Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 15)

See CIMBRI AND TEUTONES: B. C. 113-102.

Afterwards when he went back to Rome in triumph he was so powerful that he could have done what he chose in the state. The people were very grateful to him, the soldiers were very fond of him, and the nobles were very much afraid of him. But Marius did not think much of the good of the state: he thought much more of his own greatness, and how he might become a still greater man. So, first, he joined the party of the people, and one of the tribunes. Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, brought forward some laws like those of Caius Gracchus, and Marius helped him. But there were riots in consequence, and the Senate begged Marius to help them in putting down the riots. For a time Marius doubted what to do, but at last he armed the people, and Saturninus was killed (99). But now neither side liked Marius, for he was true to neither, and did only what he thought would make himself most powerful. So for the future Marius was not likely to be of much use in the troubles of the Roman state."

M. Creighton. History of Rome (Primer). chapter 7.

ALSO IN: H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, chapters 54-56 (volume 2).

V. Duruy, History of Rome, chapters 39-41 (volume 2).

Plutarch, Marius.

ROME: B. C. 90-88. Demands of the Italian Socii for Roman citizenship. The Marsian or Social War. Rise of Sulla.

"It is a most erroneous though widely prevalent opinion that the whole of Italy was conquered by the force of Roman arms, and joined to the empire [of the Republic] against its will. Roman valour and the admirable organization of the legions, it is true, contributed to extend the dominion of Rome, but they were not nearly so effective as the political wisdom of the Roman senate. … The subjects of Rome were called by the honourable name of allies (Socii). But the manner in which they had become allies was not always the same. It differed widely according to circumstances. Some had joined Rome on an equal footing by a free alliance ('fœdus æquum'). which implied nothing like subjection. … Others sought the alliance of Rome as a protection from pressing enemies or troublesome neighbours. … On the whole, the condition of the allies, Latin colonies as well as confederated Italians, seems to have been satisfactory, at least in the earlier period. … But even the right of self-government which Rome had left to the Italian communities proved an illusion in all cases where the interests of the ruling town seemed to require it. A law passed in Rome, nay, a simple senatorial decree, or a magisterial order, could at pleasure be applied to the whole of Italy. Roman law gradually took the place of local laws, though the Italians had no part in the legislation of the Roman people, or any influence on the decrees of the Roman senate and magistrates. … All public works in Italy, such as roads, aqueducts, and temples, were carried out solely for the benefit of Rome. … Not in peace only, but also in the time of war, the allies were gradually made to feel how heavily the hand of Rome weighed upon them. … In proportion as with the increase of their power the Romans felt more and more secure and independent of the allies, they showed them less consideration and tenderness, and made them feel that they had gradually sunk from their former position of friends to be no more than subjects." There was increasing discontent among the Italian allies, or Socii, with this state of things, especially after the time of the Gracchi, when a proposal to extend the Roman citizenship and franchise to them was strongly pressed. {2684} In the next generation after the murder of Caius Gracchus, there arose another political reformer, Marcus Livius Drusus, who likewise sought to have justice done to the Italians, by giving them a voice in the state which owed its conquests to their arms. He, too, was killed by the political enemies he provoked; and then the allies determined to enforce their claims by war. The tribes of the Sabellian race—Marsians, Samnites, Hirpenians, Lucanians, and their fellows—organized a league, with the town of Corfinium (its name changed to Italica) for its capital, and broke into open revolt. The prominence of the Marsians in the struggle caused the war which ensued to be sometimes called the Marsian War; it was also called the Italian War, but, more commonly, the Social War. It was opened, B. C. 90, by a horrible massacre of Roman citizens residing at Asculum, Picenum,—a tragedy for the guilt of which that town paid piteously the next year, when it was taken at the end of a long siege and after a great battle fought under its walls. But the Romans had suffered many defeats before that achievement was reached. At the end of the first year of the war they had made no headway against the revolt, and it is the opinion of Ihne and other historians that "Rome never was so near her destruction," and that "her downfall was averted, not by the heroism of her citizens, as in the war of Hannibal, but by a reversal" of her "policy of selfish exclusion and haughty disdain." A law called the Julian Law, because proposed by the consul L. Julius Cæsar, was adopted B. C. 90, which gave the Roman franchise to the Latins, and to all the other Italian communities which had so far remained faithful. Soon afterward two of the new tribunes carried a further measure, the Plautio-Papirian Law, which offered the same privilege to any Italian who, within two months, should present himself before a Roman magistrate to claim it. These concessions broke the spirit of the revolt and the Roman armies began to be victorious. Sulla, who was in the field, added greatly to his reputation by successes at Nola (where his army honored him by acclaim with the title of Imperator) and at Bovianum, which he took. The last important battle of the war was fought on the old blood-drenched plain of Cannæ, and this time the victory was for Rome. After that, for another year, some desperate towns and remnants of the revolted Socii held out, but their resistance was no more than the death throes of a lost cause.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 6, chapter 9, with foot-note, and book 7, chapters 13-14.

ALSO IN: G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapters 15-16.

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lectures 83-84 (volume 2).

ROME: B. C. 88-78. Rivalry of Marius and Sulla. War with Mithridates. Civil war. Successive proscriptions and reigns of terror. Sulla's dictatorship.

The political diseases of which the Roman Republic was dying made quick progress in the generation that passed between the murder of Caius Gracchus and the Social War. The Roman rabble which was nominally sovereign and the oligarchy which ruled actually, by combined bribery and brow-beating of the populace, had both been worse corrupted and debased by the increasing flow of tribute and plunder from provinces and subject states. Rome had familiarized itself with mob violence, and the old respect for authority and for law was dead. The soldier with an army at his back need not stand any longer in awe of the fasces of a tribune or a consul. It was a natural consequence of that state of things that the two foremost soldiers of the time, Caius Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla (or Sylla, as often written,) should become the recognized chiefs of the two opposing factions of the day. Marius was old, his military glory was waning, he had enjoyed six consulships and coveted a seventh; Sulla was in the prime of life, just fairly beginning to show his surpassing capabilities and entering on his real career. Marius was a plebeian of plebeians and rude in all his tastes; Sulla came from the great Cornelian gens, and refined a little the dissoluteness of his life by studies of Greek letters and philosophy. Marius was sullenly jealous; Sulla was resolutely ambitious. A new war, which promised great prizes to ambition and cupidity, alike, was breaking out in the east,—the war with Mithridates. Both Marius and Sulla aspired to the command in it; but Sulla had been elected one of the consuls for the year 88 B. C. and, by custom and law, would have the conduct of the war assigned to him. Marius, however, intrigued with the demagogues and leaders of the mob, and brought about a turbulent demonstration and popular vote, by which he could claim to be appointed to lead the forces of the state against Mithridates. Sulla fled to his army, in camp at Nola, and laid his case before the officers and men. The former, for the most part, shrank from opposing themselves to Rome; the latter had no scruples and demanded to be led against the Roman mob. Sulla took them at their word, and marched them straight to the city. For the first time in its history (by no means the last) the great capital was forcibly entered by one of its own armies. There was some resistance, but not much. Sulla paralyzed his opponents by his energy, and by a threat to burn the city if it did not submit. Marius and his chief partisans fled. Sulla contented himself with outlawing twelve, some of whom were taken and put to death. Marius, himself, escaped to Africa, after many strange adventures, in the story of which there is romance unquestionably mixed. Sulla (with his colleague in harmony with him) fulfilled the year of his consulate at Rome and then departed for Greece to conduct the war against Mithridates. In doing so, he certainly knew that he was giving up the government to his enemies; but he trusted his future in a remarkable way, and the necessity, for Rome, of confronting Mithridates was imperative. The departure of Sulla was the signal for fresh disorders at Rome. Cinna, one of the new consuls, was driven from the city, and became the head of a movement which appealed to the "new citizens," as they were called, or the "Italian party"—the allies who had been enfranchised as the result of the Social War. Marius came back from exile to join it. Sertorius and Carbo were other leaders who played important parts. Presently there were four armies beleaguering Rome, and after some unsuccessful resistance the gates were opened to them, by order of the Roman senate. Cinna, the consul, was nominally restored to authority, but Marius was really supreme, and Marius was implacable in his sullen rage. {2685} Rome was treated like a conquered city. The public and private enemies of Marius and of all who chose to call themselves Marians, were hunted down and slain. To stop the massacre, at last, Sertorius—the best of the new masters of Rome—was forced to turn his soldiers against the bands of the assassins and to slaughter several thousands of them. Then some degree of order was restored and there was the quiet in Rome of a city of the dead. The next year Marius realized his ambition for a seventh consulship, but died before the end of the first month of it. Meantime, Sulla devoted himself steadily to the war against Mithridates [see MITHRIDATIC WARS], watching from afar the sinister course of events at Rome, and making no sign. It was not until the spring of 83 B. C., four years after his departure from Italy and three years after the death of Marius, that he was ready to return and settle accounts with his enemies. On landing with his army in Italy he was joined speedily by Pompey, Crassus, and other important chiefs. Cinna had been killed by mutinous soldiers; Carbo and young Marius were the leaders of the "Italian party." There was a fierce battle at Sacriportus, near Præneste, with young Marius, and a second with Carbo at Clusium. Later, there was another furious fight with the Samnites, under the walls of Rome, at the Colline Gate, where 50,000 of the combatants fell. Then Sulla was master of Rome. Every one of his suspected friends in the senate had been butchered by the last orders of young Marius. His retaliation was not slow; but he pursued it with a horrible deliberation. He made lists, to be posted in public, of men who were marked for death and whom anybody might slay. There are differing accounts of the number doomed by this proscription; according to one annalist the death-roll was swelled to 4,700 before the reign of terror ceased. Sulla ruled as a conqueror until it pleased him to take an official title, when he commanded the people to elect him Dictator, for such term as he might judge to be fit. They obeyed. As Dictator, he proceeded to remodel the Roman constitution by a series of laws which were adopted at his command. One of these laws enfranchised 10,000 slaves and made them citizens. Another took a way from the tribunes a great part of their powers; allowed none but members of the senate to be candidates for the office, and no person once a tribune to hold a curule office. Others reconstructed the senate, adding 300 new members to its depleted ranks, and restored to it the judicial function which C. Gracchus had transferred to the knights; they also restored to it the initiative in legislation. Having remodeled the Roman government to his liking, Sulla astounded his friends and enemies by suddenly laying down his dictatorial powers and retiring to private life at his villa, near Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples. There he wrote his memoirs, which have been lost, and gave himself up to the life of pleasure which was even dearer to him than the life of power. But he enjoyed it scarcely a year, when he died, B. C. 78. His body, taken to Rome, was burned with pomp.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapters 17-29.

