… arrival was known through the colour of his cloak, which he always wore in battle as a distinguishing mark; and the troops of cavalry and the cohorts which he had ordered to follow him were also visible, because from the higher parts of the hill these downward slopes and dips could be seen. Then the enemy joined battle: both sides cheered, and the cry was taken up by a shout from the men within the fortifications and rampart. Our troops threw their pila and got to work with their swords. Suddenly [the Gauls] spotted the cavalry behind them; other cohorts approached. The enemy turned around and were caught as they fled by the cavalry; and a great slaughter ensued… 74 captured war standards were carried to Caesar; very few of this vast host escaped unscathed to their camp.33
The Roman counter-attack tipped the balance irrevocably in their favour. The attempt to break into Caesar’s lines ended in bloody repulse. Vercingetorix and his men had also been unable to break out and withdrew when they saw the utter failure of the relief army’s efforts. Although the fortunes of the day may not have turned quite as quickly or simply as Caesar suggests, the decisive nature of his victory is unquestionable. The heart went out of the rebellion. Vercingetorix and his men were now very short of food and saw no prospect of escape. The relief force had made two great attacks and failed in both. Such an enormous tribal army could not hope to supply itself in the field for very long and there was no prospect of mounting a successful assault before they had to disperse.34
The next day Vercingetorix summoned his chieftains to a council. He suggested that they surrender, saying that he was willing to hand himself over to the Romans. None of the council seem to have demurred. Envoys went to Caesar, who demanded that they hand over weapons and that their leaders surrender. In the Commentaries the act of capitulation is briefly described. According to Plutarch and Dio, Vercingetorix put on his finest armour and rode out of the town on his best warhorse. Approaching Caesar on the tribunal where he sat on his magistrate’s chair, the Arvernian chieftain rode once around his adversary, dismounted, lay down his weapons and sat down at his feet waiting to be taken away. The Commentaries could not allow their hero to be upstaged in this way.35
Virtually all the tribes involved in the rebellion capitulated. In many ways Caesar’s final victory was all the greater because so many peoples had joined. The Celtic/Gallic tribes had finally tested the military strength of the legions and been utterly defeated. Virtually all of them now accepted the reality of conquest. Caesar was generous to the captives from the Aedui and Arverni, and probably also those from their dependent tribes. These men were not sold into slavery, although Vercingetorix was held as a captive until the celebration of Caesar’s triumph, when he was ritually strangled in the traditional Roman way. However, there were plenty of other captives who could be sold and the profits shared amongst the army. The Aedui and Arverni were important peoples whom Caesar would prefer as more or less willing allies, hence his leniency He had won military victory, but knew that creating an enduring peace was now a question of politics and gentle diplomacy. In the case of both tribes, it seems to have worked.36
XVI
‘ALL GAUL IS CONQUERED’
‘Regarding Caesar, there are lots of rumours whispered about him, none of them very good. According to one his cavalry have been wiped out – but that one is certainly a fiction in my view; another says that the Seventh legion has been badly mauled, and that Caesar himself is surrounded in the territory of the Bellovaci and is cut off from the rest of his army. However nothing is actually known so far, and even these unconfirmed stories are not circulating widely, but told as an open secret amongst a clique-you know who they are; Anyway, Domitius [Ahenobarbus] puts his hand over his mouth before he speaks.’ – Marcus Caelius Rufus writing to Cicero, c. 26 May 51 BC.1
Throughout his time in Gaul, Caesar took great pains to remind Rome of his existence and to celebrate his achievements. The Commentaries were a major part of this effort, but they were not his only literary output during these years. Early in 54 BC, while travelling north from Cisalpine Gaul to rejoin his army, he produced a two-volume work On Analogy (De Analogia). The title was Greek, but the book analysed Latin grammar and argued for accuracy and simplicity in speech and writing, in contrast to the fashion for using archaic forms of words and complicated expressions. It was dedicated to Cicero, and paid tribute to him as Rome’s greatest orator and ‘virtually the creator of eloquence’, but followed this by saying