suggests that many centurions were men of consequence. Some were
rewarded by Caesar with enough wealth to become equestrians, such
as Scaeva, who held an outpost at Dyrrachium against massive odds
in 48 BC. The prominence of centurions in the Commentaries adds to
the impression that they came from a politically significant class that
Caesar wished to cultivate.22
The Rubicon and Beyond
Crossing the Rubicon was a sign of Caesar’s political failure. It was a
gamble; hence his famous comment, “the die is cast.” It would have
been far better to return peacefully, moving smoothly into a second
consulship and then a new provincial command, both of which would
have secured him against prosecution. Such a victory would also have
been far more satisfying, forcing his rivals to acknowledge his deserved
preeminence. Caesar’s eventual victory should not blind us to the fact
that in most respects, the odds were against him. Pompey and his allies
were not ready to defend Italy. This was in part because no one would
expect a war to begin in January, long before the normal campaigning
season, but also because they always expected Caesar to back down. Yet
they managed to withdraw with considerable troops to Greece. Once
220 Goldsworthy
there, Pompey was able to call on the resources of the eastern prov-
inces to mass and train a great army.
Caesar overran Italy quickly but did not have the ships to pursue
Pompey. Inactivity would only allow his enemies to grow stronger,
and so he led his army to Spain. Pompey had controlled the Spanish
provinces since his second consulship in 55 BC, governing them through
deputies and remaining near Rome himself. Caesar won another quick
victory, outmaneuvering Pompey’s generals. He could not afford to suf-
fer a serious defeat. Since the war was fought to protect his career and
position, a serious reverse would have utterly discredited him. His op-
ponents were far more able to absorb such losses and blows to prestige.
Caesar had to keep attacking and had to keep winning, and even after
these early successes his enemies possessed much greater resources.
Pompey waited for Caesar to attack him in Greece. The same strat-
egy was employed by Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, and by Mark Antony
in 31 BC. There was much to recommend it, as each of these possessed a
stronger fleet than their opponents. Yet in every case they were beaten
and the risk-taking attacker prevailed. Keeping the initiative was clearly
a major asset in civil as well as foreign wars. The 48 BC campaign was
close and could easily have ended in disaster for Caesar. Despite his
soldiers’ formidable powers of endurance, Caesar failed at Dyrrachium
and was forced to retreat. Pompey then decided that the Caesarean
army was sufficiently weakened to be defeated, and so risked battle at
Pharsalus. This was not unreasonable, since he was under considerable
pressure from the distinguished senators with his army, who accused
him of prolonging the war needlessly. Caesar’s failure to attract promi-
nent supporters ensured that his leadership was never challenged by
subordinates. Waiting to starve the enemy into submission, however,
was a difficult strategy to maintain in a civil war. Caesar accepted the
offer of battle and proved himself the better tactician, winning an over-
whelming victory.
The civil war did not end. Pompey fled to Egypt and was killed.
Caesar pursued him and became embroiled in that kingdom’s own civil
war. He placed Cleopatra on the throne and then stayed for some time,
personal reasons mingling with political ones. The time permitted sur-
viving Pompeians to muster again in North Africa. They were defeated
The General as State 221
in 46 BC. Another force, led by Pompey’s son, had to be confronted
and beaten in Spain in 45 BC. Caesar had not intended to seize supreme
power by force. Once he had done so he had to fight to keep power, and
also had to decide how to use it. It is important to remember just how
short a time Caesar spent in Rome as dictator. After his murder another
spate of civil wars erupted, fought first between his defenders and his
assassins. Both sides produced floods of propaganda concerning what
Caesar was planning to do. The truth is now impossible to recover with
any certainty.
Caesar’s immediate plans involved fighting major wars against the
Dacians and then the Parthians. These offered the “clean” glory of
defeating foreign enemies of the republic rather than fellow Romans.
Caesar nominated magistrates for the next three years, which suggests
that he planned to be away for at least this time. The Parthians were
formidable opponents who had defeated and killed Crassus in 53 BC
and would later severely maul Antony’s invasion force. Whether or not
Caesar would have fared better is hard to say. It is uncertain whether he
planned conquest and occupation or simply a grand punitive expedi-
tion to gain public vengeance for Crassus.
