In 66 BC another tribune, Caius Manilius, brought a bill before the Popular Assembly, making use of the powers that Pompey and Crassus had restored to this magistracy. Since 74 BC the command in the on-going conflict with Mithridates had been held by Lucius Licinius Lucullus–a post, which as already noted, he is supposed to have secured through the assistance of the courtesan Praecia (see p. 83). Lucullus was one of Sulla’s men, probably the only senator to stay with him when he first marched on Rome in 88 BC. He was a bold and skilful general, but his strategic and tactical gifts were not matched by comparable skill as a leader. During his campaigns, Lucullus had achieved victory after victory over Mithridates and his ally King Tigranes of Armenia. Yet he had never won the love of his officers and soldiers in the way that commanders like Marius, Sulla and Pompey were able to do. Even more dangerously, he closely regulated the activities of Roman businessmen and the publicani tax collectors in Asia. This was bitterly resented by these influential groups who had grown accustomed to exploiting the locals under governors who demanded no more than a cut of the profits. Lucullus had been anxious to avoid alienating the provincials for fear that they might then come to see Mithridates as a potential liberator from Roman oppression. Yet for many wealthy businessmen profits came before such concerns, and from 69 BC onwards Lucullus’ command was steadily reduced as regions were taken from him and given to other governors. His strength eroded, much of the ground he had won earlier in the war was lost and final victory began to seem ever more distant. Under such circumstances the idea of sending Pompey out to take charge and settle the business once and for all was very attractive. Caesar once again spoke in favour of the bill, which was easily passed. Pompey replaced Lucullus, again giving the impression of arriving at the last minute to take the credit for a war that had already been virtually won.27
It is highly unlikely that Caesar’s support for the laws granting Pompey extraordinary commands in 67 and 66 BC made much difference to the outcome of the voting on these issues. There were plenty of former quaestors around, as well as several junior senators who flouted convention in their dress and behaviour. It is still useful to remind ourselves that at this point in his life Caesar was still not all that important. His record so far suggested that he was an up and coming man, likely to have a reasonable career, but once again he was not unique in this. Speaking out for both the Lex Gabinia and the Lex Manilla was unlikely to win him the deep gratitude of Pompey, for his had been a very minor role. Yet both laws had been controversial, attracting great attention as a number of leading senators spoke out against them in the Senate and in the Forum. Caesar seized the opportunity to be noticed and to be associated with the success of the laws and of Pompey. There was a chance that some small share of the latter’s popularity would rub off on him. More importantly he had voiced opinions held by a broad range of citizens, including many equestrians and other moderately prosperous Romans whose vote counted for so much in the assemblies. To espouse popular causes in this way was to be a popularis. Although often portrayed in older studies as almost a well–defined political party or grouping, this was no more than a style of politics that relied on winning the support of the people. The Gracchi had been populares, as had Marius at times, as well as Saturninus and Sulpicius. Although they raised many of the same issues, these men did not hold a fixed set of common views. Caesar had from early in his career inclined towards a popularis path, but in the same way this did not automatically mean that he made common cause with anyone else who acted in the same way, as many did. Politics remained essentially an individual struggle, since everyone else was a competitor. It was not just a question of winning popular acclaim, but of winning more than anyone else.28
Another way in which Caesar sought to woo the electorate was by lavish expenditure. He was appointed curator of the Appian Way, and spent a good deal of his own money to pay for the renovations and improvements he had made to the road and its associated structures. Potentially this offered a good return for his money, for the Appian Way remained one of the most important roads to Rome, so that voters travelling to the city by this route would be given a reminder of what Caesar had done for them. The willingness to spend his own wealth on his fellow citizens doubtless contributed to his election to the post of curule aedile for 65 BC. There were four aediles altogether, but two were exclusively plebian posts and therefore could not be held by a patrician like Caesar. The curule aediles, who could be either patrician or plebian, had the right to sit in a magistrate’s official chair, just like praetors and consuls. Sulla had not made the aedileship a compulsory part of a public career if a man wanted to hold a more senior magistracy, since there were so few posts available, but he had set thirty-seven as the minimum age at which it could be held. Caesar was only thirty-five when he became aedile, and it is most probable that he had been granted a special exemption by the Senate to allow him to stand two years earlier than was normal. Such special favours seem to have been reasonably common, so much so that in 67 BC a tribune had passed a law barring the Senate from granting such dispensations unless a quorum of 200 senators were present. The influence of his mother’s family, and his own distinction as a holder of the corona civica and a pontiff probably explain Caesar’s own exemption. (However, the date of his aedileship has been used by those scholars who prefer to date Caesar’s birth to 102 BC. Yet this does not tie in with the little evidence we have, for instance it would have been odd for him to have become quaestor two years late.)29