that it was also a good thing to consider everyday speech. No more than a few fragments of the book have survived, but to have written such a detailed and authoritative study at a time when his mind was occupied with the affairs of Gaul and preparations for his second British expedition was an indication of both Caesar’s intellect and his restless energy. In comparison with the Commentaries, it was aimed at a narrower audience, though one that included the many senators and equestrians obsessed with literature. Caesar the author was a figure whom many found less controversial than Caesar the popularis politician. The praise of Cicero was unforced and had much to do with his new, closer relationship with Caesar resulting from his return from exile. The orator sent drafts of his own works to Caesar and the two men discussed these in a way that cemented the political friendship between them.2
Literature was important to Rome’s elite, but other means were necessary to reach much of the wider population. There was a long tradition of distinguished men, and especially successful generals, building monuments in Rome as physical memorials to their achievements. In 55 BC during his second consulship Pompey commemorated his unprecedentedly great victories with a grander monument than anyone else had ever built, formally opening his great theatre complex. It was the first permanent stone theatre ever to be built in the city and Dio still considered it to be one of Rome’s most spectacular features almost three centuries later. Some ten thousand people were able sit on its stone seats-the sensible and well prepared took along cushions when they attended a performance. It stood on the Campus Martius, towering high above a row of temples dedicated by other victorious commanders over the centuries. No less than five shrines were actually built into the structure, the main one to Venus Victrix (Venus the victorious), and others to the deities personifying such virtues as Honour (Honos), Courage (Virtus), and Good Fortune (Felicitas). Attached to the semi-circular theatre was a portico, which itself covered an area of some 585 feet by 440 feet, and everything about the structures from design to materials testified to the vast expense of the whole project.
The same was true of the lavish festivities that marked the opening of the complex. There were musical performances and displays of gymnastics, as well as chariot racing and beast fights in the nearby Circus Flaminius. Five hundred lions were killed in five days, while at one point heavily armoured hunters were matched against about twenty elephants. The beasts made an effort to escape from the arena, frightening the crowd as they tried to smash through the iron railings, until they were driven back. Fear soon turned to sympathy, and the people began to feel sorry for the animals and angry against Pompey for ordering their slaughter. For all that the Romans craved violent displays in the circus, simply spending huge amounts of money on a show did not necessarily mean that the crowd would enjoy it and so feel gratitude to the man who had provided it. Privately, Cicero also felt that the sheer scale of Pompey’s theatre and portico were excessive. Other conservative senators muttered that it was a mistake to give the theatre-that most Greek of institutions – a permanent home in the city. In the past most of the audience for any performance had stood, and they feared that giving them seats would just encourage more citizens to waste their days as idle spectators.3
Caesar had his own plans to leave his mark on the city, and in 54 BC work began on a large extension to the north side of the Forum and on the Basilica Julia, which would border onto his new development. Not content with this, he followed Pompey’s example and looked towards the Campus Martius, where the saepta used for voting was to be replaced by a permanent marble-decorat
ed structure. The scale was immense, with a colonnade a mile long running along the side. In another open sign of their new political relationship, Cicero helped Caesar’s agent Oppius in planning and arranging the projects. The enormous price – Cicero says that merely purchasing the land needed for the Forum extension cost 60 million sestertii, while Suetonius gives the figure as 100 million – of these grand structures was paid from the profits of conquest in Gaul. When completed these projects would provide a bigger and more spectacular Forum as a centre to the city, with more space for public business and private commerce, and create a far grander environment for voting in the Campus Martius. In the short term work on the buildings provided paid employment for many poorer citizens in the city, as well as profitable contracts to companies supplying materials.
