Caesar subdued Gaul – but Nicomedes subdued Caesar:
Behold now Caesar triumphs, who has conquered Gaul –
Nicomedes does not triumph, although he conquered Caesar.4
This was the only slur that annoyed Caesar and soon afterwards he took a public oath denying that there was any truth in the allegation. Dio says that this only made him look ridiculous.5
In the days between the triumphal processions there were great feasts open to all, with no fewer than 22,000 tables laid out with the finest foods and wines. At nightfall after the final banquet, Caesar walked home in a procession whose progress was illuminated by twenty elephants that carried great torches. There were also theatrical performances, and at one of these he insisted that the famous equestrian playwright Decimus Laberius actually perform on stage. The latter resented this, but obeyed and had the satisfaction when he uttered the line ‘He whom many fear, must therefore fear many’ of seeing the audience all turn to face Caesar. After the performance Laberius was rewarded with 500,000 sestertii and a gold ring to signify restoration to the equestrian status that he had been forced to forfeit by appearing on stage-acting was not considered a proper activity for a wealthy citizen. Apart from the drama, there were sporting and athletic competitions, and – since Caesar finally celebrated the funeral games to Julia he had promised years before-gladiatorial fights. Chariots raced in the Circus, while special temporary venues were constructed for the athletics on the Campus Martius and some of the gladiatorial fights in the Forum. However, the scale of these was so massive that a few combats were staged elsewhere. Five days were devoted to beast fights, in which 400 lions were killed, as were a number of giraffes, animals never seen in Rome before. Apart from the usual matched pairs of gladiators, there was a battle between two armies each composed of 500 men on foot, 30 cavalry and 20 elephants. Another version claims that the twenty elephants and their riders fought each other separately. In addition there was a naval battle fought in a specially flooded lake dug on the right bank of the Tiber. All of these celebrations were intended to be bigger and more spectacular than anything Rome had ever seen before.
The city was packed with hordes of people who had come to see the celebrations. Many lived in tents pitched wherever there was open space, and Suetonius claims that a number of people, including two senators, were crushed to death in the crowds that thronged the great events. The cost was staggering, not simply for staging the entertainments and processions, but also through the more direct largesse that accompanied them. At the end of the triumphs Caesar gave 5,000 denarii to each of his soldiers-more than a legionary would earn even if he served a full sixteen-year term in the army. Centurions each got 10,000, while the tribunes and prefects, most of whom were equestrians, received 20,000 apiece. In each case this was probably more than he had promised the men during the Civil War. Yet he also now chose to extend his generosity to the civilian population and especially the poorer inhabitants of Rome, each of whom was given 100 denarii, as well as gifts of wheat and olive oil. Some of the soldiers were angered by this gesture, which they saw as an unnecessary sharing of the wealth that they had earned. Doubtless drink and the atmosphere of holiday also contributed to this discontent, which led to an outbreak of rioting. Caesar had not been willing to back down in the face of mutiny and was no more inclined to do so now. He had one of the rioters led off and executed. Two more were ceremonially beheaded by the college of pontiffs and the Flamen Martialis (the priest of Mars). The ritual, whose precise meaning escapes us, took place on the Campus Martius, but the two heads were taken into the Forum and displayed near the Regia. Order was restored and the period of celebration was overwhelmingly successful. Caesar had always been a good showman and had given thought not only to the displays but also to the comfort of the crowds. At several performances silk awnings were erected to provide shade for the audience.6
REWARDS AND SETTLEMENTS
In general the crowd had delighted in Caesar’s triumphs, celebrations and games, although Dio claims that some people were shocked by the scale of the bloodshed during the gladiatorial fights. The dictator’s habit of reading letters and dictating to his secretaries while watching these shows was disliked by the people, but gave indication of the sheer amount of business that required his attention. Caesar had not fought the Civil War in order to reform the Republic, and in spite of what Cicero and others later claimed, there is no evidence that he had been aiming at supreme rule for much of his life. He had wanted a second consulship and doubtless had planned a programme of legislation for his twelve-month term of office. Instead, he had – at least in his own mind – been forced to fight the Civil War, and his victory brought him far greater power. His third consulship in 46 BC was followed by a fourth and fifth term in 45 and 44 BC respectively, and for most of this period he was also dictator and had a number of additional rights granted to him by the Senate. He was not in Rome for the entire time, since the last campaign of the Civil War took him to Spain in November 46 BC and he did not return to Italy until the following summer. This makes the sheer scale and scope of his legislation and reforms all the more astonishing. Caesar was constantly at work and, though his assistants such as Oppius and Balbus clearly undertook a good deal of the detailed work of framing laws, the basic concepts seem always to have been his. Given the comparatively short time period it is unsurprising that some projects were never actually begun, while many more were uncompleted at his death. It is also not always easy to establish what precisely he did do, and even harder to discern his intentions. His assassination was followed by renewed civil war between his partisans and assassins, during which it was clearly in each sides’ interest to put forward radically different claims of his long-term aims.
