Caesar: Life of a Colossus

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  As the summer drew on, Cicero reported that the most vocal opponent of the triumvirs was Caius Scribonius Curio, son of the consul of 76 BC. Like Caius Cato, Curio was still a young man, and it is striking that the triumvirs faced little open criticism from distinguished senators and former magistrates. It was another indication of the weakness of the senior ranks of the Senate in these years, largely as a result of the civil war and more recent disturbances. Sometimes, however, it was a crowd of ordinary citizens who chose to protest. Pompey was hissed when he took his seat in a place of honour at games held by Gabinius, the man who as tribune had secured him the command against the pirates and subsequently served as his legate. At a play an actor was cheered when he emphasised the line `You are great through our misery', which was evidently meant to be taken as an attack on Pompey the Great. According to Cicero:

  When Caesar came in the cheering died away; but then young Curio followed him and there was applause of the kind Pompey used to get in the days when the Republic was still secure. Caesar was very irritated. They say that a letter flew to Pompey at Capua. They are upset with the equites who rose and cheered Curio - they [the triumvirate] are now enemies of everyone.36

  Bibulus' vitriolic and often filthy edicts were read with glee by many citizens, and Cicero spoke of the crowd that was usually clustered around them in the Forum. Their enjoyment need not have been a sign of particular sympathy for the housebound consul - throughout the ages political satire has often amused even those who disagreed with it. The Romans had a robust sense of humour and enjoyed such crude invective. Caesar was the target for much of his colleague's insults, but seems not to have been bothered by it. Pompey never coped well with criticism and on 25 July was moved to make a speech in the Forum defending himself against these slurs. Cicero found the sight pathetic, for he continued to hope for a renewal of friendship with the man he had praised so often, but noted that all Pompey achieved was to attract even more attention to Bibulus' pamphlets. Pompey was by this time continually assuring Cicero that he need have no fears of Clodius. The latter had evidently dropped his plans to attack Caesar's laws - if indeed he had ever seriously considered this and was not aiming at the tribunate all along. By the autumn Cicero felt, or perhaps wanted to believe, that Pompey regretted the disturbances of earlier in the year and his alienation from the nobles in the Senate.37

  In late summer or early autumn a strange episode occurred, which is still not fully understood. Vettius, the man who in 62 Bc had accused Caesar of complicity in Catiline's conspiracy and been beaten and imprisoned for his pains (see p.145), was brought before the Senate and declared that he knew of another `plot'. He had become friendly with Curio and eventually told him that he planned to murder Pompey - or both Pompey and Caesar in another version. Curio told his father, who promptly told Pompey, and the Senate was summoned and called Vettius in for questioning. Now he accused Bibulus of inciting Curio to murder Pompey, and perhaps Caesar as well. He named several other conspirators, among them Servilia's son Brutus, now in his mid twenties. He, and at least one of the other men named, could perhaps be seen to possess a motive, since Pompey had executed their fathers during the civil war. One of Bibulus' servants was supposed to have supplied the dagger that the young conspirators were to use. At the time Cicero believed that Caesar was behind Vettius, and that he had wanted to neutralise Curio for criticising the triumvirs. Yet it seems extremely unlikely that he would have wanted his lover's son implicated. Curio defended himself well against the attack, while Pompey had already thanked Bibulus some months before for warning him against assassins. Vettius' story was treated with great suspicion and he was placed into custody, for having by his own admission been discovered with a concealed dagger in the Forum. On the following day Caesar and Vatinius called him to the Rostra at a public meeting. This time Vettius made no mention of Brutus. Cicero, doubtless hinting at Caesar's relationship with Servilia, noted slyly that `it was obvious a night, and a night-time plea had intervened'.38 Instead he claimed that Lucullus and a number of other men were involved, one of them Cicero's own son-in-law. No one was inclined to believe him and he was to be put on trial, but was found dead in his cell before this could begin.

  How Vettius died is unclear. Plutarch says that it was called suicide, but that marks of strangulation were visible on his neck. Suetonius, who claimed that Caesar was behind the whole affair, says that he had Vettius poisoned A few years later Cicero shifted the blame for this episode onto Vatinius rather than Caesar. More recently, scholars have varied in their opinions as to who was really behind it. Some have blamed Caesar, but others have speculated about Clodius, and even Pompey himself. On the one hand, the business may have helped to make Pompey nervous, for he had always had a morbid fear of assassination, and confirm him in his loyalty to the triumvirate in spite of the barrage of abuse from Bibulus and his unaccustomed popularity. Yet the naming of Brutus makes it very unlikely that Caesar inspired the whole thing. More probably he simply sought to profit from the affair once it had been revealed. The omission of Brutus' name on the second day indicates that the informer had come under pressure. Vettius may have been acting on his own account, craving a return to the limelight or hoping to restore his fortunes with the reward an informer might win. Caesar obviously did try to use him, but quickly realised that there was little to be gained and that Vettius could not be relied upon. It is plausible enough that he gave the orders to kill the prisoner, who was after all a man who had attacked him in the past, but this cannot be proven.39

