General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 29

As he plunged into the river, he exclaimed, "The die is cast."

THE CIVIL WAR OF CaeSAR AND POMPEY (49-48 B.C.).--The bold movement of Caesar produced great consternation at Rome. Realizing the danger of delay, Caesar, without waiting for the Gallic legions to join him, marched southward. One city after another threw open its gates to him; legion after legion went over to his standard. Pompey and the Senate hastened from Rome to Brundisium, and thence, with about twenty-five thousand men, fled across the Adriatic into Greece. Within sixty days Caesar made himself undisputed master of all Italy.

Pompey and Caesar now controlled the Roman world. It was large, but not large enough for both these ambitious men. As to which was likely to become sole master, it were difficult for one watching events at that time to foresee. Caesar held Italy, Illyric.u.m, and Gaul, with the resources of his own genius and the idolatrous attachment of his soldiers; Pompey controlled Spain, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, and the provinces of Asia, with the prestige of his great name and the indefinite resources of the East.

Caesar's first care was to pacify Italy. His moderation and prudence won all cla.s.ses to his side. Many had looked to see the terrible scenes of the days of Marius and Sulla re-enacted. Caesar, however, soon gave a.s.surance that life and property should be held sacred. He needed money; but, to avoid laying a tax upon the people, he asked for the treasure kept beneath the Capitol. Legend declared that this gold was the actual ransom-money which Brennus had demanded of the Romans, and which Camillus had saved by his timely appearance (see p. 241). It was esteemed sacred, and was never to be used save in case of another Gallic invasion. When Caesar attempted to get possession of the treasure, the tribune Metellus prevented him; but Caesar impatiently brushed him aside, saying, "The fear of a Gallic invasion is over: I have subdued the Gauls."

With order restored in Italy, Caesar's next movement was to gain control of the wheat-fields of Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa. A single legion brought over Sardinia without resistance to the side of Caesar. Cato, the lieutenant of Pompey, fled from before Curio out of Sicily. In Africa, however, the lieutenant of Caesar sustained a severe defeat, and the Pompeians held their ground there until the close of the war. Caesar, meanwhile, had subjugated Spain. In forty days the entire peninsula was brought under his authority. Ma.s.silia had ventured to close her gates against the conqueror; but a brief siege forced the city to capitulate.

Caesar was now free to turn his forces against Pompey in the East.

THE BATTLE OF PHARSALUS (48 B.C.).--From Brundisium Caesar embarked his legions for Epirus. The armies of the rivals met upon the plains of Pharsalia, in Thessaly. The adherents of Pompey were so confident of an easy victory that they were already disputing about the offices at Rome, and were renting the most eligible houses fronting the public squares of the capital. The battle was at length joined. It proved Pompey's Waterloo.

His army was cut to pieces. He himself fled from the field, and escaped to Egypt. Just as he was landing there, he was a.s.sa.s.sinated.

The head of the great general was severed from his body; and when Caesar, who was pressing after Pompey in hot pursuit, landed in Egypt, the b.l.o.o.d.y trophy was brought to him. He turned from the sight with generous tears.

It was no longer the head of his rival, but of his old a.s.sociate and son- in-law. He ordered the a.s.sa.s.sins to be executed, and directed that fitting obsequies should be performed over the body.

CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.--Caesar was detained at Alexandria nine months in settling a dispute respecting the throne of Egypt. After a severe contest he overthrew the reigning Ptolemy, and secured the kingdom to the celebrated Cleopatra and a younger brother. Intelligence was now brought from Asia Minor that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the Great, was inciting a revolt among the peoples of that region. Caesar met the Pontic king at Zela, defeated him, and in five days put an end to the war. His laconic message to the Senate, announcing his victory, is famous. It ran thus: _Veni, vidi, vici_,--"I came, I saw, I conquered."

Caesar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to Africa, which the friends of the old republic had made their last chief rallying-place. At the great battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) they were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to outlive the republic, took his own life.

CaeSAR'S TRIUMPH.--Caesar was now virtually lord of the Roman world.

