The Classical World

by Robin Lane Fox

  At Rome, this ambitious young man was still very far indeed from global prominence. That honour went to the great all-conquering Pompey, whose exceptional command against the Mediterranean pirates had been supported by Caesar, the one senator to vote for it in 67 (a victory over the pirates would help the people by reducing the price of grain imports). Nonetheless, as an aedile (a city magistrate) in 65, it was Caesar who was the greater showman. He paid for the customary games, but added hugely to their popular appeal by offering 320 pairs of gladiators in public combat, to be dressed with silver weaponry. They were intended, he said, as a funerary honour for his dead father. But his father had died twenty years earlier and this enormous show caused an anxious Senate to 'recommend' a prompt limit on the number of gladiators which anyone could present. Like the games, the cost of Caesar's show would have been enormous. The higher reaches of a public career at Rome required huge expense, and never more so than in the intensely competitive late 60s. But Caesar borrowed hugely to pay for the costs and in the absence of glorious Pompey he borrowed from the vastly rich Crassus. Amid charges of corruption and conspiracy, the two of them were even suspected of plotting a coup in 65, so that Crassus could sort out the highly rewarding kingdom of Egypt and Caesar, still only an aedile, could serve as Crassus the dictator's second-in-command. Pompey, indeed, was absent and Egypt was certainly the great unresolved prize, whose grain and treasure would make its 'captors' uniquely powerful. Other partners were wrongly alleged later to have been in on the deal, but in 64 Cicero did hint that Crassus had been up to something.'4 We can only guess or reject the story (as most scholars do), not least because such a role for a humble aedile seems wholly incredible. But was Caesar a typical aedile?

  What we do know is that he played prominent roles in the year 63, the fateful pinnacle of Cicero's career. At the start, it was Caesar who promoted a sham trial in public to warn Cicero and others about abuse of the Senate's so-called 'ultimate decree'. In December, when Cicero then abused precisely this decree against living citizens who were already under arrest, it was Caesar who spoke so forcefully in the Senate in favour of imprisoning the offenders but not killing them. Here, too, he took a populist approach in support of 'freedom', one which he, but not Cicero, would never regret. In Cicero's unpublished 'inside story', Caesar would later be roundly blamed (with Crassus) for backing Catiline in the first place and causing a near-revolution. Was this charge only the old Cicero's sour hindsight or had there once again been more to Caesar's early discredit than we know? Whatever the truth, it did not stop Caesar from two fine successes in this same year. He won the immensely prestigious 'High Priesthood' (as Pontifex Maximus he had an office, henceforward, in the heart of the Roman Forum and a house on the adjoining Sacred Way) and he was also elected to the praetorship, the next career step, for the year 62. The priesthood cost him a fortune in bribery and the praetorship began with his controversial support for the returning hero, Pompey: it did not stop Caesar gaining a command in Further Spain for 61 bc.

  This provincial command did not make him by first awakening his ambition (it was surely there from his adolescence) but it was certainly crucial to his survival. On his return, a failure to pay his debts would be terminal, obliging him to become an exile. The recognized way for Romans to repay such debts was to soak a province for spoils, bribes and booty. By late 61 Caesar had done just that, by attacking enough outlying tribes in Spain, and so he could start to think of the ultimate honours, a triumph and then a consulship back in Rome. This prospect really alarmed his traditionalist contemporaries, especially Cato, the arch-conservative who would never give Caesar the benefit of any doubt. Cato therefore obliged Caesar to choose between a triumph (already voted, in principle) or standing as consul. Coolly, Caesar chose to go for the consulship, obliging Cato to compromise and try to beat him at his own game by amassing a big fund for electoral bribery and ensuring that his own reliable kinsman, Bibulus, would be elected as Caesar's fellow consul.

  Both of them were duly elected for the year 59, but, unlike Bibulus, Caesar prepared for his year of office by the artful 'gentlemen's agree­ment' with Pompey and Crassus, a couple hitherto divided by personal enmity. Cunningly, Caesar saw they both had needs which he, as consul, could help them meet. As a major financier, Crassus needed a renegotiation of the tax-collecting contract in the province of Asia. Pompey needed two things, the ratification of the arrangements which he had personally imposed on Asia and the settlement of his veteran soldiers, who were still unrewarded from their victories in the East in the 60s. As for Caesar himself, he had a populist programme which would lead (so he hoped) to an ever greater and more profitable provincial command. Economic tension in Rome was running very high. Seeing trouble coming, surely, the senators had already allotted humdrum commands to these consuls after their year of office: not a Spain or Gaul, but 'woods and tracks' in Italy itself.

