III
Catiline planned to ignore the laws of Rome, overthrow the government, and unleash chaos everywhere.
—PLUTARCH
Good news arrived the next year when Caesar’s niece Atia gave birth to a baby boy named Octavius, the future emperor Augustus, but events outside the family marked 63 B.C. as the most eventful and formative time in Caesar’s early political career. For ten years Caesar had served as a pontifex (priest) supervising religious affairs of the Roman state, but he was only one of a dozen or more minor religious officials in the college of the pontiffs. The most important priest in Rome was the pontifex maximus, who led the pontiffs, supervised the Vestal Virgins, and published the decrees governing religious life that had the force of law. The pontifex maximus also acted as spokesman for the pontiffs before the Senate. The chief pontiff lived in an official state residence, called the Domus Publica, and had his office in the Forum at the Regia. This ancient building, across from the temple of the Vestals, held the archives of the pontifex maximus and many sacred objects of great antiquity. The pontifex maximus at the start of 63 B.C. was Quintus Metellus Pius, a distinguished old gentleman who had been one of Sulla’s chief supporters. When Metellus died that year it was expected that a senior statesman of impeccable standing would be chosen for the office as custom had long dictated. The two candidates for the job, Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Publius Servilius Isauricus, both fit this description perfectly. Caesar knew both men well, Catulus having condemned him when he set up the trophies of Marius on the Capitoline two years earlier and Isauricus as a former commander in Asia Minor.
But in one of the most risky moves in a lifetime of unconventional choices, Caesar declared himself a candidate for the office of pontifex maximus. Caesar was only in his thirties and the highest office he had held up to this point was as a lowly aedile. For him to have the temerity to run against two of the most respected members of the Senate for the exalted position of pontifex maximus was bold beyond belief. And yet, Caesar was anything but a fool. He must have carefully surveyed the Roman political scene at this moment, weighed his options, and decided that the gamble was worth the price. Already deeply in debt, Caesar borrowed even more money to lavish bribes on the electors who would choose the chief priest. Only seventeen of the Roman tribes voted for the pontifex maximus and of these Caesar needed a simple majority of nine to win. Since the election was weighted in favor of the urban tribes, he could focus his payments on a relatively small group of voters. Bribery such as this was technically legal and acceptable in practice as long as one wasn’t caught passing money—and Caesar was nothing if not discreet. Through his supporters and agents, he managed to grease the palms of enough voters so that his rival Lutatius Catulus began to seriously worry. The elder senator knew of Caesar’s desperate financial situation and offered a substantial sum to the young candidate if he would withdraw from the race. Caesar responded by stretching his credit to the absolute limit and borrowing even more money for bribes. On the morning of the election, Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, was in tears because she understood the situation her son had put himself in. If he lost the election, his creditors would force him into financial ruin and his political future would be destroyed. As he left their house in the Subura, he kissed her and said in all seriousness: “Mother, today you will see your son as pontifex maximus—or as a fugitive.”
As the votes came in, Caesar outpolled the other two candidates by large margins, even in their home districts. At the end of the day, Caesar indeed returned home as pontifex maximus. Soon he moved his mother and daughter, together with servants and thirty-seven years of memories, from their small house in the Subura to the Domus Publica in the center of Rome. Caesar’s gamble had paid off. Risking everything, he had let the dice fly high and was now positioned as a leader in Roman politics.
Caesar’s success in attaining the high priesthood of Rome did not deter his legislative and legal career. One of Caesar’s most useful allies in further tearing down the optimate system that Sulla and his followers had so carefully constructed was a tribune of the plebs named Titus Labienus. Like Pompey, Labienus hailed from the rough Picene region along Italy’s Adriatic coast and was an ardent supporter of the absent general while he was still settling affairs in the eastern Mediterranean. Labienus was the same age as Caesar and had served with him briefly in Cilicia as a young officer fifteen years earlier, fighting the pirates under Isauricus. Labienus had already worked with Caesar to change the rules for his election as pontifex maximus, allowing the chief priest to be chosen by popular vote rather than by insider selection within the college itself as Sulla had arranged. Now the two cooperated closely on other schemes to wrest power from the privileged world of the Senate. Reform, however, was a risky business. The popular Gracchi brothers, respected members of the nobility, had both been killed late in the previous century while trying to change the power structure at Rome. The same fate could easily await Caesar.
Crassus and his followers had recently introduced a bill on agricultural reform and land distribution, but this bill had little support and was doomed to failure by Cicero’s stinging oratory. Then Caesar and Labienus struck the optimates in a most unexpected way. They brought charges of high treason against an aged backbench senator and optimate named Gaius Rabirius. In the year that Caesar was born, Rabirius had participated in the killing of a rebellious tribune of the plebs named Saturninus. The Senate had at that time issued a decree reluctantly authorizing Marius to restore order to the state by any means necessary. Marius imprisoned Saturninus and his followers on the Capitoline Hill, but before the Senate could decide their fate, a mob including Rabirius broke in and slew Saturninus. Neither Marius nor the Senate had raised any objections to this quick delivery of justice at the time and indeed had supported Rabirius. Now almost forty years later, Caesar and Labienus charged Rabirius with the murder of a sacrosanct plebeian tribune. Neither really cared what Rabirius had done to Saturninus long ago—their action was instead meant as a direct challenge to the Senate and its power to issue decrees that permitted the condemnation of Roman citizens without due process.
