Chapter C: Julius Cæsar (1)

Cæsar’s consulship (693) is to be looked upon as the true beginning of the civil wars; its date is four years after that of Cicero. He had not been much talked of until then, although he enjoyed extraordinary favour with the people; as yet Pompey and Crassus alone were powerful.—The two biographies of Cæsar by Suetonius and Plutarch, are, strange to say, both of them ἀκέφαλοι.[5] In the former, there is wanting besides the real beginning, the dedication to the then _præfectus prætorio_, a fact which we have known since the year 1812. With regard to the latter, as far as I am aware, this has not been noticed before; but Plutarch could not have altogether passed over his ancestors, the whole of his genealogy, and the history of his boyhood and youth, so as to begin with Sylla’s attempt to have him divorced from his second wife. For this reason, we know hardly anything of his origin. The Julii were an Alban clan, and therefore in the earliest times of Rome belonged to the _gentes minores_: in the first ages of the republic they are often to be met with in curule dignities; but from the fourth to the seventh century, the _gens_ is no where to be found. Notwithstanding their being patricians, they sided with the popular party. The sister of his father having been married to Marius, Cæsar clung from a youth to Marius and his memory; just as Plato did to the uncle of his mother. He was married to Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, a union which Sylla wanted to break; but Cæsar, in an age when all men trembled, showed already the greatness of his soul, disdaining, as he did, to stoop and to forsake the wife of his love. Her dowry was taken from him, as the property of her father had been confiscated; and he had to put up with it: he had also to hide himself; and though he was not on the proscription lists, he was closely hunted, with Sylla’s knowledge, by what were called the Cornelians, and he had to buy his life. He was at that time still very young, having, according to the custom of the high born families, been married very early; yet there was something so extraordinary about him, that even the wild myrmidons of Sylla, and his most eager partisans, could not bear the thought of sacrificing such a fine young man. It was only, however, with great reluctance, that Sylla consented to his being saved from persecution. Cæsar now returned to Rome; but with all his boldness and determination, he was exceedingly guarded: it would have been happy for Cicero, if he had had Cæsar’s circumspection. As long as Sylla was alive, Cæsar, like an industrious youth who was going through his studies, had his attention wholly given to literature; and the greatest general of his age showed no military inclinations whatever. Nor did he serve any military apprenticeship: when he went out as quæstor to Spain, he at once took the command of troops; just as if among us, one who had never learned the drill, were to lead a brigade. So likewise did General Moreau, in his very first campaign, act at once as a general of division; Frederic II. also had never been in any school of war. After his quæstorship, Julius Cæsar became ædile, when he greatly distinguished himself by the pomp which he displayed, although he was by no means wealthy. But in these matters, he was very careless: to those who lent to him, he gave a pledge in his heart, to repay the debt tenfold, when once he should have come into power.

The opposite party were already losing ground in public opinion. He now boldly set himself up as the head of the remnant of Marius’ party: thus he made over his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, a brilliant funeral oration, the first which was ever spoken for a woman. And as the conquering faction had unseemingly destroyed all the monuments and statues of Marius, Cæsar one night secretly caused the statue of Marius to be raised again in the Capitol, together with a Minerva which crowned it, and an inscription in which all his titles were recounted. This awakened such affright, that old Catulus was foolish enough to try and stir up the senate to take steps against him; but he did it in vain, as Cæsar was already too high up in public estimation. He then got the prætorship, and in 693, the consulate.

If we place Cæsar before our minds with all his qualities, we find in his character a great deal of openness and friendliness. He was a very kindhearted man, though not affectionate like Cicero; he wanted to have many friends, and there he was quite different from Cicero, who was very exclusive: he was indulgent, and formed friendships with many who were diametrically opposite to himself, and whose acquaintance was even hurtful to his good name. He was free of all envy and jealousy of Pompey, though he could not endure the assumed superiority of people who were infinitely below himself. Pompey could not bear that Cæsar should stand side by side with him, nor Cæsar on the other hand, that Pompey should set himself above him:

Nec quemquam jam ferre potest Cæsarve priorem,
Pompejusve parem.[6]