Although he refrained from a.s.suming the t.i.tle of king, no Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, or surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. He was invested with all the offices and dignities of the state. The Senate made him perpetual dictator, and conferred upon him the powers of censor, consul, and tribune, with the t.i.tles of Pontifex Maximus and Imperator (whence Emperor). "He was to sit in a golden chair in the Senate-house, his image was to be borne in the procession of the G.o.ds, and the seventh month of the year was changed in his honor from Quintilis to Julius [whence our July]."

His triumph celebrating his many victories far eclipsed in magnificence anything that Rome had before witnessed. In the procession were led captive princes from all parts of the world. Beneath his standards marched soldiers gathered out of almost every country beneath the heavens.

Seventy-five million dollars of treasure were displayed. Splendid games and tables attested the liberality of the conqueror. Sixty thousand couches were set for the mult.i.tudes. The shows of the theatre and the combats of the arena followed one another in an endless round. "Above the combats of the amphitheatre floated for the first time the awning of silk, the immense velarium of a thousand colors, woven from the rarest and richest products of the East, to protect the people from the sun"

(Gibbon).

CaeSAR AS A STATESMAN.--Caesar was great as a general, yet greater, if possible, as a statesman. The measures which he inst.i.tuted evince profound political sagacity and surprising breadth of view. He sought to reverse the jealous and narrow policy of Rome in the past, and to this end rebuilt both Carthage and Corinth, and founded numerous colonies in all the different provinces, in which he settled about one hundred thousand of the poorer citizens of the capital. Upon some of the provincials he conferred full Roman citizenship, and upon others Latin rights (see p. 246, note), and thus strove to blend the varied peoples and races within the boundaries of the empire in a real nationality, with community of interests and sympathies. He reformed the calendar so as to bring the festivals once more in their proper seasons, and provided against further confusion by making the year consist of 365 days, with an added day for every fourth or leap year.

Besides these achievements, Caesar projected many vast undertakings, which the abrupt termination of his life prevented his carrying into execution.

Among these was his projected conquest of the Parthians and the Germans.

He proposed, in revenge for the defeat and death of his friend Cra.s.sus, to break to pieces the Parthian empire; then, sweeping with an army around above the Euxine, to destroy the dreaded hordes of Scythia; and then, falling upon the German tribes in the rear, to crush their power forever, and thus relieve the Roman empire of their constant threat. He was about to set out on the expedition against the Parthians, when he was struck down by a.s.sa.s.sins.

THE DEATH OF CaeSAR.--Caesar had his bitter personal enemies, who never ceased to plot his downfall. There were, too, sincere lovers of the old republic, who longed to see restored the liberty which the conqueror had overthrown. The impression began to prevail that Caesar was aiming to make himself king. A crown was several times offered him in public by Mark Antony; but, seeing the manifest displeasure of the people, he each time pushed it aside. Yet there is no doubt that secretly he desired it. It was reported that he proposed to rebuild the walls of Troy, whence the Roman race had sprung, and make that ancient capital the seat of the new Roman empire. Others professed to believe that the arts and charms of the Egyptian Cleopatra, who had borne him a son at Rome, would entice him to make Alexandria the centre of the proposed kingdom. So many, out of love for Rome and the old republic, were led to enter into a conspiracy against the life of Caesar with those who sought to rid themselves of the dictator for other and personal reasons.

The Ides (the 15th day) of March, 44 B.C., upon which day the Senate convened, witnessed the a.s.sa.s.sination. Seventy or eighty conspirators, headed by Ca.s.sius and Brutus, both of whom had received special favors from the hands of Caesar, were concerned in the plot. The soothsayers must have had some knowledge of the plans of the conspirators, for they had warned Caesar to "beware of the Ides of March." On his way to the Senate- meeting that day, a paper warning him of his danger was thrust into his hand; but, not suspecting its urgent nature, he did not open it. As he entered the a.s.sembly chamber he observed the astrologer Spurinna, and remarked carelessly to him, referring to his prediction, "The Ides of March have come." "Yes," replied Spurinna, "but not gone."

