Complete Works of Velleius Paterculus

by Velleius Paterculus

  XXXVII

  During the time of these transactions in Rome and Italy, Cnæus Pompey was carrying on the war with extraordinary success against Mithridates, who, after the departure of Lucullus, had formed a new army of very great force. But the king being routed and put to flight, and stripped of all his forces, went into Armenia, to his son-in-law Tigranes, the most powerful prince of that age, had not his strength been somewhat reduced by the arms of Lucullus. Pompey, therefore, in pursuit of both, entered Armenia. The son of Tigranes, who was at variance with his father, was the first to meet Pompey, and soon after, the king himself, in a suppliant manner, surrendered his person and his kingdom to his disposal; previously declaring, that there was no man, either of the Roman or of any other nation, to whose honour he would entrust himself, but Cnæus Pompey; that any condition, whether favourable or adverse, which he should appoint, would be tolerable to him; and that it was no disgrace to be conquered by him whom it was impossible to conquer, nor any dishonour to submit to him whom fortune had raised above all men. The king was allowed to retain the honour of sovereignty, but was obliged to pay a vast sum of money; the whole of which, according to Pompey’s constant practice, was lodged in the hands of the quæstor, and registered in the public accounts. Syria and the other provinces which he had seized, were taken from him; of which some were restored to the Roman people, and others came for the first time under its dominion, as Syria, which was sentenced to pay tribute. The limits of the king’s dominion were fixed as those of Armenia.

  XXXVIII

  It seems not inconsistent with the plan of this work to recount briefly what states and nations have been reduced, and under whose generalship, into the form of provinces, and made tributary. This statement I shall give, that the whole history of them may more easily be learned at one view, than if each were mentioned separately. The first who transported an army into Sicily was the consul Claudius; and about fifty-two years after, Claudius Marcellus, having taken Syracuse, made it a province. Regulus first carried hostilities into Africa, about the ninth year of the first Punic war; but it was not till a hundred and five years after, (a hundred and seventy-five years from the present time,) that Publius Scipio Æmilianus, on destroying Carthage, reduced Africa into the form of a province. Sardinia submitted to a permanent yoke of government between the first and second Punic wars, through the exertions of the consul Titus Manlius. It is a strong proof of the warlike disposition of the Roman nation, that the shutting of the temple of double-faced Janus gave indication of general peace, only once under the kings, a second time in the consulship of this Titus Manlius, and a third time in the reign of Augustus. The first who led armies into Spain were the two Scipios, Cnæus and Publius, in the beginning of the second Punic war, two hundred and fifty years ago; after that, our possessions there varied, and were often partly lost, but the whole was made tributary by the arms of Augustus. Paulus subdued Macedonia, Mummius Achaia, Fulvius Nobilior Ætolia. Lucius Scipio, brother of Africanus, took Asia from Antiochus; but after it had been possessed some time by the royal family of Attalus, through the kindness of the Roman senate and people, Marcus Perperna, having taken Aristonicus prisoner, made it a tributary province. Of conquering Cyprus the honour can be given to no one; for it was in consequence of a decree of the senate, and by the instrumentality of Cato, on the death of its king, which, conscious of guilt, he inflicted on himself, that it became a province. Crete was punished, under the command of Metellus, with the loss of its long-enjoyed liberty, and Syria and Pontus are monuments of the valour of Cnæus Pompey.

