1. IN the course of his sixteenth year
[c. 85/84 B.C.] he lost his father. In the next consulate, having
previously been nominated priest of Jupiter [by Marius and Cinna, Cos.
86], he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian
rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed
the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who
was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and
the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife.
Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood, his
wife's dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of
the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and
though suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, to change from
one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla's
detectives by bribes. But at last, through the good offices of the
Vestal virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius
Cotta, he obtained forgiveness. Everyone knows that when Sulla had long
held out against the most devoted and eminent men of his party who
interceded for Caesar, and they obstinately persisted, he at last gave
way and cried, either by divine inspiration or a shrewd forecast: 'Have
your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager
to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the
aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this
Caesar there is more than one Marius.'
2. He served his first campaign in
Asia on the personal staff of Marcus Thermus, governor of the province
[81 BC]. Being sent by Thermus to Bithynia, to fetch a fleet, he dawdled
so long at the court of Nicomedes that he was suspected of improper
relations with the king; and he lent color to this scandal by going back
to Bithynia a few days after his return, with the alleged purpose of
collecting a debt for a freedman, one of his dependents. During the rest
of the campaign he enjoyed a better reputation, and at the storming of
Mytilene [80 BC] Thermus awarded him the civic crown [a chaplet of oak
leaves, given for saving the life of a fellow-citizen, the highest
military award of the Roman state].
3. He served too under Servilius
Isauricus in Cilicia, but only for a short time; for learning of the
death of Sulla, and at the same time hoping to profit by a
counter-revolution which Marcus Lepidus was setting on foot, he
hurriedly returned to Rome [78 BC]. But he did not make common cause
with Lepidus, although he was offered highly favorable terms, through
lack of confidence both in that leader's capacity and in the outlook,
which he found less promising than he had expected.
4. Then, after the civil disturbance
had been quieted, he brought a charge of extortion against Cornelius
Dolabella, an ex-consul who had been honored with a triumph [77 BC]. On
the acquittal of Dolabella, Caesar determined to withdraw to Rhodes, to
escape from the ill-will which he had incurred, and at the same time to
rest and have leisure to study under Apollonius Molo, the most eminent
teacher of oratory of that time. While crossing to Rhodes [74 BC], after
the winter season had already begun, he was taken by pirates near the
island of Pharmacussa and remained in their custody for nearly forty
days in a state of intense vexation, attended only by a single physician
and two body-servants; for he had sent off his travelling companions and
the rest of his attendants at the outset, to raise money for his ransom. Once he was set on
shore on payment of fifty talents, he did not delay then and there to
launch a fleet and pursue the departing pirates, and the moment they were
in his power to inflict on them the punishment which he had often
threatened when joking with them. He then proceeded to Rhodes, but as
Mithridates was devastating the neighboring regions, he crossed over into
Asia, to avoid the appearance of inaction when the allies of the Roman
people were in danger. There he levied a band of auxiliaries and drove the
king's prefect from the province, thus holding the wavering and irresolute
states to their allegiance.
5. While serving as military tribune,
the first office which was conferred on him by vote of the people after
his return to Rome, he ardently supported the leaders in the attempt to
re-establish the authority of the tribunes of the commons, the extent of
which Sulla had curtailed. Furthermore, through a bill proposed by one
Plotius [70 B.C.], he effected the recall of his wife's brother Lucius
Cinna, as well as of the others who had taken part with Lepidus in his
revolution and after the consul's death had fled to Sertorius; and he
personally spoke in favor of the measure.
6. When quaestor [67 B.C.], he
pronounced the customary orations from the rostra in praise of his aunt
Julia and his wife Cornelia, who had both died. And in the eulogy of his
aunt he spoke in the following terms of her paternal and maternal ancestry
and that of his own father: "The family of my aunt Julia is descended by
her mother from the kings, and on her father's side is akin to the
immortal Gods; for the Marcii Reges (her mother's family name) go back to
Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, to
Venus. Our stock therefore has at once the sanctity of kings, whose power
is supreme among mortal men, and the claim to reverence which attaches to
the Gods, who hold sway over kings themselves." In place of Cornelia he
took to wife Pompeia, daughter of Quintus Pompeius and granddaughter of
Lucius Sulla. But he afterward divorced her [62 B.C.], suspecting her of
adultery with Publius Clodius; and in fact the report that Clodius had
gained access to her in woman's garb during a public religious ceremony
was so persistent, that the senate decreed that the pollution of the
sacred rites be judicially investigated.
7. As quaestor it fell to his lot to
serve in Hispania Ulterior. When he was there, while making the circuit of
the towns, to hold court under commission from the praetor, he came to
Gades, and noticing a statue of Alexander the Great in the temple of
Hercules, he heaved a sigh, and as if out of patience with his own
incapacity in having as yet done nothing noteworthy at a time of life when
Alexander had already brought the world to his feet, he straightway asked
for his discharge, to grasp the first opportunity for greater enterprises
at Rome. Furthermore, when he was dismayed by a dream the following night
(for he thought that he had offered violence to his mother) the
soothsayers inspired him with high hopes by their interpretation, which
was that he was destined to rule the world, since the mother whom he had
seen in his power was none other than the earth, which is regarded as the
common parent of all mankind.
8. Departing therefore before his term
was over, he went to the Latin colonies which were in a state of unrest
and meditating a demand for citizenship [those towns beyond the Po River,
such as Verona, Comum, and Cremona, wished to obtain the rights of
citizenship, which had been given to many of the Italian towns at the
close of the Social War of 90-88 B.C.] and he might have spurred them on
to some rash act, had not the consuls, in anticipation of that very
danger, detained there for a time the legions which had been enrolled for
service in Cilicia.
9. For all that he presently made a more
daring attempt at Rome; for a few days before he entered upon his
aedileship he was suspected of having made a conspiracy with Marcus
Crassus, an ex-consul, and likewise with Publius Sulla and Lucius
Autronius, who, after their election to the consulship, had been found
guilty of corrupt practices [65 B.C.]. The design was to set upon the
senate at the opening of the year and put to the sword as many as they
thought good; then Crassus was to usurp the dictatorship, naming Caesar as
his master of horse, and when they had organized the state according to
their pleasure, the consulship was to be restored to Sulla and Autronius.
This plot is mentioned by Tanusius Geminus in his History, by
Marcus Bibulus in his edicts, and by Gaius Curio the elder in his
speeches. Cicero too seems to hint at it in a letter to Axius, where he
says that Caesar in his consulship established the despotism which he had
had in mind when he was aedile. Tanusius adds that Crassus, either
conscience-stricken or moved by fear, did not appear on the day appointed
for the massacre, and that therefore Caesar did not give the signal which
it had been agreed that he should give; and Curio says that the
arrangement was that Caesar should let his toga fall from his shoulder.
Not only Curio, but Marcus Actorius Naso as well declare that Caesar made
another plot with Gnaeus Piso, a young man to whom the province of
Hispania had been assigned unasked and out of the regular order, because
he was suspected of political intrigues at Rome; that they agreed to rise
in revolt at the same time, Piso abroad and Caesar at Rome, aided by the
Ambrani and the peoples beyond the Po; but that Piso's death brought both
their designs to naught.
10. When aedile [65 B.C.], Caesar
decorated not only the Comitium and the Forum with its adjacent basilicas,
but the Capitol as well, building temporary colonnades for the display of
a part of his material. He exhibited combats with wild beasts and
stageplays too, both with his colleague and independently. The result was
that Caesar alone took all the credit even for what they spent in common,
and his colleague Marcus Bibulus openly said that his was the fate of
Pollux: "For," said he, "just as the temple erected in the Forum to the
twin brethren, bears only the name of Castor, so the joint liberality of
Caesar and myself is credited to Caesar alone." Caesar gave a gladiatorial
show besides, but with somewhat fewer pairs of combatants than he had
purposed; for the huge band which he assembled from all quarters so
terrified his opponents, that a bill was passed limiting the number of
gladiators which anyone was to be allowed to keep in the city.
11. Having won the goodwill of the
masses, Caesar made an attempt through some of the tribunes to have the
charge of Egypt given him by a decree of the commons, seizing the
opportunity to ask for so irregular an appointment because the citizens of
Alexandria had deposed their king, who had been named by the senate an
ally and friend of the Roman people, and their action was generally
condemned. He failed however because of the opposition of the Optimates
[a political faction among the Roman nobiles]; wishing
therefore to impair their prestige in every way he could, he restored the
trophies commemorating the victories of Gaius Marius over Jugurtha and
over the Cimbri and Teutoni, which Sulla had long since demolished.
Furthermore in conducting prosecutions for murder, he included in the
number of murderers even those who had received moneys from the public
treasury during the proscriptions for bringing in the heads of Roman
citizens, although they were expressly exempted by the Cornelian laws.
12. He also bribed a man to bring a
charge of high treason against Gaius Rabirius, who some years before, had
rendered conspicuous service to the senate in repressing the seditious
designs of the tribune Lucius Saturninus; and when he had been selected by
lot to sentence the accused, he did so with such eagerness, that when
Rabirius appealed to the people, nothing was so much in his favor as the
bitter hostility of his judge.
13. After giving up hope of the special
commission, he announced his candidacy for the office of pontifex maximus,
resorting to the most lavish bribery. Thinking on the enormous debt which
he had thus contracted, he is said to have declared to his mother on the
morning of the election, as she kissed him when he was starting for the
polls, that he would never return except as pontifex. And in fact he so
decisively defeated two very strong competitors (for they were greatly his
superiors in age and rank), that he polled more votes in their tribes than
were cast for both of them in all the tribes.
14. When the conspiracy of Catiline was
detected [63 B.C.], and all the rest of the senate favored inflicting the
extreme penalty on those implicated in the plot, Caesar, who was now
praetor elect, alone proposed that their goods be confiscated and that
they be imprisoned each in a separate town. Nay, more, he inspired such
fear in those who favored severer measures, by picturing the hatred which
the Roman commons would feel for them for all future time, that Decimus
Silanus, consul elect, was not ashamed to give a milder interpretation to
his proposal (since it would have been humiliating to change it) alleging
that it had been understood in a harsher sense than he intended. Caesar
would have prevailed too, for a number had already gone over to him,
including Cicero, the consul's brother, had not the address of Marcus Cato
kept the wavering senate in line. Yet not even then did he cease to delay
the proceedings, but only when an armed troop of Roman knights that stood
on guard about the place threatened him with death as he persisted in his
headstrong opposition. They even drew their swords and made such passes at
him that his friends who sat next him forsook him, while a few had much
ado to shield him in their embrace or with their robes. Then, in evident
fear, he not only yielded the point, but for the rest of the year kept
aloof from the House.
