XLVII
Per haec insequentiaque et quae praedixirnus tempora amplius quadringenta milia hostium a C. Caesare caesa sunt, plura capta; pugnatum saepe derecta acie, saepe in agminibus, saepe eruptionibus, bis penetrata Britannia, novem denique aestatibus vix ulla non iustissimus triumphus emeritus. Circa Alesiam vero tantae res gestae, quantas audere vix hominis, perficere paene nullius nisi dei fuerit. Quarto ferme anno Caesar morabatur in Gall¸s, cum medium iam ex invidia potentiae (et viva illa) male cohaerentis inter Cn. Pompeium et C. Caesarem concordiae pignus Iulia, uxor Magni, decessit: atque omnia inter destinatos tanto discrimini duces dirimente fortuna filius quoque parvus Pompei, Iulia natus, intra breve spatium obiit. Tum in gladios caedesque civium furente ambitu, cuius neque finis reperiebatur nec modus, tertius consulatus soli Cn. Pompeio etiam adversantium antea dignitati eius iudicio delatus est, cuius ille honoris gloria veluti reconciliatis sibi optimatibus maxime a C. Caesare alienatus est; sed eius consulatus omnem vim in coercitionem ambitus exercuit. Quo tempore P. Clodius a Milone candid.ato consula,tus exemplo inutili, facto salutari rei publicae circa Bovillas contracta ex occursu rixa iugulatus est. Milonem reum non magis invidia facti quam Pompei damnavit voluntas. Quem quidem M. Cato palam lata absolvit sententia. Qui si rnaturius tulisset, non defuissent qui sequerentur esemplum probarentque eum civem occisum, quo nemo perniciosior rei publicae neque bonis inimicior vixerat.
[47] (1) During this period, including the years which immediately followed and those of which mention has already been made, more than four hundred thousand of the enemy were slain by Gaius Caesar and a greater number were taken prisoners. Many times had he fought in pitched battles, many times on the march, many times as besieger or besieged. Twice he penetrated into Britain, and in all his nine campaigns there was scarcely one which was not fully deserving of a triumph. His feats about Alesia were of a kind that a mere man would scarcely venture to undertake, and scarcely anyone but a god could carry through.
(2) About the fourth year of Caesar’s stay in Gaul occurred the death of Julia, the wife of Pompey, the one tie which bound together Pompey and Caesar in a coalition which, because of each one’s jealousy of the other’s power, held together with difficulty even during her lifetime; and, as though fortune were bent upon breaking all the bonds between the two men destined for so great a conflict, Pompey’s little son by Julia also died a short time afterwards. Then, inasmuch as agitation over the elections found vent in armed conflicts and civil bloodshed, (3) which continued indefinitely and without check, Pompey was made consul for the third time, now without a colleague, with the assent even of those who up to that time had opposed him for that office. The tribute paid him by this honour, which seemed to indicate his reconciliation with the optimates, served more than anything else to alienate him from Caesar. Pompey, however, employed his whole power during this consulship in curbing election abuses.
(4) It was at this time that Publius Clodius was slain by Milo, who was a candidate for the consulship, in a quarrel which arose in a chance meeting at Bovillae; a bad precedent, but in itself a service to the state. Milo was brought to trial and convicted quite as much through the influence of Pompey as on account of the odium aroused by the deed. (5) Cato, it is true, declared for his acquittal in an opinion openly expressed. Had his vote been cast earlier, men would not have been lacking to follow his example and approve the slaying of a citizen as pernicious to the republic and as hostile to all good citizens as any man who had ever lived.