As dictator, Caesar was head of the republic. Since he had come to
power by force, it was important to maintain control of the army. At
some point, probably just before or during the civil war, Caesar had
doubled the basic rate of pay for a legionary soldier. No doubt higher
ranks received proportional increases. Veterans were discharged and
given farms. As far as possible this was done without inflicting serious
hardship on existing communities. Around the time he celebrated his
triumphs, there was a protest by disgruntled soldiers. This was dealt
with extremely severely, and several men were executed. As dictator,
Caesar continued to be generous but firm with his soldiers. Officers of
all ranks received lavish rewards. Caesar enrolled large numbers of new
senators, including equestrian officers, some Gauls, and a few former
centurions.23
Many individuals from the army benefited from Caesar’s dictator-
ship. The army itself was not granted particular privileges, nor was it
placed in direct control of any new aspects of life. Caesar had come
to power through civil war but, as in Gaul, hoped to create a regime
222 Goldsworthy
that survived by consent as much as by force. In the last months of
his life he dismissed his Spanish bodyguard. Presumably he felt that
if his regime was to survive three years of his absence on campaign,
then he needed to show confidence while he was in Rome. Sulla had
resigned the dictatorship he had taken by force, but Caesar described
this as the act of a “political illiterate.”24 Caesar believed he should hold
on to power. He misunderstood the attachment of others to tradition,
and was murdered.
Limits of Force
Caesar was a commander of genius. Like Alexander or Napoleon, he
was not a great military reformer and took over a fighting force already
improved by others. All of these men honed their armies to a fine edge,
inspired them, and led them with a flair and imagination that produced
spectacular success. Also like Napoleon,
Caesar exploited his military
success to seize supreme power within the state. Unlike the French em-
peror he did not so profoundly shape the entire state around himself.
Caesar effectively controlled elections and was himself a higher author-
ity above the magistrates chosen. Yet these still served, the Senate and
Popular Assemblies continued to meet and vote, and the courts func-
tioned much as they had before the dictatorship. The conspirators felt
that almost the sole thing needed for the republic to function as normal
was the removal of Caesar himself.
The dictator fel to internal rather than foreign enemies, unlike Na-
poleon. Military success was not enough to al ow Caesar to create a
stable regime; that task would be left to Augustus. He too would seize
supreme power through military force. It took decades to create his new
regime and to turn the brutal triumvir who had clawed his way to the
top so violently into the beloved “father of his country.” Augustus took
care to keep the army loyal to himself alone. For over two centuries,
the republican tradition of the senatorial class holding military and civil
power continued. At any time, only a handful of senators were capable
of supplanting the emperor. There were civil wars in AD 68–69 and 193–
97, but otherwise there was far greater stability than in the last decades
of the republic. Augustus and his successors were military dictators, but
The General as State 223
at the cost of political independence they gave the Roman world in-
ternal stability. Senators enjoyed prestigious careers and could stil win
glory, but simply did so as representatives of the emperor. This and so
much more would change in the third century.
Caesar became dictator through force of arms. His exceptionally
long and spectacularly successful command in Gaul had turned his
army into a ferociously efficient fighting force and created an intensely
personal bond between soldiers and commander. Without this he could
not have seized and held on to power. Yet his victory in the civil war was
not inevitable. Pompey had huge resources at his disposal and had long
been acknowledged as Rome’s greatest general. The precariousness
of reputation— auctoritas, for the Romans—is shown by the ease with
which Caesar’s new achievements rivaled and then surpassed Pompey’s
past successes in the popular imagination. Few politicians would doubt
the need to stay in the headlines, or that respect for achievements can
rapidly fade or be pushed aside by newer stories. If anything, the pace
of the modern world and the modern media have sped up the process.
(For some, there may be the comfort that their mistakes and scandals
can also be forgotten faster.)
Much has changed, and few modern leaders, at least in the West,
could match Caesar’s battlefield achievements. That does not mean
that even in our societies, military glory (even if we would not use the
word) cannot be transferred to political advantage. Yet it remains, as
always, a precarious thing. Military failure, whether perceived or real,
can be damaging. Leaders like Napoleon and Caesar who base their
rise on military glory need to keep refreshing this glory with more
victories if their popularity and their grip on power are not to fade.
Caesar was a military dictator, but his behavior was moderate. One of
the more depressing lessons from this period of history is that it was
the far more ruthless Augustus who was able to hold on to power for
more than forty years and ended up dying in his bed.
Further Reading
The primary sources for Caesar’s career and campaigns must begin with his own Com-
mentarii on the conflicts in Gaul and the civil war. The additional books (book eight of
224 Goldsworthy
the Gallic Wars and the Alexandrian War, The African War, and The Spanish War, completing the Civil Wars) provide a slightly different perspective on his behavior. Cicero’s
extensive writings provide a great deal of material on Caesar and attitudes toward
his behavior. The biographies of Plutarch and Suetonius contain much material not
mentioned elsewhere, and both Dio and Appian supplement these works. All of these
sources must be used with some caution, since Caesar was a highly controversial figure
during and after his lifetime.