ALSO IN: W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 7, chapters 15-23.

Plutarch, Marius and Sulla.

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 4, chapters 9-10.

C. Merivale, The Fall of the Roman Republic, chapters 4-5.

ROME: B. C. 80. The throne of Egypt bequeathed to the Republic by Ptolemy Alexander.

See EGYPT: B. C. 80-48.

ROME: B. C. 78-68. Danger from the legionaries. Rising power of Pompeius. Attempt of Lepidus. Pompeius against Sertorius in Spain. Insurrection of Spartacus and the Gladiators. The second Mithridatic War, and war in Armenia.

"The Roman legionary, … drawn from the dregs of the populace, and quartered through the best years of his life in Greece and Asia, in Spain and Gaul, lived solely upon his pay, enhanced by extortion or plunder. His thirst of rapine grew upon him. He required his chiefs to indulge him with the spoil of cities and provinces; and when a foreign enemy was not at hand, he was tempted to turn against the subjects of the state, or, if need be, against the state itself. … Marius and Sulla, Cinna and Carbo had led the forces of Rome against Rome herself. … The problem which thus presented itself to the minds of patriots—how, namely, to avert the impending dissolution of their polity under the blows of their own defenders—was indeed an anxious and might well appear a hopeless one. It was to the legions only that they could trust, and the legions were notoriously devoted to their chiefs. … The triumph of Sulla had been secured by the accession to his side of Pompeius Strabo, the commander of a large force quartered in Italy. These troops had transferred their obedience to a younger Pompeius, the son of their late leader. Under his auspices they had gained many victories; they had put down the Marian faction, headed by Carbo, in Sicily, and had finally secured the ascendency of the senate on the shores of Africa. Sulla had evinced some jealousy of their captain, who was young in years, and as yet had not risen above the rank of Eques; but when Pompeius led his victorious legions back to Italy, the people rose in the greatest enthusiasm to welcome him, and the dictator, yielding to their impetuosity, had granted him a triumph and hailed him with the title of 'Magnus.' Young as he was, he became at once, on the abdication of Sulla, the greatest power in the commonwealth. This he soon caused to be known and felt. The lead of the senatorial party had now fallen to Q. Lutatius Catulus and M. Æmilius Lepidus, the heads of two of the oldest and noblest families of Rome. The election of these chiefs to the consulship for the year 676 of the city (B. C. 78) seemed to secure for the time the ascendency of the nobles, and the maintenance of Sulla's oligarchical constitution bequeathed to their care. … But there were divisions within the party itself which seemed to seize the opportunity for breaking forth. Lepidus was inflamed with ambition to create a faction of his own, and imitate the career of the usurpers before him. … But he had miscalculated his strength. Pompeius disavowed him, and lent the weight of his popularity and power to the support of Catulus; and the senate hoped to avert an outbreak by engaging both the consuls by an oath to abstain from assailing each other. During the remainder of his term of office Lepidus refrained from action; but as soon as he reached his province, the Narbonensis in Gaul, he developed his plans, summoned to his standard the Marians, who had taken refuge in great numbers in that region, and invoked the aid of the Italians, with the promise of restoring to them the lands of which they had been dispossessed by Sulla's veterans. {2686} With the aid of M. Junius Brutus, who commanded in the Cisalpine, he made an inroad into Etruria, and called upon the remnant of its people, who had been decimated by Sulla, to rise against the faction of their oppressors. The senate, now thoroughly alarmed, charged Catulus with its defence; the veterans, restless and dissatisfied with their fields and farms, crowded to the standard of Pompeius. Two Roman armies met near the Milvian bridge, a few miles to the north of the city, and Lepidus received a check, which was again and again repeated, till he was driven to flee into Sardinia, and there perished shortly afterwards of fever. Pompeius pursued Brutus into the Cisalpine. … The remnant of [Lepidus'] troops was carried over to Spain by Perperna, and there swelled the forces of an abler leader of the same party, Q. Sertorius." Sertorius had established himself strongly in Spain, and aspired to the founding of an independent state; but after a prolonged struggle he was overcome by Pompeius and assassinated by traitors in his own ranks.

See SPAIN: B. C. 83-72.

"Pompeius had thus recovered a great province for the republic at the moment when it seemed on the point of being lost through the inefficiency of one of the senatorial chiefs. Another leader of the dominant party was about to yield him another victory. A war was raging in the heart of Italy. A body of gladiators had broken away from their confinement at Capua under the lead of Spartacus, a Thracian captive, had seized a large quantity of arms, and had made themselves a retreat or place of defence in the crater of Mount Vesuvius. …

See SPARTACUS, THE RISING OF.

The consuls were directed to lead the legions against them, but were ignominiously defeated [B. C. 72]. In the absence of Pompeius in Spain and of Lucullus in the East, M. Crassus was the most prominent among the chiefs of the party in power. This illustrious noble was a man of great influence, acquired more by his wealth, for which he obtained the surname of Dives, than for any marked ability in the field or in the forum; but he had a large following of clients and dependents, who … now swelled the cry for placing a powerful force under his orders, and entrusting to his hands the deliverance of Italy. The brigands themselves were becoming demoralized by lack of discipline. Crassus drove them before him to the extremity of the peninsula. … Spartacus could only save a remnant of them by furiously breaking through the lines of his assailants. This brave gladiator was still formidable, and it was feared that Rome itself might be exposed to his desperate attack. The senate sent importunate messages to recall both Pompeius and Lucullus to its defence. … Spartacus had now become an easy prey, and the laurels were quickly won with which Pompeius was honoured by his partial countrymen. Crassus was deeply mortified, and the senate itself might feel some alarm at the redoubled triumphs of a champion of whose loyalty it was not secure. But the senatorial party had yet another leader, and a man of more ability than Crassus, at the head of another army. The authority of Pompeius in the western provinces was balanced in the East by that of L. Licinius Lucullus, who commanded the forces of the republic in the struggle which she was still maintaining against Mithridates. … The military successes of Lucullus fully justified the choice of the government." He expelled Mithridates from all the dominions which he claimed and drove him to take refuge with the king of Armenia. "The kingdom of Armenia under Tigranes III. was at the height of its power when Clodius, the brother-in-law of Lucullus, then serving under him, was despatched to the royal residence at Tigranocerta to demand the surrender of Mithridates. … The capital of Armenia was well defended by its position among the mountains and the length and severity of its winter season. It was necessary to strike once for all [B. C. 61)]. Lucullus had a small but well-trained and well-appointed army of veterans. Tigranes surrounded and encumbered himself with a vast cloud of undisciplined barbarians, the flower of whom, consisting of 17,000 mailed cavalry, however formidable in appearance, made but a feeble resistance to the dint of the Roman spear and broadsword. When their ranks were broken they fell back upon the inert masses behind them, and threw them into hopeless confusion. Tigranes made his escape with dastardly precipitation. A bloody massacre ensued. … In the following year Lucullus advanced his posts still further eastward. … But a spirit of discontent or lassitude had crept over his own soldiers. … He was constrained to withdraw from the siege of Artaxata, the furthest stronghold of Tigranes, on the banks of the Araxes, and after crowning his victories with a successful assault upon Nisibis, he gave the signal for retreat, leaving the destruction of Mithridates still unaccomplished. Meanwhile the brave proconsul's enemies were making head against him at Rome."

C. Merivale, The Roman Triumvirates, chapter 1.

Lucullus "wished to consummate the ruin of Tigranes, and afterwards to carry his arms to Parthia. He had not this perilous glory. Hitherto, his principal means of success had been to conciliate the people, by restraining the avidity both of his soldiers and of the Italian publicans. The first refused to pursue a war which only enriched the general; the second wrote to Rome, where the party of knights was every day regaining its ancient ascendancy. They accused of rapacity him who had repressed theirs. All were inclined to believe, in short, that Lucullus had drawn enormous sums from the towns which he preserved from the soldiers and publicans. They obtained the appointment of a successor, and by this change the fruit of this conquest was in a great measure lost. Even before Lucullus had quitted Asia, Mithridates re-entered Pontus, invaded Cappadocia, and leagued himself more closely with the pirates."