15. On the first day of his praetorship
[62 B.C.] he called upon Quintus Catulus to render an account to the
people touching the restoration of the CapitoI, proposing a bill for
turning over the commission to another [namely, Gnaeus Pompeius]. But he
withdrew the measure, since he could not cope with the united opposition
of the optimates, seeing that they had at once dropped their
attendance on the newly elected consuls and hastily gathered in throngs,
resolved on an obstinate resistance.
16. Nevertheless, when Caecilius
Metellus, tribune of the commons, brought forward some bills of a highly
seditious nature in spite of the veto of his colleagues, Caesar abetted
him and espoused his cause in the stubbornest fashion, until at last both
were suspended from the exercise of their public functions by a decree of
the senate. Yet in spite of this Caesar had the audacity to continue in
office and to hold court, but when he learned that some were ready to stop
him by force of arms, he dismissed his lictors, laid aside his robe of
office, and slipped off privily to his house, intending to remain in
retirement because of the state of the times. Indeed, when the populace on
the following day flocked to him quite of their own accord, and with
riotous demonstrations offered him their aid in recovering his position,
he held them in check. Since this action of his was wholly unexpected, the
senate, which had been hurriedly convoked to take action about that very
gathering, publicly thanked him through its leading men; then summoning
him to the House and lauding him in the strongest terms, they rescinded
their former decree and restored him to his rank.
17. He again fell into danger by being
named among the accomplices of Catiline, both before the commissioner [quaesitor]
Novius Niger by an informer called Lucius Vettius and in the senate by
Quintus Curius, who had been voted a sum of money from the public funds as
the first to disclose the plans of the conspirators. Curius alleged that
his information came directly from Catiline, while Vettius actually
offered to produce a letter to Catiline in Caesar's hand writing. But
Caesar, thinking that such an indignity could in no wise be endured,
showed by appealing to Cicero's testimony that he had of his own accord
reported to the consul certain details of the plot, and thus prevented
Curius from getting the reward. As for Vettius, after his bond was
declared forfeit and his goods seized, he was roughly handled by the
populace assembled before the rostra, and all but torn to pieces. Caesar
then put him in prison, and Novius the commissioner went there too, for
allowing an official of superior rank to be arraigned before his tribunal.
18. Being allotted the province of
Hispania Ulterior [61 B.C.] after his praetorship, Caesar got rid of his
creditors, who tried to detain him, by means of sureties and contrary both
to precedent and law was on his way before the provinces were provided for
[i.e., without waiting for the decrees of the senate which formally
confirmed the appointments of the new governors, and provided them with
funds and equipment]; possibly through fear of a private impeachment or
perhaps to respond more promptly to the entreaties of our allies for help.
After restoring order in his province, he made off with equal haste, and
without waiting for the arrival of his successor, to sue at the same time
for a triumph and the consulship. But inasmuch as the day for the
elections had already been announced and no account could be taken of
Caesar's candidacy unless he entered the city as a private citizen, and
since his intrigues to gain exemption from the laws met with general
protest, he was forced to forgo the triumph, to avoid losing the
consulship.
19. [60 B.C.] Of the two other
candidates for this office, Lucius Lucceius and Marcus Bibulus, Caesar
joined forces with the former, making a bargain with him that since
Lucceius had less influence but more funds, he should in their common name
promise largess to the electors from his own pocket. When this became
known, the optimates authorized Bibulus to promise the same amount,
being seized with fear that Caesar would stick at nothing when he became
ohief magistrate, if he had a colleague who was heart and soul with him.
Many of them contributed to the fund, and even Cato did not deny that
bribery under such circumstances was for the good of the commonwealth. So
Caesar was chosen consul with Bibulus. With the same motives the
optimates took care that provinces of the smallest importance should
be assigned to the newly elected consuls; that is, mere woods and pastures
[It seems to designate provinces where the duties of the governor would be
confined to guarding the mountain-pastures and keeping the woods free from
bandits. The senate would not run the risk of letting Caesar secure a
province involving the command of an army]. Thereupon Caesar, especially
incensed by this slight, by every possible attention courted the goodwill
of Gnaeus Pompeius, who was at odds with the senate because of its
tardiness in ratifying his acts after his victory over king Mithridates
[in the Third Mithridatic War]. He also patched up a peace between
Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, who had been enemies since their consulship,
which had been one of constant wrangling. Then [60 B.C.] he so made a
compact with both of them, that no step should be taken in public affairs
which did not suit any one of the three.
20. Caesar's very first enactment after
becoming consul was, that the proceedings both of the senate and of the
people should day by day be compiled and published. He also revived a
by-gone custom, that during the months when he did not have the fasces
an orderly should walk before him, while the lictors followed him. He
brought forward an agrarian law too, and when his colleague announced
adverse omens [Business could be interrupted or postponed at Rome by the
announcement of an augur or a magistrate that he had seen a flash of
lightning or some other adverse sign; sometimes an opponent merely
announced that he would 'watch the skies' for such omens], he resorted to
arms and drove him from the Forum; and when next day Bibulus made
complaint in the senate and no one could be found who ventured to make a
motion, or even to express an opinion about so high-handed a proceeding
(although decrees had often been passed touching less serious breaches of
the peace), Caesar's conduct drove him to such a pitch of desperation,
that from that time until the end of his term he did not leave his house,
but merely issued proclamations announcing adverse omens.
From that time on Caesar managed all the
affairs of state alone and after his own pleasure; so that sundry witty
fellows, pretending by way of jest to sign and seal testamentary
documents, wrote "Done in the consulship of Julius and Caesar," instead of
'Bibulus and Caesar," writing down the same man twice, by name and by
surname. Presently too the following verses were on everyone's lips:
"In Caesar's year, not Bibulus', an act
took place of late;
For naught do I remember done in Bibulus' consulate."
The plain called Stellas, which
had been devoted to public uses by the men of by-gone days, and the
Campanian territory, which had been reserved to pay revenues for the aid
of the government, he divided without casting lots [through a special
commission of twenty men] among twenty thousand citizens who had three or
more children each. When the publicans asked for relief, he freed them
from a third part of their obligation, and openly warned them in
contracting for taxes in the future not to bid too recklessly. He freely
granted everything else that anyone took it into his head to ask, either
without opposition or by intimidating anyone who tried to object. Marcus
Cato, who tried to delay proceedings [by making a speech of several hours'
duration; Gell. 4.10.8. The senate arose in a body and escorted Cato to
prison, and Caesar was forced to release him], was dragged from the House
by a lictor at Caesar's command and taken off to prison. When Lucius
Lucullus was somewhat too outspoken in his opposition, he filled him with
such fear of malicious prosecution [for his conduct during the Third
Mithridatic War] that Lucullus actually fell on his knees before him.
Because Cicero, while pleading in court, deplored the state of the times,
Caesar transferred the orator's enemy Publius Clodius that very same day
from the patricians to the plebeians [59 B.C.], a thing for which Clodius
had for a long time been vainly striving; and that too at the ninth hour
[That is, after the close of the business day, an indication of the haste
with which the adoption was rushed through]. Finally taking action against
all the opposition in a body, he bribed an informer to declare that he had
been egged on by certain men to murder Gnaeus Pompeius, and to come out
upon the rostra and name the guilty parties according to a pre-arranged
plot. But when the informer had named one or two to no purpose and not
without suspicion of double-dealing, Caesar, hopeless of the success of
his over-hasty attempt, is supposed to have had him taken off by poison.
21. At about the same time he took to
wife Calpurnia, daughter of Lucius Piso, who was to succeed him in the
consulship, and affianced his own daughter Julia to Gnaeus Pompeius,
breaking a previous engagement with Servilius Caepio, although the latter
had shortly before rendered him conspicuous service in his contest with
Bibulus. And after this new alliance he began to call upon Pompeius first
to give his opinion in the senate, although it had been his habit to begin
with Crassus, and it was the rule for the consul in calling for opinions
to continue throughout the year the order which he had established on the
Kalends of January.
22 Backed therefore by his father-in-law
and son-in-law, out of all the numerous provinces he made Gallia his
choice, as the most likely to enrich him and furnish suitable material for
triumphs. At first, it is true, by the bill of Vatinius he received only
Gallia Cisalpina with the addition of Illyricum; but presently he was
assigned Gallia Comata as well by the senate, since the members feared
that even if they should refuse it, the people would give him this also.
Transported with joy at this success, he could not keep from boasting a
few days later before a crowded house, that having gained his heart's
desire to the grief and lamentation of his opponents, he would therefore
from that time mount on their heads [used in a double sense, one sexual];
and when someone insultingly remarked that that would be no easy matter
for any woman, he replied in the same vein that Semiramis too had been
queen in Syria and the Amazons in days of old had held sway over a great
part of Asia.
23. When at the close of his consulship
the praetors Gaius Memmius and Lucius Domitius moved an inquiry into his
conduct during the previous year, Caesar laid the matter before the
senate; and when they failed to take it up, and three days had been wasted
in fruitless wrangling, went off to his province. Whereupon his quaestor
was at once arraigned on several counts, as a preliminary to his own
impeachment. Presently he himself too was prosecuted by Lucius Antistius,
tribune of the commons, and it was only by appealing to the whole college
that he contrived not to be brought to trial, on the ground that he was
absent on public service. Then to secure himself for the future, he took
great pains always to put the magistrates for the year under personal
obligation, and not to aid any candidates or suffer any to be elected,
save such as guaranteed to defend him in his absence. And he did not
hesitate in some cases to exact an oath to keep this pledge or even a
written contract.
24. [55 B.C.] When, however, Lucius
Domitius, candidate for the consulship, openly threatened to effect as
consul what he had been unable to do as praetor, and to take his armies
from him, Caesar compelled Pompeius and Crassus to come to Luca, a city in
his province, where he prevailed on them to stand for a second consulship,
to defeat Domitius; and he also succeeded through their influence in
having his term as governor of Gallia made five years longer. Encouraged
by this, he added to the legions which he had received from the state
others at his own cost, one actually composed of men of Gallia Transalpina
and bearing a Gallic name too (for it was called Alauda [A Celtic
word meaning a crested lark (Plin. N.H. 11.37) which was the device
on the helmets of the legion]), which he trained in the Roman tactics and
equipped with Roman arms; and later on he gave every man of it
citizenship. After that he did not let slip any pretext for war, however
unjust and dangerous it might be, picking quarrels as well with allied, as
with hostile and barbarous nations; so that once the senate decreed that a
commission be sent to inquire into the condition of the Gallic provinces,
and some even recommended that Caesar be handed over to the enemy. But as
his enterprises prospered, thanksgivings were appointed in his honor
oftener and for longer periods than for anyone before his time.