  XXXIX

  In Gaul, which was first entered with an army by Domitius, and Fabius the grandson of Paulus, who got the title of Allobrogicus, we often, with great detriment to ourselves, made acquisitions and lost them. But the most splendid achievements of Caius Cæsar is there conspicuous; for, under his conduct and auspices, it was so reduced, that it tamely pays almost the same tribute as all the rest of the world. By the same commander Numidia was made a province. Isauricus completely subdued Cilicia, and Manlius Vulso Gallogræcia, after the war with Antiochus. Bithynia, as we have stated, was left us as an inheritance by the will of Nicomedes. The divine Augustus, beside Spain and other nations, with the names of which his Forum is adorned, brought into the treasury, by making Egypt tributary, almost as great a revenue as his father did by the reduction of Gaul. Tiberius Cæsar extorted from the Illyrians and Dalmatians as explicit a confession of subjection as his parent had exacted from the Spaniards, and annexed to our empire, as new provinces, Rhætia, Vindelicia, Noricum, Pannonia, and the Scordisci. As he reduced these by arms, so, by the influence of his name, he made Cappadocia tributary to the Romans. But let us return to the course of our narrative.

  XL

  Then followed the military exploits of Cnæus Pompey, of which it is hard to tell, whether the glory or the toil was greater. In his victorious career, he traversed Media, Albania, Iberia, and then directed his march to the nations inhabiting the interior and right-hand coasts of the Pontus Euxinus, the Colchians, Heniochi, and Achæans. Mithridates, sinking under the ascendancy of Pompey, and the treachery of his own son Pharnaces, was the last of independent kings, excepting the Parthian40. Thus Pompey, victorious over every nation to which he had gone, grown greater than the wish of his countrymen or even than his own, and having in every way exceeded the measure of human fortune, returned to Italy. An opinion that had prevailed rendered his return extremely popular; for most people had asserted that he would not come into the city without his army, and that he would limit the liberty of the people by his own will. The more strongly they were affected by this apprehension, the more grateful was the unassuming manner in which that great commander returned; for, having disbanded his whole army at Brundisium, and retaining nothing of the general but the title, he entered the city with no other retinue than that which was constantly accustomed to attend him. During two days he exhibited a most magnificent triumph over so many kings, and, out of the spoils, brought into the treasury a much larger sum of money than had been known in any former instance, excepting that of Paulus41. During the absence of Pompey, Titus Ampius and Titus Labienus, tribunes of the people, got a law passed, that at the games in the Circus he might wear a crown of laurel, and all the dress usual in triumphs; and at exhibitions on the stage, a purple-bordered robe, and laurel crown; but this privilege he never thought proper to use but once, and, in truth, even that was too much. Fortune added to this man’s dignity with such large increase, that he triumphed first over Africa, then over Europe, and next over Asia, rendering each part of the world a monument of his victories. But eminent stations are never exempt from envy. Lucullus, who, however, was moved by resentment of the ill-treatment shown him, and Metellus Creticus, who had a just cause of complaint, (for Pompey had taken from him some captive leaders that were intended to grace his triumph,) in conjunction with many of the nobles, laboured to prevent both Pompey’s engagements to the several states, and his promises of rewards to the deserving, from being fulfilled according to his direction.

  XLI

  Next followed the consulship of Caius Cæsar, who arrests me as I am writing, and forces me, though in haste, to bestow some attention on him. He was born of the most noble, and, as all writers admit, most ancient family of the Julii, deriving his pedigree from Anchises and Venus. In personal beauty he was the first of all his countrymen; in vigour of mind indefatigable; liberal to excess; in spirit elevated above the nature and conception of man; in the grandeur of his designs, the celerity of his military operations, and in his cheerful endurance of dangers, exactly resembling Alexander the Great when sober and free from passion. Food he took for the sustenance of life, not for pleasure. Though he was closely connected in relationship with Caius Marius, and was also son-in-law to Cinna, (whose daughter he could by no intimidation be induced to divorce, though Marcus Piso, a man of consular rank, to gratify Sylla, had divorced Annia, who had been wife of Cinna,) and though he was only about nineteen
years old when Sylla assumed the government of the state, yet the ministers and creatures of Sylla, more than himself, made search for him, in order to kill him; on which he changed his clothes, and, putting on a dress far inferior to his rank, escaped out of the city in the night. Afterwards, while he was still very young, he was taken by pirates, and during the whole time that he was detained by them, behaved in such a manner, that he became an object both of terror and veneration to them; nor did he ever, by night or by day, take off his shoes or his girdle, (for why should so remarkable a circumstance be omitted, though it cannot be told with any grace of style?) lest, if he made any alteration in his usual dress, he should render himself suspected by those who watched him only with their eyes42.