  The year 59, Caesar's consulship, is a climactic moment in Roman history. Previous 'populists' had fallen prey to the same weakness, their failure to escape reprisals from 'traditionalists' either during or after their hated year of office. Caesar's plan was brutally simple: to carry Pompey and Crassus with him in a mutual balance of favours; to put laws directly to the people's assemblies, despite the Senate's opposition; to work with and through supportive tribunes who could veto such opposition; to 'fix' supportive tribunes for the following year and supportive consuls too, if possible; to be voted a major provincial command and then to leave Rome with the powers to carry it out, thus being untouchable by prosecution as he left the city. But his fellow consul, Bibulus, was flatly against him, and Caesar's 'populist' legislation would have to go straight to the people to become law, because the senators would surely never recommend it. Tradition­alists, as usual, would hate the tactic.

  The ensuing manoeuvres are unforgettable in Roman public and political life: the addresses to public meetings; the gangs and cliques in the Forum; the parade of 'imprisoning' the intransigent Cato, although he was a tribune; the harassment of the obstructive consul Bibulus (a bucket of dung was once poured publicly over his head). Attempted 'intercession' by other hostile tribunes was evaded by viol­ence; it all sounds chaotic, but already in 62 even the man of principle, young Cato, had prevented a tribune from reciting an unwanted bill by having a fellow tribune jam his hand over the man's mouth. In 59 Caesar's colleague Bibulus countered by withdrawing to his house and claiming that irregularities in the heavens (observed only by him) made each possible day in the calendar unfit for the due course of public business. He also distributed posters with such scandalous attacks on Caesar that the common people crowded round to find out their fascinating contents, thereby blocking traffic in Rome's streets.

  Nonetheless, sufficient laws in Caesar's programme were forced through. One, long planned, set out an eminently reasonable pro­gramme for the settlement of Pompey's veteran soldiers and other needy citizens on land in Italy. Cleverly, the proposals would not involve confiscations from any private owner. Another law lowered the Asian tax contract to suit Crassus' interests: Cato was still bitterly opposed to it. In April a second law then proposed the allotment of rich lands in Campania, behind the Bay of Naples, lands which had been first taken as 'public' after Roman victories over Hannibal in 211. It was deeply contentious. One aim was to give land to some 20,000 poor citizens in Rome and their families, part of the 'dregs', in the traditionalists' view of them, who were such a distress and a possible danger in the city. To Cicero, this fine proposal seemed an outrage.

  Even as late as August good legislation was still being brought forward, especially a complex law against unchecked extortion by Roman governors abroad. But to go so far Caesar had had to play extremely hard. Not only had Cato continued to oppose him, especi­ally on the proposed assistance to Crassus and the tax-contractors. There was a real danger that once Pompey's main needs were met he too would veer off to join the conservative senators' groupings, his more natural resting place. In the spring Pompey had
married Caesar's beloved only daughter, Julia, but even a tie by marriage was very fragile. In summer 59 Caesar therefore promoted an informer (it seems) to warn the ever-nervous Pompey of a high-grade plot against his life. The final allegations included the names of almost every 'traditional' senatorial opponent, whereupon the informer was con­veniently killed while in prison.5 Cicero was surely right to see Caesar's hand behind the affair: it scared Pompey, sure enough, and so it kept the 'gentlemen's agreement' in existence. But once again, it stank.

  Friendly consuls could not, after all, be fixed for the following year, but a friendly tribune (Clodius) and a provincial command were forthcoming. Overturning the Senate's earlier proposals of 'woods and tracks', Caesar obtained for himself by popular vote the far greater provinces of Cisalpine Gaul (nowadays north Italy) and Illyricum (what is now the Dalmatian coast), a promising base for con­quests inland. Furthermore, they were voted for five whole years. To his great good fortune, the allotted commander for Transalpine Gaul had died in April and on news of danger from the surrounding tribes, even the senators panicked and anxiously added Transalpine Gaul to Caesar's provinces. He was, after all, a proven general for what might be a major crisis and the combined commands would certainly pre­occupy him.