J. Michelet, History of the Roman Republic, page 308.

"It was imagined at Rome that Mithridates was as good as conquered, and that a new province of Bithynia and Pontus was awaiting organisation. … Ten commissioners as usual had been despatched to assist. … Lucullus had hoped before their arrival to strike some blow to recover his losses; but Marcius Rex had refused his appeal for help from Cilicia, and his own troops had … declined to march … when they learnt that the command was about to pass from Lucullus to Glabrio."

E. S. Shuckburgh, History of Rome to the Battle of Actium, page 677.

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Pompeius Magnus.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapters 30-33, and volume 3, chapters 1-5.

G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 10.

{2687}

ROME: B. C. 69-63. The drift towards revolution. Pompeius in the East. His extraordinary commission. His enlargement of the Roman dominions. His power. Ambitions and projects of Cæsar. Consulship of Cicero.

"To a superficial observer, at the close of the year 70 B. C., it might possibly have seemed that the Republic had been given a new lease of life. … And, indeed, for two or three years this promising condition of things continued. The years 69 and 68 B. C. must have been tolerably quiet ones, for our authorities have very little to tell us of them. … Had a single real statesman appeared on the scene at this moment, or even if the average senator or citizen had been possessed of some honesty and insight, it was not impossible that the government might have been carried on fairly well even under republican forms. But there was no leading statesman of a character suited to raise the whole tone of politics; and there was no general disposition on the part of either Senate or people to make the best of the lull in the storm, to repair damages, or to set the ship on her only true course. So the next few years show her fast drifting in the direction of revolution; and the current that bore her was not a local one, or visible to the eye of the ordinary Roman, but one of world-wide force, whose origin and direction could only be perceived by the highest political intelligence. It was during these years that Cæsar was quietly learning the business of government, both at home and in the provinces. … Cæsar was elected quæstor in 69 B. C., and served the office in the following year. It fell to him to begin his acquaintance with government in the province of Further Spain, and thus began his lifelong connection with the peoples of the West. … On his return to Rome, which must have taken place about the beginning of 67 B. C., Cæsar was drawn at once into closer connection with the man who, during the next twenty years, was to be his friend, his rival, and his enemy. Pompeius was by this time tired of a quiet life. … Both to him and his friends, it seemed impossible to be idle any longer. There was real and abundant reason for the employment of the ablest soldier of the day. The audacity of the pirates was greater than ever.

See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.

Lucullus, too, in Asia, had begun to meet with disasters, and was unable, with his troops in a mutinous temper, to cope with the combined forces of the kings of Armenia and Pontus. … In this year, 67 B. C., a bill was proposed by a tribune, Gabinius, in the assembly of the plebs, in spite of opposition in the Senate, giving Pompeius exactly that extensive power against the pirates which he himself desired, and which was really necessary if the work was to be done swiftly and completely. He was to have exclusive command for three years over the whole Mediterranean, and over the resources of the provinces and dependent states. For fifty miles inland in every province bordering on these seas—i. e., in the whole Empire—he was to exercise an authority equal to that of the existing provincial governor. He was to have almost unlimited means of raising both fleets and armies, and was to nominate his own staff of twenty·five 'legati' (lieutenant-generals), who were all to have the rank of prætor. Nor was this all; for it was quite understood that this was only part of a plan which was to place him at the head of the armies in Asia Minor, superseding the able but now discredited Lucullus. In fact, by another law of Gabinius, Lucullus was recalled, and his command given to one of the consuls of the year, neither of whom, as was well known, was likely to wield it with the requisite ability. whichever consul it might be, he would only be recognised as keeping the place warm for Pompeius. … Pompeius left Rome in the spring of 67 B. C., rapidly cleared the seas of piracy, and in the following year superseded Lucullus in the command of the war against Mithridates [with the powers given him by the Gabinian Law prolonged and extended by another, known as the Manilian Law]. He did not return till the beginning of 61 B. C. At first sight it might seem as though his absence should have cleared the air, and left the political leaders at Rome a freer hand. But the power and the resources voted him, and the unprecedented success with which he used them, made him in reality as formidable to the parties at home as he was to the peoples of the East. He put an end at last to the power of Mithridates, received the submission of Tigranes of Armenia, and added to the Roman dominion the greater part of the possessions of both these kings. The sphere of Roman influence now for the first time reached the river Euphrates, and the Empire was brought into contact with the great Parthian kingdom beyond it. Asia Minor became wholly Roman, with the exception of some part of the interior, which obedient kinglets were allowed to retain. Syria was made a Roman province. Pompeius took Jerusalem, and added Judæa to Syria. …

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40].

The man to whom all this was due became at once the leading figure in the world. It became clear that when his career of conquest was over yet another task would devolve on him, if he chose to accept it—the re-organisation of the central government at Rome. … His gathered power overhung the state like an avalanche ready to fall; and in the possible path of an avalanche it is waste of time and labour to build any solid work. So these years, for Cæsar as for the rest, are years of plotting and intrigue on one side, and of half-hearted government on the other. … He was elected to the curule-ædileship—the next above the quæstorship in the series of magistracies—and entered on his office on January 1, 65 B. C. … Cæsar's political connection with Crassus at this time is by no means clear. The two were sailing the same course, and watching Pompeius with the same anxiety; but there could not have been much in common between them, and they were in fact rapidly getting in each other's way. The great money-lender, however, must have been in the main responsible for the enormous expenditure which Cæsar risked in this ædileship and the next three years. … At the close of the year 64 B. C., on the accession to office of a new board of tribunes, … an agrarian bill on a vast scale was promulgated by the tribune Servilius Rullus. {2688} The two most startling features of this were: first, the creation of a board of ten to carry out its provisions, each member of which was to be invested with military and judicial powers like those of the consuls and prætors; and secondly, the clauses which entrusted this board with enormous financial resources, to be raised by the public sale of all the territories and property acquired since the year 88 B. C., together with the booty and revenues now in the hands of Pompeius. The bill included, as its immediate object, a huge scheme of colonisation for Italy, on the lines of the Gracchan agrarian bills. … But it was really an attack on the weak fortress of senatorial government, in order to turn out its garrison, and occupy and fortify it in the name of the democratic or Marian party, against the return of the new Sulla, which was now thought to be imminent. The bill may also have had another and secondary object—namely, to force the hand of the able and ambitious consul [Cicero] who would come into office on January 1, 63; at any rate it succeeded in doing this, though it succeeded in nothing else. Cicero's great talents, and the courage and skill with which he had so far for the most part used them, had made him already a considerable power in Rome; but no one knew for certain to which party he would finally attach himself. … On the very first day of his office he attacked the bill in the Senate and exposed its real intention, and showed plainly that his policy was to convert Pompeius into a pillar of the constitution, and to counteract all democratic plots directed against him. … Whether it was his eloquence, or the people's indifference, that caused the bill to be dropped, can only be matter of conjecture; but it was withdrawn at once by its proposer, and the whole scheme fell through. This was Cicero's first and only real victory over Cæsar. … It was about this time, in the spring of 63 B. C., that the office of Pontifex Maximus became vacant by the death of old Metellus Pius, and Cæsar at once took steps to secure it for himself. The chances in his favour were small, but the prize was a tempting one. Success would place him at the head of the whole Roman religious system. … He was eligible, for he had already been for several years one of the college of pontifices, but as the law of election stood, a man so young and so democratic would have no chance against candidates like the venerable conservative leader Catulus, and Cæsar's own old commander in the East, Servilius Isauricus, both of whom were standing. Sulla's law, which placed the election in the hands of the college itself—a law framed expressly to exclude persons of Cæsar's stamp—must be repealed, and the choice vested once more in the people. The useful tribune Labienus was again set to work, the law was passed, and on March 6th Cæsar was elected by a large majority. … The latter part of this memorable year was occupied with a last and desperate attempt of the democratic party to possess themselves of the state power while there was yet time to forestall Pompeius. This is the famous conspiracy of Catilina; it was an attack of the left wing on the senatorial position, and the real leaders of the democracy took no open or active part in it."

W. W. Fowler, Julius Cæsar, chapters 4-5.

ALSO IN J. A. Froude, Cæsar, chapter 10.

Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Julius, sections 7-13.

C. Middleton, Life of Cicero, section 2.

ROME: B. C. 63. The conspiracy of Catiline.

The conspiracy organized against the senatorial government of Rome by L. Sergius Catilina, B. C. 63, owes much of its prominence in Roman history to the preservation of the great speeches in which Cicero exposed it, and by which he rallied the Roman people to support him in putting it down. Cicero was consul that year, and the official responsibility of the government was on his shoulders. The central conspirators were a desperate, disreputable clique of men, who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by revolution. Behind them were all the discontents and malignant tempers of demoralized and disorganized Rome; and still behind these were suspected to be, darkly hidden, the secret intrigues of men like Cæsar and Crassus, who watched and waited for the expiring breath of the dying republic. Cicero, having made a timely discovery of the plot, managed the disclosure of it with great adroitness and won the support of the people to his proceedings against the conspirators. Catiline made his escape from Rome and placed himself' at the head of a small army which his supporters had raised in Etruria; but he and it were both destroyed in the single battle fought. Five of his fellow-conspirators were hastily put to death without trial, by being strangled in the Tullianum.

