Julius Caesar (6 page)

6

From Conspirator to Chief Priest

CRASSUS was determined to buy his way into power and, in the course of doing so, was happy to help along others who would owe their growing ascendancy to him. As client-states to Rome itself, so clients were essential to any rich Roman. Caesar, as his now intimate friend and adviser, was naturally one of those to be assisted, and Crassus, who had been elected in 65 to the censorship, was able to exercise both his position and his money to help promote his protégé.

The censors held the highest office of all Roman magistrates; they were responsible not only for the conduct and morals of citizens (an irony in view of the lives of some of them) but also superintended the five-yearly census. It was this that gave the censor much of his power, and Crassus (like Caesar) had his eye on the people who lived north of the Po: he wished to include them in the roll of citizens. He had a further ambition, and this was to make Egypt into a Roman province. It had long been ruled by the Greek Ptolemies but the last king, Ptolemy XI, had been murdered shortly after his accession to the throne and was said to have bequeathed his rich kingdom to Rome, just as Nicomedes of Bithynia had done. If Crassus could achieve either or both of these ambitions he would add immeasurably to the number of clients who would give him their support in the jungle of Roman politics. He was as pleased as Caesar to see the departure of Pompey to the East—and for the same reasons. He was also happy to help along his younger associate, and he—like then many another—saw no threat to his own position from the dandified, art-loving philanderer.

Crassus now provided the funds to support Caesar in his campaign for the office of
curule aedile.
This was yet a further rung on the ladder of any ambitious senator, being an urban magistracy with the function of superintending trade, the money market, streets and buildings, the sanitation of the city, and the games. It was, as we know, in this latter department that Caesar was to shine, buying himself goodwill with borrowed money. Although money from the treasury was available for the games, it was a recognized fact in political life that it was only by spending an immense amount over and above this that higher offices of state could be attained through the enthusiastic approval of the people. Needless to say, Caesar was elected and with him as his colleague was a certain Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, a man who was later to feature largely in Caesar’s life. Bibulus was an honest, stubborn old-fashioned type of Roman, an aristocrat of the opposite party to Caesar’s, the type of staid conservative with whom history has made us familiar, and certainly no match’ for the mercurial Caesar. The latter, as Suetonius tells us, laid on wild-beast hunts and stage-plays, sometimes at his own expense but at other times in cooperation with his colleague. Yet even when Bibulus was involved in the production of some entertainment it made no difference—it was Caesar who got the praise. As Bibulus himself wrily remarked: “In the Forum the Temple of the Heavenly Twins is always just known as ‘Castor’s,’ so I always fare like Pollux to Caesar’s Castor whenever it comes to giving a public entertainment together.”

In Pompey’s absence Crassus was making a great play for most powerful man in the Roman world. Caesar’s aedileship was a comparatively small move upon this chessboard, for Crassus almost certainly had a hand in financing the election of the two consuls, P. Cornelius Sulla and P. Autronius Paetus for the year 65. However the senate took alarm at the spectacle of Rome’s wealthiest man now aspiring to manipulate the consulship, and the two men were condemned for electoral corruption.

The senate’s action in revoking the consulships and appointing in their place the two senators (and fellow-candidates) who had been their accusers was to provoke a storm which shook the fabric of Rome, rotten though that was. But before detailing this old scandal, in which Caesar very probably played a part, it is worth noticing another act of his during his year of office. This was to put on a special series of gladiatorial games, entirely at his own expense and unconnected with the normal city festivals, to commemorate the death of his father twenty years before. The significance of this was obvious enough—the celebration of the Julian clan—and, rather than immortalizing the memory of a man who had lived a comparatively undistinguished life, to call the public’s attention to the munificence and glory of his son. Being responsible for the public places as aedile, Caesar also had the statues and memorials of Marius, which had been banished from the Forum and streets during Sulla’s dictatorship, cleaned and gilded and restored to their former places. The people, for whom Marius, the man of common stock, had ever remained a hero, were delighted and showed their approval, but the
Optimates
very naturally took exception to this celebration of the man they regarded as the enemy of the conservative tradition. Catulus, the leader of the
Optimates
in the senate, and one of the most distinguished Romans of the time, made a speech against Caesar, ending with the ominous and perspicacious words: “Caesar is no longer trying to undermine the republic, he is now using battering-rams.”

There remains some doubt about Caesar’s part in the other major event of that stormy year: the conspiracy to assassinate the two consuls, Cotta and Torquatus, who had been elected in place of the two favored by Crassus. At the same time as this proposed double murder, a revolt was supposed to take place among the cities north of the Po (where Caesar had already shown himself active) and, during the confusion following the death of the consuls, Crassus, it was said, was to seize the dictatorship with Caesar as his Master of the Horse (Second-in-Command of the Army). Suetonius, who reports this affair giving his earlier authorities, is the only source we have, but he is somewhat suspect all the same since Cicero, who disliked intensely what Caesar stood for, makes no mention of his having had any connection with this abortive plot although he does mention the projected role of Crassus. Since Caesar was now so intimate a friend and adviser to the millionaire it seems likely that he was aware of the plot and may even, as Suetonius suggests, have been intended to play a major role in it. Nevertheless, the verdict must be “Not Proven.”

