From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  Pompey next carried two other measures. A law de iure magistratuum enacted that all candidates must appear in person. This may have been aimed at Caesar, but more probably the privilegium granted to him by the law of the ten tribunes would be valid against it; however, to avoid misunderstanding, Pompey personally added a clause to except Caesar. Pompey’s second measure confirmed a senatorial resolution of 53 and prescribed a five years’ interval between a magistracy and a promagistracy. This law, which superseded that of Gaius Gracchus (p. 30), may have been designed to check ambition and promote efficiency rather than to embarrass Caesar. It did, however, embarrass Cicero; since there was a shortage of available governors and he had not already held a proconsulship, he was reluctantly sent to Cilicia.25a Nor did Pompey neglect his own interests: though in the course of the summer he took a consular colleague, his new father-in-law Metellus Scipio, he secured a continuation of his command in Spain for five years. As he took no corresponding action on Caesar’s behalf, this was clearly not in the spirit of the provincial arrangements agreed upon at Luca.

  Meantime during 52 Caesar had weathered the storm of the revolt of Vercingetorix in Gaul and his campaigns were drawing to a successful conclusion. This will have stimulated the jealousy of Pompey and the apprehensions of the Optimates. Many of the latter therefore, men like Cato, Domitius Ahenobarbus, M. Brutus, the Metelli, Claudii Marcelli and Cornelii Lentuli, decided to turn to Pompey, even if not all of them approved of him. One of the consuls of 51, M. Marcellus, then moved to the attack. After securing the rejection of a request by Caesar that his command should be extended to the end of 49, he proposed that the Senate should consider the question of superseding Caesar on the ground that the Gallic war was over, and he challenged the validity of the law of the ten tribunes, though he met with tribunician vetoes. He then insulted Caesar by flogging a senator of Novum Comum as a demonstration that the town did not enjoy Roman citizenship when Caesar had been treating the Transpadanes as full citizens. Finally, he persuaded the Senate to agree that the possibility of a successor to Caesar should be discussed on 1 March 50.

  To meet such attacks Caesar needed an agent in Rome and he secured the support of one of the tribunes of 50, a bankrupt young nobleman named C. Scribonius Curio, who promptly exercised his veto on 1 March.26 Not long afterwards, when news came of a Parthian threat to Syria, the Senate voted that Pompey and Caesar should each send a legion: Pompey weakened Caesar by contributing a legion that he had lent in 53 to Caesar, who thus lost two; nor were the troops sent out of Italy, since better news came from the East. During the summer the consul C. Marcellus (cousin of the consul of 51) failed to persuade the Senate to compel Curio to withdraw his veto. Pompey remained undecided and outwardly ambiguous, and the year dragged on amid increasing apprehension of war. Then on 1 December Curio forced the Senate to vote on his proposal that both Caesar and Pompey should give up their commands and disarm: the motion was carried by 370 to 22 (such was the longing for peace), but it was promptly vetoed. The extreme Optimates refused to capitulate, and on the next day Marcellus asked Pompey to save the Republic and assume command of all forces in Italy. At last Pompey was driven to a decision: he accepted the call.

  Caesar, who was in winter quarters near Ravenna, made several attempts to reach a compromise. M. Antony (tribune in 49) forced the consuls on 1 January 49 to read an offer from Caesar to implement Curio’s earlier disarmament proposal; the consuls, backed by Pompey, refused to allow a vote. Metellus Scipio proposed that Caesar should be declared a public enemy unless he laid down his arms before a certain day (this will have been 1 March, if that was the terminal date of his command; otherwise, if this had already gone by, e.g. 13 November 50, it will have been a date to be fixed); the proposal was passed but vetoed by Antony. Cicero, who had just arrived back from Cilicia, tried to negotiate, but in vain. On 7 January Antony and a fellow-tribune were warned to leave the Senate, which then passed the senatus consultum ultimum; they fled to Caesar. From Ravenna Caesar advanced to Ariminum: in doing so he cast his die, because between these cities flowed the Rubicon, a little stream that separated his province of Cisalpine Gaul from Italy. The Civil War had begun.