To avoid a drawn-out court case they might well lose, Caesar and Labienus resorted to an archaic form of trial conducted by only two judges, one of the two being chosen by lot to pronounce the sentence. Such a court proceeding was long outdated, but as the Romans fiercely respected tradition they rarely rejected any custom no matter how antiquated. By no coincidence, Caesar was selected as one of the two judges and as the man who would determine the sentence. Rabirius was of course found guilty, after which Caesar sentenced the old man to be crucified on the Field of Mars outside the walls of Rome. Fortunately for Rabirius, this ancient form of judgment allowed an appeal directly to the Centuriate Assembly, which was promptly done. The lower-class Romans who made up the bulk of the assembly were angry enough at the optimates to confirm the death sentence against Rabirius, but Metellus Celer, one of the aged senator’s defenders, then remembered another archaic custom. Since the Centuriate Assembly was military in origin, there was an arcane rule that a flag had to fly during meetings from Janiculum Hill on the west of the city to signal that the Samnites, Etruscans, or other enemies long since subdued were not about to attack. Metellus ran all the way to the Janiculum and pulled down the flag, thereby preventing a lawful vote. The assembly was then adjourned and Rabirius was saved from the cross. Rabirius was tried again in a more standard fashion before a tribune, but with Cicero as his defense attorney he was acquitted. Caesar and Labienus, however, had made their point. The Senate was now on notice to take care in issuing sweeping decrees that violated the rights of citizens. Even though Caesar had not really wanted Rabirius dead—he may, in fact, have encouraged the lowering of the Janiculum flag—he had played a cruel game with an old man’s life to curry favor with the common people.
The trial against Rabirius was just one of Caesar’s legal actions during 63 B.C. as he also continued his traditional role as a gifted defender of the oppressed provincials against the rapacious Senate. Around this time Caesar acted as prosecutor of his old foe Marcus Juncus, the man who as governor of Roman Asia had tried to sell Caesar’s captured pirates for his own profit. The Bithynians, like the Macedonians before them, had suffered ill at the hands of the Roman administration and now sought out Caesar to plead their case. Given the eagerness of his political enemies to raise the issue of his supposed illicit affair with the late Bithynian King Nicomedes at every opportunity, it was courageous of Caesar to hand his foes an occasion to dredge up old accusations once again. But to Caesar, it was a matter of honor. As he himself said at the trial:
Because of my friendship with King Nicomedes and with those who are bringing this case against you, Marcus Juncus, I could not refuse to take up this cause. For those closest to a man ought not to allow his death to end their loyalty to him. Just so, it would be a disgrace for us to abandon our friends in need even if they have been wronged by our own families.
Caesar also offered his services as prosecutor of the optimate Gaius Calpurnius Piso for unjustly executing a Gaul during his governorship in northern Italy, then served as defender of an ill-treated Numidian nobleman named Masintha. During his speech in favor of Masintha, Caesar grew so animated that he even grabbed the beard of the Numidian prince Juba who was at the trial to oppose Masintha and represent the interests of his father. Caesar lost the case, but hid the convicted Numidian in his own house for two years until he could secretly smuggle him out in a covered litter and spirit him away to Spain. Prince Juba, who never forgot the indignity of having his facial hair grabbed in public, became an implacable enemy of Caesar.
The year 63 B.C. also marked the rise of Cicero, one of Caesar’s most brilliant foes, to the highest office in Rome. This man from a small hill town south of Rome had fought his way to the top of the Senate in spite of incredible odds, using the sheer power of his intellect along with his famously golden tongue. Cicero was no military hero like Marius or Pompey, nor did he have the patrician ancestry of Sulla or the vast wealth of Crassus, but when he rose to speak in the Forum, all of Rome stopped to listen. In an age of outstanding orators, Cicero was the very best. But even with these talents, it is unlikely Cicero ever would have risen above a midlevel magistracy except for the fortuitous threat posed by a nobleman named Catiline.
Catiline, like Caesar, was from an ancient patrician family that had fallen on hard times in recent years. Catiline had served together with Cicero and Pompey under Pompey’s father during the Italian War. He had also been an ardent supporter of Sulla and an enthusiastic participant in the bloody proscriptions that rocked Rome, but we hear little of him again until he served as a governor in Africa after his praetorship in 68 B.C. He tried to run for consul in 66, but a lingering charge of corruption from his term in Africa rendered him ineligible. He reportedly conspired to murder the newly elected consuls that year in revenge, but there was little hard evidence against him. Backed by Crassus, Catiline made another run for the consulship of 63 B.C., the same year that Cicero declared his own candidacy for the office. Most of the nobility considered Cicero a superb orator and competent administrator, but to promote a new man from an obscure country family to the consulship was like inviting one’s horse home to dinner. Catiline gained the backing of many senators, including Caesar and Crassus, who preferred a noble of middling competence who could at least be easily controlled. Cicero, however, began a whispering campaign against Catiline that played up his rival’s revolutionary tendencies, provoking just enough concern among the senators to overcome their snobbish dispositions and allow Cicero to win the race.
Catiline did not give up easily. During Cicero’s consulship in 63, Catiline once again presented himself as a candidate to serve as consul in the following year. His platform this time was a general cancellation of debts—a radical notion that had great appeal to struggling farmers and senators stretched beyond their means, like Caesar, but anathema to the powerful creditors among the equestrian class, like Crassus. For the second time, Cicero raised the specter of Catiline as an unstable and dangerous threat to traditional Roman order and succeeded yet again in forcing his defeat at the polls. Catiline’s patience for the political process was now at an end. He began to plot a genuine revolution that would overthrow the state and murder his opponents, chief among them Cicero.
