Ancient Rome Part 11

XIII

Caius Julius Caesar

So long as the world lasts men will discuss, without settling, the question, What const.i.tutes greatness? Some people will give one answer, some another. There are those who hold that no man ought properly to be called great who is not also good. Thus a French historian said that Napoleon was as great as a man could be without virtue. Even here, however, there is room for difference and discussion. What is meant by virtue? Is the good man he who does good, who makes people better and happier, or the man who is good in himself, who tries always to put the welfare of others before his own, whether he succeeds or not? If the first be true, poets, painters, and sculptors must rank highest in the order of goodness as of greatness. If the second, most of the really good are forgotten, since they tried and failed. Is success the test? It is the only test that history accepts. The men who appear to us as great in the story of the past are those who made some mark, whether for good or evil, on their time. The others are forgotten. What we know of most of the men, great or small, of the past, is not what they were, but what they did. We know what they did. We can only guess why they did it.

Often, too, it happens that good men--men kindly, affectionate, and unselfish--do harm to others without knowing it: bad men do good.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JULIUS CAESAR The Brit. Mus. gem]

All these puzzling questions, and many more, are set to us by the character of Caius Julius Caesar. He puzzled the men who lived in his own time, and has gone on puzzling historians ever since. Brutus, who loved him, finally killed him because he thought he was doing more harm than good. Marcus Antonius, who also loved him, thought him, to the end, the n.o.blest man that ever lived. One great historian regards him as one of the few really wise and far-seeing statesmen in the world's story; a man who with extraordinary genius saw what the world needed and with extraordinary will carried it out. Another sees him as no more than a clever, selfish, and ambitious time-server: a man without fixed ideas or principles, whose sole object was power. Both admit his genius: but where one sees it directed steadily to great ends, the other sees nothing fixed in his character but the determination to succeed.

Caesar's speeches (and he was a great speaker) are lost. We have two volumes of his writings: his account of the conquest and settlement of Gaul, and his account of the Civil War. These two volumes of _Commentaries_ are so admirably written, in so pure and firm and lucid a style, with such mastery of narrative and of order, that their author would stand high among Roman writers had he been distinguished in no other way. Only a remarkable man could have written an account of his own doings in just this style. For there is no word of comment: the whole thing is, as Caesar himself says, bare, simple, and plain, with every kind of ornament cast aside. The language is simple, exact, concise. Every word tells. There is never a word too much. The dryness with which amazing feats of generalship, of endurance, of courage, are set down only makes them, in the end, more impressive. No mere talker, no one shifted this way and that by chance and by the opinion of others, could have written these books. They are the record of one who could both see and act.

In so far as we can judge a man from his face, the busts tell the same story. They show us Caesar in middle age, when firmly set to serious purposes, the idle impulses of youth left behind. The power to think, the power to act--these are the characteristics of the familiar bust.

Yet Caesar, if we can believe the stories of him, retained to beyond middle life a rare personal charm, and always had much of the quick, pa.s.sionate responsiveness of the artist. There was room in his mind for all sorts of things beside the business of making men do what he wanted.

Whether the almost tragic n.o.bility of the sculptured face, which is in this respect like that of Napoleon, means that Caesar was led on by something higher than personal ambition, the desire to engrave his own will upon the stuff of life, it is impossible to say. He made history; he was, in that sense, a man of destiny, but did he know what he was doing? did he care for a good beyond his own?

[Ill.u.s.tration: JULIUS CAESAR The Brit. Mus. bust]

The first incident we know of Caesar is highly characteristic. Pompeius at the time of the proscriptions had put away his wife at Sulla's behest. Caesar, a little younger, like him a rising young soldier, was descended from one of the most ill.u.s.trious of patrician families. But his uncle had married Marius's sister. Not only was he the nephew of Marius; he was allied to the beaten party in the Revolution by his marriage to Cornelia the daughter of Cinna. Sulla commanded him to divorce her. Caesar refused. He loved his wife dearly. Neither then (he was hardly out of his teens) nor at any other time was he ready to take orders from other men. Therefore his property and the dowry of his young wife were confiscated. His own life was in danger and he had to leave Rome. But his will did not bend. Sulla realized something of the stuff of which, youthful and unknown as he was, Caesar was made. 'In that young man', he said, 'there are many Mariuses.'