25. [58-49 B.C.] During the nine years
of his command this is in substance what he did. All that part of Gallia
which is bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Cévennes, and by the
Rhine and Rhone rivers, a circuit of some 3,200 miles [Roman measure,
about 3,106 English miles], with the exception of some allied states which
had rendered him good service, he reduced to the form of a province; and
imposed upon it a yearly tribute of 40,000,000 sesterces. He was the first
Roman to build a bridge and attack the Germans beyond the Rhine; and he
inflicted heavy losses upon them. He invaded the Britons too, a people
unknown before, vanquished them, and exacted moneys and hostages. Amid all
these successes he met with adverse fortune but three times in all: in
Britannia, where his fleet narrowly escaped destruction in a violent
storm; in Gallia, when one of his legions was routed at Gergovia; and on
the borders of Germania, when his lieutenants Titurius and Aurunculeius
were ambushed and slain.
26. Within this same space of time he
lost first his mother, then his daughter, and soon afterwards his
grandchild. Meanwhile, as the community was aghast at the murder of
Publius Clodius, the senate had voted that only one consul should be
chosen, and expressly named Gnaeus Pompeius. When the tribunes planned to
make him Pompeius' colleague, Caesar urged them rather to propose to the
people that he be permitted to stand for a second consulship without
coming to Rome, when the term of his governorship drew near its end, to
prevent his being forced for the sake of the office to leave his province
prematurely and without finishing the war. On the granting of this, aiming
still higher and flushed with hope, he neglected nothing in the way of
lavish expenditure or of favors to anyone, either in his public capacity
or privately. He began a forum with the proceeds of his spoils, the ground
for which cost more than a hundred million sesterces. He announced a
combat of gladiators and a feast for the people in memory of his daughter,
a thing quite without precedent. To raise the expectation of these events
to the highest possible pitch, he had the material for the banquet
prepared in part by his own household, although he had let contracts to
the markets as well. He gave orders too that whenever famous gladiators
fought without winning the favor of the people [when ordinarily they would
be put to death], they should be rescued by force and kept for him. He had
the novices trained, not in a gladiatorial school by professionals, but in
private houses by Roman knights and even by senators who were skilled in
arms, earnestly beseeching them, as is shown by his own letters, to give
the recruits individual attention and personally direct their exercises.
He doubled the pay of the legions for all time. Whenever grain was
plentiful, he distributed it to them without stint or measure, and now and
then gave each man a slave from among the captives.
27. Moreover, to retain his relationship
and friendship with Pompeius, Caesar offered him his sister's
granddaughter Octavia in marriage, although she was already the wife of
Gaius Marcellus, and asked for the hand of Pompeius' daughter, who was
promised to Faustus Sulla. When he had put all Pompeius' friends under
obligation, as well as the great part of the senate, through loans made
without interest or at a low rate, he lavished gifts on men of all other
classes, both those whom he invited to accept his bounty and those who
applied to him unasked, including even freedmen and slaves who were
special favorites of their masters or patrons. In short, he was the sole
and ever ready help of all who were in legal difficulties or in debt and
of young spendthrifts, excepting only those whose burden of guilt or of
poverty was so heavy, or who were so given up to riotous living, that even
he could not save them; and to these he declared in the plainest terms
that what they needed was a civil war.
28. He took no less pains to win the
devotion of princes and provinces all over the world, offering prisoners
to some by the thousand as a gift, and sending auxiliary troops to the aid
of others whenever they wished, and as often as they wished, without the
sanction of the senate or people, besides adorning the principal cities of
Asia and Graecia with magnificent public works, as well as those of Italia
and the provinces of Gallia and Hispania. At last [51 B.C.], when all were
thunder-struck at his actions and wondered what their purpose could be,
the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, after first making proclamation that
he purposed to bring before the senate a matter of the highest public
moment, proposed that a successor to Caesar be appointed before the end of
his term, on the ground that the war was ended, peace was established, and
the victorious army ought to be disbanded; also that no account be taken
of Caesar at the elections, unless he were present, since Pompeius'
subsequent action [i.e., in correcting the bill after it had been
passed and filed, as explained in the following sentence] had not annulled
the decree of the people. And it was true that when Pompeius proposed a
bill touching the privileges of officials, in the clause where he debarred
absentees from candidacy for office he forgot to make a special exception
in Caesar's case, and did not correct the oversight until the law had been
inscribed on a tablet of bronze and deposited in the treasury. Not content
with depriving Caesar of his provinces and his privilege, Marcellus also
moved that the colonists whom Caesar had settled in Novum Comum by the
bill of Vatinius should lose their citizenship, on the ground that it had
been given from political motives and was not authorized by the law.
29. Greatly troubled by these measures,
and thinking, as they say he was often heard to remark, that now that he
was the leading man of the state, it was harder to push him down from the
first place to the second than it would be from the second to the lowest,
Caesar stoutly resisted Marcellus, partly through vetoes of the tribunes
and partly through the other consul, Servius Sulpicius. When next year
Gaius Marcellus, who had succeeded his cousin Marcus as consul, tried the
same thing, Caesar by a heavy bribe secured the support of the other
consul, Aemilius Paulus, and of Gaius Curio, the most reckless of the
tribunes. But seeing that everything was being pushed most persistently,
and that even the consuls elect were among the opposition, he sent a
written appeal to the senate, not to take from him the privilege which the
people had granted, or else to compel the others in command of armies to
resign also; feeling sure, it was thought, that he could more readily
muster his veterans as soon as he wished, than Pompeius his newly levied
troops. He further proposed a compromise to his opponents, that after
giving up eight legions and Gallia Transalpina, he be allowed to keep two
legions and Gallia Cisalpina, or at least one legion and Illyricum, until
he was elected consul.
30. But when the senate declined to
interfere, and his opponents declared that they would accept no compromise
in a matter affecting the public welfare, he crossed to Gallia Citerior,
and after hearing all the legal cases, halted at Ravenna, intending to
resort to war if the senate took any drastic action against the tribunes
of the commons who interposed vetoes in his behalf. Now this was his
excuse for the civil war, but it is believed that he had other motives.
Gnaeus Pompeius used to declare that since Caesar's own means were not
sufficient to complete the works which he had planned, nor to do all that
he had led the people to expect on his return, he desired a state of
general unrest and turmoil. Others say that he dreaded the necessity of
rendering an account for what he had done in his first consulship contrary
to the auspices and the laws, and regardless of vetoes; for Marcus Cato
often declared, and took oath too, that he would impeach Caesar the moment
he had disbanded his army. It was openly said too that if he was out of
office on his return, he would be obliged, like Milo [who had been accused
and tried for the murder of Publius Clodius], to make his defence in a
court hedged about by armed men. The latter opinion is the more credible
one in view of the assertion of Asinius Pollio, that when Caesar at the
battle of Pharsalus saw his enemies slain or in flight, he said, word for
word: "They would have it so. Even I, Gaius Caesar, after so many great
deeds, should have been found guilty, if I had not turned to my army for
help." Some think that habit had given him a love of power, and that
weighing the strength of his adversaries against his own, he grasped the
opportunity of usurping the despotism which had been his heart's desire
from early youth. Cicero too was seemingly of this opinion, when he wrote
in the third book of his De Officiis [3.82; cf. 1.26] that
Caesar ever had upon his lips these lines of Euripides [Phoenissae,
524ff.], of which Cicero himself adds a version:
'If wrong may e'er be right, for a
throne's sake
Were wrong most right:---be God in all else feared.'
31. [49 B.C.] Accordingly, when word
came that the veto of the tribunes had been set aside and they themselves
had left the city, he at once sent on a few cohorts with all secrecy, and
then, to disarm suspicion, concealed his purpose by appearing at a public
show, inspecting the plans of a gladiatorial school which he intended
building, and joining as usual in a banquet with a large company. It was
not until after sunset that he set out very privily with a small company,
taking the mules from a bakeshop hard by and harnessing them to a
carriage; and when his lights went out and he lost his way, he was astray
for some time, but at last found a guide at dawn and got back to the road
on foot by narrow bypaths. Then, overtaking his cohorts at the river
Rubicon, which was the boundary of his province, he paused for a while,
and realizing what a step he was taking, he turned to those about him and
said: 'Even yet we may draw back; but once cross yon little bridge, and
the whole issue is with the sword."
32. As he stood in doubt, this sign was
given him. On a sudden there appeared hard by a being of wondrous stature
and beauty, who sat and played upon a reed; and when not only the
shepherds flocked to hear him, but many of the soldiers left their posts,
and among them some of the trumpeters, the apparition snatched a trumpet
from one of them, rushed to the river, and sounding the war-note with
mighty blast, strode to the opposite bank. Then Caesar cried: " Take we
the course which the signs of the gods and the false dealing of our foes
point out. The die is cast [ A>Iacta alea est,' inquit'].
33. Accordingly, crossing with his army,
and welcoming the tribunes of the plebeians, who had come to him after
being driven from Rome, he harangued the soldiers with tears, and rending
his robe from his breast besought their faithful service. It is even
thought that he promised every man the estate of an eques, but that
came of a misunderstanding; for since he often pointed to the finger of
his left hand as he addressed them and urged them on, declaring that to
satisfy all those who helped him to defend his honor he would gladly tear
his very ring from his hand, those on the edge of the assembly, who could
see him better than they could hear his words, assumed that he said what
his gesture seemed to mean; and so the report went about that he had
promised them the right of the ring and four hundred thousand sesterces as
well [The equites as well as senators had the privilege of wearing
a gold ring, and must possess an estate of 400,000 sesterces].
34. The sum total of his movements after
that is, in their order, as follows: He overran Umbria, Picenum, and
Etruria, took prisoner Lucius Domitius, who had been irregularly named his
successor, and was holding Corfinium with a garrison, let him go free, and
then proceeded along the Adriatic to Brundisium, where Pompeius and the
consuls had taken refuge, intending to cross the sea as soon as might be.