The aediles were concerned almost exclusively with the running of Rome itself, supervising the upkeep of temples, the cleaning and maintenance of roads, aqueducts and sewers, and overseeing the grain supply, the markets and even the brothels of the city. In addition they sometimes took on a judicial role, but one of the main attractions to an ambitious politician was the aediles’ responsibility for public entertainments and festivals. The two curule aediles were specifically responsible for the seven days of games and shows honouring the Mother goddess Cybele in April (the Ludi Megalenses) and the ‘Roman Games’ (the Ludi Romani), a further fifteen days of entertainment in September. Although the Treasury provided an allowance to the magistrates to meet the costs of these productions, it had long become customary for the aediles to supplement this from their own funds. Each lavish spectacle staged by an aedile wanting to make a name for himself set a new standard for his successors to match or surpass. Caesar threw himself into the preparations for the games with all the panache of a natural showman and a determination that no expense should be spared. Much of his private art collection was displayed in the Forum and the basilicas surrounding it, as well as temporary colonnades erected for the purpose. At this time Rome still lacked the monumental theatres that were a feature of Hellenic cities and it was necessary to rig up seating and a temporary auditorium. The other curule aedile, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, joined him in footing the bill, but complained that all the credit seemed to go to his colleague as they jointly put on beast fights and dramatic productions. Bibulus is supposed to have remarked that it was just like the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Heavenly Twins, which was invariably known as the Temple of Castor for brevity’s sake. In the same way it seemed people were talking about the aedileship of Caesar, never of Caesar and Bibulus.30
Caesar decided during his aedileship to stage gladiatorial games in honour of his father, who had died some twenty years before. The origin of gladiatorial displays lay in funeral games. At first these had been private, family affairs, but near the end of the third century BC they became public spectacles, with rapid escalation in their scale and splendour. The tradition that such fights could only be staged to commemorate a death of a family member continued down to Caesar’s day, in contrast to beast fights, which could be presented as part of a number of different celebrations. Yet it had become little more than a pretext for this form of violent entertainment, which had proved so popular in Rome and throughout Italy. Even so, it was certainly a most unusual step for Caesar to declare fune
ral games after such a long lapse of time. Yet in many ways the sheer scale of his plans was more exceptional. He began to collect so many gladiators from the schools across Italy that the Senate became nervous. Spartacus’ rebellion was still fresh in everyone’s memory, while there may even have been fears of what an ambitious man like Caesar could do with so many armed men at his command in Rome itself. Probably as importantly, other senators were reluctant to allow such lavish displays, which would raise the expectation of the audience and so make it more expensive and difficult for everyone else to woo the people in future. As a result, a law was passed limiting the number of gladiators that could perform in any games staged by an individual. It is still reported by our sources that 320 pairs of gladiators appeared in Caesar’s games, and that all were equipped with ornate silvered armour. Similarly lavish weapons were also used by the beast fighters in the entertainments staged jointly with Bibulus.31
During his aedileship Caesar spent huge amounts of his own money, supplemented by Bibulus’ cash in their joint projects. The people of Rome revelled in the shows and games put on for free enjoyment. They disliked any hint of stinginess in those staging the games and would hold this against a man in his future career, just as they would gratefully remember someone who was responsible for a truly impressive spectacle. Yet it was not simply a question of throwing money at the projects, for even expensive games could sometimes fall flat if they were not presented well. Caesar never lacked style in anything he did and his games were a great success. From his point of view, the money that had gone to produce this result had been very well spent. It was his personal money only in the sense that he had borrowed it. Even before he had held any elected office, Plutarch tells us that Caesar was said to have debts of over 1,300 talents–a total of over 31 million sestertii in Roman currency. (To put this into proportion, the minimum property qualification for a member of the equestrian order at a slightly later date, and probably also at the time, was 400,000 sestertii.) This was a staggering sum, which was then massively increased by his spending as curator of the Appian Way and as aedile. Caesar was gambling on his political future being bright and lucrative enough to cancel out his debts. His creditors were taking the same risk, but presumably had confidence in Caesar to do well. The greatest part of this money was most probably owed to Crassus. Caesar was not the only rising senator he funded in this way, but it is unlikely that he gave others as much leeway to keep on borrowing more and more.32