XLVIII
Intra breve deinde spatium belli civilis exarserunt initia, cum iustissimus quisque et a Caesare et a Pompeio vellet dimitti exercitus; quippe Pompeius in secundo consulatu Hispanias sibi decerni voluerat easque per triennium absens ipse ac praesidens urbi per Afranium et Petreium, consularem ac praetorium, legatos suos, administrabat et iis, qui a Caesare dimittendos exercitus contendebant, adsentabatur, iis, qui ab ipso quoque, adversabatur. Qui si ante biennium, quam ad arrna itum est, perfectis muneribus theatri et aliorum operum, quae ei circumdedit, gravissima temptatus valetudine decessisset in Campania (quo quidem tempore universa Italia vota pto salute eius primi omnium civiurn suscepit) defuisset fortunae destruendi eius locus, et quam apud superos habuerat magnitutudinem, inlibatam detulisset ad inferos. Bello autem civili et tot, quae deinde per continuos viginti annos consecuta sunt, malis non alius maiorem flagrantioremque quam C. Curio tribunus plebis subiecit facem, vir nobilis, elo quens, audax, suae alienaeque et fortunae et pudicitiae prodigus, homo ingeniosissime nequam et facundus malo publico cuius animo [voluptatibus vel libidinibus] neque opes ullae neque cupiditates suAicere possent. Hic primo pro Pompei partibus, id est, ut tunc habebatur, pro re publica, mox simulatione contra Pompeiurn et Caesarem, sed animo pro Caesare stetit. Id gratis an accepto centies sestertio fecerit, ut accepimus, in medio relinquemus. Ad ultimum saluberrimas coalescentis condiciones pacis, quas et Caesar iustissimo animo postulabat et Pompeius aequo recipiebat, discussit ac rupit, unice cavente Cicerone concordiae publicae. Harum praeteritarumque rerum ordo cum iustis aliorum voluminibus promatur, tum, uti spero, nostris explicabitur. Nunc proposito operi sua forma reddatur, si prius gratulatus ero Q. Catulo, duobus Lucullis Metelloque et Hortensio, qui, cum sine invidia in re publica Quoruissent eminuissentque sine periculo, quieta aut certe non praecipitata fatali ante initium bellorum civilium morte functi sunt.
[48] (1) It was not long after this that the first sparks of civil war were kindled. All fair-minded men desired that both Caesar and Pompey should disband their armies. Now Pompey in his second consulship had caused the provinces of Spain to be assigned to him, and though he was actually absent from them, administering the affairs of the city, he continued to govern them for three years through his lieutenants, Afranius and Petreius, the former of consular and the latter of praetorian rank; and while he agreed with those who insisted that Caesar should dismiss his army, he was opposed to those who urged that he should also dismiss his own. (2) Had Pompey only died two years before the outbreak of hostilities, after the completion of his theatre and the other public buildings with which he had surrounded it, at the time when he was attacked by a serious illness in Campania and all Italy prayed for his safety as her foremost citizen, fortune would have lost the opportunity of overthrowing him and he would have borne to the grave unimpaired all the qualities of greatness that had been his in life. (3) It was Gaius Curio, however, a tribune of the people, who, more than anyone else, applied the flaming torch which kindled the civil war and all the evils which followed for twenty consecutive years. Curio was a man of noble birth, eloquent, reckless, prodigal alike of his own fortune and chastity and of those of other people, a man of the utmost cleverness in perversity, who used his gifted tongue for the subversion of the state. (4) No wealth and no pleasures sufficed to satiate his appetites. He was at first on the side of Pompey, that is to say, as it was then regarded, on the side of the republic. Then he pretended to be opposed both to Pompey and Caesar, but in his heart he was for Caesar. Whether his conversion was spontaneous or due to a bribe of ten million sesterces, as is reported, we shall leave undetermined. (5) Finally, when a truce was on the point of being concluded on terms of the most salutary character, terms which were demanded in a spirit of the utmost fair-mindedness by Caesar and accepted by Pompey without protest, it was in the end broken and shattered by Curio in spite of Cicero’s extraordinary efforts to preserve harmony in the state.
As to the order of these events, and of those which have been mentioned before, the reader is referred to the special works of other historians, and I myself hope some day to give them in full. (6) But at the present time it will be consistent with the general plan of this briefer narrative if I merely stop to congratulate Quintus Catulus, the two Luculli, Metellus, and Hortensius, who, after flourishing in public life without envy and rising to pre-eminence without danger to themselves, in the course of nature died a peaceful or at least a not untimely death before the outbreak of the civil wars.
