Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (38 page)

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his father's was disastrous. In 56
B.C.
Caesar fought Rome's first naval battle in the Atlantic, against the sea-faring Gauls called the Veneti. The battle is remarkable because of an amazingly simple tactic that the Romans used to win. The Gauls' ships, constructed from thick oak, were too solid and heavy for the light Roman ships to ram, yet the Gallic ships were propelled solely by wind, while the Roman ships could be rowed or propelled by the wind. The Romans' solution was simple: they attached knives to long poles and cut the cords that secured the Gauls' sails to their ships. That done, the Gauls' ships could only drift until the Romans boarded them.

The next year Caesar did something no Roman had ever done before: In ten days he built a bridge across the Rhine and led an army of Rome across it in a punitive expedition into German territory. Before, Rome and Italy had merely defended themselves from the marauding Germans; now, Caesar explains, "the most convincing reason [for invading Germany] was this: seeing that the Germans were so easily incited to come into Gaul, Caesar [he usually refers to himself in the third person] wanted them too to feel fear for their possessions, since they would understand that an army of the Roman people could cross the Rhine, and would not hesitate to do so" (
De bello gallico
IV.16). Caesar's audience, no doubt remembering earlier invasions (such as that of the Gauls in 390
B.C.
and of the Cimbri and Teutones fifty years earlier), must have thrilled at Caesar's words. Cicero himself, no lover of Caesar the politician, boasted that Caesar's victories rendered the Alps unnecessary. Later that year Caesar accomplished something else never before done: He led a Roman army into Britain, won the battle, and returned the next year to win further battles. He made British kings pay tribute to Rome. For that the Senate decreed twenty days of thanksgiving to the gods. Caesar's forays into Britain brought no lasting results, since he spent the rest of his life fighting civil wars, and Britain quickly reverted to its former status. Almost a century later, however, Emperor Claudius completed what Caesar had intended to do.

In 54
B.C.
Caesar thought the pacification of Gaul complete. Yet that winter the Gauls all revolted and attacked the Roman armies in their winter camps, while Caesar was in Italy. The Gauls promised

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to spare the Romans' lives if they left their camps; one unfortunate Roman commander trusted them and led his army out of the camp, only to be massacred by the Gauls. The officer in charge of another camp, Q. Cicero, the younger brother of the orator, was too smart to trust the Gauls, yet his camp was in trouble since the men were wounded and exhausted after defending it for so long. After getting the reports of the revolt, Caesar sped to the rescue of his camps; he wanted to tell Q. Cicero and his men that he was on the way and to keep fighting bravely, yet the hostile Gauls besieging the camp would catch any messenger. Caesar wrote the message in code, in Greek letters, hid the letter in the shaft of a spear, and paid an allied Gaul an enormous sum of money to take it to the besieged camp. The allied Gaul then approached the camp, as if he were an attacker, and threw the spear into the camp, where it stuck to one of the towers. Two days elapsed before the Romans inside the camp noticed it; Q. Cicero then read the letter to the soldiers and thus revived their hopes and courage. They soon had more reason to cheer, for they saw smoke rising in the distance: Caesar and his army had arrived and were destroying the towns and villages that had revolted. Q. Cicero and his men were saved, and soon the revolt was quashed.

The reason why Caesar, with his army of forty thousand, had been able to conquer Gaul, was the Gauls' lack of unity and concerted leadership. In 52 the Gauls, seeing their freedom being wrenched from their hands, united under a leader named Vercingetorix. Caesar defeated him in battle, and the Gallic army took refuge in the stronghold of Alesia. Caesar's siege of Alesia is particularly noteworthy because while he laid siege to the city by digging a huge trench around it, a Gallic army was attacking Caesar's troops from the outside; to protect the Roman army in the middle, Caesar's men dug another huge trench on the outside, thus ringing themselves off from the Gallic army. Eventually Alesia gave up, and Caesar won both battles, over Alesia on the inside and over the Gallic army on the outside. Vercingetorix was captured and later executed at Caesar's triumph in 46. After Alesia, the hardest fighting in Gaul was finished.