W. Forsyth, Life of Cicero, chapter 8.

ALSO IN A. Trollope, Life of c, chapter 9.

A. J. Church, Roman Life in the Days of Cicero, chapter 7.

Cicero, Orations (translated by (J. D. Yonge), volume 2.

ROME: B. C. 63-58. Increasing disorders in the capital. The wasted opportunities of Pompeius. His alliance with Cæsar and Crassus. The First Triumvirate. Cæsar's consulship. His appointment to the command in Cisalpine Gaul. Exile of Cicero.

"Recent events had fully demonstrated the impotence of both the Senate and the democratic party; neither was strong enough to defeat the other or to govern the State. There was no third party—no class remaining out of which a government might be erected; the only alternative was monarchy—the rule of a single person. Who the monarch would be was still uncertain; though, at the present moment, Pompeius was clearly the only man in whose power it lay to take up the crown that offered itself. … For the moment the question which agitated all minds was whether Pompeius would accept the gift offered him by fortune, or would retire and leave the throne vacant. … In the autumn of 63 B. C. Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived in the capital from the camp of Pompeius, and got himself elected tribune with the avowed purpose of procuring for Pompeius the command against Catilina by special decree, and afterwards the consulship for 61 B. C. … The aristocracy at once showed their hostility to the proposals of Metellus, and Cato had himself elected tribune expressly for the purpose of thwarting him. But the democrats were more pliant, and it was soon evident that they had come to a cordial understanding with the general's emissary. Metellus and his master both adopted the democratic view of the illegal executions [of the Catilinarians]; and the first act of Cæsar's prætorship was to call Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to have been embezzled by him in rebuilding the Capitoline temple and to transfer the superintendence of the works to Pompeius. … On the day of voting, Cato and another of the tribunes put their veto upon the proposals of Metellus, who disregarded it. {2689} There were conflicts of the armed bands of both sides, which terminated in favour of the government. The Senate followed up the victory by suspending Metellus and Cæsar from their offices. Metellus immediately departed for the camp of Pompeius; and when Cæsar disregarded the decree of suspension against himself, the Senate had ultimately to revoke it. Nothing could have been more favourable to the interests of Pompeius than these late events. After the illegal executions of the Catilinarians, and the acts of violence against Metellus, he 'could appear at once as the defender of the two palladia of Roman liberty'—the right of appeal, and the inviolability of the tribunate,—and as the champion of the party of order against the Catilinarian band. But his courage was unequal to the emergency; he lingered in Asia during the winter of 63-62 B. C., and thus gave the Senate time to crush the insurrection in Italy, and deprived himself of a valid pretext for keeping his legions together. In the autumn of 62 B. C. he landed at Brundisium, and, disbanding his army, proceeded to Rome with a small escort. On his arrival in the city in 61 B. C. he found himself in a position of complete isolation; he was feared by the democrats, hated by the aristocracy, and distrusted by the wealthy class. He at once demanded for himself a second consulship, the confirmation of all his acts in the East, and the fulfilment of the promise he had made to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. But each of these demands was met with the most determined opposition. … His promise of lands to his soldiers was indeed ratified, but not executed, and no steps were taken to provide the necessary funds and lands. … From this disagreeable position, Pompeius was rescued by the sagacity and address of Cæsar, who saw in the necessities of Pompeius the opportunity of the democratic party. Ever since the return of Pompeius, Cæsar had grown rapidly in influence and weight. He had been prætor in 62 B. C., and, in 61, governor in Farther Spain, where he utilized his position to free himself from his debts, and to lay the foundation of the military position he desired for himself. Returning in 60 B. C., he readily relinquished his claim to a triumph, in order to enter the city in time to stand for the consulship. … It was quite possible that the aristocracy might be strong enough to defeat the candidature of Cæsar, as it had defeated that of Catilina; and again, the consulship was not enough; an extraordinary command, secured to him for several years, was necessary for the fulfilment of his purpose. Without allies such a command could not be hoped for; and allies were found where they had been found ten years before, in Pompeius and Crassus, and in the rich equestrian class. Such a treaty was suicide on the part of Pompeius; … but he had drifted into a situation so awkward that he was glad to be released from it on any terms. … The bargain was struck in the summer of 60 B. C. [forming what became known in Roman history as the First Triumvirate]. Cæsar was promised the consulship and a governorship afterwards; Pompeius, the ratification of his arrangements in the East, and land for his soldiers; Crassus received no definite equivalent, but the capitalists were promised a remission of part of the money they had undertaken to pay for the lease of the Asiatic taxes. … Cæsar was easily elected consul for 59 B. C. All that the exertions of the Senate could do was to give him an aristocratic colleague in Marcus Bibulus. Cæsar at once proceeded to fulfil his obligations to Pompeius by proposing an agrarian law. All remaining Italian domain land, which meant practically the territory of Capua, was to be given up to allotments, and other estates in Italy were to be purchased out of the revenues of the new Eastern provinces. The soldiers were simply recommended to the commission, and thus the principle of giving rewards of land for military service was not asserted. The execution of the bill was to be entrusted to a commission of twenty. … At length all these proposals were passed by the assembly [after rejection by the Senate], and the commission of twenty, with Pompeius and Crassus at their head, began the execution of the agrarian law. Now that the first victory was won, the coalition was able to carry out the rest of its programme without much difficulty. … It was determined by the confederates that Cæsar should be invested by decree of the people with a special command resembling that lately held by Pompeius. Accordingly the tribune Vatinius submitted to the tribes a proposal which was at once adopted. By it Cæsar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, and the supreme command of the three legions stationed there, for five years, with the rank of proprætor for his adjutants. His jurisdiction extended southwards as far as the Rubicon, and included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently the province of Narbo was added by the Senate, on the motion of Pompeius. … Cæsar had hardly laid down his consulship when it was proposed, in the Senate, to annul the Julian laws. …

See JULIAN LAWS.

The regents determined to make examples of some of the most determined of their opponents." Cicero was accordingly sent into exile, by a resolution of the tribes, and Cato was appointed to an odious public mission, which carried him out of the way, to Cyprus.

T. Mommsen, History of the Roman Republic, (abridged by Bryan and Hendy), chapter 33.

ALSO IN G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapters 17-20.

C. Middleton, Life of Cicero, section 4.

Napoleon III., History of Julius Cæsar, chapters 3-4.

ROME: B. C. 58-51. Cæsar's conquest of Gaul.

See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.

ROME: B. C. 57-52. Effect of Cæsar's Gallic victories. Return of Cicero from exile. New arrangements of the Triumvirs. Cæsar's Proconsulship extended. The Trebonian Law. Disaster and death of Crassus at Carrhæ. Increasing anarchy in the city.

"In Rome the enemies of Cæsar … were awed into silence [by his victorious career in Gaul], and the Senate granted the unprecedented honour of fifteen days' 'supplicatio' to the gods for the brilliant successes in Gaul. Among the supporters of this motion was, as Cæsar learnt in the winter from the magistrates and senators who came to pay court to him at Ravenna, M. Tullius Cicero. From the day of his exile the efforts to secure his return had begun, but it was not until the 4th of August that the Senate, led by the consul, P. Lentulus Spinther, carried the motion for his return, in spite of the violence of the armed gang of Clodius, and summoned all the country tribes to crowd the comitia on Campus Martius, and ratify the senatus consultum. {2690} The return of the great orator to the country which he had saved in the terrible days of 63 B. C. was more like a triumph than the entrance of a pardoned criminal. … But he had come back on sufferance; the great Three must be conciliated. … Cicero, like many other optimates in Rome, was looking for the beginnings of a breach between Pompeius, Crassus and Cæsar, and was anxious to nourish any germs of opposition to the triple-headed monarchy. He pleaded against Cæsar's friend Vatinius, and he gave notice of a motion for checking the action of the agrarian law in Campania. But these signs of an independent opposition were suddenly terminated by a humiliating recantation; for before entering upon his third campaign Cæsar crossed the Apennines, and appeared at the Roman colony of Lucca. … Two hundred senators crowded to the rendezvous, but arrangements were made by the Three very independently of Senate in Rome or Senate in Lucca. It was agreed that Pompeius and Crassus should hold a joint consulship again next year, and before the expiration of Cæsar's five years they were to secure his reappointment for another five. … Unfortunate Cicero was awed, and in his other speeches of this year tried to win the favor of the great men by supporting their proposed provincial arrangements, and pleading in defence of Cæsar's friend and protege, L. Balbus." In the year 55 B. C. the Trebonian Law was passed, "which gave to Crassus and Pompeius, as proconsular provinces, Syria and Spain, for the extraordinary term of five years. In this repeated creation of extraordinary powers in favor of the coalition of dynasts, Cato rightly saw an end of republican institutions. … Crassus … started in 54 B. C., at the head of seven legions, in face of the combined opposition of tribunes and augurs, to secure the eastern frontier of Roman dominion by vanquishing the Parthian power, which, reared on the ruins of the kingdom of the Seleucids, was now supreme in Ctesiphon and Seleucia. Led into the desert by the Arab Sheikh Abgarus, acting as a traitor, the Roman army was surrounded by the fleet Parthian horsemen, who could attack and retreat, shooting their showers of missiles all the time. In the blinding sand and sun of the desert near Carrhæ [on the river Belik, one of the branches of the Euphrates, the supposed site of the Haran of Biblical history], Crassus experienced a defeat which took its rank with Cannæ and the Arausio. A few days afterwards (June 9th, 53 B. C.) he was murdered in a conference to which the commander of the Parthian forces invited him. … The shock of this event went through the Roman world, and though Cassius, the lieutenant of Crassus, retrieved the honour of the Roman arms against the Parthians in the following year, that agile people remained to the last unconquered, and the Roman boundary was never to advance further to the east. Crassus, then, was dead, and Pompeius, though he lent Cæsar a legion at the beginning of the year, was more ready to assume the natural antagonism to Cæsar, since the death of his wife Julia in September, 54 B. C., had broken a strong tie with his father-in-law. Further, the condition of the capital seemed reaching a point of anarchy at which Pompeius, as the only strong man on the spot, would have to be appointed absolute dictator. In 53 B. C. no consuls could, in the violence and turmoil of the comitia, be elected until July, and the year closed without any elections having taken place for 52 B. C. T. Annius Milo, who was a candidate for the consulship, and P. Clodius, who was seeking the prætorship, turned every street of Rome into a gladiatorial arena." In January Clodius was killed. "Pompeius was waiting in his new gardens near the Porta Carmentalis, until a despairing government should invest him with dictatorial power; he was altogether too timid and too constitutional to seize it. But with Cato in Rome no one dared mention the word dictator. Pompeius, disappointed, was named sole consul on the 4th of February [B. C. 52], and by July he had got as his colleague his new father-in-law, Metellus."