  If the technical responsibility for war rested on the shoulders of Caesar, it was clearly desired neither by him (witness his negotiations), nor by Pompey (witness his vacillations), nor by the vast majority of senators (witness their vote of 1 December), and still less by the bulk of the population of Italy who showed no enthusiasm to rise in defence of the constitution. Caesar himself perhaps put his finger on the point when, surveying the Optimate dead on the battle-field of Pharsalus, he exclaimed, ‘Hoc voluerunt’. It was the small Optimate clique, the twenty-two senators who voted against disarmament, that forced the issue. Caesar had been compelled either to resort to force or go to Rome as a private citizen which would lead at least to political extinction and possibly to physical danger. The Optimate rump claimed to represent legitimate authority against a traitor, but their violation of the tribunician veto mocked their claims to legality. The hands of none of the leaders were spotless: behind them all gleamed the corrupting influence of power. No real principles were at stake. That was the tragedy. It was a struggle for personal power, prestige and honour, without regard for the libertas of others. Caesar frankly admitted that ‘his dignitas had ever been dearer to him than life itself’. Of Pompey it was written: ‘occultior non melior’.27

  8. CRASSUS AND PARTHIA

  The Parthian kingdom had been formed by a semi-nomadic people who moved into the Seleucid satrapy of Parthia in the mid-third century and gradually extended their rule from the Euphrates to the Indus, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf, with their capital at Ecbatana. In their eastern expansion they were able to roll back a vast nomadic movement which had started when the Yueh-chi (or Tochari), driven out of N.W. China, had displaced on their march various tribes that were collectively called the Sacae. While the Yueh-chi overthrew the Greek kingdom in Bactria (Afghanistan), the Sacae broke into the Parthian province of Seistan (c. 128), from which they were soon driven out and forced eastwards to India. With peace established, the Parthian king made contacts with west and east. His envoys met Sulla in 92 on the Euphrates (p. 62) and he received an embassy from the Chinese Han emperor which opened up for Parthia the caravan Silk Route from China through Chinese Turkestan. In overrunning Seleucid Babylonia, the Parthians became masters of a Greek kingdom, but though they took over Greek methods of administration and made use of Greek secretaries, Greek science, and the Greek language for trading purposes, they were not deeply affected by Greek culture. When they conquered these wide areas, the native population naturally remained basically the same: the Parthians formed a landowning aristocracy of king and feudal nobles. The language that they used was a form of Persian (Pahlavi), but they have left no literature behind, although Greek literature flourished in the East in the first century B.C.: a ‘History of Parthia’ was written by Apollodorus of Artemita in Parthia, and a description of the empire was given by Isodore of Charax in his ‘Parthian Stations’. It was rather in the art of war that the Parthians made original contributions. They relied primarily on cavalry, of two kinds. They bred a strong charger, on which the nobles fought as cataphracts, heavily mailed knights with huge spears. Besides these predecessors of the medieval knights, they employed horse-archers who were mounted on light horses and were armed with an asymmetrical bow, which they used with great skill in the ‘Parthian shot’ fired over the crupper as they pretended to flee. But though they had perhaps 6000 cataphracts and 40,000 horse-archers, the legionminded Romans did not appreciate their strength – before Crassus!

  The earlier friendly relations of Parthia with Rome were undermined by the folly of Pompey (p. 87) and by Gabinius, who as proconsul of Syria in 55 gave temporary support to a rebel brother of King Orodes II who had just come to the throne. It was the Romans, however, that turned to war. Crassus wanted a military reputation to balance that of his triumviral colleagu
es. Leaving Rome before the end of his consular year, he advanced with seven legions into Mesopotamia in 54, where he gained some success. Hoping to get some cavalry from his Armenian ally Artavasdes, he returned to the attack in 53. Orodes himself covered Armenia, and entrusted the defence of Mesopotamia to a member of the noble Suren family, a general of no mean ability. When Crassus gathered that Suren (his personal name is unknown) was in the desert east of the Euphrates, he decided to leave the protection of the river and march against the Parthian force: for this move he has sometimes been blamed, but he has also been justified on the ground that if his objective was Seleucia, he would at some time have had to risk crossing open country.

