The history of Rome. Book V

by Theodor Mommsen

  Of such a personage our conceptions may well vary in point of shallowness or depth, but they cannot be, strictly speaking, different; to every not utterly perverted inquirer the grand figure has exhibited the same essential features, and yet no one has succeeded in reproducing it to the life. The secret lies in its perfection. In his character as a man as well as in his place in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts of existence meet and balance each other. Of mighty creative power and yet at the same time of the most penetrating judgment; no longer a youth and not yet an old man; of the highest energy of will and the highest capacity of execution; filled with republican ideals and at the same time born to be a king; a Roman in the deepest essence of his nature, and yet called to reconcile and combine in himself as well as in the outer world the Roman and the Hellenic types of culture - Caesar was the entire and perfect man.

  Accordingly we miss in him more than in any other historical personage what are called characteristic features, which are in reality nothing else than deviations from the natural course of human development. What in Caesar passes for such at the first superficial glance is, when more closely observed, seen to be the peculiarity not of the individual, but of the epoch of culture or of the nation; his youthful adventures, for instance, were common to him with all his more gifted contemporaries of like position, his unpoetical but strongly logical temperament was the temperament of Romans in general. It formed part also of Caesar's full humanity that he was in the highest degree influenced by the conditions of time and place; for there is no abstract humanity - the living man cannot but occupy a place in a given nationality and in a definite line of culture. Caesar was a perfect man just because he more than any other placed himself amidst the currents of his time, and because he more than any other possessed the essential peculiarity of the Roman nation - practical aptitude as a citizen - in perfection: for his Hellenism in fact was only the Hellenism which had been long intimately blended with the Italian nationality. But in this very circumstance lies the difficulty, we may perhaps say the impossibility, of depicting Caesar to the life.

  As the artist can paint everything save only consummate beauty, so the historian, when once in a thousand years he encounters the perfect, can only be silent regarding it. For normality admits doubtless of being expressed, but it gives us only the negative notion of the absence of defect; the secret of nature, whereby in her most finished manifestations normality and individuality are combined, is beyond expression. Nothing is left for us but to deem those fortunate who beheld this perfection, and to gain some faint conception of it from the reflected lustre which rests imperishably on the works that were the creation of this great nature.

  These also, it is true, bear the stamp of the time. The Roman hero himself stood by the side of his youthful Greek predecessor not merely as an equal, but as a superior; but the world had meanwhile become old and its youthful lustre had faded. The action of Caesar was no longer, like that of Alexander, a joyous marching onward towards a goal indefinitely remote; he built on, and out of, ruins, and was content to establish himself as tolerably and as securely as possible within the ample but yet definite bounds once assigned to him. With reason therefore the delicate poetic tact of the nations has not troubled itself about the unpoetical Roman, and on the other hand has invested the son of Philip with all the golden lustre of poetry, with all the rainbow hues of legend.

  But with equal reason the political life of the nations has during thousands of years again and again reverted to the lines which Caesar drew; and the fact, that the peoples to whom the world belongs still at the present day designate the highest of their monarchs by his name, conveys a warning deeply significant and, unhappily, fraught with shame.

  Setting Aside of the Old Parties

  If the old, in every respect vicious, state of things was to be successfully got rid of and the commonwealth was to be renovated, it was necessary first of all that the country should be practically tranquillized and that the ground should be cleared from the rubbish with which since the recent catastrophe it was everywhere strewed. In this work Caesar set out from the principle of the reconciliation of the hitherto subsisting parties or, to put it more correctly - for, where the antagonistic principles are irreconcilable, we cannot speak of real reconciliation - from the principle that the arena, on which the nobility and the populace had hitherto contended with each other, was to be abandoned by both parties, and that both were to meet together on the ground of the new monarchical constitution. First of all therefore all the older quarrels of the republican past were regarded as done away for ever and irrevocably. While Caesar gave orders that the statues of Sulla which had been thrown down by the mob of the capital on the news of the battle of Pharsalus should be re-erected, and thus recognized the fact that it became history alone to sit in judgment on that great man, he at the same time cancelled the last remaining effects of Sulla's exceptional laws, recalled from exile those who had been banished in the times of the Cinnan and Sertorian troubles, and restored to the children of those outlawed by Sulla their forfeited privilege of eligibility to office. In like manner all those were restored, who in the preliminary stage of the recent catastrophe had lost their seat in the senate or their civil existence through sentence of the censors or political process, especially through the impeachments raised on the basis of the exceptional laws of 702. Those alone who had put to death the proscribed for money remained, as was reasonable, still under attainder; and Milo, the most daring condottiere of the senatorial party, was excluded from the general pardon.

  Discontent of the Democrats

  Far more difficult than the settlement of these questions which already belonged substantially to the past was the treatment of the parties confronting each other at the moment - on the one hand Caesar's own democratic adherents, on the other hand the overthrown aristocracy. That the former should be, if possible, still less satisfied than the latter with Caesar's conduct after the victory and with his summons to abandon the old standing-ground of party, was to be expected. Caesar himself desired doubtless on the whole the same issue which Gaius Gracchus had contemplated; but the designs of the Caesarians were no longer those of the Gracchans.

