tribal state (civitas), a loose confederation of more or less independent clans. There were nearly one hundred such states, and they often fought with each other. Also, they were unstable internally. Most had abolished monarchic rule about fifty years earlier and were rent by feuding noble factions.
Defeat of the Helvetians, 58 b.c.e.
When Caesar arrived in the Province in the spring of 58 b.c.e., the Helvetians (Helvetii) of western Switzerland were ready to set out on a long-projected trek west across Gaul to find a new home. Fleeing aggressive Germanic tribes under kings like Ariovistus, they had burned their homes and villages behind them and stood poised on the banks of the Rhodanus (Rhône).
Caesar claimed that the migration of the Helvetians would threaten the security of the Province by creating turmoil in free Gaul and would leave their old territory open as an avenue for German tribes to invade Italy. Adding some freshly recruited cohorts and some allied troops, Caesar rushed north with his legion. He met the Helvetii near modern Geneva, hastily constructed defenses, and refused to let them cross the Rhodanus into Gaul. The Helvetians turned to an alternate route. Caesar reacted with the speed and determination that became his hallmarks. He left his trusted legate Titus Labienus in charge and sped back across the Alps. He took command of the three legions at Aquileia and moved west to the area around modern Turin. There, he quickly recruited two more legions. Then, a forced march brought him back across the Alps to Labienus in seven days. They caught up with the Helvetii as the latter were crossing the Arar (Saône) into the territory of the Aeduii. After a series of minor skirmishes, the two armies clashed near Bibracte in a decisive battle during which the Romans all but destroyed the Helvetian army. Caesar compelled most of the survivors, about a third of the population, to return to their native homeland.
Ariovistus
There began almost immediately a procession of envoys from many states of central Gaul to Caesar. Some offered congratulations for his recent victory; others implored his aid against Ariovistus. That powerful German king had already reduced two states to vassalage. His aggressions were daily growing more menacing. Caesar at once began negotiations with the king. Ariovistus’ alleged rudeness and arrogance provided a plausible pretext for war. A quick, bold attack ended in the utter rout and destruction of the Germans. Caesar, after quartering his legions for the winter, hastened back to Cisalpine Gaul to hold the November sessions of his gubernatorial court.
The Belgic War, 57 b.c.e.
Caesar’s selection of eastern Gaul for winter quarters had aroused the fears and hostilities of the Belgians in northern Gaul. A letter from Labienus informed Caesar of their warlike preparations. Caesar recruited two more legions and sent them across the Alps at the end of winter. As soon as it was possible to begin military operations, Caesar joined his eight legions and confronted the Belgians. Again, speed and resolute action were decisive. The Belgian force was disunified, short of supplies, and torn by mutual jealousies. It broke up and dispersed after only one minor skirmish. Caesar could now subdue the Belgian states one by one, not without some dangerous and hard-fought battles.
Meanwhile, young Publius Crassus, Crassus’s son, had been sent with one of Caesar’s legions to western Gaul. He compelled all the tribes along the English Channel and the Atlantic seaboard to submit to Rome. Gaul seemed prostrate at the feet of the conqueror. Even the Germans beyond the Rhine sent hostages and promised to obey his orders. On receiving report of these triumphs, the senate decreed a public thanksgiving of fifteen days, an unprecedented length (see Box 16.1). Caesar was the darling of Rome. With a loyal army and the wealth of Gaul at his disposal, his enemies’ only hope was a disruption of his partnership with Pompey and Crassus.
16.1 Roman thanksgiving
When good fortune fell upon the Roman state, most often in the form of a major military victory, the senate would order the observance of a thanksgiving ritual called a supplicatio. Public and private business was put on hold so that the men and women of Rome, dressed in their finest clothes and sometimes adorned with laurel wreaths, could visit temples and shrines throughout the city. There they offered prayers, sacrifices, incense, and libations in order to thank the gods for their favor. Traditionally, thanksgiving celebrations lasted two or three days; celebrations lasting four days were ordered on a handful of occasions. As with many other aspects of public life, however, this changed in the last decades of the Republic when the supplicatio became another way to honor the preeminent men of the day. In the years 63 and 62 b.c.e., in honor of Pompey’s victories in the East, the senate voted supplicationes of ten and twelve days, respectively. They may have seemed excessive at the time, but those festivals pale in comparison to supplicationes voted in honor of Caesar’s successes, among which were thanksgivings of fifteen days in the year 57, thirty days in 47, forty in the following year, and fifty in the year after that. Under the Empire, the supplicatio was reserved for celebrating the military victories and major life events of the emperor and his family.
Disorder in Rome and a renewed partnership, 58 to 56 b.c.e.
While Caesar was winning wealth, fame, and loyal veterans in Gaul, Rome itself became the scene of disorder and violence. The optimate-controlled senate was too weak to govern, Pompey the Great too inept. Clodius had, by his free-grain law, made himself the idol of the populace. His armed gangs ruled the streets. These gangs were organized through the collegia (sing. collegium), neighborhood associations and trade guilds to which the craftsmen and members of the urban plebs belonged (p. 325). The senate, fearing their potential for organized political violence, had banned them in 64 b.c.e. Upon becoming tribune, Clodius had obtained passage of a plebiscite to legalize them once more. Then he organized them into potent weapons of political violence.
No sooner had Caesar left for Gaul than Pompey and Crassus had begun to quarrel. The former, in order to restore his ebbing popularity and win the support of the nobility, began to agitate for the recall of Cicero from exile. Clodius incited a series of riots, temporarily drove Pompey from public life, and made him cower in his house. Crassus, who also had no wish to see Cicero return, enjoyed Pompey’s discomfiture and kept Clodius supplied with funds.
Cicero’s recall, 57 b.c.e.