  What had shocked senatorial conservatives so far was Caesar's sheer forcefulness, his contempt for their opposition (and themselves) and the populism of the laws for which he would now receive great public credit. The political footling of Bibulus and his obstructions were basically irrelevant but it was at least arguable that Caesar's entire legislation was technically invalid as a result: if the matter was judged in court, the senators would probably 'fix' a jury to uphold their view of 'illegality'. Meanwhile, senators had seen their old, once-famous general Lucullus forced to grovel at Caesar's feet. They were not above making a counter-proposal: could not Caesar wait and bring forward his legislation in the following year when they might no longer oppose him or even not threaten prosecution? But Caesar did not trust them and his dignity would never permit it. This time, the customary 'concord' among senators after a crisis could not be cosily reasserted.

  In the first weeks of 58, following his consulship, Caesar was outside Rome's city-boundary, recruiting troops for his provincial command, but he was still accessible to the senators and daily news of politics within the city. It was imperative that attempts to undo his legislation in the new year did not succeed. In fact, Clodius (his supportive tribune) proved well up to the challenge. The incoming consuls were cleverly bought off with the offer of valuable provincial commands; populist laws continued to be brought forward, and there was even a fear that Clodius would become too powerful in his own right. Cer­tainly Clodius had one grudge to settle, against Cicero, who (he felt) had let him down in 63 bc. As neither Pompey nor Caesar was willing to intervene, Cicero anticipated his fate by leaving the city. By mid-March Caesar, too, was off on his way to Gaul.

  As he rode north, he cut a fine figure on horseback, dark-eyed, tall for a Roman and already balding. As in Spain, three years earlier, a governorship would more than restore his finances and ought to allow for no end of future bribes back in Rome. But what then? If Caesar laid down his command and re-entered Rome as a private citizen, his enemies would prosecute him at once for the 'illegalities' in his year as consul. If he wanted to become a consul yet again, how could he realize his aim when he had to wait a statutory ten years before standing and when he would surely be forced to return to Rome so as to campaign for his election in person? Pompey and Crassus would not assist him for nothing and Cato, certainly, would not go away. The consulship of 59 bc had been sensational, but it had created as many problems as it had addressed. With his armies in Gaul, proud Caesar was really out on a limb.

  36

  The Spectre of Civil War

  So this is what their love affair, their scandalous union has come to - not secret backbiting, but outright war. As for my own affairs, I don't know what plan to take, and I don't doubt that the same question is going to trouble you. I have ties of obligation and friendship with these people. On the other hand, I love the cause, but hate the men.

  I do not suppose that it escapes you that when there is a dispute about affairs in a community, men ought to take the more respectable side so long as the dispute is political and not conducted by force of arms. But when it comes to actual war and army-camps, then they should choose the stronger and reckon that the better course is the one which is safer. Caelius to Cicero, Letters to Friends 8.14 (c. 8 August 50 bc)

  Within two years of fighting beyond the Alps Caesar would become too successful, too quickly. In the name of Gallic 'freedom', he launched attacks on neighbouring tribes, including the Helvetii, who were preparing to migrate westwards into Gallic territory: 'all men', he wrote in his commentaries, 'have a natural keenness for liberty, and hate the condition of servitude'.1 But then he exploited divisions among the Gauls so as to pick off their tribes separately and make them into a vast Roman province. The last thing Caesar wanted was to be recalled, mission completed. So, 'enemies' and dangers were discovered ever further afield.

  In Rome, Pompey and Crassus were still pre-eminent, but there was plenty of scope for popular legislation. For the city, as Cicero's brother had described it in the mid-6os, was still 'formed from the concourse of the peoples of the world' and contained at least 750,000 inhabitants. This huge mass of citizen-freedmen, slaves and foreigners was the setting for the upper class's intense disputes about order, 'tradition' and legal propriety. As tribune in 58, Clodius had restored the common people's right to form social groups and associations, the 'colleges' which the Senate had simply declared 'contrary to the interests of the Republic' and abolished back in 64. He had also made the subsequent distribution of grain into a free monthly allot­ment. More than 300,000 citizens would be able to claim it, but it would be a vast burden on public funds and supply, although the allotment would sustain only one person, not an entire family. To increase funds, Clodius and others looked eastwards, not least to the rich domains of the Ptolemies in Cyprus. Clodius had an old grudge against its ruler and by a brilliant manoeuvre after Caesar's departure, forced even the principled Cato to compromise in what was needed. By proposing legislation directly to the people, he had Cato appointed to take over Cyprus from its profligate Ptolemaic prince: the appoint­ment was Cato's publicly voted duty, so he could not refuse it. But by accepting, Cato was also accepting, indirectly, the legality of a whole chain of similarly approved legislation which he had contested, right back (some might say) to Caesar's laws in 59: 6,000 talents came in from Cyprus's resources.