Catiline’s plan was to gather his forces among the disgruntled poor and restless nobility, then march on Rome in late October of 63. Once there, he would set fire to the city, kill his enemies, and establish himself as ruler while Cicero’s head looked on mutely from a pike in the Forum. But Catiline had misjudged the mood of Rome. Even though there were many unhappy citizens among the different classes, few yearned for a return to the bloody days of Sulla. Crassus, whose paid informants prowled every palace and street of Rome, quickly heard about the plot and passed on incriminating information to Cicero in an anonymous letter. Cicero rushed to the Senate and persuaded them to declare a state of emergency. A guard was organized to man the city walls against any sign of approaching revolutionary armies, but as Cicero lacked solid evidence, Catiline continued to wander Rome freely and attend Senate meetings. Some among the Roman leaders began to think that Cicero was greatly exaggerating the whole affair in a bid to increase his own standing and establish a legacy as defender of the Roman state. Catiline bided his time for a few days apparently innocent as a lamb, but then secretly issued new orders to his followers that called for simultaneous uprisings throughout Italy. These would distract the Senate so that he could lead his army against the city.
Cicero heard of these new plans almost immediately and turned to his skill as an orator to win his case. With Catiline present, Cicero carefully laid out the plot to the Senate, then turned to the conspirator himself:
O Catiline, for the safety of the Republic, for your own detriment and destruction, for the ruin of those who have joined themselves to your evil plans—Get out! Go to your wicked and impious war!
Catiline listened unperturbed to Cicero’s invective. The Senate was concerned, but still unconvinced by the consul’s accusations. Utterly frustrated at the inability of the senators to see danger staring them in the face, Cicero retired for the night. But by the next day, Catiline had vanished and soon reappeared among his troops in Etruria, just north of Rome.
Catiline’s fellow conspirators inside Rome were not as careful as their leader. They contacted a delegation from the Celtic Allobroges tribe in Gaul, who were visiting Rome at the time. The warlike Allobroges had been thoroughly defeated by Rome sixty years before and since that time their tribal lands southwest of Lake Geneva had been the northernmost part of the Roman province of Mediterranean Gaul. Like most provincials, they were burdened with heavy taxes and debts to Rome, which they could not pay. The conspirators thought they would make perfect allies in a revolt against Rome and so listened sympathetically to their complaints against Rome, then at last revealed Catiline’s plan for a revolution. The Allobroges were certainly tempted. If Catiline won, they could be rid of their debts and gain valuable booty serving in a Roman civil war. But instead, the Gauls weighed the odds of success and decided instead to pass on their new information to Cicero. The consul arrested the leading conspirators in Rome and called an emergency meeting of the Senate. Finally, in early December, even the most reluctant senators acknowledged that Catiline and his band of malcontents were indeed planning to overthrow the Roman state. The conspirators were entrusted to senators, including one to Caesar, so that they might guard them in their own homes.
Cicero finally began to receive the praise he had so long craved from the Senate. At the next Senate meeting held to decide the fate of the arrested conspirators, he blushed at the accolades heaped upon him for preserving the Roman state. In the general fervor against the revolutionaries, some of the optimates decided it would be a good time to clean house by implicating other populist leaders in the uprising. A witness came forward claiming that Crassus and Caesar had been in touch with Catiline and had been planning to use their populist influence on his behalf. It was a transparent attempt to sully the optimates’ leading opponents with the stench of Catiline’s revolution. Caesar was no more likely at this point to support a violent overthrow of the government than he had been in the past, while the last thing Crassus wanted was a cancellation of all the debts owed to him. Cicero too, in spite of his natural enmity to Caesar and Crassus, saw things rapidly getting out of hand. Even if he thought Caesar might have been involved with Catiline, he did not want the Senate to waste time on distracting witch hunts. The leading conspirators were in his hands and ready for punishment. If he could see justice done to them quickly, his place in Roman history would be secured, and there would be no more whispers from senators wondering if the new man was really up to the job of leading Rome. Cicero managed to have the accusations against Crassus and Caesar dismissed, instead calling the Senate to a debate regarding the punishment of the arrested conspirators.
Cicero wanted Catiline’s henchmen executed immediately, but the situation was a delicate one for the consul. As Caesar and Labienus had recently shown in the case of Rabirius, the Roman people had no patience for leaders who condoned the killing of citizens under questionable legal circumstances. The conspirators were under arrest and posed no immediate threat to Rome, so exile or some other harsh punishment short of death could be a reasonable alternative. Therefore Cicero had to be absolutely sure he had the Senate firmly on his side before ordering any executions. He even had the Senate proceedings recorded in shorthand and distributed publicly so that everyone in Rome would know he had acted with the full backing of Rome’s leaders. Cicero opened the debate by summarizing the situation, then turned to the most senior senators for their opinions. All of these, including the consul-elect Decimus Silanus, outdid each other in calling for the harshest possible penalty (ultima poena), which everyone clearly understood to be immediate execution. When the senior magistrates had finished speaking, it was at last Caesar’s turn.
Caesar began what all considered a masterful speech by reminding the senators that decisions made in anger are often faulty. He pointed out instances in the past when the Senate had wisely acted with prudence rather than passion, thereby strengthening their position and the whole state. Caesar accepted that the conspirators were guilty and had absolutely no sympathy for any man who would overthrow Rome: “As I see it, Senators, there is no punishment too harsh for these men.”