  The Roman popular party had been driven onward in gradual progression from reform to revolution, from revolution to anarchy, from anarchy to a war against property; they celebrated among themselve the memory of the reign of terror and now adorned the tomb of Catilina, as formerly that of the Gracchi, with flowers and garlands; they had placed themselves under Caesar's banner, because they expected him to do for them what Catilina had not been able to accomplish. But as it speedily became plain that Caesar was very far from intending to be the testamentary executor of Catilina, and that the utmost which debtors might expect from him was some alleviations of payment and modifications of procedure, indignation found loud vent in the inquiry. For whom then had the popular party conquered, if not for the people? And the rabble of this description, high and low, out of pure chagrin at the miscarriage of their politico-economic Saturnalia began first to coquet with the Pompeians, and then even during Caesar's absence of nearly two years from Italy (Jan. 706 - autumn 707) to instigate there a second civil war within the first.

  Caelius and Milo

  The praetor Marcus Caelius Rufus, a good aristocrat and bad payer of debts, of some talent and much culture, as a vehement and fluent orator hitherto in the senate and in the Forum one of the most zealous champions for Caesar, proposed to the people - without being instructed from any higher quarter to do so - a law which granted to debtors a respite of six years free of interest, and then, when he was opposed in this step, proposed a second law which even cancelled all claims arising out of loans and current house rents; whereupon the Caesarian senate deposed him from his office. It was just on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus, and the balance in the great contest seemed to incline to the side of the Pompeians; Rufus entered into communication with the old senatorian band-leader Milo, and the two c
ontrived a counter-revolution, which inscribed on its banner partly the republican constitution, partly the cancelling of creditors' claims and the manumission of slaves. Milo left his place of exile Massilia, and called the Pompeians and the slave-herdsmen to arms in the region of Thurii; Rufus made arrangements to seize the town of Capua by armed slaves. But the latter plan was detected before its execution and frustrated by the Capuan militia; Quintus Pedius, who advanced with a legion into the territory of Thurii, scattered the band making havoc there; and the fall of the two leaders put an end to the scandal (706).

  Dolabella

  Nevertheless there was found in the following year (707) a second fool, the tribune of the people, Publius Dolabella, who, equally insolvent but far from being equally gifted with his predecessor, introduced afresh his law as to creditors' claims and house rents, and with his colleague Lucius Trebellius began on that point once more - it was the last time - the demagogic war; there were serious frays between the armed bands on both sides and various street-riots, till the commandant of Italy Marcus Antonius ordered the military to interfere, and soon afterwards Caesar's return from the east completely put an end to the preposterous proceedings. Caesar attributed to these brainless attempts to revive the projects of Catilina so little importance, that he tolerated Dolabella in Italy and indeed after some time even received him again into favour. Against a rabble of this sort, which had nothing to do with any political question at all, but solely with a war against property - as against gangs of banditti - the mere existence of a strong government is sufficient; and Caesar was too great and too considerate to busy himself with the apprehensions which the Italian alarmists felt regarding these communists of that day, and thereby unduly to procure a false popularity for his monarchy.

  Measures against Pompeians and Republicans

  While Caesar thus might leave, and actually left, the late democratic party to the process of decomposition which had already in its case advanced almost to the utmost limit, he had on the other hand, with reference to the former aristocratic party possessing a far greater vitality, not to bring about its dissolution - which time alone could accomplish - but to pave the way for and initiate it by a proper combination of repression and conciliation. Among minor measures, Caesar, even from a natural sense of propriety, avoided exasperating the fallen party by empty sarcasm; he did not triumph over his conquered fellow-burgesses[3]; he mentioned Pompeius often and always with respect, and caused his statue overthrown by the people to be re-erected at the senate-house, when the latter was restored, in its earlier distinguished place.

  To political prosecutions after the victory Caesar assigned the narrowest possible limits. No investigation was instituted into the various communications which the constitutional party had held even with nominal Caesarians; Caesar threw the piles of papers found in the enemy's headquarters at Pharsalus and Thapsus into the fire unread, and spared himself and the country from political processes against individuals suspected of high treason. Further, all the common soldiers who had followed their Roman or provincial officers into the contest against Caesar came off with impunity.

  The sole exception made was in the case of those Roman burgesses, who had taken service in the army of the Numidian king Juba; their property was confiscated by way of penalty for their treason. Even to the officers of the conquered party Caesar had granted unlimited pardon up to the close of the Spanish campaign of 705; but he became convinced that in this he had gone too far, and that the removal at least of the leaders among them was inevitable. The rule by which he was thenceforth guided was, that every one who after the capitulation of Ilerda had served as an officer in the enemy's army or had sat in the opposition-senate, if he survived the close of the struggle, forfeited his property and his political rights, and was banished from Italy for life; if he did not survive the close of the struggle, his property at least fell to the state; but any one of these, who had formerly accepted pardon from Caesar and was once more found in the ranks of the enemy, thereby forfeited his life. These rules were however materially modified in the execution. The sentence of death was actually executed only against a very few of the numerous backsliders. In the confiscation of the property of the fallen not only were the debts attaching to the several portions of the estate as well as the claims of the widows for their dowries paid off, as was reasonable.