His genius was most versatile: he possessed an unexampled facility and power in all that could be done by intellect; he had an excellent memory, together with presence of mind, and the firmest reliance on himself and his good fortune, being confident that he must succeed in everything. Owing to this great facility, most of his acquirements were not the fruits of the toilsome drudgery of the school, but of the cultivation and exercise of his great talents: thus it was with his eloquence and his style. In the very fact that he owed nothing to art, and everything to himself, lay the chief secret of his wonderful power. He had made himself master of many branches of knowledge; for while they interested him, he devoted to them all his energy and attention. He was particularly remarkable for his acuteness and keen observation; and it is certainly no small honour for grammar that Cæsar was so fond of it: his work on analogy would very likely be as much superior to all the grammars of that time, as his history was to all other works of the same kind which are founded on personal observation. The same originality is also manifest in his strategical talents: his sound, strong intellect clearly marks its aim, and then finds out for itself the means of attaining it. He was no intriguer; of all those plots which were then so general, he knew nothing: on the contrary, he was the frankest person in the world, which was the very reason why he was often so little on his guard. Not a few of the arbitrary acts of which he was guilty, were merely the consequences of a former want of caution, of frankness and openness. His kindliness of soul, his mildness and humanity, he showed after his victory in a manner which could never have been expected from him; nor was there anything artificial in it. Augustus was an actor in all he did; but Cæsar was always true and open-hearted. Had he lived in times when the machine of the state was smoothly going on, and was not yet rusty and disorganised, when it was still possible to govern the republic with a strong, sound hand,—as for instance, in the days of Scipio; or, had he been born on the throne, he would calmly have gone through his career, and without destroying anything, have most brilliantly reached the goal. But he was thrown upon a time, when as Göthe says, “one must needs be either anvil or hammer;” and of course the choice was not difficult. Cato might dream as long as he liked, that there was still hope with the _fæx plebis_, and that the age of Curius and Fabricius were not yet over; Cicero might trim and tack about in this republic, if he chose; but Cæsar could not do otherwise than rule the circumstances in which he found himself, and he had unremittingly, untiringly to advance towards the mark which he had in view. That he was unscrupulous in his wars, cannot be denied: his Gallic wars are for the most part downright crimes; his conduct towards the Usipetes and Tenchteri was shocking, and towards Vercingetorix deplorable, it was dictated by an unhallowed ambition; yet he never did anything of the kind against his fellow-citizens. His behaviour to the Gauls may indeed be accounted for by what we know of the manners of the times. The ruling party at Rome behaved towards Cæsar, not only foolishly, but with utter injustice: they ought never to have hindered his offering himself from Gaul as a candidate for the consular dignity. If they had allowed him quietly to get it, matters would not only have gone on better than in Pompey’s second and third consulships, but all would very likely have passed off peaceably, and even perhaps beneficially for the republic. Had it in any way been possible to find a remedy for the disorders of the state, Cæsar was the only man to devise it, and to carry it out.

In his behaviour to Cicero, who during his consulship had offended him, he shows himself to be a very different person from Pompey, though Pompey’s vanity only had been wounded, whereas Cicero had everywhere leagued himself with the enemies of Cæsar. Yet the latter did not bear him the least grudge; but would gladly have taken him with him to Gaul, and there protected him.

As to Cæesar’s style, everybody knows that there is no greater master among prose writers in the γένος ἀφελές. The highest acknowledgment is what Cicero says of his eloquence: it is _sermoni proprior_, the most finished conversation of a highly educated man. Posterity has indeed been more just to Cæsar’s genius, than his contemporaries have been; Tacitus, however, discerned it.[7]

Cæsar was as a man possessed by fate, who rushed on with a headlong impulse of passions, though always benevolent and amiable: he thus got entangled in most unfortunate embarrassments. To this feature in his character belongs his extravagant prodigality; not for his own pleasures, but for the people, which made him dependent upon the rich, especially upon Crassus, who advanced him immense sums. If during Cæsar’s consulship, there had been a party which had wished honestly to attach itself to him, and to rid itself of Pompey’s influence, his year of office would have passed without a stain. It was in fact rather a loss of time for him; as his real object was the province, which, according to the custom of those times, he could only obtain at the end of the year. Vatinius, who was then _tribunus plebis_, with a violation of the laws which was become common in those days, caused Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum to be given for five years as a province to Cæsar; and to this was afterwards added Transalpine Gaul, which at that time was not yet a province. Pompey until now had had his province only for an indefinite period.

Cæsar enacted several popular laws. He founded a colony in Capua which, since its conquest in the Second Punic War, had always been in a strange position: the buildings there, and the ground, were the property of the Roman republic; the houses might be held on lease, and the land was cultivated by hereditary tenants who had to pay the tenth of the produce. The state, however, might resume these grants at pleasure, and attempts had twice before been made to change the system: the former of these was in Cinna’s consulship, on the motion of M. Brutus; and the latter in that of Cicero, when Servilius Rullus brought it forward. Against this colony, Cicero had already spoken on that occasion; and when Cæsar now returned to the plan, he refused being one of the commissioners for founding it: Cæsar resented this as a very bitter personal affront, and the two were for some time estranged. Yet for all that, they would have been friends again, had Cicero chosen to go with Cæsar to Gaul. Cicero’s brother Quintus was with him there, and was treated by him with the greatest distinction. Cæsar afterwards tried in every possible way to show his good feeling towards Cicero; but the latter was induced by his evil star to remain at Rome.