But he emphasized what mattered the most in this situation was how the actions of the Senate would be judged by the common people and posterity:
The problem is that people only remember what happens last. Thoughtless men will consider not the evil deeds these criminals have committed but instead the punishment they have received from us—if that punishment is unusually harsh.
Caesar praised the magistrates who had spoken before him for their spirited condemnation of the conspirators, but he reminded them that death was really no punishment in itself, just an end of suffering. He raised the dubious legal grounds for condemning Roman citizens to death without a full trial. Exile, he pointed out, and similarly severe punishments had long been an option in Roman law. Consider, he urged them, that you could be establishing an important precedent here today. Consuls such as Cicero, he continued, and men such as yourselves would never abuse power, but a future tyrant may arise, as did Sulla in the past, who could twist today’s actions to suit his own evil purposes. Caesar then recommended that the conspirators be sent to various Italian cities, which would imprison them the rest of their lives. Their property would be confiscated and it would be forbidden for any senator ever to suggest they be released.
The senators were deeply impressed by Caesar’s words. This man who had not yet even served as a praetor had presented an impeccable argument for clemency for the conspirators. The Senate realized that his warning about the reaction of the common people was very perceptive. As much as the majority of the Senate couldn’t care less what the man in the street thought of them or their actions, the senators knew they could be provoking a full-scale riot by ordering the execution of the conspirators without trial. They also remembered that Catiline and his army were as yet at large just north of Rome. A mutinous city mob joined with a radical populist and his soldiers could form an irresistible force that would destroy the Senate’s power.
Silanus, who earlier in the debate had called for the ultimate penalty, now back-tracked and claimed that he actually meant what Caesar had proposed, lifelong exile. Other senior magistrates, including Cicero’s brother, Quintus, agreed that Caesar’s proposal was an excellent idea. The Senate seemed poised to vote in favor of exile when Cato rose to speak. If the Roman gods had deliberately fashioned an opponent to rival Caesar in brilliance, daring, and tenacity, it would have been Cato. He began his speech by berating Silanus, who was his brother-in-law, for bending like a reed in the wind, but saved his harshest words for Caesar himself. Cato claimed Caesar was in fact trying to destroy the Roman state under a pretense of mercy. Caesar, he alleged, was simply trying to spare the members of a conspiracy in which he was a likely participant. He chastised the weak-willed senators for giving in to such blatant manipulation and showing any compassion for the conspirators. Clemency was exactly the wrong message to send to Catiline and his gathering army:
The more harsh the punishment you give, the less will be their courage. If they see even a hint of weakness on your part, they will descend on us ferociously.
Cato urged that the conspirators be executed immediately and their property handed over to the state.
At this point in Cato’s fiery speech, someone brought in a message from outside the chamber and quietly slipped it to Caesar. Cato jumped on this as proof that Caesar was receiving secret information from Catiline and demanded that Caesar read the note to the whole Senate. An uproar ensued, but instead of reading the message aloud to all, Caesar calmly handed the note to Cato. It was, in fact, a love letter to Caesar from Servilia, a married woman with whom he was engaged in a heated affair. Servilia was none other than Cato’s own stepsister and wife of the inconstant Silanus. (She was also the mother of young Brutus, Caesar’s future murderer.) Cato read the note with increasing embarrassment, then threw it at Caesar in disgust and continued his speech.
In spite of the awkward interruption, Cato’s oratory had its desired effect. Cicero now wanted to put the proposals of Caesar and Cato to a vote, but Caesar tried to salvage his cause by suggesting a compromise. There was such an angry uproar against him that the knights who had been called to guard the session rushed in waving their swords at Caesar, assuming he was a danger to the senators. Cicero rescued Caesar from this debacle and had him escorted out of the chamber for his own safety. The last thing Cicero wanted was to have Caesar slain under his watch during a Senate meeting. The Senate then voted to execute the conspirators without delay.
There was no appeal for the ragged group of conspirators as they were led one by one to their place of execution in the Forum. This ancient building, called the Tullianum, was probably an old well-house built over a spring. It was a circular structure with a hole going down to a small, dark, underground room with a hideous stench of death. Each conspirator was forced one by one down the hole into the dank chamber where a carnifex (executioner) was waiting to strangle them. When they were all dead, Cicero spoke the required words—“They have lived”—to those assembled around the Tullianum.
In the aftermath of the executions, Caesar stayed away from Senate meetings for the rest of the year. In keeping a low profile, he was saving his political capital for another day rather than becoming bogged down in petty quibbles with the optimates. Caesar was instead busy preparing for his upcoming term as praetor, the next step on the Path of Honors, to which he had been elected earlier in the year. Catiline and his army, just as Cato had predicted, quickly lost heart and tried hopelessly to fight their way to safety outside of Italy. He and his dwindling forces were cut down as they tried to flee across the Apennine Mountains. The Senate conferred on a joyful Cicero the title of pater patriae (“father of his country”), an honor that he would bear with pride for the rest of his life. But to Cicero’s dismay, when the newly elected tribunes for the next year took office in December, some from their ranks began to rail against the Senate for the executions of the conspirators as unconstitutional, just as Caesar had foreseen (and now, perhaps, had helped to arrange). The common people were furious at Cicero and the senators for their actions, though well disposed to Caesar as a champion of their rights. Accordingly, the populist party decided to punish Cicero with one final insult. When the proud consul on the last day of his term rose to make his triumphal valedictory speech before laying down his office, a tribune of the plebs named Metellus Nepos interposed his veto and forbade Cicero to say a another word. The deeply frustrated Cicero was allowed to make only a customary short declaration that he had fulfilled his duties honorably—though he added quickly at the end of his oath that he had, in fact, saved the city from ruin.