No sooner had Caesar taken his seat than the conspirators crowded about him as if to present a pet.i.tion. Upon a signal from one of their number their daggers were drawn. For a moment Caesar defended himself; but seeing Brutus, upon whom he had lavished gifts and favors, among the conspirators, he exclaimed reproachfully, _Et tu, Brute!_--"Thou, too, Brutus!" drew his mantle over his face, and received unresistingly their further thrusts. Pierced with twenty-three wounds, he sank dead at the foot of Pompey's statue.

FUNERAL ORATION by MARK ANTONY.--The conspirators, or "liberators," as they called themselves, had thought that the Senate would confirm, and the people applaud, their act. But both people and senators, struck with consternation, were silent. Men's faces grew pale as they recalled the proscriptions of Sulla, and saw in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Caesar the first act in a similar reign of terror. As the conspirators issued from the a.s.sembly hall, and entered the Forum, holding aloft their b.l.o.o.d.y daggers, instead of the expected acclamations they were met by an ominous silence.

The liberators hastened for safety to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, going thither ostensibly for the purpose of giving thanks for the death of the tyrant.

Upon the day set for the funeral ceremonies, Mark Antony, the trusted friend and secretary of Caesar, mounted the rostrum in the Forum to deliver the usual funeral oration. He recounted the great deeds of Caesar, the glory he had conferred upon the Roman name, dwelt upon his liberality and his munificent bequests to the people--even to some who were now his murderers; and, when he had wrought the feelings of the mult.i.tude to the highest tension, he raised the robe of Caesar, and showed the rents made by the daggers of the a.s.sa.s.sins. Caesar had always been beloved by the people and idolized by his soldiers. They were now driven almost to frenzy with grief and indignation. Seizing weapons and torches, they rushed through the streets, vowing vengeance upon the conspirators. The liberators, however, escaped from the fury of the mob, and fled from Rome, Brutus and Ca.s.sius seeking refuge in Greece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARK ANTONY.]

THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.--Antony had gained possession of the will and papers of Caesar, and now, under color of carrying out the testament of the dictator, according to a decree of the Senate, entered upon a course of high-handed usurpation. He was aided in his designs by Lepidus, one of Caesar's old lieutenants. Very soon he was exercising all the powers of a real dictator. "The tyrant is dead," said Cicero, "but the tyranny still lives." This was a bitter commentary upon the words of Brutus, who, as he drew his dagger from the body of Caesar, turned to Cicero, and exclaimed, "Rejoice, O Father of your Country, for Rome is free." Rome could not be free, the republic could not be reestablished because the old love for virtue and liberty had died out from among the people--had been overwhelmed by the rising tide of vice, corruption, sensuality, and irreligion that had set in upon the capital.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JULIUS CaeSAR. (From a Bust in the Museum of the Louvre.)]

To what length Antony would have gone in his career of usurpation it is difficult to say, had he not been opposed at this point by Caius Octavius, the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, and the one whom he had named in his will as his heir and successor. Upon the Senate declaring in favor of Octavius, civil war immediately broke out between him and Antony and Lepidus. After several indecisive battles between the forces of the rival compet.i.tors, Octavius proposed to Antony and Lepidus a reconciliation. The three met on a small island in the Rhenus, a little stream in Northern Italy, and there formed a league known as the Second Triumvirate (43 B.C.).

The plans of the triumvirs were infamous. They first divided the world among themselves: Octavius was to have the government of the West; Antony, that of the East; while to Lepidus fell the control of Africa. A general proscription, such as had marked the coming to power of Sulla (see p.

283), was then resolved upon. It was agreed that each should give up to the a.s.sa.s.sin such friends of his as had incurred the ill will of either of the other triumvirs. Under this arrangement Octavius gave up his friend Cicero,--who had incurred the hatred of Antony by opposing his schemes,-- and allowed his name to be put at the head of the list of the proscribed.