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Anarchy in Rome

Pompey, who had remained in Rome when Crassus left for Parthia, was soon called upon by the Senate to restore order in the city, where the gangs of Milo and Clodius were causing more and more frequent riots. The year 53 began without consuls, as the elections had been delayed because all the candidates were on trial for bribery. The interest rate doubled before the elections, as the various candidates scurried to finance their bribery. "You really should hurry back to Rome," writes Cicero to Atticus, "and see what remains of the good old Roman republic. You can see the bribes handed out, tribe by tribe, right out in the open, you can see Gabinius acquitted, you can sniff out dictatorship in the air, and enjoy the suspension of public business and the total anarchy" (
Ep. ad Att
. IV.19).

Rome needed a dictator to restore order, and Pompey was the obvious choice. In public he said he did not want to be dictator, but to Cicero he confided that he did want the post. He was instead elected sole consul for 53; even the younger Cato, the strict constitutionalist, agreed to the unusual appointment. Pompey restored order and passed some laws against bribery and disturbing the peace. That year the tribunes passed a plebiscite called the Law of the Ten Tribunes, which gave special permission to Julius Caesar to run for the consulship of 48 in absentia, when his term as governor of Gaul expired; thus Caesar would have another command awaiting him. Since Caesar needed soldiers, and Pompey was not using his, he loaned Caesar a legion.

In 52 Milo and Clodius had another battle, this time outside Rome, at Bovillae, where Clodius had laid a trap for Milo. Clodius was wounded during the fight and was dragged for safety into a nearby inn; Milo found him there and had him killed. When his body was returned to Rome, the urban mob used the Curia, the Senate House, as a funeral pyre for his body, and burned down the building. Later Milo was put on trial for the murder of Clodius, and Cicero defended him. The soldiers whom Pompey had stationed around the Forum to prevent violence could not keep the mob quiet during Cicero's speech; Cicero lost his composure, and

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Milo was convicted. He went into exile in Massilia. (Cicero later sent him a copy of the speech he had
intended
to deliver; Milo is said to have thanked him for not delivering the speech he wrote, for otherwise he would not have been enjoying the fine mullets of Massilia.)

Later, Pompey passed a law barring candidature in absentia, which contradicted the Law of the Ten Tribunes. After the law was passed, Pompey added a rider giving an exception to Julius Caesar. The rider, of course, was invalid, as it had not been approved by the voters. The matter was of great importance to Caesar, who needed the dispensation to run in absentia for the consulship of 48, so he could have another command awaiting him upon the expiration of his term in Gaul. Without overlapping commands, he would be vulnerable to prosecution and political violence from his enemies. Pompey betrayed his former colleague in the triumvirate in the same year that he declined Caesar's offer of another marriage alliance, this time with Caesar's niece. Instead, Pompey married Cornelia, the widow of Publius Crassus, Crassus' son, who had been killed at Carrhae. Cornelia was the daughter of Metellus Scipio, one of the Optimates, and after his marriage Pompey started moving in those circles.

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Chapter 21
Civil War

M. Claudius Marcellus, one of the consuls in 51
B.C.
, was violently anti-Caesarian. He showed his hatred for Caesar by flogging a Gaul whom Caesar had made a Roman citizen; as a citizen, of course, the man had the right to a trial and an appeal before punishment, both of which Marcellus denied him, as if he were not a citizen. Marcellus told the Gaul that he was giving him proof that he was not a Roman citizen, and that he should go show his scars to Caesar.

During 51 Caesar asked for an extension of his command in Gaul, but the Senate rejected his request. Marcellus then proposed a law that Caesar's command should be terminated and a successor sent out immediately. Pompey and the tribunes vetoed the proposal, since by law Caesar had his command at least until the end of 50. Yet the Senate did approve a measure empowering the next year's consuls to debate a replacement for Caesar in Gaul.

One of the consuls of 50, G. Claudius Marcellus, was Marcellus' cousin and shared his hatred of Caesar. Undoubtedly with his connivance Pompey convinced the Senate to decree that Pompey and Caesar should each relinquish one legion for the defense of Syria, the forces of which had never been brought back to strength after Crassus' catastrophe. Pompey's contribution, however, was to be the legion he had loaned to Caesar in 53. Thus Caesar lost two legions, or approximately eight thousand soldiers. Ever the wise investor, Caesar gave each departing soldier the equivalent of 250 drachmas as a reward for good service. The soldiers were never sent to Syria; they stayed in Italy.