The same was true of the gladiatorial games Caesar announced in honour of his daughter. This was the first time that such contests would be staged to mark the death of a woman, an extension of his earlier staging of public funerals for his aunt Julia and first wife Cornelia. Large numbers of gladiators were collected for the occasion, Caesar having arranged to save the lives of men defeated in earlier appearances in the arena. These had then been trained, not in a gladiatorial school as was usual, but in the households of senators and equestrians known to be skilled in armed combat. Suetonius tells us that Caesar wrote from Gaul to these men, asking them to take great care in the training. By 49 BC he owned at least 5,000 of these fighters, many of them in gladiatorial schools at Capua. A natural showman, Caesar was determined that the games would be something special. The same was true of the public feasts that formed the other main part of his daughter’s memorial. Some of the food was prepared in his own household by his own cooks, but much was bought from the expensive shops for which Rome was famous. Traders benefited and the crowd was indulged, hopefully adding to the number of citizens who thought well of Caesar. Although Julia’s memorial games and feasts would not actually be celebrated for several years, the preparations for them were very public and the events eagerly anticipated.4
For all Caesar’s efforts to remain in the public eye, there were times when it must have been difficult for anyone at Rome to pay much heed to what was going on away from the city. In the closing years of the decade, it almost seemed as if the institutions of the Republic were irreparably broken. Electoral bribery was rampant. In the campaign for the consulship for 53 BC two of the candidates had joined together and offered 10 million sestertii for the vote of the centuria praerogativa, the century of the First Class chosen to open the voting in the Comitia Centuriata, while a further 3 million would go to the consuls of 54 BC who would preside over the elections. Caesar and Pompey were both indirectly involved in the scandal, and were none too pleased at its disclosure. However, it was not until the summer of 53 BC that elections were actually held, with the proconsul Pompey supervising them at the Senate’s request. The candidates for the following year were similarly corrupt, and the situation made worse by the violence between the gangs of Milo and Clodius, which culminated in the latter’s murder (see p.318). Senators’ attendants had been killed in political riots in recent memory and a number of leading men injured. It was far worse for a famous man, who was not only a former magistrate but currently a candidate for office, to die by violence. The cold-blooded nature of the killing added to the widespread shock at the crime. Clodius had been wounded in the initial clash and had then taken refuge in a tavern. Milo had deliberately sent men to drag his old enemy outside and finish him off.
The disturbances that followed, as Clodius’ family and supporters vented their grief in destruction, suggested that the Republic was relapsing into anarchy – almost in a literal sense, since the Greek word originally meant that disturbances had prevented the election of archons, the senior magistrates of Athens. The Senate met and passed its ultimate decree, calling upon Pompey to do what was necessary to protect the State. As a body it had no police force or troops to control such a situation. Pompey had the imperium of a proconsul and soldiers to command. There was some doubt over what title and power to offer him and once again talk of dictatorship. Others suggested recalling Caesar so that he could hold the consulship with Pompey until the crisis was over, and all ten tribunes of the plebs supported this proposal. Caesar wrote to thank them, but asked them to withdraw the bill since he was needed in Gaul. In the end Bibulus-the same Bibulus who had been Caesar’s colleague in 59 BC and had no love for either him or Pompey-proposed that Pompey be made sole consul for the year. Cato backed the motion and it was passed comfortably, since Pompey’s opponents realised that he offered the best chance of restoring order to the city Yet they deliberately avoided the word dictator, and wished to make clear that he was not being invested with permanent supreme power of the sort Sulla had taken, but that this was simply a temporary measure to cope with the crisis.5
Pompey’s third consulship was anomalous in so many ways, not least that he had no colleague, violating the most fundamental principle of this magistracy. He had also not been elected by the people but was simply appointed. Normally a consul had only his lictors to clear a path for him through the streets, but Pompey brought armed soldiers into the city to police its streets. When Milo was put on trial the court was surrounded by the consul’s troops, who prevented his followers from disturbing the proceedings. The court and its procedures were specially created by Pompey to deal with the recent electoral abuses and political violence. Juries were drawn from a pool of names selected by the consul. Milo’s guilt was clear and, although this was not always a decisive factor in Roman trials, in this case the mood of the court and the watching crowd was extremely hostile. Cicero had agreed to defend Milo, for he felt a bond with the man who had been the bitterest opponent of his own enemy, Clodius. However, his courage failed him when he stood up to speak and was exposed to the barracking and hatred of the crowd and he did not deliver his speech. Milo went into exile in Massilia in Transalpine Gaul. Rather tactlessly, Cicero subsequently sent him the manuscript of the speech that he had meant to deliver. His former client replied sarcastically that he was glad that it had not been delivered, since otherwise he would never have had the chance to sample the fine fish of Massilia. Clodius’ supporters were jubilant at the outcome, but several of his leading associates soon found themselves on trial and condemned in the following months. Pompey was taking his role seriously and made a real attempt to control the violence and bribery that had come to pervade public life. Unlike earlier uses of the senatus consultum ultimum, in 52 BC there were no summary executions and everything was done through the courts, although these were the special courts created for the occasion and operating under new regulations.6