R. F. Horton, History of the Romans, chapter 29.

ALSO IN W. Forsyth, Life of Cicero, chapters 13-16 (volumes 1-2).

C. Merivale, The Roman Triumvirates, chapter 5.

G. Rawlinson, The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 11.

ROME: B. C. 55-54. Cæsar's invasions of Britain.

See BRITAIN: B. C. 55-54.

ROME: B. C. 52-50. Rivalry of Pompeius and Cæsar. Approach of the crisis. Cæsar's legions in motion towards the capital.

"Cæsar had long ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as had Pompey, for that matter, upon his. For Crassus, the fear of whom had hitherto kept them in peace, having now been killed in Parthia, if the one of them wished to make himself the greatest man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other; and if he again wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing for it but to be beforehand with him whom he feared. Pompey had not been long under any such apprehensions, having till lately despised Cæsar, as thinking it no difficult matter to put down him whom he himself had advanced. But Cæsar had entertained this design from the beginning against his rivals, and had retired, like an expert wrestler, to prepare himself apart for the combat. Making the Gallic wars his exercise-ground, he had at once improved the strength of his soldiery, and had heightened his own glory by his great actions, so that he was looked on as one who might challenge comparison with Pompey. Nor did he let go any of those advantages which were now given him, both by Pompey himself and the times, and the ill government of Rome, where all who were candidates for office publicly gave money, and without any shame bribed the people, who, having received their pay, did not contend for their benefactors with their bare suffrages, but with bows, swords and slings. So that after having many times stained the place of election with the blood of men killed upon the spot, they left the city at last without a government at all, to be carried about like a ship without a pilot to steer her; while all who had any wisdom could only be thankful if a course of such wild and stormy disorder and madness might end no worse than in a monarchy. Some were so bold as to declare openly that the government was incurable but by a monarchy, and that they ought to take that remedy from the hands of the gentlest physician, meaning Pompey, who, though in words he pretended to decline it, yet in reality made his utmost efforts to be declared dictator. {2691} Cato, perceiving his design, prevailed with the Senate to make him sole consul [B. C. 52], that with the offer of a more legal sort of monarchy he might be withheld from demanding the dictatorship. They over and above voted him the continuance of his provinces, for he had two, Spain and all Africa, which he governed by his lieutenants, and maintained armies under him, at the yearly charge of a thousand talents out of the public treasury. Upon this Cæsar also sent and petitioned for the consulship, and the continuance of his provinces. Pompey at first did not stir in it, but Marcellus and Lentulus opposed it, who had always hated Cæsar, and now did everything, whether fit or unfit, which might disgrace and affront him. For they took away the privilege of Roman citizens from the people of New Comum, who were a colony that Cæsar had lately planted in Gaul; and Marcellus, who was then consul, ordered one of the senators of that town, then at Rome, to be whipped [B. C. 51], and told him he laid that mark upon him to signify he was no citizen of Rome, bidding him, when he went back again, to show it to Cæsar. After Marcellus's consulship, Cæsar began to lavish gifts upon all the public men out of the riches he had taken from the Gauls; discharged Curio, the tribune, from his great debts; gave Paulus, then consul, 1,500 talents, with which he built the noble court of justice adjoining the forum, to supply the place of that called the Fulvian. Pompey, alarmed at these preparations, now openly took steps, both by himself and his friends, to have a successor appointed in Cæsar's room, and sent to demand back the soldiers whom he had lent him to carry on the wars in Gaul. Cæsar returned them, and made each soldier a present of 250 drachmas. The officer who brought them home to Pompey, spread amongst the people no very fair or favorable report of Cæsar, and flattered Pompey himself with false suggestions that he was wished for by Cæsar's army; and though his affairs here were in some embarrassment through the envy of some, and the ill state of the government, yet there the army was at his command, and if they once crossed into Italy, would presently declare for him; so weary were they of Cæsar's endless expeditions, and so suspicious of his designs for a monarchy. Upon this Pompey grew presumptuous, and neglected all warlike preparations, as fearing no danger. … Yet the demands which Cæsar made had the fairest colors of equity imaginable. For he proposed to lay down his arms, and that Pompey should do the same, and both together should become private men, and each expect a reward of his services from the public. For that those who proposed to disarm him, and at the same time to confirm Pompey in all the power he held, were simply establishing the one in the tyranny which they accused the other of aiming at. When Curio made these proposals to the people in Cæsar's name, he was loudly applauded, and some threw garlands towards him, and dismissed him as they do successful wrestlers, crowned with flowers. Antony, being tribune, produced a letter sent from Cæsar on this occasion, and read it, though the consuls did what they could to oppose it. But Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, proposed in the Senate, that if Cæsar did not lay down his arms within such a time, he should be voted an enemy; and the consuls putting it to the question, whether Pompey should dismiss his soldiers, and again, whether Cæsar should disband his, very few assented to the first, but almost all to the latter. But Antony proposing again, that both should lay down their commissions, all but a very few agreed to it. Scipio was upon this very violent, and Lentulus the consul cried aloud, that they had need of arms, and not of suffrages, against a robber; so that the senators for the present adjourned, and appeared in mourning as a mark of their grief for the dissension. Afterwards there came other letters from Cæsar, which seemed yet more moderate, for he proposed to quit everything else, and only to retain Gaul within the Alps, Illyricum, and two legions, till he should stand a second time for consul. Cicero, the orator, who was lately returned from Cilicia, endeavored to reconcile differences, and softened Pompey, who was willing to comply in other things, but not to allow him the soldiers. At last Cicero used his persuasions with Cæsar's friends to accept of the provinces and 6,000 soldiers only, and so to make up the quarrel. And Pompey was inclined to give way to this, but Lentulus, the consul, would not hearken to it, but drove Antony and Curio out of the senate-house with insults, by which he afforded Caesar [then at Ravenna] the most plausible pretence that could be, and one which he could readily use to inflame the soldiers, by showing them two persons of such repute and authority, who were forced to escape in a hired carriage in the dress of slaves. For so they were glad to disguise themselves, when they fled out of Rome. There were not about him at that time [November, B. C. 50] above 300 horse, and 5,000 foot: for the rest of his army, which was left behind the Alps, was to be brought after him by officers who had received orders for that purpose. But he thought the first motion towards the design which he had on foot did not require large forces at present, and that what was wanted was to make this first step suddenly, and so as to astound his enemies with the boldness of it. … Therefore, he commanded his captains and other officers to go only with their swords in their hands, without any other arms, and make themselves masters of Ariminum, a large city cf Gaul, with as little disturbance and bloodshed as possible. He committed the care of these forces to Hortensius, and himself spent the day in public as a stander-by and spectator of the gladiators, who exercised before him. A little before night he attended to his person, and then went into the hall, and conversed for some time with those he had invited to supper, till it began to grow dusk, when he rose from table, and made his excuses to the company, begging them to stay till he came back, having already given private directions to a few immediate friends, that they should follow him, not all the same way, but some one way, some another. He himself got into one of the hired carriages, and drove at first another way, but presently turned towards Ariminum."

Plutarch, Cæsar (Clough's Dryden's translation)

ALSO IN Cæsar, Commentaries on the Civil War, book 1, chapters 1-8.

T. Arnold, History of the Later Roman Commonwealth, chapter 8 (volume 1).

{2692}

ROME: B. C. 50-49. Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon. Flight of Pompeius and the Consuls from Italy. Cæsar at the capital.