Caesar returned to the public arena with a vengeance on his very first day as praetor. The temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill overlooking the Forum had burned down in 83 B.C., but there had been no serious effort to rebuild it until Caesar’s old nemesis Lutatius Catulus had been given the job in 78. Even then, Catulus had only partially restored the central temple of Rome by 62 when Caesar took office. Acting both in his role as high priest of Rome and as a newly elected praetor, Caesar called an assembly of the people in the Forum on the first morning of his term. The senators at this very moment were above the Forum on the hill of the Capitol celebrating the inauguration of the new consuls for the year. When they looked down, they could see a great crowd gathering below with Caesar on the speaker’s platform. The new praetor addressed the people and lamented the fact that after fourteen years and plentiful funds from the public treasury, Lutatius Catulus had still not managed to rebuild the centerpiece of Roman piety and power. There were then dark hints of state money finding its way into Catulus’s own pockets. Caesar proposed that the commission for finishing the temple of Jupiter be given to Pompey, soon to return from the East, a man who had shown he could get things done, unlike the self-serving, foot-dragging, nose-in-the-air optimates of the Senate. The people roared their approval. All the senators rushed down from the hill, Catulus demanding that he be allowed to address the crowd. Caesar granted the senior statesman this privilege, but deliberately insulted him by not letting him mount the speaker’s platform. Caesar had not forgiven Catulus for condemning him concerning the display of Marius’s images three years earlier and for opposing him during the debate on Catiline. When Caesar saw the Senate’s followers would soon break up the meeting with violence, he dismissed the assembly—but his point was made. Caesar the praetor, who now held the ultimate Roman power of imperium that allowed him to use force if necessary, was putting the optimates on notice that he was a man to be reckoned with.
Caesar continued his attack on the optimates early in his year as praetor by wholeheartedly supporting the agenda of the newly elected tribune Metellus Nepos. Pompey had bought and paid for Nepos to serve as his agent in Rome in preparation for his return from the East later in the year. When Catiline and his army were still at large that winter, Nepos had proposed that the conqueror of Asia be given a broad commission to destroy the conspirators and restore order to Italy. The Senate had been down this path with Pompey before and decided it was finally time to bring the upstart Picene general to heel. It was a dangerous gamble, since Pompey had a massive army at his back and could, if he wished, simply march into Rome and declare himself dictator. But Cato and his optimate supporters had dealt with Pompey long enough to take the measure of the man. Pompey wanted glory, respect, and recognition as the greatest general in Roman history, but, unlike Marius or Sulla, he had not shown any signs of desiring to rule Rome as a bloody tyrant.
The morning Nepos brought his bill for a vote before the people, Cato marched to the Forum only to find Nepos and Caesar sitting on the platform of the temple of Castor and Pollux, surrounded by a large gang of ruffians and off-duty gladiators. Other tribunes would have taken the hint and retired quietly to the back of the crowd, but Cato, along with his friend and fellow tribune Minucius Thermus, pushed his way through the mob, then taunted Caesar by asking loudly if all the guards were there just to keep him away. Even the populist crowd loved Cato’s boldness and shouted to him not to back down. For one of the few times in his life, Caesar was unnerved, having lost control of a situation he himself had carefully staged. Cato threw himself into a seat right between Caesar and Nepos, while the delighted crowd waited for what would happen next.
Nepos motioned to his clerk to read the bill aloud, but just as he started, Cato stood up and in a ringing voice bellowed, “Veto!” The clerk stopped, unsure of how to proceed, so that Nepos took the bill to read it to the assembled people himself. Cato tore it out of his hands. Nepos then began to recite the bill from memory when Thermus shoved his hand over his mouth to prevent him speaking. Nepos finally signaled his bully boys standing around the temple to intervene. The gladiators and small-time thugs came running with their swords and cudgels swinging, shouts and screams filled the air, and everyone, including Caesar, quickly withdrew—except for Cato. The obstinate tribune stood his ground until a senator named Murena, whom Cato had earlier charged with bribery, came to his defense and wrapped his toga around the battered tribune, leading him to safety inside the nearby temple.
Caesar and Nepos had overplayed their hand. As the swelling mob in the Forum grew out of control and violence descended into urban chaos, the Senate met and conferred power on the consuls to restore order to the city by any means necessary. Nepos fled the city to join Pompey, and Caesar, realizing he had foolishly let a populist rally turn into pointless riot, took off his praetor’s robes, dismissed the lictors guarding him, and retired to his home. But Caesar had an uncanny talent for turning a bad situation to his advantage. The next day, when an unruly mob of populists appeared at his door in the Forum shouting that they were ready to march against the Senate and restore him to his office as praetor, Caesar calmly said they were to do no such thing and dispersed them without incident. The Senate was so grateful for his prudence in not provoking an insurrection that they brought him immediately to their meeting place and heaped endless praise on him. They even withdrew their emergency decree and begged Caesar to take up his office as praetor again, to which he graciously agreed. Cato, his bruises still aching, must have marveled that only Caesar could have nearly burned Rome to the ground and still received the Senate’s adulation.
