Ancient Rome Part 9

What this must lead to was plain enough to people in Rome. When they heard that Caesar had crossed the Rubicon (49) at the head of his troops (regardless of Sulla's law) they fell into a panic. The Senate was terrified of Caesar and not much less afraid of Pompeius. But disunited as the Conservatives were among themselves, he was the only man who could hold them together at all, and their only general. If Pompeius had acted firmly at the crisis, whether with Caesar or against him, he might have prevented the civil war. But at a time when every day was vital he did nothing at all for several days, remained in his own house without giving any lead or staying in any way the gathering tumult and excitement. Refugees began to pour into Rome. For some reason or other every one took it for granted that Caesar was going to march on the city, though as a matter of fact he had made no move. At last Pompeius declared that the country was in danger and that every one should leave Rome. He himself left the city to muster the great bodies of soldiers in Italy into an army. Very soon afterwards the consuls fled, in such a hurry that they left the State treasures behind them, and with most of the senators joined Pompeius at Brundisium, whence they intended to sail for Greece.

Perhaps only a poet could interpret what was happening, in this time, in the mind of Pompeius. Lucan thus describes it:

_The Last Phase: the 'Shadow of a Mighty Name'_

You fear, Magnus, lest new exploits throw past triumphs into the shade, and victory over the Pirates be eclipsed by the conquest of Gaul; your rival is spurred on by the habit of continuous enterprise and a success too proud to take the second place; for Caesar will no longer endure a greater nor Pompeius an equal.

Which of them appealed more righteously to civil war, we are not permitted to know. Each has the support of a mighty judge; the G.o.ds approved the cause of the conqueror, Cato of the conquered.

They were not, indeed, equally matched. Pompeius was of an age already failing in decay, and during the long repose of peace and civil life had forgotten the practice of command; eager to be on the lips of all, lavish in his gifts to the mob, swayed by the breath of the people's will, and flattered by applause in the theatre that he built. Careless, too, of gaining fresh stores of strength, and relying over much on earlier success, he stands the shadow of a mighty name; like an oak that, towering in some fertile field, bears spoils offered by the people of old and votive gifts of their leaders; no longer cleaving to the earth by stout roots, it is kept upright by its own mere weight, and thrusting leafless branches through the air, gives no shade save from the naked trunk. Yet, though it rocks and soon will fall before the first blast from the east, though around it so many forest trees raise their stems unshaken, it is worshipped alone.

Lucan, _Pharsalia_, i. 121-43.

First in leaving Rome and then in leaving Italy Pompeius made fatal mistakes. Caesar was soon master of Italy, almost without bloodshed.

Within the year he had reduced Spain and Sicily, the Roman granaries, after severe fighting; built a fleet and sailed for Greece. There he tried to induce Pompeius to meet him and so come to a settlement.

Pompeius refused.

He believed that his army was stronger than Caesar's. He and all his friends were full of bitterness, and quite sure of victory. They had, indeed, every advantage on their side, in numbers and supplies, and could afford to wear Caesar down by a waiting policy. This was Pompeius's own plan, and it was sound. But he allowed himself to be overruled largely because of the gibes of his followers. He moved from Dyrrachium, where he had held a very strong position, to the plains of the Enipeus river. At Pharsalia a great battle took place (48). Pompeius was defeated. His defeat was largely his own fault. He had 43,000 men to Caesar's 21,000 and was especially strong in cavalry. By a skilful stratagem Caesar defeated the cavalry; when Pompeius saw this he believed the day was lost; left the field and hid himself in despair in his tent. Deserted by their general his lines broke; the defeat became a rout. His army was wiped out. Pompeius himself fled to Egypt with a handful of attendants. There he was murdered by the Egyptians, under the eyes of his wife and son.

Caesar, it is said, wept when Pompeius's seal-ring was handed to him, and he knew that his great rival had perished. He set the statue of Pompeius up again in Rome; and might, thereby, have seemed to rebuke, almost in the words Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Marullus, the fickle people of Rome who so soon forgot him who was once their idol.

_A Broken Idol_

_Marullus._ Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pa.s.s the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made a universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave sh.o.r.es?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way, That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the G.o.ds to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingrat.i.tude.

Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_, I. i.

XI

Marcus Licinius Cra.s.sus

Of all the wealthy men in Rome, whether like Lucullus or Sulla they had brought their riches back from foreign conquests, or extracted it from the people of the overseas provinces as governors, or made it in business, the wealthiest was Marcus Licinius Cra.s.sus. His riches became a standard by which other men's were measured. Cra.s.sus belonged to an old but comparatively poor family which suffered much in the wars of Marius and Sulla. He himself as a very young man was, like Pompeius, one of Sulla's lieutenants. Like Pompeius again he had founded his fortune at the time of Sulla's proscriptions. But the extraordinary and constant increase in his wealth was due to his own unresting energy and extreme ingenuity, helped by the fact that he was not in the least scrupulous.

