Part 870

At the time when Cæsar was in a difficult position at Alexandria, and the subjects of Rome were generally uncertain as to whether their yoke would be broken or not by the pending civil war, Pharnaces, son of the vanquished Pontic king, Mithridates, made an effort to recover the lost kingdom of his father. He himself had been a traitor to his father, and had been rewarded for his treason by Pompeius, who gave him the small kingdom of Bosporus, in the Crimea. He now thought the moment favorable for regaining Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia. Cæsar's lieutenant in Asia Minor, Domitius Calvinus, marched against him with a small force, and was badly defeated at Nicopolis (B. C. 48), in Armenia Minor. {2694} As a consequence, Cæsar, on being extricated from Alexandria, could not return to Rome, although his affairs there sorely needed him, until he had restored the Roman authority in Asia Minor. As soon as he could reach Pharnaces, although his army was small in numbers, he struck and shattered the flimsy throne at a single blow. The battle was fought (B. C. 47) at Zela, in Pontus, where Mithridates had once gained a victory over the Romans. It was of this battle that Cæsar is said to have written his famous 'Veni, vidi, vici.' "Plutarch says that this expression was used in a letter to one Amintius; the name is probably a mistake. Suetonius asserts that the three words were inscribed on a banner and carried in Cæsar's triumph. Appian and Dion refer to them as notorious."

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 18._

After defeating Pharnaces at Zela, destroying his army, "Cæsar passed on through Galatia and Bithynia to the province of Asia proper, settling affairs in every centre; and leaving the faithful Mithridates [of Pergamum—See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47] with the title of King of the Bosphorus, as a guarantee for the security of these provinces, he sailed for Italy, and arrived at Tarentum before anyone was aware of his approach. If he had really wasted time or lost energy in Egypt, he was making up for it now. On the way from Tarentum to Brundisium he met Cicero, who had been waiting for him here for nearly a year. He alighted, embraced his old friend, and walked with him some distance. The result of their talk was shown by Cicero's conduct for the rest of Cæsar's lifetime; he retired to his villas, and sought relief in literary work, encouraged doubtless by Cæsar's ardent praise. The magical effect of Cæsar's presence was felt throughout Italy; all sedition ceased, and Rome, which had been the scene of riot and bloodshed under the uncertain rule of Antonius, was quiet in an instant. The master spent three months in the city, working hard. He had been a second time appointed dictator while he was in Egypt, and probably without any limit of time, space or power; and he acted now without scruple as an absolute monarch. Everything that had to be done he saw to himself. Money was raised, bills were passed, the Senate recruited, magistrates and provincial governors appointed. But there was no time for any attempt at permanent organisation; he must wrest Africa from his enemies. … He quelled a most serious mutiny, in which even his faithful tenth legion was concerned, with all his wonderful skill and knowledge of human nature; sent on all available forces to Sicily, and arrived himself at Lilybæum in the middle of December."

_W. W. Fowler, Julius Cæsar, chapter 17._

The last stand of Cæsar's opponents as a party—the senatorial party, or the republicans, as they are sometimes called—was made in Africa, on the old Carthaginian territory, with the city of Utica for their headquarters, and with Juba, the Numidian king, for their active ally. Varus, who had held his ground there, defeating and slaying Cæsar's friend Curio, was joined first by Scipio, afterwards by Cato, Labienus and other leaders, Cato having led a wonderful march through the desert from the Lesser Syrtis. In the course of the year of respite from pursuit which Cæsar's occupations elsewhere allowed them, they gathered and organized a formidable army. It was near the end of the year 47 B. G. that Cæsar assembled his forces at Lilybæum, in Sicily, and sailed with the first detachment for Africa. As happened so often to him in his bold military adventures, the troops which should follow were delayed by storms, and he was exposed to imminent peril before they arrived. But he succeeded in fortifying and maintaining a position on the coast, near Ruspina, until they came. As soon as they reached him he offered battle to his adversaries, and found presently an opportunity to force the fighting upon them at Thapsus, a coast town in their possession, which he attacked. The battle was decided by the first charge of Cæsar's legionaries, which swept everything—foot-soldiers, cavalry and elephants —before it. The victors in their ferocity gave no quarter and slaughtered 10,000 of the enemy, while losing from their own ranks but fifty men. The decisive battle of Thapsus was fought on the 6th of April, B. C. 46, uncorrected calendar, or February 6th, as corrected later. Scipio, the commander, fled to Spain, was intercepted on the voyage, and ended his own life. The high-minded, stoical Cato committed suicide at Utica, rather than surrender his freedom to Cæsar. Juba, the Numidian king, likewise destroyed himself in despair; his kingdom was extinguished and Numidia became a Roman province. A few scattered leaders of revolt still disputed Cæsar's supremacy, but his power was firmly fixed.