After vainly trying by every kind of hindrance to prevent their sailing,
he marched off to Rome, and after calling the senate together to discuss
public business, went to attack Pompeius' strongest forces, which were in
Hispania under command of three of his lieutenants--Marcus Petreius,
Lucius Afranius, and Marcus Varro---saying to his friends before he left
"I go to meet an army without a leader, and I shall return to meet a
leader without an army." And in fact, though his advance was delayed by
the siege of Massilia, which had shut its gates against him, and by
extreme scarcity of supplies, he nevertheless quickly gained a complete
victory.
35. [48 B.C.] Returning thence to Rome,
he crossed into Macedonia, and after blockading Pompeius for almost four
months behind mighty ramparts, finally routed him in the battle at
Pharsalus, followed him in his flight to Alexandria, and when he learned
that his rival had been slain, made war on King Ptolemy, whom he perceived
to be plotting against his own safety as well; a war in truth of great
difficulty, convenient neither in time nor place, but carried on during
the winter season, within the walls of a well-provisioned and crafty
foeman, while Caesar himself was without supplies of any kind and
ill-prepared. Victor in spite of all, he turned over the rule of Egypt to
Cleopatra and her younger brother [47 B.C.], fearing that if he made a
province of it, it might one day under a headstrong governor be a source
of revolution. From Alexandria he crossed to Syria, and from there went to
Pontus, spurred on by the news that Pharnaces, son of Mithridates the
Great, had taken advantage of the situation to make war, and was already
flushed with numerous successes; but Caesar vanquished him in a single
battle within five days after his arrival and four hours after getting
sight of him, often remarking on Pompeius' good luck in gaining his
principal fame as a general by victories over such feeble foemen. Then he
overcame Scipio and Juba [46 B.C.], who were patching up the remnants of
their party in Africa, and the sons of Pompeius in Spain [45 B C.].
36. In all the civil wars he suffered
not a single disaster except through his lieutenants, of whom Gaius Curio
perished in Africa, Gaius Antonius fell into the hands of the enemy in
Illyricum, Publius Dolabella lost a fleet also off Illyricum, and Gnaeus
Domitius Calvinus an army in Pontus. Personally he always fought with the
utmost success, and the issue was never even in doubt save twice: once at
Dyrrachium, where he was put to flight, and said of Pompeius, who failed
to follow up his success, that he did not know how to use a victory; again
in Spain, in the final struggle, when, believing the battle lost, he
actually thought of suicide.
37. Having ended the wars, he celebrated
five triumphs, four in a single month, but at intervals of a few days,
after vanquishing Scipio; and another on defeating Pompeius' sons. The
first and most splendid was the Gallic triumph, the next the Alexandrian,
then the Pontic, after that the African, and finally the Hispanic, each
differing from the rest in its equipment and display of spoils. As he rode
through the Velabrum on the day of his Gallic triumph, the axle of his
chariot broke, and he was all but thrown out; and he mounted the Capitol
by torchlight, with forty elephants bearing lamps on his right and his
left. In his Pontic triumph he displayed among the show-pieces of the
procession an inscription of but three words, "I came, I saw, I
conquered," [ 'Veni, vidi, vici'] not indicating the events of the war, as
the others did, but the speed with which it was finished.
38. To each and every foot-soldier of
his veteran legions he gave twenty-four thousand sesterces by way of
plunder, over and above the two thousand apiece which he had paid them at
the beginning of the civil strife. He also assigned them lands, but not
side by side, to avoid dispossessing any of the former owners. To every
man of the people, besides ten pecks of grain and the same number of
pounds of oil, he distributed the three hundred sesterces which he had
promised at first, and one hundred apiece because of the delay. He also
remitted a year's rent in Rome to tenants who paid two thousand sesterces
or less, and in Italy up to five hundred sesterces. He added a banquet and
a dole of meat, and after his Hispanic victory two dinners; for deeming
that the former of these had not been served with a liberality creditable
to his generosity, he gave another five days later on a most lavish scale.
39. He gave entertainments of divers
kinds: a combat of gladiators and also stage-plays in every ward all over
the city, performed too by actors of all languages, as well as races in
the circus, athletic contests, and a sham sea-fight. In the gladiatorial
contest in the Forum Furius Leptinus, a man of praetorian stock, and
Quintus Calpenus, a former senator and pleader at the bar, fought to a
finish. A Pyrrhic dance was performed by the sons of the princes of Asia
and Bithynia. During the plays Decimus Laberius, a Roman eques,
acted a farce of his own composition, and having been presented with five
hundred thousand sesterces and a gold ring [in token of his restoration to
the rank of eques, which he forfeited by appearing on the stage],
passed from the stage through the orchestra and took his place in the
fourteen rows [the first fourteen rows above the orchestra, reserved for
the equites by the law of L. Roscius Otho, tribune of the
plebeians, in 67 B.C.]. For the races the circus was lengthened at either
end and a broad canal was dug all about it; then young men of the highest
rank drove four-horse and two-horse chariots and rode pairs of horses,
vaulting from one to the other. The game called Troy was performed by two
troops, of younger and of older boys. Combats with wild beasts were
presented on five successive days, and last of all there was a battle
between two opposing armies, in which five hundred foot-soldiers, twenty
elephants, and thirty horsemen engaged on each side. To make room for
this, the goals were taken down and in their place two camps were pitched
over against each other. The athletic competitions lasted for three days
in a temporary stadium built for the purpose in the region of the Campus
Martius. For the naval battle a pool was dug in the lesser Codeta and
there was a contest of ships of two, three, and four banks of oars,
belonging to the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, manned by a large force of
fighting men. Such a throng flocked to all these shows from every quarter,
that many strangers had to lodge in tents pitched in the streets or along
the roads, and the press was often such that many were crushed to death,
including two senators.
40. Then turning his attention to the
reorganisation of the state, he reformed the calendar, which the
negligence of the pontiffs had long since so disordered, through their
privilege of adding months or days at pleasure, that the harvest festivals
did not come in summer nor those of the vintage in the autumn; and he
adjusted the year to the sun's course by making it consist of three
hundred and sixty-five days, abolishing the intercalary month, and adding
one day every fourth year [the year had previously consisted of 355 days,
and the deficiency of about eleven days was made up by inserting an
intercalary month of twenty-two or twenty-three days after February].
Furthermore, that the correct reckoning of seasons might begin with the
next Kalends of January, he inserted two other months between those of
November and December; hence the year in which these arrangements were
made was one of fifteen months, including the intercalary month, which
belonged to that year according to the former custom.
41. He filled the vacancies in the
senate, enrolled additional patricians, and increased the number of
praetors, aediles, and quaestors, as well as of the minor officials; he
reinstated those who had been degraded by official action of the censors
or found guilty of bribery by verdict of the jurors. He shared the
elections with the people on this basis: that except in the case of the
consulship, half of the magistrates should be appointed by the people's
choice, while the rest should be those whom he had personally nominated.
And these he announced in brief notes like the following, circulated in
each tribe: 'Caesar the Dictator to this or that tribe. I commend to you
so and so, to hold their positions by your votes." He admitted to office
even the sons of those who had been proscribed. He limited the right of
serving as jurors to two classes, the equestrian and senatorial orders,
disqualifying the third class, the tribunes of the treasury. He made the
enumeration of the people neither in the usual manner nor place, but from
street to street aided by the owners of blocks of houses, and reduced the
number of those who received grain at public expense from three hundred
and twenty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. And to prevent the
calling of additional meetings at any future time for purposes of
enrolment, he provided that the places of such as died should be filled
each year by the praetors from those who were not on the list.
42. Moreover, to keep up the population
of the city, depleted as it was by the assignment of eighty thousand
citizens to colonies across the sea, he made a law that no citizen older
than twenty or younger than forty, who was not detained by service in the
army, should be absent from Italia for more than three successive years;
that no senator's son should go abroad except as the companion of a
magistrate or on his staff; and that those who made a business of grazing
should have among their herdsmen at least one-third who were men of free
birth. He conferred citizenship on all who practiced medicine at Rome, and
on all teachers of the liberal arts, to make them more desirous of living
in the city and to induce others to resort to it. As to debts, he
disappointed those who looked for their cancellation, which was often
agitated, but finally decreed that the debtors should satisfy their
creditors according to a valuation of their possessions at the price which
they had paid for them before the civil war, deducting from the principal
whatever interest had been paid in cash or pledged through bankers; an
arrangement which wiped out about a fourth part of their indebtedness. He
dissolved all collegii [associations], except those of ancient
foundation. He increased the penalties for crimes; and inasmuch as the
rich involved themselves in guilt with less hesitation because they merely
suffered exile, without any loss of property, he punished murderers of
freemen by the confiscation of all their goods, as Cicero writes, and
others by the loss of one-half.
43. He administered justice with the
utmost conscientiousness and strictness. Those convicted of extortion he
even dismissed from the senatorial order. He annulled the marriage of an
ex-praetor, who had married a woman the very day after her divorce,
although there was no suspicion of adultery. He imposed duties on foreign
wares. He denied the use of litters and the wearing of scarlet robes or
pearls to all except to those of a designated position and age, and on set
days. In particular, he enforced the law against extravagance, setting
watchmen in various parts of the market, to seize and bring to him
dainties which were exposed for sale in violation of the law; and
sometimes he sent his lictors and soldiers to take from a dining-room any
articles which had escaped the vigilance of his watchmen, even after they
had been served.
44. In particular, for the adornment and
convenience of the city, also for the protection and extension of the
Empire, he formed more projects and more extensive ones every day; first
of all, to rear a temple to Mars, greater than any in existence, filling
up and levelling the pool in which he had exhibited the sea-fight, and to
build a theater of vast size, sloping down from the Tarpeian Rock; to
reduce the civil code to fixed limites, and of the vast and prolix mass of
statutes to include only the best and most essential in a limited number
of volumes; to open to the public the greatest possible libraries of Greek
and Latin books, assigning to Marcus Varro the charge of procuring and
classifying them; to drain the Pomptine marshes; to let out the water from
Lake Fucinus; to make a highway from the Adriatic across the summit of the
Apennines as far as the Tiber; to cut a canal through the Isthmus; to
check the Dacians, who had poured into Pontus and Thrace; then to make war
on the Parthians by way of Lesser Armenia, but not to risk a battle with
them until he had first tested their mettle. All these enterprises and
plans were cut short by his death. But before I speak of that, it will not
be amiss to describe briefly his personal appearance, his dress, his mode
of life, and his character, as well as his conduct in civil and military
life.