Electoral bribery had become chronic, especially in the campaigns for the consulship. Pompey passed a new law imposing even harsher penalties for electoral malpractice. However, the sums involved were enormous and many candidates relied on being given a wealthy province after their year of office. Their creditors could then be paid from money squeezed from the unfortunate provincials and from bribes given by the companies of publicani, who wished no interference in their own exploitation of the people. The consequences were bad for the provinces, but most senators were more concerned with the impact on elections. To break this circle Pompey introduced a law imposing a five-year delay between the consulship and a man going out to his province, on the basis that creditors would be much less inclined to wait so long for repayment of debts. This inevitably created a shortage of provincial governors, and therefore it was necessary in the short term to make use of former magistrates who had chosen not to take a command after their year of office. Cicero was one of these, and in 51 BC found himself appointed proconsul of Cilicia, a task for which he had little enthusiasm. At the same time Bibulus was despatched to govern Syria. Pompey’s measures do seem to have substantially reduced the levels of bribery and corruption in the consular elections for 51, 50 and 49 BC. Cato stood for the office for 51 BC, proclaiming that he would do not
hing at all to win the favour of the electorate. While he was widely admired, he was never particularly popular and such an approach was eccentric in the extreme, and certainly not traditional. It came as little surprise that he lost by a big margin. Pompey is unlikely to have been enthusiastic about Cato’s candidature, but he could not control the outcome and the elections in these three years showed the strength of the old established families. The victors were three patricians and three members of one of the most distinguished plebian lines. The brothers Marcus and Caius Claudius Marcellus won the consulship in 51 and 49 BC respectively, while their cousin Caius was consul in 50 BC. The latter was married to Caesar’s great niece Octavia-the same one he had recently offered to Pompey as a prospective wife. Whether or not he knew about this, Marcellus preferred to align himself with his cousins, who were deeply hostile to Caesar.7
Pompey’s third consulship was another important step in his highly successful, but utterly unorthodox, career. Once again he had been singled out by the Republic as the only man who could deal with a crisis, with even his personal enemies accepting the necessity of employing him. In the past it had been Lepidus, then Sertorius, the pirates, Mithridates and the grain supply, and now it was political violence in the city As usual, he performed the task well, but he would not have been a Roman senator if he had not also taken the opportunity for gaining personal advantages. He made sure that he was granted an extension of five years to his command of the two Spanish provinces, ensuring that he would keep his imperium and his legions even after his year as consul was complete. Early in 52 BC Milo and two of the remaining three candidates for the consulship were condemned and sent into exile. The last man, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, had one of the most distinguished family lines in Rome, as was indicated by his enormously long name. Born a patrician Scipio-the family that had produced the man who had beaten Hannibal in the Second Punic War and the one who destroyed Carthage in the Third War – he had subsequently been adopted into a branch of the Metelli, one of the most distinguished plebian families. Metellus Scipio thus combined great wealth with enormous family connections and hugely prestigious ancestors. His own abilities were extremely limited, but he did have a pretty daughter, Cornelia, who had been married to Crassus’ dashing son Publius and had been widowed since Carrhae. Pompey decided to marry for the fourth time and found that his approach was welcomed by Metellus Scipio. The charges faced by the latter were quietly dropped and the wedding took place. Like Julia, Pompey’s new bride was young enough to be his daughter, indeed almost his granddaughter, but the marriage again proved a happy and successful one. Cornelia was intelligent, sophisticated and charming, as well as physically attractive. Pompey had always revelled in adoration and willingly responded to a wife who gave every sign of being in love with him. He was fifty-four, but for a man who had been so successful at such a young age and was proud of his personal fitness and enjoyed having his good looks praised, coping with late middle age may not have been easy It is tempting to suggest that taking two much younger wives helped him to feel rejuvenated. Politically the connection was also a very good one, allying the maverick general with some of the families at the very heart of the Republic’s elite. Cornelia’s father also profited, not only by escaping prosecution but also being named as Pompey’s consular colleague in August.8
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