Cicero had a great deal of trouble with Cæsar’s colleague, a narrow-minded and obstinate, but honest man. The next consuls, L. Calpurnius Piso and A. Gabinius, were ἄνθρωποι ἀλιτήριοι: all the evil that Cicero says of them is quite true. They bought of Clodius, by letting him carry without hindrance his detestable rogations which were to revenge himself on Cicero, the provinces of Syria and Macedonia: the former of these was for Gabinius, who wanted to restore Ptolemy Auletes; the latter for Piso. Clodius now impeached Cicero for having put Roman citizens to death without trial; and yet, as we have already remarked, it was a case of _delictum manifestum_, in which, by the _lex Porcia_, no further judicial proceedings were requisite. There were three _leges Porciæ_, the last of which had probably been brought in by L. Porcius during the Social War. In former times, any one could evade the popular tribunals by going into a _municipium_; but after the citizenship had been granted to the Italians, the state of things was necessarily altered. The question must now have been, whether men who were full Roman citizens were at all liable to capital punishment for any crime; and public opinion indeed seems to have answered it in the negative. By the _lex Porcia_ therefore, either a Roman citizen could not be put to death at all; or if it must be, it was to be done on the spot. According to this, Cicero could only be proceeded against _quod civem Romanum necasset_, but not _quod indemnatum Romanum civem necasset_.

All kept aloof: Pompey went into the country, and would not see Cicero or his friends; Cæsar was in Gaul; Crassus had a bitter spite against Cicero for having been mentioned in Catiline’s conspiracy,—as was generally believed, with justice, but yet without Cicero’s having anything to do with it, as this was said by one of the witnesses. With the son of Crassus, however, P. Crassus, who was a very distinguished man, Cicero was very intimate; and he loved him notwithstanding all his father’s enmity. Cicero could not abide the day of his trial, or he would have been lost: the _concilia_ were now in truth little better than the rakings together of the dregs of the Roman market and streets, and such meetings allowed themselves to be guided by a leader in any way he liked. Cicero had therefore to leave the city to save his life. The senate, bad as that body was, mutually encouraged each other, showing great sympathy for Cicero. Clodius, however, followed up his victory, as he saw that the government was quite cowed. He pulled down Cicero’s houses; he destroyed his villa; he put up his property for sale, though not a soul would buy it; and on the ground where his house had stood, he built a small temple to Freedom. The place on the Palatine where it stood, I made out within about fifty paces, and I was there often: in the reign of the emperor Claudius, the house was rebuilt; but it was burnt down again in Nero’s fire. Not only was Cicero himself outlawed, but likewise all those who should give him shelter or abet him. Thus he was not able to go at all to Sicily, the prætor there, with whom in former times he had been on friendly terms, having allowed himself to be intimidated: he therefore went to Macedon, where he lived with the quæstor Plancius, who behaved to him like a brother. Clodius now kept his word to the consuls. Gabinius and Piso got the provinces which he had promised them, whilst he himself with the greatest shamelessness laid hands on whatever he listed. This went on as long as his year of office lasted. In the following year, public opinion declared so loudly for Cicero, petitions pouring in from all sides, that he was regularly recalled, and received with a triumphant welcome which consoled him for the moment;—nay, he deemed himself happier than ever. Yet for all that, his misfortune had made a deep impression upon him: the speeches which he made just before the year of that calamity, especially that for Flaccus his assistant in the affair of Catiline, are clouded with anxiety, and with bitter grief at the reward which he received from his country, a sorrow which even endangered his life; and this imparts to them a peculiar interest. The very next year, that happiness was already at an end. The internal condition of Rome became worse and worse. Pompey fell out with Clodius, and showed himself friendly to Cicero. Pompey and Crassus now wanted to be consuls, against the wishes of all _viri boni_; and they carried their point, as Saturninus and Glaucia once did. To intimidate Domitius, Cato’s brother-in-law, who likewise stood for the consulship, they had him waylaid early in the morning, as he was going home, and his servant, who went before him with a torch, stabbed before his eyes; thus showing him what he was threatened with, and warning him to withdraw from his competition: he was forced to give way.