  Bibulus did manage to delay the consular elections from July to October. However, in spite of the fact that he had the right to preside over these, he remained at home and the task was left to Caesar. The consuls elected for 58 BC were Caesar's new father-in-law Calpurnius Piso and Gabinius, both of them favourable to the triumvirs. How things went in the next months would be critical for Caesar's fortunes, for the longer that his legislation was respected then the harder it would be for anyone to raise serious questions over its validity. At the end of his year as consul, Caesar lingered for some months in or near Rome to see how events were likely to take shape. Clodius had been elected to the tribunate and, since his own transferral to plebian status was bound up with the legality of Caesar's actions as consul, was now clearly going to devote much effort to confirming their validity. Dio says that he forbade Bibulus from delivering a speech when he finally emerged on the last day of his consulship - just as Metellus Nepos had stopped Cicero at the end of 63 BC. Two of the new praetors attacked Caesar, and he answered their criticisms in a meeting of the Senate. Three speeches he delivered in these debates were published to present a lasting defence of his actions in 59 BC. Sadly these have not survived. However, after three days the House had come to no decision. An attempt by one of the new tribunes to prosecute him was blocked by the majority of the college. It was not until March 58 BC that Caesar finally left for Gaul, where a situation had arisen that required his immediate attention.40

  Caesar had achieved a great deal during his consulship. An extensive programme of land resettlement was now under way and would continue throughout the decade. Pompey had secured his Eastern Settlement and Crassus had gained relief for the tax farmers. Caesar, through allying himself with the other two, had been able to do all this in the face of opposition that his initially conciliatory actions had not been able to win over. It had been a turbulent year, with tensions running high on a number of occasions. Cicero wrote in his letters of his fears of tyranny and impending civil war. Neither had happened, but many of the conventions and precedents that regulated public life had come under great strain and been further eroded. Bibulus' and Cato's determination to block Caesar at all costs had done as much damage as his own determination to push on at all costs. Yet for the moment Caesar had won, and had gained the chance to win military glory on a grand scale. Now he had a long and important provincial command it was a question of winning victories for the Republic. If his military successes were grand enoug
h - and Caesar was determined that they would be - then surely even his bitterest opponents would have to accept him as a great, perhaps the greatest, servant of the Republic, and the more dubious acts of his consulship could be forgotten or pardoned. The passage of the Lex Vatinia giving him Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, and the subsequent addition to his province of Transalpine Gaul, had delighted Caesar. Elated by this success, he declared in the Senate that, since `he had gained his greatest desire to the great grief of his enemies, he would now mount on their heads'. Whether this was an intentional double entendre or not, one senator retorted that that would be a hard thing for a woman to do, referring to the old story of Caesar and Nicomedes, which Bibulus' edicts had revived. Caesar quipped cheerfully back that it should not be difficult, since `Semiramis ... had been queen of Syria and the Amazons in days of old had held sway over a great part of Asia.' It seems fitting to end the account of this year with a crude joke, as well as an episode that shows Caesar's confidence and selfsatisfaction.`"

  PART TWO

  58-50 BC

  GAUL

  Caesar `also fought fifty pitched battles, the only commander to surpass Marcus Marcellus, who fought thirty-nine.' - Pliny the Elder, mid first century AD. i

  `Caesar possessed the highest skill and elegance of style, but also the most perfect knack of explaining his plans.' -Aulus Hirtius, 44 Bc2

  Caesar was forty-one when he set out from Rome for his province. He would not return to the city for nine years. The remainder of his life was dominated by warfare to a degree that it is difficult to exaggerate. From this moment on, there were only two years in which he was not involved in major military operations. In 50 BC this was because Gaul was conquered and he was busily engaged in settling the region. In 44 Bc he was murdered just days before setting out for grand new campaigns against first Dacia and then Parthia. In most years he fought at least one, and often several, major battles or sieges. Pliny claimed that altogether Caesar led his army in fifty battles, while Appian says that thirty of these engagements occurred during the campaigns in Gaul. It is impossible to confirm or deny the precision of these numbers, since in any period of history there is rarely agreement as to just what constitutes a battle and what is merely an engagement or skirmish. The fact remains that these authors reflected the widespread belief that Caesar had fought more often and with more consistent success than any other Roman general. Alexander, with whom he was frequently compared, took part in only five pitched battles and three major sieges, although he was in many smaller encounters. Hannibal, who was up against a very different opponent, fought more big battles, but probably did not surpass, or perhaps even equal, Caesar's total of major engagements. It was not until the era of Napoleon, with the increased intensity of warfare, that a few army leaders began to see more days of serious combat than Caesar and the other great commanders of the ancient world.'