45. He is said to have been tall of
stature, with a fair complexion, shapely limbs, a somewhat full face, and
keen black eyes; sound of health, except that towards the end he was
subject to sudden fainting fits and to nightmare as well. He was twice
attacked by the falling sickness [morbus comitialis, so-called
because an attack was considered sufficient cause for the postponement of
elections, or other public business. This is thought to have been
epilepsy.] during his campaigns. He was somewhat overnice in the care of
his person, being not only carefully trimmed and shaved, but even having
superfluous hair plucked out, as some have charged; while his baldness was
a disfigurement which troubled him greatly, since he found that it was
often the subject of the gibes of his detractors. Because of it he used to
comb forward his scanty locks from the crown of his head, and of all the
honors voted him by the senate and people there was none which he received
or made use of more gladly than the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath
at all times. They say, too, that he was remarkable in his dress; that he
wore a senator's tunic [Latus clavus, the broad purple stripe, is
also applied to a tunic with the broad stripe. All senators had the right
to wear this; the peculiarity in Caesar's case consisted in the long
fringed sleeve.] with fringed sleeves reaching to the wrist, and always
had a girdle [While a girdle was commonly worn with the ordinary tunic, it
was not usual to wear one with the latus clavus.] over it, though
rather a loose one; and this, they say, was the occasion of Sulla's mot,
when he often warned the nobles to keep an eye on the ill-girt boy.
46. He lived at first in the Subura in a
modest house, but after he became pontifex maximus, in the official
residence on the Sacred Way. Many have written that he was very fond of
elegance and luxury; that having laid the foundations of a countryhouse on
his estate at Nemi and finished it at great cost, he tore it all down
because it did not suit him in every particular, although at the time he
was still poor and heavily in debt; and that he carried tesselated and
mosaic floors about with him on his campaigns.
47. They say that he was led to invade
Britannia by the hope of getting pearls, and that in comparing their size
he sometimes weighed them with his own hand; that he was always a most
enthusiastic collector of gems, carvings, statues, and pictures by early
artists; also of slaves of exceptional figure and training at enormous
prices, of which he himself was so ashamed that he forbade their entry in
his accounts.
48. It is further reported that in the
provinces he gave banquets constantly in two dining halls, in one of which
his officers or Greek companions, in the other Roman civilians and the
more distinguished of the provincials reclined at table. He was so
punctilious and strict in the management of his household, in small
matters as well as in those of greater importance, that he put his baker
in irons for serving him with one kind of bread and his guests with
another; and he inflicted capital punishment on a favorite freedman for
adultery with the wife of a Roman eques, although no complaint was
made against him.
49. There was no stain on his reputation
for chastity except his intimacy with King Nicomedes, but that was a deep
and lasting reproach, which laid him open to insults from every quarter. I
say nothing of the notorious lines of Licinius Calvus:
Whate'er Bithynia had, and Caesar's paramour.
I pass over, too, the invectives of
Dolabella and the elder Curio, in which Dolabella calls him 'the queen's
rival, the inner partner of the royal couch,' and Curio, 'the brothel of
Nicomedes and the stew of Bithynia.' I take no account of the edicts of
Bibulus, in which he posted his colleague as 'the queen of Bithynia,'
saying that 'of old he was enamored of a king, but now of a king's
estate.' At this same time, so Marcus Brutus declares, one Octavius, a man
whose disordered mind made him somewhat free with his tongue, after
saluting Gnaeus Pompeius as Rex [or 'king'] in a crowded assembly,
greeted Caesar as Regina ["queen"]. But Gaius Memmius makes the
direct charge that he acted as cup-bearer to Nicomedes with the rest of
his wantons at a large dinner-party, and that among the guests were some
merchants from Rome, whose names Memmius gives. Cicero, indeed, is not
content with having written in sundry letters that Caesar was led by the
king's attendants to the royal apartments, that he lay on a golden couch
arrayed in purple, and that the virginity of this son of Venus was lost in
Bithynia; but when Caesar was once addressing the senate in defence of
Nysa, daughter of Nicomedes, and was enumerating his obligations to the
king, Cicero cried: "No more of that, pray, for it is well known what he
gave you, and what you gave him in turn." Finally, in his Gallic triumph
his soldiers, among the bantering songs which are usually sung by those
who follow the chariot, shouted these lines, which became a by-word:
"All the Gauls did Caesar vanquish, Nicomedes vanquished him;
Lo! now Caesar rides in triumph, victor over all the Gauls,
Nicomedes does not triumph, who subdued the conqueror."
50. That he was unbridled and
extravagant in his intrigues is the general opinion, and that he seduced
many illustrious women, among them Postumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius,
Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, Tertulla, wife of Marcus Crassus, and even
Gnaeus Pompeius' wife Mucia. At all events there is no doubt that Pompeius
was taken to task by the elder and the younger Curio, as well as by many
others, because through a desire for power he had afterwards married the
daughter of a man on whose account he divorced a wife who had borne him
three children and whom he had often referred to with a groan as an
Aegisthus. But beyond all others Caesar loved Servilia, the mother of
Marcus Brutus, for whom in his first consulship he bought a pearl costing
six million sesterces. During the civil war, too, besides other presents,
he knocked down some fine estates to her in a public auction at a nominal
price, and when some expressed their surprise at the low figure, Cicero
wittily remarked: "It's a better bargain than you think, for there is a
third off'---and in fact it was thought that Servilia was prostituting her
own daughter Tertia to Caesar [The word play is on tertia (pars)---
'third part'---and Tertia, daughter of Servilia, in a rather low
and vulgar sexual jest].
51. That he did not refrain from
intrigues in the provinces is shown in particular by this couplet, which
was also shouted by the soldiers in his Gallic triumph:
'Men of Rome, keep close your consorts,
here's a bald adulterer.
Gold in Gallia you spent in dalliance, which you borrowed here in Rome."
52. He had love affairs with queens too,
including Eunoe the Mauretanian, wife of Bogudes, on whom, as well as on
her husband, he bestowed many splendid presents, as Naso writes; but above
all with Cleopatra, with whom he often feasted until daybreak, and he
would have gone through Egypt with her in her state-barge almost to
Aethiopia [i.e., Kush], had not his soldiers refused to follow him.
Finally he called her to Rome and did not let her leave until he had
ladened her with high honors and rich gifts, and he allowed her to give
his name to the child which she bore. In fact, according to certain Greek
writers, this child was very like Caesar in looks and carriage. Marcus
Antonius declared to the senate that Caesar had really acknowledged the
boy, and that Gaius Matius, Gaius Oppius, and other friends of Caesar knew
this. Of these Gaius Oppius, as if admitting that the situation required
apology and defence, published a book, to prove that the child whom
Cleopatra fathered on Caesar was not his. Helvius Cinna, tribune of the
plebeians, admitted to several that he had a bill drawn up in due form,
which Caesar had ordered him to propose to the people in his absence,
making it lawful for Caesar to marry what wives he wished, and as many as
he wished, 'for the purpose of begetting children' [the words liberorum
quaerendorum causa are a legal formula indicating that the purpose of
marriage is to beget legal heirs]. But to remove all doubt that he had an
evil reputation both for shameless vice and for adultery, I have only to
add that the elder Curio in one of his speeches calls him "every woman's
man and every man's woman."
53. That he drank very little wine not
even his enemies denied. There is a saying of Marcus Cato that Caesar was
the only man who undertook to overthrow the state when sober. Even in the
matter of food Gaius Oppius tells us that he was so indifferent, that once
when his host served stale oil instead of fresh, and the other guests
would have none of it, Caesar partook even more plentifully than usual,
not to seem to charge his host with carelessness or lack of manners.
54. Neither when in command of armies
nor as a magistrate at Rome did he show a scrupulous integrity; for as
certain men have declared in their memoirs, when he was proconsul in
Hispania, he not only begged money from the allies, to help pay his debts,
but also attacked and sacked some towns of the Lusitanians although they
did not refuse his terms and opened their gates to him on his arrival. In
Gallia he pillaged shrines and temples of the gods filled with offerings,
and oftener sacked towns for the sake of plunder than for any fault. In
consequence he had more gold than he knew what to do with, and offered it
for sale throughout Italia and the provinces at the rate of three thousand
sesterces the pound. In his first consulship he stole three thousand
pounds of gold from the Capitol, replacing it with the same weight of
gilded bronze. He made alliances and thrones a matter of barter, for he
extorted from Ptolemy alone in his own name and that of Pompeius nearly
six thousand talents, while later on he met the heavy expenses of the
civil wars and of his triumphs and entertainments by the most bare-faced
pillage and sacrilege.
55. In eloquence and in the art of war
he either equalled or surpassed the fame of their most eminent
representatives. After his accusation of Dolabella, he was without
question numbered with the leading advocates. At all events, when Cicero
reviews the orators in his Brutus, he says that he does not see to
whom Caesar ought to yield the palm, declaring that his style is elegant
as well as transparent, even grand and in a sense noble. Again in a letter
to Cornelius Nepos he writes thus of Caesar: "Come now, what orator would
you rank above him of those who have devoted themselves to nothing else?
Who has cleverer or more frequent epigrams? Who is either more picturesque
or more choice in diction?" He appears, at least in his youth, to have
imitated the manner of Caesar Strabo, from whose speech entitled Pro
Sardis he actually transferred some passages word for word to a trial
address of his own. He is said to have delivered himself in a high-pitched
voice with impassioned action and gestures, which were not without grace.
He left several speeches, including some which are attributed to him on
insufficient evidence. Augustus had good reason to think that the speech
Pro Quintus Metellus was rather taken down by shorthand writers who
could not keep pace with his delivery, than published by Caesar himself;
for in some copies I find that even the title is not Pro Metellus,
but, Quam scripsit Metello ["Which he wrote for Metellus"] although
the discourse purports to be from Caesar's lips, defending Metellus and
himself against the charges of their common detractors. Augustus also
questions the authenticity of the address Apud milites quoque in
Hispania, although there are two sections of it, one purporting to
have been spoken at the first battle, the other at the second when Asinius
Pollio writes that because of the sudden onslaught of the enemy, he
actually did not have time to make an harangue.