At the time, and for long after, however, no sign of this was perceived by most people. At an age when Pompeius, the darling of fortune, had celebrated a triumph and was, despite his youth, a leading man in Rome, looked up to by every one, rather feared by the Senate, wealthy, prosperous, and important, Caesar was poor and quite unknown, attached by his relationship to Marius and Cinna to a defeated faction and a broken and discredited party. Yet Sulla was right. Caesar had a genius, a patience, and a power of will such as Marius never possessed. Of his military talents no one, not even Caesar himself, had any suspicion till long after. His rise was slow and difficult. Until his alliance with Cra.s.sus he was perpetually hampered by poverty and debts, both in fact and in the opinion of Rome.

When he escaped from Rome (81) Caesar went abroad first to the Greek islands, where he served his first campaign, and afterward to Bithynia; he also raised an expeditionary force against the Rhodian pirates. After Sulla's death he returned to Rome. His eloquence soon won him a position in the Popular party. No one, however, regarded him as a serious rival to Pompeius, who was at this time regarded as inclining more or less to the Popular side. The enormous debts which were to be such a burden to Caesar were mainly contracted while Pompeius was in the East. He carried through magnificent building schemes, and gave superb games to the people--such being the road to popularity. Wider plans were forming in his mind, however: plans on the lines of Gracchus.

The great difficulty in Caesar's way, over and above his own debts, was the character of the Popular party. It stood, to the majority of Conservatives and men of wealth and standing, for nothing but disorder and insecurity, with revolution in the background. These Conservatives did not see that they were helping to bring about all the things they dreaded by their opposition to change and their effort to keep all power in the hands of their own order, and their fear, distrust, and jealousy of any man of real ability. They drove young able men into the Popular party; and the Popular party to them was always the party of Marius and Cinna. There were in fact too many men in it of low character and reckless ways of life; men like Catiline and his friend Cethegus, like Clodius and Milo. The more clearly Caesar was marked out as the leader of this party the more did the Conservatives dread and hate him. Not without reason did he often think his very life was in danger. It was always possible that riots might break out. If they did the Popular party would be held responsible, and he would suffer for them all. His debts increased this danger. They made him at once reckless and powerless.

Yet Caesar's popularity in Rome was real. At the time when his difficulties were thickest upon him he stood for election, against some of the most honoured and important senators, as Pontifex Maximus, the chief of the State religion. He was under forty; it was a post generally held by an old man; his religious views were known to be extremely 'advanced'. Moreover, many people whispered that he had been privy to Catiline's conspiracy, since Catiline was a member of his party. One of the other candidates offered to pay his debts if he would retire. To retire was not Caesar's way; he regarded the proposal as an insult. As he left home on the day of election he told his mother, to whom he was devoted, that he would return Pontifex or an exile. He was elected.

The same immovable courage was shown by Caesar at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy. The whole machinery of the trial of the conspirators was contrary to the law; the Senate was not a proper Court which could condemn men to death. Caesar knew that he was suspected by many of being involved in the conspiracy and that many would be only too delighted if they could see him in the dock for any reason. Yet he was the one man who dared to point out the illegality and injustice of what was being done and to vote against the death sentence. Caesar's life was threatened at the time; but afterwards when the excitement died down and people could consider the affair more calmly they saw that he had been right; that he had kept his sense of justice when panic had made the other senators lose theirs altogether.

Caesar was soon after this made governor of Spain (61-60). But his creditors were so pressing that he would have actually been unable to start had he not come to an understanding with Cra.s.sus. Cra.s.sus settled the most urgent of his debts and he set out. Two stories are told of him at this time which show a good deal of his mind. In crossing the Alps he came upon a town so small that one of his friends remarked to him that in a place so tiny there could be none of the struggle for place and power such as there were in Rome, nothing worth having or being. Caesar, however, said, 'I a.s.sure you I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.' When in Spain he spent his leisure in reading.

Among other books he studied the Life of Alexander the Great. The followers of Pompeius who had just come back from the East were freely comparing him to Alexander. Caesar was so much moved by what he read that he sat thoughtful for a long time and at last, to the surprise of his companions, burst into tears. They could not understand the reason till he said, 'Do you not think I have sufficient cause for concern, when Alexander at my age ruled over so many conquered countries and I have not one glorious achievement to boast?'