  XLII

  It would require too much space to speak of all his various and numerous services, or of the conduct of the Roman magistrate, who then governed Asia, and who, through timidity, shrunk from seconding his efforts. Let what follows be mentioned, as a specimen of the conduct of a man soon to become so great. On the night succeeding the day on which he was ransomed by the public money of several states, (which, however, he managed so as to make the pirates give hostages to those states,) he collected a squadron of private vessels hastily fitted out, and sailing to the place where the pirates were, dispersed part of their fleet, sunk part, took several of their ships and men, and then, delighted at the success of his nocturnal expedition, returned to his friends. Having lodged his prisoners in custody, he proceeded to Bithynia, to the proconsul Junius, the governor of Asia, and requested him to give orders for putting the prisoners to death. This he refused, and said he would sell them, (for envy was the concomitant of his baseness of spirit43,) when Cæsar, with incredible speed, returned to the coast, and before letters from the proconsul about the business could be conveyed to any one, crucified the whole of the prisoners.

  XLIII

  Returning in haste to Italy, to take on him the priest’s office, (for he had been elected a pontifex in his absence, in the room of Cotta, who had been consul; and when almost a boy, indeed, he had been appointed a priest of Jupiter by Marius and Cinna, but had lost that office through the victory of Sylla, who annulled all their acts,) he embarked, in order to escape the notice of the pirates, who covered the whole sea, and were then naturally incensed against him, in a four-oared boat, with two friends and ten servants, and thus crossed the vast gulf of the Adriatic. On his passage, having seen, as he thought, some of the pirates’ vessels, he threw off his gown, and fastened his dagger to his side, preparing himself for any event, but soon discovered that his sight had been deceived by a row of trees at a distance presenting the appearance of the rigging of ships. The rest of his acts in the city, his celebrated impeachment of Dolabella, to whom more public favour was shown than is generally extended to persons arraigned; his remarkable political contests with Quintus Catulus, and other eminent men; his victory, before he was prætor, and when he stood for the office of pontifex maximus, over the same Quintus Catulus, who was universally allowed to be the first man in the senate; his repairing, in his ædileship, the monuments of Caius Marius, even in opposition to the nobility; his re-instatement, at the same time, of the sons of the proscribed in the right of standing for office; his wonderful energy and activity in his prætorship and quæstorship in Spain, (where he was under Antistius Vetus, the grandfather of the present Vetus, who has been consul and is a pontifex, and who is the father of two sons that have been consuls and are priests, a man of as much virtue as human integrity can be conceived to embrace,) all these matters are too well known to require repetition here.

  XLIV

  In his consulship, there was settled between him, Cnæus Pompey, and Marcus Crassus, a treaty of alliance in power, which proved of fatal consequence to the city and to the world, and not less so, at subsequent periods, to themselves. Pompey’s motive for entering into this plan was, that his acts in the provinces beyond sea, which were opposed by many, as we have already mentioned, might at length be confirmed by means of Cæsar, while Consul; Cæsar’s, because he imagined, he should advance his own, and that by throwing on him the jealousy attending their common greatness, he should gain stability to his own strength; while Crassus was filled with the hope of acquiring, through the influence of Pompey, and the support of Cæsar, that pre-eminence which he never could attain by his own single efforts. An affinity had also been contracted by marriage between Cæsar and Pompey; for Pompey had married Cæsar’s daughter. In his consulship, Cæsar procured a law to be passed, which was also supported by Pompey, that the lands of Campania should be divided among the people; in consequence of which, about twenty thousand citizens were conducted thither, and the privileges of Rome were restored to that country, about a hundred and fifty-two years after Capua had, in the Punic war, been reduced by the Romans into the condition of a prefecture. Bibulus, Cæsar’s colleague, being more willing than able to obstruct his proceedings, confined himself to his house during the greater part of the year; by which conduct, while he wished to increase the odium against his colleague, he only increased his power. The province of Gaul was then decreed to Cæsar for five years.