After his acceptance back into the good graces of the Senate, Caesar was content to spend the remainder of his year as praetor quietly carrying out his duties in Rome and avoiding controversy. But events in both his public and private life soon thrust Caesar back into the limelight. After Catiline and his forces had been defeated on the battlefield, the surviving conspirators were hunted down and brought before a special investigator appointed for the task, named Novius Niger. A former Catilinian, the knight Lucius Vettius, who had betrayed the conspiracy to the Senate for a substantial reward, came before Novius and declared that he had letters in Caesar’s own handwriting linking him to Catiline. This was little more than a rehashing of the earlier accusations tying Caesar to the conspiracy, but Caesar had lost patience with such needling assaults on his dignity and integrity. He rose before the Senate and defended himself superbly, invoking Cicero’s own testimony that he had immediately passed all information he possessed to the consul to aid in destroying the conspiracy. The Senate supported Caesar, but he was determined to stop these petty attacks against him by making a public example of these latest adversaries. Caesar employed his power as a senior magistrate to manhandle Vettius in the Forum, confiscate his property, and throw him into prison. The investigator Novius he merely sent to jail for allowing a frivolous case against a praetor to be presented at his tribunal. It was a long time before anyone bothered Caesar again.
The juicy scandal that hit Caesar next soon made him forget about any conspiracy accusations. There was an ancient religious gathering for Roman women each year called the Bona Dea festival. The true name of this “good goddess” is unknown, but she was probably a nature divinity otherwise known as Fauna, who was worshipped throughout Italy. In the Roman version of the cult, the Vestal Virgins gathered women at the house of a senior magistrate for a night of celebration and fellowship. Men were absolutely forbidden to attend. The year before, Cicero’s home had been the site for the festivities, and now Caesar’s mother, Aurelia, was the hostess for the celebration at the house of the pontifex maximus. There were similar women’s festivals throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Stories, promulgated by men, often grew up around such worship claiming the secret female festivities were occasions for lewd debauchery, but in reality they were a much-needed chance for women to relax without the tiresome presence of men. It was an evening of music and dancing, with vineyard decorations and abundant wine—discreetly called “milk” for the night as ancient Roman law frowned on wine for women. Caesar’s wife, Pompeia, was of course present at the celebration, along with all the leading Roman matrons. Aurelia had cheerfully ushered Caesar from the house earlier in the day, ordering him to take all the males of the household along, a command he gladly obeyed.
Once the festivities were well under way and many cups of wine had been drained, a servant of Aurelia came upon a shy young maiden hiding in the shadows. She called the stranger out to dance, but the heavily veiled figure declined in a surprisingly deep voice. The servant dragged the mysterious person forth and then screamed, shouting to the whole household that she had caught a man violating their worship. Aurelia immediately stopped the celebration and ordered all the doors of the house barred. She led a search through Caesar’s home until she cornered the intruder, stripped him of his disguise, and drove him out of the house.
Word of the sacrilege quickly spread throughout the city. The culprit was a man named Publius Clodius Pulcher, an irreverent young noble who led Rome’s avant-garde Bohemian set and who delighted in thumbing their noses at authority and tradition. Clodius had even changed the spelling of his family name Claudius as a fashionable affectation. Clodius had long been in love with Caesar’s wife Pompeia—or at least had decided it would be great fun to seduce her if he could. With this in mind, he had dressed as a lute girl and entered Caesar’s house. He was trying to get Pompeia alone in her bedroom when he was discovered. Rome was in an uproar, both because of the sacrilege against the gods and because Clodius was a notorious rake who had reportedly engaged in incest with his sisters. He was also a favorite among the urban populist party because of his staunch defense of their interests and his continual annoyance of the prim and proper senatorial class.
Caesar’s response was decisive and immediate. He sent Pompeia a letter of divorce, even though it was unclear whether or not she had been a willing participant in the scandal. When asked why he would put his wife aside without firm proof, he responded that Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion. Even if Caesar loved Pompeia, he could not afford to play the cuckolded husband for the amusement of his political enemies. But he also could not alienate the populists who saw Clodius as a hero, so he declined any attempts at personal revenge or legal prosecution. Caesar knew that Clodius, in spite of his recklessness, could be very useful to him in years to come if they maintained good relations. Instead, Caesar left soon after for his propraetorian governorship in the familiar province of Further Spain, allowing others, including Cicero and the Senate leaders, to bring Clodius to trial.
Just as Caesar was preparing to leave for Spain, Pompey finally returned triumphantly to Italy after six years conquering and organizing the eastern Mediterranean. To the surprise of everyone and the great relief of the Senate, Pompey almost immediately dismissed his troops to return to their homes. He then walked to Rome accompanied only by a few friends as if returning from a vacation abroad. Pompey could have easily repeated the actions of his mentor Sulla twenty years earlier, sweeping into Rome, ruling as dictator, and beheading his political enemies. Crassus certainly expected this, removing his children and especially his money out of Rome just as Pompey landed in Brundisium. But Cato had cleverly understood Pompey’s mind and goals when he had opposed the legislation of his agent Nepos just a few months before. Pompey believed he had earned the position of first man in Rome through his achievements and thus had no need for a bloody coup. He fully expected to enter Rome as a hero, accomplish his legislative aims, and then live out his life as a respected statesman and leader of the Senate. If not, Pompey believed he could always call up his loyal veterans throughout Italy, though he had no plans or desire to do so.