The houses in which the ordinary Roman lived were chiefly built of wood: only very rich men had stone or marble houses at this time. The streets were extremely narrow, and many of them very steep and crooked, and the dwellings, whether single houses or great tenements, were crowded closely together. As the buildings grew old they were apt to fall down, especially the high flats, which became top-heavy. Serious fires were also very common. Cra.s.sus observed this. He therefore collected a great body of slaves, skilled as carpenters and masons. He also equipped others as a fire brigade. When a fire broke out anywhere he would make an offer to the owner to buy the house very cheaply. Were his offer accepted he would put out the conflagration and rebuild. Were it refused he would let it burn. At the same time he bought up at cheap rates houses in bad repair and likely to collapse, which he therefore got at low prices. In this way he became owner of a great part of Rome, and, as more and more people were constantly crowding into the city to live, and the supply of houses was less than the demand for them, he could and did charge high rents. People who refused to live in his houses could find nowhere else to go.

This was one of the means by which Cra.s.sus acquired his riches. But he was incessantly alert and active to spy out opportunities in this direction or in that for making money. His energy never relaxed: he was always busy. He never fell into idle ways or the kind of stupid amus.e.m.e.nt in which so many Romans, young and old, frittered away most of their time. At a time when he owned half the houses in Rome, and so many members of the Senate were in debt to him that they dared not vote against his wishes, he built for himself only one house, and that of moderate size. He enjoyed money-making as men enjoy any pursuit of which they are master. After a time, however, he grew so rich that a new ambition seized him. He began to thirst after direct political power--not merely the indirect power which his money gave him. Cra.s.sus was no fool. In financial affairs of all kinds he had courage, resource, ingenuity, determination, and persistence, with that touch of imagination which belongs to any kind of genius. It was not only by accident that everything he touched turned to gold. But his imagination was of a narrowly limited kind. He understood all the lower motives that move men but none of the higher ones, for he understood only what he found within himself, and within himself there was no room for the power of any kind of idea.

With most Romans of his time religion had become a dead thing. They kept the sacred images in their houses and performed all the official and recognized ceremonies. But this was matter of custom and manners, like the rules of dress. There was no reality or feeling in it. The reality of Roman religion had been men's devotion to their country and the belief in the city as a great thing whose life went on after their own ended. In its service they had been prepared to spend themselves, for it to die. This kind of devotion had been profoundly shaken. The average Roman of Cra.s.sus's time believed in nothing but his own pleasure, and in power and glory for himself.

In this Cra.s.sus was exactly like them. He was the richest man in Rome, but riches after a time ceased to satisfy him. They did not give him popularity. This it is true was partly his own fault, for Cra.s.sus, like many very wealthy men, combined reckless occasional expenditure with steady meanness. He gave the most gorgeous shows; but he hardly ever let off a debtor. His hardness in collecting small sums was a byword. He would spend thousands one day and haggle about a shilling the next. Of course it was this careful looking after the pence that had made and kept Cra.s.sus so rich; but it did not make him beloved. Nor, though he was a very capable soldier, could he compete in this respect with Pompeius, who always seemed to manage to get the showy things to do while other people only got the hard work. When Cra.s.sus boasted of his exploits in the campaign against Spartacus, people shrugged their shoulders. Yet the Slave War had been a most serious danger, the more so that it broke out at a moment when difficulties were dark on every side.

More than once in the last few years Rome had suffered severely from a shortage in the supply of wheat that meant actual famine for the poorer people. In Italy the fields which used to grow corn had been increasingly planted with vine and olive--more profitable crops. The corn grown in the countryside was not much more than sufficient for the needs of the people living there. Rome depended in the main on supplies from across the seas. Although the Sicilian towns were legally bound to send a certain proportion of their crop to Rome they did not always do so, and the Government was extremely slack in keeping them up to the mark. A serious famine occurred in the year of Mithridates' invasion of Bithynia, which looked dangerous enough. At the same time came the news that the commander who had been sent out against the pirates who were devastating the Cilician coast had been seriously defeated by them and, worst of all, that a great rising of the slaves had broken out throughout Italy (73).

This Slave War proved more serious even than at first appeared. The slaves had not merely risen in great bodies: they had found a leader who proved a real military genius in Spartacus. Spartacus was a Thracian, and like most of his fellow slaves had been a prisoner of war.