XLIX
; Lentulo et Marcello consulibus post urbem conditam annis septingentis et tribus, et annos octo et septuaginta ante quam tu, M. Vinici, consulatum inires, bellum civile exarsit. Alterius ducis causa melior videbatur, alterius erat firmior; hic omnia speciosa, illic valentia; Pompeium senatus auctoritas, Caesarem militum armavit fiducia. Consules senatusque causae non Pompeio summam imperii detulerunt. Nihil relictum a Caesare, quod servandae pacis causa temptari posset, nihil receptum a Pompeianis, cum alter consul iusto esset ferocior, Lentulus vero salva re publica salvus esse non posset, M. autem Cato moriendum ante, quam ullam condicionem civis accipiendam rei publicae contenderet. Vir antiquus et gravis Pompei partes laudaret magis, prudens sequeretur Caesaris, et illa gloriosiora, haec terribiliora duceret. Ut deinde spretis omnibus quae Caesar postulaverat, tantummodo contentus cum una legione titulum retinere provinciae, privatus in urbem veniret et se in petitione consulatus suffragiis populi Rornani committeret decrevere, ratus bellandum Caesar cum exercitu Rubiconem transiit. Cn. Pompeius consulesque et maior pars senatus relicta urbe ac deinde Italia transmisere Dyrrachium.
[49] (1) In the consulship Lentulus and Marcellus, seven hundred and three years after the founding of the city and seventy-eight before your consulship, Marcus Vinicius, the civil war burst into flame. The one leader seemed to have the better cause, the other the stronger; (2) on the one was the appearance, on the other the reality of power; Pompey was armed with the authority of the senate, Caesar with the devotion of the soldiers. The consuls and the senate conferred the supreme authority not on Pompey but on his cause. (3) No effort was omitted by Caesar that could be tried in the interest of peace, but no offer of his was accepted by the Pompeians. Of the two consuls, one showed more bitterness than was fair, the other, Lentulus, could not save himself from ruin without bringing ruin upon the state, while Marcus Cato insisted that they should fight to the death rather than allow the republic to accept a single dictate from a mere citizen. The stern Roman of the old-fashioned type would praise the cause of Pompey, the politic would follow the lead of Caesar, recognizing that while there was on the one side greater prestige, the other was the more formidable.
(4) When at last, rejecting all the demands of Caesar, who was content to retain the title to the province, with but a single legion, the senate decreed that he should enter the city as a private citizen and should as such, submit himself to the votes of the Roman people in his candidacy for the consulship, Caesar concluded that war was inevitable and crossed the Rubicon with his army. Gnaeus Pompeius, the consuls, and the majority of the senate abandoned first the city, then Italy, and crossed the sea to Dyrrachium.
L
At Caesar Domitio legionibusque, Corfini quae una cum eo fuerant, potitus, duce aliisque, qui voluerant abire ad Pompeium, sine dilatione dimissis, persecutus Brundusium, ita ut appareret malle integris rebus et conditionibus finire bellum quam opprimere fugientis, cum transgressos reperisset consules, in urbem revertit redditaque ratione consiliorum suorum in senatu et in contione ac miserrimae necessitudinis, cum alienis armis ad arma compulsus esset, Hispanias petere decrevit. Festinationem itineris eius aliquamdiu morata Massilia est, fide melior quam consilio prudentior, intempestive principalium armorum arbitria captans, quibus hi se debent interponere, qui non parentem coercere possunt. Exercitus deinde, qui sub Afranio consulari ac Petreio praetorio fuerat, ipsius adventus vigore ac fulgore occupatus se Caesari tradidit; uterque legatorum et quisquis cuiusque ordinis sequi eos voluerat, remissi ad Pompeium.
[50] (1) Caesar, on his side, having got into his power Domitius and the legions that were with him at Corfinium, immediately released this commander and all others who so wished, and allowed them to join Pompey, whom he now followed to Brundisium, making it clear that he preferred to put an end to the war while the state was uninjured and negotiation still possible, rather than to crush his fleeing enemy. (2) Finding that the consuls had crossed the sea he returned to the city, and after rendering to the senate and also to the assembly of the people an account of his motives and of the deplorable necessity of his position, in that he had been driven to arms by others who had themselves resorted to arms, he resolved to march on Spain.
(3) The rapidity of his march was delayed for some time by the city of Massilia, which with more honesty of intention than with wise discretion assumed the unseasonable rôle of arbiter between the two armed leaders, an intervention suited only to those who are in a position to coerce the combatant refusing obedience. (4) Next, the army, commanded by Afranius, an ex-consul, and Petreius, an ex-praetor, taken off its guard by Caesar’s energy and the lightning speed of his arrival, surrendered to him. Both the commanders and all others, of whatever rank, who wished to follow them were allowed to return to Pompey.