_A. Hirtius, The African War._

ALSO IN _G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapters 24-27._

ROME: B. C. 45: Cæsar's last campaign against the Pompeians in Spain. His victory at Munda.

After Thapsus, Cæsar had one more deadly and desperate battle to fight for his sovereignty over the dominions of Rome. Cnæus Pompeius, son of Pompeius Magnus, with Labienus and Varus, of the survivors of the African field, had found disaffection in Spain, out of which they drew an army, with Pompeius in command. Cæsar marched in person against this new revolt, crossing the Alps and the Pyrenees with his customary celerity. After a number of minor engagements had been fought, the decisive battle occurred at Munda, in the valley of the Guadalquiver (modern Munda, between Honda and Malaga), on the 17th of March, B. C. 45. "Never, it is said, was the great conqueror brought so near to defeat and destruction;" but he won the day in the end, and only Sextus Pompeius survived among the leaders of his enemies. The dead on the field were 30,000.

_Julius Cæsar, Commentary on the Spanish War._

ALSO IN _C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 19._

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 30._

ROME: B. C. 45-44. The Sovereignty of Cæsar and his titles. His permanent Imperatorship. His unfulfilled projects.

"At Home, official enthusiasm burst forth anew at the tidings of these successes [in Spain]. The Senate decreed fifty days of supplications, and recognized Cæsar's right to extend the pomœrium, since he had extended the limits of the Empire. … After Thapsus he was more than a demi-god; after Munda he was a god altogether. A statue was raised to him in the temple of Quirinus with the inscription: 'To the invincible God,' and a college of priests, the Julian, was consecrated to him. … On the 18th September the dictator appeared at the gates of Rome, but he did not triumph till the beginning of October. {2695} This time there was no barbarian king or chieftain to veil the victories won over citizens. But Cæsar thought he had no longer need to keep up such consideration; since he was now the State, his enemies, whatever name they bore, must be enemies of the State. … It was expected that Cæsar, having suffered so many outrages, would now punish severely, and Cicero, who had always doubted his clemency, believed that tyranny would break out as soon as the tyrant was above fear. But jealousies, recollections of party strifes, did not reach to the height of Cæsar. … He restored the statues of Sylla; he replaced that of Pompey on the rostra. … He pardoned Cassius, who had tried to assassinate him, the consularis Marcellus who had stirred up war against him, and Quintus Ligarius who had betrayed him in Africa. As a temporary precaution, however, he forbade to the Pompeians, by a 'lex Hirtia,' admission to the magistracy. For his authority, Cæsar sought no new forms. … Senate, comitia, magistracies existed as before; but he centred public action in himself alone by combining in his own hands all the republican offices. The instrument which Cæsar used in order to give to his power legal sanction was the Senate. In former times, the general, after the triumph; laid aside his title of imperator and imperium, which included absolute authority over the army, the judicial department and the administrative power; Cæsar, by a decree of the Senate, retained both during life, with the right of drawing freely from the treasury. His dictatorship and his office of præfectus morum were declared perpetual; the consulship was offered him for ten years, but he would not accept it; the Senate wished to join executive to electoral authority by offering him the right of appointment in all curule and plebeian offices; he reserved for himself merely the privilege of nominating half the magistracy. The Senate had enjoined the members chosen to swear, before entering on office, that they would undertake nothing contrary to the dictator's acts, these having the force of law. Further, they gave to his person the legal inviolability of the tribunes, and in order to ensure it, knights and senators offered to serve as guards, while the whole Senate took an oath to watch over his safety. To the reality of power were added the outward signs. In the Senate, at the theatre, in the circus, on his tribunal, he sat, dressed in the royal robe, on a throne of gold, and his effigy was stamped on the coins, where the Roman magistrates had not yet ventured to engrave more than their names. They even went as far as talking of succession, as in a regular monarchy. His title of imperator and the sovereign pontificate were transmissible to his legitimate or adopted children. … Cæsar was not deceived by the secret perfidy which prompted such servilities, and he valued them as they deserved. But his enemies found in them fresh reasons for hating the great man who had saved them. … The Senate had … sunk from its character of supreme council of the Republic into that of a committee of consultation, which the master often forgot to consult. The Civil war had decimated it; Cæsar appointed to it brave soldiers, even sons of freedmen who had served him well, and a considerable number of provincials, Spaniards, Gauls of Gallia Narbonensis, who had long been Romans. He had so many services to reward that his Senate reached the number of 900 members. … One day the Senate went in a body to the temple of Venus Genetrix to present to Cæsar certain decrees drawn up in his honor. The demi-god was ill and dared not leave his couch. This was imprudent, for the report spread that he had not deigned to rise. … The higher nobles remained apart, not from honours, but from power; but they forgot neither Pharsalia nor Thapsus. They would have consented to obey on condition of having the appearance of commanding. This disguised obedience is for an able government more convenient than outward servility. A few concessions made to vanity obtain tranquil possession of power. This was the policy of Augustus, but it is not that of great ambitions or of a true statesman. These pretences leave everything doubtful; nothing is settled; and Cæsar wished to lay the foundations of a government which should bring a new order of things out of a chaos of ruins. Unless we are paying too much attention to mere anecdotes, he desired the royal diadem. … It is difficult not to believe that Cæsar considered the constituting of a monarchical power as the rational achievement of the revolution which he was carrying out. In this way we could explain the persistence of his friends in offering him a title odious to the Romans, who were quite ready to accept a monarch, but not monarchy. … In order to attain to this royal title … he must mount still higher, and this new greatness he would seek in the East. … It was meet that he should wipe out the second military humiliation of Rome after effacing the first; that he should avenge Crassus."