When Pompey arrived in Rome at last and presented his legislation to the Senate several months later, he discovered just how obstinate and obstructionist the optimates could be. His two proposals were very reasonable—a ratification of his eastern settlement and a grant of well-deserved land to reward his veteran soldiers. The Senate, however, bogged down the bills in procedural limbo until an exasperated Pompey took the proposals to the people in assembly. But there the optimates used their allies to block Pompey until he finally withdrew his bills in frustration and decided to wait for a better day. Sulla would have never allowed himself to be defeated this way, but Pompey had lost his will to fight, at least for the present.
While Pompey was still making his way to Rome, Caesar had set off at breakneck speed for his province in Spain. The debts he had been accumulating since his service as an aedile four years earlier were now reaching epic proportions, prompting Caesar to appeal to Crassus for help. Rome’s richest man pledged himself as security to the most insistent of Caesar’s bankers, but a quick exit was prudent as there was still a mob of angry creditors snapping at his heels. Caesar didn’t slow down until he came to the Alps. At a wayside village high in the mountains, one of Caesar’s traveling companions looked around at the squalid huts and laughingly wondered if even in such a woebegone hamlet there was a struggle for power and influence. In words eerily similar to those of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Caesar declared:
I would rather be first man here than second in Rome.
Caesar’s exploits in Spain were a preview of his future conquests in Gaul. Caesar knew that his political career depended on his success in Further Spain, both as a chance to gain the attention he would need to run for consul and as a means to raise desperately needed cash to pay his enormous debts. Fortunately for Caesar, the Iberian peninsula was ripe with potential military victories and rich in silver. Caesar began by ordering the Lusitanian bandits who had long infested the Herminian Mountains northeast of modern Lisbon to leave their highland homes and settle in the plains. Caesar knew very well they would not, but their refusal gave him the perfect chance to launch a war against them. After hastily raising more troops, Caesar led his army into the hills. The native tribes expected to defeat this new Roman governor as easily as previous incompetent generals, so they sent away their families and prepared for war. The mountain raiders then tried to distract the Romans by sending their herds before them, hoping Caesar would seize the cattle as booty so that they could swoop down on him while he was distracted. But Caesar had not come all the way to Spain for a few cows. He ignored the herds and pushed through to attack and quickly defeat the bandits. He chased the survivors all the way to the Atlantic coast, where they crossed over to a nearby island. Caesar then sent a band of troops across to the island in the few small boats he possessed. The soldiers were forced to disembark at a breakwater some distance from the island and wade across, but they had not reckoned on an unfamiliar factor. In the Mediterranean, the tide varies no more than a few inches, but on the Atlantic seaboard the water can swiftly rise several feet. The Roman soldiers were trapped and all but one cut down by the Spanish rebels. Caesar cursed his luck, then sent to Gades for more ships while maintaining a blockade on the island. When the ships arrived, the Romans sailed across the channel and quickly defeated the surviving brigands. The rebellious natives were learning that Caesar was maddeningly persistent in war.
Caesar next led his new fleet against the troublesome Callaici in the northwest corner of Spain. These proud tribesmen of Celtic origin had never been conquered by Rome, but when they saw Caesar’s fleet approaching their port town of Brigantium, they were shocked by the novel prospect of a full-fledged naval attack and quickly surrendered. Caesar had now accomplished a major pacification of western Iberia in just a few weeks, bringing peace and stability to a region that had been a thorn in Rome’s side for decades. But Caesar’s skill was not limited to the battlefield. He quickly ended the incessant disputes between native cities and reorganized the dismal finances of the province, especially the bitter quarrels between Roman creditors and Spanish debtors. Caesar could not afford to alienate the Roman knights who loaned money to the Spaniards, so he could not propose a cancellation of debts as Catiline had promised. Instead, he limited the amount of money a creditor could garnish from a debtor to two-thirds of his annual income. This was still exorbitant, but it allowed the natives to avoid complete financial ruin.
Caesar was not above the Roman tradition of enriching himself during his service in a province. Later classical historians, many of whom were hostile to Caesar, claim that he solicited hefty contributions from native towns and sacked a few only for their riches. Whether or not this is true, Caesar without a doubt finished his term in Spain as a wealthy man. He also generously shared the profits with his men, who hailed him as imperator, the coveted title of a conqueror who was then eligible for a prized public triumph on his return to Rome. In Spain, Caesar also gained the friendship of many influential businessmen, including Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a native of Gades. The wealthy and influential Balbus had been made a Roman citizen by Pompey years before and worked closely with the Picene general, but in time became an important supporter of Caesar.
After the winter snows had melted, Caesar quickly made his way back to Rome to begin campaigning for the consulship, the final office on the Path of Honors. He had been reluctantly granted a triumph by the Senate for his victories in Spain, a dream of Caesar for years that would guarantee his enduring status as a successful military commander. A triumph was the highest honor Rome could grant a general and so was not conferred lightly on any man. The Senate was full of optimates who hated Caesar and the populist politics he championed. They knew that a triumphal parade would only help his standing among the common people. But in spite of their animosity, the optimates shared with the rest of Rome a genuine admiration for an excellent soldier. Not enough of Caesar’s enemies could bring themselves to deny him a well-earned victory parade, even if it was to their own detriment. Caesar would mount his four-horse chariot in the Field of Mars dressed in glowing robes and accompanied by his lictors as a guard of honor. Trophies of his conquest would be heaped on carts before him and notable prisoners captured in the war would march in chains with heads bowed low. Even in the midst of such glory, however, the Romans dared not offend the gods. A slave would stand in the chariot behind Caesar during the whole parade whispering in his ear, “Remember you are mortal.” Caesar’s soldiers would bellow obscene songs as their commander drove through the Forum and up to the top of the Capitoline Hill, where he would sacrifice to Jupiter.