The friends of the orator urged him to flee the country. "Let me die,"

said he, "in my fatherland, which I have so often saved!" His attendants were hurrying him, half unwilling, towards the coast, when his pursuers came up and despatched him in the litter in which he was being carried.

His head was taken to Rome, and set up in front of the rostrum, "from which he had so often addressed the people with his eloquent appeals for liberty." It is told that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, ran her gold bodkin through the tongue, in revenge for the bitter philippics it had uttered against her husband. The right hand of the victim--the hand that had penned the eloquent orations--was nailed to the rostrum.

Cicero was but one victim among many hundreds. All the dreadful scenes of the days of Sulla were re-enacted. Three hundred senators and two thousand knights were murdered. The estates of the wealthy were confiscated, and conferred by the triumvirs upon their friends and favorites.

LAST STRUGGLE OF THE REPUBLIC AT PHILIPPI (42 B.C.).--The friends of the old republic, and the enemies of the triumvirs, were meanwhile rallying in the East. Brutus and Ca.s.sius were the animating spirits. The Asiatic provinces were plundered to raise money for the soldiers of the liberators. Octavius and Antony, as soon as they had disposed of their enemies in Italy, crossed the Adriatic into Greece, to disperse the forces of the republicans there. The liberators, advancing to meet them, pa.s.sed over the h.e.l.lespont into Thrace.

Tradition tells how one night a spectre appeared to Brutus and seemed to say, "I am thy evil genius; we will meet again at Philippi." At Philippi, in Thrace, the hostile armies met (42 B.C.). In two successive engagements the new levies of the liberators were cut to pieces, and both Brutus and Ca.s.sius, believing the cause of the republic forever lost, committed suicide. It was, indeed, the last effort of the republic. The history of the events that lie between the action at Philippi and the establishment of the empire is simply a record of the struggles among the triumvirs for the possession of the prize of supreme power. After various redistributions of provinces, Lepidus was at length expelled from the triumvirate, and then again the Roman world, as in the times of Caesar and Pompey, was in the hands of two masters--Antony in the East, and Octavius in the West.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.--After the battle of Philippi, Antony went into Asia for the purpose of settling the affairs of the provinces and va.s.sal states there. He summoned Cleopatra, the fair queen of Egypt, to meet him at Tarsus, in Cilicia, there to give account to him for the aid she had rendered the liberators. She obeyed the summons, relying upon the power of her charms to appease the anger of the triumvir. She ascended the Cydnus in a gilded barge, with oars of silver, and sails of purple silk. Beneath awnings wrought of the richest manufactures of the East, the beautiful queen, attired to personate Venus, reclined amidst lovely attendants dressed to represent cupids and nereids. Antony was completely fascinated, as had been the great Caesar before him, by the dazzling beauty of the "Serpent of the Nile." Enslaved by her enchantments, and charmed by her brilliant wit, in the pleasure of her company he forgot all else--ambition and honor and country.

Once, indeed, Antony did rouse himself and break away from his enslavement to lead the Roman legions across the Euphrates against the Parthians. But the storms of approaching winter, and the incessant attacks of the Parthian cavalry, at length forced him to make a hurried and disastrous retreat. He hastened back to Egypt, and sought to forget his shame and disappointment amidst the revels of the Egyptian court.

THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM (31 B.C.).--Affairs could not long continue in their present course. Antony had put away his faithful wife Octavia for the beautiful Cleopatra. It was whispered at Rome, and not without truth, that he proposed to make Alexandria the capital of the Roman world, and announce Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, as heir of the empire. All Rome was stirred. It was evident that a conflict was at hand in which the question for decision would be whether the West should rule the East, or the East rule the West. All eyes were instinctively turned to Octavius as the defender of Italy, and the supporter of the sovereignty of the Eternal City. Both parties made the most gigantic preparations.

Octavius met the combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra just off the promontory of Actium, on the Grecian coast. While the issue of the battle that there took place was yet undecided, Cleopatra turned her galley in flight. The Egyptian ships, to the number of fifty, followed her example.