These slaves were not the ordinary household slaves, many of whom were treated kindly enough, or those employed in crafts and industries. They were for the most part men kept in compounds under training for the games. All over Italy there were training schools, belonging to rich men, where picked slaves, chosen among prisoners of war because they were tall, strong, and handsome, were kept and taught to fight as gladiators. The conditions of these schools were very bad and the unfortunate men in them had nothing better before them than the chance of death in the arena. The taste of the Roman people was growing brutal; the part of the shows given them by successful generals or politicians who wanted popularity that they liked the best were the gladiatorial fights: fights between men armed in different ways that went on till one or other of the combatants was killed. A favourite combat was that between a man armed with a trident and another provided with a net.

Sometimes these fights took place between bodies of men. Like the Spanish bull fights, these shows excited the people of Rome beyond anything. Good swordsmen fetched high prices and won fame for their owners.

These unhappy men were for the most part prisoners of war; many of them had been chiefs and leaders in their own country, and were men not only of strength and courage but of intelligence. In the big training school at Capua there was such a man among the slaves: Spartacus, a Thracian chief. His mind rebelled against the hopelessness of his lot and he stirred up his fellows. Eighty of them broke out from captivity and made their escape to the slopes of Vesuvius. There they built a strong camp, and, as the news spread of what they had done, slaves from all over Italy joined them: some breaking out of the schools and prisons as they had done, others running away from their masters and places of employment. A small force was sent against them. They drove it back in disorder and captured its weapons. This success encouraged further risings. Spartacus was soon at the head of a considerable force. In the next year (72) he defeated a consular army. His own numbers rose to over 40,000. The war was fought with horrible cruelty and bitterness on both sides. Neither gave nor expected any mercy. All captured slaves were put to death. Spartacus compelled three hundred Roman prisoners to fight as gladiators at the funeral games held for a fallen slave captain. Farms and country houses were plundered and burned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A THRACIAN GLADIATOR]

The growing success of the slaves filled people with terror: they dreaded a general ma.s.sacre of the rich. Yet it seemed impossible to crush them. Spartacus showed rare qualities as a general and organizer; and after he had defeated both consuls, in the following year, and began to move northwards, there was something like a panic in Rome. No one was willing to undertake command against him. At last Cra.s.sus came forward.

Here, he thought, was his chance to win glory equal to that which Pompeius was gaining in Spain. His quick eye saw that the Roman armies were falling to pieces through bad discipline: his first task was to restore the strictness of military law.

In the beginning Spartacus seemed too strong and skilful for him, but Cra.s.sus knew that in the end jealousies were sure to break out in his ranks, since the slaves were men of different nationalities, only held together by the will and skill of their commander. At last, after long months in which success seemed hopeless, so hopeless that the Senate recalled Pompeius from Spain to Cra.s.sus's infinite rage, he compelled Spartacus to fight a battle. He was killed and with him 12,000 of his followers. They fought heroically, their wounds were all in front.

Pompeius as he crossed the Alps met only the bands of desperate fugitives fleeing from the conqueror. He put them to the sword and afterwards, to the disgust of Cra.s.sus, claimed a share in the victory.

'Though Cra.s.sus's men defeated the gladiators in battle, I plucked the war up by the roots', he told the Senate.

Next year (70) Cra.s.sus and Pompeius were elected consuls together. This did not make them friends. Cra.s.sus disliked Pompeius and was exceedingly jealous of his great position and influence. He did not see why he should not be recognized as as big a man as Pompeius. Pompeius was cold, lazy, self-satisfied; good fortune rained its golden shower upon him and he stood and gathered it up in his hands. Cra.s.sus, tingling with energy, alert in every nerve, was exasperated when he thought of Pompeius.

But he was intelligent enough soon to realize that he would not rise to the position and power in the State he wanted by his own unaided efforts. Nor had he to look far to find the person who could give him what he had not himself got. Pompeius's success filled him with anger and bitter envy because he disliked Pompeius. His self-satisfied and slow temper annoyed him. For the powers of Julius Caesar, on the other hand, Cra.s.sus felt nothing but lively admiration, wonder, and even devotion. He realized his extraordinary qualities at a time when Caesar was unpopular and unsuccessful. Moreover, he was conquered immediately by Caesar's personal charm, and never ceased to feel it. Caesar was loaded with debt: his want of money was his main personal difficulty.

His main political difficulty was the fact that the Democratic or Popular party had become stamped, at the time of Marius and Cinna, as the party of revolution and disorder. To Caesar, therefore, Cra.s.sus was invaluable: a firm bond was sealed between them.

