Ancient Rome Part 12

The property of those who had fled with Pompeius was untouched. Even to Labienus, the one officer of his own who deserted him and joined the other side, Caesar was generous. He sent his goods after him.

Caesar summoned those members of the Senate who had remained in Rome and addressed them in a mild and gracious speech. He had no desire for war: he urged them to send deputies to Pompeius. But no one would do this.

Pompeius meantime was embarking for Greece. Caesar did not follow him.

He was master in Rome: but Rome was utterly dependent for all its supplies, the means by which it lived, on the world outside. Of that world Pompeius seemed master. Caesar's first task was, therefore, not to defeat Pompeius but to secure the food supply of the capital. For this purpose he himself set out for Spain, where there was a strong Pompeian army, leaving Marcus Antonius in charge in Italy and sending Curio to Sicily. The Spanish campaign was severe, but after the Battle of Ilerda the Pompeian armies were shattered. A considerable force surrendered.

Caesar pardoned the men and many of them joined his legions. When he returned home, capturing Ma.s.silia on the way, he heard that Curio had done excellently in Sicily: Cato had been defeated and fled to Pompeius.

The West was safe. From Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia corn flowed into Rome. Caesar could sail for Dyrrachium to meet Pompeius. Pompeius rejected all his proposals for peace. He was in a strong position: his army far outnumbered Caesar's, and his companions were blindly certain of victory. They indeed spent their time quarrelling among themselves as to who should hold the great offices in Rome when they got back there: who should be Pontifex Maximus for instance, when Caesar had been killed. They were so sure of victory that when Caesar was compelled to shift his camp, since his men were dying of starvation, they insisted on following him and giving battle, though Pompeius saw that this was playing Caesar's game: whereas to delay would have worn him down. At the battle of Pharsalia (48) Caesar's much smaller army won a complete victory, thanks to his superior generalship. The princes of the East sent in their submission to the conqueror. The senators and men of rank who survived Pharsalia hastened to make their peace with Caesar, all except Cato, who had not shaved or cut his hair since Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and now sailed to Africa to resist to the last.

Pompeius fled to Egypt. Thither Caesar followed him only to learn the news of his death. When the b.l.o.o.d.y head of his chief enemy and sometime friend was handed to him Caesar turned away, tears in his eyes.

Years before Caesar had planned to bring Egypt under the Roman rule: but this plan had been defeated. Now he found everything in confusion there.

The old king, dying two years earlier, had left his kingdom to his children, Cleopatra, then sixteen, and a baby boy. By Cleopatra, who even as a young girl had those extraordinary powers of mind and charm that have made her famous through the ages, Caesar was fascinated. Her wit and gaiety, her beauty and changefulness, held him entranced: and week after week he stayed on in Alexandria, while a dangerous insurrection was being planned by the ex-vizier of the old king.

Suddenly it broke out. Caesar had but a handful of troops: to save his fleet from being used against him he had to set fire to it with his own hands. From the dock the flames spread to the palace and destroyed the great Alexandrine library, the most wonderful in the world. Caesar himself only just escaped: he had to swim across the harbour, holding his papers in one hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEOPATRA from a coin]

The danger was serious but brief. Reinforcements arrived from Cilicia: the Egyptian rebels were defeated: the ex-vizier put to death: Cleopatra and her brother made rulers over Egypt under the protection of Rome.

Caesar in the spring crossed to Asia Minor, where he came, saw, and conquered, as he himself said. In September he was in Athens: in October in Rome: in December in Africa. There, at the battle of Thapsus, he crushed out the last spark of opposition. Cato, who had fled to Utica, killed himself, much to Caesar's distress. He admired the st.u.r.dy independence of the old man and would have spared him. His daughter Portia was married to Marcus Junius Brutus, a Pompeian whom Caesar had pardoned and loved as a son.

The secret of Caesar's clemency, which astonished his contemporaries, lay partly in his own nature, partly in his clear purpose to re-establish life in Rome on a firm and lasting foundation. His mind had no bitterness. Bitterness arises out of some inner uncertainty; Caesar had a rare certainty as to what he wanted to do and as to his being able to do it. He was not afraid of other people or of their judgements. He had no need to compare himself uneasily with them. He could stand on what he did, irrespective of what they thought about it. He had come to build, not to destroy. He had seen the failure of Marius and of Sulla.

Sulla had tried to restart Rome on a false basis--the rule of one party in the State, standing on the bleeding bodies and broken fortunes of the other. He had failed. His system had crumbled, and in its ruin it had brought the whole State to the ground. Moreover, Sulla's system had left no room for growth. Rome's task in the world had grown enormously and the old machine was quite incapable of fulfilling it. Caesar wanted to create a new machine that could govern not a city but a world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN COIN celebrating the murder of Caesar]

Caesar worked with the energy and power of a giant at his colossal task.

Every part of the State was in disorder--the army, the navy, the treasury, the laws, trade, the whole business of government. He had to reconstruct the whole, and in the s.p.a.ce of little more than a year he did much towards this. And besides these great tasks there were lesser ones--the reform of the calendar, of the system of weights and measures, of the language. Reforms are never popular. The change from bad to good is slow and gradual. Caesar's followers were not made as rich as they had hoped. His measures were directed to filling, not private pockets, but the coffers of the State.

The people loved him. Their lot was vastly improved. But a growing body began to say that he was behaving as a tyrant and that things were no better than they had been under the old government. Some of these people were sincere republicans who were afraid that Caesar was trying to make himself king. Among them was Marcus Junius Brutus.

Brutus had married Cato's daughter and shared many of Cato's ideas.

Round him there gathered a knot of men, among whom the ablest was Caius Ca.s.sius, who determined to free the city of the tyrant. To the minds of Brutus and Ca.s.sius it seemed that Caesar was destroying the seeds of greatness in all other men, to make himself supreme. Shakespeare makes Ca.s.sius argue thus:

_The Penalty of Greatness_

_Ca.s.sius._ Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together, yours is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em, 'Brutus' will start a spirit as soon as 'Caesar'.

Now, in the names of all the G.o.ds at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of n.o.ble bloods!

When went there by an age, since the great flood, But it was fam'd with more than with one man?

When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, That her wide walls encompa.s.sed but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, When there is in it but one only man.

O! you and I have heard our fathers say, There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome As easily as a king.

Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, I. ii.

Caesar was warned of the conspiracy but took little heed. He had always taken his life in his hand. He knew that he walked in constant danger.

When a soothsayer warned him to beware the Ides of March he only laughed; and when the Ides (March 15) came and his wife implored him to stay indoors, he paid no attention but set out for a meeting of the Senate as usual to transact his daily business, hearing pet.i.tions and so on.

It was the day chosen by the conspirators. One of them detained Marcus Antonius, who generally watched over his chief's safety: the others gathered round Caesar. At a sudden signal, they fell upon him with their daggers. Caesar was unarmed. At the foot of the statue of Pompeius, which he had himself caused to be set up in a place of honour, he fell.

Pierced by six and thirty wounds he died. Marcus Brutus raised his dagger, dyed with Caesar's blood, and holding it aloft declared that he had freed Rome from a tyrant.

So Caesar fell (44). Years of bitter civil war followed. Then at last Caesar's nephew and adopted son, Caius Julius Caesar Octavia.n.u.s, did that which Brutus had slain Caesar to prevent--changed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. All the Emperors bore the name of Caesar. Throughout the vast world over which the Roman eagles flew, Julius Caesar was worshipped almost as a G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CINERARY URN]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROMAN WATER-CARRIER with his water-skin on his back]