The Story of Civilization

by Will Durant

  The Senate was more frightened than pleased at these accomplishments. It trembled when it heard that Pompey had landed at Brundisium (62) with an army personally devoted to him and capable at his word of making him dictator. He magnanimously relieved its fears by disbanding his troops and entering Rome with no other retinue than his personal staff. His triumph lasted two days, but even that time proved insufficient for all the floats that pictured his victories and displayed his garnerings. The ungrateful Senate rejected his request that state lands be given his soldiers, refused to ratify his agreements with conquered kings, and restored those arrangements that Lucullus had made in the East and which Pompey had ignored. The effect of these actions was to break down Cicero’s concordia ordinum, or alliance of the higher classes, and throw Pompey and the capitalists into a flirtation with the populares. Taking full advantage of the situation, Caesar formed with Pompey and Crassus the First Triumvirate (60), by which each pledged himself to oppose legislation unsatisfactory to any one of them. Pompey agreed to support Caesar for the consulate, and Caesar promised, if elected, to carry through the measures in which Pompey had been rebuffed by the Senate.

  The campaign was bitter, and bribery flourished on both sides. When Cato, leader of the conservatives, heard that his party was buying votes, he unbent and approved the procedure as in a noble cause. The populares elected Caesar, the optimates Bibulus. Caesar had hardly entered upon his consulate (59) when he proposed to the Senate the measures asked for by Pompey: a distribution of land to 20,000 of the poorer citizens, including Pompey’s soldiers; the ratification of Pompey’s arrangements in the East; and a one-third reduction of the sum which the publicans had pledged themselves to raise from the Asiatic provinces. As the Senate opposed each of these measures by every means, Caesar, like the Gracchi, offered them directly to the Assembly. The conservatives induced Bibulus to use his veto power to forbid a vote, and had omens declared unfavorable. Caesar ignored the omens and persuaded the Assembly to impeach Bibulus; and an enthusiastic popularis emptied a pot of ordure upon Bibulus’ head. Caesar’s bills were carried. As in the case of the Gracchi, they combined an agrarian policy with a financial program pleasing to the business class. Pompey was impressed by Caesar’s performance of his pledges. He took Caesar’s daughter Julia as his fourth wife, and the entente between plebs and bourgeoisie became a feast of love. The Triumvirs promised the radical wing of their following that they would support Publius Clodius for the tribunate in the fall of 59. Meanwhile they kept the voters in good humor with profuse amusements and games.

  In April Caesar submitted his second land bill, by which the areas owned by the state in Campania were to be distributed among poor citizens who had three children. The Senate was again ignored, the Assembly passed the bill, and, after a century of effort, the Gracchan policy triumphed. Bibulus kept to his house and contented himself with periodical announcements that the omens were unpropitious to legislation. Caesar administered public affairs without consulting him, so that the town wits referred to the year as “the consulate of Julius and Caesar.” To bring the Senate under public scrutiny, he established the first newspaper by having clerks make a record of Senatorial and other public proceedings and news, and post these Acta Diurna, or “Daily Doings,” on the walls of the forums. From these walls the reports were copied and sent by private messengers to all parts of the Empire.10

  Toward the end of this historic consulate Caesar had himself appointed governor of Cisalpine and Narbonese Gaul for the ensuing five years. As no troops could lawfully be stationed in Italy, the command over the legions stationed in north Italy gave its possessor military power over the whole peninsula. To guarantee the maintenance of his legislation, Caesar secured the election of his friends Gabinius and Piso as consuls for 58 and married Piso’s daughter Calpurnia. To ensure continued support from the plebs he lent his decisive aid to the election of Clodius as tribune for 58. He did not let his plans be influenced by the fact that he had recently divorced his third wife, Pompeia, on suspicion of adultery with Clodius.