Some years later Caesar actually succeeded in reconciling Cra.s.sus to Pompeius by persuading them that as long as they levelled their artillery against one another they raised people like Cicero and Cato the Younger to importance. These men would be nothing and could do nothing if Cra.s.sus, Pompeius, and himself were friends and acted together. He soon proved to be right. The Triumvirate were irresistible.

First Caesar was consul (59): then, four years later (55), Cra.s.sus and Pompeius.

Cra.s.sus's thirst for glory made him eager to have, in the year after his consulship, a great and important provincial command. To his delight, while Pompeius took Spain and Caesar remained in Gaul, he was given Syria. Although he was by now sixty the most fantastic visions of triumph and conquest immediately floated before his eyes: he saw himself performing feats in the East which should altogether outshine those of Lucullus and Pompeius. There was no war going on in that part of the world, but Cra.s.sus at once made up his mind that there should be war since it was the straight path to honour and renown. He would attack Parthia and conquer a new and rich country for Rome. This he planned regardless of the fact that the Parthians were actually allies of Rome.

The ideas sown by Lucullus were bearing fruit.

Cra.s.sus was elderly. It was long since he had directed a campaign, and campaigning in the East was new to him. Neither he nor his son Publius, who after serving with Caesar in Gaul came with him as his aide-de-camp, or any other member of his staff, knew anything of the geography of Parthia. After gaining quick successes in Mesopotamia he returned to Syria for the winter instead of going forward and making, as he could have done, allies in the cities of Babylon and Seleucia, cities always at enmity with the Parthians. As it was, while he was busy inquiring into the revenues of the cities of Syria and weighing the treasures in the temples, the Parthians, warned of his intentions, were making preparations against him. Accounts of the scale of these preparations were brought in which alarmed the Roman soldiers. They had imagined that the Parthians, a most warlike people, were tame folk such as Lucullus had found the Armenians and Cappadocians. A series of terrific thunderstorms seemed to them to herald disaster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORODES THE PARTHIAN]

Cra.s.sus, however, paid no heed to the murmurs of his officers and men.

He had no lack of courage or energy, and did not at all realize his danger. Moreover, he was deceived by spies into a false security. Thus he marched too far into a country about which he knew nothing. Suddenly his scouts brought in news that a great army was advancing. Very soon the Romans were upon this army. They found that its advance guard was composed of a kind of warrior never met by the Romans--bowmen on horseback, and bowmen of most deadly skill, whose arrows could pierce a steel cuira.s.s, whose aim was sure and whose rapid movements made it almost impossible to stay them. Indeed, within a very short s.p.a.ce of time the Roman army was hemmed in and surrounded. Cra.s.sus showed great intrepidity, but his men could not withstand the superior numbers and dreadful skill of the Parthians. With great difficulty he succeeded in extricating a portion of his men; but the day closed in defeat and the survivors were in the darkest spirits.

Next morning the enemy advanced again with loud shouts and songs of victory and a fearsome noise of drums. And in the front of their line was a man carrying on a high spear the head of young Publius Cra.s.sus, the son of the Roman commander. This sight sent a thrill of horror through the army. Cra.s.sus alone showed greatness of mind. Plutarch gives the following account of his behaviour:

_Carrhae_

Cra.s.sus was in this condition. He had ordered his son to charge the Parthians, and as a messenger had come with the news that there was a great rout, and that the enemy were being hotly pursued, and as, besides this, he saw that the force opposed to him was not pressing so hard (for in truth the larger part had moved off to meet Publius), he regained courage somewhat, and, concentrating his force, posted it in a strong position on some slopes, in the expectation that his son would soon come back from the pursuit. It proved, however, that the first messengers sent to him by Publius when he realized his danger had been intercepted by the barbarians and slain, while others, getting through with difficulty, reported that Publius was lost if he was not supported strongly and at once. Then Cra.s.sus became the prey of contrary impulses and no longer able to take a reasoned view of anything, being distracted between the desire to help his son and the fear of risking the safety of his force as a whole. At length he determined to advance.

Meantime the enemy were hurrying to the attack, more terrible than ever, with yells and shouts of triumph, and the kettledrums thundered again round the Roman ranks, as they stood expecting another battle to begin. Some of the Parthians, who were carrying the head of Publius stuck on the end of a spear, rode close up and displayed it, insolently asking about his parents and family, for it was monstrous, they said, that a n.o.ble youth of such brilliant courage should be the son of a coward like Cra.s.sus. This sight, more than all else, crushed and broke the spirit of the Romans, for they were not strengthened, as they should have been, by a resolution to defend themselves, but were seized, one and all, with fright and panic.