  After a hard march the Romans reached a tributary of the Euphrates near Carrhae when Crassus learnt that the Parthians were on them. He formed his men into a square, and sent out a covering force of Gallic cavalry which his son Publius had brought from Caesar in Gaul. But in vain: Publius’ men were overwhelmed. Meantime the main body was trying to stand up to the showers of Parthian arrows, which were discharged both straight and low and ‘lobbed’ in from above, so that the legionaries soon discovered that a shield could not cover both body and head. Those that survived, endured patiently, knowing that the enemy’s ammunition must soon run out. But here they reckoned without the genius of Suren, who had organized a special corps of 1000 Arabian camels, one for every ten men, which brought up almost limitless supplies of arrows. After dark Crassus, who failed to risk a night attack on the enemy and their tired horses, abandoned 4000 wounded and retired to Carrhae. Without adequate provisions and deserted by his quaestor Cassius (later Caesar’s murderer), he was forced by his demoralized troops to treat with the enemy. Though he knew he was riding into a trap, he met the Parthians, only to be cut down. Some 10,000 survivors ultimately reached Syria, while a like number were settled as prisoners by the Parthians at Merv (Alexandria) in Margiane not far from the Oxus.

  The Parthians advanced again to the Euphrates, but an attack on Syria was delayed by the fact that Orodes suspected that Suren might be dangerously successful and had him killed. When they did invade Syria (51), they were soon driven out by Cassius. At Rome civil war distracted attention from the East, and Parthia did not renew her attacks. She was content with the result of Carrhae and with the legionary eagles that she had captured and was to keep for thirty years.28

  VII

  THE DOMINATION OF CAESAR1

  1. CONDITIONS IN GAUL

  When by the lex Vatinia in 59 (p. 98) Caesar received the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, he must have been well satisfied. Cisalpine Gaul provided a fine recruiting ground and it was near enough to Rome to allow him to keep in touch with political events. He had in fact to fight on two fronts: while campaigning in the north he must defend and consolidate his political standing in Rome against all attacks. Further, Illyricum offered him the prospect of campaigning against Burebistas, king of the Dacians (living in what is now Romania), who had created an extensive empire in the Danubian lands and threatened the frontiers of Macedonia.2 Since Caesar concentrated three of his four legions at Aquileia he appears to have intended to deal with this potential menace to the north-east frontiers of the Roman empire, where he might possibly have anticipated the achievement of Augustus. But when the Senate suddenly added Transalpine Gaul to his other provinces, the direction of his interest turned rather to the north-west.

  Since the defeat of the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae by Marius, conditions in Gallia Transalpina had not been very happy: Roman publicani and businessmen followed the armies, and Cicero in the speech which he delivered in defence of M. Fonteius, who had been governor c. 76–74 after a revolt stimulated by Sertorius’ successes, reveals how heavy was the burden of the unfortunate provincials: ‘Not a single sesterce in Gaul ever changes hands without being entered in the account-books of Roman citizens.’ The governorship of L. Murena (64–63), who had Clodius on his staff, was not a happier period, and so unsatisfactory was the Roman response to an appeal for relief from debt from the Allobroges, whose envoys had made contact with the Catilinarian conspirators, that they rebelled (61) but were reduced after the destruction of Valentia (Valence).