As tribune, Clodius could veto every proposal for the return of Cicero. He continued to incite his followers to riot whenever such a bill came up before the assembly. Pompey returned to the political arena during the summer of the Belgic War. He began to attend meetings in the Forum once more, usually escorted by a large group of followers. Many of them were veterans of his campaigns in the East. They were headed by the tribune T. Annius Milo. Pompey called upon Cicero’s brother, Quintus Cicero, to guarantee that the orator, if permitted to return, would do nothing to upset either the rule of the three dynasts or the Julian laws. Pompey’s efforts bore fruit. In the autumn, a bill for Cicero’s return passed the comitia centuriata with uproarious acclaim. The success of the bill had depended somewhat on the victory of Milo and his followers during a bloody scuffle with the followers of Clodius. Cicero’s return was met with thunderous applause from the watching throngs, who scattered flowers in his path.
Pompey wants an army
After Cicero’s return, a sudden and dangerous shortage of grain frightened the optimate leaders of the senate. They agreed to place Pompey in charge of the food supply. Cicero even became one of his legates. Pompey was given command of a fleet to transport grain and was offered an army. He solemnly demurred in order not to appear too eager for what he really did want, an army to rival Caesar’s. His enemies happily took him at his word. Pompey’s friends were exasperated.
Soon, however, Pompey tried to seize a new opportunity to acquire an army. Ptolemy Auletes (the Fluteplayer), king of Egypt, had been driven from his throne by the citizens of Alexandria. He came to Rome and formally requested Roman military aid. Pompey hoped to undertake it. He and Ptolemy even resorted to having thugs murder and otherwise terrorize a delegation of Alexandrians who had come to counter Ptolemy’s pleas. Unfortunately for Pompey, someone took the trouble to consult the books of the Sibyl and found that it was forbidden to use an army to restore a king of Egypt. The matter was dropped.
The Conference of Luca, 56 b.c.e.
Caesar was undoubtedly kept informed of the political situation in Rome through correspondence with Pompey, Crassus, and others. He knew that Cicero and Clodius (the latter with the connivance of Crassus) were both attacking the Julian laws of 59 b.c.e., though for different reasons. He knew from a visit by Crassus to his winter quarters at Ravenna in early April of 56 that Pompey, with Cicero’s encouragement, was veering over to the optimates.
A few days earlier, Crassus and Cicero had both appeared in defense of Marcus Caelius Rufus, a former protégé of each. He was being prosecuted for involvement in the murder of some of the Alexandrian envoys who had opposed the restoration of Pompey’s friend Ptolemy. Cicero, however, had stolen the show with a brilliantly scurrilous attack on Clodius and one of his sisters, who had supported the prosecution. Clodius was outraged. Milo was emboldened to confront him with violence. Now, if Cicero could persuade Cato and other optimates to turn to Pompey in the face of escalating violence and offer him extraordinary power, Pompey might agree to withdraw support from Caesar.
It was time for Caesar himself to act. He met with Pompey and probably also Crassus at Luca in mid-April of 56 to work out a new plan of cooperation. They agreed that Pompey and Crassus should stand for the consulship of 55 b.c.e., that Cicero’s acid speech-making should be curbed, and that the mobs of Clodius and Milo should be restrained. Probably there were three other provisions: Caesar’s proconsulship would be renewed for another five years. After 55, Pompey would govern Spain for five years. Crassus would similarly govern Syria and have the right to wage war against the Parthians.
Caesar overcomes challenges in Gaul, 56 to 52 b.c.e.
The initial conquest of Gaul had been relatively easy, but while Caesar was at Luca in 56 b.c.e., the situation had changed. When he returned to Gaul, he first had to put down a revolt of the seafaring Veneti. Then he was faced with two large German tribes that had migrated across the Rhine. Provoked, he claimed, by a treacherous attack during negotiations, he engaged in a merciless slaughter. In 55, he overawed the Germans east of the Rhine by an impressive feat of bridge building that permitted lightning raids into their territory. Then, in late summer, he amazed the Roman world with a showy crossing of the English Channel to invade Britain. It so flattered Roman pride that the senate decreed another public thanksgiving, this time for twenty days.
The hard fighting in Britain came with the spring of 54. Caesar mounted a full-scale invasion with a specially constructed fleet. Soon after he landed, however, a storm destroyed it. He had to fight for his life before finally defeating the British war king Cassivellaunus. After Caesar imposed terms that permitted him to repair his losses, he returned to Gaul. With his legions in winter camps, he went to Cisalpine Gaul. Northern Gallic rebellions in early 53 were serious and cost Caesar a legion. He recruited two new legions in Cisalpine Gaul, borrowed one from Pompey, and crushed the revolts. Over the following winter, disgruntled tribes plotted a coordinated revolt. They were led by the Gallic chief Vercingetorix. Caesar had to match him or be destroyed. In early 52, Caesar surprised Vercingetorix by marching reinforcements from Transalpine Gaul through deep mountain snows. Vercingetorix then resorted to guerrilla tactics and a scorched-earth strategy.
Putting all ten legions in the field, Caesar finally maneuvered Vercingetorix into the hilltop town of Alesia and defeated him in a desperate siege. While pockets of resistance remained, Caesar had regained supremacy in Gaul. When the last rebel stronghold, Uxellodunum, fell, Caesar cold-bloodedly cut both hands off every captive. Begging for food every day thereafter, the handless wretches provided a brutal object lesson to anyone contemplating further rebellion. Unchallenged master of Gaul at last, Caesar had firmly established the military and financial basis for realizing his ambition of being Rome’s most powerful and influential man.
Caesar’s partners strive to keep up, 56 to 53 b.c.e.
From the Conference of Luca in 56 b.c.e., Crassus and Pompey had gained renewed strength, which promised to keep them on a par with Caesar. Both would again stand for consulships and command armies and provinces. Their enemies were stunned. Cicero, bound by Pompey to preserve the peace and remembering the pain of exile, turned quickly from invective to softer words of praise and thanksgiving.
Pompey fortifies himself in the West
In 55 b.c.e., with Pompey and Crassus as consuls, the tribune C. Trebonius carried a law (the lex Trebonia) assigning the consuls their provinces for five years, as apparently agreed upon at the Conference of Luca. Pompey received the two Spains but decided, perhaps on Caesar’s advice, to remain in the vicinity of Rome to watch the course of events. At last, however, he could again recruit legions. He would send some under his legates to Spain and retain others in Italy. Never again would he make the mistake of disbanding them too soon, as he had after his return from the East in 62 b.c.e.