"About ten miles from Ariminum, and twice that distance from Ravenna, the frontier of Italy and Gaul was traced by the stream of the Rubicon. This little river, red with the drainage of the peat mosses from which it descends [and evidently deriving its name from its color], is formed by the union of three mountain torrents, and is nearly dry in the summer, like most of the water courses on the eastern side of the Appenines. In the month of November the winter flood might present a barrier more worthy of the important position which it once occupied; but the northern frontier of Italy had long been secure from invasion, and the channel was spanned by a bridge of no great dimensions. … The ancients amused themselves with picturing the guilty hesitation with which the founder of a line of despots stood, as they imagined, on the brink of the fatal river [in the night of the 27th of November, B. C. 50, corrected calendar, or January 15, B. C. 49, without the correction], and paused for an instant before he committed the irrevocable act, pregnant with the destinies of a long futurity. Cæsar, indeed, in his Commentaries, makes no allusion to the passage of the Rubicon, and, at the moment of stepping on the bridge, his mind was probably absorbed in the arrangements he had made for the march of his legions or for their reception by his friends in Ariminum."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 14.

After the crossing of the Rubicon there were still more, messages between Cæsar and Pompey, and the consuls supporting the latter. "Each demands that the other shall first abandon his position. Of course, all these messages mean nothing. Cæsar, complaining bitterly of injustice, sends a portion of his small army still farther into the Roman territory. Marc Antony goes to Arezzo with five cohorts, and Cæsar occupies three other cities with a cohort each. The marvel is that he was not attacked and driven back by Pompey. We may probably conclude that the soldiers, though under the command of Pompey, were not trustworthy as against Cæsar. As Cæsar regrets his two legions, so no doubt do the two legions regret their commander. At any rate, the consular forces, with Pompey and the consuls and a host of senators, retreat southwards to Brundusium—Brindisi—intending to leave Italy. … During this retreat, the first blood in the civil war is spilt at Corfinium, a town which, if it now stood at all, would stand in the Abruzzi. Cæsar there is victor in a small engagement, and obtained possession of the town. The Pompeian officers whom he finds there he sends away, and allows them even to carry with them money which he believes to have been taken from the public treasury. Throughout his route southward the soldiers of Pompey—who had heretofore been his soldiers—return to him. Pompey and the consuls still retreat, and still Cæsar follows them, though Pompey had boasted, when first warned to beware of Cæsar, that he had only to stamp upon Italian soil and legions would arise from the earth ready to obey him. He knows, however, that away from Rome, in her provinces, in Macedonia and Achaia, in Asia and Cilicia, in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, in Mauritania and the two Spains, there are Roman legions which as yet know no Cæsar. It may be better for Pompey that he should stamp his foot somewhere out of Italy. At any rate he sends the obedient consuls and his attendant senators over to Dyrrhachium in Illyria with a part of his army, and follows with the remainder as soon as Cæsar is at his heels. Cæsar makes an effort to intercept him and his fleet, but in that he fails. Thus Pompey deserts Rome and Italy,—and never again sees the imperial city or the fair land. Cæsar explains to us why he does not follow his enemy and endeavour at once to put an end to the struggle. Pompey is provided with shipping and he is not; and he is aware that the force of Rome lies in her provinces. Moreover, Rome may be starved by Pompey, unless he, Cæsar, can take care that the corn-growing countries, which are the granaries of Rome, are left free for the use of the city."

A. Trollope, The Commentaries of Cæsar, chapter 9.

Turning back from Brundisium, Cæsar proceeded to Rome to take possession of the seat of government which his enemies had abandoned to him. He was scrupulous of legal forms, and, being a proconsul, holding military command, did not enter the city in person. But he called together, outside of the walls, such of the senators as were in Rome and such as could be persuaded to return to the city, and obtained their formal sanction to various acts. Among the measures so authorized was the appropriation of the sacred treasure stored up in the vaults of the temple of Saturn. It was a consecrated reserve, to be used for no purpose except the repelling of a Gallic invasion which had been, for many generations, the greatest dread of Rome. Cæsar claimed it, because he had put an end to that fear, by conquering the Gauls. His stay at Rome on this occasion (April, B. C. 49) was brief, for he needed to make haste to encounter the Pompeian legions in Spain, and to secure the submission of all the west before he followed Pompeius into the Eastern world.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapters 1-4.

ALSO IN J_. A. Froude, Cæsar, chapter 21._

ROME: B. C. 49. Cæsar's first campaign against the Pompeians in Spain. His conquest of Massilia.

In Spain, all the strong forces of the country were commanded by partisans of Pompeius and the Optimate party. Cæsar had already sent forward C. Fabius from Southern Gaul with three legions, to take possession of the passes of the Pyrenees and the principal Spanish roads. Following quickly in person, he found that his orders had been vigorously obeyed. Fabius was confronting the Pompeian generals, Afranius and Petreius at Ilerda (modern Lerida in Catalonia), on the river Sicoris (modern Segre), where they made their stand. They had five legions of well-trained veterans, besides native auxiliaries to a considerable number. Cæsar's army, with the reinforcements that he had added to it, was about the same. The Pompeians had every advantage of position, commanding the passage of the river by a permanent bridge of stone and drawing supplies from both banks. Cæsar, on the other hand, had great difficulty in maintaining his communications, and was placed in mortal peril by a sudden flood which destroyed his bridges. Yet, without any general battle, by pure strategic skill and by resistless energy, he forced the hostile army out of its advantageous position, intercepted its retreat and compelled an unconditional surrender. This Spanish campaign, which occupied but forty days, and which was decisive of the contest for all Spain, was one of the finest of Cæsar's military achievements. {2693} The Greek city of Massilia (modern Marseilles), still nominally independent and the ally of Rome, although surrounded by the Roman conquests in Gaul, had seen fit to range itself on the side of Pompeius and the Optimates, and to close its gates in the face of Cæsar, when he set out for his campaign in Spain. He had not hesitated to leave three legions of his moderate army before the city, while he ordered a fleet to be built at Arelates (Arles), for coöperation in the siege. Decimus Brutus commanded the fleet and Trebonius was the general of the land force. The siege was made notable by remarkable engineering operations on both sides, but the courage of the Massiliots was of no long endurance. When Cæsar returned from his Spanish campaign he found them ready to surrender. Notwithstanding they had been guilty of a great act of treachery during the siege, by breaking an armistice, he spared their city, on account, he said, of its name and antiquity. His soldiers, who had expected rich booty, were offended, and a dangerous mutiny, which occurred soon afterwards at Placentia, had this for its main provocation.

Cæsar, The Civil War, book 1, chapters 36-81, and book 2, chapters 1-22.

ALSO IN G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapters 5 and 8.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapters 15-16.

ROME: B. C. 48. The war in Epirus and Thessaly. Cæsar's decisive victory at Pharsalia.

Having established his authority in Italy, Gaul and Spain, and having legalized it by procuring from the assembly of the Roman citizens his formal election to the consulship, for the year A. U. 706 (B. C. 48), Cæsar prepared to follow Pompeius and the Senatorial party across the Adriatic. As the calendar then stood, it was in January that he arrived at Brundisium to take ship; but the season corresponded with November in the calendar as Cæsar, himself, corrected it soon afterwards. The vessels at his command were so few that he could transport only 15,500 of his troops on the first expedition, and it was with that number that he landed at Palæste on the coast of Epirus. The sea was swarming with the fleets of his enemies, and, although he escaped them in going, his small squadron was caught on the return voyage and many of its ships destroyed. Moreover, the Pompeian cruisers became so vigilant that the second detachment of his army, left behind at Brundisium, under Marcus Antonius, found no opportunity to follow him until the winter had nearly passed. Meantime, with his small force, Cæsar proceeded boldly into Macedonia to confront Pompeius, reducing fortresses and occupying towns as he marched. Although his great antagonist had been gathering troops in Macedonia for months, and now numbered an army of some 90,000 or 100,000 men, it was Cæsar, not Pompeius, who pressed for a battle, even before Mark Antony had joined him. As soon as the junction had occurred he pushed the enemy with all possible vigor. But Pompeius had no confidence in his untrained host. He drew his whole army into a strongly fortified, immense camp, on the sea coast near Dyrrhachium, at a point called Petra, and there he defied Cæsar to dislodge him. The latter undertook to wall him in on the land-side of his camp, by a line of ramparts and towers seventeen miles in length. It was an undertaking too great for his force. Pompeius made a sudden flank movement which disconcerted all his plans, and so defeated and demoralized his men that he was placed in extreme peril for a time. Had the Senatorial chief shown half of Cæsar's energy at that critical moment, the cause of Cæsar would probably have been lost. But Pompeius and his party took time to rejoice over their victory, while Cæsar framed plans to repair his defeat. He promptly abandoned his lines before the enemy's camp and fell back into the interior of the country, to form a junction with certain troops which he had previously sent eastward to meet reënforcements then coming to Pompeius. He calculated that Pompeius would follow him, and Pompeius did so. The result was to give Cæsar, at last, the opportunity he had been seeking for months, to confront with his tried legions the motley levies of his antagonist on an open field. The decisive and ever memorable battle was fought in Thessaly, on the plain of Pharsalia, through which flows the river Enipeus, and overlooking which, from a contiguous height, stood anciently the city of Pharsalus. It was fought on the 9th of August, in the year 48 before Christ. It was a battle quickly ended. The foot-soldiers of Pompeius out-numbered those of Cæsar at least as two to one; but they could not stand the charge which the latter made upon them. His cavalry was largely composed of the young nobility of Rome, and Cæsar had few horsemen with which to meet them; but he set against them a strong reserve of his sturdy veterans on foot, and they broke the horsemen's ranks. The defeat was speedily a rout; there was no rallying. Pompeius fled with a few attendants and made his way to Alexandria, where his tragical fate overtook him. Some of the other leaders escaped in different directions. Some, like Brutus, submitted to Cæsar, who was practically the master, from that hour, of the Roman realm, although Thapsus had still to be fought.