Now that these two pillars of the aristocracy had thus become consuls, they managed, by means of a _Lex Trebonia_, to have provinces granted them. From this time, the _gentes_ of the Italians are met with more and more in the Fasti. Trebonius is a Lucanian name: to the same class belong men like Asinius Pollio, Munatius Plancus, and others, who likewise came from Italian towns. The Trebonian law gave Spain with the legions quartered there, to Pompey for five years; and to Crassus, the war against the Parthians. This time, sin was its own punishment: for Crassus found his death in that war, and Pompey also was brought by this illegal measure to his fall. To gain the consent of Cæsar, the possession of his own province was prolonged to him likewise for five years. It is a melancholy fact, that Cicero felt obliged from his experience to speak in favour of this assignment, thus making a painful sacrifice to necessity.

The anarchy and confusion daily increased. In the year 701, the elections were stopped, and what had never been done before, Pompey was elected sole consul. While in this capacity, he brought in several laws, especially concerning the _res judiciaria_, the details of which, however, cannot be made out: thus much is known, that the number of the knights from which the jury was taken was considerably increased, and the pleadings extended. There was also a law passed against _ambitus_, which indeed is a ridiculous one; but it was only intended to check those cases which were too gross.

It was shortly before this consulship of Pompey, that Annius Milo, who was of an old Roman Syllanian[8] family, and the deadly enemy of Clodius met the latter on the road from Rome to what is now Albano. Each of them, as was then the custom of men of rank, was accompanied by a great retinue; and in the scuffle which then arose, Clodius was mortally wounded. On this, a dreadful tumult broke out, and Milo was arraigned as a murderer. Pompey was against Milo, whose consulship he wished to prevent; he therefore sided with the party of Clodius, and took such measures, that Cicero, when pleading for Milo, for the first and only time, lost his presence of mind. Milo had to go as an exile to Marseilles: he returned from thence during Cæsar’s war, and perished, having engaged in an insurrection against the latter.

Thus far goes on the history to the tenth year of Cæsar’s proconsulship: he now stood for the consulship, and was thwarted in this by all sorts of sophisms and cabals. During the last years, Cicero had been forced against his will to accept the proconsulship of Cilicia. It was a very dangerous position: on the one hand, he was afraid of the country being overrun by the Parthians, who since the death of Crassus had been let loose; and on the other, he could not bear to live in an out-of-the-way corner, where even the rudiments of Greek learning were hardly to be met with, and the gentry themselves had only a short time before been captains of pirates. The overthrow of Crassus happened in the fifth year of Cæsar’s proconsulship.

The peace between Pompey and Cæsar, which lasted during the absence of the latter, was made in a congress at Lucca between Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, all three of whom came thither with a strong body of followers, and settled about the fate of the commonwealth. If may be imagined what must have been the condition of a state in which such things could have happened. Pompey then married Cæsar’s daughter Julia, who, however, died not long afterwards in child-bed: her infant daughter soon followed her. This broke again the connexion: had it lasted, Cæsar would certainly not have undertaken any war. He was a man of so much heart, that he would no doubt have rather borne with anything, if by the war his daughter and grand-daughter were at all likely to be injured.

THE GALLIC WARS.

Cæsar’s Commentaries and Hirtius’ supplements are written with such conciseness and terseness, that to abridge them still more would leave nothing but a reduced miniature outline; and therefore I refer you to the work itself. The oftener one reads them, the more one recognises the hand of a great master. There remains, however, much to be done for him: a critical edition is much wanted. With regard to the Gallic war much good is to be expected; not only from the manuscripts already collated, of which there are many, but also from those not yet collated, the number of which is still greater. The Italian ones, especially those at Florence and in the Vatican, are some of them very old, and have for the most part not yet been made use of; the English ones, the majority of which have been collated, are of very inferior value. The manuscripts of the books _De Bello Gallico_ are not to be traced to one single family, as is the case with those _De Bello Civili_: in these little is to be gathered from the collations; the same gaps are found in all of them, and they are likewise ἀκέφαλοι, the first words being patched in, in the later times of the middle ages, to hide the defect a little. Davis and Oudendorp were very well aware of this. As for the other books, I put them up some time ago as the subject for a prize essay, but without success: I will tell you my opinion about them. The appended book on the Alexandrine war, and the last on the Gallic war, in their style and manner evidently betray the same author, that is, A. Hirtius, a most accomplished man, to whom we may certainly give the credit of something so sterling. To think of Pansa is quite preposterous. It is one of the most excellent works which we have in the range of Latin literature; the language is most highly classical, being the Latin then spoken by the first men of the day. Very different is the book _De Bello Africano_, which I unhesitatingly ascribe to C. Oppius. It is indeed clever, written by a very good officer, and thoroughly trustworthy; but the style is much less elegant. Oppius was the companion of Cæsar in all his wars, and one of his dearest friends. Once, while on a journey, they both put up for the night at the same cottage, when, Oppius being ill, Cæsar gave up to him the only disposable room in the house, and he himself slept in the passage. Such traits are quite unstudied, showing us Cæsar as he really was. Who wrote the book _De Bello Hispaniensi_, heaven knows; certainly a man who did not belong to good society, its language being the genuine vulgar idiom of the common Roman soldier: it is an extract from the diaries which a dull fellow kept during the war, and it is a curious and odd performance of its kind.