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Late in 50, when it became clear that civil war might erupt between Pompey and Caesar, the tribune Curio proposed that Pompey and Caesar should both lay down their commands. Earlier in his career, Curio had been staunchly anti-Caesarian, but now that his massive debts had been paid by Caesar, he was staunchly pro-Caesarian. The proposal was approved by a vote of 370 to 22 by the Senate, yet it was vetoed by the consuls. The next day Marcellus entrusted Pompey with the defense of the republic. Thus Caesar would gain neither an extension of his command nor any special permission to run for the consulship of 48 in absentia. Nor was Pompey exerting himself to help his former colleague in the triumvirate. He told the members of the Senate that he would not defend them if they were not firm in their resolve against Caesar, and he even threatened to leave for Spain, the province he was governing. The threat left the Optimates in a panic: What would they do if Caesar returned?

To Caesar the matter concerned his honor, his political life, and his actual existence. If he were not able to go straight into the
imperium
of the consulship of 48 when his command in Gaul expired at the end of 49, there would be some period of time when he would lack
imperium
and an army; he would then be a private citizen and thus vulnerable to all types of prosecution by his enemiesfor using force to pass his laws in 59; for breaking a truce with the Usipetes, a Germanic tribe that was friendly to Rome, and allowing his soldiers to massacre them; or for using bribery. Cato had said that he would prosecute Caesar once he had laid down his command. There was no shortage of nobles wanting to prosecute Caesar, on any charge they could imagine, for Caesar had made many enemies during his career. Caesar thought that his services to the statesuch as conquering Gaul, a mighty featmerited special consideration, especially since Pompey himself had so frequently won special consideration that resulted in all his extraordinary commands.

Why did Pompey seek a war with Caesar? It would be neat but untrue to say that he was fighting for republican principles and against tyranny. Pompey had a great love of power and distinction; he also wanted to be needed and loved by his country. Perhaps his desire for gloryeven greater than that of the typical noble, with

Page 193

the masks of the ancestors in the atrium and past great deeds to live up tobecame so powerful owing to the hatred he saw people pouring upon his dead father (whose corpse was dragged off the funeral pyre and through the mud) and upon Sulla (whose funeral with honors many wanted to deny). Perhaps Pompey saw that it was better to have power and to be liked than to have power and be hated, as his father and Sulla had been. Pompey always sought power
and
public approval and popularity.

Yet although he was only six years older than Caesar, Pompey (to use his own words) was now the setting sun, and Caesar the rising; Pompey's glory days were from 70 to 62, while Caesar had been earning glory from 58 to 50 by his unexampled military exploits. Pompey was being eclipsed by Caesar. "Pompey," one ancient historian tells us, "did not tolerate anyone being his equal. In matters in which it was necessary for him to be in charge, he wanted to be the only one. In fact, no one ever cared less for all other things but craved glory more than he did" (Velleius Paterculus II.33.3). Caesar was threatening Pompey's primacy in Rome.

Pompey's vanity grew still more. In 50 he came down with a serious illness while in Naples. Plutarch tells us:

When he recovered, the people of Naples gave sacrifices on behalf of his recovery. Their neighbors started doing the same thing, and soon the practice went through all Italy, and cities large and small held festivals for many days. No place could contain those who had come from all over to greet him; the roads, villages, and harbors were full of people partying and giving sacrifices. Many people wearing garlands received him under torches and threw flowers on him as they sent him on his way, making his whole journey a most beautiful and dazzling sight. This, more than any one thing, is said to have been the cause of the war. (
Pompey
LVII.1-6)

Pompey became overly confident, and his allies were similarly misguided. One of the Optimates, Appius Claudius, denigrated Caesar's accomplishments in Gaul, spread malicious stories about Caesar, and told Pompey that he was ignorant of his own power and reputation, for he could easily finish Caesar off with the armies that he already had. Later, one of Caesar's lieutenants, Titus

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