Crassus looks to the East
To achieve the position that he wanted in the West, Pompey had to make a major concession to Crassus in the East. Pompey had been the dominant force there ever since his victories over the pirates and Mithridates. As governor of Syria since 57 b.c.e., Pompey’s ally Aulus Gabinius had looked after his interests in the region. Now, the lex Trebonia assigned Crassus the province of Syria with the right to make war as he saw fit. Parthia was not mentioned in the law, but it was an open secret that Crassus was preparing a war against that rival power on Rome’s eastern frontier. Gabinius had already been planning such a war himself after suppressing a revolt in Judea that the Parthians may have helped spark.
In 55, Gabinius was starting to invade Parthia when Pompey, now consul, illegally instructed him to restore Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt. Auletes is said to have paid Gabinius 10,000 talents. After another intervention in Judea, Gabinius did not have time to resume his invasion of Parthia before Crassus replaced him as governor of Syria in 54. Gabinius, who was not happy to be replaced, immediately faced prosecution from Pompey’s optimate enemies for his illegal acts on Pompey’s behalf. Cicero had wanted to prosecute Gabinius, who had helped betray him to Clodius in 58. Nevertheless, Pompey and Caesar ultimately forced Cicero to defend him against a charge of extortion. While Crassus took Gabinius’ place in Syria, Gabinius was convicted and fled into exile.2
The downfall of Crassus, 54 to 53 b.c.e.
Those who had attacked Gabinius also had fought hard to prevent Crassus from taking up the governorship of Syria. It was hardly reassuring that Crassus had not seen military service in almost twenty years. He further undermined public confidence when he ignored the announcement of dire portents as Pompey escorted him through hostile crowds upon his departure. He did not improve his reputation when he fattened his war chest by looting the Temple at Jerusalem and other rich shrines in his province over the winter of 54–53. During the campaigning season of 54, he had taken his fresh recruits across the Euphrates to scout out his route, establish supply depots, and get some training for a real war in the following year. Despite these precautions, neither Crassus nor his army was experienced or trained enough to deal with the tactics and stratagems of the Parthians. In the spring of 53, near the town of Carrhae, Crassus, his son Publius, and seven legions met destruction at the hands of mail-clad Parthian cavalry (cataphracts) and mounted Parthian archers. Crassus’ grisly head was displayed at the Parthian Court during a performance of Euripides’ Bacchae, with its equally grisly ending. The proud eagles of his legions now graced Parthian temples.
Avenging Crassus’ ignominious defeat and recovering the lost standards would become the rallying cries for Roman military and diplomatic efforts in the East for two generations. About 10,000 Romans were captured. Some may have been forced to guard the Parthian frontier in Central Asia. Eventually, they may have escaped only to be captured by the Han emperor and settled in what is now Gansu Province in western China.
Rivalry and civil war between Caesar and Pompey, 53 to 48 b.c.e.
The death of Crassus was the second blow to the delicate political equilibrium that had existed after Luca. The first was the death of Julia, Pompey’s wife and Caesar’s only child. She had died during childbirth in 54; her baby a few days later. Both men had been devoted to Julia. The common people showed their appreciation of her political importance by forcing her public burial in the Campus Martius.
Caesar offered a new marital alliance: Pompey would marry Caesar’s grandniece, who would have to divorce her current husband. Caesar would marry Pompey’s daughter, who was already betrothed to Sulla’s son Faustus. Pompey rejected the offer. Caesar’s meteoric rise was threatening Pompey’s prestige and power. As Pompey indicated by betrothing his daughter to Faustus Sulla, he was looking to maintain his preeminence with help from Caesar’s optimate enemies in the senate. Pompey drew even closer to them in 52 b.c.e. by marrying Cornelia, widow of the younger Crassus killed at Carrhae and daughter of Sulla’s co-consul in 80 b.c.e., a man of impeccable optimate pedigree.
Meanwhile, disorder, corruption, and electoral bribery were rampant in Rome. The year 53 b.c.e. had begun without consuls; the year 52, likewise. Violence and rioting made the streets unsafe. Milo was running for the consulship; Clodius, with Pompey’s support, for the praetorship. The bribes were lavish. Blood flowed. The year expired without elections, without magistrates. Authority had broken down. Rome was in anarchy.
The death of Clodius and Pompey’s sole consulship, 52 b.c.e.
Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way during a brawl between his retinue and Milo’s. After his body was brought back to Rome, a mob seized his body in the Forum, carried it to the senate house, and burned the building as his funeral pyre. Most people agreed that only Pompey was capable of restoring order and should be given emergency powers. His friends proposed a dictatorship, but that was too much for many senators to accept. Cato and Bibulus came up with a compromise that saw Pompey elected sole consul for 52 b.c.e. In this way, he had great latitude for action but was still subject to tribunician veto and would be held accountable for his acts.
Pompey quickly obtained passage of several laws designed both to restore order and to weaken his rivals. The first was aimed at punishing the perpetrators of the recent violence, even Milo, his former ally. Milo was expendable now that Clodius was dead. He was also a rival of electoral candidates whom Pompey preferred to him. The second law attacked bribery. That it was retroactive to 70 b.c.e. troubled Caesar’s friends. Caesar knew that his enemies were looking for chances to prosecute him.
Milo was prosecuted for the actions leading to Clodius’ death; Cicero was only too happy to defend him. To make certain that no one disrupted the trial to help Milo, Pompey surrounded the court with armed troops. Cicero was so flustered at the sight that he forgot what he wanted to say. Milo, convicted, went into exile to Massilia.
While ensuring law and order and passing laws to deal with important problems, Pompey also strengthened his hand against both Caesar and the optimates. His law requiring a five-year interval between holding a magistracy and governing a province not only made bribery in elections less attractive, but also subjected Caesar to immediate replacement by an available ex-magistrate. That would leave Caesar without imperium, so that he could be prosecuted. It even meant that he had to rely on Pompey in order to keep his province. Influential men like Cicero and Bibulus who had not held governorships would now have to take up provincial commands. That would leave their optimate friends even more dependent on Pompey. Furthermore, Pompey had his own command in Spain extended for five years. Then, by obtaining a law making it harder to run for office in absentia, he made it more difficult for Caesar to run for consul under the protection of a governor’s imperium. When Pompey then publicly (and illegally) exempted Caesar from this law, he made Caesar look even more dependent. Finally, the optimates were pleased by the election of Pompey’s new father-in-law as his consular colleague for the last few months of 52.