  III. MORALS AND POLITICS

  Publius Clodius Pulcher (the Handsome) was a scion of the Claudian gens, a young aristocrat whose courage knew no fear and his morals no restraint. Like Catiline and Caesar he descended from his rank to lead the poor against the rich. To be eligible as a tribune of the people he had himself adopted into a plebeian family. To redistribute the concentrated wealth of Rome and to destroy Cicero—who had abused his sister Clodia and stood for the sanctity of property—he served as a subaltern to Caesar until he could take power into his own hands. He admired Caesar’s policies and loved Caesar’s wife. To gain access to her he disguised himself as a woman, entered the house of Caesar, then (62) high priest, took part in the ceremonies offered by women alone to the Bona Dea, was detected, accused, and publicly tried (61) for having violated the mysteries of the Good Goddess. Caesar, called as a witness, said that he had no charge to make against Clodius. Why, then, asked the prosecutor, had he divorced Pompeia? “Because,” said Caesar, “my wife must be above suspicion.” It was a clever answer, which neither exonerated nor condemned a valuable political aide. Various witnesses—perhaps bribed—told the court that Clodius had had relations with Clodia and had seduced his sister Tertia after her marriage to Lucullus. Clodius protested that he had been away from Rome on the day of the alleged sacrilege; Cicero, however, testified that Clodius had on that day been with him in Rome. The populace thought the whole affair a Senatorial plot to destroy a populares leader and cried out for acquittal. Crassus—some say at Caesar’s behest—bribed a number of judges for Clodius. The radicals for once had the more money, and Clodius was freed. Caesar took advantage of the situation to exchange an inconveniently conservative wife for the daughter of a senator allied to the popular cause.

  He had hardly retired from office when some conservatives proposed the complete annulment of his legislation. Cato did not conceal his opinion that these “Julian laws” should be wiped off the statute books. The Senate hesitated to fling so open a challenge to Caesar armed with legions and to Clodius wielding the tribunate. In 63 Cato had wooed the populace for the conservatives by renewing the state distribution of cheap corn; now (58) Clodius countered by making the dole completely free to all who came for it. He passed bills through the Assembly forbidding the use of religious vetoes against legislative procedures and restoring the legality of the collegia, which the Senate had tried to disband. He reorganized these guilds into voting blocs and won such fealty from them that they provided him with an armed guard. Fearing that after his year as tribune had expired Cato or Cicero might attempt to undo Caesar’s work, Clodius persuaded the Assembly to send Cato as commissioner to Cyprus, and to pass a decree banishing any man who had put Roman citizens to death without securing, as law required, the Assembly’s consent. Cicero saw that the measure was aimed at him and fled to Greece, where cities and dignitaries rivaled one another in offering him hospitality and honors. The Assembly decreed that Cicero’s property should be confiscated, and his house on the Palatine was razed to the ground.

  It was Cicero’s good fortune that Clodius, overcome with success, now attacked both Pompey and Caesar, and planned to make himself sole leader of the plebs. Pompey retaliated by supporting the petition of Cicero’s brother Quintus for the orator’s recall. The Senate appealed to all Roman citizens in Italy to come to the capital and vote on the proposal. Clodius brought an armed gang into the Field of Mars to supervise the balloting, and Pompey engaged a needy aristocrat, Annius Milo, to organize a rival band. Riot and bloodshed ensued, many men were killed, and Quintus barely escaped with his life. But his measure carried, and after months of exile Cicero returned in triumph to Italy (57). Multitudes greeted him as he passed from Brundisium to Rome; there the welcoming crowd was so great that Cicero feigned fear that he would be accused of having contrived his banishment for the sake of this glorious restoration.11

  Apparently he had pledged himself to Pompey, and per
haps to Caesar, as the price of his recall. Caesar lent him large sums to recoup his finances and refused to take interest.12 For several years now Cicero became the advocate of the Triumvirs in the Senate. When a dearth of grain threatened Rome (57), he secured for Pompey an extraordinary commission with full power for six years over all the food supply of Rome and over all ports and trade. Pompey again acquitted himself well, but the constitution of the Republic suffered another blow, and government by men continued to replace government by laws. In 56 Cicero persuaded the Senate to vote a substantial amount for the payment of Caesar’s troops in Gaul. In 54 he unsuccessfully defended the extortionate provincial administration of Aulus Gabinius, a friend of the Triumvirs. In 55 he canceled all the favor he had gained with Caesar by an abusive attack upon another provincial governor, Calpurnius Piso. He remembered too vividly that Piso had voted for his banishment; he forgot that Piso’s daughter was Caesar’s wife.