  The contrast between Caesar's life before and after 58 BC could not be more marked. Up until then, he had spent at the very most some nine years outside Italy, and perhaps half that time in some sort of military service. This was fairly typical for a Roman senator, if anything perhaps slightly below the average, although not in comparison with men like Cicero who relied on constant appearances in the courts to keep themselves in the public eye. Once again, it is worth emphasising that for all his flamboyance, association with dubious characters and the controversial nature of some of his actions during the consulship, the overall pattern of Caesar's career had been broadly conventional. Having reached the consulship two years before the normal age, he was just marginally younger than the average proconsul. Compared to Alexander the Great, Hannibal or Pompey his opportunity came very late in life. Alexander was dead by the age of thirty-three, and Hannibal fought his last battle at forty-five. Napoleon and Wellington were just a year older than Hannibal when they clashed at Waterloo, though Blucher was seventythree. In contrast Robert E. Lee was in his fifties when the American Civil War broke out, as was Patton when America entered the Second World War. Neither by Roman nor modern standards could Caesar have been considered elderly in 58 BC, but neither would it have been obvious to any of his contemporaries that he was about to prove himself as one of the greatest commanders of all time. In the past he had shown talent, courage, and selfconfidence during his spells of military service, but plenty of other ambitious men had displayed similar ability. As always in Caesar's story, we need to be very careful not to allow hindsight to impose a sense of inevitability on events. The scale of Caesar's successes in Gaul was startling, even in a Rome so recently dazzled by Pompey's achievements. Yet the balance between success and failure was often narrow, and he might easily have been killed, or have died from accident or disease before he could return. That he would eventually come back as a rebel to fight against his former ally and son-inlaw Pompey was unlikely to have occurred to anyone. When Caesar went to Gaul he had plans and ambitions, and doubtless considered many possible outcomes, but in the end he was trusting to fortune for his future.

  THE WAR COMMENTARIES

  Caesar had worked hard to win the opportunity for such a great command, running up huge debts, taking great political risks and making many enemies. He needed colossal victories if all this was to become worthwhile, but he also had to make sure that people knew about his achievements if he was to gain real advantage from them. Pompey's campaigns against the pirates and Mithridates had been recorded by Theophanes of Mytilene, a Greek scholar who had accompanied his staff. Caesar had no need of the literary services of other men and would record his victories in his own words. He had already published a number of his speeches as well as several now lost works, some of which he had written as a youth. The Emperor Augustus later suppressed these immature works, including a tragedy entitled Oedipus, and also his Praises of Hercules and A Collection of Maxims, and none of the speeches have survived other than in fragments. There was a tradition for Roman generals to celebrate their achievements by writing commentaries - a genre that was seen as distinct from history, and was often viewed as the material for subsequent historians to use. Caesar eventually produced ten books of War Commentaries, with seven covering the operations in Gaul from 58-52 BC, and three more dealing with the Civil War against Pompey from 49-48 BC. After his death, several of his own officers added four more books covering the operations in Gaul in 51 BC, the campaigns in Egypt and the East in 48-47 BC, Africa in 46 BC, and Spain in 45 BC. No other commentaries have survived in anything other than the tiniest fragments, making it difficult to know whether or not Caesar's books conformed to the established style.4

  Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War was from the beginning acknowledged as one of the greatest works of Latin literature. Cicero had great respect for Caesar's oratory and was similarly generous in his praise of the Commentaries:

  They are admirable indeed ... like naked forms, upright and beautiful, pared of all ornamentation as if they had removed a robe. Yet while he wished to provide other authors with the means for writing history, he may only have succeeded in pleasing the incompetent, who might like to apply their `gifts' to his material, for he has deterred all sane men from writing; for there is nothing better in the writing of history than clear and distinguished brevity.'

  These words were written in 46 BC, when Cicero was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Caesar's dictatorship, so it may be that there was just a hint of double meaning when he said that `men of sound judgement' had been put off from writing their own narratives of his achievements. Nevertheless, it is clear that his praise for the literary quality of the books was entirely genuine, perhaps especially because the stark simplicity of their narrative contrasted so much with his own style of rhetoric. On one occasion Caesar declared that an orator should `avoid an unusual word as the helmsman of a ship avoided a reef'. Apart from necessary technical or foreign terms, he adhered staunchly to this principle and produced a narrative that was clear and fast-paced. Rarely, if ever, is it emotional or melodramatic, for he allowed the d
rama and importance of the events to speak for themselves. Referring to himself always in the third person, while his soldiers are nostri or `our men', he tells the story of the army of the Roman people under their properly appointed commander, as they struggle against ferocious enemies and even nature itself. At every stage Caesar presents his actions as entirely in the interest of the Republic. Although the modern reader may sometimes balk at the catalogue of unabashed imperialism, massacre, mass execution and enslavement contained in the Commentaries, a contemporary Roman would not have found these things shocking. Indeed, it must have been hard, even for one of Caesar's political opponents, not to get carried along with the excitement of the narrative.6