_V. Duruy, History of Rome, chapter 58, sections 2-3 (volume 3)._

"Cæsar was born to do great things, and had a passion after honor. … It was in fact a sort of emulous struggle with himself, as it had been with another, how he might outdo his past actions by his future. In pursuit of these thoughts he resolved to make war upon the Parthians, and when he had subdued them, to pass through Hyrcania; thence to march along by the Caspian Sea to Mount Caucasus, and so on about Pontus, till he came into Scythia; then to overrun all the countries bordering upon Germany, and Germany itself; and so to return through Gaul into Italy, after completing the whole circle of his intended empire, and bounding it on every side by the ocean. While preparations were making for this expedition, he proposed to dig through the isthmus on which Corinth stands; and appointed Anienus to superintend the work. He had also a design of diverting the Tiber, and carrying it by a deep channel directly from Rome to Circeii, and so into the sea near Tarracina, that there might be a safe and easy passage for all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he intended to drain all the marshes by Pomentium and Setia, and gain ground enough from the water to employ many thousands of men in tillage. He proposed further to make great mounds on the shore nearest Rome, to hinder the sea from breaking in upon the land, to clear the coast at Ostia of all the hidden rocks and shoals that made it unsafe for shipping, and to form ports and harbors fit to receive the large number of vessels that would frequent them. These things were designed without being carried into effect; but his reformation of the calendar [See CALENDAR, JULIAN], in order to rectify the irregularity of time, was not only projected with great scientific ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of very great use."

_Plutarch, Cæsar (Clough's Dryden's translation)._

ALSO IN _T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 11, with note._

{2696}

ROME: B. C. 44. The Assassination of Cæsar.