When Cæsar came to Gaul, the country was in great commotion. Languedoc, Provence, and only since a short time, Dauphiné also and Savoy, were subject to the Roman sway; the Allobroges called for Cæsar’s protection against the inroads of the Helvetians. This is one of the strangest events in the whole of antiquity. A man of high rank prevails upon the whole of the nation to break up, and to conquer new abodes in the then distracted land of Gaul, promising to lead them into fine countries where they might live like gentlemen, whilst the conquered people were to till the fields. He might perhaps have felt some dread at the spread of the Sueves in the Alps, as they would have been obliged to defend themselves against them at a disadvantage, or have to place themselves under the protection of Rome. Such a thought as this conceived by an individual is not a thing quite so unheard of; but that he could have made the whole nation destroy its towns and villages, and that after his death, they still followed up his plan, is certainly surprising. Yet they did it, and marched with the Tigurini into Southern Gaul. How Cæsar now negotiated with the Helvetians; how he blocked up their road to the Roman province, and having beaten them in two battles, obliged them, after a terrible slaughter in which the Romans revenged themselves on the Tigurini for the Cimbric devastations, to capitulate to him; is not only generally known, but also told very circumstantially in the first book of the Commentaries. The power of the Helvetians having been broken, the remnant returned to their home: it was an awful end of a fantastic scheme. What may be said to explain and excuse it, is the then situation of Gaul, which, quite different from the present compact country of France, was parcelled out among a great number of distinct tribes. One must distinguish the Aquitanians, who were Iberians, in Guienne; the mingled Iberians and Celts, in Languedoc; the mixture of Celts and Ligurians on the Rhone; the Ligurians on the coast of Provence; and further in the interior of France, the Celts or Gauls. Yet all the people between the Garonne in the south, and the Seine and the Marne in the north, were not Celts: there certainly were Cymri or Belgians already in Basse Bretagne. Their alleged emigration from Britain in the fifth century is fabulous. These Cymri were strangers to the true Gael or Celts. It is not surprising that they kept their ground in Brittany; for originally they had their abodes all along the north of the Seine and the Marne, but were afterwards severed from each other by the Celts, who pushed on from the south to the north.

In the remaining parts of free Gaul, the Arvernians were of old the ruling people; all the rest were dependent upon them, even as the nations of the Peloponnesus were on Sparta. And just as afterwards in Greece, Athens put up for the hegemony; so likewise the Æduans rose by the side of the Arvernians, being encouraged by the Romans, who were true to their policy of dividing: they sided with the Romans in the war which, in the year 631, the Allobroges and the Arvernians waged so disastrously against Rome. It was then that the Æduans got the name of brothers and friends of the Roman people, and they grew powerful at the expense of the Arvernians. They were now great for some time; but at length the Sequani rose in Franche Comté, and on this occasion a German tribe, the Sueves, burst into Gaul: the Arvernians never raised their heads again. Gaul was an exhausted wretched country. Owing to the many emigrations which there had been, its population may have dwindled; although, on the whole, emigrations, if they be not too extensive, will not weaken a country, even if they have drained it of two-thirds of its inhabitants, as the loss will be made up in about seventy to eighty years. What may have then induced the German tribes to cross the Rhine, is buried from us in the night of oblivion. Very likely, even before the Gallic conquest, they had once their dwellings as far as the Alps: in the Valais, according to Livy, ere yet the Gauls had settled there, there were Germans who must have been overpowered by the Celts: as conquerors, the Germans never came thither. Ariovistus, who was in the country of the Sequani, took for his Sueves part of the arable land, some of which they tilled themselves, and the rest they made the conquered inhabitants farm for them: this policy was afterwards always followed by the Germans. Against him, the Æduans and the Sequani called upon the aid of the Romans, and it was the very difficulty of the enterprise which emboldened Cæsar to engage in it. Situated as he was, he ought not to have done it; for the year before his consulship, Ariovistus had actually been acknowledged by the Roman people as a sovereign king. Cæsar marched against him notwithstanding, and won a decisive victory near Besançon: most of the Sueves were destroyed, and the remnant again crossed the Rhine, whither Cæsar at that time was too wise to follow them. There was now, not only the whole country of the Gauls beyond the Alps under his rule, but also Cisalpine Gaul, down to the frontier of the Romagna; Illyricum, as far as Macedon; and on the side of the Barbarians, quite boundless tracts. Here he had seven legions, and all the auxiliaries he could get from the allies. We of course hear no more of real _socii_, but merely of _auxilia_, which were quite a different thing: the _socii_ were armed in the Roman manner, and were true legions; whilst the _auxilia_ were formed into cohorts, and for the most part retained their national weapons.