Cæsar, The Civil War, book 3.

ALSO IN W. W. Fowler, Julius Cæsar, chapter 16.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapters 10-17.

T. A. Dodge, Cæsar, chapters 31-35.

ROME: B. C. 48-47. Pursuit or Pompeius to Egypt. His assassination. Cæsar at Alexandria, with Cleopatra. The rising against him. His peril. His deliverance.

See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47.

ROME: B. C. 47-46. Cæsar's overthrow or Pharnaces at Zela. His return to Rome. The last stand or his opponents in Africa. Their defeat at Thapsus.

At the time when Cæsar was in a difficult position at Alexandria, and the subjects of Rome were generally uncertain as to whether their yoke would be broken or not by the pending civil war, Pharnaces, son of the vanquished Pontic king, Mithridates, made an effort to recover the lost kingdom of his father. He himself had been a traitor to his father, and had been rewarded for his treason by Pompeius, who gave him the small kingdom of Bosporus, in the Crimea. He now thought the moment favorable for regaining Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia. Cæsar's lieutenant in Asia Minor, Domitius Calvinus, marched against him with a small force, and was badly defeated at Nicopolis (B. C. 48), in Armenia Minor. {2694} As a consequence, Cæsar, on being extricated from Alexandria, could not return to Rome, although his affairs there sorely needed him, until he had restored the Roman authority in Asia Minor. As soon as he could reach Pharnaces, although his army was small in numbers, he struck and shattered the flimsy throne at a single blow. The battle was fought (B. C. 47) at Zela, in Pontus, where Mithridates had once gained a victory over the Romans. It was of this battle that Cæsar is said to have written his famous 'Veni, vidi, vici.' "Plutarch says that this expression was used in a letter to one Amintius; the name is probably a mistake. Suetonius asserts that the three words were inscribed on a banner and carried in Cæsar's triumph. Appian and Dion refer to them as notorious."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 18.

After defeating Pharnaces at Zela, destroying his army, "Cæsar passed on through Galatia and Bithynia to the province of Asia proper, settling affairs in every centre; and leaving the faithful Mithridates [of Pergamum—See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47] with the title of King of the Bosphorus, as a guarantee for the security of these provinces, he sailed for Italy, and arrived at Tarentum before anyone was aware of his approach. If he had really wasted time or lost energy in Egypt, he was making up for it now. On the way from Tarentum to Brundisium he met Cicero, who had been waiting for him here for nearly a year. He alighted, embraced his old friend, and walked with him some distance. The result of their talk was shown by Cicero's conduct for the rest of Cæsar's lifetime; he retired to his villas, and sought relief in literary work, encouraged doubtless by Cæsar's ardent praise. The magical effect of Cæsar's presence was felt throughout Italy; all sedition ceased, and Rome, which had been the scene of riot and bloodshed under the uncertain rule of Antonius, was quiet in an instant. The master spent three months in the city, working hard. He had been a second time appointed dictator while he was in Egypt, and probably without any limit of time, space or power; and he acted now without scruple as an absolute monarch. Everything that had to be done he saw to himself. Money was raised, bills were passed, the Senate recruited, magistrates and provincial governors appointed. But there was no time for any attempt at permanent organisation; he must wrest Africa from his enemies. … He quelled a most serious mutiny, in which even his faithful tenth legion was concerned, with all his wonderful skill and knowledge of human nature; sent on all available forces to Sicily, and arrived himself at Lilybæum in the middle of December."

W. W. Fowler, Julius Cæsar, chapter 17.

The last stand of Cæsar's opponents as a party—the senatorial party, or the republicans, as they are sometimes called—was made in Africa, on the old Carthaginian territory, with the city of Utica for their headquarters, and with Juba, the Numidian king, for their active ally. Varus, who had held his ground there, defeating and slaying Cæsar's friend Curio, was joined first by Scipio, afterwards by Cato, Labienus and other leaders, Cato having led a wonderful march through the desert from the Lesser Syrtis. In the course of the year of respite from pursuit which Cæsar's occupations elsewhere allowed them, they gathered and organized a formidable army. It was near the end of the year 47 B. G. that Cæsar assembled his forces at Lilybæum, in Sicily, and sailed with the first detachment for Africa. As happened so often to him in his bold military adventures, the troops which should follow were delayed by storms, and he was exposed to imminent peril before they arrived. But he succeeded in fortifying and maintaining a position on the coast, near Ruspina, until they came. As soon as they reached him he offered battle to his adversaries, and found presently an opportunity to force the fighting upon them at Thapsus, a coast town in their possession, which he attacked. The battle was decided by the first charge of Cæsar's legionaries, which swept everything—foot-soldiers, cavalry and elephants —before it. The victors in their ferocity gave no quarter and slaughtered 10,000 of the enemy, while losing from their own ranks but fifty men. The decisive battle of Thapsus was fought on the 6th of April, B. C. 46, uncorrected calendar, or February 6th, as corrected later. Scipio, the commander, fled to Spain, was intercepted on the voyage, and ended his own life. The high-minded, stoical Cato committed suicide at Utica, rather than surrender his freedom to Cæsar. Juba, the Numidian king, likewise destroyed himself in despair; his kingdom was extinguished and Numidia became a Roman province. A few scattered leaders of revolt still disputed Cæsar's supremacy, but his power was firmly fixed.

A. Hirtius, The African War.

ALSO IN G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapters 24-27.

ROME: B. C. 45: Cæsar's last campaign against the Pompeians in Spain. His victory at Munda.

After Thapsus, Cæsar had one more deadly and desperate battle to fight for his sovereignty over the dominions of Rome. Cnæus Pompeius, son of Pompeius Magnus, with Labienus and Varus, of the survivors of the African field, had found disaffection in Spain, out of which they drew an army, with Pompeius in command. Cæsar marched in person against this new revolt, crossing the Alps and the Pyrenees with his customary celerity. After a number of minor engagements had been fought, the decisive battle occurred at Munda, in the valley of the Guadalquiver (modern Munda, between Honda and Malaga), on the 17th of March, B. C. 45. "Never, it is said, was the great conqueror brought so near to defeat and destruction;" but he won the day in the end, and only Sextus Pompeius survived among the leaders of his enemies. The dead on the field were 30,000.

Julius Cæsar, Commentary on the Spanish War.

ALSO IN C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 19.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 30.

ROME: B. C. 45-44. The Sovereignty of Cæsar and his titles. His permanent Imperatorship. His unfulfilled projects.

"At Home, official enthusiasm burst forth anew at the tidings of these successes [in Spain]. The Senate decreed fifty days of supplications, and recognized Cæsar's right to extend the pomœrium, since he had extended the limits of the Empire. … After Thapsus he was more than a demi-god; after Munda he was a god altogether. A statue was raised to him in the temple of Quirinus with the inscription: 'To the invincible God,' and a college of priests, the Julian, was consecrated to him. … On the 18th September the dictator appeared at the gates of Rome, but he did not triumph till the beginning of October. {2695} This time there was no barbarian king or chieftain to veil the victories won over citizens. But Cæsar thought he had no longer need to keep up such consideration; since he was now the State, his enemies, whatever name they bore, must be enemies of the State. … It was expected that Cæsar, having suffered so many outrages, would now punish severely, and Cicero, who had always doubted his clemency, believed that tyranny would break out as soon as the tyrant was above fear. But jealousies, recollections of party strifes, did not reach to the height of Cæsar. … He restored the statues of Sylla; he replaced that of Pompey on the rostra. … He pardoned Cassius, who had tried to assassinate him, the consularis Marcellus who had stirred up war against him, and Quintus Ligarius who had betrayed him in Africa. As a temporary precaution, however, he forbade to the Pompeians, by a 'lex Hirtia,' admission to the magistracy. For his authority, Cæsar sought no new forms. … Senate, comitia, magistracies existed as before; but he centred public action in himself alone by combining in his own hands all the republican offices. The instrument which Cæsar used in order to give to his power legal sanction was the Senate. In former times, the general, after the triumph; laid aside his title of imperator and imperium, which included absolute authority over the army, the judicial department and the administrative power; Cæsar, by a decree of the Senate, retained both during life, with the right of drawing freely from the treasury. His dictatorship and his office of præfectus morum were declared perpetual; the consulship was offered him for ten years, but he would not accept it; the Senate wished to join executive to electoral authority by offering him the right of appointment in all curule and plebeian offices; he reserved for himself merely the privilege of nominating half the magistracy. The Senate had enjoined the members chosen to swear, before entering on office, that they would undertake nothing contrary to the dictator's acts, these having the force of law. Further, they gave to his person the legal inviolability of the tribunes, and in order to ensure it, knights and senators offered to serve as guards, while the whole Senate took an oath to watch over his safety. To the reality of power were added the outward signs. In the Senate, at the theatre, in the circus, on his tribunal, he sat, dressed in the royal robe, on a throne of gold, and his effigy was stamped on the coins, where the Roman magistrates had not yet ventured to engrave more than their names. They even went as far as talking of succession, as in a regular monarchy. His title of imperator and the sovereign pontificate were transmissible to his legitimate or adopted children. … Cæsar was not deceived by the secret perfidy which prompted such servilities, and he valued them as they deserved. But his enemies found in them fresh reasons for hating the great man who had saved them. … The Senate had … sunk from its character of supreme council of the Republic into that of a committee of consultation, which the master often forgot to consult. The Civil war had decimated it; Cæsar appointed to it brave soldiers, even sons of freedmen who had served him well, and a considerable number of provincials, Spaniards, Gauls of Gallia Narbonensis, who had long been Romans. He had so many services to reward that his Senate reached the number of 900 members. … One day the Senate went in a body to the temple of Venus Genetrix to present to Cæsar certain decrees drawn up in his honor. The demi-god was ill and dared not leave his couch. This was imprudent, for the report spread that he had not deigned to rise. … The higher nobles remained apart, not from honours, but from power; but they forgot neither Pharsalia nor Thapsus. They would have consented to obey on condition of having the appearance of commanding. This disguised obedience is for an able government more convenient than outward servility. A few concessions made to vanity obtain tranquil possession of power. This was the policy of Augustus, but it is not that of great ambitions or of a true statesman. These pretences leave everything doubtful; nothing is settled; and Cæsar wished to lay the foundations of a government which should bring a new order of things out of a chaos of ruins. Unless we are paying too much attention to mere anecdotes, he desired the royal diadem. … It is difficult not to believe that Cæsar considered the constituting of a monarchical power as the rational achievement of the revolution which he was carrying out. In this way we could explain the persistence of his friends in offering him a title odious to the Romans, who were quite ready to accept a monarch, but not monarchy. … In order to attain to this royal title … he must mount still higher, and this new greatness he would seek in the East. … It was meet that he should wipe out the second military humiliation of Rome after effacing the first; that he should avenge Crassus."