To add to the confusion, the civil wars would finally be ended when Caesar’s adopted son Octavian-later named Augustus – became Rome’s first emperor. Following the adoption his name was formally Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. This meant that whether Caesar himself or his adopted son passed a law or founded a colony, each would be known as a lex Julia or colonia Julia respectively. Therefore, if only the name is preserved without any indication of date, it is often impossible to know which of the two was responsible. It is especially confusing since it is known that in some cases Augustus implemented a design of Caesar’s, whereas on other issues his thinking was very different. Detailed discussion of each possible measure introduced by Caesar would require immense space and take us too far from our main purpose. Instead what follows is an overview, concentrating on the more generally accepted acts.7
It is obvious that Caesar wielded immense power, but there has been little consensus amongst scholars about his overall aims. Some would like to see him as a visionary who discerned the problems facing the Republic, realised that its system of government could simply no longer cope with the changed circumstances of empire, and understood that a form of monarchy was the only answer. His plans included not only political change but a radical shift in the relationship between Rome and the rest of Italy, and of both to the provinces. A comment in a letter to Metellus Scipio in 48 BC, that Caesar wanted only ‘tranquillity for Italy, peace for the provinces, and security for [Roman] power’ has sometimes been taken as a clear programme. Critics of this view would instead see it as a vague slogan employed in the midst of civil war. For them Caesar was not a radical reformer or visionary, but a deeply conservative aristocrat who won power in a quest for personal glory and status within the Republic. Motivated by such traditional ambitions, he had little idea of what to do once he took control of Rome. In this view his numerous reforms dealing with such a wide range of different issues were the sign not of a coherent programme, but of the total absence of any broader design. Caesar tinkered with so many things simply because he did not know what to do and instead just kept himself busy, mistaking activity for achievement. Both views are extreme, and most scholars have more reasonably adopted a position somewhere between the two, but before returning to this question
it will be useful to review the evidence.8
Caesar did not take over a Republic that was functioning effectively. The Civil War had disrupted the entire Roman world, but even before that the institutions of the State had been struggling for many years to cope with turbulent and often violent political struggles. Respect for tradition – and the extent to which Caesar himself felt this need not concern us too much, since he was aware of its importance to others – had to be balanced against the practical importance of providing effective government as soon as possible. There was also always the central importance of dealing with individuals, both those who had fought for him and deserved reward and those who had opposed him, and who now required either generosity to win them over or stern judgement. In the autumn of 46 BC Caesar began the colonisation programme to provide farms for his veteran soldiers. His intention was to employ public land or properties confiscated from dead or incorrigible Pompeians, but where this was insufficient land was to be bought at a fair rate. As he had told the mutineers, Caesar was anxious to avoid the upheaval and hardship caused when Sulla gave land to his troops. At first it seems that only the men who had served their full term of service were discharged-we do not know what proportion of the army this was – and the remainder were to wait until they were demobilised at the proper time. The focus was mainly on Italy, but there were also veterans settled in North Africa and in Transapline Gaul, where, for instance, the colony at Narbo seems to have been expanded. In the same way that he had given money to the people of Rome as well as the soldiers to commemorate his triumphs, Caesar now also included civilians in his colonisation programme. A number of colonies were created in the provinces, and even more planned as part of a programme that would see the resettling of 80,000 people. Caius Gracchus’ plan of a colony on the site of Carthage was revived, and another new settlement was set down at Corinth, which like Carthage had been destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. In some cases the selection of locations was intended to punish communities that had sided against him in the war, but even so this was not intended to be especially harsh. The whole programme of colonisation required immense effort, surveyors going out to all the regions under consideration, and correct ownership of land being investigated before lots were marked out and the process of allocating them to individuals begun. At every stage Caesar and his staff appear to have been open to pleas from interested parties. Cicero successfully secured an exemption for the community of Buthrotum in Epirus on behalf of his friend Atticus, who owned an estate and had interests there. As far as possible the intention was to satisfy the discharged veterans and civilian settlers without causing too much hardship to the regions where the colonies were set down-especially when these had influential friends.