There must now have been something which led the Belgians to dread that Cæsar would attack them: from his Commentaries, it appears as if the Gallic peoples had always been mistrustful and ill-disposed, without any reason at all. All the Belgians between the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine, with the exception of the Remi—who were the most distinguished among them—were arrayed in arms against the Romans. I suppose that the Remi intrigued with these last, that they might thus get the other Belgian tribes under their clientship. The weakness of the Gallic and Belgian nations lay in their not having a free population: they had only priests (Druids), knights, and serfs. These last on many occasions could not forget that they were fighting only for their masters, and not for their country, although they often indeed behaved bravely;—sometimes they even fought with the courage of lions, but there was no steadfastness in it. Of a people like the Nervians, one might almost surmise that they had no serfs. This Belgian war Cæsar decided in two battles, on the Aisne and on the Sombre; whereupon he invaded Brabant, then the country of the Nervians. They stood their ground most nobly, but yet they were almost entirely exterminated.

The Æduans and the Arvernians now silently acknowledged the supremacy of the Romans; and most of the peoples of Gaul, as far as the Ocean, were completely subdued. Cæsar was already spreading his troops in extensive winter-quarters among the Belgians, from whom he expected to meet with a stouter resistance. Thus he got into collision with the Germans, the Usipetes and the Tenchteri, having crossed the Rhine, and made war against the Belgians on the Meuse. Ever ready to take advantage of such an opportunity, he fell upon them; and here he committed the worst act of his life. Having entered into negotiations with these tribes, he got their chiefs to come to him, threw them into prison, and then attacked the host which he had thus deprived of its leaders—a base deed which he tries in vain to justify. This business was brought before the senate. Cato was for having Cæsar given up to the Germans as one who had broken the law of nations, a motion which of course came to nothing.

He also turned himself against the Veneti in Brittany, a seafaring people at the mouth of the Loire: on this river, he built a fleet with which he overpowered them. The whole of this campaign was conducted by him with remarkable skill; yet here also, as in the whole of the Gallic war, he behaved with great cruelty. Soon afterwards, he went on his first expedition to Britain, where the tin mines of Cornwall had already been known for ages. Tin is even now chiefly brought from England and the East Indies (from the peninsula of Malacca and the island of Banca); a little only is found in the Hartz and the Erzgebirge. The Phœnicians did not fetch it from India. An immense quantity of tin was used in ancient times, as it was by an alloy with it that copper was made fusible. Brass was only of late invention, considerably later than bronze, for the founding of which, however, tin is required. Bronze is very old indeed, being met with in the temple of Solomon, and even in the tabernacle of Moses already. The trade in tin was carried on through a twofold channel; either by Cadiz, which was by sea the whole way, or else by land, through Narbonne and Nantes. About the rest of Britain nobody cared. The country at that time was thought at Rome to be quite inaccessible, and Cæsar became smitten with the fancy of conquering these untrodden lands. Booty there was little to be gained in that undertaking, as he did not go near the tin districts, and Kent and Sussex, which he invaded, were very poor: the Romans are said to have found there neither gold nor silver, whereas in Gaul there was a good deal of money in circulation. He nearly lost his ships, which, being badly built, could hardly make their way in these foreign seas: the ebb and flow of the tides, especially the strong tides of the Channel, was what the Romans knew nothing about. After having defeated the half-naked and badly-armed barbarians, he made their seeming submission a pretext for going away again. A second expedition was as unsuccessful: yet he penetrated beyond the Thames, above London, very likely to the neighbourhood of Windsor, got some hostages, and returned. Scarcely, however, had he left the island, when that show of obedience ceased.