The modern literature on Caesar is extensive. Good starting points are offered by
Mattias Gelzer, Caesar, trans. Peter Needham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1968), Christian Meier, Caesar, trans D. McLintock (New York: Basic Books,
1996), and Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: The Life of a Colossus (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2006). Almost a century after its publication, T. Rice Holmes’s Caesar’s
Conquest of Gaul, 2nd ed. (1911), continues to provide one of the most thorough discus-
sions of the Gallic wars.
Lawrence J. F. Keppie’s The Making of the Roman Army (London: Batsford; Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984) is one of the best and most accessible surveys of its
development in this period. Also of interest are Emilio Gabba, The Roman Republic, the
Army and the Allies, trans. P. J. Cuff (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1976), Jacques Harmand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome de 107 à 50 avant nôtre ère
(Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1967), and Richard Edwin Smith, Service in the Post-Marian Roman
Army (Manchester, UK: University of Manchester Press, 1958). Nathan S. Rosenstein,
Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Re-
public (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), is useful on the
behavior expected of a Roman commander in battle, and there is further discussion of
this in Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1996), 116–70. The collection of papers in Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War
Commentaries as Political Instruments, ed. Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell (London:
Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 1998), includes a number of useful discus-
sions of Caesar’s presentation of his campaigns in the Commentarii.
notes
1 Suetonius Caesar 30.4.
2 Pliny Natural History 7.92.
3 Cicero Letters to Atticus 7.11.
4 Plutarch Sulla 38.
5 For a discussion of Caesar’s early career, see Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: The Life
of a Colossus (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 65–66, 148–50, 185; Christian
Meier, Caesar, trans. David McLintock (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 99–189; and Mat-
tias Gelzer, Caesar, trans. Peter Needham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1968), 21–24, 28–29, 61–63.
6 Sallust Catiline 54.4.
7 Peter Wiseman, “The Publication of the De Bello Gallico,” in Julius Caesar as Artful
Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments, ed. Kathryn Welch and Anton
Powell, 1–9 (London: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 1998).
The General as State 225
8 For the importance of rivers, see David Braund, “River Frontiers in the Environ-
mental Psychology of the Roman World,” in The Roman Army in the Eas
t, ed. David
Kennedy, JRA Supplementary Series 18 (1996): 43–47.
9 Caesar Gallic War 4.38.
10 Plutarch Cato the Younger 51; Suetonius Julius Caesar 24.3; with Gelzer, Caesar, 130–
32, and Meier, Caesar,282–84.
11 On Caesar’s diplomacy, see the discussion in Goldsworthy, Caesar, 315–17.
12 See, e.g., the career and eventual execution of the chieftain Acco, Caesar Gallic
War 6.4, 44.
13 Dio 40.41.1, 3.
14 Caesar Gallic War 8.49.
15 For rumors, see, e.g., Caelius’s report to Cicero, in Cicero Letters to His Friends
8.1.4.
16 On the army in this period, see F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War under the Repub-
lic, Martin Classical Lectures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940); Peter
A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, 225 bc–ad 14 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Peter
Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981); Emilio
Gabba, The Roman Republic, the Army and the Allies, trans. P. J. Cuff (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1976); Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Ro-
man Army (London: Batsford; Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1984); Jacques Har-
mand, L’armée et le soldat à Rome de 107 à 50 avant nôtre ère (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1967); and
Richard Edwin Smith, Service in the Post-Marian Roman Army (Manchester, UK: Univer-
sity of Manchester Press, 1958).
17 On discipline, see Suetonius Caesar 65, 67; Plutarch Caesar 17; on the importance
of the general as a witness to behavior, see Adrian K. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at
War, 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 162–63.
18 See, e.g., the case of Cicero’s client Trebatius, in Cicero Letters to His Friends 7.5, let-
ters to Trebatius, Letters to His Friends 7.6–19; Cicero Letters to His Brother Quintus 2.15a, 3
for quotation; see also Gelzer, Caesar, 138–39; on plunder, see Catullus 29.
19 Suetonius Caesar 24.
20 On promotions of centurions for gallantry, see Gallic War 6.40; Suetonius Caesar
65.1; on centurions’ command style and heavy casualties, see Goldsworthy, The Roman
Army at War, 257–58, see Caesar Gallic War 7.51, Civil War 3.99; on the competition to show conspicuous valor and win promotion or reward, see Gallic Wars 5.44, 7.47, 50;
Civil War 3.91.
21 The eagle bearer of the Tenth: Caesar Gallic War 4.25; the Sambre: see Caesar
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