  Couriers and letters kept Caesar in touch. He is even said to have sent Clodius a letter approving the neat use of tribunes and an assembly-vote to compromise his rival Cato. The new settlement for Cyprus was also, usefully, a departure from Pompey's previous deal­ings with a Ptolemaic prince. No doubt Caesar also heard of the amazing activities of the aedile in 58 bc, Aemilius Scaurus. Scaurus, the stepson of Sulla, displayed five crocodiles and the first hippo­potamus Rome had ever seen at his customary games. He then built an extraordinary theatre, three storeys high (of marble, glass and gilding), packed with gold cloth and (it was later said) 3,000 statues and room for 80,000 spectators. He even displayed the vast skeleton of a dinosaur, brought back from his service in the Near East, believ­ing it was a monster from Greek mythology.2 Popular life at Rome was really looking up, and like Clodius' laws these games and displays set a new standard in politicians' competition for popular prestige.

  What most concerned Caesar was the duration of his command 'beyond the Alps'. In 59 it had been granted, it seems, on a yearly basis. His other command, 'this side of the Alps, and Illyricum', was secure, by contrast, for five years. There was the increasing danger that a senatorial rival with Gallic connections, Domitius Aheno-barbus, would get himself elected consul for 55 and force Caesar to be replaced. So Caesar turned again to his artful 'gentlemen's agreement'. By 56 bc both Pompey and Cra
ssus were wanting consul­ships again, to be followed by lucrative commands abroad, but neither of them was sure of the necessary popular support. Back in Rome, the free distribution of grain instituted by Clodius had been followed, predictably, by acute grain shortages. In autumn 57 Pompey had been given a commission to sort out the grain supply (with powers even 'greater' than those of other provincial governors, a fertile inno­vation), but the challenge was not easily met. Prices had stayed high and there were still shortages. Furthermore, the long-desired chance of intervening in Egypt had been denied to both him and Crassus. By early 56 neither man was the darling of the Roman populace and, in an atmosphere of violence and armed gangs, Pompey continued to fear for his life. When Caesar came south into Italy in spring 56, it was possible for a deal to be agreed. When he reached Ravenna in March, the first to come over was Crassus, because his ambitions were the more pressing. Then, by agreement at Lucca in mid-April, Pompey joined in the deal which was forming, for fear that his glory would be eclipsed: there would be five-year commands in the provinces for each of them, preceded by consulships for Pompey and Crassus in 55. By postponing the year's elections, they could count on support from troops whom Caesar would send to Rome for the voting and so they could keep out the rival threat of Ahenobarbus. Then, as the new consuls, Pompey and Crassus could prolong Caesar's transalpine com­mand for another five years in spring 55, by a law taken straight to the people.

  The deal worked, although Caesar's 'commentaries' never said a word about it. Previously, Caesar had even been thinking of a cam­paign in eastern Europe (Dacia) up to the Danube, but when his command 'beyond the Alps' was sure to be prolonged, he sought new fields in the north-west in which to exploit it. In 56 it was quite likely that he had already been planning an invasion of Britain' and he certainly engaged in a gratuitous slaughter of two vulnerable German tribes. On receiving the news in Rome, Cato was so disgusted that he proposed that Caesar, by ancient precedent, should be handed over to the Germans in order to divert the anger of the gods from Rome. Instead, Caesar transferred himself to Britain, briefly in 55 and again in 54, when he took an elephant with him for show. Neither campaign was much of a success. The hopes of finding gold and precious metals in Britain were ill-founded and the effect was more of a raid than a solid conquest. But the publicity was excellent: Britain was represented as 'beyond the Ocean' which had limited the ambitions of Alexander the Great. Back in Rome, Cicero had even been planning to write an epic poem on the 'glorious conquest', based on front-line reports from his brother. The news about Britain helped to stave off the danger that Caesar's enemy Ahenobarbus would contrive to replace him in the Gallic command after the consulship which would now be available to Ahenobarbus in 54.