There was one last gesture during Caesar’s aedileship. At some point during the year, most probably before one of the sets of games, he gave orders for Marius’ trophies commemorating his victory over the Cimbri and Teutones to be re-erected in the Forum. Sulla had ordered them to be torn down and probably destroyed, so Caesar most likely had a facsimile set up. As with Julia’s funeral, there was a warm response from much of the population to this gesture. Enough people still remembered the fear that the northern barbarians would spill south into Italy and sack Rome again. Marius had saved Rome from this fate, and that was a deed most felt worthy of celebration. One exception was Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 78 BC and like Caesar a pontiff. His father had been consul with Marius in 102 BC and proconsul in 101 BC and had deeply resented the popular hero receiving most of the credit for their joint success. Catalus was now probably the most respected member of the Senate, even if he was not formally the princeps senatus, the man whose name appeared first on the senatorial roll. Emphasis on Marius diminished the glory of Catulus’ own family. He resented this, but if the stories are true he was also beginning to see Caesar as a reckless and potentially dangerous politician. In the Senate Catulus declared that ‘No longer, Caesar, are you undermining the defences of the Republic–now you are launching a direct assault.’ Yet for all the elder statesman’s auctoritas, Caesar replied in a speech that was utterly reasonable and convinced most senators of his innocence. They were probably right, for his career was still in most respects conventional, if flamboyant. Yet revolution was in the air.33
VI
CONSPIRACY
‘As soon as riches came to be held in honour, and brought glory, imperium, and power, virtue began to grow dull; poverty was seen as disgraceful, innocence as malevolence. Therefore because of wealth, our youths were seized by luxury, greed and pride; they stole and squandered; reckoning their own property of little worth, they coveted other peoples’; contemptuous of modesty and chastity, of everything divine or human, they were without thought or restraint.’–The senator and historian Sallust, writing in the late forties BC.1
Late in 66 BC the consular elections for the following year were won by Publius Cornelius Sulla and Publius Autronius Paetus. Sulla was a nephew of the dictator and had become very wealthy during the proscriptions. Brother-in-law to Pompey, he may have enjoyed some popularity by association with the great commander, but Sulla’s success owed far more to his money in elections that were marked by widespread bribery and intimidation. This in itself was nothing unusual.
Throughout the period a long succession of laws were passed to deal with electoral malpractice, but the frequency of such legislation makes clear its ineffectiveness. A recent bill had stipulated that candidates found guilty of such crimes lost not only the office they had secured, but were expelled from the Senate, denied the right to display the symbols of any public office and barred from entering politics again. The two runners-up in the election, Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Manlius Torquatus, promptly prosecuted the victors under this bribery law. Cotta was the man who as praetor in 70 BC had brought in the law altering the composition of juries in the courts. By this time he was a year or two overdue for his consulship, which may well have made his defeat rankle even more. Both of his brothers had also already been consul, while Manlius came from a very distinguished patrician line, in contrast to the two victors in the election. Autronius relied more for his defence on using a gang of supporters to intimidate the members of the court, or, failing that, to break up proceedings. Sulla may or may not have made use of similar tactics–years later Cicero defended him on another charge and blamed all the earlier violence on Autronius. In spite of this the prosecutions were successful, and both men were stripped of their office and expelled from public life. Cotta and Torquatus became the consuls for 65 BC, either because they had gained the most votes after Sulla and Autronius or perhaps following a second election.
The matter does not seem to have ended there. Autronius and Sulla were reluctant to accept their permanent expulsion from politics. There was talk of a plot to assassinate Cotta and Torquatus when they assumed the consulship on 1 January 65 BC. Other leading senators were also to be murdered and the conspirators were then to install themselves in the supreme office. Forewarned of the planned coup, the new consuls were allowed an armed guard by the Senate and the day passed without any violence. Officially a veil of silence was cast over the whole affair, so that Cicero, a praetor in 66 BC, could claim a few years later that he had known nothing about it at the time. In the absence of fact, rumour flourished, especially as the years went by and it was useful to blacken rivals’ names by alleging their involvement in these murky events. It was later alleged that Autronius’ chief ally was Lucius Sergius Catiline, whom we shall encounter later in this chapter. He had just returned from governing Africa as a propraetor and had wanted to become a candidate for the consulship after the dismissal of Sulla and Autronius. The refusal of the presiding magistrate to permit this is supposed to have prompted him to join Autronius in planning to seize power by force. Another man whose name was mentioned was Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who had been elected to the quaestorship for 65 BC and was seen as a wild, intemperate man. When the Senate decided soon afterwards to send him to Spain as a propraetor–a most extraordinary appointment for such a young and junior magistrate–this was seen as an indication of their fear of what he might do if allowed to remain in Rome. The stories doubtless grew in the telling, especially after Piso was murdered in his province by some of his
own Spanish soldiers. Some claimed these auxiliaries had been prompted by the governor’s tyrannical rule. This was plausible enough, although it should be remembered that of the many oppressive Roman governors only a handful managed to get themselves assassinated. Yet others suggested that the Spanish soldiers were loyal to Pompey, having served under him against Sertorius, and had either been instructed–or decided on their own initiative–to dispose of a potential rival. It was an indication of the nervous mood of these years that such wild tales were circulating.2
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