  Upon Cato’s return (57) from his brilliant reorganization of Cyprian affairs, the conservatives reformed their lines. Clodius, now the enemy of Pompey, accepted the invitation of the aristocracy to lend it the assistance of his popularity and his thugs. Literature took on an anti-Caesarian tint; the epigrams of Calvus and Catullus flew like poisoned darts into the camp of the Triumvirs. As Caesar moved farther and farther into Gaul, and news came of the many dangers that he faced, hope sprung anew in noble breasts; after all, said Cicero, there are many ways in which a man may die. If we may believe Caesar, several conservatives opened negotiations with Ariovistus, the German leader, for the assassination of Caesar.13 Domitius, running for the consulate, announced that if elected he would at once move for Caesar’s recall—which meant Caesar’s indictment and trial. Veering with the wind, Cicero proposed that on May 25, 56, the Senate should consider the abrogation of Caesar’s land laws.

  IV. THE CONQUEST OF GAUL

  In the spring of 58 Caesar took up his duties as governor of Cisalpine and Narbonese Gaul—i.e., northern Italy and southern France. In 71 Ariovistus had led 15,000 Germans into Gaul at the request of one Gallic tribe seeking assistance against another. He had provided the desired aid and then had remained to establish his rule over all the tribes of northeastern Gaul. One of these, the Aedui, appealed to Rome for help against the Germans (61); the Senate authorized the Roman governor of Narbonese Gaul to comply, but almost at the same time it listed Ariovistus among rulers friendly to Rome. Meanwhile 120,000 Germans crossed the Rhine, settled in Flanders, and so strengthened Ariovistus that he treated the native population as subject peoples and dreamed of conquering all Gaul.14 At the same time the Helvetii, centering about Geneva, began migrating westward, 368,000 strong, and Caesar was warned that they planned to cross his province of Narbonese Gaul on their way to southwestern France. “From the sources of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean,” says Mommsen, “the German tribes were in motion; the whole line of the Rhine was threatened by them; it was a movement like that when the Alemanni and the Franks threw themselves upon the falling empire of the Caesars . . . five hundred years afterward.”15 While Rome plotted against him, Caesar plotted to save Rome.

  At his own expense, and without the authority he should have sought from the Senate, he raised and equipped four extra legions besides the four already provided him. He sent a peremptory invitation to Ariovistus to come and discuss the situation; as he had expected, Ariovistus refused. Deputations came now to Caesar from many Gallic tribes, asking for his protection. Caesar declared war against both Ariovistus and the Helvetii, marched northward, and met the Helvetian avalanche in a bloody battle at Bibracte, capital of the Aedui, near the modern Autun. Caesar’s legions won, but by a narrow margin; in these matters we must for the most part follow his own account. The Helvetii offered to return to their Swiss homeland; Caesar agreed to give them safe passage, but on condition that their territory should accept the rule of Rome. All Gaul now sent him thanks for its deliverance, and begged his aid in expelling Ariovistus. He met the Germans near Ostheim,II and slew or captured (he tells us) nearly all of them (58). Ariovistus escaped, but died soon afterward.

  Caesar took it for granted that his liberation of Gaul was also a conquest of it: he began at once to reorganize it under Roman authority, with the excuse that in no other way could it be protected against Germany. Some Gauls, unconvinced, rebelled, and invoked the aid of the Belgae, a powerful tribe of Germans and Celts inhabiting north Gaul between the Seine and the Rhine. Caesar defeated their army on the banks of the Aisne; then, with a celerity of movement that never allowed his foes to unite, he moved in succession against the Suessiones, Ambiani, Nervii, and Aduatici, conquered them, despoiled them, and sold the captives to the slave merchants of Italy. Somewhat prematurely he announced the conquest of Gaul; the Senate proclaimed it a Roman province (56), and the common people of Rome, as imperialistic as any general, shouted the praises of their distant champion. Caesar recrossed the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, busied himself with its internal administration, replenished his legions, and invited Pompey and Crassus to meet him at Luca to plan a united defense against the conservative reaction.