There was a great tradition of distribution of land to citizens by popularis politicians, stretching back far beyond the Gracchi. Caesar’s agrarian law had been the cornerstone of his legislative programme in 59 BC, and now with greater freedom of action he had resumed his activity on a far greater scale. He rewarded his soldiers, and also removed a potentially volatile section of Rome’s population and gave them the means to support themselves and their families. Politically he gained from this, and placed very many people in his debt, but at the same time it greatly increased the number of affluent citizens. There is no reason to doubt that Caesar – and indeed many contemporaries-did not feel that the programme of colonisation was good for the State as well as in his own interest. In 59 BC even Cato had felt that the only thing wrong with Caesar’s agrarian law was the man who presented it. Yet the scale of these projects was enormous and could not be rushed. Only a small part of his plans in this respect were complete by Caesar’s death. Ambitious plans to drain the Pomptine marshes and so provide a fresh supply of good farmland do not seem to have moved beyond the theoretical stage, but do suggest plans for further distributions and so a major attempt to provide livelihoods for more poor citizens. Another project that does not seem to have been started was the plan to alter the course of the Tiber, improving river access and protecting parts of the city vulnerable to flooding.9
Army officers, especially tribunes and centurions, also benefited from the land distribution. Caesar’s more distinguished followers were rewarded with high office, and this resulted in a number of alterations to the traditional pattern of magistracies. In 47 BC he had increased the number of praetors from eight to ten. In the autumn of the following year there was insufficient time between returning from Africa and going to Spain for most elections to be held. Therefore, when he returned from Spain in October 45 BC he promptly had fourteen praetors and forty quaestors elected for what remained of the year, with sixteen praetors and another forty quaestors to take up office on 1 January 44 BC.At the same time he resigned his own consulship for 45 BC, which he had held without a colleague, just like Pompey in the opening months of 52 BC. His legates Fabius and Trebonius were duly elected replacement or suffect consuls for the rest of the year. Although the Senate had granted him the right to appoint magistrates, Caesar contented himself with sending recommendations to be read aloud at the relevant voting assembly – ‘Caesar the dictator to [the name of the tribe]. I commend to you such and such to hold the dignity of office by your vote.’ These seem always to have been successful, and it may well be that no rivals bothered to put their names forward. To some extent this preserved the proper formalities, but Caesar’s obvious desire to grant to numerous followers the dignity and status of the high magistracies acted against this. When Fabius Maximus went to watch a play and was announced as consul, the audience is said to have yelled out, ‘He is no consul!’ He died on the morning of his last day in office. Caesar received the news while presiding over a meeting of the Tribal Assembly, which was going to elect quaestors for the next year. Instead, he had the people reconvene as the Comitia Centuriata and vote for a new consul. Just after midday another of his legates from Gaul was chosen, Caius Caninius Rebilus, whose spell as consul therefore lasted no more than a few hours. A few days later Cicero joked that ‘in the consulship of Caninius nobody ate lunch. However, nothing bad occurred while he was consul – for his vigilance was so incredible that throughout his entire consulship he never went to sleep.’ At the time he is supposed to have urged everyone to rush and congratulate Caninius before his office expired. Privately he thought the affair more a matter for tears than wit.10
Caesar’s replacement consuls can rarely have had time to achieve much during their term of office, even supposing that they were granted any freedom of action and not simply expected to put through his legislation. Yet they gained the dignity and symbols of the office. Caesar actually granted ten former praetors consular status without ever holding the senior magistracy, for he had many followers to reward and limited time. Resigning and appointing replacements in this way was not illegal, but was unprecedented and scarcely added to the dignity of the office. In a similar way the dramatic increase in the numbers of other posts inevitably devalued these to some extent, but in this case there was more practical justification. Sulla had fixed the number of praetors at eight because this was adequate to provide enough governors for the provinces then controlled by the Republic. Since his day, Rome’s empire had increased markedly by conquest and annexation and there was a real need for more magistrates to administrate the new provinces. Men elected to the quaestorship were automatically enrolled as senators, so that the House would be augmented by at least forty new members each year. Caesar was also granted the power to create new senators, and to grant patrician status as he felt necessary.
Even before the disruption and losses of the Civil War the censorship had failed to function properly in practice, often because of squabbles between the colleagues holding the post. Thus the ranks of the Senate were depleted. Caesar appointed hundreds of new senators, compensating for the losses and then expanding the House dramatically. Sulla had doubled the Senate in size to around 600, but by the time of Caesar’s death there were somewhere between 800 – 900 members. A few of the
se were men who had been expelled from its ranks in previous years, or whose families had been barred from public life because of their Marian sympathies. Most of the new members were from established equestrian families, including many who came from the local aristocracies of Italy, but they may also have included a few former centurions. There were also a few from citizen families outside Italy, including a number of Gauls from the Cisalpine, and probably also Transalpine, provinces. There were jokes at the time of the ‘barbarians’ taking off their trousers to put on a toga, and someone daubed up a slogan in the Forum proclaiming that it would be a good deed not to tell any of the new senators the way to the Senate House. It is unlikely that any of the ‘foreigners’ added to the Senate were not fluent in Latin, well educated and in cultural respects little different from genuinely Roman aristocrats.11
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