56. He left memoirs too of his deeds in
the Gallic war and in the civil strife with Pompeius; for the author of
the Alexandrian, African, and Hispanic Wars is unknown; some think it was
Oppius, others Hirtius, who also supplied the final book of the Gallic
War, which Caesar left unwritten. With regard to Caesar's memoirs Cicero,
also in the Brutus speaks in the following terms: "He wrote memoirs
which deserve the highest praise; they are naked in their simplicity,
straightforward yet graceful, stripped of all rhetorical adornment, as of
a garment; but while his purpose was to supply material to others, on
which those who wished to write history might draw, he haply gratified
silly folk, who will try to use the curling-irons on his narrative, but he
has kept men of any sense from touching the subject." Of these same
memoirs Hirtius uses this emphatic language: "They are so highly rated in
the judgment of all men, that he seems to have deprived writers of an
opportunity, rather than given them one; yet our admiration for this feat
is greater than that of others; for they know how well and faultlessly he
wrote, while we know besides how easily and rapidly he finished his task."
Asinius Pollio thinks that they were put together somewhat carelessly and
without strict regard for truth; since in many cases Caesar was too ready
to believe the accounts which others gave of their actions, and gave a
perverted account of his own, either designedly or perhaps from
forgetfulness; and he thinks that he intended to rewrite and revise them.
He left besides a work in two volumes De Analogia, the same number
of Anti-Catones ['Against Cato'], in addition to a poem, entitled
Iter ['The Journey']. He wrote the first of these works while
crossing the Alps and returning to his army from Gallia Citerior, where he
heard lawsuits; the second about the time of the battle of Munda, and the
third in the course of a twenty-four days' journey from Rome to Hispania
Ulterior. Some letters of his to the senate are also preserved, and he
seems to have been the first to reduce such documents to pages and the
form of a note-book [i.e., to book form], whereas previously
consuls and generals sent their reports written right across the sheet [i.e.,
without columns or margins, but across the sheet without rhyme or
reason]. There are also letters of his to Cicero, as well as to his
intimates on private affairs, and in the latter, if he had anything
confidential to say, he wrote it in cipher, that is, by so changing the
order of the letters of the alphabet, that not a word could be made out.
If anyone wishes to decipher these, and get at their meaning, he must
substitute the fourth letter of the alphabet, namely D, for A, and so with
the others. We also have mention of certain writings of his boyhood and
early youth, such as the Laudes Herculis ["Praises of Hercules"], a
tragedy Oedipus, and a Dicta Collectanea ["Collection of
Apophthegms"]; but Augustus forbade the publication of all these minor
works in a very brief and frank letter sent to Pompeius Macer, whom he had
selected to set his libraries in order.
57. He was highly skilled in arms and
horsemanship, and of incredible powers of endurance. On the march he
headed his army, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, bareheaded
both in the heat of the sun and in rain. He covered great distances with
incredible speed, making a hundred miles a day in a hired carriage and
with little baggage, swimming the rivers which barred his path or crossing
them on inflated skins, and very often arriving before the messengers sent
to announce his coming.
58. In the conduct of his campaigns it
is a question whether he was more cautious or more daring, for he never
led his army where ambuscades were possible without carefully
reconnoitering the country, and he did not cross to Britannia without
making personal inquiries about the harbors, the course, and the approach
to the island. But on the other hand, when news came that his camp in
Germania was beleaguered, he made his way to his men through the enemies'
pickets, disguised as a Gaul. He crossed from Brundisium to Dyrrachium in
winter time, running the blockade of the enemy's fleets; and when the
troops which he had ordered to follow him delayed to do so, and he had
sent to fetch them many times in vain, at last in secret and alone he
boarded a small boat at night with his head muffled up; and he did not
reveal who he was, or suffer the helmsman to give way to the gale blowing
in their teeth, until he was all but overwhelmed by the waves.
59. No regard for religion ever turned
him from any undertaking, or even delayed him. Though the victim escaped
as he was offering sacrifice, he did not put off his expedition against
Scipio and Juba. Even when he had a fall as he disembarked, he gave the
omen a favorable turn by crying: "I hold you fast, Africa." Furthermore,
to make the prophecies ridiculous which declared that the stock of the
Scipios was fated to be fortunate and invincible in that province, he kept
with him in camp a contemptible fellow belonging to the Cornelian family,
to whom the nickname Salvito had been given as a reproach for his manner
of life.
60. He joined battle, not only after
planning his movements in advance but on a sudden opportunity, often
immediately at the end of a march, and sometimes in the foulest weather,
when one would least expect him to make a move. It was not until his later
years that he became slower to engage, through a conviction that the
oftener he had been victor, the less he ought to tempt fate, and that he
could not possibly gain as much by success as he might lose by a defeat.
He never put his enemy to flight without also driving him from his camp,
thus giving him no respite in his panic. When the issue was doubtful, he
used to send away the horses, and his own among the first, to impose upon
his troops the greater necessity of standing their ground by taking away
that aid to flight.
61. He rode a remarkable horse, too,
with feet that were almost human; for its hoofs were cloven in such a way
as to look like toes. This horse was foaled on his own place, and since
the soothsayers had declared that it foretold the rule of the world for
its master, he reared it with the greatest care, and was the first to
mount it, for it would endure no other rider. Afterwards, too, he
dedicated a statue of it before the temple of Venus Genetrix.
62. When his army gave way, he often
rallied it single-handed, planting himself in the way of the fleeing men,
laying hold of them one by one, and even catching them by the throat and
forcing them to face the enemy; that, too, when they were in such a panic
that an eagle-bearer made a pass at him with the point [the standard of
the legion was a silver eagle with outstretched wings, mounted on a pole
which had a sharp point at the other end, so that it could be set firmly
in the ground] as he tried to stop him, while another left the standard in
Caesar's hand when he would hold him back.
63. His presence of mind was no less
renowned, and the instances of it will appear even more striking. After
the battle of Pharsalus, when he had sent on his troops and was crossing
the strait of the Hellespont in a small passenger boat, he met Lucius
Cassius, of the hostile party, with ten armored ships, and made no attempt
to escape, but went to meet Cassius and actually urged him to surrender;
and Cassius sued for mercy and was taken on board.
64. At Alexandria, while assaulting a
bridge, he was forced by a sudden sally of the enemy to take to a small
skiff; when many others threw themselves into the same boat, he plunged
into the sea, and after swimming for two hundred paces, got away to the
nearest ship, holding up his left hand all the way, so as not to wet some
papers which he was carrying, and dragging his cloak after him with his
teeth, to keep the enemy from getting it as a trophy.
65. He valued his soldiers neither for
their personal character nor their fortune, but solely for their prowess,
and he treated them with equal strictness and indulgence; for he did not
curb them everywhere and at all times, but only in the presence of the
enemy. Then he required the strictest discipline, not announcing the time
of a march or a battle, but keeping them ready and alert to be led on a
sudden at any moment wheresoever he might wish. He often called them out
even when there was no occasion for it, especially on rainy days and
holidays. And warning them every now and then that they must keep close
watch on him, he would steal away suddenly by day or night and make a
longer march than usual, to tire out those who were tardy in following.
66. When they were in a panic through
reports about the enemy's numbers, he used to rouse their courage not by
denying or discounting the rumours, but by falsely exaggerating the true
danger. For instance, when the anticipation of Juba's coming filled them
with terror, he called the soldiers together and said: "Let me tell you
that within the next few days the king will be here with ten legions,
thirty thousand horsemen, a hundred thousand light-armed troops, and three
hundred elephants. Therefore some of you may as well cease to ask further
questions or make surmises and may rather believe me, since I know all
about it. Otherwise, I shall surely have them shipped on some worn out
craft and carried off to whatever lands the wind may blow them."
67. He did not take notice of all their
offences or punish them by rule, but he kept a sharp look out for
deserters and mutineers, and chastised them most severely, shutting his
eyes to other faults. Sometimes, too, after a great victory he relieved
them of all duties and gave them full licence to revel, being in the habit
of boasting that his soldiers could fight well even when reeking of
perfumes. In the assembly he addressed them not as "soldiers," but by the
more fiattering term "comrades," and he kept them in fine trim, furnishing
them with arms inlaid with silver and gold, both for show and to make them
hold the faster to them in battle, through fear of the greatness of the
loss. Such was his love for them that when he heard of the disaster to
Titurius, he let his hair and beard grow long, and would not cut them
until he had taken vengeance.
68. In this way he made them most
devoted to his interests as well as most valiant. When he began the civil
war, every centurion of each legion proposed to supply a horseman from his
own savings, and the soldiers one and all offered their service without
pay and without rations, the richer assuming the care of the poorer.
Throughout the long struggle not one deserted and many of them, on being
taken prisoner, refused to accept their lives, when offered them on the
condition of consenting to serve against Caesar. They bore hunger and
other hardships, both when in a state of siege and when besieging others,
with such fortitude, that when Pompeius saw in the works at Dyrrachium a
kind of bread made of herbs, on which they were living, he said that he
was fighting wild beasts; and he gave orders that it be put out of sight
quickly and shown to none of his men, for fear that the endurance and
resolution of the foe would break their spirit. How valiantly they fought
is shown by the fact that when they suffered their sole defeat before
Dyrrachium, they insisted on being punished, and their commander felt
called upon rather to console than to chastise them. In the other battles
they overcame with ease countless forces of the enemy, though decidedly
fewer in number themselves. Indeed one cohort of the sixth legion, when
set to defend a redoubt, kept four legions of Pompeius at bay for several
hours, though almost all were wounded by the enemy's showers of arrows, of
which a hundred and thirty thousand were picked up within the ramparts.
And no wonder, when one thinks of the deeds of individual soldiers, either
of Cassius Scaeva the centurion, or of Gaius Acilius of the rank and file,
not to mention others. Scaeva, with one eye gone, his thigh and shoulder
wounded, and his shield bored through in a hundred and twenty places,
continued to guard the gate of a fortress put in his charge. Acilius in
the sea-fight at Massilia grasped the stern of one of the enemy s ships,
and when his right hand was lopped off, rivalling the famous exploit of
the Greek hero Cynegirus, boarded the ship and drove the enemy before him
with the boss of his shield.
69. They did not mutiny once during the
ten years of the Gallic war; in the civil wars they did so now and then,
but quickly resumed their duty, not so much owing to any indulgence of
their general as to his authority. For he never gave way to them when they
were insubordinate, but always boldly faced them, discharging the entire
ninth legion in disgrace before Placentia, though Pompey was still in the
field, reinstating them unwillingly and only after many abject entreaties,
and insisting on punishing the ringleaders.