The prelude to civil war, 51 to 50 b.c.e.
A series of complicated maneuvers followed in 51 b.c.e. Some of the optimates tried immediately to remove Caesar from his command. Caesar’s money, however, ensured the election of one friendly consul and ten friendly tribunes for the year 50. Among Caesar’s other useful supporters was Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), son of a Julia (probably Caesar’s second cousin, not sister). Antonius had served in Gaul and became a tribune-elect for 49. One of the tribunes in 50 was C. Scribonius Curio, an eloquent speaker and a master of intrigue. He had married Fulvia, the fiery widow of P. Clodius. Curio and the friendly consul blocked meaningful debate on the issue of provincial commands.
In the summer of 50 b.c.e., Pompey used the threat of war with Parthia to take two legions away from Caesar but then stationed them at Capua. In December, Curio blocked another move in the senate to strip Caesar of his command while letting Pompey keep his. Instead, Curio proposed that both Caesar and Pompey lay down their commands together. The senators voted 370 to 22 in favor. Despite this overwhelming vote, the die-hard optimates continued to work on Pompey and push for a confrontation. On the next day, the optimate consul, Marcellus, summoned a special meeting of the senate and proposed passage of the Senatus Consultum Ultimum against Caesar. When Curio vetoed the motion, Marcellus handed a sword to Pompey and commissioned him to lead the two legions at Capua against Caesar.
Caesar offered to resign his command if Pompey would resign too. The extremists, however, ignored his proposal, engineered his declaration as a public enemy, and obtained passage of the Senatus Consultum Ultimum. Marcus Antonius and Quintus Cassius were two of the new tribunes of 49 b.c.e. Having taken office on December 10 in 50 b.c.e., they vetoed the S.C.U. They found themselves censured and their very lives in danger. Fleeing the city with Curio, they went to join Caesar.
Caesar crosses the Rubicon, 50/49 b.c.e.
Meanwhile, Caesar had arrived in Cisalpine Gaul. He had one Roman legion there and some detachments of German and Gallic cavalry. Setting up his headquarters at Ravenna, he summoned two other legions from Gaul. Swift and decisive action tipped the balance in Caesar’s favor as it had against the Gauls. When Caesar heard of the senate’s action, he decided to act without further delay. Around January 10, 49 b.c.e., by the calendar then in use (really ca. November 20, 50 b.c.e.), he secretly sent a few picked men to infiltrate and seize Ariminum (Rimini). It was the first important city south of the Rubicon, which separated Cisalpine Gaul from Italy proper. That night, he distracted the rest of his officers with a banquet. Once the guests were engrossed in the festivities, he himself hastened toward Ariminum with a few confidants and a detachment of cavalry. When he reached the Rubicon, he paused to ponder the significance of what he was about to do. Then he resolutely quoted a saying from the popular Greek playwright Menander, “Let the die be cast.” At dawn, he arrived at Ariminum to find that he had won the throw: Ariminum was safely in his grasp, to the complete surprise of his foes.
Caesar claimed to be acting in defense of the lawful rights of the tribunes. A more powerful appeal to his loyal veterans was the request that they help him to avenge his enemies’ affronts to his own dignitas. Issues of legality were not unimportant, but the struggle for personal preeminence at Rome was paramount.
Caesar’s decision to invade Italy with only one legion and in the dead of winter was a brilliantly calculated risk. Most of Pompey’s troops were still untrained and their loyalty uncertain. The only two trained legions at Pompey’s command would not forget their long service with Caesar in Gaul. Resistance to Caesar in Italy collapsed; panic gripped Pompey’s followers, who fled Rome without even taking the money in the treasury. Pompey himself hastened to Brundisium with all the troops that he could still find. He embarked for Greece just before Caesar’s arrival.
Caesar’s swift conquest of Italy had been made possible by three things: his absolute and uncontested command of his current forces, the loyalty of his retired veterans from prior years of service in Gaul, and his generous treatment of both civilians and captured soldiers as he swept toward Rome. Still, the tasks ahead were daunting. Pompey had undisputed command of the sea. He could cut Rome off from the grain supplies of Sicily and North Africa and starve the city into submission. Pompey had many battle-hardened legions in Spain and could also draw upon the vast resources and manpower of the East, where he had made and unmade kings. With these forces, he could launch a two-pronged attack on Italy. And what if Gaul, recently conquered and weakly held, should raise up another Vercingetorix?
Before reaching Rome, Caesar stopped off to call on Cicero. He tried to persuade Cicero to support the new regime by lending it both dignity and prestige. Cicero, who could not reconcile his republican principles with Caesar and Caesar’s supporters, refused. Much disappointed, Caesar went on his way. After much dithering on the matter, Cicero finally decided to join Pompey in Greece.
Caesar’s clementia
Caesar had shown magnanimity and clemency (clementia) to his enemies thus far, and he would continue to do so—a calculated rejection of the destructive legacy that Sulla’s vengeance had left from the previous civil war. Clementia, however, was a double-edged sword. To Caesar’s benefit, it put those who received it under a tremendous obligation of gratitude (gratia). Recipients among proud nobles who considered themselves to be Caesar’s equals, however, might chafe under their perceived subordination and might eventually find it intolerable.
Caesar reorganizes the government, 49 b.c.e.
Caesar entered Rome for the first time in nine years. At once, he set about reorganizing the government. Summoning all senators still in Rome, he invited their cooperation to avoid bloodshed. Some responded willingly, others less so. They did accept a law granting citizenship to the people living north of the Po, to whom Caesar owed much.