  To forestall Domitius they agreed that Pompey and Crassus should run against him for the consulate for 55 B.C..; that Pompey should be made governor of Spain, and Crassus of Syria, for five years (54-50); that Caesar should be continued for another five years (53-49) as governor of Gaul; and that at the end of this term he should be allowed to seek a second consulate. He furnished his colleagues and friends, from the booty of Gaul, with funds to finance their campaigns; he sent great sums to Rome to provide work for the unemployed, commissions for his supporters, and prestige for himself, by an extensive program of public buildings; and he so oiled the palms of the senators who came to sample his loot that the movement to repeal his laws collapsed. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls after the usual bribery, and Caesar returned to the task of persuading the Gauls that peace is sweeter than freedom.

  Trouble was brewing on the Rhine below Cologne. Two German tribes had crossed into Belgic Gaul as far as Liége, and the nationalist party in Gaul was seeking their help against the Romans. Caesar met the invaders near Xanten (55), drove them back to the Rhine, and slew such of them—women and children as well as men—as were not drowned in the river. His engineers then built in ten days a bridge over the great stream, there 1400 feet wide; Caesar’s legions crossed, and fought long enough on German soil to establish the Rhine as a secure frontier. After two weeks he retraced his steps into Gaul.

  We do not know why he now invaded Britain. Possibly he was lured by rumors that gold or pearls abounded there; or he wished to capture the tin and iron deposits of Britain for Roman exportation; or he resented the aid that Britons had sent to the Gauls, and thought that Roman power in Gaul must be made secure in every direction. He led a small force across the Channel at its narrowest point, defeated the unprepared Britons, took a few notes, and returned (55). A year later he crossed again, overcame the British under Cassivelaunus, reached the Thames, exacted promise of tribute, and sailed back to Gaul.

  Perhaps he had heard that revolt was once more agitating the Gallic tribes. He suppressed the Eburones and marched again into Germany (53). Returning, he left his main army in northern Gaul, while with his remaining troops he went to winter in north Italy, hoping to devote a few months to mending his fences in Rome. But early in 52 word came to him that Vercingetorix, the ablest of the Gallic chieftains, had united nearly all the tribes in a war for independence. Caesar’s situation was precarious in the extreme. Most of his legions were in the north, and the country between them and himself was in rebel hands. He led a small detachment over the snow-covered Cevennes against Auvergne; when Vercingetorix brought up his forces to defend it, Caesar left Decimus Brutus in command and, with a few horsemen, rode in disguise across all Gaul from south to north, rejoined his main army, and at once led them to the attack. He besieged, captured, and sacked Avaricum (Bourges) and Cenabum (Orléans), massacred their populations, and repleni
shed his depleted supplies with their treasuries. He moved on to assail Gergovia; there, however, the Gauls resisted so resolutely that he was compelled to withdraw. The Aedui, whom he had rescued from the Germans, and who heretofore had remained his allies, now deserted him, captured his base and stores at Soissons, and prepared to drive him back into Narbonese Gaul.

  It was the lowest ebb of Caesar’s fortunes, and for a time he considered himself lost. He staked everything upon a siege of Alesia (Alise Ste.-Reine), where Vercingetorix had gathered 30,000 troops. Caesar had hardly distributed a like number of soldiers around the city when word came that 250,000 Gauls were marching down upon him from the north. He ordered his men to raise two concentric walls of earth around the city, one before them, the other behind them. Against these walls and the desperate Romans the armies of Vercingetorix and his allies threw themselves in repeated vain attacks. After a week the army of relief broke up in disorder for lack of discipline and supplies, and melted into ineffectual bands at the very moment when the Romans had reached the end of their stores. Soon thereafter the starving city sent Vercingetorix at his own suggestion as a prisoner to Caesar, and then surrendered to the Roman’s mercy (52). The town was spared, but all its soldiers were given to the legionaries as slaves. Vercingetorix was led in chains to Rome; there he later graced Caesar’s triumph and paid with his life for his devotion to liberty.