  But a portion of the paternal estate was left also to the children of the deceased. Lastly not a few of those, who in consequence of those rules were liable to banishment and confiscation of property, were at once pardoned entirely or got off with fines, like the African capitalists who were impressed as members of the senate of Utica. And even the others almost without exception got their freedom and property restored to them, if they could only prevail on themselves to petition Caesar to that effect; on several who declined to do so, such as the consular Marcus Marcellus, pardon was even conferred unasked, and ultimately in 710 a general amnesty was issued for all who were still unrecalled.

  Amnesty

  The republican opposition submitted to be pardoned; but it was not reconciled. Discontent with the new order of things and exasperation against the unwonted ruler were general. For open political resistance there was indeed no farther opportunity - it was hardly worth taking into account, that some oppositional tribunes on occasion of the question of title acquired for themselves the republican crown of martyrdom by a demonstrative intervention against those who had called Caesar king - but republicanism found expression all the more decidedly as an opposition of sentiment, and in secret agitation and plotting. Not a hand stirred when the Imperator appeared in public. There was abundance of wall-placards and sarcastic verses full of bitter and telling popular satire against the new monarchy. When a comedian ventured on a republican allusion, he was saluted with the loudest applause. The praise of Cato formed the fashionable theme of oppositional pamphleteers, and their writings found a public all the more grateful because even literature was no longer free.

  Caesar indeed combated the republicans even now on their own field; he himself and his abler confidants replied to the Cato-literature with Anticatones, and the republican and Caesarian scribes fought round the dead hero of Utica like the Trojans and Hellenes round the dead body of Patroclus; but as a matter of course in this conflict - where the public thoroughly republican in its feelings was judge - the Caesarians had the worst of it. No course remained but to overawe the authors; on which account men well known and dangerous in a literary point of view, such as Publius Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Caecina, had more difficulty in obtaining permission to return to Italy than other exiles, while the oppositional writers tolerated in Italy were subjected to a practical censorship, the restraints of which were all the more annoying that the measure of punishment to be dreaded was utterly arbitrary[4]. The underground machinations of the overthrown parties against the new monarchy will be more fitly set forth in another connection. Here it is sufficient to say that risings of pretenders as well as of republicans were incessantly brewing throughout the Roman empire; that the flames of civil war kindled now by the Pompeians, now by the republicans, again burst forth brightly at various places; and that in the capital there was perpetual conspiracy against the life of the monarch. But Caesar could not be induced by these plots even to surround himself permanently with a body-guard, and usually contented himself with making known the detected conspiracies by public placards.

  Bearing of Caesar towards the Parties

  However much Caesar was wont to treat all things relating to his personal safety with daring indifference, he could not possibly conceal from himself the very serious danger with which this mass of malcontents threatened not merely himself but also his creations. If nevertheless, disregarding all the warning and urgency of his friends, he without deluding himself as to the implacability of the very opponents to whom he showed mercy, persevered with marvellous composure and energy in the course of pardoning by far the greater number of them, he did so neither from the chiva
lrous magnanimity of a proud, nor from the sentimental clemency of an effeminate, nature, but from the correct statesmanly consideration that vanquished parties are disposed of more rapidly and with less public injury by their absorption within the state than by any attempt to extirpate them by proscription or to eject them from the commonwealth by banishment. Caesar could not for his high objects dispense with the constitutional party itself, which in fact embraced not the aristocracy merely but all the elements of a free and national spirit among the Italian burgesses; for his schemes, which contemplated the renovation of the antiquated state, he needed the whole mass of talent, culture, hereditary, and self-acquired distinction, which this party embraced; and in this sense he may well have named the pardoning of his opponents the finest reward of victory. Accordingly the most prominent chiefs of the defeated parties were indeed removed, but full pardon was not withheld from the men of the second and third rank and especially of the younger generation; they were not, however, allowed to sulk in passive opposition, but were by more or less gentle pressure induced to take an active part in the new administration, and to accept honours and offices from it. As with Henry the Fourth and William of Orange, so with Caesar his greatest difficulties began only after the victory. Every revolutionary conqueror learns by experience that, if after vanquishing his opponents he would not remain like Cinna and Sulla a mere party-chief, but would like Caesar, Henry the Fourth, and William of Orange substitute the welfare of the commonwealth for the necessarily one-sided programme of his own party, for the moment all parties, his own as well as the vanquished, unite against the new chief; and the more so, the more great and pure his idea of his new vocation. The friends of the constitution and the Pompeians, though doing homage with the lips to Caesar, bore yet in heart a grudge either at monarchy or at least at the dynasty; the degenerate democracy was in open rebellion against Caesar from the moment of its perceiving that Caesar's objects were by no means its own; even the personal adherents of Caesar murmured, when they found that their chief was establishing instead of a state of condottieri a monarchy equal and just towards all, and that the portions of gain accruing to them were to be diminished by the accession of the vanquished.