LI
Proximo anno cum Dyrrachium ac vicina ei urbi regio castris Pompei obtineretur, qui accitis ex ornnibus transmarinis provinciis legionibus, equitum ac peditum auxilüs, regumque et tetrarcharum simulque dynastarum copiis inmanem exercitum confecerat et mare praesidiis classium, ut rebatur, saepserat, quo minus Caesar legiones posset transmittere, sua et celeritate et fortuna C. Caesar usus nihil in mora habuit, quo minus eo quo vellet ipse exercitusque classibus perveniret, et primo paene castris Pompei sua iungeret, mox etiam obsidione munimentisque eum complecteretur. Sed inopia obsidentibus quam obsessis erat gravior. Tum Balbus Cornelius excedente humanam fidem temeritate ingressus castra hostium saepiusgue cum Lentulo conlocutus consule, dubitante quanti se venderet, illis incrementis fecit viam, quibus non in Hispania ex cive natus, sed Hispanus, ia triumphum et pontificatum adsurgeret fieretque ex privato consularis. Variatum deinde proeliis, sed uno longe magis Pompeianis prospero, quo graviter impulsi sunt Caesaris milites.
[51] (1) The next year found Dyrrachium and its vicinity occupied by the camp of Pompey, who by summoning legions from all the provinces beyond the sea, together with auxiliary troops of foot and horse, and the forces of kings, tetrarchs, and other subject rulers, had in this way collected a formidable army, and had with his fleets established, as he thought, a successful blockade upon the sea to prevent Caesar from transporting his legions across the Adriatic. (2) But Caesar, relying upon his usual rapidity of action and his famous luck, allowed nothing to prevent him or his army from crossing and landing at any port he pleased, and at first pitched his camp almost touching that of Pompey, and then proceeded to surround the latter by entrenchments and siege works. But lack of provisions was a more serious matter to the besiegers than to the besieged. (3) It was at this time that Balbus Cornelius, at incredible risk, entered the camp of the enemy and held several conferences with the consul Lentulus, whose only doubt was what price to put upon himself. It was by stages such as this that Balbus, who was not even the son of a Roman citizen born in Spain but actually a Spaniard, paved the way for his later rise to the pontificate and to a triumph, and from the rank of private citizen to that of a consul. Conflicts followed, with shifting fortunes. One of these battles was much more favourable to the Pompeians, and Caesar’s troops were severely repulsed.
LII
Tum Caesar cum exercitu fatalem victoriae suae Thessaliam petiit. Pompeius, longe diversa aliis suadentibus, quorum plerique hortabantur, ut in Italiam transmitteret (neque hercules quidquam partibus illis salubrius fuit), alii, ut bellum traheret, quod dignatione partium in dies ipsis magis prosperum fieret, usus impetu suo hostem secutus est. Aciem Pharsalicam et illum cruentissimum Romano nomini diem tantumque utriusque exercitus profusum sanguinis et conlisa inter se duo rei publicae capita effossumque alterum Romani imperii lumen et tot talesque Pompeianarum partium caesos viros non recipit enarranda hic scripturae modus. lllud notandum est: ut primum C.Caesar inclinatam vidit Pompeianorurn aciem, neque prius neque antiquius quidquam habuit, quam ut indemnes partes, ut militari verbo ex consuetudine utar, dimitteret. Pro dii immortales, quod huius voluntatis erga Brutum suae postea vir tam mitis pretiurn tulit! Nihil in illa victoria mirabilius, magnificentius, clarius fuit, quam quod neminen nisi acie consumptum civem patria, des
ideravit: sed munus misericordiae corrupit pertinacia, cum libentius vitam victor iam daret, quam victi acciperent.
[52] (1) Then Caesar marched with his army into Thessaly, destined to be the scene of his victory. Pompey, in spite of the contrary advice of others, followed his own impulse and set out after the enemy. (2) Most of his advisers urged him to cross into Italy — nor indeed was there any course more expedient for his party — others advised him to prolong the war, which, by reason of the esteem in which the party was held, was daily becoming more favourable to them.
Complete Works of Velleius Paterculus Page 51