Caesar speedily arranged for the temporary administration of Rome and Italy. One of the praetors was M. Aemilius Lepidus, son of the rebel leader whom Pompey had defeated in 77 b.c.e. Caesar ordered him to take charge of affairs in the city. He made Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) governor of Italy and commander-in-chief of all the armed forces there. He sent Curio to secure the grain supplies of Sicily and North Africa. Others went to Illyria to block a possible attempt by Pompey to invade Italy from the northeast. Caesar ordered the doors of the state treasury opened and unceremoniously removed the tribune who attempted to intervene. So much for the rights of tribunes! Thus he assured the administration of Rome and the soundness of his finances. Then he set out for Spain, which was controlled by forces loyal to Pompey.
Caesar in Spain, 49 b.c.e.
Caesar first had to break the opposition of Massilia. It endangered the line of communication between Spain and Italy. It also might have been able to encourage the resurgence of rebellion in Gaul. Leaving part of his army to reduce the city by siege, Caesar hurried on to Spain. Within forty days, despite some initial difficulty, he had subdued the Pompeian forces there. On the way back, he accepted the surrender of Massilia. It now became virtually an imperial possession of Rome. If Curio had not been killed in North Africa by Pompey’s loyal friend Juba, king of Numidia, Caesar’s control of the West would have been absolute.
Caesar’s dictatorships and final victory, 48 to 45 b.c.e.
News of Caesar’s victory in Spain aroused popular enthusiasm in Rome and greatly increased Caesar’s power. A special law proposed by Lepidus made Caesar dictator for eleven days in December of 49 to conduct elections for 48. Caesar obtained both a second consulship and a neutral colleague to share it. Their most pressing problem was the relief of debtors and the revival of credit and business undermined by the civil war. Caesar obtained passage of a law that reduced debts and suspended interest payments for one year. In order to make money circulate more freely and encourage lending, he revived an old law forbidding the hoarding of more than 15,000 denarii.
Among Caesar’s most important initiatives were the recall of persons exiled by Pompey and the restoration of civil rights to victims of Sulla’s cruel proscriptions. Proposed by praetors or tribunes, these laws were duly passed in proper legislative assemblies. Most of those who benefited would become Caesar’s staunch supporters; those who objected could not accuse him of unconstitutional acts.
The Battles of Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus, 48 b.c.e.
In a characteristic surprise move, Caesar crossed the Adriatic from Brundisium (Brindisi) during the winter in January 48 b.c.e. He landed south of the port of Dyrrhachium (Durrës, Durazzo), where he nearly met disaster. He had only half of his forces. His old enemy Bibulus, patrolling in Pompey’s fleet, captured his ships as they returned for supplies and the rest of his men. Caesar resorted to negotiations, proposing that he and Pompey both disarm and let the senate and people work out the details of peace. In this way, neither would be surrendering to the other. Pompey could never accept, as Caesar probably realized. Pompey’s dignitas had already suffered from what many saw as an ignominious retreat from Italy. He had to prove that he was not a coward, as he would have been branded if he had accepted an offer of peace from an opponent in Caesar’s precarious military position.
Forced to fight at Dyrrhachium, Caesar was outflanked by Pompey’s superior numbers. He retreated all the way to Pharsalus in central Thessaly. Italy lay open to Pompey. He pursued Caesar instead. Refreshed by Thessaly’s grain harvest, Caesar’s experienced veterans defeated the forces of the overconfident Pompey. Surveying the slaughter after the battle and referring to those who had wanted to prosecute him for his actions as consul and proconsul, Caesar is reported to have said, “They wanted this. Despite my very great achievements, I, Gaius Caesar, would have been found guilty if I had not summoned help from my army” (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 30.4). It was, however, his choice as much as theirs.
The death of Pompey, 48 b.c.e.
Cicero and others accepted Caesar’s vaunted clementia and returned to Italy. Pompey fled to Egypt. He arrived at Alexandria in the midst of a civil war between Ptolemy XIII (sometimes numbered XII) and his famous sister, Cleopatra VII. Ptolemy’s advisors, hoping to link their cause to Caesar’s rising star, treacherously procured Pompey’s murder. They cut off his head, pickled it in brine for a gift to Caesar, and left the body to rot on the shore.
Caesar in Egypt, 48 b.c.e.
When Caesar arrived three days later, he appeared with the dread fasces of a consul to show that Egypt was now subject to the authority of the Roman People. Presented with Pompey’s head, he supposedly turned away in disgust and wept. Caesar made a point of reverently burying Pompey’s head and ordering the execution of those who had murdered a leader of the Roman People.
Caesar’s high-handed actions at Alexandria aroused the populace against him and made life uncomfortable for Roman soldiers. Caesar, captivated by the brilliant and charming Cleopatra, had peremptorily restored her to her throne. He had also demanded that the Egyptians pay a debt owed by her late father. The advisors of Ptolemy XIII ordered out the royal army. They kept Caesar under siege for several months. Having only one small legion, Caesar was unable to cope with an army of 20,000 men as well as with the mobs of Alexandria. He was in dire peril until the arrival of the two legions that he had earlier summoned. The last one to arrive had been hastily collected by Mithridates of Pergamum, reportedly one of the many bastard sons of old Mithridates VI of Pontus.
After Mithridates had reached the Nile, Caesar took command and crushed the Egyptian army. Ptolemy fled and was drowned in the Nile. The Alexandrians submitted. The crown passed to Cleopatra and another brother, Ptolemy XIV, who became her dynastic husband. In August of 47 b.c.e., Caesar left Egypt. Later that year or sometime in 46, Cleopatra bore a son. She said that he was Caesar’s, and he was nicknamed Caesarion, “Little Caesar.”
From Egypt, Caesar passed through Syria, Cilicia, and Cappadocia on his way to Pontus, where he now planned to settle accounts with Pharnaces II, another son of Mithridates VI. Taking advantage of the civil war, Pharnaces had betrayed his Roman patrons; had overrun Colchis, Pontus, Lesser Armenia, and part of Cappadocia; and had defeated any opposing army led by one of Caesar’s commanders. In a five-day campaign, Caesar tracked him down and annihilated his army at Zela. Pharnaces fled but was killed by one of his own governors. In a letter written to a friend, Caesar proclaimed this swift and decisive victory with the laconic Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). Rewarding Mithridates of Pergamum for his services in Egypt, Caesar gave him eastern Galatia in Asia Minor and Pharnaces’ kingdom of Bosporus in the Crimea. After settling other affairs in Asia Minor, the conqueror hastened back to Italy.