But Caesar faced a conundrum. As a general awaiting a triumph, he had to remain outside the walls of Rome. His imperium as a commander would be lost, as would his triumph, if he entered the gates of Rome before the morning of the parade. Yet it was also a law that a candidate for consul had to appear personally within Rome’s walls as a private citizen before the election. Caesar sent a message asking the Senate if they would bend the rule this once and allow him to run for consul while remaining outside the city. The senators debated the matter with many willing to grant Caesar his request. But when Cato saw that the Senate was going to vote in favor of Caesar, he invoked an ancient privilege allowing him to speak without interruption as long as he wished. As Senate meetings could be held only during the day, Cato filibustered for hours until the summer sun set over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Since there were no days left for further debate, Cato and his optimate allies congratulated themselves on at least postponing Caesar’s rise to the consulship for another year—and in a year, anything might happen. Of course, as a triumph was an incredible honor to be remembered for generations, no Roman in his right mind would ever trade it for the chance to run for any political office, not even consul.
But early the next morning, Caesar left his tent on the Field of Mars clad in a shining white toga and walked deliberately toward the city gate just north of the Capitoline Hill. The few who were awake at that hour must have stared openmouthed as they realized what he was about to do. Passing under the gate, he crossed the sacred boundary of the city and thereby forfeited his triumph. No one could believe that Caesar would give up such an honor, but once again he proved to friends and foes alike that he was unique.
One of the consular candidates for 59 B.C. was none other than the optimate Bibulus, Caesar’s bitter foe who had earlier been paired with him both as aedile and praetor. It seemed as though Bibulus would forever be an albatross around Caesar’s neck. In a move to secure the defeat of his old rival, Caesar made a clever pact with another candidate named Lucius Lucceius, who had plenty of money but no broad constituency. Lucceius agreed to form an alliance and use his own wealth to bribe voters on behalf of both himself and Caesar. In turn, Lucceius, as a relative unknown, would benefit from association with a famous and popular candidate, greatly increasing his own chances of election. The response of the optimates was not to fight Caesar’s election—that would have been futile—but to make sure he was paired with a fellow consul who would obstruct, obfuscate, and hopefully block any reformist actions Caesar tried to undertake. Of course, the only man for the job was Bibulus. The optimates distributed their own bribes on a massive scale, even winning the approval of the priggish Cato for such blatantly illegal electioneering. It was, as Cato grudgingly admitted, all for the good of the Republic.
The optimates also thought ahead to the year after Caesar’s consulship. Normally, a former consul would be rewarded with a prestigious governorship in one of the most important and wealthy provinces of the empire. In a bid to hamstring any ambitions of Caesar well ahead of time, the optimates pushed a bill through the Senate mandating that the consuls for the year 59 B.C. on completion of their office would both be charged with overseeing woods and pastures. This ridiculous job would guarantee that Caesar neither profited from a governorship nor had any troops at his disposal after his year as consul.
When the election was over, Caesar had easily taken first place with Bibulus beating out the now considerably poorer Lucceius to serve as co-consul. Caesar was painfully aware that his year as consul, the high point of his long struggle up the Path of Honors, would all be for naught unless he managed to secure powerful allies fast. The optimates, however, were determined to destroy his political and military career at any cost. They would doom him to an insignificant consulship followed by a year inspecting cow pastures. Caesar’s only hope for a productive magistracy and later military glory lay in reaching a mutually beneficial accord with one or more significant players in the Roman power game who would help him defeat the entrenched conservatives of the Senate. But who would be open to a grueling battle with the optimates? Or more precisely, who had the most to gain? The first choice was obvious—Pompey. Ever since he was a young lieutenant of Sulla, the Senate had laughed at the Picene upstart behind his back even while they occasionally used him as a military leader. Pompey had recently failed to pass the legislation ratifying his settlement in the Near East and granting land to his veteran soldiers. He needed a skillful magistrate like Caesar, who understood the subtle uses of power in the Senate and Forum. The second choice was more of a challenge—Crassus. Rome’s resident financial magnate despised Pompey and had aided the optimates in blocking him on a number of occasions. But the Senate still viewed Crassus as an upstart knight to whom they would not grant real power, especially the major military command he so coveted. After his previous alliance with Pompey, the optimates made it their policy to keep the two feuding populists constantly at odds. Now Caesar revealed yet another quality of his genius by skillfully and with tremendous insight into human nature bringing these two bitter enemies together. Caesar also labored to win the support of Cicero, but the former savior of the Republic hesitated, then declined. He felt it was important for him to maintain a strategic neutrality to preserve the harmonious concord of the different factions in Rome. But this concord was largely a figment of Cicero’s imagination.
Thus Rome’s greatest general along with its wealthiest citizen joined together with a supremely talented and ambitious consul in a secret three-man (triumviri) pact to run the Republic. With solemn oaths administered by Caesar as high priest of Rome they bound themselves not to undertake any action opposed by any one of them. The optimates did not realize what they were about to face—the First Triumvirate was now in business.