Antony, as soon as he perceived the withdrawal of Cleopatra, forgot all else, and followed in her track with a swift galley. Overtaking the fleeing queen, the infatuated man was received aboard her vessel, and became her partner in the disgraceful flight.

The abandoned fleet and army surrendered to Octavius. The conqueror was now sole master of the civilized world. From this decisive battle (31 B.C.) are usually dated the end of the republic and the beginning of the empire. Some, however, make the establishment of the empire date from the year 27 B.C., as it was not until then that Octavius was formally invested with imperial powers.

DEATHS OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.--Octavius pursued Antony to Egypt, where the latter, deserted by his army, and informed by a messenger from the false queen that she was dead, committed suicide. Cleopatra then sought to enslave Octavius with her charms; but, failing in this, and becoming convinced that he proposed to take her to Rome that she might there grace his triumph, she took her own life, being in the thirty-eighth year of her age. Tradition says that she effected her purpose by applying an asp to her arm. But it is really unknown in what way she killed herself.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

(From 31 B.C. to A.D. 180.)

REIGN OF AUGUSTUS CaeSAR (31 B.C. to A.D. 14).--The hundred years of strife which ended with the battle of Actium left the Roman republic, exhausted and helpless, in the hands of one wise enough and strong enough to remould its crumbling fragments in such a manner that the state, which seemed ready to fall to pieces, might prolong its existence for another five hundred years. It was a great work thus to create anew, as it were, out of anarchy and chaos, a political fabric that should exhibit such elements of perpetuity and strength. "The establishment of the Roman empire," says Merivale, "was, after all, the greatest political work that any human being ever wrought. The achievements of Alexander, of Caesar, of Charlemagne, of Napoleon, are not to be compared with it for a moment."

The government which Octavius established was a monarchy in fact, but a republic in form. Mindful of the fate of Julius Caesar, who fell because he gave the lovers of the republic reason to think that he coveted the t.i.tle of king, Octavius carefully veiled his really absolute sovereignty under the forms of the old republican state. The Senate still existed; but so completely subjected were its members to the influence of the conqueror that the only function it really exercised was the conferring of honors and t.i.tles and abject flatteries upon its master. All the republican officials remained; but Octavius absorbed and exercised their chief powers and functions. He had the powers of consul, tribune, censor, and Pontifex Maximus. All the republican magistrates--the consuls, the tribunes, the praetors--were elected as usual; but they were simply the nominees and creatures of the emperor. They were the effigies and figure-heads to delude the people into believing that the republic still existed. Never did a people seem more content with the shadow after the loss of the substance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AUGUSTUS.]

The Senate, acting under the inspiration of Octavius, withheld from him the t.i.tle of king, which ever since the expulsion of the Tarquins, five centuries before this time, had been intolerable to the people; but they conferred upon him the t.i.tles of Imperator and Augustus, the latter having been hitherto sacred to the G.o.ds. The sixth month of the Roman year was called Augustus (whence our August) in his honor, an act in imitation of that by which the preceding month had been given the name of Julius in honor of Julius Caesar.

The domains over which Augustus held sway were imperial in magnitude. They stretched from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and upon the north were hemmed by the forests of Germany and the bleak steppes of Scythia, and were bordered on the south by the sands of the African desert and the dreary wastes of Arabia, which seemed the boundaries set by nature to dominion in those directions. Within these limits were crowded more than 100,000,000 people, embracing every conceivable condition and variety in race and culture, from the rough barbarians of Gaul to the refined voluptuary of the East.

Octavius was the first to moderate the ambition of the Romans, and to council them not to attempt to conquer any more of the world, but rather to devote their energies to the work of consolidating the domains already acquired. He saw the dangers that would attend any further extension of the boundaries of the state.

The reign of Augustus lasted forty-four years, from 31 B.C. to A.D. 14. It embraced the most splendid period of the annals of Rome. Under the patronage of the emperor, and that of his favorite minister Maecenas, poets and writers flourished and made this the "golden age" of Latin literature.