Caesar in Italy, 47 b.c.e.
Already appointed dictator for a second time (48 b.c.e.), Caesar reached Italy in September of 47. After an absence of almost two years, he faced serious problems. Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), master of the cavalry to Caesar the dictator, had let the dangerous problem of debt become a catalyst for murder and riot. Caelius Rufus and Milo were killed leading a revolt of the poor in 48. Mutinous soldiers were marching on Rome when Caesar arrived. The presence of the dictator immediately restored peace and order. He dealt so firmly, but so fairly, with the soldiers that they begged to be accepted back in his good graces. Without publicly disgracing Antonius, he chose the older, more politic Lepidus as his new master of the cavalry and instituted moderate debt relief.
The start of the African campaign, 47 b.c.e.
After Pharsalus, Cato had regrouped Pompey’s shattered forces and taken them to Africa. Forced by a storm to land in the Cyrenaica, he led his army for hundreds of miles through the North African desert from Berenice (Benghazi) to Lepcis Magna (Tripoli). From there, he went to Utica, where he joined King Juba of Numidia and the Pompeian governor of Africa. After this astonishing military feat, Cato, ever mindful of higher rank, misguidedly resigned the command in favor of the inept Metellus Scipio, Pompey’s father-in-law. Scipio was joined by Juba and Labienus, who had been Caesar’s right-hand man in Gaul but ultimately had sided with his old family patron Pompey. In late December of 47, the outnumbered Caesar landed in Africa to challenge Scipio.
Thapsus and the death of Cato, 46 b.c.e.
Near Thapsus, in April of 46 b.c.e., Caesar lured the inept Scipio onto unfavorable ground and annihilated his army. When Cato heard the news, he saw the approaching end of the aristocratic liberty (libertas) that had characterized the Republic. Although he might have obtained Caesar’s calculated pardon, he could not bring himself either to request or to receive it. He preferred freely, and contemptuously, to take his own life instead.
As Cato anticipated, his suicide took some of the glory from Caesar’s victory. “O Cato,” Caesar is said to have exclaimed, “I envy you your death; you denied me the chance to spare your life” (Plutarch, Cato Minor 72.2). Caesar, however, could not leave it at that. When Cicero wrote an encomium on Cato, Casear lashed out against his dead enemy with a spiteful Anticato that impugned Cato’s career and character. Thus, Caesar may have turned Cato into more of a martyr to the old Republic than Cato had already made himself.
Caesar’s homecoming and triumph, 46 b.c.e.
The news of Thapsus had preceded Caesar’s return to Rome. His followers rejoiced. Caesar had reached the pinnacle of preeminence for which he had been aiming. The senators decreed a thanksgiving of forty days and voted seventy-two lictors (three times the usual number) to attend him at his triumph. They awarded him a dictatorship renewable annually for ten years. He was appointed prefect of morals for three years, with powers of a censor. He also received the right to express his opinion in the senate first, so that every timid and self-seeking politician could take his cue. His statue, cast in bronze, was to stand on the Capitol opposite that of Jupiter himself. Caesar allegedly rejected many other religious and monarchical honors showered upon him. Some of them are of late report and fictitious, undoubtedly suggested by the history of later Caesarism.
Soon after his arrival at Rome in 46, Caesar celebrated his long-awaited triumphs. There were four, each celebrated on a different day, over the Gauls, Egyptians, Pharnaces, and Juba. There was no triumph over Pompey or Scipio: triumphing over Roman citizens would have crossed a line of propriety. Even so, the four triumphs constituted one of the grandest displays ever seen in Rome: gigantic parades; the distribution of millions of denarii among soldiers and civilians; 20,000 tables loaded with food and wine for the plebs; elaborate shows, games, and gladiatorial combats; a naval battle in an artificial lake; and a mock battle between two armies on Mars Field.
At about this time, Cleopatra, her son, and her brother-husband also arrived in Rome. They stayed at a villa in Caesar’s gardens across the Tiber, to the scandal and dismay of many, especially republican traditionalists. Still, important men like Cicero, looking for influence or information, sought the queen’s help. Nothing is said about Cleopatra’s son. Caesar, however, set up a golden statue of Cleopatra herself next to the statue of Venus in his temple of Venus Genetrix (p. 293). No doubt, people reflected on the juxtaposition of a monarch whose father was a god in Egypt and the goddess Venus, whom Caesar claimed as his ancestor in Rome.
Munda, Caesar’s final victory in Spain, 45 b.c.e.
One more campaign had to be fought. Late in 46 b.c.e., Caesar embarked for Spain with eight legions, where Pompey’s two sons, Gnaeus and Sextus, plus Labienus, who had escaped from Africa, had raised a major revolt. Failing to draw the Pompeians into a battle by attacking their fortified towns, Caesar finally caught up with them at Munda (between Seville and Malaga). Caesar’s men had to deliver their attack uphill. The battle was one of ferocious savagery. Fear and hate on both sides supplied energy to their desperate valor. Superior discipline and generalship at last gave Caesar the decision. Labienus died in battle, and Gnaeus Pompey was caught three weeks later and killed. Sextus lived to fight years later against Caesar’s successors (pp. 307–10).
Caesar returned to Rome and celebrated another triumph in October of 45. This time, he did not scruple to celebrate a victory over fellow citizens. Many thought it unseemly and feared for the future.
Caesar’s work of reconstruction
If by war Caesar had saved his life, honor, and dignity, he would now have to save the Roman state from chaos and ruin; heal its wounds; and give to it such peace, justice, and stability as it had not known for almost a century. Otherwise, the very source of his fame and glory would have been destroyed.
Caesar was now armed with the sacrosanctity of a tribune of the plebs, which the senate conferred upon him. He also enjoyed the powers of a censor and had an annually renewable dictatorship. With them, he undertook the task of transforming the Roman Republic and its empire into a centralized world state. Unlike Sulla, he did not attempt to resurrect the pre-Gracchan constitution. Events of the past hundred years had shown that it could not be maintained under circumstances quite different from those that had given it birth. What Caesar, with his customary daring and decisiveness, did not realize, however, was that many Romans did not yet recognize that fact or wish to be functionaries in a state controlled by him.