70. Again at Rome, when the men of the
Tenth Legion clamored for their discharge and rewards with terrible
threats and no little peril to the city, though the war in Africa was then
raging, he did not hesitate to appear before them, against the advice of
his friends, and to disband them. But with a single word, calling them
"citizens," instead of 'soldiers," he easily brought them round and bent
them to his will; for they at once replied that they were his "soldiers"
and insisted on following him to Africa, although he refused their
service. Even then he punished the most insubordinate by the loss of a
third part of the plunder and of the land intended for them.
71. Even when a young man he showed no
lack of devotion and fidelity to his dependents. He defended Masintha, a
youth of high birth, against King Hiempsal [of Numidia] with such spirit,
that in the dispute he caught the king's son Juba by the beard. On
Masintha's being declared tributary to the king, he at once rescued him
from those who would carry him off and kept him hidden for some time in
his own house; and when presently he left for Hispania after his
praetorship, he carried the young man off in his own litter, unnoticed
amid the crowd that came to see him off and the lictors with their fasces.
72. His friends he treated with
invariable kindness and consideration. When Gaius Oppius was his companion
on a journey through a wild, woody country and was suddenly taken ill,
Caesar gave up to him the only shelter there was, while he himself slept
on the ground out-of-doors. Moreover, when he came to power, he advanced
some of his friends to the highest positions, even though they were of the
humblest origin, and when taken to task for it, flatly declared that if he
had been helped in defending his honor by brigands and cut-throats, he
would have requited even such men in the same way.
73. On the other hand he never formed
such bitter enmities that he was not glad to lay them aside when
opportunity offered. Although Gaius Memmius had made highly caustic
speeches against him, to which he had replied with equal bitterness, he
went so far as to support Memmius afterwards in his suit for the
consulship. When Gaius Calvus, after some scurrilous epigrams, took steps
through his friends towards a reconciliation, Caesar wrote to him first
and of his own free will. Valerius Catullus, as Caesar himself did not
hesitate to say, inflicted a lasting stain on his name by the verses about
Mamurra; yet when he apologised, Caesar invited the poet to dinner that
very same day, and continued his usual friendly relations with Catullus's
father.
74. Even in avenging wrongs he was by
nature most merciful, and when he got hold of the pirates who had captured
him, he had them crucified, since he had sworn beforehand that he would do
so, but ordered that their throats be cut first. He could never make up
his mind to harm Cornelius Phagites, although when he was sick and in
hiding the man had waylaid him night after night, and even a bribe had
barely saved him from being handed over to Sulla. The slave Philemon, his
amanuensis, who had promised Caesar's enemies that he would poison him, he
merely punished by death, without torture. When summoned as a witness
against Publius Clodius, the paramour of his wife Pompeia, charged on the
same count with sacrilege, Caesar declared that he had no evidence,
although both his mother Aurelia and his sister Julia had given the same
jurors a faithful account of the whole affair; and on being asked why it
was then that he had put away his wife, he replied: "Because I maintain
that the members of my family should be free from suspicion, as well as
from accusation."
75. He certainly showed admirable
self-restraint and mercy, both in his conduct of the civil war and in the
hour of victory. While Pompeius announced that he would treat as enemies
those who did not take up arms for the government, Caesar gave out that
those who were neutral and of neither party should be numbered with his
friends. He freely allowed all those whom he had made centurions on
Pompeius' recommendation to go over to his rival. When conditions of
surrender were under discussion at Ilerda, and friendly intercourse
between the two parties was constant, Afranius and Petreius, with a sudden
change of purpose, put to death all of Caesar's soldiers whom they found
in their camp; but Caesar could not bring himself to retaliate in kind. At
the battle of Pharsalus he cried out, "Spare your fellow citizens," and
afterwards allowed each of his men to save any one man he pleased of the
opposite party. And it will be found that no Pompeian lost his life except
in battle, save only Afranius and Faustus, and the young Lucius Caesar;
and it is believed that not even these men were slain by his wish, even
though the two former had taken up arms again after being pardoned, while
Caesar had not only cruelly put to death the dictator's slaves and
freedmen with fire and sword, but had even butchered the wild beasts which
he had procured for the entertainment of the people. At last, in his later
years, he went so far as to allow all those whom he had not yet pardoned
to return to Italy, and to hold magistracies and the command of armies:
and he actually set up the statues of Lucius Sulla and Pompey, which had
been broken to pieces by the populace. After this, if any dangerous plots
were formed against him, or slanders uttered, he preferred to quash rather
than to punish them. Accordingly, he took no further notice of the
conspiracies which were detected, and of meetings by night, than to make
known by proclamation that he was aware of them; and he thought it enough
to give public warning to those who spoke ill of him, not to persist in
their conduct, bearing with good nature the attacks on his reputation made
by the scurrilous volume of Aulus Caecina and the abusive lampoons of
Pitholaus.
76. Yet after all, his other actions and
words so turn the scale, that it is thought that he abused his power and
was justly slain. For not only did he accept excessive honors, such as an
uninterrupted consulship, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship of
public morals, as well as the forename Imperator, the surname of
Pater Patriae ['Father of his Country'], a statue among those of the
kings, and a raised couch in the orchestra [at the theater]; but he also
allowed honors to be bestowed on him which were too great for mortal man:
a golden throne in the Senate and on the judgment seat; a chariot and
litter [for carrying his statues among those of the gods] in the
procession at the circus; temples, altars, and statues beside those of the
gods; a special priest, an additional college of the Luperci, and the
calling of one of the months by his name. In fact, there were no honors
which he did not receive or confer at pleasure. He held his third and
fourth consulships in name only, content with the power of the
dictatorship conferred on him at the same time as the consulships.
Moreover, in both years he substituted two consuls for himself for the
last three months, in the meantime holding no elections except for
tribunes and plebeian aediles, and appointing praefects instead of the
praetors, to manage the affairs of the city during his absence. When one
of the consuls suddenly died the day before the Kalends of January, he
gave the vacant office for a few hours to a man who asked for it. With the
same disregard of law and precedent he named magistrates for several years
to come, bestowed the emblems of consular rank on ten ex-praetors, and
admitted to the Senate men who had been given citizenship, and in some
cases half-civilized Gauls. He assigned the charge of the mint and of the
public revenues to his own slaves, and gave the oversight and command of
the three legions which he had left at Alexandria to a favorite of his
called Rufo, son of one of his freedmen.
77. No less arrogant were his public
utterances, which Titus Ampius records: that the state was nothing, a mere
name without body or form; that Sulla did not know his ABC's when he laid
down his dictatorship; that men ought now to be more circumspect in
addressing him, and to regard his word as law. So far did he go in his
presumption, that when a soothsayer once reported of a sacrifice direful
innards without a heart, he said: "They will be more favorable when I wish
it; it should not be regarded as a portent, if a beast has no heart"
[playing on the double meaning of cor ('heart')--which was also
regarded as the seat of intelligence].
78. But it was the following action in
particular that roused deadly hatred against him. When the Senate
approached him in a body with many highly honorary decrees, he received
them before the temple of Venus Genetrix without rising. Some think that
when he attempted to get up, he was held back by Cornelius Balbus; others,
that he made no such move at all, but on the contrary frowned angrily on
Gaius Trebatius when he suggested that he should rise. And this action of
his seemed the more intolerable, because when he himself in one of his
triumphal processions rode past the benches of the tribunes, he was so
incensed because a member of the college, Pontius Aquila by name, did not
rise, that he cried: "Come then, Aquila, take back the republic from me,
you tribune"; and for several days he would not make a promise to any one
without adding, "That is, if Pontius Aquila will allow me."
79. To an insult which so plainly showed
his contempt for the Senate he added an act of even greater insolence; for
at the Latin Festival, as he was returning to the city, amid the
extravagant and unprecedented demonstrations of the populace, someone in
the press placed on his statue a laurel wreath with a white fillet tied to
it [an emblem of royalty]; and when Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavus,
tribunes of the plebeians, gave orders that the ribbon be removed from the
wreath and the man taken off to prison, Caesar sharply rebuked and deposed
them, either offended that the hint at regal power had been received with
so little favor, or, as he asserted, that he had been robbed of the glory
of refusing it. But from that time on he could not rid himself of the
odium of having aspired to the title of monarch, although he replied to
the plebeians, when they hailed him as king, "I am Caesar and no king"
[with a pun on rex ('king') as a Roman name], and at the Lupercalia,
when the consul Marcus Antonius several times attempted to place a crown
upon his head as he spoke from the rostra, he put it aside and at last
sent it to the Capitol, to be offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Nay,
more, the report had spread in various quarters that he intended to move
to Ilium or Alexandria, taking with him the resources of the state,
draining Italia by levies, and leaving the charge of the city to his
friends; also that at the next meeting of the Senate Lucius Cotta would
announce as the decision of the Fifteen [the quindecimviri sacris
faciundis ('college of fifteen priests') in charge of the Sybilline
books], that inasmuch as it was written in the books of fate that the
Parthians could be conquered only by a king, Caesar should be given that
title.
80. It was this that led the
conspirators to hasten in carrying out their designs, in order to avoid
giving their assent to this proposal. Therefore the plots which had
previously been formed separately, often by groups of two or three, were
united in a general conspiracy, since even the populace no longer were
pleased with present conditions, but both secretly and openly rebelled at
his tyranny and cried out for defenders of their liberty. On the admission
of foreigners to the Senate, a placard was posted: "God bless the
Republic! let no one consent to point out the Senate to a newly made
senator." The following verses too were sung everwhere:
“Caesar led the Gauls in triumph, led
them to the senate house;
Then the Gauls put off their breeches, and put on the latus clavus.''
When Quintus Maximus, whom he had
appointed consul in his place for three months, was entering the theater,
and his lictor called attention to his arrival in the usual manner, a
general shout was raised: "He's no consul!" At the first election after
the deposing of Caesetius and Marullus, the tribunes, several votes were
found for their appointment as consuls. Some wrote on the base of Lucius
Brutus' statue, "Oh, that you were still alive"; and on that of Caesar
himself:---
'First of all was Brutus consul, since
he drove the kings from Rome;
Since this man drove out the consuls, he at last is made our king."
More than sixty joined the conspiracy
against him, led by Gaius Cassius and Marcus and Decimus Brutus. At first
they hesitated whether to form two divisions at the elections in the
Campus Martius, so that while some hurled him from the bridge [the pons
suffragiorum, a temporary bridge of planks over which the voters
passed one by one, to cast their ballots] as he summoned the tribes to
vote, the rest might wait below and slay him; or to set upon him in the
Via Sacra or at the entrance to the theater. When, however, a meeting
of the Senate was called for the Ides of March in the curia
adjoining the Theater of Gnaeus Pompeius, they readily gave that time and
place the preference.