"The question of the kingship was over; but a vague alarm had been created, which answered the purpose of the Optimates. Cæsar was at their mercy any day. They had sworn to maintain all his acts. They had sworn, after Cicero's speech, individually and collectively to defend his life. Cæsar, whether he believed them sincere or not, had taken them at their word, and came daily to the Senate unarmed and without a guard. … There were no troops in the city. Lepidus, Cæsar's master of the horse, who had been appointed governor of Gaul, was outside the gates with a few cohorts; but Lepidus was a person of feeble character, and they trusted to be able to deal with him. Sixty senators, in all, were parties to the immediate conspiracy. Of these, nine tenths were members of the old faction whom Cæsar had pardoned, and who, of all his acts, resented most that he had been able to pardon them. They were the men who had stayed at home, like Cicero, from the fields of Thapsus and Munda, and had pretended penitence and submission that they might take an easier road to rid themselves of their enemy. Their motives were the ambition of their order and personal hatred of Cæsar; but they persuaded themselves that they were animated by patriotism, and as, in their hands, the Republic had been a mockery of liberty, so they aimed at restoring it by a mock tyrannicide. … One man only they were able to attract into coöperation who had a reputation for honesty, and could be conceived, without absurdity, to be animated by a disinterested purpose. Marcus Brutus was the son of Cato's sister Servilia, the friend, and a scandal said the mistress, of Cæsar. That he was Cæsar's son was not too absurd for the credulity of Roman drawing-rooms. Brutus himself could not have believed in the existence of such a relation, for he was deeply attached to his mother; and although, under the influence of his uncle Cato, he had taken the Senate's side in the war, he had accepted afterwards not pardon only from Cæsar, but favors of many kinds, for which he had professed, and probably felt, some real gratitude. … Brutus was perhaps the only member of the senatorial party in whom Cæsar felt genuine confidence. His known integrity, and Cæsar's acknowledged regard for him, made his accession to the conspiracy an object of particular importance. … Brutus, once wrought upon, became with Cassius the most ardent in the cause which assumed the aspect to him of a sacred duty. Behind them were the crowd of senators of the familiar faction, and others worse than they, who had not even the excuse of having been partisans of the beaten cause; men who had fought at Cæsar's side till the war was over, and believed, like Labienus, that to them Cæsar owed his fortune, and that he alone ought not to reap the harvest. … The Ides of March drew near. Cæsar was to set out in a few days for Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going, as governor, to the north of Italy, Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to Asia Minor. Antony, Cæsar's colleague in the consulship, was to remain in Italy. Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, was to be consul with him as soon as Cæsar should have left for the East. The foreign appointments were all made for five years, and in another week the party would be scattered. The time for action had come, if action there was to be. … An important meeting of the Senate had been called for the Ides (the 15th) of the month. The Pontifices, it was whispered, intended to bring on again the question of the Kingship before Cæsar's departure. The occasion would be appropriate. The Senate-house itself was a convenient scene of operations. The conspirators met at supper the evening before at Cassius's house. Cicero, to his regret, was not invited. The plan was simple, and was rapidly arranged. Cæsar would attend unarmed. The senators not in the secret would be unarmed also. The party who intended to act were to provide themselves with poniards, which could be easily concealed in their paper boxes. So far all was simple; but a question rose whether Cæsar only was to be killed, or whether Antony and Lepidus were to be dispatched along with him. They decided that Cæsar's death would be sufficient. … Antony and Lepidus were not to be touched. For the rest the assassins had merely to be in their places in the Senate in good time. When Cæsar entered, Trebonius was to detain Antony in conversation at the door. The others were to gather about Cæsar's chair on pretence of presenting a petition, and so could make an end. A gang of gladiators were to be secreted in the adjoining theatre to be ready should any unforeseen difficulty present itself. … Strange stories were told in after years of the uneasy labors of the elements that night. … Calpurnia dreamt her husband was murdered, and that she saw him ascending into heaven, and received by the hand of God. In the morning (March 15th) the sacrifices were again unfavorable. Cæsar was restless. Some natural disorder affected his spirits, and his spirits were reacting on his body. Contrary to his usual habit, he gave way to depression. He decided, at his wife's entreaty, that he would not attend the Senate that day. The house was full. The conspirators were in their places with their daggers ready. Attendants came in to remove Cæsar's chair. It was announced that he was not coming. Delay might be fatal. They conjectured that he already suspected something. A day's respite, and all might be discovered. His familiar friend whom he trusted —the coincidence is striking—was employed to betray him. Decimus Brutus, whom it was impossible for him to distrust, went to entreat his attendance. … Cæsar shook off his uneasiness, and rose to go. As he crossed the hall his statue fell and shivered on the stones. Some servant, perhaps, had heard whispers, and wished to warn him. As he still passed on, a stranger thrust a scroll into his hand, and begged him to read it on the spot. It contained a list of the conspirators, with a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a petition and placed it carelessly among his other papers. The fate of the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread was not broken. … Cæsar entered and took his seat. {2697} His presence awed men, in spite of themselves, and the conspirators had determined to act at once, lest they should lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and easy of access. They gathered round him. … One had a story to tell him; another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had just made governor of Bithynia, then came close to him, with some request which he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, stabbed him in the throat. He started up with a cry and caught Cassius's arm. Another poniard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. He looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his head, gathered the folds about him that he might fall decently, and sank down without uttering another word. … The Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed into the Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Cæsar was dead, and scattered to their houses. Antony, guessing that those who had killed Cæsar would not spare himself, hurried off into concealment. The murderers, bleeding some of them from wounds which they had given one another in their eagerness, followed, crying that the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free; and the body of the great Cæsar was left alone in the house where a few weeks before Cicero told him that he was so necessary to his country that every senator would die before harm should reach him."

_J. A. Froude, Cæsar, chapter 26._

ROME: B. C. 44. The genius and character of Cæsar. His rank among great men.