Before he even began his work of reform, Caesar had removed one fatal weakness of the late Republic: separate control of the civilian government and provincial armies. Caesar was both chief executive of the state and commander-in-chief of the army. He sought to prevent anyone from doing what he himself had done with the command of Gaul. The general effect of his reforms, while they reinforced his own supremacy over all, was to reduce the absolute dominance of the city of Rome and to integrate Rome with Italy and Italy with the rest of the empire.
Administrative reforms
The most important of Caesar’s administrative reforms had to do with the senate and the magistracies. To eliminate the senate, an institution virtually synonymous with Rome, would have been beyond even Caesar’s daring. It also would have destroyed the very body whose expertise and cooperation was needed to run Rome’s vast empire. Instead, Caesar raised its membership from 600 to 900 and filled the extra seats with old friends, wealthy equestrians, and even Romanized provincials. To keep up the membership of this enlarged senate, he raised the number of quaestors from twenty to forty and of praetors from eight to sixteen. This change also provided more administrators for Rome and the provinces and allowed more of Caesar’s friends to reach senatorial rank and high office quickly. Moreover, out of gratitude and loyalty toward Caesar, they were expected to look out for his interests. Similarly, in the process of expanding the number of officeholders, he assigned men their various offices for several years in advance. They were to administer affairs to his advantage while he went off to conquer the Parthians in the East.
Social and economic programs
Caesar reduced from 320,000 to 150,000 those who received free grain at Rome. Therefore, he needed to provide employment for or siphon away those cut off. Indeed, reducing Rome’s overcrowded and volatile population (then approaching 700,000) was socially and politically desirable. Caesar also had to provide homes and land for his war veterans.
In Rome, Caesar began a major building program. It was not only to provide employment but also to make Rome the beautiful and magnificent capital of a great empire. It would also reinforce the image of Caesar as the most powerful man in it. The chief architectural achievements of the period were the Basilica Julia (a covered hall to house the law courts), new Rostra in the Forum, and a new forum, the Forum Julium. The latter had galleries all around it and a temple of Venus Genetrix in the center. Caesar also had plans for a new senate house, a large meeting place for the popular assemblies, a fine public library, a splendid theater, and an enormous temple of Mars. All would be visible symbols of his greatness at the expense of those structures associated with the old order.
Even more gigantic and self-aggrandizing were the projects planned for Italy: an artificial harbor near Ostia for seagoing ships (a project that later materialized as Portus under the Emperor Claudius), a road across the Apennines to the head of the Adriatic, and the draining of the malarial Fucine Lake and the Pomptine Marshes for agriculture (a feat often attempted later but never accomplished until modern times). To promote the economic recovery and internal security of Italy, Caesar compelled all wealthy citizens to invest half their capital in land. He also required that at least a third of the cowhands and shepherds employed on large estates be men of free birth. Of course, all of these reforms made Caesar even more powerful by creating goodwill among the population in general.
Colonization, Romanization, and the provinces
To provide employment outside of Rome, remove excess population from Rome, and find homes for a large number of war veterans, Caesar resumed the colonizing work of Gaius Gracchus outside Italy, but on a much larger scale. In all, he founded or planned no fewer than twenty colonies and provided homes in the provinces for at least 100,000 Roman citizens. Many of these colonies are famous cities today: in Spain, Hispalis (Seville) and Tarraco (Tarragona); in France, Arelate (Arles), Nemausus (Nîmes), Arausio (Orange), and Lugdunum (Lyons); in Africa, Cirta (Constantine, Algeria) and Carthage; in Greece, Corinth; in Switzerland, Geneva. Farther east, he founded colonies at Sinope and Heraclea on the Black Sea.
Following the example of Marius, Caesar granted citizenship to the soldiers whom he had recruited in the Province. He enfranchised doctors, teachers, librarians, and scholars who came to Rome from various provinces; he granted Roman or Latin status to many provincial towns in Gaul and Spain and to all the towns of Sicily. He also founded schools and public libraries in many towns of the western provinces, whence came some of Rome’s greatest writers a century or so later. In the East, Caesar reduced the burden of taxation. As far as possible, he transferred the task of tax collection from the harsh and corrupt Roman publicani and their agents, hitherto the curse of provincial administration, to the municipal governments. In Asia and Sicily, he replaced the traditional tithe by a land tax of fixed amounts. To promote the commercial importance of a new colony on the destroyed site of Corinth, he planned a canal (not completed until the late nineteenth century c.e.) across the Isthmus of Corinth. His colonies and favorable treatment of the provinces not only were fair solutions to long-standing problems but also increased the reservoir of clients and goodwill available to support his rule throughout Rome’s empire.
Coinage
Caesar laid the foundation for Rome’s imperial coinage. His programs and policies required coinage on a massive scale that characterized the fiscal needs of an empire’s administration. The booty from his triumphs in 46, particularly the Gallic loot, allowed him to coin more money than any previous imperator. His friend Aulus Hirtius, now a praetor, minted Rome’s first long-lived gold coinage by issuing a new gold coin called the aureus, worth twenty-five silver denarii. The aureus became the most prestigious coin of the Roman Empire.
Putting large numbers of coins in circulation helped to pay for the imperial scope of Caesar’s programs and policies. Coins displaying the titles and symbols associated with him were also an excellent way to advertise his greatness. Two years later, just before his death, Caesar even became the first living Roman to have his portrait bust on coins. That became the standard practice of Augustus and succeeding Roman emperors.
Reform of the calendar
The most lasting of Caesar’s reforms was a new calendar. He no longer based it on the phases of the moon with a year of 355 days, but on the Egyptian solar calendar, with a year of 365 1/4 days beginning on January 1. The new calendar was worked out by the Greek astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria. It is still in use, with a few minor corrections added in 1582 c.e. by Pope Gregory XIII. In honor of Julius Caesar, the senate decreed that the month of his birth, formerly called Quintilis (the “Fifth”), be renamed Julius (July).