V. Duruy, History of Rome, chapter 58, sections 2-3 (volume 3).

"Cæsar was born to do great things, and had a passion after honor. … It was in fact a sort of emulous struggle with himself, as it had been with another, how he might outdo his past actions by his future. In pursuit of these thoughts he resolved to make war upon the Parthians, and when he had subdued them, to pass through Hyrcania; thence to march along by the Caspian Sea to Mount Caucasus, and so on about Pontus, till he came into Scythia; then to overrun all the countries bordering upon Germany, and Germany itself; and so to return through Gaul into Italy, after completing the whole circle of his intended empire, and bounding it on every side by the ocean. While preparations were making for this expedition, he proposed to dig through the isthmus on which Corinth stands; and appointed Anienus to superintend the work. He had also a design of diverting the Tiber, and carrying it by a deep channel directly from Rome to Circeii, and so into the sea near Tarracina, that there might be a safe and easy passage for all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he intended to drain all the marshes by Pomentium and Setia, and gain ground enough from the water to employ many thousands of men in tillage. He proposed further to make great mounds on the shore nearest Rome, to hinder the sea from breaking in upon the land, to clear the coast at Ostia of all the hidden rocks and shoals that made it unsafe for shipping, and to form ports and harbors fit to receive the large number of vessels that would frequent them. These things were designed without being carried into effect; but his reformation of the calendar [See CALENDAR, JULIAN], in order to rectify the irregularity of time, was not only projected with great scientific ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of very great use."

Plutarch, Cæsar (Clough's Dryden's translation).

ALSO IN T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 11, with note.

{2696}

ROME: B. C. 44. The Assassination of Cæsar.

"The question of the kingship was over; but a vague alarm had been created, which answered the purpose of the Optimates. Cæsar was at their mercy any day. They had sworn to maintain all his acts. They had sworn, after Cicero's speech, individually and collectively to defend his life. Cæsar, whether he believed them sincere or not, had taken them at their word, and came daily to the Senate unarmed and without a guard. … There were no troops in the city. Lepidus, Cæsar's master of the horse, who had been appointed governor of Gaul, was outside the gates with a few cohorts; but Lepidus was a person of feeble character, and they trusted to be able to deal with him. Sixty senators, in all, were parties to the immediate conspiracy. Of these, nine tenths were members of the old faction whom Cæsar had pardoned, and who, of all his acts, resented most that he had been able to pardon them. They were the men who had stayed at home, like Cicero, from the fields of Thapsus and Munda, and had pretended penitence and submission that they might take an easier road to rid themselves of their enemy. Their motives were the ambition of their order and personal hatred of Cæsar; but they persuaded themselves that they were animated by patriotism, and as, in their hands, the Republic had been a mockery of liberty, so they aimed at restoring it by a mock tyrannicide. … One man only they were able to attract into coöperation who had a reputation for honesty, and could be conceived, without absurdity, to be animated by a disinterested purpose. Marcus Brutus was the son of Cato's sister Servilia, the friend, and a scandal said the mistress, of Cæsar. That he was Cæsar's son was not too absurd for the credulity of Roman drawing-rooms. Brutus himself could not have believed in the existence of such a relation, for he was deeply attached to his mother; and although, under the influence of his uncle Cato, he had taken the Senate's side in the war, he had accepted afterwards not pardon only from Cæsar, but favors of many kinds, for which he had professed, and probably felt, some real gratitude. … Brutus was perhaps the only member of the senatorial party in whom Cæsar felt genuine confidence. His known integrity, and Cæsar's acknowledged regard for him, made his accession to the conspiracy an object of particular importance. … Brutus, once wrought upon, became with Cassius the most ardent in the cause which assumed the aspect to him of a sacred duty. Behind them were the crowd of senators of the familiar faction, and others worse than they, who had not even the excuse of having been partisans of the beaten cause; men who had fought at Cæsar's side till the war was over, and believed, like Labienus, that to them Cæsar owed his fortune, and that he alone ought not to reap the harvest. … The Ides of March drew near. Cæsar was to set out in a few days for Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going, as governor, to the north of Italy, Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to Asia Minor. Antony, Cæsar's colleague in the consulship, was to remain in Italy. Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, was to be consul with him as soon as Cæsar should have left for the East. The foreign appointments were all made for five years, and in another week the party would be scattered. The time for action had come, if action there was to be. … An important meeting of the Senate had been called for the Ides (the 15th) of the month. The Pontifices, it was whispered, intended to bring on again the question of the Kingship before Cæsar's departure. The occasion would be appropriate. The Senate-house itself was a convenient scene of operations. The conspirators met at supper the evening before at Cassius's house. Cicero, to his regret, was not invited. The plan was simple, and was rapidly arranged. Cæsar would attend unarmed. The senators not in the secret would be unarmed also. The party who intended to act were to provide themselves with poniards, which could be easily concealed in their paper boxes. So far all was simple; but a question rose whether Cæsar only was to be killed, or whether Antony and Lepidus were to be dispatched along with him. They decided that Cæsar's death would be sufficient. … Antony and Lepidus were not to be touched. For the rest the assassins had merely to be in their places in the Senate in good time. When Cæsar entered, Trebonius was to detain Antony in conversation at the door. The others were to gather about Cæsar's chair on pretence of presenting a petition, and so could make an end. A gang of gladiators were to be secreted in the adjoining theatre to be ready should any unforeseen difficulty present itself. … Strange stories were told in after years of the uneasy labors of the elements that night. … Calpurnia dreamt her husband was murdered, and that she saw him ascending into heaven, and received by the hand of God. In the morning (March 15th) the sacrifices were again unfavorable. Cæsar was restless. Some natural disorder affected his spirits, and his spirits were reacting on his body. Contrary to his usual habit, he gave way to depression. He decided, at his wife's entreaty, that he would not attend the Senate that day. The house was full. The conspirators were in their places with their daggers ready. Attendants came in to remove Cæsar's chair. It was announced that he was not coming. Delay might be fatal. They conjectured that he already suspected something. A day's respite, and all might be discovered. His familiar friend whom he trusted —the coincidence is striking—was employed to betray him. Decimus Brutus, whom it was impossible for him to distrust, went to entreat his attendance. … Cæsar shook off his uneasiness, and rose to go. As he crossed the hall his statue fell and shivered on the stones. Some servant, perhaps, had heard whispers, and wished to warn him. As he still passed on, a stranger thrust a scroll into his hand, and begged him to read it on the spot. It contained a list of the conspirators, with a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a petition and placed it carelessly among his other papers. The fate of the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread was not broken. … Cæsar entered and took his seat. {2697} His presence awed men, in spite of themselves, and the conspirators had determined to act at once, lest they should lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and easy of access. They gathered round him. … One had a story to tell him; another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had just made governor of Bithynia, then came close to him, with some request which he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, stabbed him in the throat. He started up with a cry and caught Cassius's arm. Another poniard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. He looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his head, gathered the folds about him that he might fall decently, and sank down without uttering another word. … The Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed into the Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Cæsar was dead, and scattered to their houses. Antony, guessing that those who had killed Cæsar would not spare himself, hurried off into concealment. The murderers, bleeding some of them from wounds which they had given one another in their eagerness, followed, crying that the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free; and the body of the great Cæsar was left alone in the house where a few weeks before Cicero told him that he was so necessary to his country that every senator would die before harm should reach him."