  Outer Gaul, or Gallia Comata (‘long-haired Gaul’) as the Romans called it, was a vast country. Its population was mixed but predominantly Celtic;3 there was a substratum of pre-Celtic Iberians and Ligurians, but the Celts, who had come in from over the Rhine (from c. 800 B.C.), occupied most of the land. The Belgae, another group of Celts (with some German admixture), settled north of the Seine and Marne about 200, and not very long before Caesar’s day some of them had crossed the Channel and settled in S.E. Britain. The civilization of the Gauls was mixed, in some respects advanced, in others backward. They practised agriculture and stock-breeding, mining and metallurgy. They made use of the fine river system to develop commerce, stimulated at first no doubt by the example of the Greek colony of Massilia near the mouth of the Rhone; and for trade they used coinage, both Greek and native copies. Their predominant language was naturally Celtic, but they did not know writing, except the Druids who used a Greek script. They had developed some small town centres (e.g. Avaricum = Bourges; Cenabum = Orleans), but they were politically backward. Most of their clans (pagi) had united into tribes (civitates) which were often at war with one another. Tribal kings survived among the Belgae and in Britain, but elsewhere they had mostly been replaced by aristocracies with one or more annual magistrates. The bulk of the population was probably in a state of semi-serfdom.

  The nobility to some extent shared political power and wealth with the Druids, a privileged religious hierarchy which was excused from taxation and military service.4 These priests, who met annually under an arch-Druid in the district of the Carnutes, took a large part in the administration of justice, but they probably did not greatly help the political unification of the country because they may have been divided among themselves as were the nobles. Their religious views are obscure, but they believed in the immortality of the soul, indulged in human sacrifice, and worshipped their gods in groves without temples or images.

  Since the Gauls lacked political unity, their military efforts were naturally weakened by lack of organization, by tribal rivalries, and by a desire to scatter after battle for plunder or to return home. Their main arm was cavalry, though the Helvetii and Nervii still relied much on infantry; the war-chariot had gone out of use in Gaul, though not in Britain. The serfs and retainers of the nobles were not well-trained or disciplined. Thus Caesar may have hoped for easy victory.

  Roman intervention resulted from two tribal movements, those of the Germanic Suebi, led by Ariovistus, and of the Celtic Helvetii. These two peoples had long been in hostile contact. From about 400 B.C. the Helvetii had occupied an area south of the Maine and east of the Rhine (Baden, Wurttemberg, and part of Bavaria) until at the end of the second century they had been driven southwards into Switzerland by the German Suebi who in their expansion south-west reached the Rhine. Even in their new home the Helvetii were subjected to constant German pressure from the north. Soon, however, the Suebi were offered a chance to advance into Gaul. The strongest tribe in central Gaul, the Aedui (south-west of Dijon), who were friends of Rome, were at logger-heads with their easterly neighbours, the Sequani. The latter short-sightedly invited the Suebic Ariovistus to come to their help from over the Rhine. Nothing loth, he came and assisted them to defeat the Aedui, but then he settled down in Alsace with large numbers of his German followers, and refused to budge despite pressure from the Sequani and Aedui whom this common threat now united. The Aedui then appealed to their Roman friends, but the Senate failed to follow up an initial promise of help, and two years later Ariovistus was even recognized as a Friend of the Roman People, perhaps as a temporizing measure. The second disturbance arose from the Helvetii (in Switzerland); feeling German pressure from Alsace and from over the Rhine, they decided to seek new homes in western Gaul by a mass migration. This was planned to start in 58 and to pa
ss peacefully through Roman territory near Geneva.

  2. THE REDUCTION OF GAUL (58–56 B.C.)5

  In the spring of 58 news reached Caesar that the Helvetii had burned their homes and were on the move, their men, women and children numbering over a third of a million. With one legion he hastened to block their route just west of Geneva and thus forced them northwards through the territory of the Sequani. He followed, joined soon by five more legions. His motives in thus seeking war with the Helvetii must remain uncertain, whether the desire for personal military glory or a genuine conviction that only by such action could the future safety of the frontiers of the Roman province be safeguarded; at any rate he rejected any attempt at a purely diplomatic settlement, as for instance an effort to unite the Gallic tribes against Ariovistus and the Germans. His excuse might be the Helvetian attack on his troops near Geneva or that on the Aedui after they had crossed the Saône. However that may be, he followed them up until he had to turn aside for supplies to the Aeduan capital of Bibracte (near Autun). The Helvetii, who unexpectedly followed him there, were decisively beaten after a tense struggle, but for the most part they were allowed to return to their original country, where they would help to cover the Roman province against German pressure.