In his government of Spain Caesar showed firmness, energy, and wisdom.

He carried out successful expeditions to distant parts of the peninsula and brought the whole country into such good order that he enriched it as well as the Roman State, himself, and his own soldiers. And all the time that he was in Spain his mind was at work. From a distance he saw the meaning of events in Rome with clearness and formed his own plans.

As soon as he returned he set to work to bring about that understanding between himself, Cra.s.sus, and Pompeius that was known afterwards (at the time it was a private bond) as the First Triumvirate (60). To bring this about was by no means easy. Pompeius was jealous and apt to ride the high horse. Cra.s.sus, though attached to Caesar, hated Pompeius. But Caesar persuaded them both. The world might see how things stood when he walked between them to the place of election for the consulship.

During his consulship (59) Caesar, despite the feeble opposition of his colleague, carried through a big programme of reforms. In addition he got a decree pa.s.sed making him governor and military commander of Gaul for five years. In Transalpine Gaul very dangerous movements were said to be going on among the tribes. The Senate was not sorry to think of getting Caesar out of the way and into a dangerous place: he himself desired to win a glory equal to that of Pompeius and the command of an army devoted to himself. In Gaul he meant to find both. And he did.

Plutarch, who wrote the lives of many distinguished Romans, was no lover of Caesar. Pompeius is his hero. Yet Plutarch says that Caesar's campaigns in Gaul (58-51) show him 'not in the least inferior to the greatest and most admired commanders the world ever produced'. 'In Gaul', he says, 'we begin a new life, as it were, and have to follow him in quite another track.' In the nine years he spent there Caesar showed astonishing genius as a soldier and won the utter devotion of his men.

But what he did in the field is surpa.s.sed by the statesmanship shown in his settlement of the country and plan for its government.

In Gaul Caesar's great ideas found scope; but they were not born in Gaul. If Caesar at work in Gaul appears to be a different man from Caesar playing at politics in Rome, the reason is not that he suddenly changed but that the picture of him in Rome is based on the accounts given by his enemies, by men who feared and disliked without understanding him. They have drawn a picture of a wild, extravagant, and dissipated young man. Caesar was that, but behind it there was a mind more powerful, a personality more strong, than in any of his contemporaries: that mind and personality which old Sulla had perceived.

When in Rome Caesar worked incessantly even while he pretended to idle.

He was one of the busiest men in the city, though some of his busy-ness was of a foolish kind. In Gaul his immense energies were turned to constructive work. His health, which had been fragile--he suffered from epilepsy or what was called 'the falling sickness' and from violent headaches--and never became extraordinarily robust, was strengthened by the hardships of a military life, by long marches, exposure, and spartan food. And his energy, always extraordinary, seemed to grow by what it fed on. He never rested. When on horseback on the march he kept secretaries by him to write, at his dictation, letters, orders, memoranda, draft laws, and his own history. He reduced his hours of sleep to the fewest and at all times shared, like Hannibal, every hardship of his men. They adored him, not only because of this and because he never forgot that they were men like himself, but because of something magnetic in his personality, that charm which is the hardest thing in the world to describe or define. Caesar made his men believe in him: trust him when he asked them to do things that appeared impossible: face the most terrific odds and the severest trials in perfect belief in him. They believed, as he did, in his star. But their devotion was not only due to his genius. It was given to him, as a man, because of his charm.

For nine years Caesar was in Gaul. For nine years Rome saw nothing of him, though he spent winters at Ravenna and Lucca, and all the time never lost touch with what was going on in the capital, or hold over men there. He had left one or two faithful friends, among them Marcus Antonius and Curio, to look after his interests. But his whole mind and energy were devoted to his work in Gaul. It was a great work. Caesar not only fought battles and conquered territories, as Pompeius and Lucullus had done in the East. He did what they had never even tried to do: he romanized the country. Understanding, with rare quickness and sympathy, the nature of the people with whom he had to deal, he did not try to alter their deep-rooted habits. But he started the work, completed under the Empire, of spreading Roman law and order, coins and ways of trading, in a word Roman civilization, over Central Europe. Caesar's mark remained upon it all. There were disturbances in various parts of the country after he left it. What the Romans called Gaul was a vast region inhabited by numerous tribes who hated and warred against one another, and had not learnt how to live in peace side by side. When Caesar took up his command, the wild hordes of the north were ready to swoop down upon Rome as they had done in the time of Brennus and again later when Marius defeated them at Vercellae and the Raudine Fields. As the result of Caesar's work they were held back for more than four hundred years.