Twice also did Cæsar cross the Rhine, and that in our own neighbourhood, against the Sigambri and the Sueves; both times, however, without obtaining any advantage. Yet that it was possible to advance so far into those wild forests, is much to be wondered at: as the _Westerwald_ is in fact the western part of that immense tract of forests, which reached to the heart of Poland, and for some time formed the southern border of the Germans against the Celts. Ambition only could have led Cæsar to seek for conquests in those countries.

While Cæsar was in Britain, the oppression of the Romans, and the lawlessness of the soldiers, caused the grand rising of the Eburones under Ambiorix: this was the most propitious undertaking which this people could have attempted. A whole legion under L. Titurius was annihilated, and another under Q. Cicero nearly so. Had not Cæsar given up his somewhat Quixotic expedition to Britain, Q. Cicero would even have been utterly lost; luckily, however, he returned. On the other hand, the Aquitanians were conquered by Crassus; and thus Cæsar, in the beginning of the seventh year of his proconsulship, was master of the whole of Gaul. An insurrection then broke out which had been long brewing, that of Vercingetorix, and among those tribes which until then had always been faithful to the Romans. This war, from its vastness, from the rage and dogged determination of the Gauls, and also on account of Cæsar’s great generalship in it, highly deserves indeed to be read. Cæsar here overcame, by sheer superiority of talent, armies which far outnumbered his own. Headed by the Æduans and Arvernians, who, before that had always been jealous of each other,—the Æduans, however, rose somewhat later,—the peoples from the Saone to the Ocean, and from the Loire to the Cevennes, were in open revolt: the Arvernian Vercingetorix showed himself worthy of the choice which his nation had made of him. The outbreak of the war was attended with barbarity and cruelty: in Genabum, the present Orleans, all the Romans who happened to be there, were massacred. Cæsar was then in the north of Gaul; but he instantly started for the south, the Belgians in his rear remaining perfectly still. He reduced Orleans and avenged the murder of the Romans, and he also took Bourges, after a long siege and a very brave defence: then he penetrated into what is now Auvergne. Near Gergovia, above Clermont, the war was for some time at a stand. Cæsar himself suffered a defeat, in which he lost a legion, and found himself obliged to raise the siege. The Æduans also having now risen, the seat of war was transferred to Alesia, between Autun and Langres, in their country. This town, into which many thousand Gauls had thrown themselves, Cæsar besieged with the utmost skill: on the other hand, he was pressed upon by the great Vercingetorix with a powerful army. In one of those skirmishes which took place in many points with varying success, Cæsar was once made prisoner by the Gauls; but good luck, or rather providence, which had destined him to great things, enabled him to escape owing to the folly of a Gaul. This was the account which Cæsar himself gave of this matter.[9] But it is much more likely, that just as Napoleon, in May 1800, bribed an Austrian patrol into the hands of which he had fallen when reconnoitring, Cæsar also got off by offering money to a Gallic soldier. If he told the man that he would give him a million, the fellow would be sure to let him go free, as Vercingetorix would at most have given him a dram. When, however at last the war was protracted, and the famine in Alesia had risen to the highest, so that the troops of the Gauls became discontented and deserted; Vercingetorix had the nobleness of mind to stand forth in the city, and say, “that they should yield him up on condition that their lives were spared.” This stamps him as one of the greatest men of antiquity. He went and gave himself up to Cæsar, who again behaved vilely. Though Cæsar ought to have been more than a common Roman, and to have treated him generously, sending him to a _libera custodia_; he bound him in chains, kept him for his triumph, and then had him put to death. This is one of those stains from which indeed Cæsar is not free.

After this, there were still some smaller insurrections. There was a rising of the Belgians, but the time for it was past; and moreover there was one of the Bellovaci, in the neighbourhood of Beauvais and Chartres: yet it was now very easy for Cæsar to conquer them. We see clearly that it was the will of Providence to make the Roman Empire great, and to gather all the nations then known under its sway. Had Vercingetorix, who could not have been unacquainted with the state of affairs at Rome, kept back the outbreak in Gaul for a couple of years, until the heartburnings between Cæsar and Pompey had brought on the civil war, Gaul might perhaps have recovered her freedom.

CIVIL WAR BETWEEN CÆSAR AND POMPEY.