In Egypt Ptolemy Auletes, the Fluteplayer, and father of the Cleopatra who was to play so large a part on the Roman scene in the years to come, having murdered his predecessor, had just been driven from the throne by his subjects in Alexandria. The burning question was—had the murdered king already bequeathed Egypt to the Roman State? If so, then a Governor-General with special powers should be appointed to look into the affairs of Egypt and take over the administration of the kingdom. This was the role for which Caesar, with the help of Crassus, had cast himself. Egypt, that prosperous and powerful linchpin of the Mediterranean, would give the two men a great power base to counterbalance the one that Pompey was establishing for himself in Asia. Crassus probably felt that Caesar would be happy to act as a lieutenant in such an office, but Caesar was undoubtedly looking beyond the ambitions of his “master.” It is not surprising that the conservative senators, who had been closely watching the activities of the two men, were determined to block any such move—even at the cost of not acquiring such an important territory for Rome. The man who effectively destroyed the arguments of the Crassus-Caesar party was Cicero, who acted as spokesman for the
Optimates
and succeeded in having the whole proposal thrown out. One thing is clear—in every direction the once indolent aristocrat was now, at the age of thirty-six, maneuvering legally or illegally to grasp the reins of power.

Shortly after their defeat over the Egyptian affair Crassus and Caesar learned that the very man who had swayed the tide against them was standing for consul in the following year. It was natural that they should wish to block Cicero, Caesar out of irritation over Egypt and Crassus, in addition, because Cicero was one of the few men eligible for the consulship who owed no obligations, financial or otherwise, to the millionaire. Lucius Sergius Catilina (known to history as Catiline) a formidable and sinister figure who had been heavily involved in the plot to kill the two consuls, was himself proposed to stand as a candidate—with the backing of Crassus—as well as another creature of his, Caius Antonius. Yet despite the formidable power of money brought against him and despite the determined opposition of all those who were of the Crassus/Caesar faction, Cicero was triumphantly elected to the office. The
Optimates
had again succeeded in preventing a mockery being made of the consulship, even though Crassus managed to get one of his chosen candidates, Caius Antonius, elected as the second consul, with Catiline not far distant in the running—and therefore a possible hopeful for the following year.

The next move of the two conspirators (for such one must by now call them) was to support a bill of great importance and complexity about the redistribution of land—outside as well as in Italy, including Egypt, of all unlikely places since the senate had just firmly declared it to be no concern of the Roman people. One of the recently elected tribunes of the people (always of use to Caesar) P. Servilius Rullus proposed the new agrarian law, which, although it had good social aims, would have given Crassus and Caesar a power base that would have counterbalanced that of Pompey (who had now conquered Mithridates and annexed his large estates). For under the new law the land of the Ptolemies could have been annexed and ten special commissioners elected by the people. But only those who were present in Rome at the time could be eligible; Pompey, absent in the East, would not have been able to stand.

Cicero, as consul, had indicated that he would support the law if he felt that it was useful for the people, but when he attempted to attend one of the meetings of the tribunes he was received in such a violently hostile manner that he had to withdraw. Even if he had not already scented trouble in something in which Crassus and Caesar were so evidently involved, this would have been enough to convince him that the agrarian law was designed to increase the power of the two men whom he saw as the greatest threat to the republic. Cicero, although not a man of strong character, did possess some moral fiber. He genuinely believed in the republican institutions which most of the
Optimates
feebly upheld, but which he knew the popular party, with men like Caesar in it, were certain to destroy. He opposed Rullus’ bill in four speeches and, despite Caesar’s oratory and the wealth of Crassus against him, he managed to get it defeated. He was the greatest magistrate of the Roman Republic and a formidable adversary.

Caesar had lost, but he had made a great number of friends who would one day be useful to him, and he now set about yet another move on the political chessboard. At the beginning of 63 Metellus Pius,
the pontifex maximusy
died from illness. This highest religious office in the state normally went only to the most distinguished men, former consuls or great generals who had deserved well of the state. In this case it was widely believed that either Lutatius Catulus, that senior figure in the senate and leader of the
Optimates
, or Servilius Isauricus, who had been Caesar’s former chief in Asia Minor, would secure the office. To the general astonishment of the senate Caesar put himself forward as a candidate.

He was only thirty-seven, he had no great record as a general or a statesman behind him and he was known to be massively in debt. But, apart from his influence with Pompey and Crassus, he was popular in plebeian circles. It was just here that the power now lay, and Caesar had long been aware of it. In the past the law had entitled the people to vote for this great office, but Sulla had repealed this and given the power back to the College of Pontiffs. If the election had depended on this small group Caesar knew that he would have no chance of success, so his aim for a long time had been to get the power of election restored to the people. Now one of Caesar’s collaborators in his many machinations at this time was the tribune Titus Labienus, who had served with Caesar in the East. Labienus and a fellow tribune had recently put forward a bill according new honors to Pompey for his outstanding services. This had been easily carried, and in its wake Labienus had proposed that the law regarding the election to the priesthoods (which included the pontifex maximus) should be restored. The senate, which clearly had not seen the potential dangers of the issue, agreed to this.

It was common knowledge that Caesar was in debt on a vast scale, so when he made his almost impudent bid for the office, Catulus himself approached Caesar and made him an offer on condition of his withdrawing his candidacy. This was a blunder, for he had now let Caesar know how much money he and his supporters had to spend, and Caesar’s answer was to borrow even more and continue his steady bribery of the electorate. On the day of the elections the story goes that, as his mother was seeing him out of the house, he said to her: “Today you will either see me as High Priest or an exile.” (There is no doubt that had he failed his creditors would have made sure that prison awaited him unless he had first of all managed to escape to some safe and distant land.) He carried the day—and to such an extent that even in the political wards of his two rivals he secured more votes than they did.

The office which he now held had, before the founding of the republic, been reserved for the kings of Rome and was now tenable for life by the elected candidate. It carried immense prestige and influence. Caesar had gained not only the base from which he could begin to restore his financial position but immeasurably expand it, the patronage that could be extended by the holder of this once-regal office being practically unlimited. By cunning use of the tribune Labienus and by the lavish expenditure of money (much of it, no doubt, from Crassus) Caesar had moved to a dominant position on the center of the board.