Even calendrical reform directly benefited Caesar. The vagaries of the old calendar had given priests and magistrates many opportunities to delay and obstruct the actions of political rivals. The regularization of the calendar made it impossible for anyone to use such tactics against Caesar as Bibulus had done during their year as consuls.
The assassination of Julius Caesar, March 15, 44 b.c.e.
About February 14, 44 b.c.e., Caesar obtained unprecedented power. By a decree of the subservient senate, he assumed the title dictator perpetuus, “dictator for life.” This “reform” was totally incompatible with the old Republic and alarmed many friends and former foes who still valued the old traditions.
Caesar hoped that with stability and security assured by his sweeping reforms, he would be free to pursue a scheme of conquest that would make him even greater than Alexander the Great. The last acts of his military career were to be campaigns against the Dacians, who lived north of the lower reaches of the Danube, and against the Parthians in the East, who had defeated and destroyed the army of Crassus at Carrhae in 53 b.c.e.
Still, Caesar’s successes had driven many senators to desperation, lest he eclipse them forever. Some had probably voted him excessive honors in the hope of arousing a violent reaction against him. If so, they succeeded. Over sixty senators, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus (ca. 85–42 b.c.e.) and Marcus Junius Brutus (ca. 85–42 b.c.e.), were incensed at his growing power and unfailing popularity with the people. They plotted to kill him. They struck at a meeting of the senate on the Ides (15th) of March, 44 b.c.e., three days before his scheduled departure for the East.
Some of the conspirators, like Brutus and Cassius, were former enemies on whom he had bestowed his clementia. Cassius was married to Brutus’ younger sister and had supported Pompey in 49 and 48 b.c.e. Brutus was closely linked to Cato: he was the son of Servilia, Cato’s half-sister; he had been raised in Cato’s house; and he was the husband of Cato’s daughter Porcia, the only woman active in the conspiracy. The majority of conspirators, however, were Caesar’s old friends and officers.
According to a famous story, a seer had warned Caesar of a danger coming by the Ides of March; Caesar saw him again on the way to the fateful meeting and teased him that the Ides had come; the man replied that they had not gone. However that may be, the meeting was held, ironically enough, in an annex to the portico attached to Pompey’s theater (p. 336). While Caesar took his seat, a number of the conspirators crowded around him as if to make petitions. When the first blow struck, he rose from his chair in surprise and anger, but his cries were of no avail. Bleeding from numerous wounds, Caesar died at the foot of Pompey’s statue. He had beaten Pompey in the competition for preeminent dignitas at Rome, but his undisguised attempt to make his preeminence permanent had unleashed the forces of his own destruction.
The question of monarchy
There is abundant evidence that during the last two years of his life Caesar was planning to establish some kind of monarchy. He took, or allowed to be taken, a number of steps that exalted him above ordinary mortals. It was not enough that the month of his birth was renamed for him; many expensive statues of him also appeared. One showed him standing on a globe, symbol of the world, and another was placed in the temple of Rome’s first king, the deified Romulus (Quirinus).
Caesar’s assumption of the unprecedented lifetime dictatorship, heavily advertised on coins just before his death, made him a king in all but name. He received such royal honors along with this dictatorship as the right to wear, on public occasions, both a triumphal robe (which was derived from the robes of Etruscan kings) and a laurel crown. He also was allowed to use a gilded chair instead of the ordinary magistrate’s curule chair. Finally, Caesar was voted his own special priest (flamen), and Marcus Antonius was appointed to the position.
As previously suggested, it may well be that some of these measures were prompted by Caesar’s enemies in order to provoke a reaction against him. Nevertheless, he could have refused them if he had wanted to. It would seem, therefore, that he was assuming the position of a monarch with a penumbra of divine sanction, if not actually with divine status, and was trying to deny only the hated title rex (king/tyrant). Accordingly, he had rebuked a crowd for hailing him as rex earlier in 44. Similarly, on February 15 at the Lupercalia festival, he had ostentatiously refused a royal diadem offered him by Antonius. Instead, he had the crown sent to Jupiter, whom he called the only king of the Romans. He ordered it to be publicly recorded that he had refused a regnum (kingship/tyranny). He was happy at that point to have the substance of kingship without the invidious name.
One cannot say, however, that Caesar had been planning from an early point in his career to overthrow the Republic and establish a monarchy. There is no hint of any such plan in his own latest writing, the De Bello Civili (On the Civil War), probably written in 48 or 47 b.c.e. Before the civil war, Caesar was merely acting like any other Roman noble in his quest for preeminence within the Republic. Only after the civil war with Pompey did Caesar face the problem of simultaneously protecting the position that he had achieved and creating a stable government for Rome and the vast polyglot empire that it had become. Previously, Sulla’s reforms had failed. Some form of monarchy was the logical alternative, and Caesar’s quick mind always cut to the heart of the matter when confronted with a problem.
The significance of Caesar
With a quick mind and unconventional daring, Caesar was unusually talented. Still, too much should not be made of Caesar’s individual responsibility for the collapse of the Roman Republic. He was not a unique phenomenon, only the culmination of a long series of ambitious nobles who had striven for supreme dignitas and auctoritas at Rome. If he had not risen to challenge Pompey’s preeminence, someone else would have, just as Pompey had challenged Sulla and his heirs. The timing and the particulars would have been different. In the end, however, one man would have established sole domination of some kind, as Caesar’s heir did again under similar circumstances in the next generation. Those who wanted to reject the permanent rule of a dominant leader had to yield to those who fought to be the successor to Caesar’s domination.
NOTES
1 The authors of the bill had foresightedly included a clause, similar to the unusual one inserted into the land bill of Saturninus in 100 b.c.e. It required all senators to swear obedience to the law. They all did, including Cato.
2 Caesar recalled him during the civil war with Pompey. He died from illness while serving in Illyria (47 b.c.e.).
Suggested reading
Goldsworthy , A. Caesar, Life of a Colossus. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Stevenson , T. Julius Caesar and the Transformation of the Roman Republic. London and New York: Routledge, 2015.
Woolf , G. Et Tu, Brute? A Short History of Political Murder. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.