The way in which Cæsar was situated with regard to the republic at the end of his time in Gaul, was indeed so unhappy, that it was not in the power of man to bring matters to a good and joyful issue. If it was difficult even for Scipio, after his victory, to live as a citizen, and he did not quite know how to conduct himself; how much more for a man who, for nearly ten years, had been used to rule over vast tracts of country with the absolute power of a prince. Such a habit is hard to get rid of, as we may perceive in the less important things of our every-day life, wherein the change from one situation to another is often fraught with endless difficulties. All that Cæsar could have got lawfully, was a second consulship: this, however, as affairs then stood, was nothing but an empty honour; for what could he have done with himself and with the republic? He could indeed have only employed his great intellectual faculties by devoting himself in utter retirement to study. He had not been in Rome for ten years; and all that he heard from thence from those who came to him, was hateful to him, and showed him the government in a contemptible light. To live on a footing of equality with inferior, and some of them bad men, was what he could not think of without disgust. Matters therefore were in such confusion, that they could not possibly have righted. His opponents, instead of taking steps towards reconciliation, showed, on the contrary, symptoms which must have vexed him to the utmost. M. Marcellus, the consul of the year 701, let slip no occasion of annoying Cæsar: for instance, he had caused a man from Como, to whom Cæsar, by virtue of the full powers given him, had granted the citizenship, to be flogged like a common criminal, merely to insult and mock at Cæsar. In the following year, C. Marcellus, a cousin of the former, was consul with L. Æmilius Paullus, C. Scribonius Curio, being also tribune at the same time. Of him we have still some letters among those of Cicero: he was a young man of great talent, but of the most consummate profligacy. At first, owing to his family connexions, he belonged to Pompey’s party; and he was then considered as even a decided and very bitter enemy of Cæsar. But Cæsar knew that Curio was over head and ears in debt,—as much as two million dollars, we are told, which may give us some measure of the magnitude of the Roman fortunes, as well as of the vice and prodigality of the times,—and he is said to have gained him over by paying his debts. He likewise bought over the consul Æmilius Paullus with an immense sum: from this we may see what a mockery of a government the system of provincial administration was. The accounts were only given in after the triumph had been celebrated: this had been the case since the earliest times, and it still remained so, even now that the _imperia_ were held for such long periods. What the proconsul had gotten for himself, was not thought worth looking into: he had merely to show that he owed nothing to the army, and to account for what the senate had placed at his disposal from the _ærarium_. Æmilius Paullus built with those millions the Basilica Æmilia in the Forum, an edifice to which those noble pillars undoubtedly belonged, which, as Nibby supposes, stood in the Church of St. Paul until the calamitous fire in the year 1823.[10] Curio was uncommonly clever and adroit, and he put on an air of perfect impartiality: at first, he even sided against Cæsar; then, against both Cæsar and Pompey; at last, he flung off the mask, and declared for Cæsar.

With the next year, Cæsar’s proconsulship was to expire. He now, after a lapse of ten years, stood for a second consulship, and asked for a triumph beforehand; so that he might keep his army together, and disband it when that was over, as Pompey had done after the war with Mithridates. He wanted to be allowed to become a candidate at the consular election while still in his province,—an irregularity which had crept in during the seventh century,—and then to lead his army to Rome, and triumph. To prevent such a thing, it had been the rule, we do not know for how long, that no one who had an army should stand for the consulship. His opponents therefore demanded that he should lay down the _imperium_; disband his troops, that is to say, give up his triumph; and stand for the consulship as a private person. Had he thus delivered himself into the hands of his enemies, he was convinced that he would have lost his life. Curio now moved that Cæsar and Pompey should both disband their troops, and come to Rome as private persons; which was the fairest proposal. But the friends of Pompey maintained that, as the term of his _imperium_ was not yet come to an end, he ought not to be placed on an equal footing with Cæsar. It was the misfortune of Italy that Pompey, who was dangerously ill, did not then die: he was indeed so popular, or so dreaded, that all Italy prayed for his recovery. Pompey seemingly was ready to submit to the humiliation, though indeed he complained bitterly of the slight put upon him. Curio’s motion was carried by a majority of three hundred against about twenty;[11] but the consul Marcellus cancelled the decree. The aristocrats of that day professed to uphold the decrees of the senate, whereas in reality they wanted to rule the senate with a rod of iron; and so they did not even scorn the help of the rabble, being in every sense of the word _populaciers_, if it suited their ends: they would raise an outcry against rebellion, and yet they were the rankest revolutionists, if matters did not go on quite as they wished. Thus the party of Lamennais, as soon as the government does anything that they dislike, at once begin to preach regicide and revolution. I have heard men of the extreme right in France talking like Jacobins, uttering it as their opinion that the people of the very lowest class were gifted with an immense deal of sense, and that they showed the highest interest in the welfare of the country. Curio also did not make his proposal from any good motive: this he cannot have credit for, being one of those to whom the worst confusion is the most welcome state of things.