And since Caesar was a statesman as well as a soldier his work was never wholly undone: the stamp of his genius and of Rome was set once and for all on North-western Europe.

As a soldier Caesar ranks among the greatest in the world. When he first went to Gaul his army was small--but four legions in all. The rest of his army he created, enlisting and training it on the spot. With his small forces he had to meet not Orientals, driven into battle by fear, but st.u.r.dy and fiercely warlike men with whom fighting was a natural pa.s.sion. Among the Gaulish chieftains too there were leaders of great military gifts--Ariovistus, the chief of the Teutons, and Vercingetorix of the Arverni.

Some idea of the means by which Caesar stirred and inspired his men, and checked the danger of insubordination in his own ranks, which rose at times when they were called upon to fight forces far greater in numbers, is given by a pa.s.sage in his own story. It begins with a speech he made to his men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUBMISSION OF TRIBES from a relief of the Empire]

_How Caesar dealt with threats of insubordination provoked by fear of meeting the Germans_

'If any of you are alarmed by the defeat and flight of the Gauls, you will find on inquiry that they were tired out by the length of the war, and that Ariovistus, who for many months had been encamped behind the shelter of the swamps and made it impossible to engage him, suddenly fell on them when they were scattered without any thought of fighting, and conquered them rather by stratagem than by valour. Such a policy might well succeed against untrained barbarians, but even Ariovistus does not expect that Roman armies can be ensnared by it. Again, if any disguise their fears by a pretended anxiety about supplies or by imaginary difficulties in the route, they are acting presumptuously; for, as it seems, either they are hopeless about the commander's performance of his duty or they are dictating to him what that duty is. These matters are for my decision; corn is being supplied by the Sequani, Leuci and Lingones, and the crops are already ripe. As for the difficulties of the route, you will soon have an opportunity of judging them. When I am told that the soldiers will disobey me and refuse to march, I am not at all troubled, for I know that, if an army has been disobedient, either its commander has been defeated through incompetence or some overt act has convicted him of extortion; but the whole course of my life bears witness to my integrity, and my success is proved by my campaign against the Helvetii. Accordingly I shall do at once what I had intended to do later and shall march to-night at the fourth watch, so that I may know without delay whether your fears are stronger than the claims of honour and duty. If no one else follows me, I shall start with the tenth legion, whose devotion is beyond question, and I intend to make it my bodyguard.' Caesar had shown special favour to this legion and had an absolute trust in its valour.

This speech made an extraordinary impression upon all and inspired very great enthusiasm and eagerness to advance. The tenth legion set the example, thanking Caesar through its tribunes for his generous confidence, and declaring that it was ready in every way to fight. Then the rest of the legions commissioned their tribunes and chief centurions to apologize to Caesar; they had never hesitated or feared, and had never thought that they should meddle with their commander in the control of operations. Caesar accepted their apology and started at the fourth watch, as he had warned them.

Caesar, _De Bello Gallico_, i. 40. 8-41. 4.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN LEGIONARY HELMET found in Britain]

There was a moment when it looked as though all Caesar's work was to be swept away. He spent part of the year 54 in Britain. While he was away plans for a great rising were conceived. Soon after he returned all Gaul rose in a blaze. The first rising was put down. In 52 another and more serious movement took place with Vercingetorix at its head. The danger was greater than ever. It was the more serious that Caesar knew that in Rome his enemies were working against him. So great was it indeed that Caesar's officers were in despair and begged him to retreat to some safe spot until reinforcements could be sent. But to wait for reinforcements would make things worse instead of better. The rebellion would gather force. It was by no means certain that Pompeius, now hand in glove with the Conservatives, would send him more troops. Pompeius would be glad to see his rival fail. Caesar was not going to give him that pleasure. And retreat in face of danger was never Caesar's way. Always he went to meet it. So now. He delivered a blow at the very heart of the enemy's position. Caesar's capture of Alesia, the stronghold of Vercingetorix, and his defeat of the second great Gallic army that closed him in while he was blockading the town are among the great feats in the history of war. The odds were heavy against him. His army was in a position from which no luck, only the most brilliant generalship, could save it.