  XLV

  During this period, Publius Clodius, a man of noble birth, eloquent, and daring, who knew no control for his words or actions but his own will, who fearlessly executed what he wickedly conceived, who bore the infamy of an incestuous commerce with his own sister, and who had been publicly accused of having committed adultery amidst the most solemn religious rites of the Roman people; this man, I say, being actuated by a most violent enmity to Marcus Cicero, (for how, indeed, could anything like friendship subsist between characters so dissimilar?) renounced his patrician rank, became a plebeian, was appointed a tribune, and passed a law in his tribunate, that any person who had put a Roman citizen to death without a judicial sentence, should be sent into banishment44. It was Cicero alone, though he was not named in this law, that was meant to be affected by it. Thus a man, who had performed the highest services to the state, received, in return for having saved his country, the penalty of exile. Cæsar and Pompey did not escape suspicion of having abetted this persecution of Cicero, who seemed to have brought it on himself by refusing to be one of the twenty commissioners for dividing the lands of Campania. In less than two years, however, by the late but intrepid exertions of Cnæus Pompey, joined with the wishes of all Italy and the decrees of the senate, and through the energy and efforts of Annius Milo, a tribune of the people, he was restored to his dignity and his country. Nor, since the exile and recal of Numidicus, had the banishment of any one excited more regret, or the return more joy. His house, which had been pulled down with great malice by Clodius, the senate rebuilt with equal magnificence.

  The same Publius Clodius removed Marcus Cato from the seat of government, under pretence of giving him a very honourable employment; for he procured a law to be passed, that he should be sent in character of quæstor, but with the authority of prætor, and with another quæstor attending him, into the island of Cyprus, to despoil Ptolemy of his kingdom, who, indeed, deserved such treatment by the general viciousness of his life. But, just before Cato’s arrival, he put an end to his own life, and Cato brought home from Cyprus a much larger quantity of treasure than had been expected. To praise Cato for his honesty, would be rather derogatory to him than otherwise; but to accuse him of ostentatiously displaying it, would seem but just; for when all the populace of the city, together with the consuls and the senate, poured forth to salute him as he was sailing up the Tiber, he did not disembark to meet them until he arrived at the spot where the treasure was to be landed.

  XLVI

  While Cæsar was achieving vast exploits in Gaul, the relation of which would require many volumes, and, not content with numerous and glorious victories, or with killing or taking great multitudes of the enemy, had at last transported his army into Britain, seeking, as it were, a new world for our government and his own, a remarkable pair of consuls45, Cnæus Pompey and Marcus Cr
assus, entered on a second consulship, which they neither acquired by honourable means, nor conducted in a praiseworthy manner. By a law which Pompey proposed to the people, the government of his province was continued to Cæsar for the same length of time as before, and Syria was decreed to Crassus, who now meditated a war with Parthia. This man, in other respects irreproachable, and unstained by dissipation, knew no limits, and imposed no restraint on himself, in his pursuit of wealth and glory. When he was setting out for Syria, the tribunes of the people strove in vain to detain him, by announcing unfavourable omens; and, had their curses taken effect on him alone, the loss of the general, while the army was safe, would have been rather an advantage to the public. Crassus had crossed the Euphrates, and was on his march towards Seleucia, when king Orodes, surrounding him with an immense force of cavalry, slew him, together with the greater part of the Roman army. Caius Cassius, (who was afterwards guilty of a most atrocious crime46,) being at that time quæstor, preserved the remains of the legions, ably retained Syria under the power of the Romans, and routed, with distinguished success, the Parthians who had invaded it, and compelled them to flee.