81. Now Caesar's approaching murder was
foretold to him by unmistakable signs. A few months before, when the
settlers assigned to the colony at Capua by the Julian Law were
demolishing some tombs of great antiquity, to build country houses, and
plied their work with the greater vigor because as they rummaged about
they found a quantity of vases of ancient workmanship, there was
discovered in a tomb, which was said to be that of Capys, the founder of
Capua, a bronze tablet, inscribed with Greek words and characters to this
purport: "Whenever the bones of Capys shall be moved, it will come to pass
that a son of llium shall be slain at the hands of his kindred, and
presently avenged at heavy cost to Italia." And let no one think this tale
a myth or a lie, for it is vouched for by Cornelius Balbus, an intimate
friend of Caesar. Shortly before his death, as he was told, the herds of
horses which he had dedicated to the river Rubicon when he crossed it, and
had let loose without a keeper, stubbornly refused to graze and wept
copiously. Again, when he was offering sacrifice, the soothsayer Spurinna
warned him to beware of danger, which would come not later than the Ides
of March; and on the day before the Ides of that month a little bird
called the king-bird flew into the Curia of Pompeius with a sprig
of laurel, pursued by others of various kinds from the grove hard by,
which tore it to pieces in the hall. In fact the very night before his
murder he dreamt now that he was flying above the clouds, and now that he
was clasping the hand of Jupiter; and his wife Calpurnia thought that the
pediment of their house fell, and that her husband was stabbed in her
arms; and on a sudden the door of the room flew open of its own accord.
Both for these reasons and because of poor health he hesitated for a long
time whether to stay at home and put off what he had planned to do in the
senate; but at last, urged by Decimus Brutus not to disappoint the full
meeting which had for some time been waiting for him, he went forth almost
at the end of the fifth hour; and when a note revealing the plot was
handed him by someone on the way, he put it with others which he held in
his left hand, intending to read them presently. Then, after several
victims had been slain, and he could not get favorable omens, he entered
the Senate in defiance of portents, laughing at Spurinna and calling him a
false prophet, because the Ides of March were come without bringing him
harm; though Spurinna replied that they had of a truth come, but they had
not gone.
82. [44 B.C.] As he took his seat, the
conspirators gathered about him as if to pay their respects, and
straightway Tillius Cimber, who had assumed the lead, came nearer as
though to ask something; and when Caesar with a gesture put him off to
another time, Cimber caught his toga by both shoulders; then as Caesar
cried, "Why, this is violence!" one of the Cascas stabbed him from one
side just below the throat. Caesar caught Casca's arm and ran it through
with his stylus, but as he tried to leap to his feet, he was stopped by
another wound. When he saw that he was beset on every side by drawn
daggers, he muffled his head in his robe, and at the same time drew down
its lap to his feet with his left hand, in order to fall more decently,
with the lower part of his body also covered. And in this wise he was
stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering not a word, but merely a
groan at the first stroke, though some have written that when Marcus
Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, 'You too, my child?" All the
conspirators made off, and he lay there lifeless for some time, until
finally three common slaves put him on a litter and carried him home, with
one arm hanging down. And of so many wounds none turned out to be mortal,
in the opinion of the physician Antistius, except the second one in the
breast. The conspirators had intended after slaying him to drag his body
to the Tiber, confiscate his property, and revoke his decrees; but they
forebore through fear of Marcus Antonius the consul, and Lepidus, the
master of horse.
83. Then at the request of his
father-in-law, Lucius Piso, the will was unsealed and read in Antonius'
house, which Caesar had made on the preceding Ides of September at his
place near Lavicum [September 18, 45 B.C.], and put in the care of the
chief of the Vestals. Quintus Tubero states that from his first consulship
until the beginning of the civil war it was his wont to write down Gnaeus
Pompeius as his heir, and to read this to the assembled soldiers. In his
last will, however, he named three heirs, his sisters' grandsons---Gaius
Octavius (to three-fourths of his estate), and Lucius Pinarius and Quintus
Pedius (to share the remainder). At the end of the will, too, he adopted
Gaius Octavius into his family and gave him his name. He named several of
his assassins among the guardians of his son, in case one should be born
to him, and Decimus Brutus even among his heirs in the second degree. To
the people he left his gardens near the Tiber for their common use and
three hundred sesterces to each man.
84. When the funeral was announced, a
pyre was erected in the Campus Martius near the tomb of Julia, and on the
rostra a gilded shrine was placed, made after the model of the temple of
Venus Genetrix; within was a couch of ivory with coverlets of purple and
gold, and at its head a pillar hung with the robe in which he was slain.
Since it was clear that the day would not be long enough for those who
offered gifts, they were directed to bring them to the Campus by
whatsoever streets of the city they wished, regardless of any order of
precedence. At the funeral games, to rouse pity and indignation at his
death, these words from the Armorum of Pacuvius were sung:----
'Saved I these men that they might
murder me?"
and words of a like purport from the
Electra of Atilius. Instead of a eulogy the consul Antonius caused a
herald to recite the decree of the Senate in which it had voted Caesar all
divine and human honors at once, and likewise the oath with which they had
all pledged themselves to watch over his personal safety; to which he
added a very few words of his own. The bier on the rostra was carried down
into the Forum by magistrates and ex-magistrates; and while some were
urging that it be burned in the temple of Jupiter of the Capitol, and
others in the Curia of Pompeius, on a sudden two beings [cf.
the apparition at the Rubicon] with swords by their sides and brandishing
a pair of darts set fire to it with blazing torches, and at once the
throng of bystanders heaped upon it dry branches, the judgment seats with
the benches, and whatever else could serve as an offering. Then the
musicians and actors tore off their robes, which they had taken from the
equipment of his triumphs and put on for the occasion, rent them to bits
and threw them into the flames, and the veterans of the legions the arms
with which they had adorned themselves for the funeral; many of the women
too, offered up the jewels which they wore and the amulets and robes of
their children. At the height of the public grief a throng of foreigners
went about lamenting each after the fashion of his country, above all the
Jews, who even flocked to the place for several successive nights.
85. Immediately after the funeral the
people ran to the houses of Brutus and Cassius with firebrands, and after
being repelled with difficulty, they slew Helvius Cinna when they met him,
through a mistake in the name, supposing that he was Cornelius Cinna, who
had the day before made a bitter indictment of Caesar and for whom they
were looking; and they set his head upon a spear and paraded it about the
streets. Afterwards they set up in the Forum a solid column of Numidian
marble almost twenty feet high, and inscribed upon it, "To the Father of
his Country." At the foot of this they continued for a long time to
sacrifice, make vows, and settle some of their disputes by an oath in the
name of Caesar.
86. Caesar left in the minds of some of
his friends the suspicion that he did not wish to live longer and had
taken no precautions, because of his failing health; and that therefore he
neglected the warnings which came to him from portents and from the
reports of his friends. Some think that it was because he had full trust
in that last decree of the senators and their oath that he dismissed even
the armed bodyguard of Hispanic soldiers that formerly attended him.
Others, on the contrary, believe that he elected to expose himself once
for all to the plots that threatened him on every hand, rather than to be
always anxious and on his guard. Some, too, say that he was wont to
declare that it was not so much to his own interest as to that of his
country that he remain alive; he had long since had his fill of power and
glory; but if aught befell him, the Republic would have no peace, but
would be plunged in civil strife under much worse conditions.
87. About one thing almost all are fully
agreed, that he all but desired such a death as he met; for once when he
read in Xenophon [Cyropedeia, 8.7] how Cyrus in his last illness
gave directions for his funeral, he expressed his horror of such a
lingering kind of end and his wish for one which was swift and sudden. And
the day before his murder, in a conversation which arose at a dinner at
the house of Marcus Lepidus, as to what manner of death was most to be
desired, he had given his preference to one which was sudden and
unexpected.
88. [44 B.C.] He died in the fifty-sixth
year of his age, and was numbered among the gods, not only by a formal
decree, but also in the conviction of the common people. For at the first
of the games which his heir Augustus gave in honor of his apotheosis, a
comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour
[about an hour before sunset] and was believed to be the soul of Caesar,
who had been taken to heaven; and this is why a star is set upon the crown
of his head in his statue. It was voted that the curia in which he
was slain be walled up, that the Ides of March be called the Day of
Parricide, and that a meeting of the senate should never be called on that
day.
89. Hardly any of his assassins survived
him for more than three years, or died a natural death. They were all
condemned, and they perished in various ways---some by shipwreck, some in
battle; some took their own lives with the self-same dagger with which
they had impiously slain Caesar.
Source:
From: Suetonius, 2 vols., trans.
J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London:
William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of
History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text.
The following changes to the printed
text of Suetonius were made by Prof Arkenberg.;
·
Text was modernized in
several ways.
·
While many of the
annotations are those of J. C. Rolfe, many are Prof Arkenberg's, based
on more recent knowledge of Roman life (and several of Rolfe's ones too
were changed.)
·
Roman names were
substituted for most of the provinces (Hispania for Spain), for example,
to avoid the impression by some people that Caesar might have been
visiting Madrid, or that when he went to Britain (as Rolfe has the
spelling), he was going London to visit the queen!
·
Roman proper names were
substitued throughout (Pompeius for Pompey, Marcus Antonius for Mark
Antony). The familiar ones are fine for Shakespeare, but this isn't
Shakespeare.
·
Latin names and terms in
preference to Rolfe's practice of using British terms (thus, "plebeians"
or "the people" instead of "the commons", or "the Senate" instead of "the
House")
·
"Legal cases" or
"lawsuits" were substitued for what Rolfe called "taking the assizes".
·
Rolfe's annotations were
altered to bring out the sexual aspect of many remarks (found more in
Julius than in Caligula) and jeers of the time (eg., in Caligula, Rolfe
has Caligula boasting of his "uprightness" when the reference is to the
staying power of his erection...)
This text is part of the
Internet Ancient History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of
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history.
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© Paul Halsall, October 1998
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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Ancient History Sourcebook:
Suetonius (c.69-after 122 CE):
De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius
(The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius), written c. 110 CE
Source:
From: Suetonius, 2 vols., trans.
J. C. Rolfe, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London:
William Henemann, 1920), Vol. I, pp. 3-119
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of
History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text. (Cf.
full attribution at the end of this text.)