Caesar not only saved it: he absolutely crushed the foe. Vercingetorix surrendered. The rebellion collapsed. By the end of the next year Gaul was under Caesar's feet again. It was possible for him to turn his eyes and mind to Rome (50).

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEIGHTS OF ALESIA The stronghold of Vercingetorix]

He did not want to quarrel with Pompeius. He had indeed from the first done everything in his power to prevent such a quarrel. But he saw that the old order of things in Rome was crumbling into ruin. If Pompeius and he could not rule together, one of them must rule alone. In the years of his absence Pompeius had moved more and more to the Conservative point of view. His jealousy of Caesar had grown. The long struggle came to a head when Caesar's time in Gaul drew to an end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARCUS ANTONIUS from a coin]

Caesar from his winter quarters at Ravenna declared that he was ready to disband his army and return to Rome as a private citizen as soon as Pompeius demobilized his troops. Pompeius actually had a larger force of men under arms than Caesar, including two legions which Caesar had borrowed and sent back to him. In the Senate Curio proposed that both generals should lay down their commands. This was agreed to. Pompeius refused. A few months later the question came up again. Curio, who had been to Ravenna, where Caesar was, read a letter from him. In this he said he would disarm, if Pompeius did the same. The Senate declared the letter was dangerous, and the man who wrote it dangerous. A friend of Pompeius then proposed that by a certain day Caesar, if not disarmed, should be regarded as a traitor. When Marcus Antonius and Ca.s.sius, another tribune, vetoed this, they were expelled from the Senate and threatened with swords by Pompeius's adherents. Caesar could no longer have any doubt as to what awaited him in Rome. He explained how things stood to his soldiers: they cried to him to march on (49).

By Sulla's law the Rubicon was the military boundary of Italy. No one might cross it under arms. Caesar paused for a moment on the bank; then suddenly crying, 'The die is cast', he crossed the river at the head of his men and marching with great speed entered Ariminum.

The poet Lucan, writing long afterwards, tried to penetrate the secrets of his mind, and guess what pa.s.sed in it at this moment.

_The Approach to the Rubicon: a Poet's Phantasy_

Caesar had already hurried across the frozen Alps, pondering in his heart vast schemes of war to come; but when he reached the narrow waters of the Rubicon, the vision of his distracted country rose awful to his gaze, with saddened features clear seen through the gloom and white locks flowing from beneath her crown of towers. All dishevelled and bare-armed she stood before him, uttering words broken by sighs: 'Whither do ye press on? Whither do ye bear these my standards? If ye come as loyal citizens, thus far and no further.' Then Caesar shuddered in every limb, his hair stiffened, and faintness of heart, checking his steps, stayed him at the very brink. Soon he cried: 'Oh Lord of thunder, that from the Tarpeian rock dost survey all our city, and G.o.ds that followed the race of Iulus from Troy, and mysteries of Quirinus lost to our sight, and Jupiter enthroned over Latium on Alba's mount, and hearth of Vesta's fire, and thou, Rome, worshipped as divine, be gracious to my cause. I bear against thee no frenzied arms. Lo!

here am I, Caesar, conqueror by sea and land, still everywhere thy soldier if none forbid. On him, on him shall rest the guilt who makes me thy enemy!' Then without delay be gave the signal for advance and quickly led his men through the swollen stream.

Lucan, _Pharsalia_, i. 183-203.

There was no resistance. It was not Caesar's intention to use any violence. In Rome, however, when the news came that he was moving south, people fell into a panic. Pompeius lost his head. Although the forces at his command were greater than Caesar's, he left the city, leaving everything, including the State Treasury, behind him. Most of the senators and people of consequence did the same.

Within sixty days from his crossing the Rubicon Caesar entered Rome and made himself master of it and of all Northern Italy without bloodshed.

People who had trembled and believed that a reign of terror and proscriptions of the kind carried out by Marius and Sulla would follow, breathed again. Caesar showed no bitterness. There were no executions.